The Beginning of the End
The commander of a small contingent of paladins, John, gazed at the massive undead horde surging toward them. His voice rang out, heavy with solemn authority.
He had originally come to this place on a routine patrol when the villagers began whispering strange rumors. They spoke of a girl who had been acting oddly lately. A child who had lost her family to the demon race, barely clinging to life. Whispers that she might be in contact with the demons.
Though they had found no direct evidence, the villagers had grown visibly anxious. In response, John had issued his orders without hesitation.
"B-but… As we said, it’s only speculation. There’s no proof at all…"
"Still…"
"U-understood! Then…"
At John’s command, the girl was dragged forward. At a glance, she was utterly powerless—a frail, ordinary child. Yet the moment he laid eyes on her, John issued his verdict without pause.
"What?"
"B-but…"
John gave the execution order without the slightest hesitation. Both the girl and the gathered villagers were seized by shock and confusion, yet his resolve did not waver. Even John knew full well that the girl had committed no crime. But this was a dangerous time when filthy demons were raiding the entire region. The world had become a living hell where death could strike at any moment. In such times, what the people needed most was sharp vigilance and unbreakable unity. And so he had decided to use this innocent girl as the sacrificial offering to achieve that.
"U-understood…"
Following John’s command, a trembling villager raised the implement of execution. In his hands were a heavy hammer, sharp nails, and a wooden sign that read Demon.
"W-what are you doing?!"
The terrified girl finally realized what was about to happen as the villager pressed the sign and nail against her chest. In a voice thick with desperation, she cried out.
Despite her pleas, the hammer rose slowly. Overwhelmed by the unimaginable horror of what was to come, the girl’s scream tore from her throat.
The girl screamed as the nail was driven into her heart. The horrific scene filled the onlookers with deep, instinctive terror. Against the backdrop of a young girl’s death—something far more shocking than the death of an ordinary person—came a terrifying warning. The villagers struggled to maintain order through sheer primal fear. To them, the paladin John declared in a proud voice:
By planting fear deep in the hearts of the villagers, John prepared them for the coming war. And at this very moment, as he watched the enemy assault he had anticipated, he shouted in a voice full of confidence.
It did not matter how many enemies there truly were, nor how strong his own forces were. What mattered most in this moment was spirit. The courage to stand against countless undead without retreating, and the faith to believe in God. John was certain that with those two things, a miracle would surely come.
John shouted with absolute confidence. The undead horde charged toward them. The villagers and paladins swung their weapons in response. But then—
"GYAAAAAH!!!"
"GURRRGH!!!"
"W-what…? How… how is this happening…?"
Approximately five minutes later, John’s steadfast faith shattered into thick doubt, confusion, and finally despair. The villagers and his subordinate paladins collapsed helplessly before the undead onslaught. Contrary to his expectation of a miraculous victory, nothing of the sort occurred before his eyes. All he could see was a brutally one-sided massacre. The miracle from God that he had desperately prayed for—even at the cost of an innocent life—did not appear. Not even a fragment of it.
John cried out in despair amid the dying soldiers. Yet no matter how earnestly he begged, the voice of God never reached him. All that remained was a merciless slaughter. And at its center stood not only his dying subordinates, but himself as well.
The undead shattered his holy barrier and began tearing his body apart. They bit into his legs with jagged teeth, hacked his arms apart with blades, and ripped open his guts. The pain far exceeded anything a human could endure. As he died slowly, being devoured alive, a single thought rose in John’s mind.
From the very beginning… there had never been a God. The deity he had devoted his entire life to calling upon was nothing more than an illusion that never existed.
Fenrir had wiped an entire village from the map. Immediately afterward, she led her forces straight toward Sagunto.
Fenrir gave the order in an ice-cold voice. Thanks to her efforts, the enemy formation had already been shattered. The massive undead army that followed in her wake destroyed everything in its path—the soldiers guarding the castle, the filthy nobles, and even the repulsive, hypocritical clergymen who cried out to their god until the very end.
In the end, Fenrir achieved total victory through complete annihilation. Yet at this moment, she showed no interest whatsoever in the victory she had foreseen.
Her gaze was fixed on a small figure before her. A corpse that had already grown cold. Looking at it, Fenrir felt as though something inside her heart was crumbling.
She offered no reply to Zeke’s question. Right now, her attention was focused solely on the child. The small body that would never move again. A girl who had shown humans what they called possibility, only to meet such a futile and miserable end. Fenrir trembled with rage at the human atrocity of slaughtering even such young children without hesitation.
Her resolve crystallized with perfect clarity.
Humans… are truly nothing but trash that deserves to be destroyed. Every last one of them must be purged without exception!
Fenrir returned slightly later than expected after finishing her task. She had completely swept Sagunto clean as promised. Seeing her return, I smiled deeply and said,
"You flatter me, Demon King. I merely did what needed to be done."
Fenrir spoke in a grave tone. Her demeanor was markedly different from her usual lively self, so I asked with a hint of curiosity,
"Is something wrong? You don’t look well at all."
"…Yes, there is."
Surprisingly, she answered without resistance. Normally, Fenrir would have brushed such concerns aside with talk of the Demon King’s grace and asked for nothing beyond simple praise. But this time, her eyes held a deep, earnest emotion unlike anything I had seen before. It was the look of someone who had something she desperately needed to request.
Feeling both puzzled and intrigued, I asked her directly.
"Can you tell me what happened?"
"…It’s that…"
She began recounting everything that had transpired. How she had been injured after falling into a human trap. How a human girl had saved her life. And… how those filthy humans had driven a nail through that same girl’s chest in the shape of a cross.
After finishing her story, Fenrir looked at me with desperate eyes and spoke in a trembling voice.
"…"