CHAPTER 3
THE STAR OF CALAMITY
“It’s very cool indoors,” Veira observed offhandedly.
“…Do not do anything else that might make you stand out like that!” Leonis firmly warned her.
“Fine, fine,” she answered with an amused smile.
The two Dark Lords stepped into the Seventh Assault Garden’s largest commercial complex. Its underground section functioned as a gigantic grocery store, which would single-handedly serve as the Central Garden’s supply line in case of emergency.
Its surface level boasted an assortment of businesses, but the structure’s real highlight was its top floor, which contained a leisure facility. It had a movie theater, of course, but also an arcade center, a concert hall, an aquarium, a spa, a casino, a rooftop amusement park, and a large pool.
“Oooh, this place is impressive. It’s nothing like Necrozoa,” Veira said cheerily. “That place was gloomy.”
“Keep your thoughts to yourself,” Leonis snapped indignantly. “All the floors above are for recreation. You can spend the whole day here and still not see everything.”
“Why are you bragging about this place? It’s not like you built it.”
“Well, it’s part of my kingdom. Is there anywhere you’d like to go in particular?”
“Do you come here often?” Veira inquired.
“…Well, no. I can’t visit alone,” Leonis conceded, awkwardly averting his gaze. Being a ten-year-old, Leonis wasn’t permitted to enter places like this without a legal guardian to escort him.
Veira cocked her head to one side. “You just said this place is your kingdom.”
“…Shut up. Let’s go,” Leonis said and stomped off, his face slightly reddened.
The two of them decided to have a look around the sprawling complex. The lord of all dragons proved to be quite curious about humanity’s ideas of fun.
“What’s that, Leo?”
“A measuring instrument for gauging one’s strength. I’ve seen something similar to it in the academy’s training facility.”
The object Veira pointed at was similar in form to the Void Simulator Leonis destroyed early in his days at the academy. This one seemed to be optimized for amusement purposes.
“It looks fun. Maybe I should try it?” Veira wondered aloud.
“…Don’t! You’ll definitely break it!” Leonis pulled his fellow Dark Lord back just as she was about to reach for the machine.
They passed by the arcade and the casino before entering the zoo. Veira eyed the lizards in the reptile exhibit with affection and excitement.
“Look, Leo, they have lizards! Cute, right?”
“…Are they?”
Veira seemed to have a fondness for reptiles, despite getting enraged whenever someone implied she was similar to one.
Dragons certainly are a mystery.
“Maybe I should take one with me back home to the Demon Dragon’s Mountain Range,” Veira mused.
“Don’t take what isn’t yours,” Leonis scolded. No sooner had he done so than a twinge of loneliness filled Veira’s eyes.
Right. The dragons of the Demon Dragon’s Mountain Range are extinct now…
Veira’s species had been wiped from the face of the planet. She was the last of her kind.
“Were you thinking of raising it into your minion?” Leonis asked.
“…Yes. If I trained it, it might make for a fine Firedrake,” Veira replied, a bit morosely.
“I don’t think that’s how it wo—”
“I know.” Veira ran her finger gently over the lizard’s back. “Let’s keep going. What are you going to show me next?”
The pair left the zoo and continued to the next floor. However, at the entrance to the passage connecting the levels…
“Excuse me, you two.”
“Who, us?” Leonis said, turning around.
Whoever this was, they had quite the nerve to address two Dark Lords so brazenly. The person who called for them was a robed woman who kept her face behind a veil. Such attire was standard among sorcerers. She was sitting in front of a small table lined with an assortment of tools.
“Do you want me to check for your affinity for each other?” the woman offered.
“Oh, some kind of divination. I’m surprised it’s still practiced nowadays…” Leonis shrugged, his expression a bit exasperated.
Naturally there had been magic users that foretold the future a thousand years ago. Most of them were petty human sorcerers. Leonis knew the goddess who was graced with true future sight, so their prophecies always struck him as child’s play.
Veira, however, seemed interested. “My affinity for Leo? Mmm. That sounds like fun,” she said, taking a seat at the table.
Our affinity? What’s the point of even asking, it’s obviously terrible, Leonis thought bitterly, recalling the many lethal battles he and Veira had shared.
The robed woman brought her hands together and spoke gravely, “Holy Sword, Horoscope—Activate.”
Particles of light gathered in the air, forming a small globe. A series of luminous dots swirled around it like stars.
I see. She’s using her Holy Sword…
This was probably a data analysis Holy Sword, similar to Elfiné’s Eye of the Witch. Leonis recalled that Excalibur Academy actively gathered Holy Sword users of this type to predict Void appearances and forecast the weather.
Horoscope must be a type of augury that reads the stars.
It was an orthodox type of prediction that sought to ascertain the future through the position of the stars.
“What’s your name, miss?” the fortune-teller inquired.
“Veira Greater Dragon,” the crimson-haired girl replied unashamedly.
“…Hmm. An unusual name.” The fortune-teller furrowed her brow slightly. “And what star were you born under?”
“The Dragon Lord Star, of course.”
“The Dragon Lord, hmm. Tyranny and domination. A star of chaos…”
Glowing symbols began running across the surface of the sphere floating in midair. The fortune-teller turned to Leonis next.
“And you?”
“Leonis Magnus. I was born under…I believe it was the Great Sage Star?” he said, forced to state something from his time as a human.
“The Great Sage. The star of heroes and those of valor…”
Different shimmering characters streamed across the globe, intersecting and blending with the first row of letters.
“You two are eternal nemeses. Conflict sparks whenever you meet, and you are bound to fight to the death—huh?!” The fortune-teller’s expression stiffened with obvious astonishment as she read out the result.
“Wow. It’s surprisingly accurate,” the Dragon Lord remarked.
“It is,” agreed the Undead King.
Veira and Leonis exchanged gazes, nodding, as though impressed.
Perhaps it was wrong of me to underestimate Holy Sword divination.
“O-oh, but wait! Please! While you normally quarrel, you will form the perfect pairing when faced with a common enemy. And as you join forces, a wonderful romance may sprout between you!” the robed woman hurriedly blurted out.
“R-romance… Huh? Huuuuh?!” Veira glared at the fortune-teller imposingly.
The woman cowered, almost bursting into tears at having incurred the Dragon Lord’s wrath. “I—I’m sorry, forgive me…! B-but the horoscope says…”
“…Hmm?” Veira eyed the horoscope’s star map suspiciously.
“What’s wrong?” Leonis asked.
“…This horoscope thing, it’s weird. The stars are positioned all wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
Veira ignored Leonis and spoke to the fortune-teller instead. “Tell me, are the heavens aligned incorrectly on your tool?”
“Eh? W-well, my Holy Sword reflects the real night sky.”
“Hmm…I see. Then what’s this star, then?” Veira questioned seriously, pointing at the very top of the chart surrounding the globe. “I don’t recognize it.”
“It’s the Star of Calamity,” the fortune-teller hastily answered.
“The Star of Calamity?”
“Yes… It’s a star that shines red and beckons ruin, an ill omen. A theory posits the Voids don’t come from another dimension, but actually from this heavenly body…”
As Veira listened to the fortune-teller’s explanation, her gaze remained sharply fixed on the Star of Calamity.
“Perhaps the way the stars are aligned changed in the last thousand years,” Leonis suggested.
“That can’t be,” Veira refuted, sipping on a tropical drink.
They were in one of the coffee shops.
“Then maybe it was some manner of natural disaster,” speculated Leonis.
“Yes, on the level of stars falling from the sky,” Veira responded, gazing vacantly up at the ceiling.
Ah, right. Dragons revere the stars.
The heavens realigning must have been very significant to Veira.
“…Wait, Leo, did you never notice?”
“I never had much interest in the stars.”
The Undead King had ruled from his underground palace, and rarely made appearances on the surface. Besides, the skies above Necrozoa were clouded by a thick miasma, so one could hardly see anything overhead at night. And denizens of the Realm of Shadows, like Blackas and Shary, wouldn’t be privy to changes in the sky.
“I think most people would notice something like that,” Veira said, heaving an exasperated sigh. “And that star didn’t even exist a thousand years ago…”
“…The Star of Calamity, eh?”
Leonis had to admit, it was certainly a point of concern.
That fortune-teller called it an ill omen…
Leonis recalled how, during the incident on the Hyperion, he’d learned the secret behind Regina’s birth. She was born to be a princess of the empire, yet since she came into the world under an ominous star, she was cast out and unwanted. Instead, Duke Crystalia took her in. What’s more…
The Archsage Arakael also mentioned something strange on the verge of death.
“The world has already changed.”
“The world shall be reborn with the Star of Nothingness.”
At the time, Leonis had thought Arakael’s words to be the mad ravings on one whose soul had been consumed by Voids.
The Star of Nothingness. Perhaps I should do some research…
Veira rose to her feet, a faint smile on her lips. “Oh well. The matter of the odd star can wait. Where to next?”
“There’s an aquarium on this floor,” Leonis proposed.
“…Hmm. That does sound nice, but…” Veira cast her gaze out a nearby window. “I think I’d like to overlook your kingdom, Leo. From above.”
The voice of a goddess, huh?
Liat Guinness was gone, but Elfiné remained in the café and continued her research on Demon Swords. If the intelligence she had gathered from the administration bureau was to be trusted, eight students had gone insane and lost control of their Holy Swords. All of them had experienced this auditory hallucination.
It doesn’t appear that any narcotics were used.
Upon further investigation, Elfiné discovered another point of commonality between the eight afflicted—there were records of each using an Artificial Elemental called Seraphim. This Artificial Elemental analyzed the varied power of one’s Holy Sword and prepared a more appropriate training menu for them.
A mass-produced Artificial Elemental provided by the Phillet Company…
This on its own wasn’t enough to implicate the business. It was almost the sole supplier of Artificial Elementals, and Seraphim was commonly employed by Excalibur Academy students. However, there was one thing that made Elfiné suspicious; the supply of this Artificial Elemental was temporarily suspended due to some kind of malfunction.
Elfiné sighed. “I guess that’s all I can get from a terminal.”
Erring on the side of safety, she forwarded an anonymous e-mail to the academy, alerting them about the possible danger in Seraphim’s use.
“For the rest of the data, I’ll have to source it my way…”
Elfiné closed her eyes, focusing her consciousness on the Eye of the Witch orbs she had sent into the city. She adjusted them so they would send her information upon detecting a transformation in a Holy Sword.
The D Project. A plan to forcibly evolve Holy Swords into powerful Demon Swords.
Why had such a dangerous, suspended experiment suddenly been restarted here? If Elfiné’s father… If that monster was involved…
As his daughter, I have a duty to stop it.
Suddenly, one of her orbs reacted.
A Holy Sword is mutating? Now?!
Elfiné focused her consciousness on the sphere sending her the signal, and the footage played out in her mind. A park came into view.
“…Heh, hah… Ha-ha-ha, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha, I did it! My Holy Sword’s power is back!”
Standing in front of a park plaza, Muselle Rhodes swung his baton lightly through the air. His mind-controlling Holy Sword, Dominion, the Staff of Absolute Obedience, had returned.
“I have been chosen. The goddess of Holy Swords has selected me!”
As the young man let out a deranged cackle, the civilians strolling by began to kneel before him one after another. With a satisfied smirk, he called up an image of Riselia and Leonis on his terminal and thrust it before the vacant-eyed people.
“Find them… The silver-haired woman and her brat. Find themmmm!”
By Muselle’s order, the army of puppets shambled away.
The two Dark Lords rode the elevator to the top floor. This was the highest spot in the Central Garden. From here, they could see Excalibur Academy’s tower, as well as the rest of the Seventh Assault Garden.
“You dragons really do like high places, don’t you?” Leonis remarked.
“Yes. Same as how you undead feel most at home below the ground,” Veira said.
A bit deflated, Leonis answered, “I suppose I can’t deny that.”
Veira gazed down haughtily with a hand on her waist. “It’s a nice view, but the wreckage here and there really spoils it,” she commented.
“Those are places you and Arakael destroyed,” Leonis pointed out dryly.
“I’m sure you had a hand in it, too.”
“Don’t try to shift the blame at me,” Leonis shot back.
After taking in everything, Veira’s gaze fixed on something nearby. “Say, what’s that?” She pointed at a glass-covered spot on the other side of the rooftop area.
“That’s a pool. A place for playing in the water.”
“They have a spot just for that?” Veira questioned. “But I can see the ocean in every direction.”
“Well, the seas are polluted with the Voids’ miasma.”
“Hmm. It sounds like people are having fun in there.”
“Hmph. I’d assume they’re holding some manner of festivity.”
“Like a carnival? I want to see it!” Veira exclaimed before seizing Leonis by the arm and dragging him after her.
“H-hey…!”
There were floating boards bobbing in the pool’s surface like islands, and kids swam around them. They appeared embroiled in a savage battle, armed with water guns.
“This doesn’t look like a festival…more like a war,” Veira observed.
“It’s a sport. You use weapons to fight over the water.”
“Oh, that sounds fun. ”
Seeing the savage combat likely tickled Veira’s aggressive draconic instincts. A savage, carnivorous smile spread over her face.
“Fight me with those things, Leo!” she declared, thrusting a finger in front of Leonis’s nose.
“You just went on a rampage the other day, you fool!” Leonis chided her.
“I told you I can’t remember that. That doesn’t count.”
“Well, Blackas and I certainly remember it! I’ll have you know I had to destroy Zolgstar Mezekis to defeat you, and it was a lot of trouble to obtain it!”
Leonis had gone through so much trouble to beat Veira, and she couldn’t recall it in the slightest. It seemed absurd. To him, fighting a fellow Dark Lord was the first time he’d been genuinely excited in a long time.
“Why should I care? Or what, are you scared of meeting me in battle again?”
“…Excuse you?” Leonis growled, directing a glare at Veira.
“I’m disappointed. Evidently, you don’t just look like a child, but you act like one, too. Where has your Dark Lord’s spirit gone?” Veira said with a theatrical, disappointed shrug.
“Stooping to petty provocations, Dragon Lord?” Leonis asked, his shoulders trembling with anger and an aura of darkness billowing from him. The Undead King couldn’t let that insult stand.
“Very well. I’ll use all of my powers to make you bend the knee.”
Leonis had always been an aggressive, belligerent Dark Lord, after all.
While the pair of Dark Lords squabbled, two girls watched over them from the shadows.
“Th-this is definitely a date!” Riselia squeaked. “And improper relations between members of the opposite gender are prohibited by academy regulations!”
“Lady Selia, there’s nothing unsuitable about what they’ve been doing so far…,” Regina pointed out.
“S-still! Leo’s just a ten-year-old!”
“Yes, yes, Lady Selia. I’m sure you’re just sad because someone’s hogging his attention.”
“N-no…,” Riselia denied feebly. “I’m just…worried. As his guardian.” Angry, she puffed up her cheeks. Riselia was typically a responsible, bright student, but whenever Leonis was involved she became strangely overprotective.
“Ah, looks like they’re going to do a water gun fight at the pool next,” Regina pointed out.
“What? But Leo can’t swim that well…,” Riselia said with concern in her eyes.
“…Uh, this might be pretty bad, Lady Selia,” Regina suddenly whispered gravely.
Riselia looked to her friend with clear anxiety. “Huh?”
“I get the feeling that girl might try to seduce the kid with a sexy swimsuit…,” Regina explained.
“L-Leo isn’t a pervy boy! I mean, he’s still a child…”
Regina shook her head. “Oh, no, Lady Selia, ten is plenty old enough for a boy.”
“Y-you think…?” Riselia then recalled the moment that the girl first appeared. “Sh-she was dressed in some very…extreme clothes…”
“Well, your costume in the haunted café was pretty intense, too,” Regina stated offhandedly.
“R-Regina!” Riselia protested. Blushing, she punched the other girl on the shoulder a few times.
“O-ow, stop that, Lady Selia, it hurts—Oh, right!” Regina clapped her hands as if remembering something.
“What is it?”
“This could be a great chance, Lady Selia!”
Despite the proclamation, Riselia remained dubious.
“A water gun fight!” said Regina, pointing at the large building past the glass pane. “We don’t have to sneak around and follow them like this. Just challenge that girl to a battle fair and square, and win the kid back!”
“A battle…fair and square…” Riselia considered it for a while.
She’s right… Sneaking around like this doesn’t suit me.
Riselia was the proud daughter of House Crystalia. Tackling challenges like these head-on was a matter of honor!
“…Yes, you’re right. This is a good chance.”
Besides, a water gun fight was a sport that required comprehensive athletic ability. Riselia could use this to assess that crimson-haired girl’s strengths.
“Yes, that’s right!” Regina nodded excitedly, her pigtails swaying rhythmically. “Let’s go rent some swimsuits. ”
“Regina, you’re not just doing this because you enjoy egging me on, are you?”
“I—I would never! Come one, are you content to let that woman sink her claws into the kid?”
“…L-let’s hurry!”
Whenever Leonis was involved, Riselia’s good judgment took a nosedive.
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