Consider that an order." It wasn't something one would typically expect to hear from the Torture Princess. However, Elisabeth said it knowing full well how ridiculous she sounded. Even in a crisis such as theirs, there were some people whose role it was to survive. This was a battle to secure the future. Everyone there knew and boasted of it, and the man before her was one they couldn't afford to let die. Lute averted his eyes again. However, mentioning his child had produced a marked change in his expression. He gave her a deep nod. "Of course. I have no intention of dying for nothing. That I swear, for Ain's sake as well." There was something ominous about his words, but there could be no doubting the unshakable resolve resting within them. Elisabeth had a mind to continue her warning. Before she could get the words out, though, a violent tremor shook the air. The bugle had been blown. Loud, loud, loud it blew. It was like a messenger had come to deliver a message: A calamity cometh. The broken Queen has arrived, in all her glory. 4 The Queen's Transformation It's time for a confession. Lute was a simple, awkward man with a heart full of compassion and righteousness who cared deeply about his wife and his friends. Part of that was due to his nature as a beastman, but it was just as much a product of his own personal convictions. In his eyes, any man who couldn't protect the people he cared about was no man at all, and a disgrace to the beastfolk to boot. That was something he believed deeply. Once, though, he went against those beliefs and committed a grave sin. There was something he had forgotten. Something he had absolutely needed to remember. Back at the World Tree, a thought crossed his mind. Perhaps he ought to remember Kaito Sena's smile. It would be best if he made sure to remember it, no matter what happened. But he forgot. And that wasn't all. There were oh-so-many things that had slipped his mind. It's time for a story. A story about who Kaito Sena was by nature. Lute had checked all his information in the beastfolk lands. Kaito Sena came from another world, one where he'd been abused and eventually killed. Then the Torture Princess had summoned him to act as her servant. Originally, though, he had been nothing but a powerless boy, a tragic child victimized without anyone to protect him. Yet somehow, everyone had forgotten that simple fact. None of the adults whose job it was to defend the world had remembered it. Lute and the others had collectively placed the burden of the entire world on the back of a single boy. They were the ones who were soldiers. It should have been their burden to bear. Kaito Sena offered no reply to his cry of regret. All he didâ€” â€”was smile a vaguely awkward smile. Then after thinking it over for a moment, Kaito reacted. He waved with big, childlike sweeps. The meaning of that gesture was the same across worlds. And because of that, Lute gasped. When Lute realized that, he cried out Kaito's name. As he did, Kaito kept frantically waving. He was saying a single word. "Good-bye." Lute had never forgotten that moment. Not a single day went by where he didn't think about it. Someday, someone would probably tell the tale with a lyre in one hand. Come, little ones. Come, and behold. Picture the sight. Picture the four monarchs, standing amid the flattened trees. Picture those who are too exalted, too noble, and too beautiful for us to even imagine. Picture the Sand Queen and the hermaphroditic Three Kings of the Forest. All of them were drenched in blood. And unlike the Kings, the Queen had lost her sanity to boot. Her eyes were staring off in different directions. The only thing lucid about her was the sheer bloodlust she was directing at any she considered to be in her way. The Three Kings responded to her malice in kind. The ancient wolf turned to the heavens, the white deer stomped its hooves, and the colossal hawk spread its wings wide. Then the Kings and Queen all opened their mouths in unison. A quartet of voices split the air like lightning. The noise quickly departed the range humans could hear. Yet heard or not, the Three Kings of the Forest roared on. Looking at them, it was clear they were singing an elegy. After all this time, their sworn friend's corpse had lost its mind. How could they learn of that and not grieve? However, their profound sorrow was met with flame. The Sand Queen's magical firebombing was much like the fixed batteries'. Anyone on the receiving end would be burned to a crisp. With nary a pause, the colossal hawk swept its battered wings. Blood spilled off them as a great wind blew forth. The shock wave dissipated the heat and extinguished it, and the ancient wolf followed up by kicking off against the ground and leaping into the air. Mountains trembled. The earth cracked. The beastfolk had braced themselves for the impact in advance, but even that wasn't enough to stop them from all tumbling ignobly to the ground. If they hadn't been ready, some of them might have actually died. Shouted warnings sounded through the air from all over. All the while, the ancient wolf soared. Higher and higher it went, a black shadow against the sky. The sun went dark, and a rain of blood poured down. Then the ancient wolf brought its arm down on the Sand Queen. However, its claws merely bounced off her scales and snapped off. The broken claws spun through the air and fell right in the middle of the army. "Fall back, fall back! Take cover! Ahhhhhhh!" One fervent scream rose up after another. By some stroke of fortune, none of them ended up getting skewered. Still, the fallen claws towered high over the army, each one easily taller than any of the beastfolk present. The procession's terror was all too visible in the way they held their tails and ears. Next, the white deer turned its hooves on the Sand Queen. The King shifted its weight forward in an attempt to trample the Queen, causing the ground to tremble so hard that cracks began forming across the mountain. The Sand Queen squirmed, but the hooves were unerring. The immense weight being focused on their tips caused a small chunk of the Sand Queen's scales to peel upward a hair. A familiar cry split the air. "Ready, aim, fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiire!" Much the way Aguina once had, Randgrof Elephabred gave the order. A bombardment roared out, flames gushing from the cannons set up atop the slanted mountainside as one shot rang out after another in succession. It was a tremendous display, made possible only by the demi-humans' incredible transportation skills. The relentless, merciless bombardment served to illustrate the stubbornness, or to an extent, the ill nature of the ones unleashing it. Aguina had approved scant few to operate the cannons, and the ruthless efficiency with which they worked went to show what model examples they were of the demi-humans' natural disposition. Furthermore, those were no cannonballs they were firing. They were silver harpoons coated in the blood of the Three Kings. They slammed into the Sand Queen one after another. Over a dozen of them merely bounced off her. However, three of the harpoons managed to slip between the dislocated scales. The ancient wolf grabbed hold of the harpoons' chains and gave them a relentless yank. The Sand Queen's vast body rose up off the ground and tore loudly through the air itself. The ancient wolf knew that if it slammed her straight back down, there was no way the beastfolk would emerge unscathed. Instead, it used the short time before the chains snapped to hurl the Sand Queen against a nearby mountain. The sound of every bone in her body snapping under her own weight split the air. However, the Sand Queen was unable to feel pain. After landing, the Sand Queen slowly rose back up and let out a cry. Elisabeth still couldn't see her in her entirety, but her instincts told her that the Sand Queen was all but unharmed. The sole damage she'd sustained was losing one of her scales in its entirety. Elisabeth wasted no time in letting out a soft murmur. "Nail Gun." A spiral of crimson petals and black darkness raced forward, and rusted nails the size of thin pillars appeared out of the air. In a perfect world, her goal would have been to pierce the Sand Queen's mana source through, but her scales had previously made that impossible. Now, though, Elisabeth was able to focus her attack straight at the Sand Queen's one bare patch of skin. A thunking noise rang out in succession. Black blood gushed out from between the nails, and the Sand Queen let out a roar of anguish. Even without the ability to feel pain, she was still able to tell when she was losing fluids. A chorus rose up to join her roar. "Ah, aah, ah, AH, ahh, AAAAAAaaaaaaAaAaAaAAAAAA!" There was an eerie solemnity to the voices. They sounded just as much like a scream as they did a hymn. A flock of birds. A school of fish. Rainbow light. Drops of blood. The divine beasts all shot toward the Sand Queen at once, using Elisabeth's nails as a target to land on and explode. The Sand Queen's flesh tore, causing massive amounts of blood to spill out and drench her surroundings. Elisabeth gave a small nod. The Sand Queen's blood was full of mana. The more of it they could spill, the better off the beastfolk would be. "Let's see if we can bleed her dry, shall we?" Seeing that the tactic was effective, the Torture Princess fired off more volleys of nails. The thunking ran out once more as Elisabeth stabbed, pierced, and penetrated the wound. "Adjust for the second row, fifth from the right! Fire!" Meanwhile, the beastfolk were making their move as well. They took advantage of the Sand Queen's immobility to finish adjusting their great bows, then carefully aimed between the peeling scales and fired. Their bows lacked the raw firepower the cannons had, but they allowed for far more precise sniping, and their arrowheads were coated in the same underling poison they'd used during Ragnarok. The Sand Queen was a corpse, so the poison had little effect on her body's ability to function, but its corrosive effects were powerful nonetheless. The scales around the impact sites began melting. That then allowed for more harpoons to find their mark. The ancient wolf grabbed the chains once more. The Sand Queen swayed on her feet. Waves of heat exploded erratically from her mouth, blasting away the topology of a nearby mountain. Some of the soldiers got caught up in the shock wave from the impact. Viscera spilled from their mangled torsos. Little ones such as them were so terribly fragile. Before the Sand Queen could do any more damage, the ancient wolf reached out and clamped her mouth shut. As it did, the white deer smashed her womb, and the colossal hawk pecked away at her legs. The battle was going far better for the Three Kings of the Forest than anyone could have imagined. They were all injured, but at the same time, the Sand Queen had already been destroyed once, and the beastfolk, demi-humans, and humans already knew how she fought. By all accounts, their victory was almost at hand. Upon seeing that, Elisabeth narrowed her eyes. ...Hmm? And there, for the first time, she realized that something felt off. She's hardly putting up a fight. Surely this can't be what Alice wished for. Elisabeth frowned. At the same time, though, there was a part of