After Allen narrowly avoided getting bisected by the silver knight's axe thanks to Nera's quick reflexes, the two both got back to their feet. They both backed away from the two they previously saw as “protectors”.

  "Dammit Hache, looks like you missed 'em. I was hoping we could get this over with quickly in one fell swoop." The knight's associate bemoaned.

  "I guess we're going to have to do this the tiresome and exhausting way." Her words sharply contrasted with her apparent whimsical attitude. Harpe’s mannerisms became even more lackadaisical than before and her voice took on a menacing tone as she shed the sheep’s clothing she had worn prior.

  Nera looked at Allen worriedly, “I'll be fine no matter what, but you should probably hurry up and run away."

  "What!? You may be strong, but you can't seriously think I'm the type to just leave you here to deal with these two your-"

  "You should listen to her," Harpe interrupted."Your role has ended here, extra."

  "Harpist Craft, Page 7 - Hymn of Conveyance."

  She strummed the strings on the small harp and a somber melody emanated out from it. This was accompanied by emerald green lines of musical notes. They rapidly flew out from the harp and curved right through his chest. He reacted with a karate upper block he had learned a long time ago but it was to no avail. He was instantly sent flying into one of the alley walls at an incredible speed. His whole body was slammed with enough force to draw blood and the air was knocked out of him. He weakly crumpled to the ground.

  "Huff...huff..huff." While Allen continued to futilely try to force a decent amount of air back into his lungs, he looked up to see what was going on. Nera had her back fully turned away from him.

  "I can’t believe I let my guard down with someone that crazy for even a moment."

  "Don't worry..."

  A fierce grin appeared on her face as she raised her fists in a fighting position.

  "I'm sure my performance of handing you two your asses is going to go off without a hitch."

  She snapped her fingers causing metallic gauntlets to seamlessly extend over her wrists and hands then swiftly bounded straight towards the armored warrior wielding the ax.

  "Harpist Craft, Page 3 - Hymn of Fortification."

  Harpe quickly strummed once more on her instrument, this inciting four red staves of musical notes to emerge from it and hurriedly encircle the arms and legs of Hache just as Nera's fist collided with his crossed arms pushed him back into the mist a little.

  He swung the ax at her. Nera simply avoided it by leaping back with two steps a far distance away. She followed this up by getting into a running position and then started sprinting towards the armored warrior again, building up so much speed her image nearly became nothing but a blur.

  She was about to reach the armored warrior in half a second. He swung his ax downwards at her. Nera nimbly avoided the attack. She flipped forward high into the air while keeping her momentum and slammed her feet down on the long handle of the ax as it hit the ground.

  It was embedded into the asphalt below. Defenseless, Hache took the full force of Nera's second punch.

  "Magical Knucker Driver!” She yelled out as her strike made contact with a booming metallic crash. His reverberating voice could be heard as he loudly grunted in pain. However, it was not enough to move him from where he stood, and he batted his arm at Nera, forcing her to jump back.

  A large dent was left on his chest plate and he noticeably groaned as he inspected the damage with his free hand.

  Nera grinned and raised up three of her fingers.

  "Three. That's the number of your ribs I just broke. I could hear them cracking from a mile away. Are you sure you want to continue, tin bucket?"

  Having finally regained his breath and got back to his feet, Allen was wordless as he watched the two's superhuman fight while trying to figure out he could help.

  "There's nothing you could do here extra but be a nuisance."

  Allen turned away from the fight to see that Harpe had positioned herself right across from him on the other side of the alley without him even noticing. He backed away cautiously.

  "This Grim Reaper Trial only has a select number of performers in it. All the rest are just extras and props. What we want is the Grim Piece from that girl, you don't have to needlessly put yourself in harm's way. You barely know her don't you?".

  She glanced his way for the first time and Allen could see that her eyes glowed vivid green and had odd spirals inside of them.

  Allen could not fathom what she was talking about. "What are you saying?"

  Harpe tilted her head as she decided to entertain his question. "If there’s an underworld, surely you must’ve wondered who reigns supreme over it. This city's grand announcement and the Grim Reaper Trial's start are not coincidental. Atelier City was opened up to the public by the Night of Rising Stars to gather worthy candidates of standing at top of the underworld as its next Grim Reaper."

  "Candidates? Grim Reaper? Magic or not, you can’t expect me to believe that’s a role you so can just grant someone! " Allen yelled in exasperation.

  "It is as long as a person is born with an auspicious fate already. That's what the city is for after all. This is a place where dreams are used as the paint to create destinies. Once a person is marked as someone who can become our next hero, there's no going back."

  “A hero?” Despite the danger, his heart thumped with anticipation regardless of Harpe's words as he thought about the mysterious paper Nera had dismissed as nothing. It had dragged him into this whole mess.

  There must be a meaning behind that. The young man wondered if it was one of these Grim Pieces. Even if it was an ominous one, it could lead him down a path that could take him away from the mundane life that felt like rotting from the inside out, a chance to be chosen.

  Allen took the paper with the tree symbol on it that landed him into this predicament in the first place and, now, he was hoping it would solve all his problems. "

  This is the Grim Piece you're looking for, isn't it?" Blood from his hands stained the power and it began to glow with an eerie light. Allen was convinced of his suspicions at this point. If it came to it, he would accept whatever dark power this item would bestow upon him if that truly was his destiny. The paper pulsed one last time with golden light before that shine dispersed and flickered out like a candle in the wind.

  "Huh!?"

  "You really are clueless!" Harpe yelled hysterically. "That paper was only a tool to display a person’s magical nature, the role they were meant to fulfill, and that result shows you have none at all! This is what a Grim Piece is."

  She moved some of her hoodie's collar out of the way to reveal a mark of strange symbols resembling a tattoo wrapped around her neck. She pressed her fingers to it and it began pulsating with emerald light.

  "Let me let you in on something else, this Grim Reaper Trial is to decide who next will take on the title of Grim Reaper, the supreme executioner of the Underworld. Each of us participants has already been imbued with a portion of the previous’s power in the form of these Grim Pieces, all that's left is for every Inheritor to gather in Atelier City and one of us to collect them all. I learned that the girl over there has one and the only way to claim it for myself is to rip it off of her cold dead body."

  Allen was lost for words at what he was hearing as he finally realized that there was no point in waiting for any special destiny to be thrust onto him. He was just fumbling uselessly around for a route that did not exist.

  "Many of the people who flocked to Atelier City are like you and are here for no reason but to fill up space. It's not a matter of fortune or misfortune, just coincidence. Now that you know all of that, are you sure you want to try to protect that doomed girl? I may even let you go if you huddle off into a corner somewhere before that lab rat gets put out of her misery." She pointed to the other end of the alley covered in fog.

  "You better hurry, you're running out of time for that deal."

  "…what do you mean?"

  He looked over to see Hache come down with an axe swing that Nera confidently guarded with her gauntlets only for three diagonal slashes to appear on her torso regardless. She winced in great pain as blood gushed from her wounds.

  "But she blocked it..." Allen uttered hoarsely at that power he could not comprehend.

  "Now, are you sure you don't want to run away?"

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  Allen stood there shaking in fear and uncertain for a moment. Part of him wanted to go over to Nera to help her out and the other was too afraid to do so.

  A grin still remained on Nera's face but Allen could tell that it was only a fake smile.

  "It's alright, I'll be fine on my own. Just run away."

  Allen's expression filled with dismay. Those were the last words he wanted to hear and as he began to turn around. The look on her face burned into his mind and haunted him to his core. It was one of sincerity, fear, and worst of all...acceptance. Deep down, he wanted her to tell him that she wanted him to help, that he could help.

  That face plagued his mind as ran away to the other end of the alley, away from all of them. When his body completely disappeared into the mist, the devilish woman cackled, "I really do love to watch the moment when a person's heart cracks. Now, I don't have to worry about any unexpected interruptions from that extra. Hache, finish the lab rat off."

  "As you command, Madam Harpe."

  Nera was able to still avoid his attacks even with her grave wounds, but eventually succumbed to the toll they took on her and fell to her knees without any strength left in her legs.

  She looked up in determination but she began to fill with doubt that she would make it out of this as the armored warrior charged at her and raised his ax to land one final blow that would surely end her if it struck.

  However, at that same moment...

  "Magical Aerial Dive!!!"

  Yelling this out at the top of their lungs, a figure clumsily jumped down from the rooftops right in front of Nera and blocked the warrior's attack head-on catching the ax's handle in their hands just barely managing to keep the blade from slashing their body.

  "What are you doing here!? There's no point in you getting involved. I'm not sure why, but I'm the one they're after, not you." Nera yelled angrily at the figure, Allen.

  Allen laughed wryly as the armored warrior began furiously swinging him around trying to force Allen to let go of the ax handle.

  "What?" the warrior's low voice reverberated from his metal helmet in surprise.

  The light of his axe was beginning to fade along with the red rings around his arms and legs. They both appeared to be being siphoned by something that Allen had wrapped around his hands. They were remains of the specter's body and its vines which had long and sharp spikes on them.

  "No way, you're using those!? Don't you know it's draining you too? Aren't you worried about your life, you idiot!"

  "Of course I am, you wannabe martyr!" Allen chuckled mirthlessly as he was slammed on his feet by the large armored warrior in another attempt to wrest his grip of the ax from him.

  "I'm the type of guy who only does things if I think there's something worthwhile in it for me and runs at the first sign that things are getting bad, but even a bastard like me couldn't live with the guilt of leaving someone for dead who just saved their life multiple times!" Allen fiercely declared.

  A haunting melody followed by a stream of lines ran through Hache’s arms and launched them forward.

  "Ughh!" The blade of the axe was sent into Allen’s shoulder. Three bloody vertical marks similar to the ones that had been inflicted on Nera were now etched on his torso as well. Nera looked over to see Harpe with her fingers on the strings of her instrument, The spiral-eyed woman was chuckling to herself.

  “Sorry, I couldn’t let you three have all of the fun.”

  Nera glared at Harpe before turning back around.

  Allen was desperately continuing to struggle for possession of the ax and coughed up dark crimson blood. Even with a bunch of adrenaline pumping through him, the massive wounds he just sustained were taking their toll as his grip began to loosen, a shadow falling over his vision, and his consciousness began to fade.

  Memories flashed through Allen’s mind. They were one of the numerous shortcomings that he had tried to move past by coming to Atelier City only to fail when it mattered most A ripped canvas. A crumpled letter. A demolished building. Whether it was the most mundane problem or the most harrowing, maybe grasping hold of victory in the face of adversity was impossible for the young man.

  Nera was shaken as she could barely hear the sound of his heart beating.

  The armored warrior solemnly sighed at the dying foe before him and was about to pull the ax out of Allen's now loosened grip. It would take only a single yank to wrest it from the powerless hands. As Allen's mind slipped into nothingness. A voice like a rope pulled him back to his senses momentarily.

  "You hypocrite!" Nera screamed desperately with sweat pouring over her face. "If you're not going to run, at least win!"

  As everything slipped into darkness, a jolt raced over Allen's body from the outrageous plea that he could not simply dismiss. "if magic turned out to be real...I can at least...at the very end...give the impossible one more..."

  Just as Hache was about to end this farce by pulling the grand axe away from Allen, the vines of the specter that were wrapped around the young man's hands turned from dark green to pitch black instantly. The vines grew to entangle both the ax and Allen's entire body, piercing him all over with the thorns that began to grow as well.

  The armored warrior gasped in surprise. All the mana of the red magical symbols around his limbs was completely drained out of them. The crimson staves broke apart into nothingness. He could feel nearly all of his strength being taken from him as well.

  An ominous dark aura then blasted his hands off the handle of the ax and enveloped Allen's body whose eyes were now wide open but emotionless. The armored warrior then began furiously punching him all over his stomach, chest, and face even breaking his nose in the process, but he just stood there motionless like a statue. Then, with no warning at all, the vines began to tighten and Allen's arms began to raise the ax high over his head, up to the crescent moon.

  "Hache, get out of there!!! Right now!!!" Harpe yelled, her voice high from distress.

  Her warning came too late. The now wholly ebon ax was swung down in a tremendously fast blur. Darkness trailed after the ebon blade like a frightening banner. It cut right through the warrior's armor and sent out a wave of black miasma that knocked him meters away onto his back. A gaping slash from his right shoulder to the bottom of his torso was spilling with blood that stained his silvery armor.

  That was more than just the residual effects of the specter's remains. Neither was it some unknown function of the silver item in the young man's hands. Whether it was by some unorthodox skill or reckless fluke, Allen had momentarily drawn out the power of the underworld that could only be called magic.

  When only those chosen should wield such an otherworldly art, that outsider claimed it for himself with jet-black ink.

  After that moment had passed, the vines that entangled Allen and the ax that was deeply embedded into the ground regressed. They were now back to their previous color and rapidly started to disintegrate until there was nothing left of them. All the power that was in them had been drawn out in the attack. After that, Allen's eyes began blinking as life gradually returned to them. He opened his mouth and broke the silence of that soundless world.

  "...What happened?"

  "You happened," the Crafter answered as she walked over in his direction.

  “I would like to hurry up and heal Hache, but it shouldn’t take too long to get rid of you now that you’re this spent.” The woman raised her fingers to the strings of her harp once more.

  That was when Allen heard Nera stir from behind him with a grunt.

  “That can’t be… She’s going to rush her now?!” That premonition hit him like a truck.’I’m not sure what I should do. I already gave it all I had.’

  It was a moment between an instance and an eternity.

  A snap resounded and asphalt fragments crackled on the ground as Nera leaped to Harpe from beside Allen. Her metal gauntlets now had sharp, steel blades protruding out from her forearms. Harpe’s smile never faded as her hand hovered over her instrument of mayhem.

  Allen gripped the axe handle and rushed forward. However, in an unexpected action, he moved in between Harpe and Nera while leaving the weapon behind. The young woman's eyes widened with shock as she screeched to a halt.

  "Why would you..." Nera uttered hoarsely as she suddenly fainted from exhaustion and slumped to the ground on her knees. The quiet but still audible sound of her strained breathing was enough for Allen to keep his resolve and attention focused on the person in front of him.

  His eyes were facing the Crafter's gaze with all the might left he could muster.

  "I'm not going to let you kill her after all that..." Allen declared.

  "Then, how are you going to stop me? I have just enough time to finish you both off before treating my servant."

  "With a deal..." Was all Allen said before ripping out a piece of paper from his sketchbook and etching two lines on it with his own blood and handing this to Harpe with something wrapped into it.

  She opened the piece of paper that was like a contract with the devil themself and lightly chuckled. "You'd actually go that far for her?"

  Allen nodded in response as his whole body shook uncontrollably. Even though it looked like a weak breeze could blow him over, she had seen enough to not take him so lightly. Instead, she decided to consider his deal.

  "Alright, we're done here." The eerie woman announced without a shred of doubt.

  The Crafter turned around, grabbed the ax handle, and pulled it out from the broken ground, dragging it along with her.

  When she reached Hache, she casually stated, "Get up, we're leaving. We're going to need to patch that wound up quickly."

  The armored warrior gutturally growled out as he rose to a stand. "Very well."

  "Hopefully, if you two live long enough, we'll be able to meet again and things will go a lot more according to the script," Harpe mused.

  The two enigmatic assailants turned away from Allen and Nera and walked back into the mist where they had come from. Harpe played one last eerily melody and gazed upon what Allen had given her again, a dull key and a crude mark that showed what it was for. The pair entered the mist that was also starting to dissipate until they were completely gone from view.

  The moment they were gone from sight. Allen felt the strength finally drain from him and collapsed in front of Nera in a pool of his own blood.

  “Ah…am I going to die after all that?’

  Through his foggy consciousness, Allen peered back to where Nera was kneeling on the ground. She had awakened but was still suffering from her grievous wounds. He thoughtlessly tried reaching her by dragging his body along the ground. In between the two, there lay a strange sculpture in the shape of one of Mandrake's vines that appeared to glow an enchanting green light. When he could not move any closer, the young man reached out both his arms toward her, only for his hands to fall on that sculpture, staining it.

  Seeing this, Nera reached out her hand and took his in her grasp. He mouthed the words, "I'm sorry". She shook her head in response, now believing that he had made the right call when she attacked.

  "Please, you reckless fool, if you can hear me, just hold on a little while longer," the young woman pleaded with every breath stinging with pain. "This dream has almost reached its end."

  She closed her eyes with a silent wish and the monstrous paint that had coated the alleyway finally faded away into glimmering particles of dust akin to the Sandman's powder and then disappeared into nothingness. In accord, the blood surrounding them vanished alongside all other signs of the battle that certainly took place, as if everything had all just been a simple dream.