My mind raced a little faster.
It didn’t take long for me to realize something was wrong just by looking at Erica, who was right next to me.
It could be said that it was immediate.
When I faced her now-normal appearance, her pure white pupils reminiscent of a winter snowfield, I couldn’t help but feel a surge of self-hatred.
This wasn’t the setup.
I was feeling her kindness as pleasure, but it should have been nothing more than fleeting amusement.
It shouldn’t have become the cornerstone of this grand plan.
I quickly brushed off the two hands that were on my shoulders.
The part of my bone that had been revealed from being crushed by the axe blade was now completely healed.
“·····It’s okay now.”
Why did you help me?
My mouth, which was about to speak, instead babbled other words.
I was yearning for love, relying on her kindness.
It was a mistake.
This was a mistake.
Before I knew it, I was trying to maintain my daily life through the gentleness Erica provided without realizing it.
The rotten mind was undermining the essential plan and indulging in pathological pleasure.
For a moment, worry swept over her. Seeing Erica turn her gaze around, I felt my head spin once again.
Why did you help me?
What am I saying? There’s no need to harbor such doubts.
Even back then, you helped me at your house.
What’s different from now?
Back then…
I don’t know.
There’s so much I don’t know.
“It seems the facility is damaged beyond repair. We need to conduct a search operation once more.”
As she said this, Erica approached the fallen hunters first.
I quietly took a breath. My breathing was rough to the point that my brain was ringing.
Let’s think simply.
Let’s discuss the edge of our relationship again.
She just knew. She knew she couldn’t suppress me in that situation.
The association’s hunters were already injured, and this operation had not yet ended.
She was just catering to me.
It was no different from what she usually said.
She was just being observant. She was pretending to worry to prevent future terrorism, nothing more.
There was nothing else. No more and no less.
Not knowing anything, I leaned on her gentleness and was unable to execute the plans I had stacked up today.
If I could defeat the necromancer knight, this situation would come to an end, I concluded.
I abandoned the scene that was like a painting created by Erica and me and chose to lean into her warm embrace.
How foolish.
This shouldn’t be.
The plan is getting twisted.
She should shine a bit more, and I should be trampled a bit more.
It’s natural that completely useless pleasure should be neglected.
I ruffled my hair and looked around.
The place was a necromancer’s lair. There had to be a laboratory. I had to move to eliminate any remaining personnel that might be there.
After all, bodies were needed for the birth of Behemoth.
As I climbed the stairs to the second floor, I felt a change in texture all around.
The dark walls of a red carpet.
And at the ends of several branching hallways, there were tightly closed rooms.
It was needless to say. Feeling a distant magic power, I walked forward and infused my magic into the door before bursting it open and stepping inside.
In an instant, smoke billowed.
“Just a little more… just a little more!”
In one corner of the interior, I saw the back of a man in a robe. As he was casting a spell, the magic circle flickered.
I raised my gaze and saw the figure of a grim reaper wrapped in chains.
He was draped in a robe, with a silver scythe strapped to his back, his head hung low.
He wasn’t that large.
If anything, I could say,
“Is it a lich?”
“Why! Why isn’t it working! Why!”
I twisted my hair.
Well, it seemed he was the type who wouldn’t care what happened on the lower floor, so he probably wouldn’t hear my voice.
“Is the spell wrong? Is the control? Or… Aagh!”
As I approached and shoved the man, the loud voice quieted down.
I smiled at the violently shaking pupils.
“Shall I assist you?”
“Fuck! Who are you!”
I reached out my hand toward the man. Soon after, the intricate mouth of a beast severed the man’s ankle.
A scream echoed.
[You might as well kill me… .]
“I’m not that bad.”
[In this situation, it’s a bad girl if you don’t kill!]
Everyone is like that to me.
I’m bestowing a little mercy. Shouldn’t you want to see the outcome of what you were researching?
I looked again at the lich.
It had a similar configuration to the knight legion I had seen earlier. A hybrid body combining necromancer and spirit world traits.
Perhaps because of this, it had a core.
I could see the mist escaping from inside the robe.
With a core and even a soul.
If I awaken it just like this, it will become a beast with a self-consciousness and an attacking instinct. Without these chains preventing the outpouring of vast amounts of magic power, it would go wild even more.
For a moment, I imagined the battle scene with Erica.
To control the situation, it might be a good idea to remodel this lich’s built-in attack system to a summoning type.
“Is it okay if I use this?”
“Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!”
Thinking about it, the noise was so loud that I sewed his mouth shut with a needle.
“Is that allowed? Thank you, you will be blessed.”
“Ugh! Huh! Ugh!”
I twisted my hair.
I scattered droplets of blood. I transformed it into a large sword and embedded it into the man’s heart.
Blood splattered. The bloody wave engulfed me.
[Arrrgh!]
“Are you still alive? Isn’t a necromancer not supposed to die even with a sword pierced through their heart?”
[With such a fatal wound, a necromancer also dies! It just takes longer!]
Why the hysteria?
I twisted my hair. As I watched the man’s breathing become increasingly rapid, I turned my eyes back to the lich.
I reached out my hand toward the lich. As the blood mist slowly seeped out, I grasped my hand. The mist transformed into letters, becoming anchored in the air. Watching the sentences gather, I scattered droplets of blood.
The sentences were soaked in a red wave. As they melted, in the empty space created by the letters collapsing, I slowly wrote down using my finger as a pen.
convoquer.
I could say that it’s similar to handling genetics. The very act of spell remodeling demands vast knowledge and lots of skills applied in the real world.
Le remodelage…
My life, stained with blood over the past four years made that possible.
···matiere premiere
Translated, it means the command phrase to remodel the build using blood as the material.
“I’m sorry for changing the build freely. But the outcome of the birth will be the same.”
For a moment, I smiled as I saw the man’s pupils gleaming with light. Was that his last gasp?
I swung the large sword. When I cut the chains binding the lich, red eyes glowed from the darkness of the robe.
The mist filled the ground, and the eerie atmosphere was palpable. The screams of the dead echoed everywhere, and the ground shook.
Graveyard feet pressed against the earth. The scythe was lifted.
“Isn’t it nice to see the fruits of your labor?”
I just wanted to feel reassured like that.
As I saw the color drain from the man’s pupils, I turned my body.
I entered the central corridor of the second floor. Once again, I raised the large sword. Infusing it with magic, a red aura surged. I plunged it down toward the ground.
With a slight noise, the ground broke apart and crumbled. As the wind swept past my body, I began to fall downwards.
Thud.
I landed lightly on the ground.
The surrounding noise was anything but. Walls and bricks crumbled, falling around me. The mist and smoke thickened, and when I looked ahead after it cleared.
Erica was staring at me with a bewildered expression.
“Good judgment.”
I said that as I grasped the black cube. A few seconds passed as the cube began to crack under pressure, and the familiar screams around me pierced my mind again.
“All the attention you’ve given me, treating me like usual, that’s all.”
“·····What do you mean?”
“No need to pretend. Did you think I wouldn’t notice? If you treat me well, do you think I would be naive enough to be flattered?”
After a moment of silence, Erica twitched her eyebrows.
“Wasn’t it that way?”
“Ah, right. That’s how it would seem.”
I didn’t feel like arguing.
“But what now? I’m just like you. I was pretending.”
I tried. I tried hard to maintain this relationship. She hated me, and I smiled back at her.
So I lied. Erica was just being nice to me while I was pretending to be deceived, even knowing.
“I’ll work hard. So you can get stronger. I, really… really will.”
Was it dependence on her? Or was it desperation? I didn’t care what it was. In my already filthy life, all I could see was Erica.
When I faced her glaring at me, the surroundings were already shrouded in mist.
The lich revealed itself. The scythe swung. The skeleton legion awakened, and a witch with a lantern appeared.
“Please take care of it.”
“·····I thought it was quiet.”
Erica wasn’t flustered. She took her eyes off me and began to quickly position herself, surveying the surroundings.
“Attack! Attack! It’s time to attack!”
She shouted desperately. In a moment, I felt like my voice cracked.
Was it out of exhaustion? Was it because it was hard? Having been cooped up at home, the outside world was still difficult for me.
But it’s nice.
Right now, I like her, who is drawing beautiful curves with a sword among that legion.
The witch shook her lantern. A green mist spread broadly, surrounding Erica. One by one, skeletal hands began to restrain her.
“Restrict! Completely restrain her!”
It was meaningless. My distinct cry was absurd. The blades and sword edges tore everything apart, smashing the skeletons that charged in overwhelming numbers.
The lich opened a massive book. A magic circle was drawn, and a skeleton knight wielding a double-edged sword appeared. As the witch screamed, a wolf-like beast awakened and howled.
“What in the world is this!”
“The Erica Torment Project!”
The massive white sword pierced through the ceiling and plunged down at them. A spear wrapped in rings of magic raced low across the ground, sweeping through the legion.
But that’s just it. If I don’t do something like this, I feel like everything will crumble. The daily life I spend with you is so precious that it makes me anxious.
You shouldn’t have special feelings for me. That’s a problem about me before we discuss our relationship. For someone like me, a piece of trash that has already received too much, that just wouldn’t do.
But despite such a situation, this body pursued her. My frail mind trampled down my resistance.
Does this battle even have meaning? Really.
I spread my wings and flew up. A blood-red hammer flowed into my hands. As I struck the ground, the rising blood thorns rushed towards her.
The legion was torn apart by the thorns and vanished. Smoke billowed from various places, spiraling out of control.
A white shield was raised. As the massive thorn was blocked, I kicked off the ground and rushed forth. I swung my hammer. The shield shattered, and fragments fluttered in the air.
In between, I saw Erica.
“·····You’re beautiful.”
“·····Ugh!”
The lich screamed and reached out. The mist rose, and Erica suddenly covered her mouth.
I shattered the hammer and transformed it into a large sword. The moment the two blades swung toward each other, sparks flew, and as distance widened, I gathered blood again.
I swung the red double-edged sword quickly. The sword she barely managed to block shattered into pieces. Erica coughed in the mist. She lifted the scythe. A long scar carved itself into her abdomen, and blood gushed forth.
I turned my body and shoved my foot in. Erica was pushed back against the back wall.
“·····That must hurt. What to do.”
Looking around, I saw three hunters resisting against the incoming skeletal knights. Their bodies were covered in injuries. They seemed terribly exhausted, sweating even as they swung their daggers.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t save you! But it can’t be helped!”
The lich screamed. In the smoke that began to ensnare them, skeletal corpses with two heads appeared. As I watched the reanimated corpses rush in swinging swords.
In the moment I blinked.
Amidst the bones being shattered into pieces by the elegantly curving white blade.
Once again, there was Erica.
And once more, as I rushed toward the lich holding its ground behind her.
It was as if there was nothing there, and my blade passed through the lich blankly.
“It’s useless!”
It sounded like a villain’s line, but I couldn’t help it.
“I’m not going to die so easily.”
Now starts.
Until she suffers more and ultimately breaks me, I will continue to strive.
“Stop it!”
Were we that close? Asking not to act familiar, would I stop just like that, and such a relationship?
“When you were hitting me, I also told you to stop!”
“That’s different!”
But it wasn’t different.
Even this conversation didn’t make sense.
I resisted. As if dancing, I turned, scattering droplets of blood.
By now, the gathered red energy reached the lich, and the moment it was about to scream even louder.
A massive tombstone was erected in the center of the battlefield with a thud.
The lich, who had dropped the book she was holding, shuddered as she suddenly began to lose light.
“·····What.”
My surprise didn’t last long. In an instant, I saw a silver-haired man at the corner of my vision.
The lich sat down, releasing powerless screams. Soon after, a white sword pierced through the lich, and when I met the wielder of that sword face to face.
My own heart was also pierced by her sword.
“·····This is too much.”
Really. Isn’t this too much? Reaver.
It’s just starting. Why are you getting in my way?
Sera too, and the Reaver too.
Everyone is like that to me.
I feel truly unfair.
