Chapter: 341
It was a fierce battle.
A boy leaped closer, using the swords appearing beneath his feet as a launching pad while floating in mid-air.
The pitch-black sword he wielded tore through the invincible shields that he thought could withstand anything, leaving wounds on his body as if they were made of paper.
In that battle, Beatrice encountered the word “defeat” in her mind for the very first time, but—
“Cough….”
Such a thing did not happen.
The boy, who had pushed himself to the brink, suddenly collapsed, spitting blood.
Watching the boy fall helplessly, Beatrice sighed softly and muttered.
Ah, not again, she thought.
Once more, there was no unexpected outcome.
It was inevitable that the weaker would not be able to win against the unreasonable strength.
The boy, who was seemingly Eva’s only hope, certainly wielded a sharp sword, but in the end, he could not overcome herself, who was born of unfathomable strength.
As she lost interest in the obvious outcome, the last hope flickering in Beatrice’s eyes reflected the image of the girl who was now hopelessly despondent.
Feeling a strange sense of disappointment, Beatrice approached the girl to finish her off and muttered.
“…I don’t know much, but that persistent brat is down, so it seems really over now. Well then, Eva. I’ll send you off with him.”
But what caught Beatrice’s eye as she was about to finish things was,
“…Lucy, please. Lend me your strength.”
The girl who seemed to have lost all hope stood up, clutching the sword.
Indeed, she had the ability to harness her powers through that sword, but…
“Tsk….”
Seeing the girl grimacing in pain while holding the sword made Beatrice click her tongue.
It was only natural that using another witch’s ability would cause such backlash.
However, she knew that even if the girl did that, she could not stand against her, which annoyed her slightly.
That boy, who possessed incredible sword skills, had ultimately lost against her.
Could the inexperienced girl wielding the sword turn the impossible into possible?
“─What?!”
Of course, the girl was thrown back each time she clashed with Beatrice’s abilities.
Yet, the girl continued to charge at her, refusing to give up.
“…You’re surprisingly persistent, aren’t you?”
Why?
Does she not understand that it’s futile to fight when she cannot win?
Does she still not grasp the absurdity of the world?
If that is the case, I will make it clear.
Beatrice thought, unleashing her powers without restraint.
As the ground disintegrated due to her ability, the girl, having lost her footing, naturally began to plummet.
Then, a demonic beast in the form of a bird swooped in to catch the girl, but Beatrice ignored it and attacked the girl straight through the beast.
“─Cough!”
“…Eva, don’t you see yet? No matter what you do, you can never defeat me. Unless a miracle happens, of course.”
And miracles don’t happen in this world.
As if to demonstrate that, Beatrice mercilessly pushed the girl down.
In the face of that unreasonable power, the girl, Eva, could not resist.
She merely descended into the pitch-black abyss, as if accepting her fate, falling farther and farther down.
While watching that scene, Beatrice quietly murmured.
“…Is this how far you can go? After all, you’re no different.”
Thus, Eva fell into the abyss, unable to overcome the absurdity of the world, disappearing just like before, once again.
Just when Beatrice was thinking that—
“…Aren’t you still not going to give up? This is getting tiresome.”
Beatrice’s eyes caught sight of the girl soaring up from where she had fallen, flames sprouting from her wings.
At this sight, Beatrice muttered, astonished.
“Well, what can you do? If you still don’t understand, I’ll show you that there are some things one cannot escape.”
No matter how much she struggles, some things are simply unavoidable.
The world has always been like that and will continue to be so.
Beatrice knew that all too well.
And as if to show the girl that such a world never changes, Beatrice unleashed a full-force attack on her.
And she saw the girl’s sword fail to block the attack.
With that, the girl who had no means to resist would be drawn into the abyss for real this time.
That was the only reasonable outcome that should have happened.
However, in that moment—
“…What?”
The undeniable certainty cracked.
“What is this… the flames….”
The flames from the girl suddenly engulfed and extinguished her abilities, something that never worked before.
Beatrice couldn’t help but feel shaken.
It was impossible, out of common sense, something that couldn’t happen.
And she knew exactly what to call such an occurrence.
“…You mean to say, a miracle just happened?”
She had believed that miracles don’t happen.
She thought she could never overcome the absurdity.
‘…The sun. Seeing something called the sun is my dream.’
But Beatrice had witnessed it.
‘I read in a book that there’s a sky above, unlike this ceiling above our heads, and in that sky, a huge flame called the sun floats.’
She witnessed the girl soaring above, breaking through layer upon layer of absurdity.
‘The little flame I saw just now was so beautiful. Then surely the sun, a much greater flame, must be incredibly beautiful. I want to see that. I want to go see it and then draw it here—that’s my dream.’
From the completely dark underground, like a miracle, the girl rose to the sky, shining dazzlingly like a fire.
Overcoming all odds and radiating light, that flame’s brilliance was so beautiful that Beatrice thought.
That day, the sun Eva talked about must have been something like this.
Ah, Eva. Would you have shone this beautifully if you had seen the sun too?
“…Ha, really. Is that so?”
And she finally realized.
“…I just wanted to see a scene like this.”
Having come to that realization, Beatrice felt a sense of relief as she spoke to the girl who had stabbed a dagger into her own heart.
“…Congratulations, Eva. You won.”
With that, Beatrice congratulated the girl who achieved a miracle and reached out her hand toward the brilliantly shining sun before her.
But suddenly, she thought that if someone like her touched it, that beauty might be blemished, so she stopped her hand just before reaching it.
Then, remembering a promise, Beatrice chuckled and pointed to below with the hand that halted in front of the girl, saying.
“…You won at hide and seek, Eva, so I also have to keep my promise. What you were looking for is down there. If you dig around, you might find it.”
Saying that, Beatrice took a moment to glance around.
Perhaps it was her imagination, but the world that had only seemed colorless appeared a bit different now.
Yes, the world wasn’t just a boring place.
“…Hehe, that was fun.”
For the first time in a long time, Beatrice smiled brightly and fell deep, deep into the abyss.
*
“…Heh.”
A small laughter echoed from below the abyss.
It was none other than Beatrice’s laughter.
Thanks to her ability to completely block outside impacts, she managed to keep her life.
“…Is this what dying feels like?”
However, despite everything, she was slowly dying.
It was the blood streaming out from the massive hole in her chest that was the cause.
“…Surprisingly, this isn’t so bad.”
In fact, if she willed it, she could stop the blood loss immediately, but Beatrice deliberately chose not to.
Even while dying, she didn’t feel particularly bad about it.
And she thought that it was probably because she was finally liberated from the conflicts that had entangled her for so long.
Yes, conflicts.
Beatrice’s life had been filled with contradictions.
Ever since losing Evangeline to the absurdities of the world.
From that moment, Beatrice lost interest in the world.
A world where the unavoidable could not be overcome, where miracles do not happen.
She stopped placing expectations on it, believing it to be a place utterly mundane.
But now that she thought about it again,
“…I had only pretended it didn’t matter.”
Beatrice muttered as she briefly recalled how she had acted in the past.
“…Heh, I was truly a funny girl.”
Upon reflection, her past actions seemed utterly ridiculous.
Claiming to have no expectations or interests, yet clinging to the past so stubbornly.
Of course, that past had been something that had chained her down.
“…Now, I think I can finally let go.”
Because she had come to know that miracles could indeed happen.
Though the past Eva had met a tragic end, somewhere, a miracle could occur that allows Eva to fulfill her dreams, just like today.
Simply knowing that possibility made Beatrice feel differently about the world.
So just when Beatrice felt happy for the first time in ages and was about to close her eyes—
A slight sensation of discomfort flickered across her tranquil face.
“…Just when I was feeling good, an intruder has come.”
“Why, hello there, intruder. You’re the one who broke a contract and acted on your own whims, disrupting my plans, am I right?”
Turning her head, Beatrice spoke to the person who had suddenly appeared beside her.
“To be precise, I’m not the one who broke the contract. You asked me to defeat the Witch of Gluttony if the world was about to end. Well, since the world hasn’t ended yet, I’m technically not breaking any contract by acting how I see fit, right?”
“Heh, making a fuss about contracts, are we?”
“The first to joke about a contract was you.”
“Aha, if you say that, I really have nothing to say. I certainly didn’t lay a hand on the red-haired witch before you did.”
As always, the woman with the hood suddenly appeared and spoke to Beatrice, then asked a question.
“By the way, I never thought you’d end up like this. How did you lose? From what I’ve seen, you weren’t someone who would lose to just anyone outside the Witch of Gluttony. Did you let your guard down while fighting?”
“Let my guard down? Well, not really.”
In response to the woman’s question, Beatrice laughed softly.
Honestly, it was true that she wavered for a moment while fighting Eva.
It was also true that if she had fought fiercely with all her might, the outcome might have been different.
But really, what did that matter?
Ultimately, she had lost, and Eva had achieved a miraculous victory—only that mattered.
So Beatrice mocked and laughed as she spoke to the woman.
“I think your eyes are just deceiving you.”
“Heh, well, I guess that doesn’t matter.”
The woman, seemingly unconcerned with Beatrice’s mockery, murmured.
“Regardless of everything, my goal was to eliminate either you or the Witch of Gluttony, and even in this scenario, I’ve reaped some benefits. If a pawn too powerful for my control vanishes on its own, then that’s a blessing for me! Thanks to this, I’ve come a step closer to my goal.”
Beatrice looked at the woman, who was grinning to herself, feeling annoyed.
“I’ve been wondering for a while now; what exactly is your goal? Why do you go about causing strange things behind the scenes?”
“Oh, did I not say? My goal is—”
Then, in response to Beatrice’s question, the woman replied with a beaming, ecstatic smile.
“World domination!”
Having answered, the woman seemed to remember her purpose for coming and clapped her hands once.
“Anyway, enough about that. Wouldn’t you like to know why I came all the way here to find you?”
“Not really.”
“Aha, well, that makes sense. But to get to the point, because you acted on your own, I wasn’t able to fulfill the request I made before. So I came here to make a different request.”
“…Hah, what on earth could you possibly want from a dying witch?”
“Don’t worry. It’s a very simple request.”
As Beatrice scoffed, the woman smiled sweetly.
“Just die quietly like this. I’ll make good use of your dead self.”
The moment she heard that, Beatrice felt the power slowly draining from her body due to the binding force of the contract.
Since she had already planned to die, Beatrice did not resist.
But the expression of the woman who smiled at her like she was a puppet moving at her will displeased Beatrice, so she shot one last remark at her.
“…You seem to think the world will go exactly as you wish. If you stay too relaxed, one day, you’ll get bitten hard.”
Having uttered those words, Beatrice ceased to move.
And the woman, who had pulled out a dark gemstone from Beatrice’s chest, smiled gently and murmured.
“There won’t be such a thing. The conclusion of this world is already set.”
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