Flame Fire Brigade (3)
"There it is."
Having found the storage room farthest from the stairs, Darian bolted straight for it and planted himself in front of the door.
"Milli!!! Milli!!!! Are you in there!!!!"
Half afraid she might have fainted inside—or that she wasn't there at all—he bellowed her name at the top of his lungs.
Then—
"S-save me!!! Mommy!!!!!"
"...Alright! I'm not your mom, but I will save you."
At the faint young voice filtering through the door, Darian's face broke into a relieved smile. He hadn't been wrong after all.
He reached for the handle—
Clunk—clunk—
"What the fuck! What is this? Is something jammed against it?!"
The thin door standing between him and Milli refused to budge, as if something heavy had locked it shut from the other side.
"Milli! What's going on in there!?"
"Ah…ah…! Th-the stor…storage…! The wooden crates…! *hic*…! Waaaaaah!!!"
"Shit. Something heavy must be blocking it."
Only then did it click—the room Milli had been playing in was being used as a storeroom.
Storerooms were packed with heavy goods. Somewhere in the chaos of the fire, something massive had shifted and sealed the door shut. Milli was conscious, and still she couldn't get out.
No time. Smoke's already pouring in. If I can't open this door, she dies right here.
"Hoo… hrrngh!"
CRACK—!
Decision made in a heartbeat, Darian let go of the handle, seized his axe in both hands, and swung.
The heavy blade punched a gaping hole through the center of the door. Through it, he could finally see inside.
"Oh, for fuck's sake."
The interior was worse.
Furniture and heavy cargo were stacked so thick he couldn't even see past the threshold. Smashing the door alone wouldn't clear a path. This wasn't something one man with an axe could dig through.
The hood shielded his body, but he was already soaked in sweat, and every rough movement drove scorching smoke straight into his lungs.
At this rate, they would both die.
"......Don't you fucking dare!!!!!!!!!"
CRACK—!
Darian kept swinging.
"A firefighter…!!! Saves people!"
CRACK–! CRASH—!
"Gives citizens peace of mind…! Pulls them from the raging flames!!!"
CRUNCH—CRACK—!
"I…I…! Am a firefighter!!!"
CRASH—!
To save a life, he had to pour everything into the one thing only he could do.
Darian was a firefighter.
And firefighters never give up.
But for all that fire in his chest, the smoke-choked body kept slowing. His consciousness began to blur at the edges.
Crisis. Death itself flickered right in front of his eyes.
If he turned and ran alone right now, he might still live.
He had a beloved husband and two children waiting for him at home even now. And if he—the head of the household—died, the chaos that would follow was something he had to consider.
"...I should have at least said goodbye before I left."
But Darian quietly raised the axe.
He knew exactly why Freya had fallen for him.
"Once. Just one more time is enough."
He clenched the haft so hard it threatened to splinter, and instinct told him this would be the last swing. If this one failed, it was over.
Darian did not hesitate.
Just as he always had, he simply swung the axe.
In that instant, Darian felt something wrong.
What the fuck is this?
It was as if time itself had slowed—as if the world around him had frozen solid.
The heat of the fire. The choking smoke. The crackle of burning timber.
None of it reached him.
Only he and the axe in his hands seemed to remain in this world.
Thump—thump—
Even so, he could feel his body still moving, slow and deliberate, and his heart was hammering like mad inside the silence.
As he reeled at the strange, inexplicable phenomenon—
Thumpthumpthumpthump—
His heart went wild, and then, instead of the fire trying to swallow the building whole, a translucent blue flame began to flicker in his hands.
Aura.
In this desperate, life-or-death moment, he had finally awakened to aura.
The aura blooming from his fingertips slowly drank in the axe haft, climbed upward, and soon a blue flame was blazing along the blade itself.
His vision cleared. Strength flooded his limbs. Darian savored the stillness.
By the measure of his own senses, the axe blade drifted slowly down and touched the door he had already struck so many times.
BOOM—!
Every swing until now might as well have been firewood chopping. The door—and every heavy object piled behind it—went flying in one clean, catastrophic blast. Beyond the exploding furniture, a young girl lay collapsed on the floor, gasping for scorching air.
"Oh no…!"
Darian hurled the axe aside and lunged, scooping her into his arms.
"...She's breathing. Good. It's okay."
Holding the girl whose faint breath still clung to life, Darian smiled, bright and clear.
"How long has it been?"
"Has he already burned to death in there?"
"Went charging in for nothing and threw away a young man's life on top of it… tsk tsk…"
Meanwhile, outside—
The surrounding flames had been brought under control, but the building itself had already climbed to the second floor and was burning with savage intensity. Time had passed since Darian went in, and the people gathered around had already decided he must have burned to death as well.
"......"
But the woman who lived in this house—Ririn—only clasped her hands as if in prayer and stared at the burning building.
I'll definitely save her, so wait here.
In a way, it had been an empty promise. The building was already being devoured whole by fire; no one could possibly be safe. Those thoughts tore through her mind—and still, Darian's words, spoken with his back turned and absolute certainty in his voice, stayed lodged in her chest.
A belief that made her trust him. A belief that refused to consider the worst, that insisted he would come back with a rescue. It was beating hard inside Ririn's heart.
Then—
CRASH—!
"Wh-what?! Look over there!"
A crack suddenly split one wall of the two-story building, and every gaze snapped toward it.
CRACK–CRASH—BOOM—!!!
The crack widened, then punched open into a hole large enough for several people to pass through—and something in the shape of a man leaped out and escaped the building.
Black hair. A rough, intimidating face.
"...Hah!"
"Th-that's…?!"
"Th-the Count…! It's the Count…!"
"Why is the Count…?"
"O-on your knees…! Quickly!"
The moment Darian's face—hidden until now beneath the hood—came into view, the chattering mouths of the commoners snapped shut in pure shock. They slammed their foreheads to the dirt in prostration.
Ordinarily, the people of a territory had neither reason nor opportunity to see their lord's face, much less remember it.
But was the Count of Evergarden any ordinary lord?
Through countless policies and acts of tyranny, Count Evergarden had earned the people's hatred so thoroughly that his face was already widely known throughout the territory—along with the advice that if you ever spotted him, don't act up. Plant your head on the ground.
Fail to recognize that face and make a mistake, and a tyrant's blade would take your head clean off. Better to memorize it in advance and live.
And now that tyrant had suddenly appeared at a fire scene. Worse—until moments ago he had hidden his identity and charged into the flames himself.
So the territory folk, beyond pressing their heads to the earth, could not begin to understand why their lord would do such a thing.
"....."
Thud—thud—
Darian glanced at the people prostrating themselves toward him, then started walking with heavy steps. His feet carried him toward Ririn, who still hadn't grasped the situation and was simply staring up at him blankly.
"Ah, aah….aaah….!"
While everyone else had their heads pressed to the ground, Darian approached her with something held in his arms—and when Maria saw what it was, the tears came pouring out.
"She inhaled some smoke, but she'll be fine once she rests."
*wheeze–* *wheeze—*
In his arms was her daughter Milla, asleep beneath the hood Darian had been wearing only moments before.
"I told you, didn't I? Wait here. I'll definitely save her."
"Th-thank…thank you…! Truly th…thank youuu….!!!"
Smiling, Darian reminded her of his promise and settled the sleeping Milla into her arms. She was nearly sobbing now, bowing her head again and again.
"Yeah. That's all I need—"
Thud.
"...Huh? Why am I looking at the ground?"
He had been watching the scene with quiet pride when his field of vision suddenly flipped, and a bewildered voice slipped out of him.
"Ah. I collapsed."
And so, after saving the girl, Darian hit the ground and fainted on the spot.