81.
It wasn’t as if I had meant to do something so reckless from the start.
‘I had no choice.’
Just before we ascended the altar.
One of the masked men, unaware that I hadn’t been hypnotized, kept breathing hotly from behind and subtly trying something on me.
So I slowed my pace little by little.
And just before we turned the final corner, the moment he let his guard down, I tripped him and knocked him to the ground.
I clamped a hand over his mouth as he tried to shout and hurriedly searched his clothes.
“You…!”
It was all well and good up to the point where I shoved the hypnotic incense he had on him into his face and made him inhale it.
I quickly stripped the black hood from the masked man, who immediately rolled his eyes back and went limp, then threw it over my shoulders. Then I pulled the hood over my head.
I shoved the man into a corner and hissed at him to keep quiet, and he obeyed so well it was almost unsettling.
So unsettling, in fact, that goosebumps rose on my skin for no reason.
‘Now what…?’
I followed behind the people staggering ahead of me and let out a soundless sigh.
If it had just been me, that would have been one thing, but there was no way to secretly take and hide all those people.
In the end, while I hesitated, we arrived at the cavern where the altar had been prepared.
There were countless figures gathered there in black hoods like mine, swarming like ants.
Their overwhelming numbers were enough to make me sick.
Seeing with my own eyes that this many people were taking part in this madness…
It did not feel good at all.
With the hood over my head, I quietly breathed out.
When the “sacrifices” arrived, gazes turned our way.
The black-hooded figures stepped aside, opening a path.
Across from the altar, I saw a row of chairs set atop a raised platform.
Most of the seats were already occupied, and they seemed to be the leaders directing this ceremony.
I’d heard they were called “priests,” or something like that…
‘Quite a lot of them have gathered.’
The more I confirmed with my own eyes, the more this ceremony seemed far from ordinary—for us and for them alike.
A strange tension hung in the cavern.
‘More importantly, why are they trying to hold the ceremony when it isn’t even midnight yet?’
Could they have realized someone had infiltrated?
If so, why hadn’t they abandoned the ceremony and hurriedly fled? Why had they only moved it up?
‘Is this ceremony truly that important?’
If I wanted to make the situation even slightly more favorable for our side…
I quietly approached the platform.
I needed to find out exactly what they were trying to do.
As I drew closer, they too seemed flustered by the ceremony being moved up.
There were low, hurried whispers, and the sound of footsteps rushing down below.
It was when I approached the stairs leading up to the platform.
Clang!
At the sound of a metal gate closing with a harsh ring, I turned my head.
Before I knew it, all the people had been placed on top of the altar.
Those who had been looking down at the altar from the platform slowly stepped forward.
When the “priest” led the chant, the cultists below began to repeat after him.
“As Heaven stands in place of the divine,”
“As Heaven stands in place of the divine,”
“It shall bestow upon us the great blessing of eternal death and eternal life,”
“It shall bestow upon us the great blessing of eternal death and eternal life,”
“Do not yield to wicked phantoms, and before the glorious path…”
“Do not yield to wicked phantoms, and before the glorious path…”
Their voices were low and gloomy, yet they overlapped perfectly as though they were one, and a strange heat began to gather within them.
Then I saw it.
On the round table at the center of the platform sat a single opaque purple gemstone tinged with red.
That gem, nestled deeply into a cushion as if it were some treasure,
had begun to emit a faint glow in response to the priests’ recitation around the table.
Like a beating heart, the light pulsed—thump, thump, thump.
I covered my nose.
A dense fragrance.
That very scent I had smelled before had, at some point, filled the cavern in a thick haze.
‘I let my guard down.’
Because the hypnotic incense, which strangely seemed to work on everyone, had no effect on me alone.
But my vision…
Was blurring.
As though it were filled with noise, my sight flickered unevenly.
I realized it instinctively.
That gemstone was amplifying the hypnotic incense.
I staggered and took one step back.
“Kill.”
A strange voice hammered inside my head.
An uncontrollable emotion surged up.
The unpleasant sensation that my body was no longer my own.
I bit down hard on my lip.
“If you do not, you will die.”
No.
“Kill!”
No!
At that moment, something hot surged up from deep inside my body,
and a stabbing pain began in my left eye.
As if something sharp were gouging into it.
Then, unbelievably, the “voice” gradually subsided.
My stomach churned, as though two powers were clashing inside my body in a contest of strength.
And I felt the “voice” being helplessly pushed out of me.
At that moment, along with a sense of release,
I was suddenly thrown into a crossroads that was neither here nor there.
Somewhere between reality and suggestion.
A gap between soul and flesh.
Something alien forced its way through the crack and poured into my mind.
Like rough sandpaper scraping, all kinds of voices echoed in my ears, breaking off here and there.
‘I never once held you… in my heart….’
‘Why did you… save me? You should have just… let me die…!’
‘…Please give me a name.’
‘I’ll remember you. No matter what….’
“Haaah.”
I staggered and regained my balance.
My left eye felt as if it were blazing.
Reflexive tears streamed down my face.
‘What was that just now?’
But I didn’t have the leisure to think about it.
A tragedy was about to unfold right before my eyes.
Screams and shrieks.
I could see the people on the altar reaching out to harm one another.
Their lives, which may not have been special but had at least been honest, shattered and warped in an instant.
And watching them in feverish anticipation were several hundred people, as if their suffering did not touch them in the slightest.
Nausea welled up.
I raised a hand and covered my right eye.
The purple gemstone I had thought was merely tinged with red.
From it, a burst of light was pouring out like an explosion, sweeping through this vast cavern.
The cultists’ chant went on without end.
The atmosphere was rising to a fever pitch.
They were fervently longing for the moment when only one remained, after forcing them into a slaughter where they killed and were killed by one another.
When everyone, swept up in that fanatical atmosphere, was focused on the altar,
I staggered and crawled up the stairs.
Then I lunged forward, wrapping my arm around the priest’s neck as if tackling him.
I stomped on the bastard as he fell and hurled my body forward.
The moment I collapsed onto the round table, I raised high the dagger I had been hiding in my garments.
“Stop.”
Clang! The jewel erupted with light, blinding and mad.
As if screaming in agony.
Clang!
I struck down once more.
Please.
“Stop!”
Just before I was grabbed by the collar and dragged off, the tip of my blade struck one last time.
Crack! The raw stone split, a fissure tearing open.
And in the aftermath.
“How dare you, how dare you interfere with the sacred ritual……!”
“No, protect the keystone……!”
The priests who had seemed poised to crush me at any moment lost consciousness and collapsed like puppets with their strings severed.
Still seated atop the round table, I looked down for a moment.
Everyone gathered in the cavern was staring at me.
A chill ran down my spine, enough to make my hair stand on end.
But I raised the dagger once more.
The bracelet on my left wrist—the one gripping the raw stone—was spewing a mad red light from beneath my sleeve.
I clutched the hilt with all my might and swung.
“You crazy bastards!”
A sharp, clear crack rang out.
Failing to split the raw stone, the dagger embedded itself directly into the round table.
And as if it had been waiting only for this moment, a brilliant wave of light surged upward, engulfed my body, stretched out into the air, and vanished.
As if joyous, or as if finally freed.
I looked down at the bracelet.
The red light that had blazed like madness was slowly fading.
A strange sense of powerlessness came over me, but
in the distance, I saw a black hawk gliding.
Once raised by my own hands, now bound to the Duke.
A hawk of black plumage.
My eyes lit up.
The perfect moment when most of them had rushed onto the platform to catch me.
“You’re all dead.”
Finally, without hesitation, I swung the blade toward my palm.
* * *
The moment the blade embedded itself in her palm, blood surged forth.
But as if that had been the true aim all along, the woman did not move.
And in the next moment, her hand began to glow as if emitting light.
In an instant, a massive magic circle spun round and round, spreading across the floor.
Some among those who had lost their minds and rushed at the woman faltered.
They had sensed danger instinctively.
But the majority still surged toward the woman, stepping defenselessly onto the magic circle.
As if it had been waiting only for that moment, mana extended from the magic circle, snaked up their ankles, and latched onto them like leeches.
“Wh-what is this!”
“Get off, get off me!”
They stomped their feet instinctively, but it was no use.
This was one of the triggers the Duke had added midway while inscribing the tracking spell.
He had clearly said that a light scratch would suffice, yet the woman had drawn blood freely.
A spell whereby the caster drew their own blood to amplify mana, designating the targets of the tracking spell as the humans within range.
‘The more I can catch, the better, isn’t that right?’
The woman thought simply.
Or rather, to be more precise, her mind was filled with thoughts of screwing them over.
Even if they escaped this place safely, the tracking spell would hound them relentlessly.
‘I can’t let them pull this shit and then sleep soundly at night, can I?’
The woman, who had been grinning broadly enough to bare her teeth, suddenly furrowed her brows.
A few quick-witted ones who had been caught by the magic turned their heads, focusing on the woman once more.
In the case of this spell, the caster had to be alive for the magic to be maintained.
It went without saying.
Killing the woman would nullify it.
‘Only when safety is guaranteed, if possible……’
Setting aside the warning that had flitted through her mind.
The woman muttered a curse and pulled her half-slipped hood down deep over her head.
Since everyone here wore hoods to conceal their identities, it was a sound judgment.
After a brief moment of hesitation, the woman—having swept the shattered keystone into her pocket—moved to hide herself in the chaos, then turned back.
Inside the clamorous cavern.
Even if she shouted, her voice wouldn’t carry.
Confirming that the people on the altar were staring blankly at her, the woman pointed in one direction.
Where her fingertip pointed……
There was a door.
‘Run.’
They read her lips.
No, they believed—for a moment—that they had.
At first, the steps of those who faltered and hesitated gradually picked up speed.
Finally, everyone began to run.
Pulling along those who lagged behind, the one in the lead bravely cleared the path.
Recalling the sin they had nearly committed moments ago—the tragedy they had barely managed to avoid.
And so they did.
When Romy Ebishu looked back one last time.
The auburn hair had vanished without a trace; only darkness and black hoods filled the surroundings.