Listening to the sudden sound of pouring rain, Seolrang stared blankly at Lime.

Her expression remained unchanged.

As she bit her lips anxiously and looked at Seolrang, not a trace of deception could be found on her face.

Anxiety.

That was all Seolrang could read from Lime’s face.

Seolrang suddenly recalled the pranks Lime had played on her so far.

She used to play various tricks on her.

But never once.

Had she ever played such a cruel joke.

However, what if she had taken advantage of this situation and turned it into a prank?

From what Seolrang had heard, Lime could be quite mischievous with others, even if not with her.

As her thoughts reached that point, Seolrang recalled the wrongs she had done to Lime recently.

Was it because she had stolen the dessert she had excitedly bought upon returning from Ashtalon?

Or perhaps it was because she had broken one of her cherished plates?

…Thinking back, it wouldn’t be so strange for Lime to play such a trick, considering how badly she had treated her.

Feeling a slight twinge of guilt, Seolrang smiled.

Sentences arranged themselves in her mind.

It was a prank.

This was Lime’s prank.

A joke.

Yes, a joke.

Since she was the one who had wronged her first.

Lime, unable to hold back any longer, was taking her own form of revenge.

That had to be it.

But.

“Hey, don’t joke around, Lime—”

Lime’s expression was too real for a prank.

“Hey—what are you talking about?”

Unknowingly, Seolrang’s voice trembled at the end.

Lime remained silent.

Seeing this, Seolrang reacted even more cheerfully.

“I know I’ve been a bit harsh lately, but isn’t this prank too much?”

Lime still remained silent.

“Huh? Lime? If you want, I can buy you another dessert to make up for it!?”

Seolrang shouted, her smile growing brighter.

Her voice trembled a little more.

Yet Lime remained silent.

“…Lime, I told you, I don’t like these kinds of pranks.”

As the silence refused to break, Seolrang’s lips stiffened, and she murmured quietly.

By now, Lime should have spoken up.

Saying it was just a joke.

That she was just playing a trick because Seolrang had stolen her dessert.

That was the reaction she needed.

Because this was just a prank.

But since it had gone on long enough,

Now.

She had to say it.

A response.

Seolrang looked at Lime.

Lime kept her mouth tightly shut.

And in her eyes, along with anxiety, another emotion emerged.

…Seeing that, Seolrang shook her head involuntarily, as if she couldn’t understand.

It couldn’t be. This had to be a joke.

It had to be a prank.

Yes, it was just a terribly bad joke.

But.

But why.

Why was Lime making that kind of face?

“Seolrang.”

Lime called her name.

Then, she slightly parted her lips.

Again and again.

As if speaking was too difficult.

And then.

Her lips—

“Shall we go buy dessert!?”

—did not open.

Before she could say anything, Seolrang had already grabbed Lime’s hand.

Her lips curled into a smile.

A smile so forced, anyone could see it was unnatural.

“That’s what this is about, right? Let’s go buy some! It won’t take long! We can be back before Master arrives! Let’s hurry and go!?”

Cheerfully laughing, Seolrang pulled Lime towards the door.

As if trying to run away from the truth,

She held onto Lime’s hand tightly.

But.

Because it was too pitiful.

“This is not a joke, Seolrang.”

Lime had no choice but to bring her the truth.

Seolrang came to an abrupt halt, and Lime felt a suffocating pressure in her chest.

“…Two days ago, the merchant group traveling with the Marquis was attacked by an unknown man, and only a few survived.”

“……”

“And among those survivors was Sir Evan, the Marquis’s escort knight…”

Lime stopped speaking there.

It wasn’t by choice.

A murderous aura.

A chilling presence started to suffocate her.

“Hic…!”

A killing intent so thick it felt as though it could snap her breath at any moment.

It was.

Coming from Seolrang.

Lime had no choice but to stop talking.

“…Where are they?”

“Huh?”

“The ones who did that to Master. Where are they?”

Lime saw it.

Seolrang’s eyes.

Void of any emotion.

Devoid of even the smallest fragment of feeling.

Her gaze, as if something crucial had completely shattered and collapsed.

Lime swallowed hard.

####

“Urk…!”

The first to react to the horrific sight beneath the cliff was Penia.

She turned away and dropped to her knees, vomiting.

Rine also furrowed her brow, as if finding the scene unbearable to face.

The view below the cliff was devastating.

No, calling it devastating was an understatement—it was so gruesome it could only be described as hell itself.

Alon rolled his eyes.

No matter where he looked, all he could see were corpses.

If that were all.

He wouldn’t have thought it was this brutal and horrific.

Alon had lived in Psychedelia for over ten years, witnessing countless corpses.

Rine and Penia were no different.

Just seeing dead bodies wouldn’t have made them flinch or gag.

In a dark fantasy world like this, encountering corpses was an everyday occurrence.

So what was it that brought such an overwhelming sense of despair?

Alon shifted his gaze to the side.

It wasn’t just corpses that he saw.

There was a mountain made of severed heads from various species.

Turning his eyes in another direction, he saw another mountain—this one formed from brutally slaughtered bodies.

Right beside it, ‘things’ were ripping apart and mutilating the corpses in grotesquely cruel ways.

And when he turned again, he saw the living being hunted.

There was no other word for it.

The first thing that came into view were non-human species desperately fleeing with their arms restrained.

There were all kinds of races.

Elves and beastkin, whom Alon recognized, and others he had never seen before.

Men, women, children—it made no difference.

All of them had their arms bound in restraints as they ran for their lives.

And the ones chasing them were ‘humans.’

‘No… they aren’t human?’

Alon noticed small protrusions growing from the tops of their heads.

Their overall shape resembled that of humans, but there was something unmistakably alien about them.

Before he could contemplate further, one of these creatures grabbed hold of a beastkin.

Alon witnessed its final moments.

Spears impaling its stomach.

The beastkin let out a tortured scream—one so agonizing that it would have been better to die instantly.

And those creatures…

They were laughing.

As if they were having fun.

Without any hesitation, they pushed the spears in deeper.

They were clearly treating this entire situation as a game.

“……”

For the first time, Alon’s usually calm and emotionless eyes sank deep into darkness.

###

“Aaaaaaaah—!!!”

“Hiiik—!”

A horrifying scream tore through the air.

At the same time, a white-haired girl, who had been running desperately, tripped on a rock and crashed face-first into the ground.

Dirt filled her mouth.

It had a sickening taste, perhaps because it was soaked in old blood.

But she had no time to dwell on the taste or the pain.

She scrambled to her feet and began running again.

Her ankle throbbed as if it might snap from the fall.

Still, she did not stop.

Instead, with tears streaming down her face, she clenched her teeth and ran even harder.

She knew all too well what would happen if she stopped now.

But then—

Crack.

“Ugh—!”

As if mocking her desperation, her already weakened legs gave out, creaking like broken gears.

And finally—

Thud!

“Aaaaah!!!”

A sharp, excruciating pain shot through her thigh, sending her rolling onto the ground.

A searing agony consumed her body.

Her mind could only process one thought— It hurts.

“Uuuugh—! Ugh—!”

Even in such agony, she clawed at the dirt, desperately dragging her body forward.

She had to escape.

She had to run.

She had to get out of here, no matter what.

So she could survive.

So she could find her family—

Her mother.

Her father.

Her friends.

“Ugh…!”

She bit back the pain and pulled herself forward.

The stench of blood filled her nose.

The foul odor of a battlefield soaked with countless deaths tormented her senses.

But then—

“You’re trying really hard to run, huh?”

“…!”

Unfortunately, that was the end of her escape.

A rough hand seized her white hair, yanking her up.

It was the same man who had impaled her thigh with a spear.

Her silver-white hair, now dirtied with blood and soil, was mercilessly pulled back.

She let out a faint groan as she was lifted off the ground.

The man sneered at her helpless form.

And then—

“KyAAAAAAA!!”

As if it was nothing, he twisted the spear still embedded in her thigh.

Her screams tore through the night as her body convulsed violently.

The man only smirked at her suffering.

“Yeah, that’s it. Scream louder. Cry out like the world is ending. Send your terror to Lord Baarma. You can do that, right?”

He pushed the spear even deeper.

And then—

The girl’s body went limp.

She had lost consciousness from the pain.

Without hesitation, the man yanked the spear from her leg—

“For you, Lord Baarma, I offer this.”

With a bright smile, he raised the spear high into the sky.

His frenzied eyes glowed as he fixated on the girl’s heart, her body still bleeding onto the dirt.

And then—

Her disheveled hair framed her delicate, youthful face, now filled with hopelessness.

She had realized the truth.

No matter how much she struggled, she could not escape.

She would die here.

A single tear slid down her cheek.

Memories flickered through her mind like shattered fragments of light.

Her parents’ faces.

Her younger sibling’s smile.

Her friends.

The people of her village.

All the precious moments she had shared with them flashed before her eyes like a fading dream.

The fierce determination that had burned in her gaze, even in this dire situation— began to fade.

The end was coming.

The man sneered as he raised his spear.

He aimed for her heart.

And then—

Crack.

A tiny, nearly imperceptible sound rang in her ears.

“…Huh?”

She became aware of two things.

One—she was being held in someone’s arms.

And two—

“Are you alright?”

The person who had saved her…

Was a man with an emotionless face.

“Penia, can you heal her?”

“I’m not a specialist, but I can handle emergency treatment.”

The man—Alon—handed the white-haired girl over and immediately turned his back.

At the same time—

Crackle—!!!

From his head, two horns of lightning began to grow.

“……Ah.”

The girl’s eyes fixated on the man’s back.

A divine figure, cloaked in lightning.