Beyond the Dream (1)
Beyond the Dream (1)
The special envoy sent by Dwayne, Paladin Order Commander Pablos, stepped into the Punishment Office.
The guard on watch flinched.
"Who..."
Slice.
His head dropped. Pablos whispered low.
"Kill them all."
Black shadows scattered.
"Gaaaah!!"
"Wh-who...!"
"Intruders!!!"
There were only a few guards left. It didn't take long to deal with them. Pablos trampled over the corpses and moved on.
One of his attendants asked.
"What do we do about Warden Rupes?"
"Dealing with him after the work is done won't be too late."
"But if he still hasn't shown himself even after all this..."
"Running is pointless. All that's left for him is death anyway."
Pablos grabbed a still-surviving guard by the neck. He dragged him along as he advanced through the Punishment Office.
"Where is Amar?"
"P-please, spare..."
Crack.
Bone broke.
"Gaaaaah!!!"
"I won't ask twice. Where is Amar?"
"In-inside...the b-basement..."
Pablos slit his throat without hesitation. The hand that killed a fellow priest showed no reluctance.
Those who did not serve His Eminence Cardinal Dwayne were all heretics anyway.
The corrupted Sacred Mark flickered ominously. Pablos used the stolen key to open the door to the darkest place in the Punishment Office.
"......"
Clean. Different from his memory. Pablos walked into a place he had set foot in once before.
A strange gaze was felt from inside the iron bars. Before, she had definitely been wearing a straitjacket, but now she wore ordinary prison clothes.
Did Director Veronica do something?
...Well, it's not my concern.
Pablos walked. He passed through the strangely elongated corridor and stopped in front of the bars.
The Demon of Love, Amar.
That grotesque being was inside the bars. A face far cleaner than what he had seen before turned sharply toward him.
"......"
Silence stretched on. Pablos's eyebrow twitched.
Why? She wasn't openly seducing him like before. She wasn't hanging off the bars and fawning over him out of nowhere either.
"Amar."
"......."
"You are Amar, the Demon of Love, correct?"
"......"
Amar turned her head back sharply. As if her thoughts had been disturbed, the Halo above her head quivered.
Pablos placed his hand on the bars. He tried to pry them open with all his strength, but his hand was instead repelled.
Impressive. So it's not a simple prison.
"Shall I fetch Warden Rupes?"
"No need."
Flames ignited in Pablos's hand.
"I'll just melt it."
A craving for power. The one who had rescued him from the despair of hitting a wall was Dwayne. Who would have known that merely swearing loyalty would raise his capabilities?
The blazing flames slowly melted the bars. He completely destroyed the binding Holy Arts that he previously couldn't even touch.
"Seize her."
"Yes."
The attendants rushed in and grabbed Amar's body. Dragged along without any particular resistance, Amar slowly looked up at Pablos.
Faintly visible hostility. Behavior far removed from the emotion called love.
"Let me go."
"...Have you had a change of heart?"
"I said let go."
"Shouting like that is useless. I know everything anyway. You are nothing but a vessel. A shell containing power, nothing more. The knowledge we learn includes mental cultivation as well. We are not easily shaken. Nor do we harbor the emotion called 'love' for you. Demon."
The attendants moved. They drew a complex ritual array on the floor.
The right people in the right places.
In an instant, Amar was trapped in the center of the completed complex array. Pablos, gripping her shoulders tightly, slammed her to the floor.
Thud.
"Construct the Portal."
"Yes."
Green flames bored a hole in the air. The strangeness that began as a small point started connecting to somewhere.
A faintly audible hymn. Matching its verses, the paladins also began to sing along.
Amar writhed. Pablos pressed her down.
"Does it hurt, demon?"
"Ugh...ugh..."
"Of course. What dwells within you is pure evil. Ugliness itself, incomparable to Ra's sanctity. Your birth was garbage, and your body was one that wouldn't be strange to die at any moment."
"......"
"But it's still not enough. Far too insufficient. His Eminence Cardinal Dwayne knew that as well. He personally provided something for you."
Pablos forced her mouth open.
"Do you see this?"
"Mmph! Mmmph!!"
"This black pill is a handle. Like a match thrust into a fireplace full of firewood. The moment you swallow this, you will gnaw away at yourself. Because of your vicious power, your surroundings will slowly twist and break."
"Mmmmmph!!!!"
"Struggling is useless, demon. Weren't you a flawed existence from the moment you were first born? A being that is neither human nor monster. Because you were awkwardly stuck between the two, you were abandoned by both. And in the end, you are even used."
Pablos's hand stirred inside Amar's mouth. He touched her uvula and forced her to swallow the pill.
"Now. Go. To Beyond the Dream. Demon. Ceaselessly relive your past. Suffer trauma and rampage further. Perhaps..."
Pablos whispered.
"You might be happier over there."
. . .
The Demon of Love, Amar.
A being who had suppressed malice toward humans in her chest for decades.
What is love? It is an emotion closer to 'understanding' than anything else. Most sins are forgiven under the name of love.
But Amar's case was different. Love was merely a simple excuse. She had never loved people in the first place. The researchers who had taken her in from childhood and studied her had simply brainwashed her to secure her cooperation.
A convenient fake love. But even so, she had suppressed all of it and endured. She believed without doubt that the emotion she held was love.
If that malice was a denial of her own worth, if she came to realize that she could not be loved by any being...
Because that was when her hell would truly begin.
"......"
I took in the direction from which the dark-red pillar of light was flowing. I crushed and burst a charging fanatic.
The blood running down my arm cleared my head. There was still time left.
It said there were 12 hours left until the rampage, right?
It was a message I had never seen before. Normally, it would just explode without warning. But this time something was different, so that warning message must have appeared.
In other words, it meant I might be able to figure out how to stop it. It would be better to go myself if possible, but...
Filamon still wasn't settled. Leaving them behind was a bit much.
Nothing to be done. For now, the best option was to somehow finish things here quickly and go...
Squelch.
The head of a fanatic charging at me was crushed. Radatok, who had burst the flesh like squeezing tofu, glanced at me.
"Go, brother."
"Huh?"
"I don't know what it is, but seeing you hesitate, hasn't something urgent come up?"
The bear of the Church of Ra swung his greatsword roughly. The flames that rose tore away a paladin's armor along with flesh.
"We'll handle things here."
"...Will you be okay?"
"We trained for this, and we came here for this. If we held you back now, brother, the Judge would be furious."
Radatok rested his greatsword on his shoulder. He brushed past me.
"You haven't forgotten that I outrank you, have you?"
"......"
"Go, brother. That's an order as your commander."
I let out a short laugh. Well, if he puts it that way, I can't help it.
But even so, just leaving felt a bit off. I poked Veronica in the side.
"What!"
"Radatok. Director Veronica is good enough, right?"
"You're cooperating?"
"Cooperating, my ass. Things have come to this, so if I stay still, I'm a heretic too, you idiot. But I have a condition, bear."
Veronica rolled her shoulders with a crack.
"Command just doesn't suit me. I should've not been greedy from the start and just become an inquisitor. You handle all the commanding. I'll just smash everything."
"You're not going to smash civilians too, are you?"
"Do you want to die?"
Veronica, growling, glanced at me. She let out a deep sigh.
"Hey."
"Yes?"
"Get lost. I don't know what it is, but if the bear is talking like that, it means you've got something to do, right?"
Veronica glanced at the dark-red pillar of light.
"...I don't even need to look. Everything's been turned upside down. Ugh. I don't know about anything else, but protect Monica no matter what."
"You really do care about her, don't you?"
"Among all those guards, she was the only one with her head on straight. If I ever retired, I was thinking of her as my successor. She's not someone who'll die in a place like that."
Veronica advanced, dragging her tachi behind her.
"Put this on my tab too. I'll pay it all back myself."
"Nice. I'll use you as a slave later."
"Drop dead."
. . .
Monica thrashed. Rupes clamped his hand over her mouth.
"Shh!"
Cold sweat was streaming down his face. His rapid muttering was hard to make out.
Outside, screams rang out endlessly. A massacre as if determined not to leave a single voice alive inside the building.
Quite some time had passed since Rupes had been trapped here with her. He, who had been nothing but aroused at first, was now trembling in fear.
"Fuck...crazy bastards...why are they killing everyone...? D-don't tell me they're going to eliminate me too? This wasn't in the plan...what the hell is going on...?"
Rupes trembled. Blood dripped from his bitten fingernails.
"First I need to hide...no...should I just run...but the enemies are paladins...Archbishop Dwayne's hounds...there's no way I can escape..."
"Mmph! Mmph!"
"Sh-shut up!"
Slap!
Monica's head whipped to the side. The handkerchief tied over her mouth came loose. Monica spat out blood-tinged saliva and bit down on Rupes's hand that had entered her mouth.
"You bitch!"
Slap! Slap! Slap!
Monica went limp under the consecutive slaps. Strength still wouldn't enter her body. Her Sacred Power didn't respond, and it was quiet, as if dying.
"I-I shouldn't have come to a place like this in the first place...sh-should I try going out now...? O-or...I should have accepted that flame...be-because I stupidly refused...I shouldn't have said all that about showing loyalty back then...!"
Rupes, who had fallen into a panic and was muttering endlessly, glanced back at her. He let out a rough breath as if he had discovered an oasis in the middle of a desert.
Eyes that seemed to have made a decision. His hand crept forward.
"Wh-whether I go out now...or later, it'll probably be the same...s-so first, what I was doing..."
A thick bulge rose in his pants. Monica's eyes flew wide open. She mustered every last ounce of strength and moved along the wall.
"Where are you going...? Huh...?"
Rupes slowly followed behind her. He stretched out his foot and stomped down on Monica's coat.
"You can't run, Monica. You said you loved me...you said you loved me, you fucking bitch...!"
"Hck...hck..."
Monica's neck was squeezed from behind. Rupes yanked her thick coat and licked his lips.
His eyes had already rolled back. As if paralyzed by fear and lust, he hurriedly unbuckled the belt at his waist.
"B-but still, I have some experience, you know? It only hurts the first time...after that, it doesn't hurt at all."
"Mmph! Mmph! Mmph!"
"It's fine. I'll be gentle. Fuck...but if you don't stay still...I'll really kill you...?"
Slap!
Monica, slapped once more, thrashed with all her might. Even as she was punched in the stomach and her back was stomped on, she didn't stop resisting.
"You fucking bitch!"
Monica curled up. She gritted her teeth to buy time somehow.
"Just...kill me...!"
"Shut your fucking mouth?!"
Rupes drew his sword. He stomped on her neck with his foot and aimed the sword as if it would touch her eye at any moment.
His panting breath was frantic. His already-gone eyes seemed to have lost all self-control.
"If you move one more time, I'll cut off your entire right arm...then the left...if you want to get your limbs cut off and then get fucked, go ahead and move."
"Ughk...!"
"You don't seem to think I mean it..."
Rupes's eyes flashed.
"You'll only come to your senses after you've been through i—"
"Hey."
The door opened with a creak. Monica turned her head with difficulty.
A man drenched in sweat swept his hair back. His exhausted body, leaning against the door as if about to collapse at any moment, was flecked with faint Sacred Flame here and there.
A serious face unlike before. The words he quietly uttered were somehow twisted.
"You...what are you doing right now?"
He wasn't using polite speech.
His tone was low, too.
Even though Monica knew he was an ally, she couldn't suppress a sudden chill.
He was angry.
He...Zahard was angry.