“A g-game?”
“Yes. A simple game.”
Ulrich’s knees almost buckled, but he somehow managed to stand up and distance himself from Renée.
He moved little by little, trying not to be noticed (although his movements were completely obvious), towards the door, the original entrance, next to the large hole in the wall.
His head was filled with the question of why she was here.
Even if she hadn’t been defeated yet, shouldn’t she be far to the southwest?
A young girl asking to play, like a child.
…Or so it seemed. Even Ulrich, a complete amateur when it came to fighting, could sense a chilling presence that made the back of his neck cold.
This was killing intent.
Renée, looking amused, but with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes, said:
“If you stay alive, you win.”
As if those words were his cue, Ulrich threw himself at the door with all his might and burst into the corridor.
“H-Hiiiieee! Someone! Help me!”
Screaming, Ulrich ran down the corridor.
There were always bodyguards here, and if the employees heard his screams and came this way, he could use them as shields and escape.
But Ulrich soon realized something.
There were screams coming from the direction he was heading.
“W-What…? What’s happening…?”
Screams. The sound of people running around frantically. The sound of something falling. Screams. Angry shouts. The sound of swords clashing. Screams…
The door in front of him was almost kicked open, and a young male employee burst out.
“Aaaaah! H-H-Help help help m-m-m-m-gehaaa!!”
“Hiii!?”
He sprouted a sword from his chest in front of Ulrich, coughed up blood, and died.
Behind him was a skeleton in knight’s armor, thrusting out its sword.
“W-W-Whyyyyyy… M-M-Monsterrrrrrrr…”
Ulrich managed to say that much, his jaw shaking.
The sounds he heard from ahead meant that the same thing was happening…
Why, he thought. Why was not only Renée, but also something like this inside the company building?
“My knights.”
“Gyaaaaaah!?”
A voice came from behind him, and Ulrich screamed and jumped.
Renée was right behind him.
“W-Why!? Why in my company!”
“Huh? It’s not just you.”
Renée furrowed her brow, looking offended.
As if to say, “It’s an insult to think I’m giving this guy special treatment.”
“Listen closely. The whole town is like this.”
“Eh…”
Only then did Ulrich realize.
Screams, sounds of fighting, were also coming from outside.
Ulrich was beginning to grasp the situation.
But it was so hopeless that he didn’t want to understand.
There was no way undead could easily infiltrate this far. They would have to mow down the guards and the duke’s soldiers and wreak havoc on the town to get here.
…In fact, the situation was even more desperate, as the duke’s soldiers, who were supposed to protect the town, had turned into undead, but of course, Ulrich had no way of knowing that.
“Here I go, then. <<Frozen Shackles – Ice Lock>>.”
“Gihiii!?”
With a clang, Ulrich’s feet were stuck together, and he lost his balance and fell forward. He landed softly, cushioned by his fat.
He craned his neck, folding the flesh of his neck, and looked down at his feet. Ulrich’s feet were covered in a block of ice, stuck together like shackles.
“Rule number one. You can’t use your feet.”
“I-Impossible! How can I…?”
“<<Wind Blade – Wind Cutter>>.”
“Gyaaaah!!”
A whirlwind gouged Ulrich’s arms.
The wind blades shredded both his arms, along with his sleeves, and blood dripped from his mangled arms.
“Rule number two. You must move with your injured hands.”
“W-What!?”
Ulrich screamed.
It was bad enough to have his feet sealed, but now even his arms, his only hope, were rendered useless.
Ulrich had no confidence in his arm strength. He couldn’t even do a single push-up. He could, however, prop himself up on his belly and do a push-up in that position.
There was no way he could escape in this state!
Renée cast another spell.
Ulrich braced himself, thinking she would crush his eyes next, but he was wrong.
“<<Create Undead – Corpse Soldier>>.”
She cast the spell on the man who had been stabbed and killed in front of Ulrich.
The man, who should have been a silent corpse, moved.
“Rule number three. You must not let me catch up to you. It’s too much trouble to chase you on foot, so I’ll use this guy as a mount. You’re lucky, he’s not very fast. I mean, the ride is terrible!”
Ulrich stared at the scene with wide eyes.
This man’s name was… he didn’t remember, but he was supposed to be one of Ulrich’s subordinates.
And now, he was on all fours, like a parent playing horse with a small boy, carrying the monster on his back!
Renée was sitting sideways on the man’s back, as if she were a noblewoman riding a horse.
She gently placed her head, which she had been holding in her left hand, on top of her neck, and instead grabbed the scruff of the man’s neck as reins.
“I’ll give special orders to the undead not to attack you. Now, let’s begin.”
The desperate escape began.
Ulrich dragged his ice shackles and crawled at a speed that could beat a turtle.
The stone pavement of the main road was soaked with snow that had melted in the winter sun.
His belly was damp, and he shivered from the core of his body. He might have frozen to death already if it weren’t for his thick fat.
His arms ached as if they were about to be torn off with each crawl. A trail of dripping blood remained behind Ulrich. His palms were cold and already numb.
“Hey, s-someone! Help me! I’ll pay you!”
Ulrich crawled, screaming to distract himself from the pain.
Sounds of battle, sounds of slaughter, and screams echoed from all around.
Undead were apparently rampaging sporadically everywhere, and the direction people were fleeing was not constant, creating chaos. Those who overtook Ulrich, those who passed him by, everyone was desperate, and no one heard Ulrich’s voice and tried to help him.
“Uwaa!”
“Pigya!”
A boy running from the front tripped over Ulrich’s face.
It was like a clean kick to the bridge of his nose, and Ulrich felt something metallic. Blood flowed from his nose.
The boy stumbled but regained his footing and ran away at full speed without looking back.
“Y-Y-Y-You…! How dare you kick me… I am Ulrich Tohman… You brat, I’ll make sure you can’t live in this town…!”
Ulrich muttered resentfully. But there was no one to hear it.
But then.
Ulrich saw a carriage desperately running from the front.
And when he saw the emblem displayed on its front, he remembered to thank God for the first time in a year and three months, since a business rival had lost a lot of money on stocks.
“A-A carriage!? A carriage, our carriage! Hey, let me on! It’s me!”
It was a Tohman Trading Company carriage, drawn by two fine horses. It was a company car used by Ulrich and his executives for transportation.
The coachman was whipping the horses vigorously, coming at full speed.
“Let me…”
And it ran past Ulrich.
Ulrich could clearly see the coachman looking at him, being surprised, making a bitter face, and averting his eyes as if giving up on something.
“Y-Y-Y-You bastard! You’re fired! Aaaaaah!”
Ulrich roared, shaking the fat on his neck.
Yes, the coachman hadn’t come to pick up Ulrich, he was simply fleeing.
And he prioritized his own life and abandoned Ulrich.
“He didn’t seem to have much loyalty.”
“Hia! Awawawawa…”
Renée, riding the “horse,” had approached within earshot.
Ulrich hurriedly increased his speed.
“A-A horse… Hippogriff… something I can ride…”
Ulrich was heading towards his own mansion.
If he could get there… he had a hippogriff that he owned as a mount!
If he could just ride it, no monster could catch him!
In other words, if he could escape to his house, he would win! Ulrich told himself, ignoring various elements of despair.
“Hey, just running away is boring, isn’t it? It would have been more exciting if I could have prepared some heroic BGM.” “H-Hahi…!?”
“Instead, why don’t you listen to my story along the way? Shall I tell you what was done to me?”
Ulrich was desperate to survive and wasn’t bored at all, but Renée began to talk on her own.
She talked about the torment she received from the knights, under the name of “torture.”
Being whipped was just the beginning. They pressed hot fire bowls against her, poured boiling water on her, stuck needles in her mouth and under her fingernails, grated her fingers, dunked her head in a bucket of water, crushed her fingers…
And the infinite hell of being healed with magic so that they could hurt her again.
“…See? When you think about it like that, the pain in your hands seems like nothing, and you can do your best, right?” “W-Uwaa, uwaaaaaah!!”
Because Renée said it so casually, Ulrich was driven by fear and desperately clawed with his hands.
She didn’t come up with this death game by working her cruel imagination to the limit, she really thought that being made to crawl with tattered hands was “nothing.”
If she changed her mind, she would add “rules” like pouring boiling water on him or sticking needles in his mouth.
If that happened… he would die! He would die!!
Ulrich crawled, mustering his spirit with the sole desire not to die.
Ahead of him.
A battle was unfolding.
“Adventurers!?”
Young men wearing armor and holding swords.
Three adventurers were fighting against twice as many undead.
And they were fighting well.
Seeing this as the last help God had prepared, Ulrich shouted hoarsely.
“A-Adventurers! Adventurers! Hey, help me! Defeat this monster! I’ll pay you handsomely with gold coins…”
“<<Wind of Ruin – Death Cloud>>.”
Something flew from behind Ulrich.
A reddish-black mist-like thing blew out, enveloping the adventurers and exploding.
“Uwa…”
“Geho!?”
“Gaaaaaah…!!”
The undead that were caught in it were unfazed, but the three adventurers collapsed, clutching their chests.
“Ahe?”
“Hmm, I got some good materials. About a fourth-grade guard, I’d say.”
Behind Ulrich, who didn’t know what had happened, Renée was pleased.
Ulrich understood. He had known it somewhere in his head, but he finally swallowed it.
This was a game. Renée, who could kill adventurers in an instant, could have killed Ulrich at any time.
He finally understood the obvious fact that she was just toying with him, deliberately keeping him alive.
The moment he thought that, his hands, which had been moving with his willpower, finally stopped moving.
“Gebu!”
His arms lost their strength, and Ulrich collapsed.
“Oh, is it game over already?”
The “horse” overtook Ulrich, and Renée looked down at Ulrich from the front.
Her silver eyes stared coldly at Ulrich.
Looking at her face, Ulrich… felt angry.
It was the momentary courage of a man who had finally resigned himself to death, or perhaps a reckless rage.
“I-Isn’t it strange! How many hundreds of thousands of people do you think there are in this country!? Why do I have to suffer like this out of all of them!? I’m not a knight or a king! I’m just a merchant! I didn’t kill you!”
“Yes, that’s right.”
Even though Ulrich condemned her with all his might, Renée remained calm.
“The ones who killed me directly were the knights. And the usurper, Hilbert. But, you know, the ones who incited them were the people… a vague, undefined thing. If I wanted to take revenge on them, I would have to kill all the people, but even I can’t do that. The rest would escape while I was killing the people within my reach. Because this world is vast. That’s why I have to be a little rough. If there are 100 people, I can’t kill them all, but I might be able to kill 50. That’s how I kill. I kill roughly, I kill on a whim, and I instill fear in those who survive, and that is my revenge on the ‘people’.”
And Renée chuckled.
It was a lovely, girlish smile, as if she found something amusing.
“You are one of the people I will kill. And you are one of the people I will kill directly, because you happened to catch my eye. You were simply unlucky. …This is just ‘unreasonable’.” “Wha…” “And a way to kill time. I told you, didn’t I? Let’s play a game. I wanted to play.”
Ulrich was speechless at the absurdity of it all, and Renée took out a piece of paper as if she had noticed something.
It was a Caller.
There seemed to be a call, and Renée had a conversation with the person on the other end of the charm.
“…I understand, wait a minute. Hehe, too bad. I just got some work to do. So playtime is over. You were a poorly made, ugly toy, but I enjoyed it a little.”
And Renée snapped her fingers.
“With that body, you’d be slow even if I turned you into a zombie… I’ll just use your sturdy bones, full of nutrients. You there. Strip the flesh off this one.”
A skeleton that had been nearby at Renée’s summons approached.
The skeleton in knight’s armor held up its sword, grabbed Ulrich by the scruff of his neck, and pulled him up.
“Hey… stop. Stop. Y-You’re joking, right?”
The skeleton, without hesitation, thrust its sword into Ulrich’s belly.
And it began to slowly cut away at the belly fat.
“A-A… Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!! Ugaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!”
Ulrich screamed at the top of his lungs, his head feeling blank.
It hurt beyond the sensation of pain. Even though it was so cold, cold sweat poured out of his entire body, and blood dripped onto the stone pavement.
The skeleton didn’t try to kill him in one go. First, it slowly shaved off the fat from his belly. And then it scraped out something long and thin. His intestines.
“A-Ahii! Stop… h-help… f-forgive me!! A… Agyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!”
Ulrich, who gradually reduced the volume of his body, eventually stopped screaming.
Normally, if you wanted to make a skeleton with <<Create Undead – Corpse Soldier>>, the flesh would fall off the corpse and it would stand up on its bones alone. So there was no need to strip the flesh while it was still alive, but this was Renée’s little prank.
“‘Stop,’ ‘help,’ ‘forgive.’ …I said the same things many times. But no one listened to me.”
Renée muttered, as if spitting out the words.
A/N: I was thinking of putting all the victim episodes in one chapter, but since there is a longer story coming up after this, I’m unlocking the division…