Editing/Standardisation: Medicine Melancholy
Original Translation: Medicine Melancholy
Iris
We can’t win against this enemy.
We instantly assessed the situation and tried to escape. However…
“Good decision… but I can’t let you get away. Go, Crom.”
Upon the man’s command, a colossal snake, which had expanded to five meters, opened its mouth wide, and darkness formed within.
Swiftly enlarging, the darkness emitted an intense curse that even bystanders could sense, withering the grass and flowers around the giant snake.
“Both of you! Behind me!!”
At Nii-sama’s shout, Reiji-san and I jumped toward his shield’s shadow. Just as we reached safety, the gaping maw of the shadowy serpent released a flash of darkness.
It was as if countless curses were condensed into that flash.
“I won’t let you! Force Shield…!”
The barrier, an absolute assurance that had saved us multiple times, erected from the shield Nii-sama thrust into the ground.
However, despite suppressing the impact, the shield was getting pushed back from sheer force…
“Guh…!”
“Kyah?!”
“Ack?!”
Three different cries echoed.
Before us, the dispersing darkness enveloped us.
A thunderous roar, then violent tremors followed.
“…What’s this… It’s suffocating…”
“The miasma’s too thick…!”
The darkness contained an intense miasma, which quickly spread out to the surroundings.
Penetrating our lungs, it aggressively attacked our bodies, causing excruciating chest pain.
Amidst this chaos…
CRACK
“Impossible… It’s breaking?!”
The barrier, which should have been absolute and saved us from numerous crises, cracked before our eyes.
As long as Nii-sama’s magical power persisted, we believed it could repel any attack. Yet now, more and more cracks began to appear.
“…Kuh!”
Instinctively, Nii-sama retrieved a piece of parchment from his pocket.
The “Moonlight Seal”… a disposable charm embedded with protective magic that lessened the impact of spells and magic, tearing it apart with his hand and mouth.
The shield held by Nii-sama was enveloped in a faint light. But that light was too fleeting against the raging darkness before us.
As the “Force Shield” shattered, the black serpent finished exhaling its breath.
Finally consuming the broken barrier, an explosion swept over us, swallowing us whole.
After what felt like an agonizingly long span of time, the shockwave of miasma that pierced our bodies gradually subsided.
My body felt heavy.
Despite wearing various equipment gifted by Milly-san, and being naturally resistant to curses, I, too, felt extreme fatigue, unable to resist the clinging darkness.
If that’s the case… what about the other two in the same situation…?
“Nii-sama… Reiji-san…!”
Jumping up in a hurry to check on the other two, I froze.
The landscape had completely changed.
Just a moment ago, the highlands were lush with vegetation, boasting a picturesque landscape with diverse flowers blooming everywhere. However, the area around us, our immediate vicinity, had turned into desolation, where residual miasma lingered, transforming into an eerie wasteland.
In that space, in a certain spot—behind the shattered shield embedded in the ground, a green patch of land remained as if it had escaped the blast. At the tip of that patch… Nii-sama, who had always protected me, lay sprawled on the ground.
“…Nii-sama!”
I rushed over in a panic, desperately casting healing magic.
“You can’t… Hurry, run…”
“Stay quiet, Ayame, I’m going to heal you…!”
I continued casting healing magic… to very little effect.
The miasma clinging to my entire body must have interfered with my healing magic.
Still, persistently layering “Heal” over and over, gradually but surely, the injuries began to fade away.
“Well done holding on for this long, but there’s only you left now. How do you plan to escape if you exhaust yourself trying to heal him?”
“Guh…?!”
Upon hearing the man’s words, I instinctively shielded the collapsed Nii-sama, maintaining the recovery magic while cradling him in my arms.
It might not offer more than paper-thin resistance… but with enchantments on my clothes, I resolved to endure the incoming attack.
The man conjured up something akin to black flame in his hand…
“Stay away from them!”
Reiji-san, despite bleeding all over, jumped in to separate us from the man.
Around him, invisible force-field swords I’d once seen rotated. Twelve of these swords were sequentially shot towards the man, making the air quake as they sped towards their target, each one forcing Reiji-san to take slight steps backward. However…
“Are you kidding me… He’s deflecting them barehanded…?!”
Using what seemed to be some sort of darkness magic, the man lazily brushed away the swords as if swatting flies.
But just as the twelfth and final “Form is Emptiness” was launched, Reiji-san lunged forward before it could reach. Swiftly unsheathing the “Arventia”, the sword glowed brightly due to all the fighting spirit concentrated within it.
In that moment, the man’s eyes widened in realization. The briefest of hesitation created an opening for Reiji-san to strike.
“Take this!”
Reiji-san leaped up, putting all his weight and the force of gravity behind him, and swung the sword down upon the man’s head.
Accompanied by a sound akin to striking a steel wall, the sword seemed to have landed directly on its target.
“…Heh… That actually hurt a little.”
“…The… fuck…?!”
As blood trickled from his forehead… the man, who seemed unaffected by the blow, nonchalantly licked it.
“Congratulations, you actually scratched me. But it’s going to take much more than that to bring me down, you know.”
The man’s tone remained casual.
When I looked closely, he was surrounded by faint hexagonal force fields, which seemed to have clashed and stopped Reiji-san’s sword.
Even Reiji-san’s best effort… resulted in only a small cut on the man’s head.
“Still, pain is still pain… and must be returned in kind!”
“Dammit…!”
Attempting a follow-up attack, Reiji-san’s white sword was seized by the man.
Just that action alone stopped the blade in mid-air, as if it had been fixed in space.
“What…?!”
“Did no one teach you how to swing a sword, human?!”
The man swung his leg.
In response to the gathering darkness around his foot, Reiji-san instinctively released his grip on the sword, focused his fighting spirit into his fist…
“Gaaah?!”
However, the man’s kick reaching Reiji-san’s body was slightly faster.
Thrown backward, Reiji-san’s body floated through the air, falling towards us like a ragdoll.
“REIJI-SAN?!”
“*cough*…*hack*?!”
“No… No!”
Each time he coughed, he vomited a large amount of blood, clearly having broken several ribs… There was no way he could stand up until healed.
And… like a spreading flame, the shadow that had clung to his body covered Reiji-san, and his body collapsed powerless.
The only one left was me, with no direct combat capability.
Powerful area healing was also out of the question without securing the time for incantation.
“Well then… both Sir Sword and Sir Shield here are down for the count, what are you going to do?”
At the man’s faint smile, my body trembled involuntarily.
How can someone be so strong…?!
This was the calamity that the previous King and Captain Walter repelled at a great sacrifice, a disaster that shook the entire continent.
I never intended to get too conceited, but even so, my heart, which had unknowingly soared after winning against a few formidable enemies, was rapidly growing cold.
There’s no way we can win.
A feeling of despair crept up from my feet to my entire body.
“I’m not going to ask again… What are you going to do?”
The man approached me with a sneering smile, his eyes filled with cruelty and sadism.
…I still had a last resort.
To heal the two of them and buy time for help… I could only use it once every few days, and it would drain me immensely… but I judged that I had no other choice but to use it, staking everything on a slim hope.
Struggling, I scolded my legs that seemed about to give in, and infused strength into my abdomen to shout.
“Manifest yourself… Sanctuary!”
The “Sanctuary” spread out with me at the center, enveloping the two of them and dispelling the curses clinging to them.
Even though I poured all my strength into it, my magical power, significantly higher than before, still had plenty to spare. At the current rate of power flow, it should last for about an hour.
I hoped that those two would wake up, or help would arrive in time…
As I desperately maintained the “Sanctuary” with that hope in mind, the man scornfully glared at me… and sneered.
“…?!”
The look on his face sent a chill down my spine.
Was he waiting for me… to do this?!
Nii-sama’s “Force Shield”, which we thought was an absolute protection, was easily broken by this man.
What’s there to say he couldn’t do the same to my “Sanctuary”?
As I realized my mistake, the man’s hand touched the “Sanctuary”.
“…Eh?”
I felt as if something unpleasant had touched my body, a sensation akin to slimy liquid. But when I looked down, there was clearly nothing touching me.
He was… caressing my “Sanctuary”.
“…Ah… Aaaaaah?!”
At the next moment, a sensation as if some foreign substance, like vile liquid, was seeping into every part of my body surged, making me inadvertently scream.
Erosion.
Such a word flashed through my mind amid the throbbing agony. At the outer edges of my supposed “Sanctuary”, the part touched by the man exhibited a mottled pattern of black and gold at the edge of my vision.
“…Hmph, what a fragile ‘Sanctuary’, not even worth calling an imitation.”
“No… Aaaaaaaaah, aaaaaaaaaaaah?!”
The man’s fingers sank into the “Sanctuary” with a squelch, as though plunging into clay.
At that moment— it felt as if a foreign object had been inserted into the core of my body, stirring a sensation that pierced through my entire body from the lower abdomen to the top of my head.
“Heh, why don’t you struggle more? If you don’t resist, it’ll tear you apart on the spot.”
“?! Aaaaaaah!”
His fingers delved into the “Sanctuary”, stirring and prodding as though to toy with it.
Each time this happened, intense pain shot through my back, at the base of my wings, causing me to twitch and arch backward.
The once small cracks widened with each exertion of the man’s strength, breaking and fracturing the “Sanctuary” bit by bit.
With each crack, my body felt as though it were being torn apart, as if pierced towards the center of my being, sending waves of sensation throughout my entire body, making my knees tremble and give way.
Amidst all that…
“……Ass…hole… keep your… hand off Iris…”
Faint murmurs, akin to delirious muttering, came from where Reiji-san should have been collapsed behind me.
At that voice, I remembered that those two were behind me now, and this time it was my turn to protect them.
Yes… I must… protect them…
“Ugh, aaaaaaah!!”
My hand trembled, blood vessels in my arm burst from overload, and crimson liquid spattered as it pierced through the thin skin. I summoned every ounce of remaining strength to maintain the “Sanctuary” at all costs.
White flowers began to bloom on the devastated ground, and the man’s fingers, previously embedded, were gradually pushed back against the intensified barrier.
“…Heh.”
The man’s voice was filled with something like interest.
“My, aren’t you the tryhard. Are those two really that important to you?”
“They… are…! I’ll… never… give up… on them…!”
Drops of sweat trickled down my forehead as I glared fiercely at the man before me.
It was a bluff.
I didn’t feel any confidence in winning.
But… I couldn’t give up.
For that reason alone… even if it meant exhausting everything I have!
“Foolish… utterly foolish! Humans just get more and more foolish with every generation!”
In the man’s hand, the gigantic, shadowy snake had transformed back into a small snake without me knowing… The moment I laid eyes on it, a dreadful premonition surged within me.
“Ugh… ‘Garden of A-”
As I tried to reinforce the “Sanctuary” by calling out that name… my usual staff was severed and split into two while I was holding on it.
The moment I realized that, the world around me—the “Sanctuary”—cracked with countless shattering noises.
And then, the very next moment—the “Sanctuary”, cracked into a grid-like pattern, or rather, like a cage meant to capture me, was enveloped in black flames.
“—――――!?”
I let out a voiceless scream.
As if my soul were being ripped open.
As if my existence was pierced through and thoroughly trampled.
As if my hope and dignity were mercilessly crushed and whatever remained was violated as one pleased.
The overwhelming feeling of loss, despair overcame my mind and body, to the point where I wished to die…
And then… the “Sanctuary” was burned away without so much as leaving a speck of ash.
To think that such a thing could happen.
“…*hack*…!”
The aftermath of the forcibly shattered “Sanctuary” caused chaos in the pathways of magical energy throughout my body, distorting vision, overwhelming me with intense nausea, and I couldn’t help but vomit.
The uncontrollable surge of magical energy within my body seemed to have harmed it, as a red liquid, a mix of stomach acid and blood, dripped onto the ground.
Even though magical energy remained, my body no longer responded at all.
My will to resist broke, and leaning on the remnants of the staff, now devoid of its ornamental tip, I collapsed gradually.
“Now… Crom, capture that girl.”
“No… don’t come here…”
A hand stretched out, and the large shadowy snake appeared, seemingly split into three.
Even attempting to escape, my trembling legs failed me, and I fell to the ground.
Despite trying to create some distance by retreating, I couldn’t summon strength into my shaking legs.
There was no desire to resist at all.
My body, heart, and even my soul had submitted to the man before me.
The snakes reached me in no time. They coiled around my right leg and both arms.
“W-What…?! No, please… not beneath my clothes…!”
The large snakes crawling over my skin, slipping between my clothing and flesh, slithered up and licked my entire body, constricting it directly.
The chilling sensation flowing from the snake in direct contact with my protective enchantments caused an uncontrollable scream to burst out.
My body was drawn up tautly by the snake constricting me just enough, lifting my feet off the ground.
“No, no… something’s coming in… please… let me go…”
“Just… shut your damn mouth.”
“Guh?!”
The man’s fingers rested on my neck, gradually exerting pressure, making it impossible to breathe, and only a groaning sound escaped.
It’s so cold.
My entire body was freezing.
Similar to when I was invaded by the crystalline monster in the first town.
No, this time it surpassed that intensity by far. My body, which should have grown stronger since then, was completely helpless against the invading cold sensation, and my body’s senses were fading away.
“…Crom, ease your grip. At this rate, that girl will die before her power can be removed.”
As those words were heard, the pressure covering my entire body suddenly loosened.
However, even so, a repulsive impurity, flowing slowly with a steady rhythm, seeped into my firmly constricted body.
“…Stop… ah… ah…”
Each time my body convulsed, the anguish of being tormented by the writhing impurity inside me made a gasping sound escape uncontrollably from the corner of my mouth.
“Relax. I don’t know how you managed to use that book… But even if you’re an artificially created fake, you’re still my kin, so I won’t kill you.”
With that, the hand on my neck loosened.
An unpleasantly gentle touch on my cheek, as I desperately tried to take in oxygen.
“However… here, I shall completely violate and defile your body. To make sure no one like you shall ever appear among humans again, so they won’t ever foolishly hold onto futile hope again…!”
“Agh… no, don’t… ahhh, please… ah… Aaaaah…?!”
What he said felt like a death sentence.
Disregarding my pleading, the impurity poured incessantly from the snakes coiled around my entire body, from the man’s hand touching my neck and cheek.
The pathways of magical energy throughout my body were being overtaken by opposing forces, and I could no longer feel anything.
I must not run away.
If not, what I can do, the meaning of my presence among everyone, will disappear again.
…No, I refuse to let that happen!
Pushed by such an impulse, at that moment, when even the slightest intention to resist emerged—those feelings, futile as they were, the faintly flickering wings finally, suddenly disappeared.
The world before my eyes turned pitch-black.
The world lost its color and sound.
I couldn’t feel any strength in my entire body anymore.
Even the sound of the staff’s remnants falling from my hand seemed distant, far away—…
APM - Translation 