When I forced my heavy eyelids open, a sea of crimson spread out before me.
My head pounded with a terrible weight. Excruciating agony, waves of nausea, and violent chills rippled through my body again and again, leaving me incapable of coherent thought.
Grimacing against the relentless onslaught of torment, I pulled back my chin—the only part of me I could still move—and gasped.
"Eek?!"
A shriek tore from my throat unbidden. It was only natural. The entire lower half of my body was submerged inside a slushy, throbbing pillar of flesh.
"Have you awakened, I wondeeer?"
A fish-headed monster strode up before me, using the tip of the cane in his right hand to tilt my chin upward.
"W-who... are you...?"
With a slurred, raspy voice, I managed to scrape the question together.
The creature took a step back, pressed his right hand over his heart, and offered an exaggerated, theatrical bow.
"Bonjour, pseudo-local deity! I am Forneus. Though our acquaintance shall be brief before the ritual begins, it is an absolute pleasure, I must saaay!"
He introduced himself with sweeping, winding gestures that bordered on ridiculous.
Aldebaran, who had been kneeling in reverence before Forneus near the rear door, rose to his feet. He approached, dropped to one knee, and held what looked like a massive parasol over the arching figure of his master.
Flanking Forneus, a bearded man with a blowfish head and a woman with a bright red sea bream head struck bizarre signature poses.
"Achiki is Urokoonu! Don't you forget it, no nen!"
"And Washi is Fuguo, jaii! You'd better carve it into your skull!"
They bellowed at the top of their lungs.
"Ritual...?! What... what happened to the others...?!"
"The others, you saaay? Ah, well! Aside from you, that angel girl, and that truly extraordinary find over there, they were utterly worthless, I'm afraid!"
He gestured in a sing-song manner with the tip of his cane. Following the direction of his gaze, I froze.
"Char?!"
A bloodcurdling scream tore from my lungs. Resting atop the central pillar of flesh was Char's severed head.
Blood trickled from her eyes, and her skin had turned an ashen, earthy gray. It was obvious to anyone that the breath of life had long since left her.
"That marvelous find in particular fulfilled her purpose to absolute perfection, I must saaay! After all, all by her lonesome, she enabled the successful manifestation of the other two Great Generals! And nooow—"
Flushed with sickening excitement, words spilled from his mouth at a frantic pace. But to me, Forneus's voice was nothing more than hollow static.
"Char! Char!"
There was no way she was alive. I knew it was futile. Even so, I couldn't stop screaming her name.
"By offering you two beasts as sacrifices, the final Great General shall manifest in this reaaalm!"
Forneus raised his cane toward the ceiling and began to chant.
"Ghaaaaaaaah?!"
A sensation like iron stakes driving through my nervous system erupted within me, and my vision drowned in a wash of blinding crimson.
Agony, despair, hatred, jealousy, sorrow—every dark, violent emotion imaginable rampaged through my veins. And slowly, my flesh began to liquefy.
(Char! Char! Why?! Why would they do something so unspeakably cruel?! What did she ever do to deserve this?!)
My lips had already dissolved into the sludge, but amidst the blinding red, I screamed that desperate, agonizing question with all my heart. Over and over again.
—Don't you already know the answer to that better than anyone?
Standing before me was an arrogant, blond boy of about eight with a bob cut, answering with an expression of sheer exasperation. Staring at the narrow-minded sneer on his face, I felt a strange flicker of nostalgia, swiftly swallowed by an overwhelming wave of revulsion.
(I know?! How the hell would I know?!)
—Of course you do. Granted, it all began as that Great One's playful whim. But you fulfilled the conditions long ago. In other words, you already cleared the trial that Great One set before you. And yet, you refuse to remember. Coward. You hopeless, cowardly wretch.
(What are you talking about?! I don't have the faintest idea what you mean!)
I knew it—I loathed this kid. In just a few fleeting moments, I was certain of it.
—Regardless, the synchronization of your soul with that Great One will soon deepen, whether you fulfill the conditions or not. Then you'll understand what I mean, whether you want to or not. Well, there are limits to that, of course...
(I told you, it makes no sense—)
—Allow me to offer one last piece of advice, from one busybody to another. When you face your past in the truest sense, this nightmare journey of yours will finally end.
(Nightmare journey?!)
—Indeed. What begins now is a painful, agonizing dream for you. I sincerely hope that a cowardly wretch like you can manage to become human. Oh, look. It seems he has arrived.
With those parting words, the boy with the bob cut turned toward the door, dropped to his knees, and bowed his head in deep reverence.
The door slowly swung open, revealing a boy holding an exotic sword with an extraordinarily long blade in his right hand.
(—?!)
It was that nameless figure whom I had always believed, without a shadow of a doubt, to be the strongest being in the entire world.
Wrath etched itself deep into the black-haired youth's brow as he glared coldly down at Forneus.
"Has a rat managed to infiltrate my domain? What an impressive display of stealth, I must saaay!"
To Forneus's pompous remark, the black-haired boy simply spat:
"Infiltrate? Stealth? You're mistaken. I walked straight through the front gate and slaughtered every single one of your lackeys to get here."
Forneus's face twisted into an irritated sneer for the very first time.
"Aldebaran, dispose of this delusional piece of traaash!"
"Right away, then."
Aldebaran surged forward, his face morphing into a crocodilian maw as he brought down a massive, boulder-like right fist. But the log-sized arm aimed at the black-haired boy snapped backward with a sickening crunch, bent in an unnatural direction.
"Ngh?"
As Aldebaran let out a dumbfounded grunt, the black-haired boy clicked his tongue and delivered a casual upward kick.
Aldebaran was hurled straight across the room, trailing shredded entrails through the air before crashing violently into the far wall. The impact sent tremors through the entire chamber, and crimson flesh rained down like falling petals.
"You useless sack of meat! Lord Forneus, leave him to me, jaii!"
"No, Achiki will—"
Those were the last words either of them would ever speak. Urokoonu and Fuguo burst simultaneously into fine crimson mist and minced meat, spraying across the room.
"Whaaat?!"
Forneus's eyes widened in sheer disbelief. He sprang backward, whipping the tip of his cane around to aim at the black-haired boy, but the youth was already standing directly behind him.
"I have had quite enough of insignificant insects and their grandiose boasting."
The black-haired boy leaned close, his voice a soft, chilling whisper against Forneus's ear.
"W-w-who are you...?"
As Forneus's bulbous eyes darted around in panic, the boy tossed the object in his left hand to the floor.
"Those ones shouted just as loudly and arrogantly as you, yet they proved so disappointingly fragile that it was insulting."
Forneus's gaze locked onto the three-faced fiend's severed head rolling near his feet. His entire body began to tremble violently. His features contorted in sheer horror, sweat pouring down his face like a waterfall.
"Lord Asuraaa?!" he shrieked.
"Well, this was a serious game, and since your side won, the destruction of the New City of Ket Nya and the carnage here are, in a sense, the natural outcome. I thought I had accepted that. And yet... I wonder why. I find myself utterly unable to forgive it."
The moment the black-haired boy leveled the tip of his exotic blade at him—
"Eeeek?!"
Forneus let out a pathetic shriek and scrambled backward.
"Indeed. Allow me to speak plainly. Watching insignificant garbage like you run rampant and do as you please has left me thoroughly, truly enraged."
In cadence with his words, a pitch-black aura bled from the long blade, swiftly enveloping the entire room.
"Aaaagh!"
Having lost all will to fight, Forneus turned to flee, but the boy cleanly severed all four of his limbs in a single flash of steel before seizing him firmly by the head.
"P-pleaze... f-forgive me..."
To Forneus's desperate, sobbing plea, the black-haired boy offered only cold finality:
"I told you. I am angry. Therefore, you will not be granted a clean death."
Glancing back slightly over his shoulder, the boy called out:
"Hey, Belze! Show this insolent wretch a living hell. Hold nothing back—be thorough! Once you grow bored of him, I'll personally shatter his soul to dust."
"As you command, dechu!"
A fly-headed monstrosity materialized out of thin air, dropping to its knees as the pacifier in its mouth bobbed rapidly.
"B-B-B-Beelzebuuuuub?!"
As Forneus screamed in absolute despair, a shroud of black mist wrapped around him, swallowing him into nothingness without a trace.
The black-haired boy walked slowly over to where I lay.
"I'm sorry, but in that state, you can no longer be saved."
"..."
It didn't matter. With Char and the others gone, I had no lingering attachments to this world anyway.
Looking down at me, the boy's expression twisted with bitter regret for the first time.
"I believed that, as you are now, you could win this game. Overestimating your strength was my own failing. That is why—"
The black-haired boy raised his long sword.
"I shall put you out of your misery."
With those words, he brought the blade slowly down.
Physical death of Gilbert Loto Amelia confirmed. Initiating activation of Soul Revenger.
—————— Success!
Gilbert Loto Amelia's soul will now regress to a random point within the designated past timeframe.