And So, Those Who Writhe

“Oh my, oh my, how wonderful! As expected of you, Elder Brother.”

It was an extravagant space.

A grand hall on the top floor of the royal castle, with a panorama overlooking the royal capital.

A hall covered with expensive carpets that an honest commoner could likely never buy even after working their whole life.

Various furnishings telling the history of that nation were lined up, and at the center of the room was a large chair.

The chair of the one who decided everything in the country. The one chosen for the duty of ruling the nation and guiding its people bore the name “king.”

This country was the country of the king.

“Elder Sister, Father, and Mother all failed on the second try. And yet, Elder Brother, this is already your sixth success! Fufu, as expected of the first in line to the throne. Great luck is also one part of a king’s vessel, after all.”

A bright woman’s voice echoed.

Bright, bright, endlessly bright, a voice like light illuminating everything in this world. It was a voice full of amusement, like a child laughing from the bottom of their heart because they were having so much fun.

“You vixen…”

By contrast, the voice that leaked out was anguished.

A voice of anger, hatred, and yet despair from understanding that it could never be cleared away.

“Oh my, fufu. You wound me. Elder Brother, you have always had such a foul mouth.”

There was a woman and a man.

They sat facing each other around a silver table, yet their complexions were opposite.

One side, the woman, looked amused. The other side, the man, looked hateful.

Both had beautiful faces, and the woman’s relaxed drooping eyes and the man’s slightly drooping eyes revealed their blood connection.

“…Do not call me brother.”

“Oh my, oh my, I have been scolded. Fufu, ah, how nostalgic. Do you remember? Around this season, the Ramoeba flowers should soon bloom in the courtyard. We siblings often broke the nursemaid’s instructions and played with flowers together, did we not?”

The woman reached for the tea prepared on the table. The silver teacup, however, was smoothly carried to the woman’s lips without making a single sound.

“…I have no intention of reminiscing with you. Eat already. It is your turn.”

The man, a beautiful man wrapped in battle attire utterly unsuited for a tea party, with thin golden armor and a mantle, murmured.

“Fufu, which shall I choose? Ahh. Ah, delicious. Do you remember Flatt, the court chef? These sugar confections made from his recipe are all so lovely and beautiful, are they not?”

Without hesitation, the woman’s fork went toward the colorful tea sweets spread out before her, flower-like sweets shaped from sugar.

Chomp. Her cheeks softened, and the smiling face she showed was the face of someone enjoying food from the heart.

“…You lunatic. How can you say the name of someone you killed for amusement with a face like that?”

Seeing the woman reach for the tea sweets without hesitation, the man looked at her with eyes of utter contempt.

No, more than contempt, it was rather…

“Aha. My, what an awful way to say it. But I was hurt, you see. I had liked him. But Flatt became so very angry about the matter with Trena. …I dislike being scolded.”

“…Cursed trash. Rot and die.”

“Aha, are you talking about me, or about yourself, Elder Brother? Fu, fufufu. Now then, it is your turn next, Elder Brother. Do not worry. There is only one poisoned sweet.”

Twitch. At the woman’s words, the man’s body moved slightly.

Their tea party was, in other words, that sort of thing.

“…There is no lie in your words, is there? That if I win this tasteless game, you will guarantee the safety of my vassals and my family?”

“Yes, upon the old blood. And at the same time, Elder Brother’s victory means my death. The death of the wicked one who leads the Dragon Cult and is even now attempting to end a single nation called the Kingdom.”

It was a tea party that would decide the fate of a nation.

A coup d’état by the Dragon Cult that had occurred quietly, swiftly, and mercilessly in the Kingdom.

Now, it had reached its climax.

“Let us continue the tea party, Elder Brother. Do not worry. If you are truly a king’s vessel, if you are truly a person worthy of leading the country of the king, then you will not lose to my humble ‘luck’!”

“…Ha, ha.”

The prince’s hand stopped. Cold sweat slowly trickled down his refined face.

The rules of the game were extremely simple. They drank tea and ate sweets while chatting.

They had to eat the sweets alternately, and the tray was spread with various tea sweets: cookies, sugar confections, soufflés, pancakes.

Among them, there was only one winning sweet filled with deadly poison.

The one with worse luck would eventually die. That was the game, so it was no wonder the prince’s hand stopped.

“Oh my, oh my, Elder Brother, your hand has stopped. Hmm, what could be the matter? Shall I have Wis strangle a few more people so that you will continue the tea party with me?”

The woman, the green-haired woman, leaned deeply back into her chair while playing with the hair tied to the side of her head.

The free-spiritedness of a town girl and the elegance of one connected to royalty seeped through her movements.

However, the evil of her words could not be hidden.

“Who should we do next? The relatives’ brats, the capable Chancellor-dono, or perhaps your beloved wife?”

The tall man standing beside her, a man with short crimson hair and black leather armor, cast a glance over.

The captives laid out across the hall. The prince’s vassals and family, bound with their hands behind their backs and turned into prisoners.

“W-wait!! I will continue, I will continue! Do not lay a hand on my vassals, on the people precious to me!”

The captives were being kept alive only as the reason the man could not drop out of this ridiculous game.

Countless corpses lay scattered in the throne room. Corpses clad in knight armor were crushed as if folded, while others were embedded into the walls like objects, dead.

“Oh my, how brave. It is all right. As long as Elder Brother continues the tea party with me, I have no intention of laying any more hands on the people precious to you.”

“How shamelessly you say that…”

“No, seriously. How many people did you have killed as examples for the game with the prince?”

“…You lunatics.”

“Your Highness, please, please remain safe. I, Liz, believe in you!”

One of the prisoners held captive near the man, a beautiful woman like a flower, raised her voice while still bound.

“Uu, I am tearing up. Sister-in-law. How touching. Even though she trembles so much, she raises her voice for the one she loves. How beautiful is the sight of a human resisting fear?”

The green-haired woman made a gesture as if wiping away tears. It looked like she was joking, but the woman was actually somewhat moved.

“Your Highness!! Prince Ortho!! Please, please, do not concern yourself with us! Strike down the traitor Fortuna! Your Highness, if it is you, no, only you can defeat that madwoman!”

Likewise, an elderly prisoner with sharp eyes shouted. Though his whole body was covered in bruises, with loyalty to the royal family in his heart, that prisoner encouraged his master.

“…Chancellor Lintna, calling me a madwoman wounds me. Am I truly that strange? What do you think, Wis?”

“Huh? Well, there’s no doubt you’re insane. I’d like to see a woman crazier than you.”

“Oh, how sad. Even my hero is cold to me. Wis, since I am hurt, I wish you would die.”

Crash.

The sound of glass shattering. The star-viewing skylight covering the throne room. Something that broke through the sky—

“Ah, wait, you—”

Splat.

A red flower bloomed. Without any context, without any warning, without any reason.

By chance, a rock fell from the sky, smashed through the skylight, and landed on the man’s head.

“Oh my, oh my. It was by chance. How unlucky, my hero.”

Chuckling in her throat, the green-haired woman looked down at the red-haired man whose head had been crushed by the rock.

“W-what did you—are you truly insane?!”

“Oh my, Elder Brother. What is wrong? You look pale.”

“You, you, what, what did you do?! Why would you do that to your own vassal?!”

“Eh?”

“That man is your vassal, is he not?! He is a monster who destroyed my knights and the Kingdom’s army. But to you, he is a vassal, is he not?! And you did that to him with that horrifying power…?!”

“Aha.”

The woman’s laugh interrupted the prince’s voice.

“…What is funny? What are you laughing at?”

“No, I am sorry. It is simply amusing that even Elder Brother can make mistakes… Even now, if I close my eyes, I can recall it as if it were yesterday. That childhood when we spent time together as royalty, yes, even in my life, there was no era as enjoyable as that one. When I think about it, Elder Brother, even then, you were a perfect existence. You never made mistakes. You were simply, simply perfect.”

“Wh-what, what are you talking about?”

“Two.”

“Huh?”

“There are about two mistakes in your words, Elder Brother.”

“First, that man over there whose head was crushed and whose brain has very good ventilation is not my vassal. Yes, Wis Postetas Heros is my hero. He is not one who obeys me.”

“Heros… Impossible, a survivor of the Heros family? At the end of the Great War, that accursed bloodline should have been severed by the Hero!”

“Life finds a way, Elder Brother. Ah, and Elder Brother’s second mistake is—”

“Ouch. Damn woman, don’t swing your ‘luck’ around with the same casualness as farting. I thought I was going to die.”

A carefree voice echoed.

The body of the man whose red blood had soaked into the carpet like a crushed tomato slowly rose.

Clatter. The rock rolled away. The head that should have been crushed beneath it was certainly wounded and smashed.

But.

“…What?”

“My hero will not die from this much.”

He was not dead.

Even with his head shattered and covered in blood, the red-haired man stood up as if nothing had happened.

“Oh, Prince. What’s wrong with that face? You’re making the same face as when I slaughtered all your knights.”

“Why are you not dead? Your head was smashed and crushed under a rock.”

The prince’s mouth would not close. His eyes widened as he stared at the man who should have been dead but was now chattering away.

“Huh? People don’t die just because their head gets smashed, do they? Ah, crap, my brains are spilling out. Gross.”

While scraping the carpet with the sole of his shoe, the red-haired man cracked his neck.

“Oh my, Wis, the head maid will suffer, so properly clean up what you spilled yourself.”

“The head maid’s not here anymore. You killed her yesterday, didn’t you? I went out of my way to spare the people who looked after you when you were a brat, too.”

“Oh my? Did I? Honestly, because of you, Wis, I no longer understand very well what people die from. So Emma dies if killed too. When I was little, she seemed so frightening.”

“Ugh, scaary.”

“Heros family… The bloodline of the hero who betrayed the Hero… Why? In the history books, you people should have been destroyed.”

“Ah, that’s that. The incompetence of useless historians. It’s true that the Heros family suffered retaliation for betraying the Hero. Well, but maybe they accidentally let one brat escape? No matter how inhuman someone is, they still have one bit of sentiment. Unlike that woman over there.”

“Eeh, Wis. That makes me sound like a woman with no sentiment or tears.”

“Shut up, it’s true. You killed and killed. The castle town of the royal capital, the attendants and maids who were all over the royal castle, knights, nobles… The only ones still breathing are the dozens in this hall.”

“Eeh, it is not as if I did it personally. You killed most of them, did you not?”

“Because you ordered me to. Kingdom law says the actions of soldiers during war are all the responsibility of their superiors.”

A cheerful exchange of voices. But the contents were endlessly painful, bloody, and, cruelly, entirely true.

The Kingdom.

In this world, it was one of the only two human nations. In a world twisted by the Great War, it stood alongside the Empire as a nation where humanity was permitted to live.

That nation was now in danger of destruction. A country with ancient history was about to end because of a single woman and man.

“Oh my, I did not know. Then, yes. I am quite the villain, am I not? Aha, what shall I do?”

“Well, that’s the thing. Whether you’re evil or justice is decided by later history. Why not just win? Anyway, my master, isn’t it unfair that it’s only me? The Chancellor-dono also said a bunch of things to you earlier.”

Where the red-haired man pointed was the place where the prisoners were, and he pointed at the chancellor who had raised his voice earlier.

“Oh my?”

The woman turned her eyes toward him.

She and the man had placed the country in danger of destruction.

“Indeed, I was hurt. How cruel you are, Chancellor Lint. Calling someone a madwoman.”

“S-stop!! Fortu… na?! Guh!!”

The prince, who had tried to rise from the table, was slammed down onto the table.

“Oops, Prince. Sorry, but you’re in the middle of a game with our crazy princess right now, aren’t you? To beat this woman, you have no choice but to win the game. Those are the rules. Violence is forbidden.”

No one understood when he had moved. The red-haired man had circled behind the prince and pinned him down.

“Chancellor Lint.”

“Hi, P-Princess Fortuna!! Princess Fortuna, Second Princess, please, please have mercy—”

The chancellor begged for his life.

He had been made to realize the power of that woman.

“I wish you would die.”

The woman’s words ended.

The world always answered the words of the woman loved so unnaturally and unfairly by it.

Pyo, pyoooo.

A carefree bird cry echoed through the broken skylight. Some people went pale, some stared blankly, and some looked up with faces of despair.

Flap.

Crash.

The sound of flapping wings, and at the same time, the cracked skylight all shattered.

Falling shards of glass. Star Glass, made by the Kingdom’s craftsmen Hoarding sand from White Star Beach and using special techniques, shattered and scattered like powder of light.

Like a shower of light. Mixed into that scene, which felt almost radiant, was blue plumage.

“Piyo.”

“Ah.”

What landed was a monster. An existence at the upper part of this world’s ecosystem. A creature that attacked and devoured humans.

A long beak, magnificent blue-dyed plumage, great wings that grasped the sky and rode the wind. And the proof of a predator: talons.

A monster that lived in the mountains and was supposed to almost never show itself before people.

Huge wings, the size of a hut, flapped.

The throne room, however, was large enough for that monster to invade.

In the Empire’s Adventurers’ Guild, that creature was defined as follows:

First-rank monster, Machlik Bird, the Valley Strange Bird.

It landed in the royal castle.

“Pyo.”

“Ah, aaaaaaah, no way?! No, no, no?! No, no, no, no!! Y-Your Highness?! Your Highneeeess, help me, help—”

“Piyo.”

Flap.

To a creature of that size, humans likely looked like nothing but food.

As if picking up a toy, one of its great taloned feet seized the chancellor, whose hands were still bound behind him.

“A-aaaaaaaaah, noooooo, stoooooop!”

Flap. Even the screams were already distant. The monster took off, carrying the chancellor with it.

“Aha, by chance, yes.”

“Ahh, I can’t see him anymore. He’ll be fed to its chicks alive, that one.”

The two were carefree. The woman laughed softly, and the man looked up at the now well-ventilated skylight and grumbled.

Another person had died.

“…I am sorry, I am sorry, Lint… Damn you, damn you! Fortuna!! You traitor! Accursed child from the depths of Magyazia! H-how dare you!”

“Oh my, Elder Brother. If you strain so much while Wis is pressing you down, your blood vessels might burst. Wis, release him.”

“You sure? This prince looks like he might wring your neck any second.”

“Aha, that would be a wonderful story. Elder Brother, the rightful heir to the throne, defeats the usurper and saves the royal family and the Kingdom. Ah, what a human and noble story. If I can see that, I welcome it.”

“Yes, yes.”

“?! Prepare yourself!! Traitor! Sacrament, approval!”

The blond beautiful man, the Kingdom’s first in line to the throne, First Prince Orthodox Lloyd Armstrong, was without doubt a person on the chosen side.

Noble blood and deep history.

The chosen one who inherited the blood of the founder, the leader of the nation that produced the Hero, humanity’s immune system.

Those chosen by something, those with a mission of some kind, those born to be that way, those with roles: all such people were suitable seedbeds for the sacrament, the remaining scent of angels.

An inhuman power that existed as one of the laws of the world was naturally present in the prince as well.

Since childhood, he had been perceptive and clever, and he had hidden it even from his parents and siblings.

“Oops.”

“Oh my.”

The prince’s arms shimmered. They were swords of light. They were not a power that invaded the world with a mechanism like a magical formula.

It was a phenomenon originally set into the world. The prince’s arms changed into torrents of light with heat, and those torrents of light converged into the shape of swords.

“King’s Light Sword! Pay for your brutality with your life!”

The radiant swords would surely pierce evil and destroy the enemy of the royal family.

The swords were directed toward the woman sitting opposite the prince.

“Aha.”

Fwoosh. There was a definite sensation.

Evaporation. It was the sound of water dropped onto heated stone boiling and evaporating in an instant.

The swords of light, the sacrament of First Prince Orthodox, had melted a human body. Whenever the swords were swung, they made this sound. Before the power of a sacrament, the human body was more fragile than sugarwork.

“Ahh, poor things. They melted almost without leaving a trace.”

The man with the shattered head grumbled in a carefree tone as he looked toward those who had died after having their bodies melted by those swords of light.

“Oh my, oh my, as expected of Elder Brother. To think you even hid a sacrament. I am deeply impressed.”

“………………………………………………………………….Huh? Wh-y?”

The prince murmured blankly. His eyes wandered, and his hands began trembling.

He had certainly aimed. He had certainly swung down.

At the woman before him, the rebel whose blood relation was now horrifying. At his younger sister, the enemy who had laughingly violated not only his elder sister and parents, but even the nation itself.

First Prince Orthodox had truly attempted to kill the rebel, Second Princess Fortuna, and swung down his sacrament.

And yet.

“Say, Wis. Could Elder Brother’s attack just now kill you?”

“Huh? Depends where it hits, doesn’t it? If my whole upper body gets blown away, even I’d die.”

“Ohh.”

“Ah, that’s a nasty face. Don’t start plotting to kill me whenever you see a chance.”

“Oh my, countermeasures against hypothetical enemies are necessary, are they not?”

And yet, she was unharmed.

The target the prince had directed his power to destroy was relaxed and exchanging words with her vassal, the man with the shattered head, as if it were casual tea conversation between friends.

The prince’s head grew confused. Why? How?

What had happened—

“Oh my, oh my. By coincidence, no, by good luck, it seems Elder Brother’s sacrament missed me.”

The woman laughed softly.

The noble blood the Kingdom had preserved through its history. The endpoint of a family line that had constantly incorporated beauty into its bloodline.

Even from her brother’s perspective, that woman’s smile was beautiful, and therefore endlessly horrifying.

“Your… Highness… why…”

“Ah.”

Ah.

The prince reacted to the hoarse voice.

There had been a sensation. The definite sensation of burning and crushing human flesh.

“Oh my, it seems it also struck Sister-in-law.”

“Huh?”

The prince’s body trembled. There were several types of fear.

Fear toward danger to one’s own life, primal fear toward something incomprehensible, and a fear just as enormous and powerful as those.

Fear toward one’s own fatal mistake.

“No… way.”

They were gone.

The prisoners who had been bound in the hall. The men and women who had followed the first prince and met the Dragon Cult.

All of those who had resisted in vain and been taken prisoner had vanished from the room.

The floor where they had been had melted thickly, like wax exposed to intense heat.

Barely, only half of one person remained.

Ah, yes. Half of one person.

A human body with only the upper half remained melted there.

“Your… High… ness…”

“Liz?”

It was the prince’s imprisoned fiancée. Her beautiful blond hair had been burned, and her ornate dress was now nothing but scorched cloth for some reason.

The heat of the King’s Light Sword had burned and melted everything about her.

The light of the King’s Light Sword had licked and melted the prince’s vassals.

By chance, the prince’s attack had struck the prisoners.

“Ah, how unfortunate. Kus, Elder Brother’s hand must have slipped. Aha, it was by chance. Please do not let it trouble you.”

“Eh, eh, ah, eh, ah, heh.”

The prince’s breathing became irregular.

Failure took form. A sense of agitation arose, like pitch-black hands reaching out from a gloomy valley floor.

No, no, impossible. I directed the light at that woman—

“Tough luck, Prince. Your subordinates and wife, you cleaned them all up yourself.”

The man murmured.

The hero, monster, who had single-handedly destroyed the royal family’s military power grumbled carelessly, as if sightseeing.

Cleaned up—

The melted ground. The vanished vassals who had become his prisoners. The burned remains of a woman’s corpse with only the upper body.

There was no stomach. Yes, where was his fiancée? A woman’s corpse with only the upper body. His fiancée, who had grown up with him since childhood, matured with him, promised love with him, only the upper body together, no stomach between them, only the chest remaining, who should have been carrying his child, his beloved treasure, and should have walked the future with him—

“Sister-in-law seems to have had bad luck. How unfortunate.”

The woman laughed.

The prince understood.

His light swords had burned and melted all his vassals, his wife, and the child that should have been born.

“A-aaaaaaaaah, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

Lament and grief were powerless.

His hair disheveled, tears mixed with blood spilling from his hollow eyes, the prince rushed toward the trace his light swords had passed through.

He fell again and again, stumbled again and again, sobbing as he crawled on that melted ground, where the smell of human fat and blood burning lingered.

“It’s a lie, it’s a lie, it’s a lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, liiiie… Aaaaaaaaaah!”

There was no longer any dignity or splendor as royalty. There was only the figure of a man who had had everything stolen from him, no, who had lost what was precious by his own fatal mistake.

“He’s broken. What now? Are you going to make him a living corpse and use him like Father and Mother?”

“Hmm? No, Elder Brother has no use, so I will properly dispose of him.”

“Got it. Keeping him alive any longer would be pitiful. I’ll do it in one go.”

“No, no, Wis, what are you saying? My game with Elder Brother, the test of luck that will decide the Kingdom’s future, is not over yet.”

“Ah, hey. …Your taste really is awful.”

“A-aaaaaaaaah…”

“Elder Brother, please do not cry. Everyone simply had bad luck. Come now, stand up. A person’s value shows its true worth precisely in adversity. How one faces the obstacles in life. That is where human value appears.”

“You… damn…”

“Phew… How unfortunate. I wanted you to show me the spirit to try killing me one more time here… Hmm. How pitiful are humans who answer trials with grief rather than anger or hatred. Now, Elder Brother.”

“…Eh?”

“It is Elder Brother’s turn. Our test of luck. The tea party is not over yet. Now, choose. Choose a sweet and eat it… Now, choose, loser.”

“…You, what… what do you want… Destroying the nation, killing your family, what…”

“A test of luck.”

“Huh?”

“I want to test it. My luck. I want to see just how far my luck works in this shitty world. That is all.”

Her eyes were cheerful.

However, in those abnormal eyes, in the star-shaped irises, burned the bright fire of ambition.

The prince, who had lost everything and been defeated, realized.

He could never have won. There was no way he could have won or competed while staying sane against a human with eyes like this.

He had lost from the start. No, perhaps he had lost from the moment he shared blood with this woman.

Just as parents cannot choose their children, children also cannot choose the parents they are born to, nor what kind of existence they share blood with. All of that is known only to the angels.

In other words, luck.

That meant he was—

“Ah… I…”

“Yes, Elder Brother, you…”

The prince reached out.

A humanist loved by luck, once his younger sister, now a shrine maiden leading the Dragon Cult, and a usurper seeking to destroy the Kingdom.

He reached for the tray held out by Fortuna Lloyd Armstrong, Second Princess—

““Had bad luck.””

And put the sweet into his mouth.

The fun tea party, a private moment between brother and sister, ended.

“U, ah.”

The moment he put it in his mouth, it began.

It was the winning sweet. That cursed tea party, the test of luck to see which of them would put it in their mouth first.

The prince had finally chosen the poisoned sweet.

A deadly poison. Humans of this world had no resistance to its toxicity.

“Ah, ubweh, aaaaeh.”

Vomit, vomit, vomit. From his mouth, from his nostrils. The poison that had entered his stomach was expelled all at once.

A defensive reaction of the body invaded by poison. His flesh struggled desperately to live, but the prince’s heart had already—

“Ah, hi, hih, fu.”

Blood began to mix into the foul fluids dripping from his whole body. His breathing also spasmed, and the prince writhed over the melted floor.

More ugly and pained than a fish thrown onto land, he continued thrashing.

Thud, thud, thud. His hands slapped the floor, his feet kept kicking the floor. His ornate armor and mantle were covered in vomit and blood.

The beauty of his face was now nowhere to be seen.

“Aaaabobobobobo, Fortunaaaaaaaaabobobobobobaaaaa…”

“Yes, Elder Brother. Farewell.”

Even the voice of resentment did not reach that woman, the woman loved by luck.

After spilling an especially large amount of blood, the prince stopped moving with a terrible expression.

The limbs that had been thrashing so violently stopped suddenly and folded like a dead insect.

Here, the Kingdom’s first in line to the throne, Orthodox Lloyd Armstrong, died in defeat.

“Oh my, he died. Hmm, Elder Brother was always a little weak mentally, so it cannot be helped.”

The coup d’état had succeeded.

The one remaining person with royal blood simply quietly looked down at her brother’s corpse.

“Checkmate, huh. Now the only heir to the royal family is you. This is a coup d’état so successful it’ll be rare in history.”

“What is checkmate?”

“Eh, you don’t know? It’s a term from a board game that’s started becoming popular in the Empire. Seriously, maybe because you were raised so well, you really don’t know the world.”

“Oh, how tragic. Then teach me next time, Wis. We are friends, are we not?”

“Yes, yes, my princess.”

The usurpers repeated carefree conversation in the throne room filled with the stench of death.

She had abundant medium-length green hair tied into a side tail, a hairstyle that could even make her look like a town girl. However, the grace born from each of her movements guaranteed her birth.

A woman loved by luck, with large round drooping eyes and star-shaped irises.

“Ah, there you go again. You and I are equals. Do not call me princess!”

Fortuna Lloyd Armstrong, Second Princess.

As the shrine maiden leading the Dragon Cult, she disrupted the nation and at last violated the throne completely with luck alone.

“Yeah, yeah. Then would it be acceptable if I called you Shrine Maiden-sama?”

Wis Postetas Heros. A muscular, sunburned man with burning red hair.

The second princess’s strongest and greatest fighting force. In truth, the Kingdom’s military capability had been destroyed by this man’s force.

A descendant of a certain hero who had once betrayed the Hero, a bloodline that should originally have ended had now appeared on the stage of history with atavistic violence.

That blood was loved, and it had become a foreign object born with the mission and ability of a hero.

“Hmm, well, I will barely allow that. Are the cult members about done by now?”

“Huh? Probably around now, right? Simultaneous capture of the Kingdom’s key points. Well, even if the military forces from each region tried to rush to the royal capital now, it’d be too late.”

At the moment Wis murmured that—

“Thank you for waiting, Shrine Maiden-sama.”

Suddenly, five suspicious lights lit up in the throne room.

“Oh my, oh my, everyone is here.”

The green-haired woman, shrine maiden of the Dragon Cult and usurper Fortuna, called out to her vassals.

“The Dragon Cult’s Five Claws, as commanded by our shrine maiden, have succeeded in capturing the key points throughout the Kingdom.”

What emerged from the light were strange sets of knight armor.

Rust-colored plate mail, with fine designs reminiscent of scales.

And the helmets, shaped to resemble a dragon’s face, were the same for all five.

“Thank you for your work. Everything has gone well. Ah, Bishop Nalk, you did not lay hands on the merchants from the Empire, correct?”

“Yes. As commanded, we did not lay hands on the merchants from that country. The northern port town, an economic special zone, has also become ours through peaceful methods.”

Flipping his mantle, one of the dragon-armored men spoke in a deep voice.

“Good, good. Now then, Habaki-dono of the west?”

“Yes! As our shrine maiden said! The key to the Kingdom’s food production! We have burned all the western farming villages to the ground!”

“Excellent. Fufu, under the trial of hunger and the trial of cold, what kind of forms will humans show us, I wonder?”

“Yes, I too look forward to it! No! Even so, I wish our shrine maiden could have seen it! The sight of weaklings having their own fields and livestock burned without understanding anything! Survival of the fittest! It was the doctrine of our Dragon Cult itself! A reenactment of legend!”

His voice was strong and loud.

They were all people born strong.

One of the two great religious organizations of this world, standing opposite the Angel Church.

The Dragon Cult. Those who destroyed the Kingdom, a group of seekers who worshiped dragons and sought to become dragons.

Now, however, they had twisted that doctrine and danced to the convenient words of survival of the fittest.

“Oh my, oh my, I will look forward to the next opportunity. Then, next—”

“Oops, wait, Shrine Maiden. I’ve got something that bothers me a bit.”

“Hm? What is it?”

At Wis’s sharp voice, Fortuna tilted her head.

“Hey, Habaki. You seem to have had quite a lot of fun. I can smell it. The scent of women. It’s mixed with ash and blood, but I can easily tell.”

From the particularly high place where the throne sat, Wis looked down at the dragon armors.

“…You would do well not to get too full of yourself, Shrine Maiden’s Guard. You merely sully the end of our ranks by the shrine maiden-sama’s strong wish. Watch how you speak.”

“Huh? The shrine maiden-sama gave me full authority over military operations, didn’t she? Then don’t you think there’s a reason you should follow what I decide?”

“What are you trying to say?”

“Don’t play dumb, scum. You smell like women. Don’t rut on the battlefield. I’m asking what the hell you, a general, are doing, not some enlisted man.”

“Hahaha! You stray dog. I merely took the spoils of war. Ah, do not worry. I properly disposed of them. Used things should be cleaned up, after all. Oops, are you a germaphobe despite your appearance?”

The dragon armor chuckled. His eyes were clouded. Unsuitably, he was intoxicated by the power he had luckily been granted, drowning in the pleasure of swinging it at the weak.

That was why he did not notice.

That was why he did not even think of it.

The obvious conclusion that the phrase survival of the fittest applied to oneself as well.

“…Ah, I’m done. Fortuna, okay?”

“Hmm, Habaki is fairly capable, but well, Wis, I leave it to you.”

After that simple conversation—

Fwip.

Wis stepped forward.

“Hahaha! Shrine Maiden-sama, what are you saying?! Survival of the fittest is the very teaching of the Dragon Cult that you know as well! It is the way of the world for the weak to have everything taken by the strong, is it no—”

Crunch.

In the next instant, the dragon-armored man’s body and head were no longer connected.

“I don’t need you.”

“Teh, peh?”

The hero Wis had torn the armored man’s head off. Like harvesting fruit, he had squeezed it off with his bare hand.

“Eh, eh, eh.”

A muffled voice leaked from the helmet containing only the head, and then blood dripped from the mangled cross-section as if suddenly remembering to fall.

Thud.

Toss.

The armor’s headless body falling onto its back and the severed head being thrown from Wis’s hand happened at the same time.

“You bastard!!”

“What have you done?!”

The armored men, the Dragon Cult’s Five Claws, now the Four Claws, the cult executives, exposed their anger one after another.

“Fortuna, do we need these guys from here on?”

“Eeh… Please get along. Well, I leave it to Wis, though.”

“That’s what she says. Come at me, dragon fetishists. In the end, you’ll kill each other over who becomes the dragon anyway. It’s just a matter of whether the timing is early or late.”

The red-haired man, Wis, licked the blood dripping from his broken head and turned his palm upward, folding his fingers.

Come on, come on. The meaning of that obvious provocation was simple.

Come at me.

“Shrine Maiden-sama, as expected, this man cannot be left alone!”

“With all due respect, Shrine Maiden-sama, this man is no longer of use!”

“So what if he devoured the Kingdom’s knights and soldiers! We cultists, who have trained to become dragons, can do the same! With this gift from the shrine maiden-sama! There is no difference in power between us, who were chosen by power that can even reach dragons, and you!”

“The ones who will become dragons are we, the rightful believers of the Dragon Cult. Do not think an unbeliever like you can approach dragons!”

The remaining dragon armors, the cult’s militant faction, the strong who had attacked and destroyed the Kingdom’s key points, directed killing intent toward Wis.

“Oh my, oh my, how hot-blooded. Well, yes. Please do as you like. That too is human karma.”

The green-haired woman sat down on the throne with a little grunt, propped up her elbow, and merely watched.

“Do not get carried away, you dregs of a hero.”

“We will root you out here, survivor of Heros!”

“I have disliked you for a long time.”

“We are the Dragon Cult, those qualified to surpass dragons and become dragons! We do not need a stray dog like you among our noble pride!”

“You’re noisy as hell. If it’s fine, then come on. Show me what the shrine maiden-sama’s presents can do. I hope they’re useful for something other than bullying the weak.”

““““Drifting Dragon Object, activate.””””

Their power reacted to their words.

It was something found in despair, something that appeared in crisis. Yet at times, it was found easily, items of power hidden by this world.

Such things that might even reach dragons were named as weapons to resist dragons.

“Scale-Crushing Dragon!”

“Dragon-Slaying Blade!”

“Dragon Flame Spear!”

“Dragon Devourer!”

A giant hammer. It might even be able to crush dragon scales.

A blood-dripping blade. It might even be able to kill dragons.

A spear tip holding smoldering flame. It held the breath of the Flame Dragon, a flame that might even burn dragons to death.

A head transformed into a dragon’s jaws. Surely nothing in this world could escape those jaws.

The Dragon Cult’s greatest fighting force, the Five Claws.

They proudly directed powers that could even kill dragons toward the hero.

“Die! Hero! Popi—”

“Before the power to kill dragons, kneel—pupe—”

“Behold this spear tip that retains the Flame Dragon’s flames—miyoyoyowawa—”

“Can your fragile body endure a dragon’s jaws—papan—”

One, two, three, four.

The first had his neck twisted 180 degrees the instant he raised his giant hammer.

The second had his arm broken the instant he readied his sword, and then his own stolen sword pierced the center of his face.

The third had his spear stomped down the instant he thrust it forward, then a hand was shoved into his throat, his tongue was pulled out, and his entrails were pulled out along with it.

The fourth had his face, transformed into a dragon’s jaws, kicked through and burst open.

The Five Claws were no longer any number of claws. They were not even claws anymore.

In the blink of an eye, the hero slaughtered them all.

“As if weapons for killing dragons would be useful against humans.”

The dragon armors all died and fell without even screaming.

“No, Drifting Dragon Objects do not only work on dragons. They are weapons that can even reach dragons, so normally they work on humans too.”

Fortuna grumbled in an exasperated voice at her hero, who could not hold back.

“Ah, well, it’s fine. They were toys too good for these guys.”

“Eeh, I had been coaxing and raising them since I took over the Dragon Cult, though. I stayed up all night thinking of the name Five Claws too.”

“No way. My princess’s naming sense is awful.”

“Hah, well, fine. They must have had bad luck too. How truly unfortunate to make my hero their enemy.”

“Well, there are still tons of Dragon Cult believers as fighting force. It shouldn’t be a problem if we make them participate in the festival to liven things up.”

“Honestly, please stop making vague calculations unique to heroes. My luck surely has limits too. Um, well, if we also distribute the Drifting Dragon Objects we gathered with adventurers the other day to the other believers, a few of them should be compatible.”

“Eh, wait. Hey, hey, you still have more of those? Normally, those Drifting Dragon Objects are basically the same thing as the Empire’s grave goods, right? They’re things you might see once in a lifetime, aren’t they?”

“Ehehe, I am lucky, you see.”

At Fortuna’s smile, Wis made a face like he had bitten into a bitter bug.

“Oh, it is fine, is it not? You have a special Drifting Dragon Object, after all. It suits you very well, that bucket-like helmet.”

“Ah, this thing. It’s good that my body feels lighter just by tying it to my waist, but this thing is obviously dangerous. I mean, I can’t wear it, you know?”

Where Fortuna pointed, hanging from Wis’s waist like an accessory, was a filthy helmet.

It was a bucket-shaped helmet.

“Aha, even a hero being unable to control a power has its charm, does it not? Well, well, Wis, I have many other Drifting Dragon Objects prepared for you, so do not sulk so much.”

“Tch, to begin with, this decorative helmet is a family heirloom my ancestor used. Give me good benefits, princess.”

“Yes, yes. Now then, hmm. Since the Five Claws have disappeared too, shall we simply decide the future plans by ourselves?”

The two exchanged light talk around the throne, surrounded by corpses.

“Yeah. As planned, the Kingdom is yours now. So, our princess. What will you test your luck against next?”

The man asked while wiping away the blood splattered over his black leather armor.

He generally knew the answer to the question, though.

“Yes, as planned, after the Kingdom comes the dragon! The Empire’s guardian dragon, the Hoarding Dragon, Alice Dral Flaretail-sama! Let us try killing her.”

Clapping her hands together, speaking cheerfully as if talking about an event she could not wait to enjoy—

Fortuna spun words that were unforgivable in this world.

“Ah, so it goes that way after all. Well, sooner or later, it had to. To become a dragon, we’ll need a dragon’s heart one way or another. We’ve got no choice.”

“Can you win, my hero?”

Fortuna asked quietly. She understood that her weapon, her friend, and the one who had destroyed even the Kingdom was the violence named that hero.

“Ah, well, if we use up the Dragon Cult, I risk my life, fully operate the Drifting Dragon Objects, and your ‘luck’ clicks into place, then maybe fifty-fifty? It’s a dragon, after all. A living legend. Only by preparing that much might we finally reach it.”

“Oh my, fufu, there are more prospects than I expected. I thought it would be more difficult.”

“Well, recently, it became clear that dragons die if they’re killed too. Someone who died once will probably die fairly easily the second time too.”

“Ah! The Empire’s dragon slayer! Aha, I know of him too. He was on the Dragon Cult’s assassination list.”

“Well, that’s how it is. The dragon slayer-sama proved it. Dragons can die after all. But, Fortuna. This fifty-fifty is under the condition that absolutely everything goes ideally. In reality, it won’t go that well—”

Wis chose his words while running battle calculations through his mind.

Fortuna, who continued listening with a smile, deepened that smile.

“Aha.”

“What is it?”

Wis looked suspicious.

“No, it is just a little interesting. Everything will go well. Luckily, surely.”

“…Ah, come to think of it, that was right. You really are a terrifying woman. But, Fortuna, there is one thing. If we are going to meddle with dragons, there is something I want to propose.”

At his master’s words, the hero nodded. Certainly, that was true. Before luck equivalent to a curse, even predictions were foolish.

Everything was luck. Things would likely proceed as she thought, in whatever way was convenient for her.

However, there was just one thing the hero wanted to avoid, even while understanding that luck.

“Oh my, what is it?”

“This time, I don’t want to get involved with the dragon slayer. I’ve got a bad feeling.”

“Oh, and why is that?”

Fortuna lifted her eyelids with interest. Behind her drooping eyes, her abnormal star-shaped irises glittered brightly.

“It’s simple. He’s a crazy bastard who kills dragons. Surely he’s the same type as you.”

“Is that a problem?”

“Ah, you don’t get it? When a crazy bastard and a crazy bastard fight, it stops being a battle and turns into a gag. I don’t want to get dragged into a crazy battle.”

Dragon slayer and luck.

Through his superhuman intuition, the hero did not want his master to meet him.

There was no logic or basis, only a premonition. Yet in his life, that intuition had never been wrong.

“Eeh, I wanted to meet the dragon slayer during this Dragon Festival! I want to test my luck.”

“Wow, she’s got no intention of listening to my proposal. Hah, understood. Do as you like. I’ll pray for your good luck.”

But it was no use. The hero’s words could not stop this woman.

Wis was weak to Fortuna’s endlessly delighted face.

“Oh my, oh my. You say that to me, hero? Well, fine. Besides, there are several people in the Empire whom I would like to gather for the coming battle, and for the test of luck against the being that will come after killing a dragon.”

“People?”

“Yes! After all, people are treasures. The royal shadows we could not find during this civil war, and their leader, the Shadow Fang, Lazaar, correct? And the court merchant Dromora, who foresaw everything the moment I contacted the Dragon Cult and left the Kingdom! There are many people we must have returned from the Empire.”

“No, no, those guys wouldn’t all be in the Empire, and conveniently in the adventure city—”

“They are.”

“—Ah.”

Wis lost his words.

At that short statement from Fortuna, at that arrogant yet therefore utterly pure and beautiful figure, he lost his words.

“They happen to be there. I am lucky, after all.”

“…Ah, that’s right. You certainly are a lucky woman.”

Wis muttered as if savoring it.

“Aha. Say, Wis. Let us enjoy life more and more from here on. The joy of living as a human ultimately comes down to wielding one’s power upon the world.”

Fortuna, the lucky woman, imagined it.

She pursued it. Just where would her luck arrive? Dreaming of that, she looked at Wis.

“I will have my test of luck, and you will have your test of strength.”

“…Ah, yeah. After stealing a country comes killing a dragon, and after that?”

“There are many things. We will kill the dragon, swallow the Empire, and while we are at it, let us try destroying the magicians and the Church too! Ah, that’s right, let us build Trena’s grave in the Empire. That sheltered little fool is probably already dead.”

“You really look like you’re having fun.”

“If one does not enjoy it, it will not be fun, you know? Now then, I must prepare. I will ask Father, whom we have imprisoned, to arrange for us to go to the Dragon Festival as distinguished guests from the Kingdom!”

Fortuna stood up from the throne and ran.

The throne room was filled with corpses, but her manner was that of a girl running around in a flower garden.

“Scaary.”

The man sat on the empty throne in that hall filled with the dead. The sight from there was also the long-cherished wish of his clan, which had been abandoned by the country and buried in history.

But.

“It’s less impressive than I thought.”

That long-cherished wish was no longer the man’s greatest desire.

As if looking at something dazzling, the man narrowed his eyes at the back of the cursed woman.

“Hey, wait, Fortuna. I’m coming too!”

“Aha.”

The green-haired woman turned around happily. A horrifying and simply, simply lucky woman.

The hero ran in one step to the master he had chosen.

The Drifting Dragon Object tied to his waist.

The item left behind by his ancestor.

It rattled.

On the rusty bucket helmet was scrawled a message that the humans of this world could not read, no, could not even identify as letters.

“Slap! fucking arm Man”

And so, those who writhe. The actors had assembled, and the stage was set.

The Dragon Festival would begin.