Prologue 6
「Wh-Wh-What is this!?」
I couldn’t stand as the ground beneath shook, causing me to fall on my butt. When I looked up, I saw Lark’s back. I couldn’t see her face.
That made me unbearably anxious, but that wasn’t all. Everyone in the surroundings fell into panic due to the magnitude of tremors never experienced before.
Some screamed, some crouched on the ground, and some cried for God.
「Calm down, you guys. This is–」
The mine chief’s words were pointless.
「Ah!」I let out a dumbfounded sound.
I saw it because I was looking up. The ceiling around the hole began to collapse. This cave was outside the range of the dungeon. As such, it can be destroyed and it can collapse.
There was no time to warn people to run. Huge rocks were already falling down. Screams rose from everywhere.
And I clearly saw it happen.
「What the hell is going o–」
A huge rock fell on the head of the duke, who was crouching with his head in his arms on top of the platform. The platform broke and the duke fell to the ground, a pool of blood spread around him. And that’s when I saw… the headless body of the duke twitching on the ground.
Immediately after that, I felt something strange in my body. As though a storm raged inside my body.
「Aa… AAA, AAAA, AAAAAAAA!!!」
I remembered the freezing winter. The night I spent alone in the barn without even a blanket.
I feel so lonely, so cold, so sad, so painful. Why? Why am I the only one treated like this? Aaah, it hurts. Somebody make it stop. So hard, so cold. I don’t like being alone. So lonely, so painful, so cold. Why? Why am I the only one? Why does everyone treat me like this? So painful. No more. No more. No more. No more. Nomorenomorenomorenomorenomorenomorenomore——-
「AAAAAAAAARGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!」
I hated them. My family. They shunned me, threw stones at me, my siblings stole my food. My father and mother pretended not to see me. They said they didn’t want to be associated with someone like me who had black hair and black eyes. And I remember. My father who tried to kill me over and over again. To protect my siblings he said. And I remember. My mother who promised to kill me with her own hands when my father beat her, suspecting that I was born of an affair.
I managed not to be killed. Because I ran away to the barn at night. However, the wounds I received during the day were painful, and agonizing, and I wanted to cry, but what was more agonizing was my hunger.
And one day when a peddler visited the village, I sold myself. Voluntarily. If I hadn’t, my parents would’ve killed me before long.
I was vomiting. Everything I had just eaten not long ago. The meat I ate with the soup was rotten. The potatoes and carrots were badly discolored and shouldn’t even be eaten in the first place. Even the bread was just a baked, roughly milled, coarse wheat. A black mass that had been overcooked was lying in the gastric juice.
Until now, it had all been a deception. I had been eating those things which wouldn’t even be fed to livestocks.
I finally realized.
「It was because of the contract magic…」
The painful memory that suddenly came to life, and the poor “food” I noticed I had been eating, made tears flow out from my eyes. But the blue color was clearly visible even with my blurred watery vision; a bangle-like tattoo on my skinny white arm
Everything was done by the contract magic.
Don’t let the slaves become rebellious. Especially, don’t let the criminal slaves feel anything out-of-place. Don’t let slaves cook up trouble with each other. As though to hypnotize and turn the people into flocks of sheep, they gave us contract magic.
But now, the magic was released.
Why? The reason is that the duke, who was the “owner” of us slaves and the “master” designated in the contract magic, was dead.
Similar noises were coming from around me. About half the slaves were crouching and vomiting like me, but the other half had already started to act. Two tattoos on their arms. Criminal slaves.
One slave knocked down a mine soldier, took the sword, and slit the soldier’s throat without any hesitation.
「Gyahahahahaha! I am finally free!」
…Isn’t that person… the man who patted my head from behind and told me to eat more in the cafeteria?
…And that person there who kicked down a mine soldier, is the one who helped me when I was struggling with a heavy bag in the mine.
…And the person who is kicking away the vomiting slaves in his path is the one who taught me what to do when I encounter a monster in the mine.
Everyone’s contract magic was released at the same time.
Thus, a flood of memories and emotions must have rushed back into their head. There was no one to restrict them anymore.
Of course, when they became slaves, their main skills must have been removed. Old man Hinga said that there was a skill with the ability to attach and detach skills. Still, the slaves were strong, especially the criminal slaves. Much more than the, although trained, less experienced mine soldiers.
「Soldiers, suppress the slaves! Quickly! Get the help of adventurers too!」the mine chief screamed.
When I saw his face, I doubted my own eyes. So this man had such an ugly face with bloodshot eyes smeared with pure greed, huh…
It seems that all painful things were covered up with a lid to make us obedient slaves. Not only that, but everything that caused bad feelings was shut out.
「H-Hey! You! That is–」
「This was originally mine!!」
I heard a very familiar voice, and looked over in that direction.
The person who I thought of as my “older sister”, and the one who called me her “little brother”, was now holding the rainbow-coloured skill orb in her hand.
That light is bad…, I felt goosebumps on my skin. The skill orb that Lark held in her hand was certainly a rainbow color, but rather than the pure beauty I had felt a while ago, it felt more eerie, as though something unknown, something ominous was glaring at me.
「Lark! Don’t—」
My voice didn’t reach her.
Lark stretched out her thin right hand up to the sky. The rainbow-colored skill orb shone even more brilliantly, and was sucked into her body.
「So this is【Shadow King ★★★★★★】. This is the power of a 6-star!!」
Lark’s lips trembled as laughter escaped her mouth.
However, the mine chief immediately gave out orders.
「Capture her! No, cut off her arms and legs, and leave her helpless! But don’t kill her! Otherwise, we won’t be able to pull out the skill orb!!」
The soldiers rushed towards Lark. They didn’t seem to have any intention of holding back, as they charged with their swords and shields raised.
「Come, my sword.」
When she held out her hand, something black, in a crescent shape, shot out of her palm and cleaved through the air.
It engulfed several soldiers, cleaving their bodies in two, even destroying the shield, and disappeared.
The mine chief screamed. He turned his back to Lark, and started running. He was too close to Lark.
Not just the mine chief. Even the soldiers ordered to attack Lark were running away.
「Don’t try to run.」
Lark raised her hand and swung it down. A black shadow surged forth and cleaved the mine chief right in half. The mine chief’s bisected body fell to the right and left symmetrically. His internal organs and blood spilled out.
I felt like vomiting looking at that, but I had vomited everything a while ago, so nothing came out.
「…………」
Lark looked down at me as I sat on the ground.
The torch dropped by a nearby soldier was reflected in Lark’s violet eyes.
「Little brother.」
What I felt at that time was fear.
Her skinny face was still composed. I don’t know if it was because she killed a person or because of some other feeling, but her eyes carried a tinge of sorrow.
Help me…, I felt like she uttered those words. No, it’s just my hallucination. Lark hasn’t opened her mouth, has she?
「Can you stand?」
In her hand that was reached out to me, I saw shadows crawling. I reflexively shrank away. Lark was taken aback and pulled back her hand.
Lark was looking me in the eye. I wanted to see her face, too. But I couldn’t.
She then turned away.
「…The exit is open. You should escape too.」
She left behind those words and trotted away.
「Ah…」I knew I had to say something to her. There were so many things I could have said to her.
But I was unable to. Was it because I was feeling guilty for not taking her hand? Was it because I couldn’t take the hand of a murderer? Was I thinking I was going to be killed, too?
「Goodbye, little brother…」
I’m an idiot. I didn’t take her hand.
I knew I would regret this forever, but I still couldn’t speak.
