Morning dawned.
The banquet of the previous day had been in full swing—so ripe with merriment it had nearly grown feverish.
As for what became of Hio, who had been grinning foolishly while surrounded by countless ladies, and why morning had suddenly dawned out of nowhere……
“……?”
Hio didn’t know either.
Morning had simply dawned, all of a sudden.
“What…… sort of phenomenon is this?”
— Who knows. This is a kind I’ve never seen before either. It doesn’t feel like an illusion deceiving the eyes……
While he had been smiling vacantly, unable to come to his senses amid sweet scents and fragrances, everything had gradually blurred.
Like vision that could not find its focus, both the scenery and the people had grown indistinct.
The scenery, gone soft and wavering like a hazy memory, had slowly changed, and when it became clear again, it was now.
He found himself standing alone in a spacious room.
The bedding beside him was neatly folded, and Hio was standing before a large mirror, looking at his reflection in it.
The person standing in the mirror was undoubtedly Hio himself.
He stood there wearing the Tetradia hat and robe, holding a staff slightly taller than he was.
“Has a day passed?”
— It could have. Or several days might have passed.
There had been quite a bit of information gained through the banquet.
First, that this place was Basterion, a kingdom forgotten by history.
That Basterion had been such a powerful nation it was known by the epithet of the Kingdom of Knights, yet for some reason its present circumstances were not good.
That here, he was the only mage, and had brought them a great victory in some battle.
That because of that, everyone in the banquet hall had shown him goodwill.
And lastly, that the king of this place was not trusted by anyone.
That was about the extent of the information he had gleaned in that short time.
He had learned quite a lot, but it was still insufficient.
Compared to the absolute amount of information he needed to know, there was still far too much he did not.
What was Basterion fighting against?
In truth, inferring that was not difficult.
Basterion, an ancient kingdom Purnel knew of but Hio did not.
With that alone, the answer was obvious.
“……The Abyss.”
The Abyss.
A war from a thousand years ago, one that must have differed in many ways from the war of the present.
Perhaps he had entered that very scene—into the memories of that time.
Just as his thoughts reached that point.
Knock, knock—along with a knock, someone called for Hio.
“Lord Pavlenko, I will escort you to the conference hall.”
“……A conference.”
It seemed the unimportant memories had been skipped, taking him straight to the meeting.
“Let’s go.”
There would undoubtedly be much to find out.
* * *
Most of those attending the conference were people he had seen in the banquet hall.
The difference from the banquet, however, was that they were not wearing uniforms so tight they seemed about to burst, but armor, with swords at their waists as they took part in the meeting.
It was a sight truly befitting the name Kingdom of Knights.
The king sat at the seat of honor.
Though he sat on a palace-like chair wearing a splendid royal robe, for some reason there was no trace of majesty to be found in him.
Naturally, the knights were continuing their heated discussion among themselves, excluding the king.
The king merely looked back and forth at the knights with an anxious, wavering gaze.
“We still cannot reach Quiato. There is truly nowhere left to fall back to now!”
“That does not mean it makes sense for us to march out first. Let us look at the possibilities. The possibilities.”
“How truly frustrating. Our enemy is an abomination. What use is there in fighting with the castle walls at our backs? Within the royal castle are countless citizens, and our families. Why do you not understand that we must go out before the abominations descend upon us?”
“What of support from Verden?”
“We cannot properly contact the Empire either. They seem to be in chaos.”
“It is likely impossible. Not only the Empire, but every nation is the same.”
As he had guessed from the banquet hall, the situation seemed extremely poor.
That must have been why they had been so delighted over a single victory.
It was then that the king, who had only been watching the situation with anxious eyes, stepped in.
“But do we not have a great mage with us?”
At the king’s words, everyone’s gaze turned toward Hio, who had remained silent.
Even so, none of them could readily open their mouths.
Hio was, strictly speaking, an outsider.
In a situation where they seemed to believe they had already received great aid from him, how could they easily ask him to fight for them once more?
Especially when he was not even a knight, but a mage.
The king spoke directly in place of the hesitating knights.
Looking at Hio with rather desperate eyes, his words filled to the brim with urgency were entirely unexpected.
“Therefore, Lord Pavlenko. Could you not help us flee?”
The aid he begged for so servilely was for flight.
No matter how frightening the enemy, those were not words a king should say before his subjects, nor a sight he should show.
Truly, he was the very model of an incompetent king.
“What do you mean……!”
“Your Majesty!”
As expected, nearly every knight was shocked enough to spring from their seat at the outrageous remark.
But the king did not meekly back down.
“If we continue like this, there is no hope! If you are a great mage, is it not possible?”
“Your Majesty! Please reconsider!”
“You are shaking the very foundations of Basterion!”
“There may be times when we retreat for a moment, but flee? Your Majesty! How can you say such a thing?”
They were not ordinary nobles.
Everyone present was someone who called themselves a knight. Warriors who held fierce pride and self-respect in that fact.
By contrast, the king’s build was slight, and his boldness was proportional to it.
Sure enough, the king of Basterion faltered under their fierce reaction and trailed off.
“S-still…… you lords also know that the chances are slim. In that case, it would be better to……”
“Your Majesty! Please consider how the late king died for his country!”
“It absolutely must not be, Your Majesty!”
“You must never forget the dying wish of the late king and the Grand Prince, Your Majesty!”
Well, even to Hio, who did not know the situation well, the king’s statement had many problems.
In the middle of an earnest discussion over how to fight, he had suddenly spoken of fleeing. And he, the king, was the one who should be holding the center from the highest position.
He was not asking for help in the war, but help in running away.
How could proud knights accept that?
Moreover, since he was a king who did not have their trust, the backlash was even more severe.
“Is…… is that so…….”
And so the king, in the end, could not even say a few words before shriveling back down.
“First, I understand, so continue the meeting.”
Even those vague words, spoken as he shrank in on himself, were not permitted by the hard-line knights.
“This is not something to be passed over with ‘first,’ Your Majesty! To abandon the royal palace and flee is something that must never happen!”
“Please steel your heart, Your Majesty!”
“I-I said I understand, did I not? Hurry and continue the meeting.”
The weak king could not even properly express his own opinion among the resolute knights.
He was truly unsuited to the position of leading a kingdom of knights.
Even thinking it over again, he was a truly pathetic king.
After the king’s words, silence settled for a brief while.
Within it, the one who opened his mouth was an elderly knight.
“Lord Pavlenko.”
A veteran knight whose long beard and hair had both gone completely white.
He looked at Hio with eyes that seemed to have made some decision and spoke.
“It is shameless of me, but please help us a little longer.”
Please help us a little longer.
It was a request that completely opposed the king’s opinion.
An entirely different attitude.
Cautious, yet not servile.
His eyes were dignified, and his gestures were courteous.
Once he stepped forward, the other knights also began opening their mouths one after another.
As could be felt from his courteous bearing and firm voice, he was a man respected by many knights.
Unlike the king.
“Lord Pavlenko…… could you perhaps remain with us just a little longer?”
“We know it is unreasonable. If necessary, you may spread word of this across the entire continent. You may call us shameless men, knights who know nothing of honor…… but we ask this of you.”
From the contents of the meeting, it seemed that most regions except the vicinity of the capital had either already fallen to the Abyss or were on the verge of doing so.
That was why they were so desperate.
Within the royal castle were their families, and countless citizens still remained.
That must have been why they were so earnest.
To them, Hio’s existence must have been no different from their final hope.
“……Understood.”
Hio nodded.
In any case, it was something he naturally had to do for the end of the trial, and it was also an opportunity to learn extremely important information.
The present Abyss took the form of gates, gradually invading by turning those whose souls had long since been eroded into monsters.
Then in what form had the Abyss of a thousand years ago descended upon them?
It was an opportunity to learn that, so he nodded without much hesitation.
Of course, the knights, who had no way of knowing that, were moved and bowed their heads.
“……Lord Pavlenko!”
“Thank you…… truly, thank you, my lord!”
“You are indeed worthy of being called a great hero and sage of the continent!”
“Even after death, we shall never forget the grace you have shown us today.”
There were a few rather intense expressions mixed in, but their meaning was ultimately one.
A mage who had decided to join the war without turning away from the kingdom’s crisis.
The knights bowed their heads to him without hesitation, offering deep gratitude.
Amid that moving scene.
“…….”
Only the king quietly groaned with his eyes closed.
* * *
At the same time as Hio’s decision, the scene changed once more.
His vision blurred and shook as the background transformed.
When it had completely changed—
“Uwaaaaaah!”
The place where Hio stood was the middle of a battlefield.
“Never fall back!”
“Behind us lies our homeland! Remember that the lives of our families rest in our hands!”
A place where shouts rang out like screams, and screams sounded like battle cries.
Hio quickly looked around that battlefield.
“This is…… the first Abyss War.”
Everything was black.
It was a dark battlefield that brought to mind Ataolf’s entrance scene in the game.
However, the reason it could not even be compared to that was likely the dense aura of the Abyss, so thick it made his skin prickle.
All the soldiers of the kingdom had their backs to the castle wall as they held back the pitch-black energy. Within that energy, they fiercely swung swords and spears against unidentified things.
What they were fighting were beings wearing the same armor as them and wielding the same swords, their entire bodies twisted.
Those things were surging in from far away together with the black aura of the Abyss.
— You could see them as the earliest form of Abyss monsters.
It was not hard to guess their identity.
The Abyss monsters of the present had been twisted to the point that almost no human shape could be found, but those things rushing in now were changing form even as they ran.
Clothes and armor from when they had still been human remained clearly upon them.
Those who had sunk into the Abyss like that must, over time, have become monsters whose forms were completely distorted.
— And not only that. There are other things too.
When he lifted his head slightly and looked above them, as Purnel said, he could see other beings.
They were the Abyss energy itself, approaching while taking over the entire sky like black mist.
Looking closely, it was not spread out broad and thin like fog, but was gradually clumping together, forming masses as it approached.
Those bizarre clumps, each carrying an enormous amount of the Abyss’s power, advanced.
“That must be the true first Abyss monster.”
Could that truly be called a living being?
It was merely made of dense Abyss gathered together.
Precisely because of that, it was more troublesome than anything else.
One such mass of energy pounced upon a soldier.
“Aaaaargh!”
The soldier, terrified to the core, swung his sword wildly as if in a frenzy, but the blade, carrying no energy whatsoever, merely passed vainly through the mass.
“N-no! Please……!”
The reason he despaired so deeply was surely because he had already seen it countless times.
Because he knew all too well what form his comrade, swallowed by such a mass, had taken.
That was why he resisted with all his strength.
“…….”
But it did not even take a few seconds for his eyes to be dyed completely by the Abyss.
“Kraaaaaagh!”
And thus, a new Abyss monster was born.
It was the reason so many ancient nations had no choice but to perish without being able to put up any meaningful resistance.
“……Horrifying.”
He knew this was not real.
And yet, it was also clear that this had truly happened.
So Hio immediately raised his staff.
To stop the merciless slaughter of those who were simply being swept away helplessly, unable to put up any real resistance.
Because he no longer wanted to watch that horrific phenomenon, the skill he unleashed was Celestial.
「Skill — ‘Celestial (天上)’ is activating.」
The blue sky, not yet turned black, opened, and golden radiance poured down.
Centered on Hio, the goddess’s touch began covering the entire battlefield.
“Th-this is……”
A golden miracle that had arrived in a place no different from hell.
As if time itself had stopped, the fierce flow of the battlefield halted for an instant.
As Hio wished, the gruesome slaughter and despair alike stopped beneath the goddess’s touch.
However.
“G-ggaaaaargh!”
The Abyss was viscous.
It was not merely the level of Abyss energy one could feel in an ordinary attack gate.
The space of the Abyss where he had been dragged along with Daphne.
It was similar to the energy that had filled that place.
The Abyss itself had, quite literally, invaded.
Thus, while it was affected by the divinity of Celestial, complete annihilation did not occur.
“Krrrroooar!”
Those dyed by the Abyss paid no mind to their bodies burning as they swung swords and spears, arms and legs, and bared their teeth.
The clumps of gathered Abyss pierced through Celestial and covered the bodies of soldiers, the heads of knights.
Their speed had clearly slowed, but stopping that endlessly dense energy with Celestial alone seemed far too distant a goal.
The battlefield was vast.
If he were concentrating Celestial in one place to block them, perhaps, but Hio’s divinity and mana would not hold out if he tried to cover this entire wide area.
He had to find another method quickly, and one sight entered Hio’s eyes.
“Accursed abomination!”
It was the figure of a knight.