novelraw Chapter 51: The Eye
Chapter 51: The Eye
“Fischer!”
At that moment, the ancient-looking book Fieron had handed Fischer began to emit a faint warmth—just like the Demi-Human Girl Completion Handbook in his coat. That meant they were fundamentally the same kind of item. If that was the case, then this Human Supplement Manual likely couldn’t be seen by others either.
Raphaëlle came running from a distance. Though Fischer held the manual in his hand, she didn’t seem to notice it at all. Her eyes were fixed on Fieron’s scorched, ruined body and the heavily injured Fischer.
Raphaëlle rushed over in a panic, wanting to hug him or stroke his injuries with her claws, but she was afraid of hurting him. She hesitated helplessly in front of him, her tail swaying anxiously behind her.
Silently, Fischer tucked the Human Supplement Manual into his coat alongside the Demi-Human Girl Completion Handbook. The inner city had been almost entirely destroyed by their battle. Outside, unrest was beginning to stir—likely because the soldiers stationed outside the city had heard the commotion and were now heading this way.
They had to get out—fast. Fischer tried to move, but pain shot through every part of his body. He closed his eyes and exhaled sharply. Seeing this, Raphaëlle quickly supported him.
“…Thanks.”
Her emerald eyes glanced at him, but just as he lowered his head and looked at her, she turned away. Her voice was soft and flustered.
“Thank you and all that… You really are…”
“How’s Larr and the others?” “They’re up there. They’re okay.”
Raphaëlle might’ve recalled what had happened with Nana in the cave—how she had killed so many demi-humans. Even though those were soulless husks, Raphaëlle could still feel the passing of life.
After seeing so many demi-humans slaughtered by humans, this time, it had been one of their own—a fellow demi-human—who had carried out the massacre. Raphaëlle’s mood darkened, as she had begun to realize there were deep-seated issues within the demi-human races themselves. Yes, humans had invaded their homeland and bore much of the blame, but were the demi-humans truly blameless?
Divided, isolated, indifferent—scattered to the winds and picked off one by one by the humans.
“That’s good.”
Leaning against Raphaëlle, Fischer looked toward the city lord’s mansion and saw a disheveled blonde minotaur girl stumbling down from above. It was none other than Nana. The golden ornament on her head was gone, but some unknown force of will had driven her to escape the cave.
“L-Lord… Fieron…”
Her legs were so weak she couldn’t even walk down the slope of the city lord’s mansion. She took only a few steps before collapsing, tumbling down. Bloodied, she lay on the ground for a second or two in a daze before finally looking up—seeing Fieron’s lifeless body.
“No… no… don’t… Lord Fieron…”
Nana’s once-gentle face was now completely vacant, as if something had been brutally torn out of her. Her soft murmur grew increasingly disbelieving, until the reality of Fieron’s death was fully etched into her mind.
“Lord Fieron! No! My… my… my Lord Fieron!”
She couldn’t even cry. Covering her face with her hands, her fingers dug straight into her skin, and blood began to seep from beneath her fingernails. Her eyes were wide and lifeless, as though she wanted to cry—but what flowed from them wasn’t tears, but blood.
Raphaëlle looked at her with a tinge of pity, but no sympathy.
But beside her, Fischer’s expression changed abruptly. In that instant, every hair on his body stood on end, like a primal fear had descended.
He stared at Nana. The blood leaking from her eyes was slowly turning blue. Her soul was wrenched out in an instant—and not just hers. A tiny light emerged from her abdomen.
It was Soul-Stripping.
Losing her horn, losing Fieron—this devastation had shaken her so deeply that her soul had been forcibly torn away.
Taken by...
Fischer’s gaze lifted—and saw, in the night sky behind Nana, a massive, ethereal form.
It was an eye—part human, part demi-human, part beast. The pitch-black pupil was filled with stars, like a swirling galaxy, or perhaps countless flickering souls.
But the most grotesque feature was that its eyelids weren’t normal lids at all—they were shaped like lips. The upper and lower lids were more like an upper and lower mouth, giving the entire eye a disturbing fusion of eye and mouth.
Nana’s soul, and the small soul within her womb, were swiftly absorbed into the eye—vanishing into the galaxy within it like they had passed through a doorway. Even the faint blue lights rising from Fieron’s corpse were drawn in, swallowed by that eye-like entity.
Fischer froze in place.
After consuming the souls, the giant eye did not disappear. It floated midair and locked eyes with Fischer.
The eye curved slightly, as if smiling—but even that smile was bizarre. Though it took the shape of a smiling eye, the lip-shaped eyelids curled into a wailing mouth. The “mouth” opened and closed slowly, producing a sound that seemed part whisper, part booming bell:
“Fi…sche…r…”
“W…ell…done…”
“O…we…you…one…”
“Hee…hee…”
And in the next instant, that enormous thing merged with the moonlight like a black hole and vanished into the night—leaving Fischer drenched in cold sweat, frozen in place.
“Fischer! Fischer!”
“…I’m fine.”
Raphaëlle’s anxious voice snapped him out of it. He turned to look at her. She was staring at him with worry—apparently oblivious to the massive entity that had just appeared before them.
She couldn’t see it.
“…Hah.”
In the distance, Nana—now like the soulless demi-humans—became a walking corpse. She tried to stand but collapsed again. Next to her was the underground plaza where Fischer and Fieron had fought, now ablaze.
She stumbled in, falling dazedly into the flames, and disappeared completely from sight.
Fischer took a deep breath and shoved everything he’d just witnessed deep into his heart. This wasn’t the time to be lost in thought. The soldiers were on their way. They had to move—now.
“Raphaëlle, get Larr and the others. We’re leaving the city. Right now.”