Fremd Torturchen - Volume 4 - Chapter 6

6

Boulders Fall and Curtains Rise

The crimson cylinder collapsed to the ground as drops of blood.

Then they faded, leaving Elisabeth standing silently behind in the underground chambers beneath her castle.

She’d used her teleportation circle and returned from her hometown.

The passages beneath her castle smelled of mold, and an indistinct moaning sound echoed within their walls. Elisabeth strode through the halls, making her way toward her bedroom. She maintained her brisk pace as she passed the ominous designs that were cast in the light streaming through the castle’s colored windows.

As she walked, she found her brow furrowing. The air smelled of smoke, and it carried with it the fragrant aroma of meat cooking. As she expected, the smell grew stronger the closer she got to her destination.

With a displeased look on her face, she yanked open the door to her bedroom.

Inside, she discovered that the disaster within was as much as it had been when she’d left.

In fact, it had even grown worse.

A fire was blazing atop her floor. It was a mystery where he’d gotten the kindling from, but the Butcher had rebuilt his bonfire, and the tripods surrounding it were far sturdier than the ones he’d been using before.

A skewered slab of meat hung atop the flame from an iron rod. As far as Elisabeth could tell, the meat seemed more or less respectable.

As he rotated the rod, the Butcher was once more lavishly seasoning the meat.

Then he noticed Elisabeth’s presence.

“Aha, welcome back, Madam Elisabeth! Hark and be gladdened! For dinner, your Butcher has oh-so-thoughtfully prepared you a basilisk roast!”

“…I see.”

Elisabeth’s response was uncharacteristically blunt, and her tone was oddly cheerful.

No sooner had she taken a step toward the bed than she flopped forward into it. She buried her face in her downy pillow. Then, shoving aside a stray wine bottle, she closed her eyes.

While adjusting the flame’s heat, the Butcher tilted his head to the side. “Puberty is a trying time, I suppose,” he murmured quietly to himself.

The crackling of the flame filled the room. From time to time, beads of fat would drip off the meat and sizzle in the fire.

For a time, the two of them were silent.

Eventually, though, Elisabeth mumbled a few words.

“Oy, Butcher. About that time you first came to this castle.”

“Ah, that takes me back! I found myself wondering, however did you manage your shopping before I came along? Goodness gracious, Madam Torture Princess, I imagine that must have been quite the ordeal.”

“Aye, quite so. ‘It’s a good thing you found the one butcher willing to come all this way to such a remote locale,’ you once said to me. I found myself in hearty agreement.”

“Oh, very much so, very much so. Ha-ha, I imagine I really am the only one who’d come to a place such as this.”

The Butcher proudly puffed up his chest as he happily waxed nostalgic about the past. As he vigorously rotated the tripod-supported rod, dribbles of fat continued splashing against the flames.

Elisabeth’s tone lowered as she posed him her next question.

“A question, then. Why did you decide, out of the blue, to come peddling your wares here?”

“Hmm? Well, I do pride myself on customer acquisition. I’m the model merchant, if I do say so myself.”

“You showed no fear, not even when dealing with the Torture Princess. A sinner without peer. Much to the contrary, you treated me as though I’d been a patron of yours for years. And even today, you behave much the same. Demons are constantly involved in my affairs, yet you show not the slightest inkling of fear. Why, you seem all but accustomed to them.”

“Well, you know, I’ve always been a rather plucky man…plucky demi-man?”

“Tell me, Butcher. Have you, by any chance, ever had dealings with Vlad?”

The moment her words came out, the Butcher went silent.

For a moment, an unnatural silence filled the room. The flames crackled, and the fat dripped.

Then, in a terrifyingly dispassionate voice, Elisabeth resumed the conversation.

“That was the reason you came peddling to the Torture Princess’s castle so unfalteringly. You’d known that Vlad had been captured, and you knew what was sure to follow.”

The Butcher gave no answer. Eventually, though, he let out a hollow laugh.

“Hmm, well, I racked my brains with all my might, but you see, I have oh-so-many customers. Remembering the names of each and every person I’ve done business with, well, now, that’s just a little…”

“What did you sell him?”

Elisabeth cut the Butcher’s reply short and got right to the heart of the matter.

The Butcher went silent again. The only sound was that of the bonfire’s crackling. The Butcher deliberately turned the rod. When the meat had finally been fully cooked, he cracked pepper over it to deepen the flavor. Satisfied with the result, he turned back toward Elisabeth.

Then, from within the abyssal darkness of his hood, he peered at her.

“…Whatever might you be talking about?”

As always, his expression was concealed. But Elisabeth instinctively knew.

The Butcher was wearing a twisted smile.

“Spiked Hare!”

As Elisabeth yelled, crimson flower petals and black feathers swirled up into the air. A wooden roller filled with iron nails materialized, then began rolling toward the Butcher to crush him.

His response came quickly. With the same graceful movements he’d displayed countless times before, he evaded the torture device.

The bonfire was scattered. The fire went out, and the meat was crushed.

All his efforts had gone to waste.

Despite that, though, the Butcher still smiled.

An unfathomable grin still lurked beneath the deep darkness of his hood.

“Wait, hold up a second. The Butcher? There’s no way; he’s just your plain old demi-human merchant!”

The shout practically ripped itself from Kaito’s mouth. In his mind, he could visualize the Butcher’s familiar hooded likeness hopping up and down in protest. But Vlad merely replied to Kaito’s objections with a shrug.

“An honest assessment from an honest man, my dear successor. Come now; the mere fact that he went peddling his wares at the Torture Princess’s castle should have been more than enough proof of his irregularity. The Kaiser made a fine point, you know. If you don’t do something about that earnest nature of yours, you’re liable to get yourself killed one of these days. Take this as a lesson.”

An unpleasant grin spread across Vlad’s face once more.

He stroked his cheeks with his white-gloved fingers.

“After all, in this world where demons dwell, those deserving of trust are few and far between.”

As he stood in the center of that unfamiliar town, Kaito felt a deep dizziness come over him. It felt like the faces of the corpses surrounding him were curled into mocking sneers. He pressed down lightly on his forehead, trying to calm down.

Everything that had happened up until then flashed back through his mind.

He has a point—the Butcher’s way too strong to be any ordinary merchant.

The Butcher’s past was shrouded in mystery, and he seemed borderline fearless. And on top of that, he even kept a dragon as a mount.

Kaito and Elisabeth had often found themselves pondering what his true nature was. But no matter how many of his peculiarities they uncovered, it had somehow felt like they were all in character for him.

Furthermore, the Butcher had helped Kaito out on a number of occasions in the past, each time with the same distinctively upbeat manner.

But still, he’s right about what the Butcher told me.

“I can procure any meat you desire, so long as it is ‘meat.’ I await your instruction.”

Did that include demon meat, too?

Kaito felt almost as though the ground beneath his feet was crumbling.

What secrets were lurking behind the surface of all those desperate battles I fought?

Ever since the new Torture Princess had shown up, everything had gone off the rails.

It was like the very stage they were standing on had started crumbling beneath his feet. Kaito still couldn’t make out what lurked in the abyss beneath it. He didn’t even know if it was something that mortals were meant to see.

“Well then, let me repeat myself once more. Act as my loyal servant, Kaito Sena. All this is for the sake of salvation.”

What the hell do you mean, “well then”?!

The situation was chaos, and Kaito gave an internal scream out of frustration. He turned his hollow gaze toward Jeanne.

The golden Torture Princess had appeared out of nowhere, then proudly proclaimed herself a saint and a whore.

Then she’d gone on and on about “salvation” this and “salvation” that.

How noble. The young girl, a saint, was going to save the world.

At that thought, Kaito found himself filled with a seething sense of irritation and doubt.

What was “salvation” anyway? Why did the world even need to be saved?

“What does me serving you have to do with salvation? All fourteen demons are dead. Elisabeth Le Fanu sacrificed everything to defeat them! The threat to humanity is over. Why’d they send you out into the world so late? What the hell were you created to fight?!”

“It ain’t over for shit. Things are just getting started, you stupid little Hanged Man.”

His question had been heartfelt, but the reply he’d received was full of scorn.

Kaito’s eyes went wide. But his fierce irritation had the opposite effect as one would expect on his emotions and caused their heightened state to subside. He placed his rebuttal on hold, then patiently waited for Jeanne to finish explaining.

The chains on her wrists rattled as she raised her index finger.

Then she pressed it against her lips, as though she were sharing some great secret with him.

“The curtain has only just begun to rise. In fact, it was the two of you Lovers who set it off.”

Kaito and Elisabeth weren’t in any romantic relationship to speak of. But as Jeanne spread her arms wide, that was what she’d likened them to. Her face still expressionless, she gave a single spin, as though trying to wrap the entire world in her embrace.

Then, in the town assailed by death, Jeanne made a bold proclamation.

“The fourteen chess pieces were successfully destroyed, but the board has become severely cracked. What did a certain group think when they saw those tainted wounds? What did they wish for, and what did they begin plotting? The problem lies therein.”

As always, it was difficult to tell what Jeanne was talking about. But with the bearing of a great prophet, she went on.

“If things continue as they are, the world will perish ‘just as planned.’”

Smiling as she made her declaration, Jeanne opened her mouth to continue speaking. For once, it looked like she was going to elaborate on her explanation. But suddenly, she stopped and snapped her fingers instead.

Snap!

—Grrr?

The beast made completely of fangs reared its head from within Deus Ex Machina.

Jeanne spoke softly, as though she were sending her own child out into the world.

“Go on now, Bandersnatch. Duty calls.”

The moment she did, the beast took off at a dash. The stone ground cracked in its wake.

As the beast sprinted, it damaged everything it came in contact with. The fangs comprising its skin, muscle, and bone undulated. Bandersnatch was both an individual and a collective, and it glistened with a sinister shade of silver. It looked almost like a school of small fish swimming together in the shape of a monster.

Then it kicked off against a wall and pulverized the bones affixed to the surface as it leaped high into the air.

A figure began to emerge from behind the building, and Bandersnatch sank its fangs into it. There was a hard, crunching sound.

The initial blow had been stopped by a metal arm—its foe was wearing silver armor. But the beast’s face collapsed, and its fangs began whirling freely. One by one, it drove them into the armor’s joints.

A dull scream echoed through the air. Blood gushed forth and trickled onto the cobbled ground.

As the armored figure reeled back, the lily crest on their chest came into view.

Upon seeing their foe’s attire, Kaito let out a puzzled cry.

“…A paladin?”

He’d never have expected his pursuers to make it this far. In fact, he was fairly shaken. But Jeanne shook her head and refuted what he was thinking.

“The paladins aren’t here in pursuit of you, mister. I’m their target.”

“You? Wait, the paladins know about you? They know about the second Torture Princess?”

“Yes. Or rather, a small group of them do, a group operating directly under a faction within the Church’s leadership. To be even more precise, it could be said I’m at fault for the Church nudging you toward this territory.”

“…What?”

Kaito shouted in sheer astonishment. As far as he was aware, he’d come to the beastman lands of his own volition.

Before their eyes, the paladin had fought through the pain to draw his sword and was trying to use its handle to extricate the metallic beast from his flesh. Bandersnatch separated from the paladin; either it had thought the resistance disagreeable or had merely determined the situation to be inefficient. As it landed, its whole body trembled.

Then, letting out a howl, it began launching fangs from its front like bullets.

The paladin clumsily swung his sword, but the act was wholly inadequate to repel the veritable buckshot coming his way. Fangs pierced into the gaps in his joints and helmet in rapid succession. Blood burst out, staining the ground a ghoulish shade of red.

Unaffected by the spectacle, Jeanne spoke dispassionately.

“Belated though it may be, allow me to clear up one of your misunderstandings. I was not the one responsible for the beastfolk massacres. I accumulated all the pain I needed here. Also, like hell I’d have killed them in such a gross way.”

“What?! Then what was up with that machine in the village?”

“I sent that one out to test how strong you were, mister. It would have killed you if you’d failed, but it seems you narrowly passed. And damn, do I mean narrowly! You cut that crap hella close!”

Kaito was taken aback. Apparently, losing to that machine would have meant his death either way.

Continuing on unabashedly, Jeanne laid out new information about the massacres’ perpetrators.

“My pursuers must have figured out my intentions to get in contact with you after I set out from here. Because of that and the fact that they needed to gather pain, they invaded the beastfolk territories, committed the murders, provoked Vyade, and intentionally leaked the information about the battle against the Earl. In doing so, they lured you away from the human lands and, in turn, away from the prying eyes of the rest of the Church. Then they deduced I’d take you here to give you your explanation. If things had gone well for them, they would have been able to kill both of us without having to make any overt public moves. That was their scheme.”

“Wait, hold up. If you’re right about all that…then that means not only are the masterminds humans, but they’re from the Church, too?”

Kaito’s blood froze. Even if they were just members of a fringe cell within the Church, if Lute and Vyade found out who the perpetrators were, then war was inevitable. But Jeanne shook her head.

“Whether or not the killers were human is a difficult distinction to make. You noticed it too, right, mister, that the atrocities in the villages wouldn’t have been possible for humans to commit? You were correct. After all…”

At that moment, Kaito realized something.

The battle between the paladin and the beast was unfolding in an unexpected manner. The way the paladin was swinging his sword didn’t match up with the severity of his wounds. Upon closer inspection, each and every one of the fangs wedged in the openings of the paladin’s armor was being pushed out from within. Trails of blood followed them through the air as they clattered to the ground.

“…the slaughterers had undergone transformations.”

Bandersnatch let out a wary cry. Then it lifted its silver head and howled. To put it in terms from Kaito’s old world, the way it proceeded to shoot out its fangs was like machine-gun fire.

The paladin took them head-on. But even with his eyes crushed and swathes of his skin riddled with fangs, he still held his sword aloft and hurled it with deadly accuracy. The blow rippled across the beast’s body as the sword impaled it through the midsection.

After taking the attack, the beast lay in pieces. But the scattered fangs quickly resumed their original formation, and Bandersnatch reassumed its stance. The paladin stood before it, having somehow completely stanched his bleeding. Upon closer inspection, his flesh had begun swelling peculiarly. A grotesque pink shade had stopped up his wounds and was bulging out of the openings in his armor.

Humans didn’t metamorphose like that. Seeing the repulsive spectacle, Kaito found himself at a loss for words.

Is he even human?

Given the paladin’s state, it was difficult to say for certain.

Bandersnatch and the paladin squared off against each other. Then came an ominous rattling noise.

A number of other silver-armored men had made their appearances. But something about them was off. All of them, the one Bandersnatch had just shot included, were emitting low groans from beneath their helmets. Then suddenly, one member of the group looked Kaito’s way.

“Urr…grr…ahh…ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

The moan turned to a howl, and the paladin charged at him.

As he did, Hina stepped in front of Kaito. In concert with the sharp maneuver, she brought her halberd crashing down.

“Not one step closer to my beloved husband, you wretch!”

The paladin she was facing off against swung his sword up from below. Each of their weapons carved a wide arc before crashing into the other.

Sparks flew. As they did, the impossible occurred once more.

“…!”

Hina had swung her halberd down, and the paladin had swung his sword up.

The two of them were vastly different when it came to reach and stance. But despite having every possible disadvantage working against him, the paladin had managed to stop Hina’s blow. No normal human would have had the strength to pull such a feat off.

Perplexed as he was, Kaito snapped his fingers as calmly as he could.

“La (dance).”

A blade came hurtling out of thin air and flew at the paladin’s flank. But the strike, which Kaito had carefully calculated to avoid being fatal, was knocked out of flight by another silver knight. The new paladin had stopped the blade with strength alone.

Before Kaito could manipulate it again, the paladin hurled it. The blade cleft deep into the surface of the road.

Hina and the paladin she faced continued trying to push each other away. With the distance between them having grown, Hina stiffened her guard.

Kaito bit down on his lip. He’d been holding back during his last attack, but still, no human should have been able to stop it with brawn alone. Or to put it another way, no human was meant to be able to.

“What’s up with these guys? They look like paladins, but are they abnormal or something?”

“Allow me to ask you a question, mister. Are you positive you saw the Monarch die?”

A surprising question came from Jeanne. As soon as she spoke, Bandersnatch leaped in front of the paladin who’d blocked Kaito’s blade, casually taking over Kaito’s fight.

Kaito was on the verge of giving Jeanne an answer, but he stayed silent instead. He’d tortured the Monarch, then killed him. Kaito was certain he’d decapitated the wailing, agonizing demon. But there was something tugging at him, preventing him from giving an authoritative answer. Then recollection of a certain fact jolted through his brain like lightning.

After they die, demons collapse and turn into a cloud of black feathers.

Kaito hadn’t properly seen the Monarch’s death through to the end.

“N-no. I cut off his head, but I didn’t make sure he did the final transformation.”

“I fuckin’ knew it, ya stupid piece of shit. You are quite the Fool! Even if they’re beheaded by a guillotine, human beings can survive for several seconds. And demons can take even longer than that to die. Someone must have reattached his head and kept him alive. I caught a glimpse of some Church documents detailing how you tortured him in order to amass power, mister, but did you by any chance leave behind a magical formula of healing?”

“Yeah…I did.”

Everything Jeanne had pointed out had been right on the mark. Kaito had been done with the formula, but he’d left it beneath the cage regardless. The Church reviled dark magic. He’d assumed they’d erase it by the following day, but Jeanne refuted that notion.

“Reusing that formula would have been feasible. They could have erased the part that transferred pain but left the part that healed. In doing so, they could shave off as much meat from the Monarch as they wanted, completing their magical rite. Wouldja look at that? The Monarch became a handy piece of livestock! A fine, good-lookin’ swine!”

“Using a demon as livestock and harvesting their meat… You can’t mean that they…!”

“That’s right, bud—they chowed down.”

Jeanne’s reply was blunt.

As she pointed toward the paladin Hina was fighting, the chains on her wrists rattled.

“Those men were induced to consume the flesh.”

Kaito’s gaze swung toward the paladins so fast that it was like he’d been slapped.

Their faces were all covered by helmets. There was no way for him to tell if any one of them had been a member of Izabella’s squad or someone else he knew. The only thing he could make out was that they clearly weren’t sane.

The eyes peering out from within their helmets were bloodshot and tinged with madness, and crimson foam was frothing around their mouths.

Kaito recalled something Jeanne had just said.

They needed to gather pain.

“If one must consume the flesh of demons, there is an optimal portion size, and it takes several years before its roots finish spreading through people’s bodies to the point of being bearable. But they each ate more than double that amount. In their current states, they’re little more than weapons, seeking out the pain of others to alleviate their own. They ain’t nothin’ more than pawns to be used up and chucked aside.”

As a result, the paladins hadn’t hesitated in carrying out those massacres.

The strung-up corpses flashed across Kaito’s mind. Just like he’d suspected, that had all been assembly-line work dispassionately carried out with the intention of causing pain. And just as Vlad had suggested, whoever was designating the sites of the murders must have been selecting them with their own personal amusement in mind.

In one sense, that was definitely a demon’s doing, but in another, it was a human’s.

“I had no idea this was how—”

“Feeling personal responsibility for this would be both illogical and pointless. You’re a very kind person, mister. And even though you might be an incorrigible asshat, this turn of events was bound to occur regardless.”

Jeanne gave him a light shrug. Kaito clenched his fists tight.

As they did, Hina had begun pushing the paladin back and was now swinging her halberd in earnest. The paladin fell back in order to avoid her torrential blows. Taking on a bestial stance, she spoke in a low voice.

“You would do well not to underestimate the depths of my love. Take a single step forward if you do not value your life.”

The paladin fighting Bandersnatch had retreated in much the same way. But the corrupted paladins hadn’t given up yet. Five more members joined them from the group hanging back. Apparently, their plan was to win with sheer numbers.

Kaito and Hina stood at the ready again. The Kaiser scoffed, motionless. Vlad crossed his arms.

Then Jeanne listlessly gave an order.

“Bandersnatch, my first, Gargantua, my second, Jabberwocky, my third, and Pantagruel, my fourth—don’t let them flee.”

One of them was a beast made of nothing but fangs. Another was an automaton, shaped like a human except for its fatally warped frame.

One of the other monsters was a lizard with limbs made from pipes and wings of glass. And the final one was a bipedal suit of armor with no visible seams on its body.

The four of them advanced, their movements perfectly controlled.

Then silver streaks flashed across Kaito’s vision.

A metallic mass had appeared in front of the paladins. Even upon seeing the “thing” in full, Kaito still found himself unable to properly parse it. In all likelihood, it was beyond mankind’s ability to comprehend altogether.

What the hell…is that?

It was firm, and it was supple. It was a sword, a shield, a bullet, and a wing. It was massive, twisted, and formless. Its whole body was both curved and straight, and it writhed as it bore down on its foes.

Then, at long last, Kaito realized what it was.

Deus Ex Machina breaks down its component parts, then combines them at will, transforming into something completely new each time.

As befitted the name Deus, the lot of them were normally just parts of one, larger weapon. They ran their hard, metal, lance-like conical feelers gently along the ground. Their movements were wholly inconsistent with their forms, and the attacks they launched defied all human expectations. With each strike, they severed the paladins’ arms and legs, silver armor and all.

Countless limbs went flying through the air. The scene would have been funny if it wasn’t so grisly.

They didn’t know if the paladins had eaten the demon flesh of their own volition. As Kaito was about to stop the tragedy by calling that fact out, though, he swallowed back his words. Before his eyes, the paladins’ wounds had begun roiling.

Their pink flesh began swelling up, burbling horribly as it did. It began taking on the shape of arms and legs.

One paladin’s helmet went flying off, exposing his face below.

“Grblargh, brglahhhhhhh, brglahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

His eyes had turned almost completely inside out, and his engorged lips were tearing even as he cried. His veins had risen to the surface, forming a grotesque, melon-like lattice over his face.

Even if they left the paladins alive, they were beyond help.

Jeanne’s voice as she stared at the hellish spectacle was even and dispassionate.

“They ate the Monarch’s flesh. What meat did Vlad and I eat, then? That was what you asked me as you buzzed about like a fruit fly, or maybe like a giant pain in my ass. It is necessary for you to know, so tell you I shall. Or rather, I shall show you. It is necessary, so that is what I shall do. It’s become noisy as shit around here, after all.”

And with that, Jeanne shrugged.

As Deus Ex Machina continued one-sidedly butchering the paladins, Jeanne turned her back on the fight.

Her honey-blond hair swayed as she walked, her gait so light that she nearly seemed to be dancing. She approached one of the corpses on the walls, the one she’d pointed out to Vlad earlier, and the only one whose bones were adorned with gold. They’d probably been an important figure, even for an alchemist.

Jeanne reached out toward the rose-colored gem resting on the corpse’s necklace.

“Time to bring down the house. The end.”

A hard, crunching noise rang out. Jeanne had, for whatever reason, crushed the gem in her bare hands.

Its rosy fragments scattered through the air. That was when it started.

A violent quake ran through the town, as though some sort of lever had been pulled.

Unable to keep his footing, Kaito lost his balance. That very instant, Hina took off at a dash and extended her arms outward. Half-hugging him, she propped him up gently, yet firmly.

“Master Kaito, please put your arms around me.”

“Right, thanks.”

The two lovers wrapped each other in a tight embrace, and in doing so, endured the steadily worsening tremors.

The sky, the earth, and everything in between was shaking.

It felt as though the end of the world had arrived.

Roused by the noise, Vlad let out a rare cry of admiration.

“Oh, how bold! And how calculated! A mechanism designed to flatten an entire town!”

Kaito followed Vlad’s line of sight. Red lights were flashing in succession at the base of the two mountains. It would seem magic circles had been concealed among the rocks and trees. One after another, the dazzling light carved away at the mountains’ surfaces. Each one empowering the next, the lights snaked their way up to the peaks.

A loud, massive explosion rang out. Then the two mountains began crumbling as though they’d been struck by lightning.

As a consequence, rocks began raining down on the village.

“Sorry, Hina! I’m gonna have to leave evasion to you!”

“I don’t mind in the slightest! I shall protect you to the last!”

Hina quickly scooped Kaito up. The footwork she then displayed in avoiding the boulders wouldn’t have been out of place at a fashionable ball. Kaito used his beastly arm to bat away some of the smaller rocks.

One of the paladins got crushed. Deus Ex Machina, on the other hand, casually pulverized the boulders coming its way with its metal arms. The Kaiser languidly bit one in half. Vlad, being phantasmal, merely shrugged, then vanished.

As for Jeanne, she simply looked up at the sky.

The way she gazed up at the heavens, one would think she was watching a gentle rainfall.

The boulders fell atop everyone equally.

That, more than anything, made it feel like punishment meted out by the heavens.

The alchemist’s hidden village was crushed, as though it had invoked divine wrath. But the one who’d brought it about was none other than the girl, the village’s sole surviving inhabitant.

“Now should be a good time.”

Suddenly, Jeanne set off. The rattling from the chains on her wrists could be heard all throughout the crumbling town. Then she began elegantly twirling. As she did, Deus Ex Machina took its place by her side.

Its fused form collapsed, and its four sub-components joined Jeanne in her dance. They waltzed, as though to extol her, and mana began gathering between them. Golden flower petals started whirling up.

“Master Kaito!”

“Yeah, let’s go!”

Kaito and Hina hurriedly made their way into the circle. The Kaiser followed after them. The remaining paladins also rushed forward but were repelled by the wall of gold petals and white feathers.

Then the teleportation circle activated, mercilessly abandoning the paladins to their fates.

Paying no heed to their howls, Jeanne spoke.

“Now then, to continue from where I left off before I was so rudely interrupted. The demon’s flesh we ate. A visit to the Capital’s abandoned underground tomb should make it quite apparent where we obtained it from. And that is where I intend to show to you…”

Gorgeous, cold light began filling their vision.

Then they left the crumbling village behind.

Jeanne continued, as though to build up anticipation.

“…a true nightmare, the likes of which you stray sheep have never seen before.”