Volume 1 – Following the Maze Drawn With Lines of Blood
“Pheeew…… That was close, huh?”
Cutie entered the corridor and breathed a sigh after sitting on the floor.
“Don’t let your guard down Cutie, is the enemy arcana’s range only in that room?”
After Calaria’s remark, Cutie stood up after saying, ‘Alright!’, and touched a nearby handrail.
She charged it with mana and shook her head.
“This is no good either, the entire floor may be under its effect.”
“That’s a pretty wide range. Just to confirm, can the power of Empress override the enemy’s arcana if you use more mana?”
“That depends, and it takes more time if I face resistance, but that’s basically right.”
“In that case, the enemy has a crazy amount of mana.”
“Perhaps this entire floor fills the condition for something……”
The enemy’s arcana was not present in the bed.
In other words, the arcana used by that eerie woman was probably a power that interfered with structures like ‘rooms’ or ‘corridors’.
Currently, she didn’t seem to be attacking in this corridor – Calaria and Cutie walked towards the stairs while thinking about that.
Then, Mary, who should have left the room first, came out running from the other side.
“Miss. Cutie, Miss. Calaria!”
“Mary, weren’t you going to the doctor’s office?”
“The elevator isn’t working, and there’s a barrier blocking the stairs. It looks like something happened on your side too.”
“The walls suddenly started closing in.”
“The walls!?”
“We were stuck since the door was closed too, so I used my fist and Cutie used her powers on the bed and we escaped.”
Mary was surprised, ‘I can’t believe it……”
On the other hand, Cutie seemed to have something on her mind, and started muttering something with an annoyed expression on her face.
“Not just the monitor, but the elevator, and the barrier…… Does she have complete control of our security? Is she controlling physics by using sorcery? That’s ridiculous, it’s impossible to overwrite Majoram Corporation’s technology, even if she has Pupa’s backing. This is a sham!”
“Calm down, Cutie.”
“I am calm! I just can’t keep up with all these unexpected things happening!”
“That means you’re not calm.”
“Uh……”
“Miss. Cutie, can I damage the building?”
“It’s an emergency, break whatever you want.”
Mary stood before the elevator.
“Nnh….. Hnn…… Ahh!”
Then, two giant arms grew out of her back, and she hit the door with them.
The two plates were easily blown off, and fell down into the shaft below.
Apparently, there was no arcana power used on the door.
“Maybe the power that blocked the door is applied automatically.”
“I will go down here and head for the doctor’s office.”
“The weapons are below too, right?”
“Miss. Cutie, you-”
“I’m going to the president’s office, I’m worried about my father.”
“Can you go alone?”
“No problem, I’ll take this with me.”
Saying that, Cutie took a pen out of the breast pocket of her suit.
Then, it transformed into a small bird.
The bird was going to take her to the higher floors.
“That’s a cute bird…… I guess she’ll be okay, then. Well, Miss. Calaria, let’s go!”
Calaria replied, ‘Yeah’, and the two simultaneously jumped down the shaft.
Then, at the same time, they heard a loud voice from the other side of the barrier blocking the stairs.
“Uaaaaaaaagh! So many obstacles standing in the way of the protagonist, I! I’m getting fireeeeed up!”
It was a clearly strange, uncomfortable shout, and while going down, Calaria said to Cutie above her:
“We’ll meet up soon, just survive until then!”
“I’ll put him down before that!”
Saying that, Cutie launched up and flew heading for the highest floor.
Then, something resembling a roar resounded from the highest floor.
It assaulted Mary and Calaria with a fierce force.
“A scaffold!?”
“I’m strong enough to handle that much!”
Mary destroyed the scaffold with a strike using an arm she grew from her back.
The intense shockwave echoed through the shaft.
After that, Mary and Calaria kicked a door and seemed to have arrived at their floor, but Cutie was worried while holding onto the small bird and heading upwards.
“That attack from down under…… It’s not just that floor. That arcana has the entire building under its control, what the hell is it….!?”
◇◇◇
Mary arrived at the floor of the doctor’s office.
A few rooms lined up the long corridor.
Every room’s entrance had a key card lock, and only those allowed could enter.
She heard someone knocking on a door from one of the rooms.
Mary approached the closest door and shouted.
“Are you okay?”
“You’re-”
“My name is Mary Pulsherima.”
“The princess!?”
“How’s the situation in there?”
“The electricity and mana supplies were suddenly cut off, and I can’t leave the room.”
“It’s the same…… I’ll break the door first, so please get away.”
“O-Okay, thank you!”
The worker’s voice went a little further away.
Mary clenched the fists on the arms that grew out of her back, but suddenly stopped after feeling a sense of worry.
“……I’m sorry, the circumstances have changed. Please wait a little.”
Saying that, she looked at the woman who had been standing in the corridor for a while.
She was skinny and fair-skinned, with long hair, and wore a white dress.
She didn’t say anything, and was just standing there while her body faintly swayed from side to side.
Mary brandished her scythe.
“Princess Mary……”
The woman shouted in a trembling voice.
“I’ve missed you…… All this time…… I could do nothing but look at you through the newspapers, through screens, and from far away……”
Mary glared at the woman slowly walking towards her.
Then……
“Because you’re my precious, precious little sister.”
She leaped forward while saying that.
Mary swung her scythe down, quietly, but with all her strength.
The woman didn’t dodge.
But the swing did not hit her.
The woman disappeared into the floor, as if submerging into water.
Mary looked around, and the woman was behind her this time.
“If I don’t exist, you don’t exist. But if you don’t exist, I don’t exist. That’s what we mean to each other.”
“Do you people always shift the responsibility onto others?”
“The people who did that are dead. The only ones remaining are the people who had the responsibility pushed onto them. Like you, and me.”
“Don’t say weird words just because you already know what’s going on!”
Mary attacked again.
This time, she cut through the floor and swung up, but the woman melted into the wall and disappeared.
Then, as if nothing even happened, she appeared from Mary’s back, from the ceiling this time.
Her black bangs were hiding her face, as if ignoring gravity.
“That’s a misunderstanding. You’re just way too clueless. Poor you. Even though someone who knew everything was right next to you, she, the other princess, didn’t tell you anything, did she?”
“That’s because you people killed her!”
Mary swung again.
The woman disappeared.
But this time, the strike didn’t end with one swing, and Mary carved up the ceiling the woman disappeared into, and its pieces fell to the floor.
Yet again, the woman submerged and disappeared.
However, it was different this time.
(I can’t say she’s panicking, but she evaded a little faster this time.)
Perhaps she was not teleporting, but was instead moving at high speed through the walls.
She appeared from the wall, slowly crawling out of it.
“Let me say one thing…… Her death was unexpected for us as well. She was supposed to live for a while. Hey, Princess Mary, how did she know that you were captured? How did she manage to save you?”
“……”
“Yeah……. Sorry. That’s right, you don’t know anything. Poor you.”
She emphasized it only slightly, but the pity in her voice was obvious and unpleasant.
After killing Francis. Taking her away. This annoyed Mary even further and made her angry.
(She’s just trying to agitate me. All I have to do is calm down, and think about how to kill her.)
She took a big breath and took control of her emotions.
(The arcana is effective on walls, floors and doors – basically every ‘building’ part. On the other hand, Cutie’s powers worked on ‘furniture’ like that bed. So, that’s outside the arcana’s effective range. Further, I don’t think her powers can affect everything at once. My slashing attacks on the elevator’s door, the floor, and the ceiling were effective.)
She analyzed the information she had, and chased out unnecessary thoughts from her head.
(In that case, if I attack her means of escape instead of attacking her directly, then-)
Mary aimed at the woman’s feet as she continued talking to agitate Mary, and swung her scythe.
Her target was the wall and the floor, which she completely cut off to stop her escape.
“You’re calmer than I expected.”
But, the woman was not disturbed.
She swayed and her figure blurred, and instead of disappearing somewhere, she simply went behind Mary at high speed.
Mary turned around. She swung.
The woman eerily laughed, ‘Hehehe’, and backed off to dodge.
She then put her hand on a door nearby.
“Well, let’s see if you can stay calm after this?”
The door, which would have remained shut unless Mary broke it, opened.
She met eyes with a researcher on the other side of it.
She smiled with relief after seeing Mary, but she quickly froze up after seeing the woman and……
“Blackout.”
The walls rapidly closed in from both sides and flattened her.
The only thing remaining behind was the blood that spurted out all around.
The woman looked at Mary, and tilted her head.
Her smiling mouth and bared teeth could be seen through a gap in her bangs.
“Don’t get mad, Princess Mary. The world is going to be destroyed, anyway. All human lives are equally worthless, you know?”
“You make no seeeeense!”
Mary couldn’t hold back her rage.
The woman dodged while sneering at her, and softly floated.
Mary chased after her.
“You’ve killed many people up until now too, haven’t you?”
“So what!?”
“Your anger is selfish.”
“What’s wrong with returning selfishness with selfishness!?”
“In that case, I’ll be even more selfish.”
The woman withdrew while swaying and looking at Mary.
Mary desperately chased after her, but she got neither farther from her nor closer to her.
Then, when Mary passed by a door, it closed and the walls inside flattened the researchers.
The blood and body parts flying around faintly stained her face.
“Aww, everyone’s dying because you’re moving. Just like how so many people are dead just because you were born.”
Mary didn’t even raise her voice now.
She knew it was pointless.
Surely, it would be like a completely different language that just happened to be pronounced like the human language.
That’s what she decided to think, and focused on running.
She finally arrived at the final destination.
The woman disappeared to the other side of the door, then Mary kicked it open and leaped into the room.
“Ami!”
Mary ignored the surprised woman doctor or the workers who seemed to be nurses, looked around the room and felt relieved when she saw a young girl laying on a bed.
“I’m so glad you’re safe……”
Mary reflexively said these words.
But, she quickly remembered that Ami had already died.
But it might have been a misunderstanding.
She might still wake up.
The Death God inside Mary crushed such delusions.
(I can eat that corpse. That would be the most certain proof of her death……)
Mary put her hand on her chest, and strongly bit her lips.