Heroes Don't Abandon Their Comrades (3)
The shock that had frozen Azalea's body slowly gave way to fury, and her form began to blaze with the flames of rage. With every fraction her brows lifted, the holy fire radiating from her entire body grew fiercer. When the light surrounding the saint grew so bright it hurt to look at her, she flicked her fingers—before any of us could stop her.
The chains, manacles, ropes, and restraints binding Kaira—or what had once been Kaira—were sliced clean through, leaving white-hot cut edges. The limbless body slumped lifelessly onto the plank that had been supporting it.
“Kaira, Kaira!! Can you recognize me? It’s me, Azalea!!”
“Ah… eh……? Ha, heh……. Ehehe……. Daddy……. Hehe……”
I slowly shook my head. The girl mage’s sanity had already shattered beyond the point where she could understand human speech.
Whether she failed to notice or simply refused to accept it, Azalea seized the mage’s remaining left hand and gently pressed it against Kaira’s own chest.
“Here, Kaira. Think. Remember. You can turn back time. Look—your hand is touching your body right now. Remember? You did it before, when the Demon King captured you!! Turn back time. Quickly, restore your body!!!”
Kadros laid a hand on Azalea’s shoulder as she pleaded.
“That’s enough, Saint.”
“Enough? Enough of what, dwarf?! That child can do it. I saw it—she can!!”
“She could. When her soul was still whole.”
At the dwarf’s cold words, the saint collapsed to the floor. The light that had burned with fury extinguished, and in the darkness that returned, only Azalea’s sobs could be heard. Her tears, laced with holy light, were the only thing illuminating the room.
I gazed bitterly at Kaira’s wretched state.
“Eah……. U, ah, ugh……”
As if her sole purpose for existing was to rewind someone else’s time, she struggled against Azalea’s grip and groped at the empty air with her forcibly folded left arm—searching, it seemed, for something to turn back.
“Wait.”
Glazalus’s solemn voice rumbled through the room.
“The little mage is doing something.”
Doing what? Those were nothing more than the mindless twitches of a creature that had lost its reason—movements no different from an insect or worm writhing on instinct.
“Glazalus remembers. Kaira moved her hand exactly like that back then. And then she touched.”
The ogre muttered something incomprehensible. Perhaps there was something my agitated eyes could not see—something visible only to that massive, simple-minded frame.
While I watched Kaira’s hand movements and fell into thought, her left arm ceased its groping and fell limply onto her own torso.
“Yes. Just like that. And then she rewound.”
And then—
it rewound.
We all remembered that inexplicable sensation we felt whenever Kaira turned back time. The feeling of sand flowing upward through an hourglass, of a crudely made mechanical spring winding tight, of time, the world, the very causality of the universe twisting and rewinding—mysterious, unnatural, yet somehow familiar and nostalgic…
“By the ancestors……”
Kadros let out a sigh and dropped his axe and shield to the ground. The weeping saint also sensed something; she turned around with tear-filled eyes.
“Huh……?”
Azalea could say nothing, only stare in shock.
Kaira lay there. Bathed in the soft glow of the saint’s tears, her naked body shone pure white. The slender limbs of the emaciated girl mage were neatly restored, as though they had never been severed at all.
I muttered blankly to myself.
“The diary.”
Kaira’s secret diary. A makeshift, makeshift spell she had created when she could no longer endure our daily complaints—a desperate measure. The name had sounded ridiculous, but Kaira had seemed rather proud of it. It was a simple spell, and because she had made it herself, she had managed to omit the incantation. Whether it was the limit of her talent or not, she had never been able to omit the hand gestures entirely.
I had forgotten, but now I understood. The motion Kaira had made with her left hand moments ago was the exact gesture required to activate that spell. The ogre had noticed it.
I was honestly impressed. In more ways than one.
“Remarkable.”
Remarkable enough to say it aloud.
Kaira soon opened her eyes. The red irises of the girl whose eyelids fluttered were empty, as though she had no memories left. Perhaps the conditions had been too harsh for her to use magic while preserving her memories.
Kaira lay in silence for a long while before slowly sitting up.
“……”
Her lips remained closed for some time. She simply gazed at each of us in turn, maintaining her silence.
When that hollow gaze finally turned to me, Kaira moved for the first time. She slowly reached out—toward my waist.
And with her slender fingers, she grasped firmly. One of my two swords—the shorter one, the elven blade I had once given her.
“This is… mine…….”
Speaking in a dazed voice, Kaira tried to pull the sheathed sword free. ‘So she remembers…’ I undid the binding myself and handed the sword to her. She accepted it and stared at it for a long moment before slowly rising to her feet. Then, with limp arms clutching the hilt, she began to walk, dragging the scabbard across the ground—completely naked.
“I… need… a little… time……”
Her voice was still hollow, as though her soul had fled. We worried about how much of her mind had returned, whether she might do something dangerous, but we decided to give the child time to think alone.
Following the trail Kaira had left, a sticky liquid trailed between her legs.
We remained silent for a long while. Someone’s tears, someone’s sighs, and a heavy quiet filled the basement.
I paced the drawing room, lost in thought, staring blankly at a chessboard whose pieces were already arranged for a game.
“I wonder if the kid’s all right.”
By the time an indeterminate amount of time had passed and my imaginary chess game was nearing its end, Kadros spoke first. It was a question none of us could answer.
“What if she’s gone and stabbed the youngest daughter to death with that sword?”
The dwarf said it, then sighed heavily and corrected himself.
“Well, if that’s what happened… can’t be helped. It’d be a rightful revenge. What could we do?”
Typical words from the grudge-holding mountain folk.
“Still, we should go after her.”
Azalea rose from where she had been sitting limply. I didn’t reply, but I agreed with the saint. The other two probably did as well.
When we left the annex, there was no sign of Kaira in the castle courtyard. As we anxiously searched the grounds for any trace of her, we felt something familiar. The sensation of time bending, of causality twisting unnaturally. We all turned toward the source at once. It was coming from inside the mansion.
I walked as though entranced, stepping uneasily into the first-floor hall. The hall was still in the same disarray Glazalus had left it. The other three merely looked around, but I sensed something. Something was different from when we had last left the mansion. I felt uneasy.
When I found a pile of discarded clothing in one corner of the hall, I understood the source of my anxiety. There were no people. None of the servants or soldiers who should have been sprawled asleep on the first floor were anywhere to be seen.
I approached the scattered clothes. A strange dread crept over me. A dress that a ducal maid might have worn lay crumpled exactly as its last wearer had been wearing it. Beside it was a dark bloodstain mixed with clots.
Next to the bloodstain were small, bloody footprints. Clear prints of bare feet—those of a human boy or woman—marked in gradually drying blood.
I followed the footprints in a daze. They stopped in front of the next pile of clothes. This time it wasn’t everyday wear but full armor including a breastplate and spear—likely a guard’s equipment. Again, a large bloodstain beside the collapsed armor, and small footprints that seemed to have stepped directly in it.
The footprints, now darker with blood, led elsewhere. Before following the red trail further, I examined the bloodstain the small feet had stepped in.
It wasn’t just a bloodstain. Something… a clump soaked in blood, like a mass of entrails, was pressed flat into the center of the stain.
This was……
I spat out a single curse and bit my lower lip.
“Tch.”
My companions sensed the ominous atmosphere and gathered around me. They too had seen the blood-soaked, crushed fragments of pinkish viscera and the small footprints. Though in different order, all three seemed to have guessed what was happening—they each flinched in turn.
“Ah, ah…… No, Kaira. This… this can’t be…… Ah, no……”
Azalea staggered. Kadros caught the saint’s swaying body.
“Right now……”
The dwarf growled, then shouted.
“Find her right now. Quickly! Stop that damned kid!!”
Before the dwarf even finished speaking, I was already sprinting toward the stairs. Not a single moment could be wasted. In truth, we were probably already too late.
As far as I knew, there was only one person in the world capable of committing such a horrifying act.
‘That crushed bloody mass was definitely……’
No—this wasn’t the time for such thoughts. We had to stop the mage now.
I ran toward Zophy’s room. Every door on her floor stood wide open. I paused at each room to check inside. Some had bloodstains and red footprints; others contained only collapsed clothing, with no blood.
…The rooms without bloodstains all belonged to the duke himself, his wife, and their sons and daughters.
Zophy’s door was also wide open.
‘Too late……’
Still, I had to check inside.
I stopped running, took a deep breath, and stood before Zophy’s open doorway. She was here. I could tell even with my eyes closed and ears covered. A sweet scent of bread—utterly out of place in such a scene—drifted toward me.
Zophy von Mittenburg was there as well. She lay on her bed, limbs bound with torn strips of cloth. I checked anxiously to see if Kaira had killed her, but felt a small relief when I saw her body slowly rising and falling with each breath.
Perhaps it was my imagination, but her body seemed… slightly smaller than when she had fallen asleep draped over the research table earlier.
Beside her bed, where she slept peacefully, unaware of the world……
“Hah…… ngh, hah…… ahah, ah, u, hngh……”
The naked Kaira leaned her back against one of the bedposts, legs spread vulgarly wide, stimulating her bright pink sex with both hands—fingers sprouting like obscene growths—as she tried to soothe herself. From the heels of her blood-soaked feet, droplets of blood mixed with bits of flesh occasionally fell.
Several dark bloodstains marked the luxurious carpet covering Zophy’s floor—now a row of things that had been crushed. The carpet was soaked with seeping blood and the fishy liquid that had poured copiously from between Kaira’s thighs.
“Kaira……”
“Ahah, M-Mervin…… sir, y-you’ve…… come……? Ah, hngh……”
The girl mage continued masturbating without the slightest shame even after seeing me. I had never, in my long life, witnessed a young human woman who had committed such cruel acts now writhing in pleasure with her fingers before my eyes. How was I supposed to react?
From down the corridor came the sound of heavy footsteps approaching. The other companions must have seen me standing dazed in the doorway and were running over.
“O-over there…… I finished…… revenge…… so…… it felt…… so…… good……. Before…… committing suicide…… I wanted to…… touch…… down there…… Eheheh……. Ah, everyone.”
My other companions lined up beside me, unable to move. They too saw the scene inside the room and froze in place just like me.
“Now…… Zophy…… Zophy too…… has lost…… everything…… like me. Family, servants…… Ehehe, even…… her age…… Ah, really…… Since all her family…… is gone…… she’s no longer Zophy…… but the great…… Duchess of Mittenburg…… I’m sure…… she’ll be…… grateful…… to me……”
Kaira spread her legs even wider for us to see, kicking her feet—claws caked with dark red blood—while using her fingers to forcibly turn her small pink slit inside out, exposing the red inner membrane as she tempted us.
“Oh, and…… besides turning back time…… ‘this side’…… was also…… highly rated…… Ehehe…… If you want…… I can…… restore my virginity…… too…… How about it……? Would you like…… to try…… using it……? If it’s you all…… it’s fine…… You can use it…… as many times…… as you want…… I can…… restore my virginity…… over and over……”
A trickle of blood ran down from the corner of Kaira’s mouth as she spoke. Unable to bear the sight of our once-pure mage friend completely broken and debasing herself, Azalea burst into the room, weeping.
“Kaira…… Kaira, come to your senses!! Kaira, this isn’t…… this isn’t right…… This isn’t…… you……”
The saint wailed as she tightly embraced the girl mage. Kaira swayed limply in Azalea’s arms, murmuring slowly with an empty expression devoid of any emotion.
“Ahaha…… This is…… me. Now…… this is…… me……”