"We found it."
"Really? That's great! I knew you could do it, Shirou!"
Natalia excitedly ran over, only to hear Shirou say this.
"I want to destroy it, if you're willing, Miss Natalia."
"..."
Natalia's expression turned solemn.
After a while, she spoke in a cold tone. "I disagree."
"All right. I understand..."
"But I didn't see it either."
"Huh?"
The silver-haired Huntress smiled and patted the boy on the shoulder. "We didn't find Heinrich Zeppter's Magecraft Crest. That's all there is to it."
"Miss Natalia..."
"Burn these when we leave."
Shirou nodded, stuffed the arm bearing the Magecraft Crest back into the rotten flesh, and then burned everything to ashes.
"Welcome back. How did it go?"
As soon as Shirou and Natalia returned to the inn, Karen greeted them enthusiastically.
The Nun's eyes could not hide her yearning for money. "Did you find Heinrich Zeppter? Did you get anything?"
"We went through all that trouble for nothing. What rotten luck."
Natalia left Karen behind, muttering, "Call me when dinner's ready," before heading toward her room.
Having expended too much magical energy, she planned to sleep first and worry about everything else later.
"Hey! How could you not find anything? You got nothing at all?"
Karen drooped her shoulders in disappointment.
Shirou also returned to his room.
He had already discussed it with Natalia on the way back. They would rest for the night and leave tomorrow morning.
The inn was shrouded in silence deep into the night.
After the death of Heinrich Zeppter, the master of the demonic realm, everything in the town returned to nothingness.
And that was meant literally. All ten thousand residents of the town had reverted to their original forms as lumps of flesh.
Dead, dead, dead—no, it couldn't be called