Where am I…? Ririna hazily wakes up in the middle of a dimly lit room. How did I get here…? She tries to recall. I remember… The Alchemists Guild—Philip offered me up to the demons… I got back, he pointed a weird monocle at me, someone wearing a hood showed up, and… I don’t remember… Everything’s just kind of a blur…
This is probably it for me… I know the demons are planning to do something with me, but I can’t even move anymore. I feel like I’ve been under some kind of spell from a long time… I don’t wanna die like this… I still haven’t accomplished anything… I was so close to a breakthrough in my alchemy. I had so many ideas, but… There’s nothing I can do, is there?
Sarasa had to go back to her hometown. We’ve been friends for a long time, so she’d probably try to help. But by the time she hears I’m missing, it’s probably too late… Flanne’s a good person. She’d probably help too, but she still had work in Rocky Ridges. I got lucky last time… I had Iroha helping me when I got framed, but there’s no way she’s coming for me… It’s gonna be hard for her to get here without fast-travel. Besides…
She’s probably mad at me. I promised I’d return to Rocky Ridges to meet her, but I couldn’t keep that promise… I should have stayed back until her friend got better. I got too excited because of her ideas. Why couldn’t I just have waited? I wouldn’t have gotten kidnapped, and none of this would have happened…
Was it really love…? Like Sarasa said?
I’m sure she was just messing with me, but why did I get so nervous? Why couldn’t I just ask her if she wanted to travel together? It’s true that even now, I’m still thinking about her. Our conversation was one of a kind. Showing her my creations, sharing ideas, joking around… I would never forget that. And now, our time together is what I’ll remember in my last moments.
“The new Violence Witch is nothing like the one from the legend… and she’s coming for you!” Hoping to get saved by the Violence Witch… Looks like even my head’s not working properly anymore. Iroha’s not the Violence Witch, but that makes no difference. She’s still not gonna… Ririna didn’t finish that thought. She wanted to cling onto that last sliver of hope.
The demons don’t know that about her. For all they know, she could be the Violence Witch. They’re afraid of the possibility, so maybe I can get them to give up… “Ahahahahaha! That’s an interesting one… The Violence Witch is coming for us?” Armand broke through the tension with a loud laugh. “Fine, let her come. We’ve always known how risky this operation is. The fact that it’s risky is what makes it worth it in the first place. We put it all on the line, and if we win, we win big. That’s what it’s all about! High risk, high reward.” Armand raised his arms confidently. Ririna’s plan had backfired. Her bluff didn’t scare them off.
“I can’t believe I lost sight of something so simple… All this planning and back and forths… All useless! We should have just done the ritual immediately. It’s in situations like this that stars rise—that gods are born!” The couple other demons in the room looked up at their leader, and their fear subsided. “Listen up guys, we’re starting the ritual as soon as possible. Hurry up and finish the preparations already! If the Violence Witch decides to return from the dead after hundreds of years to stop us, we’ll put her back in her place. We’ll show her the demons she fought are not the same as us.”
Armand’s lackeys let out a cheer, and their hands started moving at full speed, setting up the necessary props. Armand smiled, pleased with the situation and himself. He turned back to Ririna, now free of worries. “As thanks for making things interesting, I’ll give you one last chance, human. If you agree to work together with us, there’s no point in performing this ritual, and we can even leave this country alone for now.”
“Huh…? Work with you?”
“That’s right. Your hero, or savior, or whatever you people call it, has a thing that we want. A certain traitorous demon is trying to work together with you humans, and she offered your destined hero a little something… A device that’s mean to aid the hero’s growth, a thing known as the VISS Driver.” The what? Ririna had never heard the name before.
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“You have a skill that allows you to isolate and remove certain things in your alchemy, don’t you?” She did. Ririna didn’t understand the full extent of the skill, but she knew from experience that she had something like that. “The VISS Driver combines with its user on a level that’s impossible to remove with any conventional methods. But if we combine your skill with our technology, there is a way to extract the VISS Driver from the hero. Then I can take it for myself and flip this world on its head! We’ve shared this world with others for far too long. It’s time for things to change!”
… “There’s no way I’d ever agree to that!” The existence of humanity’s hero was crucial for the safety of all humans. Stealing something like that from the hero would be the same as betraying all of humanity. “I’d rather die than you help you take over the world. I’m an alchemist. An alchemist’s purpose is to help others and make things to make the world better, not spread bloodshed.”
“Ahahahahaha! How ignorant. Do you even know how your own superiors are?” Ririna bit her lip in frustration. It was true. Not all alchemists saw things the same way as her. Some were more interested in their own gains. “Oh well, I gave you a chance. We can extract your skill with this ritual and have one of us learn it. The outcome is not gonna change…”
No way… I just wanted to create things to help people… I never asked for a weird skill like that… Why did I have to get something like that? If I had never learned that skill—if I had never been born, humanity wouldn’t… Please… Someone…
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“Looks like this is the place…” I went to the spot marked on the map, and sure enough, there was a mansion waiting for me.
This part of the city looks wealthier than the other places I’ve been to. The houses are much bigger, and they’re not packed as closely together. This mansion was surrounded by walls, and the plot of land was larger than it needed to be, leading to a spacious garden that isolated the house from the rest of the world.
Walls are obviously not enough to keep me out, and the various trees make it easy for me to move around and get closer without getting spotted. “Not like it matters. With how dark it is, no one’s gonna notice me anyway.” Not a single sliver of light could be seen from the mansion, making the moon my only source of light. It was late, but not late enough for the lights to be completely off. “That’s weird… Why are their lights off?”
For me, that was all the evidence I needed. “The demons are here.” No doubt about it! “Arggh!” I just wanna burst in there already! I can’t, though… Carol told me to wait… “Wait for her signal… Patience, Iroha. Patience…” Even so, I can’t just sit still right now. I’m gonna run some reconnaissance while I wait.
I approached the mansion, jumping from tree to tree. I investigated every window I could, and I saw a lot of people inside. They weren’t using any lights, but the curtains were wide open, so they could see. More importantly, they were all demons… Maybe not all, I don’t know. It was kinda hard to tell with how dark it was. Some of them had horns, though. I’m definitely in the right place, but…
I haven’t seen Ririna yet. She should be here, right? Am I too late? The only place left to check was some kind of tall annex with some windows on top. “Can’t really see anything from these trees…” No other choice, I’ll have to climb up the wall. There was no one patrolling outdoors, so I was able to jump down from the tree and get up to the window unnoticed. “Ughh… I still can’t see anything… It’s too dark in there.” Still, if Ririna’s gonna be somewhere, it’s probably in here.
I hurried back to the trees to hide while I waited for Carol’s signal. I can’t afford to mess things up at this point. “Time to come up with a plan… I could enter directly into that annex, but that seems like a bad idea. I’d probably get surrounded right away… That’s right… Fighting them on even ground is not gonna work. There’s a lot of demons here, and without Violence stacks, I don’t really stand a chance, do I?”
Probably not given how things played out on the rooftops. “That means I have to catch them by surprise… Take out a small group of them before they can react, then try to build up stacks while making my way to the annex. If I enter through the opposite end, I can take out everyone on the way there, and there will be no one left to attack me from behind!”
All that’s left is to wait… “What are you doing, Carol? Hasn’t it been half an hour yet?” I check my phone while looking down to the lower part of the city. “Come on, Carol… Hurry up…”
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“So this is the hideout she found. It’s kinda like the one I found. They sure know how to blend into the environment.” After asking for some time, Carol ran straight to the enemy base she found. That wasn’t her real destination, but she had to finish something there first. She discretely moved some things around, then left as soon as possible for her real destination. The other hideout—the one Iroha found.
“I haven’t seen any barrels here… How is this group planning to cause damage?” She silently walked through the dark alleyways that led to the location marked on the map. She eagerly carried her sword out in the open in one of her hands, while the other held a small remote with few buttons.
“Can I pull this off? Can I take down all the demons here on my own?” She was pushing herself. She knew that. She kept her plan a secret to hide that the last step was a one-man raid. “I have to. Iroha’s going to their main base. She has it way worse than me. If I can’t even handle this much, then why am I even here? She’s counting on me.”
Carol looked off in the direction she just came, to the other base. “I hope what I’ve done is enough to involuntarily enlist the princess’s help.” Carol’s plan involved using Bea’s forces to handle the demons at the hideout that neither she nor Iroha could cover. “Flanne reacted to their attack on Iroha at the Alchemists’ Guild pretty quickly. I saw it from my room.” Let’s hope she acts just as fast this time.
She turned to the simple house where the demons were supposed to be and took a deep breath. Iroha… Everything that’s chaining you—that’s trying to hold you down, I’ll get off you… I’ll blow it all away… “Let’s give them hell.” Carol looked at the remote on her hand, and…
*Click.*
…
*BBOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!*
A violent explosion far behind Carol shook the whole city and illuminated the dark sky. “Go crazy, Iroha.”