Chapter 65
Chapter 65
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 65
Chapter Title: S2. Resentment Wished Upon the Stars -8
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The white-hooded fanatics circled the mansion, howling incomprehensible shrieks. Like moths swarming a faded lantern, they brimmed with sparkling innocence.
Drunk on religious ecstasy, they drooled or cackled madly. The pristine white flames devouring Abraham's mansion fueled their faith and fervor. The stars sang out, blessing this sacred rite.
At the center of that whirl of euphoria stood Saintess Tara.
"......Ughk."
She felt such visceral revulsion that she nearly heaved up bile.
In the shadows of those white hoods, she glimpsed the priests of the goddess faith. Blind devotion, sacrificing everything to fulfill their god's will. Tara simply couldn't comprehend it.
How can you laugh like that? Flames were clinging to your body, charring you from the limbs inward. Your ankles were twisted and swollen black from dancing without a care.
The blaze surged like it meant to erase every trace a man had left behind. Memories melted into the house, his tender paternal love, the short stack of moments they'd built—all swallowed by that pure white faith, consumed as the fanatics' plaything and gone.
Her vision shook, tears welling and blurring it all.
If becoming a mere accessory to a god, discarding every other value into the trash— if that was truly so joyous. If abandoning family and friends for such trifles was the way.
Then what really deserved to be thrown away──.
"Tara-!!"
Someone seized her shoulder and bellowed her name. Tara shuddered like she'd woken from a dream, snapping free of those brain-melting thoughts.
Her refocused gaze fell on a man with ash-gray hair veiling half his face. The flames scorching everything cast hues across him, making his features look ghostly pale at a glance.
A man she'd bickered with endlessly in their short time together.
"......Bennett."
"Snap out of it—this isn't the time! Niore's already inside the mansion. I'll hold off the lunatics, you go save Abraham!"
With that, Bennett drew his longsword and charged. The fanatics wouldn't tolerate anyone spoiling their festival—they seared their own limbs with flames, shrieking spells skyward.
Kaang-!
Sounds of shattering, slashing, boots pounding earth, space itself quaking. The clamor of battle rang out right before her nose. Yet it felt like an echo from some distant void. Her head was numb.
Right... Abraham.
Saintess Tara stumbled into the mansion. In that moment, a single image filled her mind.
The house where Mom and Dad had lived. Her triumphant return. Rehearsing words of reunion in her heart, fingers on the knob, twisting it open. One step inside, ready to voice the worry and love she'd bottled up for a month.
Hesitantly calling their names.
The door creaking wider, the interior gradually revealing itself from the right. The shelf they'd decorated as a family on the wall, Dad's favorite round chair, the pillar etched with marks of her growing height, the round table where they'd all gathered for meals. And.
Pale fingers.
A gaunt wrist, forearm, shoulder—two corpses slumped in death. Flies buzzing wildly. The gut-wrenching stench of rot wafting up, unidentified fluids smeared on the floor, feet swollen grotesquely, and.
On the left wall, a wooden statue of the benevolent goddess gazing down upon it all.
She'd already lost them once; she wasn't sure she could bear it twice.
So this time... please.
"......Abraham!"
The pale flames seemed to scorch time and space themselves. Brushing against them as she roamed the mansion didn't blister the skin—instead, wrinkles formed and age spots bloomed.
Saintess Tara cloaked her body in mana. It let her resist even those pristine white flames. She plunged deeper into the mansion, glancing around. No sign of Abraham at the dining table where they'd eaten together, nor in the armchair by the hearth.
Then, on the wall by the stairs to the second floor. An arrow scratched in ink caught her eye. Niore, who'd entered first, must have left it. Saintess Tara followed it, dashing up.
The arrow led to a trapdoor. To the rooftop with its perfect view of the stars. Tara climbed the ladder of the already-lowered hatch. Gripping the final rung, she hauled herself up.
The night sky stretched above.
The mansion blazed entirely in white light, yet the stars shone with vivid clarity. Tara felt eyes upon her. Each star like a pupil in some vast, holy being. As if something immense and divine peered down.
Her gaze dropped earthward, to Niore's rigid silhouette. She stood before the table where Abraham piled his observation notes.
"Niore, where's Abraham?!"
"........."
No reply came. Perhaps that silence was the reply. Tara shook her head, rejecting it. No. It can't be. She stepped forward cautiously, planning to grab Niore and ask.
Niore had sharp eyes. Even if she hadn't found Abraham, she could spot clues. If only she'd say... He seems to have escaped. He's probably still alive. If she'd just say it.
Before Tara's outstretched hand could reach her, Niore crumpled. As if an unbearable weight had settled on her shoulders.
And then, what had been hidden came into view.
"........."
Abraham's severed head lay on the table as a burnt offering.
The fanatics' flesh seemed frail, bereft of proper defenses. Their reaction times and movements were those of ordinary folk without mana, easy enough to kill with minimal physical force.
But their lethality was chillingly high.
"Gaaaargh!"
Wood-crack. Squelch.
One fanatic finished chanting and twisted like a wrung-out rag, spiraling to death. In exchange for his life, a sliver of some cosmic entity's power lanced out. A bullet that warped space itself.
Their magic blended black sorcery and divine power. Cast through sacrifice, drawing strength from without.
"Instant Freeze."
Shaaak-!
Bennett froze his shoe soles and slid right under the spell. Dodging alone steadily thinned their ranks. No need to push; defense sufficed.
A magic swordsman shone in such defensive scraps. Magic handled variables, swordplay the kills.
"Rock Creation."
That was why Bennett hadn't specialized in one school—he'd learned a broad array. Magic merely patched utility gaps.
Whip-!
Splat!
A jagged rock Bennett hurled pulped a fanatic's skull. He followed up by smashing through a wall into the mansion. Spells rained on his afterimage.
Groooowl-!
The mansion's outer wall warped and vanished amid quaking space. Bennett emerged from cover, hurling two rocks through the breach.
Thwack.
Two bodies hit the dirt near-simultaneously. The staggering corpses sizzled in white flames, rotting to sludge without a whiff of smoke.
He could hold out an hour like this... but.
The walls crumbled, pierced, burned—the mansion groaned. Relying on cover much longer risked collapse before saving Abraham.
Fighting in the open without cover was too risky. The saintess's spells had blocked some, and his sword barriers could too. But mana drain was steep. With unknown reinforcements, he needed to conserve.
Bennett had a solution for it all.
Black magic.
Another reason he hadn't specialized: soul-fueled spells massively amplified even his eclectic arsenal.
Should he? But.
If Saintess Tara sensed the residue, trouble. She wouldn't tolerate a black mage—he'd have to kill her and Niore.
As he agonized, the fanatics craned necks skyward, then retreated one by one like they'd been waiting. Now? Bennett felt a sharp unease.
He glanced up. The night sky was bulging.
What had seemed flat now curved oddly. Like a swelling balloon, ready to burst and rain something down.
Bennett bolted into the mansion. Whatever was coming, they had to flee fast. He followed Niore's arrows to the roof.
And came face-to-face with Abraham's severed neck.
Tara lay slumped at an angle, retching tears and bile from the mental shock. Niore stood frozen with vacant eyes, swaying like a nightmare victim. And Abraham was decapitated.
The mansion still burned; flames flickering in the wind spawned and banished dozens of shadows. A hellscape.
"......What in the world."
Bennett steadied himself, scanning around.
Abraham's head was butchered like a hog or cow. Tongue excised, sockets empty and blackened, lips sewn into a rictus grin. A sacrificial brand scarred his forehead.
A burnt offering.
Someone had consecrated even his soul. Bennett knew what offering a soul meant. The agony of it being ripped free. Abraham had died in torment—and might still be screaming.
Blood scrawl nearby:
'You gave us a flawed she-goat, and so we offer due thanks.'
Madman's gibberish, meaningless.
Rage flared in Bennett's core. But he reined it in. Work remained. Escape the danger first.
"Tara, Niore! Get it together!"
"......This time too, I... this time too, too late......"
"......!!"
Slap-!
Bennett backhanded Tara's cheek. Her head snapped, eyes briefly focusing through the haze.
"We have to get out. Sky's wrong—something's coming. Stay put, we're dead meat! Move!"
He slung motionless Niore over his shoulder, gripped Tara's wrist, and pulled. Time for Abraham's head later—protecting these two came first.
Bennett fled blindly. The dread presence overhead swelled with every second. Like escaping a bomb's blast radius, he ran until.
He stopped where he'd first met Abraham.
The trash depot. Slum's edge to outside. Clothing bin flaunting green like welcoming reunion, busted streetlamp flickering faintly.
Bennett dumped Niore, released Tara's wrist. Then sank to the spot. He stared at Abraham's mansion.
Something.
Some star-sky formless thing, size beyond reckoning. Blinking constellation eyes, lolling a tongue black as space.
Maw yawning impossibly wide, it gulped the mansion whole. Then, like reward, vomited pitch-black sludge earthward. Too far to see clear.
But their silhouettes screamed monsters.
Monsters loose in the city.
Niore stood dazed a moment. Then bit her index finger till it bled. She ground it across rough asphalt, scrawling letters.
"......No. He'd be dead. Cut the pointless thoughts. The Silver Twilight Cult would've hit regardless of us. I... I'd have ditched Abraham. Objections or not, I would've."
"......Enough. Stop writing. Wastes a finger-heal spell. We need to save mana. Head to safety..."
The report's temporary outpost. Carter Street 201, Eastern Arcade second floor.
Scouted gear stashed there too—perfect now they'd lost their base. Time to move. Bennett started urging Tara and Niore—but.
"The secret safehouse the investigator mentioned... we'll leave in ten minutes."
He granted respite. Their cracked hearts needed time to mend, to mourn, to rise again.
As stars and moon clasped hands overhead, mocking the ground below, the flickering streetlamp offered the sole comfort.