“Ina, Spirito, request response!”
“Mister Qualia…!”
Qualia passed by Liebe as he disappeared, and went over the protuberance on the ground.
On the other side, he saw Spirito sitting on the ground with a bloody leg, and holding her damaged abdomen, along with Ina who was sitting close and was now looking up at him.
“Detecting moderate damage to Spirito.”
“…It’s fine, the wounds are shallow. I’m not going to be using shukuchi for a bit though.”
Spirito stopped the bleeding on her leg with a cloth passed to her by Ina, and looked at the wall that spontaneously emerged from the ground.
“This wasn’t you, was it, Qualia? Magic can’t do this.”
“That was formed by my skill.”
“Uoah!?”
Ace was suddenly standing there, without making a sound, and Spirito unconsciously jumped back.
“A-a magic doll!? Like the ones from yesterday!?”
“Explaining. Ace has become a member of Hello World.”
“Wait wait wait! You just left an hour ago! What happened!? You jumped out to stop Ddos’ business, and now a magic doll is a member of Hello World!?”
Spirito became flustered and threw out very natural comments, but just when they were going to get a response, Ina was about to raise her head above the wall.
Qualia felt she was about to step where she should not, and moved.
“There are slight but notable irregularities in your movements.”
Qualia grabbed her hand, and stopped her.
Her face was full of the emotions he defined as anger and sadness, in higher values than he could measure.
“…Mister Qualia, if you know, tell me… What is that thing that’s shaped like my brother?”
After checking its safety, Qualia looked at the empty courtyard with Ina.
There was nothing but garden soil where Liebe stood, along with knights clad in black, and Kernel, looking around cautiously.
There was nothing there anymore.
“That was Liebe, who is defined as your brother.”
“…Eh?”
“To be more precise, a ghost of Liebe.”
“Ghost?”
Qualia then explained to Ina.
Ghosts were emotions people left behind, that turned into magic energy that was like a wave.
In other words, a materialization of magic energy twisted by hatred. Basically, Liebe’s heart.
Even if ghosts were a dubious urban legend, Ina was starting to half believe that sort of occult phenomenon.
But she also remembered the verbal abuse she leveled at the ghost of Liebe.
“…I didn’t know…”
She knew nothing, and treated him as a fake Liebe.
He tried to kill Spirito, but Ina still could not help but feel regret over what she said.
But Qualia input none of it. And so, he found himself unable to read the reason for Ina’s not ‘tasty’ expression.
“Uoh!?”
Suddenly, a knight raised his voice.
“Abnormality detected.”
A jet black wave flickered where Qualia was looking.
Dark matter. The source of the ghost known as Liebe. The hatred turned into magic energy.
And then, he revived.
“You… Guah…”
A nearby knight swung his sword, but was immediately rebuked with an intense claw attack.
Dark red liquid dripped from the claws, and the knights of Clearance took some distance. Kernel had a resolute look on his face, but as he glanced at Ina, he began to predict the worst.
“I doubt he would ascend into heaven after a touching reunion with his little sister, but… You must be pretty attached, if you manifested here again. And you seem to be regenerating a lot faster, am I right?”
“…Ah, ah, aaah, have to save.”
Liebe looked around with a dry expression, that showed he had lost his reasoning from the start.
The knights, Kernel, Ace, Spirito.
Qualia.
And finally, he looked at Ina.
“Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!”
He cried and screamed unseemly, like a lost child.
His grief resonated not just in the courtyard, but in the upper area as well.
“IIIII, IIIII, Ina isn’t here, she’s gone, she’s dead, dammit, why…!? We should’ve just grown up, watched flowers, chased birds, felt the wind, looked at the moon.”
Big tears streamed from his face, as he expressed his despair.
“…Beauty is gone from the world. There’s nothing more for me. Pity, pity. I couldn’t protect my only family…”
“But you did…”
Ina said to Liebe, whose outline was flickering with a black color.
Ina also started to cry with heavy tears, as she tried to start a moving reunion, even if it was late.
“I’m sorry, big brother… I said some awful things to you…”
“…Ina?”
Liebe looked at Ina with the light in the eyes that you would expect from a lost child who found their mother.
Ina walked towards him, one step at a time, but after the fourth step, Qualia grabbed her hand.
“Threat detected.”
Ina looked at Liebe again, who now had an ugly, hateful expression on his face.
“Big… Brother…”
“Who are you…!? Why are you pretending to be the dead Ina…!? Ina was kind! She didn’t have a face like that! Don’t soil my memories of Ina!!”
At that point, it was unclear if he could even see what was in front of him.
But one thing Qualia did know. If Ina touched Liebe, he would without a doubt kill her.
And so, he blocked her path.
“It’s because of people like you… Cruel people like you, that us beast people have to slurp mud, eat the dead, and die miserably. We can’t even look up at the blue sky. This world is wrong.”
As if pulling out a fuse, he reached into his clothes and roughly took something out.
A black stone, where the light of the world did not reach. An ancient magic stone Black Hole.
Everyone’s breath was taken away.
If it was activated, everything would be compressed.
“And with this Black Hole…”
“Type SWORD.”
A beam severed his right hand.
“No prediction revisions.”
He wanted the prediction to be wrong.
Qualia was not aware that he felt that way, as he followed his optimal solution and literally cut the ancient magic stone away from Liebe.
But Liebe was incredibly stubborn, and frantically chased the ancient magic stone in his right hand with his left hand.
Qualia saw it, but did nothing.
He did nothing, because that was the optimal solution.
Behind him, Ace’s magic stone shined green.
“Gaia. Reverse. Deepest output of the Gaia skill. Activating Domain Tree.”
It was a branch running incredibly fast that grabbed the ancient magic stone.
The Domain Tree came back as soon as it wrapped around the ancient magic stone, and in the end, it was handed to Ace.
“Ancient magic stone Black Hole retrieved.”
“Well done dear. We avoided the most troubling scenario.”
There was some relief back in Kernel’s rigid face.
But that was quickly frozen, and the other knights also looked on dumbfounded.
A chill ran down Spirito’s back, and Ina was at a loss for words at her brother’s transformation.
“Big… Brother…?”
It was something Qualia had not yet learned, the transformation of the hatred called Liebe.
He lost his Black Hole, his right hand, everything, and he cackled vacantly.
“I wasn’t allowed to do anything, again… Even my one, brilliant revenge.
Quiet.”
As if activating a magic stone’s skill, but with a broken tone, the dark matter behind him began to overflow.
The jet black stream covered his body, erasing the outline of a beast person.
Quiet.
The skill of the lump of magic energy that was Liebe, of a ghost.
But what came out of it was definitely not beautiful magic.
It was a repulsive monster that would make anyone who encountered it weep.
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