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

She’d hesitated to kill. Was it because their conversation had made her realize her own feelings? Or perhaps it was something else?

Master Flare had survived because Menou couldn’t kill her.

Menou felt sick. Her self-loathing for having spared a life grew into a throbbing headache that pounded her skull. It weighed so heavily on her spirit that the pain in her shoulder was light by comparison.

“So what are you really?”

The Executioner you raised.

Menou couldn’t give that reply.

She had no right to save anyone. She intended to kill Akari, too.

Yet after saying all that, she had faltered when the time came to end a life.

It wasn’t a matter of lacking the strength. Her heart had merely refused to kill Master Flare.

This was a critical failure.

Menou had spent her life killing people, but something had broken inside her and fallen apart. She no longer possessed the will to fight back.

She could have slain Master Flare, but didn’t. She’d failed to execute an enemy.

And now she would pay a high price for failing to stick to her own rules.

Master Flare, who had smashed Menou’s heart to bits, narrowed her eyes as if disappointed by her lack of will. Still, the woman was nothing like Menou. She raised her dagger, still prepared to murder.

Menou didn’t dodge. She had no drive to.

She was going to die.

Her brain was still frozen, her sense of reality lost as death closed in.

Then an unexpectedly languid voice rang out.

“I’m not sure what’s going on here, but…”

Both Menou and Master Flare spun to face this new speaker.

Inexplicably, Manon’s face was peering through the door of the station building. When her eyes met Menou’s, her expression brightened, and she waved.

As usual, she was wearing a kimono and holding an iron folding fan. It was a weapon of self-defense, the same one she’d used when they fought in Libelle. There was only one crest engraved in that fan.

Guiding Force: Connect—Iron Fan, Crest—

Compared to Menou or Master Flare, it was a fairly slow crest conjuring. Either of them could have outmatched her construction speed. But because they were engaged with each other, neither could stop Manon’s attack.

With a graceful smile, Manon swept her fan, which glowed with Guiding Light, toward where the two women were fighting.

Invoke [Wind Blade]

There was a soft breeze as the fan finished its arc.

Then a sharp whirlwind swept through the room to lay everything to ruin.

The sound died down.

Having endured Manon’s attack, Master Flare scowled at the state of the room.

The crest conjuring
Wind Blade
had created a broad attack, filling the chamber with spiraling blades of wind. Someone with as much Guiding Force as Momo could endure with Guiding Enhancement, but a normal person would be torn to shreds. Even Master Flare had needed to stop attacking and invoke the barrier crest.

This went for Menou, too. She’d used the barrier crest in her priestess robes to survive Manon’s
Wind Blade
.

The difference was that unlike Master Flare, who had dropped to the floor when she triggered her defense, Menou had deliberately stayed upright and let Manon’s blow knock her back.

“That’s a surprisingly cheap move.”

Menou had used the impact of Manon’s attack to help make a quick escape.

Flare thought she’d broken the girl’s will, but some fire yet burned in Menou’s heart. Although the entrance to the cathedral was normally closed, it was still open since Manon had just used it. And in a stroke of fortune, it remained active just long enough for Menou to slip through.

It was clear from the drops of blood left behind that Menou was wounded. Now that she’d fled, she was bound to disguise herself, even if she had little energy to spare.

Flare had failed to finish her off when she had the chance. She turned a glare on the interloper who’d made a mess of things.

“Manon Libelle, eh? I’m amazed you tried to break into the cathedral in that body of yours.”

“Break in? Why, whatever do you mean?”

Manon was calm in spite of Master Flare’s accusation. Drawing her fan back out of her sleeve, she held it to her mouth as she spoke in her usual lilting, eloquent manner.

“It almost sounds as if you’re making an accusation, but I can’t begin to imagine your reasoning. From the beginning, I entered the cathedral through perfectly legitimate means, as Mr. Director’s retinue.”

“Oh-ho?”

Master Flare looked past the girl. Sure enough, Kagarma was standing by her side. He must have sensed Manon’s arrival and come to greet her.

Flare knew perfectly well that he was the one who’d brought Menou inside the cathedral. Yet her bitter enemy simply gave a bold, cool smile.

“Indeed, it is just as she says!”

The way they matched their stories up so quickly might have been impressive if it weren’t for the fact that Manon was clearly pinching Kagarma’s back while she grinned.

Flare decided to ignore him. It wasn’t as if he could be killed anyway.

“Even if I humor you on that front, are you really going to claim you had nothing to do with this monster nonsense?”

“But of course I didn’t. If anything, I must say I am rather impressed those wild monsters had the mettle to brave an attack on the holy land.”

“I heard Pandæmonium’s pinky finger was outside, and you’re her favorite little plaything. Since she went and connected to the full Pandemonium in the south, now there’s fog in the cathedral. It’s rendering the whole barrier of the holy land useless.”

“Oh, dear me! So rambunctious, that little one.” The true intention of the monster attack was solely to nullify the barrier so Manon could enter the holy land. It had more or less all gone according to Manon’s aims, but she only offered a pleasant grin without acknowledging that fact in the slightest. “But there was some other commander for this whole tumultuous affair, wasn’t there? I imagine the little rascal goaded a certain someone into spearheading the assault. Yes, it seems I’ve been left out of the fun this time around. It pains the heart, truly.”

This was the real reason Sahara had been deployed with the monsters. She was a scapegoat. Manon covered her face with her sleeve and made a show of weeping dramatically.

Master Flare glared at her suspiciously.

“So you insist you had nothing to do with it.”

“That’s right.”

“And your excuse for interfering with our fight just now?”

Manon ceased her crocodile tears, lowered her sleeve, and beamed.

“Well, when I saw the person who killed my mother, I couldn’t help but mess things up for her a little.”

It was amazing that she could make a declaration like that with a smile.

The fog created by Pandæmonium’s summon conjuring continued to surround the area of the holy land.

“…”

Sahara cautiously peered out from behind a monster corpse.

After vanishing into the fog for a while, she’d sneaked back to the site of her battle with Momo.

The problem with recreating her body was that it left her naked. She needed clothes. After confirming that both the terrifying conjurer Elcami and that blasted Momo were gone, she crept toward her own corpse, grateful for the fog that concealed her bare skin. There, she set about the sanity-ruining task of stripping her clothes off her own headless cadaver.

“I can’t deal with this anymore… I should just run away from Pandæmonium now. Yeah.”

She definitely wasn’t running away from Momo. The only person she was trying to escape was that terrifying little monster, Pandæmonium. Sahara hadn’t decided what to do once she escaped, but after what she’d endured during this disaster, she was fully prepared to flee without any plan.

Sahara was reassuring herself and putting her habit back on when she suddenly detected a presence behind her.

She peered warily into the fog. The footsteps were too light to be those of a monster. She could see the faint outline of a human figure, too. Considering that it was coming from the direction of the holy land, it was entirely possible a priestess had been sent to track her down.

As she braced herself for the possibility of another battle, Sahara noticed something peculiar about the person approaching through the mist.

Those unsteady footsteps. The left hand clutching the right shoulder. This person was wounded. It looked more like a soldier escaping the war zone than one searching for a fight.

If it’s some random injured priestess, I guess I’ll just ignore her
, Sahara thought. But as the outline became clearer, she found there would be no looking away.

The person wasn’t all that tall, but something about her perfectly proportioned limbs and body gave her a strong aura. Her fluttering priestess robes had a slit that went up to the thigh, but instead of looking overly flashy, the modification had a combination of practicality and style that suited the wearer well. Most of all, she was ridiculously good-looking.

She had smooth skin and long eyelashes that framed bright, beautiful eyes. Her chestnut hair, tied up in a black scarf ribbon, was fine and sleek.

For a moment, Sahara believed her vision of the ideal person she’d like to be had come to life. She stared for a few seconds, then came back to her senses.

Sahara knew exactly who this was.

“M-Menou…?”

This wasn’t just any jaw-dropping beauty—it was Menou. Sahara blurted out her name without thinking, and the Executioner looked up.

“…Sahara?”

Whether because of the fog or the severity of her injury, it seemed Menou hadn’t noticed her, either.

The two girls faced each other.

Menou had run away in a daze. Her mind was as foggy as her surroundings.

The shoulder she herself had stabbed was throbbing. This certainly wasn’t the first time she’d lost a fight. Indeed, she’d made tactical retreats on countless occasions.

However, she’d never fled with her heart and mind in such a disorderly state. It might even be the first time in her life that her feelings had been so conflicted.

Menou had no memory of ever crying. Not when Master Flare marched her away, nor in all the difficult training at the monastery. She didn’t remember shedding a tear when she lost things precious to her. Perhaps she’d screamed and sobbed in her childhood, but those memories were gone. As far as she knew, Menou had never cried out of sadness.

The reason was simple—the young woman had never desired to protect anything before.

Her friendship with Akari was the first time she’d ever felt this way. Menou imagined she might cry after killing Akari.

But she was wrong.

Menou already had something dear before Akari.

Her memories with Master Flare were what ended up dulling her ability to kill.

“Heh… Ha-ha-ha!”

A laugh bubbled up from her throat. She was so pathetic that it was actually funny.

After all that bravado about knowing there was no turning back. Menou had been willing to throw her life away. She’d fully intended to expend her spirit, work her body to the bone, and grind herself into powder to do what she set out to achieve.

And yet she couldn’t follow through.

The Executioner fought her Master. The outcome wasn’t even a matter of victory or defeat. In a way, she wouldn’t have had any regrets if she’d lost and died.

But the moment Menou turned her blade away from Master Flare’s throat kept replaying endlessly in her mind.

“Hey, thanks for not killing me.”

Those few words, still echoing in her ears, were enough to fracture Menou’s heart.

She could have killed Master Flare, and she didn’t. Nothing would have barred the way to her goal if she’d won. The path to the land of salt was open, and the powerful archbishop was outside the holy land. Menou could have easily brought Akari from the north tower and ended things.

Instead, she threw away her chance at success.

And yet…and yet.

Menou didn’t regret not killing Master Flare.

Logically, she understood that she should have stabbed the woman. Menou knew that well enough. The correct decision was apparent, painfully so. There were no two ways about it.

But when the time came to prove she could act on that reasoning, Menou’s heart proved lacking.

If she could use Akari’s Pure Concept of
Time
to rewind to the moment when she was about to stab Master Flare, if she was given a chance to erase the failure tormenting her—Menou still couldn’t say for sure if she would have done it any differently.

The route was there, but she turned from it.

Menou had killed people, executed innocent Otherworlders simply because their existences were taboo, and had even resolved to do the same to Akari. For some absurd reason, it was her old Master who caused Menou to hesitate.

It was a reality she had never imagined.

Menou couldn’t kill Master Flare.

That was the truth.

She started to laugh at her own absurdity and suddenly felt nauseous instead.

“Ugh…”

She pressed a hand to her throat and gagged a few times, but nothing came out. Her stomach was twisted in knots, but there wasn’t anything for her to throw up. Since Menou had planned to lie in wait for Master Flare after arriving in the land of salt, she’d avoided eating anything.

But to Menou in that moment, the fact that she couldn’t even vomit felt like more proof of her own emptiness.

There was a hollow red void inside her. The crimson path she had walked all this time. Now it was evaporating, threatening to claim Menou wholly. She couldn’t fight it, kill it, or reason with it. The terrifying blankness was Menou’s own life.

What was the point of an Executioner who couldn’t kill someone?

The moment she averted her dagger, Menou had denied and betrayed herself.

And in the worst way possible, too. There’d been no step forward, nor had Menou acknowledged the long red path behind her. Instead, she’d cast her blade down. The conversation with Master Flare had drawn out her raw emotions and rendered her incapable of taking a life.

She wanted to die.

No, that wasn’t true. If she’d wished for death, she could have remained in the cathedral.

Why did she run?

Menou was caught in a spiral of despair, unable to trust anything about herself.

Then…she heard a voice.

“M-Menou…?”

The despondent Executioner looked up. Sahara was standing in the mist.

“…Sahara?”

Ahh, so this is how it ends.

More than resignation, Menou felt gratitude. This chance encounter was her salvation.

After losing to Master Flare and barely escaping, Menou would be felled by Sahara. This utterly meaningless end made perfect sense to her in that moment.

Things couldn’t have been more perfect for Sahara.

With Menou as she was, just about anyone could kill her.

If they fought, Sahara would undoubtedly win. Menou was that grievously weakened. Her body and soul were at their breaking point.

And yet Sahara fired a question, not a bullet.

“…What the hell are you doing?”

Her voice trembled in the face of Menou’s broken state. She gripped her prosthetic right arm so tightly that it elicited a sound.

“I lost to Master Flare. Pathetic, if I do say so myself,” Menou explained with a wan smile. “She didn’t even outmatch me in strength. I just couldn’t go through with it. I came so far, claiming I was going to kill my friend—I’m an Executioner who can’t do anything else. Yet, of all people, I couldn’t fell my own Master when she was clearly my enemy. It was such a stunningly stupid way to lose.”

Sahara didn’t care how Menou had failed.

“Didn’t you come to save Akari?”

“…I suppose you could say that.”

“And there’s not much time left, right?”

“Not really, no.” Still clutching the injury on her shoulder, Menou answered in a voice devoid of emotion. “But I lost.”

She lost.

So what?

Sahara grabbed Menou by the collar, and the girl didn’t resist. Blood loss had leeched her of strength, and she’d expended her Guiding Force battling Master Flare. She was basically helpless.

Blood rose to Sahara’s face. She swung back her metal arm and punched Menou as hard as she could.

Menou slowly reached up to touch her jaw. It was a half-hearted reaction, as if she barely felt the pain.

“…Is that it?”

Menou’s expression seemed to question why Sahara hadn’t struck harder.

She’d attempted to rescue Akari and lost to Master Flare. In a way, that was a logical outcome. Menou had failed in a bout with her Master, as she knew she might, and barely managed to escape.

If Sahara finished her off now, it would all be over. She held the power to end things.

This was a once-in-a-lifetime chance, yet for some reason, Sahara slung Menou’s arm over her shoulder.

Menou, who was so injured that she might very well drop dead soon, croaked out a question.

“What are you doing…?”

“Ugh! I don’t know!” she snapped back. Sahara gained nothing by aiding Menou. Killing the Executioner was her best option.

And yet…

“I’m not nice enough to end you when you obviously want to die, okay?!” A single emotion occupied Sahara’s thoughts. “I hate this, I hate this, I hate this!” she muttered to herself angrily. Even she didn’t know why she was helping Menou. A string of curses flowed from Sahara’s mouth as she dragged Menou toward the nearest monastery.

She despised all of this. In fact, Sahara had loathed just about everything that happened in her life.

“But I hate the idea of you losing to someone other than me even more…!”

“You say that, but…all I ever do is lose, you know.”