Arc 1 - Chapter 5: There Is Not a Wonderful World Behind the Door (1/2)

As the tower burned and Rie was wounded, they encountered two clowns on the stairs, both armed with weapons. Both clowns were moving with ease, standing a few steps below them.

"I can't heal it, the mana won't come out!" Neko was unable to heal her mother despite all her attempts. Her magic power had been taken away.

"I'm ve~ry sorry, magic cannot be used in our presence." Hearing Sorrow's voice, one would think he was really sorry. He sounded sincere, regretful, with the innocence of a child asking for forgiveness.

But Yu knew that he wasn't really sorry. Thanks to his spell-blocking ability, their opponent, or rather the only opponent he saw as their equal, was like an eagle without claws, a wolf without fangs.

And yet, Yu couldn't imagine that Sorrow was upset. The reason his opponent sounded upset was because he was a perverted, sick freak. Neither Sorrow nor his sister Joy were healthy people.

Unlike the first time they met, Yu didn't have the opportunity to make a sudden attack now because he was again at the back of the team and the clowns were in front of Rie. Even if he got the chance and tried a sudden attack, he thought his opponents would not be caught off guard this time.

"A man who doesn't know how to fight, a witch who can't use magic, a little girl."

Unlike the team of Rie, Neko and Yu, their opponents had to be experts in close combat. The only thing Yu could do was blitz attack, and now he knew he couldn't do that either.

"So what to do?"

His opponents were acting as if they had never been hit before. As if this was a game and those two had regenerated all their lives. Even the emaciated Joy looked like she was just getting started.

He had managed to hurt Sorrow when he hit him in the groin, and Rie's red stone had hurt Joy when it hit her. It was possible to hurt them, even if nothing seemed to have happened at the moment. If their attacks on the sensitive areas of the groin, throat, nose and eyes were effective, they could eliminate them.

At least Rie's body was stronger than it looked so only Yu would have to pick those spots, which was harder to do than he thought and he wished he didn't have to.

Apart from their fists as weapons, they only had Rie's stones with them. Rie's stones, which he had used twice in front of Yu, had hit the opponent in the head but had not killed them, but they could still hurt them. Another disadvantage was that it was unclear how many stones Rie had.

"Can it get any worse than this? We are completely at a disadvantage."

They could have prolonged the battle with their opponents in a battle of endurance, where the first to tire would lose, but here, too, the fire factor in the tower was an obstacle to the plan. If the clowns started a fire while they were inside the tower, they would have to have some measure of survival, and Rie, Neko and Yu had no protection against fire.

Rie had somehow prevented the fire above from advancing with her magic, but if the clowns with the ability to break spells had come here, the spell that kept the fire above in check must have been broken, and the fire below would go up, while the fire above would go down.

Yu began to understand how his sisters felt. They had no chance of survival, no one was there to save them, they had no choice but to just wait to die. It made Yu angry to realize that he had a strong desire to live but only to wait to die. Most of all he was angry with himself, and it drove him mad knowing that his anger would do nothing.

The first move of the fight came from Sorrow; the clown, more than two meters tall, raised his scythe and swung it at Rie's head.

Rie stepped aside, dodged Sorrow's scythe and drove his knee into Sorrow's stomach. The move was clumsy and did nothing, the slowness of the move showed that Rie was tired. Sorrow punched Rie in the face and pushed her away.

"Damn it!"

Yu could do nothing but bite his lip and watch. He was angry when he saw Rie getting punched, but he knew that if he joined the fight he would die.

Taking advantage of Rie being stunned by the punch, Joy jumped on Rie, supported by Sorrow's shoulders, and tried to stab Rie with the skewers she held in both hands.

Rie recovered faster than her opponent expected. She ducked under her opponent before the skewers reached her and grabbed her wrists, pinning Joy to the ground. Rie dodged again as Sorrow swung his scythe at Rie a second time, while Neko started kicking the fallen Joy in the face.

With a few swift kicks from Neko, Joy's mask broke, exposing her black skin. The woman screamed and threw Neko off her and jumped up to help her brother and kill Rie.

"Attack!" Neko shouted angrily at Yu.

Yu had heard her, but he waited, not knowing what to do, lacking the courage to move. Rie's situation was hopeless, Sorrow was more dominant in their fight and Joy jumped on Rie, not caring about the two opponents he had left behind. What could Yu do to get between them? They were fighting to kill each other.

Rie stepped aside, feeling the threat behind him, but as her shoulder hit the wall, Sorrow drove his elbow into Rie's face, putting her head between the wall and his elbow.

Rie kicked Sorrow in the groin to break free. When Joy jumped on Rie again, Rie dodged and Joy fell on top of her brother.

As Sorrow held Joy, Rie kicked Joy in the back and sent them both down the stairs.

"Up!"

There was a fire downstairs as well as upstairs, but there were also two freaks down there who shouldn't have been with them, who were preventing Rie and Neko from using magic. If they went downstairs, they would be deprived of magic and burn to death.

They preferred to go upstairs so as not to lose their ability to use magic. While the clowns were downstairs, Rie could do something with her magic. Yu didn't know what Rie could do, but he hoped she could somehow get them out of here.

After all, he could do nothing but hope.

They took their standardized positions again as they quickly climbed the stairs. Rie moved to the front to face the flames and Yu, who had joined the group later, stayed at the back. Neko was in the middle.

Yu was not happy with their position as there were killers coming from behind them, but he had to accept the situation as he lacked the strength to face the flames in front of him.

After climbing five or six floors, they reached the burning part. The heat had surpassed the oppressive level and reached the lethal level. In the heat that made it difficult to even think, a sentence that Yu did not want to hear reached his ears.

"I can't use magic." Rie's voice was desperate enough to make Yu cry.

There was no magic, which meant they couldn't pass through the flames, and if there was no magic, then the clowns were here.

"Why?" Joy's voice was not cheerful at all. She had completely removed her broken mask and her golden eyes were those of a monster. The heat didn't seem to bother her, but the angry tone of her voice, in contrast to her name, only added to her horror.

Sorrow, a large man, also took his place behind Joy. If they considered the direction in which their opponents stood to be forward, this time Yu was in the front and Rie in the back.

As Joy moved out of the way, Sorrow brought his scythe down on Yu, and Yu, stepping back to get out of range of the scythe, tripped on the ladder and fell on Neko. The scythe struck between Yu's legs, luckily not hitting him.

As Neko and Yu fell to the ground, Rie was revealed and joined the fray, throwing a red stone. Rie's stone exploded in Sorrow's arm, creating another burst of heat and light.

With no chance to retreat now, Rie had to go on the offensive. She jumped while her opponents held their burnt eyes and chose Sorrow's face as the target of her mid-air kick.

When her kick hit Sorrow's face, she managed to stay in the air, supported by Sorrow's face, and turned around and kicked Joy in the head.

Sorrow lost his balance and fell down again, but Joy managed to stand up. When she pointed the skewer in her hand to stab Rie, Rie managed to dodge the move and took the skewer from her hand and stabbed her in the heart.

Joy couldn't even express her pain at this unexpected blow, she just opened her eyes in surprise and Rie took her by the shoulders and sent her downstairs to her brother.

"We can go now."

She had beaten her opponents so coolly that Yu was just as surprised as Joy. Rie's power made her think that their situation was not as hopeless as she thought and gave Yu faith that they could survive.

Besides, there should no longer be any obstacle for Rie to use her magic. They headed upstairs again.

But the top floor of the tower collapsed with a loud crash before they could get any distance. Yu let out a high-pitched scream, thinking the tower was collapsing on their heads. Fortunately, what he had feared hadn't happened and only the top floor had collapsed, but it was clear that soon the tower would collapse completely.

"Fuck..."

Frustrated, Yu started laughing. Just when they had gotten rid of the clowns and renewed their hopes, the world had played its joke and the top floor had collapsed, trapping them inside the tower.

"Can't you clear the way with your magic?"

"Not if it's completely collapsed upstairs, no," Rie clenched her fists until her hands bled.

Rie, who had never lost her composure until now, was now struggling to control herself and stay calm.

They had no choice but to go downstairs, where they couldn't use magic because of the clowns waiting for them.

"If Joy is dead, three of us can defeat Sorrow."

The three of them said they could defeat him, but in reality they were too scared to fight and were waiting for Rie to defeat Sorrow alone.

As their group quickly descended the stairs, they began to find it difficult to breathe because of the smoke that now filled the tower.

"Jumping out the window and slowing our fall with magic is an option."

If Rie could use her magic to create an elevator-like structure that would allow them to get down safely, they might be saved. Rie looked out the window in the wall to analyze the situation.

"The other towers are on fire, down there too."

"Can you use magic?"

"No."

Immediately after Rie's answer, a scythe came out of the flames and swung for her life. Rie dodged the scythe at the last moment, but as soon as Rie dodged the scythe, Sorrow's second move came and Rie, with the wall behind her, could not retreat.

Unable to retreat, Rie moved forward and got under the scythe that was coming at her, grabbing the wooden part with one hand and the other hand on her opponent's chin.

Rie's move was slow, as if she didn't want to hit, and Sorrow was unaffected by the punch. Even Yu's punch had hurt Sorrow more. Sorrow grabbed Rie by the head and threw her down.

"I have to help!"

Yu wanted to help, but the fear of death made his body stiff. Not only did he not help, he held Neko tightly as she tried to follow her mother.

Rie managed to hold on to the stairs, avoiding falling into the flames, and quickly recovered and attacked Sorrow.

"I must help!"

Yu wanted to help her, but he could do nothing but watch, the fear of death preventing him from moving.

Unarmed, Rie's fists also lacked the power to stop the enemy. She used her kick, which she thought would be more effective than her fists.

Yu had heard that a broken nose could kill someone. Rie must have heard the same thing, because her kick was aimed directly at Sorrow's face, at the nose under his mask. If Rie's attack had been successful, a kick directly at the tip of his nose could have broken the bones in his nose and sent them into his brain, but that would have required a bit of luck.

As Neko tried to wriggle out of Yu's fear-stricken arms to come to her aid, Sorrow quickly dodged Rie's attack and grabbed her leg, slamming her against the wall.

When Rie fell to the ground, he raised his scythe and, without giving her a chance to recover, stabbed her in the heart.

"MOTHER!"

Neko's scream filled the tower. The cat-eared girl struggled to break free from Yu's grasp as he clutched her in shock at what he saw.

Neko's nails dug into Yu's flesh, the bites bleeding. As Neko punched and kicked him, Yu was being tortured in a way that would normally make him cry, but the shock hit him so hard he didn't even feel the pain.

Rie's eyes widened in surprise as she held the steel that her killer had plunged into her heart. Now the end had come, Rie looked at Neko and Yu before taking her last breath.