107 - Chapter 33: A Nuisance of an Aesthetic of Ruin
The time goes back a little.
It was when Later, having nearly finished suppressing the surface, was fiddling with the Holy Scripture in its spherical form while searching for his next target. Alberstein, who had been glaring at the heavens, began to tremble slightly.
Gradually, it grew larger, propagating to the ground like a direct-hit earthquake.
"What's that? Did that guy eat some weird princess and start having convulsions or something?"
"Being attacked from inside the stomach... that's shudder-inducing..."
Kazuha held her stomach, perhaps imagining herself in the position of Later, who was cackling from above, saying it looked like a tiny Issun-boshi. But in the next moment, both of them would frown.
Alberstein opened his mouth toward the sky... and at the end of that oral cavity, a small black dot appeared. Like a holy grail holding a jewel, that black dot was born in isolation. From Alberstein's perspective, it was a small dot, but by human scale, it was a giant sphere about ten meters in diameter.
"What the hell is that?"
Seeing the black dot that permitted no other color, like a drop of spilled ink, Later felt it looked like a black hole. Immediately after, shadows leaped out from inside Alberstein and dove into the black dot.
"It looked like Marianne-sama and the others just dove in..."
"Yeah, if I'm not mistaken, Lumilia was there too."
While Later was exasperated, wondering if that idiot was okay, a change occurred.
"Ah, it's crumbling!"
"I wonder if Sensei did something."
Just as it seemed Alberstein trembled particularly violently, he began to crumble away like sand. The giant dragon, rapidly losing moisture and falling apart, was like a castle in the sand vanishing in the wind.
However, only the black dot remained safe, giving a premonition that things were not over yet.
The black dot remained in the sky for a while, but eventually descended and settled near the courtyard of the royal castle. After waiting as if observing in silence, three shadows leaped out from it. Marianne, Shannon, and Lumilia.
Rather than leaping out, it seemed more like they were spat out. Among them, only Shannon immediately stood up and checked on Lumilia's safety.
"Thank goodness. Everyone seems to be safe."
"No, wait. That thing is..."
As Kazuha breathed a sigh of relief, Later directed a sharp gaze toward the courtyard.
The black dot that spat out the three of them began to change shape. Moving formlessly as if kneading clay, it eventually took the shape of a person.
"A person? ...No, is it a fairy? For that, the size is..."
"No, it's huge. There isn't a shred of cuteness to it. Fairies are usually palm-sized, right?"
The two of them had such impressions of the thing mimicking a winged person.
Indeed, even if it had the shape of a fairy, a giant nearly four meters tall was not cute by any means. The pale purple wings, black body surface, and golden eyes showed a sinister quality, and Later was meta-reading it as, Is this the second form of a Colossus boss?
In the midst of this, Marianne, who could likely oppose it, was...
"Hey, hey, hey, why are you sleeping, Princess?"
Perhaps because she had been inside that black dot, she had lost consciousness and was lying on her back. Seeing this, Later let out a deep sigh and returned the spherical Holy Scripture to a bracelet.
"...Kazuha. I'm going too, for a bit."
"I will accompany you."
"No, you..."
"I don't want to be apart from you anymore."
Being stared at with such serious eyes, Later felt a bit defeated, scratched the back of his head vigorously, and gave up.
"Ah... do whatever you want."
"Yes!"
●
"Are you safe!? Lumilia-sama!"
"Shannon...?"
Around the time that exchange was happening in the sky, Shannon was helping the now-human Lumilia stand up.
The moment she leaped from Alberstein's mouth, a black mass filled her vision, and by the time she noticed, she was on the ground. She didn't remember well what happened while she was inside. She just felt like she remembered the past a little.
"...There are many things I want to talk about. But for now, get behind me."
While she wanted to make a crucial confession, the situation apparently did not permit it. Shannon stood up as if to protect Lumilia and directed her gaze toward it.
Following suit, Lumilia looked in the same direction as Shannon, and there stood a black giant. A physique that easily exceeded three meters in height, and translucent purple wings asserting its nature as a fairy species. However, the viciousness of those twin eyes was more like that of a hell-jailer than a phantasmal species.
If one were to call it an ayakashi, that would be that, but the magic power and pressure it wore gave the impression of confronting the dragon itself. Just as the two of them were thinking it was as if Alberstein had been compressed into a small size, the giant stretched extensively.
"Haa...! Honestly, I went through a terrible time because of that stupid vampire. And to think that thanks to that idiot, I was able to seize control of Stein... what a piece of irony."
Cracking the bones of its neck, the giant spat out those words in a high-pitched voice that did not suit its physique, sounding exasperated. Then, acknowledging them, it gave an elegant bow.
"Hello. This is our first time meeting directly, isn't it? The bloodline of Cathedra... Princess Lumilia."
"You are..."
"You don't know? No, you should know. You should understand. It's been a long time since it became a fairy tale, but I am the evil that became a dragon."
The giant let out a sound from its throat at the bewildered Lumilia.
At those golden twin eyes and words, Lumilia gasped. As royalty, there was no way she didn't know. The starting point of this country. The evil that became the catalyst for the birth of the spirit dragon Alberstein.
The name of the sinner exiled from the fairy realm. The name of the fairy sealed by the Great Fairy Cathedra.
"...Evil Fairy, Albe."
"Yes, correct. Man, really now. I struggled to get this far. Especially just now, I almost merged with Stein's residual thoughts, and I was on the verge of disappearing. For some reason, the magic supply was cut off, and thanks to the fact that his physical body weakened rapidly, I was able to separate from the dragon's thoughts."
And as a bonus, I snatched the dragon's power, which was my final goal, the giant... Albe laughed sinisterly.
"Four years ago, if Fritz hadn't interfered with the ritual, I would probably still be sealed underground."
"The ritual from four years ago? No way..."
Albe shrugged his shoulders at Shannon, who leveled her magic spear in caution.
"Yep. Rather than Lumilia this or that, it's because as a result of Fritz's intervention, Sika-reim's magic circuits were distorted and the safety device activated. Well, since analyzing the formula that that bitch Cathedra put together is impossible for humans of this era, it was probably just treated as a failure because of you."
"That's..."
Lumilia's eyes widened in shock at the revealed fact, but Albe looked away from Lumilia with an expression of utter indifference and raised his right hand.
"Well, the circumstances don't matter. There were twists and turns, but I have obtained the dragon's power like this."
"Kuh!!"
"Kya!"
Immediately after, Shannon, hearing the alarm of her tightened caution, reflexively scooped up Lumilia and leaped. Then, after a beat, a dragon's head leaped out from the ground where they had been just a moment before.
There was no body. Only the head. But unlike Alberstein, it wasn't like an earthworm; it had scales, horns, a jaw, and fangs, but the light in its eyes was lost... a monster like a dragon's Hito-ban (Flying Head Barbarian).
Its size was far inferior to Alberstein's, but even so, it exceeded five meters in diameter, and then it increased exponentially to two, four, eight.
"Oops, you dodged. Hmm, maybe I still need more warming up?"
"This is...!"
"A fraction of the dragon's power. Dragon species are the lineage of the progenitors sent by God, but a dragon is nature itself... a concept that gained a will after a long time. The attribute that the Stein of this land possessed was spirit. It was a giant filter for the souls of the dead. Therefore, it remembers all the souls of those who died in this land. Though, only until I took over Stein, who had decayed and was preparing for reincarnation."
So look, Albe spread both arms, and countless heads of beasts and humans, not limited to dragons, appeared in the void. And they prostrated themselves before Albe as if they were subordinates.
The strength of their power likely no longer mattered. As long as they were bound by the spirit attribute, they were forced into obedience to Albe, who had become the pinnacle of that attribute regardless of their will.
The sight was like an army of the dead.
"What do you intend to do with such power!?"
"There is no what or anything. I am the Evil Fairy Albe, as you call me. Then, you should know what I aim for, what I resent, and what I will do, right?"
The Evil Fairy Albe was exiled from his hometown by the Great Fairy Cathedra and sealed by her as well. And having barely revived and obtained such immense power, it was only natural.
"Revenge..."
"Half wrong and half right. It's true that I won't be satisfied until I tear that bitch apart with these hands, but my goal doesn't stop there. ...I want to destroy everything with these hands."
"Want to destroy?"
"Things with form break. Things without form, naturally, too. That is why they are beautiful."
As Shannon frowned, Albe's eyes softened as if he were feverish.
"If I were to put it, it's subtraction. Stripping away all vanity, shaving it down, and peering into the exposed true nature. The melody of it exceeding the limit of surface tension and crumbling with a sound is a very sweet song of ruin that can only be heard once, right? I've always wanted to play with this world like a child playing with building blocks."
It was a terribly nuisance-like destructive impulse.
"But you know? A mere fairy species is utterly powerless. That's why I begged that bitch to train me, but she's a type of demi-god who's lived tens of thousands of years. She saw right through my nature. I had no choice but to leap into the outside world and set my sights on the dying Stein. And while I succeeded in possessing it, I made a control error and went on a flashy rampage. Then I was found by the bitch who had chased after me and was sealed."
Don't you think it's a bored Great Fairy to go out of her way to chase a small fry like me? Albe cackled mockingly.
"Well, I was sealed by that bitch without knowing when it would end, and it took eight hundred years, so I took quite a detour... ah, but that makes the sense of liberation all the more. I'm in a quite good mood, so as a warm-up..."
The Hito-ban subordinates vanished smoothly, and Albe was alone again.
And then.
"...Let's play a bit."
The golden twin eyes shone sinisterly.
●
"Oh?"
"Huh?"
Meanwhile, Geoglyph and Latia were walking toward the surface from the side tunnel they had dug, when they suddenly looked up at the ceiling. Io, who was following them timidly from behind, raised an anxious voice.
"W-what's wrong? Something ominous again...!"
"Io-shi, why do you try to set flags so eagerly?"
"I don't really understand what a flag is, but isn't Io-san being too pessimistic?"
"Ugh... it's fine, someone like me anyway. I'm often told by my wife that I have no spirit, or what am I going to do being so cowardly, and I'm completely under her thumb."
"Geo? Is this complaining? Or bragging?"
"I think it's a self-deprecating boast."
"I-I also occasionally give my wife a stern lecture...!"
"Oh, a woman glaring at Io-shi is right here."
"YES SORRY! I will prepare today's dinner!!"
At Geoglyph's lie, Io reflexively performed a dogeza, and Latia searched for words for a moment.
"Um... you can't stand up to your wife, huh. Isn't that also a form of love?"
"It feels more like being trained, though."
"Oh? Is Geo on the side that wants to train?"
"I plead the fifth."
"Ehh, you could just tell me."
"No-way."
"Could you please stop flirting with each other across me...!!"
Io, who stood up while brushing off dust, stamped his feet and glared with a grit, so Geoglyph and Latia looked away.
"So, what happened? You were looking up, did something happen on the surface?"
"Hmm. For a moment, magic power swelled and then became small... or rather, I had the sensation that it was compressed."
"The path with Sika-reim is already cut, and if we want to reconnect, we have to go directly to the Great Underground Cavern, so I don't think it's Alberstein... it was an unfamiliar magic power. And..."
"And?"
"In terms of simple output, it exceeded me. I don't know if it's an enemy or an ally, but if it's an enemy, it might be bad if we don't provide backup."
At those words from Geoglyph, Io broke into a cold sweat.
To him, Geoglyph was a mage he had just met. However, he was a mage with an absurd level of skill, ranking first or second in the life he had lived. There was a being on the surface with magic power exceeding that.
And from those words, he realized Geoglyph intended to head there. In other words, judging that he would be dragged into it if he continued to accompany them, Io...
"I-I have nothing but a bad feeling about this! T-this is no joke! I'm really, truly resigning this time!!"
He ran past the two of them with a clatter and fled through the side tunnel.
Watching him go, Geoglyph nodded with interest.
"I'm surprised. To think there's a human who actually executes 'I can't stay in such a dangerous place!' in real life."
"What happens when you do that?"
"Usually, they're dead in the next scene."
"That's no good! We have to save Io-san!"
"Hahaha. Lati? That's just a convention of stories, it doesn't happen that often in real li..."
Immediately after saying that, the earth shook, and in the direction of their gaze... a part of the side tunnel collapsed. A scream of "Gyaaa!" could even be heard from somewhere.
Geoglyph, who quickly averted his eyes from Latia's cold gaze...
"...Geez! Who's the idiot running wild up there! The precious Io-shi is going to die!!"
He hurriedly exercised his magic and decided to go save Io.
Next time, next week.