Ch.182Sister (6)

*

“I killed Laila by burning her.”

“… What?”

“So maybe that’s why I didn’t feel much resistance when burning Sister Maria.”

“…”

“I guess being an uncle doesn’t make much difference.”

Blood rushes to my head.

Even without touching it, I can feel how hot my head is, and the pounding of my heart echoes inside my heated skull.

It feels like my brain is boiling, yet my mind—which had been hazy from fatigue and anemia—becomes clearer instead.

No, beyond clarity, my senses sharpen to the point where I can distinguish even the sound of tearing flames scattering into the air.

Ah, I see.

So this is what it means to be furious to the point of bursting.

I let out a hollow laugh as I diagnose my current state.

Of course, I haven’t lived the life of a monk who never once got angry.

When I learned of Laila’s death, I was angry at my own powerlessness. When I killed five innocent people, I was disgusted by the terrible sin I had committed. When I met the Green Lady and heard about the distortion of fate, I despaired at its cruelty.

But the intense anger swirling inside me now made those massive emotional whirlwinds feel like gentle breezes in comparison.

My head feels like it’s about to explode.

Though I’ve never once enjoyed physical activity in my life, right now I want to tear the man before me to shreds with my bare hands.

Looking at the five corpses grotesquely mangled by the curse in my eyes, I had thought no one should die in such a horrible way. But now, a terrible malice baring its teeth makes me want to give him the most cruel and horrific death imaginable.

“Sister Alice…”

At that moment, Sister Alice’s face flashed vaguely in my mind.

She had said that her mechanical heart made it difficult to control her anger.

Does that mean Sister Alice has been living with these feelings all the time?

Ha, good heavens.

How does she stay alive?

Feeling this emotion every day would kill me.

I can feel an enormous amount of energy being consumed from my body just by glaring at Balder.

“…”

I couldn’t see where Sister Alice had flown off to when she physically shattered Sister Maria’s magic earlier.

But I wasn’t worried.

The fact that I was standing unharmed in this forest filled with magical energy was proof enough that Sister Maria’s divine power was still flowing into me.

I mustn’t panic or be surprised.

Right now, I can’t take my eyes off the bastard in front of me.

“Kuk,”

Balder gritted his teeth and slowly rose to his feet, clenching his fists as if scraping the dirt from the ground.

Is he unable to grasp the situation, or is he still underestimating me?

Balder began to roll that detestable tongue of his once again.

“You crazy bastard, what the hell are you babbling about?”

“…”

“Such insolent eyes, Ash. Though your eye color has changed, that useless gaze is exactly like your father’s.”

Balder leaped toward me in an instant, emitting dense magical energy.

Even though I was protected by Sister Alice’s divine power, the instinct to dodge such concentrated magical energy was unavoidable.

The magic was dense enough to irritate my eyes and throat like acrid smoke, even if it couldn’t directly harm my body.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

But Pia wasn’t running away.

“Don’t approach Ash.”

A sharp wind, honed like a massive blade, pierced through Balder’s body.

Simultaneously, I chanted a spell.

Kindle the spark, release it.

I created only a small ember and sent it riding on the wind Pia had created.

The hot spark burrowed into Balder’s body through his wound.

“Argh!”

Balder twisted his back as if having a seizure.

I ran to him and kicked his chest, pushing him away.

“I won’t use grand words like ‘betrayer of humanity’ or whatever.”

“Kuk, Ash… you bastard.”

“If it weren’t for you, my family wouldn’t have died like that. That’s enough for me!”

“Don’t underestimate me!”

Balder shouted as he swung his fist swiftly.

Well, his sturdy body, trained through years as an adventurer, would easily withstand my feeble kick.

I hastily pulled my head back, but Balder’s fist still grazed my nose bridge heavily as it passed.

“Ugh!”

When I touched my stinging nose bridge, it was slightly crooked, and blood immediately gushed out.

Balder swung his extended fist back in the opposite direction.

I dodged properly this time, but at that moment, Balder opened his clenched fist.

Dirt and sand were instantly thrown into my eyes.

“It’s the difference in experience, youngster!”

Balder shouted as he kicked at me.

With my eyes tightly shut due to the foreign matter, I couldn’t dodge.

His leg, thick as a log, flew toward me.

But I wasn’t worried.

“Pia!”

This time, air packed as densely as a solid hammer struck down on Balder’s leg.

The knee of the leg he had swung at me made a cracking sound as it bent in the opposite direction from normal.

He screamed and tumbled to the ground.

“Damn it, is throwing dirt what you call experience? Well, I guess that’s just your level. The level of garbage who proudly boasts about selling out his own family to the Demon King.”

I glared at Balder while rubbing my eyes with my arm.

Black magical energy gathered around Balder’s knee, and soon after, he slowly rose to his feet.

It seemed that magical energy, like divine power, had the ability to assist its user.

However, judging by his knee still bent in a strange direction, it didn’t have the healing power of Sister Alice’s divine energy—it merely seemed to help him forget the pain.

Balder screamed while standing awkwardly due to the difference in height between his legs.

“Kugh, what, what the hell is this?!”

Balder was shouting in extreme confusion.

And for good reason.

Pia would be completely invisible to his eyes.

From Balder’s perspective, he was being attacked multiple times by an unseen force of unknown origin.

To maximize his fear of being attacked by an invisible enemy, I had instructed Pia to use primarily wind-based attacks, so Balder’s terror was exactly as I had intended.

Therefore, I had absolutely no reason to explain spirit arts to him.

“Shut up.”

“You were a mage… Pia? I’ve never… heard of such magic. That earth pillar earlier… what was it? Did you say you would believe…? That wasn’t a spell either…”

Balder, who had been muttering in confusion, seemed to realize something and jerked back his broken leg in alarm.

He moved so hastily that his knee, bent in the wrong direction, made a creaking sound and bent once more.

Staggering momentarily from the movement, Balder spoke with a trembling voice.

“The same as the Demon Lord… what are you…”

“Can’t you hear me telling you to shut up?”

Balder broke into a cold sweat.

It wasn’t from the pain in his knee; he seemed to have realized something.

If he had sensed power similar to the Demon Lord’s from me, then the current Demon Lord must indeed be a spirit artist.

Balder continued to shout and shake his head.

“Answer me! There’s no way a human could possess such power!”

“You’re noisy.”

“Even I… only gained a portion of that power after abandoning my humanity…!”

Balder didn’t seem to know much about spirit arts.

It appeared he wasn’t trusted much by the Demon Lord he so fervently served.

Well, even if the new Demon Lord had usurped the previous one’s position, being a demon, they wouldn’t likely appoint a human to an important position.

He might boast about receiving power from the Demon Lord, but judging by the fact that I couldn’t see any other spirits around him, what the Demon Lord had actually given him was probably just Sister Maria’s corpse.

By the way, something in Balder’s words slightly bothered me.

He abandoned his humanity?

Well, that makes sense.

If Balder were human, the curse in my eyes should have taken effect long ago.

That was also the basis for my decision not to hesitate in burning Sister Maria.

When I saw Sister Maria, these eyes didn’t drive me mad.

That meant Sister Maria was no longer human either.

“Damn, thinking about it again makes me angry.”

But that doesn’t mean I enjoyed burning Sister Maria.

Thanks to her appearance being so different from my memories, I didn’t feel like my memories with her were being tainted, but the memory of burning Laila as she writhed as an undead came back to me, making me feel incredibly complicated and painful.

“Pia.”

“Yes, I know. I understand everything you’re thinking, Ash.”

Pia slowly gathered magical power.

“You don’t intend to kill him easily, right?”

As always, Pia perfectly understood what I wanted to do.

But given the nature of my request this time, I asked Pia once more.

“Please. Is that okay?”

Pia answered with a smile.

It was a refreshing smile, as open and well-defined as her tall stature and her large, slender figure.

“Of course, what you want is what I want.”

*

Balder was backing away hesitantly as if frightened, but inwardly he was laughing at Ash.

Anyone could see that Ash was out of his mind with anger.

Though he hadn’t yet uncovered the nature of Ash’s abilities, deceiving an opponent who had lost their composure was easy for Balder, who had survived his long adventuring career through bargaining and deception.

Ash was staring straight at him with his red eyes, so bloodshot that the whites were barely distinguishable from the red irises.

And behind Ash, under the blazing flames, Maria was slowly rising to her feet.

All the threads controlling her had been cut.

But that didn’t mean Maria couldn’t move.

Without being controlled, Maria would move instinctively like any other undead.

And undead would surely target Ash, with his living blood and flesh, before Balder, who was filled with magical energy.

An undead that instinctively unleashes enormous magic spells.

That should be enough to distract Ash’s attention.

Balder limped deliberately, hoping Ash wouldn’t notice.

He felt like a fragile deer dragging an injured leg to lure a predator.

‘The moment you think you have the advantage is when you’re most vulnerable.’

It had always been that way.

The debt collectors who had come to kill him with their gang had died at Balder’s hands when they let their guard down. The hero’s party that had boasted confidently about vanquishing the Demon Lord had met a terrible end. Even Alice had rushed in thoughtlessly and let Balder escape right before her eyes.

Only those who remained vigilant survived.

Balder’s submission to the Demon Lord was also the result of not being reckless in order to survive.

Balder deeply trusted the experience that had saved him numerous times.

And finally, Maria had fully risen and was slowly turning to look at Ash.

Balder decided to provoke Ash one last time.

“You said you burned Laila, right?”

“… Shut that mouth of yours.”

“How did it smell when you burned your little sister? Did she smell like a brat wetting herself?”

“I said shut up!”

“Your mother was like that when she died. The stench of urine was terrible…”

“You son of a bitch!”

Ash charged at him.

And behind him, Maria slowly raised her arm.

I’ve won.

Balder was certain of it.

But at that moment, with a tearing sound, Maria’s arm fell limply to the ground.

“…What?”

Balder was shocked.

He saw Ash turn his head to look behind him at the strange sound.

It wasn’t Ash’s doing.

Then a voice was heard.

It was a voice like a burning fireball, yet also hoarse like burnt ashes.

“Ash.”

“… Sister Alice!”

Maria slowly turned around.

There stood Alice, shaking the black blood off her holy sword.

“I’ll leave the revenge to you, since it was your revenge to begin with.”

“… Okay,”

Balder cursed and gathered magical energy at his fingertips, releasing it.

Thousands of threads extended from his fingertips, grabbing the surrounding trees.

Balder entrusted his body to the threads, trying to quickly escape the scene.

“Go after him quickly.”

“But, but Sister, you…”

Even at a glance, Alice’s condition was not good.

As if that cursed heart had finally broken down somewhere, her body was covered in unhealed wounds with blood flowing from all over.

No, looking closely, it wasn’t that she couldn’t heal her wounds.

As soon as one wound healed, new holes were forming in her body.

It was like watching cheese melting and solidifying at the same time.

Alice reached out her hand toward Ash.

Instantly, a warm energy enveloped Ash’s body.

“This should… let you hold out for a few hours even without me.”

“… Sister?”

“Go quickly.”

Ash instinctively knew.

That this was the moment,

That this was the last moment he could talk with Alice Goldfield.

Alice weakly dropped her arm holding the sword, and covering her melting cheek with the back of her hand, she shouted at the hesitating Ash.

“Go quickly! You know we can’t let that bastard escape!”

“… Alright.”

“I need to send off a friend.”

Alice slowly put strength back into her hand holding the sword.

Ash started running after Balder, leaving Alice behind.

As Ash disappeared into the darkness, Alice murmured softly.

“…I couldn’t tell him after all.”

Alice slowly glared at Maria.

Maria stared blankly at her missing arm for a moment before slowly turning her gaze toward Alice.

“Ha…”

Alice let out a small, hollow laugh.

Her breath carried a heat that seemed capable of melting everything it touched.

In reality, her breath was melting her internal organs, and all her organs were boiling from the intense heat.

Every time her heart had malfunctioned before, she had thought many times that this might be the end, but the true end that had finally arrived was on a completely different level from all the previous warnings.

“Still, this isn’t a bad ending.”

Alice forced her melting lips into a smile.

And then, in an incredibly gentle voice,

A clear, beautiful voice reminiscent of her days as a Goldfield, she slowly murmured.

“This time, you won’t die alone and lonely, Maria.”

.