82.
The hawk perched on Isitan’s shoulder lowered its head and spread its wings.
Then, tracing an arc, it soared into the sky.
Having sent the hawk ahead, Isitan lowered his gaze. The aide standing at his side delivered the final report.
“A signal came from the temple. It seems they have entered first.”
There were two routes by which the bastards could flee from their stronghold: east and west.
If they fled east, they would run into the people from the temple.
If they came west…….
They would experience once more the despair they had suffered on the last battlefield.
At Isitan’s gesture, the knights rose to their feet and began infiltrating the enemy base all at once.
Before long, the cold sound of blades clashing against one another announced the beginning.
* * *
It was good that I had drawn all attention to myself so the people could escape more easily.
‘How on earth do they recognize me?’
Even though I had pulled a black hood over my head and slipped in among them, they relentlessly found me out and chased me down.
In the end, the moment the hem of my hood was seized and I stumbled.
Without thinking, I reached out and grabbed the edge of the hood they were wearing as well.
“!”
The hood was pulled back, and a woman whose horrified face had been exposed for all to see fell backward onto her rear.
The woman hurriedly crawled back and dragged the hood over her head again.
I didn’t know who she was, but I heard several people beside me suck in their breath.
‘They won’t want anyone else finding out who they are, either.’
I immediately rose to my feet and grabbed the hood of the person beside me, yanking it off.
After that, the situation grew even more chaotic.
Every time I pulled off a hood, I saw their eyes.
Pupils shaking with fear, movements faltering as they hurriedly retreated.
That was all.
People no different from those they themselves had driven onto the altar.
They, too, were so easily swayed by fear.
‘And yet.’
Why.
Why would they do such…….
It was then.
The sounds of battle and shouting came rushing closer from afar in an instant.
The door leading into the cavern burst open with a violent force that shook the ground.
First, spirited paladins charged in, their silver armor flashing as it reflected the light.
And then—boom, thud!
Soon after, as if competing with them, a group of knights clad in ink-black armor burst out from the opposite side.
The ink-black knights handed the captured civilians over to the rear as soon as they found them.
By contrast, the paladins were mercilessly slaughtering the heretics without the slightest mercy.
It was enough to make even me sick of watching.
‘Where is the duke?’
Just as I took a step in that direction.
By the time I sensed a presence, it was already too late. My arm was wrenched sharply behind my back, and I was forced to my knees.
A moment later, I was shoved to the floor.
I wasn’t surprised.
I simply thought that what had to come had come.
My body was forcibly flipped over, and my exposed neck was pressed down by a forearm.
My face reddened as my breath was cut off.
Then the bastard who had pushed back my hood and confirmed my face hauled me up and made me kneel again.
As if he had been waiting, someone else crouched down in front of me and met me at eye level.
“…….”
“…….”
He, too, had pulled a black hood low over his head, so I couldn’t see so much as a single hem of the clothing he wore beneath it.
But I knew by instinct.
The number of chairs on the dais, which had not matched the number of priests.
The final seat on the dais, which had remained empty throughout the entire ritual.
So he was the owner of that seat.
I stared straight at him.
‘Perhaps he’s the one who moved the ritual forward.’
I lowered only my eyes to check around their feet.
I could see that he had not been affected by the location-tracking magic at all.
“Ruining the ritual—that won’t do.”
I blinked.
It was a smooth, sing-song tone in which I could feel no hostility.
“And you even smashed the crystal. You can’t imagine how heartbroken the faithful were.”
It was gentle, as if he were coaxing a child.
“You should have thought about the position I’m in, having to indulge all their tantrums. Don’t you think?”
And yet, more than anything, it was the hoarse, rough voice of an old man.
It felt wrong.
My heart pounded strangely.
At the same time, even through the knees forced against the ground, I could feel it.
The reinforcements had reached a place very close to where I was now.
‘And yet he didn’t run. He caught me instead?’
My thoughts reached the pieces of gemstone in my pocket, but…….
His gaze had been lingering on my face the whole time.
The moment I, who had been waiting only for an opening, twisted my body and tried to break free.
The one who had my arm twisted behind my back slammed me roughly against the wall.
My forehead struck the wall, and my body was crushed against it.
Of all places, this side was a blind spot the reinforcements would find difficult to discover right away.
“……Killing me won’t do you any good. You’ll be caught anyway.”
“Hm?”
Within the shadow of his hood, the bastard burst into laughter.
It was a pure laugh, utterly unsuited to that hoarse, rough voice.
That sense of wrongness kept sounding an alarm in my head.
“It would have been best if today’s ritual had been carried out somehow, but…….”
“…….”
“Well, I suppose this isn’t so bad either. It just so happens that a cleaning was needed.”
“……What?”
Just like that, I was grabbed by the collar and dragged up.
“That’s right. This will be today’s lesson.”
The bastard clapped his hands once.
“If you cause trouble…… you must pay the price. How’s that?”
Though his tone was still light, I was instinctively seized by a chilling feeling.
The strength of the bastard restraining my arms was so great that I couldn’t move an inch.
I was helplessly dragged across the cavern where battle was in full swing.
The one clearing the way was a black-masked figure who seemed to be another of his subordinates.
He was a strange person, constantly moving, yet giving off not the slightest presence.
Then, among the people, I saw a familiar back.
Long silver hair fluttering through the air.
A blade a span longer than others’ was driven so deep through a person’s flesh that the hilt reached them.
The deeper it went, the more violently drops of blood splattered when the sword was pulled free.
A paladin with an exceedingly beautiful face, already soaked in blood, was right nearby.
Without realizing it, I called out to him.
“Prien……!”
My mouth was covered.
His shoulder, as he stepped on a corpse and indifferently pulled out the sword that had run it through, flinched ever so slightly.
Then he lifted his head.
But before he could even turn this way.
In the distance, with a sudden great noise, a dark red light shot high into the sky.
One of the priests was holding in his hand a gemstone similar to the one I had smashed a little while ago.
Prien’s pupils contracted, and with nimble, almost animal-like movements, he turned and ran toward it without hesitation.
Brilliant silver hair fluttered for an instant.
White coattails billowed.
His back was soon hidden among the crowd and disappeared.
‘Don’t wait.’
I couldn’t know why, of all times, that dream had come to mind in that moment.
He seized my chin and lifted it.
“Did you think he would come to save you?”
“He would have, if you hadn’t stopped me from speaking.”
He ignored my words.
I kept being dragged up onto the altar.
“How naive. You always were.”
“…….”
At last, my head was forced into the stone coffin.
There was no way I could break free from the grip clamped around the back of my head.
A dozen-odd sharp spearheads were right before my eyes, but
I felt a strange certainty.
I turned my head slightly, tugged up one corner of my mouth, and asked.
“……You seem to know me well?”
There was no answer.
“And one more thing. What you said—I do agree with it to some extent.”
“Hm?”
“If you’ve caused trouble…… you must pay the price.”
With my left hand, I seized his forearm.
Not the man in front of me.
The forearm of the one who had been binding me from behind all this time.
Then I forced my body to twist and looked back over my shoulder.
For an instant, he drew his head back slightly, and beneath the lights, the tip of his nose showed.
“It’s you, isn’t it?”
“…….”
“Tell me. The real one is you, isn’t it?”
He was silent.
He made no sound at all.
I lowered my eyes to my left wrist, which had been growing so hot and shining so brightly that I could no longer ignore it.
Red light poured out at last, even from beneath the cloth wrapped around it, my sleeve, and the edge of the hood.
How hard it had been to hide this the whole time.
Taking advantage of his grip loosening for a moment as he pulled his head back, I twisted my arm free with all my strength.
Then I grabbed the edge of his hood.
The moment I was finally about to tear it off.
He seized me by the throat and shoved me back.
I gritted my teeth and held on.
Rrrip.
As the cloth at the lower edge of the hood tore, beneath the dazzling lights, I clearly saw the corners of his mouth curl upward in an arc.
It was only an instant, but I even saw the dimple that cast a faint shadow at the corner of his lips.
And faintly, on the inside of his nape…….
My back struck the rim of the coffin, and I shouted.
“You never intended to kill me here in the first place, did you?”
“…….”
“You just wanted to scare me for fun.”
A laugh rumbled in his throat—his own laugh.
The same manner as just before, but now stripped of the dissonance caused by the old man’s voice, it was a young, gentle voice.
“No, you don’t, Anastasia.”
Along with a chilling shiver…….
An intuition that shook my very soul.
Just then, a white streak tore between me and him.
A sword blade was embedded in the floor.
A masked man, his entire face covered, blocked my path and drew the blade out again.
It was the masked man who had taken the lead and opened the way earlier.