Interlude

White was all around them.

As young Menou traveled with the red-haired priestess, they constantly had to deal with taboo and heresy. Beginning her journey from her erased hometown, Menou witnessed many tragedies on these travels. She was all too familiar with the foolishness of the world and the folly of humanity, but even then, she was shocked by the sheer whiteness of the place where they were now standing.

The sky was hidden behind clouds, and the ground itself was nothing but white as far as the eye could see. It spread out in every direction, so surreal that one could lose all sense of distance—and everything else.

“Can you believe it? This place used to be a continent crowded with residents.”

Menou couldn’t believe it.

The ground crunched underneath the soles of her shoes, but it wasn’t gravel. It was salt, rising in faint clouds with every footstep.

The land itself was encrusted with salt.

“It used to be a huge continent, too, but since it turned into a mass of salt, it’s slowly been melting into the sea. Now it’s basically just a big island, and I’m sure someday soon it’ll be gone completely.”

The scale of this destruction was so vast that Menou could scarcely imagine it.

Crunch. Crunch. The red-haired priestess kept walking.

“Look at this.”

There was a single sword piercing the ground.

“It’s the Sword of Salt. A sword that could easily destroy this whole world.”

The blade didn’t look sharp at all; it seemed brittle enough that it might break if you prodded it with a finger. While the white sword didn’t look like it served any practical use, it was the source of a massive calamity once caused by a Pure Concept.

It was the very incarnation of purification, with the power to turn anything it pierced into salt. The range of its erosion was limitless. In fact, it had turned an entire continent once teeming with life into nothing. The land was slowly melting into the sea, and now it was nothing more than a deserted island.

It was entirely possible that the entire world could have met the same fate.

As Menou caught her breath at the unbelievable scale of the transformation, the red-haired priestess turned to her.

“Do you get it now? This is the power of a Pure Concept. Otherworlders can cause massive calamities.”

Human Errors—these calamities on a world-ending scale—were the work of Otherworlders.

“So.” Having brought Menou all this way to the western edge of the map, the priestess spoke carefully. “As you can see, your town’s annihilation was no big deal.”

Perhaps she should have been frightened.

The incident in which Menou’s birthplace was destroyed was a major disaster. Her memories had turned white and slipped away, but she knew that town must have been precious to her.

However, instead of fear, Menou’s thoughts went elsewhere.

Instead of thinking of her town and her memories, which had vanished much like this continent, Menou looked at the red-haired priestess.

This person was a priestess with a dark-red aura who could easily seem frightening.

Did she bring Menou all the way here just to tell her that?

Did they go on this long journey so the priestess could give her some words of comfort about the terrible loss of her town and the fact that she couldn’t remember anything about it?

As the possibility occurred to her, a single drop of red sent ripples through Menou’s heart.

“I’ve decided what I want to do.”

“Oh yeah? Let’s hear it.”

“I want to be you.”

For a moment, just the briefest moment, the red-haired priestess looked surprised.

“…I don’t get it. You saying you wanna be like me? I’m a villain, you know.”

“I thought you were a pure, proper, and powerful priestess.”

“Are you so stupid, you don’t even understand sarcasm?”

Menou could tell the priestess was trying to dissuade her, but she made her request anyway.

“I still want to be like you.”

That’s what her pure-white soul and spirit had started to hope for because of a single drop of dark red.

The white town where her life started, the sacrilegious job of the priestess, and the plain of salt that surrounded them now all solidified Menou’s feelings.

“You prevent things like what happened to my hometown.”

It was the priestess’s blade that saved Menou in the white remains of her town.

“If you say you’re a villain, then I’ll become a villain, too.”

“Idiot.” The priestess stared at her like she was unbelievably stupid. “Just become a normal priestess, then. You might manage to actually be a pure, proper, and powerful one, you know?”

“I know.”

“You’re choosing the wrong path in life. You can still change your mind now.”

“I know.”

Menou knew she had other choices, but she still gazed steadily at the red-haired priestess.

The so-called villain who had sarcastically introduced herself as pure, proper, and powerful.

“…Tch. You’re hopeless.”

The woman turned on her heel and started walking, and Menou chased her and grabbed the sleeve of her robes.

As she walked alongside the priestess, who looked terribly cross, Menou stole a glance at her face.

“Could I ask what your name is?”

“Flare… You know what? Just call me Master.”

“Yes, Master.”

That was the day young Menou decided to become an Executioner.

In that land of salt, where she arrived after her family, friends, and hometown had all turned white—for the first time, Menou felt like she had an answer.