Do you want to win?
Of course.
Somehow, I had to win, trample them down, and ensure they could never rebel again.
It was a heartfelt emotion that had embedded itself in my heart without my knowing.
Only then could I protect the people I cherished.
That impatience made me stop breathing for a moment.
Miltram’s sweet whisper drenched my ears.
“Let yourself go to that emotion. Anger, hatred… Morals or ethics? Do they really change the world?”
“Stop spouting nonsense,” I shouted, trying to rise, but a woman’s hand pressed down heavily on my shoulder.
My vision, already pushed to its limit, began to narrow. Miltram’s smile filled the space around me.
“Isn’t this something you always do anyway?”
At those words, the anger that had surged up into my throat settled for a moment.
Always something I did?
Yes, it was something I always did.
“Let your body succumb to the anger, and just kill them. Now… unleash that anger upon me.”
Miltram’s laughter grew fainter.
My mind became fuzzy, my tense muscles relaxed, and my head dropped to the ground.
Looking back, hadn’t I come too far?
As the second son of a country squire, I had done far too much and was now exhausted.
Though I pretended otherwise, the conflict with the Imperial Princess had left many scars on me.
The people I cherished were hurt, and they might still be in pain. The sacrifices I had to bear to prevent the overwhelming “world’s destruction” were far too great.
In contrast, how clear was the emotion of hatred and intent to kill?
If all I wanted was to kill, a single thought was enough.
Then everything would be resolved, and my chest would feel lighter. I began to grip my sword tighter.
Magic swirled around me.
As the polar cold swept across the plateau, a mysterious wind fiercely gathered in the cave. Miltram took a staggering step back with an ecstatic look in her eyes.
The sword was enveloped in aura.
That hue was not the brilliant silver I had hoped for. The light began to dim, eventually settling into a shade of gray. But its density and potential were unmatched compared to before.
I had to kill.
That reiterated will became a blade.
Hatred and intent to kill burned in my chest in an almost incomprehensible way. The tiny blood vessels in my retina became engorged, and my breath grew heavier.
A rumbling echoed, reverberating through the cave once more.
The end was near. I used my sword as a staff, forcing my trembling legs to steady as I rose.
The sword abruptly dug deep into the ground, causing me to stumble a few times.
Yet, I stood again.
Miltram beamed at me.
“Oh, you look magnificent… Ian Fercurus. Do you now understand that feeling?”
“……Yeah.”
Let’s see how it feels to kill.
Miltram danced joyfully, raising the strings of magic.
My eyes traced the space, taking in all the trajectories.
Until then, I had been dodging, but now it was different.
The trajectories twisted and converged into a single point.
Without hesitation, my blade struck that point.
With a sound like rustling leaves, dozens of strings instantly lost their strength and scattered.
A few remained shot forth, but my speed as I kicked off the ground was faster.
With a boom, a shockwave shook the earth, compressing the space in an instant.
Before long, Miltram and I were within arm’s reach.
The woman smiled, and my sword scattered light in the void. If I exerted my strength as I was, she would be done for.
But in that fleeting moment, a phrase struck my mind.
“……Ian Fercurus.”
It felt as if time had stopped.
The space crumbled into a bright white. Countless memories overlapped, playing dozens of voices back to me.
I felt like a criminal before a judge, helplessly scanning my surroundings.
Figures whose faces I couldn’t even recognize spoke in their own tones.
“Save the world.”
It wasn’t unfamiliar.
I had experienced that before countless times. This memory was a memory of ‘me’. The remnants of regret left behind by someone who had made the wrong choice.
I couldn’t help but feel resentful about that.
“……Why me?”
Why was it that I had to carry such a heavy and painful burden?
I had lived without dreaming of any great mission until I received that letter.
For someone like me, merely the second son of a country squire, it had been far too heavy a load from the start. Yet, I had done my best, and thus I ended up here.
The people I loved were hurt.
And my body was in tatters, and look, I’m barely standing.
Regrettably, this was the only answer I could come to.
This path was the only choice I had to tread.
With that thought organized, I clenched my jaw and strengthened my grip on my sword again.
The gray aura stirred a rough storm. If I continued forward just like this, it would be over.
At that moment.
Until the very last second, a thought flickered through my mind.
What if I had killed Senior Delphine?
That was an unexpected supposition. During the Hunting Festival, I hadn’t thought of killing Senior Delphine, and I would have gotten into trouble if I had.
But I recalled the face of Ceria from that day.
The face filled with fear made my sword-arm drop a little.
The Lady Virgin Saint had shouted at me, asking why I tried to save the orphans. To that woman with a bewildered gaze, I overconfidently uttered a word.
“Emmanuel, may the Lord be with you.”
As one memory after another collided with my thoughts, my trembling hand gripped the sword tighter. The woman I had saved with my will, Emma, hugged me and said,
“You are the one who saves.”
Only then did I exhale a heavy sigh.
The world that had been colored in light began to collapse. Miltram, who had been looking at me with hopeful eyes, tilted her head.
The aura enveloping my sword slowly regained its brightness.
From gray, back to silver once more.
A smile, half-formed, crept onto my lips.
Finally, information began to come in. Until now, I had been so focused on the battle as if I were drunk.
As my mind cleared, all the strange signs Miltram had shown sprang to mind.
Instead of swinging my sword, I grabbed Miltram by the collar with one hand.
“……You’ve left an escape route, haven’t you?”
The cave trembled violently. It meant the collapse was near.
The piles of slipping earth had risen to my knees. Particularly, there were many clumps of earth falling from the ceiling.
Yet, Miltram laughed as if to say, “What are you talking about?”
“Ian Fercurus, if you’re going to joke….”
“You keep talking as if I’ll escape.”
At my remark, Miltram’s scoff suddenly stopped. She froze with a grotesque smile as though she had been rapidly cooled.
“Otherwise, you wouldn’t need to persuade me, right? I don’t know what you were planning, but… you did leave an exit.”
Miltram, who had been momentarily frozen, burst into laughter.
“Shall I tell you, Ian Fercurus? You must want to live too, right? Well, all you need to do is make a contract with me…”
That was when my sword slashed across Miltram’s throat.
Miltram’s eyes widened. She tried to react in the last moment, but my speed had already surpassed hers.
One thought.
I did not know where I had to go.
But just by setting that direction, my aura blazed with a strong light. And in front of the manifestation of that firm will, her strings of magic could not even resist.
Miltram’s head rolled across the ground.
There was no way her body would regenerate from the severed strings of magic. She merely flailed as if in disbelief before collapsing helplessly.
I responded to Miltram with a cold voice.
“……I don’t need it.”
It was better to survey my surroundings than to waste time arguing.
After all, the “contract” with the Dark Cult was as predictable as it gets. I wasn’t foolish enough to fall into a trap I would end up regretting later.
My eyes turned toward the ceiling.
Clumps of dirt were falling in an unusually large amount. At first, I thought it was due to gravity, but considering it, the ceiling alone was collapsing at an unusually accelerated pace.
Since I had no time, I climbed up the fallen earth without uttering a word.
The tallest pile of dirt was already halfway up to the ceiling from the ground. At that moment, I heard a chuckle in my ear.
“……Ian Fercurus.”
I glanced back over my shoulder. There, Miltram, with only her head left, was staring at me with a stiffening smile as she slowly lost strength.
“It seems that if it’s not my true self, this is about my limit… But don’t be too lonely, I’ll be there soon.”
In response to that lingering farewell, I threw my hand axe instead of speaking.
With a crack, her skull splintered, and blood and brain matter splattered everywhere.
“……Screw you.”
Then I raised my hand, and just as the axe returned to me, my body collapsed.
The pile of earth covered me with its heavy weight.
In that last moment, I thought I glimpsed a light, but my consciousness was suddenly cut off as I reached my limit.
Only a frantic voice lingered in my ears like an echo.
“Ah, ah! W-what is this…? Huh? I-Ian? Ian! Oh no… call the priest! Gather the priest immediately!!”
My consciousness faded into darkness.
While I lost consciousness, I couldn’t have foreseen how the relationships between the Imperial Princess, the people around me, would change.
That was the end of the story.
