Chapter 22: Revenge
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 22: Revenge
“Haaah… Time’s really dragging today.”
In the lord’s castle of Fracture.
Mikae, who was on watch duty, let out a long yawn.
The lethargy she exhaled was contagious, and Torres, who stood beside her, also let out a drawn-out yawn.
“Huuuaaah, smack. You can say that again. We’re usually done by now, but time feels especially slow today.”
“Don’t be like that. Why don’t you tell me an interesting story or something?”
“Look at this punk. Are you asking me to be your clown?”
“Hey, it’s not like that! I just wanted to hear the heroic tales of my great senior. You’ve been here longer than me, so you must have been through a lot.”
Mikae slipped out of the accusation with a practiced smoothness. Torres, who was easily swayed, fell for her flattery hook, line, and sinker, without a hint of suspicion.
“That’s true. It’s already been ten years since I started working here. There’s nothing I haven’t seen.”
“So please, tell me a fun story.”
“Hmm, what should I tell you? Ah, right. Do you know about the time a witch entered Fracture?”
“Of course, I do. I heard all hell broke loose. Why? Did you catch the witch, senior?”
Torres shook his head.
“Not the witch, but I caught her father. He didn’t just knock up a witch and father another one, he even tried to hide her. He was so vicious, he wouldn’t say a word no matter how much we tortured him.”
“To protect a witch… He must have been out of his mind.”
Torres let out a sigh.
He looked exhausted, as if just recalling that time was sickening.
“He must have been bewitched. There’s no other reason he’d protect a witch. Well, you don’t have to worry. I ended the bastard’s life with my own hands. When he was struggling at the end of the rope, I took my knife to his guts… Hey, what’s with that look on your face?”
Torres, who had been reenacting the event, couldn’t finish his sentence. Mikae’s expression was strange.
His face, drained of all color, was that of someone who had seen the unspeakable. Like a living man witnessing the Reaper himself.
“S-Senior… Be-behind… behind you…”
“Huh? Behind me?”
Torres turned around with a bored expression. Behind him, a Reaper wielding a scythe hovered in the air, scattering a dark blue smoke.
Torres blinked blankly.
“Did I doze off for a second…?”
Torres rubbed his eyes.
But no matter how many times he rubbed them, or closed and opened them, the Reaper didn't disappear. It was then that he realized this was not a dream, but reality.
“Wh-What is that!”
Terrified, Torres tried to draw his sword.
But the Reaper’s scythe was faster, slicing through him in an instant.
Sliice!
“Gack.”
A spray of blood followed the scythe’s diagonal arc. With a single groan, Torres’s upper and lower body slid apart, like a slice of cheese.
A pure white soul separated from Torres’s fallen body and began to circle the Reaper.
“Hiiiek!”
Mikae shrieked and collapsed to the floor, drenched in Torres’s blood.
The Reaper was, by its very nature, a taker of life.
The aura of death it emanated was more than enough to instill a primal fear in any living creature. Trembling like a leaf, Mikae’s lower half grew damp, and the sound of trickling liquid echoed in the hallway.
“P-Please, sp-spare…”
Mikae forced out the words, a pathetic attempt at a plea. The Reaper looked down at her, then approached.
She cowered, covering her face with her arms, but the Reaper passed right through her and vanished down the hall.
Mikae turned to look behind her, her face a mask of bewilderment.
A moment later, horrific screams echoed through the castle several times from the direction the Reaper had disappeared.
This is hell.
This has to be a dream. Yes, there’s no way this is real. When I wake up, I’ll see the familiar ceiling of my room.
Mikae stopped thinking and fell backward with a thud.
*
“Hold on, hold on!”
The cathedral of the Agartha branch in the city.
A Reaper that had appeared out of nowhere was hacking away at the cathedral's barrier with its scythe.
“I can’t hold it!” one of the saints maintaining the barrier shouted, sweat pouring down his face.
This was no ordinary Reaper.
It was formed from murderous resentment and powerful mana.
Moreover, its attacks were painted with such thick animosity, it was as if the killer of its parents was inside the barrier.
CRACK!
The barrier split under the Reaper’s blow.
Seven clergy members combined their strength to repair it, but it was not enough. From the moment the first attack landed, an irreparable crack had formed in the barrier.
Fragments began to fall from it.
It was only a matter of time before it shattered.
The Reaper raised its scythe high into the air. It swung down in a single motion, with enough force to split the moon in two.
This attack could not be stopped.
Everyone knew it instinctively.
“It’s… It’s breaking!”
The scythe fell in a semicircular arc.
CRRAAASSH!
Without a moment’s resistance, the barrier shattered helplessly into pieces. The clergy who had been holding it were thrown back by the recoil.
The barrier was gone.
The cathedral was now a stage for the Reaper.
It flew freely above the people's heads. It turned its head, as if searching for someone.
Its glowing eyes locked onto two people. The Reaper instantly moved toward them and swung its scythe. A Holy Knight was sliced apart, divine armor and all.
“Keuk.”
The Reaper’s next movement. Its head turned with a creak.
A priest who met its gaze flinched as if struck by lightning. He slowly backed away before turning to flee with all his might. The Reaper pursued him, gliding as smoothly as the air itself.
“Why, why me?! There are so many people here!”
The priest fled as if he had plenty of experience running for his life. The goddess of luck seemed to be smiling on him, as he dodged the scythe by a hair’s breadth.
But luck was useless before the Reaper. It swung its scythe in a wide arc.
A crescent-shaped slash shot out from the scythe.
“W-Waiiit—!”
The fleeing priest turned and reached out a hand, but it was a futile gesture.
Slice.
With a soft cutting sound, the priest's body was split vertically in two. His screaming face was divided into left and right halves.
Souls emerged from the bodies of the two clergy, now just chunks of meat.
“It’s taking their souls! St-Stop it! Stop it no matter what!”
The Holy Knights swung their swords and the priests cast their blessings, but they were all nullified by the Reaper’s scythe.
“It’s ready!”
Just as a priest, having gathered the maximum amount of divine power, was about to cast a divine spell…
Shwoop.
The Reaper vanished, as if sucked into a single point.
Was it hiding?
Or was it lying in wait nearby?
They remained tense, scanning their surroundings. It wasn’t until dawn began to break that they realized the Reaper was gone.
They might have thought they’d been bewitched by a Reaper in the night, but the corpses stuck to the floor reminded them it was all real.
The total number of lives taken by the Reaper that night was twelve.
And every single one of their souls was gone.
*
As the sun began to rise.
The agent of the Hand of the Death God—in other words, the subcontractor of a subcontractor—had returned after finishing its revenge.
Its great scythe was drenched in blood.
Twelve souls drifted around it.
They were the souls of those who had directly harmed Mirabelle’s parents. Now that their souls were in the Reaper’s grasp, they would find no rest.
The cycle of pain would repeat until their very souls wore away to nothing.
‘Is this… the end?’
Her revenge complete, Mirabelle was looking up at the sky. Her profile as she gazed at the dawn looked somewhat relieved, much better than before.
Mirabelle had grown once again today.
As if she had been acknowledged as its master the moment she read it, the grimoire that should have turned to ash appeared at her call.
‘Though turning Dad into a Reaper was a shock.’
It must mean he wants to be with me that much.
The Hand of the Death God.
The Witch of Judgment.
And the Soul Grimoire.
These three things had mixed together perfectly to complete a single spell. She had reached a state where she could create her own original magic without anyone ever teaching her.
There was nothing more for me to interfere with.
Not in terms of her growth.
Nor her mental state.
“Miss Mirabelle, it’s time to leave. It’ll get noisy once people wake up.”
“……”
Mirabelle, lost in her thoughts, just stared at the sky without answering. In the meantime, people began to come out to prepare for business. I made eye contact with a woman, and her gaze fell upon the girl’s skull in my hand.
“Uh… Huh? Is that…”
“Good morning, ma’am.”
“Ah? Yes, good morning. No, more importantly, that thing in your hand…?”
“You don’t need to worry about it. I’m just returning it to where it belongs.”
Unfortunately, the shock seemed too great for her to just brush it off. The woman’s eyes bulged so wide I thought they were going to pop out of her head.
“A-A thief! He's stealing the witch's skull!”
“Haha, stealing? This doesn’t belong to you. Even a slave trader like me isn’t that shameless, you know?”
I believe it’s a sound argument I could repeat a hundred times, but just spouting the right words doesn’t make things go smoothly in this world. If it did, I wouldn’t be called the Reaper.
I grabbed the still-dazed Mirabelle and bolted. Fortunately, no guards came after us. After the chaos of last night, who would be out chasing a thief?
Taking advantage of the lax security, I ran out of the city gates and escaped Fracture. What a garbage city. I’m never coming back.
Now, our destination was the final stop where the story's true ending was hidden. It was near Fracture, so we didn’t need a carriage.
Mirabelle’s ending route was divided into three main parts.
The first was recovery.
This could be achieved anytime just by healing her mental state.
The second was revenge.
This involved learning the Soul Grimoire, then meeting Harold’s soul in Fracture to find out the details and eliminate the sources of the tragedy.
And the final route.
The keyword was reunion.
A meeting with a precious person she thought she had lost forever.
It was time to meet Mirabelle's mother.