Anime Crossover: The Losing Heroines Have Become Witches

"So, what should we do next?"

Utaha asked seriously, her face stiff.

It was as if nothing had happened just now, and she wasn't the same person who had been covering her face in shame to the point of nearly squealing.

"You've been in this world for so long; have you noticed anything special?" Asakura didn't continue to tease her, but simply asked.

He had originally thought about using [Candle] to burn away the mutation on the girl's body, but he felt something was off—if that fruit could essentially replace the concept of the girl's body with its current form, then [Candle] would directly incinerate her entire chest cavity.

Whether she would continue to turn into a monster was unknown, but Utaha certainly wouldn't survive.

Moreover, there was no aura of a curse on the girl, and her magic power wasn't very high—roughly on the same level as Yui—so it didn't look like a case of a spell running rampant.

"Anything special?" Utaha murmured in thought.

"Yeah, a typical 'Demon Realm,' or any such abnormal world, usually has a 'Core' existence," Asakura said. "That is the key to solving the problem."

Just like the Golem that was formerly Napoleon encountered in Yui's Dessert Magic Mirror, or the unfinished spell prototype hidden in the mirror during Anon's time; generally speaking, as long as the core of the Demon Realm is discovered, the problem is half-solved.

"If I had to say, there is indeed one. It's roughly in that direction," Utaha pointed toward a certain way: "There is an incredibly massive tree... I mean, while all the trees here are big, that tree is exceptionally tall, almost as if it could connect the sky and the earth together..."

The girl paused for a moment before continuing: "Since I discovered that tree, I have been trying to head toward it... This camp you see now is already my third camp."

"No wonder the shelter still looks so primitive despite staying in this Demon Realm for so long," Asakura realized. "I thought you were the type of character who looks sharp but is actually clumsy—a 'gap moe' type."

"Well, excuse me for not being a 'gap moe' character," the girl said expressionlessly.

"Then staying here any longer is pointless," Asakura stood up. "Let's not waste time. Get ready to depart."

"Right now?"

Utaha couldn't help but look a bit panicked: "But it's still 'night' right now, and those monsters are everywhere in the shadows..."

"Well, I don't mind, but for you, Kasumigaoka... you definitely need something to bolster your courage."

Asakura rubbed his chin. After a moment, he took off the baseball cap from his head—which still carried a faint scent of the shampoo Eriri used—and reached inside to pull out a flamberge.

Utaha looked at the baseball cap, which was barely larger than a normal person's palm, then looked at the flamberge in Asakura's hand that was at least 1.2 meters long, instantly feeling an absurd sense that the laws of physics no longer existed.

"Hold this for self-defense." Asakura performed a flourished sword spin with one hand before satisfactorily handing the greatsword to Utaha.

"This weapon is too heavy. Even if I could lift it, I wouldn't be able to use it..."

Utaha grumbled as she took the flamberge, "Huh, it's so light?"

As a result, when she actually gripped the hilt of the greatsword, the girl suddenly revealed a look of astonishment.

Unlike its appearance, which looked like it could only be used by a beefy man, this greatsword felt unexpectedly light and nimble, almost as if the entire shimmering silver blade were made of styrofoam.

Is it a fake?

Kasumigaoka thought this as she gave the greatsword a casual swing.

As the blade sliced through a nearby tree branch, she felt absolutely no resistance at all.

As expected, the blade is just an illusion; it doesn't actually exist.

Just as she thought this, the branch—which was as thick as a corn cob—suddenly fell off, revealing a cut as smooth as a mirror.

It's actually the real deal?!

Utaha looked at the greatsword in her hand with trepidation, for a moment not knowing what to say.

"Not satisfied? Well, since I didn't bring the Sorting Hat, I couldn't elevate the Sword from the Hat to the status of the Sword of Gryffindor, but its strength is guaranteed for now, and this isn't even its complete form yet."

Asakura watched the girl's ever-changing facial expressions and reached out to gently slide his hand over the spine of the blade.

In the next instant, the greatsword in the girl's hand flared up like a torch with raging flames, becoming a true flamberge in name and spirit.

"Strange, why can't I feel any heat..." Utaha murmured, looking at the flames inches away.

"Because it only reacts to monsters," Asakura answered.

"So miraculous..."

"That's magic."

Asakura said with a straight face: "Let's go try it out nearby."

"...Okay."

Although she held a weapon in her hand, perhaps because the shadow cast by those previous monsters was too deep, Utaha's footsteps remained so light they were almost inaudible. She followed closely behind Asakura, as if only that tiny bit of light from the lamp-fruits could prevent her from being swallowed by the darkness.

As the two stepped out of the edge of the illumination one step at a time, the firelight from the flamberge made their shadows flicker and sway on the ground. The monsters lurking within clearly did not fear the light; the moment their feet stepped into the darkness, several distorted, humanoid figures lunged from the front-left and rear-right simultaneously.

But the very moment they crossed into the glow of the flamberge, intense flames erupted from within their bodies, as if an Invisible Force were igniting their existence like lighting a candle.

In just a few short seconds, those eerie figures turned into wisps of ash, swallowed by the silent air, leaving only the faint scent of charred wood and an eerie silence.

So strong! Too strong!

Utaha was amazed by the power of the weapon in her hand, her whole face lighting up with a strange radiance: if she had possessed such a thing from the start, she wouldn't have had to hide and scurry around like a mouse for so long.

Asakura also nodded: with someone helping him carry the torch and looking quite tireless about it, he could finally slack off a bit.

Because the bodies of those monsters were composed of some material similar to wood or metal and had no body heat, his [Snake] infrared vision was basically useless in this place. He had to rely on normal sight to move and fight, so a light source was indispensable.

"Move faster, I don't want to get buried in black ash," Asakura urged.

Even if the remaining ash after each monster was burned wasn't much, once the numbers increased, the problem would become quite troublesome.

He wasn't quite sure how large this Demon Realm actually was, nor did he know if the monsters would keep respawning indefinitely, but his magic power had a limit. Relying solely on the "Limited Infinity" portion of his magic likely wouldn't be enough to resolve this situation, so the only way was to handle the core of the problem as quickly as possible and then leave the Demon Realm.

The two traveled through the dark night for a while.

From time to time, Asakura carved marks on the trunks of trees along the path to prevent getting lost—getting lost would be one thing, but the fear was walking in circles in the forest, which would be a pure waste of time and energy.

Fortunately, it seemed that such a thing had not happened so far.

However, the black ash grew more and more abundant, even beginning to drift down from the sky like gray snowflakes. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

This made Utaha feel somewhat anxious, as she had never encountered such a situation before.

Asakura, on the other hand, because his perception was quite keen, was much clearer on the situation than the girl.

In truth, it wasn't anything particularly special; it was just that the number of monsters surrounding them was unexpectedly large. After Asakura silently counted to five digits in his head, he couldn't be bothered to keep counting.

As for what was falling from the sky, it didn't indicate the appearance of flying monsters, but rather that within the darkness, there was one—or perhaps several—mountain-sized giant monsters stepping slowly out from among the colossal trees, intending to crush the two ant-like existences into powder.

However, once their presence was captured by Asakura's senses and they entered the effective range of his spells, everything was already decided.

Spells are pure mechanics; for existences with a lower status than the spell itself, as long as there is enough magic power, they are treated equally regardless of size. They turn to ash in an instant—it could be described as "killed the moment they show their heads."

Kasumigaoka, whose senses were not as sharp as Asakura's, could only vaguely see illusory flickers of fire appearing and disappearing in the ink-like night after Asakura lightly flicked his fingers. Then came a face-full of ashy snow, giving rise to a feeling like the end of the world; naturally, it was "anshin desu" (I'm uneasy).

Fortunately, this "night" did not last very long.

By Asakura's perception, only about two or three hours had passed before the pitch-black sky suddenly brightened.

Vanishing along with the darkness were those monsters lurking in the night. They disappeared so quickly that he even suspected they weren't hiding, but rather that day and night were like two different dimensions switching back and forth...

The daytime sky was a solid dead white as far as the eye could see, with no clouds or sun visible, as if trapping people inside a sealed box. The monotony was suffocating.

It was hard to imagine that Utaha had actually spent such a long time in a world like this all by herself.

Once Utaha provided the directions, Asakura climbed to the top of a tree once again and discovered the location of the giant tree she had mentioned—because the surrounding trees were all quite tall, including many "World Tree" scale giants, Asakura hadn't noticed it before. But observing carefully now, one could indeed see that that tree was even taller than the others.

"At this rate, it would take at least a week or two to run over there." He leapt down from the tree, using [Scale] to create several steps in mid-air before landing lightly on the ground.

As the saying goes, a mountain seen is a horse run to death; massive objects easily give off the illusion that "it's very close to me," but in reality, the distance is still quite far.

"There's no other way, is there?" Utaha pursed her lips. "After all, the only means of transportation here is our two legs."

"Ah..."

Asakura paused for a moment, then stamped his foot as if remembering something.

Then, a vintage Ford car sprouted from the black humus soil like an oversized mushroom.

As expected, the items sent by the Nameless Grimoire held a much higher status than the fox-shaped aberrations; they could be summoned even in a sealed Demon Realm like this.

Utaha stared at the vintage car that had suddenly "surfaced," completely stunned.

"Is this also magic?"

"Yes."

"..."

Although the girl didn't speak, the suspicion in her wine-red eyes was almost overflowing.

"Alright, don't worry about it too much, get in the car."

Asakura didn't say anything more, simply opening the car door first and sitting inside.

"At this point, I won't worry about it anymore. It's just that I feel this originally very fantasy-like journey has suddenly taken on a strange flavor," Utaha sighed and helplessly sat in the passenger seat. "It's like watching a samurai film and someone suddenly pulls out a Chicago Typewriter..."

"The-Post-Modernist film!"

"You can't explain everything just by adding a 'The' or 'Post-Modern' to it."

"I feel like it would sell like crazy."

"That would just be the marketing doing its job well, right?"

""The · Love Metronome"!"

"Comparing the novel I wrote to that kind of thing would make even a Buddha lose his temper."

""Love of the end · Death Metronome"!"

"The genre of the novel has changed completely! Calling that marketing is an understatement; it's practically fraud!"

"My point is, your novel didn't sell well because it lacked marketing," Asakura said casually as he checked the dashboard to ensure the vintage car was functioning properly. "If you found a major blogger on Weibo with hundreds of thousands of followers to recommend it, it might sell like crazy."

"I wouldn't be happy about it selling well for that kind of reason, ahhhhhh——!"

Before the girl could finish, Asakura floored the accelerator. The vintage car launched with a starting speed far exceeding its peers, charging headlong toward the giant tree ahead, causing the girl to instinctively let out a scream.

"We're going to crash, we're going to crash, we're going to crash!!!" she shouted.

But in the next instant, the front of the car suddenly rose with a marvelous sensation of being pushed back. Utaha, who had shut her eyes in fear, opened them in confusion and saw a sight she felt she would likely never forget for the rest of her life.

The forest sea suddenly expanded beneath them like a green ocean soaked in boundless scenery, extending to the distant horizon, eventually split in two by the pale sky. It was so vast it made one's heart tremble.

The waves of ancient, towering trees receded, leaving only the profound forest landscape, undulating in layers of deep, thick emerald.

Even though it was a Demon Realm, one could see the shape of the wind passing through; the forest sea kicked up layers of towering waves. Then, the entire world seemed to freeze for an instant. This primitive, grand, and expansive sea of trees occupied the field of vision with matchless majesty, leaving one breathless and shaken, as if there were no world broader than this from that moment on.

The world that was originally narrow and cramped, forcing her to hide among the trees, and even making her feel as though her very breath was being suppressed by something, suddenly became wide and clear.