Ishura - Volume 6 - Chapter 11

Chapter 11 - Lurching Toward Danger

Aureatia’s Central Assembly Hall.

The bureaucrats had gathered in the second communications room, now converted into the provisional operation headquarters, collected information transmitted from the different areas of Aureatia, and were devising strategies to curb damages as much as possible.

Among them were three of Aureatia’s Twenty-Nine Officials. One was the person in charge of the operation, Twentieth Minister Hidow the Clamp. Supporting him were also Eighth Minister Sheanek the Word Intermediary and Twenty-Eighth Minister Antel the Alignment.

With his hands placed on a map, filled in with several arrows marking the expected invasion route, Hidow shouted, “Mele made it in time!”

A stir spread throughout the room.

Amid a perspective that outlined unavoidable, hopelessly large losses, it was one of the few select pieces of good news.

“I can’t believe it. From Gigant Town to the second borough of the Eastern Outer Ward! From that far away…and not only that, but he managed to hit just Alus, without grazing the city at all. Horizon’s Roar’s sniping abilities are in perfect form! With this, we’ll be able to stop Alus the Star Runner!”

“He got a direct hit on Alus?!”

A tan-skinned man wearing dark glasses stood up. Antel the Alignment was known for his composed levelheadedness, but he appeared to be uncharacteristically excited.

“We’re getting detailed reports on the situation from the ground observation team. Alus the Star Runner defended against the Cold Star by making a captured minia hold the Greatshield of the Dead for him. The magic lightning bullet was shot back in the direction of the Third Stronghold. Mele fired two shots. One to block the trajectory of the magic bullet and protect the small tower. Then another that directly hit Alus.”

“I don’t believe it…! Is such a feat even possible?! True, if another person was activating the Greatshield of the Dead, Alus would have been vulnerable to an attack from another direction, but still…aiming for that brief moment and firing two shots simultaneously…”

“Given they aren’t reporting our victory, it’s safe to assume the shot wasn’t enough to kill Alus the Star Runner, then?”

Jumping into the conversation was a gaunt, small-statured man: Sheanek the Word Intermediary. While the man’s physique resembled that of a malnourished child, in the academic world he was celebrated for his supreme intellect.

“…That’s right. Alus was knocked down into the city, but he still isn’t dead.”

“Do we know that for sure? It’d be impossible to keep his original body intact after getting hit by one of Horizon’s Roar’s arrows.”

Sheanek answered Antel’s suspicions. “One possible explanation could be… Hm, what if the Greatshield of the Dead was bound to Kio’s Hand from the beginning, even when he made that corpse hold it, to ensure he could pull it back in to prepare against a surprise attack from another direction? He switched over to using it normally, by activating the Greatshield of the Dead himself. Thus, he fell, unable to maintain his flight…”

Possessing a large collection of magic items, wielding them effectively, and moreover, applying them as needed.

Alus the Star Runner may have been just a single wyvern, but he was capable of killing legends.

“……”

Hidow looked down on the arrows scribbled helter-skelter over the map.

Using Cold Star inside Aureatia’s borders wasn’t the extent of it. They had considered defensive strategies to stop Alus’s invasion, even if it meant using scorched-earth strategies including methods of destruction that involved the city itself, or utilizing magic items that sent harmful pathogens into the atmosphere. The evacuation and interception planning had needed to be revised several times already.

“Then, Hidow, is it safe to assume that Star Runner’s been stopped by Horizon’s Roar?”

“Yeah.”

Guiding Alus the Star Runner’s invasion path through Aureatia and committing the hero candidates to intercept him.

Their strategy had produced the exact results they had been aiming for. At the same time, they now understood for themselves that Alus the Star Runner was a terrifying abomination that far outstripped their expectations.

“…The credit goes to Shalk the Sound Slicer and Tu the Magic, then. Without them, this would’ve been the end,” Antel mused.

This was a battle of speed. Alus’s speed exceeded the expectations of Hidow and the others, but it was thanks to the Shalk’s otherworldly mobility, and Tu’s swift will, that they were able to bring things to this stage.

Hidow drew a large circle around the second borough of the Eastern Outer Ward. He firmly declared, “This is checkmate for Star Runner.”

From here, it was possible to throw a convergence of hero candidates at Alus, not just Shalk and Tu.

His escape route in the sky was already firmly under Mele the Horizon’s Roar’s control.

In which case, Aureatia needed to shoulder all the other work outside of the fight itself. There were countless other things he needed to get to. Firefighting. Housing the evacuated citizens. Curbing unrest. Controlling the flow of information. Treating the wounded.

“From here, our plan will put all our energy toward evacuating the citizens from the combat zone and preventing any increase in casualties. Focus our support on Sabfom’s unit on the ground in particular! Sorry but everyone’s going to have to give one more push!”

Alus the Star Runner was a threat that needed to be erased from this world.

An unfettered plunderer that ignored any and all authority to steal whatever his avarice desired.

For the sake of this world’s tranquility, someone would have eventually needed to subjugate Alus. That someone would be the one who had brought Alus this far—Hidow.

He would take responsibility, right to the end.

“…Time to snuff you out for good.”

Hearing the alert following the end of the eighth match, and leaving the audience seats, now Ozonezma the Capricious was lingering on top of the outer wall of the castle garden theater.

He wasn’t on watch for the incoming threat the alert had spoken of.

With Zigita Zogi the Thousandth dead, there was a strong chance that someone was nearby aiming to take Hiroto the Paradox’s life.

His collaborative relationship with Hiroto had already concluded; however, the vampire threat that Hiroto’s group hinted at was an enemy that a medic like Ozonezma needed to prioritize dealing with above all else.

IF THERE IS AN ASSASSIN, THIS SHOULD BE THE ABSOLUTE PERFECT OPPORTUNITY.

The wind was strong. The clock must have been fast approaching noon.

Ozonezma could clear the outer wall of the garden theater with a single jump, but it was also tall enough to look down over almost all the buildings in Aureatia.

THEY ARE MASKING THEIR PRESENCE WELL. VERY SKILLED.

Several of the innumerable arms hidden inside his body gripped scalpels.

Ozonezma’s perceptive abilities came from heuristics he had established by observing a large number of the minian races in detail and classifying their typical behaviors. During the upheaval in Gimeena City caused by the Old Kingdoms’ loyalists, he had been able to discern who among the throng had military experience and shoot them down from afar.

Individuals behaving unusually. Individuals purposely concealing themselves in the shade. If he sensed any such presence, he could pick up on them through comparison with the great masses but…right now with the echoing alert, the reaction of the people at large wasn’t different from usual. Some weren’t following Aureatia’s guidance and were trying to escape on their own. Some held their loved ones close while others were thrown into confusion and trying to keep themselves hidden.

In the midst of such chaos, his enemy didn’t need to maintain their presence of mind but instead could feign natural confusion. At the very least, it signaled that Hiroto’s enemy was a group capable of such techniques of espionage.

HOWEVER, THEY ARE DEFINITELY HERE. IT’S INCONCEIVABLE THAT ZIGITA ZOGI THE THOUSANDTH COULD BE CLUBBED TO DEATH WITHOUT ANY PLAN IN MIND. SOMEONE PRESENT, OR PERHAPS ZIGITA ZOGI HIMSELF, CARRIED OUT A DECEPTIVE PLOY.

Carriages began to carry the citizens away. They were uniformly headed toward the western side of Aureatia. If this alert had come from an outside enemy attack, this would signal the attack was coming from the east.

Even among the citizens boarding the carriages, he couldn’t spot anyone he felt had something conspicuously off about them.

THE ENEMY IS A VAMPIRE. IF I WAS IN THEIR POSITION, FIRST I WOULD TARGET IT…

“Hiroto the Paradox!”

Ozonezma heard someone shout out the name. Not from beyond the castle garden walls, but from the spectator seats inside.

“I’ll kill you, you Okafu warmongering dog…!”

A violent group of criminals was charging at the isolated Hiroto. Their weapons were blades of some kind. Ozonezma could sense their presence and knew where they were positioned. He didn’t plan to make a move.

…A FEINT.

This was because the voice had come almost exactly as a medical squad carriage carrying corpses had departed from the garden theater.

A shadowy something was passing under the feet of the masses and swooping in toward it.

I KNEW IT. THEIR GOAL IS TO DESTROY THE EVIDENCE OF CORPSES AUREATIA’S CAPTURED.

As the thoughts passed his mind, one of Ozonezma’s arms became a blur.

A scalpel flew like a beam of silver light and skewered an object flying through the air into the ground.

He knew that it was a projectile weapon, like a spinning metal disk.

There was something enclosed in cloth, wrapped messily around the edge of the disk.

“……!”

Ozonezma instantly determined what it was, and he jumped down from atop the wall.

Because of his speed, he fell the almost forty meters immediately, then he knocked away six people in the crowd where he was going to land, pushed a carriage over, and alighted right on top of the chakram stapled into the ground. All of it happened in the span of a single second.

Then came a muffled thud.

An explosion occurred on the ground directly below Ozonezma.

The shock wave covered the enormous chimera and rippled throughout Ozonezma’s body, but only a small amount of blood dripped from his armor-like bluish-silver fur.

There were some with light injuries among the group he had swept away when he landed, but they were merely scrapes from falling on the ground after he’d knocked them away. They were outside the area of the shock wave. Ozonezma had held back his strength to make sure of it.

“…Are you okay?” He called out to the medical squad carriage that was knocked on its side nearby.

There was someone who had escaped just a second before the explosion, carrying two of the corpsified patients with her.

“M-more or less. I-I’m all right…”

A woman had a frightened look on her face and one eye hidden. Aureatia’s Tenth General, Qwell the Wax Flower.

“What about yourself, Mr. Ozonezma…? Um, that explosion…was that a bomb…?”

“IT WOULD SEEM SO. THEY PROBABLY AIMED FOR THE MOMENT YOUR MEDICAL SQUAD LEFT THE GARDEN THEATER AND HAD SOMEONE THROW AN EXPLOSIVE AT YOU. THAT AND—”

Ozonezma slunk down and peered at the feet of the crowd clamoring in front of the garden theater.

From in between the gaps in the constantly moving feet of the multitudes, he spied the wheels and horses’ feet of several carriages.

“THEY DIDN’T SHOOT FROM ABOVE. IT CAME FROM BELOW. THERE WAS SOMEONE ABLE TO HIDE AND ATTACK FROM LONG RANGE IN THE SMALL SPACE RIGHT UNDERNEATH A CARRIAGE. THAT WAS WHY I DIDN’T PICK UP ON THE SNIPER’S PRESENCE FROM MY BIRD’S-EYE POSITION.”

This assailant had discovered a line of fire to their target through this huge throng of people mingling together and had thrown their chakram with precision. Not only that, but while hiding underneath a carriage.

Bizarre technical skill. A regular sniper wouldn’t practice such techniques, nor have any opportunities to use them, either.

“W-was it an assassin…from the invisible army?”

Qwell the Wax Flower’s voice was clearly terrified, but the existence of this unknown warrior seemed to invigorate her as she stood gripping her large war ax in both arms.

“We have to defeat them…”

“CHASING AFTER THEM IS POINTLESS.”

By the time the sniper had launched their attack, they had probably already withdrawn from the area.

Judging by their degree of skill, this foe wasn’t one to linger behind at the scene.

“MORE IMPORTANTLY, THERE IS SOMEONE I WOULD LIKE YOU TO EXAMINE. JUST A MOMENT AGO INSIDE THE CASTLE GARDEN THEATER…”

“Would this be about the criminal that attacked Hiroto the Paradox, perhaps?”

A woman’s voice come to them from the vehicle entrance to the garden theater. A black-painted carriage had just arrived.

“…FLINSUDA THE PORTENT.”

“Oh, ho-ho-ho! I am so happy you remembered my name! Now, why were you here at the garden theater, Ozonezma? You didn’t come here to chat with Tu, now did you?”

“……”

Through the carriage window, he immediately recognized the corpulent body, swollen to twice the size of the average minia, and the glittering of jewelry on her neck and fingers—Seventh Minister, Flinsuda the Portent.

He owed a small debt to her. When Ozonezma met with Tu the Magic, he had required the approval of her sponsor, Flinsuda.

“YOU REMAINED BEHIND AT THE GARDEN THEATER, THEN… IF I REMEMBER CORRECTLY, YOU CAME HERE ON HIROTO’S SUGGESTION AS WELL.”

“That’s right. You see, I had a bit of business to discuss with him. You wish to know about the people that attacked Hiroto in the garden theater, yes? It was only a simple examination, but none of the four were corpses. I’d assume they were residents with anti-Okafu sentiments that someone had riled up, wouldn’t you?”

“I THOUGHT THAT MIGHT BE THE CASE.”

Given that the invisible army had hidden agents in several groups, they were able to indirectly incite the uninfected to act as a feint. Ozonezma had understood this from the very start.

If that was the extent of the mob, Hiroto’s goblin bodyguards must have handled it without issue.

“THERE IS ANOTHER REASON WHY I HAVE REMAINED HERE. I WANTED TO HEAR FROM YOU DIRECTLY ABOUT THE CURRENT SITUATION. WHAT IS GOING ON?”

In these situations, it was determined that hero candidates needed to respond to the emergency by making contact with their sponsor and getting the details from them. However, Yuca the Halation Gaol was a bit too far away to go ask about the circumstances. Ozonezma had determined it was faster for him to ask for the details of the situation from Flinsuda the Portent, Tu the Magic’s sponsor.

“A-Alus the Star Runner is…attacking.”

Qwell the Wax Flower answered his question.

“THE SAME ALUS THE STAR RUNNER WHO WAS CRUSHED BY LUCNOCA THE WINTER?”

“…That’s right. But he survived in the bowels of the Mali Wastes. General Haade’s regiment intercepted with antiair attacks, but…h-he overcame them. His expected invasion route goes through the fifth borough of the Eastern Outer Ward—stopping him and bringing him down is the job for all the hero candidates…”

“FLINSUDA, DO YOU HAVE ENOUGH MEDICS AT THE READY?”

“Ho-ho-ho-ho-ho! Well, thanks to this alert, I’ve rescinded all the time off for the Health Ministry’s staff. All of the squad deployed to the garden theater, myself included, are planning on heading over to the east side. Qwellie’s troops are working on firefighting and rescue efforts. That said, though, I can’t really be sure if we need help or not without seeing how things are going on-site for myself.”

“I WILL ACCOMPANY YOU AS A MEDIC AS WELL. THERE IS ALSO A CHANCE THERE WILL BE MORE ATTACKS LIKE THIS ONE. PROTECTING MEDICAL WORKERS LIKE YOURSELVES WILL CONTRIBUTE MORE TO SAVING LIVES.”

“That’s quite an unprofitable thing to say, isn’t it? Even if you work as a medic for us, I can’t compensate you for it, you know?”

“…PEOPLE’S LIVES CANNOT BE REPLACED WITH MONEY, FLINSUDA.”

“Quite right. I would do just the same myself,” Flinsuda readily agreed.

There was no faltering in her tone, nor did she wear a solemn look on her face, speaking as if she was saying something completely obvious.

There wasn’t any hesitation in the flow of movements by the medics under her command. The medical squad carriages departed one after another toward the east.

“I HAD HEARD THAT YOU WERE SOMEONE COMPLETELY DEVOTED TO MONEY AND NOTHING MORE.”

“You need money to save many lives, don’t you? The longer our patients live, the wealthier they make us. There’s no contradiction at all, is there?”

“…YOU MAY BE RIGHT.”

Vast amounts of money could easily save many lives, but the opposite was true as well.

That was one of the things Ozonezma had learned on his travels with Hiroto.

“I’m sure you know this already, but it will be difficult to rely on Word Arts treatments on-site. Cutting open people’s bodies, sewing them back together…how confident are you with that type of technical medicine?”

“…HMPH. WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE TALKING TO?”

There was a mountain of work to prioritize above taking down Alus the Star Runner.

Was there anyone able to move rubble that had collapsed in the flames, without paying any mind to their heft or the heat?

Was there anyone who could detect the presence of survivors even while under extreme conditions?

Above all, though, was there anyone capable of treating patients without depending on Life Arts, which demand a long period of contact between patient and doctor?

Cutting open bodies, observing, surgical excision, stitching them back together—there wasn’t anyone in the land who had repeated such extraordinary feats more than Ozonezma the Capricious.

“FOR ME, THAT IS POSSIBLE.”

If the flow of people was a great massive river, she was but a single small drop.

The woman seemed to be an older sister, carrying her frail and delicate little sister on her back as they fled.

The woman had a bandage over one eye. If there was anyone with a sharp, observant eye, they may have noticed that she was making extra sure the other eye was not directly exposed to light.

The young girl on her back held her breath with her hood covering her face completely, while trying to ensure no one caught a glimpse of the beautiful features underneath.

“Wieze will get the job the done. Do not worry, my lady.”

The woman’s name was Lena the Obscured.

A corpse in Obsidian Eyes, as well as a mimic, possessing the supernatural ability to skillfully replicate the appearance of another.

“I understand… Koff, koff!”

The girl on her back was Linaris.

She had always possessed a weak constitution, but her condition was now growing even worse. Despite successfully murdering Zigita Zogi the Thousandth in the eighth match, she received news of Hartl the Light Pinch’s death and had moments ago given the order for the entirety of Obsidian Eyes to withdraw.

Therefore, before Aureatia had issued their evacuation alert—and before Ozonezma appeared on top of the wall of the castle garden—Lena brought Linaris with her and fled. The alert that rang immediately afterward, as well as the flood of people pouring into the street, skillfully concealed the two of them.

With Wieze the Variation on it…he should be able to use the crowd to target just the magical squad carriage and take it out.

Wieze was a sniper capable of crawling like an insect through openings that were impossible to slip through with normal body movements and throw his chakrams from afar. The fact that he had volunteered to serve as their rear guard in front of the castle garden meant that he intended to aim for the corpse-laden carriage to dispose of it.

The problem is…whether there’s any Okafu ambush waiting for us where we’re escaping to.

At the very least, the two didn’t need to fear an immediate attack. Even assuming the castle garden theater was surrounded by troops from the Free City of Okafu, given the present situation, with civilians running about in droves trying to escape after the warning, they wouldn’t be able to go through with their operation as anticipated. They needed to focus everything they had on making absolutely sure no one spotted them.

Using the throng of people to confuse Okafu’s eyes, they were returning back to their base of operations.

All that’s left is if my eye will hold out or not…

Lena pressed down on her eye that wasn’t covered by her bandage.

Mimics were an extremely difficult construct to create, and one reason was their nature itself, making it possible to freely design their cells’ characteristics. At the developmental stage, they needed to have their life-maintaining functionality designed from the ground up.

Even if by a stroke of good luck they were able to acquire the ability to survive, normally it would generate a defect somewhere in the body. In Lena’s case, this lay in her optic nerve.

If her eyeball was continuously exposed to light, it would cause an acute seizure. She would convulse and lose consciousness.

Even with a thick bandage to block out light covering her eyes, Lena herself was able to operate without a problem. However, the fact that movements made while her eyes were covered seemed suspicious was a problem no amount of training could solve.

Currently, by suppressing half the amount of light she took in with her eye bandage and taking great care not to directly look at any and all sources of light, Lena was extending the amount of time she could act for as long as possible. Nevertheless, the more that time went by, the further her combat abilities would decline, and it would grow difficult to fulfill her role as Linaris’s bodyguard.

“I’m sorry, my lady.”

“…Koff, what…is the matter?”

“If I had managed to keep a closer watch of Zigita Zogi, I wouldn’t have put so much strain on you… I should’ve used this eye to watch for the exact instant his head was crushed.”

“…Frey was there as well, and she wasn’t able to discern if it was truly him or not, either. It doesn’t mean—koff—you’re at fault, Miss Lena.”

Linaris’s velvety black hair was touching Lena’s shoulder.

A feeble and thin body, the polar opposite of Lena’s and the others, who had trained and tempered their physiques as assassins.

She wanted to steal her and run far away somewhere—the thought flashed across her mind.

If Obsidian Eyes was destined for ruin regardless of whether they fought against Aureatia or not, then wouldn’t it be fine to secretly disappear, just the two of them, and live while Lena lovingly admired her lady and her doll-like beauty?

Of course, Lena would never do something like that, nor could she.

All of a corpse’s actions, down to their biological activity, were under the control of their parent unit. Their relationship went beyond mere loyalty into one of absolute dominance.

Yet Linaris was so enchanting, so ephemeral, that it made Lena ignore these laws of nature and send such wicked thoughts through her heart.

“If we exit out into the canal up ahead, the eyes of the crowd won’t reach us anymore. We can use a small ship to meet up with Frey and…”

Lena’s feet stopped.

An extremely short vagabond was sitting down on the berm. Not a leprechaun. A goblin.

…One of Zigita Zogi’s soldiers? They’ve blocked off our retreat path after all.

If this was their only enemy, it would be easy to dispose of them.

However, there was sure to be someone from Okafu’s camp keeping watch over the area. Lena had transformed her body into that of a minian woman, but there was a chance they would get a glimpse of Linaris’s face or physique.

Making a detour wasn’t an option right now, either. If she made any unnatural movement, that would make it all the easier to remain in people’s memories. An older sister carrying her wounded younger sister on her back. She needed to act the part; however, Linaris’s face was the one thing she didn’t wish to show to Okafu.

Now what are we going to do?

It was then that she noticed the sounds of footsteps behind her.

These didn’t belong to any Okafu soldiers.

“…Are you two evacuees as well?”

It was an Aureatia soldier guiding the evacuation.

“You can hear the alert, right? The carriages headed to the plaza are gathering out on the main road. You should evacuate immediately before you get wrapped up in a battle against a self-proclaimed demon king.”

“Th-thank you.”

Lena immediately changed her voice and answered with the voice of a scared townswoman.

“Everything happened so fast, I was so confused about where we were supposed to go. Thank you so much for guiding us!”

She bowed slightly, making sure not to put any more stress on Linaris.

Naturally, she couldn’t follow this soldier’s guidance. As long as Aureatia, through Zigita Zogi, had learned about the invisible army, they were sure to examine everyone gathered in the evacuation area for corpse infection.

They couldn’t let themselves be seen by the vagabond goblin. They had to be wary of a surveillant watching from somewhere. Now this Aureatia soldier, too. The only route of escape lay up ahead—

I’ll bring down the surveillant first. That’s the only option.

Lena gripped a stone in each fist. She needed to look upward to fight the enemy observing from on high. It meant exposing her eye to the light of the sun.

She’d have only a single second. Would she be able to successfully pick out their enemy?

“…Pardon me, Mr. Soldier. There is something I would like to ask you, if you wouldn’t mind,” Linaris’s clear voice asked from behind her.

“What’s that? You can ask me anything you like, pretty little missy.”

“Is there anyone watching us from the buildings behind us?”

“…”

The Aureatia soldier looked behind them as if the words were controlling him. Lena could tell that his senses, honed as a soldier, picked out a single window. She only had to follow his gaze with one of her eyes. She got a visual on the person watching them. It happened in a single second.

She flicked the stones. One at a time from her left hand, then her right.

One pierced through the surveillant’s eye socket, while the other shot through the vagabond’s throat.

“What the—?”

Faster than the soldier could feel suspicious of his own actions, controlled by Linaris, Lena’s finger had snapped his neck.

Everything from the right shoulder down on this perfectly ordinary town girl had morphed into a massive, ogre-like arm.

“My lady, let us head for the boat.”

Lena tossed the corpse of the soldier away with the strength of her monstrous arm.

The corpse crashed into the tiny body of the now dead vagabond, and they both were knocked down into the canal.

Not even a drop of blood remained on the roadway.

“I can’t afford to look at more light than I have, but…the meet-up location with Frey is just up ahead.”

She needed to wrap the bandage protecting her eye around the other.

However, there was one thing she needed to make sure she burned into her retinas.

“Thank you very much, Miss Lena.”

Linaris smiled.

“Of course.”

Looking at her beauty, the thought came to Lena once more.

As long as my lady is here…it’s impossible to keep myself composed and proper.

Eastern Outer Ward, tenth borough. At this point, all the residents from the third to the sixth boroughs were finished evacuating, but when taking the speed of Alus the Star Runner’s attack into account, this zone could quickly fall inside the area of his attack and had thus become an extremely dangerous area.

Fully understanding said danger, Rosclay the Absolute called out to the city residents.

“I am Aureatia’s Second General, Rosclay the Absolute! If there are any residents who can hear this warning, please follow directions and immediately evacuate! A self-proclaimed demon king is approaching the district! Right now I ask you to protect not your wealth or home, but the most irreplaceable thing of all, your lives! I repeat! I am Aureatia’s Second General, Rosclay the Absolute!”

Up until moments prior, he had been shouting from atop a firefighting tower, but now he was walking around the corners of the labyrinthine slums, rescuing people who weren’t able to move freely or who had yet to escape.

Rosclay wasn’t doing this alone, and many soldiers had split into groups to carry out this task, but at the very least, he would still need to make another two rounds through the streets like this.

…If Alus the Star Runner came here right now, I’d easily die.

As he verbally called out to save lives, Rosclay’s thoughts were morbid.

There was an incomparable gap in fighting strength—however, this wasn’t the only issue. As long as the eyes of the citizenry were upon him, Rosclay the Absolute couldn’t let himself shirk away from facing a threat.

The fear of losing Aureatia and its people. The tension of death, which could occur at any moment. The intense pain in both legs, broken during the fourth match. The sweat that faintly wetted his skin had fully dried out and was changing over to a chill incongruent with the midday sun.

It seemed he hadn’t walked around the city without proper protection like this or stood atop a firefighting tower and called out to the citizens, for a long time. For the past several small months Rosclay hadn’t done anything like it. This was because of the fear of an enemy force shooting him from afar.

He was always in fear.

“A self-proclaimed demon king is approaching! Should you know the threat of the Demon King’s Army of the past, I believe you will make the correct decision to protect your lives!”

Rosclay’s feet suddenly came to a halt in front of a plain home with its door ajar.

He spoke to the soldier accompanying him.

“Please search through that house. There may be a bedridden citizen inside.”

“Is there something different about this house in particular?”

“I can see a wheelchair in the doorway. Someone who uses a wheelchair must have been left behind while they lay unable to move on their own.”

“Understood. I’ll carry the survivor in need of help myself.”

The soldiers went into the house, leaving Rosclay behind on his own.

He pondered as he gazed at the wheelchair half hidden by the door.

…There’s one other thing that’s clear. If the door was half open when I spotted it, that means that the resident that had already evacuated from this house—someone who was caring for the infirm inside—must’ve been here.

The invalid had been abandoned.

He felt that someone was supposed to offer them help. This thought didn’t stem from any genuine goodness in his heart.

I’m scared. If there truly is this despair of dying while unable to ask anyone for help, that’s all the more terrifying. If I can continue saving people…some sort of karmic force may guarantee that I avoid meeting such an end. If there really is something like that, then—

“Hey there, Rosclay the Absolute.”

A chill went down Rosclay’s spine. He immediately looked up above the roof. Even he didn’t understand why he did such a thing, but there wasn’t anything there for him to see.

Instead, there was an ominous man dressed in black ascending the narrow slope.

“…Kuze the Passing Disaster.”

“Bweh-heh-heh… Hills start getting real rough on you once you’re my age. Hidow the Clamp’s given me the general picture. So Alus the Star Runner’s coming, is he?”

Kuze the Passing Disaster’s ability is automatic counterattacks that bring instant death. Since it activates even if the man himself isn’t aware of any danger, any unperceived surprise attacks against him are ineffective.

Right now, Rosclay was on the front lines, fully cognizant of the danger. In the current situation, with the strong chance of getting caught up in Alus the Star Runner’s attacks, he hadn’t constructed a perfect support structure to provide him backup, either.

It would have been a golden opportunity for an assassination.

His mind raced at high speed to think of what possible methods he had at his disposal, but there was most likely nothing he could do against Kuze the Passing Calamity, appearing at this distance. The only way to avoid his instantaneous lethal counterattack was not to make an attack against him, but that also meant that he wasn’t able to put up any resistance whatsoever to any attack Kuze made against him.

Rosclay made a flawless smile.

“I’m glad I ran into a hero candidate here. Alus the Star Runner is moving from the fifth borough of the Eastern Outer Ward… He’s attacking the second borough now. Please head that way and leave the search and rescue up to us.”

“Bweh-heh-heh. You’re not heading there yourself? You’re just as much a hero candidate, too.”

“…………”

Both men closed the distance between them.

As essentially the symbol of Aureatia, the Order’s oppressors, Kuze must have deeply despised Rosclay.

During the fifth match, Nophtok the Crepuscule Bell had even schemed to attack an Order almshouse and force Kuze to withdraw from the tournament. In the end, the operation had been carried out solely at Nophtok’s discretion. But assuming Rosclay had been fully healthy at the time, he was sure he would have directed a similar operation himself.

“I would love to, but my wounds from the fourth match haven’t fully healed yet. It’s quite embarrassing, but…I wanted to keep the casualties to a minimum as much as I could by leading the citizens’ evacuation.”

He answered with a composed smile. It was a lie.

Even if his whole body had been in perfect condition, he didn’t wish to fight against someone like Alus the Star Runner at all.

He didn’t want to die.

“I’m not gonna forget about what happened with Nophtok. You think you can still tell me to go off and fight, huh?”

He felt the illusion of the blade of death being directly held up against his throat.

Amid the terror he felt facing off against a shura, concealing their hatred, with nothing but his mortal body, Rosclay remained normal, down to his heartbeat and breathing, without a single shivering fingertip or his face growing taut. He had trained himself to do so.

“…You yourself—”

He looked straight ahead at Kuze. Straightforward and honest, like a champion unashamed of anything.

“—will always be the only one who can decide that. It’s about whether you wish to save someone of your own will, regardless of who ordered you to or not. The choice may have you sacrifice your life, or your faith. I’ve prepared myself to do that.”

“……”

He wasn’t lying. However, did he truly and honestly believe it?

If Rosclay truly wasn’t reluctant to die, then he might have tried to fight Alus the Star Runner.

If he truly wanted to save someone, then he might have been able to go and save them.

“Bweh-heh-heh. Well, what a splendid guy you are, eh?”

As he passed by Rosclay’s side, Kuze laughed feebly.

Was he going to climb up this hill and head off to fight against the terrifying wyvern? In the case of this man who continued to fight on alone for the sake of the Order, Rosclay was convinced he would do so.

“Kuze the Passing Disaster!” Rosclay shouted, turning to the black-clad figure’s back. “In the second borough…of the Eastern Outer Ward!”

He genuinely and truthfully wished to save her.

If Rosclay the Absolute hadn’t been Aureatia’s champion, if he was allowed to abandon all the other citizens, he wanted to do so, even if he didn’t have any power to fight.

Iska was in the second borough of the Eastern Outer Ward.

The young girl alone was the person who served as Rosclay’s emotional pillar.

“What’s in the second borough of the Eastern Outer Ward, then?”

“…Nothing. I just ask that you save the people there to ensure no one else falls victim to Alus. Please…I beg you.”

Rosclay bowed his head deeply at Kuze’s back.

It wasn’t an appeal or deference to Kuze the individual, but as if he was praying to something.

“See, I can’t really save anyone. So if…if someone’s life ends up getting saved from here on out—”

The black shadow walked on, without ever looking back.

He waved a single hand back at Rosclay behind him.

“—just think of it as the Wordmaker saving them instead.”

Soon after Kuze had departed, the soldiers tasked with searching the house returned.

“General Rosclay! You were right; there was one person left behind in the second-floor bedroom! Thank you, sir!”

“G-General Rosclay. General Rosclay came to save little old me…”

Rosclay cast a smile at the gaunt senior citizen, being carried by one of the soldiers.

The senior was in tears.

They believed that they had been saved from the danger, that a champion had been there to protect them.

“You did a wonderful job holding out, despite your terrible illness. Please rest easy. I am Rosclay the Absolute. I won’t leave anyone behind.”

Such a feat was impossible for anyone but the Wordmaker.

Rosclay forged a smile, to obscure his fear of losing Iska.

“I will save everyone.”

The buildings in the second borough of the Eastern Outer Ward were complexly woven between the gaps in crisscrossing canals running through it.

The town’s construction hadn’t been based on any civic planning. The canals in this district were filled with wastewater and sewage, and the area wasn’t expected to be used for residential buildings to begin with.

Therefore, the damage from the fires in this district was tremendous.

The narrow, labyrinthine streets ended up preventing citizens from making a smooth escape.

The wooden footings used as bridge crossings were easily burned apart, dividing the foot traffic.

Among all of the Eastern Outer Ward, the second borough was a district that was especially delayed in evacuating its residents.

Alus the Star Runner had descended on the area.

A wind blew. A terrifying hot blast, blowing in after the buildings were torched one after another, and the flames kicked up and churned in the atmosphere.

The original scenery there had now become black shadows floating among the red-white light, visibly losing their shapes by the second.

Ground Runner—the citizens didn’t even know the name of the magic item, but the mass of intense heat, vaporizing the canals as it rushed along, indiscriminately blasted away people, and everything else, regardless of the wind direction or the size of the original flame.

More than anything, though, the sound completely blanketed over everything.

The sounds of wood, iron, or even human flesh, being torn apart. Each individual noise was tiny, but they could all be heard simultaneously from across the city, ringing out loud like a torrential downpour.

“Listen up, men!”

There was a man shouting among the flames, nearly drowned out by the thundering around him.

The mask covering his face, a solid sheet of iron, didn’t even have a curve for his nose.

Aureatia’s Twelfth General, Sabfom the White Weave.

“All the citizens are watching you conduct yourselves! Will you turn your back here on Aureatia’s peril?! Or will you gather up your courage and face it head on?! The day’s finally come for you lot to prove who you are, once and for all!”

The courageous general, who had once crossed swords with the self-proclaimed demon king Morio, had volunteered himself to be in charge of evacuating the most dangerous area, the second borough of the Eastern Outer Ward, despite having only just returned to the front lines.

Sabfom didn’t wield a sword. Instead, he brandished an iron hammer in each of his hands, and he continued with the rescue operation by forcefully smashing up the blazing houses to create a path forward.

Right now, he didn’t have a single one of his men with him. In the midst of this great conflagration, which necessitated that they save as many lives as they possibly could, there wasn’t a single soldier in Sabfom’s squad who found himself unable to move from the general’s side.

The subordinates might have all burned to death somewhere out of Sabfom’s sight. Nevertheless, Sabfom continued to yell on his own. “Ah! You think we have no chance to win?! Any cowards who doubt my words?! Still, you all came here anyway! And what for?! To keep the citizens of Aureatia alive! That’s victory! You hear me?! I came here today planning to claim dozens and dozens of victories! I was nice enough to give all of you the very same opportunity!”

Sabfom’s shout, almost like a triumphant roar, was so full of spirit and vigor, it seemed all but impossible to be coming from a wounded soldier.

It eloquently communicated his location through the fire and smoke obscuring their vision and served as a guide for his men or any survivors to reach him.

While shouting, he mowed down debris blocking the path with his giant hammers, pulverizing it.

There was a soldier rushing up behind him.

“General Sabfom! We’ve confirmed three families of survivors in the direction of the Eda River Factory and safely finished evacuating them! Also, in the middle of our search through the corresponding districts, we discovered two dwarf children who had neglected to flee! We have saved them as well!”

“Bang-up job! What’s your name, soldier?! Well?! Puol the Thousand Land! Your name and the name of your squad’s members have been etched into the memories of the people you saved! Be proud! Next I want you to search the abandoned pond!”

“Yessir…! We lost two of our squad members, but we’ll meet up with the other squads and try to re-form our ranks! We’ll show…we’ll show the prestige of Aureatia!”

“You’ve sworn on the prestige of Aureatia, have you? Good, then go! Save everyone without leaving a single one behind!”

Perhaps the current status of Sabfom and his men would have been best described as a desperate and mad scramble.

When the reality of fire and death appeared right before their eyes, this was how they became. That was how they had been trained.

This was because the Twentieth General’s troops were originally a suicide corps used to annihilate the Demon King’s Army.

“Can you hear me, Alus the Star Runner?! I’m overjoyed!”

While letting out a booming voice that seemed to be purposely broadcasting his location, his two hammers destroyed what were once people’s dwellings as though made out of paper.

“Even though the True Demon King’s dead, there are still those out there giving us hell! These louts who delight in hell have come running here in place of the residents you wish to kill! That’s who I am, and these are my troops! Well, humiliating, isn’t it?! Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

Sabfom the White Weave continued to desire the brilliance from that fateful day. Like his fight against Morio the Sentinel, where he had lost his own face.

She could hear a man yelling from far off in the distance.

They seemed to be helping the residents of the lower district, but to Iska, their tone sounded like nothing but the roar of some kind of terrifying beast.

I wonder if this will all turn out to just be a dream.

Inside a small shack in a corner of the canal, Iska was lying down in bed, wrapped up in a blanket.

Fortunately, the flames had yet to arrive at her house.

She also knew what she needed to do to escape.

Tracing the canal until she reached the underside of a bridge, she would climb up the ladder leaning against it, cross the extended wooden plank bridging two shacks, and climb up and over three steep flights of stairs. There were an innumerable number of different streets from there, and she wondered when she had last seen the large main boulevard that lay at the end.

Iska lived her life bedridden in this house. Even if she evacuated now, she was likely already too late, nor did she believe her legs would allow her to actually escape in the first place.

I’m sure someone will help me out…but perhaps I shouldn’t be thinking like that.

She held her blanket as if embracing it.

The other residents might have wished that Rosclay the Absolute would be the one to come.

However, Iska knew better than anyone else that Rosclay didn’t have absolute strength.

Nor did she wish for him to come save her before any of the other residents. Even if Rosclay appeared before her right at that moment, she would likely puff out her cheeks and scold him for it.

He’d probably wear that same lonely face of his again.

She chuckled a bit when she imagined it.

People were able to laugh, even when certain death was closing in, Iska mused, as if it didn’t concern her at all.

She heard the sound of something crumbling with a clatter.

The inside of the room had gone hazy white from the smoke, filtering in ahead of the fire.

…I hope Mom is still alive.

Her mother was supposed to be out at work at this time of day. She was a worker in a factory here in the second borough; however, sometimes she would be sent out to work as far away as the seventh. Perhaps today just happened to be one of those days, and she might have safely avoided getting caught up in these flames.

…It was hope. Hope was the only thing that came to Iska’s mind.

Usually, the only thing on her mind was the despair about when her life would finally be exhausted, and she found it strange that, despite this, when it now seemed that she really would lose her life, her thoughts started going in the exact opposite direction.

When she turned over in bed, she saw the ring that was placed at her bedside.

A red coral ring. She continued to keep the gift, the one she’d claimed that day she hadn’t wanted, close by her.

“…You don’t want to die, do you, Rosclay.”

With her thin pointer finger, she stroked the ring. Rosclay feared death more than anybody else.

Yet despite that, he was also facing death head on. Surely right at that moment, too.

Iska meant to die while turning her back from the fear of death, and she thought that was fine for an insignificant young girl like herself.

“Ah… Now what am I going to do?”

She thought that if she didn’t have the vitality to get herself up, she would give up. However, Iska succeeded.

Putting her bare feet into shabby outdoor shoes, she soaked the blanket that had been wrapped around her in the bucket of water.

When I think about you…it seems so very embarrassing to give up like this.

She loved Rosclay.

Iska understood that she would never be able to marry him, but she wished to still have a heart worthy of being at his side.

Perhaps the soldier that kept calling out from far away was coming closer.

The flames might not have gotten that big, and there might barely be a path still available for Iska’s escape.

She collected together the fragments of hope she’d imagined in bed and forged the courage she needed to flee.

I’m sure that even Rosclay’s doing just the same himself.

His ability to give hope to the people of Aureatia wasn’t the flashy power of some perfect champion. She believed that, in truth, it was this courage in Rosclay’s heart being conveyed to those he inspired.

That was why Rosclay the Absolute was definitely not just a false symbol.

Opening up the door, Iska looked at the scene outside.

The wall of flame had closed in, up to the far shore of the river.

The violent hot blast of air blew in, making Iska have a coughing fit.

Her breath caught in her throat.

“Koff! Koff…”

She understood.

She knew that she couldn’t survive, and that’s why she had needed courage.

Iska was glad that she was able to summon the courage to walk on her own feet.

She would soon run out of oxygen. Her consciousness would begin to fade.

And then the flame of her life would be extinguished…

“Extinguish.”

“…What?”

The blaze right in front of Iska had vanished.

Its heat, even the smoke, disappeared like it had all been an illusion.

Even the noxious smell of something burning was gone, and the air was now clean and fresh, like that of a morning forest.

“It can’t be. How could this…”

She had believed it had all been too late, and this was the end.

Yet despite that, someone had done something to save her.

Almost like that hero, who’d brought an end to the True Demon King…

“…Who could even…?”

The position was far removed from the Eastern Outer Ward.

Farther away than the central city, the royal palace, the railroad crossing north to south, farther past the vast expanse of the old town, in the agricultural quarter of the Western Outer Ward.

And then, another 529 meters up into the sky.

“This feels awful.”

High in the sky, wind blowing fiercely, stood a young girl.

Her blond hair and the sleeves of her green clothes fluttered in the wind, but she didn’t seem to have any trouble breathing and paid no mind to the freezing upper-atmosphere air.

The sight of this fourteen-year-old girl, suspended in midair, could only be described as extremely abnormal; nevertheless, she had a reason for standing where she was.

It was because that’s what she wished to do.

She had heard that alert that the distant Eastern Outer Ward was being attacked by a self-proclaimed demon king.

She had also eavesdropped on the conversations from the evacuees to learn that, as a result, the city was being torched in a huge conflagration.

If she had been in a position to make contact with her sponsor, she probably would have been able to do this sooner. However, right now she couldn’t let herself be seen by anyone.

Especially not by any other hero candidates.

“…Not like I’d care even a little bit if Aureatia here gets destroyed or saved, but…”

Even from this height, she could clearly see the intensity of the flames covering the second borough of the Eastern Outer Ward.

She erased it because she found it unpleasant.

“Don’t show me a big fire like that.”

Now, this young girl had a second name.

Kia the World Word.

The strongest of all were gathering to bring down a self-proclaimed demon king.