“How can you be so casual about this?! We need you to cancel out the curse!”
“…It’s not like I was sitting silently as a prisoner for thousands of years. I was bound by these chains for so long it would drive a man mad. In that time, I thought about nothing but how to undo them…and tear out their throats. Naiarotop’s greatest failure was giving a genius like me time to think.”
A huge magic circle appeared around Zoras, then expanded to three layers.
“Barrier Magic Level 25: Blank Contract.”
Bright light filled the area, then cracks ran through the chains of blue-white light wrapped around Zoras and they shattered to pieces.
“How amusing, Naiarotop, that you really thought you’d leashed me,” said Zoras with a defiant grin.
It looked like the spell he used, Blank Contract, interfered with magic to eliminate any contracts or limitations placed on the user. This guy…could even do something like that? Well, he had used all sorts of spells and fought both Lunaère and me together, with energy to spare.
“Ah, well, it does look like he had a fail-safe in place,” said Zoras as he raised his arms. The tips of his fingers were crumbling to sand.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“The higher beings’ backup plan. It appears they made it so my body would crumble away if I broke free from their control. Though, not even this will make it in time to stop me from eliminating Zero’s curse. Hmph, what an insufficient backup. Ha ha, they seem truly panicked. Not unsurprising, though. Locklore’s management will have no moves left at all if I fail to kill you two.”
“They’ll have no moves left…?”
This seemed like something important, something I couldn’t mishear. What would they do to the world after they’d lost any means of controlling it?
“It’s exactly as it sounds,” said Zoras. “You two have created chaos, rapidly shortening the life span of Locklore as a puppet show for the higher beings to enjoy. The cost of maintaining a world is massive. They obviously can’t continue something which gains them no profit. But the way you went about making your mess has drawn attention even among the higher beings. They can’t shut down Locklore until they resolve this incident with you, for the sake of the managers’ egos.”
I sorted through what Zoras said in my mind.
They couldn’t continue managing Locklore. But they also couldn’t end Locklore before this situation was brought to a conclusion. And, right now, they’d run out of cards to play, Zoras was their last, meaning Naiarotop had no more means for interfering with Locklore.
“Which means…what?” I asked.
“Who knows. Let them worry about that. I will say one more thing: since you’re the person the higher beings are paying attention to the most, by revealing the situation going on behind the scenes in Locklore’s management to you, I’ve also revealed it to all the higher beings who were watching Locklore as a show. The management will surely hate that.”
Would that save Locklore?
I got that this wasn’t an ideal situation for the higher beings. And this meant there was a pretty good chance they wouldn’t immediately wipe out Locklore. But the important thing was what would happen after that. Did this promise more than just the temporary survival of Locklore? Could this bring a permanent peace to the world?
“Just do the best you can after this,” he said. “If I were to give you some advice, I would tell you that they honor contracts and reputation…and that you already have a valuable method for resisting.”
“What—”
“Figure the rest out yourself. They are listening to this conversation, after all.”
The magic circle Zoras made this time was black, and a purple light wrapped around his body. He was making preparations for turning his soul into a curse to cancel out Zero’s.
“Elsie…I carry too many sins. I doubt I’ll be going to the same place as you,” he said. He closed his eyes and shook his head. Then he opened them and looked at me from the corner of his eyes. “Kanata, Lunaère…I pray that a happy ending waits for you.” His voice was weak, almost pleading.
He turned back forward, and the magic circle shone even brighter. “Death Magic Level 22: Curse of the Lifeless Soul!”
Purple light seeped from Zoras, forming the shape of a skull. That skull flew at Zero, passed through his body, and disappeared into the spatial distortion behind him. A blinding light poured from the distortion as howling winds tore around us. I couldn’t see anything. I covered my face with my arm, only looking up when the winds calmed down.
The tentacles of black fog holding up Zero crumbled away, melting into the air. He was thrown forward and fell limply to the ground.
Then, the spatial distortion slowly started to close.
Zoras lay on the ground in front of us, dead. His body turned white and cracked like stone. It seemed he left behind an empty husk after turning his soul into a curse.
“I know…it was your plan in the first place, Zoras, but…thank you. Thank you for saving both Lunaère-san and Locklore.”
I bowed low toward him.
Did he think we could beat the higher beings? We had no idea what they would come at us with next if they were so stuck.
Zoras was not a good person. He was willing to sacrifice Locklore just to carry out his revenge. But…that didn’t mean I wanted to waste the hope he’d given us at the cost of everything he had.
“…We’ll do the best we can,” I promised his remains.
-13-
THANKS TO ZORAS’S SACRIFICE, Locklore had escaped the destruction brought on by Zero’s curse. This meant the higher beings had lost all means of interfering with the world. Their hands were completely tied.
But that didn’t mean Naiarotop and the others would leave Locklore alone. We couldn’t sit around without any plan in place.
I walked up to where Zero was lying on the ground, and crouched down and brought my face close.
Zero’s true nature was to act as a vessel for all of Locklore’s impure powers. Zoras had canceled that out with the sacrifice of his own impure power. Which meant it was unlikely Zero was going to be okay.
I’d never interacted with Zero, but he’d been sacrificed all the same. There was no changing the fact that I couldn’t save him.
I’d been focused entirely on saving Locklore and stopping Lunaère from sacrificing herself. I never stopped to think about him, and thinking about that now left me with an extreme sense of guilt.