Volume 1 – Following the Maze Drawn With Lines of Blood
The skeleton giant’s body collapsed.
Mary’s body slid out of it, and she landed on top of Dugan’s remains as her limbs regrew.
If Dugan resurrected after this, there was nothing else she could do – but it did not seem like she had to worry about that.
Mary stood up on her feet, which were still being made, and the other three who watched the fight until the end approached her.
“You did it, sis!”
Ami jumped off Dugan’s body and rushed over to Mary.
But Calaria came down from the sky before Ami reached Mary.
“I was pretty surprised by the way you won this.”
She landed quietly and spoke with joy.
“Indeed, that was astonishing.”
Meanwhile, Cutie also landed slowly.
She was happy about Mary’s victory, but her smile was a little shaken when she took a peek at Dugan’s remains, and then Captis.
“Dugan was manipulated until the end. When did that start, I wonder?”
“I think it was 2 days before the day my sister died. However, I wanted to hear it from the mouth of the man himself.”
“Platy could still talk, even after turning into that thing.”
“……Wait. Did that thing just move a bit?”
They all looked over at the spot Calaria pointed at.
They had to squint their eyes to notice it, but the monster’s back was moving.
Mary instantly went closer and stabbed it with a blade she grew from the palm of her hand.
She saw human skin behind the flesh she cut.
She thrust her arm inside and pulled something out – it was an alive Dugan.
She lifted him up, and noticed that there were some tubes connected to him.
And the lower half of Dugan’s body was severed.
His body was cold, his eyes were empty, and it was clear that he would not survive for long if he even was alive.
“Dugan, can you hear me?”
Mary asked him before throwing him away.
Then, a smile suddenly appeared on Dugan’s face.
“……I had a bad dream. I was destroying the country I built up myself, with my own hands.”
“That’s reality, Dugan.”
Ami also approached him and spoke harsh words at him.
“You treated human lives like they were garbage, and yours was used up the same and thrown away.”
“You’re pretty harsh…… little girl.”
Dugan spoke more clearly than one would imagine from his appearance.
It was not clear whether this was a coincidence, or intended by those controlling him.
At any rate, this was convenient for Mary.
“Uncle.”
“Ooh…… Is that Cutie?”
“What happened? Why did you do this!? Please, tell me!”
“I don’t…… remember that well either. My existence was chased away into a corner…… on that day. The day I talked with Henry……”
That did not surprise anybody.
The king, who visited the Slava Territory, the queen, and their family.
They used some kind of spell on Dugan; he was being manipulated.
“So, are you saying it was King Henry who loaned you the homunculi as a fighting force?”
“Who? No, I think I remember.”
“It doesn’t matter, just answer the question.”
Calaria coldly rushed him.
Dugan bitterly smiled, and continued to speak.
“Homunculi…… that word brings me back. Perhaps, yes. Indeed, this all started 16 years ago……”
“I knew it, that’s when I was born.”
“From the looks of it, you know that you’re a homunculus, yes?”
“Talk, Dugan. What happened 16 years ago?”
He faintly averted his gaze.
Smoldering flames.
A sea of rubble.
The end of his dream.
The words ‘too late’ were the most fitting for the scenery diving into his sight.
His eyes became empty, his facial expression was lost, and Dugan, most of all, looked like he gave up.
Then, he spoke.
“World Destruction…… That was the research relating to World, the 21st arcana.”
He started talking about the event that took place 16 years ago, from his point of view.
◆◆◆
For Dugan, it was nothing but a quarrel between him and Henry.
There were countless projects made together by the Kingdom and Pupa Industries.
There were more than one or two among them that Dugan secretly destroyed.
Sometimes he stole data and allowed Majoram to finish the research first.
Sometimes he raised the prices on the materials necessary for the research, and put the project at a deadlock due to a lack of funds.
Depending on the situation, sometimes he even attacked the researchers directly.
Conversely, the Kingdom also attacked the Slava Territory, so in short, the feeling was mutual.
One day, a spy sent by Dugan stole information regarding a project that would become ‘World Destruction’.
However, the gathered information was only fragments, as the security was very strict.
One thing was clear, however, and that was the fact that the project aimed to ‘destroy the world’, just as its name suggested.
It was astonishing, so much so that he thought it may have been dummy information.
However, the research really existed.
The original proposer was also the specimen, Justice.
She was revealed to be an arcana user while at a young age, so her parents sold her off to Pupa – that was the story behind the little girl.
She was raised in Pupa’s facilities, and displayed talent not as an arcana user, but as a sorcery researcher.
She put together a new theory for homunculus at a young age.
The theory grabbed Henry’s attention, and the artificial arcana user mass production plan, World Destruction, began.
The research’s final objective was to create a ‘vessel’ that could contain the strongest arcana, World.
Homunculi of many patterns were created in order to accomplish this.
And 16 years ago, a mutation, a ‘vessel’ possessing an overwhelmingly high mana tolerance, who differed from the other homunculi in shape and form, was born.
At the time, there was no name given to the vessel.
Because it would simply be used up and disposed of.
It would become World’s vessel, and destroy the world using its energy. It was nothing but a tool.
Dugan could not understand.
The king was supposed to desire the nation’s prosperity, so why was he trying to lead the world into destruction?
But one thing was clear, which was that the king really possessed enough power to destroy the world.
And, with the birth of the vessel, that reality was getting closer and closer.
Dugan’s ambitions were still halfway through.
He could not let the world be destroyed yet.
◆◆◆
“According to information that came later, there were 3 people on the spot where World Destruction would be carried out.”
Mary and the others quietly listened to Dugan’s story.
The 21st arcana.
The world’s end.
These words were coming out of his mouth very seriously, and the others were certainly taken aback by this.
“The first one was the vessel. Yes…… Mary Pulsherima, you were just born back then. Naturally, King Henry was there too. And the other person was……”
Mary could not imagine who it was.
Dugan was putting emphasis on that part as well, and he purposefully waited for a moment before continuing.
“The arcana of the Death God.”
“Arcana……?”
Mary felt something strange in his words.
“The previous generation’s arcana user, whose presence was hidden by a fabricated history, was there?”
Dugan shook his head in reply to Calaria.
“Not user. The arcana itself.”
“That’s the same thing my father said……”
“I see, that’s what I’d expect of Noted. So he reached that conclusion too. I was right to team up with him, after all.”
“Are you saying that the gods who gave birth to this world are actually alive?”
“According to the information, yes. The woman called Death God had probably sealed World within her body.”
The power to seal an arcana, and to control it. The question of why Death God had such abilities still remained.
But if World had the power to destroy the world, then anything was possible.
“They wanted to invoke her power.”
“……But something got in the way and the experiment failed.”
“That’s right. An assassin killed the woman. She was unprotected during the experiment, and World was lost at that point…… or so we thought.”
Normally, an arcana chose a new inheritor a while after its user died.
Nothing happened until 16 years after that event, so perhaps both Dugan and Henry thought that the arcana had dispersed and was erased.
But that was not true.
Death God was inherited by Mary, a vessel, and as for World, which was thought to have been erased……
“……I see. The power to dominate everything…… was passed onto Henry’s hands.”
Dugan spoke without any strength, as if admitting defeat.
Then, as if to express the state his heart was in, his body crumbled.
His arms melted away and his bones were exposed.
“Well, looks like I’ve fulfilled my duty as the messenger. World has granted me the privilege to die.”
“Dugan, wait. I still have questions!”
“I don’t have anything else to say. Mary, you seem to think you’re the victim as you take revenge on me, but for me, you’re the person who killed my son, you know?”
Dugan’s words of grudge were like a curse being left behind by him.
“I shall thank you for giving me these last moments to mourn my son. But, I don’t deserve to be punished by you. Well, I don’t mind being killed, because I’m going to my wife and son. There’s nothing to lament.”
Seeing his decisive face made Mary smile.
“Hah…… Haha…… Ahahahaha!……”
“What’s so funny?”
“The fact that you think you’re going to your family.”
“Are you saying I’m going to hell?”
“No, I will eat you. As you know, Death God has the power to seal arcana, but that is not all.”
Then, her right arm transformed into a big mouth, and spoke.
“It also has the power to seal the soul of the one it eats.”
Dugan’s eyes opened wide.
“What……?”
“I won’t let you go to your family. You will be food for the Death God, and suffer for an eternity.”
Mary put her open mouth on Dugan’s body.
She had no power to seal a soul, of course.
But he lost his calm and was terrified.
“S-Stop…… Don’t put that mouth near me. Stop, just let me die……!”
He was the one who caused this situation in the first place.
He reinforced the army, and many citizens suffered because he only allowed Captis to flourish.
He spoke of his beloved son, yet made Romeo marry Mary for political reasons while he knew his son had another lover.
As Ami had said, the man always used up the lives of others, and it was his turn to be used this time.
“Please, I’ll-”
“Welcome to real hell.”
“Please don’t take away the tranquility of death from me!”
Dugan’s remaining body was swallowed in one gulp.
Blood leaked out from between Mary’s teeth as she digested him.
It was a miserable end for the man who once ruled the great Slava Territory.
One could say that his life was already over the moment he had that conversation with Henry.
“Sister……”
Mary looked up at the night sky as she felt the scent of blood.
The city lights were all gone, so the stars looked very beautiful.
She felt that one of them was Francis looking at her, so Mary reached out with her hand, and muttered.
“I’m going to kill father next. Please keep watching until the end.”