novelraw Chapter 187 : Chapter 187
Chapter 187 : Chapter 187
Chapter 187: The Banality of Evil (4)
A smile spread on the man's lips.
Or at least it seemed to. The form was too blurred to make out a facial expression. Part of it was that the mansion's corridor was dark. The man gliding along beside Monica as she crept softly forward, wrapped in low drifts of smoke — he was without a doubt a ghost. Or, to put it more precisely, a soul who had failed to reach the Underworld.
This guy is ridiculously loud.
Chirping like a starved cuckoo.
Frowning, Monica thought.
"Please, be quiet. You're ruining my concentration."
"How awful for you, truly. So leave me alone, please."
"Don't pretend to clamp your mouth shut. You aren't speaking with your mouth anyway."
Monica let out a sigh.
She killed the glow of her miracle and stepped onto the worn flooring.
'We mustn't be caught.'
By the man's account, he'd witnessed a suspicious ritual.
Souls had been sealed into countless objects, then extracted by a pair of some man and woman, and used as material for some foul sludge. It had been a rambling testimony, but she could roughly piece together the situation. The sludge was Ectoplasm; the man and woman were Henrietta and Hank. The man had evidently escaped from the apostates' ritual.
'Where is Professor Argento?'
Could he be searching the mansion?
She wasn't worried. Even if a hundred apostates charged at him, he would cut them all down without breaking a sweat.
Rather, it was she who had caused him worry. No matter how exhausted she'd been from the travel, she'd fallen asleep soundly in an apostate's dwelling.
'The smell.'
Monica wiped the tip of her nose with the back of her hand.
The sweet scent was growing clearer. The same residue she'd smelled in the catacomb beneath the Naflansee Grand Cathedral. Needless to say, it was the trace of black magic.
'It's imprudent to act alone, but......'
Even so, she couldn't just sit still.
Abel would surely wish for her to act as well. To fulfill her role as his disciple, she had to stand against the apostates on her own. Staying meekly within the Barrier could never count as training, and there was no cause to hesitate over making mistakes. If anything, it was the right time to stumble. Because her teacher was still at her side.
'Right.'
Monica pressed her prosthetic to her forehead.
Psht. The prosthetic opened and dispersed white particles.
Porginay pollen. As it spread, it distorted the residue of the black magic. Porginay pollen carried the property of dismantling lower-grade magic, and the effect extended to black magic as well.
'This time I won't be deceived.'
Creak, creak.
The wooden stairs gave faint groans.
Monica held her breath and descended the steps.
'In any case, if I want to become a paladin......'
Before long, sounds reached her.
The sound of something viscous roiling. The operating noise of Ectoplasm. Monica covered her mouth with her prosthetic and came to a stop. She took cover at the corner of the corridor and tilted her head.
'......I can't afford to fear apostates.'
And so she saw.
In the middle of the mansion's parlor, Henrietta and Hank were holding each other's hands. Monica fixed her attention on the table set between the two of them. All manner of items were scattered across it. The souls must have been sealed there. But it didn't matter now. The souls had already been extracted.
'It's huge.'
Monica's eyes went wide.
The Ectoplasm rippling as it hung in the air.
She glared at it. Countless faces writhed on the surface of the Ectoplasm. Just how many souls had it swallowed?
At that moment, the man's soul whispered.
Monica gave a slight nod. Meaning, it's all right to speak.
Monica nodded.
Monica nodded again.
Monica slowly moved her head.
She wasn't nodding. She gently tilted her head to look to the side. The man's soul wavered before her eyes. The man was whispering right next to Monica's ear.
Monica tilted her head again.
After surveying the faces of Henrietta and Hank, the two apostates,
Beyond the siblings, she spotted a silhouette, its presence muted.
It was Abel. Abel stood with his cherished sword drawn, fixing his gaze on Monica. The instant their eyes met,
<......What would become of their souls?>
──Fwssht!
A rushing gust of wind.
Monica's eyes flew wide. She grabbed at her fluttering black hair. She rolled her eyes quickly, chasing the wind's trajectory. Holding out her prosthetic, its gun barrel drawn.
It wasn't wind. It was the man's soul. The pale, whitish soul cut across the air. It drove straight through the siblings' Ectoplasm, and,
Gush──!
The Ectoplasm ruptured.
Black sludge scattered through the air.
"Hank, this is......"
"Look out, Henrietta!"
Hank moved quickly.
He hurled himself forward and pulled Henrietta into his arms. Just like that he toppled and sprawled onto the floorboards.
Henrietta's gaze narrowed. Beyond the form of Hank covering her, she stared at the Ectoplasm whirling about as shards. Wooooo. The faces forming the surface of the Ectoplasm roared, and,
"Monica."
Thump.
Abel mounted the table.
A somber radiance grazed his cherished sword, meanwhile,
"Don't push yourself too hard."
As Abel's words came to an end,
A voice reached Monica's ear.
It was the voice of the man who'd been at her side all this time, but the flippant tone was nowhere to be found. A sinister force coiled around Monica's throat. It wasn't hard to grasp its nature. The man's soul had formed an outer shell through the Ectoplasm, and,
He had composed a viscous body and thrust out his arm.
And so the man laughed. He opened his mouth and laughed. After wrapping his arm around Monica's neck,
<......This is what they rightly deserve!>
──Rumble!
He cackled wildly, along with the sound of thunder.
***
"Uuugh......"
Hank furrowed his brow.
A sharp pain was spreading through him.
Did I twist my leg? Why am I having trouble breathing? The question lasted only a moment.
"Hank."
Henrietta parted her lips.
Mouth working, her eyes tilted. Drip, drip. Droplets of blood falling on Henrietta's face. It was bleeding out of Hank's neck.
"Don't die."
"Ahh, so that's it?"
Hank snorted out a laugh.
He reached up and groped at his throat. He felt not skin but bone. It seemed the flesh of his neck had been torn away. Hank's head dangled from what little flesh remained, and the blood began gushing out in a steady stream, and,
"What a relief, sis."
Hank stretched out a hand.
He stroked Henrietta's neck.
"You're safe."
That was the end of it.
Thud. Hank's body tipping over.
Henrietta blinked. Pinned beneath Hank's cooling weight, she thought,
'What just happened.'
As she wondered that,
'The Ectoplasm went on a rampage.'
Abel thought.
Shards of Ectoplasm were flailing through the air. Punching through the walls and smashing the ceiling, they had lost their self as souls and begun destroying everything in every direction.
It was because they had lost their anchor. The crudely congealed souls had scattered, seized by madness, and the black magic that had tainted those souls was being unleashed at random.
'Perhaps it's fortunate, in a way.'
Schwing.
Abel swung his cherished sword.
He severed in midair a shard flying past.
Smoke welled up from the bisected shard. A soul had been released.
'At least it can reach the Underworld.'
Abel closed his eyes gently.
He raised his cherished sword vertically. Then he stretched out his hand and brushed it down the blade. Following Abel's touch, a halo of light began to wrap around the blade. Divine power was beginning to envelop the sword.
The fourth chapter of the Underworld Theory, 'Dance of Death.'
'Dance of Death' was a spell that purified souls on the verge of becoming wraiths. Divine power blessed by the God of the Underworld wreathed Abel's blade, and so it became a gravestone. The shards of Ectoplasm that had been storming about flew toward the blade. Even if they didn't wish it. Like iron filings pulled to a magnet.
Or as if dancing wildly.
'Thirty-three in total.'
Abel narrowed his eyes.
Shards of Ectoplasm were melting into the blade.
When he counted them up, it came to thirty-three. That was a portion of the souls the siblings had taken.
'The rest......'
Tatatat.
Abel's feet launched off the tabletop.
Landing on the floor, Abel fixed his glare straight ahead.
<──Hahah!>
Ectoplasm taking on the form of a human.
It was holding Monica hostage.
It had wrapped its viscous arm around Monica's throat.
"That child will not die."
Abel gave a shrug.
He gazed at Monica with a blank expression.
Monica, too, quietly looked at Abel.
The man's laughter tickled the inside of Monica's ears. How can anyone be this loud. As she thought so, Monica let out a sigh. The body of the cackling man kept jerking throughout, while Monica's body too jostled along with the man's movements.
"I am."
At the man's question, Abel answered.
"The matter doesn't seem so dire."
Abel said nothing further, and,
<──Answer me!>
As the man thundered sharply,
"......You."
Monica extended her prosthetic.
She grasped the arm of the man coiled around her throat.
With her eyes aglow, she whispered.
"Talk too much."
Sssshh──!
Her aura began to wrap around the prosthetic. Grass stalks tinged with green covered Monica's prosthetic, and,
<......Th-this is!>
With flower buds bloomed upon them,
Began to wrap around the man's body as well, and,
The Ectoplasm began scattering.
It was being purified by the aura.
The same went for the man's soul.
The voice of the man who had been shouting raucously gradually died away.
He ascended along with his pale, whitish soul. To pay for his sins in the Underworld.
"Idiot."
Monica stretched out her index finger and dug around in her ear.
Why are apostates always so loud. Thinking back on it, Vincent Tremblay had been talkative too. Thinking that, Monica looked straight ahead, and,
"......Professor Argento?"
Just as Monica opened her mouth,
A silhouette moving behind Abel,
"Oh my."
Whirl.
Abel spun quickly on his heel.
He extended his cherished sword, splitting the air.
"I think I'm starting to understand."
And so it was leveled at Henrietta's throat.
As the corroded blade hung just beneath Henrietta's chin,
"It seems I......"
Henrietta wore a smile.
Her blood-wet face warmly twisted.
"......Have to die, do I not?"