Under a sky full of dark clouds. Black thorn trees writhe like snakes, and in the middle, a black-haired girl with the arms of a huge dragon that ignores the laws of physics glares at me.
"Have you come to stop me?"
She asked me that while looking at me.
"I'm cold."
When I answered like this, Maleficent flinches in surprise. She would know, having indirectly experienced the pain I went through in a world I still don't know if it's an illusion or a dream.
It's not a terrible cold that drives you mad as soon as it touches you. It's terrible because it keeps getting stronger forever.
There's no limit. Or it's impossible to adapt.
When you're deeply immersed in such cold, and realize that even suicide is a luxury, only then can you truly go mad.
And even after that, you're still suffering because of the cold.
"My warmth is just dissolving into thin air."
It's okay that harvesters died. After all, when they die, I take away the warmth. But the people that harvesters will kill in the future. Or people who could have become harvesters have died.
"I don't like that."
While at it, I swing the white branch to clear away thorns from the surroundings.
The writhing thorn trees slowly decrease.
Maleficent sees that and opens her mouth with displeasure.
"Again, you move freely in this place where magic doesn't move. What kind of power are you using?"
Whoosh.
Maleficent changed her hand transformed into a dragon back to a human hand. Victoria, who was crouching underneath, carefully walks towards me.
"Belle. That woman. Strong."
"I know."
I was subjected to a mental attack. My mind was dug into.
She's not an ordinary person. She's someone strong enough to call herself the Queen of Evil. Calling oneself evil is boasting that one has absolute power.
"Didn't you two become on bad terms?"
Maleficent asks towards Victoria.
Sowing discord here? Isn't that a bit crude? If possible, I'd like to see an amazing magic.
"We were pretending to be on bad terms. Both Belle and I knew you were doing strange things. Malley."
Moreover, since we were pretending our relationship had worsened, sowing discord won't work.
Victoria glares at Maleficent. At the same time, she slowly gathers water from the surroundings. However, there's already very little water.
The surrounding air is already bone dry, and I can feel Victoria exerting force. It's a unique sensation, but I roughly know what it feels like.
It's a movement of forcibly squeezing out something that's not there.
Stagger
Suddenly Victoria staggers and collapses on the ground. Superpowers don't use magic power, but they use concentration along with physical strength. Since she extracted a lot of blood earlier, it's understandable that she collapsed.
"After losing so much blood, even standing must be difficult? Shall I make you comfortable soon?"
Maleficent said that while sneering. But unlike until now, there's no sense of superiority in her expression.
When attacking harvesters, Maleficent was immersed in a sense of superiority that no matter what they did, they couldn't defeat her.
But unlike then, now she's watching my reaction.
As if she can't bear wanting to know how I react every time she speaks, she can't hide her emotions and her gaze is fixed on me.
I approached Victoria who was panting on the ground and straddled her.
"Kyak!"
Victoria screams. But if I don't do this, I think this kid will really collapse from anemia. Her gaze isn't focused right now.
It's hard being pressed down, but she can't even say anything to me because she's enduring it.
"Isn't that too harsh for an anemic child?"
"It's an appropriate paperweight for a child full of killing intent."
If Victoria's opponent wasn't Maleficent but a warrior with mediocre skills, her neck would have been cut off by now.
Even though there was some safety net secured to some extent, Victoria who destroyed the fishman's forward base alone is not ordinary.
I saw black thorn trees creeping on the ground and swung the white branch once again.
The black thorn trees regress. This witch. She moves insidiously.
"No matter how I look at it, I don't understand the principle. It was the same last time too. Even when you had a nightmare, you immediately broke through the nightmare. I didn't expect you to try to go inside instead of going outside like a fool."
Nightmare.
She's talking about the hallucination I saw yesterday.
"Did you find out something about me there?"
I ask her.
Then Maleficent closed her mouth. It means she didn't find out properly. It seems she followed me and saw the same things as me.
Since everyone didn't say anything special, even if she tried to find out, she couldn't.
I learned a lot too. If there were only harvesters, there was a possibility that all those whose warmth I took away had entered inside.
But memories were memories.
Because Hyunkeshuni was there. Until she fell to the bottom and disappeared, I didn't touch her light or warmth.
Therefore, there's no such possibility.
It means it was simply a hallucination created by memories.
For something like that, Hyunkeshuni alone stood out particularly. But Great Kraken and Primordial Heavenly Lord stood out quite a bit too, so I guess they were relatively high-ranked in their own way.
Or maybe she left that deep an impression on me.
Because she antagonized me until the end.
"Belle. This pig. Heavy..."
Victoria, crushed under me, lets out a small groan, but I ignored it. I know she's still drawing moisture from the bottom. Since it uses physical strength, she'll collapse if she doesn't stop.
"What will Maleficent do now?"
I asked Maleficent, who was somehow holding a staff with a yellow jewel attached and pointing it at me.
If she decides to kill me, I can grab and twist her.
In short, the technique I have is close to a counterattack.
To compare it to a game, it means I'm not using the opponent's attack power, but waiting for the opponent to fall for my gimmick.
So shall I scratch her mind little by little?
Her technique is tempting.
"First, Princess Aurora who insulted me should sleep forever as promised."
"What? Were you perhaps not invited to the birthday party alone? Alone?"
Grind.
Oh ho. She's grinding her teeth.
I asked that because a witch from some fairy tale came to mind, but the Maleficent in front of me was like that too. She was a powerful witch there too.
At least as much as the witch in front of me.
"You have an unexpectedly bad temper. Belle. Don't tell me you've been sitting still on the bed like a vegetative person until now to make me let my guard down?"
I shook my head to deny that.
"I thought Merriwather was an escort. I stayed still because there was no need to move. I really only found out Merriwather was a witch just now, you know?"
I don't know what she did or how, but ice that's barely visible to Victoria's eye, clear and transparent, is floating in the air.
Even if she collapses, she's full of intent to kill the witch in front of her.
Feeling fear at Victoria's killing intent, I slightly lifted my foot and stepped on Victoria's hand. Then with a small groan, the blade disappeared.
After confirming that she went limp from losing strength, I got up from Victoria's back.
Victoria has stopped now, and I need to deal with the witch.
A witch with strong pride.
How should I speak to hurt her heart the most?
"Don't be too disappointed. Even if I had known you were a witch, my actions wouldn't have changed."
And I swing the white branch once more to drive away the black thorn trees occupying the background. To make her misunderstand that only I have the initiative in this place now.
"There's no need to, right?"
A tone as if the difference in class is so great that it's fine no matter what you do.
In reality, even if I knew she was a witch, all I could do was wait until she did something. But these words will prick the witch's pride.
Look.
Black mist is flowing out from around Maleficent now. And that smoke slowly rises to the sky.
It means she wasn't talking to me without thinking.
The black smoke that rose high into the sky slowly forms a vortex.
"Are you trying to sparkle?"
Are you trying to act cute? Knowing it would sound like that, I asked Maleficent.
Boom!
Lightning poured from the center of the vortex.
But unfortunately, the lightning only managed to destroy the surrounding buildings.
Oh, what a waste.
People who were sleeping inside died. They weren't harvesters so I don't know exactly how they died, but the glimpses of light gradually get smaller and disappear.
"You missed."
I said with the meaning of aiming well next time, then Maleficent pointed her staff at me.
But lightning doesn't pour down again.
"What are you doing?"
"You, you're hoping to be attacked right now, aren't you?"
Oh no.
I guess I moved too obviously.
"It's better for me to be hit than to erase fleeting warmth."
I tried to change the subject slightly, but Maleficent glares at me. She's strangely not attacking me. Given Maleficent's personality so far, the threshold should have already been crossed.
But seeing her not attack me so compulsively like this.
"You heard something from Hyunkeshuni, didn't you?"
She tried to hide her expression, but it shows clearly.
Correct.
Hyunkeshuni who laughed at her in there must have said something about my weakness. Of course, the Hyunkeshuni I met in that nightmare probably wasn't Hyunkeshuni herself.
If I analyze it in my own way, I think what said that was my arrogant heart.
I'm desperately acting as a passive character, but I think ordinary humans are just simple matches.
Or I have the thought that they'll become materials for harvesters.
The arrogance that I'm in a position to exploit others.
Except for the bottomless cold, I was once an ordinary human, so it's not strange to think that way. Still, I was keeping it well on the outside, but I guess I couldn't hide my inner thoughts.
How can you hold back from teabagging while explaining this and that to an opponent you've completely beaten?
I can understand. The problem is that it wasn't said in a situation where I completely won, but let's say it can't be helped since it was said in a dream.
If she heard that, I can reveal a bit more.
"Maleficent. Don't tell me you're scared? You call yourself the Queen of Evil, but you're scared of a monster that doesn't assert its subjectivity?"
Of course, since Victoria is listening, I provoke Maleficent by twisting it very slightly.
"You have no problem killing people weaker than you, but you're afraid to lay hands on a monster."
I deliberately turned my back.
"I'm disappointed."
And I approached Victoria, who was still clutching the stone floor and dripping with sweat, perhaps still dizzy.
Of course, I watched Maleficent gritting her teeth through Victoria's gaze.