Monster no Goshujin-sama - Volume 15 - Chapter 11

Chapter 11: What Mustn’t Be Lost

Harrison’s assault using the world itself was a terrifying thing. Resisting was all I could do at this point. Still, giving up wasn’t an option. I continued looking for an opening to counterattack. I obstinately stretched out my torn threads of mana, clenching my teeth at the ever-increasing burden as I did everything I could to prevent us from being crushed. I was acting out of sheer desperation. That was why the change in the situation seemed so abrupt.

“Huh...?”

The presence of the enemy I’d been so fiercely clashing with was suddenly gone. The command to crush the room we were occupying had been severed.

“What happened?” Salvia said, bewildered as she sensed the same thing.

Even as we talked, the crumbling ceiling repaired itself. This was the result of our threads taking complete control. It didn’t look as though it was collapsing at all anymore. The excessive convenience of the situation left me dumbfounded for a moment.

“H-Hey, what’s wrong, Majima?” Shimazu asked, holding Ayame in her arms.

“The enemy interference is gone,” I said, not quite knowing how to explain it.

“Gone? Why?”

“I don’t know. Please wait a moment.”

I didn’t have a grasp of the situation, but the resistance had definitely dissipated. I stretched out my threads of corruption and spread my perception through the world toward the room where the enemy was supposed to be gathered.

“What the...?”

What I found was a disaster. Ominous red smears dyed the stone floor of the vast room. Remnants of what had once been people were scattered here and there. The sight was enough for me to hallucinate the putrid smell of death within. The altar Harrison was supposed to be standing on had collapsed completely without leaving a shadow of its former presence. In its stead, a monster towered in the center of the room.

“A black monster...?” Salvia muttered, seeing the same thing.

Her voice trembled with evident fear. The monster’s dreadful aura was simply that overwhelming. However, at the same time, the sight of it standing there all on its own seemed somehow melancholic.

“Did that monster do them all in...?” I muttered in a daze, then noticed something important. “Katou! What about Katou?!”

Back when I stretched my senses to Harrison’s area earlier, I’d felt Katou’s presence there too. What had happened to her in this calamity? Blood drained from my face.

“Where is she?!”

I immediately scanned the whole area, then felt slight relief.

“She’s not here...”

“Looks like,” Salvia agreed.

Even after picking through the carnage, Katou was nowhere to be seen. I couldn’t be at ease until I confirmed where she was, but at the very least, she definitely hadn’t died here.

“Hey Takahiro, what happened?” Mikihiko asked. “I can guess you’re using the Misty Lodge to perceive the space Harrison is in, but other than that I’ve got no clue what’s going on. Talk in a way that makes sense to us too.”

“R-Right. Not that there’s a whole lot we know either...” I had no objections to talking. On the contrary, Mikihiko’s opinion as the one who knew the enemy’s situation best was valuable. “It looks like Harrison’s group was attacked by a monster. I’ve never seen it before. Also, it looks terrifyingly strong. It killed pretty much everyone who was there in only a short time. Mikihiko, you have any ideas?”

“A monster that can kill that group that quickly...? No. None.”

“I see. Honestly, I figured it’s their hidden ace.”

“If they were hiding it from me too, then I’ve got no way of knowing. So? You mentioned something about Katou?”

“Until earlier, she was in the same room as Harrison, but now she’s not. That said, it doesn’t look like she was killed in there either. Where did she go...?”

A fairly wide region of this world was already under my control, but there was a limit to how much of it I could perceive at once.

“If she was taken away somewhere, I’ve gotta search for her... With no clues, however, it’ll take some time,” I said, gritting my teeth.

“About that, Takahiro,” Mikihiko said, sitting upright on the ground. “I might be able to help.”

“How?”

He hadn’t received any treatment yet, so he had to be hurting. Still, he pulled something out of his pocket and showed it to me.

“I figure I should give you this,” he said.

“This is...a teleportation runestone?”

He handed me a familiar violet jewel. I stared back at him, still unable to understand.

“Katou has the other one,” he said. “To be precise, I put it on her when she was unconscious.”

“Mikihiko...”

“With this, you should be able to go to her side.”

He’d taken every precaution. He’d been ready to die, so this had to have been his way of making amends. There was nothing more reassuring to have at this point, but Mikihiko’s expression remained grim.

“This was something I originally set up to get Katou out. I had a conspirator, you see, and told her to find the right time to use it. The plan was to send her here right away after I lost...”

“Meaning something happened.”

“Probably,” Mikihiko agreed, pointing at the teleportation runestone. “I’m pretty sure you know, but that thing only works once. We don’t know where Katou went. No matter what happens on the other side, you won’t be able to come back by using it again.”

“I know,” I said, nodding. “Even so, I have to go save her.”

“Okay, guess I didn’t need to say anything.”

I didn’t hesitate. If something happened, I couldn’t possibly leave Katou alone. Steeling myself, I gripped the runestone tightly. However, just then, a voice cut in to put a damper on the situation.

“About that, I’m pretty sure it’ll be fine,” Kudou said, looking at me with a gloomy expression.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Kudou? What’re you talking about?” I asked.

Unlike usual, Kudou wasn’t hiding behind a smile. His dark expression simply gave off a reluctant air.

“Even if you use that runestone, I think you’ll be safe,” he answered. “Without a doubt, it’ll teleport you to the room Harrison was in.”

I still didn’t understand what he was implying.

“Hey, Kudou, what’re you saying?” Mikihiko said, furrowing his brow. “According to Takahiro, Katou isn’t there. Besides, even if he does get teleported there, that monster who beat Harrison is. Doesn’t that make it even more dangerous?”

“No. It shouldn’t be dangerous at all. At the very least, it won’t be to Majima-senpai.” Kudou’s tone remained dispassionate. It was as if he was pushing aside all emotions and simply conveying the truth. “Try and give it some thought. Isn’t it strange for Harrison’s group to so conveniently be annihilated in this situation? The timing was far too fortuitous, and a monster strong enough to kill them all in an instant is beyond abnormal. At the very least, it would have to be on the level of the Mad Beast or the Dragon...or maybe even beyond them. Beings like that don’t just pop out of nowhere.”

“You’re not making any—”

“Hang on, Mikihiko,” I said, cutting into their conversation.

My voice had turned stiff without my knowing it. That was because I realized why Kudou had specifically compared the monster to the Mad Beast and the Dragon. Maybe I’d recognized the possibility somewhere in my head already. The reason I hadn’t consciously focused on it was because it was far too hard to accept. Still, I had to confirm the possibility.

“Kudou,” I said heavily. “Are you saying that monster is Katou?”

Considering the timing, that would in fact be a natural conclusion. A girl turning into a monster was an impossible phenomenon, but different rules applied to visitors. My days in this world had seared that lesson into my heart, more than I’d ever wanted.

“Wha...?! Katou turned into a monster?!” Mikihiko yelled in shock.

Saying it aloud only made me more confident in Kudou’s suspicions. If she did in fact possess such power, Katou would do it. If there was something she could do, and there was a need to do it, she would never hesitate.

I suddenly recalled what Kudou had once told Katou.

“You’re similar to me. This includes your weakness and your self-destructive disposition. I’ll declare it here and now. When your ability manifests, a horrible thing is sure to happen.”

If that monster was Katou, it meant her ability had manifested.

I shifted my focus to the black monster and immediately came to a realization.

“Even though the enemy was exterminated, she’s showing no signs of transforming back...?”

Forget that, she wasn’t even showing any signs of intellect. Even after defeating the enemy, the monster simply loitered inside the room. The worst possibility came to mind.

“Don’t tell me... She lost all sense of reason and can’t turn back?” I muttered in shock.

“The same as the Mad Beast, then,” Kudou said. The Mad Beast currently served Kudou. That was probably why he’d been able to grasp what was going on so quickly. “So long as she doesn’t recover her sense of reason and heart, she probably won’t turn back. The Mad Beast has never once returned to its original form... That’s the kind of ability it is.”

“No way...” I said, turning pale.

“Unfortunately, the girl known as Katou Mana is already lost,” Kudou said, giving me the decisive truth.

◆ ◆ ◆

The world shook violently, such was my shock. Katou wasn’t coming back. We would never be able to talk again. That one thought made me lose control of all my senses.

“Senpai...? Are you all right, Senpai?”

Kudou’s voice sounded so far away.

Everything felt far away.

Did the tremendous shock make me lose all sense of the world?

No.

In truth, an essential fragment that made up my world had fallen away.

Unlike Lily and the others, Katou wasn’t my servant. However, she was still as irreplaceable to me as any of them.

Because she’d been with me, I was able to trust humans. If I hadn’t met her, I would’ve avoided coming in contact with anyone and would probably still be living within the Woodlands. The reason I was who I was now was definitely thanks to Katou.

My world couldn’t exist without her.

As such, I couldn’t possibly accept that she was gone.

“Not yet.”

If I called out to her, it was entirely possible my voice could still reach her. At the very least, there was no telling until I tried.

The logical side of me denied this hope as a delusion, but my heart couldn’t discard it. I simply couldn’t accept losing her like this. I couldn’t give up. With those thoughts in mind, I poured my mana into the teleportation runestone.

“Senpai?!”

Kudou’s surprised face vanished from my sight. The world around me changed, and I found myself somewhere else.

It was a vast room.

Just as Kudou had said, the teleportation runestone brought me to where Harrison was. The smell of blood, entrails, and dust reached my nose. However, all of that vanished from my mind immediately. Witnessing the black monster’s majesty with my own eyes stole away all other thoughts.

“Katou...”

I faced the monster and reached out a hand.

“I’m here to get you.”