In the darkness, over a dozen bandits gathered around a campfire and gleefully rummaged through their spoils.
Their prey had not just been carrying coins and currency, but provisions as well. They filled their bellies with the food they had captured. They took turns raping the mother and daughter, but the more important bandits had already satiated their bestial lusts and were relaxing with wine.
“Boss! Coda Village is about to make a move!”
Ever since the Flame Dragon appeared, scores of villagers had fled. Laden down with luggage, they could not move fast, nor could they fight back. Why not attack them? There was no reason not to do so. They would slaughter and pillage them.
After hearing his minion speak, the boss laughed in satisfaction. It was a good idea, so they should go ahead and do it. But as he thought about it...
“We don’t have enough people.”
It would be asking too much of his band of twenty-odd men to take on an entire village at once.
“About that, why don’t we get guys from around the area? That way, we can work together to bring in the biggest haul ever.”
This was also a good chance to recruit more hands.
With enough people, they could successfully attack entire villages, and even towns. If he played his cards right, he — cast out by his lord — might even aspire to become a lord himself.
From a bandit to a lord. The sweet dream of going from a wretched little thief to the ruler of his own domain filled his mind.

This nameless bandit chief’s final moments were spent imagining a time when he would be happiest. Was that a good thing, or a bad thing?
Either way, his head fell from his neck, with a curiously comical “goro” sound.
It rolled across the ground and into the campfire.
The stench of burning hair and scorched flesh instantly filled the campsite.
Biologically speaking, a severed head could retain consciousness for several seconds. That being the case, the chief would have experienced his head falling to the ground. His field of view would have rolled with him, and before he realised what was going on, he would have seen what used to be his body spurting blood .
After that, in his rapidly blackening field of view, he would have seen the black-haired goddess of death bathing in his fresh blood.

The first thing anyone would think when they saw the girl was “black”.
Her skin was so pale it was nearly transparent, her hair and clothes were black, and her eyes were bottomless pools of obsidian.
The bandit chief’s severed head flew with a “pyun”.
She held a heavy halberd in her hands.
It was a weapon that looked like someone had attached a heavy, slablike axe blade to a long shaft. It wasn’t something a fragile little girl could swing like a matchstick. Nor was it something a girl in black lace should be wielding. That she could use such a weapon with her delicate, slender arms and her thin little fingers, as pale as white jade, was far beyond anyone’s ability to imagine.
She rested the halberd over her shoulders, and exhaled loudly.
The girl was surrounded by the scattered corpses of the bandits.
“Well, that was fun. Ojii-san-tachi, thank you for tonight.”
She grasped the hem of her skirt and curtseyed elegantly.
At a glance, she looked to be around 13, and judging by her beauty and refined movements, she seemed to be a very well-bred girl. She had a brilliant smile on her face, but that smile did not reach her eyes. Her black pupils were filled with a hungry darkness, like a fathomless abyss.
“Thank you for offering your lives to me. I thank you on behalf of my god. My god is very pleased with your gift, and he says that I should enjoy myselves with you.”
“...What! What the hell are you!”

Among the surviving bandits, one of them managed to shout with far more courage than he felt, although his bowels were frozen with fear. He deserved praise for still being able to speak despite the present circumstances.
“Me?”
She smiled adorably.
“I am Rory Mercury. Apostle of Emroy, God of Darkness.”
“I-is that the formal wear of the priestesses of the Temple of Emroy? One, one of the Twelve Apostles, Rory the Reaper?!”
“Ara~ you knew? Mhmh~ correct.”
In the face of the laughing girl, the bandits scattered like leaves.
They left everything behind and fled with all their might, driven by their fear of death.
“What, what the hell, how can we fight an Apostle!”
“Oh, no. No no no no no. You can’t run away.”
Rory jumped, carrying the heavy slab of metal that seemed to weigh several times more than her. She pursued the fleeing bandits like a ferocious carnivore hunting down its prey.
The halberd cleaved through the bandits’ heads like she was splitting watermelons at the beach, and the surrounding area was strewn with chunks of flesh.
“Ueh, abbah… aiiiieeeee!”
Rory towered over of the fallen man. She swung her halberd lightly, sweeping it behind her legs before she raised it high above her head.
Her snow-white skin was dyed red by sprays of blood.
“Ufufu… God-sama said so, you know. The goal of all life is death. No Human can escape it.”
A pitiful scream rang out just as the halberd swung down.

“Haa… haa… haa… why, what is an Apostle of Emroy doing here?!”
The man cursed his misfortune as he ran with all his strength.
A pitiful scream rang out from the distance. Rory the Reaper had claimed another soul.
“Damn, damn it!”
There were no paths in the wilderness at night. The countryside was littered with swamps, rock formations, thorny thickets and trees. The man stumbled occasionally, his body was covered in mud and sweat, and his clothes were torn.
Once more, a howl rang out from in front of him.
He slipped on a patch of mud.
His body slid across the floor, and he bashed his head against the ground.
“Dammit, dammit, dammiiiiiiit, why is my luck so damn bad!”
“Ara~ weren’t you having fun?”
There was the sound of footsteps.
Upon hearing the clear, bell-like voice, he desperately looked up. The black-clad girl towered over him, backlit by the silver disc of the moon.
“Weren’t you having fun just now? Didn’t you kill people?”
She planted the pointed tip of her axe between the man’s spread legs, a hair away from his groin.
“Aiiieeee! I, I, I’ve never killed anyone!”
“Ara, really now?”
“It’s true! This was the first job I did since I joined! The women too, they said I had to wait till the end since I was the new guy! I didn’t even lay a finger on them!”
“Hmmmmmm?”
Rory thought briefly about this before speaking to the man again.
“The other jii-sans have all been called to be with Emroy. Don’t you feel lonely by yourself?”
The man shook his head desperately. He was not lonely, not lonely at all.
“However, won’t it be sad if you’re the only one left out?”
“No, please, I would really like to be left out!” the man begged.
Rory looked at him with a cold gaze that was as sharp as a knife.
“What should I do with you, then~”
As she said that, Rory clapped her hands together.
“I’ve got it, this should be a good idea. Since you haven’t done anything yet, why not start now?”
With that, the black-clad girl grabbed one of the man’s legs.
He could feel an unimaginable strength that belied her delicate appearance.
“Ru run ra~” she hummed to herself, as she dragged the man like a mop.
“It hurts! Please stop! Gwaahhhh!”
The wilderness here was filled with rocks and sand. They tore the man’s clothes to shreds as he was dragged across them, and then rubbed his sweaty skin raw. Soon his body was covered in his own blood.

“Who did you like more between the mother and the daughter?”
“Noooo! Please stop! Gueeehhh…”
“Don’t stand on ceremony, this is the end for you, anyway. I’ll ask nicely so you can do them.”
Rory grabbed the man’s leg and tossed him.
He landed in a ragged heap beside the mother and daughter.
“Well, go ahead then. It’s your turn.”
The man frantically shook his head.
The legs of the naked women remained spread, a hollow testimony to their violation. Their arms were raised, as though hailing the Emperor.
Neither of them were moving. By the looks of things, they had stopped breathing.
“Ara~ what a bother. The two of them have passed on.”
It would seem they had been raped to death.
“So sorry, we didn’t make it in time.”
Rory closed their unblinking eyes and lowered her head. Then she smiled to the man.
“Still, since they’re like this, why not do them anyway?”
Dampness spread through the man’s crotch, and a puddle of liquid formed below him.

The bandit youth pleaded for forgiveness.
He was prostrating on the ground as if in prayer. His face was covered in tears and snot, groveling for Rory to show mercy. He claimed that he had not committed any sins directly, that his hands were still clean. He had no choice but to resort to banditry in order to survive. He had reflected on his actions and turned over a new leaf, that he would work seriously and so on.
Rory sighed as she watched his pitiful appearance.
She averted her face in disgust as if she had seen something dirty. She felt that she was going to be tainted by his filth if she looked any longer.
There was one major condition when killing others. The way Rory saw it, there wasn’t any sin in killing people. The important thing was why; what was the intention and their attitude when doing so.
That was the teaching of the god Rory served.
What was wrong with thieves and bandits robbing others?
What sins did soldiers and executioners have for killing enemies and death row prisoners?
That was how she saw it.
The god Rory served didn’t differentiate between good and evil.
She tolerated all kinds of people, respecting the careers they chose in order to live, and respecting the path they had to travel. Therefore, a bandit just needed to act like a bandit.
If this man could look into Rory’s eyes proudly like a bandit, Rory would show him the appropriate respect. As an apostle of her god, she might even love him for that.
However, what was with this man’s attitude?
First of all, the excuse of saying his hands were still clean was unforgivable. The moment he became a bandit, he became a member of a group that relied on numbers and violence. It had nothing to do with him taking part directly or not.
And it was inexcusable to resort to banditry simply because of poverty. If he couldn’t get food, he should just lie down and die.
Those who lacked ability and didn’t have the luck to fill their stomachs could choose to live on as beggars. Rory liked and respected the tenacity of such people.
Stupid as a human, despicable as a man. There was no value in his existence. The man’s ugliness made the apostle of darkness twist her beautiful face into a scowl.
Rory issued her command coldly. He was to dig three graves.
The youth answered that he had no tools, but Rory replied that he had the pair of hands given to him by his parents. And so, the youth started digging graves in the wilderness.
Unlike sand pits or farmlands, digging a hole in the wild wasn’t easy. His fingernails peeled off and his skin was torn, but whenever the youth wanted to stop because of the pain, the giant halberd would slam into the ground, inches away from cutting off his fingers.

Driven by terror, the youth forgot all about the pain from the moment before, digging with all his might into the ground covered by rocks and grass.
Shortly after, he buried the father of the family.
Then the mother.
And lastly, the daughter.
When he started using his numb hands to cover the grave of the young girl with mud, the sun started rising, lighting up the surroundings.
The man did all that because that was the condition for him to be released. No, that was just what he believed. The man turned back to seek Rory’s opinion.
“Is, is this okay?”
With thirst, hunger, fatigue and the pain in his hands, the man who was about to faint saw it.
He saw the girl clasping her hands in prayer— the figure of Rory.
Kneeling down on one knee, she clasped her hand in devoted prayer. Basked in mysterious sunlight, she looked beautiful and noble, stealing the breath away from all who saw her.
Her dark flowing dress was like an attire for funerals, and her hair was black and long.
White porcelain skin.
Her lips, which looked as if they were painted scarlet with blood, formed a smile.
The girl stood up after finishing her prayer and lifted her halberd up high. She swung the symbol of her faith and her god’s love down at the man who didn’t even have time to turn around.