CHAPTER 6
IT STARTED WITH REVENGE
1
Despite what the dramatic display of colors may have implied, the conflict unfolding was a highly advanced magical battle of precise technique.
With a staff swing, blades of wind were created and loosed at their target.
The invisible attack bore down on the intended victim’s legs with enough force to slice apart steel. She had deliberately cast the spell out of sync with her gaze and breathing, even adding in a feint attack for good measure. These were—
“—!”
“Surely, this is not all you are caaaapable of?”
With great ease, her enemy—Roswaal—stopped the invisible attack with a flick of his toes.
Seeing that happen and realizing the level of skill that was required to make it possible made her throat freeze over. Dispelling magic by simply stomping on it was a feat far easier said than done. With the tips of his toes, Roswaal had rewritten the composition of the spell.
Through his Gate, he had altered the mana cast by another person without interfering with their Gate directly. Performing such an act in the middle of a battle with one’s life on the line was not the action of a sane person.
The one who had done this was Roswaal L. Mathers—famed magic user, current lord of the House of Roswaal, and the man who still desired the title of the greatest court magician of the age.
“Now I’ll send one right back at you.”
Speaking in a casual tone, Roswaal moved both his hands and his mouth—deploying a trio of incantations from his fingers and lips alike.
This was not a simple combining of elements but simultaneously casting three different spells at once—a technique that verged on the realm of gods. It was an insane technique that all but required three brains to accomplish—and even this was not the true limits of his potential.
It was because she understood this more than anyone that the girl—Ram—was filled with energy as she evaded the resulting downpour of flames. It was then, when he was still not taking this seriously and using the full extent of his powers, that she had a chance of victory.
Ram responded to the three incoming fireballs, respectively colored red, blue, and green, by leaping backward and then intercepting them with more blades of wind. She would slice them away before shifting to a counterattack—but before she could, something upset her plans.
“—?!”
The red flame accepted her wind, acting as if she had poured oil onto it; the force of the flames increased as it transformed into a pillar of fire.
The wind split the blue flame apart, scattering it in all directions, which only further spread its destructive reach.
The green flame absorbed her wind, transforming into a snake of fire that crawled across the earth, causing havoc in its wake.
She responded to every one with all her strength. She vaulted over the intense flaming pillar, kicked off a large tree to evade the curtain of blue flames, and as the green flaming snake opened its jaws to catch Ram with its fangs once she landed—
“—Goodness, what petty tricks, Roswaal. You should know better.”
A moment before being engulfed by the flaming snake, a calm voice slid into Ram’s eardrums. In contrast to those quiet words, what occurred next was virtually overwhelming.
With its mouth still open, the burning snake froze over. The flying flames and the blazing pillar met similar ends. This was the antithesis of employing multiple spells simultaneously—using a single unstoppable spell to snuff everything out.
And the one who had accomplished this was the little cat floating in the sky, short arms folded—the Great Spirit, Puck. The little cat cocked his head, turning his tail, which was as long as his body, toward Roswaal as he laughed.
“You might have learned a lot of tricks, but you’ll need to go big to deal with the likes of me.”
“How harsh. I take it that Lady Emilia developed her tendency to favor brute-force approaches from you?”
“No comment.”
Crossing his arms in front of him, Puck did not give Roswaal’s inconvenient assertion a reply. After that, Puck slowly lowered his altitude, landing on the shoulder of Ram, who was breathing hard, as he lined up right beside her head.
“Are you all right? Pushing yourself too hard will be bad for your body.”
“…You may save your concern. After all, it is thanks to the Great Spirit’s assistance that I can now manage this battle.”
“No need to act tough. But when push comes to shove, manage is putting it nicely. You’re an Oni girl without a horn, and I’m a handsome wild spirit without a host, but even with both of us at half strength double-teaming him, he’s still toying with us.”
Wiping some soot from her brow with a sleeve, Ram internally concurred with Puck’s analysis. Earlier, she’d considered counterattacking while he was still toying with them, but she was a long way from even that much.
Yes, she was depleted from the battle with Garfiel, and Puck was in poor condition to assist, but more importantly—
“—You’re strong, Roswaal. I have to admire how far a mere human has come after honing themselves.”
“I am honored to receive your praise.”
Roswaal offered an elegant bow in response to his assessment. It was a theatrical gesture, but by showing that he still had the poise to put on such a display, Roswaal demonstrated that even in this situation, the advantage was still very much his.
—The battle that had kicked off at the Witch’s experimental facility deep in the Forest of Cremaldi had shifted, moving away from the building and into the woods.
The traces of the battle had already left the area around the facility a sorry-looking wasteland. There were scorch marks all over, blades of wind had toppled one tree after another, and countless trees had been flash-frozen.
Looking at all this, Roswaal then turned one eye—his yellow eye—toward Ram.
“I was indeed correct to bring this outside. If we had rampaged like this inside, that facility…or rather, that magic crystal would have been broken, which would have been quiiiite inconvenient.”
“?”
“Of course, you would have accomplished your goal even so, for was that not your aim?”
“Are you claiming I asked the Great Spirit to delay you while I destroyed the facility…? Surely, you jest.”
Ram laughed off the assertion, causing Roswaal to raise an eyebrow in surprise. His reaction made Ram loosen her lips. “After all,” she went, spinning her words, “by doing such a thing, Ram’s objective would go forever unfulfilled.”
“—All that said, continuing this indefinitely will work to no one’s advantage, yes? You strove for a means to fill the gap between our combat capabilities, but the Great Spirit you have beseeched is far from peak condition.”
“…Yes, I suppose so. He is more useless than expected. Not even Ram can conceal her disappointment.”
“You really don’t sugarcoat your words, huh? Not that I dislike that part of you…”
Puck wore a wry smile as he endured Ram’s sharp tongue. “Though, I have to admit,” the little cat remarked, his long tail swaying as he looked Roswaal’s way, “I’m impressed by how meticulous you are. How and when did you cast that spell on Lia…?”
“Spell…? Great Spirit, to what do you refer…?”
“Well, just listen. It got really hard to come out of my icon ever since we returned from the royal capital. If that was all, I would’ve pegged it as some kind of scheme by the Witch Cult group that attacked the village and the mansion, but I was stuck in there even after reaching the Sanctuary. So the spell had to come not from an enemy but from one of our own.”
Ram furrowed her shapely eyebrows, unable to grasp the meaning of Puck’s words. But Roswaal made no effort to interrupt the little cat’s words, quietly soaking them up until the last.
“There’s a set period when I’m not able to come out of my icon that’s related to the pact, you see. It was a little early, but at first, I thought that’s what it was. Well, there’s also the memories Lia sealed away herself, so I thought it might be more convenient not to talk to her about them. But I was wrong.”
As he spoke, Puck’s voice lowered but slightly. The tenor of the little cat’s voice, from which no emotion could normally be detected, held a perceptible timbre of deep indignation.
“You used my oaths to remove me as Lia’s guardian, didn’t you? That has to be why you cast a spell on Lia when we returned from the capital. That girl adores me, after all.”
“…Strictly speaking, is it not better to say you are a smothering father who cannot leave the girl’s siiiide?”
“When you put it that way, it’s hard to deny being overprotective, huh?”
As Puck gave a shrug with his tiny shoulders, Roswaal did not deny it as he closed one eye—his blue eye.
“Fortunately, Lady Emilia was in low spirits from her argument with young Subaru. A little sabotage of your pact with Lady Emilia before departing for the Sanctuary was a trifling affair.”
“On the other hand, a pact between spirit and spirit mage is sacred… It’s not something that can be toyed with from the outside.”
“Even so, I have lived with Beatrice for quite a long time, you seeee. For better or worse, creating loopholes in predetermined things is a specialty of mine—though that girl is too obstinate for such things.”
As he spoke about pacts, Roswaal seemed to gaze into the distance for just a moment. The sight made the corners of Puck’s black eyes fall ever so slightly as he crossed his short arms.
“You wanted Lia to stay depressed, didn’t you?”
“Yes. That is why you needed to be removed. It is not an exaggeration to say that hindering you and young Subaru has caused me the most trouble of all. Subaru is a wild card; you are the only one who actually stands a chance of defeating me in a head-on battle.”
“I don’t like saying this, but it seems like both you and I expect a lot out of Subaru.”
“Perish the thought—the expectations you and I have of him cannot possibly be comparable.”
Instantly, Roswaal’s tone hardened, seeming to lose a small amount of his composure.
As Roswaal expressed his expectations for Subaru, he pressed a hand to his chest, clenching it into a fist. The gesture left Ram narrowing her eyes as she felt a throbbing pain in her own breast.
She knew how out of place it was, but Ram could not help but be jealous at how much he placed his hopes in Subaru.
“To me, he is the final key to bringing my greatest desire into reach. You, on the other hand, intend to put him to the grindstone to see if he is worthy of your beloved daughter. Your thinking is very different from mine.”
“—Don’t bark at me, Roswaal.”
As Roswaal’s voice became infused with fierce emotion, the cold hostility pouring down became frigid, glacial. Puck’s mouse-colored hair was standing up, bringing his presence into sharper relief as he continued:
“Just like you and your desire, I offered myself to Lia, the reason for my existence. Are you suggesting it’s easy for me to entrust Lia to someone else? Don’t get cocky, Witch’s apprentice.”
“…From that last part, I taaaake it you now remember things from prior to your pact?”
“I’m deducing a lot from the situation, you see, but considering whose forest this is, I have a pretty good idea who imposed this pact on me. I remember a man who spoke a lot like you, too.”
“?”
“Is it to remember your wounds or to punish yourself? Either way, it’s very backward-looking of you.”
Puck’s words gradually sounded more like words of pity than of reproach. Receiving them, Roswaal went, “Backward-looking, is it?” twisting his lips in what seemed to be self-mockery. “Indeed it is. I have always been looking backward…looking at the past. To me, the only wonderful things that have ever existed are in the past. The present is merely what rests atop their bones.”
“—!”
“So that’s why you obey the book of knowledge. You’re struggling to take back the past that you’ve lost…”
Roswaal’s claim made Ram clench her cheeks as she glanced at Puck, who sighed.
Then Puck wearily shook his head side to side.
“I won’t belittle your way of life. It’s just…”
“Just what?”
“Betty would be sad, Roswaal.”
“—!”
Roswaal’s expression faintly stiffened. Just how much terrible significance did that single sentence possess?
And then—
“—Ul Goa.”
“Because I hit the bull’s-eye? How childish.”
Without preparation or word of warning, fiery missiles shot forth. A towering wall of ice immediately intercepted them.
The sound of their collision rang out. A white shock wave flattened the trees of the forest, heralding that combat had recommenced.
2
“—Guess we’re done buying time. Did that give your horn a breather?”
Puck’s words, spoken with a deft wink the moment before she leaped, left Ram mentally clicking her tongue. She’d told him that she did not want him to worry about her; the little cat proved a poor listener. What annoyed her more than anything was the frailty of her own body that made the short rest just now a lifesaver.
But what of it? She would never breathe a single word of complaint about her body not being in tip-top condition.
What gave her any right to complain if she did not give it her all? If she lost without her feelings ever reaching him, she could whine and make excuses as much as she liked in the afterlife.
“—!! El Fulla!!”
Tightly clenching her teeth, she swallowed her frustration and readied her staff. Timed with an explosion of the ground, she flew into the air, touching her feet against a large tree’s trunk to invert her posture as she converted her mana, unleashing it as blades of wind.
There was no lethal intent behind her attacks. However, even if she aimed to kill, it would not have resulted in as much as a scratch regardless.
Roswaal’s response to the mighty blow was skilled and delicate. He rewrote the composition of the incoming magic, disassembling the wind blades into mere mana and capturing it with his own Gate to assign it a different form.
There was the threefold magic using both his hands and his mouth that he had displayed earlier—and on top of that, he used a step to activate the magic he had internalized, unleashing four spells simultaneously in an outrageous display of magic.
“Grgh.”
Twisting her lips, Ram put strength into the soles of her feet, which rested against the tree trunk, leaping away at full power. Instantly, the magic, which seemed sure to bite into that large tree, changed its course, curving to tail her as she fled.
“How…persistent!”
Spitting out those words, she slammed more wind into the pair of approaching fiery missiles, landed on the ground, drew them in before rolling backward at the last moment. This forced the one flame that did not keep up with the turn to slam into the ground, and she thrust her staff straight forward into the final, flaming shot.
“Now burst!!”
Using the tip of her staff to shred the mana apart, Ram moved so the blast from the fiery missile passed behind her. It was during that momentary opening that she—
“—It is too soon to relax.”
Advancing with long strides, Roswaal drove a punch toward Ram’s torso. This was a steel-like fist he had honed through extreme training completely unrelated to magical study. Its destructive power was so great that if it connected, it would affect not only bone but the internal organs as well; the instant it struck, a layer of ice caught the blow.
With a tremendous sound, the frozen shield shattered. Puck, the one who had created the instantaneous defense, whistled.
“So you’ve trained a whole lot in more than just magic!”
“I do whatever is necessary. If there is ample time, the only cost is the wearing down of the soul. Accordingly—”
Opening the fist that had struck the ice shield, Roswaal twisted his hips and lunged with a thrust of his palm. Of course, the ice kept him from reaching Ram—and yet, the impact shot through Ram’s body nonetheless.
“Gah…!”
“That is a combat technique I learned from a ninja who hailed from the west long ago to strike from afar, reaching even past defenses. Effective, yes?”
Struck not by a direct hit but by a shock wave, Ram staggered backward. Her bones creaked, and her innards cried out. It was better than suffering a clean blow, but her body had a fatal weakness and could not risk sustaining any injuries to begin with.
Her breathing was ragged, and her vision blurred. Ram’s footing was unreliable. She lifted up her face when—
“—Get down!”
When she heard the voice, Ram forced down her rising head. Overhead, Puck—who had circled behind her—thrust out both hands, unleashing a giant pillar of ice toward Roswaal. The magical attack, with a mass rivaling that of the trunk of a hundred-year-old tree, forced even Roswaal to leap a good distance backward.
“It has been half a year since you first forced me to use this—!”
His voice rising as he offered a word of praise, Roswaal demonstrated the true worth of his unparalleled magical skill. With both hands, his lips, and alternating stomps of both his feet, he began casting—fivefold magic.
Unleashing five different spells at once, he melted, sliced, and pulverized the mighty pillar of ice to neutralize it. Scorching heat and absolute zero collided, enveloping the forest in white steam once more. As he employed this, Puck said:
“Can you stand? If you cannot, we will lose after the next move.”
“…You say that like it’s so easy, don’t you?”
Wiping the blood spilling from the corner of her mouth, Ram braced herself with a sigh.
The fact that her condition had begun to deteriorate was proof that she had already gone beyond her limits.
With his pact with Emilia rescinded, Puck’s power was greatly reduced. In the first place, he required a vast amount of mana just to stay corporeal. Without a contractor, all he could do to remain in their plane of existence and employ magic was to somehow make do with his reserves.
Even under these conditions, Puck was doing very well due to the skill he possessed. Part of her was tempted to rely on his brute strength to resolve this situation, but if Puck had really gone all out, the situation would have escalated to something unmanageable.
“I think it would have been beeetter for you if you had broken the taboo and used astral transformation.”
“If I could absorb mana from the surrounding area without limit, this would end pretty quickly…but if I did that, I’d make Lia sad. If I don’t protect what she wants to protect, that’s putting the cart before the dragon.”
“Bold words after having rescinded the pact yourself.”
“Do you think my temporary partner is any less brave?”
When the curtain of steam parted and Roswaal revealed himself, Puck flippantly responded to his sarcasm. The words made Roswaal glance at Ram, now all alone and in a tattered state, causing him to narrow his eyes.
“Brave, you say? Certainly, in terms of being ready to throw away everything for the sake of her objective, one might call her brave…but what she has done is too foolish to be worthy of the word.”
“?”
“This is a golden opportunity for her to avenge her kin. This, she has wasted with impatience unlike her, and she may well fall as a result… I am extremely disappointed in you, Ram.”
“?”
“I wanted you to fulfill your desire and be…happy.”
Both of Roswaal’s eyes were tinged with sadness and a faint whiff of melancholy. This was proof that he was genuinely disappointed that Ram would not complete her objective—and that he regretted she did not stand beside him.
Roswaal genuinely believed Ram should dedicate everything to accomplishing her goal—taking revenge on him for her kin—and he had hoped, until that day came, Ram would walk the same path as he.
Just as Roswaal had hoped Subaru would play the role of coconspirator, he hoped Ram would be the one who would bury him.
Truly, just how much would this man refuse to—?
“—Ram?”
“Over and over, you touched me so many times, yet even so, not once did you realize my true wish.”
Exasperated with pity, anger, and self-mockery, Ram seemed to have reached the end of her wits. This was no longer even in the same dimension as obtuseness or a mere difference in ways of thinking.
—The notion that Ram’s feelings were not of revenge but of love did not even exist inside Roswaal.
“It would have been so much better had my body smoldered only with hatred and the desire to avenge my kin. Had I been but a vengeful Oni, my chest would not ache so. However—”
Unable to fathom where her words were going, Roswaal merely furrowed his brow with a questioning look. She let a pained smile slip.
Truly, she thought, it was as if this man did not see anything beyond his own feelings.
Therefore, surely, these words, too, would be completely astray from his expectations—
“Master Roswaal, Ram loves you.”
“?”
Receiving that blunt, straightforward confession of love, Roswaal widened his eyes and froze.
He was agape, shaking his head at the reply, one that he had genuinely not imagined in the slightest.
“Is something amiss?”
“Amiss, you ask… Are you playing a prank on me? Trying to rattle me at a time like…”
“You think I would expect such petty tricks to work on you? Ram is merely stating how she truly feels.”
“If not, all the more reason it cannot be true!!”
Roswaal’s voice was ragged as he shouted in anger. He thrust a finger forward, trained toward the stiff expression on Ram’s face.
“Love me? What are you saying?! You hate me. I am the man you hate. To you, I am a man linked to the cause of your homeland’s destruction. Surely, the truth is that you hate me enough to kill me!”
“In the beginning, it was so, but now it is not. Now Ram loves you.”
“That is absurd…! Who—who, I ask, would believe in such cheap emotions?!”
Feelings that began with vengeance must continue to remain of vengeance.
Only feelings that began with love could arrive at love.
He, who had stubbornly held to his feelings without a single deviation from them, could not believe Ram’s change of heart.
He could not. For if he understood them, it would undermine everything he had done.
“What about your revenge?! Did you not swear upon it?! Did you not swear before your burning homeland and the souls of your dead brethren that you would avenge them?!”
“I do feel bad for my kin, and my chest hurts when I think of my homeland. However, now that I have fallen in love, it cannot be helped. Ram prioritizes her feelings before the dead.”
Brazen and defiant, Ram pushed Roswaal into silence, leaving him unable to speak another word.
Therefore, with him silent, unmoving, and unable to believe her change of heart into love, she spoke.
“Ram will not allow you to become an empty shell. Obtaining you in that state is…meaningless.”
“…You are contradicting yourself. Even if your feelings are as you say… No, especially if they are, I cannot comprehend your reason for turning against me at this juncture. If events deviate from the book, I… So why?!”
“That is why it must be now. It is only now that Barusu, Lady Emilia, and Garf have shaken Master Roswaal’s heart to the point that I have a chance, likely to never come again.”
Garfiel had strayed from Roswaal’s predictions, Subaru had rejected his search for a coconspirator, and Emilia, who had conquered her own past, had made a promise with Ram—this was the one and only opportunity Ram would be provided in her lifetime.
“Using this one, final opportunity, I shall steal you from your obsession with the Witch—”
Roswaal clearly did not comprehend. Ram mentally mocked herself when she realized she loved even that expression of his.
There was no cure for this disease called love. The only path left to her was to forsake her passion until the moment of her death.
“—Great Spirit!”
“Very well—after all, in addition to my beloved daughter, I’m also the ally of all maidens in love.”
Puck responded to Ram’s call. Ram howled, not bothering to listen to flippant words unworthy of her ears.
Instantly, a freezing windstorm whipped around the forest. The time of the final gamble had arrived.
3
When the wind relented, Roswaal, whose reactions had been slow, held his breath, gritting his teeth at the spectacle.
Countless mirrors constructed of ice were floating in the air in the forest around him. The reflections of light and landscapes that filled Roswaal’s field of vision weakened his situational awareness on the battlefield.
“Petty tricks—!!”
The countless mirrors were reflecting countless Rams and countless Pucks around the forest.
Judging he could not bide his time, Roswaal instantly decided to deploy five instances of magic simultaneously, casting spells to manipulate the world around him.
The resulting flames licked at their surroundings as the forest with the mirrors of ice was turned to ash. But such incantations were insufficient to break up the coordination of demon and spirit.
As Roswaal unleashed more explosive flames, a shadow appeared overhead. He intercepted the flying figure with a fist, finding it surprisingly fragile. Roswaal blinked hard at the sensation of shattering. It was ice. One after another, ice sculptures shaped like people were being hurled at Roswaal from all directions.
He steadied himself and dug in his feet. The next moment, a ferocious gale blew, enveloping ice sculpture and ice pillar alike, blowing them all skyward. During that momentary opening, Roswaal wove his next spell as he leaped backward. Something caught him.
“From beneath…”
“It’s not like I tossed them all for meowthing.”
Drawing someone’s attention upward to strike from below was a small, roundabout trick, but it was terrifyingly effective in a high-end magical battle.
With his movements momentarily but fatally limited, Roswaal focused on his surroundings. What would settle things here was a well-polished and wary mind—but it was then that he sensed something rapidly expanding.
It cannot be, thought Roswaal in shock. But even as he doubted it, the aura swelled larger.
Mowing down the trees and crushing the forest-turned-ash underfoot was a majestic creature so enormous that it seemed to reach the heavens. Its gargantuan frame, boasting fearsome fangs and claws, seemed on par with a small mountain.
Astral transformation—this was the nightmarish trump card of Puck the Great Spirit, known as the Beast of the End, one of the Four Great Spirits, and the one who destroyed Melaquera the Conciliator long ago.
Not allowing him to play that card was one of Roswaal’s victory conditions.
For certain reasons, Roswaal was currently unable to employ his own trump card—sixfold magic. If he had to face Puck at full strength, his odds of winning would quickly crumble, and he would most likely wind up being overwhelmed in short order.
In this situation, Roswaal opted to attack with everything he could muster.
Turning to his rear, he glared toward the ferocious visage of the spirit that had undergone astral transforma—
“—What?!”
“—Boo! All I did was get bigger!”
He met the eyes of the enlarged spirit, who had retained his adorable face, and it was at this point that he realized it was a trap. However, it was too late.
Having never canceled his spell, Roswaal launched a flaming missile at the enormously expanded spirit that had become a giant target before him. The scheming spirit was naturally blown away. It would be impossible for him to return to the front lines immediately. All that remained was to use that opportunity to—
“—El Fulla!!”
The incantation caused concentrated winds to churn the ground, blanketing Roswaal’s vision in rising clods of soil. Brushing the curtain of dirt aside with one arm, he used a long swipe of his leg to kick down one of the hurled ice statues that had been left standing.
Pushing the heavy object to the ground, Roswaal readied his mana once more, forging a new spell.
As he saw it, his greatest enemy, Puck, had been sent flying, and Ram’s following, ferocious attack was overcome and finished. Without lowering his guard, he surveyed the forest, searching for wherever Ram was lurking—
—and Ram knew the exact moment Roswaal had looked away from her thanks to Clairvoyance.
“—Aaaghhh.”
Concentrating on her forehead, intense pain dyed her vision pure red. Bloody tears flowed from Ram’s bloodshot eyes as she stripped off the ice covering her and leaped up from her hiding spot beneath Roswaal’s foot.
Impersonating an ice statue and being knocked down was all according to plan. Flesh and bones alike groaned throughout her entire body; a number of her tendons were torn. She ignored all this as her Oni blood seethed.
“?”
In that blistering battle, Roswaal realized what Ram’s plan was and turned a fist on her. It was too late. Evading with nothing more than a twist of her head, she gently touched his right hand and shattered the bones within. Even as she burned into her eyes the expression of him biting back the fierce pain, Ram brushed his torso. Roswaal drew in his breath.
It was an incomplete Oni transformation lasting less than two seconds—but in that moment, Ram’s brute strength far surpassed that of a human being, granting her the strength to break bones with the slightest touch or even rip out his innards if she so wished.
That instant, Roswaal surely foresaw his own defeat. However—
“—What?”
—He let out a dumbfounded voice when he failed to feel the pain and impact that should have come.
Leaping with one leg to a distance of some ten yards from Roswaal, Ram came to a sudden stop. Blood flowed from her forehead as she bent over, followed by coughing up a large amount of blood as she fell to her knees.
Victory and defeat had not been settled despite the passing of a decisive moment. That decision left Roswaal narrowing his brows when he finally realized something.
Though Ram was near collapse, she was grasping something that was not hers to hold.
“That’s—!”
“To Ram, this is…the root of all evil.”
Roswaal’s face went pale as he raced over to Ram. Smiling faintly at his action, Ram did not hesitate—she hurled the book of knowledge into the green flame still clinging to a fallen tree.
“—!!”
Roswaal raised an incoherent shout, but the book of knowledge, engulfed by emotionless flame, burned up nonetheless. Making a dreadful little sound, the aged book ignited by the green flame blazed even stronger.
This was Ram’s only goal, for which she had awaited her golden opportunity—
“With this, finally…”
Ram slackened as she sighed with satisfaction.
—The very next moment, a fiery missile hurled in anger sent the girl’s tiny body flying.
4
A snowy landscape spread out in all directions.
Her breath was white. The cold stabbed at her skin. Setting eyes upon the falling snow, which blew almost horizontally, Emilia blinked hard.
What in the world had happened?
“—ady Emilia!”
Hearing a voice over the roaring and howling of the cold wind, Emilia darted out. She gingerly put a foot on the snow-covered steps before racing down toward the clearing. In this world hidden by so much white, she could barely see anything else, Emilia desperately searched for any sign of the people who were supposed to be here.
With the persistent flurries of snow buffeting her, she hoped everyone had taken shelter, but based on that voice she had just heard—
“Everyone! You shouldn’t be out here like this! You need to stay in your…homes?”
When Emilia caught sight of people huddled shoulder to shoulder in the heavy snowfall, she raced over. Right as she began scolding them for foolishly deciding to remain outside in this weather, her words caught in her throat.
These were the people of the Sanctuary and Earlham Village—the hundred people who had patiently awaited Emilia’s return. The situation was simply far beyond what she’d expected.
—They were surrounded by walls of ice on four sides, protecting them from the blowing snow.
“This is…”
“Lady Emilia has returned! Lady Emilia! Does this mean the Trials are over?!”
When Emilia came to a spontaneous halt, a youthful voice called to her from within the icy walls. Noticing this, the people awaiting Emilia’s return looked at one another’s faces, then let out an exultant shout.
“Th-thank you! I was able to come back safe and sound thanks to all of you! I’m…really grateful, but this is terrible! What happened? What’s with this snow?”
“It began falling but a short while ago. This much accumulated in no time at all.”
Initially overwhelmed by their intense greetings, Emilia finally managed a response and asked a question of her own. That was when the face of Milde poked out from the press of bodies. She bowed quite deeply.
“We have endured the wind and snow thanks to these walls of ice. Therefore, I judged it was best we should remain in place. Please forgive me.”
“That’s… Mm-hmm, yes, I think you were right. In this kind of weather, there’s no telling what might happen if you move around carelessly. But…”
“Even with the barrier lifted, this makes movement rather…difficult, I imagine.”
Emilia gritted her teeth as Milde offered her assessment and let out a white breath.
It would’ve been best if they started ferrying these hundred people out of the Sanctuary after lifting the barrier. But this was impossible, since the wheels of the dragon carriages wouldn’t allow them to travel in such heavy snow. That said, remaining in place was not an option. If they could at least reach a place that sheltered them from the wind—
“If it’s too hard to return to the Cathedral, how about the tomb? The mana inside keeps it fairly warm, and there’s no concern about it collapsing even if the snow piles really high.”
“Go…inside it?”
“Yes, it’s all right! All the dangerous mechanisms have stopped, so going in is no problem. Everyone, please head inside. Beyond that—You! I have a favor to ask!”
As the surprised Milde gave a nod, Emilia pointed to one of the men. This was the last individual she’d exchanged words with before challenging the final Trial. His eyes went wide, but he immediately stood straighter.
“—! U-understood! I’m Tokaku! Say whatever you wish!”
“Thank you, Mr. Tokaku. There have to be people who aren’t here yet, right? I want you to gather them together. Have all the merchants and land dragons meet up at the tomb!”
Besides the hundred in front of the tomb, there was a small number of stragglers remaining in the Sanctuary. She could not abandon them. She judged that if anything happened, it would be easier to protect everyone if they were in one place.
“…Leave it to me. I will see this task through!”
Tokaku nodded deeply in response to her instructions. Emilia had determined him to be the right person for the job after noting how he was physically stouter than anyone else present.
Then Emilia addressed the remaining concern, namely—
“Where did Miss Ryuzu go? Also, where are Ram and Roswaal…?”
She did not see the youthful-looking elder, who should have been at Milde’s side. Ram, who had left to attend to her duty, had not returned yet, and Roswaal’s absence left Emilia concerned for Ram’s well-being.
“When the snow first began to fall, the elder left, saying she had to go see her family. We tried to stop her, but…”
“Family? Family… Did she mean Miss Shima?”
The mention of family left Emilia with the mental image of Ryuzu’s seemingly identical twin sister coming to mind.
Ryuzu and Shima were not sisters, strictly speaking, but that was how Emilia conceptualized their relationship. And according to what she’d heard from Ram, Shima was supposed to have been resting at home at the moment.
“But Miss Ryuzu’s so little herself. She should have just asked someone to help her instead of going alone…”
“Er, pardon me, Lady Emilia…but who is this Shima of whom you speak?”
“Ehhh?! You don’t know her?! Why not?!”
It wasn’t just the people of Earlham Village cocking their heads at the mention of the unfamiliar name but the residents of the Sanctuary as well. It seemed not a single person present had even heard of her.
Emilia sensed there had to have been some reason behind this strange confusion, but the unexpected development left her feeling anxious nonetheless.
“I’ve actually met her, so she must be… Anyway! I’ll go look for both of them! Or is that three…four people now? Anyway, I’ll look for them!”
On top of Ryuzu and Shima, Ram and Roswaal further added to Emilia’s list of people to question. Their circumstances no doubt differed, but Emilia wanted to speak to all of them in a safe place.
“After that… These walls of ice! I want to speak to whoever made these. If there’s someone who specializes in magic, I’d be happy if that person would help Mr. Tokaku, but…”
Pointing to the snow-repelling walls of ice, Emilia let her gaze wander as she searched for the person responsible. Had it not been for those ice walls, it would have taken her far longer to ascertain the situation, and organizing everyone’s movements would have been exceedingly difficult.
This led her to think more aid from this person would be a huge help. But her words made the people—in particular, the people of Earlham Village—look at one another’s faces.
“…Lady Emilia, was this not your doing?”
“Eh? Me? I didn’t do it, but…”
The assertion blindsided Emilia, who widened her eyes in shock. She remained surprised as Milde continued to speak.
“However, that spirit said to thank Lady Emilia…or Lia, rather.”
Being called Lia made Emilia’s breath catch.
“Just as the snow began falling, a tiny spirit flew over the clearing, making these walls in no time at all. As Lady Emilia is a spirit mage, I was completely convinced that…”
“Puck…”
The only one who called Emilia Lia was that adorable spirit. He was the sole one she could think of who would have tried to help in a place like this whether he liked it or not.
Emilia’s heart was trembling from Milde’s explanation as she touched an icy wall. She thought if he was the one who had made them, there might be some trace, some lingering feeling that she might sense through her touch.
But the instant she touched the wall, the sensation shooting through Emilia’s hand was not adorable at all.
“—Ah.”
Something flowed into Emilia through the palm she’d set on the wall. That instant, in a gap between the roar of the cold, blowing wind, she lifted her head, hearing something that sounded like the very world had split apart.
—With snow-blurred vision, Emilia saw a tower formed of ice standing in the white-covered forest off in the distance.
The tower of ice, manifesting that very moment, was an invitation, a guidepost for Emilia.
You still have a job to do, don’t you, Lia?
She clenched her teeth tightly, feeling as if she heard the voice of family who should have been forever by her side.
Realizing intuitively that she needed to rush over to that place, Emilia turned back toward the hundred present.
“Seems like I have to head that way—could you wait here where it’s safe?”
“—We will do as we promised before the Trial. Lady Emilia, be careful.”
With those words as her send-off, Emilia smiled, then turned toward the tower of ice in the forest.
There was no hesitation in her steps. Of course there wasn’t.
Puck would never lead Emilia astray.
5
The unconscious Ram looked like she was merely asleep.
“…Ram?”
Picking up her listless body from the ground, Roswaal called out the girl’s name. There was no reply. Normally, Ram would make Roswaal’s words her first priority, putting all other things aside, but now…
—Now she was on death’s door, and the one responsible was none other than Roswaal.
“So you lost your temper when she burned the book. Not like you at all. But she was prepared for even this. I think she really is a strong girl.”
Puck looked down at Ram’s charred form as he spoke, his oversize form having long since dissipated. After taking a direct hit from a fiery shot, his mana-composed body was faintly thinner than before. But the respect in his voice was genuine, and he surely retained enough power to flatten the dazed Roswaal.
However, Puck did no such thing, seemingly content to hover silently as the battle was postponed.
“…Ram.”
Roswaal paid Puck no heed as he embraced the girl’s slender body and called her name.
He could not remember what he had been thinking until he had picked up Ram’s prone body a moment before.
He still could not comprehend why Ram had confronted him, exhausting her strength until she was on the brink of death.
To Roswaal, Ram was a useful and convenient pawn. She was invaluable in terms of strength and mental prowess; more than anything, her vengeful heart, which was aimed at Roswaal, made her flawless.
He’d genuinely thought he was fine granting another control over his final moments…as long as it was her.
With her vengeful heart unceasingly continuing to blaze within her, she would obey him until the very end, at which point he would offer himself to her, no longer caring that his soul would be seared away by the fires of her revenge.
She had betrayed him—in a way he had never fathomed and for a reason he did not comprehend.
“Ram, why did you…?”
Had she changed? Had her feelings taken a new shape? He could not understand.
All of one’s emotions ought to continue in the same manner from the moment when they glimmered at their strongest.
If you truly loved someone, if you truly hated someone, that passion, that radiance, should remain constant for eternity.
It was holding on to hopes and desires for a long, long time that made them truly genuine. Over long months and years, feeling hardened so that nothing and no one could undermine them. That was the ideal.
Garfiel’s hateful heart toward what rested beyond the Sanctuary should never have been broken.
Time should not have healed Emilia’s aversion and regrets toward the past.
And that went for Ram’s inexhaustible hatred and vengeful heart toward Roswaal all the more.
Master Roswaal, Ram loves you.
“You’ve lost, Roswaal.”
The confession of love had been burned into his ears like a curse.
Even that moment, in his arms with her eyes closed, the girl’s lips were pursed with an expression of emotion that should not have existed.
Roswaal made a faint noise in his throat as he mulled and deciphered these things in his mind.
“She has fulfilled her goal, albeit by the barest of threads.”
“?”
“Soon, Lia will also finish the Trials. You lost the book you depended on. I understand why you were so obsessed. But…”
This is the end, the spirit was saying. It was the second demand for surrender Roswaal had received that day.
The first came from Subaru Natsuki and the second from the Great Spirit. But the difference between the first and the second was the power to resist that remained within him.
Roswaal found he could not bear to even move his limbs. Even if the reason for his condition was unclear, facts were facts. That moment, he lacked the strength with which to defy the spirit’s words.
—But this applied only to the Roswaal at that particular moment in time.
The cold wind carried the stench of flames and the thick aroma of something scorched. Vestiges of battle raged through the forest as Puck watched Roswaal hold the weakened Ram in his arms. It was then that the spirit suddenly noticed.
A sprinkle of white snowflakes crept into his field of vision, melting and vanishing before they even fell to the ground.
“Snow…? It can’t be. I mean, you’re right here…”
As he looked up at the flurry of snow, Puck’s voice quivered at the presence of heavy clouds filling the sky.
—Using a magic crystal as a catalyst, the weather had been changed, causing snow to fall upon the Sanctuary.
This had been Roswaal’s aim, the act he had intended to perform in adherence to what was written in his book of knowledge. Preventing this from happening was why Ram and Puck had joined together, and they had even succeeding in consigning the book of knowledge to the flame.
But their plan had fallen one step short of catching up to Roswaal’s meticulousness.
“—You got us good. You’d already made preparations to call the snow clouds before the battle had even begun, didn’t you? All you needed to do after was to drag it out.”
Before the battle had kicked off, Roswaal had etched the spell’s formula directly into the magic crystal, then pulled the pair away and diverted their attention while it activated. Since the spell needed to be kept active full-time, this prevented Roswaal from using his trump card, sixfold magic, which had made the battle far more arduous for him. But—
“The snow will fall. It’ll be just as Subaru feared. I’m going to head off and postpone the worst.”
“?”
“Roswaal, you’re really something. You’re an amazing magic user. So far as I know, there is probably no human who has honed himself as much as this. But you know what, though?”
The floating spirit rose higher, turning his back to Roswaal, the harbinger of the snow clouds.
He left one final comment.
“No matter how far you go, you’re still human—you’ll never be like that devil.”
As the spirit flew off, his voice became distant, and his presence vanished, leaving behind only a soft glow.
What remained was the scattering snow and a girl carried by a devil—Nay, there was only a clown.
He was a wretched fool who had tried to become a devil and failed.
“?”
Roswaal put strength into the arms in which he held the sleeping girl. But the girl’s breathing remained faint, distant, and there was no doubt her life was coming to an end.
His heart beat faster, yelling at him that this could not, must not continue. His left eye throbbed. It throbbed so much that he was tempted to gouge it out of its socket. Stop. Don’t throb. I will stop being me.
What should he do? What could he do? There had to be something he could do, something he needed to do. He did not understand what was wrong. He couldn’t remember. He couldn’t think.
“?”
He looked around him. There was nothing he sought anywhere he looked.
The book in which the future was written, surely leading Roswaal to the promised day, was scorched from flames, all in pieces. There was no one to tell him what to do.
In that moment, what choice was best? There was no one to turn to, no one to guide him.
The clouds grew thicker, and snow steadily covered more of the forest flake by flake. The world was being repainted in ever deepening layers of white, and Roswaal, his breath frosting, didn’t know what to do about the increasingly cold body that lay within his arms.
“In accordance with the book of knowledge, I have made the snow fall… What do I do now?”
At this point, Roswaal had fulfilled and finished his role for “this time around.”
In the first place, it had been an attempt he would have abandoned long before if not for the wager with Subaru. From the very beginning, there had been no special objective worthy of the word—even that gamble occupied but a fragment in the corner of his mind.
To Roswaal, it was no longer necessary to do any more. What was important was the conclusion that the events in the Sanctuary would reach: The snow would fall, and the barrier would be lifted.
If these were achieved. If these were achieved—what was supposed to happen, exactly?
“Ram… Ahhh, that’s right. Ram.”
The sound of Ram’s breathing had already vanished. Half out of habit, Roswaal touched her forehead.
Her forehead was drenched with blood that flowed from the white scar where her horn had once been. This was the result of forcibly entering her demonic form. Wiping it clean, Roswaal subconsciously poured colorless mana into the wound.
It was a ritual he had continued all that time, for Ram’s body required mana to circulate within her every bit as much as her Oni blood.
It was not out of any conscious thought.
It was simply that Roswaal subconsciously understood the only way to keep Ram’s life tethered was to gamble on Ram’s own Oni vitality. He never questioned whether to save her.
Ram had to live.
She was Roswaal’s fate. His last moments needed to be ended by her hand. For the sake of fulfilling his objective… For the sake of what would come after he fulfilled his objective…Ram had to live.
“Teacher… I…”
His mind felt completely lost. Only the sight of the Witch who had taught him filled his mind.
“I…I! What should I do, Teacher…?! Teacher…please tell me. I still don’t understand anything… Please show me the way, Teacher…!”
Even as he tried to sustain Ram’s tenuous hold on life, his anger toward her betrayal had not faded.
Even though he understood there was no longer anything left to guide him, he still yearned to see that promised day.
The falling snow mercilessly daubed Roswaal’s and Ram’s bodies with fresh powder.
The white was all-encompassing, causing everything to vanish.
—Yet, at no point did he think that he would be satisfied with such an ending.
6
Emilia earnestly raced down the snowy path as she headed toward the tower of ice standing tall in the forest.
Letting out sharp white breaths, her speed was unthinkably fast given the poor footing, but Emilia was not running on the poor footing. With each step, her foot made contact with an icy platform; then she would use her heels to launch herself to the next one. This way, she made considerable progress in a short amount of time.
“I! Did it! There we go!”
Of course, the icy footholds resting on top of snow made for quite a slippery path. But to Emilia, raised in the frozen Great Elior Forest, this was nothing. He knew that, too.
Armed with this knowledge, the spirit had created this footing without the slightest hesitation.
Steadily, she crept deeper into the white forest. Emilia did not think of this as cause for concern. She would believe in what she wanted to, rely on what she wished to. With those thoughts in her mind, she was invincible.
Subaru. Otto. Garfiel. Frederica. Ryuzu. Shima. The villagers. The people of the Sanctuary—Ram. Puck. Herself. She believed in them.
Hence, it was not long before she arrived at a white structure deep within the forest.
“There are eddies of mana here… Is this the cause of the snow falling?”
Emilia let out those words along with a white breath as she faced the snow-buried ruin before her.
Standing beside the white ruin was the spire of ice that had led her to it. Like a person awaiting the arrival of his guest, it instantly shattered, the mana returning now that its goal had been fulfilled. As the scattering mana glittered and danced in the sky, she was drawn to the open, yawning entrance leading into the structure.
Furthermore, as if to guide Emilia within, instead of words, she felt Puck’s feelings urging her onward.
“—! It’s really smelly. Animal repellent…? Besides that, this thick mana is a spirit repellent… Someone really didn’t want anyone going inside.”
The pungent odor pricked her nostrils as the concentrated mana, something she had no resistance to, clouded her consciousness. The thorough means to keep people out was proof enough that this was the nexus of the disturbance.
“—Puck’s waiting. I have to go.”
After hesitating for one moment, Emilia steeled herself and stepped into the ruin.
Snow was coming in from the cracks in the ceiling, and so, too, was the air indoors bitingly cold. There were a number of small rooms along the path, but Emilia headed to the back without paying them heed—that was where she felt a precious spirit’s presence.
Then, at the very back of the structure, she made a slight sound in her throat when she spotted a room from which a faint blue light trickled forth.
—For it was there that contained an unbelievably large magic crystal and a throng of girls all around it.
“…Miss Ryuzu?”
“Lady Emilia?! Why have you come here…? No.”
When Emilia called out, it was…probably Ryuzu who turned toward her with a nervous look. She could not say for sure only because the other girls in attendance—all of them—bore the same face as Ryuzu.
There were twenty or so, and Emilia could not conceal her inner turmoil from seeing a line of girls with the same face.
She was just now discovering that not only did Ryuzu have Shima for a sister, but she also had so many, many others…
“So many… Miss Ryuzu’s mother must have had it really tough…”
“I’ll save the replica explanation for later! At any rate, please hold me back!”
“Stop you, Miss Ryuzu…?”
It was taking Emilia a while to grasp the situation. But then she noticed the throng of Ryuzu sisters was impeding Ryuzu’s actions, preventing her from moving forward. Then Emilia realized the girl standing in front of the giant magic crystal looked like Shima.
Shima’s expression, somehow sad and tragic, sent a chill up Emilia’s spine.
Recalling the Trials of the past, the future, and the unknowable present, Shima’s face bore the same resolve as the people she had seen in those visions, determining their own fates—
“That’s you, Miss Shima, right? What in the world are you doing? What is this place?”
“Lady Emilia, the fact that you are here safe and sound means the Trials have ended, yes? In other words, all is prepared for us to fulfill our final duty… Young Gar’s gamble has paid off.”
“—! There’s a Miss Ryuzu inside the magic crystal?”
As Shima heaved a heavy sigh, there was a person resting within the magic crystal behind her. It was a little girl with her eyes closed and clutching her knees—yet another who looked just like Ryuzu.
Except for Emilia, there was no one present except a group of girls with the same face. Being seized by the abnormality, the creepiness of the situation would have been normal. But Emilia stepped to the fore.
“Did you come to bring the girl out of the magic crystal? Can I just take all of you to the tomb with me?”
“—I am utterly amazed that you could look at this situation and have those be the first words out of your mouth.”
Emilia’s words made Shima’s eyes bulge. She was so taken aback, the tone of her voice changed slightly.
“Mm, it’s all right. I may not look it, but I have a lot of power, so if I make an ice sled to ride, I think I could pull all of you with me.”
From what Emilia could tell, the magic crystal was rather large, but with the proper preparation, transporting it was surely possible. With this many people helping, even if they had been ordinary children, they could get it moving with some hard work and planning.
If that’s what it took to wipe that tragic, forlorn look off Shima’s face, she’d work as hard as it took.
However, Emilia’s suggestion caused Shima to say “no,” shaking her head with a slight smile.
“Your feelings make me happy, but that will not be necessary. I have not come here to take our sleeping ancestor inside the magic crystal with us…but to bring her duty to an end.”
“Duty to an end…?”
“This magic crystal is the core of the barrier enveloping the Sanctuary. The ritual was activated from the tomb, and this core acted as the catalyst to give the barrier form. In other words, when both sites have ceased to function, the Sanctuary’s role as a place of shelter shall end; it shall be set free, so to speak. Lady Emilia, you have broken the ritual. Therefore, what remains is…”
Emilia, who had destroyed the ritual in the coffin with the intent of lifting the barrier, was taken by surprise. If this was true, this ceremony was necessary and unavoidable, but—
“Er, does it have to be done right now? Right now, snow is falling really heavily outside, so I wanted to assemble everyone at the tomb…”
“If, by any chance, this facility was to be destroyed or its administrators lost, it would become an unsalvageable situation. That is why we, the administrators of the Sanctuary, the personalities representing the replicas, are also its keys.”
Shima was dubbing herself a key that they could not afford to lose. Emilia intuitively understood this was likely an undeniable fact.
People had their roles to play, just like the roles Emilia had there in the Sanctuary and in the Kingdom of Lugunica.
The same went for Shima, and she was attempting to fulfill hers.
“Lady Emilia, take this.”
Detecting a shift in Emilia’s expression, Shima tossed something her way. Instantly catching it, Emilia let out an “ah…” at what had fallen into her palm.
This was a piece broken off from the magic crystal, a tiny fragment containing tremendous power. More than anything, Emilia felt a pulse run through the high-purity magic crystal: that of the precious spirit who had led Emilia to this place where they ought to have met each other…
“Puck, is that you?”
“The Great Spirit preceded your arrival, destroyed the seals, and apparently delayed the spell’s activation. He used all his strength to save the people in the settlement.”
Shima’s explanation made Emilia notice the vestiges of an extremely complex formula at the center of the magic crystal. Its overwhelmingly dense magical composition rivaled that of the spell with the coffin at its core.
Ordinarily, a magical bulwark sufficient to burn one to a crisp would have prevented all entry into that room. The fact that she could read the composition of the unraveled formula was not due to the caster’s lack of skill but because it had been constructed in a rush. Indeed, a surprised gasp escaped her when she realized it had been hastily assembled yet still possessed such vast power.
The being who had removed the magical bulwark, leaving her a path forward, was doubtlessly the Great Spirit who continued to sleep in the magic crystal fragment in Emilia’s palm.
“You opened up the magical barrier, protected everyone from the falling snow, and did something reckless just to tell me about this place… How many other unreasonable things did you do besides that…?”
There was no reply to her question. Having ensured Emilia’s arrival, Puck had fallen completely silent.
He had arbitrarily rescinded their pact in order to wrench open the lid on Emilia’s memories. She’d already come to terms with him vanishing somewhere far off and for any reunion to be a long ways down the road.
However, Puck had used his vanishing existence to keep pushing, lending her a paw until the very, very end. As a result, he had lost his power and had fallen asleep—a long, long sleep inside that fragment.
“…Lady Emilia, you and Young Su have borrowed much outside power besides his. If this opportunity has been granted as a consequence, it should fall to me to bring our duty to an end.”
Emilia, closing her eyes as she clutched the tiny magic crystal against her chest, lifted up her head. When she looked, Shima was touching a hand to the large magic crystal with a soft, pleasant smile on her face.
Somehow, when she looked at that smile, it overlapped with that of the now-departed Puck’s and the one Fortuna showed in her final moments.
The tragic resolve she had sensed earlier was because here, Shima had found meaning in the fulfillment of her duty.
“Duty, duty… I understand our duty! But why must it be you?!”
That instant, while Emilia stayed silent, Ryuzu’s voice cried out raggedly. Shima’s smile drove her to make her earnest plea even as the other girls held her arms and legs tight.
Tears were welling in her blue eyes—tears that spoke of compassion, regret, and a powerful sense of responsibility.
“We have forsaken you for these past ten years. You were removed from your duty as administrator, leaving you to live alone this whole time…and yet, after all that, now you take this duty upon yourself?”
“…I suppose you have a point. Were I truly alone for ten years, I might well have borne a grudge.”
Lowering her eyes, Shima reminisced about the long months and years to which Ryuzu referred. Emilia did not know what passed between the two. However, as she reminisced about those ten lonely years, Shima smiled.
Ryuzu had called them ten years she had spent each and every day alone, yet Shima had found sufficient reason to smile.
“But I was not alone. I was with my adorable grandson and grew to know him well. I was able to watch him grow up and become strong, bit by bit. And now that child… Garf, our grandchild, has gone outside, standing tall and proud.”
“?”
“I gave that child a push in the back already. Please watch over him from now on. Arma, Bilma, Derma…my sisters, my other selves.”
Narrowing her eyes, Shima looked straight at Ryuzu as she spoke. Ryuzu acknowledged those words and that gaze; her delicate shoulder trembled as Emilia gently placed a hand upon it.
Emilia wanted to stop her. However, she could not. All she offered was a simple nod.
Gazing into Shima’s eyes, Emilia stood straighter. She knew that what she had to do…was watch her fulfill her duty.
“…You can leave the rest to me.”
“—It is surprising how much you have grown in a mere half a day. This is what brings us elders joy.”
The corners of her eyes fell. Her elderly smile seemed misplaced on her youthful face.
Leaving this behind, Shima turned toward the magic crystal—and the spitting image of herself within, gently nodding toward something. That instant, a pale, dazzling light filled the room’s interior.
The flash of white seemingly melted the world away, blotting it out. After so very, very long, that pale, warm light heralded the Sanctuary’s true end—it was the final demise of the cradle of the gentle Witch.
“?”
Then, when the light cleared, surprisingly, there was nothing at all.
All signs of Shima and the giant magic crystal on the pedestal were completely gone. Within the room, only Emilia, Ryuzu, and the many girls who had no one left to rely on remained.
Emilia wasn’t sure exactly what had happened. She could not bring herself to ask for details. She had merely been in attendance during a pivotal moment, bearing witness until the end.
And with that complete, Emilia had a duty of her own to carry on.
Puck and Shima had both done what they had to do. Then, having arrived at this point…
“Let’s go, Miss Ryuzu. There are things we need to do.”
“Lady Emilia…”
“We’ve been entrusted with important thoughts and hopes, so for now…”
Turning around, Emilia set eyes upon the entrance leading outside the room. Ryuzu followed suit, glancing at her sisters to confirm they did the same before giving a determined nod
“We’ll save the tears until later—that’s what the people I love always tell me with a smile.”
7
Ryuzu offered an explanation that the girls’ duty was to serve as the Sanctuary’s “eyes.”
“?”
It certainly weighed on Emilia’s mind to know that the sisters would silently carry out her every order. But she set that aside for the moment.
Just like how Shima had fulfilled her role and how Ryuzu had her own duty, these girls also had their own roles to play. However, that didn’t mean there was nothing for them in life beyond that.
They would get many wonderful opportunities after everything happening in the Sanctuary was finished. Emilia was sure of it.
Therefore, for that instant only, Emilia wanted to rely on them to fulfill their responsibilities, so that she, who was lacking in so many things, could reach the place she so dearly wanted to go—
“Ram! Roswaal!!”
There were gaps between snapped-off trees, furrows of overturned earth, and the unnatural snowfall—when she saw the man and woman nestled close in front of that backdrop, Emilia raced over without a moment to spare.
With the silent girls in tow, Emilia slid over frozen snow and bounded toward the copse of the trees. When she reached her destination and examined Roswaal, she realized he was half-covered in snow, not making the slightest movement as he gazed into the distance.
Emilia violently shook his shoulder as she harshly called out to him.
“Hey, Roswaal! Are you listening? Roswaal, I’m talking to you! You can’t stay in a place like this! You need to get to the tomb right away… This isn’t the time to freeze!”
When she shook him, snow that had accumulated on Roswaal’s head fell away. When she caught a glimpse of the side of his face her shaking had uncovered, it stole Emilia’s breath away.
She sensed no life in those eyes, no gravitas from his expression… He looked so very frail.
“—! Ram?”
Frightened by Roswaal’s lack of reaction, Emilia called out to the girl sleeping in his arms. But seeing her slumbering face, she immediately sensed something was wrong. There was no sign of the snow accumulating on her cheek melting away…
“Ram? Ram!”
Emilia desperately called out to that sleeping face, trying to see if that would wake her. However, there was no response. Of course there was no reply, but her eyelids didn’t even twitch. When she touched the girl, her cheek and her lips seemed abnormally cold. It was almost as if—
“That can’t be…!”
Brushing that grim possibility aside, Emilia put a hand into Ram’s clothes. When she touched the girl’s diminutive, cold-feeling chest to make sure, her palm felt a faint reaction…the weakest of heartbeats.
“—She’s alive! It’ll be all right! We can still make it! Roswaal!”
Having found a ray of hope, Emilia looked back at Roswaal. His hand still touched her forehead, but his eyes remained vacant and distant. That same moment, she understood.
A vast amount of mana was coursing from Roswaal’s palm into Ram’s forehead. By feeding her considerably weakened body that mana, he had helped maintain her weak hold on life, if just barely.
“You saved Ram, didn’t you…?”
Recognizing this, Emilia sank into thought. Ram’s condition was poor. Under normal circumstances, it would most likely not be a good idea to move her at all. But there was a reason she could not simply leave them there.
Ryuzu had informed her of the terrifying demon beasts closing in on them.
The heavy snow was a foreboding omen, and with each moment that passed, danger drew closer to the Sanctuary.
Emilia truly had made the right decision to gather everyone together at the tomb. There, she could set up a defensive perimeter and secure the people who she had to protect. It wasn’t an issue of whether she could. She’d do it no matter what.
Even if she could not borrow Roswaal’s strength, Emilia possessed the combat capability to do it alone.
“Anyway, Roswaal, let’s bring Ram with us. These girls will help, so we’ll evacuate you both to the tomb. Roswaal, don’t give up on treating Ram…”
“…s fine.”
“—Huh?”
Emilia gazed in astonishment, doubting whether she’d correctly heard the raspy voice her eardrums had caught.
To Emilia, that was how unexpected those words were. That was to what extent she found them unbelievable. Emilia stood there dumbfounded as Roswaal repeated them.
“It’s fine…”
The voice seemed ready to vanish.
As a matter of fact, the words were immediately taken and swept away by the cold wind, scattering them aside.
He seemed to be muttering under his breath. It was not even clear if Roswaal himself heard the words.
But that weak, chafed voice of resignation certainly reached her.
Hence, Emilia—
“—Don’t you dare decide something like that on your own!!”
Emilia grasped Roswaal’s collar, her voice shaking with anger.
The force made him cry out in pain. Emilia glared at his face as if she was ready to bite it off.
Indignation rested in her violet eyes as she howled:
“It’s fine?! What do you mean, fine?! There’s nothing fine about this! There’s not a single thing here that’s fine! Don’t you dare give up and try to end this on your own! For me, Ram, and you, Roswaal, there’s no way any of this is fine!!”
“—Uagh.”
“I finished the Trials! The past I was afraid of seeing! The happy future that could have been! The miserable future that might come who-knows-when! I saw it all! Even so, I decided to walk this path… Yes, I decided! And I’m walking it now!”
She howled. She kept on howling.
Uncontainable anger bubbled up from deep within Emilia, an anger beyond anything she had ever known.
Yes. That was it. What a weak voice she had and what pathetic answers. She’d been spoiled to the core. Could it really be called living life if it ended the moment someone gave up?
Roswaal’s cheeks stiffened. He squirmed in an apparent attempt to avoid her gaze. This was not out of anxiousness for Ram as she rested in his arms; he simply wanted to escape the look in her eyes.
This, she would not allow. Grasping his chin, Emilia turned him to face her.
“When you’re having a conversation, look who’s talking to you in the eye!”
“—!”
“If you don’t look someone in the eye, you can’t tell when someone’s desperately trying to think of something. If someone’s not looking into your eyes, they can’t tell why you want to do something. So look into my eyes, listen to my voice, stand up, and come with me—don’t give up.”
Roswaal blinked. His differently colored eyes seemed to have realized something.
His small lips twitched. However, they did not form a sound. Nonetheless, they possessed tangible…will.
“—Ah.”
“I won’t let anyone say it’s fine. As long as we’re alive, there’ll be none of this it’s fine stuff—that’s why I don’t want to give up on anyone, not anymore!”
She stood up. That instant, Emilia whirled around, thrusting her arm toward the forest behind her.
She froze to the bone the demon beast leaping toward her, enveloping it in blustering snow and glacial cold.
The creature she had caught was white, small enough to fit in her palm. However, this was a ferocious being with gleaming red eyes.
—It had arrived. The demon beast known as the Great Rabbit had finally come.
“They’re here… Yeah, because I’m a Witch. Or is it because Puck is here?”
The Witch who had frozen the Great Elior Forest or the Great Spirit who had served as her father figure—either one made delicious feed for the horde of demon beasts raising a racket with their teeth gnashing as they steadily drew nearer.
Touching a hand to her chest, Emilia said a prayer on the new magic crystal fragment that hung from her neck.
—Not a prayer yearning for deliverance but a vow that she would see things through.
“Take care of Roswaal and Ram. Everything will be fine as long as you can make it back to the tomb… I’ll protect everyone without fail!”
As Emilia decisively issued instructions to Ryuzu’s sisters, the girls immediately did as they were told.
It was their role to obey this temporary master, who just so happened to have the qualifications to order them—but it was up to Emilia to play the role assigned to her more valiantly than any other in the four centuries of the Sanctuary’s history.
Using magic to scatter the pursuing demon beasts, Emilia cut open a path toward the tomb and raced ahead. The girls followed close behind her, looking like retainers who had sworn fealty to their king.
—For in Emilia’s footsteps and her gaze, there was no hesitation. Not anymore.
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