The middle-aged woman had already visibly altered. Her clouded, dilated pupils trembled once, and because too many human characteristics had been lost, Seraphia could no longer read any emotion at all from that face.
And that innate ability of the angels could read nothing from her either.
But over on Nephim's side, within the shadow, there was a distinct swell of emotion.
【Mm... very similar.】
Those altered angel-monsters that appeared in her memories had characteristics of much the same kind.
And not only in appearance; in the wavelength of their mana they were extremely close as well.
Even without using mana, every person and every creature gives off a faint emanation of it, and mana itself carries certain characteristics of the individual and of the race.
Something like pheromones.
The woman's mana now felt severely deviated from the human style, and that deviant portion was like the sense of deviation between Seraphia and Nephim.
【So the Corruption Sickness really is connected to the present state of this race.】
Perhaps every angel-monster, if born normally, would come out in the perfect shape Seraphia had.
And the suffix "monster" and the like could then be cleanly and neatly removed.
The question, then, was what cause had produced the present situation, and if she could trace that source... Seraphia might not have to throw in with her own people and join that 'villain faction' fated to be defeated.
Seeing that the altered woman made no threatening move, the red-haired girl slowly approached her, put out both hands and took hold of the arm that had turned monstrous.
"Do you remember whether there's anything you have to do?"
On hearing this next sentence, a very marked shade of humanity finally appeared in the woman's pupils, and she struggled to get to her feet.
"Still... waiting for me..."
"Good. Take it slowly."
Like a physician putting a patient through rehabilitation exercises, that person guided her patiently.
Before long the woman was showing more reactions, and more human ones.
That was as far as it went, however; the structure of her throat, too, seemed to have been rendered wholly incapable of producing human speech by the Corruption Sickness.
In the end, after making a few sounds of no discernible meaning, the woman handed her the box in her hand.
"For your family?"
The woman nodded.
"Leave it with me. And then... at the very last, would you like to keep a little time to think as a person, to look back over this life... or would you rather return to nature's cycle now? If the former, nod. If the latter, shake your head."
The woman stared blankly at the person before her, and then Seraphia saw, on that already distorted face, a very obvious hesitation and wavering.
And at this moment, Seraphia finally read the emotions inside her heart as well.
Fear, despair, remorse, attachment, reluctance, worry—
Those human emotions reminded Seraphia, with absolute clarity, of one crucial thing.
This woman, infected with the Corruption Sickness and about to become a monster—
Was somebody's treasure.
Was somebody's beloved.
Was somebody's support.
Was somebody's dearest friend.
And was a human being who had genuinely and truly lived in this world.
How hateful.
Miss Angel bit gently at her lip, and beneath her cloak both hands quietly clenched into fists.
At this moment Seraphia hated beyond measure this ability possessed by the body she had crossed over into, the ability to pass through the wall of the human heart and hear the true feelings inside another person.
If only she could not sense these things, then matters that had not truly happened beside her, and had no direct connection with her, would never disturb her heart.
As the feelings struggled inside the woman, the process of the Corruption Sickness eating into her grew faster and faster.
Her originally normal skin began to take on a distinct grey-green, and features that ought never to appear on a human body, resembling tentacles, scales and compound eyes, began to proliferate at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Even so, the red-haired girl still did not hurry the woman, and only waited for her choice.
Those churning feelings, like a pot of jumbled stew, gradually settled, and after that all Seraphia could sense was a faint peace.
The woman shook her head gently.
"I understand."
The red-haired girl put the woman's box away with great care, then slowly drew back to open the distance, and the crimson blade at her waist came slowly out of its sheath.
【Why?】
Seraphia's eyes went wide.
【Why would she accept a fate like that... just like that, so simply?】
She had certainly never lived one of those lives that blaze with radiance.
On the hand that had not mutated, all there had been was wrinkled skin and calluses.
Across the past several decades she must have lived an ordinary and oppressed life, must have been able only to look up at a life 'decent' in the standard sense of the word.
If she put herself into a life like that, Seraphia thought about having to become so hideous a thing at the very end of it, and being forced to choose between two options: turning into a monster while still alive, or dying before the change was complete.
She would have chosen the former without the slightest hesitation.
Even though becoming a monster would distort her own cognition, she did not want to die.
So long as she was alive, there might yet be a chance in the future.
【Maybe if you just wait a little longer... I can't accept it. It was the most ordinary sort of life imaginable, so why does she look as though she's already completely satisfied? Just those ordinary human relationships... that dull, mediocre... it isn't nearly enough... I can't accept it...】
The composure of a woman who had lived an ordinary life, there at the point of death, wounded Seraphia deeply.
She did not understand.
This sort of person plainly had nothing whatsoever to do with the "perfection" she imagined, so why did that composure still make her chest tighten?
She absolutely could not accept a thing like this.
But... this was that woman's affair, and had nothing to do with her.
Miss Angel clapped a palm over her own face, wanting to hide her expression.
"Miss Seraphia...?"
Amid the enormous churn of emotion, the wavelength of the mana Seraphia was giving off, having turned somewhat hysterical in spirit all at once, was no longer that peaceful, warm feeling of ordinary days.
What replaced it was a sensation that made Shu uncomfortable from head to foot.
Like the coolness in that first instant when human skin suddenly touches a scalding liquid, followed by a heat strong enough to burn.
The scene glimpsed between her fingers still made her body tremble faintly.
At the very last, that peace had made the face look rather less like a monster's.
【Huh?】
The pale gold eyes flew wide, and she felt some taut string inside her head snap in an instant.
An enormous spear of light formed of Corona took shape in Seraphia's hand almost instantly, and she hurled that great light-spear straight at the long blade the red-haired girl was about to bring down.
The red-haired girl had in fact noticed Shu and Seraphia long before, but on realizing the two of them had no intention of coming over, she had been glad enough to treat them as though they did not exist, and put her whole mind on the business in her own hands.
But for reasons unknown, that Holy Wing of the church had launched an attack this way with her innate magic, as though she had gone mad on the spot—
【No, there doesn't seem to be any killing intent in it?】
The light-spear was very fast. Holding her blade in one hand, in a posture with that hand bracing the spine of the blade, the red-haired girl deflected the spear with some difficulty, and only then registered, belatedly, that this attack had simply been meant to interrupt the end she was giving this poor woman.
The deflected light-spear, after flying off, collided with a wall and exploded.
Taking a brief look at the astonishing scale of that explosion, the red-haired girl clicked her tongue faintly.
【So a constructed weapon that isn't actively dismissed explodes as well? She doesn't seem to have used her innate magic that way before. Was she worried about hurting other people in the fire?】
"What a headache... this isn't my working hours right now."
The red-haired girl stood with her blade held ready, calculating how to extricate herself.
"So then. To what do I owe the pleasure?"