With Awe, With Reverence, I Offer

“Overload—”

That was one of Tooyama Naruhito’s rewards.

A strange being who lived inside his dream, a giant man with a paper charm covered in Siddham script stuck over his face.

Paper Charm Macho. Its authority was here now.

Ah, what echoed in his head was the sound of festival music. Summer festivals, autumn festivals. Since the distant past, the people who lived in Nihon had found “them” within nature, feared them, revered them, and honored them.

Festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music, festival music.

“Ah, I can hear something.”

Explorer “intoxication” was broadly divided into two types. Just like alcohol, there was the upper type, where one’s tension kept rising higher and higher, and the downer type, where one sank into one’s own world.

Tooyama Naruhito was the latter type. Now, he simply accepted the abnormal change beginning to happen to him in silence.

Mixed in with the festival music, there were words that reached him. Words of celebration.

All that remained was to weave them. His finger was already on the trigger, and the safety had long since disappeared.

Somewhere in the world, that thing, restrained and bound with paper charms stuck to it, grinned.

—Use it.

Tooyama turned the words that reached his head into his voice.

“With awe, with reverence, I offer—”

There was the sound of a bell ringing.

The thick, milky-white mist spreading behind Tooyama writhed.

“Mist that fell as the gods gathered from the High Heavenly Plain, mist that gathers over mountains, fields, and plains. Mist that divides the far side from this side, transform the divine treasure into your own form and appear here now.”

The words of celebration echoed in his head. Without anyone teaching them to him, they welled up from within him, and Tooyama continued weaving them.

Writhe, writhe. Something moved beyond the mist. With each step Tooyama took, that mist distorted the rules of the world.

“All living beings, sin and defilement. All of every world. Even the souls drifting everywhere, devour them all into the mist.”

Relic Blade, Soul Devouring, Paper Charm Macho.

All the necessary pieces were gathered. What Tooyama Naruhito, the relic holder, still needed were only an image and a trigger.

“This dream where the ‘god’ dwells ever more, now come swiftly into the living world.”

He stopped the words welling up.

“By order of your ‘master,’ through the works of the raging gods, there is no longer even a peaceful land.”

He pulled the corners of his mouth upward in a wide grin.

“With awe, with reverence, offer it. Offer everything, every last thing—”

“……What is that?”

Ooooooooooooh, ooooooooooooh, ooooooooooooh.

How cold the raging wind was. How deep and pitiful that lament was.

Ah, inside the mist, inside the mist.

“Ah, ah.”

“I’m not dead.”

“Ah, aah, what is this mist…… Aah.”

“Damn it, I, damn it…… I finally had my third chance……”

“Jurorororororo.”

“Sharororo.”

Inside the mist, inside the thick mist spreading behind Tooyama, they writhed. All those who had scattered before Tooyama Naruhito’s killing intent and had their souls devoured by that mist.

People, people, people, and snake monsters. They were there inside the mist.

The mist took their forms. They attended behind Tooyama Naruhito.

Pshh. Tooyama pulled the broken blade from his neck. Holding it reverse-gripped as it was clad in mist.

“Relic Blade: Overload: Scroll-Tale of Monsters and Misty Mountains and Fields.”

““““Ooooooooooooh.””””

This was Tooyama Naruhito’s evolution. The true power of a relic taken as far as it could go.

Souls with nowhere to go, souls that could no longer even join the cycle of rebirth.

Mist gathering on the plains, mist spreading over the mountains. What mixed within it were the very souls of those killed by Relic Blade.

The mist clung to souls. The mist shaped flesh from souls.

“Ah, now I understand. Relic Blade. I understand everything.”

Tooyama widened his eyes and covered his face with his hand. He could not suppress the laughter overflowing from him.

“Everything, everything. Ah, I’ll take everything with me.”

His body did not hurt. The air he breathed in was cold, and every breath made his heated body feel as if it was turning blue.

“It’s like after getting out of a sauna……”

The air was cold and pleasant.

The intoxication returned. There was no longer any fear or suffering. In this moment, nothing, no anxiety, existed.

His companions, his own life, all of it disappeared from his thoughts.

Right now, everything was simply—

“This feels good.”

He opened both hands and looked up at the sky. A milky-white curtain enveloped the surroundings. All of it was under Tooyama Naruhito’s power.

Tooyama understood how to use that power.

Like a bird knowing how to fly through the sky, like a fish riding the flow of water, like a human standing on two legs without being taught by anyone.

“I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. What is this? What is that?”

The white snake woman glared with her all-black eyes at the man commanding mist wraiths.

In response to her anger and fear, the giant snakes trembled.

Five monsters attacked Tooyama at the same time.

“Now then, let’s go.”

“Sharo?!”

“Jah……?!”

Tooyama did not move even a single step. He merely distorted his narrow eyes quietly and smiled.

And yet, none of the giant snakes could even touch Tooyama.

“Aaah.”

“Ooooooh.”

“Sharororo.”

A mist person had shot through a giant snake’s eye.

A mist giant snake had bitten into a giant snake’s neck.

Relic Blade: Overload: Scroll-Tale of Monsters and Misty Mountains and Fields.

That relic phenomenon—

“Hihihihihihi.”

—the “control and command of souls collected by Relic Blade.”

“What is that……?”

“It’s an awakening event.”

Creep, creep.

Squirm.

He was no longer alone, no longer outnumbered. From the mist behind Tooyama, from the mist, writhing human shadows and monster shadows emerged.

Wearing temporary pure-white bodies, they appeared one after another from the mist. Though those mist bodies looked as if they might dissolve at any moment, they certainly took the forms those souls had possessed in life.

“Thinking about it now, after coming to this world, I really killed and killed. In the modern world, I’d definitely be found guilty for excessive self-defense.”

Mist humans knelt before Tooyama. Looking down at them, some of their faces were familiar.

The Crows he had slaughtered in the slums, the gatekeepers he had disposed of at the West Gate, the adventurers he had handled because they picked a fight with him.

“Aaaaaa……”

“Uuuuuuh.”

Even in death, those killed and eaten by Relic Blade went nowhere. They merely groaned like wind raging through a deep valley.

“Yo, long time no see. Sorry to ask so soon, but it’s time to work, assholes.”

Now, in this way, they had become Tooyama’s tools.

The more Tooyama disposed of obstacles according to his desires, the more the monsters lurking in that mist would continue to increase. That was the kind of karma this was.

“Ah, aah…… Th-That one, that one, hih, no, why, no…… Why?”

The white snake woman suddenly began to tremble in fear.

She shook as she saw several mist men attending around Tooyama.

“Huh? Well, whatever. This is a chance. Now then, monsters, remove all armament restrictions. Go kill.”

Without particularly thinking about why the white snake woman had begun to fear them, Tooyama started things easily.

“Ooooooh!!”

“Aaaaaah.”

The mist spread. The misty human figures each gripped weapons and attacked the giant snake swarm.

“Sharororo!!”

“Rurururururu!!”

The white snake woman, their commander, lacked vigor and merely kept mumbling something.

The giant snakes each met the mist monsters in battle.

“Snakes, carry the humans.”

Tooyama swung the broken blade like a conductor’s baton. Empty as ghosts, they obediently followed their master’s instructions.

“Aah……”

“Sharo.”

A mist person mounted the head of a mist snake.

All of its movements were also as Tooyama willed.

“Jaro?!”

The giant snakes were bewildered by the existence of an impossible enemy. By those eerie white forms that had the same shape as their own kind yet gave off no scent.

“Jarororororororororo?!”

One after another. The mist monsters continued slaughtering the snakes.

“Ah, ah.”

Mist humans with empty eye sockets. Each of them gripped the weapons they had loved in life. Literally burned into their souls, those weapons clung to them and would not leave even after their bodies had perished and their souls had been eaten.

With swords, bows, and spears, they surrounded the giant snakes and continued gouging their flesh. It did not matter if they were crushed by great tails or squeezed flat.

Mist clung to their bodies and repaired the crushed portions. For them, even “death” could no longer be an end.

“Good. Keep killing like that. Move even if you die. Keep moving.”

Interpretation of the relic. While continuing to use it, Tooyama deepened and chewed through that interpretation even further.

Relic Blade. The moment he had obtained it, its name had echoed in his head.

Relic Blade, a weapon that produced mist and turned that mist into tiny blades to cut enemies apart from outside and within.

Until now, that was where Tooyama’s recognition of Relic Blade had ended. However—

“There was more. Show me more, more, Relic Blade. What can you do? Deepen it, gaze at it, my understanding and interpretation of the relic.”

He expanded the interpretation.

—Delicious. The soul of a human inferior even to a beast that knows not the pain of others has such a frivolous taste, it is irresistible.

Mist. In that dream, Paper Charm Macho had eaten souls.

At that time too, when he disposed of the ones who had picked a fight with him in the market. The souls of humans killed by Relic Blade had flowed into him.

Mist. Ah, yes, come to think of it, back then too, on the day Tarou disappeared, mist had spread before his eyes.

“……That’s right. Mist hides everything. It traps things inside it, and nothing can be seen from outside.”

All the adventures he had experienced until now connected to this interpretation.

His interpretation of mist grew deeper and deeper.

It stagnated in pure white and gathered there. Mist that covered and concealed the things lurking within it.

Mist and souls.

The new interpretation Tooyama Naruhito directed toward Relic Blade.

“Mist preserves everything. Ah, all of it is mine.”

A message flowed briefly and immediately disappeared.

Having matched his interpretation and recognized it, Tooyama further improved the precision of his relic use.

“Ah, aaaah, no, not them. Don’t let them come. Don’t let them near me, please……”

“Oops, I was getting too absorbed in my own world. Let’s continue.”

At the white snake woman’s shriek, Tooyama looked forward.

The monsters were plunging into the great snake swarm and mixing with them in a great war.

The undying giant snakes were superior in number, but they were gradually being pushed back by the immortal monsters of mist.

“H-Hihihihihihi. There, there. You don’t die, right? You don’t perish, right? Ah, good, isn’t it? I’ll recreate it for you. The sight at the bottom of hell’s cauldron.”

He had no spear. However, that was on the belt at Tooyama’s waist.

Rugged, heavy. It had no blade and was not sharp.

And yet, if swung down again and again, it could surely steal an enemy’s life.

It was likely the first tool humans ever held for taking the life of another.

A blunt weapon. At the end of its handle was not a blade, but a lump of iron like a bulb covered in spikes.

He readied an ordinary mace, an iron club, that had been sold cheaply at the dwarven workshop.

In his left hand, the broken blade. In his right hand, a one-handed hammer.

“Tooyama Naruhito, exploration, no—”

His lips inevitably curled upward. A human who had overcome the danger of death and evolved smiled at the premonition of struggle, at a challenge where it was still unknown which side would survive.

It was the moment he had dreamed of with his fluffy friend as a child.

“Adventure begins.”

“Ah, aaaaah!! Don’t laugh, don’t laugh!! Everyone, kill that, kill them all!”

“Hihihihihihihi.”

Without even suppressing the smile welling up, Tooyama ran low.

“Sharorororororo!!”

A giant snake noticed Tooyama. It tried to slam down the arm growing from its mouth.

“Do it now.”

“Jarorororororororo.”

Slickly, the mist swirled between Tooyama and the giant snake and took the form of a snake.

All the monsters could be made to appear by the will of Tooyama, their master.

The giant snake and the mist snake entangled their massive bodies and killed each other. Blood scattered, and mist shattered. Both were undying and immortal. Then the conflict would never stop.

“Ah, ah, oooh.”

“Hi, hi, hi.”

Empty mist people rode on the mist snake’s head and attacked nearby giant snakes.

None of the giant snakes had time to pay attention to Tooyama Naruhito. The mist kept killing the giant snakes.

The enormous swarm of Titanos Mares, this swarm that should never have been born, was already beyond the hands of a single adventurer.

It would likely be counted as a monster hazard that should be handled by the Empire’s army or a team of Tower-Class Adventurers.

“Ah, ah, no way, no way. What is this number……?”

But now that disaster was being swallowed by mist.

“Hihihihihihi.”

“Hihihihi.”

“Hihihihihihihihihi.”

“Hihihihihihihihihihihihihihihihi.”

Laughter rang out along with the sound of festival music. Their master’s laughter spread to the monsters.

The humans and snakes cut apart and eaten by the mist all laughed.

Laughing, they killed.

“Ah, no, no. Stop it. Everyone…… Aaaaah, why are you laughing……”

“Because it’s fun, obviously. And I finally reached you. This time was much easier than before.”

“Ah, no way, already……?”

The distance between them no longer existed. The giant snake swarm was devouring and being devoured by the mist swarm of monsters. Therefore, nothing blocked Tooyama Naruhito.

Before his eyes, the white snake woman. Her green hair, white scales, supple body, and snake form.

All of it was an adventurer’s prey.

“Hih……”

The white snake woman widened her all-black eyes. All living beings feared existences they could not understand.

Until just now, that man had been prey. She had been about to torment him, strip away all his dignity, and display his corpse.

And yet, now, now he was already—

“Hihihihi, how about a duel?”

He was not prey, not a natural enemy, and not a predator.

He was simply terrifying. That man, who smiled while harming others—

“Advent……urer……”

“Relic Blade.”

Whoosh. The broken blade was swung. Its invisible slashing effect was still intact. Thin and fast, the pure-white mist caught the white snake woman’s scales.

“Ah?! No, ah?!”

Blood flowed. Red blood. Drip, drip. Blood mixed into the muddy ground.

The blade of mist pierced the human body from chest to abdomen.

“It hurts, it hurts?! Ah, aaaaaah.”

The white snake woman writhed and tried to burrow into the ground—

“With awe, with reverence. Come swiftly. This is your master’s command.”

Relic Blade: Overload: Scroll-Tale of Monsters and Misty Mountains and Fields.

Each time he used it, it became more refined. Image, interpretation. Tooyama’s interpretation of his “mist” spread further within him.

It was something that filled the area before one realized it. Without warning, mist filled the mountains and fields.

“Jarorororororororo.”

“Jurororororororo.”

“Ah, gah?! A-Aaaaaah?! Why, from where?!”

Two mist snakes wrapped around the white snake woman and stopped her movement as she tried to burrow into the ground. Those mist snakes had appeared as if growing from the ground.

“It’s mist. It appears anywhere. Now, whether underground or whatever, I won’t let you escape.”

“Eh.”

A mist snake appeared from beneath Tooyama Naruhito’s feet. He jumped onto its head and leaped in one bound.

The white snake woman, entangled by the mist snakes, and Tooyama Naruhito’s gazes aligned at the same height.

“I’ll punch you and kill you.”

He jumped. What he raised was the mace. Holding it overhead, he swung it down with the momentum of his fall.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaa!!! Dieeeeeeee!!”

“Ah, ah?”

Snap.

At the last moment, the white snake woman grew an arm from the snake body. The far too thin arm received the mace’s blow and snapped like dead wood.

“One more!”

The recoil from striking with the mace. For an instant, Tooyama’s falling energy and the recoil energy became equal.

A moment of floating was born, and Tooyama did not miss it.

He drove the broken blade in his left hand, Relic Blade, into the white snake woman’s shoulder. Smiling toward the shriek echoing through the mist, he used the broken blade as support and fell.

Scrape, scrape, scrape.

It gouged, gouged. The white snake woman’s scales peeled up, skin tore, and flesh was gouged.

“Ah, gah, kafu……”

She vomited blood.

Just as he had read. As expected, this white snake woman’s weak point was the human portion.

Around the white snake woman’s abdomen, Relic Blade bit in, and his fall stopped.

Tooyama tightened his abdomen and put strength into the hand gripping Relic Blade.

“It’s over.”

The conditions for certain death were gathered. The mist had spread sufficiently, and the blade had pierced her flesh.

Relic Blade, direct stab. A method that hopelessly ruined the body from the inside.

Just as he was about to execute it—

A chill ran through him.

Noticing it was a coincidence. Perhaps because his intoxication had made his senses, especially toward killing intent, sharper, or perhaps because using a new power had put him in a kind of zone.

“?! Relic Blade!!! Gather! Harden, become a wall—”

“Sacrament: Inheritance.”

Blue light leaked from the white snake woman’s wound. That light painted over everything.

It possessed directionality and was released all at once toward Tooyama Naruhito, and blue light surged through the forest sunk in mist.

“Gweh, whoa, gyah.”

Roll, roll, roll. Tooyama rolled across the muddy ground. He had been blown away by the torrent of light.

Reflexively, and exactly as Harvey had warned, Tooyama had instantly taken a defensive posture. Thanks to gathering the mist monsters in front of himself as shields in an instant, there was not a single wound anywhere on his body.

“Ah, ah, aaah, that light just now……”

“Hey, hey, hey, are you serious?”

However, that strike just now. In that instant, the blue light had blown away the monsters of mist. The mist snakes that had stopped the white snake woman’s movement had vanished too.

Blue light. A talent passed down and manifested through those of special blood, those connected to royal blood. That light could erase even souls.

Tooyama Naruhito did not know, and had no way of knowing, what had happened in the kingdom across the sea.

Through luck and a hero, the kingdom had fallen. Most of the blood connected to the royal family had been disposed of. Among them had been the rightful holder of King’s Light Sword.

“Ah, blue light. I wonder why. It feels so nostalgic……”

Now, the holder of that Sacrament was vacant. The white snake woman’s blood, driven into a corner, became the seedbed for the royal family’s blue light.

The function possessed by the humans of this world, the Sacrament “King’s Light Sword,” had found a new seedbed.

“Elder brother, eldest sister. Ah, everyone, you were there…… Fufu, ah, I see. All along, all along, from the very beginning, everyone was inside me……”

Zzzt.

Arms grew from the white snake woman’s snake body. Four arms, extended from the end, groped at the wound Tooyama had made.

In place of blood, blue light continued leaking out. The four arms dragged something out from within the wound.

“The meaning of life, the meaning of my life, all along, all along, it was inside me.”

A blue sword of light. It was pulled out from inside the white snake woman’s abdomen.

King’s Light Sword had now certainly been inherited from noble blood to noble blood.

“No, lines like that are usually about feelings. Who actually drags something out of their own body?”

While calmly retorting, Tooyama checked the surroundings. Most of the snake swarm had been killed off by the monsters. And the mist monsters had also been erased by the blue light.

It remained a duel.

The combat power of the blue light sword was unknown, but he certainly felt pressure. Tooyama knew things similar to this.

Drako, the Dragon of Human Knowledge, the old butler, and that elf.

It was very similar to the pressure he had felt from the transcendent beings he had met until now.

Blue light in the shape of a large sword. The white snake woman readied it.

“Juro.”

“Jarororororo.”

And, as a matter of course, the snake swarm began regenerating again. Those with undying scales, as long as the white snake woman, the endpoint of their species, did not perish, their swarm would have no end.

“Adventurer…… I will kill you.”

“Hihihihi. A bit late for that. But what happened? You suddenly went back to a human face.”

The moment she held the blue light sword, the white snake woman’s state had changed. The humanity she had lost through tragedy and monster blood, one could tell from her bearing that she was beginning to regain it.

“……I have realized what I must do. I decided to be free. Your mist has now all cleared. Light dispels deep mist. I will do what I must—”

“No.”

Interrupting the white snake woman’s words as she spoke clearly, Tooyama declared it.

“That’s the wrong interpretation, white snake woman. Mist appears again and again.”

The souls manifested by Relic Blade, most of them, had been burned away by the blue light.

The monsters attending Tooyama did not appear.

“In that case! Again and again! Until the royal light clears your mist! Move aside! Adventurer!”

What she readied was light. The royal light that burned even souls to nothing.

The white snake woman was also a bearer of that special blood. Then she had sufficient qualifications as a wielder of the light.

“Sacrament: Inheritance! King’s Light Sword!”

The Sacrament was fully released, and that light was about to be unleashed again.

“There was a troublesome one. That one had a special talent. The ability to create a clone identical to himself nearby and use it as a substitute. A truly troublesome power.”

Mist danced softly above the white snake woman’s head.

In the blink of an eye, it took the shape of a human.

A mist human that should have been blown away by the blue light. Only that one, even if he died once, had another chance.

Because in life, that one had been allowed two chances.

“Twin Chance.”

“Twin Chance.”

Tooyama and the mist human murmured the same talent’s name at the same time.

Slash.

“Ah?! Why? I blew everything away……”

The surprise attack from above. The knife swung down by the mist human gouged the back of the white snake woman’s neck.

“A Crows asshole. A disgusting bastard whose name I don’t even know. But now, he’s one of my tools.”

He was one of those defeated by Tooyama Naruhito. One of the victims carved apart by mist in the slums without anyone knowing and whose soul had been devoured.

Tooyama did not know his name, not even the name Wiseman Bola.

However, even so, what that mist preserved were the souls of those he had killed. And the talents clinging to them.

Even skills were subject to control and command.

“Guh, ah, don’t look down on me!!”

“Aah—”

Whoosh.

The white snake woman pierced the mist human, who had clung to her shoulder and stabbed her repeatedly with a knife, using the blue light sword.

With a small scream, that soul vanished.

“Aha, ahaha. I was a little surprised, but this is the end.”

The blue light pierced the heavens. What she raised was the royal light, the Sacrament dwelling in noble, selected blood.

The light that had once been compared to the power of heroes and champions, that destroyed the royal family’s enemies together with their souls, pierced the mist-stagnant sky.

If that was aimed at him, this time, Tooyama likely had no way to block it. He would be burned away, soul and all.

“No, that’s why I told you. You’re wrong.”

Twin Chance. That had bought enough time.

“……Eh?”

Still holding up the blue light, the white snake woman stopped moving.

“This is my awakening event. It’s not your turn.”

Looking around, all the giant snakes had stopped moving in the same way.

The white snake woman immediately understood why they could not move.

Twitch, twitch, twitch.

Every part of her body was trembling. All that remained was to swing down that blue light sword, and yet, she could not do it.

Ping.

“With awe, with reverence, I offer.”

Tooyama did not even glance at the blue light and simply faced his own power. It was time to return. It was time to surpass that day.

The high-ranking explorer of the modern dungeon, Tooyama Naruhito, had not been enough. But the current Tooyama was not the same.

The white snake woman did not know. She had no room to know.

That man, the master of the mist that devoured souls, bore a name by which he was called in the Empire with jealousy, contempt, and a certain kind of admiration.

Tooyama Naruhito had killed it.

After coming to this world, he had disposed of it with Relic Blade for the first time.

“All of every world, devour them all into the mist.”

“Precious gold, one of seven, inside the belly.”

“With awe, with reverence, offer it. The one I fear and invoke is my friend.”

That man was called this.

“Hoarding Dragon, now come forth.”

Dragon Slayer.

“Scroll-Tale of Monsters and Misty Mountains and Fields: Alice Dral Flaretail.”

“Huh?”

Gold appeared.

Gold. It was a tail.

Along the tailbone, spines like a sword mountain grew in rows, and it was a thick tail covered in sun-like scales.

From beyond the swirling mist, a golden tail oozed out. There was no need to explain whose it was.

“That, no way, it can’t be, no way, no way, that, a dragon—”

“Let’s test it. Undying snakes, blue light that can erase even souls, and a dragon. Which one is strongest?”

The broken blade pointed forward. Following it, the golden tail growing from the curtain of mist moved forward as if to protect Tooyama.

“Ah, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!! King’s Light—”

Half-mad with fear and impatience, the white snake woman’s arm swung down. King’s Light Sword, drawn.

Blue light became a torrent, tearing through the mist and closing in on its master—

“Well, obviously it’s my dragon.”

F

L

A

R

E.

The golden tail swelled, and from the tip of that tail, gold was exhaled.

Gold. Flame.

A higher being, a dragon. One of seven lives.

Even that flame had been preserved by Relic Blade.

“—Ah, pretty.”

Flare.

The torrent of blue light was swallowed by golden flame. Gold flickered in the white snake woman’s black eyes.

In an instant, together with the blue light, the white snake woman was swallowed by flame.

Dragon flame chose what to burn.

It would never burn forest trees, soil, or microorganisms, things that were not Tooyama’s enemies.

But conversely—

“Jaaaaaaa?!”

“Jurooooooo?!”

The moment it burned the white snake woman, that flame spread to the snake swarm without even touching them.

Golden flame burned and melted the undying scales. The giant snake swarm was licked by golden flame and burned away.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, why, whyyyyyyy!! Me, always me, only me! Aaaaaah!! Eldest sister! Elder brother, Wallace! Someone, someone, Fortu—”

“You probably have your circumstances. You probably have your reasons. But I’ll trample all of that.”

The man advanced.

He approached the white snake woman, who was now burning in golden flame.

“Your tragedy, your suffering, I can imagine them. I won’t say I don’t understand. But that’s all. After imagining it, I’ll say this.”

“Everything was painful! I finally, finally, finally became special! Look at this! Elder brother, eldest sister’s power! I finally have the blue light too—”

Even as she burned, the white snake woman lamented.

There must have been tragedy. There must have been lamentation. At the end of that, she had gone all the way. And her path had encountered Tooyama Naruhito.

Looking at that lament, at what might have been his own form, Tooyama said,

“—Like I care.”

He spat it out. Tooyama did not choose to save her. He chose to kill her.

“I will absolutely reach it. Following my desires, I will reach the place I need to go. You, who obstruct that—”

Tooyama broke into a run.

“Ah, aaaaaah?!”

Drop. The flame surged stronger.

The white snake woman burned and collapsed. From the snake body, the human body crumbled away as if spilling out.

“You have no choice but to die.”

Enemy, close range.

This time, he would not let her escape. She could not escape.

“Oraah!!”

The mace swung down at the collapsed white snake woman, only to crush her skull.

“No, nooooo!!”

Squelch.

The white snake woman’s shoulders. The armless body like the Venus de Milo.

Here, her body reacted to her attachment to life. To avoid the mace’s blow, white arms grew and crossed above her head.

Clang, crack.

They clashed. The descending mace bit into the woman’s arms.

“Ah?!”

Snap. The woman’s arms broke all too easily. Tooyama’s momentum did not stop.

A human who had not even grown arms, waiting only for someone else to extend a hand to her.

On the other side, a human who had chosen whom to save and whom to kill with his own arms.

The difference in arm strength was inevitable.

“Ooooooooooraaaaah!!”

From high overhead, another strike. The iron club, a simple lump of killing intent, struck the woman’s crushed arms once more.

Snap, squish.

Immediately after a short sound like dead wood breaking, the white snake woman gave a small scream.

Together with her crushed arms, the mace split the white snake woman’s head open.

Swing, swing. From the force of the mace swung down from directly above, the white snake woman’s neck broke and swayed like a pendulum.

“I still…… don’t want to die.”

“No, you are going to die.”

Slam.

Another strike. The mace came down on the white snake woman’s head as if pounding rice cakes. Her head was crushed so badly it was strange that her neck had not come off.

“Ah.”

With blood flowing from her eyes, the white snake woman looked up at the sky. Even if her neck bones broke and her skull shattered, the monster’s life did not end.

But she no longer had any strength left.

“I’ll ask your name.”

“……Trena. Trena Lloyd Armstrong.”

“I see. Then goodbye, Trena.”

“Ah, aaaaaah!!”

The final exchange. Trena swung down her crushed arms. What Tooyama swung was the broken blade.

Slash. The blade of mist cut away those arms, and he closed the distance in an instant. They touched at a distance where even breath and body heat could be felt.

“I’ll take you with me.”

He thrust the broken blade, Relic Blade, into her wide-open heart.

“Ah—Fufu, I lost. Fortu—”

Softly, the green-haired woman, the white snake woman, no, Trena Lloyd Armstrong, closed her eyes.

“Eat, Relic Blade.”

The sound of festival music echoed.

The tiny blades, without going through the air, ran directly through the white snake woman’s body.

In an instant, blood sprayed from every part of her body, and the white snake woman collapsed to the ground.

Burned by golden flame, crushed by an iron lump, and carved by mist. She would never rise again.

Slide.

Tooyama pulled the broken blade out from the monster’s corpse. Unconsciously, he threw away the mace, raised his emptied palm, and bent his thumb.

A one-handed prayer.

He unexpectedly sank down on the spot. His body was numb, and his breathing was rough. There were fewer places that did not hurt than places that did.

“……Hah, hah, haha. Hi, hihi, hihihihihihi.”

Even so, Tooyama was alive. Amid the burned, crumbled corpses of the giant snakes and the corpse of the special monster that had died, he was the sole victor and the living one.

“Yessssssssssssssssss, survivaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal!!”

Thud. Tooyama collapsed just like that. Soon, the sound of his sleeping breath echoed.

Ping.

Tooyama, who had fallen asleep as if losing consciousness, did not see all the messages that flowed.