Isaac and the Prince shifted their gazes almost simultaneously.

The thing that shouldn’t move, the thing that mustn’t move——the corpse hanging on the wall was moving.

It was a deeply bizarre and horrifying sight.

Sway, sway. The corpse, moving flabbily on the wall, soon fell to the floor. Standing up slowly, it eventually took a step. Squelch. Squelch. Behind the slow, wet footsteps, a trail of blood drew a line on the floor.

『Which bastard is it……? Which bastard is it……?』

A voice like boiling iron flowed from the corpse’s throat. A sound that seemed to echo from beneath the earth. The deeply sunken eye sockets spun around dizzyingly. The corpse’s nose twitched grotesquely. Sniffing as if smelling something, at a certain point, its eye sockets fixed onto the sword held by the Prince.

『It is you. You harmed them. To dare harm a wizard, a mere human.』

Staring expressionlessly at the corpse baring its teeth, the Prince spoke.

“Then what are you. Are you human, or not?”

『I am a wizard. A wizard is one who knows how to handle magic. A human, yet a being greater than human,』 the corpse said.

And then, for the first time, the Prince lifted the corners of his mouth, however faintly. His blue eyes shone dark and deep.

“Why show up only now, Wizard of Roberni.”

『The price of magic is the contractor’s precious thing. For your life, Roberni wagered his own daughter’s life.』

The corpse laughed. The vile laughter flowing from its throat was filled with joy. Isaac recalled the rumors about the daughter Roberni supposedly cherished like his own life, and shuddered at the corpse rejoicing in the man’s misfortune and the girl’s death.

『Now, speak. Who are you.』

The corpse had already approached right in front of the Prince. A hand, mangled like a hunk of meat, reached out to him.

“And who are you. Hiding and controlling a corpse.”

The Prince’s sword severed the corpse’s wrist. The severed wrist fell to the floor, but it creepily moved on its own and crawled back up the corpse’s body. Thinking a hideous bug crawling up would look cuter than this, Isaac frowned.

Watching the wrist reattach itself as if nothing had happened, the Prince without hesitation severed the corpse’s neck. The torso, which seemed to tilt for a moment after losing its head, picked up the head rolling on the floor and placed it back on top. And this time too, the head effortlessly attached to the torso and burst into manic laughter.

Even slicing the limbs, neck, and torso into pieces all at once yielded the same result; there might be a slight delay, but it ultimately knitted back together.

“Ugh…… what is that.”

At the sight of flesh chunks creepily crawling and gathering on the floor, even Isaac, who had a strong stomach, felt a surge of nausea and covered his mouth. Then, chattering sounds were heard next to him.

「You just need to sprinkle ashes.」 

「If you sprinkle ashes on the cut, it can’t reattach.」 

「If you just break the orb the wizard planted in that body, that corpse wouldn’t babble anymore either.」

「But we shouldn’t tell him. He called us useless before.」 

「Said we were noisy beasts too.」 

「Yeah, yeah, let’s not tell him.」

「Let’s not tell him, let’s not tell him,」 beside the three cats nodding their small heads, Isaac hurriedly rummaged through his pockets. He had it. The flint he always carried out of habit. Although today wasn’t the new moon so it was nothing more than an ordinary flint, for now, that was enough.

There was nothing suitable for tinder, but it didn’t matter. Taking off his outer garment, tearing it into thin strips, and striking the flint easily caught fire…… However, being too hasty, he made the mistake of overlooking the thick layer of dry dust and wood splinters accumulated around them.

A spark that fell from the fabric instantly caught onto the bone-dry wooden floor.

“…… Huh.”

Next to Isaac, who froze for a second, the three cats that had been watching wide-eyed since he pulled out the flint began to make a huge fuss.

「He set a fire, set a fire.」 

「Arson is a major felony even among crimes.」 

「He even set it while his boss is watching with his eyes wide open.」 

「We’re in trouble, big trouble.」

These guys are really fanning the flames. Anyway, Isaac quickly stomped out the rapidly burning fabric and scraped the ashes together. The Prince gave Isaac an annoyed glance for a moment, but soon turned his head back to the corpse as if such things didn’t matter.

“I should hurry. First, I must know who you are.”

The Prince reached out and grabbed the corpse by the throat, then ripped away the rag-like clothes it was wearing. If it was a corpse controlled by a wizard, there would be a unique mark of the wizard somewhere on its body.

Just then. The corpse distorted its face as if crumpling it. Only when giggling sounds burst from its wide-open mouth did they realize that distorted shape was a smile.

『Then let us hurry——and see who you are.』

With a sound that seemed to echo from the bottom of hell, the corpse opened its mouth wide. Deep inside its throat, something pitch-black seemed to gleam. But before they could identify what was shining, from there, pitch-black smoke spewed out like an explosion.

The smoke engulfed and surrounded the Prince at once, and in an instant, the Prince disappeared into the black smoke. Even then, the smoke continued to spread, filling the entire building.

『Who are you.』 

『What are you.』

The buzzing, echoing sounds felt like they were hammering inside his head.

Inhaling the writhing smoke, Isaac instantly felt his stomach violently churn. A nausea that felt like turning his entire insides inside out surged up continuously. His head and eyeballs throbbed. Dizziness washed over him, and his vision distorted. In that distorted vision, everything seemed to be at a standstill.

As if time had frozen, only his ears rang endlessly. What are you. Who are you. What are you. Who are you. You are…….

“——.”

His stomach was so nauseous he couldn’t stand it. It felt like his entire body was being crushed. Kneeling on the floor, Isaac clutched his throat and convulsed. He felt like he was going to die. He thought it would be easier to just die——right then,

「It’s because that handsome boy’s miasma is too massive. Enough to make even the barrier creak.」

「For a mere human, why is his miasma like this.」

「Don’t block it. Let it pass through. Let it pass through your body like air.」

「This smoke is useless against you. A human wizard’s magic doesn’t work on you. So don’t worry and just leave it be. Don’t try to block it, accept it. Take it and let it flow past.」

Whispering voices dug into his ears. Voices gently soothing his twisted insides. Although his consciousness was too dizzy to even distinguish whose voices they were, Isaac focused all his strength on listening to them. Struggling to steady his breathing, he surrendered his body to the crushing sensation washing over him.

At first, it wasn’t easy. His body reflexively tensed up to defend itself, crouching to protect himself from this unfamiliar, unpleasant sensation. But as he endured the nauseating discomfort and struggled to embrace the sensation bit by bit, strand by strand, the weight crushing his body gradually decreased.

Pitch-black, thin streams of water flowed into his body like a flood, and flowed out again. As they dug in and slipped out, as if Isaac’s body were merely a pathway they were passing through, the nausea and churning subsided.

And with it, a sensation slowly spreading out.

Like drops of ink falling into water, certain scenes spread out and became visible one by one. ——No, they weren’t just visible. He was experiencing them as they passed. That bizarre sensation that made him experience every single moment.

It was a memory.

The memories melted and flowing out of the pitch-black smoke passed through Isaac.

Those memories belonged to a man who had lived in constant awe from birth until now.

He didn’t even realize it was awe. It’s because people don’t consciously register ‘the obvious’. Those obvious things were awe, reverence, fear, and meaningless, baseless jealousy or hostility.

Everyone—even blood relatives, without a single exception, everyone—had always been that way, and there was nothing else in his memory.

Always alone.

He was alone within those obvious things.

Yet he didn’t mind. He paid no attention to such things and didn’t consciously register them. He merely spent his days alone amidst those obvious things.

He isn’t lonely either. He doesn’t know what that is. No one had ever taught him. Because he doesn’t know what it means to not be lonely, he doesn’t know what being lonely is either.

He has never harbored goodwill toward anyone, nor has he ever felt hatred. He had never clearly received those emotions from others enough to know what they were.

Grey, without any color, brightness, or darkness.

That was everything that filled him.

Perhaps that was why he was separated from familiar and acquainted faces and sent to a rough, distant borderland. Those familiar and acquainted faces shunned and feared him, not wanting him near them. Thus, going to a place incredibly far and unfamiliar at a young age, what greeted him were days of having to cut down, and cut down, and cut down again countless monsters and magical beasts lurking in every corner of the rugged land.

Slashing, slicing, and cutting down.

Endless days stretching on.

Covered daily in their curse-laden screams and bloodthirsty hatred.

That too became a matter of course for him.

In those numb, meaningless times, the only thing that brought an intense sensation was the pain that visited regularly. A pain that pushed both body and mind beyond the extreme limit.

A pain he couldn’t eliminate with his own power, with no one to help, or even lean on or cling to for a brief moment. A time when he had to endure everything completely alone.

Amidst that, he suddenly thought.

Why?

Of all the things given to him so far, he had wished for none of it. Not the people, not the status, not the curse, not even himself. Everything had just been set up that way from the beginning.

If so. Let’s wish for something.

For the source that created all this to disappear.

Therefore——he decided to eradicate it.

“——Right. Because of that, you bastards must disappear. Because that is what I

wish for.”

A low voice flowed from the smoke, which was covered so pitch-black that even his figure couldn’t be seen.

The mass of smoke, looking like a giant ball of yarn tightly wound with thin, pitch-black thread, slowly moved. The figure, wreathed in smoke, slowly raised an arm and grabbed the throat of the corpse that was constantly spewing smoke. The smoke flowing from the corpse’s throat gradually decreased. As the mass of smoke thinned, blue eyes began to show within. Beneath them, the corners of his mouth curved up in an oblique arc.

“You are not a simple wizard. What are you.”

Strength entered the hand gripping the corpse’s throat. *Crack, crack,* the corpse’s neck snapped and twisted. The corpse’s eye sockets widened enormously, meeting those blue eyes.

『You are…… You are…… You are…….』

The voice flowing from the corpse’s throat kept changing. High, low, thick, thin, as if the countless beings within it were taking turns. Then, just as the sound seemed to stop abruptly,

『You are…… the one who bears the curse of the royal family. I know who you are.』

A low, dismal voice spoke. The corpse’s mouth slowly tore open all the way up to below its ears. The Prince, whose figure was revealing itself again amidst the dispersing smoke, stared at it coldly.

“Then now, tell me who you are, you non-human thing.”

*Snap.* The corpse’s neck broke. Not stopping at just breaking, the neck, torn from the torso by terrifying grip strength, fell to the floor with a thud. The fallen head shivered and began to laugh.

『Is it not you who is not human? Who calls one such as you human?』

The Prince expressionlessly stomped on the head laughing out loud. *Crack,* even as it was crushed under his foot, the manic laughter bursting from the head did not cease.

It was a scene from hell. Fire had caught all around, burning ever more fiercely, and acrid smoke swirled inside the warehouse. Within it, the corpse was laughing. But amidst all this, the thing that instilled the most alien terror was likely the figure of the human standing silently, indifferently looking down at that head.

Only after it was mashed to the point of completely losing its shape did the sound bursting from the corpse’s head stop. However, the sound seemed to spread into the air, as if laughter could still be heard from somewhere continuously.

“——Prince Kyan, the flames,”

Isaac barely moved his lips, but before those words could even fully come out, the corpse’s torso moved.

The spot where the neck had disappeared bulged and moved grotesquely, and then, a new neck sprouted up. The newly appeared neck belonged to a kind-looking man in his early sixties—it was the face of the King.

『Will you cut it? Hm, will you cut it? Your father?』

The King’s face smiled grotesquely.

The Prince stared expressionlessly at that face——and swung his sword.

The corpse’s right arm was cleanly lopped off. As the severed arm began to squirm and crawl back toward the torso, Isaac, who had been watching with a rigid face, quickly approached and sprinkled ashes over the severed stump.

The Prince shot a glance at Isaac. Paying no mind to the gaze, and uncaring that he was getting scorched by the flames, Isaac was wholly focused on scraping together more ashes. It wasn’t an easy task, trying to gather ashes while the fire was raging all around them.

The arm, which had crawled all the way up to the corpse’s shoulder attempting to reattach itself, fell back down with a thud. The King’s face twitched and contorted.

That face mashed and twisted like a lump of raw dough before quickly revealing another form. This time, it was a gentle, elegant middle-aged lady—the Queen.

『My child, my child, my son. My son,』

This time, it was the left arm. As the Prince stared expressionlessly at the elegant lady’s face and sliced off the torso’s left arm, Isaac managed to scrape together a handful of ash and rubbed it into the wound.

*Crack.* Amidst the blazing fire, a charred wooden beam holding up the crumbling ceiling snapped. One corner of the roof caved in.

The head transformed continuously. Into the form of his younger sister, then his younger brother. And each time, the right leg, then the left leg were severed in turn, until eventually the corpse collapsed onto the floor, reduced to nothing but a torso.

And the final transformation of the corpse’s neck, which had been left sprawled

on the floor with only a torso and no limbs, was——

『Will you cut this one down too?』

Mocking him with those words, the eyes glaring straight at the Prince were the exact same vivid blue hue as his own——The Prince’s own face had sprouted from the corpse’s neck and was staring back at him.

The Prince looked down expressionlessly at that face, which was giggling with its lips torn wide open. But that, too, was only for a moment. With a languid air, the Prince flicked his sword twice, and then, without anger, without hatred, without even the slightest hesitation, he raised his hand and,

“——.”

*Fwap*

The sword was driven deep into the throat. The corpse froze, its eyes bulging as if struck by lightning. Every sound ceased at once.

Shaking. Shaking. Shaking. The one who pulled the sword back out, which had been embedded deeply in the neck of the violently convulsing corpse, was Isaac.

Rather than cutting the neck, the Prince had driven his sword straight down its throat; when Isaac powerfully yanked out the blade that had pierced through the neck and lodged deeply into the floorboards, a pitch-black, gleaming orb embedded near the tip of the blade followed it out. It was the wizard’s orb that had been controlling the corpse.

『You…… You…… How are you able to move……? Why did the magic not work……?』

The corpse’s eyeballs rolled back, fixing onto Isaac. As if only just realizing there was another person in the room, it stared at Isaac with eyes wide in utter disbelief. The blue eyes gradually dyed pitch black and began to gleam. The pitch-black pupils spun frantically inside their sockets. Then,

『……Ah. I see.』

Suddenly, the corpse muttered. The corpse’s lips twisted savagely.

『Now that I see, you are——.』

But before the corpse could finish its sentence, the orb impaled on Isaac’s sword shattered with a crack, and simultaneously, a sound like a horrific scream erupted from the corpse’s throat. As if an earthquake had struck, the entire warehouse building violently shook as the air whipped around like a hurricane. The flames surged madly.

The corpse, which had been moving vividly just moments ago, withered into pitch-black rot and instantly crumbled into brittle, dry powder as if weathering away. The crumbled powder formed a certain crest. A unique crest belonging to an individual wizard.

“——.”

The crest was quickly blown away by the fierce wind whipping alongside the flames, but that brief moment was enough to recognize whose crest it was. Even for someone unknowledgeable about wizards, it was a crest famous enough that anyone who had worked in the palace for a long time would have seen it at least once.

The head of the Court Wizards, the crest of the Guild Master who led the Wizard Guild.

“…….”

The warehouse roof, walls, and pillars were collapsing and turning to ash within the flames. Dispersed into powder, leaving only a few fragments of bone on the floor, the Prince looked down at the empty spot where that crest had briefly been drawn. Next to the Prince, Isaac took a step closer. Only then did the Prince turn his gaze to look at Isaac. It was a face that, even in times like this, showed absolutely no difference from his usual expression.

“The orb,”

Isaac mumbled in a voice that sounded like it was about to die out.

“It would have been better if I broke the orb a little faster. I’m sorry.”

Before the Prince had to cut the neck of that corpse several times over. Before he had to endlessly cut down those familiar faces. It would have been better if he could have stopped it.

Covered entirely in soot from the flames, his body marked with burns here and there and dusted with dirt, the Prince silently stared at Isaac, who was looking down with a gloomy expression.

“What are you?”

The Prince asked.

“I am Prince Kyan’s escort.”

At Isaac’s reply, the Prince seemed to faintly furrow his brow, staring piercingly at Isaac. His lips twitched for a moment as if he were about to say something, but he ultimately closed his mouth without speaking.

Isaac wore a face that looked like he was about to cry. No, he really wanted to cry. He felt like if he just wailed out loud, he might feel a bit refreshed. His chest felt completely suffocated.

It was because of this man. Because of this man standing all alone, entirely unfazed, with that unbothered face even in the midst of these hellish flames and smoke.

“I am Prince Kyan’s escort, so I must protect Prince Kyan. That is my duty. Therefore——I understand that you are used to moving alone, Prince Kyan, and that you find it more comfortable, and I understand you don’t particularly want an escort either, but still, as long as I am Prince Kyan’s escort, I would appreciate it if you told me your plans. What you intend to do, where you intend to go, so I can at least be of some help to you, Prince Kyan.”

The Prince silently stared at Isaac, who spoke slowly but distinctly, enunciating every word. Isaac still didn’t know what those blue eyes were thinking. He might think Isaac was being impertinent, or he might think he was being arrogant. He might swing that sword right now.

Regardless of what he might say, Isaac turned his exhausted body and gathered the bone fragments of the corpse scattered here and there. He didn’t even know if he might get cut down the moment he turned his back, but he was an opponent Isaac couldn’t evade no matter how hard he struggled anyway.

Gathering the visible bone fragments into one pile, Isaac muttered, “May you rest in peace,” and turned around; the Prince was still standing there, staring at Isaac. Still with an unreadable face.

Before they knew it, the flames had approached right up to his feet, licking at the heels of his boots, and the ceiling and the wooden floor of the warehouse were collapsing.

“We need to go back. I think we need to rest.”

Isaac spoke, and the Prince watched Isaac for a moment longer before ultimately not raising his sword. Isaac quietly waited for him to silently sheathe his sword – though while waiting, he had to hurriedly pat out the flames that had finally caught onto the hem of his clothes – but he then followed behind the Prince, who began to walk with light, unbothered steps as if he didn’t care about the flames at all.

The long night was passing, and the dawn of the new moon was approaching.