Volume 1 – Following the Maze Drawn With Lines of Blood
Calaria ran through the floor lined up with laboratories.
Unlike the resting rooms or the floor Mary headed to, there was a faint smell of oil in the air and the interior design was heartless and lonely.
The drinks lined up inside the vending machines were mostly unhealthy ones, which showed the difference of a floor where people worked.
Just like the resting rooms, the doors seemed to be closed, and there were also rooms where she could hear the sounds of sorcery guns firing.
Captis was in chaos, and it was morning – but there were more than a few employees remaining from yesterday.
The employees who were shut in were probably trying to escape.
There were many Calaria wanted to help out, but her objective was the recovery of her weapons, and she would not stop until she achieved this.
But, she suddenly remembered the past when she breathed in the smell on this floor.
Because the hideout she had spent her time with Yueri also resembled this place.
It was also that place where she learned how to use the mana sword Mystica, and the sorcery gun Machinaneus, which she had received for her birthday.
“Aah, no no. You take out this part first, and then this one.”
“……Like this?”
“That’s right! Good job, Calaria! You’re a genius~!”
“That tickles, Yueri…… Hehe.”
Were those warm days a bunch of lies?
She did not want to think that way.
But now, Calaria knew that the reason Yueri knew how to use those weapons was because she was related to Pupa Industries.
The reason she could make those weapons was also because she was acquaintances with someone who gave her the fake name of Yueri.
Naturally, she also knew that Calaria was not a normal human being.
“This is no time to think about that, Calaria.”
Yueri was standing in front of Calaria, as if Calaria’s reminiscing was just embodied.
She immediately laughed scornfully, and said to the arcana user who was surely somewhere around:
“That’s mean, to make an imitation like that.”
“No, I’m simply here. I’m always, always watching you, Calaria.”
Yueri’s body caught fire.
Her skin burned, charred, and her body gradually burned away.
“My soul was caught by an arcana, and I can’t run. Save me, Calaria, please, Calaria.”
She reached out to Calaria while burning up inside the flames and screamed in a trembling voice.
“It’s hot, it hurts, Calaria, look how much I’m suffering. I’m suffering after I saved you, so aren’t you going to save me too?”
Calaria ignored this and walked.
But-
“Or…… Do you hold a grudge against me for lying to you?”
“…..!”
Those words said to Calaria from her back stabbed her heart and stopped her.
Calaria was human.
And she had not recovered from Yueri’s death yet.
Even if she knew this was a hallucination, she wasn’t heartless enough of a mercenary to feel no pain from it.
“I’m sorry, Calaria. But, I couldn’t tell you my real name. I’ve committed an irredeemable sin. I wanted to lighten its burden by raising a child like you.”
“Shut up……”
“That’s also why I protected and saved you. Sacrificing myself made me feel like I was forgiven, you know? That’s what I think, so you should also-”
“Shut uuuuuuup!”
A clenched fist blew Yueri’s body away.
Her four limbs scattered around, and a sharp pain ran through Calaria’s entire body at the same time.
“Ugh, guh……!”
Unpleasant sounds came out from inside her body.
Her heart felt as if it was about to be crushed.
But she firmly stepped on both feet and somehow endured.
Then she said to herself:
“I’m an idiot, I knew it was a trap, but I still……!”
“You knew, and you stepped on it anyway. That makes me lose my confidence in you.”
Aoi slid out of the wall.
Calaria glared at Aoi with blood dripping from her clenched fist.
“But you could not help but stop, and that’s just how humans are. Mhm, no one can oppose it, and that’s why my arcana gained this power.”
“You’re an evil woman.”
“Evil is what gave birth to me, so that’s only natural.”
“…….Are you like that too?”
“I’m different from you. You’re an Alpha homunculus, and I’m a Beta homunculus.”
“Beta? So our parents are different?”
“That’s right. But we were both abandoned just the same. Everyone thinks it’s unfair. Why were you the only one taken in by someone else? Why were you saved? Why did you get to be happy?”
“Don’t say that’s my fault now.”
“But, Justice was killed because of that jealousy.”
“I figured as much, and I guess I was right. Such absurd and unjustified resentment!”
She tried to hit Aoi after objecting to her remark.
Of course, she could not hit her.
Aoi sank and reappeared while her hair eerily swayed.
“It’s justified resentment. But, it’s not enough yet. Our revenge did not end when we killed her.”
“Shouldn’t you say that you ‘couldn’t’ end it!?”
Calaria punched again.
Aoi disappeared and reappeared behind Calaria, but Calaria guessed this move and threw a knife she took out from inside her skirt.
Then, Yueri’s phantom appeared before her foe and the knife stabbed it.
The pain transferred over to Calaria and her face distorted.
“The main culprit remains. And you all surround her.”
“Ugh, Mary?….. She doesn’t know anything, does she? It’s pointless!”
“Ignorance is bliss. That’s also something to envy.”
Aoi activated Blackout and the walls closed in from Calaria’s sides.
She crushed them and stopped them with the palms of her hands.
“Hnph! So you won’t even hide the fact that your motive is jealousy!”
“That’s the only motive we have left – activate Trauma Violence.”
Numerous phantoms of Yueri showed up to block Calaria’s way.
“Calaria.” “Calaria.” “I love you, Calaria.” “My precious Calaria.”
They had the same face, had the same voice, and leaped at Calaria while speaking softly.
“So you’ve given up on psychological attacks and changed to physical!”
Calaria did not feel pain in her chest any more.
But she felt angry.
Instead of evading, Calaria faced the phantoms head on.
“Hnh! Hnph! Aaah!”
Then, she crushed them with her fists and legs without hesitation.
“Ugggh…..!”
Naturally, Calaria’s body was hurt, but not enough to make her fall on her knees.
“Limiting your power to the minimum and destroying the scenery of your grief – a strong body, I’m jealous.”
Then, a door behind Calaria was blown open.
A sorcery gun was fired a few times from the inside and had broken the door.
The employee who came out from inside had weapons in his hands.
He looked at Calaria and smiled.
“Ah, I finally managed to open it! Miss. Calaria, take these!”
Aoi looked at the employee with cold eyes, and said:
“Blackout.”
“Huh? Ah!”
Calaria had no time to save the man from being crushed to death by the walls.
“What a shame, I crushed your weapons too.”
Calaria approached the spot, looked down, and said with a trembling voice:
“You think that’s enough to destroy them?”
“……Your weapons are strong too. How impudent.”
“I know it’s pointless to ask, but why are you killing innocent humans?”
She first grabbed her blade and put it on her belt.
Next, she took the rifle that had the length of a human, and……
“Because the world is about to be destroyed, so all lives are equally worthless.”
“You’re too old for that. You should graduate from such lines of thinking.”
“I’ll think about it when I go to the other world.”
“Let me send you over there right away, then, with this Machinaneus!”
Calaria held it with one hand and fired at Aoi.
Boom, she absorbed with one hand a shock that was strong enough to blow away the upper half of a normal human’s body.
The weapon shot a bullet as big as a human head.
Even the walls of the corridor burned and melted due to the heat and a shockwave was released as it hit its target, and it violently exploded.
A big hole opened up in the building.
It was a shot of certain death.
But Aoi dodged it and leisurely appeared in front of Calaria.
“Strong, but crude. Are you really going to just use a massive rifle and a sword?”
“Its power is 20,000 when converted to Sorcery Rating. Hide all you want, I’ll destroy you along with the walls!”
Calaria faced Aoi and repeatedly fired her big mouthed rifle.
It filled up the entire floor with craters, almost destroying the building itself.
“Hey, what’s wrong!? You looked so confident just earlier! How about you use Trauma Violence or whatever!?”
No reply.
Perhaps she was hiding in a wall and watching.
“Or maybe you can’t use your powers without showing yourself? Is it a spell you can’t use without the right opportunity!? Answer me!”
“Okay, I’ll answer.”
The floor shook.
It wasn’t because of Calaria’s rifle.
A continuous, grating noise resounded, and it approached closer while scraping the walls.
Then, from inside a room a little distance away from Calaria, the walls and the doors around were destroyed and a weapon that seemed to be a human’s upper torso riding on a caterpillar track appeared.
“A mobile weapon still in development – so you took control of it……”
“Indeed, my sorcery does have its weak points. But, this building is like an armory. I can fill it up with anything I want inside the building.”
“We’ll see about that! Aaaaaaah!”
Calaria repeatedly shot masses of mana from the rifle in her hands.
The bullets could vaporize a human without touching them, and they directly hit the mobile weapon.
But, after the smoke cleared, its armor appeared completely unscathed.
“Unscathed. Hehe, I’m sure Kalinga would love how cool this is.”
“This hardness, it’s outside Majoram’s scientific capabilities…… is it being reinforced with the power of arcana?”
“Yes, because when it’s in my range, everything is my ally.”
“But energy cannot be infinite! I’ll just have to keep attacking!”
“Unfortunate, but I have the advantage there too.”
The muzzle aimed at Calaria.
It shot a bullet in a straight line.
She could easily dodge something like that.
However, several more launch ports opened up, from which were released relatively slow, but complex, trajectory-changing spheres of light.
“They’re following my movements…… and chasing after me!?”
“You can’t handle them with that gun. They explode, so your sword is useless as well.”
“In that case, Machinaneus Dual-Wield!”
The gun split into two along with Calaria’s words.
It transformed further, and turned into two pistols in her hands.
“It changed shape?”
“Even if you shoot a barrage, I can shoot it all down using this shape!”
Their power was half the original shape’s, but they had higher speed and could offset the mobile weapon’s barrage.
“But you can’t hurt me with that little power. I have time. I can sink you with one attack. Give me your biggest shot.”
The mobile weapon’s chest area opened with determination, and a massive gunport aimed at Calaria.
Seeing this, she transformed her guns again.
“Machinaneus Gauntlet! Bulwark Expansion!”
“Its shape changed again…… to a shield? I don’t care, I’ll shoot.”
A wall protected Calaria’s frontal side.
It was generated from a gauntlet that her gun transformed into.
It was a semi-transparent shield that collected the mana released from the gun in a fixed range. But even this could not completely block the enemy’s attack by itself.
Calaria could only endure because she had her own defensive power too.
The main gun of the automatic weapon, no, its entirety heated up, and it was necessary for it to cool down before shooting again.
“That didn’t work. Then, one more time, a physical attack……. Hm, function degradation……”
“Is it broken?”
“It’s a faulty weapon.”
“That’s because it’s a prototype model!”
Calaria grabbed the hilt of her blade with her gauntlet and leaned forward.
Her sorcery sword and sorcery gun connected to each other and the sheath emitted an intense light.
“OVERDRIVE, READY.”
“Charging complete. I’ll cut it in half along with your arcana!”
A great amount of mana collected inside Calaria.
She released it all at once using an armament that combined all the best of science.
Her own physical abilities and the power of her sword draw combined into an extremely fast and strong slashing attack.
It pierced through the protective mana wall, and the armor reinforced with arcana power.
“The reinforced armor…… like it was paper……”
Calaria was a Type Alpha, same as Kalinga, but Aoi was surprised by this attack since Calaria was not even an arcana user.
Her boasted mobile weapon, just as Calaria had declared, was cut right in half and collapsed.
Shaken by this, Aoi frantically melted into the wall and disappeared from before Calaria’s eyes.
“……Hmh, you’re running away?”
With a sparkle, Calaria sheathed her sword clad in lightning.
Her arm had gone painfully bluish black, and had internal bleeding due to broken blood vessels all over it.
“It’s been a while since I used it, but it took a bigger toll on me than before. Am I getting rusty?”
But she could open the palm of her hand without a problem, and her grip strength had not fallen.
“Now, I should support Cutie as planned.”
Calaria ran towards the elevator.
But the floor under her shook intensely and made a loud noise.
“It’s been like this since before that woman from earlier ran away. It’s not Hanged Man, so what the hell is Mary fighting?”
Calaria felt uneasy about the possibility of three arcana users attacking, but she believed in Mary, and headed for the upper floors.