by Fujino Omori
“Wai—!” she started to say, but the black shadow had already closed the distance between them. Planting its foot, the shadow drove a heel into her chin.
“…Lady…Mikoto?”
The last of her escort gone from the bridge, Haruhime cautiously came to a stop and turned around. The black shadow, Mikoto, wasted no time in rushing to her side.
“Why are you here…?”
“To rescue you.”
Mikoto answered the stunned renart’s question with no hesitation in her voice.
The human girl’s reflection in her large green eyes, Haruhime watched as Mikoto reached out and took hold of her hand.
“Let us escape together, Lady Haruhime. Quickly.”
Time was of the essence. Mikoto didn’t want to waste any of it exchanging words in such a vulnerable location.
However, Haruhime didn’t move despite Mikoto’s pull.
“Miss Mikoto…I’m fine, please save yourself.”
“Wha…?”
Now it was Mikoto’s turn to be stunned. Her grip going slack, Haruhime pulled away her hand.
“Why did you come, Lady Mikoto? Master Cranell, as well. I’m a burden, I would put you and your friends in danger. I thought everyone understood this.”
“That was…!”
Mikoto had been forced to weigh the importance of Haruhime against her family just hours ago. Her heart still ached from having to make that decision.
Haruhime continued with an expression of sorrow on her face.
“Because of me, Lady Phryne and Lady Ishtar would never let you rest. My presence would put everyone you know in harm’s way…That’s what I am.”
“Even so! Sir Bell swore to me that he would protect you!”
Frantically trying to wash away Haruhime’s words with her own, Mikoto stepped forward and grabbed Haruhime’s shoulders. The renart’s eyes shot open in surprise.
“He will fight for you, become stronger for you, protect you! Those were his words!”
“That is because…Master Cranell is kind.”
“That’s not why! He’s not fighting for you out of guilt or pity!”
Mikoto didn’t allow Haruhime time to question Bell’s resolve.
The girl looked down, desperate to avoid Mikoto’s gaze.
“Lady Mikoto, I beg of you, leave me be…I am not worthy of this pain and suffering.”
“Tell me why…why have you already given up? Your life is at stake!”
Tears flew from her eyes as Mikoto’s fingers buried themselves in Haruhime’s shoulders. The human’s voice overpowered the wind that was making her hair whip to and fro.
Then.
Haruhime’s lips fluttered. All the emotion, all the pain she’d kept bottled up over the years was threatening to spill over.
“I can’t ask for help…”
The breeze carried her words off into the moonlit night. Mikoto didn’t take them lying down.
“There is nothing to be frightened of!! Should Lady Haruhime ask, Sir Bell would never abandon you! He’s not that kind of man!!”
“…”
“Lady Haruhime!”
Mikoto’s voice jumped an octave higher in desperation. A heartbeat later—
Haruhime looked up.
“You don’t understand, Mikoto!”
Tears poured down her cheeks, eyebrows standing on end.
The dam had fallen. Everything Haruhime had kept under wraps burst forward.
“…?!”
“Giving your body to someone you have no feelings for, selling it for money! Could you forgive yourself for doing that, Mikoto?”
A childlike tone had taken over Haruhime’s voice. Even the politeness that had been drilled into her since birth was gone. That was Mikoto’s first clue something big was coming, and it scared her.
“Look at me. I’m a prostitute!”
Mikoto’s eyes shook as Haruhime’s reality struck her like a blow to the head. She had no words to respond.
Haruhime shook her body left and right, cheeks soaked with tears.
She wrapped her arms around her chest after pulling her shoulders free from Mikoto’s slackened grasp.
“I should ask him to help, is that what you’re saying? I should ask him to fight for this soiled body, ask him to allow me to stay beside him after all I’ve done? All while knowing it would put him in danger?”
She looked at Mikoto with the eyes of a lost child.
Haruhime’s eyes squeezed shut as she poured out more of her sadness.
“I can’t! I just can’t…!”
Her eyes closed, moonlight reflecting off her wet eyelashes as she looked back down at the floor.
Soft hiccups interrupted her cries, making Haruhime’s shoulders jump every few seconds. The stones around her feet were dotted with fallen tears. Mikoto could only stand there like a frozen statue and watch her childhood friend lament.
If she had been in Haruhime’s position, what then?
Would she be able to ask Ouka, Chigusa, Takemikazuchi for help?
As a prostitute, would she really ask to be saved?
Quite the opposite. She would ask them to look away.
As another woman, she couldn’t refute Haruhime’s words. She sympathized.
“…!!”
She chanced another look at Haruhime as both of them stood bathed in moonlight.
Filled with a feeling of powerlessness, Mikoto forgot where they were for one moment too long.
“—Open fire!”
They’d been discovered.
A bolt of lightning emerged from the main tower, searing the night air. It hit Mikoto directly in her back.
“GUAH!”
Her body shook as the bolt ripped through her shoulder.
A magic sword.
More Berbera had appeared from the palace. The forward ranks brandished several magical weapons.
Haruhime watched in horror as her friend’s body spasmed and stumbled toward the guard wall.
“Mikoto!”
Haruhime reached out to help her. Another bolt made contact with Mikoto’s side.
The human girl managed to block the fatal blow with her crimson dagger, but the impact was enough to knock her off the bridge.
Unable to grab hold of Haruhime’s outstretched hand, Mikoto fell through the air.
“AAHHH…!!”
Haruhime hid her face with both hands, a fresh wave of tears flowing from her eyes as she collapsed to her knees.
Stricken with guilt, she rocked back and forth, whispering, “Sorry,” over and over.
“…!”
Meanwhile, a still-plummeting Mikoto gritted her teeth and grabbed her injured shoulder.
The bridge where she left her friend behind shrank in the distance.
“Failure…!”
She reached into the item pouch with her other hand and withdrew a flare.
As much as it pained her to do it, she flipped the trigger and let it fly—a spray of red sparks arced over Belit Babili.
“—Can’t you open your eyes?!”
Ishtar’s rage was undeniable.
And all of it was targeted at the boy, Bell, who was currently pinned to the ground by her assistant Tammuz.
Eyes clenched shut, the bright-red boy wasn’t listening.
“I c-c-c-c-can’t! Please put on some clothes!”
Bell screamed at the top of his lungs as he thrashed about, trying to break out of the stranglehold. “Hold still!” snarled Tammuz in frustration that he couldn’t keep a Level 3 adventurer completely still. Only when Ishtar added her own body weight did the panicked rabbit fall in line.
The boy still refused to look at her. It was time to change her strategy.
Just what the hell is going on with this one…?
The boy shouldn’t have a choice. Whether or not he opened his eyes, the very fact that Ishtar had taken an interest should have Charmed him on the spot. That’s the way it worked.
Her beauty in their eyes, her smel
l overwhelming their nostrils, her voice melting in their ears, the sensation of her skin on theirs—none of the senses was safe from her allure. She could use any one of them to turn an army of ten thousand into her slaves. She didn’t even have to touch them. It should all be over on eye contact. No one should be able to resist her gaze.
Yet the boy beneath her had resisted at every turn. Not only was it strange, but his innocent reaction was making her embarrassed.
“Why isn’t he being Charmed?!”
Tammuz was taken aback by his goddess’s fit of rage.
While the Goddess of Beauty’s Charm was similar to a monster’s poison, even the Advanced Ability Immunity shouldn’t be able to block it.
Ishtar’s pride was reeling. She bit her lip and menacingly eyed the boy’s back.
“Tammuz, strip him!”
“U-understood!”
Without armor, only a thin layer of cloth hid his back from sight. Tammuz did as he was told and placed his hand on Bell’s back.
The white-haired boy tried to struggle, but his inner shirt was ripped to shreds in the blink of an eye.
His Status was exposed.
Even though the black hieroglyphs were hard to read, there was no lock protecting the information. Ishtar raised an eyebrow, surprised that her picking skills would not be necessary before leaning in for a closer look.
A moment later, she was speechless.
Bell Cranell
Level Three
Strength: I 94 Defense: H 144 Dexterity: I 95 Agility: G 299 Magic: I 78
Luck: H Immunity: I
Magic
(Firebolt)
• Swift-Strike Magic
Skills
(Learis Freese)
• rapid growth
• continued desire results in continued growth
• stronger desire results in stronger growth
(Argonaut)
• charges automatically with active action
“What in the—”
While his Luck ability got her attention at first, Ishtar couldn’t take her eyes off a specific Skill the moment she deciphered the sloppy handwriting.
Learis Freese.
A yet undocumented Rare Skill that affected growth rate.
Ishtar couldn’t believe it.
If the information written in his Status was to be believed…The goddess froze in awe of the mortal boy struggling under her weight.
He possessed an immensely strong will, powerful enough to create Skills.
A will powerful enough to force his own growth out of sheer desire.
A pure, yet one-track mind that came around once in a millennium at most.
Learis Freese’s unintended side effect: a goddess’s Charm had no effect on him!
“A-are you an idiot?!”
Ishtar’s voice exploded from her throat the moment she connected the dots and realized the truth.
Ishtar was devastated and completely lost her composure once she learned the secret of a boy too pure to be true.
All people of Gekai, including monsters and even the gods, shouldn’t have the power to escape the Charm of the Goddess of Beauty. And yet, here was one human boy with the ability to nullify it, canceling out the overwhelming power at her command.
Inconceivable. Absolute nonsense.
Ishtar leaned back, her amethyst eyes alight with a new flame.
“~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~!”
She glared at the white rabbit who still wouldn’t obey her. The goddess’s entire body shook with a mixture of anger and humiliation.
Tammuz had never seen his goddess lose her poise, not to this extent. He looked up from Bell, shaking in fear.
“Ha-pwaah!”
“AH!”
That was the window that Bell needed to break free from the young man’s stranglehold.
Noises similar to his own goddess, Hestia, escaped Bell as he rolled away and was back on his feet before either of his captors could react.
He dashed past Ishtar as Tammuz realized what had just transpired. Bell chanced a glance over his shoulder as he made a break through the middle of the room toward the closest window.
Not worried about minor details, Bell threw himself through the glass and into the night air.
“The rabbit escaped! Capture him, now!”
Tammuz ran to the window, leaned out, and yelled to the Berbera stationed below. Ishtar, who had lost all sense of calm, screamed at the top of her lungs.
“That boy cannot be allowed to get away! Bring him to me, I don’t care how!”
Tammuz didn’t waste a moment following his enraged goddess’s order. Forgetting to help her get dressed, the young human left the chamber and raced down the stairs.
Ishtar donned her garments with her own hands before ascending the other staircase.
“Make a fool of me, will you…?”
As a Goddess of Beauty, she wouldn’t allow the existence of anything that could not be bent to her will.
Envisioning the boy’s neck between her fingers, Ishtar snapped her oriental pipe in half.
Bell fell from the thirtieth story of the palace.
“GAHH!”
His body hit the wall of the tower and more window awnings than he could count before he managed to catch the inside of an open window with his right hand.
Despite the jarring end to his descent, Bell still had enough strength in his arm to pull himself into the room.
“Wuh—WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”
A group of gorgeous young men and women screamed at the unexpected intruder; all the helpless servants scattered, yelling at the top of their lungs. Bell’s eyes met those of the young animal person. “S-sorry!” He apologized out of reflex.
“Ah, I apologize…!”
Bell’s Status was still out in the open for anyone to see. Pulling the rest of his black inner shirt off his body, he helped himself to one of the shirts already in the room, a servant’s shirt. Stuffing his head into the garment, Bell flew out the door and into the hallway.
“Miss Mikoto, Miss Haruhime…!”
He took the last remaining potion out of his leg holster and downed it in one gulp.
The voices of his pursuers came from above and below. Bell searched for the path that would lead to his friends.
That’s when he saw them.
Bang! The sound of an explosion drew his attention outside.
“Red sparks…It didn’t work?”
Red light was coming through all the outside windows. With wide eyes, the boy watched the light flash and fade.
It came from behind the palace—a red light that told him Haruhime was still in danger.
He ran to the closest window, looking skyward in disbelief.
However…
“—Not yet!”
He kicked off the floor at full speed.
It wasn’t over yet, and Mikoto would never give up!
Bell set his sights on the Floating Garden to carry out their backup plan: to destroy the Killing Stone.
“There’s still a chance…!”
—At that exact moment, Mikoto looked at the Floating Garden with determination in her eyes. She’d made an emergency landing on the outside wall of the palace but was back on her feet.
Nothing had been set in stone, and Bell would never give up!
She bit down on the sleeve of her black kimono and tore off strips of fabric. Mikoto wrapped them around her injured shoulder while on the run, eyes completely focused on her destination.
Their rescue operation was becoming a matter of life and death.
The roof of the ziggurat—the Floating Garden.
Several towers extended well beyond its forty-story height to protect it. The palace reached farther into the sky just beside it. Each stone block that made up the ground of the wide building had been meticulously placed to be exactly level and to have absolutely no cracks between each slab.
The stone slabs that made up the Floating Garden were a synthesized hybr
id of a black ore called darubu mixed with a large amount of lunatic light stones. Each of them reacted to the moonlight shining down from above by releasing a steady stream of soft pale-blue light that spread across the surface like a floating carpet.
“Samira, everything ready yeeet?”
“Yeah, can’t you use your eyes? All that’s left is waitin’ for the moon to get in position.”
Half of Ishtar Familia’s Berbera, including almost all the members Level 3 and higher, had gathered in the Floating Garden.
Over one hundred Amazons were walking barefoot across the pale, bluish-white slate, congregating in the center. Phryne walked up to the one in charge of overseeing the preparations for the ritual, Samira. The gray-haired Amazon jerked her chin toward the center.
There, in the middle of the solemn, dreamlike Floating Garden, stood three tall and thin stone pillars, arranged in a triangular formation around an altar.
The stone altar itself glowed even brighter than the stone slabs of the roof. Its light reacted with the pillars, breaking off into sparkling streams as it mixed with the moonlight.
The garden and the altar were designed to serve one purpose: increase the power of the Killing Stone. There was a risk of splitting the soul should the stone be used by itself. With this much energy to draw from, the Killing Stone would be able to seal the soul in its entirety.
Phryne’s eyes narrowed as she grinned. Samira stood next to her, watching the sky.
A great deal of the clouds had disappeared. An unobstructed night sky filled with stars and a stunning full moon spread out over the Floating Garden.
All the Amazons were waiting for one thing—for the light emanating from the altar to turn from light blue to dark red. Then the ritual could begin.
“Haruhimeee! Stop loafin’ around and get to the altarrr!”
Phryne turned away from the altar as her booming voice filled the air.
The mass of Amazons stepped aside to make way. A renart girl dressed in a gorgeous red kimono quietly put one foot in front of the other as she silently marched toward the front.
