Leaning against the wall, Alexia kept bouncing one leg impatiently.
"Why aren't Kanade and Cid back yet?"
Christina, who was waiting with Alexia, was beginning to grow impatient as well. Puzzled, she opened the door and prepared to head downstairs to look for them.
With a disaster unfolding outside, Christina and the others had tried to finish eating as quickly as possible, even though they needed the food to replenish their stamina. It had taken them only a few minutes to finish their meal.
But once they were done and ready to discuss what to do next, they realized that Cid, who had said he was going downstairs to use the restroom, still hadn't returned.
After waiting a little longer, Kanade volunteered to go find him in case something had happened. None of them thought much of it at the time. They simply assumed Cid might have gone to the restroom without bringing any toilet paper, so they let her go.
It was only now, after receiving no word from Kanade either, that Alexia and Christina realized something was wrong.
"Waaah...!"
The moment Christina opened the door, she heard a scream growing louder as it approached. She froze for a second before Kanade came charging straight into her arms.
"Help me, Lady Christina! There's a ghost!"
Christina stared at Kanade in confusion, then looked down the hall. After confirming that Kanade was alone, she grabbed hold of her.
"Kanade, what happened? Why did only you come back?"
"There's a ghost in the mansion! A ghost!"
Kanade opened her mouth to explain, but she was so terrified that those were the only words she could get out.
"Tch. What a pain..."
Having learned absolutely nothing useful, Alexia, already irritated by Kanade's panicked state, drew her sword. She grabbed Kanade by the collar, threw her to the floor, and drove the blade down beside her head.
"Explain yourself properly, right now. I don't know whether there's a ghost or not, but if you don't start talking, you definitely won't be keeping your head. Why are you the only one who came back, Kanade? Where's Cid?"
"Gulp..."
Kanade swallowed hard and glanced from the corner of her eye at the cold blade planted beside her head. She immediately calmed down.
"Cid-kun is gone."
"Gone?"
"Mm-hmm..."
Kanade nodded frantically, terrified that if she took even a second too long to answer, the sword beside her would take her head off. She quickly recalled what had happened.
"I went to the bathroom, but Cid-kun wasn't there at all. Then I thought he might be doing something shady somewhere, so I searched the house for him. But even after looking through the entire mansion, I couldn't find him anywhere. He must have been captured and eaten by an evil spirit in the house."
"Pochi... disappeared?"
Alexia stared blankly after hearing Kanade's explanation. Then her eyes widened, her expression twisting with uncertainty as she began to think.
Where had Pochi gone?
Alexia refused to believe that a living person could simply disappear without a trace. Cid had to be hiding somewhere in the house. What she couldn't understand was why he would hide or what he intended to accomplish by doing so.
"Kanade, let me ask you something. When you went to the bathroom, was the window open or closed?"
Unlike Alexia, who was trying to make sense of Cid's thought process, Christina had reached a different conclusion.
"Uh... I think it was open."
Kanade thought back to when she had been searching for him and gave a fairly certain answer.
Christina sighed, and a trace of sadness appeared in her eyes.
"Then there's no need to think about it any further. Cid already left the house and went outside."
"Huh? Cid ran away? But why would he run away? There are zombies everywhere out there..."
Putting herself in his position, Kanade's first thought was that he had fled. Before she could finish, however, Christina and Alexia both shot her a glare, making her instantly shut her mouth.
"He didn't run away. I think Cid left because he didn't want to put us in a difficult position."
"Christina, you mean..."
Alexia had more or less guessed what Christina was trying to say, but she still sounded uncertain.
"Yes. When Cid collapsed before dinner, it probably wasn't because he lost his footing. He may already have been on the verge of turning into one of those monsters outside. He must have noticed the changes in his body, so he deceived us and left on his own. He didn't want us to be forced to face him after he became a monster."
"T-That's impossible. Pochi... Pochi doesn't have the courage to do something like that. He's obviously the kind of person who runs away whenever things get difficult..."
"Smack!"
Christina lowered her hand and glared furiously at Alexia.
"I don't know what kind of relationship you have with Cid, Alexia, but there's one thing I want you to understand. Cid saved your life not long ago, and now he's gone out alone to face that sea of zombies because he was thinking of us."
"He has never been your possession, nor is he some cowardly weakling. On the contrary, he's brave, kind, and genuinely cares about this world. He can calmly face even mortal danger, while you're the one who only knows how to run away when things become difficult."
"..."
Alexia stood there at a loss. She didn't even know what she was thinking anymore.
She only felt that... maybe she had been wrong.
"All right. Since Cid chose to leave on his own, let's discuss what we should do next."
Christina withdrew her angry gaze from Alexia, turned toward Kanade, and spoke as calmly as she could.
"...That's not what happened, Lady Christina. There really is a ghost."
Kanade, only now snapping out of the commotion in front of her, hurriedly grabbed Christina's hand.
"While I was looking for Cid-kun, I kept hearing strange screams from somewhere in the house. But no matter how hard I searched, I couldn't find where they were coming from. So it has to be a man-eating evil spirit."
"Strange screams?"
Christina frowned and began to think.
She had lived in this house for quite some time, so she knew perfectly well that it did not normally make strange noises at night. But if she had to believe Kanade's claim that a ghost was responsible...
She would sooner believe a zombie had somehow slipped inside.
"Crash!"
The floor beneath her feet suddenly collapsed, and a figure reeking of blood lunged at Christina while she was lost in thought.
"Clang!"
At the last possible instant, Christina reacted and blocked the attack before quickly putting some distance between them. Her gaze locked onto the monster in front of her.
Christina clutched her still-trembling arm. She had managed to block the blow, but that did nothing to ease her unease. Her sword strike had left only a single wound on the creature. If her reflexes had been even slightly slower, it might have ripped the sword straight out of her hands.
"This thing... is a monster."
S? Or S+?
Countless thoughts flashed through her mind, but the creature gave Christina no time to think. With the wall no longer obstructing it, both its speed and accuracy rose by an entire level.
"Boom!"
She failed to block the next strike.
It felt as though she had merely blinked, and Christina was already falling from the second floor to the first. Her organs felt as if they had been twisted together, sending waves of searing pain through her body.
Two seconds later, two more figures followed Christina down and crashed beside her.
A third rush of wind suddenly tore through the air. A kick came hurtling toward Alexia and Kanade, who were still on the ground. Both of them rolled aside at once, and a thunderous impact erupted where they had been a moment earlier.
A monster. More specifically, one that had devoured a vast number of lives, pushed its body beyond what it could sustain, and desperately poured everything into perception just to locate them.
Alexia reached that conclusion with a single glance.
She exchanged a look with Christina across from her.
They both understood that the enemy had only one attack left in it. In just this brief exchange, the unknown zombie had already released an enormous amount of Magical Power. It was right on the verge of burning itself out completely.
But they were in the same position.
If even one of them was devoured and replenished the creature's reserves, they would be finished.
There was no choice but to risk it all.
Steeling themselves, Christina and Alexia attacked simultaneously.
And the enemy's target was... Christina.
"Splurt!"
Two sharp blades tore through the zombie's body, spraying blood everywhere. But despite the damage, the creature forced its gaping maw open and lunged for Christina's neck.
"Rumble!"
At that critical moment, the ground suddenly shook violently.
A tremendous rumbling came from outside, and the entire house tilted, throwing off the zombie's bite.
They immediately pinned down the zombie, whose body could no longer produce enough energy to match its consumption, holding it firmly in place so it could not drag either of them down with one final desperate attack.
More than ten seconds later, its once-burly body had shriveled until it was little more than skin stretched over bone. Only when it finally stopped struggling did Alexia and Christina climb back to their feet.
"Hah... hah... hah..."
Breathing heavily and feeling the violent tremors beneath her feet, Alexia hurried to the window to see what was happening outside.
Then her eyes widened.
...
Watching Fenrir evade Beta's relentless attacks, Zeta realized there was no chance they could wear him down anytime soon and reached out to restrain Beta.
"If something this minor is enough to make you angry, then you really are inexperienced. If you didn't have Shadow on your side, I doubt we would have gone to so much trouble dealing with you."
"Our affairs are none of your concern. What you need to tell us is what you intend to do with all the Philosopher's Stones you've been refining."
Fenrir's mocking words struck Beta directly where it hurt, nearly sending her into another rage. Zeta, however, remained calm and continued pressing him for information.
"Well... before I answer that, I have a question for you."
"What question?"
"Do you think the World Fusion that caused our three worlds to collide over a year ago occurred naturally, or was it deliberately caused by someone?"
The moment he said that, even the furious Beta fell silent.
Zeta, however, thought even further ahead.
Seeing their reactions, Fenrir sneered disdainfully. How could a bunch of ignorant country bumpkins who had never seen the wider world possibly understand the greatness of the Cult of Diablos? Revealing even this tiny amount of information was enough to demonstrate the gulf between them.
"It was a little over a year ago, I believe. We, the Cult of Diablos, observed two new worlds within the World Sea. We named them Number One and Number Two. Well, they were only experimental subjects, after all."
His sense of superiority was written all over his face as Fenrir continued in a condescending tone.
"We theorized that within the World Sea, once a world is observed and given a name, that name becomes its true name regardless of who named it. Observation itself proves existence. That is why, after the World Fusion, the inhabitants of those worlds, whether consciously or unconsciously, began referring to their own worlds as Number One and Number Two."
"To conceal ourselves, we chose to blend in under a false identity. However, we really did discover and name World No. 3..."
That raised an obvious question.
No one would voluntarily give their own world a numbered name. Number One and Number Two had already been defined, but Number Three had not.
So which world was World No. 3?
"The otherworld."
"Correct. We observed a dead, lifeless world and named it World No. 3."
"But for some reason, the moment we successfully named it, that otherworld awakened and charged directly toward our world. At the same time, it followed the observation path we had established and invaded both World No. 1 and World No. 2. To protect themselves, the three worlds then initiated a mutual World Fusion."
"The results proved that choosing to merge was correct. Without understanding the mechanics of the World Battlefield, most worlds would probably collapse during their very first battle."
"Even now, we still don't know whether the otherworld became so aggressive because it already had a name, or whether the otherworld itself was uniquely abnormal. Perhaps it was a world that should never have been observed in the first place. Or perhaps... both explanations are true."
To put it simply, the Cult of Diablos insulted a murderer online, triggering mechanisms belonging to both the otherworld and the World Sea. The murderer then showed up in person and went straight after the Cult of Diablos, dragging two innocent bystanders into the mess along the way because the otherworld indiscriminately kills friend and foe alike. In the end, everyone had no choice but to join forces for their own survival through World Fusion.
That was obviously not how the situation should literally be understood, but it was an accurate enough analogy.
After all, the Cult of Diablos truly was the source of all evil, the culprit that had opened Pandora's box.
"So... what is your objective?"
Hearing the coldness in Zeta's voice, Fenrir scoffed disdainfully.
"The World Fusion began because of us. The otherworld used our equipment to attack Worlds One and Two, allowing us to successfully record the entire process of the three worlds merging. Afterward, we spent an enormous amount of time researching how to reproduce it."
A red glow pierced through the dust.
At Fenrir's feet, Akane Nishino let out an agonized scream, and Fenrir's lips curled into a wide grin.
"Actually, when I saw that you had come instead of Shadow, I was a little disappointed. Shadow was the one I had been waiting for, not you."
"This entire operation, from beginning to end, was designed to deal with you wild dogs who refuse to stop snapping at the heels of the Cult of Diablos. And yet, for some reason, you somehow managed to avoid every single trap perfectly. I have to admit, that is rather impressive."
As he spoke, Fenrir even put on a show of clapping his hands, though he stopped almost immediately.
"But do you really think that simply doing this is enough to defeat the Cult of Diablos?"
"Don't you find that utterly ridiculous?"