Before The Slaughter Begins (2)

The four goddesses, Aetas among them, couldn’t hide their bewilderment at Serpens’s sudden arrival.

Ludicer herself was flustered, of course, but even more embarrassed were the four goddesses—who usually ignored one another or rubbed each other the wrong way—far more than the unfamiliar Ludicer.

Once Ludicer let her into the shelter, Serpens strode in wearing a bright smile and approached Ludicer.

“Oh my, you’re the Ludicer who became a god this time? Nice to meet you! I’m Serpens.”

Serpens acted as if the four goddesses were invisible—or as if she simply chose to ignore them—and greeted Ludicer with breezy friendliness.

A thick vein bulged on Aetas’s forehead as she moved to step forward, but Spatium raised a hand to stop her.

Meanwhile, Serpens was already chatting with Ludicer as if they’d been friends for years.

After a bit of small talk, Serpens produced a pure-white, square object from her bosom.

“Oh right. I’m giving this to you to commemorate the first time we met.”

“What is this…? Huh?”

Ludicer looked startled. Seeing her face, Serpens smiled with satisfaction.

“You know it? Wow, clever. There are many things you don’t know. Hoho. It’s a Latens Cube. But it’s different from an ordinary Latens Cube. This one was made directly by the Creator.”

Serpens casually named the Creator as if she’d shed all formalities—right in front of the four goddesses who were the Creator’s devoted fans.

As expected, the goddesses who had been watching Serpens stiffened all at once.

“Are you insane?”

“Oh my? Who do we have here? Ignorant Aetas, stupid Mors, the coy Genesis, and, my goodness, the haughty Spatium?”

Serpens’s tone was deliberately provocative, and Aetas had no patience for it.

But just as Aetas was about to leap in, Spatium held her back.

“Spatium!”

“More importantly, what’s with your guts? You didn’t suddenly get confident, did you?”

At Spatium’s calm voice, Serpens snorted and glared down at the four goddesses as if scolding children.

“Tsk tsk, if you want to be annihilated, come at me.”

“So what you believed in was the clause that you can’t persecute other gods during the ‘Battlefield of Gods’ period?”

“Huh? Really?”

“Come on, no matter how stupid—?”

“That can’t be.”

Serpens expected them to back down, but instead they advanced with confidence, and she was taken aback.

Because of that clause, even Torcio, who enraged her every day, couldn’t beat her to her heart’s content. She had come on the offensive—especially with Aetas present—to show the novice god Ludicer how formidable they were… yet the atmosphere had flatlined.

“Crazy bitch. As if you weren’t—there is such a clause. But that clause has an exception, right? ‘Acts that are unavoidable in the process of restraining someone who disrupts the Battlefield of the Gods or has committed crimes are exempt.’ You stupid bitch! You just called the Creator. We followed lawful procedure—meaning the four of us discussed and concluded we should capture you. The unavoidable beatings that occur in that process are allowed!”

“Th-That! W-wait!”

Serpens finally remembered that the clause indeed existed.

There were four beings who couldn’t be taken one-on-one. Having provoked them all at once, Serpens felt her mind go blank for a moment. The only thing she had been counting on was that clause…

“What? Don’t even say ‘please spare me,’ ‘please forgive me once.’”

“I-I propose an alliance!”

At Serpens’s abrupt proposal, the four goddesses froze in the exact poses they’d been drawing their weapons in.

Thinking her offer had worked, Serpens opened her mouth to deliver a pompous speech with a haughty smile.

“As you know, I have produced the most victors so far—?”

They erupted into laughter.

“Kuk kuk kuk kuk kuk!”

“Hohohohoho. Hohohohoho.”

“Pfuup!”

“…Crazy bitch.”

The four goddesses suddenly laughed maniacally at Serpens’s words. Even Ludicer looked as if she were barely holding back laughter.

As Serpens’s train of thought faltered, Aetas stepped forward slowly and growled like a beast.

“You idiot, it’s not that we couldn’t win before. From the start we’ve focused on managing the Battlefield of the Gods rather than winning it. This time will be different. You still only see us, don’t you? Sophia has been recording all your idiocy from earlier.”

“So—Sophia? That, that voyeur woman… gah!”

“Oh my?!”

“Huh?”

“Pfuup!”

“…She’s truly insane, in front of Sophia.”

There are ten unspoken rules in the divine realm, and some of them are as follows.

10. Do not boast about sexual experiences in front of the Heavenly God Amor.

11. Do not discuss mania in front of the demon god Serpens.

…

…

2. Do not insult the Creator in front of the corpse-crusher Aetas.

3. Do not demean ‘Gwaenum’ as ’Gluttony’ in front of the Creator’s archivist Sophia.

“Ah, no… I, I!! No, I didn’t mean it like that…”

“Long time no see, Serpens. Our meetings are always consistently… not pleasant. How is it that even after so long, a god like you remains unchanged? Perhaps the training back then was simply too short?”

At Sophia’s calm, ladylike yet cutting words, Serpens trembled and took a step back as if facing a nightmare.

She backed away and, suddenly, threw the tiny Latens Cube made by the Creator to Ludicer before vanishing.

It happened so quickly. None of them, except Sophia, seemed to know why Serpens had fled.

Even with that exception clause, she was a demon god. If the four hadn’t attacked together, it might have taken effort—but they’d driven her off with words alone.

“Sophia?”

“Yes?”

Sophia answered with the composure of someone saying, “Yes? How may I help you?” Aetas, who had called her, was left stunned.

“What’s gotten into her?”

“Ah… Serpens? She once had an unpleasant encounter with me. She dared to request a revision of the records without the Creator’s permission.”

“So, and?”

At Sophia’s composed explanation, Aetas grew nervous and pressed on.

“First I chastised her. Then, because she wouldn’t listen, I gave her a little punishment and some mental instruction.”

“Oh, for how long?”

This time Mors asked, rubbing the gooseflesh on his forearm.

“It was quite short. I should have completed the full time I had planned. Precisely forty-two days, sixteen hours, twenty-two minutes, and forty-nine seconds. If the Creator hadn’t intervened midway, I could have properly trained her then… It’s unfortunate.”

At Sophia’s slight frown and sympathetic tongue-click, the three goddesses—excluding Spatium and Ludicer—stepped back a couple of paces.

“Once the Battlefield of the Gods ends, I must make it a full 250 days. Ah! Will I not even need to do anything then? Hohoho. Kim Han said he’d take care of this and that, didn’t he? Hmm… Still, emotional immaturity isn’t resolved by reduced physical ability, so I must complete the full 250 days!”

“You, you… you’re really something!”

At Mors’s desperate outcry, Aetas nodded vigorously in agreement.

Genesis gave a faint nod, Spatium pretended not to notice, Sophia remained composed, and Ludicer examined the Latens Cube Serpens had left, her eyes shining.

After the farce passed, Spatium brought up Manus again.

“Sophia, what do you think? Where might Manus be?”

“Well. Let’s narrow down the conditions. First, Spatium said you couldn’t find Manus. Also, even after Manus disappeared, anomalies in the Battlefield of the Gods have continued. Lastly, Manus’s representative still retains their representative status. A place where all these conditions are possible.”

“Is there such a place…?”

“Yes, here.”

“Here…? Huh? Could it be… the ‘Battlefield of Gods’?”

“Yes. There’s a very high probability it’s on this continent.”

Ludicer’s shelter fell silent.

The northern ice-wall area of the Battlefield of the Gods was cold year-round, avoided by both people and beasts.

Opinions varied on why the ice wall formed. Since the Creator designed this place, even the gods didn’t know the exact reason and could only speculate.

The Creator wasn’t the sort to explain their works, so no one knew for certain.

Folklore filled the gaps: someone obtained treasure here and became a king, the first emperor of the Dark Empire received a silver dragon’s blessing at the ice wall, and so on.

In reality, representatives or skilled continent-dwellers who ventured out found nothing and didn’t return. The area became marked by a bloody history.

In that remote wilderness—where footsteps were rare—a human silhouette flickered. Piercing the year-round blizzard was a figure who appeared to be a man.

He approached a section of the ice wall that stretched beyond sight and gently stroked its surface.

“Now it begins. Watch over me, Rideo.”

Proy Rium’s house—a modest dwelling where the representative known as ‘Martial Star,’ a title granted by Kim Han, stayed—sat in the southern mercenary quarter of Exorsus.

Despite the usual noise of mercenaries and spiritists, a tranquil atmosphere surrounded Proy’s home.

Small and cozy, it had a wide training ground behind it. Proy stood there, arms relaxed at his sides, eyes closed so still the breeze seemed to pause beside him.

He looked almost asleep while standing.

A spring breeze carried a single white cherry blossom petal drifting toward Proy’s shoulder.

Pussus—

When the petal came within a finger’s breadth of his shoulder, Proy didn’t move, but the clustered petals shattered white as if a snowball had hit a wall.

Perhaps he feared he had seen it wrong. A sudden gust scattered white petals like snow.

Whenever any cherry blossom petal came within a finger’s breadth of Proy’s body—shoulder, waist, hands, or feet—it invariably crumbled and scattered.

When the area around Proy turned completely white with shattered petals, like a light sleet,

Saaa—

a sharp, stealthy streak of killing intent sliced the air.

Before it reached him, Proy’s body slid and rotated half a turn.

With a wrist snap like a knock, he lightly struck the air in the direction the strike had come from.

Thud—

A heavy sound resonated despite the motion’s lightness.

Proy opened his eyes and confirmed the presence of the one who had sent that covert killing intent.

“…Hm? Makiira?”

“He’s a monster too, but you’re truly a monster as well.”

Proy gave a wry smile at Makiira’s compliment and gestured for him to come inside. Makiira shook his head.

As Makiira’s neatly combed hair tied in a topknot swayed and settled, he spoke from his perch on the wall rather than using the intact door.

“I’ll help.”

“Huh? With what?”

“Training. Just… tsk, I want you to live.”

“…Thanks.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

The tsundere’s bashfulness and the other’s awkward bluntness left their conversation trailing off.

Then the thunderous clash of martial arts filled the air.