With each quiet step, the remains of collapsed buildings and splintered pieces of wood were crushed underfoot.
A palisade broken before it could serve its purpose.
A house with a gaping hole torn open, as if it had collided violently with something enormous.
The blood scattered all around looked as though it had not been exposed to the world long ago.
Claire was cutting through the center of such a village.
Her softly placed footsteps were barely audible, but because the village itself was so silent, even that sound seemed to echo loudly.
But Claire knew this was a false silence.
If she focused, she could hear breathing.
The rough breathing exhaled by an Abyss Monster.
The faint trembling of a survivor desperately holding their breath with hands clamped over their mouth.
A sob being suppressed with all their might.
Because such things reached her with vivid clarity, she stopped walking.
The center of the raided village.
A nameless village within Hibernia's territory. A small village that reminded her of her hometown.
Had she not detected the suddenly thickening Abyss energy and the familiar presence of an Abyss Monster, she would not have discovered the village at all.
Things had been so dire that the villagers must not have heard the evacuation order, and even if they had, they would not have been able to flee to a major city with a high-ranking priest.
This was the result.
Scattered blood, collapsed houses, finely shredded clothing.
No corpses remained.
They had probably all been devoured.
‘……Only one?’
The presence she felt was a single one.
There were not many Abyss Monsters that would restrain themselves and not pounce even when she had deliberately let her mana flow in streams while walking to the center of the village.
One specialized in concealment and ambush. A creature that knew caution and could suppress its instincts.
A monster of the 66th floor that had tormented the expedition without end, hiding itself in Abyss energy—perhaps because its intelligence grew along with its strength as the floors ascended.
‘Meeting it outside makes it plainly obvious.’
Since she was seeing it on the continent rather than inside the demonic realm filled with Abyss energy, its presence was caught plainly, as if visible to the eye, because of the dense Abyss energy despite its hiding.
She had realized what it was, pinpointed its location, and confirmed that it was alone.
Then there was no reason to delay.
Snap.
At the same time she snapped her fingers, flames shot up from one of the collapsed houses.
It had been hiding in the gaps between piles of stones, watching for an opportunity.
She wished it had died cleanly from that single blow, but as a key monster that had made the 66th floor expedition a failure, it revealed its prowess plainly.
Fast, sharp, and cunning.
The moment Claire snapped her fingers, it was already thrusting a spear-like snout right before her slender neck.
However.
Boom—!
From the beginning, Claire had created two fires.
The fire that appeared where it was hiding was a diversion. Because she knew it would not hit anyway.
The real one was the second fire.
A massive wall of fire surrounding Claire without a single gap.
The Abyss Monster, which had ended up leaping toward it, burned away without leaving even a speck of bone dust like an insect swept away by a raging current, yet—
despite such heat, the surrounding temperature excluding the wall of fire remained the same as before, so Claire's control over flames could truly be said to exceed the rumors.
Yet Claire herself, having accomplished such a feat, merely extinguished the fire without any emotion.
A village virtually annihilated by just one.
The residents here must feel as if the world had collapsed overnight.
‘……If only the conquest had succeeded.’
If the conquest had succeeded, neither would villages be collapsing like this, nor would blood be scattered everywhere.
Because Claire had stopped by this village, there were survivors remaining, but across the continent, there would be countless villages sacrificed like this.
She had heard that some small kingdoms, upon receiving the news that the Empire was abandoning the expedition, were preparing to abandon their nations and seek asylum.
It was obvious that countless blood was flowing even at this very moment.
The continent was steadily losing the territory where they lived.
Because strength had been lacking, because ability had been lacking, the conquest had failed, and this was the tragedy resulting from it.
Claire had done everything within her power, but what could be done?
She was neither a hero nor anything at all.
She was merely one among those who had admired a hero and set him as their goal.
“Ahh, aah…… O, God……”
Survivors who had been hiding and trembling throughout the village began to reveal themselves one by one.
Though in the end, they numbered only about ten.
For a village of this size, there must have been at least over a hundred residents, but they had all died, leaving only these people.
Children burst into tears, an old man wandered searching for his child, and a woman sat where her husband had been devoured, crouching atop that bloodstain and muttering only the name of an indifferent god.
They were probably not truly living even if they were alive.
In truth, they would all die before long.
Abyss Monsters carried Abyss energy with them.
The black energy resulting from it was already permeating the entire village, was it not?
Even at this very moment, each breath they took would be thoroughly infused with it, destroying their bodies.
Despite knowing this, there was nothing Claire could do.
She could only raise flames again to burn away the remaining energy.
But even that was imperfect, and plenty of invisible residual energy would remain.
“Th-thank……”
Some tried to convey words of gratitude to Claire but could not follow through to the end.
How could they feel gratitude?
Their world had collapsed without warning, and their lives had been thoroughly destroyed.
The threads of connection they had maintained throughout their lives were completely severed, leaving them alone.
How could they feel grateful merely for having survived?
Gratitude would be swept away before it could bloom, engulfed by surging despair.
“……If you wish, I will take you to the nearest city.”
There were high-ranking priests who wielded divine power in large cities, so even those who had ingested Abyss energy could receive purification.
If she took them there and quickly headed to the capital, she could barely make it in time.
But Claire knew how vain this hope was.
Since they had directly confronted a powerful Abyss Monster, the concentration of Abyss energy was thick, and the energy accumulated in their bodies must be equally great.
It was obvious they would not survive until reaching a major city, and even if they arrived like a miracle, the high-ranking priests, busier than anyone right now, would not spare precious time for them.
Did the survivors know this as well?
Or had they simply lost their minds?
No answer came.
The old man merely looked up at the sky in bewilderment, the woman collapsed weeping atop her family's bloodstain, and the children were busy crying in front of their respective homes.
Even at this very moment, Abyss energy was steadily accumulating in their bodies, destroying them.
In the demonic realm—a different world from this place, one that could rightly be called hell.
That day in the flower field where yellow rapeseed flowers had bloomed even in such a place, the truth of the world that her hero had told her.
He had expressed it as a damned Abyss, a damned abyss.
That expression had been exactly right.
The one small mercy was that, unlike the distant memory from the past she had seen that day, the abyss was not gathering in one place to devour human bodies.
Though they would die, they would not live on as terrible beings with stained souls and twisted bodies.
The current Abyss energy was clearly different from the abyss she had seen in the past.
The abyss in her memory from the breakthrough floor back then…… how should she put it.
It was shaped as if someone who did not know what it was supposed to look like had lumped it together haphazardly.
On the other hand, the Abyss energy spreading now was much fainter and dispersed in the air.
There was no inadequacy in calling it mere energy.
The problem was simply that it was cursed energy.
‘……Should I go.’
Shutting away her thoughts, Claire withdrew her gaze from the devastated village and turned to leave.
There was nothing she could do.
She could kill monsters, but she could not save people.
Because she was not a hero.
“……Um……!”
At the lower edge of Claire's vision as she turned around, a small crown of a head was visible.
Lowering her gaze a little more, bright eyes.
Firmly shut lips.
And a small head bowing politely.
“Thank you for saving us!”
Claire looked down at the child thanking her with sunken eyes.
She had clearly seen him crying in front of his house like the other children; it seemed he had stopped crying while she was lost in thought and come up beside her.
As if to prove it, tears clung heavily in the boy's eyes, and his tightly closed lips looked at a glance like they were holding back sobs.
Even so, knowing Claire was about to leave, he had stood before her to convey his gratitude.
“You're our village's hero!”
The child snapped his head up from where it had been bowed and looked up at Claire.
Afraid to meet those eyes directly, Claire ended up averting her gaze slightly.
Untainted, clear, and straightforward eyes.
The pure eyes of a child for whom the small village had been the entire world.
But the child's small world had collapsed, and he had seen that a much larger world existed beyond it.
Because he had seen it through Claire.
“Can I…… become someone amazing like you when I grow up……?”
They burned.
Though she had lived with flames for no short time, the child's two eyes burned hotter than any flame.
That was why she could not face them.
For unlike the child, her own eyes had already grown wretched.
Afraid that would be discovered.
It was passion.
Claire's flames had planted a dream in the child and created a goal for him.
Just as Claire, once a mere country girl, had met her hero.
Realizing the boundlessly wide world, she had burned her life with him as her goal.
“……I.”
But that was not it.
The person and the situation were different from that.
“I'm not a hero.”
She could never become a hero.
The hero she knew would have saved such a small village long ago.
No, he would have prevented this situation itself from ever occurring.
Even if placed in the same situation, he would have healed all the survivors and even ignited hope in their hearts.
But what about her?
Knowing the survivors who had inhaled copious Abyss energy would die painfully before long, yet unable to do anything.
Far from instilling hope, she did not even know how to pull them from despair.
So she was not a hero.
“That can't be. I've never seen anyone as pretty and strong as you!”
Still, the child showed no signs of being convinced.
Rather, with eyes that burned even more intensely.
With a scorching passion that would burn away even the tears gathered at the corners of his eyes.
As one who had finally found a dream, he looked up at Claire.
“So…… can't you take me with you too?”
Those words finally left the child's mouth.
Like Claire that day, standing before Hio as he tried to leave.
Like herself that day, clutching him and crying her heart out.
“……Do you know where I'm going?”
“It doesn't matter where! I've been alone since I was nine.”
Looking around the village, his words indeed seemed true.
Not one person cast their gaze toward him here, so the time it had taken for the child to escape despair must have been short as well.
“I'm going to the battlefield.”
“Yes! It's fine! I can follow you!”
Probably nothing was entering the child's ears right now.
Burning with fiery passion, he likely could not think at all.
He wanted to reach that place. He wanted to become like her.
Such thoughts must have taken over his body.
Because she had been the same, she knew.
“It's a place where hundreds or thousands of such monsters swarm, and even famous warriors die like flies. A child like you would die in the blink of an eye.”
“……I'm prepared.”
The child clenched his fist tight, approached Claire, and spoke in a voice lowered enough for only her to hear.
“We're all going to die if we stay here anyway.”
At those words, Claire's sunken eyes widened slightly in surprise.
The child did not seem to know of the existence of Abyss energy.
Then how did he know they would all die and say such a thing?
The answer was clear soon enough.
The collapsed village, and the adults who had lost the will to live in despair.
Having grasped that, he had predicted everyone would eventually die.
He had judged there was no future.
The child had not simply escaped despair quickly because he had no family.
He had forced himself to escape in order to survive.
“So please, can't you take me with you? I won't be a burden, and I'll do everything you tell me to!”
In truth, Claire could save this one child before her eyes.
She had come out as support for Hibernia anyway.
She would definitely stop by a major city, and since they would be traveling just the two of them, she was confident they could arrive before the child died.
If they saw the Golden Lion Emblem Claire possessed, whether it was a high-ranking priest or whoever, they would surely make time even when they had none and appear.
After briefly pondering, Claire lowered her gaze again and asked the child.
“Are you in good physical shape?”
To save just one child, she had to think and worry so much.
No matter how she looked at it, did this not look far too distant from any hero she knew?
Always composed.
The hero Claire knew was one who saved everyone with the hope that anything could be done, no matter the crisis.
“……Yes! I was the fastest runner in our village!”
Hearing the answer, Claire began to move her feet.
The child with a brightened expression began to follow behind her.
Feeling that small presence trailing along, before leaving, the final words she had heard at the palace echoed like a refrain in Claire's mind.
“— You are Hio Pavlenko's final arrangement.”
……No, that's wrong.
“— You are his hope.”
Hio, you're wrong this time.
“— So please, cherish your life.”
I am neither hope, nor arrangement, nor hero, nor anything.
I'm just an ordinary person who barely managed to save a single child.
You should have survived instead of wasting time saving me.
Rather than saving an incompetent expedition, you should have lived and remained in this world.
Not someone unnecessary like me, but you were needed more in this world.
Claire's eyes grew blank and empty once more.
Behind the footsteps of the two passing through, the collapsed village remained forlornly.
The hollow crying of the survivors would not continue for long either.
For though they lived, they were no different from already dead.
Miracles did not exist.
There had only been opportunities.