The God of Depravity

Before us stood the noble's skeleton. And behind us, a swarm of skeletons from victims and slain monsters.

We had been caught in a pincer attack.

"This is bad if we stay here."

"Tch, I really thought it'd be here. We've already checked most of the castle."

"Here we go!"

Jill charged into the mass of skeletons with her greatsword raised and began wreaking havoc.

With each swing, several skeletons went flying.

The difference in reach gave her quite the advantage.

But no matter how many skeletons were knocked down, more kept appearing, and ones only slightly damaged regenerated immediately.

No matter how much Jill went wild, she'd eventually lose.

And the noble's skeleton, a powerful individual, was still intact.

"Good grief. We need to get out of here first. Jill, come here."

Iefuda pulled another box from his pocket, beckoned Jill over, then lit the fuse with his burning cigarette.

Then he threw it with force toward the entrance.

The moment the box hit the ground, it exploded and blew a hole in the skeleton encirclement.

We could break through there.

Jill excitedly cheered at the sound of the explosion.

"That's genuinely the last one I had! Let's go!"

At Iefuda's call, the three of us ran.

We pushed through the smoke and advanced without looking to the side. If we dawdled, the skeletons would block our path again.

"There is no escape. This is your final destination."

I heard the noble's skeleton say that from behind.

But I ignored it.

I would survive and get out of here no matter what.

The great hall was empty.

All those bones had been cleaned away completely.

Only the sound of our footsteps on the blood-soaked floor echoed.

We exited the great hall into the corridor.

But there were Skeleton Soldiers roaming around who hadn't been there before.

It seemed they had modified all the corpses throughout the castle.

I didn't know how many there were, but if that was the case, the number must be substantial.

After all, the corpses we'd discovered so far were too numerous to count.

At worst, there might be enough to form an entire castle's army.

The Skeleton Soldiers spotted us and raised their weapons with clattering sounds as they rushed over.

The noise of the Skeleton Soldiers moving was conspicuous. Other nearby ones immediately reacted to the sound and came over.

"The inside of the castle is no good."

Seeing Jill wipe out the first group of Skeleton Soldiers that approached, Iefuda spoke to me.

"There's no shortage of hiding places, but with that many, we'll quickly lose all freedom of movement. And there's nowhere left to search inside the castle. We have no choice but to go outside."

Outside. The interior of this castle was already quite dangerous, but from what I could see, the outside was just as dangerous.

There were pig monsters too large to enter the castle, and bat-people wandering the sky.

There might be other things out there too.

I thought it was very risky, but I couldn't think of any other options.

"Let's go."

"Got it."

Jill stood before an outer wall and raised her greatsword on the spot.

Just as I thought "no way," Jill swung her greatsword down.

With a tremendous boom, the wall was destroyed.

What absurd brute force. Even my lot wouldn't do this.

But at least it saved us the trouble of heading to the entrance.

We passed through the hole in the wall and went outside.

I'd thought the wall material was stone at first, but the inside of the wall was red and pulsing, as if alive.

Perhaps humans had been used as material for this castle too.

Just how many victims had there been?

Iefuda had said this world's master was some kind of… remnant of a certain god.

Thinking that such a god existed when the gods still wielded power in this land was terrifying.

Unlike inside the castle, the outside wasn't shrouded in darkness.

But the red moonlight gave everything a reddish tint, as if blood had been splashed in my eyes.

Not a single blade of grass existed on the ground either, and instead of soil, something like reddish-black flesh formed the foundation.

In what looked like a flower bed, animal carcasses were impaled, and my eyes met their rotting ones.

Bad taste. Ostentatiously depraved, one might say.

"They're coming from above."

As Yohane stopped, Iefuda called out.

I quickly looked up to see bat-people diving down from the sky.

I threw my now-unnecessary torch.

The bat-people didn't fear the fire, and even hitting them failed to make them flinch.

Then Jill leaped and kicked the torch upward.

The torch pierced like a stake and burned them from within.

"—!"

An ear-splitting, terrifying scream rang out.

Jill finished them off immediately, but it drew the attention of other bat-people circling the sky.

"They're set up to thoroughly prevent prey from escaping. Persistent bastards."

"Once we get outside, this happens. We at least need someplace to hide or with a roof."

Jill had somehow repelled them, but if we were targeted from the sky, we'd be done for.

And the bat-people also had attacks using poisonous mucus.

There was no way to dodge that.

Seeing their comrade killed, the bat-people slowly increased in number as if surrounding us.

"Let's go there."

What I spotted on the spur of the moment was a somewhat large hut.

The entrance was destroyed, but it had a roof.

Better than staying out here.

We entered the hut while struggling against the sticky ground clinging to our feet.

Immediately after, a splashing sound came from above.

It seemed they had dropped mucus from the sky.

That was close…

"We have company."

Jill pointed to the back with her left index finger.

An eye on the belly rolled around and looked at us.

The pig with the eye slowly turned toward us.

What a sight.

Multiple pieces of human facial skin had been sewn onto the pig's face.

A grotesque monster.