Volume 1 – Following the Maze Drawn With Lines of Blood
“……Seriously, what’s going on with that?”
The female Liberation Front member looked up at the sky.
Dugan had turned into a massive lump of flesh after his swelling.
He was almost as big as Majoram’s main office building, so the woman felt like an insect in comparison.
“He’s definitely different from the other angels.”
“Maybe he’s the enemy’s trump card.”
“I hope so.”
All they could do was to pray they could defeat him here.
Well, even if they could, it would still be extremely dangerous.
Mary put Noted and the woman down and looked at Dugan from some distance away.
He had turned into an elliptical, soft and flabby mass of flesh, but Mary did not think this was his final form.
Then, as she expected, his second transformation began.
His entire body trembled in waves and his flesh swelled and changed shape.
“He grew arms!?”
“And legs…… He’s trying to take a human form”.
Then, almost like a crude mascot character, the flesh monster grew legs and stood up.
After that, his torso started looking like a human being’s as well.
But his head did not transform yet.
His neck started to move and the round mass of flesh trembled while changing shape.
Dugan violently shook his neck a few times, and a flower bloomed.
Splat…… Along with an unpleasant sound, five red petals spread open and a stamen and pistil appeared.
They were connected to tubes redder than the petals; it was Dugan’s head.
His expressionless face swayed with six stamens and pistils in total.
“……That’s just cruel.”
Noted muttered.
Mary felt nothing for Dugan but a grudge, but she agreed with these words.
She also felt a thick hatred of a different shape.
How to disgrace Dugan?
How to make him feel miserable?
She felt that the form he took now was a warped expression of these desires.
“Uh, ueeeh…… What do we do now? I took a quick look, and his Sorcery Rating is 80,000, y’know?”
“We gotta defeat him, don’t we? First, I’ll take you two to a safe place.”
“Well, is there even a safe spot in this town?”
“I think it’ll decrease your chances of death, by about 1%.”
Mary grew arms from her back and grabbed the two again.
The female member screamed when Mary started to run.
“Princess, he’s here!”
“His face stretched out?”
“Disgusting, and he’s coming so fast!”
“Then!”
Mary turned her body back.
She jumped back as fast as she could and transformed her own arms.
“Arcana Installation, Hanged Man. Myriad Corpse Burial Gatling!”
Mary shot her bone gatling gun into Dugan’s face, spraying blood instead of shell casings.
Slamming bullets into the face of a man she hated felt goood in its own way, but the sickening display surpassed that.
His face was torn to shreds and splattered, but he did not slow down.
Eventually, it looked like a fleshy skeleton, approaching Mary and the others.
“Aaaaaaaah!”
Mary grew another gatling gun from her abdomen.
She increased the output.
Then, his face finally stopped moving, and bulged out on the spot.
“Self-destruction!”
“Is this some kind of revenge!?”
The blast was out of the ordinary, considering Dugan’s Sorcery Rating.
Mary decided that a mere shield and speed would not spare them from damage.
“Myriad Corpse Burial Coffin!”
A cocoon of bones enveloped Mary, along with Noted and the female member.
Dugan’s head exploded.
First, it shattered the surrounding windows in an instant, and then a heat wave burned through the buildings’ surfaces.
In addition, the blast blew the buildings to their roots and dug them up.
“Ugh…… Such heat……!”
“H-Hey, what’s going on out there? Is everything okay!?”
“Calm down. Princess Mary is protecting us.”
The heat of the explosion penetrated the layers of solid bone shelter.
Mary was blown away along with the cocoon as Noted and the woman had to endure the shaking in the interior.
When things calmed down and Mary canceled her ability, she was met with a completely different scenery than before.
That’s how far they were blown away.
A large area was burned by the explosion, causing the landscape to change.
“I can’t believe the city burned up to this extent……”
“It’s crazy, I can’t help but laugh.”
“We don’t have time to laugh! We have to get away from Captis as fast as we can! There’s no way we can beat that monster!”
“That’s right, let’s just meet up with the others and figure out a plan of attack first.”
“Princess, are you still planning to fight!?”
“Of course. Because that’s the right choice, Mr. Noted.”
“Yeah…… Fortunately for us, he seems to have lost track of us for now. Now is the time.”
Dugan’s blasted face quickly grew back to normal.
He turned his face around, which stretched out from the center of the flower, looking for his targets.
Mary and the others looked for Cutie and the others while hiding from the monster in the shadow of a building.
Then, keeping in touch with each other via communication devices, the two parties met up within a few minutes.
They returned to Majoram’s headquarters, which was comparatively well-equipped with defense weapons.
◇◇◇
The sun was setting as night gradually enveloped Captis.
The main street, usually crowded with people, was quiet for today.
There was the masked figure of Digi on the roof of one of the stores that lined up the street.
She was looking at Dugan, who had become a complete monster.
Dugan was wandering around Captis while mowing the city down.
“He should have had a designated target, so maybe it’s an intelligence problem? As one would expect at that size, it seems it was difficult for him to maintain his faculties and to maintain the ability to control him remotely.”
Digi had already confirmed that Mary and the others escaped into Majoram’s headquarters.
“I think some of them were injured, so they’ll let Majoram and the military handle things for a while. Good grief…… She’s stubborn, and has too much undeserved good luck. And even I don’t want to deal with that wheel girl.”
Digi had continued the battle after attacking Calaria.
But Calaria’s stubbornness threw her calculations off.
She still kept coming back despite bleeding and being badly injured.
Meanwhile, Ami was also approaching, so she had no choice but to disengage – and then here she was.
“My role in this script is over now that Dugan is on the move. But, that monster…… was phase 2, I think. If phase 1 is an angel, then phase 2 is an archangel. Maybe that’s a bit showy? I don’t understand that person’s senses, it’s too creative.”
Digi spoke to herself.
But she knew that person might be listening to her.
She was aware of that.
“Now, Mary, how do you want to fight? I would recommend an easy death, but……”
Digi faintly smiled, as if fed up with it all.
“I’m sure you’ll fight back, though. It’s a deeply unrewarding life, after all.”
She then disappeared, melting into the darkness of the night.
Her performance was over.
All that remained was to watch from offstage and see what happens.