‘Ah.’
The moment Crimson raised her hand.
Yuto knew what was about to happen. He also knew resistance was impossible. But he could not simply do nothing. Cradling Flokiro where it lay sprawled on the ground, Yuto turned his head.
He looked at Gaon and Rugil. They merely looked awestruck. Ebil, the mistress of the Colosseum, had died at Yuto's hands. Gaon and Rugil were not the only ones reacting. Gladiators, Evomon, guards—everyone stared at Yuto in shock. At the same time, a certain hope shone in their eyes.
It was because Crimson had said they would stop here. Perhaps this carnage was finally over. Many of them hoped so, but Yuto knew better. Crimson Ringmistress. That cruel monster would not show mercy merely because she was satisfied. Had she not said so herself?
Only the one who satisfied Crimson would be allowed to live. When she said they might as well stop because she did not expect to see anything more entertaining, what she meant was—she expected nothing at all from anyone else.
“R......”
Yuto opened his mouth.
“Run......”
Before the word had even left his lips, the red storm swept through the Colosseum.
There were no screams. No one was given even enough time to scream. The instant blood-red aether descended upon the Colosseum, every sound ceased.
The humans and Evomon who had struggled to survive by killing one another. The guards who had brandished their weapons. The slaves who had hidden beneath corpses and trembled.
The blood-red aether swallowed them all. Yuto stared with his eyes wide open. Gaon and Rugil, who had been approaching Yuto with bright smiles, dissolved into aether. They did not even realize they were dying.
The same happened to Jackie. The corpse concealing him crumbled into dust first, and Jackie beneath it soon followed.
“Ah......”
Yuto looked down at Flokiro in his arms. Gravely wounded, it stared up at Yuto while gasping for breath. Even now, relief filled it because it had managed to protect him.
Amid that relief.
Aether began to consume Flokiro's body. In Yuto's arms, its body collapsed into dust and blood. FWOOSH! Light engulfed the remains, transforming them into a fist-sized Evostone.
“Ah, aaah—no......!”
Despairing, Yuto clutched Flokiro's Evostone. At that moment, the red storm subsided.
No living being remained in the Colosseum except Yuto. Human bodies had been shredded into dust and scattered, leaving only spilled blood, clothes, and belongings pooled on the ground. Every Evomon had become an Evostone and fallen to the floor.
Step.
As Yuto stared blankly at the sight, a footstep reached his ears. He turned his head with a stiff, creaking motion and looked behind him. Crimson Ringmistress. The monster who had plunged the Colosseum into carnage, made every living being struggle for survival, then slaughtered them all because she had grown bored. She had descended into the Colosseum and stood there with a radiant smile.
“Congratulations.”
Crimson spoke. Standing with one hand on her hip, she cocked her head and looked down at Yuto.
“How many people and creatures were there in all? I think there were more than 100, yet you're the only one who survived. How does it feel?”
“Ugh......”
Yuto staggered to his feet, his entire body trembling. Don't. You'll die. His instincts warned him, but Yuto ignored them. The emotion boiling within him was too fierce to endure.
“Aaaaaah!”
With a savage cry, Yuto charged at Crimson. He made no calculations and no judgments. The fact that the monster existed on another plane, that attacking her would only get him killed—all of it flew from his mind.
Kill her. That impulse alone ruled everything within Yuto. The sword he swung with all his strength went for Crimson's neck.
TINK.
Two of Crimson's fingers lightly caught the blade. The smile in her red eyes deepened. Yuto twisted the captured sword, but it did not budge. He immediately abandoned it and lunged at Crimson with his bare hands.
His hand, thrust toward her throat, cut futilely through the air. Crimson had merely leaned back a little and now watched him with a giggle. The moment Yuto attacked again, a hand moved too fast for him to react and seized him by the throat.
“Urgh......!”
The slender arm lifted Yuto's body as though he were a toy. Her grip tightened around his throat. He could not breathe, and his vision blurred red. Yuto grabbed Crimson's arm and struggled, but it did not move an inch.
“Why are you getting so angry?”
Crimson asked with a smile.
“You survived. I came down here to congratulate you. So why do you keep attacking me?”
“I'll......”
Yuto barely forced a voice through his constricted throat.
“I'll...... kill you......!”
“Ahaha.”
Crimson burst into laughter.
“How are you going to kill me? You know that if I use even a little strength right now, your neck will snap.”
Yuto did not answer. His wide eyes glared at Crimson. Her smile deepened as she met his gaze. There was no fear or pleading in those eyes. They held nothing but murderous intent. Though his own life was in her hands, the boy was thinking only of killing Crimson, and he meant it with all his heart.
Kill her.
If not now, if not today, then someday, without fail. The cry that could not become a voice, the intense murderous intent, pierced Crimson.
“Ahaha......”
Crimson's red eyes curved with delight.
“Good, good. I like you very much.”
Crimson let go. Yuto fell to the floor and immediately rushed at her again even as he coughed and gasped. Crimson's foot kicked him in the head as he tried to grab her leg. She could have burst his skull with that blow, but she chose not to.
The kick sent Yuto rolling across the floor. He still refused to give up and tried to charge again, but Crimson strode over and planted a foot on his chest.
“Take this.”
Looking down at Yuto, Crimson raised a hand. Red light gathered and formed a small card. She dropped it beside Yuto's face and whispered.
“It's an invitation to my arena.”
Crimson lowered herself and studied Yuto up close. A face twisted with rage and hatred. Eyes brimming with murderous intent. Every part of him sent an exhilarating thrill through her.
“You're boring as you are now, but I like those eyes. So...... grow stronger and come find me. Don't forget your murderous intent toward me. Become strong enough to kill me.”
Her bright smile, filled with genuine anticipation, burned itself into Yuto's retinas.
“I'll be waiting for that day.”
Crimson dissolved into red mist and vanished.
Yuto alone remained in the empty Colosseum. Lying on the floor, he gritted his teeth.
He had been unable to do anything. Of course he had known that would be the case. No matter how desperately the present Yuto struggled, he could not inflict so much as a tiny wound upon the monster called Crimson Ringmistress.
‘Without fail......’
Clutching the chest Crimson had trampled, Yuto pushed himself upright.
‘Without fail, I'll kill her.’
It did not feel like the first time he had harbored such murderous intent. Today should have been the first time he had ever met Crimson, yet he felt an intense déjà vu. Yuto knew Crimson. It was different from merely having heard her name. He knew her, hated her, and wanted to kill her. No—he had actually killed her.
When Crimson had held him by the throat and struck him down, memories had drifted through his mind. A burning arena. In its center, a face laughing while its neck was held in a crushing grip. A woman who let out no groan even as a sword pierced her chest, but smiled more brightly still and rejoiced in her own death.
‘Can I see the future? Or...... is all of this nothing but my delusion?’
No matter how much he thought about it, he could not tell. Gritting his teeth, Yuto turned his head. Bright red blood lay pooled throughout the Colosseum. It was all that Gaon and Rugil had left behind.
“Grrk......!”
He had known them for less than a week. They did not share any remarkable memories. Yet amid this carnage, rather than attack Yuto, they had stepped forward to protect him. And what had Yuto done? He had failed to protect them.
“I will...... avenge you.”
It was the only vow he could make to the two dead men. Only then did Yuto realize that he knew nothing about Gaon and Rugil beyond their names. Biting his lip, Yuto clenched the invitation Crimson had left behind.
Flokiro.
When an Evomon died, it returned to an Evostone, and awakening an Evostone required a vast quantity of aether. Conversely, that meant an Evomon could be revived if its aether was replenished. Staggering, Yuto gripped Flokiro's Evostone. The pale red stone held a lukewarm warmth.
“Flokiro......”
Yuto spoke the name. He did not know how he had learned it. But of one thing he was certain. This little stone had thrown itself into harm's way to protect him. Always, time and again, it had done so. Clenching Flokiro's Evostone, Yuto turned around.
The Colosseum walls were high, with no connected stairway. Yuto approached the place where Ebil's corpse had been. Beneath clothes soiled with dirt and blood lay a golden key. Yuto took the key first, then headed for the iron gate through which the gladiators had entered.
The keyhole in the gate did not match Ebil's key, but strangely, the lock opened on its own the moment he held the key toward it. As befitted the possession of the Colosseum's mistress, this key seemed capable of opening every door within it.
‘First...... I get outside.’
With only that thought in mind, Yuto began to walk.
There were no survivors.
The red light Crimson had released had not killed only the gladiators in the Colosseum. It had killed the guards and slaves who had not been there as well. Blood and clothing lay scattered throughout the underground passages as proof. Ignoring them, Yuto continued onward, using Ebil's key to open door after door.
As he walked beneath the ground, déjà vu struck Yuto again. This had happened once before. A time when he had lost everything, survived alone...... and walked underground. It felt as though a whisper were reaching him from very far away.
[Starting Quest: Escape this place.]
[Reward: ???]
A screen shimmered at the edge of his vision. Though it had happened differently from Yuto's plan, the result was that he could now escape the Colosseum.
‘If I escape this place...... will I learn something?’
At the end of the underground passage was a staircase leading upward. Yuto swallowed and climbed it.
At the top stood an iron door. When he unlocked it with Ebil's key, a gust of cold wind struck his face.
It was night outside. The air was cold and clear, nothing like the stale air underground. Without realizing it, Yuto drew a deep breath. The icy night air sank into lungs stained with blood and dust.
Yuto stared blankly outside. Rows of gravestones met his eyes. A cemetery on the outskirts of the city. Hundreds of gravestones stood in silent rows beneath the moonlight, and the door through which Yuto had emerged was the rear entrance of an old ossuary in one corner of the cemetery.
‘A cemetery......’
Beneath the resting place of the dead, the living had struggled and killed one another. The fact felt like a vicious mockery.
No—rather, it seemed fitting. None of the people who died below would ever receive a gravestone. Gaon, Rugil, Jackie, and all the others whose names he did not even know, who had left not even a corpse behind—the underground Colosseum connected to the cemetery was itself their grave.
Gritting his teeth, Yuto walked on.
One step.
The instant Yuto's foot left the ossuary's shadow and touched the cemetery soil.
BZZT.
[Quest complete.]
[Reward: ???]
A pitch-black screen appeared before his eyes. From beginning to end, the letters had been hidden behind question marks. They distorted amid a wash of static. The entire screen vibrated as though it would shatter, then the question marks broke apart and new letters appeared within them.
[Reward: Void(Void)]
Void.
The moment that word appeared, something throbbed violently in the center of Yuto's chest. It was not the beat of his heart. Something was awakening with a pulse from a place deeper than his heart, a place that could be called the foundation of his existence.
“Urgh......?!”
Yuto clutched his chest and dropped to his knees. Pitch-black darkness bloomed from the center of his chest. It seeped out like smoke and coiled around his body.
Cold, dark, and fathomlessly deep. A power unlike anything else in this world.
‘What is this......?’
It felt as though his heart had frozen solid and then burst into flame, as though his very existence were being torn apart and remade. The pain felt as though all the blood inside his body were being replaced with something pitch-black. BZZT, BZZZT. Static crackled in his ears. An eerie noise that did not seem to belong to this world. Through gaps in the static, Yuto heard a voice.
[―Remember.]
It was the thin voice of a girl.
[Who you are.]
His vision turned pitch-black. He could no longer see moonlight, starlight, or gravestones. Only endless black darkness stretched before him. On the far side of that darkness―a black-haired girl stood. Her black eyes stared at Yuto.
[Why you had to return.]
Who are you? The question failed to become a voice and echoed inside Yuto. Thump, thump, thump. The girl's voice mingled with the pounding of his heart. A new screen appeared in the vista that had contained nothing but darkness and the girl.
[Status Window functionality unlocked.]
[Void Skill functionality unlocked.]
[Status Window.]
Level: 1
Health: 10
Aether: 10
Strength: 10
Agility: 10
Charisma: 10
Remaining Points: 100
Void Skills:
Void Step: LV1.
Void Hand: LV1.
Thump, thump, thump.
The darkness beyond the screen that had suddenly appeared distorted amid static. The darkness split, and unreal scenes flashed past.
A burning kingdom, a collapsing castle, a blond man holding a blood-soaked sword, a woman lying dead before him, a girl sitting on the floor and bursting into tears, an Evomon knight charging with a roar, walking underground while spilling blood across the floor, then finally collapsing, and pitch-black tentacles driven into his chest.
‘These are......’
Yuto desperately reached for those scenes, but the memories seemed about to surface without ever doing so. They seemed close enough to touch, yet remained beyond reach. Every image spreading through the darkness shattered and scattered into static.
‘My...... memories......?’
Emotions seethed. A powerful urge to break and kill something surged within him. Rage, hatred, murderous intent. Emotions of that sort filled Yuto completely.
The thinning darkness was sucked into Yuto's body. Overwhelmed by horrific pain, he collapsed against the ground and clutched his chest. CRRACK......! Something broke inside him, then the darkness that had entered him rose from his back as two hands, soaring like wings. The hands gestured at the empty air as though trying to seize and crush the sky.
His mind reeled. Even after escaping the Colosseum, his questions would not end. The darkness ran wild amid his mental confusion. The pitch-black hands moved of their own accord, craving something to seize and crush, while beneath them Yuto struggled to hold his collapsing mind together.
“Hmm.”
Someone approached Yuto.
It was a woman with elongated ears unlike a human's and a black eyepatch. The barefoot woman lowered the liquor bottle from her mouth as she approached and stared intently at Yuto. But he could neither notice her gaze nor raise his head. The enormous power that had entered his body would not obey him.
“Hey, boy.”
The woman spoke. She hung the liquor bottle at her waist and approached Yuto with light, graceful steps.
“You appear to be in trouble. Shall This One lend you a hand?”
Yuto could not answer. All he could do was grit his teeth and desperately suppress this power and impulse threatening to run wild, along with the violent emotions that had followed his memories. Seeing that Yuto did not answer, the woman shrugged.
“Hmm, no answer. Then This One shall do as she pleases.”
The woman strode toward Yuto. At that moment, the pitch-black hands rising from him descended upon her. She smirked at the sight and moved one hand. BANG—! A casual sweep of the back of her hand shredded the darkness.
“Boy, you.”
The woman's hand reached Yuto's chest as she tore through the darkness.
“You are now indebted to This One.”
The rampaging darkness fell asleep in an instant and returned inside Yuto. At the same time, Yuto's consciousness abruptly went dark. The woman hoisted his limp body over one shoulder and muttered.
“Void.”
Narrowing her eye, the woman tilted her head.
“Fate truly is unknowable.”
Yuto did not hear her murmur.