The Young Princess Kills Everyone: Re
Mary headed upstairs while holding her scythe.
The air felt like it did back when she fought Tower.
Most of all, though, it felt empty and oppressive.
The faint scent of blood in the air also contributed to this feeling.
It was hard to tell whether this stagnant feeling was due to a thirst for blood or a welcome – that felt very fitting for someone like Yueri.
She was a bottomless opponent.
But from Mary’s point of view, Yueri was a relatively easy opponent.
Because she could kill her without any hesitation.
No one else was going to intervene and get in her way.
She could make that woman suffer as much as she wanted to for killing Calaria.
“Yueri, where are you? Please come out and fight me already!”
Mary climbed the stairs as she dragged her scythe behind her, scraping the ground.
Her voice echoed in the empty building.
Then, she spotted a figure upstairs.
More than her appearance, the air around her resembled Calaria; it was a woman other than Yueri.
“So that’s what you look like, Miss. Justia.”
Mary had heard about her from Calaria, but this was the first time she saw her face to face.
Justia aimed her hand at Mary with an expressionless face and shot a light beam.
It was too fast to dodge, and the upper half of Mary’s head evaporated.
She leaped up while her sight was still closed and slashed at Justia.
“Sorcery Rating 300,000. So that’s why Miss. Calaria couldn’t beat you.”
The passing slash was enough to chop Justia into small pieces.
Fragments of her flesh melted into the floor.
At the same time, Mary’s head also regenerated.
Then, the first thing she saw with her regained sight were many lumps of flesh resembling flower buds attached to the walls.
They bloomed while spraying blood, and spat Justia out.
Each ‘individual’ had 300,000 Sorcery Rating.
If Justia was controlling dozens of these objects, Calaria or Digi could never defeat her without the powers of an angel.
They stood up like puppets and aimed at Mary with the palm of their hands.
They fired a light again.
Mary’s view instantly got covered in a white color, and the heat melted Mary along with the terrain around her.
The heat was intense enough to burn Justia’s body too.
When the light disappeared, what remained behind were the distorted half-melted stairway and the charred Mary.
Mary tried to build High Priestess’s barrier and protect herself, but she still suffered the same damage as Calaria did.
Then, Yueri emerged after coming down there.
“Hehehe.”
She laughed while she transformed her right arm.
Her arm swelled up while bubbling and frothing.
Her skin burst open, and the red flesh emerging from under it kept swelling.
When it grew big enough to crush a person, it got closer to Mary.
Then, Mary’s body tore apart and bone arms emerged from within.
“This is almost like hatching.”
Yueri opened her eyes wide with interest, and got caught by Mary’s arm.
Mary swung her around and smashed her against a wall.
She used the recoil from smashing her against the wall on the right and swung her left.
At first, she heard the sound of bones breaking, but the sound started getting wetter and blood splattered on her.
In the midst of this, Mary finished regenerating.
She stood up, looked at Yueri, who was a lump of flesh now, and turned her to ash with Temperance’s flames after muttering, ‘Repulsive’.
Yueri turned into gray dust and scattered around.
“You’ve grown up to be a scary girl, Princess Mary.”
Then, a new Yueri came down from upstairs.
Mary spoke up to her.
“I forbid you from creating Justias.”
Temperance restricted Yueri’s powers.
It did not completely block the creation of Justias.
But Yueri’s mana flow suddenly worsened when she did it.
Feeling the discomfort of that, she said:
“You really are a scary girl. I’d rather die than be unable to give birth to my sister.”
Yueri held her head with both hands.
She then crushed her head.
It split like a balloon full of water.
Then, the next Yueri came down from upstairs.
Mary silently jumped and slashed at her.
Then, countless Justias came down from above her head.
Mary looked up at the ceiling to see tightly packed flesh buds continuously giving birth to new bodies.
The bodies falling down were violently exploding from the inside like aerial bombs.
“It was always a dream of mine to turn my sister into fireworks.”
The lights enveloped Yueri as well, then burned and melted everything in the area.
But Mary was already no longer there.
Before she got engulfed in the light, she used Magician and teleported to an upper floor.
For now, Mary focused on trying to reach the highest floor, which was where Mitis was supposed to be.
Yueri stood in her way many times.
Justia burned Mary with her light.
But this only hurt Mary’s body, and nothing else.
She could regenerate that as many times as she liked.
Mary did not even need a human body any more.
She could freely move by using bones, which was faster than human legs.
So, Mary got past obstacles like a spider, or a monkey, or a human, or a bird, and kept climbing higher.
(Yueri can come out from anywhere. She probably spread her roots all around this building. And Yueri has no ‘core’ part. She’s even more of an inhuman monster than the angels. Maybe that’s the special characteristic of Judgment.)
By now, she was just bones attached to human flesh.
But she was strangely calm.
It felt like her body and mind were detached.
To put it in another way, she felt like the events happening in the world were all somebody else’s problem.
After some time, Mary reached the floor where Yueri’s laboratory was located.
She approached the spot Calaria died in.
Yueri was standing there.
She was standing there while covering her face with her hands.
Tears were flowing from her eyes, and blood was seeping from her skin getting stabbed by her nails.
She seemed to be laughing just earlier, but she was crying the next moment.
Or perhaps she had been grieving Calaria’s death here, whom she killed herself, since before Mary’s arrival.
At any rate, from Mary’s eyes, Yueri seemed like a very difficult creature to understand.
“Ugh, uuugh, aaaagh…… Why? Why……? It’s because you didn’t listen to me, Calaria. Why, why, even though, I love everyone so muuuuuch!”
Yueri’s body began rotting away.
Mary felt an expansion of mana, with Yueri at the center.
She jumped back.
Then, the ground where she was just standing changed color and crumbled to dust.
“Ooooooh! Aaaagh!”
(Is that the Reverse phenomenon Digi mentioned? It’s no big deal if you know how to deal with it.)
Yueri’s powers were strong.
They also had a wide range, and could kill any creature within that range without any exceptions.
But it was no big deal when Mary distanced herself.
“Million Corpse Burial Cannon.”
The shell shot by Mary as it blew her arm off did not lose momentum even when it entered the range of Yueri’s reverse phenomenon, Corruption.
It did get corroded, but it was more powerful than that.
“Calaria, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. It was my fault. Ah!”
The shell blew Yueri’s head off.
Her movements came to a halt, and her Reverse phenomenon also settled down as her body melted away.
“I need to do more than destroy her body if I want some peace of mind. Let’s see, how should I kill her?”
Mary stood still and put her hand on her chin.
A Justia sprouted behind her, but Mary stretched out an arm from her back and crushed her.
“She doesn’t die if even one part of her remains, and her attacks are pretty powerful too.”
“Obviously. Because I’m a family. Sister and daughter fighting together.”
This time, Yueri emerged from a different spot and assailed Mary again.
She swung her arms, which she transformed into long whip-like shapes and gouged one fourth of Mary’s head from her right eye.
She extended an arm from her back.
Yueri got smashed up.
Mary continued thinking while seemingly paying no attention to this chain of events.
“And it seems like Miss. Justia’s bodies are proper human bodies, instead of dolls created with flesh clay like the angels. They’re too empty to call it revival, but I think her power to create other bodies is related to the fact that she managed to acquire both the arcana of Judgment and Justice.”
“It’s the love of my sister.”
Yueri emerged in front of Mary.
Mary smashed her up with an arm from her back.
“You said you absorbed Miss. Calaria, right? So is your power to absorb someone else’s corpse and then recreate them? But why are you grieving instead of duplicating Miss. Calaria?”
A newly born Yueri answered the question.
“Grieving? Is that what it looks like?”
“You were crying just now, were you not?”
Mary turned around and replied as if having an ordinary daily conversation.
“So that wasn’t because you were grieving Miss. Calaria’s death?”
“Well, I’m not sure either.”
“Besides, if you could duplicate Miss. Calaria too, you would have been doing it already. Because, I don’t want to admit this, but that would be very effective to damage my spirits.”
“The reason it’s not possible is because she doesn’t love me.”
“Of course she doesn’t, are you stupid?”
“Thanks.”
Mary smashed her again after her incoherent reaction.
At pretty much the same time, another Justia was born from the wall.
Mary instantly shot a bone bullet.
Justia also shot a beam of light.
The bullet and the light beam passed by each other and both parties had their heads blown off.
“Ehehehehe!”
Mary started having a lot of fun and laughed.
“By the way, what is a corpse? Who are the dead? Am I really alive? If the Justia you absorbed is dead, can’t I say that I’m dead too?”
“My sister is alive.”
“Alive? While being used up and abandoned like a tool? That’s even more pitiful than death, isn’t it?”
“It’s not you who gets to decide that, Princess Mary.”
“It’s not you either.”
“Sister says she’s happy. I understand, because the ether flowing through my body whispers to me.”
“What is death, anyway? Me, you, Mitis, the angels, everyone has different views on death. Everyone recognizes ‘death’ in a different way, so we won’t reach an agreement-”
According to Yueri, neither Justia nor Yueri were really dead.
But she herself was also dead, and at the same time, people with whom she had no blood relation to were meaningless to her.
In other words, they were dead.
According to Mitis, the human beings on this world were not even living organisms.
So there was no need to feel guilty for killing them.
With a different definition of life, her other senses of value were also completely different.
Everything was different.
So it was pointless to converse and try to understand each other.
“I’m happy that you understand, Princess Mary. My sister is alive, according to my definitions.”
“But my sister Francis who is inside me is dead. So according to my definitions, your sister is dead too.”
“No, she’s alive.”
“She’s dead.”
“She’s alive. Look, does this really look dead to you?”
A few Justias grew from the floor.
They all had the same smile stuck to their faces.
It was probably the expression in Yueri’s memories that had the most lasting impression on her.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Look at the reality, Princess Mary.”
“I don’t have to look. The important thing is how Luno defines it.”
Mary clenched her scythe tight with both hands.
“Behemoth Scythe.”
Its edge split and transformed.
A mouth lined up with sharp teeth was born, and Mary swung it.
She massacred and consumed her foes at the same time with one swing. Justia’s corpses were squished and chewed, and were absorbed into Mary’s body.
Mary continued slashing at the Justias and consumed them all without a single one left behind.
After she finished eating them all, she turned her scythe and smashed the ground with its pommel.
“See? She’s dead. So according to Luno’s, Death God’s definition, these are just corpses.”
“……Sister?”
Yueri stared at her own hands.
She felt like she just lost something.
“Death God is the expert in controlling the dead. If your powers need a dead person to activate, it’s only natural that I can eat them.”
“Sis……ter. Sister, where? Where did my sister go?”
“Here.”
Mary held the palm of her hand aloft towards Yueri.
“Aaah, sister! Don’t leave me here. Don’t go again!”
Justice’s light beam beheaded Yueri.
“Sister……”
Her head flew in the air with a pathetic expression on her face.
Her freshly severed head fell to the floor, and faintly bounced with a dull sound.
Then, the walls and the ceiling around Mary began distorting.
A massive, red head of Yueri emerged.
“Sisteeeeeeeer!”
Her sorrowful scream echoed.
Her head instantly began rotting and engulfed Mary as well.
She felt her own flesh decay, threw her arms away after they could no longer function, and grew new bone arms to hold her scythe with.
Then, she smiled with a half-rotten face.
“That’s a corpse too, isn’t it?”
Saying that, Mary consumed Yueri’s face with her scythe.
Her annoyingly loud voice suddenly went away.
Then, Yueri emerged in front of Mary and spoke up in blank amazement.
“Ah…… My heart feels refreshed……”
Yueri was a bizarre creature who acquired the arcana of Judgment and was able to use her normal powers and Reverse phenomenon at the same time.
Her near-death experience of hanging herself, or her broken personality was probably the reason for the occurrence of her Reverse.
Ordinarily, an arcana user’s body did not last long after their Reverse phenomenon was activated.
Yueri however had been living in this condition for at least over one year.
Because she was mad?
Because she was broken?
No. The thing that made this possible was the other power Judgment possessed, Reincarnation.
A power to ‘record’ the dead, and create duplicates of them.
And when mass-produced, she was able to use her Reverse phenomenon all the time.
In other words, she was a corpse.
So Mary could consume her.
Now, at this moment, the personality of Yueri, who denied herself so much that she chose suicide, had vanished.
The only thing she had left now was Judgment in its ‘upright position’.
“The noise is going away…… My abhorrence is becoming more vivid.”
“I never tried to learn about it that deeply until now, but it seems like Death God’s definition of ‘death’ is a little different from what I thought.”
“You have my gratitude, Mary.”
“I respectfully reject that.”
“You tried to kill me with Death God, did you not? But you can never kill me after what I’ve become. What a relief, it seems that I will be able to watch the destruction of this world until the very last moment.”
“Destruction of this world? I’m sure you saw that the important devices are all broken, though.”
“Yeah, if you mean True World Destruction, Calaria did break it. It was my best work of art. But don’t worry, World never needed me for her plans in the first place.”
“What do you mean?”
“Because Mitis can destroy this world by herself.”
Yueri was not trying to instigate Mary; she sounded indifferent.
“Do you know? The arcana of World is a management system created to build the world with. Why would something like that need a device I made to destroy the world?”
In other words, Mitis could have destroyed this world at any time, and not just ‘now’.
The reason it was now was because she wanted to see Mary miserably dancing on the stage.
“And as you say, neither humans nor gods can defeat her. I think her Sorcery Rating was 3,000,000 right now. And she can change it at will. Obviously, because she’s a management system.”
“Are you trying to say that I can’t win?”
“That’s not what I meant. Because I know you’ll challenge her either way. But…… the problem is that even if you challenge Mitis, I don’t think you can defeat her.”
“So are you saying I will lose?”
“No, you won’t lose. But you won’t win. Now that the noise is gone, I can control my Evolve power more precisely.”
Mary thought that she could win if she simply destroyed this entire building in an instant.
But Mitis was in the way of that.
And if she had to face Yueri and Mitis at the same time, even a slight chance of victory would disappear.
But a half-hearted attack was not enough to kill Yueri either.
“We can’t know that without trying it.”
Mary slashed with her Behemoth Scythe.
Her scythe consumed Yueri’s flesh.
But she quickly regenerated and stood in Mary’s way again.
“But it feels empty now that it’s come to this. My heart is cloudless yet the shadows are brought to the fore. I feel the loneliness of my sister not being here.”
Mary chopped Yueri up with Burial Scythe, and blew her up with Burial Cannon.
“Princess Mary, it seems that you hate me, but the feeling is not mutual. Because we’re both people who lost our sisters, aren’t we?”
Mary blew Yueri away with Chariot and made mincemeat of her with Wheel of Fortune.
“I’m sure you would have turned out like me too if you had lost Princess Francis under different circumstances. Because, Princess Mary, you’re just like me-”
Mary killed Yueri dozens of times using various means, but the deadlock continued.
“You wanted your sister to make love to you, didn’t you?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
Mary did not deny it.
She admitted it, and slashed to kill.
The corpse melted and the next one was immediately born.
“I might have turned out like you if I didn’t meet Miss. Calaria and the others.”
“Sympathy, huh?”
“But so what?”
Mary cut apart not only Yueri’s body, but also her words.
“Are you saying I have no right to judge you because we are the same? That’s meaningless. I’m only here because I want to kill you.”
“Yes, and I’m only here because I want to destroy. We are the same, after all. We have a mutual understanding now.”
“What’s the point of this conversation?”
“I’m harassing you and watching you get mad because you can’t kill me.”
Mary clicked her tongue and swung.
“And Mitis will get tired of it and begin destroying the world if we make her wait too long.”
“That’s not-”
“Will you continue this useless fight with me until the time limit, or fight me and Mitis at the same time? Two choices. Choose, Princess Mary.”
“I’m not going to choose either of those choices!”
Yueri was unscathed to a vexing degree.
Under these conditions, even Mary had to admit that she was right.
It was useless to try to kill her, so Mary was almost tempted to leave her alone and move on as she was being enticed to do.
However, she kept cutting Yueri.
No matter how much she got laughed at and told it was pointless.
Because she felt something strange every time she killed Yueri, and she wanted to find out why.