Even though Matthias was already in a terrible situation, he somehow found things getting even worse as he saw Alice's charred skin falling apart, revealing cancerous growths full of life protruding from everywhere across her body.
Said growths took different shapes and colors, completely erasing every single bit of Alice's silhouette until nothing was left anymore.
Sharp teeth and bloodshot eyes grew out of the expanding flesh, several new joints that shouldn't exist formed within her original shape;
Black bones pierced outside and expanded as if to armor the soft cancerous flesh, all while everything else bloated and crushed the dead and carbonized body parts into nothingness.
However, before Matthias could observe the conclusion of this grotesque transformation, a gun's barrel made of solidified flesh suddenly found its way toward his face at point-blank range.
He didn't even have the time to process what was going on before the apoptosis spoke again, saying the following with a digital broken voice:
"Eli■■n■te…"
And that was the last thing Matthias heard from the apoptosis before—
*BANG!*
—The trigger was pulled.
An explosion of wind slammed on his visage almost like a huge slap, forcing his eyes shut from the mere shockwave; his ears rang out from the sheer noise that hit his eardrums, almost deafening him out.
But surprisingly, Matthias felt… fine?
He slowly opened his eyes once again to see what was going on, and – much to his surprise – he was greeted by the vision of the misshapen apoptosis for a second time…
…Or at least, what was left of it.
In the place where she once stood, there was now a fleshy stump covered in blood, as if a giant mouth just bit off her entire upper body.
But, upon shifting his gaze just a bit upward, right above Matthias' head, he saw that it was indeed the case, since… well…
…There was a gigantic voracious maw loosely hanging from above, chewing up the bloody flesh like a starving beast. Connected to it was also a thick tendril of flesh that came from above, which extended down into the shadows beneath Black Alice's long skirt.
It was clear that this monstrous thing originated from the aforementioned monster girl, most likely shapeshifted from her original monster form.
「なんて失礼でしょう,あの老狐から正しいきテーブルマナーを教えてもらわなかったのかしら?」
As Matthias was watching everything with an aghast gaze, Black Alice spoke to the thing with a tone that barely concealed her annoyance. However, immediately after, that spiteful smile of hers turned into pure revulsion as the maw spat out the apoptosis.
「不味い... どうしてキメラみたいな味がするんでしょうか ?」
After undergoing such an experience, what was now left of the apoptosis was reduced to conditions incomparably worse than how Alice originally was.
Red blood and minced flesh mostly comprised its new form, with some broken bone fragments crushing the chewed meat.
The carcass was also melting down at a visible rate, as if it was sprinkled with a highly acidic substance.
Bloating and bubbling, the liquefying flesh released a foul smell that could probably wake up even the dead.
However, what was going through Matthias' head wasn't Alice's corpse being turned into an apoptosis, nor was it the appearance of the new cadaver that had been horrifically mangled up beyond recognition, or even the vomit-inducing smell being filtered through his nose…
…It was his future.
This was how he was going to end up, now that he was in Black Alice's clutches.
And that thought… It scared him, to the point he couldn't even properly depict the fear on his face.
He could already imagine himself being crushed by her maw, severed apart by her teeth, minced from flesh to bones until only a bloody mush was left.
And the pain he would feel during that period…
…He couldn't even dare to say it was "unimaginable", because that was exactly what he was doing: imagining himself screaming his soul out as his skin got lacerated on multiple spots, his organs crushed into a fine paste for the small critters in the surrounding nature, and his broken bones impaling him from the inside while giant teeth tore him apart from the outside.
Folded and refolded, his outsides turning into insides, snap, crack, chew—
*—Thump!*
Suddenly, Black Alice released Matthias from her tentacle grasp, prompting him to fall on the ground with his bottom.
But that wasn't a surprise for either of them.
Matthias did just piss on himself, after all…
As different liquids pooled under his crotch and his eyes, Black Alice looked at her soaked tentacle in disgust before gazing down at the shaken man, who caught a severe panic attack under such hopeless circumstances.
「汚らわしいわ... まあ,さっさと終わらせたほうがいいかもしれませんわ.私は忙しい身なのだからね.」
She spoke with a bored expression, as if disappointed by the sight of the catatonic young man, before she casually swung her tentacle arm around as if to shake the urine off.
However—
*Thud!*
—That wasn't the only thing that stained the ground beneath them.
"..." Matthias' breath got stuck on his throat as he felt an unusual and dreadful shift of his center, immediately followed by a burning sensation around his left forearm that reached high intensities in a matter of seconds.
His gaze detached from Black Alice's shadowy figure, setting his eyes on the source of this painful and uncomfortable feeling; there, on his forearm, he found…
…Nothing, nothing at all; not even his own arm, for that matter.
Matthias' breathing resumed at a faster, irregular pace… No, it couldn't even be called "breathing" anymore; he was outright hyperventilating at this point.
"Ugh… Uff…"
He clutched the bloody stump on his left shoulder, shutting his eyes in intense pain as his face scrunched in the worst way possible.
He turned his body around and kicked the ground, as if trying to quite literally push away the pain burning in his brain regardless of the futility.
On the other hand, Black Alice's glaring eyes didn't show the slightest bit of sympathy or pity for the amputated man.
Instead, she held a stoic gaze, staring at him as if he were nothing but yet another dull animal that only lived to die.
Her tentacle arm began to shift once again, returning back to its original human form as it hugged the teddy bear on her embrace; however, the gluttonous maw that extended from her skirt did not return, instead baring its fangs toward Matthias.
In between his ragged breaths, Matthias peeked from his squeezing eyes and saw the voracious organ beside Black Alice: growling like some kind of blind beast ready to pounce at him.
"Y-You bitch…!" He growled back amid his painful groans, while his cheeks were covered in dirt and tears falling from his red eyes.
But, even though he appeared so weak, harmless, and pathetic, even a blind man could notice the sheer outrage behind his voice.
This wasn't fair!
…So Matthias thought, injustice filling up his heart as his fears turned into indignation.
How did things even come to be this way?
…So he asked himself, while his mind went into overdrive trying to come up with a justification for this horrible end, a reason for his suffering.
Why him? What did he do to deserve this?! What cursed him to die like this?!
A flash of renewed amusement passed through Black Alice's eyes in the meantime, entertained by the defiant look the weak man in front of her gave her.
And yet, what was the point of it if he couldn't even defend himself?
But just as she was about to sic her beast on him, Matthias suddenly screamed back at her—No, to the skies themselves.
"ILIAAAAAAS!!!" He bellowed, catching the demon off-guard as she recognized the Goddess' name coming out of his mouth.
Were his last words going to be a curse to the Lady? Or was he preparing to beg for her salvation?
No, it was neither actually, and unfortunately – or fortunately depending on the perspective – she had no way to understand his next words.
"I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR ME, YOU CUNT!! I KNOW ABOUT YOUR SECRET PLANS TO USE BLACK ALICE AND BECOME A REAL GOD!!"
His voice echoed in the silent woods, vocalizing a revelation that would have turned the world upside down if it ever reached the public.
But there was nothing remotely capable of understanding a single word of what he just said, not to mention nobody around…
…Or, at least, nobody in the mortal plane.
*CRACK!* Thunder suddenly echoed back from the clear sky, as if a certain Goddess was answering his desperate screams with an even greater outrage.
And, as Black Alice couldn't help but keep her voracious beast at bay after the loud thunderclap, Matthias glared back at her upon seeing her taking a passive stance.
"F-Fuck you…!" He taunted her with indignation and wrath, all while clutching his bleeding left arm with his right hand.
Did he just throw his entire situation in absolute disarray? Yes, yes he did.
Did he care anymore? Unfortunately no.
He was about to die anyway, his morals had been thrown out of the window ever since Black Alice got a hold of him.
One would say he was practically doing his last act of defiance against fate, and they weren't wrong – technically speaking.
He still hadn't given up on life, of course, but he had no way to influence anything around him to save himself either: not with a missing arm, on the ground, nothing on hand, and a language barrier separating him from the rest of the world.
But when one hit rock bottom, they could only go up, and despite the aforementioned language barrier, there was one person able to comprehend him: Ilias.
At that point, he had no choice but to grasp her attention in any way, and hope for the best.
As for why he shouted such a compromising combination of words… Well, admittedly, he wanted to get back at the people who wronged him, and he knew that the best way to do so was to spew their secrets to the four winds.
Albeit, nobody but the Goddess would ever understand what he said…
…But, damn, if that didn't feel good.
"Ugh…!" Time passed, and Matthias slowly got up to his two feet as he saw the devil in disguise showing complete passiveness, acting as if she lost her focus on him and delved in her own thoughts.
Clearly, something was happening in the background, something that he had no way to learn about.
Was Black Alice truly just lost in her thoughts? Was she communicating with Ilias telepathically? Was she doing something else entirely? He had no way to answer that question, being your average human being.
He could, however, see that the voracious maw eventually receded back into her body, leaving behind only the blonde young woman that she took the shape of.
And then,she flashed a small and mysterious smile toward him, before speaking up.
「ふふふっ.」She chuckled first, amused by the sudden turn of events.
「君ってかなり大胆だよね?」
Those were her last words before she gracefully turned around and—
*Fwoosh!*
—She flickered out of existence, leaving behind only a momentary afterimage before that vanished too.
And, with that, Matthias was now completely alone in the crater.
There was not a single trace of the blonde devil, and there was still no sight of the blonde Goddess either.
Meanwhile, the pile of flesh and metal that was once the 16th Alice now fully deteriorated, turning into a horrid black puddle that smelled like a rotting corpse.
At the same time, his arm kept bleeding out, forming an ever-increasing pool of warm blood beneath him.
And yet, as time passed by, Matthias began losing all the courage and adrenaline he built up until now as his scorching hot pain overwhelmed them, leaving behind only regret.
He did it…
He actually said it, huh.
It hadn't even been a whole hour since he arrived in this world, and he already committed possibly the worst course of actions he could have accomplished in here.
Luka had to be already violated by the wild Slime Girl by now, Alice couldn't even get a proper burial before her carcass eroded into nothing, he lost an arm from Black Alice, and Ilias definitely had to be glaring daggers at him at this point…
…He truly fucked up, didn't he?
The only sound leaving Matthias' mouth was his painful panting as both agony and dread were getting to him.
A sensation of lightheadedness began creeping into his head, proportionally getting worse as more blood pooled beneath his feet.
But… It wasn't over, at least not yet.
Now Ilias knew he was in the know of her true plans, but she still didn't know why that was the case.
Would she leave him to die just like that? To keep everything a secret?
It sounded like a good idea to him, especially since he was dying on his own either way.
But, considering her controlling nature, she'd probably want to know how the secret even got out, to begin with.
Hopefully, he bought himself some extra time with this stunt of his, and yet…
'Fuuuuck, I'm so fucked…' Matthias thought to himself with heavy regret.
He shouldn't have said anything… No, he shouldn't have gone out of the tavern at all.
If he knew things would have gone this way, he would have just waited out for the eventual Soul Return Network to do its job and rewind time.
At the very least, there might be a genuine chance he could fix things, as small as that chance was.
"..."
But it was too late now, wasn't it?
With Alice already dead and Luka possibly being raped to the point of addiction for monster sex, Ilias was supposed to rewind time back to when everything could still be fixed.
This was practically a Game Over scenario, after all.
But no such thing happened yet.
Maybe time had already been rewinded, and he was left in this forsaken timeline to bleed out to death…
Maybe Ilias was still doing preparations for the eventual rewind, most likely involving his eventual presence in the new timeline… or the lack of it, maybe…
Or, maybe something else happened…
'…God, this crap is so confusing.' Matthias shook his head with a bothered expression, before setting his gaze up to the dark skies above him.
"Wonder where I'll end up after dying…" He whispered as he began to adapt to the pulsating pain in his left forearm.
If he remembered correctly his information from the visual novel, the afterlife of this world was a concrete concept governed by Ilias, overseeing the souls that came into her Heaven and sending them to reincarnate afterward.
If he actually went up to Heaven after being killed by the Goddess herself… Well, that would be awkward.
On the other hand – while there wasn't any sort of equivalent to Hell in this world – there was the Sealed Sinner's Prison, where the worst people in the world had their souls sealed in with no chance to reincarnate.
Considering what he did so far, there were concrete chances he might end up there.
He could try to meet the legendary hero Heinrich over there, since he was also sealed in that place for rebelling against Ilias after almost killing Black Alice, back during his era.
There were quite a few questions he was curious about, questions he wasn't given the answer for during his period in the two Monster Girl Quest game series.
He could ask about what were the hero's true feelings toward Black Alice, what happened between his act of slaying her and his eventual rebellion toward the Goddess…
…Well, to begin with, he first had to see what sort of end he would meet under Ilias' hands.
"Why is she not here, though?" Matthias wondered with a frown.
Did Alice leave such an ugly mark on the Goddess' face for her to not show up yet? Or was she doing something else? Maybe—
*Sniff*
—Hmm?
Feeling something akin to mucus slithering out of his nose all of a sudden, Matthias swiped on his face with his right elbow before blowing his nostrils onto it. Did he catch a cold during his stay in this place?
That was dangerous… He was in another world, so there might be no telling over what sort of unknown disease he might catch in here.
Not that it mattered by now, of course—
—Huh?
…Wait, why was there blood on his arm? And so much of it, too? It was practically dripping down his elbow…
–––––––––––––––––––––––––
…Huh?
Matthias blinked in surprise as he saw the blood stain on his elbow, only for it to suddenly disappear as soon as he reopened his eyes… alongside everything else in his surroundings.
He was left confused by what his eyes were showing him, but before he could make any crazy guess, he took notice of how "familiar" his new surroundings looked now.
Golden clouds circling the bright firmament above him, a marble floor covering the ground below him… He was back in Heaven.
And since he was here once again…
"...Ah." Looking ahead, Matthias could see the angelic figure of Ilias standing right in front of him, looking down at him from her high point of view.
Upon realizing that it was indeed her, a chill went through his spine as realization hit him and immediately straightened his back at once.
In return, Ilias merely stared at Matthias' face in silence, unbothered by his change of demeanor.
"G… Good day, ma'am." The man greeted her with the first words that came to mind, but inside, he was raging out.
'Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!' He swore in his heart. 'I'm so fucking dead!'
All of the bravado he showed up against Black Alice never appeared, leaving him panicking internally as he scrambled his mind trying to find a solution to all this.
Yet, he wasn't given one more second before Ilias spoke up.
"Matthias."
"!!!"
Matthias' breath stopped short at the mention of his name, cold sweat dripped from his forehead down to his neck, and his body stiffened under the Goddess' cold stare.
"You've been in my world for less than half an hour, and what did you do?" She rhetorically asked with hints of irritation flashing through her eyes.
"First, you break my champion's one and only sword."
"Second," Ilias continued. "Instead of taking responsibility of your actions, you decided to take a deviation and beeline right to the dead Monster Lord."
"And there is also the fact you shouted my plans to the four winds without a care in the world, only because you hoped that would do something."
Ilias' eyes narrowed as she took a deep breath before resuming her speech. "I've seen plenty of people who escalated small issues in problems way beyond their control, but you definitely take the crown among them all both in sheer time and scale."
"May the crown prince of all woes live a long life, or at least long enough to regret his actions." She rebuked sarcastically.
"Umm… I'm sorry…" All Matthias could do was meekly apologize, before he followed up with a question of his own. "...If I tell you everything, can you… can you please not kill me?"
"..." The Goddess didn't answer immediately, instead keeping her stare up on the man's face to the point it seemingly bore holes in his soul.
The awkward silence between them didn't help him either, prompting him to shy away from her glare.
And it was only after a dozen seconds of torturous silence that she finally spoke up again.
"That will depend on your answer." She left her answer vague, much to Matthias' chagrin. "So? Where did you come from? And how is it that you know this much despite not being from here?"
"Well…" Left with no other choice, all he could do was be honest and hope for the best. "I… Well, it's a weird story."
Ilias said nothing and patiently waited for Matthias to gather back his wits, to tell her of the "weird story". And finally, much to Matthias' own regret…
…He spoke.
"I'm… not actually from this world." He told with a surrendering tone. "And as for how I know about this place, I learned everything from a game back home."
"A game?" Ilias, in return, raised an eyebrow at what could be considered the most outlandish claim she ever heard of, and crossed her arms in front of her chest. "What are you talking about?"
"Well… I know it sounds weird, but from where I come from, this entire world was all part of… it's all part of a game, yeah. An interactive visual novel, to be precise."
Under the Goddess' scrutiny, Matthias began to spew everything, talking about everything he could come up with at the moment that was related to Monster Girl Quest.
He told her about the game's synopsis, the game's plot, the protagonist Luka, the antagonist being her and a few chosen other people, the side characters, how the game actually worked behind the scenes, the main storyline and optional side quests…
…Everything.
And after all that—
"—That's how you know so much, I see." Ilias commented, interrupting Matthias right at the end of his storytelling of the first Monster Girl Quest. "...Too much, if I have to say."
"...Yeah, I'm sorry." With nothing else he could do about it, Matthias meekly agreed with her assessment. "...So, it's okay now, right?" He further asked her.
The young man awkwardly scratched the back of his head as he looked up to her. "I promise I won't do anything weird anymore—No, wait, I'll even do anything you ask me for. Just… I only want to return home, can I? Please?"
Once again, Ilias fell into silence while staring at him with narrow eyes, as if musing over his words…
…Or as if she couldn't believe how naive Matthias truly was.
"I don't think you understand how precarious the situation is…" She began, using a tone full of venom.
"All the preparations I've made until now, all the work I've done to push the world to reach this point… It all went to ruin—" Ilias jabbed a finger on Matthias' chest as she trailed off with her words. "—because of you."
Then, she grabbed his shirt's collar and pulled his face closer to hers, and in proportion to the shortened distances, her gaze scrunched into a purely murderous glare. "If you want to keep your life after all of this, you better come up with a miracle that not even I myself can pull off."
"..." Cold sweat washed over Matthias' forehead as he stared back into Ilias' glare, knowing that his definite end was reaching soon.
Time seemingly slowed down as all of his neural system was active like never before, all for the sole purpose of saving his own skin.
If he didn't do or say something soon, he would die.
That was a certainty that nothing else in this world could rebuke…
…No, wait, would he even survive if he did something at all?
She clearly was upset after he ruined everything she set up in the last thousand years; there was no way she would allow him to live, wouldn't she?
If he were to be in her shoes, he would have exterminated himself as soon as he outlived his usefulness.
If only there was something he could do to Ilias that not only would let him live for longer, but also give him enough time and peace to think up a solution for all this mess…
…But what could it be?
With Black Alice, he still had the option to influence Ilias' decision to keep her passive stance, but now he was speaking with the most influential person in the world.
There was nobody else above her, he could only talk specifically to her and her alone if he wanted to live.
But he already told her everything about the visual novel, and even if he wanted to talk about Paradox, it probably wouldn't change anything either way.
Should he maybe just join her side and use his knowledge to his advantage to assist her in spots where she couldn't act on her own? No way! How would that even work? He was just a human with no training or exercise in his whole lifetime!
It would be a different matter if he was actually capable like Luka later in the game's—
—Like Luka?
…Wait!
"Waitwaitwaitwait!" Matthias screamed under Ilias' collar grip, feeling a sensation of enlightenment flashing into his mind under all this mental stress he was subjected to. "I—I got an idea!"
"Let me replace Luka! I'll carry out your plans in his stead!"
"..." Ilias' eyes narrowed upon hearing his absurd words. "Elaborate."
After taking a deep breath, Matthias immediately proceeded to explain his thought process. "Okay, okay… I know everything you wanted to do with Luka, and I also know a lot of stuff he doesn't know. If you let me contract with the Four Spirits and train myself, I promise to do as you originally planned for Luka to do and kill Black Alice after she eats you."
"And you think they will lend their powers to you?" Ilias immediately brought upon a fact that silenced him as soon as he registered those words.
…No, the answer to that question was no.
To contract with the so-called Four Spirits was the equivalent of pulling an Excalibur out of the stone, to say it shortly. It wasn't a matter of whether one was willing or not, it was more about whether the person in question was worthy of the power.
And Matthias, with his goal of helping the very same person who renounced them as pagan gods, and aimed to reshape the world in her image… Would the Four Spirits even bother with someone like him?
No way, right?
But… But what else could he do?
"Then… Maybe I can learn magic? People can still learn about it, right? Even if they can't do it as easily as monsters." He said, albeit with barely any hope in his voice.
But, once again, Ilias crushed it all with apathetic coldness.
"I'm not even going to humor the fact you cannot use magic, to begin with, but you truly wish to face an ancient Monster Lord only by studying magical theory within that limited lifespan of yours?"
And, once again, Matthias could say nothing to it.
She wasn't wrong with her assumption.
How could he possibly kill a 500 years old Monster Lord? Even assuming he could learn magic at the same pace as she did, Black Alice still had a lead of half a millennium over him.
It wasn't a gap that could be covered with hard work alone, and as Ilias alluded to, it seemed like he couldn't even use magic either.
And that was to not mention what else Black Alice was capable of… Freely able to transmute her limbs, superhuman physical strength, incredibly acidic digestive fluids, and those chills she gave him whenever she stared right into his eyes…
He did suggest to Ilias that he could replace Luka in killing Black Alice, but now that he thought about it more carefully…
…How was he supposed to do that?
It was impossible.
The only people who managed to accomplish that herculean feat were the legendary hero Heinrich and the protagonist Luka:
The former had the advantage of fighting the much younger Monster Lord with the aid of the Four Spirits and years of mastery, while the latter had practically god-like powers on top of assistance from his extremely powerful allies.
Meanwhile, what could Matthias do?
He didn't have an angelic inheritance like Luka, he didn't have affinity with the Four Spirits like Heinrich, and he definitely didn't seem to have any special power carried by his world-hopping situation either.
He was just a regular human… It was impossible, even with all the knowledge he had about the game.
But… He didn't want to die either…
"...I'll see what I can do." This was all he could say under Ilias' omniscient stare if he wanted to keep his life with him, but having already lost hope for any second further to the future beyond his untimely death, the voice reflected his inner thoughts very easily.
And yet—
*Thump!*
"Huh?"
—Ilias let go of Matthias' collar, giving him back his freedom.
"Six months." She suddenly said, much to his surprise.
The Goddess waved one hand through her locks as they stood in the way of her sight, and with a clear gaze, she observed Matthias with a solemn expression. "You will have exactly six months to get strong enough to replace Luka in my plans, understood?"
The young man said nothing in return, he didn't dare to. All he did was simply nod in understanding and thank his lucky star for the opportunity granted to him.
He was going to stay alive, that's more than enough for someone who was supposed to be dead by now.
"If you can't do it before then… I don't think I will have to elaborate on what will happen at that point." She said with an enigmatic tone, although the meaning behind her words were crystal-clear.
"Now, begone."
That was the last thing Matthias heard before he was banished from Heaven.