served me, and who died for me stored and refined their mana for, after all." "I mean, I'm not gonna deny that I thought it was impressive, but..." "No, my dear successor, it goes far past the level of 'impressive.' Burn this sight into your eyesâ€”it will undoubtably make for a valuable reference." Vlad floated up to a spot beside Kaito, casting his gaze toward the upcoming barrier. The way he then nodded in heartfelt admiration was both unusual and more than a little uncanny. "I bought demon flesh from the Butcher, but even I knew nothing of this place. I must admit, I'm quite impressed. They've laid out one first-rate barrier after another. Without an entire clan spending generations burning up their lives and knowledge, breaking in would prove nigh impossible. No mere graves require such protection. What on earth might they be hiding within?" The Kaiser, who was standing beside him, scoffed. For the last little while, he'd been duly playing the part of the canine and sniffing all over their surroundings. Then, with a displeased look on his face, he let out a sneeze and shook his body all over. "Hmph, what on earth indeed. This place was not built for man. An arrogant odor permeates its walls. It's the odor of mice, scurrying about as they try to receive blessings from a likeness of God... But the odor has a somewhat nostalgic bearing to it as well. Whatever could it mean?" The Kaiser resumed his sniffing. But it seemed answers still evaded him. He continued following the smell, and Kaito and the others quickly went after him. As they went down the corridor, they passed by a number of rooms, each one boasting a self-contained mausoleum. Each doorway was adorned with stone flowers, and within every one lay an imposing coffin. Luxurious decorations and statues stood guard around the coffins, each set based on anecdotes and tales from the lives of their corresponding kings. As she glanced at each mausoleum out of the corner of her eye, Izabella let out a strained voice. "Oh, to defile the graves of the kings of old... I am unfit to serve as a commander." Still bound by Deus Ex Machina's steel arms, she went as pale as a sheet. If they left her like that, she was liable to end up mentally scarred. W-we should probably do something to help alleviate her guilt... And they needed to explain things to Elisabeth as well. With those two thoughts in mind, Kaito decided to lay out everything he knew while he walked. "There's some stuff you guys should probably hear. Here's what's been going on up to now..." Jeanne, who was the original source of most of his information, offered no interjections. She merely hummed in a strangely mechanical fashion. As she heard Kaito's story, Izabella's face stiffened for a whole new reason. "Paladins made to eat demon flesh, you say? That can't be... But I certainly can't deny the existence of a squad I'd never heard of... And there were inconsistencies in the number of people listed as having died defending the Capital..." Izabella began muttering to herself. She'd clearly had prior inklings that something was amiss. As Izabella lost herself in her thoughts, a dangerous crimson glare flashed across Elisabeth's face. "A second, artificially made Torture Princess, you say? The Butcher did mention something about people working to prevent some event from occurring... You mean to tell me that this girl is the result of that?" The black, naturally made Torture Princess cast a glance at her golden counterpart's back. Jeanne offered no answer, of course. Elisabeth, not offering much in the way of words to Jeanne, either, continued speaking. "So the Church bolstered their strength by forcing paladins to consume demon flesh, then made an attempt on Jeanne's life. Jeanne's efforts were obstructing the Church's work, then. But what was their goal, and what was hers? The Butcher spoke of this as well..." After hearing Elisabeth's story, Kaito narrowed his eyes as he thought back over what she'd just said. "I'd never thought someone would rise to oppose the dreadful end of the story that the fourteen tragedies mark the beginning of. Though your two tales may be small in the scope of things, the results they bear may be monumental indeed," huh. Kaito pictured a large chessboard in his mind. The board was the world. The Butcher's schemes and Vlad's avarice had placed fourteen demonic pawns atop it. But although the pawns had been successfully destroyed, large cracks and fissures had spread across the board. Now, the Church's new, twisted pawns were facing off against a white queen. The crimson king and queen, who'd been fighting up until then, were currently floating off to the side. The Butcher had described the two of them as irregularities. He and Elisabeth had carried out their role, which was to defeat the fourteen demons, but supposedly, their efforts had had little effect on the battle at large. Now, though, they had an opportunity to play an even greater part. Something's been thrown into motion, but what? Or, no, maybe it was set into motion a long time ago. Kaito's head ached, and he pressed his fingers against his forehead. Then he gazed at the honey locks before him. There was no doubt in his mind that of all the people present, Jeanne was standing closest to the truth. But she still wasn't saying anything. Continuing to hum, she shattered the next seal with a pearl-gray stone. The group descended a set of stairs. With each floor they went down, the seals blocking their path grew in strength. Then Izabella let out a dumbfounded cry. "What is the meaning of this? The tomb is only supposed to have five floors!" The sixth floor wasn't supposed to exist, but it stood before them regardless, the barrier guarding it more colorful and bombastic than the others. No king was interred there, that much was clear. The room should have been empty, yet its barrier was strong enough to take out a hundred underlings in an instant. Kaito was concernedâ€”would Jeanne really be able to break through it? But Jeanne's voice when she spoke was light, a stark contrast to her steely face. "That's some baby crap. Your shit's softer than silk, you crazy fucks. If you wanted to protect it, you shoulda put your lives on the line. We used up an entire goddamn clan; how's that for crazy?" And then, as though she were trashing a child's secret hideout, Jeanne destroyed it. The stairwell they descended seemed to go on forever. At the end of it, though, they arrived at a massive door. An image of the Saint had been expertly carved on its surface. However, she didn't look the same as the myriad times Kaito had seen her before. There was one key difference between it and the statues of her hung upside down that he was familiar with. Dumbfounded, Kaito let out a murmur. "...She's standing." Her feet were planted firmly on the ground. And she didn't appear to be in any pain, either. A demi-human apostle was kneeling before her. Jeanne held a red jewel over the Saint's eye, and the stone melted away, as though extreme heat had been applied to it. As it did, red light flashed across the entire door like lightning. Bloody tears began pouring from the Saint's eyes. Then the door opened on its own, creaking, as it slowly revealed the interior of the room. And when it did, a bizarre voice rang out from inside. It was like a monster, screaming. It was like a human, moaning. "...What is that thing?" "A guardian the Grave Keeper created." Jeanne replied coolly to Izabella's shocked question. But no matter how one looked at it, the thing sitting in the middle of the room hardly looked like a "guardian" of any sort. It was a snowy owl fused with strangely swollen blobs of flesh. The owl's head was glowing white and giving off a holy aura. It resembled the beasts La Mules had summoned. But its bottom half was made up of repulsively intertwined feelers. The aura they gave off was sinister. If that thing was really a human's creation, then they'd clearly done something horribly taboo. Izabella let out a horrified murmur. "That...that can't... The Grave Keeper couldn't have... Not something like that..." Its wet feelers were spread and buried throughout the room, like roots on a tree. And they were pulsating. The Kaiser let out a deep growl, then spoke in a furious roar. "This is no laughing matter... This, too, is blasphemy; blasphemy against the very nature of demons! Vlad, do you see this? Why does that thing have the vile head of one of God's messengers?" "How brilliant. They borrowed God's power, summoned one of His beasts, then forced it to eat demon flesh. A triumph of the imagination." Vlad was barely paying attention to the Kaiser. His voice with thick with ecstasy. Izabella opened her eyes wide, utterly aghast. Her cheeks quivered. She was barely keeping herself from screaming, her heart clearly racked by despair and an overwhelming feeling of emptiness. Kaito could understand a little of what she was feeling. That thing's existence violates the very foundation of her beliefs. A monster, formed from a divine creation being forced to eat demon flesh, was sitting within the underground tomb that the Church had been protecting. It represented a complete and utter betrayal of everything the people believed in. "Aâ€”a question, if I may. Are you, in fact, a messenger of God?" In an impressive display of rationality, Izabella called out to the snowy owl. Then, still trembling, she continued. "U-under what beliefs d-do you guard thisâ€”" The owl whirled its head around in the unique manner owls do and stared directly at them. When it did, Izabella choked on her words. Kaito gulped as well. The owl's eyes were gold, as big as dinner plates, and utterly filled with madness. Like a missionary dispensing doctrine, Jeanne explained the monster's condition. "Those who eat demon flesh obtain great power but must in exchange offer the pain of others to their body as compensation. Just like myself and the black Torture Princess, the monster before us has likely obtained sufficient pain to maintain its body. But God's power and Diablo's power repel each other. Its mind and body were unable to maintain the mental and physical strain, bringing about this warped transformation. All that remains of it is the desire to destroy everything its eyes chance upon. A handy watchdog, ain't it! One of them real 'abandon hope, all ye who enter' types!" For the last bit, Jeanne's voice was ringing with ridicule. Taking that as their cue, the feelers throughout the room began writhing with animosity. The unpleasant sound of mucus slapping against mucus echoed out. Izabella covered her scarred face with one hand, then shook her head from side to side again and again. "This is mad... This is utter, utter madness! Why does something like that exist? Why is it here, in the underground royal tomb? Just what is it we believed in? What exactly have we been protecting?!" "Lift up your head, miss. There are many good and proper things you've protected, you know. But you noticed, didn't you? Even just a little? Something was gradually going askew. But you foolishly averted your eyes. This is the price you pay for your blindness." Jeanne's voice once more took on the ring of a priest giving a lecture. She mercilessly continued her dignified remonstration. "Look closely and behold. Why do you think I led a stray sheep like you here, O representative of humanity? You are a leader, though perhaps only in name." "Yes...you're right. So I am. So...I was." Biting her lip so hard that she drew blood, Izabella looked back up. Tears were spilling down from her