After Yi Sang, who had arrived first, all the prisoners joined in to seize Guido.
There were twelve... no, not twelve. Some of them had died.
Under the combined assault of so many people, even Guido had no answer and was driven hard onto the defensive, reduced to nothing but trying to block.
Every so often, one of his swinging arms would smash into a prisoner or two and turn them into a pulp, and the sight made me worry that we might actually lose. So I dragged my battered body back into the fight as well...
Thud!!
Before long, I could see his massive frame collapsing with a heavy sound.
Even though we had clearly brought him down, I still wondered whether he had truly drawn his last breath. But we had no strength left to strip off his helmet and check.
He was dead. He had to be dead.
While we were catching our breath and resting for a moment, a chilling sound came from the other side.
Crunch! Crunch! Crunch!
Sinclair was repeatedly stabbing the corpse of the already-dead Inquisitor with his spear.
He had stabbed it so many times that the body was already so mangled it was hard to recognize as a human shape, and blood and organs were reduced to a slurry, splattering all around him.
Normally I would have stepped in first and calmed Sinclair down, but my body was so wrecked I didn't even have the strength for that.
I wish someone else would stop him...
"Sinclair... calm down."
As if she had the same thought I did, Ms. Rodion, who still had a little strength left, spoke to Sinclair.
But Sinclair seemed interested in nothing but the corpse in front of him, and kept stabbing it without pause.
Only the occasional ragged gasp of fury, mixed with faint sobbing, reached us.
...Was he taking out his rage on that crazy woman?
"I'll... kill them all..."
I briefly considered dragging my body over to stop him, but gave up almost immediately.
It didn't seem like the situation would improve if I stepped in.
If I went to stop him, his blind spear might even turn toward me.
He looked that unstable.
When no one else could bring themselves to move, an unexpected person stepped forward to stop Sinclair first.
"The way to get someone back to their senses is simpler than you'd think!"
After saying that, Ms. Don Quixote rushed at Sinclair and slammed him flat onto the ground.
And then...
Thwack!
She started driving her fists into his face as he lay there.
...Well, physical therapy is therapy, I guess.
Not that "physical therapy" is the kind of term you'd use for a scene like this.
Still, maybe it was surprisingly meaningful in this situation.
Thwack! Thwack!
Of course, the punching didn't end with just one blow.
Ms. Don Quixote's repeated fists struck Sinclair's face again and again.
"I-Isn't this... something we should stop?"
"Leave it. Just a greenhorn's scrap."
At Ms. Ryoshu's restraint, Ms. Rodion also stopped moving and only watched the two of them with a worried expression.
She must be really concerned.
After beating him for quite a while, Ms. Don Quixote's fists finally slowed to a stop.
"How is it? Has your mind cleared a little?"
"Ugh, ngh..."
"My apologies. I, too, sometimes become so consumed by excitement that I run wild like a horse that has thrown its reins."
...You're always running wild like a horse that's thrown its reins. Since when was that not the case?
"At times like that, my old friends would beat me senseless until I came to my senses."
"There are times when that seems to be the only way to clear one's head."
"Ah, so that means you're friends with Mr. Vergilius too?"
"Pffft..."
"Th-That's...!"
At Ms. Ishmael's words, Ms. Don Quixote wore a flustered expression and made frantic gestures, as if desperately trying to deny something, when a sobbing sound came from nearby.
"Hic... sob..."
Tears began to well up and spill from Sinclair's face, which had been beaten into a bloodied mess.
"I won't let them get away with this..."
"I'm going to our house... and shove a stake into that son of a bitch...! And then..."
After that, his words dissolved into sobs, and nothing coherent could be heard anymore.
...What a pitiful kid.
Sinclair cried for a long while, then finally seemed to calm down. He raised a hand to his face and began speaking in a small voice.
"I... still think about it every day..."
"Whether I'm still trapped in a bad dream..."
"Every morning when I wake up, before I even open my eyes... I always..."
"Wonder if, just this once... the familiar ceiling of our house... will be there."
Sinclair said that much, then kept crying without end.
I kept rubbing his back.
Just standing there quietly, waiting for his tears to stop.
There was no reason for us not to wait for him.
Only much later did Sinclair's crying finally stop, and we entered the burned-out house.
We had only just gotten a glimpse of the interior, once beautiful in its own way, when Sinclair quietly led us down to the basement, as if he knew the way to the Lobotomy Corporation branch.
Creeeak...
And inside that basement door...
there was a long underground passage leading somewhere.
Was this the passage to the L Corp branch?
"A passage like this... in a place like this..."
"If my guess is right, this passage will lead to the Lobotomy branch."
"Why the hell is there such a suspicious passage in the basement?"
Mr. Heathcliff is surprisingly sensible.
I thought he'd be the type to accept something like this as possible.
"It wasn't here originally."
...What does that mean?
"What? Then how did you know to lead us to the basement?"
"Like a compass drawn toward north... I just knew by instinct."
In response to Heathcliff's question, Sinclair answered with words that were hard to make sense of.
It sounded like complete nonsense, but... if I thought about it carefully, hadn't we actually run into a lot of similar things on this journey so far?
On the first mission, Mr. Gregor had unconsciously found the place where the Golden Bough was.
And with Ms. Rodion... was it like that?
"..."
"...Wasn't that it?"
When Ms. Faust let out a quiet breath, Sinclair turned his cold gaze on her.
"You're taking us along to use us as a compass toward the Bough."
At Sinclair's icy question, Ms. Faust did not answer. Instead, she glided past him and stopped in front of the basement door.
"Judging by the material, it seems to have been made relatively recently."
From Ms. Faust's very first words, it was obvious she had no intention of giving a proper answer.
Was she planning to brush it off again, just like always?
"The N Corp agents probably built it when they took over this place."
"It won't be a short route. Since it's a passage meant only for them, the chances of encountering enemies are high."
We all stared at Ms. Faust as she awkwardly changed the subject.
"...If you're ready, let's go."
Dante also just stared at her in silence.
As if asking for an answer.
"Don't look at me like that, Dante."
"...I simply cannot say anything."
She offered an uncharacteristically defensive excuse.
Was there something she was hiding, or was she worried about making herself look bad?
What was certain was that the prisoners' mood had clearly soured.
They were probably unhappy about being treated like tools.
Even so, letting the atmosphere collapse before such an important mission was not good.
Maybe I should change the mood for a bit.
"Come on, come on. Let's all get moving. We have to see this through, don't we? If we go in looking gloomy, our heads are going to get cracked open dozens more times in the next fight. Let's just go in on good terms."
At my attempt to smooth things over, the prisoners seemed reluctant, but they eventually went along with it.
So they do listen now. That's a huge improvement.
...Or maybe I really had done enough in battle to draw their attention?
Either way, better to keep things simple.
As I moved forward, I absentmindedly pressed my hand against the wall and felt that it was slick with sweat.
As if I hadn't already said it, this was textbook anxiety.
I couldn't tell whether the fear of death had been stirred up by the fight with Guido, or whether I was just tense about exploring an unknown place.
I wiped the sweat lightly on my clothes and looked straight into the passage.
There was an even longer, darker tunnel inside.
I didn't get a good feeling from it at all.
Rather, an uneasy, unpleasant sensation scraped through my brain.
It was similar to what I'd felt during the first mission, but that still didn't mean I could stop here.
What we were doing now was work.
I steadied my breathing and gathered my resolve.
And then we passed through the long tunnel and began advancing deeper inside, toward the Lobotomy Corporation branch.