* * *

Suddenly, a zombie virus swept through the monster population.

The continent was still in turmoil, and my disciples seemed to be working hard at their respective posts.

That would be the simple way to understand it, but…

‘I’m starting to get a sense of whose handiwork this is.’

I thought as I carefully guided Sagol down a side path.

-Uuugh…

These creatures seemed to have lost even their most basic intelligence and judgment. No matter how invisible I was, they apparently couldn’t even detect Sagol’s presence.

They merely moved back and forth at the gestures of a suspicious-looking stranger, searching for something.

I didn’t know who he was, but judging by his clothes, I could tell his station.

‘A priest of the Holy Kingdom.’

He had thrown on an outer coat, but apparently deciding there was no one around, he’d half-removed it, fully revealing the priest’s robes underneath.

“Damn it, I’m dying of exhaustion. I’m running low on mana… There’s no need to ‘search’ all the way out in this backwater region.”

He grumbled as he pulled a Magic Stone from his robes. As expected of something distributed by the Holy Kingdom, it was clearly high-grade at a glance.

He lightly bit down on it with his molars, swallowed it, then muttered an unfamiliar incantation.

And then—

-Krrrrl, krr…

-F… must find… Chris Dotton…

Even the monsters that had been slumped on the ground rose and began shuffling about.

“That’s right, that’s right. Keep it up and please find this Chris or whoever. Well, considering we haven’t seen hide nor hair of her in almost a year, she’s probably dead and gone by now.”

Unfortunately for him, she was very much alive. Right near him, in fact.

‘Though I agree it’s a waste of effort.’

He probably assumed I was someone with immense magical power and mobilized monsters sensitive to mana to find me.

But right now, I was completely, indisputably, magnificently F-Rank.

So low that even trash-tier monsters dismissed me.

“Seriously, why did that bastard have to steal someone else’s heart? If he hadn’t, His Holiness wouldn’t have had to go through all this trouble… Ah, no, what am I saying. There’s nothing useless in what His Holiness commands. His will is always right. It’s right, so please… I’m sorry, I repent…”

I’d been thinking he talked to himself a lot, and it seemed he’d just made a slip of the tongue.

My jaw dropped watching him drop to his knees and slam his head against the ground facing the Holy Kingdom’s direction.

It looked like his forehead was bleeding—could simple faith really go that far? Was the Holy Emperor using some kind of brainwashing magic?

‘Given the circumstances, that’s terrifyingly plausible.’

So to summarize the situation:

The Holy Emperor was among those waiting for the Protagonist’s heart to ripen.

The Holy Emperor had anticipated even the Demon Lord’s failure. So he’d been sitting back, waiting.

‘But then Chris Dotton suddenly appeared on the scene.’

Not only had she stolen the Protagonist’s heart, she’d vanished off the face of the earth with it.

For the Holy Emperor, it was an unforeseen development maddening enough to make his eyes roll back.

Magic that controlled monster corpses like this was something I’d never heard of anywhere. It was probably a forbidden branch of dark magic.

The fact that the Holy Kingdom, which professed absolute righteousness, was secretly practicing such arts meant they were staking everything on finding me.

Anyway, the Creator God really raised a spectacular failure of a child.

Alright. I had a rough grasp of the situation now.

‘Now, then…’

It was time to decide where our X-Class kids would gather.

A well-known landmark, with a taxi driver ready to take us there right this moment.

…And a place where news would inevitably reach Narrow Eyes, wherever he was in this world.

I slowly turned the horse’s head and walked toward the wasteland.

To wait for the ‘moment.’

* * *

Sandstorms blew irregularly across the Land of Death.

The priest had been stationed here for less than a week, but even he knew that much.

“Another damn sandstorm? Tch, what a nuisance…”

Controlling the monsters kept him too busy to cast any auxiliary magic, so he often ended up taking the full brunt of the sandstorms.

Maybe he should head back to the tent around now. He needed to treat the wound on his forehead from all that repenting, too.

He was idly entertaining such thoughts while gazing beyond the wasteland, where the sandstorm was approaching, when—

‘…?’

Something appeared through the hazy dust.

…A human silhouette.

Not one of the occasional monsters that crossed over from the Demon Realm.

Black hair streaming behind, swaying like a corpse about to collapse at any moment, yet unmistakably standing on two legs.

A person was walking toward him.

“A person, here? Surely not…”

The priest slowly rose from his seat, even as he told himself it was impossible.

Beyond here lay only the Demon Realm. Anything that looked remotely human there had long since been forced to its knees and dragged away by the Holy Emperor.

Then what was that? What kind of being had survived, and how?

The priest’s questions vanished completely the moment her face came into view.

“…Ch-Chr… Chris… Dotton?”

Blood-red eyes that seemed to pierce right through him.

Hair that resembled a long, drawn-out shadow.

A wild beast, exhausted by life, that would never be tamed…

‘His Holiness wasn’t exaggerating. That’s… closer to a ghost than a person.’

She was exactly as described.

No, actually, she was even more striking than that.

The sunken hollows beneath her eyes, the contours of her body where bone structure showed through—it looked as though she had wandered through hell before returning.

Then it was no wonder the Holy Kingdom had failed to find her all this time.

If even she had barely survived the space she’d returned from, ordinary eyes could never have reached it.

“…Oh!”

The priest, who had been standing dazed for a moment, belatedly came to his senses and shouted.

“Subdue her at once! She must be taken alive!”

-Rooaar!

The joy and excitement of finally finding ‘Chris Dotton.’

Even amid that swirling torrent of emotion, he sent the monsters first out of instinctive fear.

Chris Dotton was a vicious criminal who had seized the power the Holy Emperor sought.

There was no way he could handle her alone.

‘While those things buy me time, I’ll contact His Holiness…!’

The priest pulled a green Magic Stone from his robes.

Using it would summon the Holy Emperor directly to this location.

He’d also been told that using it frivolously would cost him his head.

But he had to use it. What His Holiness had so desperately sought was right there. He had to offer it to him immediately.

Ah, beloved Holy Emperor! Your servant has finally succeeded!

The priest happily placed the Magic Stone between his teeth.

‘How much praise would he receive? How great a reward would descend upon him? He would surely shed his lowly priest status, and perhaps even earn the glory of serving right at His side—’

But.

The thought ended there.

The shattered Magic Stone rolled across the ground.

Flump.

The priest’s body, perfectly fine just moments ago, collapsed. He was already dead.

At the same moment, a figure dressed in impossibly pure white appeared.

“A device that summons the Holy Emperor himself—surely it’s only fitting that it cost at least one human life.”

A man wearing a benevolent smile.

“That is precisely why I told you not to use it carelessly.”

He had brazenly used his own priests as sacrificial tools. It was an atrocity unbefitting the Holy Emperor, lord of the Holy Kingdom.

But it didn’t matter.

To capture her, he would do anything.

“This time, it’s no jest.”

The monster corpses that collapsed along with the falling priest.

The Holy Emperor smiled as he looked at the woman standing tall and alone among them.

“Where have you been hiding all this time? I thought I might die from missing you so.”

“…”

No answer came.

The Holy Emperor stepped toward Chris, one step at a time. His movements carried a certain urgency, quite unlike his usual composure.

He had already extended one hand. His target, naturally, was the heart she possessed.

“I have so many questions to ask you… But first, I need to reclaim what’s mine. I’ll make your soul into a Holy Relic—one capable of communicating with me, as a special favor. We can catch up then, shall we? I’d appreciate it if you didn’t resist too much—”

Drip.

The Holy Emperor’s words cut off abruptly.

His ambition-laced smile froze in place.

As expected, he’d finally noticed.

“You… crazy bastard. What the hell have you done?”