Volume 1 – Following the Maze Drawn With Lines of Blood
Having retreated to a room in the back, Calaria could still hear the noise Mary was making in the entrance.
The entire estate was shaking as pebbles fell from the ceiling.
The entire building could collapse at any time.
“He said I could throw away the estate, but I can’t believe it’s actually going to be destroyed.”
It’s not that she had taken Mary lightly, but the scale of the battle had already surpassed Calaria’s imagination.
However, she was a true mercenary who survived through many battlefields.
She still had many ways to keep on fighting.
Calaria reached out to a suitcase nearby.
“That stuff he recommended to me wasn’t bad either. But, I should probably use what I’m familiar with, and-”
Saying that, she felt a presence behind her and immediately threw a roundhouse kick.
It was a long haired woman standing there.
Her neck got broken and twisted from the kick, and blood started seeping out of her nose.
But, she did not go down.
Further, the woman kept staring at Calaria with those eyes.
She frowned, and took some distance for a moment.
“What is this? Is it not human? It doesn’t feel like a doll. Is it one of Mary’s attacks?”
She lowered her hips and got ready to strike, but her foe didn’t move.
She smashed her right fist into her foe’s chest while vigorously shouting, ‘aaagh!’
He fist sunk in, breaking through the ribs and crushing the heart.
The woman’s body got blown away by the attack and destroyed the room’s door.
“Phew…… Her heart wasn’t even beating. It’s a corpse, so it must be Mary’s work.”
The woman who smashed into the wall was buried in the rubble that used to be a door, but was still glaring at Calaria.
“That’s so unpleasant……”
Calaria irritatedly left the room and took a good look at the long corridors continuing left and right.
Then……
“!…..”
She saw a crowd of the dead lined up in a row and became speechless.
Old, young, men and women; corpses of all kinds were staring at Calaria.
The corpse of the woman she drove away just earlier had also started slowly melting.
Or that’s what she thought, but she felt a presence behind her again, and saw the same corpse when she turned around.
This was definitely Mary’s attack.
But it was hard to understand the intent of it.
She wasn’t assaulting her, nor was she attacking her directly using sorcery.
Was this just a way to harass Calaria, or something else?
Then, she heard something cut through the air and break the wall.
It quickly approached closer to Calaria, and then……
“A bone bullet!”
Mary’s accurately fired bullet flew towards Calaria.
Breaking through the wall right in front of her, it was a completely unexpected ambush.
But Calaria was still on guard, and dealt with the bullet with her strong fist.
“Aaaaaaaagh!”
She shouted.
She swung her fist.
The bone was oval shaped.
If she struck it the right way, it would be easy to change its trajectory.
But, no matter how tough she was, an attack by a foe with over 10,000 in Sorcery Rating would scrape the palm of her hand and expose bone.
But she evaded the attack.
The bullet landed on a wall to the right side behind Calaria, and even broke through the wall and kept going.
Calaria was clear of the first attack, but she now saw a second shot following the same route as the first one.
(I can’t dodge that!)
If she had weapons, and if this was a wide space…… She ignored such what ifs, crossed her hands and took the attack head on from the front.
“Uggggh!”
She caught the revolving bullet as her body gradually fell back.
She then hit the wall, and the bullet’s impetus was still strong.
The bullet’s power was going to gouge out the flesh in her arms and bore through the bone.
“Agh, aggggggh!”
Calaria started getting cold sweats on her forehead as she frowned.
(If that’s how it is, I’ll abandon my left hand! This will keep coming if I don’t run away fast!)
Her left hand couldn’t endure any more, and broke.
In an instant, Calaria collapsed and rolled on the ground.
A third, and fourth shot were fired at her.
Calaria jumped and slid through the room while evading the attacks.
“Get out of my waaaaay!”
She tackled the woman standing in front of her and pushed her aside.
Then, she grabbed the handle of the suitcase on the other side and used it as a shield against the bullets.
But, the fifth and sixth shots were completely inaccurate and landed at a different spot.
“I see, they’re her eyes…… She’s doing all this to cover for her eyes after they got shut down because of the light!”
The woman who was hurled away finally got up and glared at Calaria.
The seventh shot was fired directly afterwards, aimed directly at Calaria.
But, Calaria had some leeway this time.
She rolled to the side and evaded.
She then quickly opened her suitcase.
There were countless weapons inside it.
She took out a long sword sheathed in a scabbard.
The eight shot was fired.
Calaria saw this, held the scabbard with her broken left hand, grabbed the sword’s handle with her right hand, and quickly drew her sword right before the bullet landed.
The sword emitted a faint light that drew an arc in the air like an afterimage.
A faint metallic noise resounded.
The slash quietly and sternly split the bone bullet in two, and she sheathed her sword again.
The split bullet hit the wall behind Calaria and bounced.
“Pheeeew…… Calm down, Calaria. A shaken heart is a shaken sword. I can’t do anything with a shaking sword. There’s no need to worry, because if Mary has to rely on something like that, then her sight still hasn’t returned. I still have the advantage.”
She convinced herself so.
Sorcery Sword Mystica – that was her partner she now held in her hands, and it brought her even more relief.
Currently, it would be disadvantageous to challenge Mary in close combat while she was using such disgusting methods to aid her vision.
It was also Calaria’s mistake for momentarily distancing herself, but she did not know what would happen, so her only choice was to tell herself, ‘I couldn’t help it’, and take the offensive.
Fortunately, Calaria owned a good weapon for this.
With her sword in hand, she leaped through the room.
The moment she went out to the corridor, a bone bullet fired by Mary landed by her feet.
Calaria jumped and evaded as her skirt fluttered.
Mary fired at her again while she was in the air, and Calaria launched herself off the ceiling to dodge.
Mary was accurately aiming at Calaria as she flew through the corridor like the wind.
But none of her bullets hit Mary.
(Yeah, you’ve got good aim, Mary. Too good, so it’s easy to read!)
For better or worse, Mary was too good at this.
She was still a novice, so Calaria didn’t think too lowly of her, and, in fact, she could even praise Mary for coming up with a method to support her destroyed sight like this.
But this was a battlefield.
The only results that mattered were victory or defeat.
Calaria landed by the entrance hall and spotted Mary standing at the center of the first floor.
Calaria leaped down from the second floor, and Mary frantically switched her method of attack.
“You’re already this close!? But I broke one of your arms!”
With her eyes still closed, Mary swung a tentacle created by connecting different bones together and began an indiscriminate assault.
If this happened earlier, Calaria’s only choice would be to flee.
But, she had her ‘partner’ now.
“I would be a pretty bad mercenary if I couldn’t stand losing an arm.”
Calaria unsheathed her blade, threw her scabbard away and thrust at Mary.
Mary’s ‘bone whip’ seemed impenetrable.
But, Calaria had a way in if she could cut through it once or twice as it swung at her from four directions.
“Why, why can’t I hit you!?”
“Just admit you’re no match for me and give up, Mary Pulsherima!”
Mary was still relying on the ‘sight’ of the corpses she deployed in four directions.
But this method was too slow to react in a face to face fight.
Calaria closed in on her target.
She saw an open way to the vital part of Mary, her heart.
She turned the tip of her blade at Mary, took another step forward, and swung with all her might.
(I got her!)
The tip of the blade touched Mary’s heart.
In this instant, Mary opened her eyes.
(She’s laughing?)
Her eyes, which should not have been able to see, stared directly at Calaria, and Mary’s body had just slightly tilted to the side.
It was as if she always knew that her heart would be pierced.
As a result, the blade did not hit the vital spot, but instead pierced through her lungs.
A normal human being would have instantly died, but Mary was an arcana user, so this was not enough to take her life.
Then, Mary spread her arms, and……
(Did I act well?)
She squeezed Calaria’s body tight.
(Cauuuught you!)
Mary muttered in a sweet voice.
Calaria had never felt such a cold hug before in her life.