Pigs must die!

“G-game?”

“Yeah. It’s a simple game.”

Ulrich was on the verge of falling off his feet, but somehow, he managed to get up and away from René.

Little by little, without being noticed (a very obvious move, actually), he approached the door that was the original entrance and exit, next to the big hole in the wall.

His mind was occupied with the question, “Why here?”

Even if she had not been defeated yet, wasn’t she located far to the southwest?

A little girl begging for a childish game.

It was hard to believe that this was the case. Even Ulrich, who was a complete amateur when it came to fighting, could tell, a feeling of coldness in his neck.

This was killing intent.

As it turned out, René smiled happily, but her eyes were not smiling.

“If you live, you win.”

Ulrich took those words as his cue and ran out into the hallway, slamming the door behind him as fast as he could.

“Hey, hey! Someone! Help me!”

Ulrich screamed as he ran down the hallway.

There were always guards around, and he figured he could use the employees as shields to escape if they heard his screams and came to him.

But Ulrich soon realized that the screams were coming from where he was headed.

“Wh-what…? What happened…?”

Screams. Sounds like slamming and running. The sound of something falling. A scream. An angry shout. A sound like swords clashing. Screams…

The door in front of him opened almost like it was kicked open, and a young male employee jumped out of it.

“Aaaah! Help me help me help me help me help me!!”

“Hi!?”

He sprouted a sword from his chest in front of Ulrich, vomited blood, and died.

Behind him was a skeleton in knight’s armor, sword outstretched.

“Aaahhh, m-mon…ster…”

Ulrich barely said a word as his jaw quivered.

The noise coming from the direction he was going, in other words, this was the same thing …

Why, he wondered. Why was not only René, but also this thing, in the building of the company?

“My Knights.”

“Gyaaaaa!?”

Ulrich jumped up with a scream when he heard a voice behind him.

René was right behind him.

“Why!? Why are you in my trading company!?”

“Eh? It’s not just about you.”

René raised an eyebrow, looking offended.

As if to say, ‘It’s insulting to be thought of as singling out a guy like him.’

“Listen carefully. This is what’s going on all over town.”

“Eh…”

Ulrich finally realized what was being said.

Screams, noises of struggle could be heard from outside.

Ulrich had almost gulped down the situation.

But it was too hopeless to comprehend.

How could the Undead invade a place like this so easily? Both the guards and the duke’s soldiers who had gathered there would have to be swept away and the whole city would have to be destroyed to get to this point.

…The duke’s soldiers, who were supposed to protect the city, had in fact turned entirely into undead, a situation that Ulrich had no way of knowing.

“Then let’s go. «Ice Shackles»”

“Gihiii!?”

Gagin! And with a sound, Ulrich’s legs attached themselves to each other, and Ulrich lost his balance and fell on his stomach. Using the fat as a cushion, he landed softly.

Forcing the flesh of his neck to fold in on itself, he looked down at his feet and saw that his legs were covered in blocks of ice, which stuck together like shackles.

“Rule number one. You can’t use your feet.”

“Mm, I can’t! How can I do this…”

“≪Wind Blade≫”

“Gyaahh!!”

Ulrich’s arms were cut off by wind.

The wind blade shredded both arms along with the sleeves of his clothes, and blood dripped from his tattered arms.

“Rule number two. You must move with your wounded hands.”

“Wha-What are you talking about!?”

Ulrich exclaimed.

He was not only blocked from moving his legs, but also his arms, which were his only hope to move.

Ulrich had no confidence in his arms. He could not even do a single push-up. Although he could stand on his arms with his stomach as a support.

There was no way he could escape in such a state!

René chanted more spells.

Ulrich prepared himself to be blinded this time, but he was wrong.

“≪Create Undead≫”

She cast a spell on the man who was stabbed to death in front of Ulrich’s eyes.

The man who was supposed to be a silent corpse moved.

“Rule number three. Don’t let me catch up to you. I’m too lazy to chase you on foot, so I’m going to use this guy as a vehicle. Good for you, it’s not very fast. Or rather, it’s not a comfortable ride!”

Ulrich watched the scene with his eyes wide open.

He doesn’t remember this man’s name…, but he must have been one of Ulrich’s subordinates, anyway.

He was carrying the monster on his back, on all fours, like a parent playing horse with a small child playing knight!

René was sitting sideways on the man’s back, like the manner of a noble lady on horseback.

She gently placed her own head, which she was holding in her left hand, on top of her neck and grabbed the man’s neck instead of the reins.

“I’m going to give the undead special orders not to attack you. Let’s get started.”

The desperate escape began.

＊ ＊ ＊

Ulrich crawled along at full speed, dragging his icy shackles behind him, as fast as a tortoise could go.

The cobblestones of the main road were chattering with snow that had almost melted during the clear winter days.

The area around his stomach was soaked with moisture, and he shivered from the very depths of his body. If it weren’t for the thick fat, he would have frozen to death long ago.

His arms ached as though they would tear into a thousand pieces with each crawl. Ulrich’s progress left a trail of dripping blood. The palms of his hands were so cold that he could not feel them.

“Hey, someone help me! Help me! I’ll give you money!!”

Ulrich shouted to cover up the pain as he continued on.

The sounds of battle, carnage, and screams echoed from the area.

The undead seemed to be rampaging sporadically here and there, and even the direction in which people were fleeing was not constant. Everyone was frantic, those who passed Ulrich, those who crossed paths with him, and there was no one who heard Ulrich’s voice and tried to help him.

“Whoa!”

“Piggy!”

A boy running in front of him caught his foot in Ulrich’s face and pinched him.

It was like a kick hit clean on the bridge of his nose, and Ulrich could smell iron. A drenching nosebleed flowed.

The boy almost fell, but he stayed on his feet and ran away at a frantic full speed without looking back.

“Ki, ki, ki, ki, you, you …! How dare you kick me…, I’m Ulrich Toman, you little …, I’m going to make it impossible for you to live in this city…!”

Ulrich muttered with resentment. But no one even heard him.

But then.

Ulrich saw a carriage driving frantically ahead of him.

And when he saw the crest on the front of it, he thanked God for the first time in a year and three months, since his business rival had lost a lot of money in the stock market.

“Bah, a carriage! It’s a carriage, my carriage! Hey, let me on! It’s me!”

Pulled by two magnificent horses, it was a carriage belonging to the Toman Trading Company. It was the company carriage used by Ulrich and the executives for transportation.

The driver whipped the horses and came at full speed.

“Ride…”

And then he drove right past Ulrich.

Ulrich could see the driver look at him, surprised, bitter, and then look away like he was giving up on something.

“Oh, oh, oh, you bastard. My neck! Aaahhh!”

Ulrich howled, shaking the flab on his neck.

Yes, the man had not come for Ulrich, but had simply escaped.

He had abandoned Ulrich in favor of his own life.

“I guess he didn’t have any allegiances.”

“Hiya! Ahhh …”

René, on her ‘horse’, was within hearing distance.

Ulrich increased his speed in a panic.

“Ugh,a horse …a hippogriff …, rideable things…”

Ulrich was heading for his mansion.

If he went that far, he would find the hippogriff that he kept as a private ride!

If he could only ride it, no monster would be able to catch up with him!

In other words, he would win if he escaped to his home! Ulrich said to himself, ignoring the various elements of despair.

“It would have been boring to just run away. It would have been more exciting if we could have arranged for some heroic background music.”

“Ha-hi …!?”

“Why don’t you listen to my story on the way instead? I’ll tell you what they did to me.”

Although there was no way he was bored because he was struggling to survive, René began to talk on her own.

She talked about the torment she had been subjected to by the knights under the name of “torture”.

Being whipped was just the beginning. She suffered from being pushed against a burning iron mortar, being splashed with boiling water, having needles inserted into her mouth and between her fingernails, having her fingers put on a grater, having her head plunged into a tub of water, having her fingers crushed…

And then, an endless inferno of being enchanted with healing spells so that she could…again…get…wounded…again…and again.

“You see …? This makes your hand hurting like nothing, doesn’t it?”

“Aah, aah, ahhh!”

Ulrich scratched his hand frantically driven by fear as René said it so casually.

She didn’t come up with this kind of death game by exercising her cruel imagination to the limit, but she really thought it was ‘nothing’ to be made to crawl with shredded hands.

If she changed her mind for a second, she would add ‘rules’ like pouring boiling hot water on him or sticking needles in his mouth.

If she did that to me, he would die …! He would die!!

Ulrich went on with all his strength, just not wanting to die.

Ahead.

A battle was being waged.

“Adventurers!?”

Young men in armor with swords.

Three or so adventurers were fighting a great battle against twice as many undead.

And they were fighting well.

Seeing this as the final help God had prepared, Ulrich cried out in a hoarse voice.

“Adventurers! Adventurers! Hey, help me! Defeat this monster! And I’ll reward you with gold coins…”

“≪Death Cloud≫”

Something flew from behind Ulrich.

A reddish-black mist-like substance was hurled at the adventurers and exploded, engulfing them.

“Ugh…”

“Geee!?”

“Ahhhh…!!”

The undead involved were unperturbed, but the three adventurers fell down, clutching their chests.

“Ahe?”

“Hmm, I got some good material. I think they’re about 4th class Guards.”

Behind Ulrich, who had no idea what had just happened, René was beaming.

Ulrich understood. Somewhere in his head he knew, but he finally understood.

This was a game. René, who could kill any adventurer in an instant, could have killed Ulrich at any time.

She was just playing with him, deliberately letting him live and beating him up.

It was an obvious fact that finally sunk in and became clear to him.

At the moment he thought that, his hands, which he had been moving with all his strength, finally stopped moving.

“Gebuh!”

Ulrich’s arms lost their strength and he fell to the ground.

“Oh my, is it already game over?”

The “horse” passed Ulrich, and René looked down at Ulrich from the front.

Silver eyes stared coldly at Ulrich.

As Ulrich looked at her face, he … became somewhat angry.

It was the momentary savagery of someone who was finally ready to die, or the defiance of a broken man.

“You’re crazy! How many hundreds of thousands of people do you think there are in this country!? Why should I be the only one to suffer like this? I am neither a knight nor a king! I’m just a merchant! I did not kill you!”

“Yes, you did.”

Ulrich denounced with all his might, but René remained composed.

“It was directly the knights who killed me, and Hilbert the Pretender. But it was the people, … something vague that I don’t understand, who fired them up. The only way to get revenge on them is to kill them all, but even I can’t do that. While I’m killing those who are within my reach, the rest will escape. The world is a big place. If there are 100 people, I can’t kill them all, but I might be able to kill 50. That’s how I kill. I kill roughly, I kill capriciously, and I take revenge on the people by instilling fear in the survivors.”

Then René laughed.

What’s funny is that it was an adorable, girlish laugh.

“You are the one who is killed by me. You are the one who will be killed by me, who happened to catch my eye, and who will be killed directly by me. You were simply unlucky. … this is just ‘unreasonable’.”

“Wh…”

“Oh, and killing time. I told you. I said let’s play a game. I wanted to play.”

As Ulrich was stunned by this absurdity, René pulled out a piece of paper in front of him, as if he had just realized something.

It was a call mark.

It seemed that a call had been made, and René had some sort of conversation with the person on the other end of the call mark.

“… Okay, hold on a second. Fufu, sorry. I just got some work to do. So playtime is over. I know it was a bad, ugly toy, but I had a little fun with it.”

Then René snapped her fingers.

“Your body is going to be dull when I turn you into a zombie… I’ll give you plenty of nutrients and use only your sturdy-looking bones. You, there. Cut off his flesh… please…”

A skeleton nearby came up to him as René called out.

The skeleton in knight’s armour readied his sword, grabbed Ulrich by the chest and pulled him up.

“Hey… stop it. Stop it. You’re kidding, right?”

Without hesitation, the skeleton plunged his sword into Ulrich’s abdomen.

Then he began to cut away the flesh of Ulrich’s abdomen bit by bit.

“Ah, ah… Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!! Ugaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!”

Ulrich let out a loud scream, his mind felt as if it had gone blank.

It hurt beyond the sensation of pain. Fatty sweat gushed out from his entire body in spite of such cold weather, and blood trickled onto the cobblestones like a trickle.

The skeleton did not try to kill him at once. First, he scraped off a little fat from his belly. Next, he scraped out something long and thin. Intestines.

“Oh, Ahii! Stop… Ahhh… forgive me!! Ahgyaaaahhhh!!”

*

Ulrich, who had gradually decreased in body volume, was now in a state of shock and despair.

In fact, if she tried to create a skeleton with «Create Undead», the flesh would be removed from the corpse and it would stand up with only its bones. Therefore, there was no need to remove the flesh of the corpse while it was still alive, but this was just a little mischief on Rene’s part.

“‘Stop’, ‘help’, ‘forgive’. … I said a lot of the same things. No one listened.”

René simply muttered, almost throwing up.