The Executioner and Her Way of Life, Vol. 3: The Cage of Iron Sand

The Traitorous Scripture

All she wanted was to be special.

Sahara knew she was a mean, cowardly person.

She was deeply jealous, overly sarcastic, impulsive, and far too quick to dislike people.

The aloof attitude she maintained on the surface was a mask to hide the ugliness of her true nature. Whenever she saw someone exceptional, the flames of jealousy burned within her, and she despised herself all the more for being so petty.

She felt like iron sand that had been blown off a giant rock by a storm, sinking to the bottom of a river to rot and turn black. And she hated herself so much that she could hardly stand it.

That was why she wanted to be special.

To be more powerful than other people.

If only she were stronger, surely she could be kind to others.

Or so she thought.

Sahara first came to the monastery when a certain human trafficking organization was destroyed.

The brutal battle between Flare the Executioner and the Director of the Fourth. When the dispute that involved every nation on the continent finally ended, the organization that had kidnapped Sahara was taken down as quickly and carelessly as an afterthought.

For Sahara, being rescued by Flare was a very special memory. At the time, she had been locked up in a cage to be sold as a sacrifice for Original Sin Conjurings.

“A kid?”

Flare barely spared her a glance. But the woman with the short, dark-red hair, crossing blades with the enemy using only a dagger, was burned into Sahara’s memory.

She was so cool.

Sahara admired Flare’s attitude.

She always had a unique air about her and never let others influence her. Sahara wanted so badly to be just like her.

Once she was freed, Sahara had nowhere to go.

She was originally sold into captivity because her parents, who were part of the Commons, were desperately impoverished. After she was released from the human trafficking organization, Sahara ended up being brought to the monastery because of her high aptitude for Guiding Force.

So for Sahara, being brought to that clearly unusual monastery was actually a stroke of good luck.

Despite being in the holy land of the Faust, the monastery was isolated from everything else. The atmosphere was so strictly controlled, and the education program so rigid, that one might think it was designed specifically to break young children’s hearts.

But Sahara welcomed the severe training that was imposed
upon her. Because of the bizarre nature of the place, she felt like she might be able to become someone special if she trained here. When the stress got so intense that it felt like it would crush her spirit, she took it out on weaker opponents. There were some kids at the monastery who promised to help one another survive, but Sahara never hesitated to kick any of them down.

She was going to be just like Flare, the woman who’d saved her.

Sahara was able to throw herself into her training because she had a clear goal, and she was willing to sacrifice anything and anyone to do it, even her fellow trainees.

She raised her grades through training and lowered those of the others. While she was striving to become a priestess as quickly as possible, using whatever means necessary, she heard that Flare had captured the Director of the Fourth and would be promoted to a Master and put in charge of their monastery.

Hope began to fill her heart.

Flare was a living legend among Executioners.

She was also the person who’d saved Sahara from the human trafficking organization, even if it was indirectly. She fantasized that Flare might even take a personal interest in her as a successor.

But that didn’t happen.

Flare never even showed her face at the monastery. Sahara was disappointed, but she focused all her efforts on training nevertheless.

Crestology and materialogy required memorization of complex steps and a wide breadth of knowledge; Guiding Force manipulation involved delicate mental concentration; physical
training emphasized straightforward bodybuilding and painful exhaustion.

All of these were humble tasks, far from the glorious specialness that Sahara longed for. Then one day, Master Flare brought a vacant-looking little girl with chestnut hair to the monastery.

She was an utterly ordinary girl, albeit with a mildly pretty face. Sahara likely wouldn’t have given her a second thought were it not for the fact that Flare was the one who brought her to the monastery.

All along, Flare had never bothered with the monastery at all, but after Master Flare brought that chestnut-haired girl, she stuck around and basically gave her nonstop one-on-one instruction.

Rage bubbled up within Sahara.

Why was she so angry? She couldn’t put it into words, but whenever she saw Master instructing that chestnut-haired girl, her irrational annoyance grew.

There was nothing impressive about that girl. Her conjuring abilities, Guiding Force levels, and physical potential were all lower than Sahara’s. If anything, she might have better composure than Sahara, but that was it. In fact, whenever Sahara challenged her to a one-on-one sparring match, the other girl never won once.

Her abilities were average at best, yet she’d somehow caught Master Flare’s eye.

While Flare never noticed Sahara at all.

As Sahara struggled with confusing feelings of frustration, a newcomer arrived who cried constantly. Judging her as an easy mark, Sahara gathered her classmates and surrounded the girl.

She intended to make the girl cry even more as an outlet for her stress. Sahara had no doubt that she would be a weak, easy target.

Instead, the girl punched her in the face and beat up all the other girls, then straddled her and punched her repeatedly.

It was a highly unexpected counterattack.

Her face contorting with tears, Sahara vowed never to approach the new girl again. After some investigation, she committed the name Momo to memory and carefully kept her distance.

That was when she learned that you can’t always tell how dangerous someone is by their appearance. Since the chestnut-haired girl was also starting to surpass her in training by that time, Sahara became increasingly frantic to focus on increasing her own skills.

Surely, the only reason she was in danger of losing to that slow, spacey chestnut-haired girl was because Master was giving her personal training. So Sahara decided to secretly spy on the pair while they trained together.

She saw when the chestnut-haired girl got ribbons from Master.

Two thin red ribbons.

No other child in this monastery had ever received such a luxurious gift. The flames of jealousy burned even brighter.

Why was it always
her
?

Sahara seethed with frustration, but if that was all, then it probably would have smoldered out.

But the next day, of all things, the girl gave them to Momo.

Even though the chestnut-haired girl was the one who had received them, Sahara saw them in the violent crybaby’s hair.
She burned with an unbelievable amount of rage. During the group’s bathing time, she even attempted to steal the ribbons.

Momo sensed Sahara’s presence and promptly caught her, punched her repeatedly until she could barely move, and even tore off her clothes and stole them.

Sahara cried in secret, wondering why she would take her clothes, but decided it was best not to do anything else to her.

“You kids can leave this monastery now.”

Some time later, Flare abruptly announced that she was releasing the students from the monastery.

“We’re not getting rid of you or anything. But those of you who want to stay will just be moved to a normal monastery.”

While the other kids seemed reassured and excited by this, Sahara was indifferent. She intended to stay at this monastery. She was determined to complete her training and become special, unlike the other kids.

“Just live a normal life. It’s not like you know anything big anyway. If you guys are saved, this one’s just going to carry that much bigger of a burden.”

Until she saw the chestnut-haired girl standing behind the Master, who was laughing heartily.

Then her feeling that she could stay here and learn to be special vanished all at once.

Her head sank into her hands as her heart surged with such maddened emotions that she wanted to rip her chest open.

Master Flare never looked at anyone else, yet she was devoting herself to educating this chestnut-haired fool, giving her ribbons as a gift, and even listening to her obviously foolish requests.

Was this girl really so special that she deserved all that?

The hopes and adoration she felt when Flare first rescued her shattered to pieces. A feeling akin to loneliness began to seep into Sahara’s heart through the tiny cracks forming in it.

Sahara decided to leave Flare’s monastery.

On the day she gathered her things and prepared to depart, she investigated the chestnut-haired girl and learned for the first time that her name was Menou. Then she went around and spoke ill about her to the others, as a sort of parting gift.

“Does she think we’re all in her debt now? She’s got to be planning something. What a creepy girl. She’s just as crazy as Master.”

When Momo figured out that she was the source of this slander, she beat Sahara up until she could scarcely speak anymore.

Sahara still just gritted her teeth and bore it, refusing until the very end to apologize.

When she left the monastery, she looked back only once.

The chestnut-haired girl—Menou—had her usually unkempt hair tied up in a black scarf ribbon. For some reason, Sahara could tell at a glance that it was made out of her own clothes that Momo had stolen.

After that, Sahara transferred to a normal monastery.

It was a pure, noble monastery with no ties to the dark side of society. Instead of intensely training future Executioners, they took in girls with nowhere else to go as nuns and educated those who were interested to eventually become priestesses.

Sahara’s desperate desire to be special had shriveled and faded. One reason was that there was no telling where another Momo-like individual might be hiding. She lived as modestly and reservedly as she could.

In the local church, Sahara became a reasonably talented
honors student. She was told that she was a promising youngster, that she could likely earn her priestess robes before the age of twelve. She’d received a self-esteem-boosting assessment without even trying terribly hard.

After that, her bad attitude subsided, and Sahara naturally became a more sociable girl.

As these relatively peaceful days passed, she heard rumors about Menou.

The youngest person ever to become an Executioner. The alias of Flarette. The perfect record of completed missions.

The specifics of her many accomplishments even reached Sahara’s ears. Menou was making a name for herself, even if it was only in the underbelly of society.

Sahara was still only a nun.

For the first time since she left that monastery, her faded feelings of jealousy began to swell up again.

She needed results. She had to hurry up and graduate from the black robes of a nun to the white of an assistant priestess, and then the indigo of a fully-fledged priestess.

She had to do it as soon as possible.

She had to do it, or…or what?

Pushed onward by an impatience she couldn’t quite explain, Sahara transferred to the front lines of defense against the Mechanical Society in the eastern Wild Frontier, seeking a chance to climb the ranks.

Others tried to stop her, but Sahara forced her way through. If she went into battle, she could distinguish herself. So she chose the place that would offer her the most opportunities to fight.

The battlefield lived up to its reputation.

The lines of defense on the eastern Wild Frontier were also known as the dumping ground of the Mechanical Society.

Absurdly enough, it was just an area where the conjured soldiers that made up the Mechanical Society were frequently discarded.

The only conjured soldiers that came out of the Mechanical Society were composed of a single Primary Color, but if two Primary Colors combined outside, they became far more dangerous. If a conjured soldier with all three Primary Colors was formed, there were multiple instances of them destroying entire nations. The rules of these combinations were unclear, but one thing was certain: The more conjured soldiers of different Primary Colors were nearby, the greater the likelihood of a combination became.

Knight-style, dragon-style, angel-style, and insect-style. All kinds of conjured soldiers advanced from within the Mechanical Society. They had to be destroyed as quickly as possible. These opponents had a huge amount of material resources, though their lack of strategy was the one saving grace. It was said that one year there would equal a lifetime’s worth of battles for the average priestess, and that soon proved to be true.

Sahara fought frantically and recklessly.

With the crest in the gauntlet on her right arm, Sahara excelled at close combat, even in the eastern Wild Frontier. The veterans who had fought there the longest often whispered advice to her.

“Don’t get involved with them. Don’t let them control you. If you hear the voice of the world, choose death instead without hesitation.”

As they explained, fighters near the border of the Mechanical Society sometimes received messages from this so-called voice of the world and became obsessed with it, devoting themselves to battle. Depending on the individual, some ended up killing their comrades, while others resisted restraint and ventured deep into the eastern Wild Frontier, never to be seen again.

Sahara couldn’t be bothered with these vague warnings, nor did she try to glean more specific information. The battlefield here was harsh. It was only natural that some might go mad. Not long after she dismissed these as tall tales, she heard the newest rumors.

Menou had defeated Archbishop Orwell in Grisarika Kingdom. And she fought off the Major Human Error Pandæmonium in the port city Libelle in Vanira Kingdom.

It was the next day after Sahara heard about these far-too-impressive feats. She had ventured farther and deeper than usual, into enemy territory, when she was seized with a strange sensation.

Character name: Sahara. Data has been registered.

It was a disconnected echo, as if it was coming from within the world itself.

Welcome to Container World. You have acquired level-up functionality. By defeating enemies, you can now gain experience points, raise your level, and acquire skills. Now that you have gained the ability to expand your
Vessel
, please enjoy your adventure in this world.

She heard a strange voice.

It was as if it was timed perfectly to take advantage of her momentary mental weakness.

The voice seemed to promise that if she leveled up, she could become stronger than ever before.

You have leveled up.

She heard the voice again when she defeated a conjured soldier.

At first, she assumed she was hearing things, but the voice came again each time she defeated another conjured soldier. It was as if the world was speaking directly into her head.

You have leveled up.

When she defeated conjured soldiers, her level went up.

You have leveled up.

Defeating monsters raised her level, too.

You have leveled up. You have leveled up. Skill acquired. You have leveled up.

When her level went up, her vessel expanded. She was able to acquire unusual conjurings called skills without any special training. Her base amount of Guiding Force, which was usually decided at one’s birth, expanded.

She was getting stronger.

As she looked at the increasing numbers, she could feel that more clearly than she ever had.

It worked out perfectly for her. She had come here to make a name for herself, after all. So if she found a way to get stronger, of course she would embrace it.

You have leveled up. You have leveled up. You have leveled up. Skill acquired. You have leveled up. Skill acquired. You have leveled up. You have leveled up. Skill acquired. You have leveled up. You have leveled up.

Gradually, it became more difficult to raise her level.

This wasn’t enough.

Just as she was wondering what to do, a voice whispered from within her heart.

Couldn’t you just kill people?

Sahara shuddered.

That was definitely not right. There was no way she would come up with an idea like that on her own. She couldn’t believe it, and yet the idea stuck in her head no matter how hard she tried to forget it.

It wasn’t right to kill people. Sahara firmly believed that as she fought. At any given moment, she felt a strange tug, like a string of some kind was about to snap somewhere inside her.

The defense lines of the eastern Wild Frontier. In the midst of their ongoing battle to destroy the conjured soldiers that arose there, Sahara encountered none other than Genom Cthulha.

The beast of the Commons. The Priestess Slayer and conqueror of the eastern Wild Frontier. Despite being born in this world, he was said to have power strong enough to match the Pure Concept abilities of the lost ones; he was a freak of nature who exceeded human limits despite being one himself.

If she defeated him, Sahara could surely be special.

Normally, she would never have even considered fighting someone like that.

But Sahara stepped inside the Mechanical Society and challenged Genom.

“So how do you feel now?”

The encounter was over in an instant. It couldn’t have even been called a real fight.

Holding Sahara’s torn-off right arm, the man looked down at the dying girl.

“Why did you try to challenge me? Looks like you’re mixed up in the Mechanical Society, but…you shoulda just run from me, yeah? I mean, even you musta known I can’t leave the Mechanical Society.”

He was a very strange man indeed. Pieces of his body were missing. And yet, the cross-sectional gashes in his body were overflowing with Guiding Light. Strangest of all, the man had no face.

There was a huge, gaping hole where his face should have been. He looked so inhuman that it was hard to tell whether he was a person at all.

A Guiding Force life-form.

A supernatural being who cast off their physical body and transcended the framework of humanity. It occurred to Sahara that this must be the end result of a person who raised their level high enough.

“Why…?”

The reason was simple.

Because she wanted to be special.

Sahara wanted to be more special than Menou. After hearing the rumors about her latest accomplishments, Sahara realized she could never catch up to Menou with normal means. So she thought that if she defeated Genom, perhaps then she could surpass the other girl.

But she didn’t want to share that unspeakably foolish reason with this man.

“Because I… I didn’t eat breakfast this morning.”

So she swallowed the truth before it escaped and talked about her morning instead.

“I went out without breakfast, and then it rained. My clothes got wet, my boots got muddy, my hair
was
a frizzy mess. And after all those annoyances, I ran into you.”

She described all the ridiculously minor inconveniences of her afternoon.

“I was in such a bad mood, I didn’t even care anymore, so I decided to challenge you.”

And she made it the reason for her death.

Once she said it, she realized:
That was surprisingly close to the real reason
. After hearing about Menou, she’d granted the Mechanical Society entrance into her weakened heart. Half aware that she could never catch up to Menou, she became self-destructive and challenged Genom.

“Heh…hee-hee-hee.”

Somehow, it was all so funny that she started laughing.

If she was going to die anyway, it might as well be for a reason like that. When Genom heard her reason for dying, his one remaining eye softened.

“Oh yeah? Is that right? Well, that ain’t a half-bad reason. It wouldn’t have been so bad to be killed over such a stupid thing, but…guess I missed my chance. If I asked your reason first, I might’ve let you kill me, but now I let that go to waste.”

Genom didn’t kill Sahara.

The next time she woke up, Sahara’s right arm had inexplicably been replaced with a prosthetic. She realized that the Mechanical Society’s effects on her had gotten stronger. It was trying to devour Sahara, from her spirit to her body.

A few days later, Sahara fled the eastern Wild Frontier. She intended to sneak away quietly, but one day, a veteran priestess noticed her right arm.

“That girl’s been affected by the voice of the world. Her spirit is being consumed and controlled. It’s too late for her! If we don’t do something, she’ll become a conjured soldier!”

On that priestess’s command, Sahara was nearly killed without mercy.

Instead, she ran.

Even with her increased level, it was a stroke of good luck that she managed to get away from the experienced priestesses and soldiers working together to stop her. They assumed for some reason that Sahara couldn’t leave the eastern Wild Frontier, so there was a gap in their ranks when they surrounded her.

After she fled for days nonstop to shake off her pursuers, Sahara arrived in the Balar Desert. There, she thought long and hard about what she should do and finally reached a conclusion.

She would kill Flare’s successor, Flarette, also known as Menou.

That was the only option left to Sahara.

She had been trained for a while as an Executioner, even if it was incomplete. By following the trail of her former classmate’s accomplishments, she was able to predict her next move.

Examining the information, she formulated a plan to have Menou meet up with the knights who were chasing Sahara and clash against the nearby criminal group Iron Chain. Once they weakened and exhausted each other, Sahara would swoop in and wipe them all out.

Which was why Sahara made contact with Iron Chain and gave them information about Menou.

Sahara was only locked in the cell to wait in case Menou showed up. She predicted that Menou would be less likely to suspect her if she was clearly a captive, nothing more.

Even as she formed this plan, she was assessing her own situation as objectively as possible.

The voice she heard, the strange expansion of the
Vessel
,
the outbreak of symptoms on the front lines of the Mechanical Society.

When she put together everything that had happened to her, she realized how dire the situation really was. Her spirit was being consumed. The idea of killing Menou to raise her own level clearly didn’t come from Sahara’s former self.

…Or did it?

Sahara’s desire to be special was of her own will.

Wasn’t she just claiming her spirit was being taken over as an excuse? Could it be that she just wanted to pin the blame on the Mechanical Society?

Why did she want to become special anyway?

Sahara thought long and hard behind the iron bars.

Her adoration for Master Flare had long since shattered. Sahara knew she could never be like Flare and would never get her attention no matter how hard she tried.

That was why her feeling of wanting to be special had lost the luster it had in her youth.

It coiled in her chest like a dark desire, far too dense and muddy to be called a dream.

What was it, then? She didn’t know, but she wanted to be special.

Being special was all she could think about.

As she crouched inside the cell in a daze, Menou arrived. The Iron Chain gang started attacking her. It was the perfect chance. Sahara walked unsteadily to the bars and peered out at their battle.

She was dimly aware that her plan was full of holes.

What would happen if Menou knew that Sahara was a wanted escapee? Even if she was too focused on guarding her
Otherworlder to hear such things, Momo was probably her aide and might fill her in. And if Menou mentioned Sahara or her distinguishing features to the knights, then it would all be over.

There were plenty of places where it could fail.

But Sahara still decided to try to make contact with Menou, in spite of her patched-together plan. She had to raise her level. There was nothing more important to her than leveling up and unlocking new skills.

She was going to be special.

Clack.
Sahara rattled the bars.

Menou looked over at her.

Her pale skin. Her eyes that held the faint color of blood. Her light-chestnut hair. All of her coloration was strangely light, making her almost mysteriously beautiful.

Clack.
She rattled the bars.

Sahara hated Menou.

She hated her so much.

She was so jealous, so bitter, so resentful. She hated her so, so much—and admired her so much that her heart was charred with longing.

Sahara only turned out this way because Menou existed.

She never wanted to see her or Momo again.

But she never really wanted them to die, either.

And she certainly never felt like she wanted to kill them.

All she really wanted…

All she wanted was to be special.

Sahara knew that she was a mean, cowardly person.

She was deeply jealous, overly sarcastic, impulsive, and far too quick to dislike people. When Master brought that absentminded child to the monastery, Sahara couldn’t stop wondering
what the other girl had that she didn’t, and she despised herself all the more for being so petty.

She felt like iron sand that had been blown off a giant rock by a storm, sinking to the bottom of a river to rust and turn black. And she hated herself so much that she could hardly stand it.

That was why she wanted to be special.

To be more powerful than other people.

If only she were stronger, surely she could be kind to others. Or so she thought.

She didn’t want to defeat anyone. She didn’t want to hurt anyone. And she certainly never wanted to kill anyone.

She just thought that if she got stronger…maybe she could be a beautiful person who did things for other people, like Menou.

That was all.

So if she killed Menou and got her experience points, she could level up. She could surpass her at last.

She could finally be special.

“Listen, Menou.”

She had to get stronger. She had to kill Menou. She just had to keep raising her level.

Then surely she could someday escape from the cage of iron sand that was sinking her pitiful vessel.

“You have to do something about the
Vessel
…”

She was sure of it…

“You have to kill me.”

So why did she make such a request? Even now, as she raised her fist with resolve to kill Menou, she didn’t really know.

It was just that she happened to notice that the black scarf
ribbon Menou was wearing was made out of clothes Sahara herself used to wear…and without thinking, she wrapped her arms around the girl from behind and whispered that in her ear.

The photon flash of Guiding Light shot out of her raised palm and grazed Menou’s cheek.

There was a soft
sizzle
of burning skin. Before the heat on Menou’s cheek could turn into pain, Sahara was leaping toward her.

Sahara clenched her fist, no doubt assuming that Menou had lost her balance while dodging the first attack. She pulled back her metal arm, aiming for a body blow.

Menou raised her dagger to parry it.

Guiding Force: Merge Materials—Prosthetic Arm, Inner Seal Conjuration—Activate [Skill: Guiding Cannon]

A burst of Guiding Light from Sahara’s elbow accelerated her fist forward.

It would be impossible to block her completely. Giving up on holding her ground, Menou chose to let the force blow her backward instead.

As she flew through the air, Menou flipped around and landed easily.

She wasn’t shocked by the sudden attack. Menou had never trusted Sahara completely in the first place.

All they had in common was the fact that they were raised in the same monastery. If anything, the fact that someone she knew from that monastery had randomly shown up in her path seemed more suspicious.

She had been wondering why the timing worked out like this.

“Iron Chain… No, I can’t imagine you were working for them.”

“No. I’m sure you’ve realized this, but I happened to know about Iron Chain’s plans already. So I figured I would lend them a hand in their efforts to expand the Mechanical Society, that’s all.”

Miller and the Iron Chain group had figured out Menou’s movements because Sahara was feeding them information.

But why would she do such a thing?

“I’m not sure I understand your motives. What do you gain by killing me?”

“My level goes up.”

Menou’s face twitched. “Level? What happens when it goes up, then?”

“I get to be special. More than other people.”

“…How disturbing. You don’t want to be human anymore?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

How had she reached a conclusion like that?

“Someone who was special from the beginning could never understand.” Sahara had no interest in trying to reach an understanding with Menou. “There have been a few hitches, like the fact that you knew the Princess Knight somehow, but you still danced for me perfectly. Now that you and those knights are exhausted, I just have to kill you, and it’ll all be over.”

She had played both sides, led them to each other so that they would fight. Once both parties were worn out from battle, Sahara planned to defeat them with ease.

Menou didn’t get angry that she’d been deceived, nor did she appear shocked by the setup.

“Level… Level, hmm? I see. I’ve heard the rumors about the eastern Wild Frontier, but I never expected to see it for myself.”

Instead, she just smiled coldly. Sahara’s right arm reflected in Menou’s eyes.

“There’s one fundamental flaw in that plan.”

Sahara’s brow furrowed at Menou’s mocking tone. “What do you mean?”

“You abandoned your Executioner training and never even bothered to earn the robes of a priestess of the Faust. Do you really think a spoiled little nun has what it takes to kill me?”

Sahara’s eyes burned with rage, while Menou’s glittered cold.

Taking a deep breath, Sahara steadied herself.

Guiding Force: Merge Materials—Prosthetic Arm, Inner Seal Conjuration—Activate [Skill: Silver Gauntlet]

Her right arm transformed.

The metal pieces split apart and expanded while Guiding Light filled the newly formed spaces and solidified a new shape. Her once-slender arm became a large, sturdy, shining gauntlet.

The Guiding Light that was used to form the transformation shot out with a crackling sound.

“Well, I suppose this is about what I expected.”

That was impossible, of course.

The transformation of Sahara’s right arm far surpassed any known Guiding Force technique. Even for the Faust, Guiding prosthetics were limited to imitating a real arm. They had no technology for creating arms that could transform.

But Menou didn’t let her alarm show.

“That arm looks awfully heavy.”

“You want one, too?” Sahara’s expression didn’t change as she raised her fist. “It’s pretty cool, isn’t it?”

Guiding Force: Merge Materials—Prosthetic Arm, Inner Seal Conjuration—Activate [Skill: Guiding Cannon]

Guiding Force: Connect—Scripture, 2:5—Invoke [Rejoice, for the wall that surrounds a pious flock of sheep shall never crumble.]

A cannonball of Guiding Force shot out from Sahara’s palm.

It was far larger than the ones she’d used thus far. As the dense particles of force flew straight toward Menou, she deflected them with the scripture conjuring she’d already prepared.

The holy wall of the church.

A voice spoke to Menou from outside the wall of light that formed around her.

“I know what you’re really made of. We’re from the same monastery, after all. Your strength, Guiding Force capacity, faith. All of it is perfectly average.”

There was a
clunk
of a fist hitting the wall. It was a light touch, not the loud
crash
of a punch. Sahara was touching the barrier Menou had created.

In the next moment, Menou found out why.

Guiding Force: Merge Materials—Prosthetic Arm, Inner Seal Conjuration—

Sahara’s arm began to transform again.

The upper part of her fist took on a cylindrical shape with a massive stake in the middle. It was so large that Menou could see it even past the wall she’d made.

The energy built up at the bottom of the cylinder released all at once.

—Activate [Skill: Pile Driver]

The massive stake shot out of her arm.

It shook the air with the force of a battering ram. The explosive strength that propelled it forward at point-blank range gave the stake incredible piercing power. The barrier made from scripture broke apart under the immense impact.

“Which means fighting multiple battles after marching through the desert will definitely be tough for you.”

While the shining shards of Guiding Force scattered, Sahara stood with her metal arm held up high. She smirked, having destroyed Menou’s defenses.

“You still wanna keep going?”

She had a plan to wear Menou down, a decent home field advantage, and a prosthetic arm that could destroy Menou’s conjurings. And in this desert, there was no earthen vein. There would be no chance for her to turn things around with a powerful invocation. Menou was at a complete disadvantage.

So when Sahara invited her to surrender, she only had one response.

“This is still a good deal better than the time with Archbishop Orwell.”

Her strength and Guiding Force were dwindling a little. She had her dagger and scripture.

That was plenty. It was hardly any different from her training in the monastery.

“Sahara.”

Sahara responded with only silence, but Menou just smiled gently.

This place was still a conjuring circle that would activate if the right conditions were met. If anyone died, they would further supply the circle with Guiding Force. And so Menou knew exactly what to say.