The capital of the Sacred Kingdom of Hiberunia.
As befitted the capital of a holy nation that housed a sanctuary, it was a city famous for its many pure-white, clean, and beautiful buildings.
Of course, now it was nothing more than a battlefield.
A battlefield where dragon and man clashed.
An endless succession of tremendous collisions unfolded in the city’s night sky.
Kwaaaang—!
Against the backdrop of darkness, the clash of green and yellow light inspired awe in all who beheld it.
Compared to the dragon’s massive body, the man was so small that it seemed a battle could not even be established between them, but the truth was the exact opposite.
If anything, the one with composure was the man.
A dragon was the strongest of all living creatures, possessing boundless mana and standing as the progenitor of magic.
And yet now, it was merely large and sturdy.
Even while blocking its destructive movements and its breath, in which mana had gathered, he remained at ease.
“Ripyue!”
“Ohh, the Dragon Knight…!”
But though he seemed composed, wasn’t he still unable to strike the dragon directly?
Was even that man, who was surely an apostle of god, finding it difficult to pierce the dragon’s solid scales?
Everyone thought so as they watched the battle in the sky, their palms damp with sweat.
Irina’s thoughts were a little different.
Because if he truly couldn’t pierce the dragon’s solid scales… it felt as though he wasn’t even trying.
Of course, it was only her personal impression.
The man’s movements were so fast that even following them with her eyes was difficult.
He might look relaxed on the surface, but the actual battle could be extremely urgent.
That was what she thought.
And yet, the fact that he truly was at ease—
and what an urgent battle was truly like—
she would come to understand before long.
* * *
To Regarda, Eriel, who could not wield magic, was like an oversized child.
Its physical attacks, backed by an enormous body, sturdy scales, and swift movements, were powerful enough to bring down a building in a single blow.
But Regarda had more than enough technique and experience to lightly ward them off.
Was he not the Dragon Knight?
Had he not learned how to face that dignified creature from none other than Eriel herself, who stood before him now?
In truth, if Eriel could wield mana, then merely imbuing her physical attacks with it would have driven Regarda onto the defensive.
Then it would no longer be the simple flailing of a child’s body, but a true dragon’s attack.
Of course, Eriel, left with only instinct, could not possibly wield mana right away, and that was why Regarda could remain so composed.
Her simple attacks had become familiar to his eyes, and her movements were plain to see.
—I cannot use some magic to turn you back. You know that well, do you not, Eriel?
In the midst of his composure, he kept speaking to her.
—So come to your senses now.
Hoping that, even as the faintest sound, his words might reach the dragon’s soul.
Hoping that she would look at him again with the same eyes as before.
—I can wait longer. I can wait a thousand years, two thousand years, so let us simply sleep again instead.
He continued to speak to her.
—Even if you fall asleep and awaken again, I will still be here.
But nothing changed.
Kwaaaang—!
Eriel merely committed violence with eyes that were growing ever blacker.
Regarda merely continued to block it.
Kwaaaaang—!
It would not have been strange for him to despair at such a sight, but Regarda did not give up.
Could a promise waited on for a thousand years, and a mission upheld for a thousand years, truly have been without a single trial?
This too was one of those severe trials, and as always, he would overcome it in the end.
Thus he quietly resolved that he would surely bring her back.
But.
—Grrrrrrr…
It was around then that the situation began to change.
—…Eriel.
The green eyes that should once have been radiant had turned completely black.
There was not a trace of mystery left in them, and even the blue that had held the wind was buried beneath blackness.
—…It is all right. It will be all right. I can surely bring you back.
He muttered so, but it was not only her eyes that had changed.
Her once-shimmering scales, too, lost their light and began to darken.
What started spreading around her was a cursed energy.
The energy of that thing known as the Abyss.
—How dare you.
That damned energy dared to covet a dragon’s body.
—How dare you!
Regarda’s aura blazed even more fiercely.
The rage he had endured and endured burst forth without restraint.
At what should he direct that rage?
The answer soon appeared.
—Grrrrk!
The night sky trembled at the beastlike low growl.
What it contained was not mana, but the Abyss.
Kwaaaang—!
The dragon that had begun to move as the Abyss was incomparably faster and more powerful than before.
Kwaaaaang—!
Even Regarda, who opposed her with all his might, was not able to push her back.
Not only that, she was growing stronger little by little.
As if adapting to a new body, to a new power.
—How dare you covet what is not yours!
Regarda’s shout was filled with rage.
The dragon’s roar was completely dyed in the Abyss.
The sound of their clash, now even stronger, mingled together and covered the sky above Hiberunia.
Kwaaaaang—!
A collision of that scale began to affect the beings on the ground as well.
The earth trembled, and stone dust crumbled down from buildings that shook violently.
The wind that swept in made it difficult even to open one’s eyes and look up at the sky.
“S-Saintess! Are you all right?”
Only then did the guards, finally coming to their senses, begin to move.
“I’m fine. More importantly, the priests here…”
“Yes! Hurry and escort the priests!”
The priests had exhausted their strength, pouring out their divine power to its very limit in order to block the dragon’s attack.
They began evacuating, taking the fallen priests and the cardinal with them in search of a safe place.
Kwaaaang—!
The sound of the collisions grew even fiercer.
As though it had become an entirely different being from before, an utterly ominous energy stretched out in strands from around the dragon.
In response, Regarda also increased his power, and the battle could only grow more intense.
Fragments of deflected aura even began to rain down on the ground every second.
“Saintess! You must go!”
The Order was no longer safe.
For that reason, the captain of the guard urged Irina to evacuate.
But Irina shook her head.
“I… still have something I must do.”
The dragon’s energy was terribly ominous.
On top of that, the dragon, now turned black, was blatantly trying to destroy the Order itself.
She had to protect the Order.
If it was divine power, it should be possible to resist that energy.
So if she could buy just a little time to recover her divinity, she might be able to spread a blessing that would envelop the Order.
Kwaaaaang—!
Of course, that was closer to an impossible wish.
“S-Saintess! Please, you must hurry and go…”
The captain of the guard moved to her side in order to protect her.
“If I just have a little more time, I’ll have enough divine power to protect the Order…”
“We won’t last until then. It’s too dangerous!”
The thunderous roar was now enough to make her body flinch.
The fierce wind and the shaking earth.
“But…”
Even so, was it truly right to abandon this place, which was no different from a sanctuary?
Irina could not help but hesitate.
The time she had spent as the Saintess was short, yet in that short time she had received countless reverent gazes and been placed in a lofty position.
The hope that the priests felt when they looked at her.
She now knew that behind such things lay a heavy responsibility.
“Saintess!”
But perhaps this was only stubbornness.
Her experience was still too shallow for her to be certain of her decision.
“Please. It truly is dangerous.”
Would she evacuate to a safe place and preserve hope intact?
Or would she risk her life to protect the Order and preserve its roots?
“…Understood.”
Because she could not be certain, she ultimately moved according to the captain’s words.
Under escort, she tried to leave the Order.
Why the blackened dragon showed such fierce hostility toward the Order itself.
Who the person standing against the dragon was, and for what reason he seemed so sorrowful.
With this choice, she would likely never learn those things.
It was a feeling she had.
Her intuition told her that she had to risk her life, remain here, and protect the Order.
But could she survive directly beneath those two beings until her divine power recovered?
And how many people would be sacrificed to protect her while she did?
Still unable to be certain, Irina moved with heavy steps.
As she took those steps, she raised her head one last time and looked up at the sky.
Kwaaaaang—!
The collision still far exceeded the limits of humanity.
Her hair whipped about in the violently rushing wind.
And amid it all—
“…What is that…?”
It was then that an intensely white light fell from the sky.
Kwaang—!
Something pure white crashed down before Irina like a meteor shower.
“Saintess! Behind me…”
At the rising cloud of dust, the captain of the guard hurriedly drew his sword, but Irina grabbed his arm.
“Wait.”
Because she had seen something in that falling white light.
Something splendid that she could not forget even if she tried.
And then—
“It’s been a while.”
The man who emerged through the dust cloud looked hardly different from the way she remembered him.
“Irina.”
Hio Pavlenko.
The guardian knight of the Empire, and the mage who had changed her fate.
“…Mage!”
Standing beside Hio was the true identity of the pure-white light.
A white horse with wings.
The horse, emitting a gentle glow, was like a divine beast from scripture.
“What a mess.”
After sending that sacred beast back, Hio looked up at the sky.
In his left hand, he held a staff taller than himself.
The captain of the guard pointed his sword at Hio.
It was the image of a man carrying out the duty entrusted to him.
“Who are you?”
“It’s all right. He is my benefactor.”
“…If he is the Saintess’s benefactor… could you be the guardian knight of Verden?”
The beginning of the Saintess was also the beginning of Hio Pavlenko’s rise to fame, so most people in the Holy Nation knew his identity.
At that, Hio lowered the head he had raised and looked around.
Irina did not miss the way his eyes, which had flashed gray, returned to normal.
“Irina. Can you issue an evacuation order for the entire city right now?”
Given the situation, there was no time to rejoice at their reunion.
At Hio’s question, Irina thought for a moment, then shook her head.
“It would be difficult. Even if I gave the order to the entire city and they carried it out, I don’t know how many hours it would take…”
In truth, there were still many people nearby who had not evacuated.
Even with the battle growing more and more intense, no precise order had been given.
That meant the leadership had not been able to make a clear judgment either.
And so those who remained were simply praying, believing that Ripyue would protect them.
“It can’t be helped.”
After hearing her answer, Hio nodded and slightly raised his staff.
“It will be a little rough, but the effect is certain.”
At those words, the staff spun in his hand.
「Skill — ‘Shout’ has been activated.」
Golden light burst from the tip of the staff.
It was so intense that the golden radiance reached all the way up to the sky where the dragon flew, gathering there to begin forming a certain shape.
What soon took shape was a giant made of golden light.
An agent who spread the will of god.
Hio’s mouth opened, and the giant’s mouth opened with it.
The shape of that mouth matched Hio’s exactly.
—Withdraw far away.
An overwhelming resonance pushed aside every other sound.
—Do not watch. Do not pray. Simply flee.
Those were the words conveyed by god’s agent.
Amid the dragon’s rampage and the Dragon Knight’s stand against it, the will of god unfolded.
Who would dare defy it?
—Do not die meaningless deaths.
At the same time, Hio’s staff rose once more.
The giant’s hand rose as well.
「Skill — ‘Earth Break’ has been activated.」
Kwaaaaaang—!
The ground exploded, and the earth overturned.
The explosion that began beneath the giant’s feet shook as though it would upend all the land.
The people had no choice but to flee in utter panic.
Was this what it had been like when heaven and earth were first sundered?
In the sky, a dragon.
On the ground, a giant.
One shook the heavens, and the other overturned the earth.
“U-uaaaagh!”
“Run, quickly!”
“It is the will of god! Everyone withdraw!”
“Get as far away as you can!”
Having witnessed that, how could anyone remain where they were?
Though most of it was nothing more than illusion, there was certainly truth within it as well.
Combined with the chaotic state of the battlefield, they came to believe it as reality.
It was no different for Irina and the captain of the guard.
Yet if there was one thing that was clearly different despite that—
“I… I’ll protect the Order!”
It was that even at the heart of the sight of the giant rising, the earth exploding and overturning, she had found another hope.
“I can do it! If just a little more of my divinity returns, I’ll somehow protect the main temple buildings!”
“S-Saintess. B-but, but still……!”
The overwhelmed captain of the guard tried to stop the Saintess even as he stammered, but Irina’s unwavering eyes were fixed only on Hio.
Hio, too, met Irina’s gaze for a moment, then soon nodded.
“All right. I trust you, Irina.”
At that, Irina’s expression brightened radiantly.
“…Yes!”
The problem on the ground had more or less been resolved.
If asked what the problem had been, it was, of course, the aftermath of the battle.
The people who would be swept up in it.
For the aftershocks of this battle, in which Hio would be participating, would surely far exceed common sense.
Hio’s eyes, turned gray once more, lifted toward the sky.
Now it was time to resolve that problem.
At Hio’s ear came the conversation Irina and the captain of the guard were exchanging.
“What in the world is happening? How could Verden’s guardian knight… Are you truly all right, Saintess?”
“It’s all right. He is the one called the Empire’s new hero, the hero of the continent.”
“Haa… Then I will stay by your side until the very end.”
Having inadvertently heard that exchange, Hio could not help but let out a faint chuckle.
A hero, was it.
Of course, to them, he might well appear that way.
At the very least, hundreds of thousands of people must have evacuated.
It was no different from having saved hundreds of thousands.
“A hero……”
Kwaaaaaang—!
Just then, Ariel and Regarda collided violently, and as their bodies were pushed far back, the distance between them widened.
A brief lull.
It was only natural that Regarda’s gaze turned downward.
“Hero or villain. If you dig beneath those splendid epithets, the truth is often terribly shabby.”
Regarda’s eyes, dyed vivid yellow from bearing his will, met Hio’s gray eyes that saw souls.
“I’m sorry I’m late, Regarda.”
—…Mage.
Their eyes met.
—You are not late.
“No, I am late. Unfortunately.”
In Hio’s gray eyes, he could see it clearly.
The dragon’s black soul, utterly submerged.
Could Regarda truly not have sensed it?
—It can be restored.
“As far as I know, there’s no way. And even if there were, thousands, tens of thousands, would be sacrificed.”
—I will stop it.
“You can’t keep doing that forever. You’re struggling even now, aren’t you?”
—I have endured for a thousand years with a heart in worse torment than this.
“…No. This situation is far too different from that.”
Around Regarda’s body, an immense energy took tangible form and wavered.
The will he had upheld for a thousand years was manifesting visibly.
His voice was calm, but what it contained was an unmistakable fury.
—You. Is that truly the choice you have made?
Hio squeezed shut the eyes that had been meeting his.
And when he opened them again, there was no longer the slightest wavering within them.
“Yes. That thing is now nothing but a calamity. So……”
The Empire’s new hero, successor to the Sword Saint.
The hero of the continent who had saved it from evil.
Though he was called a hero by more people than could possibly be counted—
“I will kill the dragon.”
At least to the one person before his eyes, he would surely be the worst of villains.
—Unacceptable.
Perhaps hero and villain were that sort of relationship.