Since We've Started, the Boss Too (4)
Berna glared at me as if she meant to kill me on the spot.
“Shut up!”
Her reaction was sharp enough to cut.
The pieces of the puzzle roughly clicked into place.
This woman had killed Eldacrad that day and regretted it. She knew she had done wrong. She simply refused to admit it—because admission would have meant denying her own love. So she fled from reality and devoted herself to the Demon King, a being that barely even qualified as a living creature. Even now, when she scarcely had the strength left to stand against me, she still would not confess her fault right to the end.
Thud!
Well now.
Apparently she had worked herself into enough of a temper to shove me. As expected of a Four Heavenly King—she still packed a decent amount of force. And at once she tried to weave dark magic again.
“Didn’t I already tell you? You’re going to face me with magic? A fallen saint of all things?”
Berna paid my words no mind and simply waved a hand through empty air.
Ssssssss…
Before I knew it, a fresh army stood behind her. No—those were humans. People bound hand and foot stared at me with pleading faces.
“You keep calling me a fallen saint. You claimed to be the Saint of the Empire, didn’t you? Then tell me—can you bring yourself to kill people?”
There was a limit to how far she could look down on me.
“Please save us!”
“Miss, please save us!”
“Waaaah! Mommyyy!”
On the surface they looked like ordinary humans. In truth they were already fallen. The terrifying strength of the Authority of Fall lay in its absolute nature: once corrupted, the victim could not be restored unless the caster herself released them.
“What are you even saying, you idiot?”
Could I kill people? What kind of brainless question was that?
Crunch! Crack!
I simply burst every one of them. It was already too late for them. I had said as much. I was not some dim-witted hero who would make a battle harder by trying to reverse the irreversible. I was no saint either. Those people—men, women, old, young—were nothing more than pawns. Had I left them alive, those pitiful expressions begging for rescue would have flipped into pure killing intent. They would have waited for an opening and tried to murder me from the inside.
“You crazy bitch. Doesn’t it bother you that the victims—?”
Berna had already spread her wings again and taken to the air as she spoke.
Coming from your mouth, of all people. Unbelievable.
“Exactly as you said—this is the Empire’s Goddess Church, a faith without roots. Saints of the kingdoms or the Holy Kingdom might prattle on about doctrines like ‘sacrifice yourself for humanity’ or ‘stand against evil and protect the people.’ Those tired old lines. The Imperial Church is nothing like that.”
Even the Pope himself spent his days carrying middle-aged nuns around in his arms. Why would I be any different? The place was little more than a private army training ground.
“No! You’re not the Lord!”
“Have you completely lost your mind mid-fight? Are you equating me with your grandfather now?”
Or perhaps she was already shopping for a new Lord and testing me.
“If it were the Lord, he would have found a way to save them.”
“Is that the same logic that drove your grandfather to his death?”
I teleported and drove my fist into her.
Bam!
I smashed her again for good measure.
“Kyaaaak!”
Berna went flying far too easily. After taking several blows in mid-air she still hadn’t come to her senses. It was high time I tore those wings off her.
“Honestly, Eldacrad’s memories are cut off in places, so I don’t know the full story. But no matter how I look at it, Eldacrad dying so easily against Seto and you simply doesn’t add up.”
The Eldacrad of those memories would have dragged at least this one woman with him if nothing else. He hadn’t. Most likely this bitch had unleashed the same fallen humans just so she herself could survive.
“So what? A fake is walking around playing Lord. I’ll kill you by any means necessary.”
Talking too much was poison for her. I didn’t even need to finish her with raw skill. Simply speaking with Olivia—Eldacrad’s bloodline—was enough to make her fall apart on her own.
“Anyway, enough of that. First of all, you flapping around is starting to disgust me.”
“What are you—kyaaaaaaak!”
I seized both of her ungainly wings and ripped them clean off.
“They’re made of demonic energy, so stop pretending it hurts.”
Victory was already mine. Should I just kill her outright? Was there any real reason to keep her breathing? I had already slain the Demon King; a mere Four Heavenly King was no different. Everything felt bothersome. I wanted them all dead. A useless Demon King and his equally useless Four Heavenly Kings. Kill them.
I stopped short.
Not yet. There was no reason to think that way right now. Eldacrad’s revenge mattered, but I still wasn’t certain whether killing a Four Heavenly King was allowed. So—until she collapsed. I would beat her until recovery became nearly impossible and leave her critically wounded.
“Khuh…”
“Running away now, are we?”
“The only person who can kill me is the Lord! If you’re not the Lord, I have no reason to die for you!”
Berna squeezed out whatever strength remained and tore open a black hole in the air. With her face already a ruined mess, was she seriously trying to flee? While claiming everything was for the Lord’s sake, she was ready to abandon even the castle. Getting punched must have finally cleared her head a little. As expected—crazy bitches only come to their senses after a proper beating.
By now the Third Legion should have been torn apart as well, and I had wrecked Crad Castle all over again, so either way it was Ashtar’s victory. Still… should I simply let her escape?
“Ah.”
While I was thinking, Berna vanished. The unique spatial-transfer technique of the Four Heavenly Kings. Truly disgusting. I should have grabbed her the instant she moved and driven her head straight into the ground. I always end up regretting these things a second too late.
“Does it even matter all that much?”
Come to think of it, it had been the same back when I was Noah. I simply beat them half to death and drove them off. Every last one of the Four Heavenly Kings had been like that. Meeting them again was simply difficult. At this point her power was nearly gone; I could just treat her as having fled. Even so, failing to land the finishing blow left a faintly unpleasant aftertaste. Eldacrad had asked even me—back when I was Noah—for revenge. The unfinished business nagged at me.
Then again, someone had been watching me for a while now.
“Saintess. Isn’t that direction where Lady Celia is?”
Kaisey. She had been secretly observing the fight; now she stepped to my side and pointed west. Outside the castle I could indeed see the same black space that had opened moments earlier. She had fled an unexpectedly short distance.
No. Wait a second.
“She’s going after Lady Celia—”
“Ah, fuck.”
Of course. Over there Celia’s teddy bears were already massacring the fallen army. Flying in that direction meant she was targeting Celia.
“We’ve been taught about the Four Heavenly Kings as well. In the worst case she could fall. Wouldn’t it be wiser to pursue immediately?”
Berna had run in order to reverse the tide of battle. To do that she needed new allies. Right now the best candidate she could corrupt was Celia. She must have calculated that even I would hesitate if Celia fell. And to corrupt someone, Berna needed to lay hands on them.
“Ah—no need to worry about that.”
It was a little irritating that she had headed toward Celia, but there was nothing to worry about. The curse I had just spat out was for a different reason entirely.
“Pardon?”
“Well, of course. That girl is the next Magic Tower Master. It’s not as though teddy bears are all she has.”
Something had floated up in my memory only recently. I still didn’t know whether it was a side effect of becoming Olivia, but back in the Magic Tower I had seen it clearly: Celia’s power did not come from the teddy bears alone.
“To corrupt her, Berna still has to get close enough to touch her.”
Physical contact was mandatory. Therefore if Berna actually tried to corrupt Celia… it might become the worst possible outcome for me. Truly the worst—in several senses of the word.
“Because that girl is…”
Berna escaped Crad Castle.
The Ashtar girl had been stronger than expected. At this rate she would certainly be caught. Yet Berna, her body painted in blood, had already found a way to reverse the situation: corrupt Celia, who was currently hunting the demons pouring out of Crad. If she could borrow the power of those teddy bears, she would slip away from this place unharmed. She had crossed paths with Celia a few times already and had long since measured her strength.
Celia was right ahead. All she had to do was strike from behind.
Yes. If I corrupt that bitch, I can turn the entire battle around!
A woman who could do nothing without her teddy bears would take the seed of Fall in an instant. She already carried a love that could never be fulfilled; finding a crack for corruption would be child’s play. That was what Berna believed—right up until the moment she reached out for the back of Celia’s head from a distance so close their noses almost touched… and instead found her own head seized by Celia’s hand.
Grip—
“Gotcha.”
“Huh?”
A wide, delighted smile bloomed across Celia’s face. Of course it did. Olivia had promised she would do anything if Celia captured Berna.
“With this, I’m marrying Lady Olivia!”
Before Berna could even process what had happened, Celia’s hand locked around her skull and slammed it straight into the ground.
Crunch—crack—shatter!
Berna’s head cracked the earth of the Demon Realm like a sheet of broken glass.
“She’s a Battle Mage, you see.”
And the strongest one at that.
“A Battle Mage?”
“Ah, the meaning’s a little different. That girl Celia can’t do elemental magic or summoning magic properly. It’s beyond talent—her mana itself simply isn’t compatible with those systems.”
No matter how hard she practiced, elemental or summoning magic was hopeless for her. Her body contained a vast reservoir of mana. That overflowing power made casting ordinary spells nearly impossible; even grimoires and careful chanting proved useless. The only thing left for someone like her was combat.
What made her different from ordinary Battle Mages was the path she had walked. Most Battle Mages—whether adventurers, Magic Tower mages, or court mages—still learned theory and practical technique through some formal institution. Celia, however, could not be taught by the training grimoires left by past archmages, nor by any mage of the Magic Tower. Even if they tried, her mana was simply too special. Even while using it she continuously recharged from nature itself. Because her foundation was so completely different, no master and no conventional training could ever unlock her true strength.
So the method she chose was extremely simple: wrap herself in mana and beat people senseless like a street thug. The preamble has gone on too long. In short, she walks a Battle Mage path that polite mage society finds difficult to acknowledge. She hurls merciless, thug-like violence at her enemies and discards any notion of Battle Mage honor.
The teddy bears? I have no idea what their internal structure looks like and I don’t particularly care. Celia simply stuffs her overflowing mana into them, recovers from nature, and stuffs them full again. She can even use those same teddy bears as a finishing move. If she reabsorbs the mana she previously poured into them and raises her capacity past the limit, she enters a mana-fusion state. For several dozen seconds there is no one who can defeat her in close combat.
Therefore the moment Berna got close, Celia’s hands would wreck her. She was already weakened. I only hoped Celia wouldn’t kill her outright.
“How long has she been there?”
“Roughly thirty minutes, I believe. There were people in the basement as well. Three nuns were seriously injured.”
So that place had fallen too. The corrupted townsfolk had burned their own bodies to fuel Berna’s power. Then it was finished.
“They were fallen, then. The interior of the castle is completely cleaned up?”
“Yes.”
“Then let’s head out.”
This place was done anyway. Once we left the castle walls, Celia would naturally be waiting for us with Berna’s neck already in her grip.