Shirou, who returned from the Fairy Kingdom

"found it."

"Oh, really? That's wonderful! You're really capable, Shirou-kun!"

Natalia ran over excitedly, only to hear Shirou say this.

“I want to destroy it, if Miss Natalia would like to.”

"........."

Natalia's expression turned serious.

After a moment, she said in an icy tone, "I disagree."

"ok, I get it……"

"But I didn't see it either."

"what?"

The silver-haired huntress chuckled and patted the boy on the shoulder: "We didn't find Heinrich Zeppelin's magic mark, that's all."

"Miss Natalia..."

"Burn these when you go back."

Shirou nodded, stuffed the arm with the magic crest back into the rotting flesh, and then burned it to ashes.

……

……

"Welcome back, how are you doing?"

As soon as Shirou and Natalia returned to the hotel, Kallen greeted them warmly.

The nun's eyes betrayed her lust for money: "Have you found Heinrich Zeppelin? Have you found anything?"

"What a waste of time, what a stroke of bad luck."

Natalia left Karen behind, muttering, "Call me when dinner is ready," and then walked towards her room.

Having exhausted her magic power, she decided to take a nap first.

"Oh no! How could this be? We didn't get anything at all?"

Karen slumped her shoulders in disappointment.

Shirou also returned to his room.

On the way back, he had already discussed it with Natalia: they would rest for the night and leave the next morning.

……

……

The hotel was shrouded in tranquility late at night.

After the death of Heinrich Zeppelin, the ruler of the Demon Realm, everything in the town returned to nothingness.

That was literally the case; all ten thousand residents of the town had turned back into chunks of flesh.

Death, death, death—no, it can't be considered death.

The tragic fate of humans here is nothing more than turning into dust.

The buildings had completely collapsed, except for the hotel where Natalia had placed a protective barrier, which still stood.

If a helicopter were to fly overhead at this moment, one could see the comical sight of the hotel built in the middle of a wasteland.

Inside the building, Shirou, Natalia, and Kallen were all fast asleep in their rooms, oblivious to everyone else.

With the enemy leader eliminated, there are no longer any targets requiring special vigilance.

She strolled leisurely through the hotel corridor.

Even though the old wooden floorboards creaked and groaned, it didn't matter to "her".

This is because "she" is very confident in her hypnotic magic.

I never expected Heinrich Zeppelin to be taken down so easily.

All the effort I've poured into him so far has been wasted...

However, there's no need to feel too sorry; we can just create new test subjects.

After all, science grows through repeated setbacks and failures!

This time, the target is a hybrid offspring of a human and a nightmare, which is a rare find.

What would happen if a human-nightmare hybrid were transformed into a Dead Apostle? Just thinking about it is exciting!

She hummed a little tune as she walked to the door of Natalia's room.

He pushed open the door and went straight in.

"..."

Natalia lay quietly asleep in bed with her eyes closed.

Even the seasoned female hunter, who had survived countless battles and narrowly escaped death, was completely unaware of the approaching danger.

She licked her bright red lips, unable to suppress the upturned corners of her mouth, and inserted the needle of a syringe into Natalia's wrist artery.

“————!!”

In an instant, the sound of the atmosphere being torn apart rang out.

A sword shot from the void pierced through "her" body, and the powerful impact pinned "her" directly to the wall.

"They really slipped up."

The boy emerged from the darkness.

With burning red hair and golden eyes like those of dusk, the newcomer was Shirou Amamiya.

Then, another figure appeared behind Shirou—

It was none other than Natalia, who should have been lying in bed.

The fake on the bed, which was just a decoy, has now turned into a pile of sand.

"Wait... Shirou... what's going on?"

Natalia, who had been woken up by Shirou just five minutes earlier, looked at the sudden situation in front of her in surprise.

"...As you can see."

Shirou looked at the woman who was nailed to the wall.

She vomited blood profusely because her heart and lungs had been pierced, staining her dark clothes red.

A delicate young girl's face, silver wavy hair, and jet-black nun's robes—

The person who attacked Natalie was none other than Karen Aldesia.

To be precise, it was something disguised as "Karen Aldesia" (a fake).

Volume 6, Chapter 276: Shirou is being targeted by a bad woman!

"Um... what... what are you saying, Shirou..."

Karen Aldesia, pinned to the wall by a sword, vomited blood as she spoke.

She wore a pitiful expression, as if she were in great pain and wanted to ask for help, but after discovering that Shirou's eyes were extremely cold, she sighed as if giving up.

"Oh dear... I didn't expect to fail here. This is my second failure today."

The imposter Karen abandoned her pretense and attempts to gain sympathy, tilting her head as she asked, "My disguise should be flawless, so how did you discover it?"

"Is this guy an imposter...?"

Natalia's eyes widened.

The girl pinned to the wall by the sword looks exactly like Karen Aldesia herself.

Of course, that's not the point. It's not difficult for someone who enters the mysterious realm to change their appearance.

What truly astonished Natalia was the fact that this town harbored unknown entities besides Heinrich Zeppelin.

"When was it...?" she asked instinctively.

When was Karen switched?

Natalia and Karen had only met for the first time yesterday, so there was already prior knowledge of each other before that—

"It was probably during our battle with Heinrich Zeppelin that this guy broke into the hotel and took control of Karen."

Shirou explained.

"I think she should be arriving soon."

No sooner had he finished speaking than the closed door was flung open.

"Ugh...really, I was completely fooled, it's unforgivable."

A girl with gorgeous silver curly hair entered the room; she was none other than Karen Aldesia.

Shirou continued, "Before I left, I placed something on Kallen, but when I returned, I found that the thing had disappeared from Kallen, which is why I realized that something was wrong with Kallen now."

"What is it?" Natalia blinked.

“A tuft of hair from an artificial life form,” Shirou replied.

Justessa regarded it as her own alter ego and called it a strand of silver hair to Shirou.

Although it is just a lock of hair, if it comes from the Third Magician, even a lock of hair can possess a mysterious magical costume.

He can sense Karen's presence, communicate with her remotely, and awaken her from deep hypnosis.

Incidentally, when Shirou contacted Karen, she was walking aimlessly through the forests of southern France.

"I see, so they mixed that stuff into Kallen's silver hair... Even the most perfect disguise couldn't possibly recreate that."

The real Kallen has appeared, so now only one question remains—

Who exactly were the guys who attacked Natalia?

Shirou stared at her and said, "You're the one who secretly assisted Heinrich Zeppelin's research, aren't you?"

"Yes, that's right." The girl admitted happily.

"This guy... assisted Heinrich?" Natalia was taken aback.

According to Heinrich, he inherited his family's magic and became truly immortal through his passion for "corpse modification."

He transformed all ten thousand residents of the town into his "children," controlling the town's operations like puppets.

"If someone can treat others as puppets, then it's not impossible that he himself is also someone else's toy without even knowing it."

Natalia was speechless; she felt a deep sense of irony.

That madman who believed he had achieved his dreams, the magician who reigned supreme over the town like a god—

In reality, his life was nothing more than someone else's experiment.

"So who exactly is this guy!?"

"It's heartbreaking, Miss Natalia, have you forgotten me so quickly?"

The girl pinned to the wall gave a chilling smile: "I even took care of you~"

Natalia's eyes widened: "What...?"

"I kindly accepted you from the violent villagers, but you repaid kindness with enmity and killed me. It's too much... Waaah."

"The imposter Karen Aldesia said with a mournful face."

"You are... from that time...!"

Natalia finally remembered.

The doctor's assistant, a man known in town as "Arak".

"Bingo! You got it right!"