Chapter 27 (Patreon)

Squelch!

Ragnar Kagenou pulled Banjō Himē Repair from the Gate of Babylon and drove it into his own body.

The severe hallucinations, auditory distortions, and creeping mental corruption gradually began to fade.

“What are these disgusting arms supposed to be?”

Ragnar looked at the translucent arms emerging from his body, then swung Banjō Himē Repair and cut them off in one clean motion.

The instant they were severed, the translucent arms dissolved into nothing.

“Definitely a Special Grade Cursed Spirit.”

He lifted his head and looked ahead.

The entire city was buried beneath rain and mist.

Everything was wrapped in unnatural silence.

Visibility had dropped to less than five meters.

A cold, crawling sound lingered everywhere, sticking to his ears no matter where he moved.

In that silent city, countless people in black wandered the streets with eerie smiles on their faces.

They limped forward awkwardly, like puppets that had only just learned how to walk, drifting through the streets while letting out blood-chilling cries.

Their eyes were shut tight, yet they still seemed to know exactly where they were going. Once they found someone, that person would never be able to shake them off for the rest of their life.

Even so, Ragnar had no choice but to grit his teeth and feel his way through the unfamiliar city.

“————!!!”

“This is… Ragnar disappeared?”

Yuki Tsukumo, who had just been teleported away, looked around at the surrounding buildings.

They were all familiar.

And yet… the world she was seeing now felt completely wrong.

It was as though the entire world had been coated in oil, like everything around her might blur and melt away at any moment.

Then, in the next instant, the Girl in Black appeared behind her, slowly opening her tightly shut eyes to reveal murky white orbs without pupils.

A chill ran straight through Yuki’s body.

Danger.

Extreme danger.

She couldn’t move recklessly. If she provoked this Cursed Spirit, the outcome would not be pleasant.

But when Yuki tried to act, she found that her body had gone rigid, as though it no longer obeyed her.

Translucent arms slowly began to grow from behind her.

They were tiny, almost like the arms of an infant.

Cursed Technique: Star Rage.

Yuki increased her imaginary mass, forcibly breaking free from the restraint as she snapped her head around.

There was nothing there.

As if everything that had just happened had only been an illusion.

But Yuki Tsukumo didn’t believe that for a second.

The sensation from before had been far too real.

Behind her, in places the naked eye couldn’t perceive, several tiny infant-like arms continued to sway.

“This place isn’t right… Maybe this isn’t the real world at all.”

Yuki glanced down at the ground where she had increased her imaginary mass.

It had cracked open, but beneath it was no soil.

Only a hollow, bottomless darkness.

Just as she was about to leave the area, a familiar and chilling voice echoed from the silent streets around her.

“Rise up, rise up…”

The ethereal voice repeated over and over, as though hundreds—no, thousands—of people were chanting the same words in unison.

It was deeply unsettling.

The Girl in Black.

Yuki recognized that voice instantly.

She couldn’t afford to sit still and wait for death.

In the end, she followed the direction of the voice.

Staying in one place in this cursed world was useless anyway. It would be better to follow the Girl in Black. Maybe that way, she could find a path out.

If a Special Grade Cursed Spirit appeared in front of her, she wouldn’t fear it.

But this thing…

This wasn’t the kind of Special Grade that could simply be exorcised through brute force.

A short while later, Yuki Tsukumo arrived at the source of the voice.

She looked up and saw an oil painting gallery.

“Oil paintings… huh?”

Then, without the slightest hesitation, Yuki pushed her way inside the gallery.

From the outside, it looked perfectly ordinary.

But the moment she stepped in, a suffocating pressure washed over her.

Inside the dim gallery, it felt as though countless unseen eyes were staring at her from the darkness.

In her hand, Yuki found herself holding an old oil lamp.

She had no idea what kind of fuel it used, but the flame burning inside it was pitch-black.

The deeper she walked into the gallery, the stronger that sensation of being watched became.

“The path… disappeared…”

When she turned and raised the oil lamp behind her, she realized the path she had come from could no longer be illuminated.

It hadn’t merely darkened.

It had vanished.

Behind her was an immeasurable abyss, so deep it seemed capable of swallowing everything. The only solid ground in this entire space was the stretch of path directly touched by the lamp’s light.

Or rather…

Only where the oil lamp shone did a path exist.

That nearly despair-inducing sensation would have been enough to make most people freeze in fear.

But with the endless abyss behind her, the only choice left was to move forward.

“This place is twisted. It might be some form of Domain.”

“So far, aside from myself, I haven’t seen a single other living thing.”

“The Girl in Black used her voice to lure me into this oil painting gallery. And once inside, it feels like invisible eyes are watching me from every direction.”

“Then the weakness of this Cursed Spirit may also be hidden somewhere in this gallery. At the same time… that probably means this place is also incredibly dangerous.”

Yuki didn’t panic.

No matter how eerie or oppressive this place was, losing her composure would only get her killed. She had to stay calm and analyze everything logically.

As one of the few Special Grade Sorcerers in existence, a Cursed Spirit on this level wasn’t enough to shake her.

She had to trust her own judgment.

With that resolve, Yuki steeled herself and continued deeper into the oil painting gallery, searching for the hidden Girl in Black.

Every time she walked roughly four hundred meters, the scenery around her would change.

And each time it changed, it became a completely different scene.

A different street.

A different world.

“Could this really be some kind of Domain?”

Yuki walked for what felt like an eternity through the oil painting gallery.

The path ahead seemed endless.

Infinite.

Then, just like that…

Yuki Tsukumo arrived at the same square where she and Ragnar had been earlier.

“This place… Did I get out?”

Everything around her looked normal.

Bright sunlight poured down from above, and a crowd of people were protesting in the middle of the square.

Ragnar Kagenou stood there as if he had been waiting for her.

“Ragnar.”

Yuki called out to him.

Ragnar immediately turned around.

“Yuki, good timing. That Cursed Spirit was badly injured and ran off. Come on, let’s chase it.”

“Wait, hold on—”

Before Yuki could finish speaking—

Ragnar grabbed her arm and started pulling her forward.

At the same time, she felt something wrong.

The hand gripping her was wet.

“Where is this…?”

Her eyes landed on the familiar oil painting gallery, and her brow slowly furrowed.

More importantly, the “Ragnar Kagenou” in front of her seemed intent on dragging her inside.

“You’re not Ragnar.”

“Hm?”

“Cursed Spirit. You’re the one who pulled me into this world, aren’t you?”

At that moment, Yuki Tsukumo finally understood.

Everything here was reversed from reality.

A mirrored world.

“…”

The body of the Ragnar Kagenou standing before her began to warp violently, as though a screen itself were tearing apart.

“Rise up, rise up, young la~dy…”

“Ragnar” convulsed for a moment before revealing its true form.

Thump. Thump.

The one clutching Yuki Tsukumo’s arm was the Girl in Black, her lips twisted into a smile.

That smile stretched wider and wider.

Her face itself remained expressionless, and that only made it more horrifying.

Then her body suddenly flattened into a black-and-white painting—

And Yuki Tsukumo was sucked straight inside it.