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Chapter 2 — Maybe We Can Talk Things Through?

The pillar of fire continued to burn, hurling the buildings that made up the city into the air as it incinerated them. The three of them looked on dumbly at the spectacle. While they understood that what was happening was terrible, there wasn’t much they could do about it.

“Uhh...that’s the city in the Neutral Zone, right?” Tomochika asked Scott.

“Yes. Beyond this barrier is the Neutral Zone, and that’s the only city inside it.”

“Oh, maybe it’s just weird since we’ve never been here before. Does stuff like this happen often?”

“No, it’s the first time I’ve seen something like this. I’m pretty surprised too.”

“How many Neutral Zones are there?” Yogiri asked, getting a bad feeling about this. Their current objective was to gather information. They wanted to find out about their lost companions and the whereabouts of the Sage, but if this was the only Neutral Zone, they would have lost the chance to learn anything.

“As far as I know, this is the only one. Since it’s connected to the area leading off the continent, it’s kept here as a place where people from any faction can teleport to.”

“Then, something like that happening to the city is a pretty big deal, isn’t it?”

“It looks that way. Either way, if the city is just destroyed, it can be rebuilt, but...”

“I guess we have no choice but to look for ourselves. Even if the city is gone, there should be people from each of the different nations there.”

The Neutral Zone was supposed to be off-limits for fighting. It was something like a gentleman’s agreement—since it was a critical piece of infrastructure as one of the few places where food from the outside world could be brought in, no one had ever stirred up any trouble there before.

“Okay, then, so...isn’t this kind of, in a roundabout way, our fault?” Tomochika asked. The L unit from Himeln had asked Scott where Yogiri and Tomochika had gone, and he had told them they were heading for the Neutral Zone, so it was likely the L unit had gone there as well.

“Seems quite likely.”

“Come on, you should be more worried about this!”

“But what could we have done? I won’t say we had nothing to do with it, but it’s not like it’s really our fault, is it?”

“Well, I guess it’s the fault of the people who attacked... Oh, maybe it’s those people floating over there.” As usual, Tomochika’s superior eyesight allowed her to see much farther than the others. Though Yogiri couldn’t make anything out, she could see people floating in the air.

“What do you see?”

“There’s a guy who looks like a prince and a fat woman. The woman looks like the one we saw earlier.”

“So, she ran away and came back with friends, huh?” Yogiri could understand if she’d come back to get revenge, but he didn’t understand why they were attacking a random city.

“Oh, they’re looking at us now—”

As Tomochika spoke, the barrier in front of them flashed brightly. Something had rammed into it. The denizens of Belm couldn’t pass through the barriers without points. The proof was that the prince-like man Tomochika had mentioned earlier was now stuck to the other side of the barrier in front of them. He had seen Yogiri and charged thoughtlessly towards them.

“They were really far away. It’s amazing he got here so fast.” Yogiri was honestly impressed. Most of the enemies they had come across were monsters, so it was hard to know how impressive they were, but this man’s incredible speed was concrete enough that they could tell how impressive he was right away.

Now then, if this man is here searching for you, he likely possesses points of his own. Once he calms down, he will pass through to this side. That said, we can pass through without using points, so it is easy enough for us to flee. What shall we do?

That would mean leaving Scott behind, but the other two could pass through the barrier and out of the illusionary continent onto that floating island. A resident of Belm wouldn’t be able to follow them there. Basically, escaping would be incredibly easy.

“Maybe we can talk things through?”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not going to happen!”

It didn’t seem like escaping from him now would make him give up, and depending on when he caught up with them next, this guy could be a bigger problem later. Yogiri figured it was best to settle things with him here and now.

◇ ◇ ◇

Gerhardt, a prince of Himeln, and Marino, his sister Nina’s attendant, headed to the village where Nina had died. After teleporting, they arrived in the center of the region and immediately took flight.

“Marino, tell me precisely what happened.” He had gone mad with rage before, but it seemed he had calmed down a little.

Marino explained the events leading up to Nina’s death. This area was under the control of Himeln and bordered the Slow Life League. The League was making an attempt to capture this territory, so Nina and her cohort had been sent to defend it. They had been performing the routine duties of collecting points from the infected. Nina had sent her soldiers to the village as usual, but they had failed to make their usual report or return on time. Losing her temper, she went to check on them herself and found a number of the soldiers had died. It seemed they were facing off with someone who had yet to be infected. After exchanging words with the boy briefly, Nina had suddenly collapsed. Marino had panicked, immediately grabbing her and teleporting back to Himeln’s home base.

“You said he wasn’t associated with any of the other factions. Who exactly were they?”

“It appeared to be a boy and a girl. I do not know the details, but they were fighting our soldiers.”

“Losing S units is nothing extraordinary, but...” He didn’t want to believe his beloved Nina was dead. Beyond that, with her particular abilities, it was impossible to believe someone could kill her. Though she was only an M unit, she had an ability that let her dodge any attack with one hundred percent certainty. It wouldn’t be enough to defeat a powerful foe, but it was enough that her dying should have been impossible. Or that was what everyone in Himeln had thought.

“I do not understand what happened to her. Lady Nina suddenly fell...”

“It’s fine. Whoever did this, I won’t let them die an easy death. I’ll make them suffer for eternity.”

Against an opponent who was capable of killing Nina in spite of her ultimate evasion skill, there was no being too careful. But still, Marino felt confident. There was no opponent who could hope to best Gerhardt.

Gerhardt dropped to the ground. The body of an infected man lay nearby, stirring at his arrival. Countless needles erupted from the ground beneath him, punching through him and lifting him into the air.

“These guys are always spaced out. You need to wake them up if you want to talk to them.”

Marino had never seen Gerhardt do something like that before, but his powers were beyond counting. There was nothing he could do that would surprise her at this point.


“There was a guy here who killed some soldiers from Himeln. Where is he?”

“How the hell should I know? Jeez...”

“I know you can feel pain. I’ll keep torturing you like this until you talk.”

“I’ll tell you, so could you leave him alone?” A boy crouched down in the shadow of a nearby building spoke up. “The one who killed the Himeln soldiers was a boy named Yogiri Takatou. He was traveling with a girl named Tomochika Dannoura. They said they were heading to the Neutral Zone to the south.”

Torturing the infected wouldn’t accomplish much, and there was no guarantee that any information they squeezed out of them would be truthful. However, Marino felt like the boy’s claim was accurate. There wasn’t much around this area, so there weren’t many other places for them to go. On top of that, there was no reason for this boy to lie to them, and the infected probably didn’t have the energy to come up with a lie anyway.

“He’s a little bit shorter than you. He said he came here from outside the continent. They were wearing clothes that didn’t match the ones from here, so you’ll recognize them right away. That’s about as much as I can tell you, so please let him go.”

“Is that so? It seems like you are telling the truth.” The needles vanished, dropping the man back to the ground.

“You can tell if he is lying?” Marino asked.

“Yes. I can’t read minds, but I can tell if someone is being truthful. Marino, we’re heading to the Neutral Zone.”

“Yes, sir.”

Gerhardt rose back into the air and began flying south. Marino followed after him, but after traveling for a short time, Gerhardt stopped and turned around. In the next moment, the city behind them was gone. A pillar of fire erupted from the ground beneath it, incinerating everything instantly.

“Sir, you...”

“They may have been hiding somewhere inside.”

“But...if they were, now we’ll never know...”

“That’s not a problem. I can bring anyone I kill back to life if I have to.”

Marino had never heard of an ability like that, but for Gerhardt, she couldn’t help but assume he was telling the truth.

“Looks like there was no one there but the infected, though. Let’s go.” Gerhardt began moving again. They reached the boundary between areas quickly, at which point Marino realized they hadn’t collected any points.

When teleporting here, they could use the points that they had accumulated at their home base, but they hadn’t brought any with them, so without collecting points themselves they wouldn’t be able to move between areas.

“Don’t worry about it. I got some points from destroying that village earlier.” Normally, one used cylinders to collect energy from those infected by the Seyla, but Gerhardt could hold those points himself.

Gerhardt placed a hand on the barrier, part of which began to shine with a multicolored light. He must have given it enough points for two people. After the two of them passed through, the barrier returned to normal. Continuing south, they quickly came upon another city. People from all four factions resided within, and the infected had been driven out. It was one of the few areas where contact with the world outside Belm could be made, and it housed about ten thousand residents.

“Searching through the entire city may take quite some time...”

“That’s not a problem.”

“Sir Gerhardt, do you perhaps possess an ability that will allow you to search the entire city at once?”

“I can just do this.” With a casual gesture from Gerhardt, the city was engulfed in flames. The inferno erupting from the ground incinerated everything as it reached into the sky. It was the same as what he had done to the village before, but this time on a much larger scale.

This wasn’t a pointless settlement full of nothing but infected. The situation in this city was a delicate balance of powers between the members of all four factions. Even as a prince of Himeln, there was no way he could get away with doing something like this without repercussions.

“A-Are you sure it was okay to do that?!”

“Are you saying we should have just gone in and asked around?”

“There were citizens of Himeln living in that city as well!”

“So what?”

Marino had thought Gerhardt had calmed down, but it was now clear something inside him had broken. Unable to think of anything but revenge, he was blind to reason.

“This will be quick.” A number of lights flew up out of the inferno and towards them. They were like the souls of people. The lights gathered in Gerhardt’s hand, where he absorbed them. He closed his eyes and concentrated. Inspecting the contents of those souls, he looked for signs of Yogiri Takatou, the boy who had killed Nina.

The inferno finally died down, and the flow of light stopped. Everyone within the city had died. Gerhardt opened his eyes.

“They weren’t here.”

“Then what do we do next?”

“If they weren’t associated with any of the four factions, they couldn’t have teleported anywhere. In that case, we’ll have to check each area one by one. That’s our only choice.”

“If we do that, we’ll be attacked by the L units of the other factions!”

“That’s fine. If they’re willing to stop watching and come at me themselves, I’ll take them down.”

The L units were beings who exceeded the norm. A fight between them would unleash unimaginable destruction, so they were typically held back as a last resort.

I need to do something... Marino thought. Yogiri Takatou would have to bear Gerhardt’s hatred. The longer it took to find him, the greater Gerhardt’s massacre would become.

She looked around. There was a chance he was still nearby. He had headed south, so if he wasn’t in the city, he should still be in the area somewhere. Using magical energy to enhance her vision, she desperately searched the area but was unable to find anything.

“Marino, look over there.”

“Y-Yes, sir!” Following Gerhardt’s instructions, she looked to the north, in the direction of the first village they had visited. There were three figures there. Two boys and a girl. Yogiri Takatou was one of them. There was no way Marino would forget the face of the one who killed Nina and her soldiers.

“There is no doubt! That boy is the one who killed Lady Nina!”

“I see.” Gerhardt disappeared. The distant barrier separating areas flashed brightly. Gerhardt must have struck it head on. As she thought, he had lost his mind. To get between areas, one had to feed points into the barrier to create a gate, and that required a small amount of time.

Marino hurried after him.



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