*This chapter is an edited MTL

　—The head of the running ground dragon was blown off at the base, and the dragon carriage it was pulling went off the road, bounced heavily, and overturned as the huge body that had lost its will collapsed.

　The overturned body of the vehicle made a roaring sound as it scraped the ground with a flourish, billowing up a plume of smoke. As the wood snapped and the body of the fallen ground dragon was caught in the wheels, the scene instantly turned into devastation, with the unpleasant sound of flesh and blood being torn apart and even its blood being sprayed into the air.

　They were in the mountains, just off the Lifaus Highway and had gone into the woods, reaching the entrance to the Mathers territory.

　After two hours of driving through several forested areas and over hills, they would have reached our destination.

　However, the dragon carriage was cruelly destroyed on the way there, and only the sound of the spinning wheels could be heard echoing through the empty accident site.

　The carriage had been transformed into a wreck, and the plume of smoke was filled with earth and blood, giving off a strange odor.

　At such a scene,

???: "......Uu, ah......"

　A boy moaned as he was thrown to the ground, with abrasions all over him.

　Only a short distance away from the collapsed dragon carriage, his body fell in a patch of grassland off the forest road. The area was lush and green and covered with ivy, which probably provided some protection from the impact on the boy's body as it fell. Despite being in the center of such devastation, the boy's injuries were so minor that they could only be described as miraculous.

　Even so, however, the wounds he sustained from being thrown out unprotected were not without pain.

　Scrapes and some bruises. Fortunately, there were no broken bones or bleeding wounds, but the pain was more than enough to make the will-less child crouch.

???: "Ahhhh, ughhhh, ......ohh."

　A black-haired boy rolled out on the grassy field, moaning in pain and shedding tears.

　His face was smeared with blood running from his forehead, which had been scraped off by the dirt, and tears and drool were adding to it. The results of wiping roughly spread a reddish-brown color all over his face, and the red clung to the sleeves of his mud-caked clothing.

　It was an unbearable sight to see for an adult with fully-grown arms and legs, and combined with the wreckage of the dragon carriage, it was a scene that only made the viewer think of tragedy.

　Such a scene—and,

???: "——"

　Shadows of people dressed in black sprung up one after another, and more than a dozen people surrounded the boy and the dragon carriage.

　The figures identified the headless ground dragon that had fallen down, and after confirming that it was indeed dead as a lump of flesh, they quietly looked toward Subaru, who was lying down and weeping.

　The black-robed figures were completely hooded up to their heads, and their faces and even their genders were indiscernible. The shadows, indiscernible as to if they were breathing, surrounded Subaru with swaying, gliding movements, and looked down at him, reacting only to his pain.

Robed Figures: "—La."

　The shadows murmured a single word.

　One person blurted it out, and then someone else uttered the same word. Meanwhile, the chain of words began to flow, one after the other, and everyone around them whispered as if they were going around.

　In a world where there were no sounds of insects or signs of life, the sound of branches and leaves swaying in the wind and the whispers of black shadows—it is a distorted scene, as if the world was complete on its own.

　And then,

Subaru: "—Ah! Aah! Aaah, aaah!"

　Gradually, as the whispers overlapped, Subaru, who had been moaning in pain, changed.

　He wriggled, bounced on his back, and he let out a cry of pain. However, the quality of the pain was clearly different.

　The pain is on a different level from the pain of a scratch or bruise, and the way he moved as if he was enduring something that was about to overflow from within him, the seeds of pain raging inside his body were tormenting him as if they were about to sprout.

　If anyone had been watching, they would have realized that this was in response to the whispers of the black shadows around him. Looking down at the suffering Subaru, the shadows would not stop their incantations. However, as if they had come to some conclusion from Subaru's panting, they reached out to his body as they continued to whisper—

Robed Figures: "—Bo."

　An iron ball that flew with a grunt exploded the head of the man who was about to touch Subaru.

　Blood and cranial fragments were scattered all around, and they rained down mercilessly on the suffering Subaru. The movement of the crumbling shadow was accompanied by the light echo of an iron chain, and it flailed like a snake around the dead shadow—rampaging toward the other black-robed figures.

Robed Figures: "——"

　But the black-robed figures were quick to judge. The sudden and instantaneous death of their comrade immediately disengaged their consciousness, and they spread out around the area without a voice to avoid the pursuit of the iron chain.

　At that moment, the black-robed figures pulled out from their pockets a blade in the shape of a cross. The black-robed men, holding one blade in each hand, watched their surroundings with vigilance.

　There were eleven of them. It was praiseworthy that all of them took a position where they could cover each other's backs, killing any blind spots and taking the formation to respond to the surprise attack.

　However, this was also limited to opponents who could be confronted in a two-dimensional plane.

???: "—Shhh!"

　Up in the sky, an apron dress fluttered as it kicked against a tree.

　Leaping with tremendous speed, the girl's body was shot diagonally downward, slightly faster than the consciousness of the shadows that noticed the sound.

　The butt of her weapon was swung down, striking the head of the black-robed figure from above. With a sharp sound, a hole was punched through the top of their head, and the shadow, with their blood and brain matter spilling out, fell limply to the ground.

　The girl jumped back, kicking the robed figure’s body, blocking the view of the black-robed figures in the vicinity. However, one of the shadows, the corpse of their comrade flying towards them, did not hesitate. They rushed forward and skewered the corpse of their fellow comrade coming toward them with a cross blade from the front, and then lunged at the girl who fell back with the help of the figure’s comrade’s corpse.

　The shadow's body, along with the corpse it pierced, was scattered into pieces by the thorny iron ball.

　The girl threw the iron ball straight into the air. As soon as the chains were fully extended, her body leaned forward as if it had been overtaken by the weight of the iron ball—a cross that was thrown at her passed through the position where her head had been before she had tilted it forward. A hard sound of the blade piercing the tree trunk rang out, and the girl who had been leaning gained her initial speed with her posture intact, leaping horizontally and exploding the ground.

Girl: "Ruah!"

　The girl screamed and howled with bared fangs.

　Her blood-soaked blue hair swayed around her head, and her sharp, pure white horn protruded from her forehead and shone.

　A black-robed figure in the process of leaping was caught in the high-speed movement of the flying girl. Her arm wrapped around the shadow's waist and smashed the shadow's lower back to pieces, slamming the poor figure, now confirmed paralyzed, into the tree behind her with such force that most of their internal organs were vomited out of their mouth and buttocks, and they were stripped of their life.

　The dead, black-robed corpse was thrown away with a single swing of her arm, and the demon looked back as she returned the iron ball to her hand.

　The demon, her lovely face stained with blood, glared at the black-robed men, her eyes shining brightly. Then, as she caught sight of the boy lying at the feet of the still silent black shadow, she said,

Girl: "I won't let you do anything to Subaru-kun."

　The girl declared in a voice full of high spirit, and Rem—dragging her left leg, which was dripping with blood—whirled the steel ball above her head.

　The injury on her leg had been sustained when she had been unable to avoid a piece of wood that had burst when the dragon carriage overturned. If Rem had been alone, she might have been able to get out of the accident unscathed, but that was impossible.

　The moment the head of the ground dragon blew off, Rem instantly saw the dragon carriage topple over with a loud crash.

　She took a serious look at the situation and immediately went to work to protect Subaru, who was lying with his head on her lap, from the overturned dragon carriage.

　Turning her head at a dizzying speed, she swept her vision around and found a spot where grass and ivy overlapped out of the corner of her eye, and threw Subaru there. The few tenths of a second that Rem had to spare before she could escape was taken away from her, and she was left to share her fate with the wreckage of the dragon carriage.

　The result was a laceration on her forehead and a piece of wood lodged deep into her left thigh. She had forced her dislocated left shoulder back into place, but the extreme pain of moving it caused a numbness to run down her white cheek.

　But Rem stepped forward, unaffected by any of those injuries.

Rem: "Witch cultists...!"

　He glared at the group of black-robed figures and spat out a voice filled with hatred.

　The black-robed figures still did not respond to Rem's call. They remained as if they were neither conscious nor unconscious, and remained motionless with their crosses pointed at the girl who was baring her fangs.

　It only took a moment for that equilibrium to be upset.

　Rem, who was circling the iron ball above her head, made the first move, seeing that there was no way out of this situation.

　The iron ball, with her arm strength added to its centrifugal force, was made entirely of steel, crushing any obstacle in its path. A single blow would take away not only bones, but also life, and no matter where it struck the body, it took away everything.

　The chains were stretched to their full length, and the blow snapped trees, scattering wood chips and clods of earth as it closed in on the black-robed figures. But the black-robed figures evaded by leaping or running low, and with a single blow, they leapt at Rem's defenseless body.

　Rem created a large gap with her swinging posture. She twisted around the iron ball with a pulling motion using her left hand as hard as she could. However, the deadly blades would reach her faster than the iron ball could return—

Rem: "—Ruah!"

　The jaw of the leading black-robed figure was gouged out by Rem's foot, which leapt up from below.

　It was not a simple expression like "kicked up," but literally the lower jaw was ripped off by the toes of Rem's foot from right below.

　The shadow lost its jaw, and its peach-colored tongue hung out. But it grabbed Rem in front of it in a move that didn’t even care about its own mortal wound, and tried to drive the cross it held into her chest.

　—The iron ball that Rem pulled in blasted the shadow's remaining upper jaw off its skull before it could accomplish that move.

　The iron ball was mixed in with the scattered brain matter. Rem caught it with her raised palm as it came close to her own face. She gripped it as hard as she could and immediately turned herself around, striking the black-robed man who was about to stab the cross it held at her with the iron ball, crushing him with it.

　Now there were six of them. With the number of assailants reduced from the initial twelve to half of that, Rem turned her eyes wet with murderous intent toward the remaining enemies while breathing heavily, her shoulders heaving.

　A rock spear with a sharply pointed tip came flying at her. She tilted her head to avoid it just in time, but her hair and side of her head were rasped by the rock spear, and she was blinded by the pain and impact.

　His vision turned red, and the impact on her head robbed Rem of her judgment.

　She felt her feet suddenly become muddy. Her instinct reacted to the chill as her body sank, and she recoiled by bending her legs slightly and leapt diagonally up with his right foot. She leapt onto the branch of a large tree in front of her and, as she did, thought about forming a stance for a surprise attack.

Rem: "Sh—!"

　She cursed her own thoughtlessness for leaping so easily in front of an enemy who had the means to attack at long range.

　The branch where she had planned to land was scorched by a burning fire, and a fireball appeared from the other side, burning through a large tree—the sensation of her skin being scorched by the high temperature spread to the front, and Rem quickly held her bloodied left hand in front of her.

Rem: "Huma!!!!"

　A thin film of water formed in front of Rem, and the moment it collided with the fireball white vapor billowed out, and the sound of the water being burned echoed through the forest.

　The fireball, however, was not so poorly refined that it could be drowned out by a quick chant, although the intensity of the fire was weakened somewhat.

Rem: "——!!!!"

　Her clenched left hand had a hole through its palm, and she wasn’t sure if it would be useful in future battles. Therefore, she swung her clenched fist, and without hesitation, slammed it into the fireball with the same momentum, exploding her own fist with the flames.

Rem: "—Ugh!"

　Caught in the mid-air explosion, Rem's body was knocked against the trunk of a tree as it was blown away by the explosion. Rem, who fell into a pile of flailing roots, looked up with a grimace at the dull pain in her left arm.

　Her left arm was charred from the wrist down, and her pinky and ring fingers were carbonized. The skin up to her elbow was ugly red and sore, but the sensation of pain was absent from her shoulder and beyond.

　The burning sensation strong enough to make her feel like vomiting blood burnt her throat, and her body sank into the agony of the pain. Her palm that had been withdrawn was thrust out again, barely avoiding the robed figure’s attempt to smash her skull. The trunk behind her was smashed by the bottom of her palm, and a large tree soared through the air with incredible ease.

　The black-suited man who cracked the ground with a single step was clearly different from her previous opponents. Dodging the follow-up blow with a sideways leap, the rolling Rem spat out the remaining blood in her mouth, her gaze wandering around in search of the iron ball she had dropped, and then she turned her head to look at the black-robed man who was now standing in front of her.

Rem: "——!!!!"

　A rock spear grazed the side of her face, and her wobbly body was struck from behind by a rock mallet. Her spine creaked violently, and her lanky body bounced off the ground and was blown away.

　Ahead of her, waiting for her was a shadowy figure that had just overpowered Rem. The shadow was holding in its hand the iron ball that Rem had let go of, and it swung the lump of iron up at her bouncing eyes.

Rem: "—El Huma!"

　The blood she spat out in mid-incantation froze, and a blade of pure blood sliced halfway through the arm of the man holding the iron ball. The prey fell from the black-robed man's hand in such agony. And,

Rem: "Gahrrrrrrrrr!"

　Rem, who hit the ground to control her posture, leapt, and reached out with her right hand and grabbed the hilt of the iron ball that the black-robed man had dropped. At the same time, she kicked up the iron ball that had fallen to the ground and sent it flying behind the shadow, then turned the chain around the shadow's thick neck and squeezed it with the force of a vise.

　There was a watery sound as the chain squeezed his flesh, and the neck of the black-robed man was twisted and broke, vertebrae by vertebrae. The face turned back one hundred and eighty degrees to look at Rem, and the twin eyes lost their light.

　Rem weakened slightly as his body sank and she slaughtered a powerful enemy—at that moment,

Rem: "——!!!!"

　The black-robed body, which should have lost its strength, moved, and a kick with tremendous power hit Rem's torso.

　The kick, which struck Rem directly in the left side of her body, completely broke her left ribs and also snapped her left thigh, knocking her to the ground. And with that final blow, this time the black-robed man died. The result was a spectacular corpse, its body collapsed in a heap, looking up at the sky.

Rem: "Ugh, ahh..."

　Grunting and spitting blood, Rem got up, scolding the left half of her body, which did not listen, including his arm.

　She had taken out what was probably the most skilled of the enemy group. But the price paid for that was not cheap.

　There were five of them left. Since they were not mixed in with the armed ones, none of them should be good at close combat. If that is the case, she should have been able to get close to them and twist off their heads one by one.

　Would she be able to do it with her shaking body, covered in wounds, and with only the right half of her body still moving?

　Shaking her head and biting back her weakness, Rem scolded herself for almost falling apart.

　It was not a question of whether or not you can do it. She had to do it.

　What does it matter that the left half of her body was dead? The right side still worked. If her right arm was ruined, she could stomp them to death with her foot, and if her right leg was also ruined, she could bite them to death.

　If Subaru survived after killing every last one of them, Rem would have won.

　This was already such a large-scale battle, and on top of that, they were in Mathers territory.

　Although she was not aware of it, there was no way that her sister would not feel her feelings, which were wet with the desire to kill. In the not-too-distant future, her sister would find out the location of this place.

　At that time, it would not matter whether she was alive or not. As long as Subaru's life could be protected, what hesitation was there in using him up here?

　The regret slightly distorts Rem's mind.

　To kill the last bit of hesitation, Rem glanced at Subaru, who was supposed to have collapsed. If she could at least see a glance of him, she would not care what happened to herself.

　And yet—

Rem: "—Subaru-kun!

　He was not there.

　Subaru, who should have been gasping in pain, suffering, and fearing, was nowhere to be found.

　Impatiently, Rem's eyes darted around the area.

　She wondered if he had been caught up in the aftermath of the battle and had been sent somewhere else. However, no matter how hard she searched, she could not find him.

　And then, Rem realized,

Rem: "One is missing..."

　There were only five of the black-robed group left. However, no matter where she looked, there were only four of them present.

　The black-robed men with crosses lowered in their hands stood blocking the path in front of them, and they began to move quickly to hide their companions who were moving away from Rem's sight.

　—As if to keep her away from their companions who had fled carrying Subaru.

Rem: "You... and the others..."

　A trembling voice spilled from trembling lips.

　Her lips, bloodless from the massive blood loss she had sustained, are stained with the rogue of blood that overflows from her mouth. In the midst of her horrific battle makeup, Rem's lovely face changed into the very shape of a demon, and she began to cry out,

Rem: "You deprived Rem of her reason for living..."

　She flexed her right arm, which gripped the iron ball, and flexed one leg to build up explosive power.

　Ahead of her, the black-robed men tensed up, just as they leapt toward her.

Rem: "And now you’ve taken away the reason for me to die, too—!!!!"

　Rem's roar exploded, and her body flew with a kicking foot that seemed to blow away the earth.

　In front of her, deployed in front of the jumping Rem, were fist-sized fireballs that were being chanted behind them, blinding the black-robed men holding crosses—but there were so many of them that they covered her entire field of vision.

Rem: "——— ——— ——!!!!"

　Her shout exploded, and a crimson glow cascaded through the morning forest immediately after.

　—The world was in a state of fiery despair as the heat of the fire blasted through the air, burning away the trees and turning the entire area into a scorched earth.

※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※

—Swaying, throbbing, swaying, throbbing.

　Subaru was drooling as he was carried on the shoulders of the black-robed man and rocked irresistibly.

　The pain from his wounds from the fall from the dragon carriage are already almost imperceptible. It was not that he did not feel them, but his consciousness was so dominated by the pain in his mind that they did not matter to him, and he was sinking, deprived of even the will to move.

　At the scene of the overturned dragon carriage, the black-robed men had surrounded Subaru and had begun whispering curse words.

　As he listened to their whispers, Subaru's body was almost eaten away by an unknowable sensation that swelled up from within, and his head was raging with a turmoil that could not be adequately described as ringing in his ears.

　Something black was raging in his chest, in his stomach, in his skull, in the center of his heart, as if it were trying to make a mess of his existence.

　He shuddered to think what would have happened if that whispering had gone on just a little bit longer.

　That pain was something that shattered people's hearts. It twisted people's hearts. It changed people's hearts. It was the kind of thing that made people less human.

　If he had stayed the way he was, Natsuki Subaru would have—

Subaru: "Hehheh hehheh hehhehheh..."

　Instantly, a maniacal laugh spilled from the corner of his lips with drool as he remembered.

　As he began to return to his consciousness, which had been dominated by his turmoil, his mind naturally revealed itself as a disjointed entity with pain different from normal pain.

　Every part of his body ached. His head hurt especially, like it was going to crack.

　Blue was gone. Blue was not with him. The black figure was carrying him. He wondered what the black thing was and where Blue had gone. Where was he going?

　The black-suited man ran through the forest as if he were flying along a beast’s path.

　He was not a particularly well-trained man, with his slender body, but the sight of him running like the wind with a weak man on his back seemed far removed from reality.

　Slipping like a shadow that moves according to the light of day, the black-robed man carrying Subaru ran through the mountains and along the unmarked animal trail.

　It must have been a dozen or so minutes of running.

　In the deep green darkness, with no sunlight reaching them, the black-robed figure suddenly stopped. In front of him was a cliff with a prominent moss-covered rock surface, so high that one could hardly climb over it without tools.

　Facing the cliff, the black-robed man looked around and turned his feet toward a conspicuous rock. Then, placing his palm against the mass of rock, he—

Robed Figure: "——"

　Subaru's body tensed up as he heard the shadow blur the words.

　It was a reaction to the cursed words that echoed in Subaru's brain at that place, fearing that they would be repeated again.

　The effect of the words was not as strong as the previous time, and it did not make Subaru's cranium creak.

Robed Figure: "——"

　The huge mass of rock suddenly vanished in front of the black-robed man who had muttered the incantation.

　As if in a dream or an illusion, the black-robed man accepted it as a matter of course as it disappeared into the atmosphere as if melting, and after picking Subaru up, he stepped into the cave created by the disappearance of the mass of rock.

　In the cool cave air, only the sound of shadowy shoes treading slowly on the ground rang out regularly. After walking a dozen or so meters through the cave, the light that had been coming from behind them was suddenly shut off. Perhaps the entrance to the cave was once again blocked by the rock.

　In the cave, where the cold air stung his skin, the black-robed man did not seem to be in a hurry, nor did his steps seem to be in disarray.

　The dimness was dispelled by a dim white glow that suddenly appeared in front of the shadow that was moving forward without hesitation. It was the glow of a lagmite ore.

　On the wall of what appeared to be a passageway, the ore was placed at equal intervals, and the lights were turned on one after another as if leading the way of the walking shadow.

　The shadow was led deeper and deeper into the cave, deeper and deeper into the darkness.

　Was it because of the cold or some other factor that his blood red skin became milky?

　Subaru, who was still being carried, was shivering slightly, hot tears spilling from the corners of his eyes, and laughing continuously.

　Then he saw the end of that dark, cold, rocky passage.

　The glow of the lagmite ore was slightly stronger, and the lighting was well prepared, and it was a naturally-made hall that was much larger than the rest of the cave.

　It was there that Subaru came face to face with a mass of malice.

※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※

　—He was a skinny man.

　Surrounded by men dressed in black, he himself was dressed in black vestments.

　He was slightly taller than Subaru, and his dark green bangs were just long enough to reach his eyes. His cheeks were taut, and his body was so lifeless that it would be appropriate to describe him as having the appearance of a humanoid, with the bare minimum of flesh and skin clinging to his bones.

　If it were not for the maniacal glint in his eyes, however.

　The man leaned back and stared at Subaru, who was sitting bound against the wall. The man's head was tilted ninety degrees above his bent waist, and the way he looked at Subaru with his eyes glazed over revealed an eccentricity that was out of the ordinary, and in fact, the man's words and actions were out of line with those of ordinary people.

???: "IIIIII seeeee… …this is, indeed, interesting, isn't it?"

　The man looked Subaru over from top to bottom as if licking him for a moment, and then nodded his approval to the men around him.

　The black-robed figure tugged his chin in affirmation and seemed to silently wait for the rest of the man's words.

　The man did not react in any way to the figure's silent posture, but clasped his left hand in his right hand as if in deep thought, twisting his thumb into his wrist and piercing through his own flesh and blood without regard to the dripping blood.

???: "Yoouu..., are «Pride», aren’t you?"

　Turning around with his posture bent, the man looks at Subaru in a strange position. The man who asked the question inserted his thumb, stained with the blood that had gouged out the wound on his wrist, and his eyes trembled with a stagnant light, in ecstasy, as he suckled the taste of iron with his tongue.

　There was no answer from Subaru as he was questioned.

　He just looked up blankly at the face of the man standing in front of him, smiling a smile that didn’t fit the occasion.

　Staring at him, the man noisily pulls his finger from his lips and said,

???: "Oh, yes. Well, well, well, my apologies. I have not yet greeted you, have I?"

　As if in response to Subaru's smile, the man gently parted his lightly pigmented lips, laughed ominously, and slowly and carefully bent over at the waist.

???: “Sin Archbishop of the Witch’s Cult—”

　He dexterously leaned his head back and stared straight at Subaru while still in his bent-over position.

???: “Representing «Sloth», Petelgeuse Romané Conti… IS I!”

　He said his name, pointed at Subaru with the fingers of both his hands, and the man—Petelgeuse—laughed.

　Ketaketa, ketaketa, ketaketa.