Fremd Torturchen - Volume 4 - Chapter 8

8

Ends and Beginnings

The interior of the underground tomb was made from materials Kaito was wholly unfamiliar with. Also, there were a number of seals placed on it. If they weren’t properly undone by a devout follower of God, they would likely prove fatal. But Jeanne, who was practically the poster girl for atheism, successfully unraveled them one after another.

“Pray for the sacrifices. Think of the sacrifices. Believe in the sacrifices. Come forth, O tears of my people, O lives of my people.”

Snapping her fingers, Jeanne caused a number of gemstones to appear out of thin air.

Each time she encountered a seal, she placed one atop it at a carefully selected location, then shattered the seal with ease.

Kaito wasn’t sure what the trick to it was, but the feat’s eccentricity was abundantly clear. As he gazed at Jeanne in wonderment, she turned to him and nodded.

“I can see you’re feeling embarrassed about your own incompetence upon seeing how marvelous I am, mister. And I can sympathize with that. But you needn’t feel shame over the fact that you’re generally worth less than shit. This is what the alchemists who created me, who served me, and who died for me stored and refined their mana for, after all.”

“I mean, I’m not gonna deny that I thought it was impressive, but…”

“No, my dear successor, it goes far past the level of ‘impressive.’ Burn this sight into your eyes—it will undoubtably make for a valuable reference.”

Vlad floated up to a spot beside Kaito, casting his gaze toward the upcoming barrier.

The way he then nodded in heartfelt admiration was both unusual and more than a little uncanny.

“I bought demon flesh from the Butcher, but even I knew nothing of this place. I must admit, I’m quite impressed. They’ve laid out one first-rate barrier after another. Without an entire clan spending generations burning up their lives and knowledge, breaking in would prove nigh impossible. No mere graves require such protection. What on earth might they be hiding within?”

The Kaiser, who was standing beside him, scoffed. For the last little while, he’d been duly playing the part of the canine and sniffing all over their surroundings. Then, with a displeased look on his face, he let out a sneeze and shook his body all over.

“Hmph, what on earth indeed. This place was not built for man. An arrogant odor permeates its walls. It’s the odor of mice, scurrying about as they try to receive blessings from a likeness of God… But the odor has a somewhat nostalgic bearing to it as well. Whatever could it mean?”

The Kaiser resumed his sniffing. But it seemed answers still evaded him. He continued following the smell, and Kaito and the others quickly went after him.

As they went down the corridor, they passed by a number of rooms, each one boasting a self-contained mausoleum.

Each doorway was adorned with stone flowers, and within every one lay an imposing coffin. Luxurious decorations and statues stood guard around the coffins, each set based on anecdotes and tales from the lives of their corresponding kings.

As she glanced at each mausoleum out of the corner of her eye, Izabella let out a strained voice.

“Oh, to defile the graves of the kings of old… I am unfit to serve as a commander.”

Still bound by Deus Ex Machina’s steel arms, she went as pale as a sheet. If they left her like that, she was liable to end up mentally scarred.

W-we should probably do something to help alleviate her guilt…

And they needed to explain things to Elisabeth as well. With those two thoughts in mind, Kaito decided to lay out everything he knew while he walked.

“There’s some stuff you guys should probably hear. Here’s what’s been going on up to now…”

Jeanne, who was the original source of most of his information, offered no interjections. She merely hummed in a strangely mechanical fashion.

As she heard Kaito’s story, Izabella’s face stiffened for a whole new reason.

“Paladins made to eat demon flesh, you say? That can’t be… But I certainly can’t deny the existence of a squad I’d never heard of… And there were inconsistencies in the number of people listed as having died defending the Capital…”

Izabella began muttering to herself. She’d clearly had prior inklings that something was amiss.

As Izabella lost herself in her thoughts, a dangerous crimson glare flashed across Elisabeth’s face.

“A second, artificially made Torture Princess, you say? The Butcher did mention something about people working to prevent some event from occurring… You mean to tell me that this girl is the result of that?”

The black, naturally made Torture Princess cast a glance at her golden counterpart’s back. Jeanne offered no answer, of course. Elisabeth, not offering much in the way of words to Jeanne, either, continued speaking.

“So the Church bolstered their strength by forcing paladins to consume demon flesh, then made an attempt on Jeanne’s life. Jeanne’s efforts were obstructing the Church’s work, then. But what was their goal, and what was hers? The Butcher spoke of this as well…”

After hearing Elisabeth’s story, Kaito narrowed his eyes as he thought back over what she’d just said.

“I’d never thought someone would rise to oppose the dreadful end of the story that the fourteen tragedies mark the beginning of. Though your two tales may be small in the scope of things, the results they bear may be monumental indeed,” huh.

Kaito pictured a large chessboard in his mind.

The board was the world. The Butcher’s schemes and Vlad’s avarice had placed fourteen demonic pawns atop it. But although the pawns had been successfully destroyed, large cracks and fissures had spread across the board.

Now, the Church’s new, twisted pawns were facing off against a white queen.

The crimson king and queen, who’d been fighting up until then, were currently floating off to the side.

The Butcher had described the two of them as irregularities. He and Elisabeth had carried out their role, which was to defeat the fourteen demons, but supposedly, their efforts had had little effect on the battle at large. Now, though, they had an opportunity to play an even greater part.

Something’s been thrown into motion, but what? Or, no, maybe it was set into motion a long time ago.

Kaito’s head ached, and he pressed his fingers against his forehead. Then he gazed at the honey locks before him.

There was no doubt in his mind that of all the people present, Jeanne was standing closest to the truth. But she still wasn’t saying anything. Continuing to hum, she shattered the next seal with a pearl-gray stone.

The group descended a set of stairs. With each floor they went down, the seals blocking their path grew in strength.

Then Izabella let out a dumbfounded cry.

“What is the meaning of this? The tomb is only supposed to have five floors!”

The sixth floor wasn’t supposed to exist, but it stood before them regardless, the barrier guarding it more colorful and bombastic than the others. No king was interred there, that much was clear. The room should have been empty, yet its barrier was strong enough to take out a hundred underlings in an instant.

Kaito was concerned—would Jeanne really be able to break through it? But Jeanne’s voice when she spoke was light, a stark contrast to her steely face.

“That’s some baby crap. Your shit’s softer than silk, you crazy fucks. If you wanted to protect it, you shoulda put your lives on the line. We used up an entire goddamn clan; how’s that for crazy?”

And then, as though she were trashing a child’s secret hideout, Jeanne destroyed it.

The stairwell they descended seemed to go on forever.

At the end of it, though, they arrived at a massive door.

An image of the Saint had been expertly carved on its surface. However, she didn’t look the same as the myriad times Kaito had seen her before.

There was one key difference between it and the statues of her hung upside down that he was familiar with.

Dumbfounded, Kaito let out a murmur.

“…She’s standing.”

Her feet were planted firmly on the ground. And she didn’t appear to be in any pain, either. A demi-human apostle was kneeling before her. Jeanne held a red jewel over the Saint’s eye, and the stone melted away, as though extreme heat had been applied to it.

As it did, red light flashed across the entire door like lightning.

Bloody tears began pouring from the Saint’s eyes. Then the door opened on its own, creaking, as it slowly revealed the interior of the room.

And when it did, a bizarre voice rang out from inside.

It was like a monster, screaming.

It was like a human, moaning.

“…What is that thing?”

“A guardian the Grave Keeper created.”

Jeanne replied coolly to Izabella’s shocked question. But no matter how one looked at it, the thing sitting in the middle of the room hardly looked like a “guardian” of any sort.

It was a snowy owl fused with strangely swollen blobs of flesh.

The owl’s head was glowing white and giving off a holy aura. It resembled the beasts La Mules had summoned. But its bottom half was made up of repulsively intertwined feelers. The aura they gave off was sinister.

If that thing was really a human’s creation, then they’d clearly done something horribly taboo. Izabella let out a horrified murmur.

“That…that can’t… The Grave Keeper couldn’t have… Not something like that…”

Its wet feelers were spread and buried throughout the room, like roots on a tree. And they were pulsating.

The Kaiser let out a deep growl, then spoke in a furious roar.

“This is no laughing matter… This, too, is blasphemy; blasphemy against the very nature of demons! Vlad, do you see this? Why does that thing have the vile head of one of God’s messengers?”

“How brilliant. They borrowed God’s power, summoned one of His beasts, then forced it to eat demon flesh. A triumph of the imagination.”

Vlad was barely paying attention to the Kaiser. His voice with thick with ecstasy.

Izabella opened her eyes wide, utterly aghast. Her cheeks quivered. She was barely keeping herself from screaming, her heart clearly racked by despair and an overwhelming feeling of emptiness.

Kaito could understand a little of what she was feeling.

That thing’s existence violates the very foundation of her beliefs.

A monster, formed from a divine creation being forced to eat demon flesh, was sitting within the underground tomb that the Church had been protecting.

It represented a complete and utter betrayal of everything the people believed in.

“A—a question, if I may. Are you, in fact, a messenger of God?”

In an impressive display of rationality, Izabella called out to the snowy owl. Then, still trembling, she continued.

“U-under what beliefs d-do you guard this—”

The owl whirled its head around in the unique manner owls do and stared directly at them. When it did, Izabella choked on her words. Kaito gulped as well.

The owl’s eyes were gold, as big as dinner plates, and utterly filled with madness.

Like a missionary dispensing doctrine, Jeanne explained the monster’s condition.

“Those who eat demon flesh obtain great power but must in exchange offer the pain of others to their body as compensation. Just like myself and the black Torture Princess, the monster before us has likely obtained sufficient pain to maintain its body. But God’s power and Diablo’s power repel each other. Its mind and body were unable to maintain the mental and physical strain, bringing about this warped transformation. All that remains of it is the desire to destroy everything its eyes chance upon. A handy watchdog, ain’t it! One of them real ‘abandon hope, all ye who enter’ types!”

For the last bit, Jeanne’s voice was ringing with ridicule. Taking that as their cue, the feelers throughout the room began writhing with animosity. The unpleasant sound of mucus slapping against mucus echoed out.

Izabella covered her scarred face with one hand, then shook her head from side to side again and again.

“This is mad… This is utter, utter madness! Why does something like that exist? Why is it here, in the underground royal tomb? Just what is it we believed in? What exactly have we been protecting?!”

“Lift up your head, miss. There are many good and proper things you’ve protected, you know. But you noticed, didn’t you? Even just a little? Something was gradually going askew. But you foolishly averted your eyes. This is the price you pay for your blindness.”

Jeanne’s voice once more took on the ring of a priest giving a lecture. She mercilessly continued her dignified remonstration.

“Look closely and behold. Why do you think I led a stray sheep like you here, O representative of humanity? You are a leader, though perhaps only in name.”

“Yes…you’re right. So I am. So…I was.”

Biting her lip so hard that she drew blood, Izabella looked back up. Tears were spilling down from her eyes.

With those same eyes, she focused her vision on the monster whose very existence she would just as soon have denied.

The snowy owl began moving in earnest. Its massive head spun as it glided forward. Dragged along by its upper half, its mass of feelers moved as well. For a moment, Kaito felt as though the entire room had charged forward. That was just how extensive its writhing, mucus-covered flesh was.

“Master Kaito.”

“On it.”

Kaito, accompanied by Hina, tried to take a step forward. However, he could have spared himself the effort.

The loud, high-pitched noise of heels clicked and echoed throughout the room.

The black Torture Princess and the golden Torture Princess had stepped forward first.

The two of them stood side by side. Then, as though they were mirrored reflections of each other, they raised opposite hands. Darkness and light swirled atop their palms as they fearlessly faced down their sacred, profane, hideous foe.

Crimson and gold flower petals danced. White light and black darkness spun.

One spoke with naked fury, and the other emotionlessly murmured.

“Just die already!”

“Good night, slave.”

The next moment, the crimson, gold, black, and white exploded. The Torture Princesses weren’t relying on their torture devices and machines. Not fearing the onrushing feelers in the slightest, the two of them were firing off swords directly.

Thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk!

Thousands of swords designed for decapitation impaled the snowy owl through its body. It looked like a living pincushion.

Opening its beak, it let out a miserable, throaty voice.

“Ahhhhhhh, ahhhhhhh, AHHHHHHH, aHhHhHhH.”

Its voice was neither avian nor monstrous. It was the voice of a human. As he heard that, a terrible possibility welled up within Kaito’s mind.

The birds La Mules summoned vanished right away.

Why, then, had the owl before them not?

Perhaps, in order to secure the summoned beast to this world, they’d mixed a human in as well. That was the horrible suspicion Kaito had. But between his sentimentality and his revulsion, he had no space left to thoroughly examine that possibility.

“Graaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

The scream went up in pitch, rising nearly to the level of a shriek. After forcing her way out of Deus Ex Machina’s arms, Izabella hit the ground running. Then, upon crashing into the sword-ridden owl, she grabbed the handle of one sword buried particularly deep in the bird’s chest and twisted it.

The snowy owl screamed even more violently. As it did, Izabella wrenched the sword free.

A horrible squelching noise resounded throughout the chamber. Dark blood gushed from the wound and ran across the floor.

The sword had been puncturing the owl’s pulsating heart.

Its massive eyes still as wide as dinner plates, the owl convulsed. Its head and torso began transforming into white light, and the feelers comprising the rest of its body turned into black feathers. Halfway through, though, both transformations stopped.

Its tragic corpse then toppled to the ground, the right to even vanish as a demon or a holy creature taken from it.

Izabella was drenched in blood. The sword clanged against the ground as she dropped it, and when she looked up, her face was trembling. For a second, it looked like she was going to collapse. But she managed to right her footing with willpower alone.

She then placed her arm horizontally over her chest and gave a bow.

“No longer must you be bound by the chains of your tortured existence. Your efforts guarding the tomb did not go unnoticed.”

That was the dedication she gave to the monster. Nobody else said a thing.

As though it were accepting her words, the man-made monster drifted into its eternal slumber. Its feelers stopped twitching. After confirming that fact, Izabella toppled to the ground.

Then she broke into a silent sob.

She cried and she cried, as though trying to parse the absurdity of it all and change it all into rage.

A massive pool of blood spread through the room. Izabella sat motionless in it.

“Hey, Izabella…”

Kaito called out to her in hopes of comforting her. But before he could finish, the light sound of footsteps splashing echoed through the room.

Jeanne had approached Izabella with an easy, almost dance-like gait. To everyone’s surprise, she spun forward and wrapped Izabella up in a tight hug. Izabella’s eyes went wide.

Jeanne’s expression was as cold as always, but her embrace was warm and kind.

“I knew I liked ya for a reason, li’l lady. Fools demonstrating their pride is not so unpleasant a thing. You got a backbone on ya.”

Using her own pale hand, Jeanne wiped the blood off Izabella’s face. After wiping away the filth, she stroked Izabella’s scarred skin as she went on speaking.

“Their weakness is precisely what drives the foolish to be strong. That was the ideal you were striving toward, miss. You’re a good kid.”

Upon hearing the gentle words, Izabella blinked several times. But she didn’t have a chance to reply. Deus Ex Machina scooped her up in its arms once again.

“No, I… This again?”

Izabella tried to resist. But a moment later, she wearily let her body go limp. She seemed to have given up and was now obediently allowing herself to be carried.

Standing up herself, Jeanne raised her bloody hands.

“Come now, just a little farther—how exciting.”

Kaito cast another glance around the room.

He hadn’t noticed at first due to the feelers covering it, but the room was constructed like a large hall. To his alarm, the walls didn’t seem to have any joints or seams on them, and a number of delicate crystalline lamps hung from the room’s hemispherical ceiling.

Was this room really made by people?

Kaito found that fact dubious. At the same time, he realized that the room offered no way for them to advance. He couldn’t see any hallways or stairs branching off it. It was a dead end.

The one thing he did see, though, was a deep carving in one of the stone wall’s sections that had been covered up by feelers. The carving’s craftsmanship was so impressive that the person depicted seemed to be alive.

Kaito walked up to it. The Saint was embracing something swaddled in cloth, but it was impossible to see what lay within. What was clear, though, was the Saint’s benevolent smile. A demi-human attendant was standing beside her.

His face was cast in shadow, concealed by his hood. Kaito let out a dazed whisper.

“…The Butcher?”

Putting the dots together, Kaito thought back to the statue he’d seen in the Capital’s plaza.

A statue of the Saint shedding tears of blood had been installed next to Godd Deos’s headquarters. And in front of her had been another statue, a kneeling apostle wrapped from the head down in tattered rags. Surprisingly, the apostle had been a demi-human. Legs with scales engraved in them and sharp claws had peeked out from the bottom edge of the rags.

He’d looked as though he was both rejoicing in and lamenting the Saint’s suffering.

Absentmindedly, Kaito reached out to touch the engraving. Before his hand reached it, though, someone grabbed him by the wrist.

Elisabeth had been the one to stop him. She spoke, her voice cold.

“Do you have a death wish? Go on, then—touch it. Not even ash will remain.”

“Oh. Uh, my bad.”

Kaito narrowed his eyes and appraised the amount of mana stored in the wall. Elisabeth had been completely right.

It was hard to tell at just a glance, but the entire wall was covered in a fiendish barrier. Anyone who touched it would probably have their very existence annihilated. But then he tilted his head to the side in puzzlement.

There was something odd about the mana the barrier was giving off.

It’s the same here…good and evil mixed together.

Sacred mana blended together with malicious mana, sealing the wall up firmly.

It was at that moment that Kaito realized something.

“Wait, this thing isn’t designed to protect something, is it?”

Something was hidden there. Or perhaps it was sealed away there. That was the impression Kaito had gotten.

But…what?

His ominous premonitions worsened as he carefully looked back over the mana and the general vibe the wall was giving off. Then he realized that there was something lurking on the other side of the sturdy wall.

What…what is that? Is that a noise I hear?

Kaito strained his ears, taking great care not to touch the wall. After a moment, he realized what the nature of the noise was. Something was breathing, inhaling and exhaling at a steady, fixed rhythm.

Something was sleeping back there.

Like a child, taking a calm, tranquil nap.

“Now then, today shall be a day worth commemorating. Let us unveil the secret within.”

There wasn’t a tinge of fear in Jeanne’s voice. She opened her palms wide. A black jewel sat atop one, a white jewel atop the other. When she pressed them together, they merged into one, then transformed into the shape of a key. Once they had, Jeanne thrust it into the face of whatever it was the Saint was holding.

—Grgrahhh.

As the strange noise rang out, Jeanne gave a sweet, gentle whisper.

“Beyond that wall lies the true source of the flesh we ate.”

Apparently, the groaning noise from a moment ago had indicated it was now unlocked. The hefty wall began shifting, creaking and kicking up dust as it went. Like a chastity belt dropping, the Church’s revolting, long-kept secret was laid bare.

Beyond the hefty wall

sat a child’s bedroom.

It was quiet inside.

The deep, deep silence within felt as though it had lasted centuries, if not millennia.

At first glance, it didn’t look like anything besides a room for a normal child, its walls decorated with wallpaper and ribbons. It was a harmless, charming little room. But a second glance would reveal the room’s dark, twisted nature.

There were human faces sprouting from the wallpaper in place of a floral design. All of them were wordlessly writhing. Although they had no vocal cords, their mouths were contorted into silent, anguished screams.

As for the ribbons hanging overhead, they were made from various types of human entrails, dangling from the stomachs of people suspended in the air. And given their vivid hues, the owners were still alive.

And in the center of that grotesque, pain-adorned room sat a massive cradle.

It seemed almost cruel how pure a shade of white it was, the only unsullied object in the room.

Within it, something was sleeping.

Whatever it was, human vocabulary was ill equipped to describe it.

It was alive. It was in deep slumber. It had flesh.

If someone wished to describe it in words, that would have to be enough.

“That there is the first demon—a far higher entity than the fourteen who descended after it, and a being with the power to shatter the world’s very foundations.”

Though she faced a horror that surpassed human comprehension, Jeanne’s speech was dispassionate. Kaito found himself at a loss for words.

That thing isn’t supposed to exist in this world.

He thought back to the exposition Elisabeth had given him right after he’d reincarnated.

“We call the entity who created the world ‘God’ and that which destroys it ‘Diablo.’ Hence, Diablo can only interfere with the world of man once God has abandoned it. But there is an exception. If Diablo has a contractor, then all bets are off.

“But summoning Diablo, who possesses enough power to destroy the entire world, is no small feat, and there is no one vessel who can contain it, so it has yet to manifest.”

That was how things were supposed to be, yet there could be no mistaking the fact that Diablo, who held enough power to destroy the entire world, was sleeping before them.

The Kaiser said nothing, his thoughts inscrutable. A sublime smile was plastered across Vlad’s face. Hina was making no efforts to hide her revulsion, and Izabella was wearing the expression of a child who’d just been struck by a parent.

Something that shouldn’t exist, exists.

Faced with that irreconcilable contradiction, Kaito felt a wave of vertigo. Elisabeth shook her head from side to side as she cast a sidelong glance his way. Then, with a displeased look on her face, she posed a question to Jeanne.

“Without a contractor, Diablo should be unable to manifest in this world. Who, then, is this thing’s contractor? My power is all but supreme, and not even my body could withstand such a feat. Nor is it possible for Vlad, nor the Grand King, nor you. The vessel would shatter. No man should be qualified.”

“That isn’t the case, though. A person with such power does exist, a person that even the stray sheep are familiar with.”

Jeanne’s answer bordered on singsong.

Kaito and Elisabeth furrowed their brows. If such a person really existed, they’d have to be a pretty big deal. Ignoring their doubts, though, Jeanne launched into a seemingly unrelated story.

“The Saint manifested God through her body, saved the world, then fell into an eternal slumber. Because of that, it can be said the world of man was built atop her suffering, her devotion, and her sacrifice. That forms the basis of the Church’s doctrine. But therein lies a contradiction. The Saint manifested God through her body and rebuilt the world. In that case, though, who was the one who destroyed it?”

“…That would be Diablo, naturally. No. Wait.”

Elisabeth covered her mouth. Kaito, too, noticed the contradiction.

“Diablo can only interfere with the world of man once God has abandoned it.”

If that was the case, then the Saint shouldn’t have been able to manifest God. After all, once God abandoned the world, then as one of his creations, she, too, would have been a target for destruction.

The mystery had been dangling right in front of everyone’s noses, yet none of them had even noticed it.

The world had been saved once. But what had happened right before that?

“Exactly, miss. Normally, there’s no way that God could have responded to a human’s summons and dwelled within their body. All humans would have been destroyed the moment he abandoned the world, after all. In other words, the order is backward.”

“…Backward?”

“Even though God had yet to renounce the world, Diablo destroyed it anyway. That was why God appeared in response to a human’s summons, and that was why He rebuilt it. The girl who carried God within her body, the girl who wasn’t destroyed, was the only person left in the world. But if she could summon God, she would also have been able to form a contract with a demon of equal power. In other words…”

The chains on Jeanne’s wrists rattled and jingled as she raised one index finger in front of her lips.

Then, as though she were telling them a secret, she divulged the truth that had been hidden for so long.

“First, the girl formed a contract with the mighty Diablo. While it’s unclear what her objective was, she was unable to maintain control and ended up destroying the world. In her regret, she summoned God, formed a contract with Him, and rebuilt the world. But she was unable to endure her two contracts, nor was she able to die, so instead, she fell into a deep slumber. That is what it all means.”

And in that moment, one of the fundamental doctrines underpinning human society crumbled at its very foundation.

A crack formed in Izabella’s expression. But Jeanne didn’t stop, instead making one last declaration.

“The Suffering Saint, the one venerated by the Church, is none other than the first demon’s contractor.”

And because of that, the Church had hidden away the first demon, the one she’d called forth.

The alchemists must have obtained its flesh before its existence had been covered up. Then, knowing it would one day awaken, they went into hiding and began preparing countermeasures. And for some reason, the Saint’s apostle, the Butcher, had bided his time before giving the demon’s flesh to those wishing to form contracts.

Kaito and Elisabeth thought back on what the Butcher had told her.

“It’s a nonsensical little fairy tale, and one that’s gone on for a very, very long time.

There are those who’ve worked to bring these events about, and those who’ve worked to prevent them.”

“In the course of the slaying of the fourteen demons, the chessboard sustained heavy damage. The upper echelons of the Church, a number of their fanatics, and some of those who wish to escape the burden of having to restore the Capital seek to awaken the first demon, expand the destruction, and in doing so, urge God to rebuild the world. They believe that when the destroyed world is restored, the righteous devotees will remain.”

“There’s no way. That line of thinking is way too optimistic.”

Kaito replied, his voice cold. Of all the people present, his knowledge pool was the shallowest. But despite that, he was confident in his assertion. Ever since he’d seen La Mules firsthand, he’d known.

God created the world, and Diablo destroyed it. That was all there was to their respective existences.

The fact remained that neither was an entity man was meant to interact with.

“Yes, very much so. Rebuilding is the act of blotting out the current painting, then drawing a new one atop it.”

Jeanne reaffirmed Kaito’s sentiments. Kaito envisioned the scene in his mind.

People were frolicking atop a massive canvas and painting a picture. But now, warped fissures ran across the painting. Then someone sitting in front of the canvas abruptly picked up a brush.

And the first thing they did was paint over the picture with black.

“If a new world is born, then all humanity with the exception of the Saint, the painter, will perish. I was created to prevent that. But my knowledge of the common world is lacking. The alchemists lacked the power to accompany me, instead choosing to die and become my nourishment, but their final request to me was that I made sure I found suitable servants.”

After having heard what Jeanne had to say, Kaito was now keenly aware of the difference between Jeanne’s “salvation” and the Church’s. One side wanted to preserve the world as it was, and the other wanted to build the world anew.

I still don’t know what motive the Butcher had for selling demon flesh, though.

No matter what reason he may have had, though, the seeds of evil he’d planted had successfully borne fourteen demonic fruits.

And he’d described Kaito and Elisabeth’s resistance as “unexpected.”

Not knowing that the stage they’d been fighting atop had been prepared long before, the two of them had taken up the sword and fought. Countless people had died in the course of their desperate resistance. But apparently, their efforts had changed nothing.

Right now, the final flower was trying to bloom. And Jeanne was trying to nip it in the bud.

Then the maiden of salvation who proclaimed herself the saint and the whore gave her haughty continuation.

“Now, dear Lovers, you understand the truth, and the gravity of the situation. Kaito Sena. Elisabeth Le Fanu. I know that the two of you are destined to fight each other to the death. But now you must throw that all away and serve me as faithful slaves.”

She turned her rosy gaze directly on the two of them.

And when she did, Jeanne de Rais, the artificial Torture Princess, went on as though it were only natural.

“At this rate, our world will be destroyed, and not so much as a trace will remain.”

Her words rang out through the chamber like a final verdict.