Chapter One Hundred and Eighty-Eight: Witnesses
As a result, Karen hadn’t been able to save the pegasus child in the form the pegasus parent had wished. However, she could see that the pegasus no longer had any intention of harming them.
“Is being weak really something to lament so much?”
Waltride asked with a complicated expression. That question might have been one Waltride wanted to ask her own mother.
‘If you cannot fight, it means you cannot survive. And it means you cannot die properly either. You might be captured again, and next time something worse than death might happen.’
Looking at the eggs lined up against the wall, the pegasus shuddered.
‘You must become strong. Fight, and become able to die, Waltride. It seems you were also supposed to be reduced to that state.’
“That state? —No way.”
‘The humans who were transporting you said so. That you would become a black human.’
Waltride turned pale and was struck speechless.
Why had the princess been brought here? It was to try on her the experiment that had succeeded with the monster eggs.
Waltride looked toward the back of the room with a pale face. There was an especially large device there.
Nothing was in it, and Karen had wondered how large an egg they intended to put in, but apparently, it was a device prepared for humans.
‘You must learn to fight, so that you can die properly.’
After admonishing Waltride in a motherly tone, the pegasus looked at Karen.
‘What do you think should be done to help the cursed monster eggs?’
Asked by the pegasus, Karen looked at the lined-up black eggs.
“What do you think, Ms. Pegasus?”
‘They seem to be seeking magical power, so I think giving them magical power might work, but I cannot even imagine how much magical power would satisfy these children. Is there another method?’
Isaac had apparently infused magical power into a black stone—an egg—triggering the curse on the egg. So even if they gave magical power, they couldn’t do it the way Waltride had just done with the pegasus child. Because the eggs here were no longer alive.
‘In other places too, I sensed the presence of cursed eggs. In that direction, there was a pitiful voice crying out in hunger, far weaker than the children here… but I can no longer hear it. I only hope that one was able to reach a proper end.’
The direction the pegasus indicated with her nose was around where the prison Julius had been put in was located. Julius had been force-fed the nightmare of a certain monster—probably an egg fragment—so the pegasus had apparently mistaken him for a monster egg.
‘How can I let those children die properly?’
While listening to the pegasus’ worried words, Karen looked at the blackened, rotten eggs and asked about something that suddenly occurred to her:
“If we burn them, will the eggs feel pain or suffering?”
‘They would not. They are already dead. If we burn them, will those children be saved?’
“According to alchemical thinking, corrupted things are purified through combustion, heating, and cooling… I don’t know if that will save them, though.”
This was knowledge from her previous life, but the Great Work, Magnus Opus, for creating the Philosopher’s Stone had four stages.
First, “sulfur” and “mercury” were “married” by “spirit.” Next came “nigredo” (blackening), then “albedo” (whitening), and finally “rubedo” (reddening), completing the “Philosopher’s Stone.” The round-shaped flask used for this process was called the “Philosopher’s Egg.”
Because eggs could give birth to many things of entirely different forms, it was believed that within them lay the crucial elements needed to create the Philosopher’s Stone.
Blackening meant death and corruption.
This scene of killing and corrupting eggs was like watching a poorly executed alchemical experiment.
‘Purification…’
The pegasus rose as if dragging her heavy body, spread her wings, and turned her back to Karen and Waltride with the pegasus child.
‘Get on my back.’
“May we!?”
Waltride enthusiastically mounted the giant pegasus’ back and looked at Karen.
“We’re allowed to ride!”
“Even if we can ride, where do you think we’re going to take off from in this windowless laboratory? I have a really bad feeling about this.”
Even as she said this, Karen stored the empty pot and magical tools, shouldered her backpack, and got on behind Waltride, who was holding the pegasus child.
Waltride’s back was tall, and Karen couldn’t see anything ahead.
‘Now, make sure to hold on tight.’
The moment Karen wrapped her hand in the mane and grabbed on, she felt a sense of weightlessness.
The next instant, the pegasus roared.
“KwoooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
The shockwave unleashed by the ear-splitting roar shattered and collapsed the ceiling. Perhaps because the roar and shockwave were directional, their eardrums were strangely left unharmed.
The pegasus took flight through the open ceiling in an instant.
“Waaaah!”
“Ukyuu!”
Waltride let out a cheer, and the pegasus child in Waltride’s arms also seemed to have woken up, crying joyfully.
Performing a rodeo with only her physical strength, after having exhausted her magical power to enter this space, was a severe ordeal for Karen, and she hardly felt alive.
The pegasus flew lightly and set them down on a hill away from the settlement. Then the pegasus turned on her heel and tried to leave. Waltride, who had been frolicking with the pegasus child, hastily stopped the pegasus:
“Wait! What about this child!”
‘Nothing. I will leave it behind, and you may do as you wish. As long as you do not try to turn it into a curse, I will not interfere—even if it is killed.’
“Why do you say such cold things!? Aren’t you its mother!?”
Even in horse form, Karen could tell the pegasus wore a bitter smile.
‘I am going to die soon. So whatever you do, there is nothing I can do about it.’
“Ah—”
‘I am a monster from the fortieth floor. I really should not have been able to come here. I should not have come. But I came. Paying a price. I paid too much, so I am going to die soon—why do you make such faces? I fought against humans who tried to turn my child into a curse, won, and will die, so my death is not such a bad thing.’
For monsters, death wasn’t something to abhor, and Waltride’s expression seemed strange to it.
That’s why the pegasus could casually say she was fine if her child was killed. The concept of death was different.
And yet, even to such a monster, there existed atrocities so horrifying that she would come to save her child—whom she would not normally rescue even in the face of mortal danger—and the pegasus seemed unable to tolerate the existence of such cruelty.
‘Now, let me use my last strength to try whether I can purify them.’
Saying this, the pegasus flew off alone.
Karen and Waltride had no time to stop her.
The pegasus that returned to the air above the settlement roared toward the settlement.
“KurwoooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!”
At that moment, beneath the pegasus’s feet—above the settlement—a giant golden magic circle appeared.
From the circle, countless fireballs rained down.
The settlement transformed into a sea of flames in an instant.
What kind of existence were adventurers who fought against monsters that used such magic?
How dangerous had the battles been that Julius and Thor had placed themselves in until now?
While Karen and Waltride watched in stunned awe, the pegasus that had finished using her magic suddenly lost her lift and fell from the sky.
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