10
Chapter 10
After hearing the boy's words, Rien ran swiftly to the village, only to be met with a scene beyond comprehension.
Corpses scattered everywhere.
Buildings engulfed in flames.
In the distance, she spotted a familiar face.
It was the woman who had always greeted her warmly.
But on that face, the gentle smile that had shared food with her, saying she'd accidentally made too much, was nowhere to be seen.
Only a woman remained, weeping with hollow eyes.
She clutched a lump of flesh to her chest.
As if it were the most precious thing in the world.
And soon enough, Rien realized that lump of flesh was the village rascal who used to play mischievous tricks on her.
Behind the wailing woman, the knight approached with merciless intent.
And.......
The woman's head came off with sickening ease.
Rien could not comprehend it at all.
Her mind couldn't keep up with what was happening.
With just a single swing of that blade.
Someone's life had ended.
Never again would Rien eat the pies the woman used to give her.
Never again would the village's notorious little prankster bring her bugs and giggle while playing tricks.
'Why?'
Rien stared blankly at the face of the knight who had severed the woman's head.
Not a trace of guilt could be found on that face.
Just smiling. Cutting off the ear and tucking it away carefully, saying he'd added another piece to his collection.
Exchanging jokes among themselves, placing bets on who could kill more.
Having such conversations.
While slaughtering people who were no different from family to Rien.
The man who was always scolded for his constant drinking, trembling with fear, still shielded his child and wife.
And the knight, wearing a sickening smile...... shoved the man aside and approached the child.
Holding the child, he crushed the screaming mother's skull with his hand, then slashed the boy's throat.
"Daddy, save me!"
Like playing with dolls, the knight pressed the child's severed head against his own face like a mask and spoke.
Mimicking the child's voice, he smirked creepily in front of the man who was screaming in grief over his lost family.
He even clapped and watched with delight as the man, driven mad, drove his own blade into his neck.
Her head spun.
She couldn't understand it at all.
She couldn't accept it at all.
That those things were the same kind of beings as her.
That those things were the same humans as her.
"Rien."
Someone placed a hand on her shoulder.
It was her father.
The High Priest was looking at her.
"You cannot go."
It was an expression she had never seen before. She had never seen him look so sorrowful, so agonized.
"Fate has come for you. Fate has found you......."
What that fate was.
Why her father was trying to stop her.
She had a vague idea.
"If you go, you will never be able to return."
Yet, even hearing those words, her feet did not stop.
The girl simply trudged toward the knights with blank, unfocused eyes.
Fate was guiding her.
Amidst the fleeing people, she alone faced hundreds of knights.
Their gazes focused entirely on her.
A man saw her, spewed vile words, and approached.
And...... Rien slashed the man's leg.
Blood spurted out like a fountain.
The knight panicked as he realized he had just lost his leg.
And Rien stared blankly at the sight.
And she understood.
Why she had slashed his leg.
She, who knew exactly where to sever, where to slash, and where to thrust the blade.
Even though she could see exactly how to kill a person most efficiently, why did she choose such an inefficient method?
She realized why.
"S-stay back! I said stay back! Can't you hear me?!"
The sight of him struggling so pitifully to survive.
It was because it felt beautiful to her.
Spilling blood, trembling in fear as his very existence faded away.
Realizing he was not immortal, that he was made of mere flesh and blood.
The screams he let out as he lost his mind to the agony.
It was all just...
...so incredibly thrilling.
'Ah.......'
Tears stream down the girl's face.
Rien remembered the promise she had just made with the boy.
She recalls the playful promise that if she ever loses her mind again, he would hold her like back then.
Embarrassing as it was, and shy as she felt, she remembers that promise, which in truth made her happier than anything else.
But that promise will never be fulfilled.
Yet, a smile plays on her lips.
Even as tears fall, she finds herself smiling as if she were so incredibly happy.
The girl realized her true nature.
It was not so different from those knights.
A murderer who delights in the deaths of others.
That is her true essence.
She was not a human, but a monster.
She was merely a monster who had deluded herself into thinking she could become human.
*****
A knight of the Empire.
Sian, who had taken command of this expedition, was gripped by fear as he desperately stifled his breathing.
He wanted to cover his ears right then and there.
Laughter.
He could hear laughter.
He could hear laughter filled with madness.
Sian could not understand that monster at all.
The knights of the Empire were not weak.
They were the elite among elites.
This was a gathering of men who could crush a human skull with their grip alone.
And yet, not a single one could resist that girl.
What were once people were being reduced to lumps of flesh.
Knights who had fought alongside him through countless battles were being reduced to something less than human.
Even when they tried to defend with mana.
Even when they deployed magic.
Nothing worked against that monster.
Laughing grotesquely, the monster ravaged the people.
Sian could see no future where he survived this.
If only the enemy were a demon, there would be a way.
A demon was not an incomprehensible foe.
Rather, they made good contract partners.
When he had purged the lowborn who rebelled against the Empire last time,
it was a demon who had granted Sian great power just for having some fun with a few children in front of their parents.
After all, they were generous creatures who even paid rewards for his hobbies.
But that thing was no demon.
Something that could not be understood through common sense.
A monster to whom human logic simply did not apply.
The laughter draws closer.
But he cannot escape.
His body will not move.
He had run out of subordinates to use as meat shields.
And so, Sian could only sit there, watching the girl approach him.
He saw something incomprehensible, weeping more sorrowfully than anyone, yet smiling more happily than anyone.
That was Sian's last memory.
*****
The High Priest stared blankly at the sky.
He no longer needed to perform any ritual to know.
That the thing he had feared so deeply had finally come to pass.
That fate had found the child.
In a way, it was inevitable.
Fate is fate, precisely because it cannot be escaped.
In the end, even the fact that the High Priest could not bring himself to kill that child who was like his own daughter.
And the fact that such a disaster struck today.
It was all predetermined.
It could not be changed.
The villagers flee in terror.
No, they were so terrified they couldn't even run.
Right now, the only one who could maintain his sanity was the High Priest.
For everyone besides the High Priest was failing to withstand the ominous curse pouring down from the sky.
The sky turned crimson.
An aura of a god could be felt.
But this was not the god they had served.
No, could that even be called a god?
Something that drives people mad just by looking at it, emitting an ominous curse that destroys the minds of those simply in its vicinity.
Rien.
That entity about to be born, using the child as a vessel.
Could it be called a god?
......I do not know.
The only thing he knew for certain was that, whatever happened, this was the end of the line for him.
When an entity that brings only death descends upon this world, there was no way they could survive.
The High Priest's power was also reaching its limit.
He could no longer endure the curse.
Something was encroaching on his mind.
Stories that he could not comprehend, and shouldn't comprehend, were being whispered in his ears.
His vision slowly began to blur.
And within that fading vision, the High Priest...
...saw a man.
The incomprehensible knowledge scrambling his mind.
The fear and overwhelming pressure etching itself into his body.
He saw a man taking on those curses—curses that would drive anyone mad the moment they touched them—upon himself, while walking straight toward the source of the curse on his own two feet.
It made no sense.
He couldn't understand it at all.
After all, he couldn't feel anything from that man.
He wasn't even protecting his body with Divine Power like the High Priest was. No Mana could be felt from him.
With nothing but sheer will,
and with a mental fortitude that could hardly be considered human, he was enduring the curse.
And yet, he was walking toward the source of the curse of his own volition.
Gradually, his consciousness began to fade.
The High Priest squeezed out the last of his strength to speak.
That he must not go.
That if he set foot in there, he would never survive.
But the man did not stop.
Without even looking back, he walked into the jaws of death on his own two feet.
Leaving behind only those incomprehensible words—that he had a promise to keep.