Epilogue
A few minutes after Aishia carried Rio away, Andrei and the other reinforcements came running out of the city. They discovered a bloodied Erica lying not too far from the gate.
“A-Aaah! Saint Erica... Saint Erica...!”
“What... What should we do...?”
Everyone was devastated by her death. Everyone grieved. But among those voices—
“There’s no need to worry, everyone.”
Erica, bloodstained, suddenly stood up.
“Wha...?!”
Everyone was speechless; it was a natural reaction to seeing the person they assumed dead suddenly standing up. Her entire chest was soaked red, and there were signs of a sword having been stabbed through her clothes.
“Y-You’re alive?! B-But how? All this blood...” Andrei was bewildered by the amount of blood on Erica’s clothes.
“Didn’t you know, Andrei?”
“K-Know what...?”
“A saint can’t die just by being stabbed in the heart.”
“Wha...”
Even Andrei and the others found that hard to believe.
“I’m just joking,” Erica giggled, looking around at everyone with a loving smile. “I can’t die yet—I still have a role to fulfill. I’m glad to see you all again, but...”
Her face suddenly fell with sadness.
“I’m sorry... I was unable to protect Natalia and the others.”
She hung her head and trembled, as though stricken by her own powerlessness.
“Wh-What happened?” Andrei asked, pale as a sheet.
There was no sign of the soldiers that had chased after Erica nearby. Andrei could vaguely guess the reason why, but he waited for Erica’s words.
Sure enough...
“He—that swordsman—took Natalia and the others hostage. In order to defeat me, he...he aimed for them... Oh, it was terrible! That boy! That boy was so cruel! A coward! No—it was my fault! I...I wasn’t able to save them in time!” Erica covered her face with her hands and grieved in despair.
“Natalia and the others are dead... They were killed...” Andrei and the other reinforcements reddened in anger. After a moment of silence...
“H-How despicable!”
“Such cruelty!”
“What a coward!”
“The Galarc Kingdom is cowardly!”
“That swordsman killed Natalia!”
“Curse him!”
“Hostages?! How dare he!”
Their fury flew out in a violent explosion. Once their minds were made up, there was no stopping their anger. They couldn’t be stopped by anyone until they turned into a rampaging riot.
“...”
Erica watched them with a cold look of contempt.
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