Volume 2 – The World Sneered
Calaria took her pistols and fired at Digi standing on the roof.
Digi showed how comfortable she felt with an ‘Oops’, and gripped her wand to teleport in front of Calaria.
The two faced each other.
“Can’t you let me bask in it for a bit longer?”
“I don’t care about what you want.”
Calaria transformed her gun into a gauntlet, grasped her sword, and moved as flames spurted from her back.
She jumped, rushed, and closed in on the enemy.
Her aim was a decapitation.
She swung down in a straight line filled to the brim with pure intent to kill.
She did not even have time to raise her voice this time.
Digi teleported and evaded.
Her silver sword cut the air, and Calaria’s flying slash bisected a private house.
Then she transformed her gauntlet into a handgun.
Her target was Digi, who climbed to a roof on the right side.
After teleporting, she bent backwards to dodge the bullet fired at her without any time to breathe.
(She’s not using her wand?)
Magician’s powers were abundant in variety.
Normally, most arcana possessed one or two powers.
But in Digi’s case, there were four.
If not for the disadvantage of continuous use being inhibited, it would be a complete cheat.
Calaria transformed her handgun into a gauntlet again.
She grabbed the hilt of her sword as it fell, and swooped down on Digi.
Her sword cut the air again.
This time, Digi evaded by using her wand to teleport.
Calaria glided down and landed on the roof.
Digi materialized on the ground.
“You’re so merciless. Do you want to kill me that badly?”
“I will never stop wanting to kill you after you murdered Yueri, no, Justia!”
Calaria poured her intent to kill into her sword and slashed at Digi.
“The real Yueri told you how selfish that woman was, didn’t she!?”
Digi teleported as she laughed.
“All I’ll say to that is ‘so what’!”
“I knew you couldn’t understand. That hell! That pain! Because you were raised in comfort by Justia!”
“I don’t give a damn about any of that. Talking to you is pointless!”
Digi spoke while knowing that as well.
She was trying to agitate Calaria.
“You killed Justia, that’s all that matters. I don’t care about your sad past or your Hell! You will die and pay for your crimes!”
But Calaria cut this malice down with her sword.
“Ahahahahaha! I like how easy you are to understand, Calaria!”
Digi laughed again to make it seem like she was relaxed, but she did not seem to be attacking at all.
No, she could not attack, because she was focused on evasion.
It could be sensed from the way she moved her body.
But a different emotion could also be sensed from her voice.
(I don’t feel any sense of urgency from her. Why is she so calm despite being cornered and death being imminent!?)
It was as if she did not value her own life.
One theory came up in the back of Calaria’s mind.
Perhaps Digi never valued her own life in the first place, and did not care about the other homunculi dying either.
But that was inconsistent with how she had fled at every opportunity so far.
And there were more inconsistencies.
“I’m not easy to understand, you’re the ones who are strange! I don’t understand any of it! Why? Why did you go after Justia? If you detest your life because you were toyed with by the aristocrats, then you should turn your hatred towards the cause of it all, Yueri!”
Yueri had told of the past in the research institute.
Justia was not directly linked to the sale of homunculi to the aristocrats.
In fact, Yueri was always so much closer.
“It’s no use to hate a corpse.”
Digi suddenly spoke in a cold tone of voice.
“Yueri was put in charge of the research after Justia took you and fled the facility.”
“I heard about that. She was busy and had a lot of responsibility pushed on her, yes? She didn’t have the leeway to save the homunculi, right? So? Are you saying it’s pointless to hate her then? Then there was no reason to go after Justia either, was there!?”
“Well, Yueri ordered the killing. But, about the cause you mentioned……”
“Cause?”
“Shortly after Justia took you and fled, Yueri hung herself in the facility.”
Suddenly, Calaria remembered Justia’s physical copies which they found in the laboratory.
Among them, there was one whose neck was strangled.
And the title was Sharing of Pain.
“She was miraculously saved thanks to the other researchers, but her brain was left damaged. She went insane after that.”
The two had stopped fighting and were now exchanging words.
Calaria laughed at herself for saying it was pointless to talk earlier, yet could not help but listen.
She was broken.
She was mad.
Indeed, Calaria and the others felt it too when they talked face to face with Yueri.
“Ahahaha, it’s funny, isn’t it? She was completely broken already. I wish I could have killed her too, you know? I wish I could have made her suffer. But she destroyed herself before I could take revenge! It’s so annoying when you can’t kill someone! I can’t take revenge!”
Digi did not hide her hatred while she spoke.
She wished that she could hate.
No, even now, she still hated.
But killing her would be an atonement for Yueri.
Digi would be thanked for doing the favor of killing her.
“And Yueri transformed all those workers in the research institute into angels. Who are we supposed to hate? Yeah, Justia. Calaria, Henry, Dugan. And Mary too! It keeps coming after you extend the scope just once. But that’s the only thing I can do to try and support my broken heart!”
Digi earnestly shouted with joy.
As if delighting the fact that she could finally speak her true opinion and reveal her heart.
“Oh…… I understand.”
Calaria looked down as she spoke.
She sheathed her sword.
Her hands loosely hung down, and she looked as if she completely lost the will to fight.
“Thank goodness, so you do get it?”
“Yeah.”
But she quickly turned ahead, and provocatively laughed.
“I get how self-centred you all are.”
Her gauntlet mechanically transformed into two handguns, and Calaria aimed at Digi with the right one.
Digi instantly teleported and evaded.
Then Calaria simultaneously aimed at her destination, and shot her left gun while crossing arms.
The bullet fired towards the empty air.
But Digi teleported into its trajectory.
Her wand could not be used continuously.
It was impossible to evade.
She got shot in her right shoulder and opened her eyes wide.
“Uuugggh! A-Am I hit!? Did she get lucky!?”
Calaria immediately shot again.
Digi could finally use her wand again.
She clenched her teeth in pain and took some distance by teleporting.
“Are you fleeing after attacking me first?”
Calaria pulled the trigger as if she knew where Digi was going.
Digi jumped to the side and rolled to evade it, then ran full speed on the royal capital’s stone paving.
She disappeared behind a building, and Calaria continued chasing her.
Calaria rapidly fired when she spotted Digi, and the bullets grazed by her feet.
There was a world of difference in the two’s running paces.
Digi’s only way of distancing herself was repeated teleportation.
But she could not use it for evasion if she used it to gain distance.
She was in a difficult position.
As a result, she could not focus on either evasion or distance, and the distance between them gradually shrank as the wounds on Digi’s body increased.
“This is the second time we’re fighting directly. You are skilled enough for the name of Magician, but-”
A few gunshots, and a few teleports.
Calaria immediately launched herself from the ground and gained speed using the vernier on her back.
She sped up like a bullet and appeared right in front of Digi after she teleported.
“You rely too much on tools.”
Digi’s eyes hidden under her mask looked at the muzzle.
She was completely focused on dodging the bullet.
But Calaria did not shoot – instead she struck at Digi’s face with a high kick.
“Hnh, gnnh!?”
A compact, and sharp kick.
After a satisfying popping sound, Digi’s mask got broken and blown off.
Digi was also blown away as well, and rolled on the ground with her hideous face full of eyeballs exposed.
“Ugh, uuugh…… Calariaaa…… Ahahaha, how nice…… it’s been so long since I felt pain like this!”
“How disgusting to laugh because of pain.”
“How kind. I thought my face would be what you’d find disgusting!”
“Shut up!”
Calaria had the overwhelming advantage in this situation.
Digi teleported to a roof to avoid a shot aimed at her head.
She wiped the blood dripping from her mouth, and opened her right hand.
Grains of light, mana, accumulated there and formed a gold cup.
“For that, Calaria…… I will give you one last present from me.”
It was filled with a red liquid.
“A cup filled with blood…… Do you intend on sipping World’s blood and becoming an angel?”
“Oh no, I won’t become a monster like that. This is just the blood of a certain someone.”
She tilted the cup, and the blood stained the ground under her feet.
It was a cup similar to ones used in rituals, so it did not have much volume.
But the blood just kept flowing without an end.
Calaria suddenly felt a chill.
“Oh, you noticed? This is the Plunderer’s Cup. It’s a wonderful power that steals all kinds of things from one’s foe!”
Not much time was necessary until Calaria sensed that she was losing something from her body.