Chapter 235

The previous night… Inside a tower sunken beneath an abandoned desert district, Nihilo the Vortical Stampede stood face-to-face with a nightmare. The inside of the experiment lab Viga used looked as if paint containers had been flipped over inside. Red. Pale blue. Orange. Purple. Every single one of the horrible experimental creatures had burst apart, reduced to a formless pool of liquid. In the midst of the unnatural and hideous carcasses, there stood a young girl with long black hair. The one and only krsnik in the world—Roto the Cross. She was said to be the end result of Enu the Distant Mirror’s ideal to save the world from the terror of the True Demon King. She was a construct rapidly reared and developed through Viga’s Life Arts, yet her outward appearance made her look just barely ten or eleven years old. The fact that she awakened despite her physical body not reaching maturity suggested that there might have been some defect or flaw with her. Likely due to genetic factors from her genetic model, Linaris the Obsidian, she still had a horrifyingly beautiful appearance and salacity to her, despite her immature form. Her simple sheer gown was soaked in artificial amniotic fluid and stuck fast to her body, showing the smooth undulations of her chest, her slender thighs, and her all-too-white skin through the material. …Certainly doesn’t seem like this was part of the project. Faced with this newborn girl, Nihilo had assumed a fighting stance. She couldn’t predict what sort of speed or from what angle the girl’s attacks would come from. Nihilo tried to imagine the method of Roto’s attack by looking at the fleshy fragments from the meaninglessly slaughtered experiments. I get I’m not the one to be saying this, but—this girl’s way too evil. “Fwee-hee-hee-hee-hee…” Roto laughed in a clear tone, apparently happy about something. “Nihilo. I really love you.” This girl she had only just met now spoke to Nihilo with words of affection. “I want to eat you up—” There was a bursting sound. Roto completely vanished right under Nihilo’s nose. The nerve fibers that fanned out from her spine sensed everything in the room. Roto stepping into melee range after slipping carefully through a slightly obscured angle, and both of their spear hands crisscrossed each other, and— There was a wet splashing noise. The flesh on Nihilo’s shoulder had been torn apart. The outpouring of blood flew straight up to the angled ceiling, reflecting back and disappearing into the darkness behind her. That was the extent of what Nihilo could capture of Roto’s speed. I can’t cope with her speed! Though Nihilo the Vortical Stampede was designed under the assumption she would be piloting Helneten the Burial, she was still a construct imbued with all the techniques that Viga the Clamor, the second greatest Life Arts caster after Izick, had at her disposal. On top of that, with the coolheaded decision-making that was characteristic of revenants, she recognized the truth without any resentment or despair. Roto the Cross’s capabilities were on a completely different plane, even though they were both constructs created by Viga. “…You know, everyone else besides me have all been weaklings who just get crushed to a pulp, but…” Unilaterally trampling over all others, annihilating an entire armed force on her own—that had been the crux of Nihilo the Vortical Stampede’s functionality. “Hee-hee. I guess now I finally understand how it feels to be the one getting crushed…” As a revenant, Nihilo didn’t feel any pain from her wound. She also saw Roto hunched in a corner of the spacious, lightless room. Roto didn’t immediately follow up her attack on Nihilo because her tiny mouth was busy chewing—on the flesh she had just gouged out of Nihilo. I couldn’t catch the moment she attacked. Way too much of my body was scraped out for her to have taken a bite out of me directly. There were signs on the experiments’ flesh and organs that they had been cut cleanly with a sharp blade. She took one of the organs overflowing from the experiment room. There wasn’t any instinct to kill coming from the freshly born Roto. The fact that Nihilo was receiving a moment to predict and prepare for the next clash was her only clear advantage. She looked at the instruments and medicines scattered inside the experiment room. She stretched out one of her nerve fibers and checked on several items for herself. Toxic chemical agents. Blades for medical use. The weapon Roto uses has to be somewhere… Before her lay the experimentation lab. There were no windows in the subterranean tower, so her only choice was to cut across the big room where Roto was and head for the stairwell. Nihilo had no idea what everyone else was doing right now, but she wasn’t in any position to expect help from Viga or Kuuro. It was highly likely they had all been disposed of already. On top of that, were she to successfully get through the big room, if Roto pursued her with the same amount of speed, it would have been impossible for Nihilo to escape. The only way to survive was either to take out Roto’s legs or render her unable to fight. Considering the sheer gap in capabilities she just witnessed, the options seemed like just as much of an unrealistic gamble as running away, but they were the only ones that had even the slightest sliver of success. Roto had taken her attention off Nihilo; however, any surprise attack that didn’t finish her off instantly would leave Nihilo fatally open. She understood that when it came to simple power and performance, Roto bested her. Nihilo needed to create a golden opportunity to entice Roto into making a predictable attack. “…Hey, Roto. If you love me, why’re you trying to break me?” “Mrrm?” Roto stopped her meal and looked Nihilo’s way. “I’ve heard there are a lot of constructs…whose heart assemblies fail—and who lose their senses and go out of control.” “Because of love.” At last swallowing back the raw flesh, Roto flashed a carefree smile. “I love everybody. Everyone in that room with me—and Mommy Viga, too. We just met, but I love you so much, Nihilo, my heart’s going ba-dump ba-dump, and I feel so happy I can’t contain myself. I love, love, love, love, love you… I wanna to snuggle close and become one.” “…” “Once I let everyone in that room go free, they did just that for me. Clung to me, bent and twisted their hands and feet… It felt so good and made me so happy. So I did the same for them, too. But some of them weren’t able to move anymore, so, mwee-hee-hee-hee… They couldn’t stay with me anymore…” “So you ate them?” Nihilo likely didn’t possess any decent sensibilities to speak of, either, but even to her, Roto’s logic was completely incomprehensible. The creation of the krsnik must have ended in a wholly unexpected failure. That said, would a self-proclaimed demon king of Viga the Clamor’s caliber really screw up the creation of such an important construct? Nihilo herself didn’t possess the capacity for empathy capable of immediately discerning Roto’s aberrant mental structure and trying to persuade her. For a weapon like Nihilo, meant to trample over her enemies, such a function wasn’t simply unnecessary but potentially a fatal flaw. If she is a true prodigy, then the only advantage I have right now without Helneten is my combat experience. Nihilo untensed herself slightly while, at the same time, she mentally prepared for the next attack. “…But I haven’t done anything to earn your love. We don’t know much about each—” A red afterimage rushed toward her. This speed—that Nihilo couldn’t even visually capture—was the exact opening to exploit. Along the trajectory that connected to two of them, there was an explosive sound, not of air, but something wet and damp. Nihilo’s dodge wasn’t fast enough. Roto’s tiny body used her nightmarish physical strength to grab Nihilo and pin her down on the floor. “Mwee-hee, hee-hee…!” In the span of a single second, Nihilo had put several plans in place, and all of them had been defeated. With such supernatural speed, Roto’s leap passed along the direct route connecting the pair without allowing Nihilo any time to dodge. The damp explosive crack came from an experiment’s organs Nihilo had flung out in front of her. She understood what the experiment’s body makeup was. As a result, Roto was showered in strongly acidic gastric juices from the midair impact with the organ. Nevertheless, her speed was no less staggering. All of it was completely insufficient at hindering Roto’s mobility. “Nihilo…do you need a reason to fall in love?” Roto asked Nihilo, still pinned against the ground, with a brilliant smile. The epidermal layer of skin on the forearm around Nihilo’s upper arm had been burned raw down to the hypodermal layer below. A large portion of Roto’s simple gown had melted apart, and white bone peeked out from the wounds underneath. It was more threatening than if she had been unharmed. It signaled that in the brief instant of their clash, despite having no knowledge of the acid used, Roto had made a decision on how to defend against it, and that she possessed the reaction speed to protect her face and combat instincts as well. “I love your face. I love your body. Your voice is so, so pretty. You look at me, talk to me, came to see me… I don’t think you need…any fancy reason at all to fall in love with someone… Mwee-hee-hee-hee-hee… See, look… Just by clinging close like this…” Nihilo was pressed down and couldn’t escape. Roto didn’t pay any mind to her own pain, either. The constant, enormous amount of brain-melting euphoria must have allowed her to ignore it. “Nhm…slrp, smooch…” Pressing Nihilo down, Roto buried her face in the top of Nihilo’s shoulder, like an animal fawning over another member of its species, and began lapping up Nihilo’s blood in an ecstatic trance. “…Wh-what’re you doing…?!” “Nihilo, I love you… Stay here with me…” Roto held Nihilo’s life and death in her hands. Roto’s whims were the sole reason why she hadn’t been killed immediately. Can I kill her? Roto currently had a large open wound, burned raw by the acid. With them clinging together like this, Nihilo realized she could probably stick her nerve fibers into the open wound and take control over Roto’s motor nerves. Roto’s reaction speeds were so fast that even if Nihilo completely surprised her while they were on top of each other, she could easily sever over half of Nihilo’s nerve fibers. Still, if Nihilo could connect a single one, that would be enough to cause Roto intense pain and neutralize her—a means of flipping the huge gap in fighting power on its head. A revenant’s judgment was coolheaded. She weighed the benefits and negatives, the advantages and disadvantages, all in a single moment. She sent her nerve fibers rushing toward Roto. “Ya yumyouye—” (To Roto’s blood—) Nihilo became aware of the singing whisper resounding around her. “Yamururui chumimyum. Yuchiyas yuyety. Yok yok yukmenen—yaneopept.” (Clouds and rainbows warbled by the voiceless. Small eyes of gaping cavern. Flower face crumbling in the rain—multiply.) The terminal on Nihilo’s nerve fiber was stopped by a massive amount of blood pouring out from the wounds in Roto’s arm and chest. The nerve fiber was a very dainty organ. Its trajectory was thrown off. She made herself bleed more?! It was nothing but a temporary defense. Like a multiheaded snake, she tried to adjust her aim and pierce her again. Yet this attempt, too, proved meaningless. In the single second it took for her blood to drain out and stain the floor, Roto the Cross’s wounds had been completely healed. The brief opening to pierce Roto’s skin had been far too long against this foe’s reaction speed. “You were only just born…!” Regenerative Life Arts. Roto was a Word Arts–casting construct. Nihilo’s ultimate gambit to connect her nerve fibers had been suppressed as well. “Mwee-hee-hee! Hey…Nihilo? I actually gave myself my own name.” With a majority of her clothing melted away, Roto’s bare skin was now exposed. Her naked body, so smooth and pale it seemed to repel the copious amount of red blood, coiled itself around Nihilo. “I was always listening to what sort of Word Arts made me, even when I still couldn’t see anything… What I needed to do to control this special blood of mine…what I needed to do to be able to love everyone…” Her lips, slender as silk, sucked on Nihilo’s cheek, her eyelids, and lips. “Nihilo, Nihilo…” “Unh, ngh!” The feeling of her small lips licking her all over made Nihilo groan. Her own blood, her revenant circulatory fluid, began gushing out. Roto had bitten open one of her carotid arteries. Though it wouldn’t be enough to undo Viga’s suturing on her head, if Nihilo had been a living minia, this would have killed her. My Word Arts core… If she destroys my brain, it’s over for me… Actually, even if she kept going and bit off my head, I might not be able to be revived this time! I’ll die! Slender arms, slender legs, tangled around Nihilo’s body. Nihilo had hit a wall. No matter what Nihilo attempted to do while being embraced like this, Roto had the physical capabilities to react with enough speed to outstrip her, and even if Nihilo were to score a telling blow against her, Roto would manage to regenerate with her Life Arts. Roto the Cross was a surreal, beautiful young girl, like an angel. She had no hostility or desire to hurt other living creatures and may have genuinely tried to love her victims. However, following that love to its end resulted in the horrible scene in the lab. No matter who they may have been, anyone Roto set her eyes on would be sweetly embraced and slowly but surely dismembered as she whispered her love in their ear. Then— “…!” Roto leaped backward. Her reflex speed was like a bug that sensed danger. “…Nihilo.” Retreating to a corner of the big room, she stared in Nihilo’s direction with the smile vanished from her face. “Do you have something?” “…Aw. You noticed, huh…? See, I was sure it would work out well, too…” Nihilo struggled to stand up after being freed from the embrace of death. She stood with her back to the lab—after working as Viga the Clamor’s assistant, she knew perfectly what sort of instruments or materials were located in which cupboard. “It’s poison. Stay here and it’ll kill you.” In the very beginning, when she had searched through the lab with her nerve fibers, she had discovered a vial filled with a lethal gas. Nihilo had fought back against Roto’s attack without ever moving from where she stood because she aimed to poison her to death with the volatile toxic substances that were spilling out from the laboratory. Bereft of any life-sustaining activity, only Nihilo the revenant was able to act without any decreased functionality when caught within the same noxious gas cloud. The area around the lab was filled with the stench of the slaughtered experiments and other chemicals, so it should have been difficult for Roto to identify the smell of the poison. She has no combat experience at all, and she still managed to suss this out? Was this detection ability an inherited genetic factor from Linaris the Obsidian? Or perhaps was she an innate monster with exceptional, logical-defying intuition? “If you do that…we can’t stay together. Do you hate me, Nihilo?” Roto’s stare was fixed on Nihilo. “…That may be it. What’re you going to do? Going to just kill me here?” “………” Roto wavered for a long time before finally disappearing up the staircase leading to the surface. She never came back. Nihilo continued to stare down the staircase without dropping her guard, but before long she sat down on the floor. When encountering an enemy one couldn’t escape from, who couldn’t be defeated or immobilized, there was still one other way to survive…to make the enemy flee of their own accord. Even then, if Roto the Cross truly had any urge to kill, it would have been easy for her to dispose of Nihilo before the poison could affect her. Nihilo was lucky. “…Why did it end up like this?” The krsnik waking up while there were no others around and going out of control was in and of itself an abnormal situation. There weren’t any signs that anyone besides Nihilo, including Roto’s own creator, Viga, was rushing toward this commotion. Kuuro the Cautious, able to grasp the entirety of the environment around him and even predict the future, should have been watching over everything. “I need to…look for everybody…” Ominous tides were beginning to rise. A failure that could ruin absolutely everything. At the same moment. At a location far removed from the sunken desert tower were the silhouettes of several men and women. One of them, a man cloaked in a dark-brown coat, was extremely short and outwardly resembled a young boy, but was, in fact, an adult leprechaun. Kuuro the Cautious. “…The krsnik escaped,” he murmured gloomily. From this position, it was impossible to even see the outside of the tower, however, he declared this with such conviction it was as if he had watched the series of clashes between Roto and Nihilo right before his very eyes. “She’s left the tower and headed down a different path. She won’t come across us.” Kuuro the Cautious possessed a supernatural ability known as Clairvoyance. Beyond just his five senses, it acutely combined thermal, magnetic, and many other senses that still had yet to be explained, together, and allowed him to comprehend all available information in the world around him at all times—an omniscient power. Kuuro was, in fact, hired by this camp to use his Clairvoyance ability to prevent any unforeseen situations. Enu the Distant Mirror proposed the original idea, and Viga the Clamor had carried it out—the krsnik project, meant to save the world from the True Demon King’s terror and use a vampire’s powers to control the people. Kuuro currently carried in his arms Linaris the Obsidian, who had been used to complete this project. Accompanying them was Yuno the Distant Talon, who Kuuro had been forced to capture along with Linaris. “…Kuuro.” Enu was restless. He had dropped his usual expression and kept his eyes constantly wide like an owl. “Why did she go out of control? There were no signs of failure… If anything, her construction was proceeding far more ideally than the project first estimated…” “…Asking me won’t help.” Kuuro’s Clairvoyance was a power worthy of being described as omniscience, but it wasn’t true omniscience. It only grasped all the information the world around him could provide, but it did not give him with the knowledge or learning to properly interpret it. “But I did the job you asked me to do. If I had recognized any danger with the krsnik’s construction, I would’ve protected all of you from the threat immediately. As for whether I’m telling the truth… Nihilo the Vortical Stampede still survived, and you’ll figure it out from here.” Looking at it another way, however, he could understand things even without any knowledge of them. By rescuing Enu, Viga, Linaris, Yuno, and Cuneigh, while keeping only Nihilo in the dark, they were all able to make it out of the situation alive, including Nihilo. He understood, so that’s what he did, simple as that. Kuuro didn’t possess the slightest knowledge of physical medicine or advanced Word Arts for construct creation like Viga the Clamor. Nevertheless, by combining the tremendous volume of information he got from his supernatural Clairvoyance, he confidently knew that there would be an unavoidable breakdown in the krsnik they’d created. He wasn’t predicting the future logically. His Clairvoyance’s precognition was drawn out from Kuuro’s own unconscious—precise intuition that simply showed him the correct answer without requiring any midway calculations whatsoever. “Everything had been progressing…well.” Viga the Clamor appeared to be just as dumbfounded herself. Her usual squinted-eye smile was the same as ever, but her voice trembled. “If the construction failed, then her heart and mind itself shouldn’t have even formed in the first place. A perception abnormality that mistakes murder as love shouldn’t even be possible!” “Who did this?” Enu said with a throaty growl. “The only individuals who could have interfered with the construct creation are you and Nihilo the Vortical Stampede. Our base was completely locked up, and any infiltration from outside was impossible while Kuuro here was on lookout—however, what of the possibility that you betrayed us, Kuuro?” Aureatia’s Thirteenth Minister, Enu the Distant Mirror, had crossed through the ranks of many different powers all for his idea of salvation. Aureatia. The National Defense Research Institute. Obsidian Eyes. The Gray-Haired Child. He had been involved with almost all the forces in the Sixways Exhibition turmoil, yet in reality, he wasn’t an ally to any of them, either. He had summoned the full extent of his wit and tenacity in order to make the krsnik a reality. A construct to pacify any strife among the infected and save the world from the lingering threat of the Demon King. What was born instead was an uncontrollable monster. “Someone among the three of you is a liar. Isn’t that right?” “Calm down. You…just don’t want to admit you failed.” “…Kuuro. You once were a part of Obsidian Eyes, yes? As you waited patiently for Cuneigh the Wanderer’s treatment to finish…you were actually waiting for your chance to let Linaris the Obsidian escape, weren’t you?” Linaris, slung over Kuuro’s back, was still unconscious. At the hands of Viga and Nihilo, she had been subjected to torturous experimentation and sample gathering. The only reason her sickly body hadn’t died from starvation was because Viga’s superb medical techniques forcibly kept her alive. “…That inconsistent reasoning’s not like you. You remember, I was the one who captured Linaris. You know full well that if I had any motive to do all of this, I would’ve been able to accomplish it all without you ever being the wiser. No reason to go out of my way to let you two escape, either. I’ve fulfilled the job you asked me to do to the letter,” said Kuuro. In the coldly composed part of his mind, he knew this was an insincere answer. In truth, was Enu right, and had Kuuro actually wished to let Linaris escape? No matter what sort of results came from handing her over to Enu and Viga—even if it ultimately led to her death—Kuuro had desired to free Linaris, who had fatally chosen the wrong path, from the spiral of war and death. “From here on out, I’m following the emergency procedures you laid out. I plan to protect Yuno and Linaris and head toward the rendezvous point. You two should wait to meet up with Nihilo and take a separate route. Don’t waste any time, and we should all be safe… That’s what my Clairvoyance is telling me.” “You really…want me to trust you in a situation like this?” “The danger isn’t over. There are still others pursuing you two.” “…I can’t agree to that. At the very least, I want Linaris the Obsidian to come with us.” “Cool your head. Look at the facts of the situation, like you always do. Your trio’s already acted antagonistically toward Aureatia. They know your faces, and your pursuers are closing in fast. You couldn’t possibly carry along Linaris while she’s so seriously ill—and while you’re unable to even detect anyone nearby.” “You’re the only one here who can confirm if we are being chased. We can’t base any decision on that as long as we suspect you of betraying us.” “…Fair enough. You’re the one who needs to make the call.” Enu’s eyes were filled with suspicion. Throughout Kuuro’s life, this sort of breakdown in communication hadn’t been rare. His Clairvoyance was able to perceive everything, even the future, with precision, but there was one thing this omniscient ability of his was unable to do. It couldn’t make someone else believe in his own omniscience. Family, friends, comrades—in the end, they all distrusted Kuuro’s words, grew scared, and chose the wrong path forward for themselves. Kuuro had lost hope from the accumulation of this distrust and descended to where it was now. As a result, he had landed himself in this current situation. Nothing I can do. Even had an inkling this was how it’d all end. The only ones who haven’t ever been suspicious of me…were Obsidian Eyes and Cuneigh. If Enu wished for it, Kuuro would have no choice but to hand Linaris over. He wanted to keep her alive, if possible, but that was nothing but his own obstinacy. “…Minister Enu. What are you going to do about the corpse infection problem?” “You’re…” Yuno the Distant Talon broke her pale-faced silence. “You all have a resistance to the vampire virus, but if you move throughout Aureatia, you won’t be able to avoid coming into contact with the other citizens. In which case, there is a high change that Linaris could scheme to use the citizens she’s turned into corpses to attack you or let her free…wouldn’t you say?” “That’s our problem. You’re not in any position to stick your nose into our operation.” “With all due respect…! Your senses are numbed, Minister Enu. Linaris is not a powerless hostage. She threatens the destruction of all Aureatia! The same Linaris that you tormented and tortured! Do you have any means of protecting yourself?!” Yuno was pointing out a postulate that Kuuro hadn’t felt any need to recommunicate to them. The ones who treated Linaris like an experiment—Enu, Viga, and Nihilo—needed to act separately from Linaris. The only one capable of preventing any resistance from Linaris, while acting covertly and avoiding the spread of the infection, was Kuuro and Kuuro alone. “…Enu. We don’t have any time. We need to decide.” In contrast to Enu, Viga seemed to have accepted this breakdown somewhat. Was it because of the deformed psyche she had fostered as a natural-born monster? Or perhaps because, as a researcher, she was able to face the truth head-on. “Either we entrust Linaris with Kuuro or we dispose of her here. I agree that it will be difficult to escape while bringing Linaris along with us.” “Disposal…isn’t an option. If we lose Linaris the Obsidian…we won’t be able to create the next krsnik. A perfected krsnik… One that can spread the antibodies against terror to all the people… I won’t accept it.” Enu shook his head. Linaris’s mutant vampire strain, indiscriminately infecting others through the air and with powers of control that far surpassed a normal vampire, was still the final piece to the krsnik project puzzle that Enu had dedicated his whole life to doggedly pursue. Of course he wasn’t able to give up on it. “…Kuuro. We’ll go our separate ways. Bring Linaris with you, just as we arranged…” “Got it.” Even if he could see the ending up ahead, Kuuro hadn’t told Enu most of it. Clairvoyance was just a power of knowledge. Trying to influence the heart and mind of another was simple arrogance. “Trust me.” Enu’s and Viga’s figures disappeared over the desert horizon. In the middle of the chilly desert night, Kuuro, with Linaris on his back; Cuneigh sleeping inside Kuuro’s chest pocket; and Yuno the Distant Talon were the only ones left behind, without any sign of life around them. They walked along the vast, rocky, and endlessly unvaried land. “Kuuro,” Yuno quietly murmured, perhaps unable to endure the silence any longer. “Did you really not see what could have caused the krsnik to go out of control?” “…I wonder.” Even if he had, without any knowledge on the subject, Kuuro lacked the vocabulary to properly convey it. “This is just my own wild idea, but…Minister Enu suspected there was some artificial interference with the experiment. However, if you weren’t able to identify the culprit, then…at least, I think whoever caused it must have interfered more indirectly.” This project seemed guaranteed to come together at the start, and there was no question that something had triggered the change. If his interference happened on a visible scale, then Kuuro’s eyes wouldn’t have missed it. If there was some trigger for the mutation, then it was in a realm even Clairvoyance couldn’t peer into. An act that was executed by will alone. “Then who do you think is behind it?” “Linaris. If the krsnik pathogen Linaris possesses is a new strain not seen in another vampire, one that managed to spontaneously mutate…wouldn’t that mean she could make it mutate at will? “Linaris, totally incapacitated, controlled the pathogen’s evolution solely through willpower and made the experiment fail… Pretty absurd idea. At the very least, Viga’s a doctor, and she didn’t reach that conclusion. “…Still, I have seen things that surpass all imagination and common sense many, many times before.” Yuno looked to Linaris, slung on Kuuro’s back. The end result of her days of tortuous experimentation was that her complexion had lost even more color and was now a deathly pale white. Except, this made her doll-like beauty all the more conspicuous—and spoke volumes of the vampire’s characteristic, and difficult to escape, coercive power, maintaining their beautiful features in the face of whatever changes occurred. “What if the krsnik’s out-of-control behavior, mistaking killing as a form of love, was the result of Linaris…trying to accept the unending pain she felt after being tormented as material for the krsnik? The krsnik research focused on how to manipulate will and cognition. It’s totally possible that, because that mutation was introduced, the krsnik ended up as a creature that spread pain and anguish, too.” Pain itself was real love… Kuuro thought back to Frey the Waking. To the broken failure who loved Linaris more than anyone else and, as a result, betrayed her, unable to do anything but etch wounds into Linaris’s heart, never letting her go. She wasn’t the only one. Rehart the Obsidian, the rest of Obsidian Eyes, left behind in the age of war, kept her life restricted with the anguish known as love, and Linaris, without anyone else to turn to, had always sought that same anguish herself. Had Roto the Cross’s breakdown always been inevitable? “Less of a hypothesis and more of a wish. If that is indeed the truth, then at this point, there is no saving the young mistress or Enu… Or you, either. You resent their actions and want to make them responsible for the failure. You’re just trying to search for a cause based on the conclusion you want.” “Hah… You may be right. It’s what I always do.” Yuno laughed with self-deprecation. “I need to make it someone’s fault, or I’ll never get salvation. Even when I know full well…that my own weakness is why I can’t do anything. If I just had the strength to protect Linaris…and my homeland of Nagan, then I never would have had to suffer like this.” “Could be the opposite. Get strong, and it only brings you more and more inconveniences.” “You make it sound like being too powerful is a bad thing.” “…” “That view is…arrogant, I think. The weak weren’t born just to become sentimental nourishment for the strong. Those who aren’t weak, and have the power to make their own choices, shouldn’t then blame their strength for why they weren’t able to choose the correct path.” “You think that, even after seeing the misfortune Linaris has gone through?” “…I do. Since none of that matters to those she’s killed.” Yuno the Distant Talon. The girl who had appeared all alone during the chaotic melee of several forces converging on Obsidian Eyes’s hideout, and herself right before Kuuro’s very eyes out of nowhere—and Linaris’s friend. The foreign body that seemed to worm her way into murky circumstances surrounding the krsnik. The only things Kuuro knew about her came from the conversations she had with Linaris while imprisoned. “In that case, Yuno, let me ask.” This mediocre, subservient young girl who was always at the whims of others had a fatal misunderstanding. “Do you really still think you’re on the side of the weak?” Kuuro did not know many things about Yuno the Distant Talon. At the very least, she had shown once before that she could surpass the expectations of the supposedly omniscient Kuuro the Cautious. If this was some groundless fantasy of hers, she knew phenomena could occur that far surpassed her own tiny world. “You stopped being on the side of the weak a long time ago. You’re one of the strong, with the power to choose your own future…and with that choice, ruin the future of another, just as easily.” “……For a long time? Me…?” Yuno stopped moving for several steps. It seemed Kuuro’s remark had shocked her far more than he imagined. “That’s right. You’re strong.” Kuuro turned around and looked up at Yuno standing on the upper side of the hill. Only the small blue moon floated in the desert sky. “What do you want to ruin next with that hatred of yours?” After escaping from the tower, Nihilo the Vortical Stampede immediately fanned out her nerve fibers and searched for any signs of the others hidden among the sand. While this was in part to check to see if Viga and the others were within her detection range, more so than that, Nihilo was wary of Roto the Cross. If Roto attacked her out here without any topographical advantage to exploit, Nihilo really would end up dead. Fortunately, that sinister presence had already disappeared. Nihilo had changed out of the clothes Roto had disheveled—and made stopgap repairs to her injured areas. The inside of Viga’s experiment lab had been fully stocked with biomaterial for construct creation. She needed a transfusion to make up for all the circulatory fluid she had lost in particular. Revenants didn’t possess any hematogenous functionality. “Over there is…” Her nerve fibers detected a small moving air current. Close to the edge of the horizon, Nihilo felt breathing she was very familiar with. “Mom…and Enu the Distant Mirror. They already escaped, did they?” The fact that there hadn’t been a sign of anyone, especially Kuuro, would then mean that they had gone through the previously arranged emergency escape procedures. However, they weren’t used to escape from an Aureatian attack as expected, but due to an experiment, Roto the Cross, going out of control. While that was going on, they had left Nihilo behind to make her keep Roto in check. To be free brings with it inconveniences that deprive you of freedom. I’m a weapon, so I don’t think they were wrong or anything, but…, she thought as she walked through the sand to meet up with them. In the end, even here I’m treated as disposable. In the past, she hadn’t felt this discomfort smolder in her chest as it did now. When she waged battle against Aureatia under Viga’s orders, or even after she was captured by Aureatia and laid waste to Lithia at Hidow’s command, it was a fact of life to have someone giving her orders. However, as she walked across the desert, she remembered once traversing a similar location on her journey with Yukiharu. Yukiharu the Twilight Diver was the only one who never once tried to use Nihilo like a tool. When she finally met up with the pair, Viga beamed at Nihilo with her usual smile. “…Mom.” “I see you made it out in one piece, Nihilo dear.” Enu lingered next to Viga, but he didn’t have his usual composure. Nihilo could clearly pick up on the unease and impatience he felt at the unexpected state of affairs. “Sorry about that, but…we followed Kuuro’s predictions to the letter, which meant leaving you behind.” Even in his state, Enu explained as if he had seen right through to Nihilo’s displeasure. “He judged that a revenant like you would be able to survive. If you hadn’t bought us time, there would have been casualties among us. We owe you a great deal.” “It’s fine… It didn’t bother me.” It was indeed true that the reason she had been able to execute her poison gas attack under those circumstances might have been that she knew there wasn’t any threat of it harming anyone else. It wouldn’t be an impossible task considering Roto’s mobility, but escaping was another story… The fact was that someone had needed to buy them time. However, if there was another reason why Nihilo had been exposed to danger… “Nihilo. I want to hear about what state the krsnik’s in right now. Please tell us.” …it was to confirm the facts regarding the out-of-control krsnik. For them, having escaped from the tower according to Kuuro’s foreknowledge, there was no way to verify if the information they got from Kuuro’s Clairvoyance was accurate. They couldn’t ascertain how genuinely out of control Roto was—or how dangerous. Thus, they had needed to leave Nihilo the Vortical Stampede behind and let her clash with Roto. “The krsnik’s…unthinkably strong. She’s irregular even for a construct, I think. Her mobility, in particular—she’s just as fast as Helneten is in combat or maybe even faster. Her mental assembly has failed. She seems to have affection for everything in the world and yet…she slaughtered all the other experiments, and she tried to kill me while fawning all over me, too. Even though she was just born, she’s highly intelligent—she was able to perfectly regenerate herself with Word Arts. She said that she gave herself her own name… Her name is Roto the Cross.” “Understood. That aligns with the situation Kuuro predicted with his Clairvoyance. As we discussed beforehand, we will head to the rendezvous point from here… But.” Enu turned his back to Nihilo and continued. “…I’d like you to pursue Kuuro the Cautious.” “Why? That wasn’t part of the plan.” “The krsnik’s creation failed due to some outside, artificial interference… Among us, the only suspect that could have performed such a trick is Kuuro. Even if the culprit is someone else, Kuuro’s Clairvoyance would have detected precisely who it was.” Nihilo belatedly understood where Enu’s irritation stemmed from. In which case, the fact that Enu and Viga were acting independently from Kuuro and the others might not have purely stemmed from following the escape plan. “You mean that Kuuro had a change of heart at some point after bringing Linaris here?” “The man continued to observe and report on the Particle Storm up until he almost died. I had assumed Kuuro wouldn’t bring his own personal feelings into matters. Nevertheless, given the fact that this accident happened, there is only one conclusion to make…” “What do you think, Viga? You think someone actively caused this accident?” “…I don’t know.” Viga was also baffled by the sequence of unexpected situations confronting her. Staying dead silent, she wasn’t like the Viga Nihilo knew. She seemed to be brooding over something and accompanying Enu, but without ever expressing her opinion on his decision. “I personally don’t think there was any failure in the krsnik’s creation. Something like this has never happened before. However, if the techniques that my kin consumed several generations to polish did, in fact, fail, then…” Viga’s expression was unchanged. She had the same mild smile; her eyes remained squinted. “…does that mean all those victims died for nothing?” Viga the Clamor was the last descendant of a family who dreamed of creating the prefect life-form. The krsnik’s completion wasn’t only Enu’s earnest wish, but hers as well. Linaris the Obsidian must have been the ultimate base model to work from—a miracle that would never come again. “We need to regain control of Linaris the Obsidian to verify that for ourselves, as well. I want you to meet up with Kuuro and watch over him to make sure he will bring Linaris to the rendezvous.” “What’s the point? If Kuuro really is behind all this, he’ll just end up running away.” “That’s fine. It became clear during the raid on Obsidian Eyes that his invincible Clairvoyance has a weakness. Kuuro may be able to escape, but he won’t be able to escape and bring Linaris with him. If Kuuro’s goal is to ensure Linaris survives, eventually he will need to act independently from her.” “And you want me to go and recapture her then? Awfully reckless, isn’t it?” “This is our only means to ensure the project continues. If Kuuro hasn’t betrayed us, then you can simply accompany him to the rendezvous point. That would serve as infallible proof.” “…” Nihilo surmised the unspoken purpose hidden in Enu’s words. Enu had used Nihilo as a decoy. He was scared Nihilo might retaliate against him if they allowed her to accompany them. “Viga… What do you think?” “The krsnik assembly…should have been a success… I needed to look at Linaris’s body and inspect it further. Asking for your help is our only way to know for certain, I’m afraid.” “…Well then.” From the very start, there was no love between Nihilo and Viga. Nihilo had no illusions otherwise, either. Furthermore, Viga’s goal was to create a perfect life-form that would save all the world’s people. Slaughtering the people affected by the Demon King’s terror was, to Viga, simply her second-best option. Up until just the day before, the completion of the krsnik, meant to save the people from fear without needing to kill, should have been close at hand. At this point, Nihilo was nothing but an outdated weapon. “I get it. Well then… Hope to see you again sometime, Mom.” Separating herself from the other two, Nihilo then broke into a run. Nihilo the Vortical Stampede’s capabilities meant she would likely be able to catch up to Kuuro before he made it to an urban area. As she felt the wind coil around her body, suddenly she thought back on what Roto the Cross had said to her. Actually, that might have been the first time… The krsnik project had failed. If that was the truth of the situation, then did that mean that young girl was born unwanted by all? …anyone told me that they loved me. Though the desert night had grown very chilly, it wasn’t the temperature in the air that made Yuno’s intestines run ice-cold. The True Demon King. Kiyazuna the Axle. Dakai the Magpie. Soujirou the Willow-Sword. Powerful, calamitous people who trampled over everything without a thought to the lives of anyone else. I always detested them all. However, she had known for herself— —Even while she desperately lived with this abhorrence for the strong in her breast, Yuno herself had betrayed and trampled over a significant number of others. Yuno absolutely did not have enough misfortune, nor goodness of heart, to coddle herself in her position among the weak. Perhaps that in and of itself was the strength that allowed her to make choices for her own life. The freedom that Soujirou had spoken of in the ruins of Nagan. Someday will I…will I end up as something that I’ve always hated? “Yuno the Distant Talon.” Kuuro addressed her from up ahead with a murmur. Strangely, despite how cold it was, Kuuro had taken off his thick coat a moment prior and moved the still-sleeping Cuneigh from his coat pocket into his pouch. “…Yes?” “There’s no more eyes watching over you. What do you intend to do from here on out?” “I…I don’t think I can abandon Linaris after all. I know that if I do, I’ll be left with another lifetime’s worth of regret. Also, if the krsnik research is going to continue, we’ll have to meet up with Enu and the others in the end, anyway, right?” “No… We might not meet up with them again.” “Huh…? What does that—?” It was at that exact moment. Dust and sand assailed them from their flank like an incoming storm. The sand came with too much speed and pressure for them to react, pulling Yuno down to the ground. We’re under attack! She had several scratches on the arm she used to cover her face. This tract of land wasn’t a rocky desert but a stretch of accumulated sand. Yuno thought that an artillery shell or something similar had scored a direct hit, blowing the sand up around them. She stood up, wiped her eyes, and by then, the contest was decided. “Nihilo the Vortical Stampede.” Yuno heard Kuuro’s exasperated voice. “Quit the meaningless attacks while you’re ahead.” “Meaningless, really? Here I thought that forcing you to cover Linaris with that one attack would give me an opening.” An alluring voice that seemed inhuman, despite containing a sense of sadism and pleasure. It was Nihilo the Vortical Stampede?—meaning that, in the span of a single instant, she had closed in from far out of sight range. The hand she went to extend to grab Linaris had been stopped by Kuuro before she could even move a muscle. Nihilo surely must have surpassed Kuuro in sheer physical strength, but Kuuro’s Clairvoyance could see how she channeled this power, and at which point he needed to stop her to bring her to a complete standstill. “Tee-hee… So I guess any sort of cheap trick is useless against that Clairvoyance of yours?” The explosion of sand a moment ago hadn’t come from any cannon fire. It was nothing but a smoke screen Nihilo had kicked up by punching a sand dune. In Kuuro’s other hand was his sand-covered coat. He had taken it off a few minutes prior. He must have used it in his other hand to protect himself and Linaris from the sand blast. Kuuro had perceived everything—what direction the attack had come from along with the exact moment Nihilo would make her surprise attack—and stopped it all with his one free hand, without letting Linaris come to any harm. A clash between monsters on a completely different plane from Yuno. “…So Enu couldn’t put his trust in me, then.” “You can even see through that, huh? As you guessed, I was ordered to take Linaris back.” “I also know that you aren’t serious about this. I could understand it if you didn’t know about my Clairvoyance already, but if you were coming at me properly, you wouldn’t be this clumsy.” “Just a teensy bit of a payback, really. When everyone found out the krsnik was out of control, you were the one who said to abandon me and run away, right?” “I saw that ultimately everyone would come out safe. But that’s fair. You have a right to get revenge.” Kuuro wiped his coat, but it seemed the fine desert sand didn’t want to fall off. Nihilo crossed her arms behind her and seemed to be enjoying herself as she looked at Kuuro with a smile. “But well, it looks like I just failed to recapture Linaris. Suppose that I means I can’t go back to Mom and Enu, huh?” “You’re planning on dropping out of this project, too… Is that it? What do you plan to do from here without Viga the Clamor behind you? What’s your objective here?” “I’m going to recover Helneten. The other body of mine.” “…Helneten?” It was the first time Yuno had heard the name. She wondered if that was true of Kuuro, too. “It doesn’t concern anyone else but me, okay? Oh, right. Yuno the Distant Talon… I heard that you were in Lithia during the battle; is that right? Enu told me about it.” “Yes, and what about…it?” Yuno stepped backward with heightened caution. She never expected a monster like Nihilo would turn her attention toward her in this situation. Though Kuuro had effortlessly held out against her ambush, Yuno knew that Nihilo could kill her in the blink of an eye. One of the powerful, who could hold Yuno’s life in her hand just by standing before her. “See, there’s something I’ve been meaning to pass on to someone for a while. Anyone would’ve done the trick, really, but…I’m sure everyone I run into from here on out will be an enemy, so.” “I—I am, too…” Despite being terribly afraid, Yuno managed to get her voice out. She couldn’t begin to imagine what a construct like Nihilo had to give her. “I—I hate you! A-all the pain you caused Linaris…! The terrible things you did to her…!” “Hee-hee-hee-hee… That was a lot of fun. Anyway, you don’t have to think of me as a friend or anything. I mean, I don’t particularly hate or like you at all, either.” Nihilo kept up her smile as she took a step forward. Her golden eyes peered into Yuno’s face, and Yuno quailed like she was being stared down by a snake. Nihilo’s shapely lips whispered to her. “Karawa Second District, street number sixty-eight. On the second floor of Rejura Curios is a locked room.” “Huh…?! What?!” “Didn’t catch that? Karawa Second District, street number sixty-eight. It’s a normal urban area, and no one gives it a second thought. The old man in Rejura Curios on the first floor doesn’t even know anything… I don’t have the key, but the one borrowing the room’s gone, so you can just break down the door.” Nothing about this made any sense to Yuno. Why did she suddenly tell Yuno about this? What meaning was there to telling her? “There’s a hidden door underneath the rug, and that’s where all the information and evidence that Yukiharu the Twilight Diver gathered together is hidden… If you want power, head over there, Yuno the Distant Talon.” “Wh-why?” She was so perplexed that she simply voiced her thoughts out loud. Yuno backed away. “Why tell me about that…? Wh-what is the point to this?” “Ah, sorry, maybe I should’ve explained a bit more… Yukiharu was a companion of mine up until a little while ago. He was a visitor and collected several bits of information that could very well topple Aureatia completely. He died in the middle of it all, but…it’s kind of a waste for all that hard work to come to nothing, right? This definitely wasn’t something I could bring up while Enu was around, too.” Yuno had learned the name Yukiharu the Twilight Diver while she was working under Haade. It was said he was acting in secret around the Sixways Exhibition and gathering information from all over the place. What she hadn’t known was that he had died somewhere unbeknownst to anyone, nor that all the information he gathered was hoarded away somewhere. “Sh-shouldn’t you…? Why don’t you just use it for yourself then, Nihilo?” “Sort through all that information to get the most out of it and ingratiate myself in society? You think a revenant like me could do any of that? Gotta be a minia, or it won’t work. That, and they have to be fairly smart, too. That said, someone who seems like they’d have some delightful destructive fun with it would be best of all—I’m sure that would’ve been what Yukiharu wanted.” “…S-something that audacious, I’d never… I’m sure I’d never even go somewhere like that…” “Even if the information revealed who the True Hero was?” “…!” “Tee-hee-hee. That got a nice reaction out of you. Glad I told you.” “…She’s not lying.” Kuuro glared sternly at Nihilo. “What do you think I should do, Kuuro…?” “Don’t try to get me to stop you. With trouble like that, you’re worse off just getting involved at all.” “Don’t believe me if you want; it doesn’t make a difference to me, really. I just wanted to be sure to tell someone.” With this, Nihilo turned on her heels. As if, after staring so hard at Yuno a moment before, she immediately lost all interest. “I’ll be going, then… Sorry for the trouble.” “Nihilo…” Yuno tried to call to her, but Nihilo didn’t turn around. In the once-silent desert, Yuno’s heartbeat seemed to pound in her ears. Yuno was terrified. The True Hero’s identity. A truth that would topple Aureatia. If she wanted to know, she could easily learn for herself something that no one else knew. She felt as if a world-ending bomb had been quietly dropped into her lap. “What do you think…Nihilo plans to do…?” “No clue. Will say that I doubt I’ll ever run into her again.” Yuno the Distant Talon had believed that no matter how much she struggled, when faced with the colossal power to actually make the world turn, her struggle was little more than a flap of a butterfly’s wings. However, over the course of this single quiet night, the krsnik was released into the world on a horrifying rampage. Nihilo the Vortical Stampede had begun to act of her own will. Meanwhile, Yuno was accompanying Kuuro the Cautious, with his omniscience, and Linaris the Obsidian, the wickedest mutant strain of all. “Better think of it as something that doesn’t concern you at all.” Yuno had learned where a truth capable of overthrowing Aureatia was kept hidden. Was there a chance that the things that had happened that night would actually change the world? “The world doesn’t revolve around us,” Kuuro the Cautious spit out, as if resigned to it all. Enu the Distant Mirror and Viga the Clamor walked through the lifeless desert for a while without exchanging a word. The desert region in Aureatia’s Outer Ward was vast, but when compared to the grand swath of land controlled by Aureatia, it wasn’t that big at all. To get from the sunken tower back to the urban areas took only a single night, even without a carriage. The path beneath their feet began to be covered in cobblestones, and they saw more and more homes housing the zmeu of the Outer Ward. The morning was close. The pale-yellow dawn began to leak out from the clouds. “Viga. Next time…” Enu’s eyes squinted in the light. “Next time, I promise I’ll prepare a finer research environment for you. I need you to create the perfect krsnik. No matter how many years it may take.” The krsnik creation wasn’t a project that was just starting for the first time. Enu had used the development facilities in the National Defense Research Institute, while always hiding from the eyes of Aureatia, and spent many months and years on selecting bodies to use as a base, evaluating the virus’s behavior and many other kinds of foundational research. What had caused the project to fail was the supposed final piece of the puzzle. “Linaris the Obsidian is a mutant strain unprecedented throughout all of history. Introducing her into the krsnik’s construction might have had some unexpected effect on it all.” “…No. As I said before…I can’t imagine that’s the case. I didn’t see any indications of a mutation deviating from the standard in the virus’s state post-experiment up until yesterday.” Viga didn’t speak in her usual drawling tone. Though Viga was seen as someone with a completely broken psyche, even she felt pained over the development. “If Linaris did cause the mutation, it would mean that she harbors a virus that’s capable of mutating into something with completely different characteristics without warning. If such a thing was possible, she couldn’t even be called a vampire anymore.” “You’re right. That’s why I trust you more than Kuuro.” “Enu…you don’t think all this wasn’t just a simple failure on my part?” “I don’t.” Enu made an effort not to look at Viga’s expression as she walked behind him. He was walking with his back exposed to her. “What about that I might have actually betrayed you, not Kuuro?” “I don’t think so.” Viga the Clamor was a cruel, broken wretch. Normally, she should’ve been the first person suspected. “We’ve known each other a long time. I…may not have any knowledge on Life Arts, but I know you very well. It’s impossible that you would fail under those conditions,” he said without turning around. Viga the Clamor was born and raised in a village that didn’t even have a name. A hidden village created by a demon king, driven from the Kingdom long, long ago, in order to pursue and pass on their Life Arts and medical knowledge. Awful breeding and refinement using their own blood relations—the genius born as a result of many generations of selective breeding was Viga the Clamor. However, the goal of her clan wasn’t to spread death or to bring ruin to the Kingdom. It was to create a perfect life-form that would bring salvation to a world beyond all help. In a world where the people believed the Wordmaker genuinely existed, they instead sought salvation from an idol of science. Then Viga destroyed the village where she was born and raised—and drew within a hair’s breadth of slaughtering Aureatia. It had all been to stop the spread of the disease known as terror during the age of the True Demon King. Arrested as a criminal, Viga was never given the chance to make use of her gifts. She was wasted as bait to expose the National Defense Research Institute Iriolde had organized in secret. When the National Defense Research Institute was raided, there were orders from Aureatia to eradicate Viga the Clamor along with Yukiharu the Twilight Diver. There wasn’t anyone who trusted Viga the Clamor. She was a monster. “Besides, you never once voiced any complaint toward me or Aureatia.” Enu had betrayed several different organizations, but he had gambled on Viga the Clamor’s genius—and the sincerity of her heart. There wasn’t a single commonality between a bureaucrat who rose to the top of Aureatia’s government and a self-proclaimed demon king born without a single iota of morality, but he believed they had been comrades who shared a single goal. “Enu. I understand that…for you, this may be little more than consolation, but…” Viga opened her mouth with slight trepidation. “The krsnik—Roto the Cross will carry out the objective we wanted to achieve. The body capable of infecting the world with peace, where no one is able to harm each other, is already completed. Her mind is simply broken.” “…I must have really become weakhearted if I’m making a self-proclaimed demon king console me.” Enu flashed a dry smile. He had thought his emotions wouldn’t be affected by anything, but apparently the disparity from what he had hoped was the one thing that still affected him. He had understood from the very beginning this whole project sounded like an empty fantasy. The next chance, or an even better chance, would never come, no matter how many years he waited. “True… Even assuming Roto is this monster who will toy with, and ultimately rob, the lives of several people a day, it’s an all-too-cheap price to pay to maintain world peace… However, what was more significant was that she couldn’t be hostile to the minian races. Someone is bound to try slaying any existence that causes fear in others…” After slipping into the lives of the people, creating a perfect collective, and etching peace within all the people, her life would peacefully run out within a single generation. That was how the salvation given from the krsnik project needed to go. No matter what Roto the Cross accomplished from here on out, Aureatia would need to slay her. “Even if Roto loves them all?” “That’s right. Because no one will believe her.” The reality was Enu understood the truth for himself. Enu the Distant Mirror had made the wrong choice. He feared and suspected Kuuro the Cautious; however he also knew that the leprechaun’s judgment had been sound. Though Kuuro was trying to save Enu’s former master, Linaris the Obsidian, Enu knew that he wouldn’t do anything to run contrary to the loyalty he previously promised. The reason he couldn’t believe him with his whole heart was because Enu thought Kuuro the Cautious was simply different from them. The fear of the strong has been instilled in everyone… The suicidal path Aureatia pursued was no different. Each time they bore witness to the tremendous power of the Sixways Exhibition’s hero candidates, they then believed that these same hero candidates were capable of squashing their world underfoot of their own volition. They hoped that these threats that were guaranteed to one day bring ruin would be annihilated first. Since all the champions brave enough to challenge the True Demon King had ended up that way, without exception. How much better for everyone would it have been if they could all believe that the powerful and strong, so far removed from themselves, in fact, possessed hearts and minds exactly like them…and were simply trying to live correctly, according to their own beliefs? This world wasn’t like that, however. It needed the perfect krsnik. “Viga. Next time…” Enu turned around. He continued, “I know you’ll be able to do it.” There wasn’t a single sign of the woman he had been talking to moments prior. Instead, there was a grotesque oddity of a man, crawling face down on all fours with his long arms and legs. The wickedest spy formation, unable to be detected as they got within arms’ reach, until putting themselves in view. “Wieze the Variation…” The pursuers Kuuro had foreseen weren’t within Aureatia. No matter how hard they had worked to erase their tracks, Obsidian Eyes, each member an unrivaled spy in their own right, had accurately dug up the route Linaris’s kidnapping had taken. The only way to escape from them had been to obey the clairvoyant’s prognostications. “We’ve secured Viga the Clamor. Our comrades will hear what she has to say, our way.” Wieze continued with hatred in his voice. “So you are free to answer however you like here… Enu the Distant Mirror. Where is our mistress?” “Ha-ha…ha-ha-ha-ha.” Enu laughed, expression unchanged. It was comical. Kuuro’s prediction had been correct after all. Enu’s thinking, to believe that he could use his own wits and knowledge of the city to shake any pursuers, had been all too shortsighted and foolish. There had been a safe path available to him. If he hadn’t distrusted Kuuro, been so obsessed with Linaris, and sent Nihilo the Vortical Stampede out to get them, Nihilo could have driven back Obsidian Eyes, were they to show up. He should have trusted that Kuuro, having tormented Enu’s former master, wouldn’t deceive him, and believed in Nihilo’s loyalty after they used her as a decoy. It was so simple that even a child could manage, so why, then, hadn’t Enu been able to? It’s because I’m… To Aureatia. To the National Defense Research Institute. To Obsidian Eyes. To the Gray-Haired Child. A traitor myself. “Why do you laugh?” “Ha-ha-ha-ha. Y-you…you lot are simply too comical. Fettered by your belief in Linaris the Obsidian and constantly tortured by it… Very well, then. I’ll reveal to you exactly where she is.” Enu knew which route Kuuro’s group was heading down. If they hadn’t betrayed Enu, then they would bring Linaris along a different road from Enu and Viga and head toward the rendezvous point. “She’s long dead. She couldn’t handle our experiments. She was never going to survive being separated from Obsidian Eyes; that was obvious.” “…” The silence was long. With the mask covering Wieze’s entire face, Enu couldn’t make out his expression. Finally, he growled in a low whisper. “………There will be a reprisal.” Having killed Obsidian Eyes’s treasured mistress, Enu would likely taste the longest torment possible. If he ultimately revealed the truth at the end of all the torture, then it might prove to be completely meaningless torment at that. Nevertheless, if there was any action he could take to compensate for his distrust toward Kuuro, it was this lie and this lie alone. Since he would never live to see Kuuro again. At some point, the morning sun had risen in the sky. Enu the Distant Mirror’s fortune had run out. Ah right. Roto the Cross, was it? A fine name. Just once… She had undoubtedly awakened. She possessed superb physical abilities and intelligence. The only example, beautiful and strong, of the life-form Enu had desired. …I would’ve liked to see her for myself.