Everyone’s gaze turned toward the unfamiliar figure.
It was not one of the expedition, nor was it Kreutzwald. It could not be the allied forces, and it was not an illusion either.
Then only one possibility remained.
“The Forlorn Hope!”
It could only be the Forlorn Hope.
But the instant that shout rang out, the stranger’s figure blurred, then vanished without a trace.
He had felt it before, but the presence was so faint it was almost nonexistent, to the point that it was impossible to tell whether it was a person or a ghost.
Yet there was no one in this expedition so careless as to lose a presence they had once caught.
“After him.”
They began swiftly chasing after the vanished member of the Forlorn Hope.
And at the same time, a question welled up.
‘Why?’
Why on earth was he running?
There was no doubt that they were the Forlorn Hope.
Rifyu had mentioned them himself.
If they had stood against Kreutzwald and continued fighting all this time.
If they knew Hio was here, should they not have appeared long ago and joined forces with him?
Why were they hiding their presence, leaving behind only faint traces, and now even fleeing?
Because he could not understand it, he had to pursue them.
He had to catch up and speak with them.
“That way!”
“……Why is he running?”
“His presence is too faint.”
The feelings of the other expedition members chasing the Forlorn Hope were not much different from Hio’s.
Because of that terribly faint presence, they raised their concentration to the extreme and gave chase.
Meanwhile, traces presumed to have been left by the Forlorn Hope continued to appear along the path.
— Find Kreutzwald.
— He is nearby.
— We are with you.
Those words were written in ash, then quickly scattered.
So why run away when they could simply meet and talk?
“Is there some reason we must not meet?”
Though filled with questions, Hio and the rest of the expedition moved quickly.
“I’ll go left.”
“Then I’ll take the other side……!”
No matter how ghostlike the Forlorn Hope’s movements were, once their presence had been caught, it would be difficult to slip free from an expedition of eight.
In the end, the distance gradually narrowed, and an encirclement naturally formed.
“When I give the signal, press in.”
The figure was still nowhere to be seen, but the faint presence they could feel had drawn close enough to grasp.
“Now!”
They pounced on it all at once.
Melissa’s ice sealed off the sky, Freyja’s magic took control of the area, and Claire’s flames blocked the escape route.
“……Finally!”
They rushed in so frantically that they went tumbling together across the ash-covered ground with a great clatter.
Of course, none of that mattered in the slightest.
Because all of their attention was focused on the one rising to his feet a short distance away.
And the moment Hio confirmed who it was, his eyes flashed.
It was a face painfully familiar to him.
“……Abelard.”
The great Tower Master, Abelard Pavlenko.
He slowly rose to his feet.
And met Hio’s eyes.
* * *
Several people, their legs giving out, collapsed where they stood.
They had already spent several nights in the Abyss, but among them, it would not be an exaggeration to say that today had been the most dreadful.
Even though nothing in particular had happened.
“I thought we were really done for……”
Even Silbert said so as he wiped away the cold sweat running down his face.
“So that’s what they call a colossal aberration.”
Was there any need to say more?
The aberration that had burst out of the ashlands.
The sense of existence it possessed, making it seem impossible to oppose at a glance.
If it had not been the very edge of night, if dawn had not been just moments away, they would have had no choice but to clash with it, and no one could rashly predict what the result would have been.
And so, one thing became certain.
“Until now, we were just lucky.”
If monsters like that appeared one after another, even the allied forces would be in danger.
They had the Saintess holding the line and tens of thousands of knights, but if damage accumulated, the speed of collapse would be just as swift.
Because there was no hero here who could stop a monster like the colossal aberration from moments ago with their strength alone.
“How much longer can we hold out?”
An unease slowly began to surge upward.
And perhaps that unease was not unfounded.
For from the next night on, disaster began to descend in earnest.
* * *
“Abelard.”
There were many things Hio had wanted to ask if he ever met Abelard Pavlenko.
And now that Abelard had even shown himself running away, the number of questions had piled up like a mountain.
Why had he hidden himself and fled?
Where were the other members of the Forlorn Hope, and what had they done for a thousand years?
How had he known the true names of the God of Patience and the God of Magic, and how had he told them to him?
There was so much to say that Hio hesitated, unsure where to begin.
In Hio’s place, Vitalianus spoke first.
“Are you the previous Tower Master, Abelard Pavlenko?”
Abelard gave a faint nod, as if to say that he was.
The rest of the expedition members kept a certain distance from Abelard, surrounding him.
It might feel somewhat intimidating, but it could not be helped.
Who knew if he might suddenly try to run away again?
“Abelard, why did you hide yourself?”
In the end, those were the first words that pushed past Hio’s lips.
Because it was what he understood least of all.
If Abelard truly opposed Kreutzwald, why hide?
Why deliver messages from hiding, yet refuse to reveal himself?
And Abelard’s answer to that was—
“……”
There was none.
He kept his mouth firmly shut and did not answer at all.
In the silence that continued for a time, Hio tried once again to understand, but he simply could not.
Though he was right before their eyes, his presence was almost like that of someone who was not truly there.
Though he was an archmage, almost no mana could be felt from him.
It was a little different from Kreutzwald’s case.
With Kreutzwald, the difference in level had been so great that Hio could not sense the mana he possessed, but this did not feel like that.
It felt as though there was almost no mana there at all.
If that feeling was not mistaken, then how had he used magic?
“How did you know the true names of the God of Magic and the God of Patience, and how did you tell me?”
Abelard did not answer Hio’s second question either.
Did he not want to answer?
Or was he unable to?
Whichever it was, Hio could not understand.
“Where are the other members of the Forlorn Hope?”
He neither shook his head nor nodded.
Without expressing any intention at all, he merely stood there.
His focus was precisely on Hio, and yet something felt wrong.
“What on earth happened here?”
It felt as though…… he was missing something important.
If Abelard could not answer, or was in a situation where he was unable to, could he not use magic as he had before?
If he used that unique magic, the traces of mana would likewise remain so faint they seemed barely there, and he could communicate through the ash.
Why was he not even doing that?
Only one thing had changed.
He had revealed himself in person.
And from that alone, he stood still in place, not using magic either, as if he had frozen.
If Hio thought about why he was acting that way…… only one answer came to mind.
“Are you not using magic because you’re afraid of being discovered?”
Afraid that something he was hiding would be discovered.
Was the one he feared Kreutzwald?
Or—
“Me?”
Was it Hio?
Even so, Abelard remained silent, and Legarda, who had been quietly watching, stepped forward.
“Answer.”
Hio could understand Legarda’s feelings.
In a situation this important, Abelard was saying nothing and doing nothing.
He had left messages as if he meant to help, then fled.
And once caught, he stayed utterly motionless.
As if he had broken down.
“If you truly are Abelard Pavlenko, lower your guard.”
It seemed Legarda thought Abelard was wary of them.
It was a situation and set of circumstances that made such a thought reasonable.
“We are people who share your purpose.”
And so, he slowly approached Abelard himself.
It was a judgment made because he could respond quickly in most situations, and because the Forlorn Hope’s help was desperately needed.
However.
‘Broken down, broken down, huh…….’
A completely different, absurd thought had taken root in Hio’s mind.
— It is, in every sense, theoretically the most perfect golem!
It was a memory of Furnel from the Tower of Mages.
Furnel’s voice, filled with delight.
That moment when he had rejoiced purely as a mage.
— This man was even more extraordinary than the stories say.
He had said he had found the most perfect golem in the golem researcher’s room.
— But how strange. The theory is complete, yet there are no traces of experiments or test subjects at all. If even a few prototypes made for practice had remained, it would have been a tremendous find.
A golem that had been completed in theory, yet in reality had never been completed.
It was said to be so extraordinary that its flexibility, strength, and agility rivaled those of a superhuman, and that in appearance it could not be distinguished from a human. No, perhaps it was more accurate to call it a doll rather than a golem.
And……
— How to distinguish it? Hmm…… it probably cannot speak. And while it can use magic, it does not use it directly. It is connected to the caster.
It cannot speak, and it uses magic by being connected to the caster.
That was why it could not openly use magic in front of Hio.
Because Hio’s eyes would follow the traces of mana.
Because by doing so, he would locate the position of the caster it was connected to.
“Abelard Pavlenko.”
At Hio’s slightly heightened voice, Legarda, who had been walking slowly forward, stopped short.
Even though Legarda had reached Abelard’s vicinity, Abelard’s two eyes remained fixed on Hio as if nailed there, unmoving.
“Are you perhaps……”
Now Hio understood the sense of wrongness he had felt from that gaze.
It was somehow a familiar gaze.
Not the gaze of a person, but something empty.
“Already dead?”
As Furnel had said, it could hardly be distinguished from a human.
Its appearance was exactly the face of Abelard from his memories, and even its complexion and the beating of its heart felt the same.
And yet Hio’s question carried even a sigh founded on certainty.
“……”
Only then did Abelard begin to react.
From an expressionless face with no change at all, a deep smile was created in an instant.
That was answer enough.
That was not Abelard Pavlenko.
It was a doll wearing his skin, a golem.
“……Who is the caster?”
He asked, but there was no strength in his words.
Perhaps one of the other surviving members of the Forlorn Hope was the caster.
But how likely was that?
“No point in asking, I suppose.”
They had been toyed with.
The expedition, and the Forlorn Hope of the past as well.
All of them had been toyed with by one man, Kreutzwald.
Thoroughly.
Horrifically.
“……Disgusting Kreutzwald.”
He was definitely watching.
Through the eyes of that doll made from Abelard, he was surely watching.
And so Hio met the gaze of the broadly smiling Abelard head-on and gripped his staff upright.
There was nothing he could do about the strength flooding into his hand.
And at that moment—
— Kk, kk, kk.
A familiar laugh sounded.
— My foolish disciple. Thanks to you, this was rather entertaining.
The voice of the Abyss came through Abelard’s mouth.
Hio’s eyes widened, and he focused.
The bastard had made a mistake.
He was transmitting his own voice through a golem that could not speak.
Then what could that be?
If it was a form of magic, it could not escape Hio’s eyes.
He had to find the point where the mana began.
While drawing out the conversation a little……
— I can hear the sound of your head turning all the way from here, foolish disciple.
But before he could, Abelard opened his mouth wide.
At the same time, an enormous amount of mana swelled up as if it had been waiting.
Hio had no idea when or where this had been prepared, but one thing was certain: there was no time to do anything about it.
“Danger……!”
Almost at the same moment Hio realized it—
Kwwaaaang—!
An explosion that shook the earth erupted from Abelard.
The one closest to him was Legarda.