The Executioner and Her Way of Life, Vol. 5: The Promised Land

Chaos in the Holy Land

A calm, hilly area lay on the other side of the holy land from the Wild Frontier.

Upon climbing the gentle slopes covered in short-stemmed flowers, one would arrive at a dreary-looking monastery. The people belonging to this particular cloister were very unusual, but they didn’t attract attention since the oddness wasn’t in a way that was apparent to the average observer.

If one continued past the monastery at the apex of the hill and started to head back down, they’d discover a curious scene.

There were rows upon rows of thin, stake-like stone monuments.

The one-meter-tall rocks had no inscriptions, decorations, or anything to distinguish them from one another. They were all alike, driven into the ground so uniformly that there was little point in attempting to differentiate them.

It was a graveyard.

Every one of the markers that covered the downward slope and beyond was a headstone for a member of the Faust who had died someplace in the world. This western hinterland where pilgrims never tread was a memorial to all the martyrs.

As the Master returned to her monastery after a long time away, she leaned on an unmarked gravestone and looked around at the familiar sight.

Though privately, its role was to train future Executioners—essentially Faust assassins—the official duty of Master Flare’s abbey was to maintain the graves of the clergy.

The majority of the Faust left no mark on history nor record of their names when they died.

There were virtually no bodies or keepsakes buried beneath the gravestones for anyone to mourn. Churches across the continent merely tallied the Faust members who passed away, and more rocks were added here in this plot.

Their arrangement was devoid even of artistry. Each new grave was added plainly as a matter of procedure. Yet the sheer number of them somehow still added up to a grand sight.

The nuns of the monastery were polishing the stones. These were the very same girls being trained to become Executioners. While Master Flare was theoretically their supervisor, she paid no attention to their work as she gazed out over the tombstones, a cigarette held between her fingers.

“Light.”

“Yes, Master.”

The scripture held under Master Flare’s arm began constructing a conjuring to comply with her one-syllable request.

Guiding Force: Connect—Imitation Circuit: Pseudo-Concept [Light]—Invoke [Lesser: Light Heat]

Once invoked, the conjuring turned the Guiding Force into a physical phenomenon, light converging and creating heat.

As the tobacco began to crackle, Master Flare took a long drag. The end of the cigarette was smoldering.

The Pseudo-Concept of
Light
.

What a useful conjuring. Concentrated light and heat made for an effective attack conjuring, and it could also disrupt the enemy’s vision, making it an excellent ability all around. This was a concept from the planet’s source that had once been attached to an Otherworlder’s soul. When the girl who could control the Pure Concept of
Light
became a Human Error, it was added to the ubiquitous conjurings of the world.

Summoning Otherworlders with Pure Concepts was not done out of desire for their individual strengths.

When an Otherworlder was brought here, a concept was dragged out from the planet and attached to their soul as a Pure Concept, where it could later fall into the hands of humanity as a conjuring. That was the true purpose.

Master Flare watched the thin plume of smoke rise as she toyed with the fumes in her mouth.

Tobacco was an indulgence, but she rarely smoked. She didn’t particularly enjoy the taste and wasn’t weak enough to be reliant on something of the sort. Worst of all, the scent of smoke would cling to her and could even become part of her body odor if she made a habit of it.

Although she had retired from active duty, there was no telling when she might have to kill someone from the shadows. It was her nature as an assassin to dislike anything that could inhibit her stealth, tobacco included.

Bad for her health. Inconvenient for battle. If she wasn’t careful, it could even lead directly to her death.

It was because of all these negatives that Master Flare had decided to smoke a single cigarette whenever she felt the urge to do something stupid and pointless.

It was a perfect tool for self-torture. She opened her mouth wide and belched out smoke.

The white fumes swam through the air with her loud exhale.

Was she secretly hoping this would eat away at her lungs and eventually kill her? Scoffing at her own drawn-out suicide, Master Flare lowered her hand, gripping the cigarette between her index and ring fingers.

The smoke wreathed around her chest and rose upward.

Even without her taking another inhale, the lit cigarette slowly grew shorter. Since she had no real desire to taste the smoke, she felt the calmest in the moments when the thing was burning up pointlessly far from her lips.

If only her own life could burn away as easily. Yet despite that feeling, Master Flare’s misfortune was that no fire was strong enough to incinerate her.

She had taken many lives. By killing people, she devoured their life spans to extend her own. The first person Flare ever slew was a member of the Faust. The victim of that incident, who’d had a huge effect on her own life and personality, was undoubtedly resting here as well.

One of the many stones that lined this peaceful hillside existed as proof that she had lived and that Flare had ended her.

Unexpectedly, Flare remembered one of the deceased who wasn’t memorialized here.

Around the time people first started calling her Flare, she had befriended an Otherworlder.

“The way you smoke those things is so uncool.”

Flare suddenly recalled the voice of the girl who pointed and laughed at her, even though that same girl was the one who taught her how to smoke cigarettes.

In retrospect, she’d probably refrained from snapping back at her because she knew that was exactly what the girl wanted.

Flare threw back her head and laughed, coughing out smoke simultaneously. Coarse laughter issued from her wide-open mouth.

“Master. I’ve been thinking this for a while, but the way you smoke those things is a bit… Ah?! M-Master, stop, you’ll burn me! I am not an ashtray!”

Ignoring the cries, Master Flare mercilessly tapped her ashes out on the chatty scripture.

She wasn’t cutting off the scripture’s comment just because the unwanted advice was annoying.

The consciousness that dwelled inside this scripture wasn’t her. But once in a while, it said things that were startlingly similar to her, which irritated Master Flare to no end.

When a living human’s spirit and soul were poured into a scripture used as a base, it gained consciousness, creating a pseudo life-form. It was essentially a failed attempt at a Guiding Force life-form, manufactured by Flare’s own weakness.

Once, her killing intent was the reason for her existence.

She was born to slay people and raised doing the same.

Only when she wished for something else did her fate reach a dead end.

All she had to do in life was kill, yet she’d found herself hoping for another life. At the time, she’d really believed the world might change. And then, of course, all her dreams were dashed.

Now she knew there was no point in longing.

“Shut up. You’re nothing but a tool. Got it?”

“…Yes, Master.”

Good.

“I imagine Menou is waiting for me…but the last thing I want is Experion getting involved in all this.”

“Is he here?”

“No doubt about it.”

Experion was the only fighter powerful enough to cow Ashuna Grisarika. Out of all the members of the current generation of the Grisarika royal family, the cowardly princess of Grisarika who favored exceptional people loved solely her youngest sister.

“He’s an Elder, too, after all.”

Although she was powerful, Master Flare wasn’t invincible, and there were a few specific individuals she would prefer not to be targeted by if she could help it. One was Genom Cthulha, who had transcended death. Among the Elders, Archbishop Elcami was another. And Grisarika’s secret weapon, Experion Riverse, was a third.

Naturally, Flare’s foolish pupil was nowhere on that list.

“What do you want to do about your successor, Master?”

“Kill her.”

“This seems a rather roundabout approach if that’s the case.”

“Is it? Well, I admit to harboring a little hope that she’ll surprise me.”

Master Flare wasn’t blessed with high levels of Guiding Force or physical prowess. It could be argued that her only redeeming feature was her highly advanced Guiding Force manipulation. However, there was one technique beyond her.

Connecting her Guiding Force with that of another living person.

This technique, which Menou and Akari accomplished with ease, was so rare that no one else in the world could achieve it.

Not even Flare.

Even when she attempted it with a friend, certain it would work, it resulted in unbearable agony and damage to both their souls. No matter how much Flare had felt that she’d accepted the other person, no matter how confident she was that they would accept her, the two had been far from reaching the ideal level.

Cross-connecting Guiding Force was an act of offering up one’s soul to another and vice versa.

Menou, who could control any Guiding Force that touched her soul, had no idea of her own true worth.

“If she manages to surpass my expectations, someone like me won’t pose a threat.”

“…I don’t know, Master. I think that may be selling yourself short.”

“Yeah?”

At the very least, if she were Menou, she wouldn’t be threatened by Flare in her current state. That was how powerful Menou’s unique peculiarity was, even if she herself didn’t know it.

“If she lets me kill her, then that’s all there is to it. I don’t see any value in a successor who can’t surpass me.”

The heat from her shrinking cigarette had reached her fingers. She flicked it away.

Guiding Force: Connect—Imitation Circuit: Pseudo-Concept [Light]—Invoke [Lesser: Light Ray]

The beam of light from her scripture burned the cigarette butt to nothing in midair.

She had to admit that it was convenient for disposing of garbage. As Master Flare chuckled, her scripture flashed in disapproval.

“You’re very hard to understand, Master.”

“I just hate sharing my emotions with someone else.”

Master Flare turned her gaze toward the shining white holy land.

It was about an hour away on foot.

Unhurried, she turned toward it and began walking.

The morning after they both infiltrated the cathedral, Menou and Momo had a secret meeting.

“So, Momo, you were assigned to work under that priestess with the glasses?”

“Yes, and I couldn’t have asked for a better assignment, toooo! She’s very nice, so I bet I can squeeze all kinds of information out of herrrr.”

To Menou, Hooseyard was the priestess who greeted her when she first stepped off the train; to Momo, she was a convenient source of intelligence.

The two girls were talking in the south tower room where Menou was staying. Momo had been assigned to sleep in the strange station building within the cathedral like Hooseyard, but she had slipped away to see Menou.

Elcami probably thought to lock Momo away in the cathedral so she couldn’t get out and reveal anything. However, Menou was already here, so remaining inside made conspiring easier for Momo.

“I thought the cathedral would be more impressive, but it’s full of holes on the inside, hmmm?”

“They must be that confident in their external defenses. It would certainly have been impossible to get in through ordinary means.”

“But you and I managed, darliiing. According to that four-eyes, Master Flare is at the monastery right now, not heeere. You should be able to make contact with that boob-lady noooow!”

“Yes…but there would be no point.”

Although they’d successfully entered the cathedral, they had no way out. It wasn’t the right time to make contact with Akari yet.

“We’ll just have to wait until the teleport gate to the land of salt is ready. It’s an enormous help that you’re working directly with the manager of the Dragon Gate, Momo.”

“Hee-hee!”

The knowledge Momo had gathered was invaluable.

Hooseyard was their key to conquering the holy land. She was working on making a long-distance tunnel from the cathedral to the land of salt. All the information Menou required to act would come straight from that priestess.

“By the way, darliiing…” Momo pointed at the smiling man in the corner without sparing him a glance. Momo’s expression turned cold, and her pupils widened and filled with bloodlust. “What in the world is thaaat? I can kill it, riiight?”

“No, it’s best to just ignore it.”

Menou had gotten used to handling Kagarma at this point. He was harmless enough. Calmly, she shifted her position to hide Momo from his sight.

As far as Momo was concerned, Kagarma was already on thin ice for sharing a room with Menou. And she was all the more likely to despise him since he was also a sketchy old man.

“All right, then I’ll keep wringing more information out of the four-eeeyes.”

“Excellent.”

With their plan decided, they ended the meeting.

The ceremonial conjuring circle for teleportation.

At its heart, the principle behind the long-distance instant teleportation conjuring using the Dragon Gate and the earthen vein was no different than the unusual Guiding train Menou rode to the holy land.

It created a route with Guiding Force, temporarily converted a target into a Guiding Force body, and reconstructed the target at the chosen location. Individual
Teleportation
was impossible without the proper Pure Concept, but the cathedral had the ancient relic known as the Dragon Gate. It was the only tool that could mimic that power.

It did have some limitations, though.

The biggest problem was that no earthen vein channel went to the land of salt, which lay beyond the ocean. Without a Guiding Force route to follow, the conjuring wouldn’t connect properly. Worse yet, it was much too large a distance for humans to bridge the gap with Guiding Force. Hooseyard’s coordinates for the land of salt were so far from the nearest port on the continent that it would take weeks to get there by boat.

It wasn’t entirely impossible, however. In fact, Hooseyard’s predecessor had connected a route to the land of salt several times before.

There was another vein as good or better than the earthen vein.

The heavenly vein.

It was an astral vein that flowed through the sky, with a comparable amount of Guiding Force moving through it. Despite being a massive power source, it wasn’t tapped for cities like the earthen vein because it didn’t follow a fixed course through the air. The constantly moving current made it highly difficult to grasp, such that the average conjurer wouldn’t bother trying.

But when it came to conjurings related to the astral veins, Hooseyard was far above average.

“…”

As she knelt in front of the glowing golden Dragon Gate and prayed, Hooseyard gave off a mystical aura.

It was the ultimate devotion of a ceremony that touched on the abyss. Like a sage, she hovered on the border between dreams and reality, wholly enraptured. In this moment, Hooseyard was truly a holy woman begging for a miracle beyond human comprehension.

Anyone who saw Hooseyard in this state would be captivated by her concentration level.

She was holding a golden key in her hands. It was a Guiding vessel made of three kinds of ore, inlaid with twenty gemstones. Hooseyard herself had carved thirty-three crests into the carefully selected materials, forming a conjuration that connected her spirit to the Dragon Gate by way of Guiding Force and led her toward the heavens. She carefully, finely, delicately sent her own Guiding Force to link with a point in the sky.

This Guiding Force connection was unlike any ordinary invocation.

Hooseyard’s soul was following the flow of the heavens. From her perspective, Guiding Force wasn’t something to be manipulated. Instead of subjugating it with her spirit, she simply gave in to its movements, and in return, it answered her prayers.

Conjuring was essentially a conversation with power.

Hooseyard was connected to a part of the planet itself. The difficulty of constructing a teleportation conjuring circle lay in joining a Guiding Force route. Movement to the chosen destination required the creation of a path that didn’t exist before, no matter how narrow it might be. The longer the distance to be bridged, the more challenging the labor.

Of the thousand priestesses in the holy land, the number who could invoke this technique could be counted on one hand.

The construction of the long-distance teleport conjuring circle by way of the Dragon Gate…was complete.

“I made a connection.”

Leaving the pure, trancelike state, Hooseyard returned to herself and reality.

The woman had successfully finished her daunting task. She’d connected from the holy land in the west to the floating land of salt far across the ocean. Even the finest sailor wouldn’t dream of crossing that route by sea, yet she’d forged a teleportation route.

Even Hooseyard had never traversed such a long distance before. Something stirred in her chest.

Realizing she was damp with sweat, she wiped her brow and sighed in satisfaction.

“I’ve made another adorable child. Hee-hee-hee…”

She gazed at the Guiding Force route she’d formed as if it were her own offspring. This was undeniably degenerate behavior, but fortunately, no one was around to witness it.

She’d successfully met the impossible deadline. That was enough work for today, at any rate. Hooseyard left the teleport gate for the cathedral. When she returned to her room, Momo was waiting for her there, looking dubious about her superior’s springy gait.

“What’s the matter with you? You seem to be in an alarmingly good mood.”

“Is it that obvious? Well, I just finished a reeeally hard job!”

“Uh-huh…”

Momo’s eyes glittered at Hooseyard’s lighthearted response. The priestess failed to notice this, likely because she was such a research-oriented conjurer.

Hooseyard’s carefree personality made her ill-suited to the battlefield, where the situation was constantly shifting. She much preferred ceremonial conjurings, for which she could take her time and build up materials and conjurations before the invocation. As long as she was in a place where she could feel the flow of the earthen vein, she could spend a whole day without ever getting bored. And if it was to investigate the heavenly vein, Hooseyard would happily climb any sacred mountain.

When it came to her passion for the astral veins, this priestess was second to none. Her interpersonal skills, however, left much to be desired.

“Miss Momo, you really ought to study conjurings seriously. You’ve got a real talent…and it’s fuuun…!”

“That’s none of your concern, thank you. I don’t see myself doing well, so I’d prefer not to try.”

“Awww…” Hooseyard’s shoulders slumped.

Ultimately, she could only trust Momo with odd jobs like paperwork. She didn’t assign her to anything related to conjurings. Momo’s Guiding Force manipulation abilities weren’t yet on the level required for that.

It was helpful for saving time Hooseyard might have otherwise spent on such chores, but she still wanted to teach her precious new aide the wonders of ceremonial conjuring in connection with the astral veins.

Momo’s overall talent was generally high. She had likely just forced her way through life without much of a problem thus far.

Undoubtedly, she held great latent potential, and she was blessed with a substantial deal of Guiding Force, meaning the world itself essentially loved her. Since Hooseyard had spent her life alongside the immense flow of Guiding Force known as the astral veins, she knew that very well, and thus was terribly envious of Momo’s significant stores of Guiding Force.

A gifted girl like Momo could probably interfere with the earthen vein using only her scripture, even without materials or conjurations. Hooseyard needed to assemble the components and crests to form the conjuration and produce a ceremonial vessel on top of that—around a month of effort for only a day of working with the earthen vein.

“If
I
could manage that so easily, my goodness, the things I would do… Hee-hee-hee. I’d spend my whole life making my map of the astral veins even more wonderful. How niiice… Miss Momo, you’re sooo lucky… Ah! But if you would only assist me, then I could still…!”

“Why do you think I’d help you with that?”

“Huh?! Are you reading my mind?!”

“You were talking out loud, you four-eyed freak.”

Her nickname had already devolved from Miss Four-Eyes to four-eyed freak. Hooseyard clutched her head, bemoaning the loss of her dignity as the girl’s superior.

“Forget all that. What sort of person is the archbishop?”

“What? Are you more interested in the archbishop than the astral veins? You’re so strange, Miss Momo.”

“Most people would be more curious about the archbishop, a real nearby person, than the astral veins that trail all over the place.”

Archbishop Elcami…

Hooseyard thoughtfully pictured her superior.

She was the greatest conjurer of her time. Hooseyard was confident that her own proficiency placed her among the best when it came to large-scale conjurings using the astral veins, but she also knew her confidence would crumble if she had to face Elcami.

“Archbishop Elcami is…a scary person, I suppose.”

“Scary?”

“Mm-hmm. She yells all the time, is constantly in a bad mood, complains as soon as you start talking to her, then hits you with impossible deadlines… Honestly, I don’t like talking to her…”

Hooseyard’s eyes grew more and more distant. The woman really was like an angel of death to her.

“But the thing is…I also think she’s a surprisingly normal person.”

“Normal?” Momo repeated.

“That’s right.”

Elcami hadn’t climbed the ranks of the Faust on virtue of her piety, nor through diabolical schemes. She’d advanced purely based on her high conjuring capabilities. That made her personality fairly easy to understand.

The archbishop was the kind of person who depended purely on strength and accomplishments.

“And her Guiding Force is nothing short of miraculous.”

Hooseyard put Guiding Force into her glasses as she spoke.

Guiding Force: Connect—Glasses, Crest—Invoke [Guiding Force Vision]

Guiding Light glowed around the frames. She had engraved them with a crest to let her observe the movement of Guiding Force more precisely. Using the invoked crest conjuring, she inspected the course of power in Momo’s body.

Once, Hooseyard had looked at Elcami with this tool and had been left speechless.

“Hmm… You’re on the right track, too, Miss Momo, but not quite as good as the archbishop.”

“…What in the world are those glasses?”

“Hmm? They’re a crest tool to view Guiding Force before it becomes a phenomenon. Viewing you through these, I would say you’re a liiittle lacking in spirit.”

Body, spirit, and soul. Elcami had exceptional quality, volume, and balance in all three. Hooseyard so adored the astral veins that she was even enamored with that sight.

After inspecting Momo’s Guiding Force, Hooseyard deactivated the conjuring and returned to her regular vision.

“You have a lot of promise, though, Miss Momo. What did you do before you came here?”

“I’m guessing this won’t be a surprise, but I specialized in combat.”

“Yes, I thought so…”

Hooseyard couldn’t have guessed that Momo was an Executioner’s aide, but she knew the girl was well-acquainted with combat.

“Maybe that’s why… Miss Momo, I don’t think you realize what it means to be blessed with ample Guiding Force. You probably believe it’s powerful and convenient, right?”

“And?”

“Listen, Miss Momo. Guiding Force is the basis of all phenomena in the world. A human is merely a conjured phenomenon using the materials known as the body and the personality called the spirit. The essence of humanity lies in Guiding Force. Have you ever thought about how incredible it is that you can link with that and manipulate it?”

It sounded like eccentric logic, but Hooseyard’s voice had the tone of a sage trying to enlighten someone.

This was the one truth she had come to realize in her twenty-odd years of following the veins of the very planet.

“…What are you getting at?”

“You should devote yourself to ceremonial conjurings, too, Miss Momo. You can discover the joy of yielding your body to the flow of Guiding Force far greater than yourself and—”

“No, thank you.”

Now Momo saw where this was going, and she promptly shut Hooseyard down. The woman slumped in disappointment.

Just then, Hooseyard’s scripture glowed with Guiding Light. It was the communication conjuring used exclusively by the Faust. The only person with a link to Hooseyard’s scripture was Archbishop Elcami, so it was undoubtedly a message from her boss.

She put her palm on her scripture and read the message.

“Say, Miss Momo…”

“Now what? If you start ranting about the earthen vein next, I’ll shove this paperwork down your throat.”

“Why would you say something so awful?! No, it’s just that our boss seems to have finally lost her mind.”

“Hmm? What’s the message say?”

“Oh, don’t worry about it. I’m sure it’s just a mistake.”

Hooseyard tried to brush off the question, but Momo turned a sharp glare on her. The woman wilted under the pressure, and she pointed at her scripture.

“Ah-ha-ha, she says there are a bunch of—”

No sooner had she begun to elaborate than the door opened.

It was none other than Elcami. “Too slow, you fool! I told you to send Momo to me! What exactly is the holdup?!” she barked.

“Yes, ma’aaam! I’m so sorry!”

Elcami was clearly only acting impatient, but Hooseyard still cowered and ducked her head apologetically, tears filling her eyes at the scolding. Elcami ignored her, turning her scowl on Momo.

“Forget it. I’ll take it from here. Momo.”

“Yeees? How can I help yooou?”

“Is
that
what you people were plotting?”

“Pardon?”

She obviously doesn’t know what you’re talking about
, Hooseyard thought sympathetically.

Elcami’s furious eyes narrowed at the pink-haired girl’s response. “As if I even need to ask. Things like this don’t just happen out of nowhere. Come with me.”

Elcami stormed out of the station building without waiting for an answer. Momo and Hooseyard followed, soon arriving before a window in the second-floor hallway. The barrier wasn’t transparent from the outside, but it was from the interior.

Elcami tapped on the window, commanding Momo and Hooseyard to look outside.

When Hooseyard obeyed, she was met with a very startling sight.

“No way…”

A swarm of monsters was approaching from the pilgrimage route. The creatures were clearly too large to be ordinary wild animals, and they were closing in fast. All told, there were at least several dozen.

“A force of monsters this large can only be Pandæmonium’s doing, right? How did you get a Human Error to do your dirty work?”

“Wait, Archbishop. Why do you think this is Miss Momo’s fault? Please don’t make false accusations!”

“Quiet, you! I don’t need opinions from someone who’s only good for working the Dragon Gate!”

“Yeek!”

Hooseyard made a valiant effort to defend her new aide, but it was all in vain. Elcami shouted her down into a quivering ball of regret.

The target of the allegations appeared completely unbothered, however.

“Now, this is a surpriiise. What’s going on there, hmmmm?”

“Feigning ignorance to the last, eh?”

“Your lack of trust is truly heartbreaking. I’ve been in the cathedral this whole time, haven’t I?”

“You could’ve easily set this up beforehand. Those monsters couldn’t break through the holy land’s barrier even if Pandæmonium showed up personally. We could ignore them, but… Momo.”

“Yes?”

Elcami’s wizened finger pointed out the window. “Go intercept them.”

“Intercept them…” Momo pointed at herself. “Me? Alone?” Then she directed her finger at the scene beyond the window to confirm. “Are you telling me to die?”

“If you must,” the archbishop responded airily. “The only proof of your innocence I’ll accept is if you wipe out all those monsters.”

Momo folded her arms.

“A-Archbishop Elcami! You can’t possibly expect—”

“Silence. Prepare a Dragon Gate route to the outer edge of the holy land.”

“Wehhh…”

Hooseyard didn’t so much as get to finish her sentence. While she sank into depression over her inability to protect her precious subordinate, Momo quietly and seriously judged the difficulty of destroying the swarm of monsters against killing Elcami on the spot and running away.

“Ohhhh, all riiiight. I’ll do iiiit…
ma’am
.”

“M-Miss Momo? Are you quite sure…?”

“It’s fiiiine.”

Momo was a priestess, if only barely. No matter how shriveled Elcami appeared, Momo could discern there was a hopelessly massive difference in strength between them.

It wasn’t anything as eerily threatening as Master Flare. Rather, it was plain at a glance that Momo could never defeat the archbishop.

Such was the sheer level of power Elcami held.

There wasn’t any good reason for Momo to risk her life in a fight with the old woman. She was confident that she wouldn’t die from charging into the horde of monsters anyhow, so she unenthusiastically agreed.

Fortunately, Elcami wasn’t as unreasonable as Master Flare.

“Fear not. I’ll be joining you,” the archbishop said.

“Huh? Archbishop, you’re going to fight?”

Hooseyard blinked in surprise.

Elcami promptly turned on her. “What, would you like to fight, too? You’re still a priestess, astral vein-obsessed as you might be. Surely you could handle yourself.”

“Absolutely out of the question! I’ll stay here like the scum I am, thank you very much…!”

The cowardly Hooseyard looked ready to break down into sobs again, but she refused as firmly as she could manage.

At the back of the swarm of monsters flooding the pilgrimage path to the holy land was a girl in a nun’s habit riding atop one of the creatures.

Her mount resembled an ancient herbivore with a long, tall neck. With each step of its four massive feet, her wavy silver hair bounced on her shoulders.

From this ideal vantage point, Sahara used binoculars to peer ahead at the holy land as it was quickly becoming surrounded by monsters.

Over one hundred of them were marching along now. The pilgrimage path forged by humans wasn’t nearly large enough to contain them, so they trampled the nuns’ diligently tended fields as they continued forward.

“Beautiful.”

How many had dared to assail the holy land in recorded history? Sahara had once been a member of the Faust, at least in theory. She’d never expected to be in this position.

As far as Sahara could tell, the nuns of the monasteries had already evacuated. They were well-trained, even if they weren’t yet full-fledged members of the Faust. Instead of panicking, they simply retreated into the holy land, fighting back as needed.

The monsters couldn’t enter the holy land, simply because they were monsters. The conjuring that encased the holy land was the strongest barrier in the world. There was no better place to take shelter.

Even the nuns who spent their lives in the area surrounding the holy land were able to react to danger in an orderly manner.

What would happen if the official priestesses who worked in the holy land came out to fight?

“Yeah, I doubt we’d win.”

Sahara was fully aware of the difference in strength.

Monsters needed time to become genuinely strong. Since they were beings born of Concepts of Original Sin, they grew stronger the more sins they committed. As they inflicted pain and wrought destruction, they acquired power.

Naturally, since Pandæmonium had brought down an entire ancient civilization, she wielded power befitting the source of all chaos.

However, monsters that had just been summoned wouldn’t be very strong unless they were made with a massive amount of sacrifices.

Sahara was still a nun from the holy land, even if she had fallen far from grace. Whether there were a hundred monsters or a thousand, she knew perfectly well that they stood no chance.

Their only hope was a starvation tactic. Since the holy land’s food sources were primarily grown on-site, it would cause serious difficulties if they burned all the monastery fields. And because the monsters were already overturning the fields, they’d already caused some trouble for those living here.

Still, that strategy would only prevail if Sahara’s side was capable enough to besiege the holy land for a long period. It would take the priestesses less than a day to eradicate the monsters if they fought seriously, though.

While the monsters had the advantage in quantity, they fell far too short in quality. At worst, a single highly skilled priestess would be enough to wipe out this entire incursion. That was the intensity of the Faust’s strength.

Even if Pandæmonium’s little finger was mixed in among the monsters…

“Why did you come along, then?”

Sahara jumped at the unexpected question.

Slowly, she looked down to find a little girl in a white dress crouching in front of her.

Her facial features were clever and refined, yet her eyes looked strangely empty. The dress she wore had three holes in it, as if to emphasize what Pandæmonium lacked inside.

She hadn’t been anywhere in sight just moments ago. But the timing of her appearance nearly suggested she’d read Sahara’s mind. Perhaps she had—Sahara wouldn’t have been surprised.

This creature was the same one who had created a new body for Sahara, after all.

“…I dunno. Because Manon is my friend?”

“Mm, is that right?”

Sahara accidentally phrased her lie like a question, unable to commit wholly. She broke out in a cold sweat, but Pandæmonium seemed unbothered.

“That makes sense, then. Friends are really important, right?”

With a big smile, the girl melted away and vanished.

Sahara held her breath for a while. However, nothing else happened. Finally, she let out a sigh of relief.

“This is why Human Errors are so scary…”

Their every action was far too removed from humanity. Pandæmonium even destroyed and resummoned herself elsewhere just to move around. That alone was proof enough that she no longer thought like a person.

The Mechanical Society of the eastern Wild Frontier was the same way. Despite being so far from human that it had rewritten its entire worldview, it still got involved with people. The fact that these Human Errors positioned themselves so close to others regardless of their strangeness made them all the more frightening.

If Sahara had been honest about her motivation, she was too afraid of what might happen if she refused to attack the holy land to actually flee.

Frankly, Sahara was only working with Manon and Pandæmonium because the cards happened to fall that way. She had no reason to be proactive about assisting them, yet she was a little too scared of Pandæmonium to flee. She didn’t hate Manon, either, so she was helping her out a bit, nothing more.

Sahara had no intention of risking her life. This march on the holy land was nothing more than a bit of harassment. She fully intended to run at the first opportunity.

How was the holy land going to fight back? With the mild curiosity of someone unconcerned about whether she won or lost, Sahara peered at the entrance to the town and let out a surprised exclamation.

“Oh!”

One of the two priestesses was an old lady she didn’t recognize. But her pristine bishop’s robes revealed her identity.

Archbishop Elcami. She was renowned as the strongest conjurer of all the Faust. Given that Sahara herself was now a taboo, she was definitely not interested in meeting that bigwig personally.

What interested Sahara more than the major player she couldn’t beat was the other figure.

She was only a girl wearing the white priestess robes of an inconsequential aide. However, the cutesy modifications to her outfit were all too familiar.

“Well, what do you know…?” Sahara muttered to herself, and she tossed the binoculars aside, not bothering to follow them with her eyes as they hit the ground and shattered.

It was Menou’s assistant, Momo.

Sahara was well acquainted with her. Initially, she hadn’t cared who emerged to combat the monsters, but this was an unexpected stroke of luck.

Sahara had planned to leave the serious fighting to the monsters, but now she stretched out her right arm in front of her.

Genom Cthulha had torn off her original limb. Her new artificial one had been infected by a Concept of Primary Colors in the eastern Wild Frontier, ultimately consuming her entirely.

It was a piece of the Mechanical Society that broke down the way of the world into Primary Colors, swallowed it, and painted over it with its own system.

Though it could create Guiding Force just like a human soul, it no longer had the level of remarkable strength that had bested Menou and Ashuna.

Still, there was more than enough power left.

Sahara aimed her prosthetic arm at the distant Momo and focused.

Guiding Force: Merge Materials—Prosthetic Arm, Inner Seal Conjuration—Activate [Skill: Long-Range Sniping Form]

There was a metallic
clank
ing sound, and her false limb changed shape.

It transformed from an arm to a gun-like weapon. Sahara’s shoulder swelled into a shock-absorbing mechanism, while the area from her elbow to her fingertips became long, straight, and slim.

The limb had now become a sniper rifle.

She sat with one knee raised and steadied the barrel. Then she sent Guiding Force into her altered appendage. The gun arm, a perfect replica of a Guiding gun, automatically solidified Sahara’s Guiding Force and molded it into the shape of a bullet.

Turning up the scope magnification, she peered down the barrel.

Archbishop Elcami appeared to be in a nonaggressive defense posture. She wasn’t likely to attack anyone who didn’t strike at her first.

The pink-haired girl, on the other hand, was charging right into the swarm of monsters and thrashing around with her coping saw, using crest conjurings to enhance its speed. There was no mistaking that violent behavior. It had to be Momo.

Sahara turned the magnification up higher and began lining up the shot. As she did so, she saw that Momo’s hair was held in pigtails not by red ribbons but scrunchies. Sahara scowled.

“She lost the damn ribbons?”

Back at the monastery for training Executioners, where nobody was allowed any luxury items or accessories, Momo had worn those slim red ribbons as a point of pride. Had she lost them during battle or on a mission? Maybe she’d replaced them for some other reason? Sahara had no way of knowing. All she could see was that Momo wasn’t wearing the ribbons anymore, even though Menou still sported a black scarf ribbon.

And a certain someone had made those accessories by tearing up Sahara’s uniform.

Sahara put her left hand on the trigger.

“There are some grudges even a laid-back gal like me can’t forget.”

The self-proclaimed “laid-back gal” fired a bullet of power.

Momo only noticed a moment before it happened.

If she had to provide a reason, it was likely the fact that Elcami, who was keeping watch on Momo from behind, suddenly turned her attention from the girl to something far in the distance. Following the archbishop’s gaze, Momo suddenly detected a murderous glare fixed upon her. It felt far more intense than the monsters, to the point where it might have been more surprising if she hadn’t noticed.

Momo followed her instincts and ducked.

A moment later, a monster’s head went flying off behind her, a huge hole bored into it.

It was only afterward that Momo heard the dry
crack
of a gun.

“A sniper…?!”

Startled by the unusual attack, Momo immediately shielded herself behind a monster.

Where was it coming from? She guessed the direction based on where the monster’s head had flown.

Just as Momo concluded that the attack must have come from the back of the attacking horde, there was a second shot.

Again, the sound reached Momo’s ears after the bullet sped past.