Volume 1 – Following the Maze Drawn With Lines of Blood
After around one hour, Mary ended things after saying ‘that’s enough.’
She had already finished talking to most of the commoners, and one could say that she had fulfilled her duty.
Ami’s father however seemed worried and begged Mary.
“Please wait, Lady Mary, there’s still one close friend of mine who hasn’t……”
“I’m sorry, it will be dangerous for you if I stay longer. This is all I can do.”
“……Oh, I see. Yes, of course, it can’t be helped.”
Ami’s father suddenly pulled back.
But this time, Ami grabbed Mary’s dress with a sad expression.
“Are you leaving already…..?”
Mary smiled at Ami and caressed her face.
“This village’s future is a bright one, as long as you stay this lively. Please try your best.”
“……Mhm! I’ll do my best!”
Mary was worried about Ami’s skinny arms and legs and her thin body, but she could tell by the color of her complexion that the girl would survive and quickly grow up.
She would meet with her again once the fighting ended.
Mary left the house with those thoughts in her mind.
The family was sad to see her leave.
“It was a bit difficult, but if I granted them some hope just by chatting with them, then……”
◇◇◇
15 minutes after Mary left the village.
She was looking for a way to sneak back into Captis when a car stopped by the tree she was hiding herself behind.
It was not a civilian car, but a military one… and it had vulgar golden decorations.
Mary held her breath.
The two soldiers inside went out of the car without realizing Mary was there and pulled a jute bag out of the back seat.
Then, they carelessly threw it on the grass.
(There’s blood in the bag…… and the smell, is it a corpse…..?)
Mary raised her eyebrows.
Then, the soldiers took a breather as they idly chatted without any caution.
“Logance’s weird hobbies can get pretty annoying.”
“Reducing the number of farmers like this is the reason they don’t summon him to Captis, you know.”
“They’ve been like this for generations. He was raised this way, he’s not gonna change now.”
“That poison gas though, do you think he’s actually going to use it? It’s not like I care about the farmers or anything, but, come on.”
“I think he’s serious. I heard the soldiers already carried it out. All the farmers will be dead…… we gotta get out of here before it affects us too.”
“If that’s enough to finish Mary Pulsherima off, things are really going to get scary now. We might have to find somewhere else to work.”
“Maybe we can join an army that’s still looking for personnel?”
“Hahaha, that sounds nice. We’ll become nobles with one bullet if we kill that little girl with a new sorcery weapon!”
“You don’t have to do that.”
Mary leaped out from the shadow of the tree and thrust at the soldier’s head from behind with a bone sword.
“You can join Lord Romeo in death.”
“……Y-You….!?”
“If you quit being a soldier and explain what you were talking about just now, I won’t take your life.”
“J-Just now? What do you……”
“The poison gas. You will tell me about it, won’t you?”
The soldiers were miserably shaking with fear.
There didn’t seem to be any need to threaten them further.
“It’s exactly what it sounds like!”
“Hey, you’re gonna talk!?”
“Yeah, or we’re gonna die here! Lord Logance is going to use poison gas on the village. Just to kill you!”
“Along with the villagers?”
“Y-Yeah, that’s right. Everybody’s dead if he uses it at the center of the village – wait, stop pushing that blade on me! It’s not like we’re doing it!”
“Sorry, I got a little annoyed.”
Mary sheathed her blade and distanced herself from the two soldiers.
“Go ahead, you may flee. I will not chase you.”
The soldiers stared at Mary with pale blue faces, and slowly backed off.
When they were a little distance away, they began screaming, ‘aaarrrrgh!’, and ran off, leaving their car behind.
After seeing them off, Mary reached out to the bag with the corpse in it.
“The skull is completely burned…… this has to be sorcery.”
The first thing that came to mind was the nobility.
And then she noticed the cheap clothes the corpse had on it, which were similar to the ones Ami and her family wore – this was a villager.
“This is exactly what I was talking about…”
Unable to bear her own naivety, clenched her fists so tightly that blood started seeping out of them.
She ran off back to the village, motivated by the sense of responsibility she felt.
◇◇◇
The villagers were looking out through their windows and talking to each other.
There was a gathering of soldiers wearing powered suits clad in heavy gray plates, deploying something like a capsule right at the center of the village.
Of course, nobody understood what it was.
But they certainly had a bad feeling about it.
Ami squeezed her father’s coat as they looked out through the window.
“Father…… could it be about Lady Mary…..?”
“Of course not! How would they know?”
“But that old man didn’t come here, did he…..?”
“That guy’s been my friend since the olden days, he wouldn’t do anything like that. Besides, Lady Mary isn’t here anymore, is she?”
“Yeah…… It would be pointless to search for her when she isn’t here……”
But she still felt nervous.
Ami’s mother was with her on this, and all three of them continued to watch.
There was no one around the area other than the people deploying the device.
All those soldiers who were patrolling around, they were all gone.
And when the deployment was finished, the soldiers with the power armor also left.
A villager nearby approached the object and curiously observed it.
Then, the device began to change its shape and an ‘ejection cover’ that was previously close opened.
Psssssssss, a purple smoke was set loose on the entire area.
“Something is…… coming out of it…..?”
“I’m scared……”
“Don’t worry Ami, we’re here with you.”
The family embraced each other closer as the man who approached the device was thoroughly covered in the gas.
He was fine at first, but then started scratching his body with a dubious expression on his face.
At first, he was just itchy.
But as he kept going, pieces of skin began to get stuck under his fingernails.
Blood started oozing out. A stinging pain overtook the itchiness.
He kept going, scraping the skin and the flesh.
“Agh…… ah…… arrrgggggh! Guh, geh!”
The man screamed as he watched his own hand gouging out the flesh of his own arm.
With that, he breathed in a great amount of gas.
Blood spurted out of his mouth as he coughed.
His outer body and his organs hurt just by standing.
He looked at the arm he did not scratch off yet.
All the skin was gone, exposing the flesh underneath, and that was also about to melt away.
His bone became exposed up to his fingertips, and his nails dropped to the ground.
“Agh…… Aaaaaaaaagh! Help me, heeeeeeeeeelp! Geh, guhhh!”
His hair fell out, his teeth dropped, his voice got hoarse and blood gushed out like a waterfall from his mouth.
“No…… Noooooo…..!”
Ami buried her face into her father’s back, averting her eyes from this sight.
“If you touch that gas, you melt…..?”
Rather than gas, this thing was more like acid.
An anti-human weapon that decomposed solely the human body.
That was what Logance had prepared.
“Ami, mom, let’s go!”
“O-Okay!”
The father grabbed Ami and headed towards the door with his wife.
But when they got to the entrance, they saw that the purple gas had covered the ground everywhere.
It almost got inside, so the father quickly closed the door.
“Can’t we get away? What do we do now, father!?”
“I-I don’t know either! But…… But, Ami…… we have to save our girl, somehow!”
Gas started leaking in through the gaps of the door.
The area around the house was already covered in a purple mist, and there was nowhere to run.
◇◇◇
Having returned to the area nearby the village, Mary found soldiers.
Probably the soldiers patrolling around the village.
“Hey, have you reached those two yet?”
“I can’t. The gas is already out, Captain, it’s too late for them.”
“Yeah, unlucky bastards……”
“Maybe it got Mary Pulsherima too, at least.”
“It’s still insane to destroy the entire village along with her. I don’t want anything to do with Logance.”
“Same here.”
“Let’s withdraw. Logance’s private soldiers can handle the rest.”
“Copy that.”
Mary leaped out of the bushes she was hiding in when the men started moving.
They noticed the noise and turned around.
“M-Mary!?”
The three soldiers instantly aimed at her.
Mary finished them off first.
For the first one, she shot a thorn at the man’s throat from the palm of her hand. Pierced.
For the second one, she extended bones from her heels and dashed at high speed. Then she stabbed the man’s heart with a blade coming out of the palm of her hand.
For the third one, she grabbed the man’s head with the arms growing out of her back and tore it off.
All of this didn’t even take a second.
The three soldiers were finished off before the next soldiers who would aim their guns at her showed up.
They saw what happened and were filled with dread rather than anger.
“No way……”
“W-We can’t beat her…..!”
“Ruuuuuuuuuun!”
They lost the will to fight – Mary could chase them, but not right now.
Without even looking at them, Mary grabbed the corpses on the ground and ran off while dragging them behind her.
When she arrived closer to the village, she threw them towards the gas spreading around the area.
The skin on the corpses slowly melted away and the flesh got exposed.
“What is this….!?”
Mary bit her lips in anger.
The village was already covered in the gas.
All those commoners in there, who aren’t even sorcerers, were probably…
“No…… Someone might still be alive!”
Mary stepped into the poison mist.
She continued running, and the purple gas didn’t melt her body.
If this gas was something that melted flesh, Mary’s restorative powers were enough to override it and allow her to move without any problems.
Then, Mary saw hell in the village.
“Ugh…… Uuuh…… Aah, Lady…… Ma…ry……”
“It hurts…… It hurts…… Help me……”
The gas melted their body, but it did not directly kill.
The victims’ muscle melted away gradually from the tips of their arms and legs, and slowly took their life after they became immobilized.
The inner organs were the last place this effect reached.
“It hurts…… I’m in pain…… Please, Lady Mary……”
So the villagers started begging the moment they saw Mary.
“Please kill me.”
Mary opened her eyes wide and looked at the villager crawling on the ground.
She clenched her teeth as blood seeped out of her mouth, and used her blade after much mental anguish.
“Thank you…… very, much……”
Those words were her one and only salvation here.
Then, mouths dragged themselves out of Mary’s chest area and at the corpse.
She had to do this over and over again.
She prepared herself for that.
So, she headed for Ami’s house.
She opened the door.
There were two people in the living room where she had enjoyed a meal.
The father was hugging the mother, trying to protect her.
But they were both melting, their blood and flesh mixed together.
Their bared eyeballs saw Mary and something like a smile appeared on their faces.
“Oh, Lady Mary.”
They had no voice, so Mary had to read their lips.
“You came, thank you.”
“There’s no helping us now, though.”
“Please save Ami.”
“Please, won’t you save that girl?”
The father’s eyes looked behind Mary.
The door leading to the storage room was there.
Mary quickly opened it, and went into the attic.
The gas had not reached up there yet.
A little girl was shaking in a corner while hugging herself.
“Ami?”
“Lady….. Mary…..? Y-Yes, Lady Mary!!!”
Ami crawled on all fours towards Mary as she shed tears.
Mary hugged her small body tight and caressed her head.
“I’m so glad you’re safe. Let’s get out of here right now.”
“What about father and mother!?”
Mary quietly shook her head.
The little girl’s face got painted in despair.
“No…… No…… Father….. Motheeeeeeeeer!”
“The two asked me to save you. I will get you out of here, alive!”
“Uuh…… Uuuuh…… Aaaaaaagh!”
Mary broke through the roof using the arms growing out of her back.
Then, she held Ami and leaped high up, not touching the gas.
She landed on the next roof and jumped again.
She repeated this a few times and quickly escaped the village.
She approached a forest where the gas had not reached, and softly let Ami down.
“Lady Mary…..? Where are you going…..?”
“The villagers want to die, but they’re suffering because they can’t.”
“My…… my father and mother too?”
Mary nodded, and Ami bit her lips while looking downwards.
But she raised her head right away, and spoke with a face covered in tears.
“I have to bring them peace.”
“……Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. That’s the best thing to do.”
Ami repeated, trying to convince herself.
“Okay. Please, Lady Mary…… make their pain go away. Help my father and mother!”
“Yes. I will be back right away, so please wait here.”
Mary jumped high up.
Ami watched her with tearful eyes while crying.
◇◇◇
Then, Mary returned to hell again.
She could hear numerous people screaming in pain from the houses nearby.
She systematically killed them all.
She truly became a Death God.
She killed all the villagers who were suffering under the pain, painted in blood, crawling on the ground and crying in anguish, begging for death.
While crying herself.
Of course, she quickly ate the corpses and turned them into sustenance.
“Let’s go kill Logance together. That’s the one and only condolence I can give you.”
Mary muttered to herself in the now unpopulated village.
She felt as if the carrion that had become a part of her flesh suddenly seethed in wild joy after hearing her.