Episode 160
"...Ah."
Isollet, who had been sitting in the main seat with a devastated expression, slowly rises to her feet.
"G-guys."
Before long, she tried to share what she had just seen with the girls around her, but.
""..........""
Discovering the girls wearing expressions of unspeakable misery, she closed her mouth.
There was no need to ask; she could tell they too had recalled memories similar to her own.
"Mmm..."
In such a state, Isollet, trembling and barely managing to stand from her seat.
- Swish...
Slowly, she began to take steps.
"C-Commander! What on earth is going on..."
"Is the fight over? What is all this..."
"Move... aside."
Eventually, pushing aside the messengers who had been blocking her way at the entrance.
"...Ah?"
She was about to step outside but stopped and slowly looked back.
Then, Isollet's gaze fell upon the four girls who had risen from their seats.
- Swish
Emerging from the tent together with those girls.
"Frey..."
Muttering with a dazed expression, she began walking somewhere.
"I need to... gather Frey..."
Walking for a while.
"I need to gather Frey..."
She arrived at the place where Aria lay, exhausted from crying, Peruote felled by some unknown force, and Abraham lay asleep, drugged.
- Swish, swish...
With a hollow expression, she began gathering the sparkling soil.
- Swish...
Then, the four girls behind her also joined in with dazed expressions.
Having gathered Frey's traces for some time.
"I-I need to gather Frey... quickly..."
Seeing Isollet speak with a trembling voice, their expressions began to harden.
"Before it blows away in the wind... before these last remaining traces disappear... we must gather them quickly."
Isollet, who had been filling her scabbard with the sparkling soil from the ground despite their reactions.
".......Ugh."
Broke the poker face she had been maintaining and began to sob.
It was the first time she had shed tears since she had sworn to the heavens as a child, upon choosing the path of a knight, that she would never cry.
"...Professor, what memory did you see?"
Serena, looking at such an Isollet, asked with a trembling voice.
"It was a memory of Frey when he was young."
Then, to Serena and the girls wearing pale expressions, Isollet slowly began to speak.
"The memory that young Frey had manipulated... I recalled it clearly."
"What... kind of memory was it?"
Serena asked with a hollow expression.
"...What kind of memory, you ask?"
Isollet, who had been scratching the ground until her fingernails were worn away, looked around at the girls beside her and began to speak.
"It was a memory of when I went to Frey's house to train together as usual, and lost to him when he challenged me to a spar."
"...You lost, Professor."
"It was a complete defeat. The brat who, until just yesterday, would stomp around in frustration after losing to me using only my left arm... blew me away in a single exchange."
Isollet's hand began to tremble as she spoke.
"Thanks to that, I was slammed into the wall and coughing, and do you know what he said to me?"
"What... did he say?"
"He said... he was scared."
"...Ah."
"He said suddenly becoming a hero was scary, that gaining power so strong he couldn't control it was scary, and..."
Even though she wasn't in her right mind, Isollet continued speaking while recalling that scene vividly in her mind.
"...He said it was scary that he could no longer rely on me."
Shedding tears that fell onto the sparkling soil she hadn't finished gathering.
"That young child was trembling in despair at the fact that he could no longer throw tantrums at me and would have to hurt people."
"Ah..."
"I didn't know what was going on, but I tried to approach him to hug him..."
She spoke haltingly.
"...He suddenly tore a scroll, forced a wide smile, and left me with his last words."
Her hands, now covered in blood, trembling.
"That no matter what happens in the future, he would respect me as the second most respected person in the world."
When those words ended, silence flowed around them for a moment.
"And... he really kept that promise."
Speaking into that silence.
"According to Peruote, he endured suffering through eons of time due to countless regressions..."
Only the sobbing Isollet remained.
"He remembered my teaching that the sword exists not to cut people but to protect them, and smiled brightly....."
Grasping the soil with her blood-covered hands, Isollet continued her lamentation.
"I, who had promised to consider Frey my most beloved disciple... I broke that promise. Yet even after ending up like that, he still respected me."
Her tearful lamentation filled the garden, but only an echo returned.
"During the Academy defense battle, it was Frey, not Ruby, who saved me. He was the one who saved me when I was brainwashed at the auction house, and he was the one who supported tuition when students were being forced to accept sponsors."
"........"
"But I... I..."
Listening to that echo, Isollet wore a fragile expression she had never shown in her life.
"...Hic."
Finally, she lowered her head and gritted her teeth.
""........""
Then, a brief silence fell.
"...My parents made me into a black mage, which caused the young master's mother to become a werewolf."
"I contributed to Frey killing that werewolf."
"I... made a covenant that Frey would die if I didn't become emperor."
Eventually, the girls began speaking of the memories they had recalled.
"...I took 90 years of Frey's lifespan."
The atmosphere, already growing darker, reached its peak with Serena's muttering in dead eyes.
"Right."
In that worst possible atmosphere, Isollet.
"This sword was also given by Frey."
Looking at her beloved sword she had temporarily set on the ground to fill the scabbard with Frey's traces, her expression began to change.
"Frey is a swordsman... and to a swordsman, a sword is no different from their own body."
"...What?"
"And if the sword is the body, then the scabbard is the vessel that contains it."
In Isollet's eyes as she spoke, neither the charisma of the past nor the bravery that commanded the battlefield remained.
"So... if I put all the traces Frey left into this scabbard..."
And the persistence that never yielded in any situation was gone as well.
"W-we could at least... hold a funeral for him...?"
Only tears remained.
"U-um... everyone."
Following Isollet's words, the girls with possessed expressions continued shoving soil into the scabbard.
"It's about... time now."
""........?""
They looked with hollow eyes at the royal official who approached them with an anxious expression.
"R-reporters and envoys from various nations are packed tightly. The official press conference is already several hours delayed. If there's any more delay, a riot will break out...!"
"...What do you mean."
Instead of the girls who glared coldly at the official, Isollet, who had been sobbing, asked with difficulty.
"The hero party that finished the decisive battle determining the world's future... hasn't released an official statement, so isn't that only natural?"
The official replied, sweating profusely.
"W-we aren't even the hero party..."
"L-Lady Ruby isn't here... and Lady Peruote has lost consciousness for some reason... so the next highest authorities are Lady Isollet and Lady Klana."
Feeling a twinge at the mention of Ruby, Isollet saw the official's pleading expression.
"...Where is the press conference I'm holding broadcast?"
She asked as she rose from her seat.
"T-throughout the entire Empire. It's broadcast throughout the entire Empire."
"........I see."
Hearing the answer, Isollet nodded.
"Then let's go."
Gritting her teeth and swallowing her tears, she stood up.
"Um, but that is...?"
"...Don't worry about it."
Holding the scabbard containing Frey's traces close to her chest.
.
- Click, click! Click!
"Over here! Please look this way!"
"What's the reason for being several hours later than the expected time?"
"You maintained the position that the hero party discord rumor was false, but is that really true..."
When Isollet, Kania, Serena, Klana, and Irina appeared at the press conference venue, the atmosphere heated up intensely.
"...Silence, please maintain silence."
At those words from Isollet with such a dark expression, the atmosphere instantly quieted.
"W-what? Did they lose?"
"...Even if so, they don't look too fine, do they?"
"Then why is everyone's face like that?"
Because even before being reporters or envoys, they were human.
They couldn't help but be concerned about the victory or defeat of a war that determined not only their own lives but the world's.
""..........""
Consequently, after requesting silence from everyone, the reporters grew tense at Isollet's silence.
"Why has the sun been shaking unsteadily since earlier!"
"Did the hero party win?"
"What happened to Hero Ruby, and what became of Frey?"
But watching them transform even that tension into questions, Isollet cleared her throat.
"I will answer."
With a sorrowful expression.
"Regarding the reason the sun is shaking unsteadily, Saintess Peruote, who is currently unconscious, needs to provide additional explanation. Please understand this."
She began to speak.
"Regarding the hero party's victory or defeat, it's too complex an issue to fully explain right now... but one thing is certain."
Isollet, who said that and paused briefly.
"...Frey is dead."
Dropped the first bombshell statement.
"What does that mean!"
"So what happened to Hero Ruby..."
Consequently, reporters with widened eyes tried to ask questions all at once, but.
"I just received a question asking about the whereabouts of Hero Ruby and Demon King Frey."
Isollet ignored them.
"Now, I intend to reveal... one truth that everyone must know."
Quietly she continued.
- Click, click! Click!
As the reporters' attention instantly focused on Isollet's unusual words.
"Ruby was not the hero."
Gripping the scabbard she held tightly, Isollet dropped the second bombshell worthy of that attention.
"Nor was Frey the Demon King."
As the third bombshell followed without time to process, the reporters who had been busily operating their recording magical tools thinking they had a scoop all froze.
"Frey Raon Starlight..."
Looking at the girls standing behind her with pale, drained expressions.
"S-Sensei..."
"Frey is... really saying Frey was the hero...?"
"...That doesn't make sense."
She looked once at the sub-heroines who had been answering questions from reporters.
"...Was the hero."
Finally sobbing, she declared to the entire empire.
"Frey Raon Starlight was the hero who protected us."
That day, the empire fell into silence.