Chapter 58

“...What am I even supposed to do with you?”

Erabelle lay motionless on the medical unit.

No steady voice. No calm gaze. Nothing remained but memories, fading as quickly as the warmth left her body.

“...Dezeb.”

Why...

Dezeb answered the phantom of Erabelle whispering through his memories.

“Dezeb... I want to go home...”

“Just... let me go home...”

“...I want to go back. To our house...”

Erabelle.

“Please... let me go home...”

Erabelle. Erabelle... What would you do if I followed you to that precious place of yours? Would you still want to go?

Even the Vermilions had been terrified of letting me see them, and look how they ended up.

So what were you thinking, showing me your real family?

“Avganis!!”

At the shout, Dezeb slowly turned his head.

A royal figure dressed entirely in gold was barking orders and accusations at him. Dezeb stared blankly for a moment, trying to remember who he was.

Who was that again...? Ah. Right.

He mentally retraced the data Erabelle had sent him just before she died.

Currently operating 28 small portals in Molin City. Coordinates attached.Evidence of ties with the Imperial Inspection Bureau attached.Signs of consolidating six small-to-mid-sized arms dealers and seizing their stock. Supporting data attached.Likely probing the Thirteenth Prince’s supply line.Power scale rated at 1,127 points under standard protocol.Ah... the Second Prince.

Going over the intelligence Erabelle had sacrificed her life to transmit, Dezeb exhaled a thin stream of smoke through clenched teeth.

She really was useful.

“If you let me live, I’ll be of great use to you!”

Erabelle Vermilion had kept the promise she made when they first met.

She had been useful.

Capable, too.

“I’m a special contractee!”

A rare one, at that.

He remembered her in the Imperial Garden, wearing a green gym uniform too small for her and a pair of glaring yellow sneakers. She had been shoved to the ground, hair tangled, body bruised, screaming for her life—

and yet even then, her mind had remained fixed on the rift.

Even back then, all you wanted was to go home, wasn’t it?

The truth was, at some point, Dezeb had begun to hate her.

More and more with every passing day.

If he could have, he would have killed her himself.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve, pulling something this insane!”

Because of you...

because of you, I actually started wanting to accept all of this.

“Do you really think Ananasa will keep shielding you?”

Because of you, I kept wanting to carry the filth piled onto my back.

Because of you, I wanted to keep living...

even like this.

Even in this wretched form I’ve become.

Because of you.

So this is where we part.

Smiling, Dezeb bent over and slid his tongue into Erabelle’s shattered mouth.

“What the—?!”

His tongue pressed deep between her broken teeth.

Wet flesh squelched in the silence.

“Get him off—ugh—ghk—!”

He silenced the room.

Only one sound remained.

Dezeb cradled her icy cheek in his palm.

“Erabelle.”

He gazed into her unseeing eyes and spoke gently, as though she might still answer him.

“Say something.”

Tilting his sleek head, he kissed her motionless lips again.

Tired of me already?

“So cold.”

He chuckled.

Then he bit through his own tongue.

Blood welled from the torn flesh and spilled into Erabelle’s mouth. He forced her throat open and let it pour down.

Then he climbed onto the medical platform and began undoing the buttons of his shirt.

“...Let’s become a pair.”

Pressing their ruined bodies together, he whispered,

“We’ve known each other for years now. It’s about time. I’ll propose properly when you wake up. Hopefully, you won’t faint again.”

Still smiling, he raised his nails and ripped open his chest.

Writhing tendrils slithered from within.

Between them, dark red blood surged out and flooded into Erabelle’s lifeless body.

“Ha.”

Watching her body soak in his blood, Dezeb licked his lips.

He moved slowly.

Carefully.

Careful not to damage her shattered body any further.

The link began.

It consumed an enormous amount of energy. He would need far more calories before the process was complete.

“Ahh... so this is what you meant by home?”

Their minds were beginning to connect.

“It’s small. This place would make a decent detention cell. A mortgage? So the bank owns it.”

A cramped three-bedroom apartment.

Unfamiliar food sat on the table.

Everywhere he looked were traces of a once-happy family—drawings colored with such force that the paper seemed ready to tear, as though a child had desperately tried to hold something together.

“...Erabelle, you were really terrible at drawing.”

Between two round-headed parents stood a little girl, smiling brightly.

“...”

But you’re already too late.

Far too late.

Smiling, Dezeb leaned down and ran his tongue along the jagged remains of Erabelle’s teeth, pushing deeper as though he intended to feed her his own flesh in place of that unfamiliar food.

“I’m starving...”

he whispered.

Saliva pooled at the corner of his lips with a faint, wet sound.

The connection devoured an immense amount of energy, twisting through his blood vessels like millions of tangled threads.

“Life vessel.”

He gently brushed aside the hair plastered to her crushed skull with blood and brain matter, still whispering sweetly against her lips.

Her face slowly began to return to its former shape.

At the same time, his own began to deform.

“I’m your breath now. Your life. So take care of me.”

Something black and writhing spread beneath his feet.

“Even if you don’t want to, you don’t have a choice.”

You caused all of this.

He gripped her small jaw and stared into her lifeless eyes.

“So come back.”

“This way.”

The darkness spilled outward.

It spread across Molin City, then beyond it, reaching toward neighboring planets in search of prey.

***

“Lieutenant!!”

Majia Oloror stood outside the ejection port, frozen as the heavy iron doors slammed shut.

“...”

He didn’t know whether she had actually pushed him out or whether he had merely pretended she had.

Probably the latter.

There was no way someone with Level 2 physical ability could overpower him, even with auxiliary equipment.

Which meant—

he had left her behind.

He had abandoned her.

Majia’s thoughts reeled.

Who had she really been all this time?

The Federation.

Weapons trafficking.

High-ranking spirits.

S-Class.

Someone fit for command of the 41st Division.

The way she had reset her own ankle without so much as blinking...

He shuddered, remembering how she had silently dug into the back of her neck and pulled out a mechanical component without even flinching.

...Right.

It was all a lie.

He turned away from the ejection port.

It was all lies!

She had been deceiving them the entire time!

Selling stolen weapons!

She had tricked them!

Every single one of them!

Cursing her inwardly, Majia followed the coordinates Erabelle had given him.

Just as she had said, there was a temporary base there.

In the second underground room, he found a box of potatoes.

Majia burst into tears.

“How are we supposed to survive on this...?”

“Plant them or something.”

If they didn’t, they would starve.

Hugging the box of potatoes to his chest, Majia sobbed.

This is really it, isn’t it?

That smirk... when she said goodbye...

That was really the last time.

And yet—

he had left her.

Left her there alone.

And cried.

Even so, if he were given another chance, he wasn’t sure he would choose differently.

Then, through his sobbing, a deafening boom struck hard enough to rattle his skull.

“...Huh?”

Majia ran outside.

Far in the distance, from the place he had fled, thick black smoke was rising into the sky.

“L-Lieutenant...?”

A dark red cloud surged upward, towering high enough to be visible even from here.

“Lieutenant!!”

He tried to run.

His body refused to move.

Then came the sound.

Hoooooom—

A sound that seemed to bend the very atmosphere of the planet.

The sky was dark.

And growing darker.

HOOOOOOOOOM—

Majia wiped his nose.

Then his eyes.

Then his ears.

Blood was leaking from every opening.

He wiped it away, blinking rapidly.

And in the instant his eyes closed—

something black crept over the horizon.

Like tar.

It came like a flood.

It looked like insects.

Like maggots.

Like reptiles encased in chitin.

Like short, thick snakes.

Like slick, segmented worms.

It resembled every living creature Majia had ever seen—

and none of them.

It didn’t feel real.

It felt distant.

Detached.

Like a dream.

But Majia understood.

His turn had come.

Death was only natural.

It was right to offer his flesh, his blood, and his bones to what was coming.

His body went limp.

He waited for it to take him.

And then—

someone grabbed him.

It was Captain Kancher.