Damn Reincarnation

med her racing breath with a cough, she spread her wings of light.

The top of the cliffs looked the same as last time.
The only thing that could be seen was a lot of snow, there were no other traces.

Eugene, who had been expecting at least a few bloodstains, was unable to hide his disappointment.
What if they really had crossed paths with Molon without even noticing it? Apart from being pissed off, in that case, Eugene and Anise would be forced to wait until Molon returned to come find them.

‘He did say that he would be able to see Lehainjar even from a distance,’ Eugene recalled.

For a few moments, Eugene was lost in thought as he paced the top of the cliffs.

This place, the Great Hammer Canyon, acted as a kind of border — the frontier zone to which the Nur was limited when making its appearance into this world.
The other side of the Lehainjar, where Molon had piled the corpses of the Nur, was also accessible from this point.

‘This is too well hidden,’ Eugene judged.

Akasha, which granted its wielder comprehension of all magic, was already in Eugene’s hands.
However, it still wasn’t easy for him to find the spells that had been hidden within this cliff.

It reminded him of the Darkroom.
The spells there had been impossible for him to understand, but Eugene still remembered some of the magic formulas that had been used to create the Darkroom.

“Mer,” Eugene called out.

[I’m concentrating,] came Mer’s immediate reply from inside of the cloak.

By linking her consciousness with Akasha, Mer was trying to interpret what spells there were in this location.
Without any clues, it would have taken her a tremendous amount of time to interpret the spells in this whole area, but thankfully, she wasn’t completely clueless, as she had obtained some information from their time in the Darkroom.

“He really did hide it very deeply,” Eugene muttered.

Mer agreed.
[Yep, that’s right.
I don’t really know what the Nur is, but you remember what Sir Molon said, right?]

The Nur emitted an ominous aura, like a kind of poison.
Even if it died, that ominous aura wouldn’t disappear.
Even an ordinary corpse could become the source of infectious diseases when it rotted, but if a mass of ominous miasma like the Nur’s corpse were to rot… and if those corpses had been piled up for a hundred years, then Lehainjar would definitely have been unable to maintain its current appearance.

[The space here has been severed.
Or perhaps ‘quarantined’ is a better word….
You also know what these spells are mostly used for, right?] Mer reminded him.

‘They’re meant to keep things secret,’ Eugene silently replied.

[Yes, and it also has to be completely secure.
It must be completely unnoticeable and impenetrable from both within and without.
Thanks to the clues that we found, between me and Akasha… I think we can find it.
However, I’m not sure if it ’s even possible for us to break into it,] Mer said doubtfully.

Eugene disagreed.
‘It’s not like we don’t have any methods at all.’

[…Do you want to try and use that absurd sword?] Mer asked in concern.

They were talking about the Moonlight Sword.

[Well, if you use that thing, then I’m not really sure… it really might be possible to create an opening in this magical barrier that doesn’t quite feel like ordinary magic,] Mer mused.
[However, Sir Eugene, what are you going to do after that? Sir Molon isn’t a wizard.
If this barrier is the result of the power that was granted to him by Sir Vermouth, that means it ’s one-of-a-kind.
Once the barrier is broken by the Moonlight Sword, it might be impossible to repair the opening.]

‘I have no intention of actually breaking it,’ Eugene responded as laid his hands on the Moonlight Sword inside of his cloak.
‘I’m just going to knock on the door a bit.
If he’s still on the inside, he’ll see that there’s something going on outside the barrier.
If nothing happens and nobody reacts, that means Molon is not inside.
Or perhaps that idiot is just too dense to notice.’

Of course, there was also another possibility…but Eugene didn’t really want to follow that train of thought.

“We’ve already come this far, but to be honest, I’m not sure about this,” Kristina suddenly confessed as she followed behind Eugene, who was still circling the tops of the tops of the cliffs.

The sound of her voice came as a surprise, but Eugene immediately noticed that Anise had once again resumed control of their shared body.
Because the two had swapped places in front of him so many times, Eugene had learned how to tell the subtle difference in accent between Anise and Kristina.

“What are you so caught up on?” Eugene questioned.

Anise reminded him, “Molon said that he didn’t want to show us what was on the other side, because the poisonous aura there is so thick and because it might make your head strange.
Then he said that it might even make us sick.
He kept making up more excuses like that to keep us from looking.”

Molon, that Molon, had kept trying to make up excuses despite absolutely sucking at it.

“That means there is something Molon doesn’t want us to see on the other side,” Anise concluded.

“So what about it?” Eugene snorted dismissively.

Anise glared at him.
“Hamel, I knew that you would say something like that.
You’re really just as inconsiderate as you were three hundred years ago.”

Eugene replied, “Anise, you also saw that look in Molon’s eyes.
Right here, when we first met Molon, did you really forget what Molon looked like at that moment?”

“Molon at that time really wasn’t like the usual Molon,” Anise recalled.

“That’s right, Molon wasn’t like himself,” Eugene agreed.
“He drove us away with a ferocious swing of his ax.
But after all that debacle, only a few days later, he shows up smiling like a fool, dragging us into hugs, and sobbing like a baby.”

Eugene didn’t want to accept that the situation was suspicious, but at this point, he had no other choice but to acknowledge it.
He thus voiced his fears.

“It isn’t that Molon couldn’t have changed over the past three hundred years.
He has definitely changed, but when he’s in front of us, he seems as if he hasn’t changed at all.
Perhaps he’s hiding those changes for some reason.
I don’t know the reason, and it seems that Molon doesn’t want to talk about it, but since I’m a son of a bitch, I don’t need to be considerate of Molon.
I need to see why Molon is doing this with my own two eyes.”

“Please don’t call yourself a son of a bitch,” Anise protested.

“But you called me a son of a bitch earlier,” Eugene argued back.

“I said that you’re no different from a son of a bitch, I didn’t say that you were a son of a bitch,” Anise corrected him.
“Also Hamel, if even you think that what you’re currently trying to do makes you into a son of a bitch, even if it’s just for your own sake, shouldn ’t you try not to be a son of a bitch?”

Eugene just smirked in response to this.
In the end, Anise was spouting all these words and arguing that they should be considerate of Molon’s feelings, but she was still standing here and she hadn’t actually refused to go over to the other side.
After all, wasn’t it Anise who had first pointed out the incongruity in Molon’s words a few days ago?

—The thing that you don ’t want us to see over there isn’t just random stuff like some monster corpses.

—Also, I am still the same old me.
The more you don’t want to show me something, the more I want to see it, regardless of the cost.

Anise Slywood really was this kind of terrible person.
In fact, Anise wasn’t the only one.
Eugene was the same type of person, and if Sienna had been here as well, Sienna would have also behaved in the same fashion.

The party had gone through all sorts of things together.
They had almost died over and over again.
They had spent dozens of years wandering around together like that.
Their journey through Helmuth had changed each of them in various ways.

However, there were some things that hadn’t changed.
If Molon really had changed, if he had been left with no choice but to change during these long three hundred years, and if Molon had been forced to change during the hundred years he had spent blocking the Nur’s escape, then….

Hamel and Anise needed to find out the reason for this.

“It’s here,” Eugene called out as his steps halted.

Within the cloak, Mer was gasping for breath.
It was only natural for her to do so, as she almost had to overload herself in order to interpret the spells layered over this space.
Eugene stuck his hand into his cloak and patted Mer on the head a few times.

[Don’t think that you can end things with just that,] Mer warned him.
[Next time, you need to take me to ride on the merry-go-round.]

“Merry-go-round…?” Eugene repeated in confusion.

Mer pouted.
[Sir Eugene, you often show a strange reaction to the words merry-go-round.
Could it be that you’re embarrassed of riding on a merry-go-round with me?]

“It’s not embarrassing, but… something is a bit off…,” Eugene muttered awkwardly as he removed his hand from Mer’s head and pulled out the Moonlight Sword.

“…The Moonlight Sword…” Anise’s expression stiffened slightly as she said its name.

The sword had kept the same appearance as it had three hundred years ago, but just by looking at it, Anise could feel her heart begin to pound.
Even though it had been shattered, leaving behind only the hilt and fragments of the blade, the strangely ominous aura that the sword emitted still remained.

At first glance, it seemed to be just a part of an ordinary sword, something that could have been sold by just about any blacksmith’s workshop.

Eugene held the sword by its scabbard and slowly pulled the hilt as if drawing the blade out.

Fwooosh…!

Pale moonlight flickered, forming the blade.
As ever, Anise just couldn’t get used to the sight of that light.

Eugene was similarly unable to get used to the light of the Moonlight Sword.
Its ominous aura was different from that of the Demon King of Destruction… it was refined, yet somehow still turbulent.

Destruction in the form of a sword.

The blade of light flickered within Eugene’s grasp.
He had no intention of breaking the barrier; all he wanted to do was knock on it slightly.
It was possible for him to adjust the power of the sword to that extent.

With that thought in mind, Eugene lifted the Moonlight Sword.

However, it turned out that there was no need for him to knock.
The moment that the Moonlight Sword fell toward the barrier, as if responding to its light, the barrier opened up wide.
Though opening up the way to the dimension on the other side wasn’t like opening an actual physical door.

There wasn’t any floating feeling either.

As if the world around them had just decided to change on its own, Eugene and Anise were suddenly standing in a different location.

“…What… what did you do?” Anise asked hesitantly.

Eugene denied his involvement.
“No, I didn’t do anything.
The barrier just opened up on its own….”

Could it be that Molon had felt something in advance? Or perhaps Vermouth’s barrier had responded to the Moonlight Sword and opened up the door? Right now, Eugene didn’t know the answer to these questions.

“Ugh…” Anise suddenly gagged and clasped her hand across her mouth.

Three hundred years ago, they had seen so many terrible sights that they had almost gotten bored of them.
However, no matter how experienced Anise herself was, in Kristina’s body, which had no tolerance for such things, her first reaction to the sight in front of them was a violent rejection.

The same went for Eugene as well.
He felt dizzy and had to grab hold of his own knees to stop himself from falling over.

This place was still in Lehainjar, the other side of the Great Hammer Canyon.

However, there were no similarities to the world beyond.
There wasn’t even any snow on the ground and no snow was falling from the sky either.
Whether it was the ground beneath their feet or the eye-stinging landscape around them, everything seemed bizarrely distorted.

This scenery reminded Eugene of Helmuth from three hundred years ago.
In the Devildom, it was nothing strange for just about anything to occur.
It was a hideous and grotesque land that, to any of the humans caught there, was no different from hell.

Boom, boom.

They could see the winding and twisting peaks of the mountains above.
The churned-up ground, that seemed to have been created as lava boiled up from below the surface and then cooled down, was covered in blood and bits of flesh.

Boom, boom.

A corpse was on the ground not far from where they stood.
The body was familiar to Eugene — just like the one he had seen a few days ago, it was a corpse of the monkey-like the Nur.
But this corpse was a far more ghastly sight.

At that time, the corpse of the Nur that they found had been killed cleanly and lay on the ground with its throat slit.
By contrast, this corpse was not lying on the ground, but rather strewn across the ground, ripped into pieces.

Boom! Boom!

From somewhere in the distance and far above, loud and heavy crashing sounds echoed.