章 1: Prologue. Waking Up
In the dim basement, a young girl lies on the damp floor.
She appears to be about seventeen or eighteen, with light golden hair messily spread out beneath her, delicate features, and a beautiful face. The ill-fitting men's clothing she wears cannot hide her tender, fair skin. However, a pained expression is visible on her exquisite face, with tightly closed eyes and furrowed brows forming a "川" character in the flickering candlelight.
As the candle on the candlestick is about to burn out, the girl wakes up.
Clutching her forehead as if it were about to explode from within, she moans and struggles to rise from the floor. Her overly large clothes reveal more skin as she moves, but she seems not to care—or perhaps does not notice.
"Am I... not dead? Where is this? A hospital, or a church?" she mutters to herself, then gets startled by her own voice, "My throat..." She coughs a few times, her voice still sounding unlike before.
Looking around, the girl finds herself in a strange and eerie setting. The uneven floor around her is covered in dark red bloodstains, with some black unidentifiable objects mixed in. Boxes piled up in a corner are half open and empty. A candlestick on a stone table, dripping with wax, is the only source of light in the room, flickering as if blown by wind, casting shifting shadows over various alchemical tools on the table. The crucible on the stove is still emitting residual heat. The only exit appears to be a set of stairs leading upwards. This place bears no resemblance to any hospital or church she knows, but rather looks more like the site of a secretive cult ceremony.
She reaches for the gun holster that should have been at her waist, only to find it missing.
Could it be that she has not died, but was captured instead?
Just then, the last candle finally burns down to its end, and the weak but warm candlelight flickers out.
Strangely, the girl's surroundings remain visible to her as if illuminated by an invisible light.
She must leave this eerie place immediately.
The damp environment, windowless walls, and only a staircase leading up clearly indicate she is in a basement. Her destination is clear.
Enduring the headache, the girl straightens up and heads towards the staircase she had seen earlier. Her oversized pants try to slip off several times, forcing her to hold up the waistband with one hand while feeling her way forward with the other to avoid bumping into walls.
After stumbling over the long pant legs, bumping her knees against boxes, and kicking walls with her toes, she finally reaches the top of the stairs and touches the trapdoor on the ceiling.
"Thank goodness it's not locked from the outside, otherwise it would be too difficult to escape without the right tools..."
Grasping the handle of the trapdoor, the girl doesn't immediately open it but cautiously cracks it open to look outside.
As she suspected, she is indeed in a basement. The trapdoor opens onto a wall illuminated by red light, revealing some furniture along the wall but no people in sight.
It's best to slip away and look for help, or at the very least, flee to an open area so the locator chip inside her can send out a signal.
With her plan in mind, she gently pushes open the trapdoor, climbs out of the basement agilely, and closes the door behind her without making a sound. If not for holding up her pants with one hand, her exit could have been even smoother.
Without the trapdoor obstructing her view, under the crimson light, the girl finally observes the full view of the room.
The basement's exit trapdoor is located in the center of the room, facing a wall adorned with a landscape painting, with a tightly shut door to the left, surprisingly secured with an old-fashioned bolt. A plant of unknown species sits beside the door, taking on an eerie shape under the red light. Opposite the door, there's a rather antique desk covered with a large book, its pages filled with messy notes, and a fountain pen, ink, and other books scattered around.
Looking up, the girl realizes that the source of the red light is not a lamp, as she had thought, but from outside the window.
As if possessed, she disregards her pants, which have slipped down due to her movements, and crawls a few steps to the desk. Propping herself up with the desk, she looks out the window.
Outside, the street bathed in the same crimson light is deserted. The stone-paved streets, iron lamp posts, and the row of buildings across the street are all covered in the same crimson "tablecloth".
In the pitch-black night sky, a crimson "moon" like the eye of a demon peers over the streets, the study, and the young girl in the room.
"Ah—ah!" The headache suddenly intensified, and she could no longer stand, her legs giving way as she knelt beside the desk, with only her slender arms still clinging to the desk, using this slight strength to avoid completely lying down.
As if only now having the chance to observe, she noticed her arms under the red moonlight, then looked down along her arms to her torso, and then to her legs, which had already escaped the confines of her lower garments.
"No, this is not... How could this be!" The church's agent, number 007, Angel, screamed with a voice as melodious as a nightingale's, yet felt alien to herself.
"...This is your only chance to become a 'Beyonder', do you really want to give up..."
"...Agent 007, this mission is extremely risky, I suggest you..."
"...You don't think this is the end, do you? Follow the rules of the role, as your sequence improves, you will see more..."
"...You are to be used as bait, if you're unwilling, you can quit now..."
"...I didn't expect you to be promoted so quickly, I should fulfill my promise now..."
"...The main force has not yet assembled, we can only rely on us to hold it back..."
"...This is the ingredient for the Sequence 7 Magic Potion, 'Witch', I hope you like your new identity..."
A series of phrases emerged from the depths of her memory, echoing in her ears with either steadfast determination or highly tempting language.
Soon, the whispers in her ears grew fainter, until only the sound of her pulsing veins and the increasingly large red moon in her eyes remained.
"Where exactly is this..."
This was her last thought.
週次パワーステータス
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