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

Despair in the Holy Land

Most of the monsters surrounding the holy land had stopped moving.

They’d either been caught up in the battle between Momo and Sahara or ignored the pair and pressed on ahead only to fall. On top of that, many more monsters had been used as sacrifices in Pandæmonium’s battle against Elcami, although Momo and Sahara were ignorant of that.

At any rate, few living monsters remained around the two girls.

They were locked in single combat with no one to interfere. While Momo tried to close the distance between them, Sahara continued to keep her at bay.

She’d chosen close combat when she fought Menou, but up against Momo, it was better to keep her distance. Unlike Menou, who would use a potent scripture conjuring if given the chance, Momo’s most terrifying strike was a simple punch packed with Guiding Enhancement power.

However, if she escaped punching range, Momo’s attacks were drastically limited.

Sahara had raised the strength of her shots to break through Momo’s Guiding Enhancement defenses, too. If one of the bullets she loosed from her prosthetic arm-turned-Guiding gun found purchase, it would do more than merely hurt. The higher intensity meant she expended more Guiding Force, but Sahara still had strength to spare.

Just as the tree Momo was shielding herself behind started to give way, the coping saw wrapped around the trunk.

Not just one, but two. Sahara assumed Momo was going to hold the enormous tree up with her coping saw to continue using it as a shield, but she was soon proven wrong.

Momo glared back at Sahara as she sent Guiding Force into her coping saw.

Guiding Force: Connect—Coping Saw, Crest—Invoke [Anchor]

The effect of the crest conjuring solidified the flexible coping saw around the tree.

Without a word, Momo raised her arm. The tree, its trunk brittle from the bullets, snapped in two, and the coping saw became a handle that bent heavily under the weight.

It wasn’t a shield. Momo had created a blunt weapon.

Lifting the improvised giant hammer made of a trunk wrapped in a coping saw, the petite Momo spun it overhead with both hands.

“I’m going to crush yooou!”

With a bellow, she used centrifugal force to give the mallet a wide swing.

Sahara managed to jump out of the way in time, but the corpses of several unlucky monsters went flying in all directions.

It was like a giant’s sledgehammer. Sahara grimaced at the ridiculous power of the attack.

As she stepped back to measure the range of the unwieldy blunt instrument, Sahara muttered an insult. “Using brute force with a blunt weapon is the perfect fit for a puny gorilla like you. Maybe you should give up using the coping saw?”

“Hmmm?” Momo’s sharp ears caught Sahara’s jab, and she dropped the hammer to the ground and smirked impishly.

“Insulting me because I switched weapons? You must not have much confidence in your adaptability. If you’re scared, why don’t you say sooo?”

“Of course not. It was just a bit of friendly advice.”

With Momo’s natural Guiding Force levels, she excelled when employing Guiding Enhancement and brute force to overwhelm enemies. So why did she use a light weapon like a coping saw? Guessing at the reason, Sahara sneered.

“A violent girl like you, whose only saving grace is her massive amount of Guiding Force, shouldn’t try to imitate Menou’s delicate Guiding Thread. It doesn’t suit you.”

“Ohhh?” Momo’s grin turned more savage at the mention of Menou. “I don’t know who you think you aaare, but I hate people who pretend to know about my darling more than aaanything in the world. Your very existence annoys me, so I’m going to turn your whole body into scrap right now!”

“If you can’t do it, why don’t you just say so?”

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

A stake shot out of Sahara’s right arm, piercing the hammer racing toward her and shattering it.

“You’ll only embarrass your—ah.”

Sahara’s smirk faltered.

Now that the tree portion of Momo’s impromptu mallet had broken, what remained of her attack?

The answer was the coping saw, still in the shape it had taken to twine around the tree. Momo knew Sahara would destroy the core and kept swinging the hammer down at her anyway. With the bough gone, the coping saw was now in the perfect shape to form a cage around Sahara.

“Idiot.”

This time it was Momo’s turn to sneer mockingly.

She’d expected this development. As she deactivated the
Anchor
conjuring, she also added Guiding Force to invoke the other crest conjuring carved into her coping saw.

Guiding Force: Connect—Coping Saw, Crest—

If Sahara didn’t get out before the conjuring was complete, she would die. Jerking back into action, she reached out to fling the coping saw off her, but it was too late.

Invoke [Oscillation]

“Nngh!”

Her prosthetic arm was violently knocked back by the rapidly vibrating saw.

Had Sahara been touching it with her bare left hand, it would have been torn clean from her body. Even her metal limb wasn’t immune to the damage. Shock waves ran up to Sahara’s shoulder, sending her staggering.

Since Momo had banished all her memories of Sahara into oblivion, she had no reason to hold back.

“Now do me a favor and die.”

The coping saw cage tightened mercilessly.

It may as well have been a massive boa constrictor for all its strength. There was nowhere to run. Unlike priestess robes, a nun’s habit didn’t have the barrier crest, leaving Sahara with no way to defend herself. The vibrating coping saw closed in on her, threatening to tear the girl to pieces.

With little alternative, Sahara went on the offensive.

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

Her prosthetic limb warped and expanded, and she steadied it and pulled the trigger.

This gun arm was now a shotgun for close-range suppressing fire. Momo’s Guiding Enhancement was so absurdly powerful that a direct hit from a Guiding gun wouldn’t kill her, but Sahara wasn’t aiming for her this time.

She fired a Guiding Force bullet.

The coping saw cage bent outward. It was powerful, but its lightness made it easy to repel. Although direct contact with the rapidly oscillating saw would be highly destructive, a Guiding gun could knock it away without the need to touch it.

Momo scowled, begrudgingly giving up her plan to turn Sahara into mincemeat. She changed her strategy to harassment instead, wrapping the coping saw around her opponent’s right arm with a flick of her wrist.

Guiding Force: Connect—Coping Saw, Crest—Invoke [Anchor, Oscillation]

“You little! Agh!”

She couldn’t slice through the sturdy transforming metal arm, but by wrapping the oscillating saw around it, the vibrations reverberated through Sahara’s entire body. With her teeth chattering and body shaking, Sahara couldn’t even curse Momo out properly.

Since the saw was also in the
Anchor
state wrapped around her arm, it couldn’t be removed easily.

This was a nasty maneuver meant to torment Sahara. Focusing on her artificial limb, she transformed it again, returning it to a normal arm. In theory, it should’ve been easy to withdraw now that the limb was smaller, but Sahara had fallen for Momo’s ploy.

“It’s so nice and easy to tell what an idiot is thinking.”

A metallic rasping sounded.

Uncomfortable pressure closed around her throat. The cold sensation was proof that Momo’s coping saw had coiled around Sahara’s neck.

Momo had moved behind the other girl, completely reading her movements. She must have known Sahara would have to concentrate on her arm to alter its shape and baited her into doing so. During that brief distraction, Momo had swiftly moved in and stepped behind Sahara while wrapping her spare coping saw around Sahara’s neck as she passed by.

In a desperate bid, Sahara’s left hand clawed at the terribly thin blade strangling her. She knew it to be a futile effort, but she couldn’t stop her fingers from scrambling after freedom. Before the fallen priestess could even begin to pull herself free…

“I guess you’re the one who’ll be dying today.”

Guiding Force: Connect—Coping Saw, Crest—Invoke [Oscillation]

A metallic
whir
filled the air, accompanied by a spray of blood.

The coping saw spiraled around Sahara’s neck shrank viciously. She couldn’t even scream with the pressure on her vocal cords. What began as a wet gush swiftly began a grind against bone. After a few seconds, there came the dull
thud
of a severed head striking the ground.

“Well, that wasn’t so hard.”

Without lingering on the sensation of cutting off the girl’s head, Momo shook the blood from her coping saw with a
snap
.

It was a bit more trouble than she’d bargained for, but a win was a win. That ought to be more than enough to prove to Elcami that she wasn’t connected to the monster attack. Just as Momo leaned down to pick up the head as proof of her victory, she sensed a conjuring being formed behind her.

Immediately, she whipped around.

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

“Ohhh?”

The prosthetic arm shot off of Sahara’s corpse.

Momo was mildly surprised, but she’d sensed it far enough in advance that she could easily dodge the limb flying toward her. It slammed uselessly into a monster behind her and stuck there.

Just to be safe, Momo jumped away to get some extra distance.

On rare occasions, conjuring tools sometimes activated after their owner was killed. It was possible to set them to react to your death.

Nine times out of ten, these automatic responses were explosions meant to take whoever killed the owner down with them. Since Sahara’s right arm was a conjuring tool, Momo was fully prepared for it to blow up, but nothing else appeared to be happening after the half-hearted rocket punch.

“…?”

It felt anticlimactic. Momo looked back at Sahara’s body.

The girl was unquestionably dead. Her decapitated body lay motionless, and the bloody head stared blankly.

Momo started letting her guard down out of sheer confusion when something happened.

Guiding Force: Sacrifice—Original Sin, Envy: Body—Summon [Meat Puppet]

All at once, the right arm swallowed up a nearby monster corpse.

Momo gasped at the unexpected sight.

If anything, it reminded her of the formation of a Primary Color conjured soldier. The monster flesh wriggled with the prosthetic arm at its heart, creating a human shape. This horrific process took less than ten seconds, ultimately creating a beautiful, stark-naked girl.

She had fairly well-trained abs and a modest bust befitting her age.

Shaking out her wavy silver hair, she clicked her tongue with irritation.

“You should really double-check your enemy’s remaining lives next time, dimwit.”

Once her form was complete, the girl glared at Momo for only a moment before disappearing into the fog.

Momo shouldn’t have moved away out of fear of an explosion. Now that her enemy had fled into the mist, which was growing thicker by the second, she wasn’t sure whether to give chase.

After a moment’s hesitation, Momo decided that her uncertainty meant she shouldn’t pursue. There was no telling her enemy’s true nature or abilities, especially after that last conjuring.

Once confident that Sahara was truly gone, Momo relaxed out of battle mode.

“…Ew, creepy. What is she, a jack-in-the-box?” Momo glowered into the fog, muttering bitterly to herself.

Creepiest of all was the attack that had taken over that monster’s flesh.

If that arm had touched Momo, it might have stolen her body instead. The notion was repulsive enough for her to shiver.

“What did she mean by ‘remaining lives’ anyway…?”

“Ha. That thing got away from you? I guess Flare’s training doesn’t amount to much,” called a voice in the fog. It belonged to an elderly woman, making it obvious who was approaching without even a glance.

“Um…”

Momo scratched her cheek awkwardly. Even she couldn’t disguise her sheepishness.

She’d permitted a weaker opponent to escape. If she were scolded for letting her guard down, she wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.

“Now, that was unusual. The soul lies in the prosthetic arm made of a Concept of Primary Colors and uses a Concept of Original Sin to create a human body. It’s incomplete, but…if it keeps growing, it’s sure to be dangerous. You shouldn’t have let it get away.”

Momo sighed. “I know. I’m sorry. What did she mean by ‘remaining lives,’ though?”

“When you defeat a conjured soldier, pay attention to the number of Primary Color Stone cores it has. If you don’t crush them all, it won’t die.”

“Ahh… That makes sense.”

When Momo considered it that way, it fell into place. Conjured soldiers with multiple cores weren’t unusual. The Sahara whom Momo had fought was essentially not a human, but a kind of conjured soldier.

“Hmph. Well, I suppose it’s fine.”

Momo had expected more of a lecture, but the archbishop let her off the hook with surprising ease. She took the opportunity to change the subject.

“So was that a kind of immortality? It was a taboo using a conjured soldier, right?”

“You should know this as an Executioner, even if you’re just an aide. The very concept of transferring from an aging body into a new vessel is plenty taboo on its own. No matter the method, the receptacle, or how many devoted researchers there might be. That effort is the doomed folly of worthless scum. It’s not even where the essence of immortality lies anyway.”

Conjuring was connected to a human’s soul and spirit. The body was an important component as well, but it was considered little more than a house for preserving the soul.

The soul and spirit were viewed as far more important.

Ultimately, the body was just a terminal that maintained the other two.

“That thing’s real form lies in the artificial arm, not the human body. If you fight it again, focus on destroying that instead,” instructed the archbishop.

“Yes, ma’am.”

That explained why Sahara could still use conjurings after Momo removed her head. The pink-haired girl nodded absently.

“By the way, have your suspicions about me settled?” she inquired.

“Half of them, yes. For the other half, you’ve proven you could never dream of taking on the likes of me. That’s good enough.”

“…Glad to hear it.”

“So long as that’s clear.”

Momo was contemplating whether to push the matter further when she turned around and was stunned into silence.

A monster too massive to fully comprehend was lying there, sliced in half by a sword of light.

Momo stood frozen. The sheer size of this ancient creature made it an overwhelming sight. Even as a corpse, the incredible scale was enough for an onlooker to question reality.

The luminous blade that had cleaved the monster that could crush an entire city was the stuff of myth.

As Momo gaped, Elcami dismissed the conjuring. The afterglow of the Guiding Force that made up the sword fell to the ground like rain.

“Don’t just stand there, fool. We’ve got to expunge the monsters that got into the holy land.”

“…Yes, ma’aaam.”

This was the power of an archbishop.

Momo knew now how lucky they’d been when fighting Orwell.

At times, the true essence of a scripture conjuring could surpass a common taboo.

There was no refusing the orders of someone who could create something straight from myth. Thus, Momo’s response had been meek, at least by her standards.

“Judging by that battle, it looks like you haven’t polished your Guiding Force manipulation skills in the slightest,” Elcami remarked.

“…No, not really.”

Blessed with a large amount of Guiding Force from birth, Momo had been told on many occasions that it was prudent to improve her Guiding Force control.

She wrinkled her nose, braced for another lecture of that sort, but the archbishop’s response was quite different.

“It’s better that way.” Strangely enough, Elcami gave Momo a look of approval, even envy.

“When one is blessed with as much Guiding Force as you have been, you’re better off like that. Humans have no need for excessive Guiding Force. Human Errors are the most extreme proof of that. After a certain point, one can only possess so much power before they cease to be truly human at all.”

Momo wasn’t sure what the archbishop was getting at. It was doubtful that she was expressing support for Momo’s “it’s easier just to punch everything” theory.

“If you go too far beyond that point, you’ll end up leaving it all behind.” The archbishop was hardly even speaking to Momo anymore.

As she followed behind Elcami without listening too closely, Momo looked down at herself, then cast a glance at an unharmed monastery.

“Excuse meee, is it all right if I take a shower?”

Once they got back to the cathedral, she might run into Menou. Momo couldn’t bear to let her beloved darling see her in this filthy state.

“…Do as you wish.”

“Thanks. I willllll.”

Elcami returned to the holy land alone, leaving Momo to her own devices.

The priestesses in the holy land didn’t fly into a panic when the monsters invaded.

Members of the Faust were trained to handle any kind of situation, no matter how unusual. It was only by surviving the rigorous discipline that they were able to call themselves Faust priestesses. Weaklings like Hooseyard were rare outliers.

Pandæmonium produced the monsters, but the number of sacrifices used to form each one wasn’t nearly enough. Monsters grew stronger based on the number of humans they slew. Fresh monsters hadn’t committed many sins and were therefore bound to be weak.

Only the youngest nun in her earliest days of training would fall to creatures of that rank.

However, the same could not be said of people who weren’t in the Faust.

Due to the sheer total of monsters, there were a few casualties among the pilgrims visiting the holy land, although not many. Most of them were ordinary people without any combat training, even if their faith was strong. Someone who couldn’t defend themselves was helpless against even a single monster.

“
Huff…
Aah…!”

Even now, a young girl was running through an alley away from one of the terrifying beasts. She was fleeing for dear life and short of breath. All her strength was focused on getting away from the threat at her back.

She was only a few steps away from emerging onto the main street, where priestesses were stationed.

But then she tripped and fell.

“Ah…!”

The monster bore down on her, heedless of her adorable cry.

No bloody tragedy followed, though.

A nearby priestess caught wind of her small shriek and came to the rescue, destroying the monster.

“Are you all right?” the priestess called out as she hurried into the otherwise deserted alley, approaching the girl she’d rescued in the nick of time.

Unusually enough, the young woman who’d been chased by the monster was wearing a kimono. Her braided hair was a deep blue, not unlike a priestess’s robe. She was well-mannered, too. When the priestess approached, she bowed her head politely despite still being collapsed on the ground.

“Th-thank you very much. You saved me.”

“No need for gratitude. I only did my duty as a priestess.”

This girl was clearly not a member of the Faust. She must have come on a pilgrimage and gotten caught up in the chaos.

“We’ll exterminate the rest of the monsters out there in no time. Please take shelter inside. You’ll be safe anywhere there are priestesses. Be sure not to enter any more alleys like this one, for your own safety.”

“Yes, I understand. Again, thank you so much. It’s just, er… I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I’m afraid I’m still weak in the knees…”

“Ah, I see.”

Realizing the girl couldn’t stand on her own, the priestess generously offered a helping hand.

“I’m so fortunate to have run into one as kind as yourself.”

The girl’s hand reached past that of the priestess and gently cupped her cheek.

She must have been confused, poor thing. The priestess put a hand on the girl’s shoulder to calm her. What she failed to notice was that as she did so, the girl’s shadow at her feet was moving unnaturally, stretching out behind her.

“I’ll help you up so we can get you to safety, all right?”

As the priestess kindly comforted the girl, the shadow soundlessly rose behind her. She went on kindly encouraging the rescued girl without realizing that a gaping maw was closing in from her blind spot.

“Thank you for your generosity.”

“…Hmm?”

With a sickening
crunch
, the priestess’s body was devoured.

All that remained was her head, held aloft in Manon’s hand. Her face was frozen in a bewildered expression, oblivious to the end. Manon politely placed the head at her feet, and her shadow swallowed it up.

“Thanks for the meal,” she said, giggling.

Standing without a hint of the frailty she’d displayed earlier, Manon looked back. Since there were no walls around the city, it was easy to see what was going on outside.

Most noticeable of all was the corpse of a giant monster that had been split in two.

The priestess who’d destroyed it had to be a terribly strong conjurer, enough so that Manon shuddered.

“As I suspected, there’s no way I’d stand a chance. Those priestesses certainly are powerful.”

Manon was aware that she had committed enough sins to become rather strong, but that sight was in a different league entirely.

A conjurer had easily destroyed that giant beast and all the other monsters Pandæmonium summoned.

Besides that, the priestesses in the holy land were likely all stronger than Manon, including the one she’d just preyed upon. Since Manon had no exceptional strength, there were few opponents here whom she could defeat in a head-on confrontation.

Yet while she shivered at the thought of the priestesses’ might, she wasn’t afraid.

They were mighty, but that was all.

These noble holy women weren’t cowardly or crafty enough.

“That’s why they’re a poor match for me.”

Under normal circumstances, Manon wouldn’t have been able to tread into the holy land. The structure maintaining her life now was essentially a monster, and the holy land barrier prohibited monsters from entering.

Manon knew this.

Originally, this place had been created to keep out the Four Major Human Errors. It was only natural that it was also designed to repel monsters.

Thus, Manon made arrangements to ensure she could enter.

The giant, ancient monster Pandæmonium’s pinky finger had summoned from Pandemonium in the far south to fight outside. By using herself as a guidepost to connect to the inside of the fog barrier, she was able to create an extension of its area of effect.

The mist would expand anywhere necessary to contain Pandæmonium, whose real body was sealed away. It was a powerful conjuring meant to restrict the Human Error above all else, but it wasn’t intended to keep out monsters.

It was a barrier that kept monsters trapped within, never letting them out.

The nature of its construction meant that monsters and Pandæmonium were permitted to reside within it. So when the fog entered the holy land, any areas the vapor touched were now accessible to monsters.

The flashy act of attacking the holy land with monsters was just a means of entry. No monster attack on the holy land would ever deal a significant blow against the Faust. It was all an effort to lay the groundwork for Manon to get in.

“It was quite unkind of Mr. Director and Ms. Menou to leave me out of their little trip, I must say.”

The sinful girl in the kimono walked off in the direction of the cathedral, arriving in only a matter of moments, owing to the holy land’s small size.

Undoubtedly, Menou and the Director were in the doorless building.

“For now, I suppose I’ll give Ms. Menou a little surprise and Mr. Director a piece of my mind.”

Manon circled the cathedral, contemplating how to get inside, when she came upon a sleeping woman.

It was a priestess in glasses. Seeing her, a thought occurred to Manon.

“Excuse me, please wake up.”

Manon gently shook the woman, who quickly regained consciousness. Though she had never actually met her before, she seemed to recognize Manon, just as the girl had suspected.

“Ah, the guest from the train. Miss Manon, wasn’t it? What are you doing outside? I don’t recall transporting you out here…”

“I was just a bit intrigued by all the fuss. We decided to come out together, didn’t we? Then we were attacked by monsters and barely escaped with our lives.”

“Hmm? I-is that what happened…?”

Hooseyard fell for the made-up story. In reality, she’d been sent outside after Menou knocked her out, leaving her jumbled memories in an easily manipulated state.

“Whaaa—? Archbishop Elcami turned into someone who…? No, that can’t be true. I must have been having a strange dream… Yes, of course. That makes sense. Just a moment. I’ll open things up from out here.”

“Yes, please do.”

Without realizing she hadn’t gotten a proper answer, Hooseyard activated the Dragon Gate teleport circle. It was a very short
Teleportation
, only across one wall.

“Please go on through.”

“Thank you.”

Manon slipped through the newly formed door of light.

The fog followed her into the cathedral as she entered with no idea what was happening inside.

The battle between Menou and her Master began with a clash of crest conjurings.

There was very little space to fight inside the station building. An experienced fighter would most likely choose to strike with a knife instead of a crest conjuring for the sake of speed, but these two combatants were able to fire off crest conjurings in a matter of seconds. Both were exceptional in that regard, and the rates of their conjuring constructions were equally matched.

As two crest conjurings canceled each other out, it was Menou who got the upper hand before the resulting reverberations had faded.

She drew the dagger concealed at her thigh and struck. The transition between the crest conjuring and the blade thrust took less than a blink of an eye.

Master Flare immediately used her scripture as a shield.

The metal-reinforced cover was more than thick enough to hold up to a strong thrust from a dagger. Sparks flew as metal collided with metal, producing an unpleasant
screech
.

Still, the grating noise did nothing to dull the pair’s movements. After blocking Menou’s thrust with the scripture in her left hand, she stabbed at the girl’s flank with the dagger in her right.

Menou raised a leg to meet the attack.

The high-laced leather boots that rose to her shins weren’t conjuring tools, but they had been made by a skilled craftsperson. Their material was sturdy enough to act as a shield and was difficult to cut without striking at the perfect angle. A kick from one boot batted the incoming blade away.

As she deflected the stab, Menou shifted her weight forward, bringing down her raised leg with intense momentum. Her attempt to stomp and break Master Flare’s foot was thwarted by a swift dodge backward, however.

The floor shook on the impact of Menou’s heel, and the girl followed up with a swift jab of her knife. Master Flare dodged Menou’s thrust for her torso by jumping away again.

The red-haired woman had evaded Menou’s every strike, but she’d never expected to best her Master with a simple direct assault anyway.

All Menou had wanted was for Master Flare to back off and create some distance.

Guiding Force: Connect—Scripture, 2:5—

Menou’s mind was already focused on the scripture under her left arm.

She’d been constructing the scripture conjuring even as her foot landed. The scripture, a high-level conjuring tool, shone with Guiding Light.

Invoke [Rejoice, for the wall that surrounds a pious flock of sheep shall never crumble.]

The white wall that formed separated the room, creating a barrier between herself and her Master.

Made of the same kind of conjuring as the holy land itself, the wall fit right into the chamber, looking as if it had always been there.

As a general rule, defense conjurings were typically more dominant than attack ones. A barricade formed of a scripture conjuring was very difficult to break. Master Flare wasn’t gifted with a tremendous amount of Guiding Force like Momo or Ashuna, leaving her as weak as Menou when it came to brute force.

The barrier wall would only last for about ten seconds.

Menou was focusing on building up scripture conjurings to hurl attacks at Master Flare in the meantime, when she suddenly detected the flow of air on her skin change.

A naked blade was lancing toward her face.

“?!”

Menou was so shocked that her heart nearly stopped. She had no idea what was happening. Before her thoughts could catch up, her body moved to avoid the danger. The edge grazed Menou’s cheek on its way by.

Her eyes automatically moved from the dark-gray tip of the blade to its handle to its owner, settling on the person holding it.

Master Flare returned Menou’s gaze, dagger gripped tight.

“…You got lucky.”

She sounded unimpressed that Menou had avoided her strike out of sheer coincidence. Her knife stabbed at Menou once more.

This time, the woman was aiming for her pupil’s throat. Pushing aside her confusion about how Master Flare had gotten onto this side of the barrier, Menou twisted out of the way. The movement threw off her balance, but not beyond repair. She dismissed the conjured wall that was dividing the room. This time, it was Menou’s turn to jump to the back wall, successfully putting space between the two of them.

Now Master Flare had secured the only exit. Her stance was flawless as she readied her dagger.

Menou felt like a lump of ice had fallen into her stomach.

Had she been a second slower in recognizing that attack, the knife would have gouged through her eye and into her brain. Her whole body felt heavy. One moment, she’d felt hopeful that her attack was working; the next, she’d been plunged into fearing for her life. The sudden shift had wounded her spirit.

Menou cast her eyes around the inside of the station building.

She was confident she’d trapped Master Flare on the other side of the wall. How had she been able to reach Menou?

Master Flare couldn’t have slipped past the sturdy barrier. Guiding Camouflage wasn’t a reasonable answer, either. The Master Flare Menou had been fighting definitely felt solid, and there wasn’t enough time for her to switch out.

Then Menou spotted something that seemed out of place.

“Ah…”

Master Flare’s scripture was still lying on the side that Menou had separated. That could’ve been how she’d made the swap, and Menou groaned aloud when she realized.

“Guiding Branch…!”

“Exactly.”

The Master Flare who had been disguised as Akari was a Guiding Branch.

Guiding Branch was one of the two crest conjurings engraved in Master Flare’s dagger. She had manipulated the branch of Guiding Force to project her own appearance with Guiding Camouflage. It took some extra effort, but unlike the hollow illusions that were the extent of Menou’s capabilities, Master Flare could make fakes with actual bodies.

When Akari transformed into Master Flare, Menou assumed the person she was looking at was the real thing. It was a trick that took advantage of her preconceptions.

Terrifyingly enough, Master Flare had even given the Guiding Branch fake vocal cords so it could speak. And since it had exchanged blows with Menou, it was no exaggeration to call it a clone.

So was the Master Flare now blocking the Dragon Gate real?

Menou had no idea.

“…”

She took a quiet breath.

Panicking certainly wouldn’t get her anywhere. Menou had learned one of her teacher’s tricks. She would just have to count that as a win.

Guiding Force: Connect—Dagger, Crest—Invoke [Gale, Guiding Thread]

There was a fierce burst of wind, and the Guiding Thread coming from Menou’s dagger fluttered all over the room.

She watched to see if it would catch on anything, but it didn’t.

If no others were hidden in the room, the Master Flare by the Dragon Gate had to be genuine. Menou stopped her crest conjuring and charged forward at the same time.

She aimed her blade for the carotid artery, but Flare blocked it with her own dagger.

In stark contrast to the start of the fight, they had shifted from conjurings to a clash of weapons. There were no big movements. Their daggers clashed at a close distance, neither giving an inch. Both women struck the other’s arms with their hands to deflect attack trajectories and sent sparks flying as their weapons met once again.

Master Flare was strong. There were several frightening close calls. A tiny falter, and Menou would be done for.

Yet she also detected something unusual.

It nearly felt like she might just stand a chance.

The opponent she was fighting was on the same level as her. This was Master Flare she was facing, so why wasn’t it a tougher battle?

Did the woman have no more tricks, deadly traps, or overwhelming conjurings? Master Flare had created Menou’s very foundation. It stood to reason that she had a plan Menou couldn’t predict.

Yet this person’s strength—was well within Menou’s understanding.

Flare.

A living legend. The ultimate Executioner.

She was supposed to be the most difficult opponent Menou would ever face, yet the young Executioner found she could envision a path to victory.

“Menou. What did you come here to do?”

“…To kill Akari.”

She answered the question amid their clash. It was strange that she could afford to do so.

“You intend to kill Akari Tokitou? How worthless. That’s the most disappointing answer you could’ve given. If you’ve resolved to betray the Faust, then why stop there? Why not aspire to something more than mere death? Killing people… Is that all you can do? You’re going to stop short there, too, just like I did?”

“What else am I supposed to do?!”

How long had it been since Menou shouted like that in the middle of a battle? She couldn’t help raging at her Master’s harsh comments. That Menou possessed enough attention to spare for yelling in the middle of their fight left her even more uneasy.

Was Master Flare telling her to save Akari? Was that it?

She was an Executioner who had lived her life by killing others. Why would Master Flare, who had chosen the same path, scold Menou for it now?

Menou had killed people. She had no right to try to rescue someone.

She had cut down many in positions similar to Akari. The only difference between Akari and the others was that she was more difficult to put in the ground.

And that was only a result of chance.

They’d traveled together for three months because of that, and nothing more. If Akari hadn’t possessed a Pure Concept that kept her from perishing, it would’ve ended right there in the castle of Grisarika Kingdom, and they would never have formed a bond. Menou would have continued without any doubts about her methods.

“I have no right…to save anyone, do I?!” Menou cried.

“You don’t need it.” Master Flare was dismissive. “What’s the point of being exactly like me? I thought you understood by now that an existence like mine is worthless.”

Those words were so very unlike Master Flare that Menou gasped.

“What in the world are you saying…?”

Menou was a killer, so she kept on killing. If that was the extent of it, then she really was like her Master.

There was nothing left on the path of murder. The red trail continued behind and far ahead.

It was all Menou knew. Yet Master Flare, who had ever walked the same road ahead of her, cut right to Menou’s core, upending it all.

“If you can’t be a pure and noble priestess or a merciless, murderous villain, then what are you going to become?”

“I thought we killed people because there was nothing else we could do?!”

“That’s right. There’s nothing we can do. A summoned Otherworlder will become a Human Error. We push them to transform so that we can steal their Pure Concepts from the planet. Truly, this world is utterly hopeless.”

“Then saving only Akari wouldn’t make any sense.”

“Of course not, idiot. But that’s only if you are strictly logical. Consider how you
feel
, Menou.”

Suddenly, Master Flare disappeared. It was Guiding Camouflage. Menou knew this, but there was still a sense of confusion when her eyes were fooled at such close range.

“Saving a friend is well worth destroying the world.”

If Menou took Master Flare’s words at face value, something was bound to break within her.

Master Flare, of all people—more of an Executioner than anyone else—was telling Menou to save Akari. Hearing this sent a wave of paralysis through Menou’s mind. Her thoughts were going numb.

Her hearing was becoming distracting, so she forced herself to ignore sound.

Since Master Flare could no longer be seen, Menou immediately concentrated on her nose. She could smell the smoke.

The only reason Menou had recognized the Guiding Camouflage imitation of Akari as a fake was because of the familiar ashy scent.

People were unaware of their own body odor. Relying on her sense of smell, Menou lashed out with her dagger at the presence she detected behind her. It was only meant as a feint, but for some reason, it knocked Master Flare’s dagger away, sending it into the air with a
clang
.

This was her chance for victory.

Menou thrust desperately with her weapon.

Master Flare was unarmed, and her balance had been thrown off from the impact of Menou’s strike. She wasn’t defending herself. It was like she wasn’t even trying. As long as Menou kept moving her blade forward, it would pierce her Master’s neck, inflicting a fatal wound. An image of the future flashed in the young woman’s mind. She could see her dagger breaking through the carotid artery and Master Flare falling to the floor with blood gushing from her neck.

She could kill her.

Menou was going to fell Master Flare.

Her own Master. The person who laughed with her mouth open wide and her head flung back. The person who’d taken Menou in when she was young. The person she’d traveled with. The person who’d put her hand on Menou’s head and ruffled her hair coarsely. The person she’d once wanted to become.

Kill…her?

“……Ah?”

A questioning sound flew from Menou’s lips.

Something unbelievable had happened.

Menou’s dagger had suddenly changed course just before it stole her Master’s life.

Instead of Flare’s carotid artery, the blade sliced only empty air. She could see her outstretched arm and the tip of her dagger, still mid-slash. The world had gone still with Menou’s thoughts.

What was she doing?

Her doubts became a void that took hold of her heart.

Menou didn’t understand why this was happening. Right as she’d pictured her Master’s demise, she’d avoided it. In a fight to the death, Menou had kept herself from killing her enemy. Not on purpose, not because of any decision she made.

Her body had moved on its own.

And avoided striking her opponent down.

Despite having felled many good people already.

Even though she had come here to kill Akari, a person who’d become her friend on their three-month journey.

Menou’s mind was fuzzy and blank.

“Ha!”

Although time had slowed for Menou, the same could not be said for the rest of the world. Master Flare opened her mouth wide and laughed.

The dagger Menou had knocked away spun in the air and fell right back into her hand. Flare caught it easily and filled it with Guiding Force.

The choice to avert her attack had left Menou wholly exposed. She could do nothing but watch blankly as Master Flare invoked the conjuring.

“Hey, thanks for not killing me.”

Guiding Force: Connect—Dagger, Crest—Invoke [Guiding Branch: Parasite-Eagle Seed]

A small
pop
sounded.

It was similar to the sound of a Guiding gun firing, but it came from Master Flare’s dagger.

Pain bloomed in Menou’s shoulder. Before she could look, she felt a bud of Guiding Force wriggling and blooming inside her. It spread out its roots to drink up Menou’s flesh, blood, and Guiding Force.

“Ah!”

Her mind finally functioned again. More than her brain, though, it was mainly her well-trained body reacting to the danger.

Menou clenched her teeth, but not out of regret, for there was no time to dwell on that. She was tightening her jaw against the pain she knew was coming.

The roots were already budding inside her body. Steadying her resolve, Menou drove her dagger into her own shoulder. She grabbed the core and yanked it out, ignoring the agony ripping through her flesh.

It hadn’t been a trap. Had Menou gone through with her attack, she would have won, and Master Flare would be dead.

Menou’s breath was ragged as she glared at Master Flare with difficulty.