The emptied top floor of the lighthouse.
Inside, there are only bookshelves, a desk, a chair, and books, while in the sky beyond lies a sea of darkness—within it, celestial bodies radiate brilliant magical power.
“…….”
The floor trembling violently. The wind rustling without meaning.
In this place where Lia disappeared—no. Where Yu Ara had left—I look at the spot where she had stood just moments ago.
“Not even funny.”
It’s so unfunny that a hollow laugh escapes me.
Looking back now, the hints had been everywhere.
The face that resembled Yu Ara far too much. The habits I occasionally sensed from her. That reckless personality. And above all.
“……With a measly flower like this.”
A blue flower placed atop the desk.
I place a finger upon that small bud. I brush over it as if caressing it.
“There’s no way I could have known.”
……The thought that someone else existed on this continent besides me.
The thought that it could be you.
There was no way.
Because you weren’t such a meaningless person—rather, because you were such a precious person—I couldn’t think so carelessly of such a thing.
“……Yu Ara.”
Only because you mustered the tiniest bit of courage and spoke my name.
Is that how I finally came to know at this very end.
“You haven’t changed.”
I smiled.
The feelings toward her remain vivid even now.
The being that occupied the greatest part of Kim Woojin’s soul. The person who shared half of Kim Woojin’s life.
“……Still.”
No, the days without you have vanished from Kim Woojin’s memories.
So, you are virtually Kim Woojin’s everything.
“It was good to see you.”
I gazed at the forget-me-not upon the desk.
I’m fortunate to have known you, but I cannot be glad, nor can I be happy, nor can I say that I love you.
Because the end is soon to arrive.
Because this is an ending that must be tied up without fail, even if only for your sake.
Whooooosh…….
The wind blowing at that moment wraps around my body.
Is it a signal?
Or is it consolation?
I simply grip my staff. In that instant, the magical power of Yukraine stirs, resonating with the natural mana.
———.
A quietly trembling echo.
The fusion of mana and magical power.
The flowering of the spell formula.
Now, my magic gently blooms.
This force will swirl from the lowest tier of the lighthouse.
Rising up from below, up, up, up, and finally, upon reaching this summit, it shall manifest my grand magic.
[24 : 00 : 00]
The remaining time is but one day.
There is no worry of the spell formula being dispelled or broken.
Until then, “my knight” shall hold the line.
Swoosh———.
Suddenly, magical power flooding like light. The harmonious spell formula engraved upon the empty air.
I quietly close my eyes, tuning the mana of the lighthouse, and mutter softly.
“……Kim Woojin.”
Kim Woojin and Deculein.
Which part of the two am I?
I think on it for a moment, but the answer comes quickly.
It is too easy and simple a question.
Not even worth agonizing over; not worth wasting my comprehension on.
“I suppose it was thanks to you.”
I am Deculein, and at the same time, Kim Woojin.
Deculein receives Kim Woojin’s help, and Kim Woojin receives Deculein’s help.
Deculein acknowledges Kim Woojin, and Kim Woojin acknowledges Deculein.
They accept each other’s harmony.
Whooooosh…….
The wind blowing once more coils at my feet.
Crack—
A frigid energy that freezes the hem of my suit in an instant.
I open my eyes again and look toward the door.
“……Yulri.”
Yulri.
She who causes Deculein’s heart to ache.
My sword is there, protecting me.
* * *
……Yulri’s life is pure white.
Every path she has cleaved, endured, and walked is so.
Without any memorable hue, dyed purely white, unable to tell which memory is a fond one and which is a wound.
Yulri knows that “reason.”
Because she could not accept joy even in joyful moments. Because she could not accept sorrow even in sorrowful moments.
Thus, perhaps her heart is not white, but bleached.
“……Yulri.”
A voice calling her name.
Sirio.
A former comrade, but one who has now turned to the Altar’s side. He looks upon her with a face full of frustration.
“You’re falling apart.”
She is falling apart.
It’s shameful, but hard to deny.
This doll-like body is already broken. With even her consciousness blurred now, she is merely holding out.
Once all this ends, or even before it ends…….
“Will you be all right?”
Sirio asks. Instead of answering, Yulri grips her sword.
In truth, there was no need to do even that.
This sword tempered by Deculein is already one body with her. Frozen solid, it will not fall even if this body shatters.
“……I asked the wrong question.”
Sirio scratches the back of his neck. Then he looks around with renewed eyes.
“You’ve worked hard. You’ve practically won already.”
The Altar’s priests, to say nothing of the Red Coffin’s chimeras and high apostles.
The countless enemies of the Altar who had tried to break through Yulri are all frozen solid now, unable to be distinguished as alive or dead.
“……That’s why I’m asking.”
Sirio lets out a hollow laugh.
“Are you all right?”
As he speaks, Sirio lightly swings his sword.
Swish— A cheerful sword strike disrupts Yulri’s stance.
“Yulri?”
Many of the Altar’s forces have frozen and become combat-incapable, but the situation itself is already over.
A day and a half.
That is how long Yulri has endured.
“……What do you mean?”
A sudden reply.
Sirio’s eyes go wide.
“What? You could talk?”
“…….”
When asked if she can speak, she closes her mouth again.
Sirio smirks.
“Anyway, I mean your life. Every time I saw you, I felt sorry for you.”
“…….”
Pity, or compassion.
That is how Sirio sees Yulri.
No, that is how everyone likely sees her.
“Since your days in the order of knights.”
The sword.
While the other trainees rested, Yulri held her sword. While the other trainees ate, Yulri held her sword.
While the other trainees secretly indulged in romance, Yulri held her sword. While the other trainees spent time with family, Yulri held her sword.
Her life was nothing but the sword, pitifully nothing but the sword.
“You never had anything you wanted to do. It was always nothing but the sword.”
“…….”
Yulri remains silent.
“And yet, is this how you die? Bound only by the duty of a knight, devoted only to the advancement of sword arts as a knight, living blindly without anything you like or love, and in the end, to protect Deculein…….”
Sirio’s final note trembles slightly.
Is it absurdity, or is it sadness for her despite his words?
“It’s Deculein, whom you hated so much.”
“…….”
Sirio feels pity and misery.
Yulri, offering herself for Deculein, who had dyed her life with hardship.
Yulri, doing so of her own volition without anyone’s coercion.
“Was all that effort just to meet an end like this?”
Sirio’s words, thrown like daggers as if out of genuine concern.
Yet Yulri is composed. Without any reaction, still with an icy face.
Staring at Sirio…… No, rather with an expression as if finding it amusing.
“Yes. That is correct. Even in this very moment, I am happy.”
She spoke of happiness.
The smile on Sirio’s face stiffens coldly.
“Sirio. As you say, I have walked a life always for the sword.”
An achromatic world of nothing but sword and eyes, nothing but black and white.
A world that had been only pure white.
Her memories.
“……However, upon that path. At some point, a certain person intruded.”
Sirio listens quietly to her words.
He does not know when that point was, but he thinks he knows who that “certain person” is.
“……Deculein.”
“Yes.”
“But is that a good thing? It’s bad. Your path has been tainted.”
Yulri smiles.
The portion that the person called Deculein occupies in her life is great.
Thus, too great.
Once her greatest obstacle, once the enemy she wished to kill, and now the person she wishes to protect most.
“It is not bad.”
Yulri still does not fully know the feeling called “love,” but at this point, may she not call it love? May she not call him her “most beloved person”?
“He is the one who became the greatest color in my world, which had been only white.”
Had Deculein not existed, Yulri might have become a guardian knight.
A knight who protects the empire for eternity.
A goal she had once desired most.
However, Yulri now knows.
“Had he not existed, I would have become a meaningless person chasing the most meaningless of goals.”
A knight without one to protect is meaningless.
Vaguely “protecting the empire,” even becoming the most honorable knight in the empire, holds no meaning whatsoever if there is no reason to protect the people.
“It is thanks to the Professor that I have finally come to know meaning. To know the reason for living.”
Reason.
What Yulri has realized is precisely “reason” itself.
That humans need a reason to live, that knights need a reason to protect someone.
That within that reason lies a value never comprehensible through mere logic or duty—Yulri has come to know this thanks to Deculein.
“Thus…….”
From Yulri’s body, from that doll-like body that had seemed hollow, magical power originates once more. It surges forth like a waterfall.
“I shall protect him without fail.”
Her magical power spreads slowly, ever so slowly. It is so slow that the movement of the currents can be followed with the eyes, but neither Jeilreon nor Sirio can recklessly approach her.
“This is dangerous.”
A dismayed remark from Jeilreon. With one arm already frozen solid, he prepares for the imminent battle—and crack!
He personally shatters his frozen right arm.
Sirio grins and nods.
“Right? I thought we’d practically won.”
The currents.
Whatever it is—whether Yulri’s magical power or not—it is freezing “everything.”
Literally, without metaphor, “everything.”
First, the air in the atmosphere freezes, blinding their sight; next, space itself freezes, rendering distance ambiguous.
“……What kind of monster is this—”
Even Sirio’s hollow laugh freezes cold and stiff. The atmospheric medium freezes, and waves can no longer propagate.
The magical power Sirio emanates, his sword light and Gangqi, all cool down, and thus not only the flesh of mere humans but even the “time” within this space freezes…….
Eternity.
An endless winter.
“…….”
Amid that extreme cold, silently alone, feeling her consciousness sink coldly, Yulri suddenly hears a voice whispering by her ear.
……Yulri.
She cannot tell whose voice it is, but she gladly chooses to think it is “Deculein.”
……I am proud of you.
If so, she thinks she can fall asleep a little more joyfully.
She thinks she can disappear without regret…….
“I too, am proud of you, Professor.”
She smiled so.
* * *
Crack————
The sound of something freezing descends from the upper levels of the lighthouse tiers.
Sopien and the imperial guard halt their steps for a moment.
“…….”
Sopien wordlessly peers up the stairs.
At that moment, whooosh—!
A chill flowing like a waterfall. A current of magical power as if twisting space-time.
“————.”
Sopien mutters divine words.
At that, bizarrely, the current ceases its movement and instead yields a path to Sopien.
““……Your Majesty. It is dangerous!””
Belatedly, Delrik and Gawein leap out and block the way.
Sopien cuffs the backs of their heads.
“It is settled, so step aside. It is Yulri’s doing.”
“……Yulri?”
One can know from the magical power faintly felt within this current. One can be certain.
That it is Yulri’s doing.
Gawein asks.
“If it is Yulri……”
“The knight of Deculein.”
Having answered concisely, Sopien ascends the stairs once more. As she does so, she briefly looks behind her.
Those who remain are not many. Two from the Red Coffin, Delrik, Gawein, Ganesya.
This much should suffice as a fighting force.
Were the rest devoured?
“……Let us go.”
In any case, Sopien takes a step forward.
Crunch—
Up the stairs where the sound of ice shattering rings thickly, step by step.
Ascending majestically and boldly, and how much time has passed?
“This is…… what is it~?”
From behind, Ganesya’s admiration flows out with her breath.
Not only her, but the other knights are the same. They all lose their words and look around the space.
It is a reaction worth understanding.
Surely she had been ascending the stairs, yet all of a sudden she finds herself in the heart of an “ice cavern.”
“It is a magical space,”
Sopien says. She smiles softly and rubs two fingers together in the empty air.
The air is felt with a rustling touch.
“She has frozen the entire top floor of the lighthouse. Space, time, everything…….”
Sopien speaks to the imperial guard behind her.
“You shall wait here.”
““Yes?! But Your Majesty—””
“In any case, your entry shall be forbidden.”
And then she slowly moves her legs.
“I sense Yulri’s will within this space. Yulri permits entry only to me, not to you.”
Step— step—
Walking alone, loftily, admiring this crystal-like space, Sopien says.
“You need only block those here who would interfere with me.”
Suddenly, she becomes curious.
In what manner, and with what effort, did Yulri create such a beautiful magical space?
“……But Your Majesty. Who exactly are we supposed to block~?”
Ganesya asks. Sopien turns to look at her.
“No one shall be able to cross here anyway~”
As she says, even Ganesya fears freezing and cannot muster the courage to approach Sopien.
The riffraff of the Altar, to say nothing, and even a god of the Altar would find the cold here difficult to endure.
“What are you asking?”
Sopien answers in a dry voice.
“All who would interfere with me.”
Those who would interfere with Sopien are not only the Altar.
Among them is included “one whom Yulri cannot harm.”
“That is to say, all who would obstruct my killing of Deculein.”
For example, that little brother brat who is likely running here even now.
Yeriel.
“Block them all.”
This is my most resolute Imperial Command…….
Having urged so, Sopien advances along the path.
Step— step—
With each of those steps, bearing the anticipation of being able to see him.
Bearing the sense of loss that she would never see him again.
Step— step—
She took a step forward.