Chapter 0: Prologue

The sensation of something piercing through my abdomen was deeply unpleasant.

After being flung several dozen meters and crashing into the ground, I tumbled to a halt—just in time to see our target rampaging in the distance.

“Guh…”

With my breath, I coughed up blood.

Through the blood-tinted haze, I saw my comrades and the rest of the subjugation force locked in fierce combat against that thing.

“Haa… haa…”

The searing pain in my wounds was slowly being replaced by a cold numbness.

I’d lost too much blood.

At that moment, two women came running toward me from afar.

One of them was my comrade.

She was a mage capable of performing miraculous healing. 

No doubt she was sprinting toward me to cast her spells.

But the look on her face suggested that wasn’t her only reason.

She had gone pale—no doubt horrified by the sight of me, skewered and bleeding out.

And the other woman…

She was from a different subjugation team.

Yet her face was familiar.

Unforgettable.

With her golden hair streaming behind her, she ran toward me.

Her expression mirrored the one worn by my mage companion—stricken with fear and panic.

Why is she making that face?

Don’t come any closer.

At least you…

At least you shouldn’t see me like this.

“Gillian—!”

But she kept running.

With a terrified expression that didn’t suit her, even though there was nothing she could do, she came anyway.

She grabbed my hand.

At the same time, the mage who’d arrived beside her began desperately casting her healing miracle.

As the light of the spell shimmered before me, I turned to the woman holding my hand and whispered her name.

“Ariel…”

“Gillian…! Stay with me…!! You can’t die…!!”

Seeing her cry like that…

I forced my mouth open one more time.

“…Get lost.”

“…”

Her previously distraught expression shifted—finally, into something far more bearable.