Volume 1 – Following the Maze Drawn With Lines of Blood
The wheels closed in on Angel and the air around them warped.
His flesh burst open.
It scattered around, clinging to the ceiling, and his eerie red body was suddenly full of wounds.
“What an unpleasant sight.”
But Angel clenched both hands, emitted light from his body and burned away the wheels.
Mary, who had taken some distance, blocked the light with a bone shield.
But its surface was instantly scorched, and the light which penetrated through a hole faintly burned her body.
Her shield crumbled and dropped to the ground.
Ami and Mary met eyes.
The young girl showed her white teeth with a familiar smile, and spoke in a lively voice:
“Let me handle this! Lady Mary, you have a strategy, right?”
“This is a dangerous foe!”
“It’s okay, because I’m super strong now! I’m not a burden any more, and I can even defeat this monster, you know?”
“……I underestimated you.”
Angel put his hand up and shot a ray of light at Ami’s head.
But the wheels flying around her automatically reflected the attack.
Angel’s facial expression warped in an unpleasant manner.
“As you can see!”
“……Thank you, Ami!”
“Hehe, she’s letting me handle it! Lady Mary relying on me for help is like a dream come true!”
Explanations were postponed for later.
Mary used the happiness she felt because of Ami’s survival as motivation, and turned her back towards Angel before starting to run.
“I won’t let you run.”
Angel extended his hand towards Mary.
“Don’t you dare……”
“……forget about us!”
The Liberation Front’s sorcery guns got in Angel’s way.
The damage was not that significant, but just as he said earlier, mosquitoes flying around irritated him.
Further, Ami had approached closer before he realized it.
“Fast!”
“Because I’m a wheel!”
Ami jumped up and hit Angel with a somersault kick.
There were wheels attached to the soles of her feet, making her faster.
Angel’s body was cut deeply as if it had suffered a slashing attack.
He backed off and spoke while pushing on his recovering wounds.
“Don’t get overconfident just because you have around 25,000, in the end, it’s just arcana!”
He attacked Ami with his fist covered in light.
Ami also made wheels float up around her arm, and their fists clashed head on.
“Aaaaaagh!”
The wheels did not just attack and distort fortune.
Ami’s wheels increased her strength.
“You can stop this power!?”
“I can! Because my feelings towards Lady Mary are making me much stronger!”
Their mana clashed and bounced around.
The entire floor was covered in white light, and the members of the Liberation Front had to cover their faces because of the violent winds.
◇◇◇
After escaping the frontline, Mary arrived in front of the stairs that were closed off by a barrier.
She grew arms from her back to break it apart, but-
“It opened…..?”
The barrier opened, as if allowing Mary to pass through.
She was suspicious, but she heard a voice from a nearby speaker when she put her foot on the ascending staircase.
“Princess Mary, can you hear me?”
“Mr. Noted?”
“Mhm, I took control of that area thanks to the assistance of the people from the Liberation Front. I’m going to support you, so you can go wherever you want.”
“Thank you!”
“Also, I want to tell you something about the enemy’s arcana.”
Just when Noted was about to continue, Aoi’s face appeared from the ceiling.
“I’m lucky.”
The wall in front of Mary pushed out and blocked her path.
“I can’t believe this is how I get to kill you.”
Mary could easily retreat if she backed off.
But she chose to keep moving ahead, even considering the risk.
She barely made it through before being squashed.
“Princess, it’s Tower! Her arcana-”
Noted’s voice coming from the terminal suddenly cut off.
Perhaps he had control taken away from him again.
“The arcana of Tower…… I’m thankful for that information!”
“That man talks too much.”
Aoi looked a little annoyed.
She moved the walls one after another and attacked Mary.
“But it doesn’t matter if you learn what my arcana is. You can’t run away. Thanks to an irregularity happening, I have the chance to kill you like this. I have to take you down. I have to, I have to……”
Her tenacity could be felt from her voice as she chased after Mary, who was heading for the upper floors.
Mary escaped by moving while hanging onto the walls with her nails.
A normal human being could not have escaped this attack, but Mary wasn’t going to be caught.
“Where are you going, Mary? It doesn’t matter, I’ll be everywhere you go. This entire space is my ally.”
Mary arrived at her destination.
At the same time, Noted, who was watching her from the cameras, opened the barrier.
Aoi, of course, instantly took back control and closed it again.
But Mary managed to slide through a small gap and successfully entered the corridor.
(Tower…… So that’s her power, after all. A building with excellent security actually ends up becoming our enemy – what a horrible coincidence. ‘Backfires’ like this just keep happening!)
And now, she started running through the corridor extending in a straight line.
(I wish Star guided me a little more, but perhaps this means that this situation is the best possible one. That’s horrible.)
Star did not reply.
Aoi probably would not have attacked if they did not flee into Majoram’s main offices.
But Mary could not know that information.
Unfortunately for her, luck was on her enemy’s side.
“Trauma Violence.”
Aoi continued attacking in the corridor.
A phantom of Francis stood in Mary’s way, blocking her path.
“Mary, come with me.”
“Out of my way.”
Mary mercilessly swung a blade she grew from her arm.
The phantom’s grotesque entrails were scattered around, and it collapsed while hatefully reaching out to Mary.
Then, the injury Mary created on it reflected back onto her, and blood spurted out from her body.
An ordinary person would have died.
But this pain was not enough to agitate Mary.
“Nngh…… Did you really think you could stop me with a fake version of my sister now?”
“Boring, you’re just like Calaria. A normal person would have died.”
“It’s your fault for expecting normal things!”
Another Francis grew out of the floor to block Mary’s path and grabbed her.
Fortunately, it was not that strong.
But Mary would be crushed by numbers if she got stopped for even a second, and would have to deal with many phantoms at the same time afterwards.
In that case, the damage that would be reflected to Mary definitely couldn’t be ignored.
As such, to make sure she did not stop, Mary had to continue while attacking the phantoms.
“Yes, you’re heading for the balcony…… Hehe, a simple thought. You think you’ll be okay if you leave the building.”
Aoi noticed Mary’s objective.
A door in the corner of the corridor, and the wide balcony on the other side of it – it was a space normally used by the employees to take breaks in.
Mary thought she had a chance at victory if she could reach it.
But, Aoi tediously continued using Trauma Violence and repeating the same attack.
It was as if she did not find it necessary to kill Mary.
“But…… Well, have a look.”
Aoi came out of a wall to show Mary the reason for her leeway, and pointed outside a window.
Mary turned her gaze towards it and looked in that direction.
The corridor was dark, as if covered by the night, and a giant eye opened inside the center of the darkness.
The golden colored eye was gazing at Mary.
“Solo Anonymous. The Tower’s watchman, it’s all over if you touch it. As long as I don’t cancel my powers, it automatically destroys all humans who try to escape the tower, without exception.”
Aoi spoke with pride.
“In other words, those who are captured by Tower cannot ever leave again.”
Indeed, the moment Mary and the others entered this building, Aoi’s victory was already certain.
It was an absurd power, because its object was limited to ‘towers’.
Many such buildings existed now, but there were very few towers in the olden days, so it made sense.
“What will you do after going into the balcony? That would ruin your strategy, right? C’mon, look at that giant staring at us. I bet it wants to eat you.”
Mary continued recklessly running.
She did not listen to Aoi’s words.
She then kicked the door open and entered the balcony.
It was a wide space, which could also be called a hanging garden, and Majoram was proud of it.
But the blue sky Mary expected was not there.
She looked up to see a giant with big open eyes looking down on her.
“Well, that’s the end point, Mary. I was happy to see you grown up.”
Mary quietly pulled out a long piece of bone from her arm and held it with both hands.
A blade unfolded clad in the resentment of the dead and Mary’s mana, Burial Scythe.
Mary made it clear that she did not intend on giving up yet.
Then, Mary slashed at Aoi, who was looking at her while standing upright.
But her body melted into the floor before Mary’s blade touched her, and she disappeared.
“Yes, my movements are limited in a space with no walls or ceiling…… but that’s all. As long as we’re in a tower, your attacks will never hit me.”
“Hnh! Aaaaaaaaah!”
Mary immediately slashed at the floor, but she already knew she could not hurt Aoi like this.
“Hehehe, you’re just going to recklessly attack me? Majoram will get angry at you if you break their building apart, you know.”
“Damn it! Take! Thiiiiiiis!”
“It’s cute how desperate you are. But you’re no match for me. In fact, you just made things worse.”
Aoi put forth a phantom of Francis as a substitute for herself.
Mary’s blade did not stop while she swung, cutting it apart, and injuring herself as a result.
“Ugh, guh…… Gaaaaaah!”
Mary tenaciously went after Aoi even while she bled.
“Oh, come to think of it, Calaria was going on a rampage like this too when I fought her.”
She squinted her eyes with nostalgia and spoke in an unfittingly peaceful tone of voice:
“It’s like a child throwing a tantrum.”
But her tone of voice quickly became cold again.
Almost as if she took pity on Mary, who had lost her means of counterattacking and was only crudely swinging her scythe around.
Aoi dodged Mary’s attacks over and over again, and Mary gradually spent up her stamina.
“You’ll die if you remain here. You’ll die if you leave. If you go back, that thing is waiting for you. It’s over, Mary. All of it.”
Mary’s vain struggle was unsightly.
With the giant at her back, Aoi spread her arms wide and smiled leisurely.
Mary, on the other hand, poured even more mana into her scythe.
“Thousand Corpse Burial Scythe – aaaaaah!”
She swung her giant blade full of fighting spirit.
“Like I said, it’s no use…… huh?”
Aoi quickly tried to sink into the floor and retreat, but her power did not work.
The giant also disappeared and skies cleared.
“Why-”
“Heh, it was very strong. Just as I’d expect from Majoram’s building.”
After Mary said that, an earthquake started resounding and the ground below Aoi’s feet inclined.
“If you’re undefeatable in a tower, then I can just cut you off from it.”
“Wait, with that attack just now?”
Mary was not just thoughtlessly cutting up the floor.
She had realized that she could separate this balcony from the building.
Of course, she did not know if that would cancel Tower’s power, so it was a gamble.
“No, I have to go back – ah!?”
Aoi immediately started running, but she was just a powerless woman.
Mary was next to her in an instant, and grabbed her body with arms growing out of her back.
She then ran up the collapsing balcony, and jumped up high along with Aoi.
“N-Nooo! Let go, let gooooo!”
Aoi screamed for the first time.
But Mary did not care, and her body fell towards the ground.
Her bangs swayed with the wind, and Aoi’s face was exposed for the first time.
She had no face.
The skin was peeled off, her nose was cut off, and she looked miserable.
She probably had a cute face resembling Francis’s at one point.
Mary was surprised.
But that wasn’t a reason to stop.
“Let go! Why, why do I have to be killed by you!? I’m, we’re like this, because you were born! It’s not like I wanted to be born! I didn’t want to be born! If this was going to be my life!”
There were a few reasons for the success of Mary’s strategy.
The first one was that Aoi could not attack while hiding.
She always showed herself when using Blackout or Trauma Violence.
As such, it was not difficult to determine her position and to bait her.
Next, she had little fighting experience.
Perhaps it was inevitable due to her restrictive conditions, but Aoi was as much an ‘amateur murderer’ as Mary.
So, despite being undefeatable inside a tower, she panicked when she was attacked. She was surprised. She got baited.
And the final reason was Aoi’s obsession with Mary.
She wanted to kill Mary with her own hands, no matter what – that’s the resentment she held towards Mary.
So her view was narrow, and she never noticed Mary’s simple strategy of cutting the building.
“Wait, no. I don’t want to die! No, this isn’t what I wanted……”
Aoi wriggled and struggled.
But she quickly stopped moving.
She looked up at the empty sky, and almost seemed to be remembering something.
Then, she gave up and relaxed her body.
“Mary, help me.”
A tear dropped from her eye after she said that.
Right afterwards, Aoi’s body hit the ground and burst open.
Mary felt the shockwave and the flesh being crushed in her arm.
It was certainly instant death – Mary wiped away the tear on her hand, grew a mouth from her back, laid down at the center of the blood that scattered around and devoured Aoi’s corpse.
Her fangs smashed and chewed the meat as blood spilled out through the gaps.
“This should mean I’ve gained Tower’s…… power…… huh!?”
Mary held her head when she swallowed the first mouthful.
Something almost made her head explode.
“Gah, ah, hiih…… bugh, ugh…..!”
She staggered while fighting the urge to vomit.
Then, this violent ‘stream’ entered her chest and reformed.
“This was a good find. You don’t find toys with the princess’s face that often.”
“That’s a bad reaction. If it’s a toy, how about a ‘thanks’ for letting you play with it? Hey!”
“Do you hate your face that much? You don’t want me to play with it? Haha, I don’t care why. If you hate it, I’ll make it disappear.”
“To destroy a beautiful thing…… it’s a guilty pleasure. I like that expression on your face, Aoi. That despair, show me more of it!”
She did not want to remember.
But she could not forget these memories of hell.
And……
“Sis Hemlock, bro Kalinga. Let’s play?”
“Diji, let’s go together.”
“Is this kid our little sister too?”
“Is she called Mary?”
“Mary. Mary. There there, I’m your sister.”
Memories of an important and happy time in Aoi’s life.
She was still young back then, so she could not remember even if she tried.
It appeared in her head during the revolving lantern she saw before her death.
In other words, her last words were after she remembered this……
“Uh, puh…..! Ueeh…… Geh! Geh!”
Emotions poured in along with the memories.
Mary reflexively put her hand on a wall and puked.
Star, taking the shape of Francis, started talking to Mary.
“Arcana is strongly connected to the soul of the practitioner. Therefore, when a user dies, his or her ‘powerful memories’ – the so-called revolving lantern – are temporarily burned into his or her soul. Inheritance takes time, so it does not affect other people, but in the case of the Death God, it is an exception.”
“Why…… when I first ate my sister……”
“It’s because the arcana became familiar to your body and your Arcana Installation was awakened. So the memories of Francis came later in the form of a dream.”
“Then, after all…… that dream was a real event……”
Mary kneeled and hung her head.
Then, she powerlessly laughed while her shoulders shook.
“Aoi…… Kalinga…… Hemlock…… Were we all family, including me? Haha, please don’t be silly…… you can’t just say that now, it will only make me feel worse! You selfishly pushed me into something that had nothing to do with me!”
She smashed her head against the wall in front of her, so strongly that blood came out.
“……This is horrible.”
She was still going to continue to fight.
Mary accomplished her goal, and had to do what came next.
She stood up while staggering, and approached the headquarters.
Then, she put her hand on the wall, and spoke in a somber tone of voice:
“But that doesn’t change what I must do. I will kill all of my sister’s enemies. That’s all. Arcana Installation – Tower.”
Then, Mary’s body melted into the building and disappeared.