Chapter 1
Ever since childhood, I would occasionally dream.
Dreams that were vivid while I was in them, yet vanished from my memory the moment I woke.
‘This dream again.’
Strangely, whenever I had this dream, I realized from the very beginning that it was a dream.
That was only natural, since this dream always began behind a woman standing in a place that looked like some kind of passageway.
A woman with shimmering, straight red hair falling to her waist stood there blankly, gazing at the ceiling with two red eyes shining like flames.
What made her unusual was the enormous pair of wings growing from her back, bared so deeply that even looking at it was embarrassing.
‘She’s beautiful every time I see her.’
As always, when I stared blankly at the beautiful red wings that drew my gaze in, my eyes soon wandered naturally to the woman’s clothing as well.
A black, long-sleeved dress that exposed no part of her body except her back.
The black fabric, which might otherwise have given the outfit a somber air, combined with gold-thread embroidery to create a solemn impression.
The dress clung to her body, revealing every alluring curve, and both sides were slit open, perhaps for practical reasons, but
what showed through the slits was soft black fabric presumed to be an underskirt, not bare legs.
Despite the deeply exposed back giving it a potentially risqué feel,
the contrast between her snow-white skin and beautiful red wings and the black clothing instead made her look like a work of art.
Though it was a style I had never seen in my ten years as a mercenary, the clothing she wore was clearly a type of ceremonial vestment worn by priests serving a god.
I always wondered which god she served whenever I saw her… but since I could never remember after waking from the dream, it was endlessly frustrating.
Anyway, whenever I quietly observed the woman like that,
“Hoo.”
before long, she would stop standing blankly and staring at the ceiling, then let out a sigh.
At the same time, my vision would briefly blur, and a buoyant sensation would envelop me, as though I were being pulled somewhere.
If I closed my eyes for a moment and waited for the sensation enveloping my body to disappear….
‘I guess it’s almost time to wake up.’
the final moment of this incomprehensible dream would arrive.
When I opened my eyes, I would find myself inside a temple that could hardly be called spacious.
The space was ringed around its central altar by statues with a menacing air, seemingly modeled after the grim reapers found only in fairy tales, as if standing guard over it.
Unlike an ordinary altar, it held a large bird-shaped stone statue that seemed to be looking down at me.
When my eyes met the statue, whose wings resembled those of the woman I had seen moments before,
-Fwoosh!
flames suddenly began roaring to life from the statue with tremendous force.
Perhaps because it was a dream, the flames felt cozy and warm rather than hot; when they burned the entire world away, the dream would end.
* *
Beneath an ominous sky covered in dark clouds,
a sound broke the silence of the deep, gloomy forest.
“Ugh, another stupid dream. I’ve been having it way too often lately.”
At the source of the sound was a man dressed in light clothing, with leather armor protecting his vital areas.
About 170 centimeters tall and with a youthful face, he was raking his fingers through his reddish-brown hair with an irritated expression.
The man’s name was Ren; apparently, he had fallen asleep while taking a short rest with his back against a tree. He stretched and looked around.
“Haa, how long do I have to wander around this damn forest… If it weren’t for the captain’s request, I wouldn’t have set foot in such a gloomy place.”
He had been wandering through the forest for more than three days, and his already meager patience had run dry long ago.
Ren ground his teeth, his red eyes full of irritation, vowing to beat the captain who had dumped this damn job on him as hard as he could once he got back.
“What expensive relic could possibly be in a forest like this that he wants me to find?”
Just as he had done several times over the past three days, Ren reached the top of the tallest tree around him in only three leaps.
And then.
“Oh. Is that it?”
After spotting an old building not far away, Ren jumped down from the tree with a smile on his lips.
“Guess I won’t have to starve.”
He opened the bag on his back, checked the food he had left, and set off.
After walking for about two more hours, Ren arrived at
“Whoa.”
a grand temple with an entirely different atmosphere from the one he had seen in the distance, so imposing that merely looking at it made him shrink back.
Unlike ordinary temples, which lavishly engraved the name of their deity right at the entrance, this temple had neither the name of its god nor even a small statue by its entrance.
However.
“This place is sinister.”
Even so, the atmosphere emanating from the temple was more threatening than that of any temple he had ever seen.
Ren placed a hand on the sword scabbard hanging behind his waist and swallowed hard.
It was at that moment that he took his first step into the pitch-dark interior of the temple.
-Fwoosh.
The instant Ren stepped inside, all the torches in the temple ignited at once, illuminating the surroundings,
“Challengers are always welcome. Well, something like that?”
-Creeeak― creeeak.
accompanied by grotesque noises, the stone statues lining the temple began moving one by one.
Gargoyles.
Grotesque moving statues with dragon heads, demonic wings, human bodies, and the hands and feet of beasts.
In ancient times, they had been used as sentinels in various fortresses, but the method of making them had since been lost, leaving gargoyles as legends; seeing a temple filled with them was truly a magnificent spectacle.
However.
“Tsk, stone lumps are a pain.”
To Ren, that fact was not important.
The only things he cared about were having time to rest comfortably and fighting strong opponents.
Remembering the captain’s promise that he would not bother Ren for a while after this job, Ren grumbled that he had been well and truly duped.
“No wonder the others sent me off with smiles.”
His comrades, who normally would have pestered him right up until he left on a mission, had for some reason sent him off smiling this time, which had felt deeply suspicious.
There had been a reason after all.
Irritably, Ren drew both swords from the scabbards at his waist.
He inhaled with his eyes closed.
“Hoo….”
The instant Ren opened his eyes again,
the dozens of gargoyles instinctively took a step backward.
Ren’s eyes were utterly calm now, unlike moments before,
for the gargoyles could sense that the red haze pouring from his swords would smoothly cleave even their sturdy bodies, their greatest pride.
A short while later.
-KABOOM!!
The deepest part of the temple shattered amid a thunderous roar.
“Achoo!!”
Having smashed apart the door blocking his way along with the final guardian, Ren entered the chamber coughing as dust billowed from the collapsing door.
“Did I break too much?”
After sheathing his swords and stepping inside, the first thing Ren saw was an altar softly illuminated by moonlight streaming through the broken ceiling, as though the sky had cleared without him noticing.
“Wow.”
Around the room stood statues that seemed to embody grim reapers, while an orb on the altar at the center shone with an overwhelming presence.
“It feels kind of familiar… Must be my imagination.”
Ren paused for a moment as he looked at the scene, troubled by an inexplicable sense of incongruity.
He soon shook his head to dispel the feeling, then began carefully examining the orb shining brilliantly before him.
“That aside, it’s obviously expensive.”
An orange orb lay before a large bird-shaped statue.
Ren swallowed hard as he watched the red aura undulate around it like flames.
“I might get cursed if I touch it wrong… Huh? What the hell, where’d my bag go?”
Apparently, the bag strap had snapped from the impact during his fight with the final guardian.
Ren sighed as he looked at the bag lying some distance away.
“Tsk, now I’ve got more luggage.”
Ren had just started walking over to retrieve his bag.
-Tap.
“Huh?”
It was a faint sound he normally would have ignored.
A tiny stone falling from the ceiling had struck something—a truly trivial sound.
However.
-Tap, thump.
If it had fallen onto the red orb, that was another matter entirely.
Like any sphere, the orb began to roll from the slight impact.
Downward.
“W-whoaaaaaa!!”
Of course, a treasure stored in a place like this would not break merely from falling onto the floor,
but human psychology was always like that.
When something expensive began rolling onto the floor right before their eyes, people instinctively reached out a hand.
Ren threw himself forward and barely caught the orb just before it struck the floor.
“Phew, that was close.”
Having already caught it, Ren figured there was no harm in running a hand over the orb once.
Suddenly, the red aura burning around it swelled as if exploding.
“Ow, hot!”
Startled, Ren tried to fling the orb away, but
“No, shit, what is this… Aaaaargh!!”
the orb clung tightly to Ren’s hand, scattering red energy all around.
Soon, the red energy spreading from the orb completely engulfed the surroundings.
After the energy covering the surroundings disappeared,
“Ugh, that scared me… Huh?”
As Ren rubbed his chest and grumbled irritably, he sensed something strange and raised his voice.
“No, wait a second, huh? Wh-why is this happening?”
He felt something soft and squishy on his chest.
His voice, too, came out at a high pitch unlike usual, almost like a little girl’s.
And above all,
“Fuck, where’d my arm goooooo!!”
When he looked down at the hand that felt as though it were wrapped in something, as if he were wearing a glove,
there were wings covered in red feathers in place of his own two hands, which had been with him all his life.