The monster, a figure patched together from rags of flesh, was simply staring blankly in our direction.
It had no eyes, so I couldn’t tell whether it was really looking at us… yet, strangely, it felt that way.
As the monster merely stood there without moving, the frozen soldiers soon came to their senses and began to move as well.
“What the hell is that now…?”
“Is that one the same kind as those monsters?”
The soldiers’ voices were mixed with shock and wariness.
They didn’t seem to know what this monster was either.
Come to think of it, aside from the people of the Order, most seemed not even to know what demon stones or demonoids were.
Had monsters like this not appeared recently?
Or had the Order deliberately kept them hidden all this time?
It was one of the two.
As that silent standoff continued, the monster’s face split horizontally with a tearing sound.
“ᚾᛃᚨᛚ··· ᛗᚨᚱᛃᛁᛟ···.”
From the gap flowed a warped, low-frequency voice that could not be understood.
A sound like something boiling up from the depths of the ground.
That low, bizarre resonance was painful even to hear, and though I could not understand it, I instinctively felt something ominous.
Just as everyone froze again, unable to move even a toe—
One soldier suddenly charged forward.
“Uaaaaaaaaah!”
Holding a spear, he threw his whole body at the monster.
Whether that brief charge contained rage, courage, or the reckless struggle of someone driven mad by fear, I could not tell.
But one thing was certain.
The tip of his spear was aimed precisely at the monster’s torso.
Pshuk.
There was no sound of flesh tearing, nor of metal striking.
Like a stone tossed into water, the spear slid into the monster’s body without the slightest resistance, as if being sucked in.
“…What the hell?”
The words slipped from the soldier’s mouth like a stupid gasp.
But no answer came back.
The monster’s body swayed limply, then wrapped around the soldier’s arm, his shoulder, his torso in order, as if embracing him, and swallowed him whole.
“U-ua… uaaaaaaagh!!”
Before he could even struggle desperately, black mucus forced its way into his mouth.
It blocked his airway, covered his eyes, and devoured even his head in a single breath.
Thud.
A single blood-soaked spear fell to the ground.
It was the only trace that he had ever been there.
The monster did not so much as twitch.
Even after swallowing a person whole, it did not breathe once.
It simply stood there, a lump of flesh.
“…W-we have to run…”
Someone began backing away.
Another dropped his weapon and sank to the ground.
Splash.
A boot slipped on bloody water, and in an instant, silence swept over the battlefield.
No one could move.
The soldiers who had raised their voices, saying they would defend the castle until moments ago, and even the mercenaries who had been driving themselves into a frenzy, all shut their mouths and stared at the monster.
And the monster slowly lifted its head.
Within it, the face of the soldier it had swallowed surfaced through the blood, twisted into a distorted smile.
“F-fuck…”
Fear spread like a contagion.
Someone gasped for breath, while another dry-heaved.
The battlefield, so full of momentum moments ago, was now on the verge of collapse.
After swallowing the soldier, the monster began slowly moving toward the castle wall.
“Uaaaaaagh!”
“It’s a monster! Run!”
Screams burst out, and chaos spread.
The soldiers who had once led the charge with spears in hand vanished, and all that remained was a crowd seized by fear.
Some staggered as they fled, while others looked back after dropping their swords.
Without anyone needing to go first, soldiers and mercenaries tangled together as they ran into the castle.
Even the archers who had been firing from atop the wall were busy climbing down the ladders.
“Damn it, what the hell is that…!”
“Run! Fall behind and you’re dead!!”
Before I knew it, I had taken one step back—no, two.
My heart pounded like mad, and the strength left my legs.
I felt my entire body growing cold from the tip of my chin downward.
“Liv!”
Baldik seized my arm.
At the grip of that hardened hand, my mind was violently dragged back.
“We have to go now! Otherwise, we’re really finished!”
“…Yeah. Got it!”
I nodded instinctively.
I threw away the illusion that we might still be able to fight.
Aileen had already put away her dagger and was surveying the surroundings.
Her expression had collapsed, but her eyes alone remained clear.
In the middle of all that, Sailun was the first to bolt.
Slinging his quiver back over his shoulder, Sailun shouted.
“H-hurry up and run!”
…This bastard was definitely standing there with his mouth open in a daze just a moment ago.
Why is he so perfectly fine when it actually comes to this?
The monster had approached the moat.
It stretched out its clay-like body and slowly slithered over the moat as if climbing over a fence.
A bizarrely writhing lump of flesh.
At the sight of that form, several soldiers simply collapsed where they stood.
Just as the monster crossed the moat and was about to spill over a fallen soldier—
Pshuk!
A flash of light shot down from the sky like lightning.
What followed was a dull sound of flesh being pierced.
“ᛗᚨᛚᚢ···?”
Three holes were punched through the monster’s torso in an instant, and crimson liquid spurted from the gaps.
“W-what…?”
“…Did someone fall?”
Amid the bursting shock and confusion, the cloud of dust slowly began to clear.
And beyond it—
A figure stood there, clad head to toe in dark leather armor.
Her red hair fluttered in the wind, and the cloak draped over her shoulders was stained as dark as fresh blood.
In her hand was a massive spear like a lump of iron.
She slowly raised her head.
Her expression was close to blank, but her mouth was twisted firmly in place.
“What is this filthy thing?”
A stiff, dry voice.
It was neither a joke nor a warning, but disgust and irritation itself.
It was a face I had seen somewhere before.
I could not remember exactly, but I could never forget that sense of pressure.
Kalsia.
A gold-plate mercenary bearing the title Blood Princess.
The woman known as the Mad Dog.
The monster let out a pained roar and reached out, but she did not take even a single step back.
“Tch.”
A short click of the tongue.
And immediately after, the spearpoint she swung like lightning drew a dark-red arc through the air.
Slash.
A single trajectory.
With that one line, the monster’s torso quietly split from the center.
Without even a scream, the monster collapsed as it was.
Flesh and blood poured down like a waterfall.
“…Is it over?”
A low voice emerged from among the soldiers.
A silence mixed with fear, awe, and shock.
No one dared move carelessly.
Without a word, Kalsia lightly shook the blood from the tip of her spear.
Then, she quietly looked up at the top of the castle wall.
“Like a bunch of rats.”
At that one remark, several mercenaries who had been running away just moments ago flinched and lowered their heads in terror.
I swallowed my breath for no reason, afraid her gaze might land on me.
Fortunately—no, luckily—her attention did not linger for long.
Kalsia silently shouldered her great spear and headed toward the castle gate.
Her steps were slow, but everyone moved aside, and no one even thought of blocking her path.
“…That one’s a monster too.”
Beside me, Baldik muttered in a low voice.
His voice was strangely mixed with awe and caution.
I merely nodded without a word.
It was no exaggeration.
***
And so, the battle ended.
Naturally, I thought we would be able to rest for a while.
But reality was never that easy.
Cleaning up the traces of battle and even holding funerals for the fallen soldiers became our job.
Until now, I had almost never had to handle this sort of thing directly after a fight.
All I had to do was fight and survive.
Perhaps that was why this scene felt so unfamiliar and heavy.
Before the smell of blood had even dried, shovels and pieces of cloth were placed in our hands.
My body already felt as heavy as a thousand pounds, yet it felt as though another battle had begun.
As I carried corpses, dug the earth, and buried them, I suddenly realized.
As expected, winning was not everything.
What remained first after this battle was not the sweet sense of victory, but a thick, heavy scent of iron.
The taste of victory might be sweet, but its smell was unmistakably the revolting stench of blood.
Aileen and Sailun seemed to feel something as well, their expressions heavy the entire time.
The only one who looked relatively fine was Baldik.
“Me? Well, I used to be a priest.”
“What does being a priest have to do with it?”
“I’ve conducted plenty of funeral masses.”
“Ah.”
Oh, right. Baldik was a former priest.
But judging from his usual behavior, he really didn’t seem like one, so I had forgotten.
Still, seeing him bury the dead and pray, he did look somewhat like a priest.
“What do you think these people were trying to do?”
Aileen asked, looking down at the graves.
“The bandits? Who knows. Maybe they just wanted to live.”
“I don’t understand that. If they wanted to live, they shouldn’t have made that choice.”
It seemed Aileen had also begun to question the people who had blown themselves up.
I didn’t really have anything to say either.
There was no way those bandits had some noble purpose.
We could only guess that there might be something behind them; since we didn’t know the whole story, it simply seemed strange to us.
“Aileen, the truth is, not every action has a deep purpose behind it. Sometimes people just get swept along by the current.”
“Then, were these people like that too?”
“…Probably.”
In the end, that was the only conclusion I could reach.
“Let’s go. I want to rest.”
“Yeah, let’s hurry back to the lodging.”
“Baldik, where were you staying?”
“Me? I was staying at the Kallea Inn.”
“Oh, I stayed there before too. What a coincidence.”
We turned our steps toward the lodging.
***
“It was about time.”
It was a dark space I was encountering for the first time in a while.
Yes, it was the level-up stage.
…Or maybe it hadn’t been that long?
Lately, I had been so distracted by one thing after another that my sense of time was growing increasingly hazy.
Since I didn’t even have a clock, it was all the more confusing.
In any case, the fact that I had leveled up was welcome in itself.
[You have reached a threshold. Please select a perk.]
That voice I always heard felt strangely different today.
Why did it say “reached a threshold” instead of “leveled up”?
Something about it felt strange.
Just as I fell into thought with that question in mind—
Paang—
As if covering up my thoughts, three cards appeared before my eyes with a flashing sound effect.
_______________________
[Increase Maximum Agility]
[Increase Maximum Stamina]
[Increase Maximum Mana]
_______________________
Judging by text alone, none of the choices had much impact.
However, there was one difference.
“White, green… purple?”
That was right. A purple card had appeared.
And it was even for the mana increase I had wanted so badly.
Were the things I had done finally being rewarded?
As if to prove its grade, the description was different as well.
[Maximum mana increases “greatly.”]
Greatly. Greatly, it said.
It was clearly different from the tiny or slight increases I had gotten every single time before.
If I followed my heart, I wanted to shout, Yahoo! or something, but whether because fatigue did not disappear even in a dream, my body felt heavy and limp.
Even so, I could not hide my joy.
“Phew, am I finally going to worry a little less about mana?”
I chose the card at once.
[You have reached a threshold. Please select a perk.]
After the card was absorbed, the familiar voice soon echoed in my head.
Considering the scale of the battle, perhaps it was only natural.
At that moment, a question suddenly occurred to me.
In this battle, how far had my party’s participation been applied?
Thinking back to when the concept of party hunting had applied during my previous level-up—
Could it be that a large-scale battle like this was included too?
If so, an enormous amount of experience must have come in, and I would have leveled up accordingly.
As I thought that, a single word flashed through my mind.
War.
If battles of this scale continued, the speed of leveling up might be beyond imagination.
But soon, I dismissed the thought myself.
…No matter what.
Going to a battlefield for the sake of leveling up… that just felt wrong somehow.
Tch, I should stop thinking useless thoughts and look at the cards.
_______________________
[Increase Maximum Strength]
[Blue Magic: Water Raiment]
[Blue Magic: Water Prison]
_______________________
“There are two of them?”
There were as many as two spells among the cards.
Until now, they had always appeared one at a time, but this time, something was different.
Had I really just been lucky? Maybe it was nothing more or less than a low-probability outcome.
Green, green, blue.
The grades weren’t bad, either.
At the very least, they weren’t poor options.
By the way, Water Robe?
Not veterinary medicine, and not the burial shroud worn at funerals... surely it wasn’t something like that, right?
I reflexively skimmed through the magic’s description.
[Consumes mana to create a cloak made of condensed moisture.]
Judging by the description alone, it was a utility spell that used moisture to form a cloak of water.
If I had to classify it, it was a combat-support type, like the Blue Eye I’d obtained before.
Rather than direct offense, it seemed closer to defense, stealth, or evasion.
To be honest, it was a bit ambiguous.
Since I already had a decent defensive spell called Waterflow Barrier, I couldn’t help wondering if I really needed to use this.
Well, there’s no harm in having more magic.
I might be able to use it differently depending on the situation.
I immediately shifted my gaze to the next spell.
[Blue Magic: Water Prison]
[Consumes mana to form a prison of water, binding the target for a set period of time.]
This, too, was closer to utility than offense.
But the fact that it was a “crowd control” skill, something I didn’t currently have, caught my eye at once.
I liked the name from the start, and the description was clear, too.
Binding.
That was a word that could change the flow of battle in an instant.
Against enemies with high mobility or high defense, just having this would paint an entirely different picture.
Without needing to think any further, I chose Water Prison.
“Phew... Today’s haul is incredibly satisf—”
[You have reached a milestone. Please choose a perk.]
The system message rang out again.
An unusual level-up, happening three times in succession at once.
Honestly, even considering the number of bandits we had fought, it felt like I had gone up too much.
“So if someone is judged to be my ally, they really do seem to count as being in my party.”
In other words, if I took part in a large-scale battle, rapid leveling would be guaranteed.
It was an incredibly sweet temptation.
Of course, that didn’t mean I intended to go to war.
The problems right in front of me were already more than enough to handle.
But as expected, luck couldn’t keep going forever.
The third perk was, in every sense of the word, a dud.
Among strength, stamina, and agility, I chose the relatively safe stamina increase.
After all, surviving anytime and anywhere was the most important thing.
I stared blankly as the card was absorbed with a soft slither, and just as I was about to close my eyes for real this time—
[You have absorbed a remnant. Please choose a price.]
“...!”
That familiar, ominous voice.
It was the unforgettable system message I had heard in Delhar Village.
In that instant, the mana stat that had been forcibly shaved away back then flashed through my mind.
...That was trauma, in the truest sense of the word.
Cold sweat beaded along my spine.
“This... is appearing again?”
Did a message like this appear unconditionally whenever I killed a fiend?
Or was it because of that flesh monster Kalsia had cut down earlier?
The ones who blew themselves up probably wouldn’t count, so it had to be that.
Woooong—
My vision was dyed red.
___________________________________
[Fragment of Evil: Price of Strength]
[Fragment of Evil: Price of Mana]
[Fragment of Evil: Price of Life]
[Fragment of Evil: Price of Speed]
[Fragment of Evil: Price of Wrath]
___________________________________
“...This again?”
Familiar red cards.
But something was a little different.
Instead of the “Price of Greed” that had been there last time, an unfamiliar card called “Price of Wrath” had appeared.
“Did only the name change? Or is the effect different, too?”
I couldn’t tell.
Honestly, I had no idea exactly how these cards worked.
The one thing I knew for certain was that, just from their names, they instinctively repulsed me.
...And that, without fail, the moment had come for me to give up something again.
I slowly inhaled, then exhaled at length.
If I couldn’t avoid it, I had no choice but to pick the option that hurt less.
This time as well, most of the cards had the same structure.
A kind of transaction where I gave up one thing and gained something in return.
In the end, it wasn’t much different from before, in that I had to choose the thing I could least regret losing among what I had left.
Eventually, my gaze stopped on the final card.
[Fragment of Evil: Price of Wrath]
[Select one of your owned cards and greatly increase its effect. However, that card’s mana consumption will increase twofold.]
It was a frightening description.
At the same time, it was an incredibly tempting option.
Magic far more powerful than it was now.
There probably wasn’t a better card for increasing offensive power.
But not right now.
The only offensive spell I had at the moment was just one, and while I was constantly struggling with insufficient mana, doubled consumption was too great a risk.
“If it appears again later, I’ll consider it then.”
Convincing myself like that, I picked up [Fragment of Evil: Price of Mana].
The price of having my stamina reduced would hurt, but what I needed most right now was, after all, mana.
With that, the choice was over.
At last, I could truly close my eyes.
When I closed them, the battlefield of the day unfolded before me.
Black dots pouring down like a rain of arrows.
A monster letting out beast-like screams that tore at my ears.
A soldier crying out in desperate agony.
The eyes of people who had collapsed in the mud beneath the castle wall.
The center of my chest slowly grew heavy.
Emotions I couldn’t quite swallow rose all the way to my chin.
Even after seeing all of that right before my eyes, the fact that I was still breathing felt strange.
I inhaled once, then slowly exhaled.
Cold sweat ran down my spine, but fortunately, it was gradually settling down.
“It’s okay. It’s over now.”
My mind was still complicated, but I felt like I could calm down a little.
Leaving behind the memories that had yet to lose the scent of blood, I closed my eyes again.
For now, at least, this was a moment when I was allowed to forget it all and fall asleep.
The world slowly grew dark.