Circuit Breaker

“Eleventh Squad, we’re done.”

“Eleventh Squad, proceed westward. Join the second squad on the main street, and thereafter, fall under their command.”

“Fourth squad captured three girls. They will be taken away from here.”

“Understood.”

In the office of the duke’s castle, the main headquarters.

The map of the city was spread out on the desk, and around the map were a number of magic items for remote communication “call marks” like charms with incantations written on them.
The ghouls, who were the leaders of each unit, had a call mark, including a spare, and reported the progress of the operation to their commander, Alastair, every step of the way.

Ghouls are undead, also known as “corpse-eaters”.

They eat only corpse meat and do not attack people very often, but if they are starving, they will hunt people and wait for them to rot, and if they were under René’s command, they could take military action according to orders.

They had only faint memories and intentions from before their deaths, and their personalities were twisted in an evil way, but they were as intelligent as any human.

René took note of this “intelligence” trait. She assigned ghouls as squad leaders to lead the zombies, who lacked brains, and skeletons, who had only the decision-making ability of a simple golem.

She would have preferred to use a lich, but she would have had to use a magician’s soul as material, so it was difficult to have the right number of liches.

If they only had intelligence, spiritual undead would be fine, but not being able to carry things around would be a bit inconvenient.

That is why the leaders of the squads were ghouls.

The duke moved the pieces on the map and marked with a red cross the plots that had been completely eradicated.

If there was a communication, he would give instructions accordingly and add the changes in the situation to the map.

“Alastair. I’ve eliminated the reported threats. Do you have any other information on enemies they can’t handle?”

René’s voice came from one of the call marks, and Alastair bowed his head respectfully, aware that the other party could not see him.

“No, there is not. Probably the last. There are troops engaged with the adventurers, but the undead knights can handle them.”

“I see. …And there you are! ≪Call Lightning≫!”

Thunder roared and several screams echoed through the call mark.

“Can I help you?”

“Oh, don’t worry about it. I found a civilian who had failed to escape, so I killed him. I’ve been turning the materials I got into undead on the spot and sending them to the front of the castle as needed. If you encounter any units, have them collected.”

“Understood.”

“I’ll just wander around and kill anyone I can find who is running behind and hiding.”

In some squares in the city, material victims killed by the undead were piled up. René patrolled there and increased the number of soldiers by using «Create Undead».

And if she found citizens who were hiding with the ability to detect emotions, she would kill them as she passed by, and those who were suitable for soldiers would be turned into undead on the spot.

“…Speaking of escaping, some of the civilians that we failed to kill are beginning to escape out of the city. What about them? Shall we have the available forces pursue them?”

“Well, the first priority is to clean up the city, but… hmm?”

René seemed to have realized something.

“I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Understood.”

An explosion could be heard over the call mark.

*

“Found you.”

“Ah, Ahhh…”

Inside a house half destroyed by René’s magic.

The three women, who had apparently failed to escape and were hiding under the covers, were looking at René with frightened eyes.

High-teen women in town-girl outfits, with no distinctive features of any kind. They might be called “girls” by earthly standards, but here they were already considered adults, and depending on the individual, they might even be married.

They were not a family, but rather a group of people who happened to hide together in the same place. Chairs and desks had been arranged to barricade the room, but René put her head on her neck and with her free left hand lightly lifted the table and threw it behind her.

“Hiiiiiiii!”

A scream rose up, almost forced to the back of her throat.

René observed the trembling women.

They were of average to slender build. They weren’t the kind of women one would want to go to the trouble of turning into undead.

They were not suitable substitutes for René in terms of age, either.

In other words, they would be of no particular use to René. In other words, they could be killed off.

“Oh, please help me…”

“Ah… God, God, God.”

“Please help me. Only my life …only my life!”

Desperate pleading for life.

Noisy, she just thought.

They looked at René with clinging eyes, but since… René was a beautiful little girl unlike the rest of the undead, they were hoping that she would be able to communicate with them. Unfortunately, that’s a big mistake. She was the cause of all this.

She can’t think of any particular reason not to kill them. She decided to crush Wesala as an example, as a signal that she would fight back. There was no need to kill everyone, but the more deaths the better.

She would cut them in half with her cursed red blade, all three of them in one smooth motion.

Just killing them without hesitation and adding +3 to the kill score.

That was fine, it should have been.

–Hey, what is this …? I wonder why. It’s not fun…

The red blade in René’s hand did not move.

Killing was not fun.

Why?

Guilt? Conscience? Such things no longer existed. In that living hell, they were taken away along with human dignity.

Even before coming to this place, René had slaughtered dozens of innocent civilians by herself.

She stabbed and killed a mother who was trying to protect her child and her baby. She stabbed a father to death as he tried to protect his family, and then had his undead body kill his wife and daughter. She did not hesitate to slaughter a young girl who was too weak to escape and had to wait for her last moments with prayers on her sickbed.

There was no reason to think of the women in front of her as special.

–…No, that’s not it.

René realized.

–They’re piling up.

It was as if she was holding her breath and diving into the ocean, and the more René killed, the more she was suffocating, bit by bit.

She shouldn’t need to breathe, but it felt as if her chest and lungs were being squeezed.

It was ‘fear’.

Fear of being abandoned.

René had no real repulsion for murder. She was a ruthless and selfish avenger who would kill a sick old man or an infant if it served her purpose.

But what would her kind mother think of René’s barbaric acts?

What would Diana, who cared for René until the moment of her death, think when she saw René stained with blood?

Surely both of them would have tried to admonish and stop René if they were still alive.

That was still a good. Revenge against the world was, of course, beyond the comprehension of ordinary people.

But what if? What if she had been abandoned as an irredeemable enemy?

What if she lost her “mother’s love”…?

<“…Good luck. I’ll always be … watching over you.”>

… Diana’s words were a curse, not a salvation, to “René the avenger”…

That battle reminded René that she was just a girl.

–Bah, I feel so stupid. What am I thinking? Mom and Diana are dead. I don’t even know if they are looking at me. They could reincarnate the moment they die, so I don’t even know if they still exist in this world.

It was too ridiculous and childish a sentiment, René thought.

For those who were no longer here, René was trying to be a “tragic heroine” instead of a “monster who destroys everything”. She was trying to protect the last line, which may or may not have existed.

She didn’t know where she was safe and where she wasn’t.

That is why she was afraid! The more she killed, the more she became afraid that she might become corrupt.

It was not that René hesitated in killing them because she had developed feelings.

If she had had time to calm down a little,… so, for example, if she had met the women in front of her again tomorrow, she could have chopped them up without hesitation.

The three of them were praying and trembling, and their gazes were locked.

If she killed them.

If she cut them down, would she be able to break away from her childish sentimentality and become a revenge machine, without a shred of regard for right or wrong?

René gritted her back teeth and lowered her sword.

“…I’m going to ask you a … question. Answer quickly and accurately. When Hilbert, the king’s brother, usurped the throne from King Elbert, did you rejoice and celebrate it?”

Woman A (for the sake of convenience, let’s call them ABC from the left toward René), who seemed to have guessed what was going on from her words and René’s appearance, immediately straightened up her posture and knelt down, trembling. This was the kind of courtesy that a commoner should show to royalty.

Then she raised her voice.

“Princess! I consider such an outrageous act to be unthinkable!!”

It seemed that they had realized that René was the “Princess Rose of Hellrage”, in other words, the daughter of the previous king, Elbert. The commotion and circumstances in the capital seemed to have been transmitted successfully.

B, who was stunned to see what A had done, seemed to immediately understand what was going on and followed suit. She hung her head with her back teeth trembling.

“I was thinking the same thing, Princess!”

C also knelt down after a delay, and expecting her to say the same thing as A and B, C looked up trembling, put her hand on her chest and pleaded.

“Princess, no! These women were happy to talk about Hilbert’s deeds! And about the beheaded royalty, they said it was a ‘nice touch’!”

“Huh!?”

“What are you talking about!”

C’s accusation made A and B pale.

“She’s the one who was so happy about the coup!”

“No! I was just talking to them! It never crossed my mind…”

“Enough!”

“Kyaah!”

B grabbed C and punched her in the face with her fist, and C desperately clutched her face in return.

“Why are you trying to save yourself like that!”

“Are you trying to sell us out!? You’re a liar!”

“Which one of us is the liar!”

The three women began to fight and grab each other, leaving René aside.

René suddenly felt a headache coming on, so she rubbed the temple of her head with her right hand, holding onto it with her left.

“Umm… I forgot to tell you the first important thing. I know when someone is lying.”

“”Eh……””

The heads of A and B were flying in the air, leaving behind a mumble of despair.

C slipped out of B’s arms, which had lost their strength, and slumped straight down.

“Ah, ahhhh…”

“Hmph. I’m okay with this. I guess direct revenge is out of the question.”

Lightly swinging the red blade, René checked her mental state.

No flaws. It is not painful. Rather, it’s enjoyable.

She stared at C. The woman she had no desire to slay… At least not now, after plenty of atrocities.

“I’ll let you escape. But remember this. I will kill even someone like you if I have to. Understand that your survival here and now is only due to pure luck. Go to … quickly. Before I change my mind!”

“Y-yes …!”

When René scrunched up her chin (or, more precisely, moved the hand holding her neck that way), C got up and started to run like she was rolling.

René watched her back and was disappointed at her own ineptitude.

She was finally able to kill them both for a reason.

Even though she was anti-Hilbert, she missed the other one. This Wesala was going to be crushed, but René established a track record of letting citizens off the hook voluntarily.

–What am I? I can’t believe this is …revenge…

This was not the ideal image of what an avenger should be like. She was weak and inconsistent.

It was at that moment that she began to doubt whether she would even be able to get her revenge.

A flash of inspiration came to René’s mind.

That ABC fistfight was an unnecessary farce, but…

What if she could do that on a national scale?

　――That’s right… That’s right! Since my goal isn’t to kill everyone, I would rather use this technique!

There was no negotiating or begging for life with a monster that just indiscriminately destroyed everything. If that happened, people would unite and try to defeat René.

But what if she didn’t?

René took up the call mark she had put on hold and activated it.

“Alastair. No chasing. Or, if we don’t have a use for them, don’t kill them anymore. Let those who escape run away. The news and the fact that we destroyed a city is enough for me. Okay?”

“Understood.”

“And when I come back, we’ll have a strategy meeting. I’ve come up with a new plan to attack the capital. I need to know if it’s feasible and the specifics. We have to decide everything while your head is still in the game, so please take care of it.”

“Understood.”

Putting the call mark back on hold, René forced a smile.

Somewhere along the line, a limit on cruelty had been established. That would be a shackle as an avenger.

But that doesn’t mean she couldn’t kill. She just needed to take a break.

And … there were some strategies that became possible because of the occasional “no-kill” time!

–…Since it’s my fight like this, it’s going to be “revenge”, isn’t it?

Although it was a bit of a stretch, René forced herself to think positively about it.

She was not a broken and heartless revenge machine, but a person who was afraid of being hated by her mother and her mother’s substitute, Diana, which was why her fight could be “revenge” and not “the rampage of a monster”.

René was a girl.

She was neither a monster nor a revenge machine, but a girl who missed and mourned her mother.

“…Mother.”

The words spilled out of her mouth, René was shocked, holding her head in her hands and shaking.

“Waaaa! Forget it! No no no!!”

Fortunately, the call mark was on hold, and there were no ghouls or fleeing citizens in the vicinity, and no one heard her words.

René breathed a sigh of relief and then looked up at the sky from inside the half-destroyed house.

The people who took her mother, her life, everything, from a fragile little girl, were still alive under this sky.

That is why …

–……Fight!!

The main street, smashed here and there by magic and littered with corpses and the remains of undead, was desolate and silent.

＊ ＊ ＊

René still didn’t know.

This decision would develop beyond the framework of a mere operation and create a René who would reign as an enemy to the world of mankind.