Ishura - Volume 3 - Chapter 11

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Chapter 11: The Night Before the Competition

A pure-white field of ice, as if the stars in the sky were twinkling.

Quiet and still to the far reaches of the horizon, without any enemies to battle or friends to exchange conversation with.

She serenely closed her eyes.

Battle. Ah, what a wonderful thing.

Beyond the Igania Ice Lake, conflict still continued on within the realms of men.

Long ago in the past, another dragon had described it. Saying the conflicts of men were terribly ugly and asinine. That they do harm to others of their own race, their own species, was proof of the depths of their wickedness.

Lucnoca didn’t think so.

Those not of humankind didn’t know. They didn’t know how venerable and noble it was to challenge others unlike oneself, while trying to stay true to themselves with the power and knowledge they were able to possess.

Hope. Emotion. Animosity. Conviction. Any of them would work.

All in order to prove that the inner realm of the heart was something far bigger than the reality seen in one’s eyes.

As long as all the living creatures across the horizon hadn’t given up for good, conflict was undying.

Even beyond this far-off and frozen land, that alone remained ever unchanging for her.

As long as the spiral of strife continued on, eventually someone would appear to challenge Lucnoca.

Within the endless repetition, someday, someone she could fight would appear.

Someday.

When would Harghent, the man who had promised combat today, appear again?

He might have come tomorrow. He could never appear again, too. Lucnoca had known more people who had kept her waiting like that than she could count.

Someday. Someday.

Nevertheless. As long as there was the possibility, however small, her life wouldn’t be empty.

She wanted an opponent. She wanted victory. She wanted defeat.

—She wanted to fight like the champions she had watched expend everything while fighting her.

“Listen. The Twenty-Nine Officials of Aureatia are the highest authority of the minian races. They’re the ones who keep Aureatia moving. Make sure not to offend them at all and knock before entering just like I taught you.”

“Yeah, leave it to me! I practiced a whole bunch!”

A manor in an affluent and high-class residential area. A strange pair advanced down the brightly illuminated nighttime corridor. A bizarre man cloaked in a full-body robe, who seemed to drag his feet behind him as he walked. A young girl walking with short steps while her attention was drawn restlessly left and right, her long soft braid of chestnut hair swaying with it.

The pair was Krafnir the Hatch of Truth, pioneer of the fifth system of Word Arts, and the Demon King’s Bastard, Tu the Magic. A combination that anyone was likely to find incomprehensible, whether privy to the identities of the two or not.

“Look, look, Krafnir! What a cool sculpture! What d’ya think it is? The sun, maybe?”

“YOU DAMN—!! THAT SCULPTURE WAS ON THE DOOR, WASN’T IT?! WHY DID YOU BREAK IT?!”

“Wait—this wasn’t supposed to come off? Uh, um…”

The bronze sculpture ornamenting the door was made with a mold from Craft Arts and certainly wasn’t something that could be torn off with a minia’s physical strength.

“Krafnir, take it!”

“NO. YOU HOLD ON TO IT.”

“But—but they’ll revoke my entry!”

“PAY THEM FOR THE DAMAGES, THEN! I DON’T CARE!”

Gathering the eyes and ears of the servants with their banter as they went, the two finally arrived at the room they were searching for—the room of the Seventh Minister of Aureatia, Flinsuda the Portent. The civil servant sponsoring Krafnir the Hatch of Truth’s participation in the Royal Games.

“Um… Hello and good evening…”

Tu timidly entered the room, conspicuously hiding something in her hand behind her back as she entered.

Krafnir bowed, appearing exasperated with the girl’s behavior beside him.

“…IT’S BEEN SOME TIME, FLINSUDA. THIS GIRL…IS TU THE MAGIC. AS I MENTIONED IN MY CORRESPONDENCE PRIOR TO ARRIVING, I WOULD LIKE TO RECOMMEND THIS GIRL TO BE A HERO CANDIDATE.”

“Hoh-hoh-hoh-hoh-hoh! Young little Tu, then? Nervous? I’m Flinsuda the Portent. We’ll be great friends, I’m sure.”

Flinsuda the Portent was an extremely corpulent woman, decked out in extravagant clothes with ornaments of gold and silver. Blowing on her beautiful nails she had been tending to, she gazed at the two with a beaming smile.

“Relax, relax~! Feel free to sit; I don’t mind. Shall I have them bring some tea? Tu, dear, which would you prefer, amber tea or orange tea?”

“Oh, um, I… I wanna drink both!”

“WHAT DID YOU SAY?”

“Oh no, it’s fine, it’s fine! In that case, I’ll have them bring both. You don’t need anything, right, Krafnir? Misanthrope you may be, it’s awful sad that I can only ever talk to you through a construct like this, you know.”

“Yeah! Krafnir, you coward!”

“C-COWARD… THIS ISN’T COWARDICE! REMOTE CONSTRUCT SYNCHRONIZATION! IN ORDER TO SHOW, NOT KEEP SECRET, THIS UNRIVALED TECHNIQUE TO THE MASSES AND MAKE THEM RECOGNIZE THE UTILITY OF MIND ARTS, I—”

“We don’t need to get all technical now, Krafnir. Now, what were you here to talk about, then?”

Flinsuda’s cheerful smile never faltered as she hastened the conversation along.

“…THE SIXWAYS EXHIBITION. YOU NEED TO BACK AN UNPARALLELED FIGHTER, ONE WHO’S CERTAIN TO WIN OUT OVER THE OTHER CANDIDATES, YES? OF COURSE, I DON’T PLAN ON LOSING MYSELF…… BUT.”

“…And you’re saying little Tu here is stronger than you?”

Behind Krafnir, Tu carried one cup of each of the different teas in her hands and looked to be alternating between them, but she ended up finishing both in the blink of an eye.

“THAT’S RIGHT. NONE OF THE METHODS I CAN THINK OF CAN DEFEAT HER.”

“No injuries no matter what sort of attack she’s hit with, and neither poison nor fire have any effect on her. If that is indeed true, it’s quite unbelievable, isn’t it? Hoh-hoh-hoh-hoh-hoh! Now who’s sturdier, I wonder, her or the Vortical Stampede.”

“THE VORTICAL STAMPEDE ULTIMATELY DIED. SHE MAY’VE BEEN A CONSTRUCT WITH A HIGH DEGREE OF PERFECTION, BUT…I THINK THAT GIVEN HER PILOT REQUIREMENT, THAT LEFT BEHIND ROOM FOR WEAKNESS.”

“And what about Tu? Can you definitively say that the girl has no weakness you can think of?”

“…LOOK INTO HER YOURSELF. I’M LEAVING TU WITH YOU.”

“What?”

Stuffing her face with a tea cake, Tu looked at Krafnir with surprise.

“SHE SHOULD BE LEFT IN YOUR HANDS SO YOU CAN INSPECT HER. THERE’S PLENTY OF LEAD TIME BEFORE THE MATCHES START FOR THAT.”

“If you’re so insistent, Krafnir, then I think perhaps it is indeed worth a try.”

“Um… What am I supposed to do here exactly?”

Tu didn’t understand most of the conversation going on in front of her. She was brought along to this manor today similarly under the vague pretext of “consulting about the next steps forward.”

“Don’t you worry now, Tu dear. If you come here to this mansion, I’ll treat you to whatever sweets or teas you’d like, every day.”

“…I’m happy to hear that and all, but…”

She dropped her eyes down to the plate still sitting in her palm.

“Will I be able to meet with Sephite?”

“…With the Queen?”

“She’s the girl I wanted to see. I came to Aureatia believing I’d get the chance to meet her here… If I participate in the games, will I get to see Sephite, too?”

Sephite. It was the name of the queen who sat at the top of Aureatia, not a person some mysterious unknown being called the Demon King’s Bastard could get an audience with—as long as said being wasn’t a potential hero candidate.

“I’d say so. As long as you keep on winning and advancing, dear.”

“…! I’ll give it my all, Flinsuda!”

Although he gazed at Tu as a smile blossomed on her face, Krafnir’s inner thoughts were spinning.

…With this, I’ve removed myself as a candidate.

Krafnir was very well acquainted with Flinsuda’s overall character. She was a pragmatist who only believed in financial power, instead of her longtime friend Krafnir or the power of heroes. She also needed a peerless candidate for the games herself. Unmatched enough to compel the other powers at play into trying to court her as an ally.

With the money she gained from this, she was planning on expanding her own influence even further and solidify her authority for generations. There were some like her among the Twenty-Nine Officials, simply using their hero candidate for their own political goals.

If it was only being manipulated as part of Flinsuda’s schemes, that would be one thing. This Sixways Exhibition……is dangerous. It’s all preliminary groundwork for the era that will continue afterward. These true duel contests, both candidates struggling for their life, have to be nothing more than a plot to get rid of Aureatia’s foreign elements, these deviant individuals.

If Krafnir was going to survive, he couldn’t afford to get himself involved in such a plot.

At the very least, he was different from Tu. He wasn’t a truly invincible being like her.

“……The Gray-Haired Child has wormed his way into the Sixways Exhibition.”

A meeting room in the Aureatia Central Assembly Hall. Rosclay the Absolute spoke to the room filled with his main supporters.

Golden hair with red eyes. The beautiful features that charmed all the citizenry didn’t currently wear the smiling face he could present to the nation.

“Not only is he simply appointing a hero candidate, but he’s forcing us to accept the entirety of the Free City of Okafu itself as a hero—an interpretative use of the ‘hero’ idea beyond our expectations.”

Now, at the stage where Aureatia could no longer stop their machinations ahead of the Sixways Exhibition, the Gray-Haired Child had made his move.

He skillfully used information control to create a threat out of the Old Kingdoms’ loyalists, using the Particle Storm to their advantage, and then through his eloquence and negotiations to influence the Free City of Okafu’s movements, he personally destroyed the Old Kingdom loyalists himself.

The New Principality of Lithia. The Particle Storm. An inevitable result of these priority threats to Aureatia piling up one after another, he had led them into this final state. The Gray-Haired Child’s aim from the very beginning had been to take part in the Sixways Exhibition using the power of an entire nation itself.

“Rosclay. There’s no need to accept them. They’re foreign enemies of Aureatia.”

Immediately replying was a tan-skinned man wearing dark tinted glasses. The Twenty-Eighth Minister of Aureatia, Antel the Alignment.

“If we accept their demands, they’ll trample us all, best they can. Right now, while we were forced to concentrate our focus on the Sixways Exhibition, the whole of Aureatia might be swallowed up by the Gray-Haired Child.”

“…Another concerning factor is that the Gray-Haired Child went and colluded with that idiot Dant. Now that they count an entire nation among their allies—who’s to say how much the Queen’s faction is going to try to get in our way.”

The snaggletoothed and wiry man was the Ninth General, Yaniegiz the Chisel.

On the front lines against the Old Kingdoms’ loyalists, he was the general, together with Dant, tasked with defending the nation.

“Yaniegiz, it was your role to begin with to watch over Dant and make sure he didn’t get caught up in any of the enemy’s schemes. Why did you so easily let him make contact with their messenger?”

“…I definitely kept a close eye on him. However, they carefully aimed for the moment he was in the middle of a sudden retreat to contact him, so there wasn’t anything I could do. The agents I had watching him were all mid-retreat, too, see. What, are you saying you would’ve been able to stop it, Antel?”

“That’s enough, Yaniegiz.”

Rosclay reined in Yaniegiz’s provocation.

“…Nevertheless, he’s right. The Gray-Haired Child choosing Dant’s retreat to make contact means that was all a part of his calculations, too.”

By showing the Okafu military force, who never actually fought at all, he had made both the Old Kingdoms’ loyalists and Dant’s forces move all at once. It signaled that he had a perfect understanding of the current internal factions within Aureatia.

Antel pushed up his tinted glasses with his middle finger.

“At the very least, though, our moves going forward are pretty cut-and-dried. We shouldn’t recognize his participation as a hero candidate. Okafu’s already exhausted their national resources from the Black Tone’s unconventional warfare. We need to move forward with negotiations while we hold the advantage.”

“That is—,” a shrewd-looking man wearing thin glasses replied. Third Minister, Jelky the Swift Ink.

“—impossible. We can’t prepare any material that will draw out concessions from Okafu beyond the current status quo. You are quite right, Antel, we could defeat them in open war. Nevertheless, we mustn’t force them to surrender. We don’t have the economic reserves to simply govern Okafu after its surrender. Allowing Morio the Sentinel to continue governing Okafu would become an absolute condition of the negotiations. There’s nothing we can make a move on here.

“I get all of that well enough! I’m saying that we need to present them with an alternative condition and block their involvement as a potential hero…! If we acknowledge their twisted interpretation here, there’s no way to know what sort of moves the other Twenty-Nine Officials will start to make!”

“And what would you do for that alternate condition? As long as we recognize their participation in the games as a potential hero, we’ll be able to avoid providing any financial compensation to Okafu regarding their recent intervention on the Toghie City battlefront. I’ll say it again, but we don’t have any public funds to spare. That includes both the budget for hosting the Sixways Exhibition as well as the losses we’re anticipating to occur from the games themselves. Disaster relief to the cities damaged by the Particle Storm and the reconstruction support to Lithia. Our enemy’s ascertained the limits of our support capabilities and is now trying to force things to go his way. What I can say, as the man responsible for our finances, is that it’s impossible. Simple as that.”

If they were simply going to war, the very best option would to be hit their enemy head-on with their overwhelming troop strength.

Therefore, there was a reason behind Aureatia’s mobilization of individual champions to combat the New Principality of Lithia and the Particle Storm, beyond simple fighting strength and covering up the truth—champions didn’t cost them any money.

No matter how high the rewards to the different individuals involved may have been, it was immaterial compared to the total cost to mobilize an army’s worth of soldiers. It was necessary for them to do so in order to expel the hostile powers while preparing for their large-scale and prioritized political policy, the Sixways Exhibition.

Antel put his hand up to his chin and searched for some other measure.

“…Then why don’t we prolong the negotiations with Okafu and stipulate a deferral until the Sixways Exhibition is over. That would… Wait, that’s all the more reason for the hero candidacy… I see.”

“Exactly. As long as there is an undecided hero candidate, the Sixways Exhibition itself can’t get underway. Much like the New Principality situation, assuming we directly eliminate the Gray-Haired Child or Morio the Sentinel ourselves, the enormous burden of governing the completely resourceless Free City of Okafu will be levied on us. It’s not about whether to accept their hero candidacy, Antel. The opinions we need here right now are what we’re going to do about it.”

On top of it all, the circumstances around the Free City of Okafu were different from the conquered New Principality of Lithia and Toghie City. Okafu was a city that reflected the ideas of the visitor, Morio the Sentinel, from its point of inception. A city for the mercenary trade, constructed in a desolate mountain crag without any sort of resources to speak of outside of its military superiority. Even if they were defeated, given that there was nothing to be gained from occupying the city, they wouldn’t be truly defeated.

“…Let’s transfer them to Aureatia,” Rosclay posited. Bringing his hands together before his forehead, he contemplated.

“We’ll give Aureatia city citizenship to the mercenary industry that abandons the Okafu homeland and allow them to pursue their profession. Given that they are going to name themselves as heroes and participate in the Sixways Exhibition, our enemy’s accepted the dissolution of their army as one of the conditions already. We’ll assign Morio the Sentinel to govern Okafu, and the Gray-Haired Child will be allowed to work with Dant.”

“That’s…Rosclay. You’re basically saying to open up our gates and invite an enemy army right inside our walls.”

“We can’t compleeeetely ban mercenary work anyway, right? We won’t be able to stop contracts on an individual basis.”

“…Naturally, I don’t think this will totally keep their threat in check, either. What we need is to divide up their forces between their homeland and Aureatia… Then for all intents and purposes, we will be holding Okafu’s only current source of capital, the Gray-Haired Child, hostage.”

The wrinkles in Jelky’s brow furrowed deeper as he replied.

“…So we’ll be the ones pressuring Okafu’s finances instead. In exchange for allowing them to infiltrate the heart of our country, we won’t allow them to raise the funds to wage an organized war. The Gray-Haired Child’s assets and Okafu’s coffers… Since the Sixways Exhibition’s overall duration isn’t set, it’ll turn into a contest of resilience, then.”

“That’s right. I don’t believe that by operating solely off their mercenary trade, the Free City of Okafu has anticipated this type of situation and amassed the capital to deal with it. However, the budget for everything involving the Sixways Exhibition has already been fully appropriated on our end, isn’t that right, Jelky?”

“Yes. Just as I mentioned earlier.”

“…With both sides stopping each other’s attempts at war, then that means the Sixways Exhibition will ultimately decide things, after all.”

Antel bitterly nodded.

“I think some serious consideration is necessary, but Rosclay’s proposal might be the only way to go… If the money’s not there, not much can be done about it.”

“I think we’re favored enough,” Rosclay asserted as the one shouldered with the name Absolute.

“As long as they fight in Aureatia—they won’t have the power of the people on their side.”

There were too many threats that exceeded all possible estimations, and they couldn’t wield unrestricted power. Despite this, their only option was to expend all their strength to maintain order. Until peace eventually came.

Aureatia. The largest and strongest minian nation, seizing control of the shura that threatened the very continuation of the world itself, plotted to use the power of the people to bring the world under their control.

Okafu’s movements were unexpected.

Within the same assembly hall, there was someone forming a different plot based on the actions of the Free City of Okafu.

While waiting inside the room for the contact from his one-person radzio, the Fourth Minister, Kaete the Round Table, was deep in thought.

But the fact that they’re drawing the attention of Rosclay and his lackeys isn’t a bad thing. Make Rosclay and the Gray-Haired Child fight among themselves, and I’ll be the one to create a new main faction. I’ll reform this history from the ground up.

He had already decided on a candidate to sponsor—Mestelexil the Box of Desperate Knowledge.

An abnormal and irregular being compared to all the other champions—even compared to Lucnoca the Winter and Alus the Star Runner.

An inexhaustible reproduction of technology from the Beyond. This went far beyond the realm of mere fighting strength. Even when limited to military functions, his power alone could grant a superiority far beyond even that of the New Principality of Lithia’s air force.

Mestelexil’s presence was likely to advance the hands on this world’s clock several hundred years into the future.

Demon King. Cursed True Demon King. As long as I breathe, I won’t let things stagnate. New technology, new knowledge… I’ll show this world true power, like nothing anyone has ever seen before.

This reformation was fundamentally different from abolition of monarchal rule that Rosclay and Jelky’s so-called reformation faction was aiming for. What Kaete wished for was a much bigger, and longer-term, reformation. An unpredictable future of possibilities, rendering the remaining deficiencies and conflicts of the world meaningless.

I, Kaete, will expel all terror from the land.

A short while later, his radzio received a signal.

<Kaete, you snot-nosed brat! Send someone to meet us, dammit! These Aureatian soldiers came and surrounded us!>

Kaete’s thoughts were forcefully interrupted.

“Gah……”

The old woman behind the voice was none other than Kiyazuna the Axle. The ultimate golem creator who birthed Mestelexil into this world and now, with Izick the Chromatic dead, known as the most terrifying self-proclaimed demon king in the land.

“You’ve gotten that close already?! Why didn’t you contact me first?!”

<Well, Mestelexil said he wanted to hurry and see Aureatia! Here I thought these dim-witted Aureatian imbeciles wouldn’t notice us anyway, but now’s the time for you to do your damn job for once!>

“Like hell you weren’t getting spotted! Listen now, you absolutely can’t lay a hand on anyone until I get there! You kill anyone, and any talk of supporting Mestelexil goes up in smoke!”

<Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-! It’s been, a while, Kaete!>

“I don’t care! Behave nice until I get there! Got it?!”

The Fourth Minister, reputed to be the sternest and fiercest civil servant of all, immediately began getting himself ready.

He needed to go and meet her fast, before the woman could get herself wrapped up in anything.

“Swear I’m surrounded by…nothing but pains in my ass…!”

Early morning. Inside an Aureatia spire, Alus the Star Runner opened his eyes and, with a light flap of his wings, climbed up to the window. He had sensed the presence of a visitor.

The white cityscape he looked down on was still asleep.

“…………Who?”

His voice was quiet, barely a whisper that only those with keen hearing would be able to hear, yet there was a reply.

“Psianop. Psianop the Inexhaustible Stagnation.”

Alus tilted his head slightly. The presence he had sensed at the base of the tower belonged to a single ooze.

Normally, a race that would never exchange words with a wyvern like Alus. Oozes feared wyverns.

“Psianop. Who was that again……?”

“Came across each other in the sand labyrinth. I remember.”

“…Ah. The sand labyrinth. Wasn’t really much there…”

Alus finally managed to recall the singular insignificant memory.

The title of labyrinth was nothing more than a designation made by the standards of the minian races. Although it was in the middle of fiery, unforgiving desert sands, for Alus, easily managing to reach it directly without any interference from the terrain or the lycan tribe there, the sand labyrinth wasn’t worthy of the moniker.

“I learned about the True Demon King’s death through you. Since I’ve come to visit Aureatia, I thought I should come and say hello, at least.”

“…Whatever… I don’t care about any greetings from an ooze… I didn’t even, remember, either…”

“How about that Toroa the Awful, then?”

That name elicited a reaction from Alus, though it was little more than a slight raise of his head.

“There’s rumors that the enchanted sword monster you were supposed to have killed has come to Aureatia. He might be planning to get his revenge on his killer in the Sixways Exhibition. I wanted to hear what your thoughts were on it.”

“……They’re a fake,” Alus quietly, yet firmly, declared. “……If they want to get revenge, they should come by right now to cut me down… Why aren’t they…? They can’t because……unlike the real Toroa, they’re weak…”

“Could be because they’re strong,” Psianop replied matter-of-factly.

“May be thinking that a fight to the death between you two would destroy this whole town with it.”

“…I wonder if the same would happen, if you and I fought, each other.”

Alus looked down at the small ooze below him. He didn’t have any interest in fighting against powerful opponents, but this Psianop was clearly strong. He understood that much.

Psianop opened up the book he was carrying with his pseudopod.

“Hard to say. Want to find out right now?”

“…………”

The ooze’s emotions were impossible to read, even more so than expressionless Alus’s own. Even after opening his book, it was impossible to judge if his eyes really were pointed down at the pages.

“…………Sounds like a pain.”

“Hmph. Too bad. My business here is concluded.”

Psianop decided to take his leave and return, from what Alus could tell.

“There’s one thing I’d like to ask before I go,” Psianop said as he made his departure.

“You knew that the Demon King was dead, didn’t you? Why were you able to say that so confidently?”

“…………”

“Or maybe you’re…”

…actually the hero after all?

The survivor of the First Party left the final part of his inquiry unsaid.

Aureatia old town. Following the Particle Storm incident, Toroa the Awful’s path led him to find shelter in a worker’s slum in this section of the city, voluntarily helping out with cargo transport and other physical labor.

As he didn’t have official citizenship, there were no guarantees he would be able to stay in Aureatia for long. To make things worse, his exceptional bodily physique and extremely dangerous adornments made the people of the city needlessly fearful of him.

“Oh! If it isn’t Toroa the Awful! Been a minute, huh?”

“……”

Hearing the voice cut in, Toroa looked somewhat disgruntled as he stopped in his tracks.

The person who brazenly called out to the monster from horror stories outwardly appeared like an aristocrat’s child who had accidently wandered into the old town, but he was unmistakably one of Aureatia’s Twenty-Nine Officials. The youngest of them all, the Twenty-Second General, Mizial the Iron-Piercing Plumeshade.

“…Mizial? Don’t you have government business to attend to?”

“At this point, the military officers’re all bored to tears. The talk of war with Okafu and the Old Kingdoms went up in a puff a smoke and all, too. So I thought, hey, why don’t I go see Toroa!”

“Am I some rare flower or something to you?”

Mizial cheekily went around Toroa’s cart and examined his cargo.

“What’s it today, then? Transporting cargo? While you still have all those enchanted swords on your back?”

“Just carrying medicine. I’ve got enough for the clinic the next block over, so I’m about to go and hand them out there.”

The horse wagon loaded with medicinal bottles was undoubtably not something one of the minian races could pull themselves, but Toroa’s physical stamina, able to haul this all over the enormous city of Aureatia without a single drop of sweat, was something beyond normal expectations.

“…So let me make myself clear. I don’t have time to chitchat.”

Mizial invited Toroa to participate in the Sixways Exhibition the very day he first came across him and was rejected. However, since he continued to come visit Toroa whenever it struck his fancy, Toroa had begun to doubt that this young boy in front of him really was one of Aureatia’s highest-level bureaucrats.

“Awww. You can rest for a little bit, righ—?”

“Are you Toroa the Awful?” a voice cut in and interrupted their conversation.

A dangerous group had appeared, spreading widely across the road to block it off. A large force, equipped with crossbows, short swords, and hammers, and with two carriages in tow.

Mizial questioned them, making no effort to hide his displeasure.

“……Who’re you people?”

“I’m Toroa the Awful.”

Toroa stepped forward before Mizial could say another word. He was preparing to respond immediately, just in case his wagon or Mizial were put at risk of being harmed.

“You all have some business with me?”

“We’re the Sun’s Conifer. We’ve been entrusted with bein’ a sorta neighborhood guard force ’round here. That’s why we can’t ignore a request from our model citizens, see… Talkin’ about you roaming Aureatia all day with all those nasty weapons of yers—and scaring the people. On top of trying to pass yerself off as Toroa the Awful, too, eh?”

“……”

Everything he said was true. Even while residing in Aureatia, Toroa didn’t remove his hands from any of his enchanted swords, even for a single moment. Offering protection was, currently, Toroa’s calling.

“Not only that, but apparently, you’re not a citizen, either, huh? Well, looking like that, you bet I’d believe it. That’s why we’re gonna step in for those dimwits on the Aureatia Council and drive this dangerous character outta our city.”

“As long as the council gives their permission…”

With his hands still in his pockets, Mizial scowled at the armed group.

“Even noncitizens are allowed to reside here for over three small months. Fourth Class, Article II, ‘Emergency Evacuation of Sick and Wounded in Wartime.’ Toroa’s working hard and hasn’t built up any criminal history here in Aureatia. You lot don’t have the authority to forcibly evict him from the city.”

“Quiet, brat. Listen, we’re talking to that bum right now. This ain’t a problem of laws or approvals. We’ve received actual demands from the citizens about him. Now, I bet all of us here wanna settle things peacefully. Understand?”

The tobacco-smoking man smiled wide. The weapons of the Sun’s Conifer were clearly pointed not only toward Toroa himself but also at the clinic situated behind him.

“……If I leave here, that’ll be the end of this.”

Throughout his life up until that point, there had been quite a few ruffians who saw Toroa’s towering form and tried picking fights with him. He had no plans to abandon Alus the Star Runner’s trail, but he could do the same after the Sixways Exhibition event was over, and the wyvern had left Aureatia. He had already thought that if there came a time when his presence invited unnecessary trouble, he’d meekly take his leave. However.

“You think that alone’ll settle all this? Hand over the enchanted swords. All of ’em.”

“…What did you say?”

“A real dense bastard, aren’t we? I’m saying if you give up all those enchanted swords of yers, we’ll let you head home unscathed… Don’t think I don’t know. You may be using a fake name, but those enchanted swords are the real deal, aren’t they?”

……Where did he get that information?

Toroa inwardly went on his guard. Anyone who believed that he was Toroa the Awful, back from the dead, wouldn’t try challenging him in a fight in the first place. On the other hand, anyone who determined he was an impostor taking Toroa’s name would likely think there was no chance that the enchanted swords he carried were genuine.

The Sun’s Conifer were different from all the ruffians who had picked fights with Toroa before.

“Listen! You’re talking to the Twenty-Fourth General here! Me!”

Now appearing to be ignored, Mizial loudly asserted himself.

“Y’know, causing all this fuss right in front of me like this? Knock it off. It makes me feel like I’m being looked down on.”

“’Cause we are looking down on you, Mizial the Iron-Piercing Plumeshade. There’s a hero above us, see. You Twenty-Nine bums… You’re bringing ’em all here to Aureatia, tellin’ them to enjoy themselves, aren’t ya? Huh?”

Stealing the enchanted swords for their own hero candidacy… So there’s someone backing their show of force here.

He had realized for a while that he was currently surrounded. What Toroa was most anxious about right now was the medicinal bottles in his wagon breaking and causing damage to the city and citizens.

Wicked Sword Selfesk. Divine Blade Ketelk. Mushain the enchanted wind sword…shouldn’t be a problem.

Immediately afterward, an arrow whizzed right by his face. Raising it with the barest of movements, he deflected it with the hilt of an enchanted sword—a sword composed of a hilt with nothing else. The arrow flew up on top of a roof without hitting any of the medicinal bottles.

“Oh no! I didn’t mean to shoot that! Sorry!”

The boorish group member who fired his bow shouted without the slightest hint of guilt. The tobacco-smoking man grinned as if everything was turning out as planned.

“Whoa, whoa, now! We can’t go getting violent here, c’mon! Toroa the Awful… Why don’t ya hand over those enchanted swords, and we can wrap things up, eh? You’d be in rough shape, right? If, say, this whole part of town caught fi— Hgnh—!”

His jaw broke. The fragments of his tobacco, chomped down and torn apart, fluttered into the air.

A throwing projectile, resembling a balancing weight, hit him from below. Mizial the Iron-Piercing Plumeshade. The Twenty-Second General had slipped into the middle of the group in a low, beast-like posture and had already finished his attack.

“It’s your fault for ignoring me, really. Right?”

Faster than the ones around him could come to grips with the sudden, violent attack, the next weights had already left Mizial’s fingertips, and there came two more sounds of them slicing through the air. The rogues to his right and left had their shoulders, and their hips, broken simultaneously.

“If you hadn’t ignored me like that, this wouldn’t have happened, now, would it?”

Although the Sun’s Conifer had their weapons readied against Toroa, they hadn’t predicted the sudden attack. Just how many of their members knew that Aureatia’s Twenty-Second General Mizial happened to be a military officer who loved rushing headlong into battle more than anything else?

“You little…”

“What the hell are you doing?!”

He had plunged straight into the middle of the armed gang. A number of fists and kicks flew Mizial’s way. Forgetting their original mission there, the rogues reflexively started raising their weapons against the boy.

“Wicked Sword Selfesk.”

A storm of wedge-shaped metal fragments swooped in from the flank and deflected all the threatening weapons away.

It may have appeared to them as a sword with nothing but a hilt. Dispersing the length of the blade into numerous wedge shapes and manipulating them with magnetic force, it was the enchanted sword known as the Wicked Sword Selfesk.

“Ah-ha-ha.”

Seeing the power of an enchanted sword for the first time right in front of him, Mizial laughed.

Immediately afterward, when he sprang back to his feet with a jolt, he straddled the tobacco-smoking man, unconscious from breaking his jaw, and slammed his elbow into his face four times. There wasn’t a single ounce of hesitation in any of his movements.

“Still want to fight?”

“Hngh, augh!”

“Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha. C’mon now, what’s ‘augh’ supposed to tell me? How about the rest of you?”

His face stained with blood spatter, Mizial looked out across the rest of the Sun’s Conifer. He’d broken the tobacco man’s jaw right at the start. There wouldn’t be any more orders from their group’s central figure.

“……”

“You bastards are pretty dense, huh… I’m saying I’m fine with letting you go, without you suffering any more injuries. For the time being, I’ll write this off as a simple brawl. Decide for yourselves; go ahead… What’ll it be?”

Sitting up, and coming from fingers on both hands, there was a sound of something slicing through the air. It was a unique weapon that seemed to be two weights connected together with a string.

“W-we’re outta here. C’mon.”

“Dammit… Snot-nosed little brat, if we had our boss here…”

The rogues vanished one right after another and quietly returned once more to the old town street.

“Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

Smeared with blood spatter and his own nose’s blood, Mizial stretched out his arms and legs and went to lie down.

“Hoo boy, it’s been a long time since I’ve gotten to do that!”

“…Mizial.”

Toroa crouched down beside him. Thanks to the boy, he was able to get the situation under control without having to use any more of his enchanted swords than necessary. Nor was there any damage to the town. Yet even still…

“You were too reckless.”

“Ha-ha, why do you say that?”

Mizial wiped his bloody nose with the sleeve of his luxurious coat, but another stream immediately flowed down.

“…Doesn’t that make you mad? Telling you to…hand over your enchanted swords like that. They’re the enchanted swords of, the living horror story…himself… Toroa the Awful, right?”

“……”

He was one of Aureatia’s Twenty-Nine Officials. He was trying to sponsor Toroa the Awful’s entry into the Sixways Exhibition.

That may have then meant that the enchanted swords Toroa kept safe would end up being used by someone else.

“Mizial. I know now isn’t the best time, but… Is there any way for me to get citizenship, too? I want it fast.”

“Ha-ha.”

Mizial was able to understand the meaning behind Toroa’s words.

“This? This is just a street brawl… Don’t have to feel you owe me.”

“You may be right.”

Killing Alus the Star Runner. Reclaiming Hillensingen the enchanted light sword. Until that time came, his life wasn’t his to live. He needed to fight as a god of death revived from hell.

That was why he never thought about anything like it before.

“…But that sounds like more fun.”

The Aureatia cityscape was the ground. The upper floors of buildings were connected with wood or iron footpaths, and the scenery of the old town in particular had a chaotic crisscross of stories going every which way.

So Toroa got through everything all right…… For now anyway.

There was someone lingering on the edge of an iron footpath jutting out into the air. A leprechaun wearing a dark-brown coat.

The old town he gazed down on also had more than half its area hidden underneath the network of crossing pathways, but his azure eyes could clearly see all the way down to the movements of the grains of sand on the ground—everything, all at once.

“…I don’t believe it; are you actually worried about Toroa the Awful?”

Catching the voice from behind him, he glanced over his shoulder. Of course, even if it didn’t, he could perfectly perceive the approaching person’s body shape, their gait, all the way down to their heartbeat. Such was world Kuuro the Cautious saw.

Cresting the stairs was an elf woman with bandages covering both her eyes. Her name was Lena the Obscured.

“Interesting. That’s a pretty good laugh.”

From the presence of her concealed weapon and her demeanor as she approached, he already knew she wasn’t hostile. Therefore, Kuuro replied with nothing but a simple question.

“What do you want?”

The two were not unfamiliar with one another. Previously, Kuuro and Lena had both been agents of the land’s largest spy guild, Obsidian Eyes. After Kuuro deserted, Rehart the Obsidian, leader of the guild in the final days of the Demon King era, passed away, and it was said the organization, too, collapsed.

“Oh, come now, like you need to ask. Do you feel like coming back again?”

“…Back to Obsidian Eyes, is it? The rumor that the leader’s dead, then, is a lie?”

Kuuro glanced at Lena. The movement of her fingertips. The change in her heartbeat. Perspiration. The pupils hidden beneath the bandages.

“So it isn’t a lie, then. Who’s Obsidian, now…? Lady Linaris? Got it. That’s much better.”

“…Kuuro… Cut that out. To be honest, it’s creepy.”

“We’re old friends. No need to hold back, and all.”

It was known by the name Clairvoyance. Super sight. Super hearing. A sixth sense. Synesthesia. With any and all superpowered senses combined together in one, he could even find the answer to his questions from the minutely perceived reactions of a living creature, without waiting for them to say a word.

“…It’s just as you said. Obsidian Eyes is still alive. In order to continue on the will of leadership she inherited, our lady is earnestly maintaining the organization. Right now, we need your power. The power of the strongest man in Obsidian Eyes.”

“Well, you must really be in trouble, then.”

Kuuro smiled cynically.

“If we weren’t, I wouldn’t be asking questions that I already know the answer to.”

His past of bloodying his hands as part of Obsidian Eyes was a difficult one for Kuuro to forget. He had taken a gruesome roundabout path to discover for himself that piling up corpses wasn’t his true desire at all.

“Even still, as a former comrade of ours for a period of time, you need to see your obligations through. Right? Going forward, Obsidian Eyes…will be making strategic moves here in Aureatia. The one who’ll know our movements from the very start is you, Kuuro.”

“…And you’re worried that when the time comes I’ll leak that information to another organization, is that it?”

With both hands still in his pockets, the leprechaun gazed at the sky, closer to it now than from the ground.

“Don’t worry. What would doing something like that get me? It’d be worth little more than pocket change. I don’t plan on joining up with you all again, but I don’t intend on taking Aureatia’s side, either. No matter which side I’d end up taking, I’d just get forced to take on worthless work.”

“You defected from Toghie City. As collateral for that, you must be under obligation to collaborate with Aureatia.”

“I paid that back during the Particle Storm incident. You think Aureatia wants to keep eyes that can see all their troop placements, and the location of all the Twenty-Nine Officials, always on hand? The reason they lured me away was simply a precaution against the Old Kingdoms’ side using my gifts… They’re even thinking that they’d like me gone once I’m finished here—and fast.”

He felt the wound in his side. While it was almost completely healed, it had come from being pierced right as the Particle Storm was defeated.

“Actually. To be more precise, I think there are some people actively trying to get rid of me.”

The ones who fired on him weren’t Aureatia, but Obsidian Eyes. The moment the Particle Storm was defeated, they did so to eliminate any “eyes” that would observe what happened afterward. They had even planned their operation to ensure Kuuro would point his suspicions at Aureatia in the event they proved unable to kill Obsidian Eyes’ strongest man.

Of course, Kuuro couldn’t possibly gain the full picture of their network of schemes—however.

“I was shot by an Aureatia soldier.”

“That’s a laugh. I heard you were wounded during your mission to observe the Particle Storm. So you got done in by those Aureatia bastards once they didn’t have any need for Clairvoyance anymore.”

“Seems so. From their mannerisms and the weapons they carried, it had to have been an Aureatia soldier. It took all I had to avoid being killed on the spot, but…I still got a look at their face.”

No matter how far away they aimed at him, even from a blind spot, he could see them. Conversely, he hadn’t been able to see them up until the moment they shot at him. At that time, Kuuro’s senses had only perceived one person, Kuuro himself.

“That day, I looked at all the faces of the soldiers who went in and out of the camp. The one who shot me was someone I never saw in camp. Maybe I should think of it as another faction trying to use the observation mission to put an end to me. If they viewed my Clairvoyance as a threat, then why would they even expect their assassination attempt to succeed?

“…It very nearly was successful, wasn’t it? You’re not able to see as much of your surroundings as you’re used to.”

“Want to see for yourself if that’s true? Zizma the Miasma… He said the same thing. That my Clairvoyance had declined. Zizma, part of the same Obsidian Eyes as you lot. Let me ask you, Lena. The ones who tried to assassinate me… It was actually you all, wasn’t it?”

His blue eyes looked squarely at Lena. Her heartbeat. Reflexes. Breathing.

However, all he did was ask. No matter how well versed one was in techniques to deceive their own mind, be they a member of Obsidian Eyes or not, he could unmask everything. That was the power of his Clairvoyance.

“……”

Lena’s faint smile could only be seen in the subtle move of her lips.

“I don’t know, do I?”

Kuuro understood the meaning behind her words. Her reaction neither confirmed nor denied anything.

“…Right. Lady Linaris wouldn’t send someone who knows the details of the operation to me on purpose. Besides, even if my guess was off the mark… You also can’t say for sure that, since you weren’t privy to the knowledge, the operation hadn’t actually been carried out, either. As long as this is Obsidian Eyes we’re talking about.”

“Your senses haven’t dulled at all, huh, Kuuro the Cautious. It’s very hard for me to believe you’ve been away from active duty for so long… I really do want you to come back to us, after all. During these past few years, we’ve lost too many of our comrades.”

“…Even still, it’s impossible for me to go back. I can’t become a corpse anymore.”

Kuuro put his index finger up against the back of his neck.

“When they brought me here, they injected me with a blood serum. Since I was formerly with Obsidian Eyes, me being a corpse was Aureatia’s biggest concern. You figured that from the start, didn’t you?”

“That doesn’t matter. Even if you’re not a corpse…Obsidian Eyes needs you… Actually. It’s better if you’re not a corpse. I’m sure our lady would say the same.”

“So she really is different from Rehart, then.”

He lowered his eyes, mumbling with an almost peaceful glow.

When Kuuro was part of the organization, the young miss was still young. Just what was she like now? There was part of him that wished he had seen her grow up.

“…Bye, then. Give the lady my regards.”

“Kuuro.”

Lena called out to Kuuro as he turned his back to leave.

“Do you still plan on remaining in Aureatia?”

“…Don’t worry. I won’t be here for long. I just—”

Footpaths of wood and iron. There wasn’t anyone who knew that, in a corner of the tangled old town, there was an unbelievably powerful individual, a cut above the rest. A shura unaffiliated with anyone or any power, whose name wasn’t even included among the Sixways Exhibition’s roster of hero candidates.

“—have this theater I’ve gotten real fond of.”

A forest, thick enough to block out the sun. Inside a room in a mansion, there was someone listening to Kuuro the Cautious’s conversation.

It was voice communication from a one-way radzio Lena had hidden on her. If the receiver had allowed for two-way communication, even without saying a word, Kuuro’s Clairvoyance would’ve have seen through everything just from the sounds of breathing or bodies shifting through the receiver.

…Master Kuuro.

Turning the receiver down on the table, the aristocratic young woman cast her eyelashes down. Her skin was white, even among the darkness, highlighting her beautiful features like the moon in the night sky.

Her name was Linaris the Obsidian. The young vampire girl who led the remnants of the land’s largest spy guild, Obsidian Eyes.

Lingering next to her was an elderly leprechaun woman.

“Failing to dispose of Kuuro was a big blunder, milady.”

The housekeeping governess tasked with looking after Linaris, Frey the Waking, was a veteran from the very first days the guild was established.

She was also the one who had proposed taking advantage of the Particle Storm to assassinate Kuuro. The ones who actually shot him were none other than the field troops under the command of the Thirteenth Minister Enu—one of the Twenty-Nine Officials under the control of Obsidian Eyes.

Kuuro’s clairvoyance was waning, and now he could only see a single point that he concentrated on. The plan, formulated off Frey’s correct estimation of his abilities, was upset by Kuuro recovering the strength of his heydays, and by the presence of Toroa the Awful there with him.

“If he truly has undergone blood serum treatment, then I believe it will be difficult to control him even with your power, milady… It would seem he has recovered the Clairvoyance powers of his prime. If he simply thought to do so, he could see through all of our movements.”

An airborne-infecting vampire, capable of placing any living creature under her control simply by getting close to them. As long as the truth about her wasn’t revealed to anyone, Linaris’s superpower was invincible. From another perspective, Kuuro the Cautious, able to see through any secret, was this power’s natural enemy.

With both hands tightly gripped together in her lap, Linaris mumbled.

“Master Kuuro said…that he wouldn’t try to interfere with us.”

“That is a lie. He went along with Aureatia’s operation, and I believe we should consider the fact that he still remains in Aureatia—suggesting that the Aureatia side still has something on him. Milady, your desire not to doubt an old friend…a comrade. I understand it very well. However, Kuuro is no longer part of Obsidian Eyes.”

“……”

Kuuro was likely still a champion in Linaris’s eyes, having never once stepped outside the organization herself. Much like there were some who still believed the First Party to be the strongest there ever was—and like how many citizens thought similarly of Rosclay the Absolute.

“Do not worry, milady. I will take responsibility and kill Kuuro. I cannot expose you to danger, no matter how small that possibility may be. I suspect, given Kuuro’s character…it is not a thing, or information, that Aureatia is using to keep Kuuro in their clutches, but likely a person instead. In which case, I promise to sniff them out and bring them under our control.”

“No.”

Linaris stood up. The look she sent Frey’s way was tinged with something different from criticism or reproach.

“Please, don’t do that… For our sake.”

Her eyes looked slightly scared, yet with firm conviction.

“Master Kuuro will not try to oppose us of his own volition. I feel simply learning this… Learning that he believes in us…means that Lena’s negotiations with him were fruitful.”

“We failed to kill him once before. There’s nothing worse we could’ve done to sour his relationship with our organization.”

“…Miss Frey. Have you ever seen Master Kuuro when he’s angry?”

“When he’s…angry?”

She recalled Kuuro’s face. His expression was always gloomy and sour. Every look a scowl.

However, he was a man who was always indifferent, handling every job he was asked to handle. He never showed a glimpse of truly strong emotions, nor did he expose any deep-seated pain.

“Now that you mention it… I watched him for quite a long time, yet never once have I seen him angry.”

“I myself have. Kuuro’s anger doesn’t come out when someone’s trying to kill him. Given my dealings with Master Kuuro… I am convinced. The ones truly in danger……the ones who have gripped a blade barehanded…are the people holding something over his head—Aureatia.”

“……”

As long as his eyes were waning, Aureatia had plenty of opportunities to make use of Kuuro at will. However, now that he had regained his eyes’ full power…even that wasn’t absolutely true.

“Miss Frey. We believe he has regained his Clairvoyance. Aureatia, at least, doesn’t know that fact. I am sure they still believe they can maintain a tight grip on him.”

“And eventually Aureatia will find him beyond their control—and self-destruct.”

“…That’s right.”

Frey made no move to tread any further into Linaris’s inner thoughts. She simply deliberated over what the girl was holding in her heart.

…Her reasoning that she should avoid decisive hostility toward Kuuro does indeed have some truth to it. Nevertheless… Milady is still unable to erase her fear of losing a comrade, after all.

Linaris’s machinations, adhering to a thorough callousness toward their enemies and those who betrayed her trust, also invited danger from being unable to cut down those who were not.

To bring another era of warring chaos to the land. An age for Obsidian Eyes to live in. Thus, she needs to guide everyone there… She needs to ensure we all survive specifically to see this warring chaos. Milady’s carried that contradiction within her this whole time… In which case, I cannot let her shoulder this responsibility.

Obsidian Eyes. An organization pulling scheming strings from the shadows, plotting the era’s retrograde. Their core was concealed under many layers of secrets.

However, Kuuro the Cautious knew that said core was just one single girl.

…When the time comes…Kuuro will die by my hands.

The small room was tiny enough to faintly make out its features from the light of the lone candle.

It resembled a confessional room—and in fact seemed to have been one before being remodeled—with two chairs facing each other and a round table in the middle. It was all the furnishings the room had.

“…Regarding the Sixways Exhibition matter. The assembly appears intent on holding the matches as true duels.”

“Really, now… That’ll be rough.”

The elderly priest sitting across from Kuze was named Maqure the Sky’s Lake Surface. Putting aside his continued relationship with a man like Kuze, he was an intelligent and benevolent leader, deserving of respect and love.

“I wonder why they’re going with a true duel in this day and age. It’s a barbaric and outdated rule at this point, used for stuff like…a duel among aristocrats or fighting over the monarchy back in ancient times.”

“…That’s probably all the more reason, I’d wager. To the people, the appearance of the Hero is a huge event on par with the True King’s return in the green times. All the more reason to model it after something from that age, and it makes sense as a way to introduce the Hero’s power in the people’s presence, too.”

“They must be out of their minds… Do they plan on making this Hero they’ve picked out from all these gathered champions turn around and murder them all?”

“I don’t want to admit it, but… The citizenry probably want that, too. A large-scale true duel royal tournament like this hasn’t been seen, nor will be seen, for several hundred years. It was an era of powerlessness before… The hearts of the people are starved for strength. The heart that desires champion bloodshed and the heart that desires to see the Hero claim victory over it all. They’re both still the same heart.”

Weapons, skill, Word Arts. The fights would substitute none of them, where nothing would be held back, where each combatant would put everything on the line in the match. Everything, including their life.

That was the agreement inherent in a true duel. There had indeed been time in this world were such a rite was necessary. However.

“…Hold on, now. What’s going to happen if the Hero dies during one these matches? Their big debut would be flushed straight down the drain.”

“You think they’ll die? You think that the True Hero, the one who killed the True Demon King, would die?”

“Other people out there might assume that, but I…I don’t feel the same way, honestly. Living people died. Everyone dies eventually.”

“In that case, there’s another way to think of things.”

The elderly priest knew perfectly well that there wasn’t anyone else who could hear them but lowered his voice anyway.

“The assembly hasn’t found the Hero at all. They’re not planning for the Hero to win out over anyone, but they are planning on making whoever ends up winning into the Hero.”

“Nah, that couldn’t be.”

Kuze laughed it off, but he didn’t have any grounds for his denial.

Nor did he think that his agile mind could pull even with Maqure.

“Well, if that’s the case, maybe I’ve got a chance of winning out in the end, huh?”

“…There’s still time to call it off and withdraw your recommendation from the Order.”

Kuze understood that this old priest was concerned about Kuze’s safety.

Failure could result in death. It was clear from the start as well that, should he win and advance farther, he’d get even more tangled in the schemes and plots at play.

…However, assuming the Hero would be born out of this event, it was already clear to see how things would play out.

The New Principality of Lithia. The Old Kingdoms’ loyalists. The Free City of Okafu… Right now, Aureatia was dismantling the organizations that posed a threat to the existing authority. The Order was next. Assistance from Aureatia was openly on the decline, and the populace’s continued discontent aimed toward the Order clearly wasn’t solely the result of disbelief in the Word-Maker.

The Hero—a true idol and ally of the people, in place of the Word-Maker who failed to rescue society from the threat of the True Demon King.

The fact that the Order was allowed to nominate candidates for the games might have simply been to show the Hero defeating the symbol of the Order for all the masses to see.

“I… I’m serious. I don’t have any plans on losing. You know for yourself, Father. I have Nastique with me.”

“Think about it carefully. Could you say the same thing when up against Rosclay the Absolute? Or if what Aureatia says is true, and the True Hero does actually exist?”

“Bweh-heh-heh…… Fair enough, those guys are unmatched champions. Definitely not anyone I could beat, that’s for sure.”

Kuze laughed flippantly.

He needed to act like that, at least on the surface, or he wouldn’t be able to continue on as the Order’s cleaner.

Nor would he be able to remain peerless and invincible.

“But here’s the question; are all of them peerless champions even while they’re eating—or while they’re sleeping? And their friends and family, they must be peerless champions, too, right? What about their family while sleeping? Their friends?”

It was Kuze alone who could sense Nastique’s presence. The white angel of death had the authority to expunge any sort of being before her.

And most likely, Kuze was the only one for whom such a fighting method was possible.

“Besides… There’s a chance that I’ve got a young disciple out there.”

His angel didn’t save anyone besides himself. Though he was unexpectedly given a chance to save Cunodey while making his rounds, Kuze had been unable to save his former teacher.

The massacre of Alimo Row was said have been caused by a monster from The Land of The End—however, Kuze knew the truth behind the incident.

In his notes, he had written the name that carried out that slaughter. Uhak the Silent.

Someone Kuze had yet to see—and another butcher of the Order like himself.

“…I get the feeling I’ll have a chance to see him in the Sixways Exhibition.”

“…Kuze.”

“I don’t even want to think about it… Just how many kids will be left out in the cold should the Order fall? If someone’s gotta do it, then it’s me, right? I’m invincible, after all.”

The old priest hung his head for a few moments, giving up on the words he went to cast at Kuze.

Then finally, he spoke, as if forcing the words from his lips.

“…………Kuze. Please…… It’s all up to you.”

To stop them from losing any more of what meager salvation they had left.

To prevent the start of a new age.

“Kill the Hero for us.”

There were many forces that had begun making their moves in anticipation of the imperial competition. However, theirs was the most powerless and waning organization among them all.

As they were more than likely to be washed away in the colossal current of the new age on the horizon…they needed to make some move of their own. In order to keep their compatriots alive in the world ahead.

The Order was trying to put its final plan into action.

A garden spread out between the buildings, with a well-managed row of roadside trees. A large metropolis not far from Aureatia, Gimeena City.

In the middle of the roadside trees, there was a huge cargo being transported by a gigant-pulled heavy-freight carriage.

“Hey, be careful carrying that, now!”

The screaming voice belonged to a remarkedly large-built gigant, even among the other gigants. Even on their enormous scale, he appeared like an adult surrounded by children.

“This is real important stuff, okay?! Maye sure you don’t get caught on the buildings when you turn, you hear?!”

There had to be some among the city’s residents who realized it.

This man, taller than a city tower, was the invincible hero of the Sine Riverstead—Mele the Horizon’s Roar.

“Whoaaaa, amazing…”

With Mele’s imposing figure, drawing people’s eyes just as he walked, right in front of her, the young girl couldn’t suppress her amazement.

She was a survivor of the ruins of Nagan Labyrinth City—Yuno the Distant Talon.

…Mele the Horizon’s Roar. The Mele, really planning on appearing in the imperial competition…

On the road back from the mission from Aureatia, she was staying a night in the city to get some rest.

She and her traveling companion, Soujirou the Willow-Sword, had separate lodgings, but she was thinking of delivering some hawthorns to the layabout as a snack.

However, when she gazed up at the terrifying champion right in front of her, it awakened her to her own heart, whether she wanted it to or not.

I… I’m trying to kill Soujirou.

Would the Soujirou who cleaved the Dungeon Golem in two, on the day her homeland was destroyed, be able to kill the gigant champion before her eyes?

Yuno’s reason for sending Soujirou to participate in the imperial competition was to lure him into the jaws of death and get her revenge for these feelings of hers that she still wasn’t fully convinced of herself.

Mele isn’t the only one. The Second General Rosclay. Alus the Star Runner. Or maybe even…some far more terrifying monster that was totally inscrutable to someone like me…

It was impossible for Yuno to step into that sort of vortex of shura.

She thought there were certain to be games that required true courage to battle.

“…Ah.”

Just how long had she been standing there? Yuno suddenly realized the situation before her eyes.

A thick roadside tree, caught by the heavy freight carriage’s cargo, had snapped at the base and was falling toward Yuno.

“Uh-oh.”

The dim-witted words slipped out of her mouth.

She was going to die. Here in a place like this. The realization came too late.

“Hey, you all right?!”

Yet things didn’t end up that way. A colossal hand grabbed the tree.

Mele the Horizon’s Roar, keeping an eye on how the transport was going, handled the unexpected accident with agility wholly disproportional to his massive frame.

He casually placed the broken tree back in place on the opposite side of the road.

“Don’t go spacing out like that! You minia are a buncha weaklings, ya know that?! Doesn’t take much for you to end up dead, gwah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

“Th-thank…… Thank you……”

Still blinking in surprise, Yuno managed to express her gratitude, but it appeared the legendary gigant had already stopped listening.

Even the scolding he gave to the gigant in the transport unit that exposed civilians to danger was mixed in with laughter. Looking at his demeanor, it seemed that even the grave danger she faced had been utterly inconsequential.

“…What was that?”

Yuno had stopped moving while she stared dumbfounded at the transport team’s departure, when suddenly, she heard a young girl’s voice call to her.

“Miss, your hawthorns.”

“Huh?”

“They fell out of the bag. Are you all right?”

It was an elf child wrapped up in a green robe.

Her pretty turquoise eyes, so clear they were almost transparent, looked up at Yuno.

“See, look, they got some dirt on them. Wash it off and you can still eat it, but minia get queasy about that stuff, don’t they?”

“…Sorry. A lot happened at once, and I didn’t notice. Thank you.”

The three hawthorns she thought were in her bag had fallen out and were soaked in the mud from yesterday’s rain.

“Well, looks like I’m going to have to buy some more. I’d be fine eating these, but I was planning on giving them to someone…”

“Hmmm…”

The young girl didn’t look particularly interested as she gazed at Yuno.

Then she took out three hawthorns from her own bag and showed them to Yuno.

“Here, have them.”

“Huh?! B-but I can’t just take the food of a girl passing by on the street like that!”

“But making the trip back to the market from here would be a lotta trouble, right? That tree wasn’t even your fault anyway. Ugh, those gigants are so careless and annoying, aren’t they?! Seriously, I hate gigants!”

“But…you’re the one who paid for these hawthorns, right?”

“…Does it seem that way to you?”

Yuno wasn’t sure why, but the young girl flashed her an impish smile.

“This isn’t anything to worry about, seriously. Since I can do anything, after all.”

In the mountains far away from Aureatia stood the Free City of Okafu. Although there were a great many mercenaries living in the city, very few of them met Morio the Sentinel in the central citadel face-to-face.

However, that day, a skeleton mercenary had made a visit to his room.

“Shalk the Sound Slicer, then? I’ve heard the general story. Well, relax for now.”

“No need to worry about that; I’m plenty relaxed as it is. I’m here about the imperial competition, Morio the Sentinel.”

Shalk didn’t go sit in the chair he was offered. He remained standing up against the doorway as he spoke.

“I had figured there wouldn’t be anyone who’d back a construct like me, but apparently there is. I’ve been given the empty spot that the Black Tone left behind. Sorry to do this mid-contract, but I’ll be leaving Okafu.”

“…Right. Soldiers are free to find their own battlefield. If you attempted to deliver me to them right now, that’d be a great achievement to present them with, too.”

“Save the jokes. I don’t intend on allying with Aureatia or allying with you lot, either. Been so from the very start. I just want information on the Hero…the identity of who slayed the True Demon King.”

“You think it might’ve been you, is that it?”

“The way I see it, the Hero who defeated the True Demon King must not know who exactly they are, either. That’s why they haven’t come forward. Makes sense, right?”

“Though I doubt it’s really that simple.”

Morio lit his cigar. From the death of the True Demon King up to the present, no one had the slightest idea as to their true identity, even himself, one of the parties actively covering up the truth regarding the True Demon King.

If there was evidence left behind regarding the True Demon King, that meant that somewhere out there in the world was evidence of the True Hero as well. Whether they were still alive—or dead.

That one fact alone was something any living creature in the land wished for, yet no one was able to uncover.

“Shalk the Sound Slicer. Why did you come all the way to Okafu?”

“I told you, didn’t I? To get information on the Hero.”

“You must’ve wandered among the other powers that undertook investigations into The Land of The End…save the minian nation of Aureatia. There must’ve been a reason you didn’t first pick the mercenary city that readily accepts constructs into their ranks.”

“…You’re going to make me say it?”

Morio smiled dryly.

“What? I just figured that sort of future’d be pretty interesting, too.”

Shalk might have known from the beginning that Okafu wouldn’t actually hand over any information on The Land of The End as laid out in their contract. Perhaps instead, there was a chance he would end up in a fight with Okafu like Kazuki.

“Enough. It’s a boring story to tell.”

“Let me also ask while I’m at it… Why didn’t you go to The Land of The End yourself?”

“……”

“With enough skill to kill Kazuki, you should’ve been able to step into that hellscape and survive. Even if there was a group scheming to keep you quiet, I doubt they’d be able to keep up with your spear.”

Morio the Sentinel was an aberrant visitor and a self-proclaimed demon king who had established an entire nation. He had a more thorough knowledge of the psychology of a warrior than even the warrior himself.

“…Scared, were you?”

“You…may be right.”

Shalk didn’t reply with a joke.

“I might be scared.”

It was terrifying. That’s why he needed to know. The truth about the True Demon King and the Hero.

In the town below the citadel in the same Free City of Okafu, a man was visiting a building resembling a small commercial office.

“Phew, I nearly got myself killed quite a number of times on this investigation, I’ll tell ya.”

A man with a short and round stature, carrying a wooden box on his back. He appeared to be a garrulous man, beginning to speak as soon as he slipped through the door.

“This time really was the scariest of all. Scarier than any battlefield, that’s for sure. I’ve got a true sense of it now, but to think that something like that was alive just a few years ago. It’s got to be my only regret about coming to this world, honestly.”

“…Thank you for your work, Mr. Yukiharu Shijima.”

The young boy sitting on the wooden rotating chair gave a small, seated bow.

He looked no older than a thirteen-year-old boy, but such standards couldn’t be applied to visitors. Particularly to the one known as the Gray-Haired Child—Hiroto the Paradox.

The investigation into the True Demon King that Zigita Zogi requested Yukiharu the Twilight Diver was a commission to obtain materials to aid Hiroto the Paradox’s negotiations with the Free City of Okafu.

“However, there isn’t any need to do any further investigations regarding the True Demon King or the Hero…… For now, I’ve achieved the goal of this first stage.”

“Oh, you sure? If you’d like, Mr. Hiroto, I was thinking I’d use this momentum to start investigating the True Hero, too.”

His claim seemed nothing more than big talk, to be so flippant about the mystery that no one across the land had come close to reaching, but it showed just how confident in his abilities he was. The journalist Yukiharu the Twilight Diver was also himself a deviant banished from his original world.

“There’s not really any reason to go along with this whole imperial competition hullabaloo, is there? If we reveal the True Hero to the world with proof to back it up, we’ll be able to blow their whole scheme out of the water, imperial competition and all. Heck, you could just directly back them yourself, Hiroto. I think the faster, the better here, myself.”

“That isn’t a very beneficial approach for me.”

Hiroto forced a smile. For many years, Yukiharu had been hurrying across the continent as Hiroto’s eyes, but that didn’t necessarily mean the man understood all the facets of Hiroto’s plans.

“That would result in Aureatia being destroyed, wouldn’t it? The mobilization of Okafu and making use of the imperial competition…is a much gentler, and more peaceful, infiltration than that.”

“Oh, come now. Mr. Politician, that’s simply another way to say invasion, isn’t it?”

“Yukiharu. An invasion is a loss. It only decreases the number of potential supporters. My goal is ultimately—”

…Here in this world, there was even someone trying to turn it into a reality—

An ideal that seemed perfectly impossible.

“—a happy ending. I need to settle things in a way that benefits everyone.”

The world’s enemy, the True Demon King, who had plunged the whole land into terror, had been brought down by someone.

That individual’s name, and whether they truly existed or not, was still a mystery.

Now, with the end of the age of fear, it had become necessary to determine who this Hero was.

Now there were sixteen shura.

Soujirou the Willow-Sword.

Alus the Star Runner.

Kia the World Word.