The Young Princess Kills Everyone: Re
Mary breathed a sigh after the fight ended.
“Phew…… Now I just have to consume her remains and head to Pupa’s office.”
Mary was relieved to attain a total victory without allowing a Reverse phenomenon to occur.
Yet she was still cautious and did not make direct contact herself.
Eyeballs grew out of a bone giant’s eye sockets.
Mary shared their vision.
The giant raised its fist and pulled a string of blood and flesh.
Mary looked there and gulped.
(What an inconvenient coincidence.)
A small crater was formed on the ground.
At the center of it, Shaiti’s crushed head had sunk into the ground.
Her half-crushed eyes were looking up at the giant.
Her flesh wriggled and quickly started to regenerate.
Mary also sensed an explosive surge in her mana.
She should not have survived that fist.
In other words, coincidentally, she had buried a part of her head in a cavity that was already there, and avoided total death.
It was strange for such a cavity to exist there despite how thoroughly Mary crushed her.
But Mary had a hunch.
“Is this Devil’s power!?”
Misfortune. That was what Shaiti called it.
It was a power to cause events that were inconvenient for her foes.
The attack failed precisely because Mary was certain about killing her.
Quite some time was needed to use it again, so this was the perfect moment to utilize it.
(Her Reverse is activating!)
There were subtle differences depending on the arcana, but the condition for a Reverse phenomenon to activate was heightened emotions or powers during the moment of ‘death’.
Shaiti took this action precisely because she understood this.
Mary was quite some distance away, but she still jumped back with all her power.
She covered her body in a bone shield just for caution’s sake.
It was unclear how effective a physical defense would be, however.
Like with Lover or Cutie, a Reverse mostly attacked her in a conceptual manner.
If she was still in range of Shaiti’s powers, it would be difficult to escape.
“Why did I turn out like this? No one look…… don’t say anything……”
A female voice could be faintly heard.
Immediately, Mary’s view was surrounded in darkness. It got hard to breathe.
She reflexively touched her face, but the things that should be there were missing.
(My eyeballs vanished!? My throat feels strange as well. I’m not touching it, but it doesn’t even feel like I got attacked! I have to get away, it’s still dangerous in this distance!)
She ran away from Shaiti at full speed.
But the voice she heard was clearly different from the one she was hearing before.
What the hell was happening?
Mary heard the voice again without understanding anything.
“Don’t come…… close to meeeeee!”
The voice clearly reached Mary’s ears this time. Then, she felt her right leg vanish.
A chill ran through her back.
This was not damage; it was a conceptual ‘annihilation’.
If Mary’s entire body became its target, then she would vanish without a chance to regenerate.
However, the vanishing of her body did not progress any further.
In fact, her eyeballs regenerated and she could see again.
Mary stood her ground and looked ahead.
A woman standing.
Wavy, white long hair.
A soft face without any thorns, unlike Shaiti’s face.
The face was warped in pain as she clawed her head.
“Don’t cooome! Don’t loook! Please leave me aloooone!”
It felt like the manifestation of human emotions.
In other words, it was unlike an angel under World’s control.
Further, the woman had unfolded a power spot in an area a dozen meters away from her.
“I must have left its range if my eyes and leg regenerated. I thought I was safe just because I was a little distance away from her, but I let my guard down due to the overwhelming difference in our powers.”
If Mary had not checked the corpse from some distance away, she and her body would have probably vanished right now.
“Devil’s powers are about betrayal and misfortune. If that power is the reverse of these, then it must be the fulfillment of desires.”
Its true form was simple and clear.
“Her desires will materialize in the air…… That’s so dangerous that it might be best just to ignore her and leave.”
Mary seriously thought of that as one of her options.
It was not as if she had to collect every arcana to fight Mitis.
Besides, if she ignored this and left, Shaiti would probably die in time due to the reaction from the Reverse phenomenon.
Mary put her hand on her chin and thought about it.
Then, she heard the sound of an engine getting closer to her and opened her eyes before turning around.
Krrrrrk. A sorcery car slid on the ground while slowing down and stopped.
Mary held her hand aloft, ready to attack at any time.
The door opened.
The person who came out of the car was Stella, with both hands raised.
“……Mitis!”
“Wait, I’m Stella! I’m not Mitis!”
Mary immediately focused her power into her arm.
She did not shoot, however.
Because she sensed something strange.
The situation was clearly created to make Mary shoot – it was highly possible that going along with that expectation would only be fruitless effort.
Stella’s life was saved by this judgement, and she breathed a sigh of relief.
“Can you prove it?”
“I can’t. Mitis and I are still connected, I can’t be someone completely separate.”
“Then I ask we converse at this distance.”
“It’s a bit sad, but I think that’s a good idea too.”
“I will shoot if you do anything suspicious.”
“Of course, please shoot without hesitation. Because I don’t want to hurt you either, Mary.”
“Let’s assume you’re the real Miss. Stella. Why did Mitis send you here?”
Mary kept the stance that Stella was nothing but a trap by Mitis.
However, Stella herself thought so as well, and had to believe it too.
Then, she looked at the girl surrounded by a power spot.
“That girl’s name is Angie. She’s an alpha-type homunculus, and the one who loved me the most.”
“What about the name ‘Shaiti’?”
“Mitis gave her that name along with her role. Her appearance, personality, it was all built with World’s powers – but this is how she really looked.”
Mary looked at Angie again.
The thing that grabbed Mary’s attention first was her white hair, after all.
“After being bought by an aristocrat, she was treated like cattle for a very long time. Her hair became white because of the stress of that time.”
“……That’s an awful story. Every time I meet a homunculus, I have to listen to them brag about their misfortune.”
“That’s why…… I had to protect them and stop this from happening again. It’s just too sad for you and another homunculus to kill each other.”
There was a strong regret in her voice.
She was acting clearly differently from how she used to – in other words, how Mitis used to act.
“Now that we’re talking, I’m almost convinced that you really are Miss. Stella.”
“I already told you I am.”
“Then I suppose I should greet you now after so long.”
“We actually met pretty recently.”
“That was Mitis, wasn’t it?”
“In the cabin I used to live in with Luno. I did not look like a normal human as I do now, though.”
“That monster…… I see, you wanted me to die because you knew what the future would bring. Then the-”
“But I still don’t think what I said to you back then was wrong.”
Stella interrupted Mary.
She decided that she did not want Mitis to find out about the code.
This just raised more questions, but Mary had no choice but to give up for now.
“Yes…… I agree. It would be easier if I got killed back there.”
Mary did not think so back then.
It was all in the past now.
Her time to die in ignorance had passed.
“But now that I survived, I have to get through this. The woman named Angie is an acquaintance of yours, yes? Can’t you think of anything to disable her powers?”
“Sorry, maybe if I was inside Mitis, but I have no idea about what’s going on right now.”
“I failed to finish her off, and Devil’s Reverse phenomenon activated. Ah, do you know what a Reverse phenomenon is?”
“Mostly. It’s the power that corresponds with the reversed position of a tarot card, yes?”
“Tarot……? I feel like I heard that word before.”
“It’s an old card game that gave the arcana their names. They each hold a different meaning depending on whether they’re upright or reverse.”
“So that’s the origin. Then the ‘power to materialize one’s desires’ which was activated inside that dome was also based on the same thing?”
“Materializing one’s desires……? Well, I know the arcana of Devil becomes more powerful the more her body and mind are hurt.”
“She said that herself.”
“In other words, Angie kept seeing cruel sights and getting hurt. While the version of her that was being manipulated from the shadows was out in front, her original sane personality was under seal.”
“Miss. Cutie also……”
The emotional scar of seeing herself become a monster while still conscious, and watching herself fight Mary to the death.
She keenly felt again that her role was to be released from this world.
“Angie is a kind girl, so I’m sure she couldn’t endure it.”
“So that’s why she told me not to get close to her, or to look at her…… right?”
“Her heart is completely closed. So there are only two ways to solve this. Wait it out, or try to change her mind by making her listen to my voice.”
“Mitis will not allow such a peaceful solution.”
“You don’t have to worry about that part. It seems like she doesn’t hate me as much as she hates the other humans.”
“That’s a surprise.”
“I agree, because I was sure she hated me more than anyone else.”
“In that case, I suppose I’m the one she hates the most. That was already obvious, though.”
“None of this is your fault, Mary.”
“Yeah, the people who decided to give birth to me are either gone from this world, or they’ve lost their minds. I don’t blame myself in the least either.”
“Arcana is a power beyond humans. It plays with everyone, and destroys lives. I remember something Luno said to me before. ‘The duty of a Death God is to kill that which cannot die.’”
Mary blatantly frowned.
She was tired of hearing that at this point.
“Perhaps Death God actually has some kind of a grudge against me.”
“I’d like to think that Yueri entrusted it to you.”
“That’s way too irresponsible. So, what should we actually do about Angie?”
“I’ll call out to her. Wait here.”
Saying that, Stella approached closer to the dome and loudly whistled.
“Angie! It’s me, Stella! Please hear me out!”
From what Mary remembered, Stella’s voice was not that loud.
Yet she was so loud now that she could almost be heard all throughout the royal capital.
Her desperation was keenly evident.
“Angie! Please hear me out! It’s not your fault! This is all because of me!”
However, her voice still did not reach Angie.
“Don’t come, don’t look, don’t say it, don’t listen to me, don’t get closer, please just leave me alone!”
Her voice, feelings, it was all rejected by Angie who shut herself down to everything.
She probably wanted to simply rot away like this without letting anyone get close.
Mary spoke up to Stella.
“By the way, Miss. Stella. Even if she opens her heart, what are you going to do? I don’t know why, but Mitis is the one who gave that body to you, right?”
Stella waited for a moment, then turned around and replied.
“……I’ll die.”
“How?”
“I know it’s a shameless wish. But…… maybe you can do it for me?”
“Death God’s duty, is it? So I should kill you and Miss. Angie now that she’s sane, right? Okay.”
“……Thanks for agreeing so quickly.”
Stella turned around.
“That’s the only meaning there is for my life.”
Mary answered honestly, without any self-deprecation.
Stella’s face clouded a little.
But she quickly looked at Angie, and called out to her again.
Stella’s shout echoed through the empty ruins of the royal capital, over and over again.
“It’s no use…… She can’t hear me.”
“I don’t think the loudness of your voice is the problem. She keeps saying ‘don’t say anything’, so I think your voice is being blocked.”
“So I have to go inside.”
“You’ll turn into scraps the moment you enter.”
While saying that, Mary shot a small bullet from the palm of her hand.
Naturally, it vanished the moment it entered within range of Angie’s powers.
However, Mary heard a faint pop right before that.
“But…… the popping sound, and a faint light. The phenomenon is close to a limitless ‘annihilation’, but it doesn’t look like the resistance is zero.”
“So we can tear it open if we use a lot of mana?”
“Only temporarily, but it’s worth a shot.”
“Will you do it?”
“I’ll do what I can. This is the only way I can think of.”
She was not enthusiastic.
It was possible Mitis would show herself and kill Mary when she became defenseless.
Mary kept her caution against Stella, and thought about a way to output enough power to tear open that power spot.
She came up with an idea, and took distance from Angie.
“I will try to contain its power to make sure the surrounding area is not affected. But I can’t say for sure that you won’t be wrapped up in it, so please try to protect yourself as well, Miss. Stella.”
“O-Okay. I’ll make sure my voice can reach, but I’ll get away a little.”
Stella replied in a nervous manner after Mary’s warning.
Angie continued to suffer at the center of the power spot.
Stella watched on while clenching her teeth.
Mary stood still at a spot around 100 meters away.
She overlapped her hands and held them up.
Her arms popped off because of the bones coming out from inside them.
A gun barrel was created.
It was longer than any Mary had created so far.
Sharp bones extended from her calves, thighs and back, stabbing the ground like anchors.
Hanged Man’s effect increased due to the damage Mary’s body sustained.
She also activated Power, of course. She increased her Sorcery Rating to its very limit.
“Such a big and long gun barrel……!”
Stella was surprised.
It was not as if Mary reacted to her remark, but she spoke up at almost the same time.
“With this length, you could almost call this a tower. Yes, this is no gun barrel; it’s a tower transformed into a gun barrel.”
With that definition, the gun barrel came under the influence of Tower.
Then, Death God loaded the tower’s inside with a bone shell.
Preparations to fire were complete.
Mary took a breath, then squinted her eyes while looking at Angie.
“If I can’t get through Devil, then I definitely can’t get through World.”
This was a test that Mary had to easily knock down.
She cast down her eyes.
She readied her heart.
Mary quietly focused, and then-
“Myriad Corpse-”
And then, she opened her eyes.
She filled up with mana and pulled the trigger.
“Overload Burial Cannon!”
The moment that shell was shot, Mary felt a recoil almost strong enough to scatter away her own body.