Side Story: Zeke Albin
...That thing's behavior changed.
Before, it had felt like it was picking any rotten adventurer at random and taking them out. Now, it had fixed Soma as its target and was relentlessly driving its prey into a corner.
After a brief lull, it began exterminating the Soma Familia's vicious rank-and-file members, one by one.
One, five, twenty...
The first to die were those with the worst reputations—those almost certainly making money in the Dungeon by throwing supporters to the wolves as sacrifices.
Next came those who committed crimes discreetly, never openly revealing themselves as they precariously skirted the line.
A little over a month later, nearly a hundred heinous criminals out of the Familia's almost three hundred members had died.
By then, Orario's two great powers, the Loki Familia and Freya Familia, had begun taking the matter seriously and putting effort into identifying the culprit.
But the thing was never caught. Hundreds of adventurers began searching with that one target in mind... and the results were disastrous.
Even as the search continued and they cordoned off the area around the Soma Familia to press their investigation, two or three people died every day.
They gradually grew exhausted, while Orario became increasingly filled with distrust, anxiety, and recession.
Just as negative emotions had piled up with nothing to show for it, and Orario was on the verge of exploding, I found it.
No. More precisely, I sensed it.
A small Prum in a hood passed by me. I could not be certain, but... I smelled ash and blood on it.
And in that instant, I swung my sword at its neck.
Side Story: Bell Cranel
What just happened? Zeke, who had been heading to the Familia Home with us, suddenly swung his sword at a Prum passerby. The passerby blocked it with a clang and still managed to flee.
Without saying a word, Zeke immediately gave chase.
What? What is going on?!
"Zeke, wait! What is this?! Explain!"
"It's that thing..."
"What?"
"That thing! The ash-covered bastard that killed everyone in our Familia!"
What... Then that person is the [Ash Noble]?!
"...Let's catch it!"
"We will!"
Tap-tap-tap-tap!
"Huh? What's going on?"
"A bastard who needs killing! Follow us!"
"W-Wait!"
We ran into Welf along the way, and Zeke immediately grabbed him, dragging him into the chase before he knew what was happening.
It changed its appearance or hid now and then, but somehow Zeke found it every time and immediately resumed the pursuit, so we never lost it.
"Ash... I smell ash! The stench of ash is so strong it clogs my nose!"
It tried to escape by weaving through the back alleys, but that was practically Zeke's home turf. He traced its route in reverse and drove it into a corner.
He's incredible. He's cutting off every escape without leaving a single gap. He really is like a hunter!
Without realizing it, Bell found himself thinking that someday, perhaps because of this very chase, Zeke's epithet might come to be associated with hunting.
As we gave chase while blocking off every route, the only path left to it was the Dungeon.
The chase had begun that morning. By late afternoon, it neared its end when the thing entered the Dungeon. Fortunately, everyone in our group was prepared to enter the Dungeon. Bell and Zeke had been heading there from the start that morning, while Welf had finished repairing weapons at his workshop and was on his way back to the Familia Home. Thus, continuing the pursuit into the Dungeon posed no problem.
"Stop right there, you murderous bastard!"
Not long after we entered the Dungeon, Zeke called the fleeing [Ash Noble] a murderer for the first time, shouting at the back of its head. He had never done so throughout the pursuit until then. If he had called it that sooner, he could have drawn attention and received plenty of help.
So why call it a murderer only now?
The reason was very, very simple.
If more people came, he might not be the one to kill it.
He had to be the one to kill it.
He had no intention of handing the right to that revenge over to anyone else.
You, at least, I will kill with my own hands.
I left the embrace of my last remaining family and found a new family for the sole purpose of killing you. To kill you more surely—more certainly than anything else—I held out my hand to my brother and obtained a weapon to kill you. If I lack strength, I will drag it up even from the bottom of hell. And if even that cannot reach you, then I will burn everything in my life and block your final sight with the smoke of your corpse.
I will not allow anyone else the right to cut off your breath. Only I will possess that absolute right.
Just because you exist, I cannot rest easy for even a single moment------!
Halt.
At Zeke Albin's shout, the ash-covered figure—the so-called [Ash Noble], which had done nothing but run until now—came to a stop.
As though it could not possibly believe it had heard such words, it slowly turned around, tilting its head with an oddly awkward motion.
"I-am, a mur-derer?"
Its voice was strange. It sounded like a young girl's voice forced through a man's breaking voice. Its fundamental voice was surely that of a girl, yet a man's voice seemed to overlap it as well.
"Why-me? I-kill bad peo-ple. I-am a good per-son?"
It broke and dragged out its words at strange points, so unless one listened carefully, it was difficult to understand what it was saying.
"Those guys-were aaaaall bad peo-ple."
"I-killed all-of them."
"I-am not-bad."
.
.
.
.
.
"What is there to say to something that isn't even human...?"
Zeke drew the sword he had sheathed once more.
Shing.
"You die here today. The name [Ash Noble] will burn away here today. You will go from being covered in ash to becoming ash itself."
"I will carry out your execution."
As Zeke Albin said this, he took an unusually large magic stone from the pouch at his waist.
"Devour it, [Kurikara]. Here is your offering."
When he sliced across the magic stone as though merely grazing it with the blade, the stone had somehow turned into blue smoke and seeped into the sword. The blue smoke lingering over the blade flickered as though blue flames were burning there.
"What I desire is the strength of a Minotaur. Execute the contract."
The remaining blue smoke seeped into Zeke's body, and in an instant, a boom rang out as a shockwave spread through the Dungeon.
What remained there was Zeke, holding Kurikara, now a blue blade, with blue circuits exposed all over his body.
"Come on, let's begin a game of tag where we kill and get killed. The one who's it is my Kurikara, and what it has to catch is your neck or your heart. Easy, right?"