Rose Fulgaud

“_______! 《Iai》!”

Konoha swiftly drew Agate and sliced the knife Rose had thrown cleanly in two. Riding that momentum, she activated 《Oni Slash》 and launched a counterattack at Rose.

“_____! Haaaaah!”

Rose tried to suppress the vibrations from Oni Slash with her knife, but when she realized its power was shaving away the blade and pushing its durability to the limit, she switched to evasion.

“…That’s amazing. Kono-non, you’re nowhere near just Green Moon-class.”

“Konoha isn’t the only one you’re fighting. 《Freeze》!”

The floor of the observation deck froze over in an instant.

“《Wish of the Frozen Wastes》!”

Meiro swiftly created chains of ice that wrapped around Rose. Konoha seized the opening and stepped in.

“Sorry, I’m using the back of the blade!”

She stepped into a position from which she could decisively finish Rose and raised Agate—

“What!?”

“Too easy~”

Bladeless weapons stacked together, blocking Agate’s strike. And then—

“Go ahead and take a nice bite~”

“_____!?”

She sensed something at her feet. She had been on guard after seeing what it could do earlier, but it had appeared far too suddenly.

It was a monster with a pitch-black, serpentine body covered in countless eyes. Like the Fifty-Year Festival they had fought in the Respega Underground Labyrinth, it wriggled about like a shadow puppet. The creature headed straight for Konoha’s legs.

“Kh!”

Konoha instantly leapt away. Rose stopped its pursuit and made it undo the chains binding her. It was a precise decision born from extensive combat experience.

“Kono-non really is strong~. This is gonna be a tough one~”

Despite saying that, Rose never lost her relaxed expression. She immediately filled both hands with throwing knives and hurled them all at once.

“Haaaaah!”

The ice arrows Meiro created barely managed to knock them away, but the knives’ trajectories had clearly been calculated, and their accuracy was remarkable.

“Ahh~, that’s really getting in the way~”

“I imagine it is. 《Wish of the Frozen—”

“So, sorry about this.”

Rose activated something. The very next instant, the offensive magic Meiro had fired vanished.

“What!? I can’t… use it!?”

“You can use 《Noise Cancel》 like this too~. Technically, I didn’t make it unusable. I introduced noise and rewrote it into a different spell formula~”

“You deciphered the spell formula I constructed and rebuilt it in that little time!? That’s impossible!”

“See? I told you, I’m actually pretty strong despite how I look~”

Rose scattered several more throwing knives into the air and prepared to launch them.

“Basic magic: 《Levitation》 and the 《Area Expansion》 skill, I suppose. But this many…”

“My mana doesn’t decrease, after all~. Now, dance for me♪”

At Rose’s signal, nearly fifty knives floating in midair shot forward.

“Kh! 《Wish of the Frozen Wastes》!”

Meiro created a wall and committed herself entirely to defense. The durability of her ice had already been proven in the battle against the Roman Festival. But the precision of Rose’s mana surpassed even that.

“Guh!”

The wall shattered, and several knives pierced Meiro’s legs and arms. Naturally, they had all been coated in poison.

“Meiro-chan!”

“You shouldn’t look away~”

“Uah—kya!”

Rose commanded the black creature while simultaneously slashing at Konoha with a knife. With Rose coordinating the two so skillfully, Konoha could not bring out her true strength.

“Oni Slash!”

Konoha poured a massive amount of mana into Agate and forced Rose backward. At the same moment, she kicked away the approaching black creature and retreated. Rose’s knife had chipped from clashing with Agate. She tossed it behind her and drew a fresh one.

“Mmm~, disposable weapons really aren’t any good~. They break right away.”

“Haa, haa… Oni Slash… isn’t working?”

“It is, you know? But Mr. Darkness takes all of it for me~. I still feel the pain, but none of the actual damage reaches me~”

“Th-that’s cheating!”

A walking cheat had no right to complain about cheating.

“What even is that ‘Mr. Darkness,’ anyway?”

“Oh, you endured it~. Amazing. Did you use a lot of potions?”

“Yes, thanks to you, I used quite a few. I’ll be billing you for them later.”

“There won’t be a ‘later,’ so don’t worry~. Ahh, as for Mr. Darkness… He’s a devil.”

“_______!?”

“A… devil?”

There was weight behind that word. Konoha did not seem to understand, but for Meiro, hearing that word alone was enough.

“…Did you make a contract with it?”

“Not me personally~. Anyway, I think it’s about time we finished this. It’d be a pain if the other Inquisitors showed up now.”

With that, Rose opened her status screen and withdrew a certain weapon.

“What… is that…?”

“That’s the spear she used to kill that Inquisitor earlier. It feels sinister… Is that Treasure-class? No, even higher!? Don’t tell me… Mythic-class!?”

It had a long black shaft, ritual paper streamers attached near the end of the grip, and a black spearhead. Crackling black electricity visibly manifested around its tip.

“Here I come~”

Rose smoothly twirled the spear around as she stepped forward.

“…I have nothing but a terrible feeling about this.”

“Then I’ll use mine too! 《Oni Princess》! Come, Ibaraki-doji!”

Konoha’s hair turned white, her eyes blazed crimson, and a black kimono clothed her body.

“Looks like you’re still hiding plenty of things~. Let’s see what you can—”

“Too slow!”

Konoha accelerated. In an instant, she appeared behind Rose and brought Agate down, trying to knock the spear from her hands.

“_______! Kh!”

Rose instantly tilted the shaft to catch the blade, while Konoha tried to cut straight through it and force her attack through.

“I can’t cut it!?”

“Kya!”

But she failed to damage Rose herself, merely blasting her away with the impact.

As Rose tumbled across the floor, Meiro raised her staff, but—

“Aaaaaah!”

Black electricity surged through her and electrocuted her. Without her continuous recovery skill, it would have been instantly fatal.

“You really don’t die easily~, ngh!”

“Haaaaah!”

Konoha closed the distance at high speed and brought Agate down again, only for the black spearhead to stop the blade once more.

“Huh!? You’re not getting electrocuted~?”

“I’ve kept a barrier up this whole time. It still tingles pretty badly, though…”

“Then how about this! Hah!”

Rose shoved Konoha back, snapped her fingers, and summoned roughly ten bladeless spears in midair. Then—

“It’ll only take an instant!”

Mr. Darkness had already closed in without her noticing. Rose was approaching as well.

“_____! 《Sword Dance》!”

It was an offensive spell dropped during the battle against the Roman Festival. Its ability was exactly what its name suggested: a dance of swords. Konoha generated several iron swords in midair to counter Rose’s magical knives. The tremendous strength of those constructs was possible solely because of the Demon King’s enormous mana reserves. Even so, the two were evenly matched. Konoha probably had more mana overall, but Rose distributed hers with exceptional efficiency, and the quality of her mana was superior.

(She really is used to fighting!)

Konoha countered the approaching Mr. Darkness with Oni Slash and planned to send both it and Rose flying backward, but Rose’s spear prevented her from doing so.

“This is the end~”

Mr. Darkness knocked away Agate’s sword strike, and Rose seized the opening. The godlike spear technique that had torn the Inquisitor apart earlier closed in on Konoha.

(This is as far as I go… No, not yet. I can’t die yet. I decided I’d protect Meiro-chan. I decided I’d ask the girl from my dreams her name. I still… can’t die!)

“Bye-bye~”

Along with Rose’s cheerful voice, the black spear pierced straight through Konoha’s slender body.

Rose’s black spear pierced Konoha’s body. Mr. Darkness tore off Konoha’s leg and constricted her. Rose’s invisible second and third strikes severed her arm and neck, sending blood spraying through the air.

“Ko… no… ha… no… aaaaaah…”

Meiro remained sprawled on the ground, her body still numb. Faced with a sight she desperately did not want to believe, her expression gradually sank into despair.

“I’ll send Mei-chan after you right away. I’m sorry. I really don’t want to do this, but I have to rebuild the Kingdom… I’m sorry.”

“Aaaah, Kono… ha. Konoha, Konoha… aaah, aaaaaaaaah…”

Meiro screamed and cried as though she had broken. Rose looked down at her with sorrowful eyes, raised the black spear in her hand toward Meiro’s neck, and swung it down with all her strength—

“Oni Slash!”

“What!? Aaaaaaaaaah!”

An invisible slash struck Rose directly in the back. She twisted and writhed in obvious agony. Mr. Darkness, who bore the actual damage on her behalf, slowly retreated back into Rose’s shadow.

“So it really does return after a certain amount of damage accumulates.”

“Ah… guh… aaaah… why…?”

“Konoha!? You’re… alive?”

“I’m alive, Meiro-chan. I promised, remember? I said I’d definitely protect you.”

“Konoha… Konohaaaa!”

Konoha smiled at the tearful Meiro. Using the black spear as a cane, Rose barely managed to stand and stared at Konoha.

“Ugh… I’m pretty sure I had a barrier up too. What was that incredibly powerful slash…? And I definitely cut your head off.”

“You did. But that was only an illusion of me.”

“What?”

A slash came from behind the shocked Rose. She instantly dodged and swept her spear horizontally. What she saw in that instant was—

“Kono-non… a clone…”

“Illusion Magic: 《Roman Festival》. This place is already my dream world. A world where I can create whatever illusions I want, however I want. This festival is my stage alone. It’s the perfect stage for me to keep my promise.”

“Ahaha~. Lost Ancient Magic, huh~. That’s practically cheating~”

Rose was smiling with her mouth, but there was no trace of laughter in her eyes. She was carefully considering how to defeat Konoha with what little mana she had left.

“Then I just have to destroy all of it, illusions and everything~”

Rose readied the black spear once again, opened her eyes wide, and began concentrating her mana. The blade of the spear contracted, and at its tip appeared a chaotic, mangled region of space like a black hole—a black sphere.

Space itself began to distort.

“That isn’t… a spear?”

“No…”

“Huh?”

“That thing is bad… Absolutely not! Don’t clash head-on with that, Konoha! It’s dangerous!!”

The end of the black sphere crackled with light as a huge black spearhead began forming. Then its tip split apart, producing roughly twenty bladeless black spearheads.

“What……………. is that……………………”

The sinister aura pouring from the spear twisted the surrounding space. The Konoha clones she had already stationed around them were erased, and Konoha herself was struck by such intense dizziness that she felt she would collapse unless she desperately maintained consciousness.

Rain began to fall.

“Looks like the dragon’s on my side~. This rain feels really nice right now~”

Rose’s dull pink eyes stared at Konoha. The dragon blood coursing through her body placed an immense burden on Rose, but it forced every cell in her body to operate at full power, allowing her to release a tremendous amount of mana.

“Now then, let’s kill each other until one of us dies, Kono-non!! I want you to hit me with everything you’ve got!! I’ll smash you into pieces until there’s nothing left but elemental dust!!!”

Konoha gripped Agate. She stared straight at Rose, who radiated an almost divine power, and pointed the blade toward her.

“I’m going to stop you, Rose.”

An enormous amount of energy overflowed from Agate, gradually becoming a pillar of flame. The rain and wind only grew stronger, but neither could extinguish Konoha’s fire. The pillar of flame reached toward the heavens, its heat increasing further and further as though intent on burning everything away.

“Amazing, amazing~!! You’ve still got plenty left in you~!! Then that’s even more reason I have to crush you right here!!!”

“If this is what it takes to stop you, Rose!”

“Why do you even feel that way!!?”

Energy filled the black spear. Each of them waited for the decisive moment, ready to unleash the full extent of their power upon the other.

“Isn’t it obvious!! Because we’re friends!! Because you called me your friend, Rose-chan!! That’s all there is to it!!”

At Konoha’s words, a memory flashed through Rose’s mind.

“We’ll always be friends, Rose.”

It was the voice of a friend who was no longer alive. For some reason, it overlapped with Konoha’s voice.

“_______!? F-for… something like that…? I won’t… accept it. I can’t accept it… No one can overcome my resolve. There’s no way I can lose.”

“I like you, Rose-chan!! That’s why I’m stopping you!!”

“I’m going to rebuild this country!! I absolutely cannot lose!! I’ll kill you, Konoha!!”

“《Oni Fire》! Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!”

“《Takemikazuchi》!!”

The observation deck was engulfed in pure white light.