1.
Human beings cannot overcome pain.
Why?
"Graaah..."
Because, fuck, I was experiencing that firsthand.
Don’t go spouting that bullshit about overcoming pain through willpower.
I could hear the air leaking out of my lungs.
Tears poured from my eyes from the pain and the stabbing sensation in my vision.
"Adrian, snap out of it!"
Silver Wolf, who had finished off the remaining Tier 7, came over to me and slapped my cheek.
Hanabi, who had been watching from farther away, was there too.
"Guhhh! Fuck! This hurts like hell!!!"
Breathe.
I could still breathe.
If it were up to me, I’d be spewing every curse I knew and rolling around on the ground making a scene, but my body wouldn’t cooperate. Until just a moment ago, I’d been making wheezing noises and couldn’t even speak.
"Somebody help me..."
"Adrian, don’t lose it. The lines are all tangled up."
"Why are you talking informally, you crazy bitch...?"
"Is that really what matters right now!?"
Hanabi placed her hand over my heart.
Red energy swirled over my heart, which was pounding like it might burst.
"Calm your mind. We need to untangle the paths. Just what kind of [Path] did you use to make the lines look like this...?"
"Fuck, didn’t you say you didn’t know anything about [Path]s...?"
"......"
"You only keep quiet when it’s convenient for you, huh...?"
Even while I was in agony, I could tell Hanabi was putting on an act.
She’d been pretending to be scared when I went after her, too.
She was absolutely worthy of a Best Actress award.
Crazy bitch.
Watching the red energy Hanabi gave me, I exhaled and inhaled again. I couldn’t even twitch a finger, but I was slowly getting the hang of the energy flow she’d mentioned.
"It still hurts!!!"
Pain that didn’t go away even when I copied her.
It felt like my whole body was being torn apart from every direction as a penalty.
I could definitely feel my level had gone up.
But if the price was this kind of pain, I never wanted to do it again.
And it didn’t even seem like it was the Path of Elation. It felt more like I’d borrowed the power of something else through some shady backdoor method... but I still couldn’t make sense of it.
"......Silver Wolf."
"Yeah."
"Carry me."
My arms and legs had turned to shit.
They wouldn’t move the way I wanted.
This was different from when I first awakened my [Path].
Back then, it had been at a level where it wouldn’t have been weird if my body had just exploded from the strain, not mere muscle pain and agony. This time, it felt like someone had forcibly ripped out a forest with a bulldozer and plowed straight through it.
It hurt like hell, but I wasn’t dying?
That somehow made it even more fucked up.
- Drag, drag, drag...
As Silver Wolf and Hanabi dragged me along, my body scraped against the floor.
I was cleaning the warehouse floor with my own body.
"Huff, you can do it. You’ll be fine once we treat you right away..."
Silver Wolf kept dragging me while staring at me with dead eyes.
She was in pretty rough shape too.
Hanabi looked at me, then bit her lip. She bit down hard enough to draw blood, then placed her hand over my heart and looked at me.
"Adrian Servet."
"Why... stop talking to me every time my head is ringing."
"You owe me."
"......"
"When you wake up again, it’ll be easier. Sleep well, you lunatic."
Thud.
I heard a sound like flesh being split.
And then I fell into a deep sleep.
2.
Inside a quiet, silent room.
Hanabi and Silver Wolf looked at each other.
"Are you after Adrian?"
"No way. Meeting you two was pure coincidence."
This time, too, she’d only received help. The enemy had tried to use me as bait to kill Adrian. If not for the strange movement Adrian had shown in that instant, her carotid artery would have been cut and she would have bled to death on the spot.
"Hey, gray wolf."
"...What?"
"Why don’t you stop being so embarrassingly jealous?"
Silver Wolf ground her teeth.
Her burning eyes fixed on Hanabi.
Long black hair laced with a red aura.
A small frame and height that made her look fragile and stirred the urge to protect her.
Thick lashes and butterfly-like eyes that added to her mystique.
A doll-like beauty, with the polite composure of an actress.
She had hated her from the start.
Another orphan, just like herself.
It was the same kind of self-loathing. She had overheard what Hanabi said when she was watching the performance. She’d been spouting that story, probably trying to make Adrian feel pity for her or something equally pathetic.
A fool who turned someone else’s story into entertainment.
Hanabi’s thoughts were the same.
What she’d told Adrian that day wasn’t a lie.
She wore a mask.
And erased herself.
How many times had she imitated someone else? At some point, she had lost herself.
It seemed like the troupe leader who had raised her wanted that, too.
She had thought she’d live however the current carried her, then burn this troupe to the ground.
Gray hair tied back in a ponytail.
Sharp, wolf-like eyes that still kept their beauty.
Skin so pale it was hard to believe she was an orphan.
Disgusting.
Truly, sincerely disgusting.
She’d been saved just because she happened to meet the right person.
She wanted to rip out those eyes that looked down on her so arrogantly.
Hanabi’s mental state was unstable.
But Silver Wolf’s was no different.
Right now, Adrian wasn’t here.
No one could stop them.
The sling rotated. Hanabi’s sharp eyes locked onto Silver Wolf. Before either of them said another word, they moved first. Hanabi charged, and Silver Wolf stepped back.
- Crash!!!
The balcony glass shattered spectacularly.
The lights of the tightly packed apartment buildings scattered and reflected across the broken glass.
"Die."
"That’s my line."
Even if she killed Hanabi, Adrian would never abandon her.
Silver Wolf’s movements carried that certainty as she fired her sling.
On the other hand, Hanabi didn’t care. She wanted to see that bastard’s face twist in pain. If she got hurt too and Silver Wolf died, she might even be able to take Silver Wolf’s place.
This place, where faint light lingered.
An eternal night where the sun never rose, a land lit by neon signs.
As Hanabi closed in, Silver Wolf swung her sword.
It looked like a wooden sword, but its cutting power was anything but.
A blade sharp enough to be called the work of a master. A sword that grew together with Silver Wolf. Since it had been given as a reward for the [quest], it was clearly no ordinary weapon.
Hanabi dodged Silver Wolf’s unrefined sword with acrobatic movement.
Hanabi had trained in hand-to-hand combat for acrobatics and theater.
Excellent instincts and senses.
The kind you could read only through a brief exchange.
In truth, it was a fight that had started almost recklessly on both sides, but they were both girls who deserved to be called geniuses.
It was a relief Adrian wasn’t seeing this.
Sword and fist collided and shattered apart.
"Devour it."
A round sphere formed in Silver Wolf’s outstretched hand.
Just a little while ago, she had nearly killed Adrian while practicing swordsmanship like it was nothing, but now things were different.
A colorful Pac-Man wearing sunglasses.
- Boom!
It shot out like a shell and smashed through the wall.
Chunks of concrete flew and a deafening roar rang out, and the apartment lights began turning on one by one.
"That’s... a pretty brutal way to do it."
"Says the girl trying to kill me?"
A revolver painted with red and white cherry blossoms was aimed at Silver Wolf.
Before there was even time to react, Hanabi pulled the trigger, and colors burst out like fireworks.
- Bang! Bang-bang-bang!
Gunfire thundered through the air, and Silver Wolf rolled across the ground. It was an ugly sight, but it was better than getting a bullet lodged in her head and dying.
The metallic clash of something locking into place.
The sound of the revolver spinning and reloading.
The sling was an outdated weapon compared to the revolver. Without the proposition Silver Wolf had given it—"the longer you spin it, the stronger it gets"—it wouldn’t have been strange if it had been thrown away long ago.
After firing the Pac-Man with one hand, Silver Wolf kept spinning the sling, then thrust out her arm and shot a steel bead.
You couldn’t call that the power of a mere steel bead.
The force of the metal mass glowing blue and carrying lightning was obvious without even thinking about it.
"Hmm~"
The revolver spun, then all its rounds fired at once.
Hanabi made impossible shots possible.
- Crack, KRAAANG!!!
Five shots shattered Silver Wolf’s steel beads and stopped them dead.
The remaining shot seized the instant opening and aimed for Silver Wolf’s hand.
"Ow, you’re playing rough."
"Isn’t it funny to call this a game when we’re trying to kill each other?"
Blood began to seep from Silver Wolf’s left hand, the one that had fired the sling.
She looked at the sling cord that had snapped loose from the recoil.
The Pac-Man floated beside Silver Wolf.
A sword was summoned over each of their hands.
"I was so frustrated watching your swordsmanship in the warehouse."
"...Shut up."
Let’s be honest where honesty was due.
Hanabi’s skill was superior to Silver Wolf’s power and technique.
From hand-to-hand combat to swordsmanship.
A red blade extending from a toy-like kendama.
A follower of the Path of Elation.
Silver Wolf still didn’t know how to properly wield her [Path].
She had watched Adrian use it from a distance, but she still couldn’t grasp it.
- Whoosh!
Hanabi kicked off the wall and leapt upward. She kicked the wall again and spun into a back kick. Silver Wolf barely managed to lean back and avoid Hanabi’s attack.
It felt like walking on a blade.
Silver Wolf looked at the game-like sword Hanabi had made.
Nothing about this was easy.
Adrian had always overcome walls, too.
So she had no intention of stopping here.
Sword and sword clashed. Hanabi’s blade, now wreathed in flame, thrust toward Silver Wolf. Silver Wolf thought of Adrian and barely managed to deflect Hanabi’s sword.
She was also losing in raw strength, so her body kept floating off balance and her actions wouldn’t chain together properly.
Even when the Pac-Man lunged in, Hanabi knocked it aside with her feet and hands, moving lightly and freely.
"You were acting so smug, like you were somebody..."
Hanabi’s gaze looked down on her.
"You’re not even worth killing."
Memories flowed past like a stream.
Things she herself couldn’t remember.
A white coat came into view.
A candy-colored evening dress spread out in a blur.
A thin scalpel held above a hand.
A sword brushed across her forearm.
Heat bloomed, and pain poured in like fire.
"...I can do this."
She was sick and tired of only looking at backs.
Meeting Hanabi’s eyes, Silver Wolf gripped her sword tightly.
A [Path] was something you could walk only when the concept governed by the Aeons and the direction you pursued were one and the same.
She would pour her own thoughts over the world.
Even if this cruel reality rejected her.
I will walk my own path.
Memories of wandering the streets.
The pixelated screen she had seen in the basement.
That hand that had reached out to her first.
That playful voice.
Those amber eyes that had looked at her... .
Her vision changed. Silver Wolf put on the neon sunglasses she hadn’t known were there until now. The apartment corridor, once filled with dark colors, was dyed in light. Blood was flowing from her hand, but a rush of exhilaration flooded her body.
The radiant glow of neon.
Hanabi’s figure, bursting outward like fireworks, came into view.
The sword in her hand had somehow changed color too, no longer looking like wood but like stone.
- Bang!
"...Interesting."
A hand that had suddenly appeared from the sky crushed the spot where Hanabi had been.
Hanabi, who had dodged by springing off the wall like a coil, looked at Silver Wolf.
She hated to admit it.
That girl looked like him.
Like Adrian.
"Now then, Round 2. Let’s do this properly."
Silver Wolf’s gray eyes fixed on Hanabi.
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