The Valkyrie units that had been holding the defensive line on the border of Jaive, Molten, and Bornai all fell back.
As the army of hell pushed south, Havitz strolled through the Jaive Kingdom, now a ruin.
Natasha, who was escorting him, asked, "There's nothing but corpses. What are we doing here? The battlefield would be way more fun." Valkan had already led the infernal forces farther south.
"Not all of them are dead." Havitz added, "I'll kill them."
Natasha tilted her doll-like head. "You're cruel, Havitz."
With the hellish army gone, any survivors here would probably cling to a sliver of hope.
"Can't we just leave them? It's pathetic." Her voice held no real feeling.
"Natasha, you're strange." Havitz kept walking; Natasha matched his stride exactly and asked, "Strange how?"
"Valkan, Smodo, Zettaro—they're all interesting in their own ways, but you're different. How to put it…" He glanced back at her. "You seem like a good person."
A benevolent sort?
"You're soft, too. You didn't even avenge the bastards who broke your waist, did you?" Natasha propped her chin on her hands. "What would vengeance do? It won't make me a dancer again." She raised a finger for emphasis. "Besides, I'm absolutely not a good person! How many people have I killed so far?"
"That's true." Havitz prodded corpses with his boot, checking for survivors. "That's why you're strange. You've killed countless humans, but—"
A man lay under a wooden plank.
"If you'd been on the humans' side, everyone would have loved you. You'd have stood up to me and saved a lot of people." That was the sense he meant.
"Hmm." Natasha frowned, thinking. "What does that matter? I'm with you anyway. I'm not going to join the other side."
Havitz lifted the plank. "I enjoy being with you too. I just mean—do as you want."
"I already do."
With the conversation over, Havitz looked down at the man on the cold ground. "Get up."
As if answering, the man twitched.
"P-please spare me—" Havitz drew a longsword from his waist and drove it down into the man's heart.
"Guhk!" He watched the dying man's eyes.
'Resignation. Regret. Resentment.' A look as if a whole life had compressed into one gaze.
'It's coming.' From the trailing edge of that look, an unanalysable sensation flared for an instant.
'What on earth is that?' It wasn't something you ever saw in a corpse's eyes—more like the evaporation of life itself.
Natasha asked, "Why are you obsessed with that?"
"Because it's fascinating. I never get tired of seeing it. It's addictive. That's why I keep killing." Natasha showed little interest. "If you want to kill more, let's go somewhere else. There don't seem to be many survivors here."
"Then to that village—" But where Havitz pointed, instead of a village there were silhouettes of people.
When Natasha turned, more than a hundred figures had already surrounded them—those wearing odd mechanical devices, robed figures like mages, sun-dark bare-chested men.
A community of immortals. Though the sun had set and twilight made the air grim, each of their prayers burned like a sun.
Three of them stepped out through the crowd.
"What's this? What's going on?" Their temperaments differed from the rest.
'Unusual.' Natasha's instinct didn't lie; these were senior members of the Ten Elders, each over ten thousand years old.
Vanishing, a Nor nihilist ranked fifth in the Ten Elders, held out a giant brush strapped to his back. "Who are you? Jaive should already be destroyed—what are you doing hanging around here?"
"You don't need to hear. I'll check him myself." The mecha woman Osirante, ranked eighth among the Ten Elders, raised an egg-sized drone to her eye. Augmented reality popped up with Havitz's data. "Huh? This guy—he's the Emperor of Gustav."
"Oho?" Itoka, a Kergo warrior ranked sixth, hefted a thick broadsword. Natasha's eyes lit at the porcupine-like menace radiating from his body. 'Strong.' Itoka, a body technician—known as Kergo's mightiest warrior, his physical prowess outclassing a rank-nine Baknyeo.
"He'll make a fine trophy. Came looking for the Buddha and ran into a heavyweight like this." After Anke Ra disappeared, the Ten Elders' officials had scattered across the world; now they'd regrouped to find Nane and reboot the world.
Vanishing, the team leader, squinted past the horizon. 'With Shura around, he's not easy to find. Weak and cowardly, but hiding's something he's good at.'
Havitz twirled his mustache and asked, "Are you our enemies?"
Osirante answered, "If he's the Emperor of Gustav, he's an extreme evil of the age. Not exactly an enemy, but not an ally either."
"Then just let him go?" The immortals burst into laughter. "Puhahaha! What is this? We expected the head of hell to be fearsome, but without demons he's nothing but trash!"
Havitz was indifferent. "I don't want to fight for now. I want to kill those who've lost their will to fight." He wanted to stare deeper into the last flicker of life.
"Is that so, you world-class bastard?" They weren't pacifists, and even among the immortals Havitz's actions disgusted them. "Had fun killing so far, huh? Let's see if you can enjoy it when it happens to you."
Havitz turned his body. "Natasha."
"Yeah?"
"I'll go first. This kind of thing is a bother." Natasha nodded.
"Go on ahead."
The immortals drew weapons. "Leaving a companion to run? Now I see you're not the head of hell but a worthless scum." Their jeers poured out, but Havitz didn't answer. Natasha stepped into view.
"Reaper's Dance." She moved into position, raised both arms, and bent her knees inward.
Just before her knees hit the ground, a ten-meter-tall skeletal avatar rose and linked steel cords to her limbs.
"Avatar technique?" A high-level art, but basically standard for immortals who'd lived over a thousand years.
"No need to stall. Kill them." As the Kergo warriors lunged, a cold light ignited in Natasha's eyes.
Reaper's Dance—Murder Machine.
Afterimages of a doll dancing to madness. "Aaaaaah!" Turning deaf to all the apocalyptic noise, Havitz simply walked toward the village.
Then, finally, every sound went still.
"Guhk!" When Natasha's fist drove through Osirante's sternum, blood spurted from the mecha woman's mouth.
It was over.
From start to finish, the fight took less than four minutes.
'What on earth…' In Osirante's retina, the augmented reality data had briefly flickered—the lost chance to analyze Natasha's physical stats felt worse than death. 'Is God mad?' How could such a thing be made? Either a mad god had made it, or it wasn't made by any god at all.
'I think—' Without resolution, Osirante collapsed to the cold ground like the others.
"Phew." Natasha wiped sweat from her brow with the back of her hand. The brief fight had left hundreds of meters looking as if bombed.
"These are impressive." Even by Natasha's standards, they were among the world's top fighters. 'Should've gone when Havitz said so.' That was all the impression she took.
"Havitz." Bouncing as if springs were under her feet, she caught up. "Is it over?"
"Yeah. All dead." To Havitz, the single person who could be called 'strong' was Natasha. "So it wasn't fun, huh?" She offered a faint smile. "Fighting's not fun. It's tiring and troublesome. At least I can dance."
Even killing three of humanity's strongest hadn't compared, for her, to a dance by moonlight. "When are you happy, then?" She'd been staring at the full moon, then turned to Havitz. "Are you happy because I killed them?"
"I am. Winning is fun." Natasha smiled in satisfaction.
"Then I'm happy, too." Havitz blinked. "You really are a strange kid." All of Gustav's Fourth Regiment were odd, but Natasha's nature was a different sort—there was no particular reason she had to be with Havitz.
"This whole place burned too." The two who entered the village looked over a scene already turned to ruin. Havitz registered a flicker of disappointment at the lack of survivors to kill. "Too much. Even if they were my subordinates, to leave none alive…"
You should leave something to enjoy, shouldn't you? At that moment a newborn's cry rode the night air.
'A survivor!' The two who locked eyes ran toward a collapsing shack.
"Is only the child alive?" The crying stopped inside as he spoke.
Havitz kicked at the door; rotten air hit them when it opened. Moonlight poured through holes in the roof. A fat woman sat nursing a child—snub nose, irregular teeth jutting past her lips, narrow slit-eyes.
"You came to kill me?" Havitz stepped inside.
"Yes." "Wait. Let me finish feeding the baby." Havitz waited.
The woman looked up from rocking and nursing. "And if you kill me, you take this child and raise it. Otherwise it'll starve."
Havitz examined the child. "Your child?"
"Uh—huh?" "Father?" "I don't know. This village is desperately poor. I took a loaf of bread from the mercenaries and sold my body to get it. One of those bastards is probably the father. Whether he's dead or alive…?"
"It eats well." Havitz put his sword on the floor and crawled toward the child in the woman's arms. The infant sucked at her breast so forcefully each inhale sounded like it might choke.
"Does it taste that good?" the woman asked as Havitz watched without blinking. "Want to try?"
Havitz looked up. "Me?"
"There are two breasts. If you want, eat. But give me bread in return. Do you have bread?" He nodded.
Crouching like an animal, he waited. The woman shifted and offered the other breast to Havitz.
"Here. This side." Havitz stared at the reeking breast, pursed his lips, shut his eyes, and latched on.
Suck. Suck-suck. The sucking grew intense; Havitz's eyelids trembled.
'Life.' It continued.
Suck. Suck-suck.
Natasha watched in silence as two small children buried their faces in the woman's breasts.