From my overhead perspective, I saw—or rather caught glimpses of—something drenched in blood. That same moment, the priests began reciting prayers. The box was enveloped in golden light, and flames reached the ceiling. A voiceless scream far greater than the first one shook the ground. The glow and heat of the purifying flames forced the knights and hunters to step back.
The plan was for the purification to begin for real once the curse had been weakened by the circle, but I wasn’t so sure this thing was getting any weaker. Just like they had said, the curse resembled a woman. I say “resembled” because her eyes, nose, face, hair, body, everything was cloaked in black and falling apart. It looked exactly how I expected a spirit of the dead would, but I had no idea if that was her normal form or if the flames had something to do with it.
Maintaining her form despite the flames, the curse thrust her head out of the blaze. As though he had anticipated this, Ark directed his blade at her. Everything stopped for a moment. The clamor, the shaking, it all disappeared for a moment. I couldn’t even hear the incantations.
The blue bolt shot from the tip of Ark’s sword pierced Marin’s Lament. The girl’s mouth flew open. Her long arms flailed in pain, but were deflected by the lightning running between the pillars.
We easily had the upper hand. At this rate, the purification would be complete before Ansem had to do anything. The carefully established barriers didn’t look like they would break easily. It looked like a lot of us would be unnecessary. Kris was even grimacing and covering her ears.
But that was when Franz shouted in a voice on par with the booming thunder.
“DON’T LET YOUR GUARD DOWN! FIRE!”
“What a lunatic...”
At Franz’s order, the knights all commenced firing. The courtyard was rocked by a violent cacophony of a different sort than that of Ark’s lightning. Gunfire was something even hunters rarely heard.
The guns produced by the Primus Institute unleashed a storm of bullets. Unleashing fifty rounds a second seemed to induce a fair bit of recoil, pushing the barrels away from their target. But accuracy didn’t mean anything when you could rain bullets. I was agog at the muzzle flash and the very unknight-like fighting. Franz, however, looked like he was having a good time.
“Ha ha ha! How’s this, Thousand Tricks?! This is the might of the knights of Zebrudia!”
No, no way you can call this that.
It looked like they were at least doing the bare minimum and not shooting the pillars. The barrage of bullets tore through Marin’s Lament and the box she had emerged from. Her translucent, burning figure flew backwards. She was incorporeal, but as Franz had said, the bullets were still inflicting damage.
Her charred face contorted in agony, her body no longer hidden by the flames. Contrary to my expectations, she looked like a child, a human one. I had heard that the source of Marin’s Lament was a girl named Marin, but I hadn’t realized curses could take the form of what had spawned them. She looked frail at first glance, but that made it all the more terrifying to think she had eaten into the hearts of thousands of people and destroyed more than a few towns.
Hey, isn’t this a bit overkill?
“This is terrible, it’s like we’re picking on a weakling,” I said to myself.
“Leader, that’s a curse!” my sister snapped as she glowered at me. She had yet to get a chance to help out.
I guess fearsome hunters weren’t so easily swayed.
Nearby, Lapis knit her handsome brow as she and her party stood and watched. “Hmm. Not bad for something given form by humans. Something truly malignant must have occurred.”
“It explains why the church put so much effort into their preparations. Madam.”
Lapis was no surprise, but if someone as gentle as Kris was reaching the same conclusion, then I began to feel like a moron for thinking this was just bullying. I recalled hearing that some phantoms could disguise themselves as weaklings and strike when you let your guard down. Perhaps you couldn’t make it as a hunter if you let yourself be fooled by appearances.
“Oh. Is it really that powerful?!” I said.
“Spare me the mockery. It’s nothing compared to you,” Lapis said with a frigid glare.
Was that a compliment I just heard?
Being slammed by fierce attacks, Marin was tossed around the circle and bounced off the barriers like a rubber ball. All the time spent bringing in the pillars and engraving them appeared to have paid off. I was beginning to think the chain wouldn’t be necessary.
“It’s weakening!” Gark called, standing not far from the hunters. “It’s working! Just give it a bit more!”
The violent fervor of the knights and the priests meant Ark was the only hunter who had gotten a chance to do anything. We really did have more than enough firepower. Then I had an idea: if I tried playing devil’s advocate here, maybe I could sully my reputation as a preterhuman artificer.
Man, I’m on fire today.
“Hm. I’m not so sure about that,” I said.
“Would you cut that out?! Sir?!”
“Hear me out, we might actually get to see something interesting.”
“Ah, you human failure!”
Back when I was still trying to fulfill my role as party leader, I used to always try and put on airs in such a way. Needless to say, it was nothing more than a facade, as even back then, I wasn’t capable of much.
Marin clawed at her head and let out a sorrowful wail befitting her name. It was a conglomerate of every negative emotion. It was a scream without sound and without meaning, but the emotion, the murderous drive, was all too apparent. Even through the barrier, it was powerful enough to freeze my heart.