Muyoku no Seijo wa Okane ni Tokimeku

32. Leo, - stained with blood

Late at night, in the woods.

With a darkness that didn't even echo the sound of the beast, the two figures looked at each other and stood.

In their hands there are balls of light and glowing crystals.

No, should I say it was a crystal "ball"?

It emitted so much blinding light until earlier that it was now splendidly broken in two, weakly about to be swallowed by the darkness of the night.

"I see..."

Eventually he completely lost his light and looked down at the crystal, which just lay on his hands limp, and Alberto muttered quietly.

"An elderly mentor who was carrying Leonora,... known as Aryl Ado, is the man who serves as regent of the present Errand Autonomy. As far as listening to the interaction between the two of them, geez, I guess he was even trying to use the power of the Dark Spirit to hold onto Eland's real power... sounds like a reproduction from seven years ago. And Leonora saw it through."

Its ice-blue eyes seemed firmly engraved with the sight that had been transferred to the crystal until earlier.

"Leonora said it was in his hands, from a relaxed man reproduced by a snowsongbird. You looked like the same building where Leonora's room was. The distance traveled is not that long either. … perhaps in the basement of the cathedral, like a hidden room"

"... the crystal didn't hold until the end, bad"

Lena briefly apologizes to Alberto for putting a finger joint on her lip and thinking about it.

The crystal, which was terrible until the end of its useful life, broke a crack while Leonora von Harkenberg was being taken away and thought to be underground and transported to a room.

After the snow songbird flies, and as a result of designating it, Leo's nature ends up playing only exquisite scenes, and the crystal is dressed as broken.

It is a shoulder watermark and a delight that the debacle of the replacement play that I was prepared for didn't come - for Lena today, I wanted it to play to the point where I could identify more places, because I could do anything with the debacle.

Alberto shook his head with a serious look at Lena with a rugged look on her face.

"Say what. If you hadn't secured this crystal and come up with its use, I couldn't identify the killer or the approximate location. Thank you.... of the cathedral where the witches are sleeping, underground. That's enough to know. And then I'll join the cathedral with strength."

Lena laughs bitterly at the word force.

It was the means that Lena and Alberto, who were magical, had chosen at times indefinitely - the sounding words that were now the least realistic, without the use of magic.

But what did Alberto think of the look on his face, when he embarked on it, he told him forcefully.

"True.... I can't use magic right now, but there are some cards like power and financial power. Let them open the gates of the cathedral, even though they shake their titles as the First Prince of the Empire and denigrate all the money in the land of Elland to stone."

In poisonous rhetoric besides thoughts, Lena laughs a little.

"... then you're like a villain. I can't imagine Sama's clean white prince line."

"Human nature, which is said to be clean and white, is usually like this. Are you disappointed?

"No.... that's better"

To Alberto, who tells her with an ironic grin, she replied, heartily.

That's right.

This attitude of Alberto was unexpected but, at the same time, unexpectedly preferable to Lena, who only thought of him as a "blonde aristocrat with a sweet head".

I don't hate strong people.

Some people are smart, small, and aware of their disgust.

"In the capital (Legrand), perhaps Gustav's mentor has taken some action as well. That way, spiritual power is added to the power to open the diocese and rescue Leonora"

To Alberto, who continues to calm down, so Lena added:

- And wisdom.

"Huh?"

"Mine, wisdom, use it. I'll leave the rushing role to you, but I'm on my way to Elland too. By the time we get there, we'll figure out if we can use the new magic or the maneuver… I'm sure it'll help save Leo, Nora"

Alberto gave a convincing look and nodded to her, who was a civilian but came up with the use of crystals under magic restrictions.

"Sure. Let's help Leonora out together"

Thus, riding a horse in a graceful manner, he looks down at Lena from there and tells her.

"Leo. When we met earlier, I thought people had apparently changed - after all, you, you always help me.... It's good to see you here."

"Huh...?

To a word I never thought of, Lena glanced slightly, but when Alberto told it only briefly "then," he kicked the horse's belly and left.

Later Lena, and Kai and his lord who watched the exchange, and Bruno remained.

Oscar is already driving his horse and rushing to Weitz.

When Lena shook her head and changed her mind, she immediately turned her thoughts around about the next action she should take.

Kai said he would wait for dawn to move, but then I'm sure he won't make it.

Or I'm in a hurry, and I can't keep revealing the night.

The fact that the crystal broke and I couldn't figure out how Leo was doing any more also aroused a rush.

I may just get lost in the unfamiliar night woods, but still quickly, I wanted to rush to the cathedral myself.

(Bruno should be able to take sides in the night and darkness. If we go through the woods and force the rest, we should reach Le Grand at dawn)

If we quickly concluded and turned our gaze to Bruno, he would have stood still a little further away from his earlier position to be slight.

You mean your best friend's crisis was so shocking?

I thought I avoided the "fix" once, but it came suddenly, so I couldn't help it.

With that in mind, Lena was annoyed at him for never trying to move, and shrugged his shoulder.

"Hey, Bruno -"

but.

'-... to,... eh. At this fingertip, … yes, stiff, bring whoever desires to the beginning of its abyss… eh'

I let go of my hand much more when I realized he was whispering something out loud that I couldn't hear.

"... Bruno?

'... power in my hands. In the vast darkness of nostalgia, … rushi even. At this fingertip, gather, stiff…'

Apparently, that was, like, an old Ellandic.

I try to stare at the void, with a horribly serious look, just, I keep saying the same phrase.

Darkness. Gather.

Take yourself to the other side, following its darkness.

In summary, is that the place?

With that intention in mind, Lena took a breath.

He was not rigid in his friend's predicament.

For a long time now, I concentrated my spirit and called to the Spirit of Darkness.

It's hard to tell because the area is surrounded by darkness in the middle of the night, but if you stare closely, only around Bruno, it also looks darker.

And his black eyes dwelt in such a strange glow that even in this darkness he could see its color.

"Bruno -"

'Don't interrupt, interrupt. We're almost there. Almost there, following the darkness, we should be ready to go out to the ritual place'

…………

From his early, discarded words, he perceived what he was trying to say, and Lena stared seriously at Bruno.

Follow the darkness into the ceremonial setting.

Perhaps we should use spiritual power to move to the altar where Leo is bracketed to invoke the Spirit of Darkness.

The Spirit of Water, for example, is also free to walk across darkness so that he can freely come and go through all water sources throughout the continent.

Naturally, the Spirit of Darkness should be able to reach a place where a man's greed is elaborate, to open a monstrous ritual.

Bruno was trying to get a ride on it.

If there's a way to do that, just say it, screams like that stick up your throat, but it's not good to think calmly and inadvertently let the Albertos know where he's from.

A closer look at that revealed that Bruno's brown skin would have sweat and a considerable load on it.

Then he repeated his prayers a few times, blowing a slightly warmer breeze around Bruno, and at the same time, he raised his gaze.

He had black eyes everywhere, like he was sucked in.

'- We've got a story. Let's go. I hear the ritual hasn't been completed, and I can't fly in a straight line like I'm being summoned. But we should get there sooner than we can use a horse.'

"Yes, go, fly..."

Lena was baffled by the glare of the expansion, but when convinced herself that it was similar to witchcraft, she nodded.

I don't understand the mechanism of spiritual power, but anyway, I found that I could rush to Leo quickly.

That's all I need now.

'Okay. Take Me.'

Bruno has offered his hand, so I take it without hesitation, answering it in Ellandic.

I realized, "Mr. Leo...? Mr. Bruno......?," Lena threw only words at Kai, who called from afar.

"Bad, Ky. We're going to Elland without waiting for dawn. If we can meet, we can meet. Bye!"

"Huh......!? Le, Mr. Leo!? But without a fire...!

Listening behind Kai's back screaming like he was in a panic.

- Fluffy...

I saw the darkness around me stiffened and loosened up like the wind, at that moment.

Lena and the others were disappearing from the woods.

Darkness was chaos.

Without left, right, up, down, back and forth, there is no sense of time.

I mean, what does that mean?

"Uhhh, uhh, give me a break..."

"Lena. Speak as much in Elandean as you can in the realm of the Spirit"

Lena had her body shaken back, forth, left, and right so much that she couldn't even afford to fix the language, holding her mouth with both hands to nausea.

I don't even know how much this state of affairs goes on anymore.

If you're alarmed, you're going to be showing off what's in your stomach right now.

'I didn't know it would take some time, I heard, I was there... but I didn't mean this off-road driving... hey, I didn't, I didn't...!

'If you want to throw up, throw up. Anyway, in this darkness, I can't even see what you threw up.'

'No, that's not the problem... Huh?

Even the voice that penetrates is weak.

Glocky, as you're pulling your mouth together in an extreme state, Bruno says,

"If it had been magical, the area would have been rough. I'm glad you're Leo's body."

and I've hung up words that don't even follow.

Anything, it seems that Aryl Addo has long neglected to pray to the Spirit of Light, so much so that the power of darkness is now about to lose control.

It was for that reason that Bruno was unstable in the region, even in a state "fixed" by prayer.

'Rougher than I thought. At this point, the spiritual beads are quite cloudy. As it is...... once the ritual of sacrifice to the Spirit of Darkness has been established, darkness will gain momentum, and in the ritual of dawn life, instead of the Spirit of Light emitting sunlight from the sky, the whole sky will be covered by dark clouds and the scourge will be scattered'

Bruno is thoughtful.

Though he could not gaze at his emotions from his black eyes, the safety of his best friend and his responsibility as a descendant of Norius seemed to occupy his breasts.

The ritual is established.

That means Leo loses his life after suffering.

That should have been something you absolutely wanted to avoid, both as a Bruno individual and as a lover of the Spirit of Darkness.

"... I won't let you do that,"

"Oh."

Besides, we'll both shut up.

How much would I have done that?

When I thought the red light jumped in front of my lid, the next moment a strong wind struck Lena's body.

The wind disappeared as soon as he put his arm up and covered his face.

Instead, his sight opened gently, and Lena was slammed to the floor hard.

We arrived at the destination - the site of the ritual.

"-... Holy shit!

A scream spills unexpectedly, but Bruno next door seems to have landed well.

Bend over and look around quickly in a position with only your right hand poked to the floor.

There were a few dubious men there who saw this one in a slight way.

"You, who..."

But his upper body was swept out, faster than they screamed to the end in a black headscarf,

"Cover"

Bruno chanted low.

Really, the men faint on the spot one after the other, leaking screams and gesturing like scratching their throats.

Lena stretched her face to so much power that she could hardly even see it in magic.

"Hey, what did you...?

"I covered these guys' consciousness with darkness.... In short, I stunned him '

Bruno answers briefly, making sure that there are no other enemies and bumpers, and he quickly rises to the spot. That's how I looked around the room.

Lena imitated it, peering around, covering her nose.

It smells terrible.

(awful, of blood...... smell)

In the eyes that have been in the dark for so long, there are even tons of candle lights blinding.

Get used to your eyes as you blink and look for Leo.

What a suspicious space.

No windows, just walls stacked with sturdy stones.

Black stained spiritual cloth.

In a candle that burns with tons of wax dripping, a pig's body, a bloody floor.

(Leo... where...?

Moving his eyes slightly, Lena's chest began to have a slightly unpleasant feeling.

Unlike witchcraft, which is capable of instantaneous travel, we do not even know when it is now that we arrive, to cross darkness without even the concept of time.

Skin sensation suggests we could have arrived so early than Alberto - but if ever since we left, would it have been quite a while?

(No, it can't be)

My gaze slips.

Somewhere in my mind I couldn't concentrate and look around the altar as if I were refusing to accept reality.

"Leo......"

I am surprised that the voice I called upon was smaller and more plundering than I thought.

Lena scolded herself and raised her voice.

"Leo!"

On the altar, there are no figures.

There's just a sturdy looking chain rolling around.

So, where?

The neck of a goat sitting beside it, a gold coin with blood in it.

Gradually shifting your gaze downward as you follow them with your eyes.

Poof, and the blood dripping from the gold coins.

The unconscious man, his wild arm stretched, on the floor ahead...

"- …………………!"

The girl with her eyes closed and lying still - there was a look of Leo.

Lena screams something out loud and burns her throat with magic.

My brain refused to understand what I was seeing right now.

Leo, clutching together an exotic robe, is holding the area around his belly with both hands.

The belly was red and black and dirty enough to be clearly seen in the darkness, and the blood, smudging the entire outfit gently, spread on the floor.

That, out of the gaps in your blood-soaked hands, what you see.

Something, red and black, ugly shaped - guts.

"Lie... so,... eh"

Hiku, my throat rings.

Bruno, who was advancing his feet toward the altar, also stopped and groaned in dismay.

"Leo......?

Leo was falling, showing his guts from his belly and bleeding heavily.