Volume 1 – Following the Maze Drawn With Lines of Blood
Mary suddenly leaped.
Cutie, Calaria and Ami suddenly stopped running.
The people randomly passing by distanced themselves from the two while screaming in fear.
“Mary, what are you doing!?”
“The edge of my scythe is colliding with something invisible……”
“Err, Analyze…… That flashy guy has 8,000 Sorcery Rating! He’s probably an arcana user!”
Magrat, who should have been dead, appeared before Mary again.
But his body was unscathed, and his mana was the same as it was that day.
In other words, he could not stop Mary’s scythe for long.
“Hermit’s power can’t beat me now!”
“……Yeah.”
The invisible ball was cut apart and the edge of Mary’s scythe swooped down upon Magrat.
He nimbly jumped back to evade it, and said:
“It was easy to fish you out. It’s time to go at my pace now.”
He stuck invisible balls to his body and disappeared.
It was a perfect concealment that hid light, sound and all presence. And unlike back then, he did not have a part of Francis with him.
It was impossible to chase him using the senses.
“You won’t get away!”
“I’m not trying to run, this is my deadlock! Hyahahaha!”
Mary could hear his voice.
Mary swung in its direction, but Magrat was no longer there.
Mary grew arms from her back and swung them around to search for him.
“Mary, what are you doing!?”
“I can’t let him be. I’ll fight Magrat, you should all move on ahead!”
After saying that, Mary promptly twisted her body to avoid an attack.
She could not see it, but it was definitely a ball shot by Magrat.
He was controlling it from close by.
But no matter how much she searched, she could not find him, and did not even have any hints.
“We should also assist her!”
“Cutie, wait.”
“What, Calaria!?”
“……I smell blood. It’s coming from over there.”
“Something is happening aga-”
Before Cutie could finish her sentence, they saw flames far in the distance.
The sound of an explosion shook the air after a short delay.
Ami spoke.
“I have a bad feeling, it reminds me of Angel!”
“Are you saying that monster is here?”
“There were two people left accompanying Dugan, right?”
“Wait……”
A mysterious blood that transformed humans into ‘angels’. It was hard to mass produce, but two vials was not a big amount.
If such monsters remained, the battle would not end even after killing Dugan.
Cutie also wanted to minimize the damage in order to preserve the Slava Territory, but they had no choice but to ‘defeat’ it.
“I’ll go over there. I’m going to defeat it alone this time! Time for revenge!”
Ami generated wheels under her feet before waiting for a reply, and headed for the center of the explosion with great speed.
“Ah!? Ami, we need some time to think!”
“Hey, Cutie, over here!”
“Aaaaah! Okay, I can handle those guys!”
Soldiers were chasing the fleeing masses with rifles in their hands.
The soldiers had already formed a unit and turned into a wall that crushed the people, stepping on their corpses as they advanced.
“There’s so many traitors!”
“They’re being controlled. It’s another arcana user, or something else.”
“Humans are an important resource, but there will be too many dead if we leave them be. We have no choice.”
Cutie closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
The soldiers all suddenly stopped moving and aimed at their enemy, Cutie.
Calaria grabbed her rifle from her back, changed its shape and turned it into a gauntlet, and stepped in front of Cutie.
“Shield Evolution!”
“Taming Familia.”
Dozens of soldiers all pulled the trigger of their guns at the same time.
The bullets bounced off Calaria’s shield, and the two were left unscathed.
Meanwhile, Cutie’s mana flowed from her feet into the ground.
There were tiny pebbles and grains of sand on the ground.
Each one of them grew legs, and started to move.
“Your empress commands you. Ants, kill all my enemies.”
The ground started moving like a wave.
Thousands of ants advanced towards the soldiers.
They were tiny bloodthirsty killers who bit off flesh with their jaws, entered the body, and ate the internal organs.
The soldiers switched targets to the ants, but they were too small to kill with guns.
The insects who finally reached the soldiers’ feet broke through their uniforms and entered their bodies.
The soldiers tore off their clothes and started to writhe in agony.
The pain was almost infectious as the entire unit started groaning.
“Ueeh……”
She already knew what would happen, yet Cutie couldn’t help but feel sick while she watched.
Calaria on the other hand applauded her.
“That’s impressive, I would have had trouble dealing with so many of them.”
“Thanks. It looks like I’m specialized in dealing with large numbers of people.”
“Don’t push yourself.”
“Who are you saying that to?”
Cutie’s face was pale as she forced a smile.
The soldiers who fell one by one could no longer even hold their rifles.
Calaria canceled her shield.
Before long, Mary had also disappeared.
The fight between her and Magrat had changed location.
“The opening performance, huh?”
Cutie muttered to herself.
The fallen soldiers were like a curtain over a stage.
When it opened up, the thing standing there was a red humanoid monster.
Its height was around the same as Cutie’s.
It appeared to be female, but its gender was unclear.
A bundle of pulsing tubes of red flesh, not like the wings of an angel, extended from its back.
But, Cutie immediately understood who it was from the clothes it was wearing.
She clenched her teeth, shook her small head and shouted:
“Platy, looks like you changed your style since we last met.”
“I was deeply jealous when I learned that you became an arcana user, Cutie.”
Platy, who had became an angel, replied in her usual voice.
That was surprising.
According to Mary, the human being who is injected with the blood transforms into something completely unrecognizable from their original form.
But it was different this time.
Perhaps it depended on the discretion of the person who gave her the ‘blood’.
After a short delay, Cutie continued speaking in an unchanging tone of voice while keeping her poker face.
“Do we have to talk about that now?”
“This is the end, so. This body will not hold for long, a few days at most.”
“I see…… So it doesn’t matter whether you win or lose. But, you look like you’re fine with that if it means you get to devote your life to uncle Dugan.”
“It’s okay to desire that much, isn’t it? You acquired power, but I had none. I couldn’t be anyone’s daughter, but you did. I gave up on those dreams.”
Cutie and Platy, who had become an ‘angel’ faced each other.
They did not have many points of contact in their lives.
At the same time however, their lives only had a paper-thin difference.
“His Highness the Duke never accepted me as his daughter.”
“That’s because he had Romeo.”
“It was the same after his death too.”
“You had bad timing.”
“I can’t help but want it. If it wasn’t you who was picked up on that battlefield, but me instead……”
“That’s a cowardly delusion.”
“I just can’t help but think about it.”
The two spoke their minds, seeing as this was the last chance they would have to do so.
Meanwhile, Calaria was standing next to Cutie while staring at the roof of the estate not so far away.
There was someone standing there.
Their robe fluttering in the wind as the evening sun painted their mask red, someone of short stature was staring at Calaria.
(Magician……!)
That’s what Calaria intuitively thought.
But it was Angel in front of Cutie’s eyes.
She used Analyze, 30,000 Sorcery Rating. It was preferable to the monster Mary encountered in the building, but there was not much difference.
“Calaria.”
Then, Cutie turned her gaze towards Calaria, and showed a smile full of confidence.
“As long as we’re outside, I can buy us some time. I can see from your expression that you have a connection with the enemy, yes?”
“Are you sure?”
“It’s just that I can’t defeat her.”
Cutie sounded certain.
She couldn’t be reckless enough to laugh in the face of such a power difference.
“Well, I’m sure someone will come soon. I’m going to hold off until then.”
“Sorry. I’ll come back when I’m finished.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
Calaria started running and headed for the estate.
She transformed her gauntlet back into a rifle while running and aimed at Digi who was standing on the roof.
“Ahaha, there she is, there she is!”
She cheerfully laughed, dodged the bullet, and disappeared as if trying to lure Calaria in.
Keeping Calaria at the edge of her vision as she moved away, Cutie returned to her conversation with Platy.
“Thanks for waiting.”
“There’s no meaning to a surprise attack in a fight like this. Besides, I want to know what’s going on with your life.”
“Same as you. Sometimes, I even think that it might have been easier for me if I hadn’t become my father’s daughter.”
“Is that so?”
“I mean, you were happy too, weren’t you? Working for uncle as his butler.”
“Yes, I’m sure I was as happy as you.”
“But that happiness is the reason……”
“……that I suffered.”
“That’s right.”
“Good, I’m glad neither of us feel superior.”
Blood erupted from Platy’s hands as red flesh grew out like a sharp needle.
She put it between her fingers.
It was like a throwing knife. Butlers were also bodyguards, so it was only natural that Platy had certain combat skills.
“I will fight without holding back, as ‘His Highness’s tool’!”
Platy had no regrets now.
If what lied beyond the branching of their destinies was not the superiority or inferiority of their happiness, but merely a ‘difference in form’, then there was no point in suffering.
She was happy to be used up as a simple tool, and threw the red fragments of her life towards Cutie.