Published: August 10, 2026
"S-So, what are you planning to do with that? You're not seriously thinking of taking it back with us, are you?"
Morganaite said this with a strained face, pointing at it and Lark.
"No, from the look of its life force and magical power, it only has a little time left. So taking it back is impossible."
"Y-Yeah. Its magical power is about to run out, and the little life force it has left will start being consumed again."
I looked at the shared world seen by those who possessed the World Eye.
Even now, blood continued to pour from both severed arms, and that was probably why the consumption of magical power, which had become its life force, was so intense. Even if we stopped the bleeding now, it probably wouldn't survive long enough to make it back to the base, let alone all the way down the mountain.
And even if, by some miracle, it did get down the mountain, I didn't think there was any way to restore it back into a human. I was the one who had injured it this badly in the first place, even if it was to capture it, so I should be the one to take responsibility.
Morganaite, still wearing a twisted expression, averted his eyes from Lark. It wasn't something anyone would want to stare at, but even though Amelia was right there, he was openly showing his disgust. Maybe he was bad with blood. His spear's abilities didn't seem to involve directly injuring the opponent, either.
Amelia, on the other hand, seemed to have shaken off her initial shock and was staring intently at the status.
"If that's the case, then I suppose that's fine. No, it isn't fine. ...Honestly, I never heard of anything like this!"
"If you had, I'd be more surprised."
"When you do bad things, you turn into a monster—that's what my father and my tutors always told me when I was a child, but to think it was actually true..."
The idea that "if you do bad things, you'll become a monster" was, in our world, the same kind of saying as "if you do bad things, you'll be punished" or "Santa won't come if you're not good," a phrase used to teach children cause and effect.
It was mainly used to discipline children, and apparently there were even variations like "a monster will eat you" or "the Demon Clan will come." Children behaved because they didn't want to become monsters or get eaten, and parents repeated the same words over and over to raise them properly. That was the same in my original world too.
In other words, becoming a monster was just a superstition. There was no way someone would actually turn into one. Even in this world, where magic existed, that should have been impossible. In the first place, if people really did become monsters just for doing bad things, then adults would be a lot harsher with children, and criminal guilds wouldn't even exist.
And yet, what was this? There were two possible explanations.
No, that aside, I needed to deal with Lark first.
"Y-You mean to threaten her, even with lady Amelia present...?"
"Yes, yes, not now. That's just a normal form of discipline, right? More importantly, move. You're in the way."
"Huh?"
I pushed away the annoying Morganaite, quickly stopped the bleeding in both of Lark's arms and legs, and wiped away the dirt from its body.
The bleeding stopped, and the drop in magical power became slower than before, but perhaps it had already lost the strength to resist, because it simply let me do as I pleased.
"Akira..."
"Yeah. I'm going to kill this thing here. If possible, I wish I could have killed it sooner, but I wanted Amelia to confirm it with her eyes too. Morganaite, does the Kingdom of Wendes have a research institute for monsters or something like that? We can't bring it back alive, but we should at least be able to bring back the corpse."
"There is one, but why...?"
"For the sake of figuring out the cause, obviously. We won't know unless we investigate why a human turned into a monster, whether it's contagious, or whether it's the result of human experimentation. If it's some kind of infection, then we need to identify the cause quickly, or tomorrow it could be us. Even if there isn't such a place, it was originally human, so I want to give it a proper burial."