Prologue – A Cry Rings Out Because You Died
Around halfway through the path that leads to a road, Magrat stopped.
“……Hm?”
He tilted his head and looked back.
There was nobody there, of course; just the darkness of the night.
Yet, he felt the presence of something coming from the other side of that darkness, from the Death God’s Valley.
“I know I killed Francis off. As for her sister, ain’t no way she survived that fall. Right? C’mon, man. You’re sure about that, right?”
Yet, the beating of his heart only got louder.
This indistinct sense of discomfort, in most cases, materialized into something that had real shape.
Magrat clicked his tongue and turned back.
Then, he reached the spot where Mary fell.
“Yeah, there’s nothing here. What are you scared of, man? The dead are dead, Mary’s gone for sure-“
Fssh, fssh, fssh.
He could hear it.
The sound of something climbing up.
He felt it.
The presence of a great power.
Something was approaching him, something from the depths of hell.
“What the hell is this, then? Something’s climbing up. What the fuck is with this pressure that’s about to make me wet myself!?”
He shouted, but there was no human voice to answer him.
The noise continued with an unchanging rhythm, fssh, fssh, fssh, and finally arrived on the surface.
A white nail grabbed the edge of the cliff.
Then, another one planted itself into the ground.
“……Bones?”
The nails, and the hand, the hand that was many times larger than a human’s should be, were made of bone.
Then, the mass of flesh strained its arms and crawled up.
“Alright……”
The girl, Mary, stood there after the man heard her cute voice.
The girl was not wearing her torn and ragged dress, but was instead wearing a black and white gothic dress.
In contrast to her youthful garment, however, the shape of her hands were quite grotesque.
What used to belong to a human being was full of protruding bones piercing outwards, appearing like a piece of old cloth.
Instead, growing from her wrists were clumsy hands made of bone, adorned with sharp nails that existed only to hurt others.
She grabbed the edge of her skirt with those hands, crossed her legs, and did a sweet curtsy.
“How do you do, Mr. Magrat?”
Magrat felt a strong chill and backed off.
Because in contrast to her soft demeanor and gentle expression, Mary was clad in an intense aura of death.
“Did you hear why my father wanted to kill Mary, then?”
Magrat remembered Romeo’s words from their phone call.
Then, he had a hunch that the reason was right in front of him now.
(Hermit, sphere shape! It’s an instant party of entrails if I go through her abdomen!)
Magrat immediately used violence without making any other moves or shifting his gaze.
This one-sided violence that Mary should not have been able to detect approached her.
Then, she put her right arm in front of herself, and grabbed that thing, which should have been invisible.
An invisible power that was rotating fast in the palm of her hand while cutting through her bones.
Mary squeezed tighter and crushed it.
“Playing with balls? How nostalgic, this reminds me of my childhood.”
Keeping her stance still, Mary grinned and looked at Magrat.
“……Huh?”
He instinctively took a short breath with his half-open mouth.
His instincts were sounding the alarm.
He quickly put strength into his legs, squeezed his calf muscles and prepared to sprint off.
(That thing ain’t Mary Pulsherima any more. She was fuckin’ born again into something else!)
He did not withdraw right away, and peeked at his foe first.
“Hah…… Ahaha! Let’s play tag now, then! I’ll be the demon! You’ll be the meat! If I touch you, mince you up and butcher you, I win! Aha, hah…… haaaaah, nnnhhhhnh!”
New pieces of bone materialized behind Mary along with her seductive voice.
They were hands again, but completely made of bone from the arms this time.
They were long, and the palms were as big as a person.
“Come on, run away please! This is your specialty, is it not? Don’t you just love this!?”
She swung downward on Magrat.
“Tsch, I only play the demon!”
He was already ready to evade.
Magrat took a big backstep.
Mary’s bone-arm grazed his front.
The hand slid and hit the ground, smashing against itself.
It did not properly hit Magrat, and there was a lot of distance between them now.
Yet the wind that was blown into his face afterwards made a shallow wound by his eyes.
“I got hurt by the wind pressure, at this distance!? Hah, that’s pretty crazy!”
Mary floated up into the air because of the recoil from her arm, and approached Magrat from above his head.
“I’ll crush you this time! I’ll mince you up and turn you into a pulp!”
“Hermit! It’s party time!”
Magrat used his power while running away.
Countless mana bullets, though invisible, floated upwards around him.
He then swung his arm, and the bullets spread in a circle around Mary to surround her before shooting at her.
They came from all directions, and there was nowhere to flee for Mary who was still in the air.
She grew another massive arm from her back, spreading it around herself as she turned, mowing down all the invisible bullets.
“Playing with soap bubbles? I loved this too, back when I was a kid!”
“I was trying to play a more grown-up game though, y’know! Ungh!”
Magrat crossed his arms in front of his face to guard against the whirlwind Mary’s move generated.
Mary then landed on the ground and was now in range to strike with the arms growing from her back.
“You’re not going to evade at this distance. May you suffer the sentiments of the hundreds of the dead!”
“That ain’t gonna happen, I’ll guard myself!”
Thunk!
Mary’s fist smashed against Magrat from the front.
He quickly generated a shield to protect himself using his Hermit power, but it wasn’t strong enough to guard himself with.
He was blown away and smashed into the trees behind him.
“Agh, argh… that’s some crazy power you got there…… you bitch…… where’s that little lady with a sorcery rating of zero….!? And, what’s with that lovely appearance!?”
“I don’t care. I don’t know. I would like to know as well. Maybe you can tell by looking?”
“Haha, maybe I can. Analyze!”
Mary’s sorcery rating got displayed in Magrat’s field of vision.
“Hah…… What the hell is that? There’s no way that’s normal.”
Magrat doubted his eyes.
He could comprehend it, but he could not explain it.
He did not understand the cause of this.
“Hmm, maybe I can use that too? Yes, I just have to focus my mana into my eyes, and chant ‘analyze’, right…..? Oh, I can see it. Your sorcery rating is 8751. Higher than my sister’s, after all. As I would expect from an arcana user.”
Magrat raised his voice after Mary spoke of him with such disinterest.
“Stop fuckin’ around! Your sorcery rating is 15000! Why, why, why!? Why is yours higher than mine, someone who is beloved by the world!?”
His pride was hurt somehow.
He scratched his head, grinded his teeth, and fell into a rage.