Volume 1 – Following the Maze Drawn With Lines of Blood
Calaria who had lost consciousness in the monitoring room woke up after sensing a strange warmth.
Her dim field of vision gradually became clear.
She met eyes with Cutie.
“Am I dreaming or something?”
“……This is real.”
After bluntly saying so, her cheeks went red and she turned her face away.
Calaria moved her eyes and saw Mary cheerfully looking at her from the corner of the room.
Her body had finished recovering and was back to normal.
Cutie also seemed to have received healing from a surviving member, and she was uninjured despite her bloody clothes.
“Hey Mary, why is this woman hugging me?”
“Miss. Cutie seems to have greatly worried about you, Miss. Calaria, so she hugged you the moment she saw you.”
“Disgusting.”
Calaria spoke in a cold tone of voice, and Cutie raised her voice.
“How do you think I feel after being insulted on top of being lied about!? I had to do this, or the spell wouldn’t work! Besides, why is healing so ineffective on your body!?”
“Actually, my body does feel strangely warm. Cutie, are you a sorcerer?”
“Miss. Cutie is not just a sorcerer, she is the arcana user of Empress.”
“You?”
Calaria also seemed surprised by this.
Arcana: Empress. Its owner had two confirmed powers.
Firstly, they could load objects they touch with mana, and turn them into animals that obey her, ‘familia’. Taming Familia.
Her familia’s strength changed depending on their size, but she had not yet used it on anything as large as a house or a wall yet.
And the other power was that she could heal whoever she hugged: Empress Embrace.
That was the spell Cutie was using now.
“That’s a surprise. Wouldn’t the fight have been easier if we knew you were an arcana user earlier?”
“I didn’t want our foe to know of my presence. I thought Mary could handle everything. That was naive of me, though.”
“I disappointed myself. In the first place, I’m supposed to take my revenge on my own.”
“Don’t feel down, Mary, we were caught in a spot that’s advantageous for the enemy. In the end, Cutie should just be glad we won.”
“I suppose……”
Despite that, Cutie’s expression still looked gloomy.
She couldn’t help but think that she should have been able to kill Hemlock without troubling Mary.
Perhaps sensing her feelings, Calaria quickly changed the subject.
“By the way, Cutie, is it over yet?”
“Like I said, sorcery is ineffective on you.”
“It finished right away for me……”
“Why do you sound disappointed!? Besides, you should be a bit more embarrassed about this, Calaria!”
“Why? This is medical treatment, right?”
“You’re definitely messing with me…… I’m gonna smash you, I promise!”
Despite that, Cutie continued hugging Calaria.
(Miss. Cutie is actually pretty nice, isn’t she?)
A different word for it would be ‘naive’.
Calaria frowned while Cutie continued hugging her.
She seemed fine at a glance, but her cheeks were faintly red.
She was embarrassed, after all.
Mary watched these two with a smirk on her face.
◇◇◇
The stench of death spread inside the hideout.
There were corpses all around, and the survivors were also covered in blood.
However, thanks to the healing they received from Cutie, their injuries were now healed.
Now that Calaria could move, Mary and her group began to clean up the corpses.
(Miss. Tinny……)
Her chest felt tight when she looked at the corpse’s familiar face.
She grabbed, pulled and held up the corpses to pile them up by the corner of the square in front of the entrance.
There were roughly 12 dead.
There were around 30 people left in the hideout before the fighting began.
It was difficult to get a certain count due to the condition of the corpses, so that was the number they got by calculating backwards from the survivors.
There were more than a few members who began to shake and cry when they saw the corpses.
Ami also hugged Mary tight and did not let go.
Then, Cutie stood before the pile of corpses and declared:
“Congratulations, everyone. Be proud that you survived.”
Before Calaria could interject after these out of place words, the member who was saved by her raised her voice.
“Things have been strange ever since you got here, you know!?”
“I don’t want you to blame me for this.”
“Still, you should choose your words more carefully!”
“What’s the point in that? All you’ll do is feel sad unless I say something. First, take pride. Whether it be luck or talent, you’re alive and standing here right now.”
She certainly did not mean anything bad by that.
It was Cutie’s own way of motivating the group.
“As per our plans from the start, you will all become members of Majoram Technologies. Use what’s left of your lives…… for the sake of our fight against Dugan. I won’t hold back from supporting you.”
There weren’t many who directly opposed Cutie’s proposal.
Indeed, many probably wanted to fight together.
However, none of them were insolent enough to make that decision themselves.
Instead, the leader, Jaysam, opened his mouth.
“I think that’s a good idea. Maybe I have no right to say it after I let so many of our members die, but I think this is what they would have wanted.”
The members nodded in agreement to their leader’s words.
They came to an agreement.
Cutie looked at Mary and nodded.
Mary caressed Ami’s head, and left her for a moment to stand before the corpses.
Her back and chest area bulged and countless mouths crawled out of her body.
“Nnh…… Ugh, hnnf, nnnnh…..!”
Mary breathed heavily while the ‘mouths’ devoured the corpses.
Blood and flesh scattered around and made a mess as Mary digested the corpses.
(I promise, I will take you all to Dugan. So, please lend me your strength……)
She did not know whether that wish would be conveyed or not as she completely ate up the twelve corpses.
“Thank you for the meal.”
Mary put her hands together and bowed her head.
The members began to cry.
“By the way, Miss. Cutie. What do we do with this?”
Hemlock’s body was thrown on the ground like a piece of trash, next to the site of the pile of corpses.
“I’m going to analyze that corpse. I’m curious about what she said.”
“About finished and failed products, right?”
“Yes, and……”
Cutie looked at Calaria for a while.
She was looking at the corpse split right in half.
Could she still recognize that Hemlock ‘looked like her’ while seeing her in this appearance?
Mary on the other hand was curious about Hemlock for a different reason.
(Magrat’s sister…… I don’t know if she meant that literally, but is it really a coincidence if two siblings are both arcana users?)
There were too many things she did not understand.
Including the fact that Cutie turned out to be an arcana user.
Expecting some resolution to her questions, Mary left the hideout with the other members.
◇◇◇
They traveled by a car Cutie had arranged when they left outside.
Cutie was the driver, Calaria sat in the passenger seat, and Mary and Ami sat close to each other in the backseat.
The Majoram-made sorcery car nimbly drove through Captis as the morning approached.
“That was a long night……”
Mary muttered while looking up at the gray skies through the car’s window.
“Things have been crazy since Romeo’s party, haven’t they? You should rest when we arrive at our building, I’ll get a bed prepared for you.”
“I’ll gratefully take you up on that offer.”
“You haven’t been sleeping at all, Lady Mary…… Are you okay?”
Ami looked up at her with worry.
Her eyes were moist, and cheeks red.
She was definitely cute, but Mary worried about her and put her hand on her forehead.
“I’m fine, but…… Ami, you have a fever!”
“Oh…… Really? I’m kinda sleepy.”
“Please get some rest, I’ll have a doctor examine you when we arrive at Majoram’s office.”
“Hn…… Okay……”
Ami’s voice clearly lacked energy, and she laid down, using Mary’s thighs as a pillow.
Calaria looked on with worry.
“I thought she had finished recovering in the hideout?”
“That’s what I heard, but……”
“I’m sure they had better equipment than some crappy hospital. It might be something else than the poison gas.”
“Anxiety, huh? Yeah, watching Mary get split in half must have been too shocking for a girl this age.”
“Miss. Cutie, if it would be alright with you…… Can we have Majoram keep Ami safe?”
“You sure? I think she wants to stay with you, Mary.”
“My goal was always to find a safe place for her.”
Mary spoke as she caressed Ami.
Ami did not have any strength, and could not fight alongside Mary.
It would be difficult to protect her if the enemy was going to keep coming after Mary like this.
“Yeah, okay. They can handle one child, so I’ll make sure she is well taken care of.”
“Thank you very much.”
“In exchange…… When we arrive at the headquarters, will you and Calaria let us examine your bodies?”
“As in a medical check?”
“Including that, but also to check if there’s something else going on. Along with Hemlock.”
Mary was curious about Hemlock’s words too.
More than that though, Cutie’s way of saying this grabbed her attention.
“Miss. Cutie, is there something on your mind?”
“Hm……”
“It’s unnatural that you’re an arcana user in the first place, Miss. Cutie. Majoram Technologies is a corporation grown to this size in one generation by Mr. Noted. So the Majoram Family is not a lineage of sorcerers.”
Despite that, they held equal power to the aristocrats.
They were the embodiment of scientific developments that threatened sorcery.
That’s precisely why the Majoram Family was feared, but it was also clearly unnatural that there would be an arcana user among them.
“Indeed, if one’s mother is a sorcerer, there’s a possibility her child will be as well. But, when neither parent is a sorcerer, it’s very unlikely for their child to be born with enough mana to become an arcana user……”
“It’s almost the opposite of my case, someone born from sorcerer parents with 0 mana. But the possibility of a ‘mutation’ is not zero, of course.”
Cutie sighed after being questioned by the two, and began a halfhearted explanation.
“You two are right, I’m not a sorcerer.”
“But you were able to become an arcana user.”
“It’ll be a long story, so I would have preferred to tell it at a calmer time, but…… Well, we’ll be busy when we arrive at our destination, so I guess I can tell it in the car.”
She did not seem intent on hiding it.
Still, she did not appear to be excited about telling it either, but Cutie continued to speak.
“Back when I was going to the academy in the Royal Capital, I had another goal.”
“Business connections?”
“Yes, naturally. The Royal Capital is close to the headquarters of our business rival Pupa Industries. So I wanted to gather some information to bring back to my father. Then, I found something.”
After a meaningful pause, Cutie continued.
“Project name: ‘World Destruction’. Research on how to artificially create arcana users, you see.”
It was a grandiose, almost funny name.
Artificial, finished product, failed product – numerous words suddenly connected with each other in Mary’s mind.