“Damn it! There’s no end to them!”
“Chris! They’re going to catch us!”
The monsters were closing in. They had no strength left to resist the horde.
Just as they were about to give up, reinforcements finally arrived.
It was Absolute Ark.
“Toa, expand the magic’s range so we can annihilate the monster horde.”
With the support of his contracted Devotion Spirit, he activated his magic.
The Devotion Spirit's ability, 【Magic Range Expansion】, allowed Absolute's dark magic power to spread to a distance beyond visual confirmation.
【Dark Hole】
Toa, the spirit who had stayed with Chris’s group until Absolute arrived, assisted with the magic, causing the dark power to swell even larger. The monsters that had been chasing Chris and his group were instantly caught by arms of magic power and dragged into the darkness.
“You guys alive?”
When Chris and the others realized Absolute had arrived, they collapsed as if a taut string had snapped.
“Absolute-sama, you came!”
“Yeah, more importantly, let’s get out of here. We’re almost at headquarters. You held out well, Chris.”
“Thank you. But Christina-sama and Uris are still in the forest to let us escape from the monsters!”
“That woman and Uris are?”
Why is Christina with Chris’s group? No, Christina died during this exercise in the original story. Could it be that she's protecting Chris’s group…?
“Absolute-sama, please! Save Christina-sama and Uris!”
I knew Christina would die and left her to it. But if Christina helped my subordinates, then I should go save her, even now. Well, if Uris is there, there’s no reason not to go in the first place.
“I understand. You guys hurry to headquarters.”
Absolute rushed to Christina and Uris.
◆
Around the time Absolute joined up with Chris's group, Christina and Uris had somehow survived the initial horde of several thousand monsters. More than half of the monsters had gone after Chris and the others, but the two of them had annihilated the remaining monsters.
After the battle, Uris lay sprawled on her back, while Christina squatted nearby.
“That skill of yours? Isn’t that cheating…? If you use something like that, I can’t compete. You’re stealing my prey, too.”
Christina recalled Uris's fighting form: her body expanding to several times its size, trampling the monsters while looking down on them—a "Fierce Tiger" indeed.
“Huh? It’s just 【Beast Transformation】, got a problem with that? Well, using it after so long almost made me lose my mind, that was pretty dangerous. I can’t move for a while, and I’m pretty sure it’s over, so let’s just call it a draw, eh?”
Christina sighed in exasperation at Uris, who was smiling gleefully with a triumphant look on her face.
“Hah, you forfeit. More importantly, that 【Beast Transformation】 skill… does everyone get that big when they use it?”
“Who knows? The guys around me aren’t that impressive. Maybe it depends on the species and power. But…”
“But?”
“The beastman maid at Boss’s place is way stronger and bigger than me. You should watch out for her… she’s on a whole other level compared to us.”
“Surely that’s a lie?”
Uris simply shrugged and said nothing.
Honestly, Christina had looked down on Uris as a lower noble, even if she was spirited. But now that she had taken down nearly a thousand monsters, even if more than half had gone after Chris and the others, she had to acknowledge her strength.
“It’s probably because the stronger ones went that way, but it ended quickly. I hope they’re all right.”
“Well, Boss is heading there, so they’ll be fine.”
“You really trust him… Well then, shall we move? I’ll give you a piggyback ride, so be grateful, Uris Kokuto.”
She called her by her full name instead of her family name.
It meant that Christina had acknowledged Uris.
Uris didn’t seem to notice.
The instant Christina stood up, about to move, it happened.
“You ladies went too far.”
Thwack!
“Ugh?!”
Someone had slashed Christina from behind. Her back was hot and painful… She reached behind her to touch the bleeding wound, feeling something slimy. The wound was deep, and she immediately dropped to her knees.
Turning around, she saw a familiar face.
“You’re… one of the Saint’s guards? Why are you doing this to me…?”
She hadn’t noticed his presence at all until she was cut down. She felt the same sense of wrongness as when she had suddenly been surrounded by monsters earlier.
“I’m Evan. I’d appreciate it if you remembered your classmates' names, Christina-sama.”
The Holy Knight named Evan looked down at Christina, who was kneeling on the ground. Three other Holy Knights were breaking Uris’s bones to keep her from resisting.
“Sorry, but I don’t intend to remember the names of weaklings… So why are you doing this?”
“Who knows? I’m just following orders. Sorry, but don’t resist.”
He didn’t seem willing to answer. The Holy Knight Evan raised his sword again, ready to strike.
“Kill that bitch! You’ll get killed!”
“Gah, 【Fireball】!”
Christina tried to resist instinctively, releasing a spell. The spell struck the Holy Knight Evan directly, but he plunged through the flames, his body burning, and delivered another blow to Christina. Christina, who had barely been holding on with her willpower, reached her limit with that blow and collapsed to the ground.
“Bitch!”
“Un…believable. To attack while being engulfed in flames. Don’t you value your life…?”
The Holy Knight Evan had received the Saint's 【Agitation】 skill beforehand, which removed his brain’s limiter, allowing him to act without regard for pain.
And although Christina had resisted instinctively, she had never killed anyone before, so she unconsciously held back, using a weaker spell. As a result, she had allowed Evan to attack her.
Evan and the other Holy Knights straddled Christina and Uris. It seemed they hadn’t killed them immediately because they had intended to play with them from the start.
Normally, Holy Knights constantly discipline themselves for the sake of the justice preached by the Church. But losing their reason due to the Saint's skill, and the stress of releasing monsters and laying hands on people, had affected their minds, causing them to lose their inhibitions and give in to their instincts.
“Too bad for you, if you hadn’t sided with the Ark faction, it would have been your turn later. Well, might as well let us enjoy ourselves, Christina-sama.”
With blood flowing, her consciousness fading, and unable to move, the Holy Knights fell upon Christina and Uris, giving in to their desires.
◆
Christina remembered as her consciousness faded.
Christina's father served as the Prime Minister of the Rainana Kingdom and was extremely busy. Seeing her father engrossed in his work, never paying attention to his daughter, and her mother, who was always out at parties and tea parties, she realized they had no interest in her.
Crying and throwing tantrums only troubled the servants, and her parents didn't even notice.
To get her father to pay attention to her, Christina was determined to be the best. Even as a child, she tried to attract attention by achieving results.
Fortunately, Christina was talented. The more she worked at it, the better she became at magic and her academic skills improved.
When she attended a tea party to gather potential fiancée candidates for Prince Michael, she quickly distinguished herself with her impeccable table manners and vocabulary, incomparable to the other young ladies of her age, and rose to the top of the list of fiancée candidates.
But her parents still didn't pay attention to her. The affection that should have been poured out by her parents when she was young remained empty, creating a void in Christina's heart.
Frustrated by her unfulfilled heart, Christina became a nasty child who took it out on the nobles under her command, creating a rift between them. At this time, Christina was truly alone.
Even so, Christina continued to improve herself. However, a change of heart occurred in Christina.
At Prince Michael's tenth birthday party, she saw Absolute protecting the nobles under his command, and her feelings began to change.
She had known about Absolute since long ago, and although she felt a little unpleasant, she felt a connection with him at the parties that dukes occasionally attended, as they were both always alone.
After seeing Absolute protecting the nobles under his command, she began to see more and more people around him at the parties he occasionally attended. At first there were two, but gradually the number increased, and he became surrounded by people.
He's no longer alone. His loneliness has ended.
The emotion Christina felt for him, who was like her, was simply a feeling of happiness. And seeing Absolute surrounded by people, she thought it was better that way.
She stopped chasing her ideal parents and decided that she wanted to be like him. But even now, at the age of fifteen, she was unable to bridge the gap with those around her, and Christina remained alone.
She enrolled in the academy and reunited with Absolute. There were still people around him. Christina wanted to know. How did Absolute change? Or did those around him change? What was she lacking, and what should she do?
After enrolling, Christina started to get involved with Absolute. She challenged him to duels, offered to follow up on problems, and actively engaged in conversation during breaks. She was purely interested in testing her strength against his, but more than that, she wanted to know about Absolute.
At first, he wouldn't pay her any attention, but as she stubbornly persisted, he started to deal with her, albeit reluctantly. She could almost call him a friend. But he didn't talk much about himself.
That's why Christina decided to ask the members of the Ark faction. Lady Cruel in the same class would become hysterical when it came to Absolute, so she was out of the question.
Oriana Festa wouldn't open her mouth no matter how she was spoken to, and Mist Browser was untrustworthy, so he was out of the question.
That's why she decided to contact the Ark faction in Class B. Fortunately, the designated route for the Ark faction in Class B was next to hers during the exercise. Christina's group was made up of members of the Zen family faction, but their relationship was cold, so there was no problem if she left the group halfway through. It was a little lonely, but she was grateful for it now.
After that, she contacted the Ark faction in Class B and got into an argument, a horde of monsters appeared, and she was slashed by a classmate, and now she was dying.
In the original story, she was concerned about Absolute, who was also alone at the academy, and tried to learn about him by contacting the Ark faction, was attacked by a horde of monsters, let the Ark faction escape, and was killed after being toyed with by a Holy Knight while fighting alone.
And now, just as in the original story, she was about to be killed in every way as a woman and as a person. But even if she tried to resist, her body could no longer move.
Am I going to die alone? My parents wouldn't think anything of it if I died. The servants might regret it a little. I wonder if those under my command would think, "Good riddance." What about Absolute-kun? I never understood him until the very end. I think of him as a friend, but what does he think of me? Would he regret my death even a little? I hope he would.
“What are you doing?”
I can hear Absolute-kun's voice.
After the voice, the heavy weight on top of her disappeared, and the warmth returned to her body, which was starting to turn cold. Before she knew it, the pain in her body had disappeared, and she was able to breathe easier.
Perhaps because the pain had disappeared and she had calmed down, she felt a little sleepy. Christina slowly closed her heavy eyelids and fell asleep.
