Arc-7 Ch-57

 She lashed out with her flame-cloaked arm like a whip, putting every ounce of strength behind the strike. 

It carved a blazing arc from her right rear to her left front, aimed squarely at the Magical Beast's left face.

If she waited until the Magical Beast made its move before reacting, the attack would never connect.

Its strength and speed surpassed hers by several orders of magnitude. Facing it head-on would be nothing less than suicide.

Her only hope lay in using an attack the Magical Beast had never witnessed before, one powerful enough to inflict genuine damage. Her options were limited to her flaming fist or an enormous fireball.

She would crack the Magical Beast across the face with the flame whip to create an opening, then unleash a high-powered attack immediately afterward, wounding it badly enough to halt its movements, if only for a moment.

The instant the Magical Beast was immobilized, she would trap it inside this room and trigger the bomb. That was the strategy father had devised.

BOOOOOM!!

"...Eh?"

The opening strike, the cornerstone of the entire plan and one of the most powerful blows she had ever thrown in her life, did nothing more than graze the tip of the Magical Beast's nose.

Why?

She crushed that rising confusion before it could take hold, forcing herself to focus on the situation instead.

The terror of imminent death drove her mind into overdrive.

What she finally realized was that the Magical Beast had lowered itself onto all fours, drawing every one of its legs beneath its body.

In other words, it had anticipated that she would launch some kind of attack. It had deliberately feigned a full-speed charge to lure her into striking first.

She had fallen for it completely, wasting an attack she had never revealed to the Magical Beast before.

Given its terrifying capacity to learn, far beyond anything a wild beast should possess, there was no chance the same trick would ever work again.

Perhaps she could still land another hit if she measured the distance perfectly and waited for the ideal opening, but by then, the odds of having enough stamina and magical power left were slim at best.

Niiiii...

The corners of the Magical Beast's unnaturally large mouth curled upward.

Whether it was mocking her or simply opening wide before swallowing her whole didn't matter.

The only thing that mattered now was finding a way to recover from her current posture.

She had swung her arm from right to left, leaving the tip of the flame whip stretched as far from her body as it could possibly reach.

If she simply reversed the motion and swung it back, the Magical Beast would evade it with ease.

Even if that massive body happened to be caught by the return swing, the damage would be insignificant. It wouldn't be enough to stop the creature's advance.

The moment it charged straight at her along the shortest possible path at full speed, her defeat had already been decided.

What should she do?

What could she possibly do?

Her entire focus was consumed by the battle, making time itself seem to crawl.

Yet no matter how desperately she searched for an answer within that stretched-out instant, her thoughts only circled the same dead end, again and again.

Meanwhile, the Magical Beast could pounce at any second.

All she could do now was desperately struggle to regain her footing.

The slower time seemed to pass, the more overwhelming her fear became.

She watched as the Magical Beast slowly lowered its body, gathering itself for the killing blow.

Almost instinctively, her free left hand moved toward her own body.

She didn't know why.

Her body was acting on its own, telling her without words that this was what she had to do.

As she reached behind her waist, the fingertips of her left hand brushed against something hard.

The thoughts that had been trapped in an endless loop abruptly snapped into focus.

Her sharpened battle instincts fused with memories she had dismissed as irrelevant, connecting one after another with perfect clarity.

Everything came together.

The strategy her father had taught her for defeating the Magical Beast, and the object he had entrusted to her, merged into a single, unmistakable realization.

What her fingers closed around was a hard, heavy mass of metal, a crystallization of killing intent capable of wounding humans, beasts, and demons alike.

　She had handled objects of this shape for years. Ever since she began training with the feudal army, she'd spent far more time on the practice grounds than attending social gatherings.

So why had she forgotten about it?

Most likely because she'd grown arrogant after awakening to the power of fire magic, convincing herself she'd become truly strong.

She had admired her father and mother, devoted herself to improving, and eventually gained the ability to wield magic. Now, during the incident on the Elf Island, she'd let that newfound power go to her head, believing she could overcome anything through her own strength alone.

Until now, she'd been no different from a foolish child recklessly swinging a weapon without understanding the terror it carried. With that mindset, there was no way she could win battles she should have been capable of winning.

Magic had never determined victory or defeat. It was merely one tool among countless others.

Firearms, hand-to-hand combat, even traps were all perfectly legitimate means of attack. Her father had taught her long ago to consider every possible method before engaging an enemy.

Because fire magic was the most destructive weapon at her disposal, she'd become obsessed with relying on it.

That obsession had cornered her, leaving her too blinded to remember any other option.

Keeping her breathing steady, she tightened her grip around the object. If panic made her drop it now, there'd be no recovering from that mistake.

The dull metallic mass she drew from her waist caught the dim light with a muted gleam. No matter how one looked at it, it was far too large for a young girl to wield.

Its destructive power was so overwhelming that using it against another person was strictly forbidden. Despite being a portable firearm, this massive handgun, her father's favorite, possessed enough firepower to contend with monsters and giant beasts on equal footing.

Compared to a self-defense pistol or the standard sidearms issued to soldiers, it was absurdly oversized. Simply holding it made her arm feel as though it might go numb.

Even so, she had no choice but to wield the massive handgun with one hand. If she allowed the flames wrapped around her right hand to dissipate, the Magical Beast would almost certainly devour her on the spot.

Her stance had already been thrown off after her attack was evaded, and the hand gripping the handgun wasn't even her dominant one. The situation couldn't have been worse.

Even so, if she didn't pull the trigger now, she'd be eaten alive.

There was no longer any path that allowed her to hesitate.

She aimed the muzzle squarely at the Magical Beast's head.

Earlier, she'd despaired when she realized how much larger it had grown since the first time she'd seen it. Ironically, that now worked in her favor.

Moments ago, it had been walking upright like a human. Now it had dropped onto all fours like a beast, lowering its head and making it a far easier target.

On top of that, it was charging straight toward her with its jaws aimed directly at her.

It was practically begging to be shot.

She thrust her left arm forward as though reaching out toward it.

The barrel aligned perfectly with the straight line of her arm.

There was no time to steady her nerves or carefully line up the shot.

She drove her left hand forward like a punch...

...and pulled the trigger.

DOOOOOOON!!

A thunderous roar, like the firing of a cannon, exploded through the vast chamber of the ruins.

The blast was so deafening that, for a brief instant, even she couldn't comprehend what had happened.

She thought she saw the Magical Beast's face erupt in a flash of light, though she couldn't be certain.

What she did know was that the Magical Beast, which had been lunging straight at her, had suddenly stopped.

Then she heard something wet strike the floor.

Realizing the liquid rapidly spreading across the stone was blood, she looked back at the Magical Beast standing directly before her.

The left half of its face, the side that jutted forward like the head of a massive carnivorous predator, had been violently blown away.

An enormous amount of blood continued pouring from the mangled left side of its head, while shattered organs lay exposed within the ruined cross-section.

Its left eyeball, still tenuously attached by strands of unsevered nerves, dangled lifelessly as it continued staring at the floor.

The red-and-white tissue exposed near the upper portion of the torn wound was most likely its brain.

By all appearances, it was a fatal injury.

Any ordinary animal would've died instantly from a wound like that.

Destructive power on this scale should have been impossible for even a large-caliber handgun.

The most likely explanation was the round loaded into the weapon.

Magic bullets, infused with magical power, possessed destructive force that ordinary ammunition couldn't begin to match.

The price for that power, however, was equally extraordinary. Each round cost dozens, sometimes even hundreds, of times more than a conventional bullet.

　Ordinary magic bullets were made for rifles, though a limited number were also produced for handguns.

Compared to rifle rounds, these handgun cartridges had larger bullet heads and shorter casings. Even at a glance, she could tell that firing ammunition like this from such a large-caliber handgun made every shot outrageously expensive.

“Seriously... don't give something this dangerous to your daughter...”

The complaint slipped from her lips before she could stop it.

She understood why her father had entrusted her with a handgun loaded with magic bullets. It was insurance against the unexpected, and thanks to it, she'd managed to save her own life.

Even so, she couldn't help wishing he'd given her something a little easier to handle.

Her wrist hurt. It hurt like hell.

Had the recoil violently twisted it? Or had simply holding such a heavy weapon strained her arm until it went numb?

Either way, the fire magic she'd awakened couldn't stand against the Magical Beast. The decisive blow had come from the weapon her father had placed in her hands.

At least Lionel wasn't here. If he'd seen the pathetic state she was in, he would've mocked her without mercy.

If she could kill the Magical Beast without suffering any serious injuries herself, that would be ideal. It was a shame the bomb would end up going to waste, though.

Plop...

As the thought crossed her mind, the wet sound of something falling reached her ears.

She slowly turned toward it, dreading what she would find. Naturally, the sound had come from the Magical Beast.

The creature still lay where it had fallen, the left half of its head blasted away exactly as it had been after she shot it.

Her gaze drifted downward.

Floating in the spreading pool of blood was something white.

It was a large white sphere attached to a smaller black one: the eyeball that had been blown from its socket, still barely connected to the ruined head by dangling nerves.

If she'd been the sort of fool who could breathe a sigh of relief and turn her back now, perhaps things would've been easier.

But something about the Magical Beast wouldn't let her look away. Unease rooted her to the spot as she stared at the gaping wound in its head.

At first glance, the damage seemed unchanged.

No.

The flesh was pulsing.

Tiny ripples coursed beneath the skin, as though dozens of insects were writhing just beneath the surface.

Without realizing it, she began comparing what she was seeing now with the image burned into her memory from the instant the magic bullet had struck.

The recollection alone churned her stomach, but she forced herself to keep watching, piecing together what was happening.

The shredded flesh around the ruined side of its face was unmistakably swelling.

This wasn't anything like a burn blister. The beast's body overflowed with such overwhelming vitality that it looked ready to burst apart.

Then her eyes caught something.

Buried within the crimson flesh, something thin, white, and wriggling had begun to swell.

It looked eerily similar to the maggots she'd seen feeding on animal carcasses while running through fields and mountains as a child.

With each pulse, the white thing grew larger, changing from a narrow tube into something rounder.

Once it became a perfect sphere, a tiny black dot emerged at its center.

She knew exactly what that sphere was.

It was a new left eyeball, still small, but unmistakably an eye.

“————!!”

A voiceless scream escaped with her breath.

In all fifteen years of her life, she'd never experienced terror like this.

Before she knew it, she'd tightened her grip on the handgun until her left hand ached, the muzzle fixed squarely on the beast's mangled face.

DAAAAN!!

DOOOON!!

GAAAN!!

DAAAN!!

She emptied one magic bullet after another into the Magical Beast.

Panic had completely robbed her of her composure. She could barely aim anymore.

The first shot tore through the wound she'd already opened, sending blood spraying in every direction.

The next struck its shoulder.

Then its chest.

Then its foreleg.

Wherever the magic bullets landed, the damage resembled wounds from explosions more than ordinary gunshots. Blood splashed across the ground. Chunks of flesh flew through the air. Ignoring all of it, she tried to pull the trigger again.

A searing pain shot through her left wrist.

It wasn't just her wrist. Her index finger throbbed with a sickening, unfamiliar pain as well.

She glanced down in alarm.

Her wrist had bent into an unnatural angle, and her index finger had twisted grotesquely out of place.

The handgun her father had given her was a large-caliber weapon designed for an adult to fire with both hands.

She'd trained harder than most girls her age, but even so, it wasn't a weapon she could properly wield one-handed.

And she'd fired it four times in rapid succession, five counting the first shot.

There'd been no way she could keep firing in such a reckless stance without destroying her own hand.

Even so, she couldn't bring herself to extinguish the magical flames wrapped around her right hand to shield her injured left.

The fear that the Magical Beast would attack the instant she lowered her guard consumed every corner of her mind.

She looked back at it.

Its body, now riddled with four more magic bullets, had been reduced to an even more horrifying mess.

She wasn't even sure whether that much destruction had been necessary, despite being the one who'd inflicted it.

She only knew that if she hadn't done it, she would've died.

Why?

Why had she ended up in a place like this?

The thought drifted hazily through her exhausted mind.

All she'd wanted was to return her shrunken mother to normal.

She'd wanted to help her father, resolve the incident in the Elf village, and earn everyone's praise. That should've been enough.

So why was she fighting such a brutal battle, soaked in blood and balanced on the edge of death?

For the first time, she felt she truly understood why her father had always been so reluctant to speak about the wars of the past.

No one, under ordinary circumstances, could ever imagine having to endure pain and exhaustion like this, both in body and in soul.

She wanted to get back to the inn as quickly as possible.

No, she wanted to go home to the mansion.

She wanted to sink into the hot springs, stuff her cheeks with her favorite sweets, stay up far too late, and sleep until noon.

She'd earned that much, hadn't she? She'd worked so hard.

Her whole body ached. Every muscle was exhausted, sore, and weighed down by crushing drowsiness.

She had to get out of this ruins. Before that, she had to make absolutely certain the Magical Beast burned to ashes.

Forcing her weary body to obey, she pushed herself to her feet and turned toward the room's entrance.

Gulp……

Then a revolting stench suddenly stabbed at her nose.

It was the metallic tang of fresh blood mixed with the sour reek of rotting flesh, or perhaps fermented cheese, layered together with the earthy stink of compost she'd once smelled in the fields of her family's territory.

Whatever it was, it was utterly unbearable. The real problem wasn't how disgusting it smelled, but why such a nauseating odor, foul enough to make her stomach churn, was filling the room.

Slowly, almost against her own will, she turned around.

She didn't want to look. Every instinct warned her something was terribly wrong.

But if she looked away now, something even worse might happen.

She had no choice.

The Magical Beast's body had begun to rot.

No, that wasn't quite right.

To be precise, only the wounds she'd inflicted were blackening as though they had decayed. From those pitch-black wounds, a thick dark fluid, whether blood or pus she couldn't tell, continued to ooze without end.

But that wasn't the most horrifying part.

Beneath the blackened flesh where the foul liquid dripped away, fresh, peach-colored flesh was already emerging.

It was regenerating.

Even after suffering that much damage, the Magical Beast was still alive.

The instant she understood that, something inside her finally snapped.

"Uuuuuaaaaaahhhhh!!"

It was a savage roar, utterly unlike the Magical Beast's own cry.

For a fleeting instant, she thought another monster had appeared.

But there was no one else in the room.

Only her.

And the Magical Beast.

So that scream...

It had come from her.

Only the tiny corner of her mind that had somehow remained detached stayed calm.

Everything else was consumed by overwhelming emotion.

Fury.

Terror.

Revulsion.

The overwhelming urge to kill.

As though answering her scream, flames engulfed her right arm once more, swelling into a gigantic limb of living fire.

She'd been certain her exhausted body had nothing left to give.

So where was this strength coming from?

Where had this reserve of magical power been hiding?

Her legs surged forward with startling force, as though someone else had seized control of her body.

Her thoughts couldn't keep pace with her own movements.

BAGOOOOOJUH!!

The sounds of impact and something being crushed echoed through the chamber almost at the same instant.

　Her massively enlarged right fist crashed into what remained of the Magical Beast's right side. She drove the flaming blow down from above with enough force to bury its head into its own body.

Blood erupted from the shattered skull, so hot it looked as though it had boiled. It was as if the flames had skipped past burning altogether and gone straight to vaporizing it.

The Magical Beast's head was reduced to a mangled pulp, leaving nothing recognizable behind. Its eyeballs and brain burst apart and scattered into the air.

But she couldn't let her guard down. She had already poured everything she had into attack after attack.

And yet the creature had regenerated every single time with its monstrous healing ability, then come right back at her. The memory of it alone filled her with unbearable dread.

"You bastaaaaard!!"

ZUBUJUU!!

JUGUGUGU!!

She spread open the fist that had swollen several times over, no, dozens of times larger than normal, turning it into a massive blade-like palm.

Then she brought it crashing down.

It was a hand chop fueled by the fastest strike she had ever unleashed in her life, combined with the searing heat of her flames. No matter how enormous the Magical Beast was, there was no way it could emerge unscathed.

The flaming chop carved from its back toward its belly before finally stopping halfway through. Its flesh and organs were simply too thick for her arm to drive any deeper.

Even so, her arm remained engulfed in flames. Buried deep inside the creature's body, that heat would surge through its insides and mercilessly roast its organs.

"Fall down!! Fall!! Fall alreadyyyy!!"

She didn't leave her right arm lodged inside the Magical Beast.

Instead, she ripped it free with brute force.

The acrid stench of scorched fur and burnt flesh drifted through the air. Not a single drop of blood flowed from the charred wound. It looked like a black hole carved into its body.

She hadn't pulled her arm out because she feared the Magical Beast or wanted to retreat.

She did it to prepare one final strike. One that would end this for good.

She gathered every scrap of stamina and magical power she had left into her blazing right arm, compressing it further and further until it all converged at the tip of her fist.

The flames shifted from red to blue, then blazed brighter still until they shone a brilliant white.

The instant her own fist became too hot for even her to contain, she drove it into the Magical Beast with every ounce of strength she had left.

DOGUAAAAAAN!!!

A blinding flash erupted.

An instant later came an explosive roar like a bomb detonating, and the giant Magical Beast's body arched backward before crashing to the ground.

At the same time, the recoil hurled her own body in the opposite direction.

A few seconds passed, at least according to her senses.

Something huge and unyielding slammed into her back with terrifying force. The impact stole the breath from her lungs, leaving her unable to breathe.

"Huuu... huuu..."

A strange wheezing sound escaped her throat.

Several more seconds passed before she realized it was her own ragged breathing.

She desperately tried to plant her feet beneath her and stand.

Her body refused.

It felt as though she'd forgotten how to move altogether. None of her limbs would obey.

Her right arm hurt the most. The agony was so overwhelming that tears spilled from the corners of her eyes.

The bones in her hand were probably cracked.

No... they were probably broken in several places.

Wouldn't it be easier to just lose consciousness?

Until this moment, she'd never realized that simply staying alive could hurt this much.

Even so, she had to turn over and look at the Magical Beast that had been blasted away in the opposite direction.

If it got back on its feet before she did...

She would die.

She rolled herself across the ground again and again until she finally managed to face the other direction. Every movement sent waves of pain tearing through her body, and tears dripped onto the floor.

When she finally forced herself to look up, she found something standing there that was completely different from the creature she'd been fighting only moments before.

No...

She'd seen it before.

It was the Magical Beast she'd encountered in the central chamber of the ruins. The bipedal form whose massive body had more than doubled in size.

But something was wrong.

There was no head above its neck.

It looked grotesque, like a headless mannequin standing upright.

Even so, why had it changed from walking on four legs to two?

Without a head, how was it breathing?

How was it even standing without collapsing?

None of it made any sense.

As though answering her silent questions, the Magical Beast's body began to change.

The massive wound running from its shoulder to its belly, the one she'd scorched with her own attack, slowly split wider.

From within, a black mist seeped out and spread across its body.

Then the smaller wounds that had covered it before bulged open, sprouting new eyeballs ringed with large white sclerae.

The larger gash twisted apart as countless jagged teeth burst from within, growing in uneven, grotesque rows.

"...Haha, what the hell is that?"

A laugh escaped her lips.

It rose from somewhere deeper than despair.

Deeper than terror.

How the hell was she supposed to kill something like that?

I'm done.

I don't want any of this anymore.

The fighting.

The pain.

The suffering.

Struggling just to keep going.

I don't want any of it.

None of it.

　Continuing to fight the Magical Beast like this was utterly pointless. No matter how desperately she struggled, every effort would amount to nothing more than meaningless resistance.

If that was the case, she'd be far better off exposing herself and letting it devour her. At the very least, that was a far wiser choice than continuing to fight only to prolong her own suffering.

Her spirit had been completely crushed, and not a trace of fighting spirit remained. Both her stamina and her magical power had been exhausted to the last drop.

Her throat was painfully dry, yet the tears refused to stop. This was where her journey would end.

The Magical Beast was still in the middle of its transformation, so she still had a little time before it attacked. But with every ounce of strength drained from her body, she had no means left to fight back.

...Wait. Wait a second.

Why had she been trying to defeat the Magical Beast in the first place?

All her father had ordered her to do was keep the Magical Beast confined inside this room.

Now that an opportunity had finally presented itself, there was absolutely no reason to force herself to keep fighting.

What had she even been fighting for? Somewhere along the way, she'd completely misunderstood her objective.

She didn't have to fight this monster.

The moment that thought crossed her mind, her will to live surged back with startling force. She really did have a shameless personality. Even she couldn't help being astonished by it.

She couldn't afford to worry about appearances anymore.

Like an insect crawling across the ground, she dragged herself forward. She tried to stand, only to stumble again and again, yet she never stopped moving.

She absolutely refused to die. No matter what, she would survive.

Plap...

　　Plap...

A wet sound echoed from behind her, but she was too terrified to look back.

If she saw the Magical Beast pursuing her, she knew her heart would truly shatter this time. She understood that all too well.

Plap...!

Plap...!

The footsteps drew steadily closer, but she kept her eyes fixed straight ahead.

She poured every ounce of her urge to look back into pushing herself forward. Just a little farther.

Once she made it through that old-fashioned door, she'd slam it shut at once and trap the Magical Beast inside the room.

Then she'd detonate the bomb, and it would all be over. It really was that simple.

Yet even something that would normally take only a few dozen seconds had become unimaginably difficult for her now.

The overwhelming frustration and desperation gave rise to a fierce swell of anger, and sweat streamed endlessly down her body.

If the Magical Beast caught up to her, this time it really would be the end.

Bedah!!

This was bad.

The footsteps were right behind her now.

At this rate, it would catch up with her on the very next step. And the moment it did, she'd die without a doubt.

Even though she knew it was pointless, her hand instinctively reached forward.

She stretched out her fingertips, desperate to gain even the slightest bit of distance. No matter how futile it was, she simply couldn't stop struggling.

Although the ruins were shrouded in dim light, the space beyond the door seemed strangely radiant. Was that only her imagination?

BAAAAN!!

Ah... so she'd finally been trampled and crushed.

The sound felt a little different from what she'd imagined, but she'd never heard the sound of her own body being pulverized before, so there was no way to know for certain.

No... something was definitely wrong.

No matter how she thought about it, the complete absence of any sign that the Magical Beast was moving was deeply suspicious.

Optimistic as she might be, she wasn't naïve enough to interpret the situation in such a conveniently favorable way.

She raised her head and looked ahead once more.

Another flash of light.

DAAAAAN!!

The familiar report sliced cleanly through the haze of exhaustion clouding her mind.

That was a gunshot.

The flash was muzzle fire.

Someone on the other side of the door was firing at the Magical Beast to cover her escape.

"Ariel!!"

"F-Father!!"

"Are you alright!?"

"I'm alive!!"

The instant she recognized the voices calling out to her, she knew with absolute certainty that she would survive.

That they had won.

┳⁠━━━━⁠━⁠⁠━⁠━⁠━━━⁠┳  

Authors Note  

┻━⁠━━━━⁠━━⁠━━━⁠┻  

Time... writing time... (the usual greeting)

This was the chapter where Ariel-chan fought with everything she had just to survive.

Since Bandel, whose body has been consumed by the Magical Armament, essentially serves as the final boss of the Kingdom Arc, it's only natural that even a Magical Beast created by modifying a wild animal and transplanting a Magical Armament into it would push Ariel to her limits.

That said, the Magical Beast still has several transformation stages left to reveal.

You know what that means, don't you?

The reason Ariel, who can effortlessly incinerate entire hordes of monsters with her fire magic, has such a difficult time against these creatures is because ordinary monsters were designed as anti-personnel weapons, whereas the Magical Beast was created as an anti-army and anti-armor weapon.

The next chapter will conclude the battle in the ruins. After that, I'll be posting a special side story to commemorate the anime's second season.

Postscript: Thanks to numerous requests from the commissioner, illustrations were created by MIYAMA-sama, Sarari-sama, Oswani-sama, Gamjasak-sama, yger-sama, and ohgi-sama.

Thank you all very much.

MIYAMA-sama: Pixiv (Magical Beast design, spoiler warning)

Sarari-sama: Pixiv

Oswani-sama: Pixiv (Adult content warning)

Gamjasak-sama: Pixiv (Lots of exposed skin warning)

yger-sama: Pixiv

ohgi-sama: Pixiv (Adult content warning)

I'd be grateful for any thoughts or impressions. They'd be a huge source of motivation for me going forward.