“Mmm…….”
Airaits walked, swaying unsteadily.
Perhaps she still hadn’t fully adapted to her new body; her steps were uneasy.
Hio had been supporting her from the side.
“If you held me a little closer, Hio, I think I’d be able to walk better…….”
At those words, he simply let go of the arm he’d been holding.
“Tch.”
Sure enough, Airaits walked perfectly fine.
“Stop fooling around and focus on using your ability. Can you use it?”
“Mmm…… It’s difficult, you know. Still, if I just get the hang of it a little, I think it’ll be possible.”
“Hurry up and get the hang of it. Silvert is going to cry.”
Silvert stood blankly in front of Hio and Airaits.
It wasn’t by his own will; he still couldn’t undo his body, which had turned to stone.
And his expression was incredibly complicated and subtle.
“Is that really…… Airaits?”
He was conflicted about whether he should believe that the dead Airaits had returned alive, and yet, since a dead monster corpse had gotten up and was even talking, it seemed to be true, but he wondered if it was really right to believe something like this so easily…… That was the kind of expression he had.
“Anyone can tell it’s Airaits.”
At Hio’s words, Airaits tilted her head slightly to the side.
An eye smile struck like a temptation.
The corners of her mouth lightly covered by a delicate hand.
No matter how you looked at it, she was the quintessential Airaits, wasn’t she?
“Yeah…… I don’t know anymore. You even bring back the dead.”
Silvert let out a small sigh.
If he could move his body, he would have shaken his head vehemently.
Hio Pavlenko. The Supreme Heavenly Demon.
Was this guy really trying to become a god or something?
He brought back the dead and wielded a divine skill—one presumed to be of the highest order, at that.
When it came to him, common sense no longer seemed to apply.
“Bringing back the dead is nothing. It’s not even hard for Hio.”
“……It really is Airaits. A terrible Supreme Heavenly Demon stalker.”
“Hio. Should we just leave Silvert behind and go? He looks fine in his current state.”
“Sorry. Save me.”
Hio wedged himself between the two, who seemed to be on good terms.
“Practice quickly. We don’t have time.”
“We don’t have time? Why?”
“Because we have to go find a dragon.”
“A dragon? That sounds fun.”
“……Do you even know what that means?”
“I don’t know, but I’m going with you anyway. It’ll be fun.”
“Mmm…… All right.”
Fortunately, it didn’t take Airaits very long to get the hang of her ability.
The ability of the elves, who had originally been the noblest.
The ability to control plants and to petrify anyone she faced.
It had now become Airaits’s ability, so even if she was still inexperienced, she had to master it.
“Here, look at me.”
The moment he met eyes with Airaits:
「Weak mental attack detected.」
「Trait - ‘Can't Live Without Swagger!’ activates.」
Instead of a crimson hue, an ashen color seeped out.
It was the elf’s petrification ability manifesting, albeit faintly.
“Oh, I think I’ve got it now……”
The moment he was about to praise her for learning faster than expected:
「Strong mental attack detected.」
Behind the gray light, the crimson light that had been secretly hiding surged in fiercely.
This was the light that spread when Airaits’s original ability, her Charm, activated.
“……What are you doing?”
“Hehe. It didn’t work~”
She had been pretending to test another ability while secretly trying to cast Charm on Hio, only to fail.
Then, Airaits looked around nonchalantly and spoke.
“Anyway, you’re saying if I use my ability to turn those stone things back, that’ll do it?”
It was a brazen attitude, but precisely because of that, it was an attitude truly befitting Airaits.
So Hio simply nodded.
“Can you do it?”
“Yeah. I think I can.”
Stone statues filled the surroundings.
All of them had been living people just moments ago.
If Airaits manifested her ability and withdrew it, they would be able to return.
“Like this.”
Airaits’s eyes darted around, flashing ashen.
The statues located where her gaze fell began to regain their original colors.
The process of gray melting away and color being restored wherever her gaze touched was, in its own way, a miraculous sight.
Thus, the gray stone slowly melted away, and people began to breathe again.
“H-hurk……!”
“The, the goddess…… was there?”
“Over there, over there! The wicked witch!”
“A monster……? No, it’s a person?”
“But why are her ears like that……”
The square grew noisy as countless people awakened from their stone statues.
Eyes focused on Airaits.
Uncomfortable with that, Airaits furrowed her brows slightly, and a dense crimson light burst from her body.
“How noisy.”
In the crimson spectacle that tried to dominate everyone freed from petrification with her Charm:
「Strong mental attack detected.」
Hio’s cane tapped Airaits on the head.
Thwack—
“Habitual Charm is banned from now on.”
“…Yeah……”
If they were going to stay together, they would have to fix her bad habits—no, her Charm habits—one by one.
* * *
They busily roamed the Academy, returning all the petrified people to normal.
Most of the faculty and security forces had been concentrated where the Gate was, and that was where they were able to reverse the most people.
Precisely because most of the troops had gathered near the Gate, it had likely been breached more easily.
The plan to defend as efficiently as possible had instead become a bad move.
Regardless, thanks to that—if one could call it that.
The damage to the troops wasn’t too great, and while they had been turned to stone, the harm to the students was less severe than expected. The previous raid by Heuka had unintentionally helped.
As they did this, Airaits’s use of her ability became quite natural, and moreover—
“It’s been a while, little Claire.”
Claire and Airaits met.
It was the first time they faced each other directly, not through Charm.
“So this…… is Airaits? That lunatic from back then?”
“Lunatic? Hio will misunderstand if he hears that, you know? Shall I turn you to stone?”
“Hmph. Try it if you can.”
『Please don't fight! ⸜( ⌓̈ )⸝』
“Hey, Airaits. I still have some stone powder left on the back of my hand; could you finish the job properly? My shoulder is really stiff too—are you sure the petrification is completely undone?”
“Pr-Professor. Good morning…… no, good evening? Anyway, you must have been worried about me, Roland, but as you can see, I was handling this level of crisis with ease…….”
Not just those two, but people connected by shallow ties had gathered in one place.
A circular ring of connections formed around a person named Hio Pavlenko.
Connections that had all disappeared in the outside world.
“Now, now, it seems the Academy is roughly sorted out, so Silvert, I trust you’ll handle things well.”
What Hio had to protect was right here.
“Now we really have to go.”
That was why they had to hurry.
They had gained much from Airaits’s resurrection and the resulting reinforcement of their forces, but the dragon was still at large, and there was no telling what calamity it might be causing.
There was no knowing what state of mind Regarda was facing it with, so they truly had to hurry now.
“Something…… must be happening again.”
Claire, her hair red, spoke to Hio.
Claire, whom he hadn’t seen in a while, had clearly grown stronger.
Her heightened magical sensitivity made her increased strength plainly felt.
Considering she wasn’t a vessel, it was a rate of growth hard to find precedent for.
“Wait just a little longer. In three years…… no, in two years, I’ll be by your side.”
As she said this while looking straight into Hio’s eyes, flames flickered in Claire’s eyes.
“Yeah. I’ll be waiting. If it’s you, it’s definitely possible.”
He meant it.
Given Claire’s growth speed, she wouldn’t be inferior to other Rankers.
She was born with innate talent in handling and evolving her skill, Flame…… or so Silvert’s assessment had been.
Surely the day would come when she grew vigorously and truly became a great strength to Hio.
Hio gladly became a goal for that sake, and Claire firmly resolved herself while envisioning a future together.
But there was someone who interrupted such a heartwarming atmosphere.
“My. I’m already by Hio’s side, though?”
It was, of course, Airaits.
She clung tightly to Hio’s arm and flashed a nasty smile at Claire.
“What to do? Claire is still a little brat, so it must be hard for you to go together, right?”
“……You get lost.”
“Hmph. If I’m getting lost, I’d have to get lost with Hio, right? Because we’re going together.”
“Why are you going with Hio?”
“Well, we hold hands all the time and hug when we’re bored, and besides……”
“What?”
“Hio and I even share my secret places (past memories hidden deep within my soul), you see?”
Airaits’s ability to torment Claire was truly remarkable.
Claire, who had become much more mature than before,
“Y-you……!”
shouted at the top of her lungs with her face bright red, just like in the old days when she had been quite hot-tempered.
“You crazy pervert! I’m coming with you too!”
Though he didn’t know why the conversation had gone that way, Hio peeled Claire—who was squeezing in next to Airaits—off.
After pacifying her, Hio immediately set out for the Imperial Palace.
Airaits and Freya accompanied him.
* * *
The Imperial Palace’s reception room.
Sylvia welcomed Hio with an exhausted face.
“It must be tough becoming Emperor at a time like this.”
“No…… It’s exactly because of these times that I have to do better. Still, thanks to you, the Academy matter is a weight off my chest. Thank you, Hio.”
“Nothing too wrong on the other fronts?”
“Yeah. The Royal Knights seem to have held out well. It’s a relief that Sir Mahel seems to have regained his motivation.”
It seemed the Academy had been the only place where a boss-class entity appeared nearby.
That was fortunate in its own way.
Because it had appeared where Hio was, they had been able to stop it without great damage.
And so, having found a body highly compatible with Airaits and succeeded in the spirit summoning, they had gained a great force capable of using both the noble elf’s abilities and her original abilities.
“Abyssal energy must have spread near where the Gate occurred, so you’ll need to begin purification work. It would be nice if a priest capable of using divine power could come, but……”
“A shortage of manpower.”
High-ranking priests capable of using divine power were exceedingly rare in the current era where divinity had nearly vanished.
“First, keep ordinary people without abilities far away…… I’ll purify as much as I can when I get back.”
“When you get back? Where do you have to go again?”
At Sylvia’s question, he nodded and began explaining roughly.
“When we talked about Arilea before……”
In one corner of the reception room where Sylvia and Hio were continuing their conversation, there were two others.
“You’re the soul of a dragon?”
『Yes! A very, very small part of one!』
It was Airaits and Freya.
Perhaps finding Freya fascinating, Airaits mainly asked the questions while Freya answered.
“Your thoughts and feelings appear as text? What a fascinating artifact.”
『Yes! They said it was a treasure that had been in my hometown since long ago! ( ≧ᗜ≦)』
“So you can’t speak?”
『Yes…… I think it’s because my soul is too weak. т ̫ т』
“Oh dear…… But did you think I’d pity you for that?”
『...Huh?』
“A new tactic, then. Trying to capture Hio’s heart through sympathy.”
『Mm...?』
“But that won’t work on me, you sly thing.”
『(｡・ω・｡)?』
“Not being able to speak is nothing special. If I set my mind to it, I could stay silent all day. It means I can do it but choose not to. Do you understand?”
『( º﹃º )』
“As expected, you can’t continue talking because I’ve hit the mark. Ah, but you couldn’t speak in the first place, could you?”
『( ᐪ ᐪ )』
That bizarre conversation ended when Hio and Sylvia finished their talk.
“Anyway, trying to win him over with sympathy is impossible as long as I’m around, so give it up. Understand?”
『( ˘﹃˘ )』
From the side, it looked exactly like Airaits was bullying Freya.
That was why Hio, having finished his conversation with Sylvia, scooped Freya into his arms and spoke to Airaits.
“What are you doing?”
“Hmm? It’s nothing. Early education, you could say? You have to instill these things early so she doesn’t get any funny ideas later when she grows up.”
“……Sounds like you were just talking nonsense.”
At any rate, he had heard the general situation of the capital and confirmed there were no major issues.
On top of that, he had even secured Eos’s cooperation.
“Let’s go, Freya.”
『Yes...!』
Now they had to find the dragon.
“Can you feel where it is?”
『Yes! It’s far, but I can feel it clearly!』
Freya herself would be the most worried of all.
No matter what anyone said, she was a part—a part of a dragon’s soul.
『If you go straight in this direction, it’ll be there! Since I can’t feel it strongly, it must be quite far from here.』
Freya stretched out her hand and pointed in one direction.
Hio spread out a map on the desk and, together with Sylvia, tried to infer where that direction led.
And the result was soon apparent.
“This is……”
For some reason, a foreboding premonition flared up even stronger.
“The Holy Kingdom.”