It was a portrait of a woman probably in her early twenties, with traces of girlhood still visible in her face, drawn from the shoulders up. Her long, black hair was gathered above the nape of her neck. Her eyes were equally dark, with perfect double lids. Her bangs hung straight over her forehead. She was smiling faintly, but her features also betrayed a touch of nervousness at being in front of the artist. The portrait was so realistic that she seemed about to break free of the paper at any moment.
"Yeah. She was the prettiest woman in the world."
Doon's eyes were staring at something far away.
"Was?" A woman's voice came from behind the pair.
They turned around with identical speed, Doon readying his sword, and Koyoi her talismans. The only ones capable of retaining their reason in this place now were the Order's soldiers, mercenaries like themselves, and monsters. Their gazes fixed on a cemetery cloaked in an especially thick purple haze.
Damn.
It had slipped Koyoi's mind. She had overlooked that fact that monsters did not only attack from outside; they could also arise from within.
Of course! The dead can rise, and become...!
"Finé."
Doon lowered his sword, and took a step forward. His gaze was fixed on a woman sitting atop a cross-shaped gravestone. Her long hair was gathered above the nape of her neck, her eyes had perfect double lids, and there was a smile on her face.
"It's been a long time, Doon," the woman on the gravestone giggled. She brought a hand up under her chin, and crossed her legs. Her limbs were coated in a red film below the elbows and knees.
What is this monster...? I've never seen her species in Zipangu...
As legends of the dead returning were well known in Zipangu, funeral rites were prescribed to the smallest detail so as to prevent their revival. Even casual customs that the common people observed only because "it had always been done that way" were ancestral wisdom devised to send the dead definitively into the afterlife. As a result, Zipangu was poor in knowledge concerning undead varieties of monster girls.
If Koyoi could learn the monster's species, she could devise some way of dealing with her. By the same token, however, she could not do anything unless she learned it. While Koyoi was considering how to act, something appeared between her and the monster to block her view.
"Finé..."
It was Doon. He advanced toward the monster with faltering steps, muttering her name over and over again.
"No! Stop, Mr. Doon!"
Koyoi tried to bring him to his senses, but something hard blocked her way.
"I would thank you to mind your own business."
There was obvious anger in the monster's voice. She thrust out a hand toward Koyoi. A glowing, violet magic circle stood out on her bright red palm.
This spell!
Koyoi ran her eyes over her surroundings. As she anticipated, dense mana was being expelled from the monster's palm to form a wall. The pale purple currents of mana extended from the monster's hand to the wall in front of Koyoi, and thence spread to the entire cemetery.
How does she have such a vast quantity of mana...?
Although her studies had concentrated on other fields, Koyoi had received a general knowledge of magic. In consequence, she was able to quickly notice that there was something off about the magic the monster in front of her was using. It was, in a word, too large-scale. Koyoi was able to estimate how much mana someone possessed just by looking at them. The monster of unknown species she now faced was using magic too strong for hers. Under normal circumstances, projecting a wall large enough to cover her own body a few centimeters from her outflung hand ought to be the most she was capable of.
No sooner had Koyoi reached that conclusion, however, than she saw that the dense mana hovering over the cemetery was flowing into the monster's body.
Of course! How foolish of me. It's different here!
Mana that was of a high quality and purity, in addition to being exceptionally dense, was hanging over not only this cemetery, but over all of Lescatié.
Thanks to that, as far as monsters — whose ability to absorb mana far exceeded humans' — were concerned, the whole area inside the ramparts was effectively a mana storage tank.
"You can't do it, Koyoi."
There was a sound of feet on soil. Doon had staggered from the paving stones into the cemetery grounds. His voice was calm.
"I know now. Me, you, the Order forces; none of us can win against Finé, or any of the monsters in this country."
His arms raised limply. He held them out to the monster who had been his wife.
"Run, Koyoi. Run..."
His voice was growing steadily softer and weaker.
"Run. Run..."
Those words could be called Doon's final display of paternal affection.
Hurry and go, Koyoi! I'm already done for! You, at least, have to get away!
His wife had returned from the dead. She was beckoning him with a face, voice, gestures that were just as they had been before.
He had already succumbed to the seductive mana that accompanied them. But what little reason remained to him found its voice.
His arms wrapped around the monster's back. Burying his face in her cleavage, he let out a deep sigh. It sounded full of relief, as if he had spit out all the unpleasantness that had accumulated inside him.
"Hee hee hee."
The monster smiled happily, and gently stroked his head with the hand that she was not pointing at Koyoi. The next instant, however, she looked straight ahead, and her face returned to its previous grim expression.
"I do wish you would hurry up and leave. I can't hug him with one arm."
A short while passed in silence. The women glared at each other.
Koyoi was the first to move.
...