Re:Zero - Archbishop of Vainglory : Chapter 7-12

Chapter 7: Regret

Flames speared straight into the clouds. From somewhere deeper in the village came the endless clash of steel and screams. Carlos stood there, staring at the horizon, mind blank, unable to react.

He’d heard before that the world beyond the village wasn’t peaceful, that law and order were little better than a medieval joke. Still, he’d spent his entire life in the Oni Village, a place without conflict. His understanding of the world had never been more than abstract.

It was like knowing the Middle East was in chaos. You could sigh, shake your head, maybe feel a flicker of sympathy, but it wasn’t real. Not to you. Same world or not, it had nothing to do with your life.

He was a reincarnator. The start had been rough, nearly died at birth, but he’d survived. And he possessed limitless potential for growth.

So what came next should have been obvious. Survive childhood. Grow stronger. Follow the most basic, shallow, and painfully honest dreams of any normal man: meet beautiful girls, build bonds, become a hero, marry three, five, six, hell, seven stunning women.

There would be obstacles, sure. Hardships. But never true despair. Maybe he’d even end up as king.

…Reality shattered that fantasy without mercy.

Before any bright future could arrive, disaster struck first.

The distant cries, shouts of terror, screams of pain, finally drove home just how stupid his earlier thoughts had been. His instincts screamed at him to run. Get out. Save himself.

He’d lived in the Oni Village for nine years, but if he were honest, he felt no real attachment to it. Abandoning the village carried no emotional weight at all.

Aside from the twins he’d helped raise, there was no one here worth risking his life for.

“I should at least go check. Ram is stronger than me, sure… but I’m still an adult. Running away alone, now of all times, that’s just…”

The flames in the distance and the echoes of battle made his throat tighten. He swallowed again and again, hands trembling.

Still, a sense of responsibility, unwanted, uninvited, pushed him forward. He clenched his shaking fists, bit down hard, and forced his legs to move, charging toward the village.

He had no combat experience, just like everyone else here. But when it came to magic research, he’d worked harder than anyone. Having lived one life already, he valued power far more than natives who’d grown up surrounded by magic.

Maybe I can help. Even a little.

That fragile hope carried him through the forest path and into an open clearing where the village came fully into view.

One glance was enough to freeze him in place.

There was nothing left but death and ruin.

Bodies littered the ground, villagers and black-robed attackers alike, buried beneath a sea of flames. Houses burned. Fields burned. The forest burned. Even the corpses, the earth, the sky itself seemed to be on fire.

The village he’d seen every day, grown numb to through familiarity, had become a hellscape of blood, fire, and broken flesh. Piles of bodies stacked like grotesque monuments. Blood soaked the ground. Severed limbs lay scattered everywhere.

Heat slammed into him, carrying with it the stench of burning organs and charred corpses. His stomach lurched. He nearly vomited on the spot.

Barely holding it together, he covered his mouth and nose and plunged into the smoke and flames, sprinting toward the twins’ home.

He stumbled over a corpse along the way. The frozen expression, shock etched into a face that had fought to the very end, seared itself into his vision.

Then he saw her.

In the distance, a blue-haired girl stood motionless in front of her house.

……

The scene before her had shattered Rem’s ability to think. Even surrounded by black-robed attackers, she didn’t move. She only stared at them, empty-eyed.

The leader raised his cross-shaped sword, ready to strike, and before the blade could fall, a violent surge of mana erupted from behind him.

A raging gale tore through the attackers, shredding them and their robes into pieces.

Rem could only widen her eyes, watching in a daze as Ram, relief flickering across her face, ran toward her.

“Sister…?”

“Rem! Are you hurt?!”

Ram, already in Oni Form, reached her sister, but there was no time to embrace her. More attackers rushed in from all sides.

“One after another…!”

The young girl spat the words with pure hatred. The wind answered her fury, sweeping across the ground and reaping lives with overwhelming force.

Then,

A violent flash of fire burst in the distance.

A shell of flame crashed down behind Ram, slamming directly into Rem and swallowing her whole.

Carlos’ pupils dilated, a golden light flaring within them.

The world sank into slow motion.

He saw it clearly, just before the explosion, Ram threw herself over Rem, pinning her to the ground. The blast sent Ram flying.

Tears streaked Rem’s cheeks. Ram was drenched in blood, her wounds deep and horrifying.

And they weren’t healing.

That made no sense.

Oni Form didn’t just boost strength, it massively enhanced regeneration. With Ram’s power, anything short of a fatal wound should have closed almost instantly.

“Something’s wrong with the mana in the air… it’s mixed with something strange?”

Carlos could see the flow of mana. Before he could even feel relief that the sisters were alive, he noticed the anomaly permeating the atmosphere.

Oni Form forcibly drained surrounding mana to empower the Oni’s body and magic, but Ram showed none of the signs. Worse…

Her Oni Form was weaker than her normal state.

That was impossible.

Ram, hailed as a reincarnated Oni God, shouldn’t have been hurt by an explosion like that. Even if the Oni Clan were careless, even a small resistance would be enough. Against enemies of this level, numbers didn’t matter. Oni Form should have turned the tide effortlessly.

“Poison…? Is the foreign substance in the mana a toxin? Did Ram absorb massive amounts of poisoned mana? Is she unable to cancel Oni Form now?”

The abnormality stopped Carlos cold. He’d been about to activate his own Oni Form and rush in, but in that same instant, something no one anticipated happened.

From a pile of corpses, a black-robed figure suddenly rose.

Without warning, the sword flashed upward.

It struck Ram’s Horn.

“Aah?!”

There was no time to stop it.

The shrill scream echoed across the village, now fallen eerily silent once more.

The small horn, glowing white, spun through the air, blood spraying from Ram’s forehead. Regret crashed into Carlos’ chest, regret that he hadn’t noticed the danger sooner, that he’d refused Ram and Rem’s company before.

But there was no time to drown in it.

The shadow raised its blade again, ready to finish the two girls.

Carlos, already crouched low from his halted sprint, slammed his hand into the ground.

“Stone Summon!”

A wall of rock burst upward, shielding the sisters. The blade struck stone, sparks flying as it rebounded with a sharp bang.

……

…

…

Chapter 8: All or Nothing

“…Another Oni brat, huh? Didn’t even run. Came straight to us on his own.”

The shadowed figure, clearly the leader, let out a hoarse, rasping chuckle from beneath his hood. Excitement bled through every word. “What touching devotion.”

“Carlos?!”

As the rock wall crumbled, Rem followed the man’s gaze on instinct, and saw him. A small figure sprinting through fire and smoke, forcing his way toward them.

The leader didn’t stop him. He even stepped back, giving them space, watching from over twenty meters away with a gaze full of relish.

“When Oni siblings burn together,” he mused, “what kind of smell do you think they make? I can’t wait to find out.”

“…You’re insane.”

Carlos spread his arms, placing himself squarely in front of the sisters. He stared the man down, then spoke without looking back. “Both of you, run. Now. I’ll hold them off.”

“Idiot! Get out, ”

Ram struggled to her feet, voice weak, breath ragged. “I’m done anyway. I’ll stop him. You, don’t use Oni Form. Take Rem and run!”

The girl who was always so proud, so imposing, could barely stand. Even gritting her teeth took effort.

“…You don’t look like you can stop anyone right now,” Carlos said quietly. “I’ll do it. Rem, move.”

“Y-Yes!”

Unlike Carlos or the unnaturally mature Ram, Rem was still just a child. She’d frozen earlier, forgotten how to fight at all. Now, snapped out of it by his shout, she reacted on instinct, supporting Ram as they turned to leave.

Then she stopped.

As if his words finally sank in, she grabbed his sleeve, eyes brimming with tears.

“I… if we go, what about you, Carlos…?”

“I’ll hold them back. I’ll be fine. I won’t die.”

He forced a smile, tight, crooked, barely holding together. “I’ll come find you. I promise.”

His hands were shaking. First real fight. First time facing death head-on.

But with two children behind him, something inside him steadied.

Ram clicked her tongue, lips pressed tight. “Always acting so grown-up… just a little brother running his mouth.”

“Wrong. I’m the older one.”

“…And the weakest.”

“At least I’m stronger than you right now.”

“…And the shortest.”

“That one hurts. But give it a couple years, I’ll be taller than you. Remember it. I’ll call you a shorty every day.”

“Bold words,” Ram muttered. “Is that how you talk to the future clan leader?”

“There’s only three of us left in the Oni Clan, right? Once I marry you both, the title’s mine anyway. So for the sake of my throne, don’t die.”

“…I’m better than you at everything,” Ram whispered. “And I’m already done for… you won’t last either… so just…"

“Hey, don’t get cocky. Who said you’re better at everything? And what’s this supposed to be, encouragement or a threat?”

Carlos’ palms were slick with sweat. Still, he kept his tone light, almost casual, as he crouched and picked up a fallen cross-shaped sword.

Across from them, the man watching the scene made no move to interfere. Amused, he flicked his hand.

From the shadows, black-robed figures began to pour out, crawling from darkness itself. Their movements were twisted, unnatural, as they closed in.

“Wind Call!”

Carlos thrust out his still-childish hand. Mana surged, shaping into razor-sharp gales that slashed toward the lead attacker.

The man met it head-on.

One clean swing.

The wind blade shattered, dissolving into harmless air.

“…Figures it wouldn’t be that easy.”

If he used Oni Form, maybe he could fight. Without it, he was barely more than a kid who knew a couple of spells. And these weren’t amateurs, magic and blade honed together. Mercenary elites, probably. Cannon fodder only when facing true Oni warriors.

Single-Horned. Not transformed. This was a terrible matchup.

He was still scrambling for a way out when the enemy closed the distance. In the moment he raised his sword to block, the impact slammed through him, man and blade sent flying.

The black-robed attacker looked unremarkable, but the strength behind that strike was brutal. Carlos barely stopped the blade, and couldn’t stop the force.

He crashed backward into the sisters. Three bodies hit the ground together, cries overlapping.

His hands buzzed with numb pain, but thanks to the girls breaking his fall, nothing else hurt. He rolled immediately, careful not to crush Ram.

“Ugh… S-Sister… are you okay?!”

Rem, panicked and tearful, clutched Ram as her sister shook her head, fighting dizziness.

“…I’m… fine. Rem… are you hurt?”

Carlos lay beside them, flexing his tingling fingers. He glanced at the sisters now clinging to each other, pointedly ignoring him. He understood, they were close, but it still stung a little.

At the same time, the tension in his chest eased. Just a bit.

“…You two couldn’t spare even a little concern for me?”

“S-Sister looks really bad…”

"I’m fine… but you can’t win. Carlos… take Rem and go. Please. Just run." Ram was breathing hard. Her crimson eyes, lit by the surrounding flames, locked onto him. For the first time, there was no pride in them. Only pleading.

He turned his head away, refusing her gaze.

“…Whether I can or can’t, I have to try. Look at this, no matter how you see it, you can’t stop them. And if no one does, all three of us die here.”

He wanted to listen. Desperately.

But pride wouldn’t let him.

Not when these were kids he’d watched grow up. Kids who’d fed him, helped him survive.

“…So this is how I repay that, huh?”

He stared at his palm, split open from the earlier blow, blood seeping out. Gritting his teeth, he clenched his fist and forced himself upright.

The black-robed man waited, unhurried. Almost curious.

Carlos was weak. He could barely block a single foot soldier. Standing against an unknown number of attackers was suicide.

The air rang in his ears.

There was no time left to wonder if his Horn could handle this.

He drew a deep breath, gripped the short sword, lowered his stance, and stepped forward.

All or nothing.

A faint glow spread across his forehead. Mana from every direction was dragged toward him by force.

Crimson arcs of lightning cracked through the air.

Chapter 9: Passage Rule

“Idiot! I told you not to use Oni Form!”

The shift in mana was unmistakable. Realizing what Carlos was about to do, Ram’s face drained of color. She wanted to stop him, yet her body refused to respond.

Ignoring her warning, Carlos committed fully. Mana surged without restraint. From his forehead, a Single-Horned shape emerged, pure white at its core, rimmed by a crimson glow.

The mana in the air was forcibly seized, pouring through the Horn and flooding his limbs. Power swelled. His reserves spiked violently.

The invaders didn’t react with surprise.

They simply advanced, carrying out their task.

But to Carlos, his pupils now flooded with molten gold, their movements slowed to a crawl. Before, he couldn’t even follow them.

Now?

He was faster.

“Aaaaargh!!”

Fear vanished, drowned by the roar of awakened bloodlust. He kicked off the ground and hurled himself at the front line.

His small body unleashed strength that had no right to exist. He slipped past the incoming blade, crashed into the lead man’s chest, and drove his sword straight into the Witch Cultist’s heart.

Wind howled.

Translucent blades followed, faster, denser, deadlier than before, tearing outward in every direction.

Blood sprayed through the air.

Two Witch Cultists, caught completely off guard by the enhanced Oni Form, were cut cleanly in half and collapsed.

The rest reacted instantly.

They blocked the crude but sudden assault, and the moment Carlos shoved the corpse aside,

They hurled their blades.

Thunk.

“Gah!”

He saw them coming. He split a few out of the air, but not enough.

Knives punched into his thigh, his abdomen, his shoulder. One buried itself in the arm he raised to shield his face.

Pain exploded.

His leg gave out. Momentum carried him forward, dropping him hard to one knee.

Then the Witch Cultists raised their hands in perfect unison.

Fire bloomed.

One after another, soccer-ball-sized fireballs formed, and were hurled without mercy.

“Carlos!!”

The girls screamed behind him, voices overlapping. He couldn’t turn. Couldn’t think.

He slammed his palm into the ground and poured out every scrap of mana.

A rock wall surged up.

BOOM!!

The fireballs converged in a single, deafening explosion. The wall shattered instantly.

Ram and Rem’s vision washed red.

The blast swallowed that small, unreliable figure whole. His body, still bristling with embedded blades, was hurled through the air. He tumbled end over end before crashing into the debris of his own shattered rock wall.

He didn’t move.

The sisters struggled to their feet, only to be knocked down again by the shockwave. When the dust cleared, they saw him. A small, blood-soaked shape half-buried in rubble. Motionless.

No matter how they looked at it… he was dead.

"Carlos… that’s… not true… right?"

Their parents had only started treating them like people after they learned magic. Carlos had done it first. He’d talked to them. Told them what to do when they were hungry. Shared stolen sweet potatoes. Taken the beatings when caught, so they wouldn’t have to.

Just a neighbor. Yet closer than family.

And now he’d died right in front of them.

Grief. Fear. Rage. Despair. Countless emotions churned together like a flood, tearing their minds apart.

"Ah… ahhh…"

Rem trembled, clutching her head, twisting as if trying to escape reality.

Ram forced herself upright despite the vertigo. She glared at the expressionless Witch Cultists, lips quivering, and let out a hysterical scream.

"You monsters… I’ll never forgive you! I’ll kill every last one of you!!"

She ignored the brutal truth: without her Horn, she could no longer absorb mana. She was surviving on fumes. But the air around her twisted violently as she prepared a final, suicidal attack.

Then the figure in the rubble stirred.

His head lifted. Slowly… painfully… he pushed himself up.

Every witness went silent.

"Ugh…!"

Carlos didn’t know what had happened. Only that he had to stand. He knelt in the debris, blood-soaked, gasping, a pained groan escaping through clenched teeth.

Rock fragments from the explosion had torn through him. His clothes hung in tatters. His body was riddled with wounds. The blood pooling at his feet should’ve killed him several times over.

Still, face twisted in agony, he ripped the embedded blades from his body. One by one.

In Oni Form, with the obstructions gone, his already enhanced regeneration surged again. Combined with Berserker’s Divine Protection, power increasing with injury, his recovery accelerated even further.

Wounds sealed before the eye.

Heat poured off him. Blood evaporated into crimson steam.

Red mist coiled around his body. His Horn burned with the same scarlet light.

He looked like something straight out of hell.

The Witch Cultist leader watched him rise. Instead of alarm, his face split into a delighted grin.

"Impressive," he murmured, raising his hand again.

The girls couldn’t follow what happened next. Neither could the other Cultists.

But Carlos saw it. A compact fireball, far faster than normal magic, the same attack that had taken Ram’s Horn, now screaming toward him.

He had no combat experience. But he’d studied this. Drilled the activation sequence in his head a hundred times, hoping he’d never need it.

Don’t dodge. Intercept. Use the attack against them.

Adrenaline drowned out the pain. His mind went cold.

"Passage Rule!"

A magic circle snapped open before his palm, half a meter wide. It looked nothing like the flowing runes of this world. Geometric. Mechanical. Alien.

At its center, light flickered like pixels on a broken screen. A shape materialized: a white metal sphere, no larger than a fist. It flickered once, twice, then became solid.

The sphere pulsed with light. A second array bloomed outward, completely covering the space in front of him. This one glowed pale blue, shaped like a lotus flower, countless petal-like patterns layered within it. Behind the lotus, two smaller circles appeared, sleek and angular, more machine than magic.

Three arrays in total. A shield unlike anything this world had ever seen.

Chapter 10: Roswaal · The Witch of Vainglory

The fireball was smaller than a standard spell, but far faster. The instant it struck the barrier, it froze, caught between the layered circles. Then it snapped sideways and ricocheted back the way it came.

BOOM!

A crimson lotus bloomed again. More than a dozen black-robed figures standing at the blast’s center vanished outright, swallowed by flame. The rest were flung away like leaves caught in an autumn gale, scattering in every direction just as Carlos had been moments earlier.

The bizarre reflection made the shadow pause. Then its lips curled into a wide grin. Fresh fireballs flared into existence in both hands, two this time.

That was when Carlos raised his arm.

He had no combat experience. In his current, immature Oni Form, he could only use the Pseudo-Scripture once. Miss, and everything would be over. That meant there was no room for hesitation, this had to be done at his peak.

Under the strain of Berserker’s Divine Protection, he finally reached it.

Every last scrap of mana, amplified twice over by Divine Protection and Oni Form, was forced into a single point. He wagered everything on one strike.

“Pseudo-Scripture: Light Halberd Matrix!”

The surge of power warped the air itself. A massive golden magic circle unfolded above his head.

No one there had ever seen a formation like it.

Within the circle, tridents forged from condensed mana took shape one after another, forming with blistering speed before hovering in place. Then, like the rotating barrels of a heavy machine gun, they fired.

Golden halberds tore through the air, leaving brilliant trails of light. They punched straight through the wall of flames, streaking forward like meteors.

They were already upon the shadow.

“Wha?!”

Its eyes widened. Instinctively, it hurled the fireballs in its hands, but they only managed to intercept two of the halberds before detonating together.

Red flames swallowed dozens of light spears.

Then,

More halberds burst through the inferno.

They punched clean through the shadow, which had no time to defend after casting its spell, and through the remaining black-robed figures nearby. A spray of crimson mist followed them as they vanished beyond the horizon.

Bodies were left riddled with holes. You could see straight through them, front to back, scenery framed by empty air.

The others fared badly enough, but the shadow received the worst of it. Its limbs were severed cleanly, pierced beyond recovery. Head and torso were barely connected by a thin strip of bloodied flesh as it fell flat on its back, staring at the sky.

……

……

“…Good thing it was the piercing-type Light Halberd,” Carlos muttered. “Enough durability and momentum. If I’d used the unstable explosive form, chain reactions would’ve set everything off.”

He looked at the fallen shadow, and at the black-robed figures nearby, flailing as they burned after being thrown into the village fires by the shockwave, and finally let out a long breath.

It was over. At last.

“See, Ram? I lost more blood and got more kills than you. That makes me your big brother!”

The moment he dropped out of Oni Form, even though his injuries had already regressed to something minor, the smile on his face collapsed. Fatigue hit like a tidal wave. His legs gave out, and he dropped to the ground, unable to stand.

Even so, the sisters both laughed through their tears. Supporting each other, they moved to help him up.

Then, BOOM!

Fire rained down from the sky.

The explosion threw the sisters back to the ground. Carlos, closer to the blast’s core, was sent flying into a wall.

“Ghk!”

The air was forced from his lungs. Blood spilled from his mouth as his body slid helplessly down the scorching stone, strength utterly gone.

“This~ just won’t do~ at all~!”

A strange, sing-song voice drifted down through the flames.

From the sky descended a bizarrely dressed figure, makeup painted like a clown’s. He landed lightly, glanced at the sisters, then at Carlos, surprise flickering across his face.

“How~ did things end up~ different from the records~? If that’s the case~ I suppose I’ll have to personally~ correct things~.”

As if he’d already decided only the sisters were meant to survive, the clown studied Carlos for a moment. Then he raised his hand. Flames bloomed in his palm, ready to erase the “foreign object” that should not exist, according to the weakened copy of the Book of Wisdom.

“Wait.”

The voice came from afar.

It carried a strange power, so pleasant it felt like you could drown in happiness just by listening.

“Who’s there?!”

The clown stiffened, snapping his gaze toward the sound.

Amid the corpses and burning ruins of the Oni Clan village, a girl had appeared without warning.

Barefoot, she stepped into pools of blood as if they were shallow water, walking calmly toward Carlos. Though she wore no shoes, not a single drop stained her feet. Her very presence felt wrong, an anomaly in the world itself.

Her beauty was enough to make anyone tremble, even feel fear.

Calling her a girl felt inaccurate. Child fit better.

Long silver hair cascaded to her ankles. Skin pale as fresh snow. A small, delicate frame wrapped in nothing but a simple white cloth, as if declaring that nothing else in the world was permitted to touch her.

“Isn’t this~ isn’t this~~ Lady Pandora?” the clown said, narrowing his eyes. Wariness crept into his voice. “Why~ would you personally come~ to a place like this~?”

Very few beings could make him speak with reverence and caution.

She was one of them.

Because this child was the last Witch remaining in the world, the hidden great sin, the forbidden Witch erased from history.

Pandora, the Witch of Vainglory.

“Roswaal A. Mathers,” she said softly. “You’ve been watching him all this time. Don’t you feel anything?”

“…Feel?”

“He’s only a Single-Horned with no aptitude. Yet he resisted poisonous miasma, defeated Fogl, shattered the chains of his race with a mind still so young, and crossed the trial alone to protect his friends. Even watching through a distant mirror, I was moved by his resolve.”

She was speaking to the clown, yet her eyes never left Carlos. As she talked, her breathing grew light and eager, thrilled by what she’d seen.

“So~ what is it~ that you want to do?”

“Of course,” Pandora replied, smiling, “take him back and teach him properly.”

“No! That’s a deviation!”

Before Roswaal could finish, Pandora cut him off, her tone gentle, almost playful.

“Would you like me to send you home instead?”

She tilted her head.

“Or perhaps you’d prefer I turn you back into the woman you were generations ago? Reunite you with Wilhelm, let you borrow his still-robust seed? If you returned to your youthful beauty, you might even give him a second child.”

“…Why do you know my past in such detail?”

There was no threat in her voice. It sounded like a child proposing something amusing.

And yet, Roswaal’s guard rose higher than ever, into something close to terror.

Chapter 11: Reality, Easily Twisted

For more than four hundred years, Roswaal had been occupying the bodies of his direct bloodline, more precisely, the bodies of his own children. It wasn’t surprising that the Witch of Vainglory had uncovered this. Someone as aberrant as her noticing such a thing was inevitable.

Only bodies with sufficiently dense bloodlines could serve as vessels. That was why he’d always treated his children as replacements. Over the centuries, there had naturally been periods where only daughters were born. Nothing unusual about that.

What he couldn’t understand was this: during the generation before last, when he’d once again taken over a female body, he had met Wilhelm, the Sword Demon, when he was twenty and Wilhelm was fifteen. He had fallen in love at first sight and even wanted to have children with him.

Why was she aware of something that specific?

No matter how he turned it over in his mind, it made no sense. Then a possibility surfaced, chilling him.

“Don’t tell me…” Roswaal said sharply. “You were there back then too? The Demi-Human War, was that your doing?”

“What are you talking about?” Pandora replied lightly. “I have no idea. In any case, this child is coming with me. As for you, just continue following your Gospel at your own pace.”

With the same detached calm she’d never abandoned, Pandora brushed aside his suspicion. She stepped up beside Carlos, leaned down, and spoke softly with a smile.

“You aren’t injured. It’s all an illusion.”

The moment her words settled,

Before Carlos could even process what this little girl was saying, the lingering pain left behind by Oni Form vanished. Instantly. As if it had never existed.

“…Huh?”

His body felt too normal.

Still clutching where his wounds had been, Carlos stared blankly as he patted himself down. Not only were the injuries gone, his torn clothes had returned to pristine condition.

Impossible.

And yet the world itself seemed intent on proving Pandora right, reshaping itself to conform to her words.

Reality, something that had already happened, had been twisted by an unseen force. Unable to comprehend or explain what he was experiencing, Carlos couldn’t help wondering if he was dreaming.

Pandora, meanwhile, paid his shock no mind. She only smiled, the kind that made one’s heart waver, and spoke gently.

“Now then, you can stand up and come with me, right, little brother?”

“Ah, um… could I maybe…”

“No.”

“…I haven’t even said it yet.”

“You want to bring those two little girls with you.”

“Well, since you obviously won’t, ” Carlos started, intending to threaten that he wouldn’t go without them, but instinct warned him that such a tactic would be useless. He changed approach instead. “Ram is really strong! I hate to admit it, but she’s way stronger than me. If you’re looking for subordinates, you won’t find anyone better than Ram!”

Pandora chuckled. "Clever, even for a child. But… coming with me wouldn’t be any safer for them than going with that creepy uncle over there."

She looked at Carlos with gentle amusement, then briefly at Roswaal, still tangled in his thoughts, and at the sisters. What she said next was something Carlos found hard to believe.

The creepy clown who’d tried to kill him. The flawless little girl who’d saved him.

Normally, looks and behavior aside, no matter how he judged it, he couldn’t imagine the girl being more dangerous than the clown.

And yet,

The very next moment proved how naïve that certainty was.

From every shadow cast by the burning village, black-robed figures emerged, as if crawling straight out of darkness itself. One after another, they gathered behind Pandora.

Carlos’ expression froze.

“…You’re the real culprit?”

“I have no interest in meaningless slaughter,” Pandora said calmly. “They’re simply acting in accordance with the Gospel’s guidance. I only came to see you.”

“…Me?”

“If I’m not mistaken, those two spells you used were self-created, weren’t they? No one in this fallen Oni Clan researches new magic anymore. Even if someone did, they wouldn’t teach it to a Single-Horned like you. So… you made them yourself, didn’t you?”

“……”

She had no reason to lie.

Realizing this was a case of different branches of the same organization acting independently, Carlos stopped caring about the truth behind the Oni Village’s massacre. He didn’t answer her question. Instead, he stared straight into Pandora’s eyes and asked in a low voice:

“You can save Ram, right?”

“I don’t know who Ram is,” Pandora replied mildly, “but if you mean the little one over there with the broken Horn, that shouldn’t be a problem.”

She leaned down slightly, bringing herself level with him, her gaze affectionate. Her hand reached up to his cheek, still smeared with blood, despite the absence of wounds.

As she gently wiped it away, her voice grew warm and indulgent, like that of a loving mother, comforting enough to make one let down all defenses.

“But just because I can do it doesn’t mean I will. The question is, what can you give me in return?”

“…What do you want? Or rather… what could I possibly give you?”

“I want you.”

“…Me?”

Being caressed so tenderly by a girl beautiful enough to inspire fear, Carlos’ mind went somewhere it probably shouldn’t have.

Pandora, however, seemed completely oblivious to his thoughts. She leaned close to his ear, her sweet voice laced with temptation.

“That’s right. I want you. I don’t like forcing people, so… if you’re willing to give yourself to me and serve me diligently, I’ll grant your wish.”

“If you can keep Ram alive,” Carlos said quietly, “I’ll make the deal.”

“A simple favor.”

Pandora smiled, then turned her gaze toward Ram. She studied her carefully, then tilted her head with faint concern.

“If I healed her completely, she might become troublesome. Let’s just keep her alive. Your Horn wasn’t severed, it merely suffered severe damage. It’s still on your owner.”

By the end of her sentence, Pandora was speaking almost directly to the Horn lying on the ground.

As soon as her words fell, the Horn vanished, and reappeared on Ram’s forehead. It was intact, but cracked all over, damaged beyond repair.

“This…”

"It's fine. This state will remain permanently. She'll still be able to draw the bare minimum of mana through it. Because this," Pandora said softly, "is the true reality."

Having spoken this newly twisted truth, she turned unhurriedly and began walking toward the village exit, stepping over the corpses of both allies and Oni alike.

“……”

Carlos glanced at Roswaal, who still clearly wanted him dead, yet didn’t dare act under Pandora’s watch.

He said nothing. Only met Roswaal’s eyes, delivering a silent warning, before turning to the sisters. They were shaking their heads frantically, silently begging him not to follow Pandora.

He wanted to take them with him.

But he knew their bond to this village ran deeper than his. If their emotions flared, they might attack Pandora outright. And he still didn’t know just how dangerous she truly was.

Gritting his teeth, Carlos forced himself to look away. He turned, ready to leave alone.

Then,

Something small struck the back of his head.

A pebble.

And with it came a familiar girl’s voice.

Chapter 12: I’m Not That Kind of Person

“Ram doesn't want a life bought with your freedom! Who gave you permission to trade Ram like that?! That's an insult to Ram! If you go with those bastards, then Ram, Ram won't have you as a friend anymore!”

Panting, Ram’s face twisted as if she were on the verge of tears. She snatched up a stone and hurled it at the small boy’s back, desperate to make him turn around.

"…When people grow up, there's always a day when they part ways," he said quietly. "And this can count as… a tiny bit of atonement."

"Atonement? What are you talking about?"

"Truth is… the reason I didn't get here sooner? It might've been because I was jealous of your talent."

“Jealous? You?”

Ram froze as if struck by lightning. It had never occurred to her, not even once, that he might have felt jealousy toward her.

Beside her, Rem had wanted to speak as well. Instead, her small head lowered further and further, until she couldn’t bring herself to look up at her sister at all.

“…I didn’t realize it myself before,” he went on. “But losing completely to someone younger than you hurts. Feeling jealous at that point isn’t strange, right? I’m not a saint… no, I guess I’m just still immature. Anyway, I’m sorry.”

That was all he left behind.

Afraid that seeing disappointment in Ram and Rem’s eyes would hurt him even more, he never turned back. Once the words were out, he quickened his pace, catching up to Pandora, who hadn’t urged him on, yet clearly had no doubts he’d keep his promise.

Soon, he vanished from the siblings’ sight.

……

On the road out of the village, Carlos stopped in front of what had once been his home. The burning structure had collapsed, revealing two bodies beneath the wreckage.

“…This feels strange.”

He’d always thought that no matter what happened to the two people he was related to by blood alone, he wouldn’t feel a thing. If they died, he might even sing about it.

After all, from childhood to now, they’d never once hidden their hatred and contempt for him. They provided for him the way one would for an object, coldly, mechanically, giving him the worst upbringing imaginable.

And yet, standing before their corpses, something stirred inside him.

A feeling he couldn’t name.

If he had to describe it, it was like a weak but persistent cold wind slipping through the cracks of his heart, carrying a quiet loneliness through his veins.

Ahead of him, Pandora suddenly stopped. With a gentle smile, she asked softly,

“How does it feel? Killing someone for the first time?”

“…Right. I killed people,” Carlos murmured. “More than one.”

Only now, with time to think, did it truly sink in, the reality that he’d taken lives with a dagger and with magic.

What was he supposed to feel?

Revulsion at killing? Fear? Or a sense of accomplishment at having protected the children?

He thought seriously about it. Then he closed his eyes, no longer looking at the bodies, and shook his head.

“…Nothing special.”

“Is that so? Then let’s go.”

“Okay.”

……

……

A few days after leaving with Pandora, Carlos came to understand that the black-robed figures who had attacked the Oni Village were all members of the Witch Cult.

The world believed them to be worshippers of the Witch of Envy. In truth, aside from the Sin Archbishop of Sloth, none of them worshipped Envy at all. Each had their own objective, and none showed any real interest in her.

The Witch was the original bearer of the Witch Factor. Those who came later were called Sin Archbishops only to distinguish them. That was why Pandora, being of the same generation as Envy, and the other Sin Archbishops had no reason to worship her.

As for his own situation, Carlos had no good solution. Unable to change it, he accepted it.

Just like when he’d first arrived in this other world.

He’d fully grasped that old saying by now, when life forces you down, you either fight back or learn to endure it. Since resistance was impossible, endurance it was.

Still, within the Witch Cult’s base, Pandora was the only one he could speak to. The ordinary cultists were like puppets. Watching them, he couldn’t help wondering whether they even possessed independent thought.

So, wearing a carefully ingratiating smile, he approached the silver-haired girl who was quietly reading. Standing behind her, he began kneading her shoulders.

“Pandora… my lady. I’ve been here almost a week now. What exactly do you want me to do? And why did you bring me here? Can you tell me now?”

“Of course.”

She didn’t refuse his attention. Turning a page without even looking up, she spoke calmly.

“That clown obtained a degraded version of the Book of Wisdom from his teacher, a book that can glimpse the future of the world. It’s essentially an enhanced version of the Gospel used within the Witch Cult. But that book isn’t absolute. Occasionally, reality deviates from what’s written.”

“Huh? Then it’s wrong? Wait, so wiping out the Oni Clan was part of history?”

“That’s what the Gospel said. So they acted.”

“And if they didn’t…?”

“They could choose not to. But the divergence from the Gospel would only grow. The book would eventually adjust its predictions. That doesn’t concern me. As for the cultists, if they want to act, I have no reason to stop them.”

“…Then why save me?”

“Deviations from the book have appeared before,” Pandora said. “Every one of them was killed by that clown, who is obsessed with preserving the written future. I saw nothing beautiful in them. But you’re different… and there’s no Witch’s scent on you.”

She closed the book at last and looked at him with her unchanging smile, speaking words he only half understood.

“Could you maybe… say that in a way I can understand?”

“I see an unquantifiable future in you. The greatest possibility of breaking a fixed ‘future.’ And one more thing, you don’t belong to Satella.”

“…Satella? The Witch of Envy?”

“She intends to pull someone from another world into this one. That outsider will be an ordinary person, yet will be granted Authority, enough to completely overturn the ‘future’ written in the Book of Wisdom. That clown is waiting for that person. I have no interest in them. I don’t know what Satella’s goal is, but if everything goes as she wishes, my plans might be disrupted. So…”

Pandora finished calmly, the corner of her lips curving into something alluring.

“Become mine, and make the world even more chaotic.”

“But… aren’t I already yours?”

“No. You haven’t taken on my scent yet.”

She looked at him deeply, her words and gaze laden with implication.

“Your scent… huh? Taken on your scent??”

Pandora’s dangerously ambiguous words left Carlos genuinely distressed over whether or not he should scream.