While tearing strips from the curtains to wrap up a few pieces of cooked animal meat, Jeanne expressionlessly pulled shards of glass from her forearms, cheeks, and abdomen, then gestured for the black sorcerer to heal her.
Unsurprisingly, tearing away the curtain revealed another grim corridor, not the gray-white sky one might have imagined. Although it was unclear if this place even had concepts of day and night, the candlelight had grown dimmer over time, making the old hallway feel like an empty morgue. The two of them now stood in an even grimmer room off to the side—transparent corpses, a floor littered with wood splinters and broken glass, the inquisitor's torn curtains, an overturned cabinet, and soup spilled everywhere had turned this ravaged dining area into a ruin. On the brick-red walls, several portraits of nobles with solemn expressions stared at the two outsiders with eyes like a corpse's. Perhaps this place really was a morgue now.
"Does it have to be a perfect heal?" Sassel asked, looking her up and down as he pulled a glass shard from her back with his rough fingers. "In this environment, couldn't you consider not wasting my reserve mana?"
"Are the souls from the three I slaughtered enough for you?"
"I burned through a good portion, but it's barely enough."
"Then don't complain to me about it. I don't want scars on my face, and I don't care for that so-called 'warrior's brand'."
She said it again, pointing a blood-red finger at her cheek, her voice extremely hoarse. Blood dripped from the inquisitor's body like rain from a haystack. She took a bite of the cooked meat, now mixed with her own blood, and licked her lips, which were also stained red, her mouth filling with the unpleasant taste of rust.
The smell of blood and cooked meat, both human and animal, mixed together in a nauseating cloud that drifted everywhere.
She stood there in the morgue, her wrinkled black clothes clinging to her body from the crimson liquid, looking like a corpse that had just reanimated—the kind murdered with a sharp weapon.
"Is this because you shamelessly call yourself a beautiful maiden? I thought you inquisitors were all genderless."
Sassel said it with a sneer, but he healed her messy wounds without any further comment.
This body was a good head taller than the inquisitor, allowing him to look down at the woman before him. To be honest, the slowly closing wounds on her shoulders made the black sorcerer feel a bit dazed. After all, he couldn't remember the last time he had used a healing spell on someone else.
Perhaps not since seven years ago... when the Empress's troops, with the hounds of the Shadow Throne, smashed down my laboratory doors?
Back then, no one could have imagined that Caesar had gotten into bed with Iliarasath—the god worshipped by the Shadow Temple. It was around that same time that the Empress threw all the powerful figures of the Senate party into the Colosseum, letting them die in the mouths of extra-dimensional species left behind by black sorcerers, all to the cheers of the crowd. It even provided a bit of fun for the nobles and commoners who had paid for a ticket. And now, was Hod also in league with the Empress?
The immortals of this world always love to meddle in human affairs. It's so fucking annoying. Do they have any idea how much effort it took me to summon that Deep One from another world?
Sassel seriously doubted whether the servants at the Colosseum were taking good care of his poor Rick—that was the name the black sorcerer had given his Deep One. Ever since he had accidentally damaged Rick's brain during an experiment, it had been left with the intelligence of a wild boar.
"Heh heh heh," Jeanne let out a few cold laughs after forcing down a few bites of food. "Is that another one of your dark jokes? Do you need me to give you a friendly round of applause?"
She must be referring to me saying 'inquisitors are genderless', Sassel thought, snapping out of his daze.
"Generally speaking—"
Sassel paused mid-sentence.
The gray lines spreading toward the door and down the corridor were telling him something. The black sorcerer clicked his tongue and fell silent.
"Ah—is something coming?" The inquisitor's expression was foul as she said it. Being interrupted after just a few hasty bites had put her in a terrible mood. She hardly needed a cue; she understood what was happening just from the look on the black sorcerer's face.
"Yes," Sassel answered her.
"Tsk—"
After confirming the situation, the first thing Jeanne did was tie the curtain bundle of food securely to her waist, where her wounds had already healed. "Is it too late to escape with your concealment spell?"
Even an inquisitor didn't want to face such frequent combat without having eaten properly.
"The path is blocked. And my spell can deceive many senses, but not the sense of touch," he explained simply.
"Then destroy the obstacle on one of the paths, and we hide like rats again. Sounds simple enough?"
"If you think it's simple, then you can clear the path," Sassel said to her with a serene smile.
"..."
"Do you hear the footsteps?" he said again.
"All I hear is you buzzing unpleasantly like a fly."
Sassel ignored her complaint and casually scooped up the black cat. He let the soul reserves in his body begin to burn, magical energy flowing through him. He began to construct several relatively delicate spells that weren't so draining. "Head back the way we came." After speaking, he quickly enchanted both his and the inquisitor's swords with a soul-burning enchantment and constructed two simple attack-deflection spells that enveloped their bodies.
"Why didn't you just... forget it. I guess you couldn't have predicted I'd stomp the glass tabletop to pieces."
"You're so considerate."
Sassel said it with a sarcasm that lacked any sarcastic tone.
And just then, the sound of innumerable, clomping footsteps began.
Jeanne snorted, ignoring the black sorcerer's mockery. She drew her sword, her eyes fixed on the doorway. She took a deep breath, shaking off the stiffness and fatigue in her limbs. An instant later, the wall exploded inward into the room. The debris flew like a shrapnel bomb thrown by black-clad soldiers, striking the grayish-white magic barrier Sassel had erected with a deafening screech and a shudder. The ceiling and walls behind the barrier didn't escape unscathed either; old oil paintings smashed to the floor, and a window shattered with a bang. Immediately following this, a furry hand as thick as a concrete pillar reached inside.
"...What the hell is that?"
For the first instant, she thought it was a bear. In the second instant, she realized something was wrong with its arm—the forearm was strangely shaped, like a loaf of bread, and its fur was coarse, more like a handmade product. In the third instant, a teddy bear face the size of a water vat poked in. Its eyes were made of rubies, and several uneaten fingers were stuffed in its grinning mouth. A nose, so red it was almost black, was attached by a crude thread that hung from its face, swinging back and forth in the swirling dust like a corpse hanging from a tree.
"Uh... a little girl's doll?" Sassel patted her on the shoulder. "Suits your style perfectly. Go on then, beautiful maiden."
"How long are you going to keep repeating that line!?" Jeanne cursed. As she spoke, two or three giant teddy bears, each as tall as she was, had already stepped inside, their heavy footsteps making the whole floor tremble.
The candles had been completely blown out by now, but through her enchanted eyes, she could see more weirdly shaped dolls slowly advancing toward the room from the dark corridor.
"...Can we leave through the other direction?" Jeanne took a stiff step back.
"Take a look at the window behind you," Sassel reminded her.
A horrifying head, filling the entire window, stared in. Rotted human eyeballs were stuffed into its faded sockets, slowly surveying the two people in the room. The face belonged to a pink toy rabbit. Its mouth was split open in a grin, revealing malformed canine teeth as long as human fingers, and it exhaled a foul, rotten stench.
Jeanne felt like what little girlish heart she had left was about to shatter completely. I never want to see one of these things again for the rest of my life! Not even the ones they sell in toy stores!