Fremd Torturchen - Volume 3 - Chapter 5

5

Their Respective Pride

Thinking back, it had been a while since Kaito had been reincarnated into this world, yet it felt like it had passed in a moment. He ruminated about the days they’d spent fighting the fourteen demons. The twisted, joyful life they’d shared sandwiched between them was finally coming to an end.

“…The final battle, huh?”

As he murmured, Kaito opened his closed eyes.

This place was the final step on the stairway leading up to the gallows.

The Torture Princess and her servant had reached their ultimate destination.

The stone road leading to the mass of flesh extended out before him.

Without warning, the ordinary, commonplace road became steeped in gray halfway down its length. The boundary line was directly in front of Kaito’s face, as clear and obvious as though it had been drawn with a knife.

Beyond it was a sight that would cause anyone looking to doubt their sanity.

Everything there was stained gray. The surfaces of the buildings and trees were weathered, as though hundreds of years had gone by. There was no sign of life in sight, of course. Even the air itself was cold and firm.

The dim rays of morning sunlight faded and vanished into the gray as well, much like how they would in the depths of a swamp.

Kaito utilized all his senses to try to impress a comprehensible form onto the world beyond the boundary line.

The space beyond here is practically a corpse in its own right.

He felt as though he was standing before the carcass of some colossal creature with none of its presence or warmth remaining. The entire zone, which should have been teeming with energy, had transformed into a hollow cadaver.

The space was death itself, and it was close enough for him to touch.

“I’d thought you’d vanished, yet here you are.”

The voice that called out from beside Kaito was accompanied by the hard sound of heels clicking. He cast a sidelong glance toward it. Elisabeth was standing there.

Her arms were crossed, and her expression was sour. It made sense that she hadn’t run into him until just then. When morning had come, he’d immediately left the plaza after getting dressed. He’d known there was a chance Elisabeth would try to stop him from coming.

Kaito didn’t give her much of a response. Elisabeth continued her cross-examination.

“Now, then. Exactly what were you doing that required sneaking about all night long? You were even crafty enough to get the paladins on your side.”

Kaito averted his gaze from hers.

Looking back toward the section of the world the demon had destroyed, he quietly answered her.

“…Something stupid.”

As he spoke, he suddenly felt his earlobe get yanked.

Elisabeth mercilessly pulled on his ear.

“’Tis entirely obvious you were up to something stupid, you fool! Don’t go trying to play this off! Who do you think you are, Vlad?!”

“Ow! Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow! I don’t mind the pain, Elisabeth, but it’s gonna be a hassle sticking it back on if you tear it off! Also, I’m nothing like him!”

Kaito struggled, waving his arms in resistance. The threads of madness holding his face taut had abruptly snapped. Deep in his pocket, his stone rattled around to express its exasperation.

Having sensed a change in his expression, Elisabeth snorted and let go of his ear.

“Well, I have something of an idea. Your stores of mana have risen, after all. You were up to something rather stupid, indeed.”

“…Yeah, I figured you’d have me pegged.”

“Ha, I still haven’t the foggiest as to your true objective. No matter what drivel you spout now, nothing shall change, nor do I intend to let it… But at the moment, that power of yours is liable to be of use.”

“You know, Godot Deus told me something similar.”

“His judgment was the same as mine, eh? Very well. Do try to keep yourself alive.”

Elisabeth spoke, and Kaito nodded.

At least she didn’t tell me to stay out of it.

Secretly pleased by that, Kaito surveyed his surroundings.

The only person standing by his side was Elisabeth. The Royal Knights and paladins hadn’t followed. If the unthinkable happened and the Torture Princess fell, they needed to be ready to take steps to abandon the capital and seal the demon within. Because of that, they needed to preserve as many personnel as possible.

Godot Deus’s decision had been correct. The Torture Princess and her servant would face death alone.

Just like they had back in their first battle.

Like always, and just like it was back at the very beginning, huh?

With that thought, Kaito nodded. However, there was one thing he found disappointing.

Not having the ax-wielding automaton, Kaito’s beloved, by their side made him feel a little discouraged and lonely. But he took pride in the fact that he hadn’t left the Torture Princess alone.

“Throughout Elisabeth Le Fanu’s bloody life, she was accompanied by a single foolish servant.”

Kaito thought that sounded just fine.

“…Let’s go.”

“…Mm-hmm.”

Unlike once before, Elisabeth didn’t accuse him of giving a response unbecoming of a servant. Side by side, the two of them stepped into the gray space.

As they did, they crossed the boundary. The moment they did, Kaito was swallowed up by the space in which anything and everything was wrong.

The Kaiser gently whispered in his ear, as though teasing him.

“Welcome to the world of demons. Welcome to the nightmare.”

I see. This is…

What did it really mean for the world to be destroyed?

What was the true nature of the deeds the demons committed?

In that moment, Kaito truly understood.

It was quiet there.

And it was engulfed in an absolute, overwhelming sense of peace.

Kaito’s senses of touch, hearing, and sight collectively made that abundantly clear.

In that gray space, everything was uniformly dying, being killed, and silent.

Demons were beings who fed on the pain of God’s creations. Normally, they would be surrounded by incessant screams. However, once they’d taken everything they could, the ruins they left behind were enveloped in a surprising degree of tranquility.

In a way, this made sense.

Once something had been destroyed all the way to its very core, nothing possessed the means to destroy it further.

Diablo destroys the world, and God creates it.

At the moment, that place was waiting for God to come reassemble it.

In this achromatic world, the living were clearly the foreign ones. Perplexed by the fact that they were the ones disturbing the tranquility, Kaito suddenly realized something.

Demons are fundamentally evil. But at the same time, human morals don’t apply to them.

The words Vlad had once spoken to him crossed back through his ears.

“Before they’re summoned, they exist in a higher dimension. They don’t possess human thoughts, they cannot use speech, and they aren’t equipped with senses. When the higher-ranked demons materialize, they reflect their summoner and lower themselves such that they can understand each other as simple, evil souls.

“If they didn’t, we humans wouldn’t even be able to comprehend their existence.”

“…An evil that humans can’t even comprehend.”

As he repeated those words to himself, Kaito came to realize something.

The demons fundamentally differed from the way human society defined evil.

In the past, Kaito had faced off against the fourteen demons and witnessed firsthand the acts of cruelty they’d committed. But here in this quiet world marked the first time that his body stiffened not with rage but with sheer terror.

Once demons wielded their true power, they didn’t have anything humans might regard as an objective. There was only pure, absolute destruction.

Kaito now viscerally understood that.

God and Diablo weren’t entities man was supposed to interact with.

“What the hell was Vlad thinking, summoning something like that?”

“A perfectly reasonable question, my dear successor. But it’s only human to take that which we cannot comprehend and, while still ignorant of its true nature, use it for our own ends.”

Suddenly, Vlad’s voice echoed throughout the gray world.

Kaito raised his head in surprise and looked in the opposite direction from where Elisabeth was standing.

“By summoning demons and dragging them down to our level, we obtained power. Perhaps it wasn’t respectable, but I’d rather not be unjustly accused of folly.”

At some point, his slender figure had floated up. His long legs were crossed, as though he were sitting in a chair. As he spoke, he wore a smile that could best be described as beguiling.

“We were carnivorous by nature—it’s only human to want to consume everything one can.”

Vlad theatrically extended one hand in front of himself as he spoke. As he looked up at Vlad’s androgynous features, Kaito ignored most of what he was saying and dejectedly asked him a question.

“Hey, Vlad. I didn’t run any magic through your stone, so how did you materialize?”

“The rules from outside don’t apply in this hollow space, you see. In the face of ‘zero,’ both the living and reproduction of souls in stones amount to ‘ones’ equally. While I don’t possess flesh, my soul is given form in the truest sense in here. Or rather, though I say all that, I couldn’t really tell you what the underlying principles are or how they work. My research is lacking. I must admit, though, being able to take form on my own is quite pleasant… Oh, careful there.”

Vlad’s face forcefully blurred out. A sharp fang was piercing through his phantasmal body.

Kaito assumed it was Elisabeth harassing him, but in truth, it was the Kaiser. The first-rate hound had also materialized in this space, likely irrespective of his own will.

As the Kaiser bit down hard into him, Vlad shrugged in annoyance.

“What might be the matter, Kaiser? I’d thought your anger had somewhat abated.”

“Fool! Just now, you were mocking us demons! ‘Wanting to consume everything in sight’… Cease your chittering, you weak meager half-wit who went and died beyond my reach! You run your grating mouth too much, O He Who Rears Hell Within His Mind!”

“Good heavens, aren’t you on a short fuse. Just whose influence could that have been caused by…? Oh, easy now.”

Once again, his face blurred in an amusing fashion. This time, it was due to Elisabeth’s stakes. At that, even Vlad’s expression soured. Given his temperament, he probably didn’t much care for situations where he was unable to show off.

Turning toward Elisabeth, Vlad made his protest.

“While I’d love to let you play your adorable little pranks, would you mind giving it a rest, Elisabeth? Surely now is no time to be wasting your mana like that.”

“Ha, worry not. It takes nearly no mana at all to pierce your unsightly visage.”

“You say that, but you mustn’t let your guard down… As my dear successor just heard from the Kaiser, this here is the world of demons.”

Suddenly, Vlad’s lips curled up. He opened his arms wide.

Regaining his normal demeanor, he spoke in an unpleasant tone.

“Truly, the depths of man’s nightmare. And don’t think you’re safe just because it’s silent. Even this space, engulfed as it is in endless tranquility, will spit out fresh pain in order to expel foreign contaminants.”

His movements theatrical, Vlad nimbly extended his arm and pointed deep into the hazy, gray world. Kaito followed to where Vlad was pointing.

As he did, his hazy, muddied vision instantly cleared up.

A shade of raw crimson peered out in the distance. Upon further inspection, it was writhing. The wall of flesh towered high above their heads, pulsating as though it were the very heart of the world.

“See, they’re coming.”

Vlad spoke in an amused, half-mocking voice. His words were like a cue.

The silence and tranquility crumbled.

Kaito gulped. A wave of pain was billowing forth from the base of the mass of flesh.

More underlings than he’d ever seen before were advancing on him and Elisabeth.

Death howled. Pain clamored.

The grotesque horde approached.

They were all lined up, like a parade or an orchestra, appearing loudly and boisterously.

The tumult they caused made it seem as though all the pain in the world had gathered in one place.

Because of the emergency missive Elisabeth had received from the Church, Kaito had been aware of the fact that when the mass of flesh had first explosively expanded, it had slaughtered as many as a third of the capital’s inhabitants. To be more precise, it had either forcibly transformed them into underlings or left them as humans just to gruesomely kill them. However, it was only when he was faced with the host before him that he realized just how insufficient his imagination was in comprehending the scope of the casualties.

The crimson-, peach-, black-, and rust-colored underlings filled the horizon to the limit.

The underlings who had assaulted the square and the ones who’d been killed by La Mules must have been nothing more than a fraction of their ranks. Even just counting the ones in Kaito’s field of view, they numbered well into the thousands.

Having sensed enemies approaching the mass of flesh that was their master, the underlings’ ranks swelled by the minute.

One by one, they raised resentful cries against those who had survived. Then they advanced forward in a wave.

Normal humans would have had no means of going up against that army. But Kaito knew that the woman standing before them was in a league of her own.

The Torture Princess was a peerless sinner, one who’d slaughtered the entire population of her fiefdom.

“Reenactment of the Plain of Skewers: Impaled Victim.”

Shunk, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab!

Hundreds of iron stakes sprouted from the ground, destroying the weathered buildings as they went. One after another, they pierced through underlings and hoisted their tragic corpses into the air. It looked almost like they were being offered up to some dark being.

Elisabeth piled on the attacks even more.

“La Guillotine, the Decapitating Saint! Splendid Executioner: The Boondock Saints!”

Countless blades appeared and formed a fantastical giant, around which stood a group of white saints. As the saints looked up to the heavens, Kaito snapped his fingers.

“—La (dance).”

A rectangular blade cleaved the sky as it came flying in.

Kaito, the giant, and the saints all began their attacks simultaneously. Their sharp blades carved through the group of underlings.

An almost excessive spray of blood gushed forth, and bodies began piling up a rapid clip. But although the odds looked favorable at first glance, Kaito and Elisabeth frowned.

“… ’Tis problematic.”

“Yeah…”

The underlings had begun grabbing the blades that made up the giant, tearing up their own arms in the process. Though at the cost of shedding immense amounts of blood, they still managed to tear the blades off the giant’s body. Dozens of underlings died due to blood loss. But like ants disassembling a spider, they eventually finished dismantling the giant.

Grabbed by countless hands, the La Guillotines also sank into the wretched sea of underlings.

Elisabeth snapped her fingers again.

“Gluttonous Hellhole!”

A hole opened in the ground, one much larger than the Hellhole she usually summoned.

As the earth caved in, it swallowed up underlings, and the underworldly beetles and grubs within ripped them to shreds with their powerful jaws. However, the underlings didn’t hesitate. They leaped into the hole, one after another. Unable to withstand it, the bugs were squished. Green juices oozed out of their crushed bodies.

The hole was eventually filled in with corpses, and the underlings advanced over it.

They marched forward with aggressive simplicity, removing any obstacles that stood in their way.

Then a ferocious darkness covered the sky, as though a typhoon was arriving. A dense black cloud violently appeared before Kaito and Elisabeth’s eyes. It was yet more underlings.

The grotesque, winged creatures were soaring through the sky in unison.

Kaito maneuvered his blade, and Elisabeth summoned even more torture devices. But against the numbers they were facing, the ones they slew would amount to nothing more than a drop in the bucket.

Overwhelmed by the waves approaching from land and sky, Kaito recalled the words Elisabeth had once said.

“Numbers beget force. And one can accomplish much through the use of force.”

…So this is what she was talking about.

The black wave and cloud drew near.

Their footsteps shook the earth, and their howls split the sky.

They were like the end of the world given flesh.

“Hmm, now this is a situation where shooting a cannon at a group of ants seems reasonable. But know this, boy. Even if I were to enter the fray, the number I can devour in one go is limited. What would you have me do? It would sully my good name if I were to allow my master to be consumed by cannon fodder. I wouldn’t mind taking you both on my back and leaping over that throng, you know.”

The Kaiser posed an uncharacteristically benevolent question to Kaito. However, Kaito shook his head.

“No… If we let those guys get outside, the knights and nuns will be in danger, never mind the people who haven’t been able to evacuate the city yet.”

“Ha, a splendid jest. The daughter of Vlad and I could keep them in check, but annihilating them is another matter altogether. I told you once before, boy. One who forgets their greatest wish is naught but a fool masquerading as a saint.”

Kaito bit down on his lip at the Kaiser’s words. He knew the Kaiser was right. There was no point to holding back the deadly stream’s flow if it left them unable to advance.

There was still the Grand Monarch and the King to contend with beyond this horde.

Kaito knew that, but he still couldn’t bring himself to agree. He looked toward the Torture Princess, as though imploring her.

“Elisabeth…”

“Enough of that gloomy voice already! While I’d normally advise you that naive thoughts have no place on the battlefield, even I understand. If naught else, we’d best thin out their ranks. If we simply let them roam free like this, the capital’s likely to be annihilated. ’Twould be no laughing matter if we two ended up the sole survivors.”

“See, I knew you’d see it that way.”

“Quit speaking of me in that warm tone!”

Kaito nodded toward Elisabeth, who was infuriated. However, this too was a dangerous gamble.

For the first time, he lamented the fact that the two of them were alone there. Here in that gray world, there was nobody for them to entrust their backs to. Eventually, though, Elisabeth shook her head.

“I suppose we’d best get to it, then. ’Tis no point in expecting things to turn for the better. And regret accomplishes naught.”

“Yeah, you’re right—we’re the only ones here, after all.”

The Torture Princess and the Kaiser’s contractor nodded to each other. The unseemly black dog snorted and pawed at the ground. Vlad shrugged in exasperation.

But as the two of them mustered up their tragic resolution before their oncoming foes, they heard something.

“Get back, you two!”

An unexpected voice rang out.

Kaito looked up as though he’d been slapped. As he confirmed the voice’s owner, his eyes went wide.

A winged, white orb was floating amid the gray sky. It was one of the Church’s communication devices, and Izabella’s voice was coming from within it.

“How—?”

“Don’t just idly stand there, Kaito! Get back!”

The moment Kaito tried to question what was going on, Elisabeth grabbed him by the collar. As she did, she dragged him violently backward at a rapid clip. Then she released him, practically tossing him aside. He turned to look at the place where they’d just been standing.

When he did, his retinas were seared white.

An intense light had burst right in front of him. A group of underlings had been vaporized.

“Oh-ho.”

Vlad raised his voice in interest.

Turning away from the scene for a moment, Kaito frantically recovered his temporarily shattered vision. Then he rechecked the terrible spectacle before him. The underlings had burst into flames and were burning. Among them, a massive bird was turning to ash as well. Kaito identified it.

It’s a summoned beast, the same kind La Mules was summoning!

It was then that the reality of the situation hit Kaito.

The holy bird was what had made the underlings disintegrate.

La Mules should be dead, though…

“Izabella, you fool! You’ll kill yourself!”

The moment that bit of confusion crossed Kaito’s mind, Elisabeth let out a shout.

Beside him, she was staring out beyond the boundary between the worlds of demon and man. As he followed her gaze, Kaito’s eyes widened.

Off in the distance, the apex of the hill was shining silver.

Paladins were gathered there, standing with a group of priests in a strange square formation. At their feet were magical runes so large that Kaito could make them out from where he stood.

He couldn’t tell what they said, but he knew what they meant.

It’s gathering up mana from the priests and the paladins!

With La Mules having passed, the group was now working together as one and forming a single cannon. And Izabella was most likely acting as its launchpad.

Kaito then recalled a certain fact. Izabella’s store of mana was as deep and as placid as the sea and well suited toward healing, protective, and summoning magic.

At the same time, an old scene flashed back through his mind.

That night, Izabella hadn’t hesitated in taking his beastly hand, the proof of his demonic contract, and shaking it with her gauntlet. They’d looked each other in the eyes and sworn an oath.

““Let’s take out that demon together.””

But in the end, the Torture Princess had ended up shouldering the decisive battle alone. After talking with Elisabeth, Kaito had attacked Izabella’s conscience, both for the sake of his ulterior motive and out of indignation.

“La Mules is dead. If the Torture Princess screws up, who do you think’s next in line to fight?”

“Who the hell do you think is gonna end up getting sacrificed for the sake of all the heretics and people who call him a monster?”

At the time, Izabella hadn’t responded. But at present, she was trying to fulfill her promise to Kaito with her own hands. She’d chosen to fight alongside him and the Torture Princess.

But she’s taking too big of a risk.

Izabella’s method of attack differed from the way La Mules used the summoning circles inside her own body. Additionally, because she was splitting the burden with the paladins, there was little chance she’d lose her sanity. But the amount of mana they’d amassed was too much for a mere human’s body to handle.

Furthermore, the other paladins were in danger as well. Even though they weren’t going to enter the demon’s world themselves, they would have nowhere to run if the King launched his long-range attack on them. And above all, the strain on their bodies and their mana would be intense no matter what else happened.

They clearly had no intention of preserving their strength.

But Godot Deus’s decision was correct!

“What in the world do you think you’re doing?! Don’t be rash!”

“I should be the one telling you not to say such foolish things! We are the swords of the Church, the blades of the Saint, and the shields of the people. If we do not save the innocent who suffer, then who exactly are we expecting to bear that burden?”

“We’re handling it just fine! What, are you worried about that stuff I said to you? My bad. That was just me running my mouth! Please just forget about it! Think about your responsibilities!”

“This is our city! We will aid you, and we will protect it! I have no intention of foisting those I am duty bound to protect onto you two!”

“But…!”

“Just how long do you think it took me to convince the priests?! Leave this to us and advance!”

Loud, fierce shouts came from within the white orb. For a moment, they were overlaid with the sound of someone coughing up blood. As he heard Izabella let out a clear groan of pain, Kaito clenched his fists.

As he did, another summoned beast came soaring in. Exploding underlings filled the horizon.

Kaito inhaled sharply. He knew he needed to stop her.

Before he could speak, though, Izabella stole a lead on him.

“Don’t give me that nonsense, Kaito Sena! Enough is enough! You should be looking for any help you can get, even if it comes from a monster! Don’t you want to save the suffering people as soon as possible?”

Her voice was like a slap in the face.

In that moment, Izabella had completely and utterly defeated Kaito.

He found himself at a loss for words. Still speechless, he practically spasmed as he bowed deeply to the white orb. After biting down hard on his lip, he turned to Elisabeth.

“Elisabeth…”

Her crimson eyes were fixated on the orb.

For a second, Kaito felt as though the gazes of those two women, who stood at opposite ends of evil and holiness, had met.

Eventually, Elisabeth said a few words.

“You could have merely cracked your whip at me and amused yourself as a spectator… I’m surrounded by fools, the lot of you.”

“Elisabeth…”

“We’re leaving, Kaito! Don’t fall behind now! Chop-chop!”

The next moment, Elisabeth kicked off the ground hard. She took off like an arrow, leaving deep footprints in the gray earth as she ran. Flustered, Kaito took after her. Vlad and the Kaiser followed along as well.

The orb remained behind, perhaps in order to survey the underlings’ positions.

Then Izabella’s pained shouts chased after them.

“Go, Torture Princess, O reviled sinner who slaughtered countless innocents, knights, and my brother!”

For a second, intense hatred leaked through into her voice. Izabella was aiming her vivid resentment at Elisabeth like an arrow. But with power strong enough even to crush her negative emotions, Izabella continued on.

“Please save the capital!”

Her tone sounded almost like a prayer.

White light surged forward. It drowned out Elisabeth’s expression, so Kaito couldn’t see it. He just single-mindedly advanced, surrounded by flying underling corpses.

Burdened with Izabella’s sincere plea, Kaito and Elisabeth dashed across the plain. It was practically like a battlefield that was under bombardment. The light burst forth several more times. Though their vision was blasted away time and time again, they unceasingly made their way through the stream of death.

Leaving the sound of bombardment behind them, they pressed deeper into the gray world.

Eventually, all the noise faded into the distance.

Once again, they were engulfed in a heavy silence.

The air was thick with the presence of death as the mass of flesh towered in front of them.

The looming mass was adorned with innumerable holes. Its damp red surface was covered in cavities, like a leaf that had been chewed through by a caterpillar. It was almost impressive how viscerally repugnant it was.

Kaito felt goose bumps run all the way down his body. He looked up fixedly at the mass’s unseemly surface.

Those holes are probably from when its victims’ faces came out.

They’d been uniformly transformed into underlings, then expelled.

Kaito racked his brain as to how they were supposed to deal with that thing. But without laying a finger on the writhing mass in front of her, let alone attacking it, Elisabeth quickened her pace. Tilting his head to the side, Kaito followed her. Although he hadn’t said anything, she must have sensed his confusion as she spoke.

“’Tis too great a task to cut it down from the outside. I said I’d be striking their true bodies directly, did I not? It just released that great mass of underlings. There should be a hole somewhere that leads to its core. I aim to find it.”

“A hole that leads to its core?”

“Indeed, I would say that her prediction is right on the mark.”

Vlad gently floated up to walk beside Elisabeth. As Kaito turned to look at him, he exaggeratedly propped up his chin with his finger.

“All-out war has a nice ring to it, but putting all their cards on the table like that was base foolishness. The King and the Grand Monarch expelled everything they had. Because of that, you should be able to make it past where they were storing the underlings inside themselves. Making such a choice causes me to wonder if their very brains had turned to mere lumps of flesh… Hmm, even though it may give rise to abnormal power, it seems that having demons run rampant carries few benefits with it.”

“You just be quiet, Vlad, and cease your twittering. Nobody asked you.”

Elisabeth clicked her tongue. Vlad shrugged and obediently shut up.

After nodding at her explanation, Kaito began circling the mass’s perimeter. The footing was poor, and the area was covered in blood and tallow. The two of them noisily trudged through the muck as they looked for a suitable opening.

Before long, Kaito stopped in front of an unsettling fold of flesh that hung conspicuously over the ground.

“Elisabeth.”

“…I see; this must be it.”

Behind the soft, womanly flesh was a massive, tunnel-like hole. Its insides had been trampled flat by underlings. It was the remnants of the path that deadly procession had taken.

Elisabeth cast a sharp gaze inside.

“There.”

“Wait, there’s still more of them?”

Three underlings sat at the edge of her crimson glare. They were lined up horizontally, guarding the hole like overly diligent gatekeepers.

Kaito looked their new foes over from head to toe. From the left on, he cast his gaze at each of their peculiar figures in turn.

There was a woman wearing a tattered dress.

There was a man wearing a gray wolf headdress.

And there was a man dressed in stern, full-body armor.

Out of the three of them, it was the woman’s strangeness that gave Kaito pause. She had proper eyes, lips, and a nose, yet her face was decidedly inhuman. Her skin was made out of some smooth material, like glass or porcelain. Her clothes, too, gave her the appearance of some sort of half-finished cloth puppet.

Their faces are covered up by the helmet and the headdress, but the two guys probably look the same way.

Even so, they looked more human than the underlings who’d been forcibly transformed. And above all else, the amount of power emanating from them was far greater than that of the small fry they had seen so far.

Remaining wary of the three, Kaito spoke.

“Hey, Elisabeth… Is it just me, or are those guys way stronger than the other underlings?”

“Indeed, they are. ’Tis the Grand Monarch’s ability—birthing unique underlings through Duplication. Those three are copies of the King, the Grand Monarch, and the late Monarch. While they are far weaker than their demonic counterparts, ’tis true that they far surpass ordinary—huh?”

As she spoke, the armor-clad man strode directly toward Elisabeth.

He grabbed the handle of the long sword strapped to his back, then drew it from its sheath with one hand. He swung its blade downward, parting the muddy gray air with great force. Kaito felt a powerful gust of wind blow across his entire body.

The armored figure then pointed the tip of his fiendish blade at Elisabeth, as though provoking her.

Her eyes widened a hair, and the corners of her ruby lips curled up.

“I see; he truly is a copy of the King. So you wish to trade blows with me? Very well.”

In response, Elisabeth raised a pale hand overhand and drew the Executioner’s Sword of Frankenthal from a swirl of darkness and crimson flower petals. After spinning its handle once around in her palm, she turned it toward her armored foe. Its tip came to a sudden stop in the air.

“Come. I shall face you.”

Their blades in hand, the two squared off.

A stillness rife with bloodlust filled the space.

The next moment, the armored man roared. The air around him froze over, then shattered like glass. He charged with a glorious scream.

As the ferocious mass of bloodlust approached her, Elisabeth shouted as well.

“Wicker Man!”

Darkness and petals exploded from the Executioner’s Sword of Frankenthal. Defenseless, the armored man rushed directly into them. The dancing black and crimson swallowed up the other two replicants as well.

A dry popping noise rang out, and the darkness split to become countless boughs. Before Kaito’s eyes, a massive, birdcage-like figure knit itself together. The replicants found themselves sealed within its hollow torso.

They raged, demanding to be let out. As they did, the figure’s twisted limbs caught fire. The blaze grew to a tempest.

As he faced the radiant scarlet mass, Kaito spoke up in confusion.

“W-weren’t you going to face off against him?”

“Your honesty is going to get you killed one of these days, boy.”

“I really must agree, my dear successor. Take this as a lesson. At times, victory demands one to abandon their scruples.”

“Exactly! Why should I feel obliged to go out of my way to fight those things? Splendid, splendid! Burn for me! Ha-ha-ha!”

Elisabeth crossed her arms and let out a loud, villainous laugh. But the next moment, the flaming mass tore open from within, and the figure’s torso burst. Sparks flew violently through the air.

The three replicants practically danced as they leaped out from within it.

“Tch, it seems a single blow was insufficient.”

Elisabeth clicked her tongue. The female replicant leaped at her as her tattered dress violently flared up. Suddenly, the replicant’s throat squirmed strangely, and her egg-like face split open.

Something soft came flying out from between her glassy lips.

“—!”

It looked like a blob wrapped in ordinary red cloth. But Kaito could sense a bizarre liveliness coming from it.

The blob of cloth was giving off the same kind of vitality that flesh did.

Having been tormented by something similar once before, Kaito reflexively knew what it was.

That blob is a copy of a heart.

Mediocre as it may have been, the female replicant was preparing a version of Sacrifice.

“It can’t be!”

He hadn’t thought it to be a technique usable by a mere copy.

Kaito was shaken. At the same time, his battle experience caused a dreadful hypothesis to flash through his head.

Even with the amount I’m keeping in reserve for the fight against the King and the Grand Monarch, I’m burning through a crap ton of mana.

Given the situation, having their power sealed away, even a little bit, would be dangerous. And even if Kaito wasn’t the target, Elisabeth getting hit would lead to the same ending. Dispelling Sacrifice would use up a huge amount of his blood and mana.

In other words, no matter who took the blow, it would severely restrict Kaito’s ability to keep fighting.

If that happened, he wouldn’t be able to keep his promise to Izabella, the oath he’d sworn with her to take out the demon together. And he’d end up leaving Elisabeth alone right before the decisive battle.

I can’t allow that.

He had to destroy the heart before it could activate. Panicking, Kaito completely froze in his tracks.

Standing still on the battlefield was clearly an act of utter folly.

Elisabeth shouted out in rage. The King turned his blade on Kaito. Sacrifice was on the verge of erupting from the heart.

And looking overhead, the Kaiser was laughing.

“Oh-ho. An intruder here, of all places.”

All of that happened in a single moment.

A powerful flapping noise rang out, and a massive shadow passed over Kaito’s and Elisabeth’s heads.

And at the same time, someone shouted.

“MASTER KAITOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

A classically designed maid uniform and skirt soared through the air. The silver-haired girl’s frills fluttered as she fell.

The way she’d appeared before Kaito was practically like destiny.

“…Hi…na!”

As she landed, the beautiful maid brandished her halberd.

With it, Hina, Kaito’s bride, brilliantly cut down the heart right before it could invoke Sacrifice.

The rent heart fell to the ground with a plop. As it gently unraveled, it reverted back to being ordinary cloth.

The female replicant toppled to the ground. Hina turned to Kaito, who was still astonished.

Her emerald-green, gemstone-like eyes shone as she looked at him.

“Master Kaito! I’ve returned home!”

A beautiful smile spread across Hina’s face, one brimming with heartfelt love. But her choice of words was a little strange. They were rather far away from the place where they lived.

This wouldn’t normally be a situation that called for the phrase I’m home. But for the two of them, it was wholly fitting.

Gazing solely at Kaito, the silver-haired bride went on.

“At long last, I’ve returned to my rightful place by your side.”

Kaito snapped his fingers, saying nothing.

His blade flew in from the sky and cleaved at the torso of the King, who had drawn near. After swinging his sword and repelling the blow, the King fell back.

Not sparing the interloper a single glance, Kaito spread his arms as wide as they would go.

Mustering all his power, the bridegroom smiled wide and responded to his wife with words yet unbefitting the battlefield.

“Welcome home, Hina! Come to me!”

“Master Kaitoooooooooooooooooooo!”

Instantly tossing aside her halberd, Hina took off at a sprint.

And so at the center of the battlefield, the two lovers locked themselves in a passionate embrace.

Hina was notably taller than Kaito. Leaning in toward his face, she drew him into her bosom. Kaito buried his face in her chest. In the past, he would likely have gone beet red, but now he calmly returned Hina’s embrace.

Nuzzling Kaito’s head over and over again, Hina inhaled deeply.

“Ah… Master Kaito’s scent… Master Kaito’s warmth… Master Kaito, Master Kaito, Master Kaito. My master, my husband, my eternal lover, my heart…my everything. Please let your heart sing, for I have finally returned to you. I’m finally back where I belong.”

“Hina, I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you again. I’m so, so glad. You’ll always be there to protect me, won’t you?”

“Without a doubt. I am your blade and yours alone!”

“W-wait. But what are you doing here?”

“Madam Elisabeeeeeeeeeeeeth! Mr. Dim-Witted Servaaaaaant! Are you two saaaaaaaaafe?”

As if to answer his question, a voice came down from the skies.

After hurriedly looking up, Kaito goggled. A steel-blue dragon was hovering in the gray sky. Bearing a fiendish face, it leisurely flapped its gigantic wings.

As the Kaiser gazed up at its majestic form, he spoke in a low voice that was somewhere between admiration and exasperation.

“A steel dragon? The dragons were supposed to have all fled from the lands humans, demi-humans, and beastfolk inhabit. Where in the world did he find it?”

“Oh my, oh my. And it even bears a saddle. How ingenious.”

Vlad chimed in as well, seemingly amused. Just as he’d said, the steel dragon had a saddle fastened to its back.

And of all things, the Butcher was mounted atop it. Furthermore, the hard, metallic scales covering the dragon’s back even had a hunk of meat on the bone—perhaps intended to be a stand-in for a shop’s insignia—drawn on them.

The Butcher called out as he deftly manipulated the reins.

“Ms. Lovely Maid completed her recovery, so I brought her here atop my beloved third dragon!”

“Nooooooot that I’m not thankful, Butcher, but just who the hell are youuuuuuuuuu?”

“Mm, the mysteries just deepen and deepen.”

As Kaito shouted back, Elisabeth stroked her chin.

It was unclear if he was able to hear them or not, but the Butcher flashed them a thumbs-up. It hardly made for much of an answer. Then he gave them a big wave.

“And with that, I take my leeeeeeeeeave! I look forward to your continued patronaaaaaaage!”

“You’re just gonna leave after all that? Maaaaaan, you’re something else!”

“…Now then, you two. I understand your burning desire to flirt and make eyes at each other, but do try to save it for later.”

“Ah, sorry. My bad. I couldn’t help myself!”

“Ah, oh yes, you’re quite right; my deepest apologies! Oh my, how could I?! I will return to the fight at once!”

Kaito and Hina had been hugging for the entirety of the previous exchange. With an exasperated look on her face, Elisabeth used a torture device to pry the two away from each other.

Hearing her request, Hina hurriedly tried to separate from Kaito.

“And at that, Master Kaito, pardon me… Squeeze!”

Before she did, she hugged Kaito tight one more time. After deeply breathing in his scent, she released him from her arms and balled up her fists.

“All right, I’ve sufficiently replenished my Master Kaito energy! Here I go!”

As she spoke, Hina’s skirt flapped mightily as she kicked her halberd off the ground. The hefty weapon spun through the air like it weighed nothing at all. Hina grabbed its handle out of the air, then turned to face her foes.

She gave her halberd a decisive swing, and its tip came to a sharp stop.

It seemed that one swing was enough for the King’s replicant to sense her prowess. He waved his arm, gesturing for the replicant with the wolf headdress to fall back. Then the King’s replicant lowered his posture.

Facing the fully armored combatant, Hina whispered to Kaito and Elisabeth.

“Back when we landed in the town, we were fortunate enough to receive information from the kind paladins and discern that the situation has developed into a state of emergency. While it worries me to leave you alone, Master Kaito, I believe in my dear Lady Elisabeth! Please, you two, go on ahead! I can handle things here.”

“Hina, what are you talking about? Elisabeth and I can stay with you and—”

“As always, how kind you are! But fighting those two will be a breeze. My power stems from the mechanisms within me. Because it has nothing to do with demons, Sacrifice will have no effect on me. I may not be a match for true demons, but no underling will be able to best me! Please leave this to me and press on!”

Elisabeth and Kaito looked at each other. It was true that Hina was under no risk of losing her powers. And it might even be better for her to fight the underlings alone, rather than alongside someone who she’d have to worry about protecting from Sacrifice. But Hina had only just woken up.

“You need not worry! I urge you, conserve your mana!”

Seeing their hesitation, Hina doubled down.

As she did, the armored man, the King’s replicant, took off at a dash. He loudly swung his sword. Hina easily blocked his heavy attack with the back of her halberd. Then she shifted to go on the offensive.

Twice, three times they clashed, and each time, Hina would do a somersault off the ground and kick the armored man in the helmet. He staggered. Pressing the assault, Hina made use of her weapon’s reach by putting some space between herself and the King’s replicant.

Adjusting her grip on the halberd, Hina spoke passionately.

“I can’t make children the way a human woman can! But even so, I swore to become part of your family, Master Kaito! Even if it kills me, I refuse to do anything that would renege on—”

“Mm, well… To avoid misunderstanding, I should make one thing clear.”

“What might that be, Lady Elisabeth?”

“You two can have children.”

Hina abruptly ground to a halt.

An unbelievably eerie, heavy silence filled the air.

“…Hi-Hina?”

“Hina, are…are you okay?”

Even with Elisabeth and Kaito calling out to her, Hina remained motionless, as though she was frozen. Thinking he’d found an opening, the King’s replicant charged. But Hina, moving only her arm, leveled a precise slash at him. The wolf-headed copy, now defying the King’s replicant’s orders, rushed at her from the left, but Hina silently slipped a knife out of her sleeve and hurled it at him as well.

He let out a scream.

Still staring straight ahead, Hina spoke in a terrifyingly quiet voice.

“…………Lady Elisabeth, what did you just say?”

“Erm, well, you know. You two can…have children. Mm… ’Tis the truth, I swear!”

“If—if—if—if—if I might be bold enough to ask, h-h-h-h-how, precisely, would we go about that?”

“Hina, you’re way too wound up. I’m interested, too, but I’m begging you, you gotta settle down a bit.”

Hina had begun forcefully trembling. Worried, Kaito frantically tried to pacify her.

The whole situation had been thrown into complete chaos. Even so, Hina’s halberd movements were precise and accurate. The way she was near automatically managing her offense and defense to keep the replicants from drawing even a step closer was amazing in a way.

Swinging her halberd wide to keep her two foes at a distance, Hina’s eyes opened wide.

“Quickly! Lady Elisabeth! How?! Promptly! Without delay! Please tell me!”

“I—I get it! I shall tell you! I’ll tell you!”

Faced with Hina’s bloodcurdling intensity, Elisabeth leaped up.

Breaking out into a cold sweat, she spoke in an oddly bashful manner.

“You know if we’re speaking accurately, it isn’t quite the same as a child… ’Tis more like a humanoid homunculus formed from a mixture of each of your physical data, then cultivated in a device within Hina’s abdomen. Then, um, well…”

“What then, Lady Elisabeth? What theeeeeeeeeeeeeennnnnnnn?”

“M-mm! Then…well, um…don’t make me say it! ’Tis embarrassing! You do the deed! Then you insert Kaito’s fluids into… Wait, why must I be the one to explain such a thiiiiing?!”

“Elisabeth, Miss Elisabeth, settle down! And quit hitting me!”

“Lady Elisabeth! Keep going! Quickly, quickly! You can do anything you set your mind to, Lady Elisabeth!”

Rapidly spinning her halberd, Hina loudly urged Elisabeth on.

Punching Kaito all the while, Elisabeth continued in a desperate tone.

“Hyah! Then! With you-know-what as a base, you nurture the homunculus within Hina’s womb! Kaito uses his mana to aid it along, and once it emerges, erm, your ‘child’ will be complete!”

Elisabeth puffed up her chest with pride, having gotten through her explanation all in one go. However, she received no response. Hina simply stood silently, continuing to spin her halberd. A despondent look crossed Elisabeth’s face.

“…Was there something wrong with my explanation?”

“Man, I’m surprised by how quickly you got dejected.”

In front of them, Hina’s white shoulders began violently trembling.

“Hee-hee-hee……hee-hee-hee-hee…”

“H-Hina?”

“Dear Hina?”

“I CAN HAVE A CHILD WITH MASTER KAITOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

Her voice exploded out, and the gears inside her body began rattling as they rapidly turned. The psssssht sound of surging steam even rang out. White smoke billowed from her ears.

Frantically grabbing her slender shoulders, Kaito began pleading with Hina in his confusion.

“H-Hina! Are you okay?! Don’t you go dying on me now!”

Strangely, Hina didn’t reply to him.

The next moment, she dashed off with explosive force. Leaving afterimages in her wake, she swung her halberd.

Blood spurted from the wolf headdress–wearing replicant as he went flying into the air. He whizzed through the sky, then came crashing back down into the ground.

His body was bent at a sharp, brutal angle.

The King’s replicant was visibly shaken as well. Warily, he adjusted his grip on his sword. With astoundingly smooth movements, Hina charged toward him. Her emerald eyes were wide in wonderment, and her voice was oozing with delight.

“Oh, how wondrous! What a paradise this world of ours is! We can raise all the children to be just as charming as Master Kaito! We can have a dozen of them and live together in eternal bliss! I haven’t any time to waste here! Drop dead and be quick about it!”

Hina attacked fiercely, and dents sprang up all over the man’s armor.

Dumbfounded, Kaito and Elisabeth simply watched over the chain of events.

“………………………………………………………………Your wife is incredible.”

“………………………………………………………………My wife is incredible.”

Eventually, the two of them let out those feeble murmurs.

At times, resolution, urges, and strong emotions—whether they were positive or negative—could grant people abnormal bursts of power. But upon witnessing that effect to such a degree, Kaito and Elisabeth found themselves at something of a loss for words.

One of Hina’s heavy blows sent the King’s replicant flying. He staggered uneasily but was still able to move. As she faced him, Hina looked over her shoulder and smiled.

“Ah, my dear friends. To that end, please leave this to me! This brute seems rather firm, so it may take just a little bit of time to whittle him down.”

“Got…got it.”

“W-we leave it in your capable hands.”

“Oh, and Master Kaito, is twelve children all right with you? Would you prefer more?”

“L-let’s leave it at twelve for now! W-we can iron out the details later!”

“Aye-aye! This is an important matter for us! Oh, you’re coming at me again? Very well! Die!”

No matter how one looked at it, in her current state, Hina seemed unlikely to lose.

Having decided to leave her to it, Kaito and Elisabeth broke into a run. As they quickened their pace, the sound of Hina pounding on armor receded behind them.

And with that, the two of them finally infiltrated the mass of flesh and headed inside the demon.

The tunnels inside the mass resembled the inside of a human uterus.

Kaito and Elisabeth dashed down paths that resembled birth canals and esophagi. It was like they’d been swallowed up by a monster or were traveling back up through a mother’s birth canal.

Their surroundings were so permeated with the stench of blood it was stifling. And unsurprisingly, they could sense a powerful source of vitality farther down the path. Strangely, though, the mass’s insides had an ephemeral frailty to them as well.

Perhaps due to the damage it had sustained from La Mules’s attack, the mass was clearly hemorrhaging mana.

The weakened King and Grand Monarch should be somewhere down this way.

That thought propelling him, Kaito kept a watchful eye as he strode inward. As the two of them ran, the slapping sound of meat on the soles of their shoes rang out. They went deeper and deeper down the path, as though they were descending into the bowels of Hades.

“Did you notice?”

“Yeah…”

Eventually, the two of them perceived a change. The pulsating sound that quivered through the entire mass was gradually getting louder. Thump, thump, thump, thump. The rhythm of some malevolent being’s exertions of breath rocked their bodies.

We’re probably getting close to the center.

They ran down a passage that had started to call to mind thick blood vessels. A wide, open space lay at its end.

The scent of blood and flesh grew stronger. As he stopped to look around, Kaito found himself assailed with nausea.

“This is…”

“How very strange and how utterly twisted.”

The fleshy walls surrounding them were hollowed out in a circle. They were propped up by crowded ribs and looked to be on the verge of collapse. Alongside them, two people’s worth of massive organs were lined up. However, the way the organs were arranged was haphazard.

The two hearts pulsed side by side as blood vessels wound their way around them. Their fused lungs lay scattered on the ground, and half-dissolved heaps of brain lay piled up around them.

The spectacle surpassed grotesqueness and ventured into the realm of being downright bizarre. In fact, it was almost humorous.

It was as if human organs had been enlarged and then put on display.

After glancing over them all, Kaito’s gaze returned to the hearts. Upon closer inspection, one right atrium and one left atrium each had a single person-shaped figure squirming within them. It was probably the King and Grand Monarch’s true bodies, submerged in blood.

Elisabeth wordlessly raised her right arm to call forth a torture device. But in a rare display, the Kaiser growled with his fur bristling.

“Look at that, boy.”

“Huh? …Wait, what is that?”

Prompted by the Kaiser, Kaito looked toward the wall of flesh to his left.

Two types of organs had sunken into it. However, Kaito couldn’t make out what they were from their roundish shapes. But the moment he thought back to the three underlings, he instinctively guessed their identities.

Between the King’s, Grand Monarch’s, and Monarch’s replicants, two had been male, and one had been female.

The Monarch and the King were men. That meant that the Grand Monarch had to be a woman.

The organs were a uterus and a pair of testicles. But what the Kaiser was pointing at was something else entirely.

“I know not. It is something that not even I know the identity of. And for me to not know of it, it must be abnormal in the extreme.”

The female organ was fused to the male organ.

And at the point where they met sat a strange, fleshy, tumorlike cocoon.

It was wrapped in soft, hypha-like fibers and filled with fluid. A small figure, one that belonged to neither the King nor the Grand Monarch, wriggled energetically within it.

There was something living there that did not belong.

Faced with that reality, Kaito froze, and Elisabeth scowled.

“That thing…could it be…?”

After thinking for a moment, she breathed in a small breath. With widened eyes, she gave voice to her terrifying hypothesis.

“Are the demons trying to birth a child?”

“…! Is that even possible?”

“Mm, two contractors can theoretically bear a child. Of course, it would give rise to naught but a normal human… But two contractors merging with their demons, going beyond ordinary transformations and warping into a mass of flesh, and then having a child is unheard of.”

“Indeed, the girl speaks truth. Demons exist solely to destroy—this is blasphemy! Blasphemy against our very existence!”

“In my opinion, such a creature would be fascinating… It would go against not just the laws of our world but the very providence of God and Diablo. And it offends the Kaiser, as well. It would certainly be safer to return it to nothingness before it is born.”

The Kaiser howled, and Vlad spoke in an unusually serious tone.

Kaito felt a cold sweat bead up on his forehead.

Looks like we were right to rush over here.

There was no way anyone could have known that such a thing was being cultivated here. The fact that Elisabeth had marched here concerned that the demon would grow in power had ended up being important in an unexpected way.

Kaito and Elisabeth nodded at each other. Then they changed their target.

Aiming at the fetus, the two of them launched their attacks.

When they did, the entire room squirmed, and the walls pulsed. Elisabeth and Kaito braced themselves for whatever was about to appear. But their vigilance ended up backfiring.

The next moment, countless King faces appeared from all directions.

“—!”

The only things sharp about the sunken, squalid, muscled faces were the eyes. Countless eyeballs bore down on the two of them. Then strands of drool dripped from countless pairs of flaccid lips as they opened.

All at once, they released multihued roars.

Because they hadn’t dashed away before the faces had finished appearing, there was no way for them to avoid the attack.

“Elisabeth!”

Kaito’s scream was blotted out.

He and Elisabeth were swallowed up by the vortex of gray noise.

The ceiling crumbled; the floor crumbled; someone cried; someone laughed 

And then Kaito’s vision went dark.