kscans

109 - Chapter 35: Mishandra ~The Prayer of Severance Sought by the Golden Spider~

"Over here! Come over here!"


"Heyyy, just how far are you going?!"


Albe, chasing after Shannon while moving his body with ease, let out a throaty laugh at the flow of events.


(He's trying to lure me away to protect Lumilia... but you know, when a meat shield leaves their charge, it just means that person becomes completely defenseless, right? He's stupidly cute, this guy.)


Albe had taken Shannon's bait, but that didn't mean he lacked the means to harm Lumilia.


His body was already that of the Spirit Dragon. Though he maintained a humanoid form, he had inherited the authority of Stein exactly as it was, and like the Hito-ban from before, he could use undead for remote attacks. In other words, killing Lumilia from this situation was a trivial matter.


The reason he didn't do it was simple.


(I'll take all the aggro, and then, while presenting Lumilia's corpse, I'll tell him, "Actually, I was just playing along with your provocation." I wonder what kind of face he'll make? Will he cry? Will he lament? Or will he be enraged? Either way, his emotions will be a complete mess. Ah... how delightful...! Why is it so much fun to break someone's heart?!)


It was because he found pleasure in the process of breaking Shannon's heart.


Thus, he played along with Shannon, keeping his distance from Lumilia. Albe's current concern was a choice between two options: kill Lumilia where Shannon couldn't see, or lure him to a point where he would be just barely too late to save her.


...Because he was focusing on that, by the time he noticed his back felt strangely noisy, it was already too late.


"---Huh?"


After an unfamiliar singing voice and a musical performance, the sky roared.


That sound, like a thunderclap vibrating through the atmosphere, was a phenomenon that appealed only to the ears and sense of touch for human five senses. However, for Albe, who was originally a fairy and had now absorbed a dragon to become a supernatural existence---someone with one foot in the realm of demigods---the entity that manifested by piercing through the void of the sky was so massive it was impossible to overlook.


"Wha... what the...?"


Unconsciously halting his offensive against Shannon, he stared blankly behind him---toward Marianne. At the feet of the girl dressed in stage attire, there was a golden, shining spider the size of a fist.


Albe shuddered at that single fact.


(No way... no way, no way, no way!)


The prediction he had been half-doubting adjusted perfectly to reality. He was overwhelmed not by his five senses, but by magic power and sheer presence alone. Just having it in his field of vision made him want to buckle his knees and beg for forgiveness. Even though it wasn't looking at him, just the recognition of that tiny back made him want to flee.


To an ordinary human, it would look like nothing more than a slightly large spider. Because of the vastness of the internal universe held by the golden spider, their sense of scale would error out, making it impossible to recognize in the first place. Precisely because Albe was closer to a demigod, he felt a desperate difference in rank between himself and the divinity possessed by that spider.


"Yah!!"


"Tch---!?"


Shannon thrust his spear into Albe, who had become far too wide open. Albe immediately regained his composure and blocked it with his left arm, but the sharpness of the magic spear did not permit it. Albe's left arm was sliced off, but it instantly regenerated from the cross-section.


It wasn't even a great technique. Albe had absorbed the Spirit Dragon and seized control of the system known as the Underworld---the cycle of souls---in this land. With the total amount of energy he possessed, the instantaneous regeneration of lost limbs was trivial; it was essentially a built-in function. He should have had enough leeway that he didn't even need to be conscious of it.


However, there was no such leeway in his heart. On the contrary, he became enraged by Shannon's futile resistance.


"You... you! Do you understand the situation?! Can't you notice that existence?! Something that shouldn't exist in this world has come from the Seat of the Void! That thing whose name cannot be called---The Untouchable God !"


"I don't really get it, but Marie sang and did something, right? If so, that's surely a help to me."


Yet, Shannon kept his spear ready without a hint of hesitation, not even letting his breathing falter. Albe could not hide his irritation at the gaze that pierced him as if he were an arch-enemy.


"Don't be stupid! That thing isn't something so mild! It's dangerous beyond the level of a Cathedra who's approached demigodhood! Can't you feel it?! This absurd level of pressure even though it hasn't fully manifested!"


"Sorry, but I'll take the danger in front of me over a crisis I don't know about. I won't let you escape, you who would harm Lumilia-sama."


"You...!"


You human, almost escaped his throat, but he stopped himself.


That's right. Shannon is human. There's no way such a tiny existence could understand the divine radiance or the difference in strength. It was a waste to preach to him. With human five senses, even perceiving the existence was doubtful.


But at the same time, because he was human, the means of persuasion would work.


"---Fine! Let's just stop!"


Yes, these guys are humans, Albe thought with conviction as he offered a ceasefire.


Having watched humans for eight hundred years, he believed no other race was as skilled at self-preservation. For these beings, who were so riddled with contradictions that they would sometimes joyfully kill their own children or parents, Albe's existence was nothing other than an irresistible, powerful disaster.


And now, that existence was attempting to sit at the negotiating table through dialogue using the same language. If it meant avoiding uselessness, especially shedding his own blood, the human should take the offer. He just had to get through this moment, and then he could move again once things settled down---.


"Right, stop, stop! I'll leave this country! I promise I won't harm any of you! So let me go with everything you've got!!"


---However, he did not know how to reflect upon himself.


Whether it was a side effect of having one foot in the realm of demigods, or derived from his innate destructive impulse---in any case, he failed to notice because of his arrogance.


That the reason Lumilia, whom Shannon loved so dearly, had been pushed to her mental and physical limits over the past few years in a way unbecoming of her position, was him in the first place.


For such a person, and moreover, a fellow who had done whatever he pleased according to his own desires until this very moment, to propose a pathetic ceasefire out of the precariousness of his own situation---.


"---Can you believe this!!"


"Dammittttttt!!"


The moment his proposal was rejected, Albe fully unleashed the authority of the Spirit Dragon in an attempt to flee from here.


Releasing every soul, intending to turn this very land into the Underworld.


●


The moment the forgotten name was spoken, thunder echoed through the blue sky---and nothing happened.


However, Marianne felt a definite response. Even for her, one of the three idiots with absurd magic power, over seventy percent of her magic had been blown away. She had instantly reached the point two steps away from magic deficiency, and unlike the Shadow Beasts, it was still gradually decreasing.


The specifications following the original rules of summoning and the sensation of the successfully connected bidirectional path gave Marianne a feeling of success. Thus, she turned her gaze to her feet.


There was a fist-sized spider.


With a silhouette reminiscent of a tarantula, it was a somewhat large spider for a palm-sized insect. That golden shining spider---Mishandra—appeared at first glance to be so tiny that a person would kill it just by stepping on it.


However, looking at those brilliantly shining red compound eyes, one could not help but feel pressure and awe. If forced to put it into words, it would surely be called divinity.


Even Marianne, the summoner, felt it, yet she felt a certain relief. She remembered. That she had felt the same way during their encounter in her childhood.


"I've kept you waiting a long time, Mishandra."


'Waited. Remembering, slow.'


The response was a telepathic emotion that sounded exasperated. However, it couldn't hide the joy of being summoned in every corner of the message. As the summoner, Marianne received this directly and gave a wry smile.


"Yes, I'm sorry. Even so, you've been helping me all this time."


The most representative example being the Shadow Beasts. Those weren't summoning arts to begin with.


Using a part of Mishandra's authority and based on the ancient document, the Grimoire of Otherworldly Demons, that Marianne had obtained, they were an emulation that reproduced Solomon's Seventy-Two Pillars by giving them pseudo-personalities; in the end, they were nothing more than an extension of magic. Though they possessed pseudo-personalities, they were essentially a type of autonomously operating magic, and while it seemed otherwise, Marianne had actually never used summoning arts until now.


Magical creatures given pseudo-personalities and autonomy using the magic that people like Geoglyph use, or pseudo-artificial spirits---that was the true identity of the Shadow Beasts.


That was why, although they continued to manifest using the magic power she had initially partitioned, they didn't use any more of Marianne's magic beyond that. This had led to her magical toughness suited for long-term battles.


Mishandra, though he had not appeared in the physical world, had always watched over Marianne and continued to respond to her will.


And the random teleportation this time was the same. At that time---when she tried to escape from the Imperial Capital and was chased around by Lilitia, Marianne had wished from the bottom of her heart.


'Someone, help me.'


The reason and circumstances were truly ridiculous, but this golden spider had taken it seriously and carried her away to somewhere other than there. The answer came back through the connected path that there was no particular reason for choosing Alberstein. It's quite an unfortunate turn of events for Albe, Marianne thought, shrugging her shoulders.


'Interesting things, happen?'


The compound eyes looking up at her asked such a question.


"Who knows? But I think that I---no, we as a group, won't be bored."


'Then, stay. Watching from afar, already tired. Next, close is good.'


"But before that, we must tidy that one up."


At the end of Marianne's gaze was Albe.


As if he had become desperate, he was summoning undead and scattering them around to aim for confusion, while he himself was rushing toward Shannon to defeat her for obstructing him. If she wasn't mistaken, Albe's back seemed to twitch as he was met with Mishandra's cold gaze.


'Give. Uninteresting tidying, faster is better.'


After glancing at him with boredom, Mishandra passed his own authority to Marianne through the path.


"I see... so that's the kind of power you have. I see, the Prayer of Severance , is it?"


Receiving it, she understood.


What Mishandra presided over was memory.


That was none other than all memories from the moment of this world's birth. To preside over and manage that meant he was the guardian of the archive that recorded all of creation, the Akashic Records / Seat of the Void.


Knowing everything, and understanding everything.


Therefore, his desire and essence became the Prayer of Severance , and his authority followed suit.


Because.


'Because there are things I cannot understand, I know myself, can look back. In a world without the possibility of reflection, only boredom is born. A world with only boredom is boring, meaningless, uninteresting---in the end, the heart dies.'


The god who gave birth to this world was Refill, but the one entrusted with its management and recording was Mishandra. Until the day this world ended and he was released from his duty, he was destined to spend his time in infallibility.


However, to spend those inorganic days, he had acquired individuality far too early. So early that even Refill was surprised. Thus, his heart was still childish by god standards, and he had no tolerance for infallibility.


Being the guardian of the Akashic Records meant being at the furthest extension of understanding and the absolute cutting edge of the known. And that was the prison that locked away his heart, and his sorrow.


'The end of the prayer of severance . A mass of paths, Marianne, found. Tell me, the path. Cut open, the path.---Make this uninteresting world, interesting.'


The agony of Mishandra, imprisoned in the Akashic Records. It was only natural he would get bored. No matter what happened, no matter what was born, if it was only an extension of his own knowledge and understanding, the stimulation would cease to be stimulation.


That was why Mishandra responded to Marianne's summons.


To the call of a summoner possessing a soul originating from another world---an unknown mass that could not be measured by the knowledge of this world, who appeared by the arrangement of the higher existence who created him.


Among the several otherworld reincarnators in the past, only two had reached the Golden Spider , whether intentionally or by chance: Albert A. Neunricht, who left behind the Grimoire of Otherworldly Demons, and Marianne Romanette. However, Albert, faced with Mishandra's divinity, chose awe, respect, and non-touch, prostrating himself, while Marianne, enraged by the absurd situation she was placed in, became desperate.


However, the words that burst out from her shook Mishandra's spirit violently.


'If you're just going to rot while observing quietly, then follow me. If you want to make a boring world interesting, you should move so that it becomes so, and if you can't do that, you'd best follow someone else who can. I don't know what you desire, but I want to live laughing my head off, so even if it's a boring world, I'll live hedonistically and amusingly.---I have until now, and I will from now on, you see.'


One who knew the outside of the Akashic Records, a summoner from outside the laws---she had chosen her words carefully, but in the end, Mishandra was attracted to the sheer guts of someone who could flip the bird even to divinity and wave a flag telling him to follow her.


Thus, he had entered a contract and waited. For the day the true name , known only to the contractor, would be called. For the rules of this world, where one is covered by the veil of divinity and forgotten, to be destroyed using memories of another world as a catalyst and be summoned once again.


Beyond that, just one thing---.


"Seeking the unknown , is it? In that case, this is a most fitting situation, is it not? A human who laments their lack of power shall strike down that incomprehensible fairy monster---it is such a climax."


'Marianne, not doing it?'


"In this world, taking the lead and attacking isn't the only way to be a protagonist, you know?"


'? ...!?'


"The stories of this world are still far from over. Wouldn't you faint if you saw the diversity of modern Japan? After all, it's laps ahead of the rest of the world."


Receiving a response of surprise through the path, Marianne felt a bit exasperated, thinking he wasn't some stuck comic book hero. However, since past reincarnators mostly performed solo feats with easy cheats, it was indeed no different from a boring comic book. Even though the essential interest remained the same as in the past, since they had made it a habit to just repeat past works...


If they didn't break the monotony, it was only natural they would get bored.


In that case.


First, let us show them the nature of the soul known as Marianne Romanette . The creative mind that says if it doesn't exist, then make it.


"Lumilia-sama."


"Y-Yes...!!"


Lumilia, who had been speechless and in a state of thought-stop at the sudden appearance of the divinity , rebooted with a high-pitched voice when called by Marianne. It was only natural, she thought, but she needed her to try and stand up now, so Marianne crouched down to meet Lumilia's eyes.


"I won't say much more. I will ask only one thing.---Are you prepared to stand side-by-side with Shannon?"


Asked with a smile, Lumilia thought.


That Marianne did not reject or deny her for reaching a conclusion different from others. That if she was serious, she would never abandon her.


If that was the case, there was only one answer.


"---Yes!!"


"Very good! Then, I shall send Lumilia-sama to Shannon's side right now!"


The yuri-obsessed girl, with a beaming smile, raised her right hand to the heavens.


Remaining magic power was just over twenty percent. She didn't know if it would hold. Even so, now was the time to show her resolve.


To send one half of her favorite couple to the battlefield by overcoming all obstacles was a truly delicious role to play.


"Listen, Mishandra! There is no great value in things obtained by sitting still! Dreams, longings, and the unknown only come to those who struggle! Therefore, the nature of one's own soul can only be decided by oneself, no matter what!!"


Summoning a god in a human body was incomplete, no matter how one struggled. Even if Marianne offered magic power to the point of near-deficiency, she couldn't summon Mishandra's main body, let alone an avatar.


However, through the summoned terminal, she became able to temporarily use that authority as it was, albeit incompletely.


"That is why those who know this all uphold their own aesthetics! For each heart can only be polished by its own aesthetics...!"


The Prayer of Severance .


Transcending the knowledge of the unknown, wishing for the awareness of discord, and at the end of that clash, desiring a second coming.


Precisely because he presided over memory, it was the authority of conceptual rewriting, where by altering continuity, one could make the non-existent exist as , and make the existent not exist as .


"Here we go! Download!"


Perfect Rotation , Perfect Idling .


Using a part of that---.


"Vassago! Beleth! Zepar! Bathin! Aim! Csossel! in---!!"


Rewriting the system known as the Shadow Beasts .


Originally, a privilege that only Marianne, who had connected a path with Mishandra, could use, was given to a completely unrelated other---to give the power to fight to a girl who lamented her lack of it.


In other words.


"---Lumilia!!"


It was the forging of a Valkyrie.


"This... is...!"


Enveloped in the magical light created by Marianne, Lumilia was bewildered by the power overflowing from her body in the next moment. Looking at her own hands, she noticed they were encased in gauntlets, was surprised to find herself wearing a helmet and light armor based in red, and was speechless to look over her shoulder and find a large pair of wings on her back.


Vassago---the demon who can know past, present, and future, in the helmet. Beleth---the Great Demon King specializing in love, as an amulet that supplies infinite magic from Marianne if a loved one exists. Zepar---the demon of the red warrior, as light armor that exhibits defensive power and monstrous strength in times of hardship. Bathin---the demon skilled in teleportation, as wings that can go anywhere. Aim---the demon who rides a snake and holds a torch, as a spear of flame that burns in proportion to the level of absurdity. Csossel---and as the demon in the form of an angel, he tidied up the chimera of demon equipment cutely. Csossel had a distant look in his eyes, having been used for the last part just for the sake of taste.


It was a final battle specification with buffs piled on to an overprotective degree through the granting of authority and the magic supplied by Marianne. Because Mishandra was intervening, it even carried divinity, to the point where someone who had merely put one foot in the realm of demigods could not compete.


"Go on, Lumilia."


Marianne, who had admired it with satisfaction, spoke in the tone of Jinnai Tsubakiko.


"Neither as a man, nor as a woman, but swearing to be by your side as just one Shannon, and if you are to become a queen who upholds an aesthetic worthy of a knight... then you too must be a queen who upholds an aesthetic worthy of standing side-by-side with her."


"Marianne-sama?"


"Now, hurry to Shannon. I can't keep this up for long. I'm already terribly exhausted just from summoning Mishandra. A maiden in love is strong, wise, and cool---right?"


At that question, Lumilia closed her eyes slightly.


"I'm going...!!"


Immediately after, she spread the wings on her back, soared into the great sky, and literally flew toward Shannon.


"Ah, how beautiful. How lovely. I wanted to be like that, wanted to be like that with someone, but I couldn't. In my previous life."


Watching her go, Marianne muttered, as if dazzled, or perhaps envious.


'Do you regret it?'


"Fufu. No, because of this, it's not all bad. Precisely because I couldn't become that, I can reach out to those who seem like they might. I can push them from behind.---Yes, it seems I don't actually hate being meddlesome that much."


Then, as if passing Lumilia, the army of undead, released carelessly to create confusion, swarmed toward Marianne like an avalanche.


She had to maintain Mishandra's summons, maintain Lumilia's enhancement, and on top of that, handle the combat to protect herself---.


"Don't you dare interfere with a maiden's path to love!!"


Even so, she, who felt no sense of defeat, roared loudly.


●


A singing voice was heard from afar, and thunder roared.


"Big Sister...?"


Lilitia, who heard Marianne's voice from somewhere, opened her eyelids. Her consciousness became clear as the wind brushed her cheek. Her feet were not on the ground.


Looking down to see what had happened, she saw the courtyard of Alberstein Castle. Feeling as if she were hanging, she looked up and saw that the hood of her robe had gotten caught on the very top of the spire, and she was indeed hanging.


Before the question of what had happened could arise.


"Don't you dare interfere with a maiden's path to love!!"


In the courtyard below, she found a spirited Marianne. Beyond her, monsters like bone dragon soldiers and Hito-ban were surging forward like a tsunami.


She immediately cast aside her questions.


She didn't know the situation.


Directly below---she found her Rasayana stabbed into the parapet of the spire.


So, she tore off the caught part of her hood and fell, flying like a bullet toward the courtyard while recovering her Rasayana.


"I'm coming to help you now."


And facing the crisis of her beloved big sister, the most fearsome Saint finally rebooted.

---

To be continued next week.