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Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu (Light Novel) - Volume 3, Chapter 4: The World that Began its Awakening Part 2
Volume 3, Chapter 4: The World that Began its Awakening Part 2
This chapter is updated by NovelFree.ml
Imperial Nelpha.
A shadow lurked amidst the darkness.
The shadow held its breath as it hunted its prey. Its movements were perfect, and it had no presence to detect. Nobody noticed its existence. The shadow determined its target and gathered its energy, preparing itself for attack. Its back curved, prepared to strike…
“Ta-dah! It was Iris… wawah!!”
Iris had pounced from the ceiling, fist prepared for a strike, but Ryner caught her arm easily.
“Yeah, yeah. Stop punching me every time you visit already.”
He was already completely used to her.
They were, again, in the dining room of an inn in a Nelphan town. Ryner, sluggish and sleepy as always, didn’t let Iris’ arm go as he chided her.
For some reason, Iris looked awfully despair-stricken. “Aah!? D-don’t touch Iris! If the beast touches me, I’ll—”
But Ryner was used to that, too. He looked pretty tired. “Yeah, yeah. That again, right? Ferris’ spiel she indoctrinated you with about how if you talk to me or touch me, you’ll get pregnant. There’s no way in hell that’d actually happen, so don’t worry about it.”
Iris looked terribly disappointed that he beat her to it. “N-no, that’s wrong! Um, but, uhh, so anyway, it’s like, it’s bad if you touch me!” In the end, she couldn’t think of anything and just puffed her cheeks up at him cutely.
Ryner smiled bitterly. “Yeah, yeah. That is bad.”
Suddenly he felt an unmistakable bloodlust from behind that soon reached his side.
Ryner grimaced and groaned, somehow very tired.
He heard the sharp sound of a sword being unsheathed, and soon it was against his neck. “Hm. You’ve grabbed my sister’s arm—”
“You’re obviously just gonna start talking about how I kidnap and attack toddlers or whatever and knock girls up, right?”
“……”
Ferris took it similarly to Iris: she looked a bored and a little sad, like she was sulking…
Ryner sighed. “Yknow, I kinda feel like I’m getting good at reading your expression through your expressionless. Scary, huh…”
What a thing to say…
“Ah! Sisteeeeeeerrrrrr!” Iris yelled, shooting herself towards Ferris’ chest as always. Ferris dodged her, then caught the collar of her clothes before she could crash into the table behind them.
“You’re back. Did your trip go well?” Ferris asked.
Iris was still hanging from her neck, turning redder and redder as she choked. “Yeah! I wanted to see you so I came as fast as I could!” Iris said in that Iris way of hers, energetic as ever despite being choked.
Ferris nodded, satisfied. “Mm. I was looking forward to the dango from Roland just like always too. That’s all I spend my days looking forward to.”
“Yay! You wanted to see Iris too!”
“Mm. Wynnit Dango’s dango is really the best.”
Iris’ face had gotten as red as it was getting. “Was Iris… a remarkable… child…?”
“Mm.”
“Sister… I love you so much…”
All Ryner could do was stare in mute amazement. Iris lost consciousness, and Ferris just nodded with a “Mm.”
“Whoa, hey, don’t just ‘mm!’” Ryner said, flustered. “She fainted!”
“Mm? Is there something wrong with that?”
“N-no, I wouldn’t say something’s wrong… I’d say everything’s so wrong that I don’t even know where to start, even if I wanna seriously object to it…”
Ferris didn’t look like she understood. “Object? And what would you say? I lulled my cute little sister to sleep, as is normally done. What’s wrong with that?”
“No, see… making someone faint is different from lulling them to sleep…”
“Hehe. Iris used to be unable to sleep for her fear of the dark and often asked me to come to her bed and make her faint,” Ferris said, nostalgic and unconcerned. “If one didn’t sleep properly, they were at risk for losing their life during our daily training, after all. When I was a kid I often had my brother make me faint, too.”
“Wh… what kind of a family is that…”
“Mm? I think we were an extremely normal family… But come to think of it, you don’t have a family. That’s what families are like, you know?”
“There’s no fuckin’ way that’s true!! Ugh, it doesn't even matter if I deny it or not,” Ryner said and sighed. Because she always just ignored his retorts anyway…
Ferris held her fainted sister and pet her head. She looked like she felt pretty good about it. “In any case, it looks like she didn’t get much sleep so she could get here quickly. I have to let her sleep a little.”
“Huh? Really?” Ryner asked, surprised. “You could tell?”
“Mm. Her movements were a bit sluggish. She should be able to move faster than that at her age.”
“…No, no matter how I look at it, that punch was pretty amazing for a ten year old.”
“Hehe. Next time my sister will kill the world’s enemy, the perverted sex maniac, with her punch…”
Ryner yelled.
---
Ryner and Ferris let Iris sleep, chomping down on the dango she brought with, passing time just as sluggishly as before… and then slept.
By the way, the reason Iris was in such a hurry to see them that she didn’t get a wink of sleep was because she had an urgent message from Sion…
Iris woke up the next morning, refreshed. She looked at Ferris, who’d shared a bed with her, and hugged her warm body. “Sister, I love you so much!”
“Mm,” Ferris mumbled and pet Iris’ head…
They lay like that for some time, yawning and getting sleepier and sleepier…
The next time they woke up, it was already noon. “Mm, are you awake, Iris? There’s a special sale on dango. Come with me.”
“Oh, yeah! I’m coming!”
They went to buy dango together and had a dango party.
“Sister, this kind’s so tasty!”
“Mm.”
They went to the dango special sale the next day, too, and had another dango party.
“Sister, I love you so much!!”
“Mm.”
Every day was dazzlingly fun, and they just flew by.
Then Iris suddenly remembered.
Sion had given her an urgent letter to deliver.
“Ah, um, um, see, Iris has, like, this letter for you. Sion said it was super urgent…”
Ferris had been enjoying the height of their dango party. “A letter?”
“Yeah! He said it’s a suuuper important letter! So read it, read it!”
“Hoh. So where is this letter?”
“Huh!? Um, umm, well, ah, right, it’s stuck to the back of a dango box in Iris’ bag!”
Ferris narrowed her eyes. “I already threw those boxes away.”
“Whaat!? W-what should I do?”
“There’s nothing we can do about it. Did he tell you anything about what it was about?”
“Huh? Ummm, right, Sion was like, really worked up about it.”
“Hoh. And?”
“And like, he said the dragon suddenly disappeared.”
“Dragon? Ahh. That pointlessly dangerous dragon. He must have been ordering us to investigate the area, right?”
Iris crossed her arms. “Umm, umm, I just feel like there’s something else he said was important too… hmm.”
Ferris patted Iris’ head kindly. “Don’t worry about it. I’m sure we’ll understand when we get there. I’ll go as soon as possible. Alright, Iris. Let’s find the beast, and then you go back to Sion and tell him we’re headed back to the dragon’s location.
By the way, because of such-and-such difficulties here and there, it was another two days before she departed…
---
The next night.
When the inn’s owner was doing her weekly deep cleaning of the dining room, she noticed a piece of strangely gorgeous stationary in the garbage.
“My, what a beautiful paper. It’s such a waste to just throw it out…”
She took it out of the trash and ran her eyes over it.
I know it sounds unbelievable, but someone killed all the residents of the forest the dragon was born in, and the dragon appears to have disappeared. There’s something dangerous roaming around there. Abandon the relic and don’t go near the forest, no matter what.
“Ahaha. A dragon? Must be a novel or something,” the inn’s proprietress said. “But a novel about a dragon born from the ground sounds pretty boring. And someone killing the residents… if it were me, I’d make the dragon play a lead role. Well, it sounds pretty scary, but I doubt this author sells well,” she said, full of pity, and threw the stationary back in the trash.
Then she promptly forgot everything she just read and went back to cleaning.
---
Two days later and Ryner and Ferris had made some progress along the road to the forest, but not without Ryner’s moaning and groaning.
He sighed. “What a paaain… Y’know, about that dragon, right? We don’t know anything about what it’s made of, but now he says to go investigate it just ‘cause it disappeared. I think he’s full of shit though…”
“……”
“If he’s worried about it, then Sion can come out here and search for it himself. But instead he’s just relaxing in the castle all the time… Bet they’ve got good food… Don’t you think he’s working us too hard, pushing us to go investigate the dragon and stuff?”
Ferris, who’d been walking briskly and with a light step compared to Ryner, turned at that. “Good food? Like dango?”
“…No, there’s probably tons of other delicious stuff there too…”
“Three colors dan—”
“Stop just thinking about dango…”
Ferris looked puzzled. “Hm. You mean to say there’s other delicious food in this world besides dango?”
“Yeah. At least in the world I live in.”
“Hoh. Then what do you like?”
“Me? Hmm, let’s see. What do I like…”
Ryner crossed his arms in thought and looked up at the sky. A refreshing breeze was blowing through the trees, making a little whirring sound as it did. The sun had passed its peak in the sky already and it was pleasantly warm… It was the perfect weather.
Ryner’s brain’s chemistry was wired to react a certain way to that.
Good weather like this meant nap time!
He was gonna nap!
Naps were the best!
“Ah, I… I love napping…”
“Mm? But naps aren’t a food.”
“Well no, they’re not, but my love for them transcends categories. They’re just that amazing.”
For some reason Ferris nodded in satisfaction. “Dango is like that for me.”
They continued to walk while having their strange conversations.
Just like Ryner said, it was truly good weather. The road was empty of other travellers as far as they could see. It was just the birds singing, the bugs chirping, and the wind blowing.
Those sounds were gentle on the ear. “Sure is peaceful~”
“Mm. It’d be quite elegant of us to have tea here.”
“Oh, sounds good. The place that dragon sprouted from is coming up soon. Let’s rest for a minute once we get there. You make delicious tea, after all.”
“Hehe. Obviously. The way of dango is a steep road without mastering tea as well. Now then, shall we have cold tea since the weather is nice?”
They talked like that as they entered the forest, but then…
“……”
When Ryner looked up… he didn’t say a thing.
“…Hm. Impressive,” Ferris said.
“Are those… people?”
“They are.”
“Why’re they in such a tall tree?”
“Tree climbing must be their hobby.”
“There’s no fucking way!” Ryner said. He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again to look at the unbelievable sight. One of the many people had turned into a tree…
No, that wasn’t right.
More precisely, he crashed in the tree with incredible vigour, crumpling his whole body up, then dangled from it…
It was eerie.
Corpse after corpse hung from the trees. Even so, not a single drop of blood had fallen…
“…What’s happening?” Ryner asked, his voice tense.
Ferris didn’t say anything.
Ryner grimaced. “I-it can’t be… that the dragon we spawned—”
“No, thinking about it won’t change anything,” Ferris interrupted. “Let’s investigate the source.”
“…You’re right. Let’s go.”
“Mm.”
They stepped further into the forest where something even worse waited for them.
The corpses weren’t just in the trees. They were rolling on the ground, too…
Men, women, children, the elderly, Nelphan soldiers, even beasts… they were all indiscriminately called to an equal death. Their bodies were cut into two even sides, but there was no blood…
It was unbelievable.
When that many people were killed in cold-blood, one expected the smell of blood to permeate the air. But it didn’t smell at all.
“Why… did this…”
Ferris held her hand up to silence him.
“Huh?”
Ryner followed Ferris’ line of sight to where the dragon had been. There were two people standing still where it had been… two living people.
“Hey, you’re…”
The two turned to look at them, and the short girl spoke. “Ah! You’re Nelpha’s secret investigators!!”
Then the tall man bowed, a weak expression on his face. “I apologize for not contacting you guys for so long…”
They were the two people they’d met at the Nelphan fort around here: Kuu and Sui. If he recalled, Sui said he was an author and that they were travelling here and there to find unusual things to write about…
“What happened—?”
“I wonder what happened here?” Sui asked before Ryner could finish.
“…What’re you guys even doing here?” Ryner asked.
“Oh, listen to this!” Kuu said, the same as always. “Sui heard a rumor that sounded awful fake to me about how a dragon sprouted up here and made it a tourist spot! I said it was definitely fake, but he said we were definitely going and wouldn’t listen to me!”
“But Kuu, you said yourself that you’d like to see the dragon if it’s really there,” Sui said. “And of course a fantasy author such as myself would want to see the dragon…”
“You said you wanted to be a mystery author before!!”
“No, lately I realized that my genius shouldn’t be confined to mystery. The dragon appeared suddenly and sweeps the princess away. Then—”
Kuu squinted at him. “I hope this isn’t the case, but lemme guess: it’s the kinda story where a brave hero stands up and fights against the dragon? Isn’t that a pretty crappy story?”
Sui groaned, despair-stricken and an empty shell of what he once was…
Kuu sighed. She ignored her brother and looked around, grimacing. “Anyway, that’s why we came here but it looks like there’s been some kind of fight. It’s full of bodies. Wonder what happened?”
Ryner shrugged. “That’s about what I was gonna say too.”
He stepped forward towards the place Sui and Kuu were standing. The place where the dragon had been.
But… Ferris grabbed his hand and stopped him.
“What’s up, Ferris?”
Ferris didn’t answer. She just studied the place the dragon had been with sharp eyes…
“Hey, Ferris?”
She didn’t answer him again. It was like she was ignoring him entirely. “Why don’t you explain that?”
“Huh? Explain what?” Ryner asked.
Ferris looked annoyed. “You still haven’t noticed it? What does that aspiring novelist have at his waist?”
“Huh? His waist?” Now that she mentioned it, Ryner looked his way. His eyes narrowed and he continued, tired. “Ah, this is the worst… it’s one of those gadgets…”
He recalled the dagger on sight. It was just a single dagger, made of some unidentified inorganic material. It was the same dagger they’d thrown into the ground that caused the dragon to sprout up.
Sui was smiling pleasantly just like before. “Tsk tsk, I figured you’d notice. This is what you want me to explain, isn’t it?” He had a clearly different air about him from before. He wasn’t the same timid guy from before at all.
Ryner glanced to Sui’s sister next. She’d changed too and was suddenly docile… no, rather than docile, it was more that she’d gone silent. There was something dark about her.
“Did you kill the people laying around here?” Ferris asked. “What happens next depends on your answer,” she said, laying a hand on her sword.
“Whoa,” Sui said. “I was going to answer even if you didn’t threaten me. You two seem like you know a lot anyway. You seem like people who are okay to talk to.”
“Know a lot?” Ryner repeated. “Okay to talk to?”
Sui nodded. “Yes. Ah, but where should I start? Perhaps it’s easier if I say our aim at the fort the other day was the same as yours?”
Ryner narrowed his eyes. “So you’re looking for the Heroic Relics too?”
“Hm? Oh, I see… so that’s what you Rolanders call them,” Sui said. “I see. That describes them perfectly. Let’s call them Heroic Relics, then. We were eavesdropping on your conversation about their whereabouts that day… so…”
Ryner sighed. “So you let us go find the relic for you… right?”
“That’s right. You did us a huge favor to not only find it but also leave it right here for us. I’m very grateful,” Sui said and smiled.
Ryner scowled. “This isn’t something to smile about…”
“Oh, sorry. I shouldn’t smile about using someone.”
“That’s not what I mean!” Ryner said. “You guys killed everyone who saw the dragon to silence them… To keep there from being more people who know about the relics…”
Sui looked surprised. “Huh? You’re mad about that? But you must do it too, right? We all want a monopoly on this strange new power. So when someone finds out, we have no choice but to kill—”
“Shut up!”
“No, it’s too late for that. As I said before, you already know a lot. We’ll have to get rid of you. We told you the situation, so die for us.”
“Get rid… of us? Did you always mean to kill us? Always—”
Ferris pulled Ryner back to her, stopping him. “Hm. I understand the situation. I want you to tell me something before you kill us.”
“What is it?” Sui asked.
Ferris pat Ryner’s back. “Let’s do it. I never back down from an opponent. Prepare yourself.”
Ryner’s eyes narrowed.
“Who are you?” Ferris asked them. “What are you trying to accomplish by gathering the Heroic Relics?”
“Ah, you intend to survive,” Sui said quietly. “So that’s why you want to know…”
“No, there’s no need for me to ask that,” Ferris said. “The truth is that I already know what country you’re from.”
“What!?” Sui said, surprised.
Ryner suddenly unleashed the energy he’d been gathering and ran. As he did, he drew letters in the air. It was a spell he stole from Estabul’s Magical Knights using his special eyes… his Alpha Stigma.
“Hmm,” Sui said. “So Roland’s magic is letters. I know that every country has its own spells, but I’m still surprised every time I see them.”
“I dedicate the words of our contract - give birth to the beast of malice sleeping within the earth!” Ryner said and accelerated the second he finished his spell.
He approached Sui with incredible force… but Sui didn’t move. “Oh, a spell that increases your physical ability. You’re so fast.” He leapt back, then drew numerous intersecting lines. “From the west, from nothing, from battle, from the sun—”
Sui stopped there. He watched Ryner as he approached, his smile from before disappearing altogether…
“Huh? Your eyes… have red pentagrams… shit! You’re an Alpha Stigma bearer!!”
“You’re too late!” Ryner said and drew the same lines Sui had a moment ago, weaving a lattice of light with incredible speed. “From the west, from nothing, from battle, from the sun, I bring forth brilliance.”
“Tch… They can steal spells even if they stop halfway? I didn’t think these Alpha Stigma Cursed Eyes were all that strong before they went berserk, but they’re pretty troublesome…”
Ryner’s spell finished while Sui was talking. It shot a spear of light from its lattice towards Sui. At the same time, Ferris sped past Ryner all the way to Sui’s back where she swung her sword overhead.
“Kuu, are you ready?”
“…I’m good.”
“Then protect us against all of of it.”
“…Yeah.”
A wall of water suddenly gushed up from the ground in front of Ryner. “Huh!?”
The wall destroyed his magic.
And to top it off, Sui’s back was protected from Ferris with the clank of metal hitting metal…
Ryner couldn’t believe his eyes.
Nothing should have been able to stave off Ferris’ sword… at the very least, hardly anything should have been able to do it. And yet here and now, a mere fourteen year old girl had done it…
Kuu.
She’d hardly said a word since a few minutes ago, and now she was suddenly holding a massive scythe even bigger than Ryner was that Ferris’ sword was taking the brunt of.
Then Ferris turned her sword to break their deadlock and tried to attack from another angle, slamming it down with all her might. Sparks flew in the moment the two weapons connected.
“Mm…”
Ferris’ body flew back forcefully. If she’d hit a tree like that, then… she’d meet the same fate as those bodies they saw when they entered the forest… all crumpled up against the trees…
“Augh, shit!” Ryner yelled and leapt forward with incredible force to catch Ferris from the side, their momentum cancelling each other out somewhat. But even then they ended up rolling against the hard ground. Ferris managed to stab her sword into a tree and catch Ryner by the foot and stop them.
“……”
It was an incredibly powerful attack that had far transcended what a human should be able to do.
If Ferris hadn’t been able to anchor her sword into a tree and stop them, and they’d collided with something instead, they would’ve died…
“Th-this is bad,” Ryner mumbled.
Who were these people?
“How long do you plan to be dazzled by my beauty?” Ferris asked from under him. “Are you thinking of attacking me even in a situation like this?”
Ryner looked down at her. He’d ended up holding her down. “Umm… do you really have the time to be cracking those jokes while we’re fighting an enemy as strong as her?” Ryner asked. “Actually, I’d really like it if we did have that kind of leeway…”
“Time?” Ferris said as she stood herself up. “I always have some leeway.”
“Whoa, seriously? How much time are we talking? You think you’re gonna win against them?”
Ferris nodded easily. “Mm. I have the kind of leeway where I would have died if you hadn’t saved me.”
“Oh. What a coincidence. I have about the same amount,” Ryner said. He glared back to where those two were standing a ways away from them.
Sui and Kuu…
No, Kuu was the problem. Sui was well trained, but his abilities were within the scope of Ryner’s expectations. To put it plainly, he was at the level where Ryner could beat him only using Roland’s magic. But Kuu…
Ryner looked to her. Her long hair was pink - a rare color - and her black dress was quite suit-like. She was small, and she always talked way too much and way too loudly in open contrast with her graceful, cold beauty. But she wasn’t talking much at all now. Knowing her, it was awfully conspicuous. She was still holding her grim reaper’s scythe. That scythe was bad news…
Its blade was made of a blue metal that Ryner couldn’t identify, and a winding pattern was drawn down its handle.
It was clearly…
“A relic,” Ferris said. “They’re already putting them to use.”
“Think we can match them?” Ryner asked.
“Do you?”
“…Hmm. I think we’d probably manage if it was the two of us versus just Kuu? I wonder if her scythe improves her physical ability?”
Ferris showed Ryner her sword. It’d been covered here and there with ice.
“…Augh, shit, so it does that too. What legend is that relic from…? I’ve never heard of a weapon like it in any story. And that water wall from before was probably one of that scythe’s abilities too, and so was the lack of blood from the bodies… maybe it froze all their blood when it cut them?”
“Mm. It’s a more dangerous weapon that expected. If it hits my sword too much, it’ll get heavy. And on top of that it lowers the air temperature and makes movement more difficult.”
“Hmm. It’s pretty practical. Okay, so let’s ignore Sui and go for Kuu. I’ll support you with fire magic, and you attack during when you can. How’s that sound?”
“…We don’t have much else of a choice.”
“Oh, well, that’s true,” Ryner said. He again studied their enemy.
“Have you decided on a plan?” Sui asked.
Ryner shrugged. “Yeah, kinda.”
“I’m glad. You’re a valuable Alpha Stigma, so we won’t let you escape. We will crystalize and steal those eyes of yours.”
“Hah? W-w-w-wait. Crystalize? Do you guys know something about my eyes? About the Alpha Stigma?” Ryner asked, flustered.
Sui was a bit surprised to hear that. “Huh? You don’t know anything about Alpha Stigma bearers even though you yourself are one? How about this?” Sui asked and took a little pouch out of his pocket and removed various colorful jewels, holding them up for Ryner to see. “You don’t know about these crystals?”
“…I already said I didn’t, so just tell me!” Ryner yelled. The man before him knew more about Ryner than he himself did… more about his eyes than he did. His eyes, which were feared and loathed by all… his eyes that people called monstrous… his eyes that killed all the people he didn’t want to kill, the people who were important to him…
And this man knew about them.
Ryner glared at him, but Sui just laughed. “Hmm… Kuu, it looks like they don’t know about it.”
“…Yeah.”
“Well, even these Rule Fragments can be found scattered here and there.”
“…Yeah,” Kuu said. It was like all her emotions had gone flat, leaving her so monotonous that she was more like a puppet than a person. She nodded without any interest at all in a way that was different from Ferris. It almost seemed as if her water scythe had frozen all of her emotions…
“Don’t make fun of me,” Ryner said. “I…”
“Calm down, Ryner,” Ferris said. “Let’s leave talk of the Alpha Stigma for later. Right now…”
“I know! But…”
“It’s fine as long as we win. If we can immobilize Kuu, capturing Sui will be simple. I doubt it will be too late to ask him about the Alpha Stigma then.”
“…R, right. I get it. Then let’s go,” Ryner said and made to leap at them.
“Then I’ll show you something interesting,” Sui said. “I’ll show you how to use the relic you abandoned. For substitution types like this, you have to…”
Sui stabbed the relic into his right arm. It immediately began to quiver, and then… roared.
His arm stopped being an arm altogether. A chin sprouted from it then formed sharp fangs, scales, and bright red eyes…
It was a dragon. Sui’s arm had turned into a dragon…
He raised it and the dragon moved with it, setting the surrounding trees on fire.
“This is how it’s really used,” Sui said. “It can burn whatever its user wants to target. Of course, the ground has no will of its own, so when you just leave it there it’s harmless. Now, shall we start? I should probably tell you that I have a weapon even stronger than Kuu’s Scythe of Ailuchrono that I intend to use.”
Ryner and Ferris exchanged a look.
“Shit,” Ryner said, pained. “Then this match is…”
“One we have no chance of winning,” Ferris finished. “Let’s retreat.”
“……”
“Ryner.”
“…I know!”
With that, they ran.
There were countless places to hide in the forest. They could get away.
“I won’t let you escape,” Sui said. I especially won’t let you go, Ryner… now then, shall I crystalize your Alpha Stigma?” Sui asked. He grasped one of the jewels from before, then threw it up into the air. “Resonate.”
Ryner suddenly stopped in place.
“Don’t just stand there,” Ferris said. But instead of moving, he crouched down.
“Ah… uugh… hhr…”
Ryner’s field of vision filled with white clouds. No, not just his vision. His mind itself went blank. Everything… everything was…
“Hey, Ryner. What’s wrong?” Ferris asked. She was approaching him, but even so…
His consciousness began to fade. It faded and faded and faded. He was completely oblivious to the death approaching him from behind.
He couldn’t feel anything anymore. Not the things he found precious, not the things he didn’t give a shit about…
N, no… this is wrong…
It’s what you want. You want everything to disappear.
Ferris turned to Sui and Kuu. “What did you do to Ryner?”
“Haha. I’m just harvesting the fruits of his efforts. I can’t take his crystals if I don’t have him wake up first.”
“Wake up? What?”
“You can’t not know the reason Alpha Stigmas are feared and loathed… They’re insane demons. Abominable mass murderers.”
He could hear their conversation, but that too… didn’t matter…
No, he…
Didn’t… care…
Ryner held his head in his hands. “Uuugh, uwahh, Feh…”
Ryner frantically pressed into his head as it was dyed pure white.
“Fe… Ferris… Run…”
“What?”
“Get away from me… d-don’t look… I’m a mon… ster… I don’t want… to… ki… ll… you…”
His mind cleared of sensations. Cleared and cleared and cleared and cleared.
He could see how all existence was configured, widening his field of vision. It displayed in numerical values, graphs, and patterns.
People would die. But that didn’t matter.
It was time to end things. End everything.
He’d be free and do whatever he wanted. He’d open it and kill everything.
He wouldn’t stop until everything he could see with his eyes was gone.
“Ah, aaahh.”
It was a voice that poured from him without a conscious thought to direct it. But what of it? Nothing mattered anymore. He was only faintly aware of what was happening.
Disappear, everything.
Whether people lived or died… it was all such a pain.
“Ah, aaaaaaaaahahahahahahahaahaha!” Ryner laughed. It was a mad sound.
“Bearer confirmed to be berserk,” Sui said calmly. “He’s awakened.”
“What did you guys do to him?” Ferris asked.
Sui smiled. “Ryner doesn’t exist anymore. Once an Alpha Stigma bearer has gone berserk and lost their humanity, it never comes back. They can’t go back to the way they were before. They can only destroy everything in their path… We kill them and excavate their crystals before then, though.”
Ryner’s eyes suddenly opened wide, a crimson pentagram at their centers. Another crimson pentagram. Another.
It wasn’t just one. They multiplied inside his eyes, and then one shot from them. Towards Sui.
“That won’t work on me,” Sui said. “I’ve hunted Alpha Stigmas time and time again. That’s the power of my Rule Fragments… and the godly power of Elemio’s Comb, which renders you ineffective,” Sui said and removed the ornamental comb from his hair. When he swung it, it shot an intense shockwave towards Ryner. “Huh…?”
The shockwave was absorbed, and the pentagram continued along its path, sticking itself to Sui’s comb.
A voice descended upon him from the heavens. “Analyzing matter. Cancel. Disappear, worm.”
The comb disappeared. It wasn’t just the comb, either. Sui’s right arm gradually turned to sand… and disappeared.
“W-what…? Uugh, aaaaaahh!!” Sui screamed. He turned his right shoulder to his mouth and tried to bite it off as it turned to sand and faded. “Gah… uugh,” Sui groaned and fell to his knees.
“Sui,” Kuu said in a doll-like, emotionless voice. “Are you… alive?”
“Y-yeah, I’m alive. I’ve cauterized the wound to stop the bleeding too… but…” Sui looked up at Ryner with a face full of fear. “Wh-what’s with him? He isn’t a normal Alpha Stigma bearer, is he? That power… and that voice. What in the world was talking!? It was like it was someone else entirely…”
The voice again descended on him. “You mean to kill me? Kill me with your current power? With items such as Elemio’s? You are nothing but a worm crawling on the ground. Ha, hahaha, hahahahaha. Disappear. disappear. DISAPPEAR. Everything is nothing. Idle. Return to nothing.”
Ryner raised his hand and affixed a magic circle to it from his eye.
“R-run, Kuu!” Sui yelled. “Th-that isn’t an Alpha Stigma bearer! It’s—”
Kuu grabbed Sui in her arms, and shot off with inhuman speed before he could finish.
Not a moment later, the ground they’d just been standing on disappeared without a trace, like it’d never been there from the beginning. The trees, the earth, the atmosphere itself…
It was an amazing power.
“No matter where you run to, everything will still turn into nothing. In the beginning, there was destruction. We didn’t create, bless, or save. We just erased until everything was pure white.”
And so the destruction began.
Pentagrams scattered across the forest. The world disappeared with them.
The forest, the earth, and the bodies all disappeared without a trace…
But.
Ferris gazed at Ryner in the midst of it.
She made no move to escape, and she’d sheathed her sword. She just stared at him. Stared as he continued to scatter destruction across the world.
“Hey. What are you?” Ferris asked the berserk monster.
Ryner turned to face her, and that voice from before crashed down on her. “Ha, hahah. A god. A demon. An evil god. A hero. A monster. What did you guys call me? What was I called? Hahahah. Call me whatever you’d like. You’ll just disappear anyway.”
He raised his arm, and that great power of his - the pentagram - faced her way.
If he shot it at her, then that was the end. It was the kind of power that one couldn’t escape or fight back against. Ferris wasn’t going out of her way to guard against it. She just watched. Stared. “Hm. Sui was surprised and said that you weren’t an ordinary Alpha Stigma bearer, but it looks like isn’t worth much.”
The pentagram fired.
Ferris conceded and dodged. The second after she made it out of the way, the spot she’d been in disappeared. “That’s right,” she said. “You aren’t just any Alpha Stigma bearer. I in particular understand that. “You aren’t a monster. You’re far worse than that: a legendarily perverted man. On top of being a sex maniac, you’re lazy, good-for-nothing blockhead.”
Another pentagram shot at her. They shot in other directions too, scattering random destruction where they could…
Ferris would absolutely certainly die if she remained here. Even so, she didn’t run. She didn’t try to put any distance between herself and Ryner. She just stared. “I never mentioned it, but Sion showed me the first page of your report. So I read it. If I remember, you said something like this: ‘I hate it when people die. I also hate killing. I hate crying and I hate being made to cry. What’s the feeling called when you know you can’t choose your life? When your family dies? What about when the person you love dies?’”
She dodged another pentagram then continued to speak, unconcerned. “I thought the author was an idiot when I read it. You hate it when people die? People are just something that dies. You hate killing? Where one person lives, another dies. You think everything’s a pain, you’re lazy, and you’re timid. A coward…”
Ferris dodged another pentagram. “I thought I’d have no problem killing someone like that.” She dodged another pentagram, then looked Ryner straight in the eyes. “Hey, Ryner… You wanted to move forward, right? You hated being called a monster, right? You hated killing, right? I’ve already dodged five of your attacks, but I won’t dodge the next one. After that, you need to make a decision. I don’t think you’re a monster. Okay? You aren’t a monster. You’re my ally, my slave, and my friend who I drink tea with. You’re nothing like a monster. Can you hear me, Ryner?”
As if reacting to Ferris’ voice, Ryner raised an arm. He pointed the palm he’d fixed a crimson pentagram on at her…
Ferris just stared. She didn’t make another move. Just stared right at him.
And then she yelled, unbelievably loud. “Can you hear me? Ryneeer!!”
Ryner’s hand trembled. His whole body trembled.
The voice descended again, this time pained. “What are you—”
Ryner’s mouth opened. He too sounded pained, but like himself. “Sh.. it… s, shut up… Your turn’s… already over… Sorry, Ferris… but could you close my eyes…?”
Ferris smiled sincerely and closed the distance between them.
She closed his eyes and he collapsed to the ground, his bones creaking. He was seeped of all his power, left unable to say anything at all now.
Ferris didn’t say anything either.
The sun was already descending along the sky. Normally a forest would be dark around this time because the trees blocked the sun, but every one of those trees had been destroyed. So it was really quite bright.
“I was really… gonna kill you,” Ryner said as he lay on the ground. “Haha. This is what I am. A monster feared and loathed by all… a monster that can just kill. I don’t wanna kill anyone I know anymore, so let’s end our travels here. Go back to Roland. I’m sure Sion won’t complain if you tell him why.”
She didn’t reply.
He didn’t feel her presence either…
“Hey, did you leave?” Ryner asked and raised his head. As soon as he did, a foot stepped on him and pushed him back into the ground.
“Hey!! What’re you… gyaaah!!”
Ferris crushed his head with her foot. “A monster that can just kill? Did you kill anyone just now?”
“Huh? No, but that was just by chance. I was gonna kill y—”
“I won’t die. You shouldn’t be able to kill me even if you really intended to. That pentagram sneezing nuisance from before acted like he was ignoring me entirely. Basically, you’re a coward incapable of killing a lone woman. You call that a monster? Don’t make me laugh.”
“B-but—”
“I’ll say it one more time. Someone like you cannot kill me. If you try to complain again I’ll slice your head off.”
Ryner heard her unsheathe her sword. “Whoa, don’t you think that’s getting kinda serious!?” He asked, panicked.
“Naturally. I have to show you that I could kill you.”
“You don’t gotta show me that!” Ryner yelled just like always. And then he smiled a little at how he could act like he always did even now.
“Hm. Then shall I make some cold tea?”
“…Oh, that sounds good… But I dunno about drinking it in the middle of the forest,” Ryner teased and stood.
“Cold tea can be had anywhere,” Ferris said and walked off.
Ryner caught up sluggishly. “Heeyy, wait for me. No need to rush. See, I’m real tired—”
“Ryner.”
“Mm?” Ryner said and looked up.
Ferris didn’t turn around. She was silent for a long while before she finally spoke. “I’m glad you’re back.”
Ryner was quiet for a moment, scratching his head slowly before replying. “Yeah. I’m back.”
