Editing The Unexplored Summon Blood Sign:Volume6 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 13===

The battle was over.

Once the Artificial Sacred Ground and protective circle vanished, the icy chill assaulted Kyousuke’s entire body. He was worried about Renge and Higan and he could not ignore Azalea and Fractal now that they had lost. When the temperature was this low, there was a risk of their skin sticking to the floor or wall, so he could not leave them lying around for too long.

“Sekurtiti. Sorry, but can you help out?”

“Understood. I will carry the shrine maidens. I would prefer not to touch the tomb raiders.”

The butler named Fractal was a large man, but since Azalea was so tiny, either pair seemed about the same weight overall.

Kyousuke and Sekurtiti left the carnivore food storage room. They were in the off-limits underground space. The Bridesmaid group up top would have been knocked out by the incense, but they could not let their guard down. The incense could have missed some spots depending on the wind and it was an occult incense. An incense expert like Ellie Slide might be able to overcome such things with a unique breathing method or a built-up resistance. Kyousuke did not want to continue fighting while carrying 4 defenseless people. He wanted to get out of here as soon as possible.

But there was one thing he had to check first.

After entering the room temperature underground corridor, he lowered Azalea to the floor. He had her sit with her back against the chilly concrete wall and faced her. The rose thorn yukata gave some indecent glimpses of bright skin at the chest, but the girl did not seem to care as her head slumped to the side.

Sekurtiti also lowered the shrine maiden sisters to the safe floor and then she shivered.

“What? I get being cold, but…why is my whole body sticky?”

“The cold storage room is an artificial environment and this one is storing a lot of raw meat, so it also functions as a storage tank for the moisture that seeps out into the air.”

“Hm? Hmm? I thought water froze at subzero temperatures.”

“It might sound strange, but you’ve seen something like frost on the inside of a fridge, right? Diamond dust might be visible, but not all of the moisture in the air freezes. Some of the moisture remains to move freely through the air, so the humidity never reaches 0%.”

However, showing off his knowledge was not going to dry off her body now that it felt like she had walked through some fog at night.

Kyousuke crouched down and fixed the chest of Azalea’s yukata which had grown wet in the room temperature, but then he asked a coldhearted question. He still had to find the Founder’s Gallery and acquire the Natural History’s missing entries.

“A question.”

“?”

He kept it short and blank-eyed Azalea tilted her head.

“Where is the Golden Treasure Chest?”

After losing, Azalea could not resist any external stimuli. No matter who they came from. Thus, her small lips replied readily and smoothly.

“In the left sleeve of my yukata…”

He reached inside and indeed found it there. It was an apple-sized box that looked more like an antique music box than a grand treasure chest. It was one of the original items that had been separated.

He now had the Golden Treasure Chest and the ancient map.

That just left the Diamond Master Key which had been taken from him.

“Where is the Diamond Master Key?”

“…?”

His question was met with silence.

But that was odd. To reiterate, Azalea could not resist any external stimuli now. She could not remain silent or lie.

“Claude should have it. The Diamond Master Key, that is.”

“I don’t know.”

He went further and mentioned that man’s name, but the result was the same.

Did that mean she had not received the Diamond Master Key from Claude? Or was there a more fundamental meaning?

“I don’t know what happened to Claude after that.”

It was Kyousuke’s turn to fall silent.

Azalea Magentarain could not lie. So what did this answer mean? He used his confused mind to think and arrived at a certain theory.

“Was Claude Magentarain not a member of Bridesmaid?”

The confused girl only tilted her head.

Unable to support the weight of her head, she fell on her side like a broken doll.

“Then where is the Diamond Master Key!?”

That was a rhetorical question.

Azalea did not know the answer, so he was not expecting her to speak. This only told him the Diamond Master Key was not in Bridesmaid’s hands and that he was less likely to be pursued by someone on Claude’s level. What he needed to do now was leave the zoo immediately and lose any pursuit Bridesmaid did send after him. He had to avoid letting anyone else interfere and possibly harm Renge, Higan, or Sekurtiti.

Nevertheless, all of those plans were driven from his mind a moment later.

No, it may have been more accurate to say his mind was filled with pure white.

[[Image:BloodSign_v06_227.png|thumb]]

Yes.

White.

Someone gently embraced him from behind. Two slender arms reached over his shoulders. A soft and warm sensation surrounded the boy. A rosy aroma wafted in from the white hair behind him. A heated breath blew on his earlobe from close enough to bite it and ''she'' made an announcement as if speaking to a lover.

It was a sentence of death.

It was a proclamation of the world’s end.

“Hee hee☆ Who do you think has it, my – dear – brother?”