“Haa……”
He lay sprawled on the ground, breathing hard.
He had no room to care whether the ash drifting through the air mixed with his sweat and clung to him.
He was too busy replenishing his exhausted stamina and mana.
“……”
One only had to glance around to understand just how dangerous the battle moments ago had been.
The nearby earth looked as if it had been made of clay, overturned, gouged out, and tamped down until not a single patch remained intact.
All around lay the corpses of every kind of aberration, burned, frozen, crushed, and even shattered to pieces.
Even so, in the end, he had survived.
His body and mind, pushed to their limits, would grow even tougher, and his mana and stamina, exposed down to the very bottom, must have grown as well.
But.
“Phew…… damn it.”
He had not risked his life for growth on this paltry level.
At the very least, he had intended to leap more than one stage ahead.
Well, no one got full on the first spoonful.
It had been greed.
After lying there and resting for a while, he used the mana and abyssal energy that had recovered somewhat to summon Teordo again.
The darkness, already thick in the air, gathered together and took shape.
The moment Teordo appeared once more, a powerful emotion was conveyed from him.
“……You’re angry too, aren’t you?”
Rage.
As a knight who wielded a sword.
As a guardian knight who protected the emperor, rage at himself for having been defeated by an aberration, his entire body smashed apart and forcibly reverse-summoned.
“That’s why I’m saying we should get stronger. What do you think will happen if those things are released onto the continent?”
Until now, he had thought the abyssal energy that destroyed all life and killed the soil was the greatest problem.
But after what he had experienced this time, if the aberrations were released, the world would be destroyed by all manner of them before abyssal energy even became an issue.
That was how strong they were.
“Especially…… that super-giant aberration and a few of the ones around it.”
Their strength was beyond imagination.
Even after he had made his magical transformations sharper than ever and mixed in destructive abyssal energy, pouring out dozens of spells, the aberration had remained unscathed as it swung its fists and stomped its feet.
From the looks of it, that would be the strongest one he had to face before reaching Tetradia.
The problem was that there was not only one super-giant aberration.
Including that one, there were at least two.
Perhaps he would encounter even more on the way.
“We have to get stronger.”
As he said that while lying spread-eagled and staring up at the sky, Teordo stood beside him and looked down at Hio.
The only scenery visible behind Teordo was air dyed black, surrounded by the abyss.
Still, by now, such scenery had become not just familiar but almost comforting.
“Urgh.”
Listening to the will Teordo conveyed, he pushed himself up.
He washed away his dirtied clothes, sweat, and the like with purification magic, then forced his body to rise with difficulty.
“You’re saying not to use the undead? You’re undead too, you know?”
At Teordo’s emotions turning sullen in an instant, Hio laughed and patted his arm.
“I know. It was a joke, a joke.”
Even if Teordo had not said so, he had not intended to use the undead in the battles that would take place every night.
Of course, the same went for skills.
The purpose was to gain enlightenment and grow, not to hunt down every aberration alone.
Then why keep Teordo by his side while not using the other undead?
Because his potential for growth was different.
The 255 undead stored in the Death Sarcophagus were each about as strong as Teordo.
But their potential for growth itself was sealed off.
Because they had become undead through a complete method and were bound by a perfect master-servant relationship.
Teordo, on the other hand, had only the bare minimum restrictions placed on him; aside from that, his thoughts, emotions, will, and everything else were exactly as they had been in life.
An undead who thought and moved on his own, and strove to become stronger.
That was Teordo, which was why Hio moved together with him.
Besides, even if he used all the undead, he did not think they could defeat that super-giant aberration.
Well, perhaps it would be different if he used skills.
“Anyway…… let’s move even a little.”
He forced his heavy legs forward and slowly walked across the shattered earth.
His walking speed was naturally slow, and the time it would take to arrive at Tetradia would likewise be delayed.
The time gained that way would belong entirely to Hio and Teordo’s growth.
“If I make one wrong move, I’ll die at the hands of the aberrations before Tetradia or anything else.”
Perhaps his becoming stronger itself was part of Kreutzwald’s plan.
Even so, he first had to grow stronger.
This was an unparalleled crisis, and at the same time, an opportunity.
“For now, let’s do our best to survive.”
Endure, persevere, and wait.
If he did, an opportunity would surely come.
Just as it always had.
* * *
Claire, who had left the small village with only a young boy, set out without delay.
The road ahead was long, and there was much to do.
Her original plan had been to head to Hibernia’s capital, to the royal castle where the main temple of the Order was located, accurately grasp the situation, and then act accordingly.
The most important thing was the safety of the Order and its priests.
To do that, she had to protect the sanctuary and defend the capital.
She decided to change the plan she had made.
The situation within Hibernia seemed even worse than the Empire had expected.
Even if it meant taking a slight detour, she would look around the nearby areas, stop by at least one large city, and then head for the capital.
Well, while she was at it, she could also search for a priest who could purify the child’s body, which was being destroyed by Abyss energy.
Even the nearest city was several days away.
It was a forced march that would be hard for a child who had never left his village to endure.
Yet the child never complained, nor did he show any sign of hardship, only watching Claire’s mood.
He was worried that he might get on her nerves or become a hindrance.
“What’s your name?”
During a brief rest, Claire asked casually, and the child, as though delighted simply that Claire had spoken to him, brightened and answered.
“I’m Hamelot!”
His name was Hamelot.
He was thirteen years old.
A pitiable child who lost his mother at eight, then lost his father and siblings at nine.
Perhaps because of the shock from back then.
“I’ve never told anyone until now and kept it to myself……”
Hamelot was a skill user who had awakened his ability on his own at the age of nine.
And it was not just some mediocre skill, either, but one that was quite useful.
It was a skill that allowed him to grant sharpness to any object he held in his hand.
If he picked up a twig, it became a sword; if he picked up a pine needle, it became a hidden weapon.
“So I practiced a lot in secret by myself!”
Hamelot picked up a dead pine needle lying on the ground, concentrated for a moment, and threw it.
The pine needle fluttered through the wind and embedded itself deep into a tree.
Even though its speed had not been particularly fast, it had sunk almost all the way in; it was not something that could be explained by simple sharpness alone.
There had to be another ability she had yet to identify.
“If I’m this good…… can I come with you too?”
“You’re coming with me right now.”
“No, not that. All the way to the real place you’re trying to go, Noona.”
“No.”
As if that would be allowed.
If he trained more and grew older, it might one day become a rather remarkable ability, but right now, he was too young.
Not only was his ability not enough to work against Abyss monsters, but what could a child with no experience do on a battlefield?
At Claire’s firm reply, Hamelot fell silent for a moment, then soon nodded as if he accepted it.
“……Okay.”
But Claire knew.
The passion in Hamelot’s eyes was burning even hotter.
He had not accepted it at all.
Because she herself had once been the same.
* * *
The scenery they passed on the way to the large city was worse than expected.
Empty ghost villages were common, they were attacked by Abyss monsters in unexpected places, and Abyss energy had spread to more locations than anticipated.
The carcasses of beasts had been torn to shreds and were rotting away, while trees and plants exposed to Abyss energy for a long time had turned black and were dying.
It was literally becoming a land of death.
There was not a single person nearby, and it was no longer a land where beasts or plants could live.
Claire took that scenery clearly into her eyes, while Hamelot, his face shocked and somehow not growing tired, poured out question after question at her.
Claire answered as many of those questions as she could, and after hearing the answers, Hamelot fell into thought with a grave expression unbecoming of his age.
Along the way, Claire taught him not only the knowledge she possessed, but also various useful martial techniques.
By now, Claire was famous as an Enlightened One, one of the strongest skill users in the Empire alongside Melissa, but aside from simple skills, she had also learned martial arts such as swordsmanship and dagger techniques.
In particular, she had learned a great deal from her seniors in the Royal Knights, so while she could not use aura, she was a practitioner no worse than most knights.
And because Hamelot was also highly talented, he absorbed and followed what Claire taught him quite well.
“Then, should I call you Master now?”
“No.”
Master, just because she had taught him how to grip a sword, stances, and a few techniques?
She had no intention of taking on a disciple, and she did not yet have the skill for it, either.
After stopping by the city and taking Hamelot to a priest, she intended to part with him immediately and head for the capital.
So there was no need to look after him any further.
Was he not merely a boy from a tiny, nameless village?
A boy who would have been killed by a single Abyss monster if Claire had not gone there.
She had saved that Hamelot, shared knowledge of the world with him, and even taught him the basics of martial arts.
She planned to take him to the city, introduce him to a priest, and even mention his ability.
He would meet the city’s nobles, and if they had eyes, they would recognize Hamelot’s ability and raise him as a knight, a holy knight, or whatever else on their own.
That much was practically a miracle that a boy from a small rural village could hardly experience in just a few days.
There was no need to grow more attached here, nor to teach him anything more.
And yet, why did she keep worrying about him?
If she had to think of a reason……
‘……Hio.’
It was probably because Hio kept coming to mind.
That was not to say Hamelot and Hio resembled each other.
To be exact, it was because Hamelot resembled Claire herself.
A mere girl from a small rural village.
The one who had saved her, recognized her talent, and helped her rise through the Academy and all the way to the Royal Knights.
Her goal, who had always stood at the very front, at the highest place, radiating brilliant light so she could climb that high.
The object of her admiration.
The Hamelot of now had eyes exactly like hers back then, so she kept worrying about him and ended up talking about the world, things that would be hard for a child to bear.
“I think we’re almost at the city, Master.”
“Don’t call me Master.”
“Yes, Master.”
After camping one more night in that land where not even the common sound of insects could be heard, as though every living thing had died.
The two of them were able to arrive at Thalassa, a large city in western Hibernia.