Volume 1 – Following the Maze Drawn With Lines of Blood
At the same time, inside Marquis Fidelis’s estate.
A man with a slightly bulging belly, Fidelis, and a suspicious, long man in a robe were facing a maid near the entryway.
“This woman is a mercenary, huh…..?”
Fidelis stared at the maid, as if appraising her, before she turned up her black hair and spoke in a cool manner:
“Are you unsatisfied with something?”
“W-What’s with that manner of speaking!? Who do you think I am!?”
“My employer, right? I act the same way with everyone. If you want me to speak like a maid, I can do so for an additional fee.”
“Ugh…… Don’t get cocky just because His Majesty the Duke hired you…..! You said it was Calaria, right? Can you do your job properly!?”
“I just have to kill the princess, don’t I? I heard she is a sorcerer, but as long as I have the money and the weapons I need, I’ll do what I have to. That’s all it is.”
“Good, then. We will wait at another location. Listen, make sure you really finish her off, okay? Make sure!”
“What an annoying man……”
“What!?”
The gentle man standing next to the angry Fidelis stopped him: ‘Come on now.’
Long hair and round sunglasses – the maid named Calaria stared at the clearly shady looking man.
“There’s no point in glaring at me. Come now, Marquis, let’s make it quick.”
“Hmph…… Indeed.”
The man led Fidelis out of the estate while still trying to curry favor with him.
Left behind, Calaria breathed a loud sigh when they disappeared from her sight.
“Ugh…… I know it’s for money, but to think I have to obey such dubious people…… Hey, Yueri, am I really doing the right thing here?”
She looked at her hand and clenched it tight.
Calaria was thinking about someone far away, but she then noticed a sense of bloodlust closing in on her and quickly regained her composure.
◇◇◇
Mary passed through the darkness and approached Fidelis’s estate.
She went around the back.
She was a little calmer this time.
Perhaps it was because Ami was waiting for her, and she also had Cutie who shared her pain.
She went around quickly dispatching the soldiers without making too big of a show this time. Then, she ate.
The more people went missing, the quicker they would notice the attack, of course, so she leaped over the wall and sneaked into the building from a window at the back side of the estate.
“……It’s quiet here.”
She entered a room which was probably the guest room, and Mary reflexively muttered to herself.
The soldiers around were noisy.
This gap in their defenses made that even more clear.
She still was not so used to fighting that she could sense her enemy from afar, but she could feel something strange and inhuman here.
She opened the door and checked the corridor.
It was a long corridor with a red carpet laid down. There were lights, but no people.
She breathed quietly as she discovered a corner, and crouched while silently moving through.
After repeating this a few times, Mary felt the strange presence from earlier again.
(I’m just here to get rid of any other hiding place, and never expected the Duke to be here, but…… I don’t even sense Fidelis here. Did he run away out of caution? But there are soldiers deployed outside. For what? To lure me in?)
Mary thought about immediately destroying the building and running away if this estate was deserted.
But, she stopped before a door when she sensed the presence of someone ahead.
(It should be the entrance ahead of me…… I feel the presence of someone. Maybe I should get rid of them right away, and-)
Right then, Mary felt a strong hostile presence from the other side of the door, like cold air.
Something was swung on the other side, making a booming sound and cutting through the air.
Then, something mechanical began to creak and move at great speed.
“An ambush!?”
Mary immediately backstepped.
Right after that, countless explosions echoed and mana bullets destroyed the walls and the door while assailing her.
“Ugggh! Sorcery… No, high-powered sorcery guns!”
Mary guarded her body with both hands.
Arms grew from her back at the same time, which also guarded her body.
The power of the bullets fired could not compare to the sorcery guns mounted on powered suits or carried by soldiers.
Her bones deflected the bullets, but they were damaged and the attack shocked Mary so much that her body started shaking.
She was frustrated as she could do nothing but keep guarding herself against an attack by an invisible foe.
But if these were gunshots, then the enemy had to be directly ahead where they were coming from.
Mary put her right hand in front of herself.
She defended herself against the shots, even as her flesh was blown off, and transformed the corpses inside herself into bullets and fired.
“Ugh…… Uggh…..! Ten Corpse Burial Cannon!”
She put her hand up and fired a mass of bones at her foe with great speed.
What was left of the walls were completely blown away as she dug out the ground with her attack and aimed at her target.
“….!?”
The gunshots stopped.
Her foe reacted to the gunshots approaching her and decided to evade instead of attacking.
“Now, Hundred Corpse Burial Scythe!”
She grew bones from her heel and sped up.
She went through the hole opened during the previous attack and charged into the entrance.
She searched for her foe’s position and spotted a figure by the stairs.
The long bones growing from her arm as she ran transformed into the shape of a scythe.
She swung her blade.
The enemy came into view.
She was a woman in a maid outfit.
She was looking at Mary with sharp eyes like a fox.
She aimed the massive ‘gatling guns’ resembling iron ingots in her hands at Mary, but she judged that firing them would be ineffective and switched position.
Then, she used them like tonfas instead to intercept Mary’s scythe.
Both collided suddenly, making a shrill metallic noise that echoed through the entrance and creating violent sparks.
“How is this not cutting through!?”
“How is this not breaking through!?”
Both were in shock.
Then, they took some distance after their attacks were deflected.
They repositioned themselves and faced each other again.
“Mary Pulsherima…… Over 15,000 Sorcery Rating, huh!? If you’re an arcana user, I have to request an additional fee from Fidelis.”
“No human can use those gatling guns with one hand. You’re an arcana user too, aren’t you?”
“Unfortunately, you’re wrong.”
Calaria repositioned her gatling guns and aimed the barrels full of holes at Mary.
“I’m just an ordinary person. Not even a sorcerer, you see.”
From the quality of them, her gatling guns seemed to be custom-made.
Ordinarily, these sorcery gatling guns used ores or batteries as energy sources.
Because they used up immense amounts of mana in just a single moment.
In the first place, they usually could not be held bare-handed and required wheeled vehicles or special installations.
But Calaria was clearly using them without such things.
The volume of mana needed was out of the ordinary, so it was strange to use a sorcery weapon despite possessing such an amount of mana.
Mary quickly used Analyze, and was amazed to see the figure displayed afterwards.
(……Sorcery Rating 0!? Then how is it possible you’re using such weapons!?)
Sorcery Rating displayed the combination of one’s mana and mana output.
In other words…
(Her output is 0, so her value shows a 0 no matter what her mana volume is. In short, she’s a ‘living mana battery’, huh?)
She was an idiosyncrasy.
An unordinary presence, including the fact that she was using those gatling guns with one hand.
She said she was not an arcana user, but she could still be a foe that is an even greater danger than an arcana user.
“I can see from your expression that you used Analyze, right? Well, isn’t it sad?”
“That’s precisely why I think you’re terrifying.”
“I will accept those words of praise. My name is Calaria Turquaz. I may not look like it, but I work as a mercenary.”
“Thank you for being well-mannered. However, are you sure someone in your line of work should so easily give out her name?”
“It matters not. I’m an up-and-coming worker, so!”
Then, she pulled the trigger again and the gatling guns fired.
Mary swung her scythe again and closed in on Calaria while dodging the rain of bullets……