What tool has killed the most beasts throughout history?

A sword? A spear? Or perhaps a stone axe?

None of the above.

Since ancient times, the tool that has killed the most beasts, with the greatest cruelty and the least effort, has been none other than rope.

A weapon unique to humans, with their blunt nails, dexterous hands, high intelligence, and the innate cruelty that comes with it.

"Ghhhhh! Kgh! Ghh!"

"Welcome~ to a land~ of fantasy~."

The colonel's bubbling gasps harmonized with my humming. I pushed my foot against his back and pulled the rope even tighter.

Being suddenly strangled tends to induce panic. Instinctively, the colonel made a futile attempt to pry the rope away from his neck.

'What's happening?! My neck, being, strangled. Who the hell!'

His survival instincts roused every part of him. His mind had gone stiff from blindly obeying the lieutenant general's orders, but now, for the first time since coming down here, he began to think for himself.

He summoned his energy arts and wrapped them around his neck. Protecting it with bullet-repelling energy and hardening energy arts, he secured a bare minimum of blood flow, then thought with his eyes wide open.

'The convict laborer! How dare, a mere, prisoner. Ambush an officer!'

His thoughts came in disjointed bursts. He stopped breathing, briefly assessed the situation, and flew into a rage.

'You think, just strangling me! Is enough, to defeat an officer!'

Even while being strangled from behind, he brimmed with hostility.

Apparently anger wasn't a combustion reaction. It kept burning even with its oxygen supply cut off.

'I'll show you the difference in our strength!'

Fortunately, the back of one's body is generally difficult to reach.

Attacking someone behind you takes a plan.

And once you make a plan, I can read it.

Now, let's dance.

The colonel's elbow flew toward my shoulder in a powerful spinning back strike.

I slid my right foot half a step back and leaned lightly away. At the limit of his range of motion, his elbow stopped just short of reaching me. It was such a narrow dodge that it looked rehearsed.

Smiling, I briefly let out the rope around his neck, then looped it around his right arm.

The colonel's right arm was now bound to his neck.

'My right arm! You bastard...! Then how about this!'

Next came his foot. With me pressed close behind him and out of sight, he intended to kick backward and knock me away. Had I been unable to read his thoughts, the kick would have caught me.

Had I been unable to read his thoughts, that is.

As he extended his leg, I took a matching step back. Like partners dancing, the colonel and I moved step by step, pressed close together.

Partners dancing?

It had only just occurred to me, but that wasn't a bad comparison.

Except that my partner was a bear of a man.

That would be today's theme. I whispered into the colonel's ear.

"Where do you think you're going? I'm not letting go, partner."

'What, bullshit...!'

I read my partner's mind, responding to and following his every move.

Able to fall naturally into step with even a complete stranger, I was surely the finest dance partner in the Military State.

'N-no. I can't breathe...'

His attempts to escape failed one after another.

When he tried to turn, I pulled the rope taut and turned with him.

When he flailed his limbs, I moved just enough to accommodate his wild motions.

The colonel unleashed his bullet-repelling energy to push me away. But pushing and pulling was my specialty. All I had to do was ease off briefly, then tighten my grip again.

However much he thrashed about, the distance between us remained a quarter of a step.

His faint pulse traveled through the rope. The climax was already over, leaving only a gradually fading finale.

This dance would not end until the song of his life was over.

'I'm, going to... die?'

A little late—no, quite late—the thought of death crossed the colonel's mind. Desperation came upon him alongside fear.

Finally, he was going to be honest.

"Grunt McKinsey. You must think you survived because you were exceptional. After enduring all those hardships and becoming the lieutenant general's trusted aide, you must have been brimming with confidence, thinking you were doing something that would change the world."

A little conversation was essential when dancing with a partner. Pulling the rope taut, I whispered into his ear.

"When you're really just Lieutenant Colonel Callis, only a little stupider and a little luckier."

'Me...? Like that... worthless... litmus...?'

"Being in a position to use other people's lives doesn't give you two lives of your own. People sometimes get that confused."

I let out a deep sigh, as if flaunting the breath he could no longer release.

"Now it's your turn to be tested. Have you prepared to put the final period on your life, Grunt McKinsey?"

'N... no...'

He had never intended to die. No, he hadn't had any particularly deep thoughts to begin with. He had simply followed the lieutenant general's orders and dropped down here with him.

About the only feeling he could call his own was the petty superiority he felt while throwing Lieutenant Colonel Callis away. Putting the chain around her neck instead of his own had filled him with relief and a sense of superiority.

Yet the lieutenant general had kept him alive not because he was better, but because he was stupid.

The living tool reached out a futile hand. His desperate gaze found Nabi.

'Nabi...! Help me! You worthless, drug-addled beast! I'll give you drugs, so help me!'

Had Nabi been just a little less stoned, she might have responded differently to this crisis.

But she purred atop the mana herbs without so much as looking our way. Giving up on her, the colonel caught sight of Callis.

'Callis...! Save me...! Don't just stand there...!'

Had he not wrapped a chain around her neck, Callis might have given it a moment's thought. But now she had lost even the will to resist and was simply staring blankly at us.

But the deeds that had earned the colonel his fate were already done. No one could change the past...

Except for one person, of course.

'No...'

At the very end, the colonel tried to dislodge me, even if it meant rolling pathetically across the floor. He mustered every ounce of strength and was just about to bend forward.

Before he could put that strength to use, I lightly hooked his leg.

The colonel's massive body toppled forward in an ungainly heap, dragging me along as I kept strangling him.

Even then, I held on to the rope and rolled once. With the colonel sprawled on the floor, I lay with my back to him and pulled the rope up to my chest. He reached out his left arm, but one arm alone couldn't get him out of this position.

The thoughts of the man beneath me gradually darkened.

"Farewell, Grunt McKinsey. Once the protagonist of a brilliant world... you survived by abandoning your own thoughts and becoming a tool. It always saddens me to see a book become a copy of something else, but I suppose even an abridged version told from another perspective has its own value."

And so the fading music completed its finale, reached the final mark on the score,

and abruptly ceased.

The final period had been placed in a book.

I let the rope fall from my hands. Red pressure marks rose across my palms. Sighing with exhaustion, I removed the skewer hidden by my foot and slowly picked myself up.

The first person I saw upon getting up was none other than Tyr. She was watching me with her blood steed at her side. Had I been thrown off during the dance, the blood steed would have rushed over and flattened the colonel.

Fortunately, that hadn't happened. I hadn't wanted to spill blood if I could help it. I raised a hand to Tyr.

"I've missed you quite a bit, Tyr."

At my greeting, Tyr approached with tears in her eyes.

"Are you all right? Are you hurt anywhere?"

"My heart, a little?"

"Where? What did those lawless wretches do to you? How did they hurt your heart?"

"When the black knights I trusted to protect me were smashed to pieces, my heart was torn to shreds along with them..."

She flinched.

Tyr, who had been preparing for a touching reunion, froze at my unexpected reproach. Her blood-red eyes trembled for a different reason now.

"W-well, I-I'm sorry."

"No, these things happen. I already knew the black knights were surprisingly useless... But didn't you say that power once brought down an entire city? Sorry, but were cities made of sand back then?"

"W-well... they used to be stronger than this... And..."

Tyr trailed off, averting her gaze like someone guilty of a crime.

After struggling for some time, she fidgeted with her fingers and added quietly,

"There is something I have not told you. My blood manipulation is not fully functional."

Huh? What was that supposed to mean?

At her sudden confession, I widened my eyes and cried out.

"Whaaat? What do you mean?"

"If darkness is the vessel, blood is the power. I should be filling the black knights with blood energy, imbuing them with a portion of my strength as I move them... But for some reason, I can no longer wield blood energy freely."

Come to think of it, when the lieutenant colonel had been stabbed by the suicide packet and bled, that blood hadn't moved for some reason. I should have been suspicious, but the sight was so normal that I'd let it pass.

More importantly! What in the world was going on?! Why had I risked my life to get her heart back?! Her blood manipulation had gotten weaker?

The victim of the most expensive investment scam in history, I shouted indignantly.

"What? You get weaker once you're on my side? What kind of nonsense is this?"

"W-well... I am sorry."

"No, this is all my fault! Azi's on my side but she's no help at all, and you suddenly get weaker when you join me! At this point, I'm the problem. It has to be me!"

Deliberately ignoring the mortified Tyr, I thumped my chest and lamented.

"People of the world! Here's a walking power suppressor! If you want to get weaker, come join my side! You'll learn what weakness really means!"

"N-no. None of this is your fault. It is all my own failing... I should have stayed beside you and protected you..."

"It's so unfair! So unfair! If this is how it's going to be, give me back the heart! Give back exactly what I gave you!"

Tyr's eyes widened, and she caught her breath. She stared down at the floor with a sad, aggrieved expression, then squeezed her eyes shut as if reaching a decision and raised her fingers toward her chest.

"... Very well. It belongs to you, so I shall return it..."

"Wait, why would you actually try to give it back? Let's take a joke as a joke, shall we?"

There was no telling what she'd do to me if she removed her heart and went back to being a cold-hearted vampire. However weak she got, having her on my side was better. At least she wasn't a negative.

Thanks to my desperate intervention, Tyr's heart was saved. But with her confidence badly shaken, she muttered gloomily.

"... I never imagined mere soldiers could be so strong. He is only a lieutenant general, below even a general, yet he is that powerful... The world seems to have changed a great deal. It is hard to keep up."

"Well, of course he's strong. 'General' isn't some title they hand out to any old dog."

"And the one far below him... a colonel, was it? To think even a mere soldier could subdue a black knight so easily."

"He's not a mere soldier. He's an officer."

"...? Do those not mean the same thing?"

Apparently, she thought a general was synonymous with the commander of some ragtag mercenary band or a captain of the guard. And a colonel below him was Grunt Number One.

Had the colonel, who'd barely earned his promotion after slaving away like a dog under the lieutenant general, heard that, he would have died of sheer frustration.

What a waste. Instead of prattling on myself, I should have let the colonel hear from Tyr, the genuine article.

Nothing wrecked a soldier quite like a civilian who knew absolutely nothing about the military.

Anyway, explaining the Military State's organization to a girl from twelve centuries ago was a bit much. I gave a vague nod and changed the subject.

"Now, while Shei takes her time dealing with that mere lieutenant general—not even a general or anything—why don't we do something about that druggie cat?"

At my suggestion, Tyr asked with noticeably less confidence,

"Must we attack her...? Hugh, you probably know this already, but on the threshold of death, Beast Kings unleash their ferocity. A Beast King in that state is an exceedingly troublesome opponent. Even Shei only prolonged the fight against the King of Cats."

Huh. Had I ever said anything about fighting? I gave her a mild put-down.

"Why are you so determined to fight? You're not even that strong."

"Ugh..."

This reaction might be a little entertaining. I chuckled at the shrinking Tyr and shrugged.

"We'll have to coax her. We happen to have those mana herbs, too. I'll try calming her down a little with drugs."

That was when it happened.

A trickle of blood escaped the dead colonel's mouth. The metallic scent of blood rose into the air. With Tyr unable to control it, the smell slowly spread.

Huh. He'd died of strangulation, so why was he bleeding?

The smell of blood could excite beasts, so I'd tried to avoid spilling any as much as possible.

A little blood should be fine... right?

It happened just as that complacent thought crossed my mind.