Volume 2 – The World Sneered
Mary’s soft lips pushed against Calaria’s.
Calaria’s eyes opened wide in shock in the face of this unfamiliar sweet sensation.
Her expression gradually became more drowsy as strength left her body and she surrendered herself to Mary.
Mary, completely intoxicated, pushed Calaria’s body and kissed her more firmly.
(Ugh…… Ugh, my head is all dizzy…… My body’s going numb……)
Calaria lost her head and she was slow to notice the strangeness.
This was not a mental problem.
Her body clearly felt strange.
Something thick resembling mana passed through Mary’s lips into Calaria’s body and melted away.
The numbness felt good at first, but it eventually brought pain along with it, and the feeling went up from inside her body to her throat.
The moment she smelled blood, Calaria pushed Mary away.
Mary fell on her back along with a cute shout, ‘Aah!’
And right after that-
“Kah! Geh, guh, gah!”
Calaria coughed and spat blood.
She went down on her knees.
Then, she put her hand on her chest and repeatedly vomited blood.
“M-Miss. Calaria!? What’s wrong!? D-Did I do that……!?”
Now that she came back to her senses, Mary was baffled.
The fact that she kissed Calaria, and that Calaria puked blood because of that surged through her mind at the same time and she could not make sense of it.
(Ugh…… There are no external wounds, but my internal organs…… are damaged….. Restoration…… I have to find Cutie……)
She thought about contacting her with a terminal, but Cutie was in the town market outside.
There was no knowing if she would notice the call.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I never meant to……!”
“Calm down, Mary…… I’m not dead. More importantly, be careful, this is an enemy arcana attack……!”
“O-Okay! But from where……!? I have to find them!”
Mary grew bones from both arms, branched them off and spread them through the hotel’s interior.
She had some strong suspicions.
She did not sense any presence inside this room.
If they were attacked from the outside, the curtains were closed, so it was difficult to infer a correct location.
Most of all, Mary was the only one being targeted.
Calaria would have been involved as well if it was an indiscriminate attack.
(You fall in love with whoever is next to you, and beg for a kiss…… That’s a very indirect power. But it’s easy to understand. I’m pretty sure this arcana is Lover.)
She stood up as she wiped her mouth with her hand.
But she immediately staggered and had to lean on the wall.
Mary frantically rushed over to her, but she stopped her with her hand.
“……You’re right, it’s better there’s some distance between us. We don’t know when the next attack will come.”
“Yeah…… Well, Mary? Is there anyone suspicious in the area?”
“I can’t find anything. There’s no finding them if they are mixed into the crowd, but-”
Could the enemy accurately target this room from among a crowd, without hiding somewhere nearby?
Perhaps this room, or even Mary herself fulfilled some kind of condition.
“There’s no helping it if you can’t find her. I’m going to head for the town market and find Cutie.”
“Okay. I’ll wait here.”
“Good, I don’t want to be kissed again.”
Calaria said jokingly, trying to lighten up the mood at least a little.
But even Mary could not laugh at this desperate joke.
Calaria left the room with staggering feet, and just barely saw something resembling an arrow in the corner of her sight.
It hit Mary’s chest and the look in her eyes changed again.
Her body got hotter, her breathing heavier, and she stared at Calaria with the eyes of a young girl in love.
“Miss. Calaria……. I’m……!”
“Can you bear with it for a bit?”
“……Y-Yes! I’ll do my best. I want to…… kiss you so badly, but……! Miss. Calaria, aah, I love you! I love you! Miss. Calaria! Why is this……!”
Mary whined in a sweet voice, like a cat in heat.
Calaria’s heart was affected by this sight, despite being of the same gender, and she put her hand on the pistols inside her skirt as her cheeks faintly blushed.
Meanwhile, Mary’s emotions towards her only continued getting stronger.
She wanted to kiss her, kiss her and kiss her – that was the only thing on her mind.
Then, she used the powers of Death God and grew arms from her back.
She stabbed herself from the front with their sharp pointed claws.
“Aaaaagh!”
Mary groaned in pain as she pierced her hands and feet, and even her abdomen.
“Mary, you-”
“I can’t hold myself back, unless I do this……!”
She stabbed the wall with the claws she pierced herself with and crucified her own body.
Calaria transformed her guns while her heart hurt because of Mary’s pain.
“Machinaneus, long barrel!”
Her two pistols combined and transformed into a rifle.
She set it up with one hand as she aimed at the curtain.
◇◇◇
After the woman shot Mary a second time from the room of the hotel far away, she brought her bow down and took a breath.
She relaxed along with the breath leaving her body.
“Just as the information said, the maid woman is resistant against sorcery. I can’t believe her body can resist that poison. But now-”
She was looking at Mary and Calaria across a building.
She also knew that Mary had hurt herself to stop herself from moving, of course.
“She hurt herself!? I can’t believe she’s buying time in such a crazy way!”
The woman looked at Mary, who was covered in blood, and pouted.
Then, Calaria, who was in the same room, took her rifle and aimed at the woman.
“Can she see me!? No, there’s no way. And there’s a building between us!”
Calaria calmly pulled the trigger.
The bullet burned through the curtains, vaporized the window’s glass, melted walls and flew at the woman in a straight line.
“Are you kidding me!?”
The woman rolled to dodge.
But a second, and then a third shot was fired right away.
The trajectories showed that Calaria knew that her opponent would flee and fired to stop her.
The woman’s posture was broken and she could not run.
“Ugh, gaaaah!”
A white ball of light blew the woman’s right arm away.
The wound burned, and there was no blood, but a pain beyond imagination assailed the woman.
“Ah, agh, aaaagh! It hurts, it hurts, it huuurts……!”
The woman writhed in pain on the hotel’s floor.
“Impossible……! I don’t want to…… die…… in a place like this……!”
The woman then stood up as she clenched her teeth, and leaped out of the room while pushing on her wound with her hand.
◇◇◇
“Phew…… I didn’t expect it to come from a place like that….. Ugh.”
Calaria went down on her knees while pushing on her abdomen.
She could faintly see the figure of the woman whose eyes were wide open in shock after her arm was blown away.
She saw the trajectory of Cupid’s arrow for only a moment. Then, she calculated her opponent’s movements and shot, which went better than she expected.
“Mary, how are you……? Are you back to normal……?”
“……Sorry. I still want to kiss you…… I want to kiss you lots, Miss. Calaria!”
“Haha…… I wonder how you’ll react after you’re back to normal…….”
“Please don’t say that, I’m so embarrassed……!”
Mary realized how strange this was.
But she still could not stop herself.
“I’m going to meet up with Cutie and Ami now. We’ll chase the enemy after that…… Ugh…… Wait here. Okay?”
“I’ll do my best…… Ugh!”
Mary stabbed her own abdomen.
Otherwise, she would immediately chase after Calaria.
Calaria had to find Lover as quickly as possible so that Mary did not have to get hurt any more.
Calaria transformed her rifle back into two pistols, and rushed outside the room with a heavy body.