Prologue – A Cry Rings Out Because You Died
Magrat took an oblong-shaped apparatus out of his pocket after confirming that Mary had fallen down.
It was called a mobile telephone.
An exceptional item that a sorcerer could utilize without electricity.
“I can’t believe I’m getting a signal here, I guess I amplified it using mana. Sorcery science can do all kinds of things, eh?”
Magrat leaned on a nearby tree and listened to the ringtone coming from the device before tapping its surface with his fingertips.
The other party answered surprisingly fast.
“……Who is it?”
“Oh, hey there, may I call you Viscount Romeo? This is Magrat.”
“Magrat? The hitman hired by my father!? So, did you get rid of Francis and Mary?”
“I killed the hell out of Francis. Mary fell into the Death God’s Valley, so I guess she’s dead too?”
“I see, that’s great. Her survival would put my life at risk.”
“Hey, Magrat. I have a question.”
“I ain’t gonna answer if it’s unrelated to my work.”
“It’s related. You were hired by my father, right?”
“Well, I guess.”
“Did you hear why my father wanted to kill Mary, then? Especially including the part where he worked together with House Pulsherima.”
“Wasn’t this his plan from the start?”
“No. She was supposed to get engaged to me. That’s what my father decided after considering it. But the plans changed just one day before the party, y’know? It was way too abrupt, considering the participation of the Kingdom, who are on bad terms with my father!”
“Hmm, maybe it was a change of mood? Like, he just wanted to kill someone? I get that a lot, y’know, ahahahaha!”
“Give me a serious answer! Don’t forget that you’re speaking to the heir of House Slava right now!”
“Man, I don’t give a crap about the nobility or whatever. I believe in something else. So, since my work here is done, this is where I say goodbye. See ya.”
“H-Hey, I still have questions!”
Beep, Magrat abruptly ended the call.
He then threw the device away, which was crushed and destroyed mid-air instead of falling to the ground.
“Now that the party’s over, I guess I’ll go home.”
He put his hands into his pockets, and took his leave.
◇◇◇
Mary was in darkness.
It was all dark whether she opened her eyes or closed them, and the only sensations around her body were ‘heat’ and a smell of ‘rot.’
The word that first came up in her mind was ‘hell.’
(I’m in hell, aren’t I? It’s only natural. I was talentless, useless, and I couldn’t do anything even after seeing my sister’s corpse.)
She gave up and closed her eyes.
But the burning sensation of heat would not allow her to fall asleep.
She reluctantly opened her eyes, and they gradually became more accustomed to the darkness.
Mary tried to feel her body using her arms, but she couldn’t move that well.
The bones protruding out of the corpses seemed to have pierced her arms and shoulders.
The numb sensation all over her body looked to be due to the fact that she was pierced by bones.
Her back and legs, each part of her body had this sensation.
Further, her internal organs seemingly damaged by the shock of the fall, she could smell blood every time she took a breath.
(……This is awful, it’s like I’m still living.)
She did not have the energy to speak out loud, but it did not look like she was in the world of the afterlife.
She would have preferred death, she thought.
Especially because the more her consciousness became clear, the more the pain came back all over her body.
(But, it’s cold. I can feel my life leaking out of my body. I should be dead soon. I just have to be patient for a little while.)
She could not climb this cliff with a height of dozens of meters, no matter how much she struggled.
Mary let go of her life and idly looked upwards.
The stars were looking down on her, almost with pity.
(In the end, I couldn’t make anything of myself. Leaving that aside, I even ended up causing my sister’s death… I’m nothing but a minus. Things would have been better if I was never born in the first place.)
She evaluated the past memories flashing before her eyes like a revolving lantern, and this was the only answer that came up.
If she could have done something, anything, to make that man named Magrat pay, perhaps things would have been different.
Same with Romeo. In the end, he was the one who killed Francis.
(I want to disappear. I want to be hidden by these corpses among this agony, and turn into nothing without anyone finding me.)
A sensation of infinitely sinking.
She had no way of stopping this, and her consciousness faded away at the same time.
But when Mary blinked her eyes, the next moment, something adorning a black robe materialized before her eyes.
The outline of its body made it look female.
It floated upwards, and quietly looked down on Mary.
(……Death God. Yes, of course. This is the Death God’s Valley. You’re here to take the dead… so you really do exist.)
This ‘Death God’ reached out to Mary’s body.
(Go ahead. Take me wherever you want, please.)
Mary yielded her body.
Then, the Death God’s fingers touched her chest, and slowly sunk into her body.
Thump.
Her body, which had been growing colder and colder, suddenly heated up from its ‘core.’
Mary opened her eyes, and her body trembled.
(The Death God is…… entering me….!?)
The Death God sunk deeper inside her.
Not just its arms, but its torso, legs, and even its robe, sunk and entered ‘inside’ mary, instead of ‘going through’ her.
“Ah…… Aaaagh, the heat…..! Something is burning inside me! My body, agh, it’s burniiiiing!”
As if truly being burned by hellflames, a rumbling sensation of heat gushed outwards from within Mary’s body all the way to her fingertips.
Then, when the entirety of the Death God settled inside Mary’s body…
“Aaaaagh! Aagh, ah, aaarrgh! Gah, gaaaaaaaah!”
She lost her mind, screaming like a monster, and her corpse began transforming.
Her chest swelled, and the head of a skeletal monster tore out through her skin.
It instantly started nibbling at the corpse of Francis in front of it, biting pieces off and swallowing them.
(My sister’s body, it’s biting it, tearing it to pieces, breaking it apart…… Aaaagh! A part of me is doing this!)
The mouth consuming the corpse and Mary were linked together.
In other words, the corpse it was eating, Francis’s flesh and blood, was becoming a part of Mary.
Then, many more ‘mouths’ broke out through her chest again.
The beasts extended their necks and began systematically consuming the corpses around them.
“There’s something inside me that’s not me…… Ahah, ahaha! Ahahahahahaha! It’s in me! Of course! Finally, I’m not empty! I’m burning, burning, burning! My head is a mess! It’s a mess, together with my sister! Together! I’m sooooo happy! Ahahahahahahaha!”
With an expression painted in madness, Mary’s broken laughter reverberated through the area.