Mudwell
Only after the first battle ended did the rest of the assault team's comrades come rushing over.
In other words, that fight that had felt endlessly long had actually lasted less than thirty seconds.
Maybe because it was my first time fighting people this strong, my heart was pounding wildly.
A fight against an evenly matched opponent never ends in a single exchange — it felt almost like a conversation.
To put it more precisely, a conversation of the body. Get your mind out of the gutter.
Constantly reading your opponent's condition, moving to seize the initiative — it also felt a little like dancing.
Huh? That would mean I'd been having a bodily conversation with my partner.
Among the mere eight B-rank Awakeners, there seemed to be a Level 5 healer, so the soldier who'd taken a thrashing from the giant recovered quickly.
But it was far too early to feel relieved. The war had only just begun.
We didn't even know the enemy's exact numbers, or what abilities they possessed.
Together with the members of Team A who'd joined us at some point, we wandered through the half-demolished building — yet for some reason, not a single person was in sight.
Come to think of it, when the giant had smashed his way out of the building, there should have been at least one or two syndicate members caught up in the wreckage...
As we moved around on the second floor, a voice calling people together drifted up from below.
"There's a door here! Looks like a passage leading underground!"
Ah. So there was a basement.
Cecilia, watching people gather one by one, turned to me.
"Shall we go take a look too?"
"Sure."
Following behind Cecilia as she started walking first, a thought suddenly struck me.
Why would they huddle underground instead of fighting to keep us from entering the building?
They had to know our objective was to wipe them out.
What if we had an ability user who dealt with something like poison gas?
Hiding in a sealed basement would be no different from choosing to die without resistance.
But what if that basement wasn't a sealed space?
What if there was a passage leading to another exit?
What if the giant smashing out of the building hadn't been a stupid move, but a deliberate stall for time?
If that were the case, we'd walked straight into a trap of our own free will.
It would be the same as walking into an encirclement ourselves. And if they were all clustered in one place like that...
"No!"
The moment that thought hit me, I snatched Cecilia's wrist as she walked toward where people were gathering.
"Huh? What?"
Cecilia turned to look at me, completely baffled.
Her eyes had gone round with surprise at having her wrist suddenly grabbed — it was terribly cute, but unfortunately I had no time to appreciate it.
Cecilia's face hardened as well, as if she'd glimpsed some future in that instant.
She yanked the hand holding her wrist hard toward herself.
Whether the training I'd done with Cecilia had paid off, or she simply hadn't resisted, she slipped right into my arms.
Still holding her, I spun around and pressed a few of the tears I'd been carrying onto my back, spreading them thin.
And then—
KRAAAAAAAAAAASH!
A fireball that had come screaming in from somewhere at insane speed crashed down on the spot where people had been gathering.
In a flash of brilliant light, the world went pure white. Exploding chunks of stone pulverized what remained of the building, and searing flames melted everything they touched.
A moment later my vision recovered, and I saw Cecilia's face as she urgently shook me.
"——! ——————!"
She was saying something with desperate intensity, but from the sudden shock all I could hear was ringing in my ears.
Still looking frantic, Cecilia forced me upright.
Huh. My body shouldn't be able to stand like this right now.
Just a moment ago, to protect myself and Cecilia, I'd pressed tears to my back and hardened them solid.
The crystallized tears had completely covered my back, and since I hadn't turned them back into tears, the rigid crystals should have locked every joint in my body.
"Ah..."
Only then did I realize that every crystal protecting my body had been shattered to pieces.
"Ah... augh!"
As my senses, including my hearing, began to return, a terrible pain flooded in from the wound on my back.
"Elysia! Stay with me!"
Even with Cecilia supporting me, I couldn't endure the searing pain and sank to the ground. My body felt as heavy as if a boulder were crushing it.
How stupid of me. Even after watching my tears shatter so easily against the giant, I'd thought a single layer would be enough.
The one silver lining, I supposed, was that I'd been hit by the fragments that sprayed after the fireball landed, not the fireball itself.
The crystals had shattered from the shrapnel and a long gash had opened across my back, but I was still alive and breathing.
If I'd taken a direct hit from the falling fireball, I would have died before I even felt the pain.
Just like the people who'd been examining the door to the basement — vanished without a trace.
"Elysia! We need to get out of here first!"
She forced me back to my feet.
Every slight movement split the wound on my back wider, sending waves of agony through me.
"Augh..."
Breathing out something closer to a moan than a breath, I rose with Cecilia's support — and only then did the scene before me come into focus.
KRAAASH! KRAAAAAASH!
Fireballs just like the one that had struck the Mudwell base were raining down across the city like a storm.
Meteors, I think they called them?
The city was turning into a sea of flames in an instant, and the corpses of rear support team members and assault team members who'd been hidden throughout the city lay scattered everywhere.
It was like watching the end of the world.
There were others who'd been lucky enough to survive like Cecilia and me, but most of them weren't in one piece the way we were.
Someone rolling on the ground, screaming in agony after losing a leg. Someone who'd lost an arm, propped against a wall, barely holding onto their sanity.
Only seeing that did it truly hit me where I was, and who we were up against.
Hearing about seventy dead on the news from far away never really sinks in if you haven't experienced it yourself.
You just feel a vague pity.
I'd read the line in How to Become a Hero that said seventy people died in the Mudwell purge operation.
I was one of those people. A fool who hadn't truly grasped it.
I was going to reduce the casualties and make the world a little more beautiful. What a joke.
All I could do was watch people die.
Mudwell syndicate members appeared from somewhere and began attacking the barely surviving people.
Most of our wounded comrades couldn't even put up a proper fight before they died.
Throats cut. Bodies burned alive. Burst apart by overwhelming force.
But among them, some still resisted to the end.
THUD!
With a dull crack, a Mudwell member with a twisted neck went flying through the air.
"UOOOOOH!"
Every time the man bellowed and swung his fist, another syndicate member died.
That man with one arm gone was the soldier who'd saved me from the giant earlier.
And he wasn't alone. The healer who'd treated the soldier earlier was pouring healing into him with a steel pipe still stuck through his abdomen.
"Haaah!"
Nameless Awakeners charged at the syndicate members only to die pointlessly.
I hadn't understood when I read it in text. How hollowly they'd died. How desperately they'd resisted before falling.
Did Cecilia sense what was in my eyes as she supported me?
With a grim expression, she sat me down on the ground and drew her sword.
"Wait here."
Then she gave me a small smile, as if telling me not to worry.
In that short time her hair had come loose and wild, and the flames had already dirtied her face — and yet Cecilia was endlessly beautiful.
Cecilia hopped down and ran toward where people were fighting.
Shhk.
Even from a distance that wasn't close, the clean sound of cutting rang out clearly.
Shhk. Shhk-shhk. Shhk!
Cecilia, who'd taken nothing worse than scrapes, carved through the enemies in an instant.
The sight of her swinging a cold blade amid the flames was beautiful.
"You fucking bitch!"
A syndicate member spat a vicious curse and charged at Cecilia.
His arm had become a monstrous limb studded with massive blades, hurtling toward her.
"No!"
She couldn't dodge that. I could tell from the shock on Cecilia's face.
Could my tears stop it? I didn't know. They'd already shattered twice today alone.
Had I developed a trauma already? I was afraid I couldn't stop it. Afraid that if I failed, Cecilia would die.
But I didn't hesitate.
The droplets streaming from my eyes shot forward like a gale.
There was no need to mix them with blood to make them harder. They were already red.
Because what was flowing from my eyes right now wasn't tears — it was blood.
Thuk. Thuk! Thuk!
In an instant, the blood tears transformed into sharp spines and turned the syndicate member into a cute little hedgehog.
"Guh..."
Apparently it hadn't killed him outright — his groan carried even from that distance.
But that sound vanished just as quickly with a shhk. I felt a little disappointed.
Thump.
The faintly metallic scent of blood and the crackle of fire made my heart pound.
Cecilia was still far off, dancing with nameless people.
I wanted to dance with her too, so I forced my strangely heavy body up and ran toward her.