3
Omen, first laboratory.
Underground, in the hallway that faced the emergency shelter, a three-fold cacophony of sound swept through the space like a storm.
Every minute there was a barrage of several thousand bullets.
Then there was the crumble of ceiling and dust rising up as each piece of rubble rammed into the ground.
And finally, there was the witch Vichyssoise’s beguiling laugh.
“Ah-ha-ha-ha! This is epic! If you keep shooting bullets at me, I’ll be full of holes soon!”
“Ugh, this is such a chore…”
A spent cartridge clattered to the ground.
As Mei, the Saint Disciple of the third seat, glared at the floating witch engulfed in violet flames, she muttered with deep-seated irritation.
Countless bullet holes scarred the walls.
However… Vichyssoise was unharmed despite having been their target.
The bullets had gone straight through her.
“Hey, Saint Disciple, I’ve never seen anything like that before. Is it one of the Imperial forces’ latest and greatest weapons? Or is it a special piece made just for you?”
“No idea. Ask the R&D department.”
Mei carried a Gatling gun. It was a thirty-sixth electronic-control autocannon—the Ruined King Hurricane.
The gun could discharge a whopping thousand rounds a second working at maximum capacity, showering the target with a storm of bullets, just as its name implied. No astral power had been able to perfectly intercept the barrage.
However…
The weapon had been made to be used against humans.
The developers hadn’t made it to take on a monster.
“What’s your body made of? Are the bullets going straight through you?”
“That’s right. Doesn’t matter if you shoot me tens of thousands of times, either. Just give it a rest and let me turn you into ash.”
An ember roared into existence.
As it rotated on the witch’s palm, it grew large enough to swallow an entire person. As Mei watched that, she tsked and retreated.
She was in a corridor on a basement floor.
It was too narrow to avoid the attack.
Fwoom!
The astral flame surged up and licked the ceiling, melting it right before Mei’s eyes. Several hundred kilos of rubble rained down over Mei’s head.
“Ugh, this is BS! You’re not even gonna try hitting me with that.”
“You’ll dodge it anyway.”
The witch floating in the air squinted as though bemused even by Mei’s disparagement.
“I hate it, but I’ve learned my lesson. You Saint Disciples are stubborn and tenacious. Anyway, I never planned to fight any Imperial forces anyway.”
“Then get lost. And stop bringing down the ceiling. It’s annoying.”
“All right. After I finish burying this entire floor!”
Another flame lit in Vichyssoise’s palm.
As it grazed the walls, Vichyssoise’s eyes slowly roamed around as well, as though she were looking for something.
“I’ll bury this floor. I’ll put the stairs and elevators and any emergency exits you have under rubble. That’s good enough. I just need to make sure you can’t get through.”
“That’s a real convoluted way of getting what you want. You’re putting in an awful lot of effort just to steal some research materials on the calamity.”
“It’s what the Hydra’s interim head wants. So all I can do is follo—”
Clatter.
Mei was near a pile of rubble about two meters high. When she sensed a small fragment of the rubble fly off, the witch Vichyssoise opened her eyes wide.
“Vichyssoise!”
“Ah-ha-ha! I knew it, Isk!”
The pile of rubble erupted and scattered.
Iska burst out the rubble swinging his black astral sword. He grazed the witch’s skin but ultimately swiped through air.
“I went through all that work catching you by surprise to bury you in that rubble, but you just really won’t die!”
“This is the third time.”
Iska wiped the red liquid running down his forehead and glared at the witch above him.
“Don’t think I’m going to just chat with you. Get down here.”
“You want to finish this once and for all? Don’t think I’m going to play along. I told you I’m just here to buy time.”
Iska and the witch were five meters apart.
Normally it would just take him one leap. He could have gotten close enough to strike her in an instant, but the piles of rubble in the corridor were in the way.
On top of that, her violet flames continued to burn along the walls and ceiling.
……It’s like she doesn’t plan to attack.
……She’s not playing a leading role. Is she really just here to buy time for Mizerhyby?
This was the basement.
The central stairs and elevators leading to the first floor had all collapsed. And the witch was barring them from the remaining emergency stairs.
But why?
Why was Vichyssoise being so haughty?
……Does she really mean all she has to do is buy time? Really?
……But Alice and Kissing are headed to Mizerhyby.
There was a difference in battle power.
Mizerhyby’s Glory excelled in pitting one person against multiple people, but he doubted she could handle both the other princesses.
……No, think about it from the other angle.
……What if, in this situation, Mizerhyby really thinks she has the advantage?
How would she obtain the advantage, though?
“Wait, no!”
The moment he thought of the possibility, a chill seemed to strike his head and go through the rest of his body.
The answer was right in front of him.
Vichyssoise herself was an example of what they were buying time for.
“Ms. Mei!” Iska yelled at the Saint Disciple behind him.
He pointed at the witch floating in midair.
“Mizerhyby is trying to become a witch herself!”
“Wow…!”
“Tsk…”
Mei reacted with admiration, while the witch clucked her tongue.
Her carefree, intrepid mask now gone, Vichyssoise stopped smiling. Her gaze turned cold as her face fell and stopped showing emotion.
“You idiots. You really are idiots.”
Vichyssoise floated all the way up to the ceiling and spread her arms.
An uncountable number of sparks followed her.
“I said this was your birdcage. If you only hadn’t noticed, I would’ve been happy to watch over you. I’ll just tell you that I won’t let you esca—”
“Move.”
He didn’t intend to wait even a second longer.
If Mizerhyby got her hands on the power of the calamity, he could easily imagine her transforming into something like Vichyssoise or Kelvina.
……No, but…there’s also the one in a million chance.
……What if she transforms into a monster among monsters, like Elletear?
They wouldn’t be able to touch her.
If Alice and Kissing could take the calamity’s power from her, Mizerhyby could turn into a monster of unprecedented proportions.
“Violet Asteroid.”
A violet fireball formed, swelling to fill the corridor.
He couldn’t dodge this. However…
“You think you can cut it with the astral sword? I already know that!”
Vichyssoise raised both her hands.
Instead of heading to Iska or Mei, the fireball launched into the hole-filled ceiling.
The concrete wall that was already near collapsing, having been liquefied by the heat of the violet fireball. Once it could no longer hold its own weight, it groaned and crumbled.
“Are you trying to start a cave-in?!”
A sword, even the astral swords, couldn’t handle that.
The concrete from the ceiling had to weigh several hundred tons. If that came down, he wouldn’t be able to cut through it. In that case…
“Ms. Mei.”
“Ruined King Hurricane, start.”
Iska and Mei went on the move at the same time.
Iska ran straight for the rubble while Mei told him, “Keep low, unless you wanna lose your head.”
The gun that had been made for a warship could shoot one thousand rounds per second.
The Ruined King Hurricane groaned, then immediately produced a storm of black bullets that zipped past Iska’s head and blew away anything in his path.
The hundreds of kilos of rubble were broken down into particles of sand.
The liquefied concrete was blasted away.
It even instantly blew away any stagnant smoke.
His vision cleared.
Nothing was in his way now. Iska gripped his astral swords as he leaped from the ground. In that moment, he saw a small dot darker than the night in front of him.
“Ultimate canon—Corpse Magic Bullet.”
Vichyssoise created a sphere of darkness that emitted no light between her hands.
“Uh? Hey, what is that?!”
As Mei narrowed her eyes, puzzled as to what was going on, Iska gritted his back teeth.
This was bad.
He knew what this was. That black sphere was a miniature black hole.
Crack.
From Iska’s feet—or rather, from all over the corridor—small bits of concrete flew through the air into the black hole.
“So this is what you did that for!”
Vichyssoise had lied about buying time.
The reason why she had been so elusive as she destroyed the walls and ceiling was so she could collect materials for the black hole.
“Allow me to answer you, Isk,” Vichyssoise said as she gathered everything she needed to set up her Corpse Magic Bullet.
She took the pieces of concrete and the security cameras that had been set up on the ceiling, even the air ducts along the walls.
She would gather everything around her, press it together, and make a massive bullet of multiple tons.
“This is this third time. Why don’t you finally die already?!”
Iska knew he couldn’t stop the process.
So what would he do? He had nowhere to run when he was in the middle of the corridor.
Could he cut through the wall and hide in the crack? Or maybe grab the exposed electric wires hanging from the ceiling?
No, then she would aim at him, and he wouldn’t be able to escape.
“Now, Isk…”
“Iska Big Bro?!”
He heard a shrill voice right between him and Mei.
Nene had likely heard the destruction from the shelter and come running out the door. She turned pale when she looked up into the air.
She also knew about the Corpse Magic Bullet.
Nene had faced against her at the Lou’s villa.
That was why Iska, Mei, and even Vichyssoise herself were all shocked by Nene’s instant reaction.
“Move aside, Iska Big Bro!”
Nene pulled out her forces-issued gun and dashed into the corridor.
Her only weapon was this measly handgun. Even if she successfully shot it, she was far away from the Corpse Magic Bullet and her gun’s bullet would just go straight through Vichyssoise’s body.
It was meaningless.
“Nene?!”
“Move! You’re in the way!”
“Ah-ha-ha-ha! You can’t be serious! Is this some sort of joke that’s popular in the Empire?!”
She was met with a surprised exclamation, an angry bellow, and derisive laughter.
All three of them had given her different reactions, but Nene also declared, “I belong to Special Division I, unit 907.”
Her eyes were like clear water in the winter. She was calm.
“So I know,” she said.
A gunshot fired.
That unreliable-looking bullet sped past the Corpse Magic Bullet and grazed Vichyssoise’s neck before flying into the wall behind the witch.
“What?”
Vichyssoise opened her eyes wide.
She seemed disappointed and also close to laughing.
“You can’t even hit me when I’m standing still? I was kind of excited about what would happen, but there’s really nothing to this?”
“…”
“You said you knew something or whatever. What do you know?”
“I’ve seen something like this in Kelvina’s lab,” Nene said. The redheaded girl lowered her gun. “This is the astral power research organization, Omen. It’s where they research astral energy they draw up from underground.”
“What? But—”
Vichyssoise’s scornful smile froze.
She finally realized what had happened. Some type of glittering mist was seeping into the corridor from a gigantic duct behind her.
This is an underground floor.
The astral energy that’s drawn up has to go through the ducts here.
Nene had shot at the wall.
What if she hadn’t missed but had been exactly on target?
“No?!”
At the same time Vichyssoise turned around, the glittering astral energy began to flood the corridor from the hole in the duct.
“Ahhh!”
In the past, when Kelvina had used the power of the calamity to transform into a malevolent angel, she had said this:
“Astral energy, which doesn’t have adverse effects on humans, is like poison to me.”
“My body is rejecting it.”
There was a crash as more rubble fell to the ground.
Another piece fell, then another.
The Corpse Magic Bullet began to break apart in midair.
Because the force keeping the rubble together had disappeared, it was all falling to the ground. Behind the cacophony of the falling rubble, Vichyssoise was silent.
“…”
She had fallen to the ground, unable to even get up.
The vast amount of astral energy was like poison to her.
“An Imperial…ha-ha…used astral power?! That’s not even funny…”
Lying face up on the ground, she weakly breathed out.
She probably couldn’t even move a finger. Moving just her lips and eyes seemed to take all of her power. Vichyssoise glared at Nene as though she wanted to shoot her.
“The astral powers…are ours, the astral mages’… They’re not for…Imperials to use…”
“That might be so,” Nene responded sincerely, “but you’re the one who abandoned the astral powers.”
“Huh?!”
Yes.
Vichyssoise was an astral mage who had abandoned the astral powers after being tempted by the calamity’s power.
But an Imperial had used astral power as her secret weapon.
The astral powers had smiled upon the latter.
After a long, long silence…
“Right…” Vichyssoise’s voice was surprisingly soft.
It was almost as though she had been released and had transformed from a witch back into a girl.
“I hate…losing to an Imperial… But if this is my punishment from the astral powers…then so be it…”
At the same time, the other battle was also reaching its conclusion.
Like a thread holding her up had snapped, the princess of the Hydra, Mizerhyby, and her guards all fell to their knees.
“…How…could…?”
Mizerhyby fell forward.
Before her enraged gaze was the Lou princess, who was out of breath.
“That most certainly was a tantrum, Mizerhyby…,” Alice said in a half-exasperated tone as she wiped away the sweat that dripped off her like a waterfall.
Her face was darkened from soot. Her fingertips had been lightly singed by flame astral power.
“I would like an apology and recompense,” said Kissing, the Zoa princess.
Her glossy hair was in disarray from the strong winds, and her royal garb was also tattered.
A war of attrition.
Or perhaps it would be more accurate to call it a battle to squash your opponent.
Mizerhyby had used her Legion of Dawn in order to launch an all-out attack.
They had used all sorts of astral powers in succession that had been strengthened until they were as powerful as those of a purebred type. Alice and Kissing fought as though their lives depended on it.
“You’ve fallen and we’re now the ones looking down on you. So you realize who the winners are, right?” Alice declared as she held herself up against a wall.
She couldn’t stop sweating or feeling cold.
Though she always required a skilled retinue of subordinates to be with her, Mizerhyby’s Glory astral power and her legion were that much of a threat.
“I knew your astral power was a joke, but you ran out of energy rather quickly after pouring it all into other people.”
“Shut…up …!”
“Why bother glaring at me like that when you can’t even move?”
Alice took a step, then another.
She cautiously walked over to Mizerhyby, then bent forward and grabbed Mizerhyby’s hand, which held the ampoules.
“Stoppp!” Mizerhyby bellowed.
Though she couldn’t get up, her eyes were bloodshot as she gripped her own wrist with absurd vigor to pull back her hand.
“Mizerhyby…you still haven’t given up?!”
“Don’t…get in my way… I need…this power…!”
She had no grace or dignity.
Mizerhyby had cast aside all the qualities of a princess in order to cling to the ampoules.
“Mizerhyby, why do you want them so badly?!”
“Why?! Hah! How can you say that after knowing what kind of monster your own sister has become?!”
“Guh.”
When Mizerhyby had mentioned Elletear, she had eloquently revealed her motive.
Mizerhyby wanted power that could surpass Elletear’s. That was why she had sought the power of the calamity.
……I see.
……Then I won’t make light of your resolve at least.
Mizerhyby shuddered.
Now she was probably fully out of energy. Alice watched the ampoules slide out of the unconscious princess’s hand, then turned to Kissing.
“We’ll inform the Imperial forces aboveground that we’ll hand off the Hydra princess to them.”
Omen, first laboratory, outside of storage facility.
By the time Alice arrived outside with the ampoules, the Imperial soldiers were armed and waiting.
“As you can see…”
Mizerhyby was being taken away by stretcher.
She was restrained with anti-astral power handcuffs. Even without them, she wouldn’t have been able to use her powers in her current state of exhaustion.
“As promised, I’ll leave the Hydra princess with you.”
“Thank you for your cooperation.”
The Imperial commander gestured at the tent with a jerk of his head.
“The medic team is waiting. Chief Newton likely needs treatment, but you probably do, too.”
“It’s just a scrape. Just to be sure, though… Mizerhyby is to be treated as a witness, as promised from the start. She is not to be tortured, and you are not to be violent with her.”
Once Alice had said this to the strategy commander, she took a look around the storage facility.
She saw no sign of Rin or Iska.
From what she had heard over the comms, the shelter rescue would take a bit more time.
“Kissing, would you prefer to return to the headquarters tent or stay on the lawn and wait for Rin and the others?”
“I will wait here.”
A breeze made her black hair flutter.
“It would be better if Iska was already back, but I don’t feel comfortable waiting in a tent full of Imperial soldiers.”
“So that’s what you mean…”
The breeze made Alice’s wounds sting.
She couldn’t count all the scrapes on her face, the burns on her hands, and the small cuts covering her body, but in that moment, she could feel each one throbbing.
……I can’t begrudge her.
……Mizerhyby attacked this place with the motive of winning against my sister.
She hadn’t been able to stop Elletear.
Alice couldn’t avert her eyes from such a regret.
“Aliceliese.” Kissing pointed far across the lawn. “The Imperial soldiers are moving rather oddly.”
“What?”
“What do you think that truck is? It doesn’t seem to be from the facilities.”
A large truck had been left out on the lawn.
Since it had been left at the facility, Alice thought it might have been some sort of delivery vehicle they used.
“Do you think it’s a shipping container?”
The rear doors of the truck were opened, and the soldiers worked as a group to pull the metal container out.
“I wonder what’s in that gigantic thing…?”
“Wait…” Kissing narrowed her eyes. “Something strange is inside of it.”
“What?”
“I sense something frightening and awful. Something much worse than even being surrounded by ten thousand Imperial soldiers…”
Crack. Crunch…
Right before the soldiers’ eyes, the metal container began to warp. It collapsed inward, creating a opening, from which pitch-black gas flowed out.
“What?!”
“That isn’t smoke! It’s some kind of energy!” Kissing reflexively moved back.
As though in response, a hand reached out from the container. It started to tear apart the sturdy metal like it was tearing apart paper.
“You!” Alice yelled as loudly as she could at the soldiers surrounding the container. She squeezed her voice from her parched throat.
She had no duty to save them.
But nevertheless…
“All of you, get down! I’ll handle this!”
Alice had yelled on instinct. She knew that whatever was in the container was a greater enemy than even the concept of the strife between the Sovereignty and the Empire.
“Careful!”
“Something’s coming out of it! Everyone, take position!”
The soldiers readied their guns.
Alice and Kissing gulped as they watched.
“Why, my dear Alice. And how lovely to see you after so long as well, Kissing.”
A large man in a stylish white suit crawled out of the gap in the container.
It was the Hydra’s head of house, Talisman.
He sported what should have been his familiar merry smile.
However, the left side of his face was covered in black fibers and his eye was twice its usual size.
“Eep?!” Kissing shrieked.
After seeing his repulsive transformation and the dark currents that flowed from his whole body that were so similar to Elletear’s, like Alice, Kissing had likely realized everything.
“Lord Talisman. You didn’t…”
“I have attained it. Now…”
His enlarged eye swiveled around, glinting as it moved, as though it were an entirely different organism.
“What a good girl you are. Hand over those ampoules to me.”
Alice had witnessed not the true witch Elletear, but a true sorcerer.
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