The Witch's Daughter Unbound
"Let go! Let go of me!"
A male student flailed his legs wildly. He was being carried along like a sack of luggage over the shoulder of one of the feather soldiers Serne had summoned.
"I can't go like this! Not without Death Knight materials—absolutely not!"
But of course the feather soldier couldn't understand a word. It simply carried out the orders it had been given, faithful to the letter.
The last transport chimera was waiting behind the museum, and the feather soldier dumped its captive student through the chimera's gaping maw.
"Urk!"
The thrown student lifted his head. Inside the chimera, the students who had arrived late sat rigid with grim faces. Clambering to his feet on the slick interior of the creature's body, he let out a scream.
"No! No! Even if I die, I refuse to go out like this!"
He tried to force his way back out of the chimera, but a pair of hands grabbed him firmly around the waist. He turned to find Toto clinging to him with his whole body, whimpering.
"Let go! What do you think you're doing?"
"...The priests broke through. Professor Grelion and the defense team are fighting for their lives out there."
Toto's voice was thick with tears.
"If you walk out, everything everyone has sacrificed to protect us will have been for nothing."
"......"
The student's mouth opened and closed, unable to form a reply—then he collapsed back where he sat.
"Ah, fffffff—!"
He spat out a long string of curses and tipped his head back. Only then did Toto, glancing nervously at him, slowly loosen his grip on the man's waist.
"Hey, kid."
"Y-yeah?"
"I never got my Death Knight materials, in the end."
He rubbed his eyes roughly with the back of his hand.
"If it stays like this, forget building a Death Knight—I'll be standing around empty-handed in every single practicum from now on. A few of my evaluation scores are as good as gone."
His hands trembled violently, as if gripped by a palsy.
"Do you have any idea how I got here? Huh? Do you know what my family did? They sold the shop so they could bankroll my materials—just so I could get into Kizen! Back home, they're all watching and waiting for me—only me!"
"......"
"Either I go out there and die fighting the priests, or I sit here with my hands tied and wash out before third year! If it's all the same in the end—"
He shot to his feet.
"I'd rather go down swinging!"
"No! Absolutely not!"
Toto grabbed his sleeve again. The male student's eyes glinted with pure irritation.
"Damn it! You got your Death Knight materials, so it's easy for you to talk, isn't it? Huh?"
"I didn't."
Gem-like tears dripped down Toto's cheeks, one after another.
"I didn't get them either."
"......"
"But I can't keep being a burden to everyone else. We have to stay calm. The teaching assistant said not all of us might make it back. Staying behind here—that's the path that's best for everyone."
The male student held his silence for a moment, then sank back down onto his seat. And then his gaze drifted to the far end of the chimera, where one student was fidgeting restlessly, pestering the assistant—it wasn't dangerous, was it? Couldn't we just leave with the ones already here?
The man gave a hollow little laugh.
"Cold-blooded, huh. Right. So it all comes down to competition in the end? Stay in this school long enough and your humanity starts rotting in real time. What is it with this endless competition......"
Clank!
Just then, a suit of Bone Armor leapt down into the chimera. Toto's eyes went wide.
"S-Simon?"
It was none other than Simon's Dragonian Suit. It turned its hands over and poured out the armfuls of bones it had been carrying.
Jumbled and battered as they were, they were unmistakably the remains of paladins. Four bodies, by the look of them.
"Don't tell me......!"
The Dragonian Suit gestured at Toto, explaining something with its hands. As the meaning sank in, Toto's eyes welled up with gratitude.
"It's a message from Simon! Whoever's missing materials is to take one body each!"
"Seriously?"
Two other students who had been sulking over their own empty hands came scrambling over at once.
The bones weren't in the best condition, but they were something—anything at all. Every student who had come away empty-handed finally managed a faint, fragile smile.
Meanwhile, a little distance away from the chimera—
"The problem is that Simon is just far too kind for his own good."
Serne said it with a bright, bubbling laugh.
Feathers drifted and whirled all around her, and the shattered corpses of Holy Creatures lay scattered across the ground.
Crack!
Simon, who had just blasted another Holy Creature apart with a kick, wiped the sweat from his brow.
"I just found things the other kids had left behind on the way here, that's all. If I can help, I help. Simple as that."
"My, my. Is that what they call the composure of the strong?"
She slipped in close and looped her arm around his.
"A heart as stubbornly good as yours—every once in a while, it's rather charming."
'That was a compliment, right?'
"What do you think you're doing?"
Just then, Lorraine came walking toward Simon and Serne.
Sweat beaded on her forehead, which told them she'd been through a pitched battle of her own.
When she shot Serne a venomous glare, Serne—as if to say, what of it?—pressed herself even tighter against Simon's side.
"Lorraine, how did the third floor go?"
Simon forced a smile and changed the subject.
"Fine. I got the last two people out safe and sent them off. Looks like they found their materials too. Everyone but our defense team is on the chimeras now."
Sure enough—in the distance, two students could be seen just climbing aboard a chimera.
Serne folded her arms.
"So. What do we do now?"
"We go help Professor Grelion, obviously—"
The moment the words left her mouth, Lorraine's pupils began to tremble violently. Simon followed her gaze.
'Ah.'
For an instant, Simon's mind went completely blank.
It was far away, but he could see it with terrible clarity.
A crimson cross, hoisted high against the hazy fog.
And within it, unmistakable—a man wearing a pair of shattered sunglasses, both arms nailed fast and pinned in place.
Lorraine clapped a hand over her mouth.
"......Professor Grelion?"
Beside him, another, smaller cross was being raised. A teaching assistant hung from that one too. Simon, watching, could not suppress his horror.
'A Kizen professor—defeated?'
By whom?
What kind of priest had come to this place?
While Simon's expression froze solid, Serne rested her chin in her hand and spoke.
"It seems they intend to capture everyone and execute them. What a nasty hobby."
"......We have to go save them."
"No, Simon. That's Chief Inquisitor Rate we're talking about."
Simon felt the blood run cold in every vein of his body.
He had seen Chief Inquisitor Rate up close once before, back in the Holy Federation. And he knew exactly how strong the man was.
And yet.
"I'm going anyway."
Simon flung open his subspace.
From within, a towering skeleton emerged, an ethereal cape billowing around it.
[Keh heh heh heh! It's been an age since I felt a tension this invigorating!]
It was Pier, Manager of the 7th Legion.
Simon drew out a zombie as well and whispered into the ring on his left hand.
"Prince. If you can hear me, drop everything and come here at once."
He pressed the ring to the zombie's forehead.
A moment later, black lightning crashed down with a rolling thunder, and the zombie transformed into a young nobleman dressed in aristocratic finery.
[What the—first time I've been summoned in ages, and it's straight into Holy Federation territory?]
The captain of the zombie corps—Prince.
Simon intended to draw on the full power of his legion. When Serne realized he was utterly serious, she smacked her lips.
"You two fall back with the chimeras. I'll do whatever it takes to save Professor Grelion—"
Click.
Just then, Lorraine, who had been standing in silence, activated her communication crystal.
"Assistant, please depart with the students. We will rescue Professor Grelion and return on our own."
-Lo-Lorraine! But......!
"This is an emergency. By the authority of the name Archbold, I command you: depart. Now."
At the name Archbold, the assistant could say nothing more. The long, centipede-like chimera carrying the students finally began to move out.
"Simon. Listen to me carefully."
Lorraine raised her hand to the necklace at her throat—the seal that bound her ability.
In the meantime, a third crimson cross rose into the air, and another assistant was dragged toward it.
If they didn't hurry, every last one of them would be executed by Rate.
"When I break this seal and unleash my ability and my Jet-Black, Rate will come straight for me. Without fail."
"What?"
"In that window, you save Professor Grelion and the assistants. Understood?"
When Simon hesitated, Lorraine looked at him with eyes that burned steady and red.
"You're the only one who can do this. Please, Simon."
Her resolve was iron. Simon nodded and turned to Serne.
"Serne."
"Yeees? Shall we go together, then?"
Serne was already walking away, hands clasped behind her back, when Simon called after her.
"Stay here and protect Lorraine."
She stopped mid-step. Simon put every ounce of strength into his voice.
"I'm asking you."
"......"
When she turned back around, a foxlike smile had curled onto Serne's lips.
"Then I suppose it's high time we resumed stamping your Coupon Book. Very well."
"Time's short, so I'll begin now."
Lorraine removed the seal.
WHOOOOOOM!
Her black hair whipped wildly around her. Two crimson horns sprouted from Lorraine's forehead, and her ruby eyes gleamed. The very space around her began to split and shudder apart.
"Simon! Go!"
"I'll be counting on you!"
Simon flung his arms wide. Pier leapt in without a moment's delay and folded himself into the shape of the Bone Armor, and Prince followed close at his side.
Simon and Prince kicked off the ground and tore across the earth.
"Hmm—"
Serne seized her wind-tossed silver hair in one hand and stared straight ahead.
"So that monster really will come, will he?"
"He will. I guarantee it."
Lorraine's voice rang with absolute certainty.
"I've heard the stories about Rate until my ears have calluses over. He responds to overwhelming power and overwhelming pride."
Before the words had even finished leaving her mouth, a cross studded with a single eye rose into the air before the two girls.
Its pupil fixed itself upon Lorraine.
-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
An enormous laugh rolled across the distance.
Then the white fog began advancing toward them. The way it moved was like something with the shape of death itself, drawing near one slow step at a time.
FWOOOOOOM—!
Out of the fog, Rate emerged, Cross Blade in hand.
His body was drenched in blood. Bones and joints from the chimeras were driven into his abdomen, his shoulders—even his neck.
It was a scene that told exactly how savage the battle within Grelion's Chimera Field had been.
"Well, well. Who do we have here. I felt the Witch of Death's power and came hurrying over, and this is what I find."
Thud.
He stopped where he stood, plucked the vertebra lodged in his neck free, and let it drop to the ground.
"The witch's daughter, is it. Lorraine Archbold, was it?"
"......Chief Inquisitor Rate."
She drew the dagger at her thigh and leveled it forward. Lorraine's ability awakened within the blade, raising a surge of crimson energy.
"I know every one of the countless sins you've committed. Today is the day your wretched march comes to an end."
"How delightful."
Rate's mouth curled up, cool as still water.
"As Nephthys's daughter, I'd hoped to savor you once your power had ripened a few years more—but letting an opportunity like this slip away would be the act of a fool."
His mouth split open into something monstrous.
"Who can say? Nail a daughter to a cross, and perhaps the mother will come running to me before long."
Lorraine's face twisted into something savage.
Rate paid it no mind and turned his gaze on Serne beside her.
"This one needs no introduction either—the future Master of the Ivory Tower."
"Oh my. You flatter me, recognizing me like that."
Serne gathered the hem of her garment and lowered into a small, graceful bow.
"I'd love nothing more than to enjoy the Witch of Death's daughter at my leisure—but this once, I'm afraid I can't look away."
"Hmm—"
Serne laid a hand on her hip and put on a thoughtful expression.
Rate pressed on.
"Haven't you always dreamed of tearing Kizen down? I'm the golden opportunity to use me and erase this woman for good."
"You're not wrong on any of those counts, mind you."
Serne released her Jet-Black.
Feathers poured from her body and rose into the air.
Hundreds of them swirled, clustered, and interwove, transforming into countless shimmering magic circles.
"The man I want to impress asked me—asked me, personally—to protect this human. I could hardly bear his resentment later, now could I?"
"Then I'll just have to hang you both up side by side."
Shing.
Rate adjusted his grip and lowered his stance.
"Your professor killed me three times over. Let's see what you two can manage."
Rate shot forward, and Lorraine and Serne unleashed their black magic in the same instant.
Deafening detonations rang out, one after another after another.