Volume 1 – Following the Maze Drawn With Lines of Blood
Majoram Corporation’s main office, highest floor. Though heavily wounded, Cutie crushed Kalinga, who possessed the arcana of Hanged Man.
Noted brought out a medical care box from the president’s room, and began frantically treating Cutie together with Calaria.
But Cutie’s internal organs also seemed to be damaged, so proper equipment was necessary to treat her properly.
They could not take Cutie to the medical office unless control of the building was taken back and the battle on the medical office’s floor ended, but……
“Do your best, Cutie. I’m sure the battle will end soon!”
“Father…… Hehe, I’m, fine……”
Noted frantically shouted with teary eyes.
Calaria stared at him with a rigid expression on her face.
(The wound is pretty heavy. She won’t last long like this.)
Cutie emphasized that she was fine, but she was clearly pretending.
It was clear to anyone that she would not last long if left like this.
“……Wait. The mana, it’s gone?”
Then, Calaria felt the change in the building on her skin.
Cutie also seemed to feel it, and told her father in a fragile voice:
“Tower’s power, disappeared…… Mary, won…… Ugh, gugh…… right…..?”
“Don’t push yourself Cutie! Let’s go to the medical office right now!”
“Wait, Noted, there is probably still some fighting around that area.”
“There’s a medical office in the adjacent workshop too! We can go there!”
“I see. Okay, I’ll take her.”
“……Wait.”
There should have been three people here.
But they heard the voice of a fourth person, a man.
Calaria opened her eyes, and stared at the ‘corpse’.
(Impossible, didn’t that man die? Don’t tell me it’s something ridiculous like a power to resurrect-)
Yet, Kalinga, who should have been dead, was really standing up on both feet.
He almost looked like a doll controlled by an invisible thread.
It was dark and hazy around him, and the air was bending.
“Heh, hehehe!…… Man, looks like I lost. I felt it, y’know, Aoi’s death. I guess Aoi lost too. In that case…… Ahahaha, I have to take you all along with us, or this won’t make any sense!”
He drooled, as tears spilled out of his eyes, and blood gushed out of his nose and ears.
“Ahhyahkhnhhnhnhnhnhhaahaaaaaah!”
Kalinga bent backwards, breaking his waist bones, and shouted in a strange voice.
“Impossible! It’s a Reverse phenomenon!”
Noted went pale as Calaria asked him:
“Reverse? What’s that?”
“Please just break that thing, or things will get really bad!”
Calaria gave up on asking about the situation and unsheathed her sword to quickly swing at Kalinga.
He stopped the blade with his right fist.
“Tsch! He has enough intelligence left to block!”
“Gahah, hkyuhahahah, I won’t forgive you! Y-You, you! You ran away by yourself, Calariaaa! You raaaaaaaan aaawaaaaaaay!”
“Nuuuuuoooooh!”
Kalinga struggled while the mana sword Mystica absorbed his mana.
Meanwhile, Cutie felt the power of Arcana expand as she watched on.
(Sorcery Rating…… 25,000…… 30,000…… 40,000…… It’s increasing explosively. Wait, this is…… self-destruction…..!)
It was unfitting of the ‘protagonist’ Kalinga claimed to be – no, perhaps it was actually worthy of the name ‘protagonist’.
His flesh bulged along with the expanding mana.
His face went red as his eyeballs appeared to almost fly out of their sockets, and his blood vessels became visible.
Then, blood started gushing out of him like from a fountain.
“Stoooooooop!”
Blood vessels became visible in Calaria’s arms as well as she desperately pushed her sword against him.
But, Kalinga’s constantly increasing power pushed her sword back.
He looked like an expanding balloon right before it exploded.
(He’s gonna explode! We’re out of time!)
Calaria was about to give up, but then-
“Uggh, gah…… Agh……”
The blood gushing out of Kalinga’s body stained her.
Massive white claws stabbed him from behind.
“Oh…… A……Aoi….. You’re there, aren’t you……?”
Kalinga reached out to the ceiling, and suddenly shriveled after those last words.
Then, after he became all withered up like an old person, he slid away from the claws and fell on the floor.
Calaria met eyes with the person standing there, Mary, and smiled.
“Ahh…… Ahh…… You saved us, thank you Mary. But when did you get here?”
Mary transformed her arm into a mouth, and swallowed Kalinga’s corpse with an unpleasant expression on her face.
“I acquired Tower’s power.”
“You acquired Tower’s power?”
“I’ll explain…… ugh, later……”
“Hey, are you okay!?”
Calaria quickly supported Mary as she started groaning.
“I’m okay. More importantly, we still have an enemy. Ami is helping out right now, but…… I have to go……”
“Ami? I thought she died……”
“She survived. I’ll explain later. Anyway, I’m heading for the lower floor now!”
“Do you need help?”
“No, I will finish this. Take care of Miss. Cutie!”
Mary’s body melted into the floor after she said that.
“She really has Tower’s power…… is that because of Death God too?”
Calaria was surprised by what she just saw.
But she quickly regained her composure, rushed towards Cutie and held her up.
Noted said with a shaking voice, ‘Thank you’, and Calaria firmly nodded.
◇◇◇
“Wheel of Fortune, how long do you think you can keep this up?”
The fight between Ami and Angel continued.
Angel had the advantage.
It was difficult to fill up the gap of 10,000 Sorcery Rating.
Ami’s body was full of burns because of repeated light ray attacks.
But she did not suffer any critical injuries, and kept successfully attacking Angel over and over again. She was successful in making time until Mary returned.
“I’m just Ami! I’m no god!”
“No, you’re no longer human. You’re the same as us, you’re unsightly, and that’s why you should die.”
“I’ll only die for Lady Mary! I won’t die for someone like you!”
Angel shot a line of light towards Ami, who was approaching closer.
They were straight lines at first, but they bounced when they hit a wall, so they were hard to dodge.
Ami used the wheels floating around her to dodge it, but her skin was grazed and burned.
She was not used to pain, and couldn’t help but groan and frown, ‘Ugh, uuh!’
“Shit, can’t we do anything!?”
“We’ll just die in vain if we try anything.”
“Come on, captain!”
“You’re not the only one feeling irritated, other members are the same. Just bear with it for now.”
The Liberation Front’s members gave up on interfering in the fighting, and hid behind the wall along with the workers of the medical office.
A female member bitterly stamped her feet, but she would just get in Ami’s way if she fired her gun.
Besides, the powered suits melted when that light ray even just scraped them.
With a head on hit, even a corpse would not be left behind.
(I can’t believe we can’t do anything while a small girl like that is fighting a monster…… She won’t hold on for much longer though, where is the princess!?)
All they could do was to pray for Mary’s arrival.
They knew that Tower’s domination was released already.
Ami had noticed that too.
“If the terrorists are mosquitoes, you’re a fly.”
“I wish I was a bee, at least they’re a little cute.”
“I’m going to show you why you shouldn’t be joking around.”
“No you won’t, because Lady Mary will be here very soon!”
Angel put his clenched hands up in front of himself, and loaded them with a lot of mana.
A light sphere expanded and heated up.
When he was about to shoot it towards Ami, Angel suddenly turned around and changed his target.
“A surprise attack isn’t going to work.”
Mary appeared from the ceiling and extended her hands towards Angel.
“The results will be the same even if we’re face to face – Arcana Installation, Hanged Man!”
Hanged Man’s power increased Mary’s mana enough to damage her.
But the wound she suffered regenerated due to Death God’s power.
At a glance, they had terrible affinity, but her power had the possibility of self-injury.
The more bones she grew out from inside her body, the bigger Hanged Man’s effect became.
“Die, Mary. Fulfill your destiny!”
“Myriad Corpses – Gatling!”
Bones broke through her skin and flesh, and transformed into revolving autocannons.
It wasn’t just that.
Mary grew rifles from her back also.
Then, her entrails scattered out of her abdomen and appeared in the shape of a giant gatling gun.
5 guns in total – Mary transformed into a human armory right in front of Angel.
She had to face off against Angel’s light, which surpassed all human logic.
A deadly barrage of bullets and a flux of light collided in mid-air.
“Hmh. Don’t resist, obey. You were supposed to die 16 years ago!”
“I’m tired of hearing things like that! Aaaaah!”
Bone fragments of the dead melted in the light and disappeared.
Angel was more powerful, and Mary’s skin hideously burned and went red.
But this heightened Hanged Man’s power further.
The more she was injured, the more her mana increased.
Gradually, Mary’s attack pushed Angel’s light back.
“You’re pushing me back? You’ve come so far in such a short time. You are the mere shadow of a Goddess, after all!”
Angel stopped attacking.
He extended a blade of light from his right arm while being showered with a rain of bullets.
If he could not win a duel, he would force his way through the barrage and hit a slashing attack. It was a similar idea to Mary’s, because he had regenerative powers.
The gatling guns had overwhelming power, but they weren’t enough to kill Mary’s opponent before he approached closer.
Whether to attack or to evade, Mary had to stop firing to respond to Angel.
“Ugh!”
Mary also transformed her arm into a blade and stopped Angel’s swing.
She had to try her best to stop his attack with her hastily made sword, but it melted immediately.
Angel guessed that Mary was going to attack him from the back and turned around.
But Mary chose to take some distance instead and leaped backwards.
When she landed, she met eyes with Ami next to her, and they nodded to each other.
“I won’t let you!”
Angel held his hand up to obstruct the two.
Mary transformed her arm.
She grew a giant arm from her right shoulder and clenched her fist.
The wheels Ami shot floated up around Mary’s arm and back.
Mary shot herself towards Angel.
Her initial velocity was fast enough.
Further, the wheels around her back started to revolve fast and the mana generated from this accelerated her like a jet engine.
As a result, Mary arrived within melee range before Angel could do anything.
(So fast.)
It was impossible to offset this with an attack.
He had abandoned defense as well, so his only choice was evasion.
Angel leaped backwards.
Then, something approached him from the back while scraping the floor and the ceiling.
(The wall!?)
“Blackout, and!”
That was the power of Tower Mary acquired.
A wall was pushing out from behind Angel.
A giant fist enhanced with Hanged Man was coming at him from the front.
“Myriad Corpse!”
Its power increased due to the wheels revolving around her arm, Wheel of Fortune.
Three arcanas – she used them all at full speed for a pincer attack.
“Burial Fiiiiiiiist!”
With all that……
“Nnh, nuuuoooh!”
There was no reason for her to lose now.
Angel’s body was completely crushed without a chance of recovery, and his head rolled on the ground near Mary’s feet.
Angel had a satisfied, full smile when he started to speak:
“Yeah…… you may be a mere shadow, but you’re still pretty good……”
This really creeped Mary out, so she quietly crushed the head.
Then, she turned towards Ami and smiled.
“Ami.”
“Lady Mary, you did it!”
“Thanks to you. Thank you.”
“Ehehehe, was I that useful? Was I helpful to you?”
“Yes, I definitely couldn’t have won without you.”
“T-Then…… Can I hug you?”
“Of course. Err…… I’m stained with blood, though.”
Ami didn’t mind that, and sprinted towards Mary before jumping into her chest.
She buried her face in Mary’s soft pair, and Mary hugged her tight.
(Such a warm body……)
The heat was clearly not of a human being, and Mary had a lot of questions, including why Ami came back from the dead.
But now, she decided to simply enjoy being able to touch each other like this.
The Liberation Front’s members took off their helmets and looked at the two with expressions of relief.
Still, both Mary and Ami were really tired.
They were relieved and hugging each other, but they had put a big strain on their bodies.
“Ah…… uh, ugh……!”
“Lady Mary? Are you okay? Does it hurt?”
“Ah, my face…… hurts…… it’s breaking, ugh, aaaaaagh!”
“Lady Mary!?”
Mary suddenly pushed down on her head in pain.
Ami was supporting her body, but……
“Huh? My body is losing strength too? Why? I was moving so well just now! Huuuuh!?”
Their bodies grew weak and both collapsed to the ground together.
The Liberation Front’s members saw this and frantically rushed towards the two.