The concentration of demonic energy in the atmosphere had grown considerably faint, and now that the advance itself had slowed as well.
Whether this was merely a lull, or whether the suppression had succeeded, was still unknown—but regardless, everyone who had fought on the battlefield was devoting themselves to rest.
“Whew!”
*Thud—!*
A *Geomchibara* collapsed like a giant tree. Ria, having slain the bipedal demonic beast with fangs protruding from its mouth, flicked her hands clean.
“That makes thirty thousand!”
Her thirtieth thousand, exactly.
Just as Ria nodded in satisfaction—
“Ria! I think I’ve gotten so much stronger!”
Reo at her side was also making a fuss.
It was true; he had never experienced such an overwhelming amount of real combat before, so it would be of tremendous help later on.
“Reo, you stay behind and clean up! Help the injured knights too!”
“Where are you going, Ria?”
Ria silently looked toward a certain forest.
The Forest of Devastation was thick with demonic energy through and through, and it felt unpleasant, but it was optimal for gaining experience.
The more one traveled the world and challenged danger, the stronger her Trait, “Adventurer,” grew.
“I’m going to check out that forest for a bit! Something feels off!”
Her unique battle instincts and intuition were pointing her there. Just now, the mana at the edge of that area had writhed.
Ria quickly ran toward the spot.
*Rustle— rustle-rustle—*
Kicking off the ground like a nimble squirrel, vaulting off trees with a tap, advancing through the forest as if flying, Ria felt a sudden doubt.
“……What the heck.”
She had already clad herself in protective aura, yet there were no demonic beasts.
She couldn’t see even anything resembling an ant.
“Is it really over?”
Disappointed for no reason, Ria kicked a pebble on the ground.
*Tap— tap— rumble-rumble-rumble—* She walked a few steps, following the rolling stone.
But then.
“Hm?”
Down the mountainside, some dark-red liquid trickled down in a steady stream.
A stream that had flowed all the way to her feet like a brook. Ria’s eyes grew wide.
“It’s demonic beast blood.”
Ria immediately chased after the trail.
Before she had climbed far, the silhouette of a person flickered into view.
“Who……”
Blinking, she approached. Climbing the slope, she reached a gentle rise.
“……”
And for a moment, she lost her words.
In the heart of the demonic forest. A suffocating stench of blood. Beyond that hill, where the corpses of demonic beasts were piled in every direction, there stood a single person, spotlessly clean.
Ria’s eyes widened as she looked at him.
“Deculain……”
Even amid the blood and rampant corpses, he was untroubled. On his robe and the formal suit beneath it, truly, not even the tiniest speck of dust was stained.
However, right now his eyes were closed.
Veins glowing purplish-blue and a pale complexion.
Overload.
A phenomenon of overaccumulation that somehow evoked the flying monstrosities of the Galactic War had consumed his body.
“Professor. Professor.”
Ria cautiously approached. Looking up at Deculain, she shook the hem of his garment. Since he was a tall man exceeding 190 cm, her neck hurt.
“Professor. You awright, Professor?”
After shaking him a few times like that—
“……”
Deculain opened his eyes.
Meeting those blue eyes, Ria felt a suffocating pressure for some reason.
*Gulp—* Swallowing her saliva, she asked.
“……Are you okay?”
“……”
Deculain still said nothing, yet for some reason, he gazed at her with sunken eyes.
Ria somehow felt she could understand the meaning contained in that gaze.
—Then.
The words he offered her.
“……You.”
Ria smiled nonchalantly.
“Huh?”
In that instant, a small tremor ran through his pupils.
As if a tiny raindrop had fallen upon a lake far too deep and far too cold.
A faint yet clear ripple.
“……I do not like you.”
The voice with which he recited this was cold. For some reason, lonely and desolate.
A tree with deep, sturdy roots does not sway even when the rough winds blow, and thus it is all the more sorrowful.
“Why? I didn’t do anythin’ wrong.”
Then Deculain reached out his hand. Surprised, Ria squeezed her eyes shut. So tightly that her eyelids fluttered.
“……”
But nothing happened, and she slowly opened her eyes.
Deculain was still reaching his hand toward her. But soon, with a small sigh, he withdrew it.
“You resemble someone I know.”
His single sentence made Ria’s heart drop.
She thought she knew what he meant, but still asked back.
“……Who?”
Deculain’s head tilted slightly. He looked into the empty air. As if thinking of, or recalling, someone not present here.
He answered softly.
“The one who lingers in my heart.”
Emotions that remain without flowing away. Memories that cannot be forgotten.
Words that contained all of that.
“……”
Ria lowered her face for a moment.
A strange sense of guilt pricked at her heart.
Could it be that a setting she had thoughtlessly added long ago was tormenting Deculain like this?
“No, perhaps.”
Then, Deculain’s voice seeped in again. Ria raised her head. He was looking down at her.
“It might be that I am the one who has become stagnant.”
And with that, he formed a faint smile.
Whether it was a smile or self-mockery, a bitter, low, sinking laugh. Ria’s expression blanked for a moment.
“Unable to let it flow away, foolish as I am.”
His eyes curved as he looked at Ria, and she felt her heart stir.
Suddenly, a certain man left behind in distant memories, in a distant world, came to mind.
Emotions welled up. She missed that guy she had always loved.
“……I am hating one whom I ought not to hate.”
However, Ria quickly collected herself.
Deculain was not Gim Ujin, and the person he was reminiscing about now was not Yu Ara.
“……I don’t get what ya mean.”
At those words, Deculain let out a small breath. Ria grabbed his arm and pulled.
“Let’s go now. Professor, your condition right now isn’t—”
But Deculain himself pushed her away.
“……Go.”
“Huh?”
“There is still—”
“One remaining.”
The answer had come from someone else. Ria turned to look.
Knight Yulli.
“……I apologize. I did not intentionally eavesdrop.”
She bowed her head and drew her sword. Ria turned to where she pointed.
“……”
There was some bizarre creature. She didn’t know how long it had been there. But the thing that had appeared was grotesque.
Its overall appearance was a lump of flesh.
Its entire body, especially its belly, was swollen, and even now its size continued to expand.
“……A Scavenger.”
Ria knew what that thing was.
Scavenger *(scavenger)*. A demon that absorbed the corpses of demonic beasts.
Among demons, it was the lowest class, no different from an earthworm crawling beneath the ground, but its power was enough to game over a player in a single blow.
After all, it was a trap demon designed to be that way.
Ten seconds was enough from corpse absorption to explosion, so to a player, it truly appeared to spawn out of nowhere.
“Knight! We have to run!”
“I know.”
Yulli dashed over like the wind and hoisted Deculain up. Even in that moment, the Scavenger’s body swelled as if about to burst, and in a mere three seconds, it grew to a size that filled the mountain peak.
*Tadadada—*
Yulli, carrying Deculain, and Ria sprinted away from the creature.
“Eek!”
But it seemed the explosion would come first, and just as Ria looked back and unleashed the mana of [Decomposition]—
───────!
The Scavenger’s body burst.
*Shwack—! Shhwararack——!*
An enormous amount of demonic energy and chunks of flesh surged in all directions. It swallowed all of Ria’s mana and rushed toward her…….
* * *
……I opened my eyes. The first thing I saw was Efrin’s face. His broad face filled my vision, and his hair tickled me.
“Ah! You’re awake! Let’s see, your pupil response is normal—”
“Have you lost your mind?”
I pushed away the guy shining a light into my eyes. Efrin fell backward with a shriek.
“Ack! Why are you like this!”
I got up and checked my condition.
Mana exhaustion. Demonic energy abuse. Circuit overload.
Those three were rather critical injuries, but there were no other problems beyond that.
“……What of the advance?”
However, I had abandoned my duty. Of course, seeing that this guy was alive and well, it seemed nothing serious had happened, but still.
“What do you mean, what happened. It’s only been three hours.”
Efrin replied gruffly, getting up. Dusting his backside with a few pats, he shook his head.
“I think it’ll end soon. The number of demonic beasts pouring in has dropped tremendously, and most of them can be handled by automatic ballistae. Those ballistae are really good, you know? Apparently, they were actually more helpful than most magic.”
I answered nothing and straightened my clothes.
I smoothed the wrinkles with [Cleanse] and wiped away the dust.
“By the way……”
Then Efrin hesitated. I looked at him silently. It was a sign to hurry up and speak.
“……The thing is.”
Efrin, stealing glances at my reaction.
If it were the past, he would have hesitated dozens of times more, but these days he seemed to have become quite perceptive, speaking before he could get on my nerves further.
“Knight Yulli has taken to bed.”
I fiddled with my sleeve and asked nonchalantly.
“The reason.”
“……Saving you, Professor.”
*Tap—*
I fastened my sleeve button. I put on my outer garment, furrowing my brow.
“That woman always does unnecessary things.”
“……”
Efrin lowered his head. Then he scratched the back of his neck and added.
“She is in the sickbay now. If you are going……”
“There is much to wrap up.”
“Even so—”
“Aside from that woman.”
I said.
“There are many dead knights.”
* * *
In the sickbay of Recordak. In that place equipped with fairly modern facilities and many medicinal herbs, Gwen nibbled on her fingernails and muttered.
“……Ah, this. It doesn’t look that serious, but.”
Not only her, but Lapel, Sirio, Delric, and numerous other knights were watching over a certain woman lying in the sickbed.
Yulli, her veins glowing purplish-blue.
Caught in the Scavenger’s explosion, she had taken a demonic energy bomb without even a gas mask.
“She’ll be…… I hope she’ll be okay. Still, this demonic energy hasn’t spread to her dantian, right?”
It was Sirio’s words. Always the optimist, even he had a hard time being sure.
Deculain would overcome it easily, but Yulli, whose dantian had already been damaged…….
Then.
*Bam—!*
The sickbay door opened as if it would break, and Reilly strode in fuming.
“Wow, I’m really pissed off! Fuck!”
Even harsh cursing. The knights all looked at Reilly with surprised eyes.
Gwen asked.
“Why so sudden? Did you eat something bad?”
“No! I mean, I! Just now, I met— I saw Deculain. Well, I saw him from a distance. That guy is perfectly fine? Totally fine? So, I tried to bring him here. Do you know what he said about Knight Yulli?”
Stomping her feet— *thud, thud—* and seething, Reilly continued.
“He said she did something useless, can you believe it! He said he wasn’t worried at all! He said there are many dead knights besides Lady Yulli! She ended up like this saving him again, and she barely survived after carrying him here!”
“……”
At those words, the knights too closed their mouths.
At the moment the advance was drawing to a close, the sudden demonic explosion *(魔爆)* of the Scavenger.
Deculain, caught up in it, had clearly been in a bad state.
No matter how much it was Deculain, there had to be a critical point for demonic energy poisoning; if he had been caught directly, he would have been devoured to that limit.
“……Is Professor Deculain alright?”
Then, Delric, who had been reading the room in the same ward, asked. Reilly glared at him as if she would kill him— eyes blazing— and answered.
“Yes! He was fucking fine!”
“Hmm. That is a relief.”
“What?”
*Ahem.* Delric cleared his throat, turned, and opened the ward door. And he deliberately added a few words.
“Anyway, it is not untrue. Knight Yulli is alive, and the dead knights are far more numerous than she. Professor Deculain rather treated all knights equally—”
“Ah, just get out!”
“Hmph.”
Delric and the palace knights poured outside, and Reilly pressed her temples as if her blood pressure had shot up.
“Wow, I’m really going to kill this guy. What if something happens to Knight Yulli? I’ll suicide-bomb Professor Deculain.”
“—Do not do that.”
Then, from outside the window, a certain heavy voice seeped in clearly. A tone too famous and steeped in solemn authority.
Everyone in the sickbay turned toward the window.
“……Huh!”
“Oh my!”
“Oh?!”
They flinched in surprise, eyes wide. They bent their knees involuntarily. Their faces broke into expressions of awe and delight.
Thus, each reacted in their own way.
The man outside the window broke into a hearty smile—*heh*.
“—It is good to see you.”
A man whose mere presence set the knights astir.
The knight among knights.
Zeit, the head of the Fhairden family, called the King of Winter.
‘“We greet Lord Zeit!”’
Amid the knights’ booming cries, he opened the window.
He stepped one foot into the sickbay.
“Seems that sibling of mine overdid it again.”
He looks down at Yulli, her sickly complexion evident, and mutters in a low voice.
Cutting off Reilly, who was trying to explain with words like “Ah, well—,” he slowly swept his gaze over the knights present one by one and asked intently.
“Then. Shall we hear the details of what happened to this one.”
In that instant, a smile of vengeance bloomed across Reilly’s face.