At that sound, Rosé tightly shut her eyes. But the fear of not being able to see ahead was beyond her imagination. She couldn’t take a single step.

If she moved even a little, it felt like she would collide with the statues spread all around. With her trembling lips, once again a voice reached her.

“From now on, say your name out loud!”

The confirmation of survivors had begun. Starting with Emmett, then Raiden, Kevin, Brody, Alec, and Carlson… Those who were not turned into stone and were inside the ballroom. The total number was a meager nine.

This can’t be true.

Brody, who was taken aback by the unexpectedly small number of people, slowly took a step back.

He recalled the position of the statues and maintained a safe distance. Then he concentrated his mind on the place where the screams were last heard.

He could feel a demonic energy, seeming as if it could be caught and not at the same time. He had to get closer to control the demon.

Just a little more, a bit closer from here…! At that moment, a smile appeared on the corner of Brody’s mouth. He could feel strong magic. Did he fall into a trap?

Brody opened his eyes.

“Brody?”

Kevin reached out through the air. He couldn’t sense Brody’s presence as he did a moment ago.

Brody! Kevin shouted again anxiously, but there was no response. Kevin’s heart raced. No way.

Calling out for Brody, Kevin searched around the hall.

Thud! At that moment, something solid grazed Kevin’s palm. Crack! The sound of breaking stones could be heard.

Sweat gathered on Kevin’s chin. Drip, drip… Beads of sweat fell onto his instep.

Kevin opened his eyes.

Kiiiiiii!

Tentacles protruded from the cracked statue’s head. It was the Brody statue he had desperately searched for. Kevin screamed in horror at Brody’s green eyes attached to the tentacles.

“Kevin! What’s happening!”

“Bro… Senior Brody has turned into a statue. Te… tentacles!”

Kevin barely managed to fend off the tentacles and shouted. There were too many statues around him. If he continued to fight back like this, he would collide with another statue.

Kevin stumbled backward and leaned forward in surprise at the statue wearing a dress.

“Uuuugh!”

The tentacle coming from the front tore into his back. The venom pierced through his flesh and seeped into his spine.

Kevin fell to the ground and screamed. The tentacles spread apart, ready to swallow Kevin’s head.

“Kevin!”

Just in time, a blue sword sliced through the tentacle, cutting it into two. Emmett, who had rushed over, checked Kevin’s back.

The venom was spreading to his bones. They couldn’t delay any longer. They had to detoxify the poison before his bones completely shattered.

“Aaaargh!”

Emmett’s hand dug into Kevin’s flesh. The intense pain that melted his bones made Kevin’s body perspire. The venom that tainted his bones turned gradually hazy. It was effective.

“Kevin, hold on a little longer.”

“Commander… Hu… Huurgh….”

Kevin’s fingernails were completely peeled away from scratching the floor. But he couldn’t feel the pain in his hands at all. Kevin bowed his body and groaned.

“Please, just kill me. Commander!”

They couldn’t do that. Emmett clenched his lips and gathered more hexes in his hands. They had treated him not long ago when he was poisoned, but if they left it untreated for too long, his lower body would be paralyzed.

Emmett pulled out his blood-stained hand and closed the last open wound. At that moment, Kevin had already fainted from the pain.

To move Kevin to safety, Emmett wrapped his arms around his shoulders. A strong sense of magic could be felt. He looked down at the shadow cast on the floor.

“F*ck…”

Below the chandelier, a woman’s shadow appeared. Her unusually curly hair consisted entirely of large and small snakes.

He was right. The woman had hundreds of snakes hanging from her head. It was the same demon that had turned the attendees to stone at the palace 19 years ago.

The barrier at that time had not disappeared naturally. The sated Quamad had closed the boundary on its own.

“Raiden!”

“Yes, leader!”

“The Quamad is the same demon as the one that created the boundary 19 years ago! Don’t make eye contact and use your shield!”

When the White Knights confronted the Quamad back then, they used their shields as mirrors to locate the demon. Raiden had a shield. It was his only hope now.

Raiden glanced at his reflection on the inner metallic surface of his shield. Then he slowly moved towards the table, where he could feel magic.

Suddenly, the Quamad’s image was reflected on the shield. There was a woman wearing an evening dress, with tentacles resembling those on the statues attached to her head.

Swoosh!

Raiden swiftly swung his sword. But only a white cloth fell to the ground, and the demon remained untouched.

He repeatedly swung his sword while spinning around, but each time, only the sound of the wind being split echoed through the air.

Gahahaha.¹

it’s actually more like Gyarururururu

A woman’s high-pitched laughter rang out. While Raiden was hesitating, Emmett also began to tear off the mirrors hanging on the walls to survey the ballroom.

As Emmett had said, the other survivors also used shards of glass or pieces of the chandelier to locate the Quamad. But no one could reach the demon.

Gahahahaha!

The woman walked around, hitting statues, finding the humans looking for her amusing. Wham! The statues next to the survivors began to crack.

“Aaaaah!”

“Waaaaaah!”

Two survivors were caught by the tentacles. Rosé, who was farthest from the survivors, cringed upon hearing their screams.

Raiden followed the screams belatedly, but they were already torn to shreds. The corpses were severely damaged to the point where it was impossible to distinguish bone from flesh.

Crimson veins surged on Raiden’s backhand. At this slow pace, it was inevitable for everyone to die. Sacrifice was unavoidable.

Raiden finally decided to survey the ballroom with his n*ked eye. It wasn’t difficult to find the woman among the statues. He saw the end of her hair behind the table. Raiden raised his sword and charged.

Gahahahaha!

When the sound of the woman’s laughter came closer, Raiden swung his sword. Thwack! The tip of the sword pierced through it accurately. Raiden sighed with relief and looked up.

“Raiden!”

Emmett called Raiden with a foreboding feeling. There was no reply. He called louder, but still no answer.

Emmett quickly scanned the ballroom with a mirror. Raiden was in front of the table on the left side of the ballroom. He had turned into a statue, still holding the sword up.

F*ck! Emmett rushed to Raiden belatedly, but he could not sense any hexes or magic coming from the statue.

Gahahahaha!

The laughter of the woman echoed behind Emmett. Sweat poured down his back.

Emmett slowly tilted the mirror so he could see what’s behind him. He saw a woman with her mouth wide open, laughing.

The woman, with dozens of sharp teeth, had a grotesque appearance no different from the two-headed snakes he had encountered before. Her large eyes were yellow like a snake’s, and her pupils were vertically elongated.

The woman’s mouth approached Emmett’s head as if she were going to swallow it. Emmett quickly turned his back and swung his sword.

Gahahahaha!

His blue blade was precisely aimed at the woman’s heart. In the spot where Raiden had already stabbed once, red blood was flowing down in streams.

But that was all. When Emmett swung his sword to hit the woman’s neck again, she grabbed Emmett’s chin.

“Got you.”

The woman slowly tore up the corners of her mouth, looking at the human frozen in place.

* * *

“Sir Knight?”

Rosé moved around the hall, relying on the shards of mirror to guide her.

Statues dressed in suits and dresses, a flickering rusty chandelier, flickering candles, fallen chairs, and decaying food were scattered about.

Then Rosé stepped on the wriggling tentacles and screamed in horror. Fortunately, it seemed like it had no strength left and didn’t attempt to attack.

Where is everyone? Feeling frustrated, Rosé wanted to look around with her bare eyes, but when she thought of the other people who became statues, she didn’t have the courage to do so.

Some demon in the ballroom was turning people into statues, just like the creature that appeared in the palace 19 years ago.

Rustle.

‘There’s someone!’

It was the sound of fabric rustling. Rosé perked up her ears and tilted the mirror to the side. She saw a woman’s shoe playfully swaying.

Gahahahaha!

It seems that the demon is wandering around the ballroom.

‘What on earth is it trying to do?’

Her question was soon answered. The statues were moving. More precisely, the statues that the demon had been beating were shattering with a thud.

So, was it moving around so frantically to wake up the statues like that?

“Wah!”

The awakened statues rushed towards her. Thump, thump, thump. The ground trembled with each heavy step of the massive stone figures.

Terrified, she dashed forward, but the statues behind her were equally formidable. Trapped like a rat in a dead-end alley, she was in a dire situation.

There, she saw a fallen sword someone had dropped before becoming a statue.

Should she reach out and grab the sword quickly, or should she wait for the statue’s head to split open and tentacles to emerge?

‘There’s no other choice. I have to move as fast as I can!’

Rosé quickly held her breath and picked up the sword. At the same time, the statues began to split apart simultaneously.

Swoosh!

A tentacle made of entrails sprung forth, dripping blood. Rosé gritted her teeth and swung the sword, desperately wanting to vomit.

Slash!

Blood sprayed from severed vessels as an unknown black liquid spurted out. But the mouth of the tentacle remained intact. Her feeble attack had only caused superficial wounds to the tentacle.

Zzzzz!

Zzzssss!

Dozens of tentacles wriggled and thrashed like earthworms as they lunged at her.

Rosé contorted her body and slipped through the gap between a statue’s legs. Her movements were driven by an instinct for survival.

“Huh, huh, huff…”

Inside the ballroom, no survivors remained. Everyone had turned into statues or transformed into tentacled creatures.

Gahahahaha!

To survive, she had to kill the grotesquely laughing boss monster, the Quamod.

“Haah, haah!”

She decided to follow the laughter. Rosé threw away her mirror and wielded the sword with both hands. Now, the only thing she could rely on was the magical resistance of the cloak and the sword.

Gahahahaha!

The sound of laughter approached. A strand of black hair appeared behind the statue!

Rosé rushed towards the demon, raising her sword.

Thwack!

‘That’s it!’

It was an unbelievably simple strike. The blade pierced through the woman’s back.

‘Did I get rid of it?’

But such words are taboo among all transmigrated people.

“Caught you.”

Yellow eyes like a snake. At that moment, Rosé’s body remained frozen, unmoving. The large hand gripped her heart, causing pain in her chest. Her breath slowed down.

Rosé looked down at her motionless toes. Ack, why trust in the Black Cloak. Her toes were turning into stone.

“Are you human?”

Rosé swung her sword at the woman with her still-untransformed arms. But soon the blade shattered like paper and scattered on the floor.

“Could it be that guy?”

A snake tail covered in black scales emerged suddenly between the strands of the woman’s black hair. The snake tail crawled up Rosé’s leg and started choking her neck.

“Kuhh, ugh!”

Rosé clenched the tail with both hands and coughed. As she desperately tried to breathe, the tail reached up to her chin.

Her unfocused eyes flickered, and her senses began to dull. Her mind turned white, and her body’s sensations started to fade. As she struggled, her hooded cloak slipped down.

“You… you’re a woman?”