When I regained consciousness, I had fallen into an endless darkness.
It was an unconscious space surrounded by black on all sides. I was walking through the vast darkness where nothing existed.
It wasn’t exactly a meaningful action. I had no other choice but to move forward, as if enchanted by something.
My head felt empty. I couldn’t remember anything from before. Surely, I had been huddled somewhere in a back alley, waiting for death.
This place was neither a back alley nor the afterlife.
It was just a nightmare. I was trapped in a dark nightmare from which I couldn’t awaken by my own power.
“······.”
How long had I been walking like this?
Something blocked my path. I could no longer move forward, obstructed by something.
It was a gigantic mirror. Reflected in the mirror was my appearance after falling into this world.
I hadn’t realized it because I had covered it with clothes, but my body was filled with wounds.
I was covered in blood. Most of it consisted of wounds I had received myself.
I had been stabbed with a knife, burned by fire, and there were bite marks near my wrists.
I had a body that couldn’t easily die, but of course, it wasn’t without flaws.
Healing my wounds consumed a significant amount of stamina. And once I exhausted all my stamina, I couldn’t heal my wounds.
My body was full of wounds that couldn’t be regenerated that way.
Seeing it like this, I realized just how much I had been stabbed. It was a pretty body, but now it was drenched in blood.
I knew how to regenerate my wounds. It had to be by drinking blood. Maybe my body was designed that way from the start.
There was no way I could move infinitely without eating something. It was a mysterious body, but in the end, it was still just a living being. It didn’t stray far from what I knew.
The wounds from being cut by the knife stung. But I didn’t feel inclined to heal them. To do so, I would have to injure someone else.
I didn’t want to live by swallowing someone’s blood.
I couldn’t kill a human. Not now, but because I had once been a human myself.
If I just waited like this, I would fall into the rest I had long sought.
Death was terrifying, but sometimes life was even more frightening.
So I waited.
For everything to end, and for my existence to disappear from this world.
But something unexpected happened.
The wounds on my body reflected in the mirror were slowly healing. The cracked skin was mending, and blood was regenerating. Not only that, my body, which had seemed on the brink of death, was filled with vitality.
“······How?”
I denied that sight.
It was something that should never happen.
Surely, I had exhausted all my stamina. My body had reached its limit to the point where even moving was burdensome.
And yet, vitality was swelling within this body. There was only one way for this flesh to recover stamina.
“That can’t be.”
It couldn’t be.
I hadn’t consumed a human. I was in this place now.
But could it really be?
I felt a strange illusion that the figure of me reflected in the mirror was speaking to me.
Iria in the mirror looked at me and said.
“You are a murderer who kills humans,” a brutally cruel truth that I couldn’t accept as I was now.
“That’s······. I didn’t do that.”
My body had only moved reflexively. I had briefly lost my memory and consciousness, and when I regained my senses, everything was over.
And.
Perhaps it was still true.
The more humans I killed, the more blood I drank, the further I strayed from being human.
How many people would my now uncontrollable body kill this time? I could do nothing but sink to the ground under the weight of the creeping anxiety.
I just wanted to escape from this nightmare. I simply wanted to close my eyes forever without bothering anyone anymore.
But the nightmare pulled me deeper into darkness. It grabbed me as I tried to escape and tightened its hold even more.
I had just wanted to kill a monster, but that ultimately led to another calamity.
Every time my rationality-lacking body killed a human, the sensations were transmitted back to me.
The emotions and humanity that remained within me were fading.
Like sinking from the surface to the abyss, I was drifting further away from being human.
The last image reflected in the mirror showed me growing closer to being a monster, not a human.
*
Central Empire, the location is Dusty Lane. A place commonly referred to as a back alley.
Although it’s within the Central Empire, it is now perceived as a completely separate space.
It has always had a rather bad reputation among citizens.
It was full of all sorts of garbage and filth, a den for criminals.
People without homes gathered here, making it even dirtier.
It was a place deemed uneasy in various ways, and now even the Empire’s Knights Order no longer included it in their patrol routes.
Was that why?
– KuguguGUNG!
The response to the monster’s appearance was a little delayed.
Since it was on the outskirts of the Empire, it took time for the Knights Order to arrive. By the time they got there, all the humans in the back alley were already dead.
Everything was in ruins, and the burned scenery resembled a wasteland.
News of the back alley’s destruction reached the upper echelons of the Knights Order. A monster had emerged within the Empire, and a thick density of magical energy had enveloped the area.
Sertia, the decision-maker, deemed the situation abnormal and immediately sent the strongest troops to the back alley.
If magical energy blankets the area, numbers don’t matter. The moment they stepped into the back alley, they would be rendered combat ineffective.
So, only one person headed to the back alley.
Her light sky-blue hair fluttered.
Her name is Freya. She is famous more by the title Sword Saint rather than her real name.
The first general of the Empire and undeniably its strongest force.
Excluding Sertia, who could no longer stand on the front lines, the strongest human of the Empire stepped into the back alley.
In a place now resembling ruins, Freya held a single sword.
At the heart of the crimson magical energy and sea of flames.
There stood a girl with silver hair.
It was a surreal scene. In such a vast wasteland, she was the only living thing left.
All humans, except for the girl, were dead. The current back alley radiated an eerie aura of death.
“Are you the Back Alley Monster?”
“······.”
Freya aimed the sword she held at the monster.
The Back Alley Monster she faced was quite different from the image she had imagined.
Instead of a ferocious giant monster, the one in front of her was a beautiful-looking girl.
But she didn’t loosen her guard.
Regardless of appearance, the figure before her was the worst murderer who had killed all the humans in the area.
Freya faced the monster’s red eyes.
The vivid eyes shining even in darkness seemed strangely hollow.
Just by looking at them, they emitted a sense of dread. Freya could feel a severe headache.
Had it attempted a mental attack?
She instinctively felt that she should not lock eyes with it any longer.
So Freya closed her eyes.
In the clean terrain, mostly reduced to ruins, a tremendous presence stood out distinctively.
Even with her eyes closed, she could still see. She was a swordswoman who relied more on her senses than her sight.
With her eyes closed, Freya asked the monster.
“If you are human, reveal your identity. Otherwise, I will strike.”
“······.”
Silence fell heavily between the human and the monster.
After a little time passed like this.
“It seems you’re not human.”
As declared, Freya struck the monster.
The apex of humanity, wielding the sword, sliced through the sky.
When Iria extended her sword as a spear, it was already too late. Freya had already taken her stance and swung her sword.
The sharp blade split through something’s skin with a SHING sound.
For the first time, a wound was inflicted on Iria’s body by a human.
Having consumed hundreds of humans, it healed quickly, nonetheless.
“······.”
Iria’s expression changed upon being wounded.
Pain often wakes dormant rationality. A part of her mind, which had lost control and gone berserk, began to return.
Iria slowly scanned her surroundings, trying to understand the current situation.
However, she wouldn’t comprehend everything until a bit later.
This was because Freya relentlessly swung her sword, interrupting Iria’s thought process.
What words could best express her current feelings?
“······.”
She thought it was annoying how closely it stuck to her, irritatingly persistent.
Turn your head and witness the carnage you have caused.
Having killed an uncountable number of humans now, I had become a living disaster, burning part of the Empire.
And.
I had killed the only being that had been friendly towards me since I fell into this world.
How do I know?
The magical energy covered the area, and when I regained consciousness, the memories of humans who died from it flooded into my mind.
The feeling of memories tangling together and spinning my head was something I couldn’t call pleasant, even as an empty compliment.
Among them was Riana’s memory too.
I recalled that I had caught her with my own hands and sunk my fangs into her. It came rushing back along with a serious headache.
I had killed Riana.
Perhaps I had known it would come to this all along. That’s why I hadn’t intended to meet Riana again.
How could a being that was not human survive in close proximity to a human? If she didn’t leave my side, it was bound to happen one day.
I felt sadness at Riana’s death.
I felt guilt over having killed countless humans.
And yet.
“······.”
It didn’t seem to bring me to tears. It wasn’t as sorrowful as I had imagined.
Rather, the hollow void inside me felt even larger. It felt like most of what was inside me had vanished.
That was how the day went.
“I wish it had been a rainy day today.”
Today, there was too much blood smeared on my body.
But there wasn’t any rainwater to wash it away.
In the end, I had to turn away with a feeling of unease.
“Sleep well, Freya.”
Those were the words left for the woman who had fallen to her knees, bleeding on the ground.
With black fangs embedded all over her body, she would probably die soon.
Her severed right arm throbbed.
Even if my body healed quickly, such bodily loss was a bit much for it to handle.
At this point, it didn’t matter anymore.
“······.”
Thus, I walked through the collapsed back alley.
Now it had become a place where nothing remained, yet it still felt familiar, like home.
I had nowhere else to go.
Today’s back alley was quiet.
It seemed like it would remain quiet for a while longer.
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