The entire continent was engulfed in deep darkness.
Darkness meant screams and despair, war, and at the same time, chaos.
In such a situation, stepping out into the world was no easy thing.
All the more so for those who had crouched in hiding without stirring for a thousand years.
“The time has come.”
But now was the time to rise.
The time had come to stand at the forefront in the face of the continent’s crisis.
“Last night, preparations to move the island were completed.”
Arilleia, the mysterious island shrouded in a veil.
Inside the Divine Tree (神樹), a colossal tree visible from anywhere on the island—so vast one could believe it was the island itself.
The gaze of Isidore, the noblest of elves, turned toward Legarda on the opposite side.
Disabling every magic circle installed on the island, revealing the true Arilleia to the world, and moving it were important, but there was something even more important.
“How are you feeling, Lord Legarda?”
Their thousand-year mission had been to hide the dragon, heal the dragon, and in the end, make the dragon manifest in the world once more.
That mission, which had seemed impossible, which had seemed unattainable even if they devoted their entire lives to it, had finally been fulfilled.
Then now, they had to go forth into the world.
Arilleia’s mission was complete, but Freya’s mission and Legarda’s mission remained.
“I am ready at any time.”
At Isidore’s question, Legarda nodded taciturnly, as always.
Legarda was prepared to go out into the world at any time.
The one who had needed preparation was Freya, not Legarda.
“I hear Lord Pavlenko has still not returned.”
The last magician of this world, who had fulfilled Arilleia’s thousand-year mission.
The hero who had released the shackles of every living soul in Arilleia and granted them freedom.
Rumors of his death had spread throughout the continent starting a year ago.
So widely that they had even reached Arilleia, which had almost no contact with the outside world.
But Arilleia knew the truth.
“What do you intend to do about this?”
“I intend to do nothing.”
“You mean you will not announce the fact that Lord Pavlenko is alive.”
That Hio Pavlenko was alive.
Though he could not be found anywhere in this world for reasons unknown, they knew with certainty that he was alive.
“I will not announce it. Not only would they not believe it, but with no way to know what has happened, it would only add to the confusion.”
“I think the same.”
Isidore nodded gently, then turned her gaze beside Legarda.
There sat a girl with light green hair, sitting dignified, though her short legs did not reach the floor and swung in rhythm from the chair.
“Lady Freya.”
“Yes!”
At Isidore’s call, Freya closed her eyes for a moment and focused.
Then, not through a text artifact, but with her own voice, she spoke.
She had perfectly adapted to controlling the power of dragon speech.
“Uncle Hio is still alive!”
This was the reason Isidore and Legarda were certain of Hio’s survival.
“The contract magic is still working properly.”
The contract magic of dragon summoning that Hio had personally placed on Freya.
When one party died, contract magic naturally lost its power as well.
But the link connected between Freya and Hio still maintained its strength, and so, whatever the circumstances might be, they were certain at least that Hio was alive.
“And I agree that we shouldn’t tell anyone about Uncle Hio!”
“Mm… I did not expect Lady Freya to agree as well. May I ask why?”
At Isidore’s gentle question, Freya planted both hands firmly on her waist while still seated.
Her flailing legs stopped, and she answered with a bright smile.
“Because Uncle Hio is an amazing magician! He’ll come back soon!”
“I see. Of course.”
“Freya is right. The magician is not the sort of great man who would sit by and watch the continent’s crisis. What we need to concern ourselves with is our route.”
“That is correct. We plan to begin with the southern region of the Empire, clearing out the released Abyss Monsters as we make our way up to the capital.”
“Did the Emperor of the Empire permit it?”
“Yes. It seems Lord Hio Pavlenko left word with them separately. Thanks to that, we were able to earn their trust without going through many complicated procedures.”
“I see.”
Legarda gave a brief nod, then moved his bright yellow eyes toward Freya.
“Freya.”
“Yes!”
“Steel your heart.”
At Legarda’s words, Freya wore a faint smile.
It was not the purely innocent smile she had once had, but a faint smile grounded in strong confidence.
“Don’t worry.”
Freya’s two eyes curved softly to match.
The enormous amount of mana pouring from her seized control of the space and pressed down in silence.
The power of a dragon, perfectly controlled by a small body.
“I’m ready to begin my mission too.”
This was inside the colossal Divine Tree (神樹).
Among its chambers, Isidore’s room, near the very top.
Freya climbed down from her chair and walked toward one wall blocked by wood.
As if it had understood her will, the Divine Tree moved on its own and drew away the wood of the wall she approached.
Revealing the blue sky beyond.
A cool, fresh breeze blew in.
At its edge, light green hair fluttered, and the hem of her clothes billowed.
At a glance, it looked perilous, but only a pleasant smile hung on Freya’s lips.
“Yes. It is time to lighten the magician’s burden.”
Freya’s small body began to tilt forward more and more.
The top of the Divine Tree, called the tree of god, stood at a dizzying height.
Even though she was about to fall from such a place, Legarda did not stop Freya. Instead, he calmly rose and slowly walked toward the gaping wall.
“Go. Go and make it known clearly to the continent sunk in despair.”
At last, Freya plummeted downward.
A fierce gale began to surge.
Feeling that wind, Freya, who had been closing her eyes, snapped them open.
The pupils in her light green eyes split vertically.
They were the eyes of a dragon.
The supreme eyes that reigned above all living beings.
Behind her back, a massive pair of wings spread wide, and her entire body was covered in glittering scales as what appeared was a dragon.
A green dragon that governed the wind.
“That a guardian has returned to this world.”
A colossal Divine Tree (神樹) rising high into the sky.
A dragon soaring freely beside it.
The blue sky.
Beneath it, tens of thousands of Arilleia’s legions stood in formation.
—Waaaaaaaaah!
Their cheers shook the sky.
And the dragon’s roar made the earth tremble.
At the same time, the dark clouds enveloping all of Arilleia cleared.
The rain began to stop, and the waves lost their strength, the sea growing calm.
The cursed waters that had persisted for a thousand years vanished, and the true form of Arilleia began to reveal itself.
Tens of thousands of elves and a dragon.
And the dragon’s knight began moving toward the continent.
* * *
“……”
It was quiet.
He had not said a word for over a day already.
Kreutzwald had appeared just as he was about to follow the traces left behind by the unidentified magician.
Even after a full day had passed since suspicion became certainty, Hio had not uttered a single word since then.
Naturally, Kreutzwald had gone back.
…No, could it truly be said that he had gone back?
When the abyss filling every direction remained by his side, becoming eyes and ears, could one truly say he had left?
The sensation of the abyss against his skin was horrifying enough to make him shudder.
He wanted to cast “Heaven” right away and burn away every trace of that presence, but he barely managed to endure it.
[Hidden Trait: Violence Is Bad! (Patience: 931 / 1000)]
As usual, Hio had seen him off, then calmly taken out the map artifact that showed Tetradia’s location, and set off in that direction.
A day had passed since then.
Even so, he had traveled without so much as a single mutter.
Before this, he had exchanged pointless chatter with Theordo or muttered to himself quite often as he came.
But from the moment he parted with Kreutzwald, he had not spoken a single word. It would surely look strange to Kreutzwald, who was watching all of this, but he could guarantee that it did not matter at all.
Kreutzwald must have known from the very beginning that Hio suspected him.
And yet he had brazenly acted as a master and given him teachings. Why?
Because he knew it did not matter in the least whether Hio suspected him or not.
What could he do?
If he did not follow Kreutzwald’s intentions, what could he do besides die?
His actions stemmed from that confidence, and it was also the truth.
The gap between Kreutzwald’s power and Hio’s was unfathomable.
Only then did Hio understand why the unidentified magician had left traces so faint that only Hio could barely recognize them.
To avoid being discovered by Kreutzwald.
Well, Kreutzwald had probably noticed long ago that traces had been left through Hio’s movements, but it had been to prevent him from discerning their contents.
“…Whatever it is, I don’t care.”
And so, after a full day, Hio finally opened his mouth.
It was night.
The night when Watchers and aberrations moved.
Theordo lightly tapped Hio’s shoulder.
It was a warning to be careful.
The presence of a Watcher could be felt clearly near them.
“I said I don’t care.”
Normally, he should have quickly retreated to avoid the Watcher, but Hio did not.
Instead, he set his foot forward and walked on.
It did not take long for the eye of the Watcher floating in the sky to discover Hio and Theordo.
The dark abyss split, and Hio and the Watcher’s eye met each other’s gaze.
A strange hallucination arose, as though only the space between them had brightened.
Immediately after.
—Kieeeeeeeek!
The nearby aberrations.
No, every aberration at the end of the world discovered Hio at the same time.
Through the Watcher’s eye, they had seen Hio and identified his location.
—Eeeeeeeeng!
Starting with the fastest ones, palm-sized aberrations resembling hornets.
Kuuung—
To a super-giant aberration whose every step made the ground lurch, its head rising even higher than the Watcher’s eye.
Every aberration in the world began to charge toward Hio.
“…As expected.”
Even amid all that, Hio’s gaze remained fixed on the Watcher’s eye.
“You can’t speak.”
The Watcher’s eye could not speak.
It could not carry its will through the air to convey it, nor could it express any intention whatsoever.
What that revealed was that the Watcher’s eye he had encountered before inside the Abyss Gate must have been the same.
The abyssal voice he had heard had not come from the Watcher, but from Kreutzwald.
Thinking that, he raised his staff and drew a long horizontal line.
—Eeeeng!
The hundreds of hornet-type aberrations that charged first were blown apart by over a dozen Explosions.
Kwaaaang!
Kwaang!
Beginning with that, all kinds of aberrations surged in endlessly.
There was only one reason Hio had invited this long night of battle.
Because only then could he survive.
Only by experiencing mortal danger and growing from it would his chances of surviving against Kreutzwald when he finally arrived at Tetradia increase by even a fingernail’s breadth.
And if he continued fighting through the night like this, he could take a justified rest during the day.
It meant he could slow his steps toward Tetradia, even if only slightly.
If he was caught by the Watcher, he could be discovered by the master of the abyss, whom even Kreutzwald avoided?
It had been nonsense from the beginning.
That was nothing more than an illusion Kreutzwald had created.
If he was the true master of the abyss, how could there possibly be another master besides him?
Kuuung—
The distance to the super-giant aberration narrowed.
It was an unbelievable sight, like an entire island moving.
As that colossal body approached, shoving the others aside, Hio hammered dozens of Explosions mixed with abyss into it.
Even so, they could not reach its torso, and the explosions burst repeatedly only against its legs.
Kwaaaaang!
Before the aftermath of the explosions could fade, he detonated an enhanced Flare beneath the giant aberration’s feet and cut into its ankle with a maximized Frost Ray.
Even after pouring all manner of magic into it, the giant’s fist had already covered the area and was falling above Hio’s head.
He immediately used Blink seven times in succession to retreat and wrapped more than five layers of Barrier around his body, but—
Kuuuuuung──!
The giant aberration’s fist struck the earth, and with a grotesque roar of the ground being crushed, the land burst apart as if exploding.
The Barriers shattered helplessly, and Hio’s body was swept up in the aftermath and flung far away.
But already, dozens of aberrations were charging through even that aftermath.
“……”
It was a crisis.
A true crisis, the likes of which he had not faced in a long time.
“Haha……”
And yet, for some reason, laughter came.
Because this very crisis was the only opening through which he could survive.
He had not even learned all of the 6th Circle magic yet, but he had to gain new enlightenment even faster than that.
Only by reaching the 7th Circle could he even struggle against Kreutzwald.
They said enlightenment could be gained in a life-threatening crisis.
And so Hio rose to his feet again.
In the midst of that, a memory suddenly came to mind, making his body flinch.
—By the time you arrive at Tetradia, I hope you have crossed the wall.
When he was leaving the safe zone, Kreutzwald, wearing the mask of a master, had spoken those words to him.
—I sincerely hope so, my disciple.
At the same time, an exceedingly unpleasant sensation took hold of his entire body.
A repulsive thought: what if even this desperate struggle he was making now was part of Kreutzwald’s plan?
A truly horrifying feeling, as though he were dancing in the palm of his hand.
[Hidden Trait: Violence Is Bad! (Patience: 945 / 1000)]