Ugh, I'm Going to Die (3)
No way. It couldn’t be.
Gremory turned the weekly report over and over in her hands, as if the truth might change if she examined it from a different angle.
But the events that had already occurred refused to shift.
“Cryan, did you already know?”
She drew the question out, watching him carefully. For the past several days he had spoken with a bright face about how it seemed he had finally made a friend. This news would strike him like a hammer.
Yet Cryan answered with a sullen pout.
“I don’t believe it. There is no possible way Sir Yohan would do something like that.”
“But this paper doesn’t lie, you know?”
Cryan leaned closer to the young lady and whispered, his expression bitter.
“Yohan is a meticulous man. Someone like him would never vanish forever. Therefore…”
I will wait.
His voice trembled as he spoke those final words, as though tears might spill at any second.
The death of his benefactor.
Gremory realized it would be cruel to keep pressing him on the subject.
“Shall I cast a spell to dull the sorrow, Cryan?”
“No need. I believe in him.”
“I see.”
Even so, one more person weighed on her mind.
“What truly worries me is the Grand Duke’s daughter.”
“……”
“She once spoke to me with complete honesty. Knowing what I know, I doubt I can heal the wound in her heart.”
All Gremory could do, then, was swallow her helpless pity.
One thing, however, was certain.
Cryan was an excellent actor—unlike that barbarian ice-cream duo from the North.
“…Yes. It is worrying.”
In his head, he quietly reviewed the orders the elusive Yohan had left him.
It was a rainy morning when the headline slammed across the front page.
The rain poured down in sheets.
On the day Sigmund Academy drowned beneath a flood, the chairman and principal had desperately tried to bury the incident without a trace.
A student’s murder—an event without precedent.
Such a scandal could never be permitted.
Yet how could they possibly conceal the death of the top-admitted student and Lord of Steel of the North?
Whether they liked it or not, Yohan had been an eye-catching figure on campus, always at the center of events. The 65th generation of the Sigmund Newspaper Club could not possibly overlook it.
“Extra edition! Extra edition!”
Even if it meant suspension, they pedaled their bicycles across the entire campus, flinging newspapers with the fervor of true journalists.
As a result, even Eclipse—who possessed almost no information network—learned of the news.
“…Hah… haa.”
Her breath caught.
Her first reaction was the same as everyone else close to Yohan: How could someone like him possibly die?
Yet for Eclipse, who trusted without doubt that Yohan was the Aligner who would guide her, worry quickly overtook shock.
She thought of Lady Karalin, whom she now considered a friend, and how her fate seemed entangled with his.
Hadn’t she glimpsed it herself?
The way Lady Karalin’s face would melt the instant Yohan approached—transforming from that confident, almost motherly strength into the expression of a girl utterly lost in love.
Even in his absence, the lady would smile whenever she spoke of him.
Eclipse did not know how the Grand Duke’s daughter truly felt about her, but she understood that the lady’s heart now stood at the edge of a cliff.
And at the very least, she thought of Karalin as her first friend at this school.
Therefore, to save her from danger, Eclipse headed for the bench in the central plaza—the place the lady had always said she waited for Yohan.
“…L-Lady—”
But the sight that greeted her was—.
Terrible.
Karalin stood motionless, clutching a single newspaper, mouth opening and closing wordlessly as rain poured over her.
Tears streamed down her face even in the downpour.
…Tears should not fall like that.
Those tears might have been everything she possessed.
She could not even think to cry out in grief. The figure before Eclipse was no longer human—it was a specter that had already abandoned life.
Eclipse had never seen such an expression on anyone’s face. The words died in her throat.
What could she possibly say?
What could she do to pull the lady out of that rain?
The answer, she realized, was nothing.
Karalin no longer noticed anything around her.
She simply collapsed onto the wet ground, head hanging limp.
“…Just… die.”
“Lady, please—”
“Yohaaan… Yohan. Where are you?”
Even when Eclipse called out, the lady’s lost words simply drifted through the empty air.
“I’m right here…”
She clutched her face, muttering like a madwoman.
She should have been wiping her tears, yet she simply sat in the rainwater, utterly hollow.
“Ah… aah… aaah……”
It sounded as if her heart were physically shattering.
“Why… why do I alone… have to suffer things like this…?”
Her voice was not merely cruel—it was vicious.
Why was it always her?
She had committed no sin except being born.
Yet even the one person who had tried to share that burden was now being stolen from her?
Karalin did not even notice Eclipse drawing closer.
And that was the beginning of the tragedy.
Drip—
‘…?!’
In that instant every raindrop falling toward the ground began transforming into ice crystals.
‘…H-Huh. Something feels wrong!’
The moment Eclipse’s protagonist-level danger sense activated—
Sun-Obscuring Swordplay
First Form: Initial Respite
A blizzard exploded outward from Karalin with tremendous pressure.
“Kyaaaaah—!”
Eclipse was hurled backward, but her innate martial skill let her roll and brace herself against the ground.
“This is bad! If I don’t bring out my heat source I’ll freeze to death!”
A wall of flame surged up before her, melting the deadly blizzard on contact.
She had barely made it. A second later and she would have become a porcupine of icicles.
Yet the frost that spread beyond her barrier turned into razor-sharp thorns, devastating everything nearby.
‘Is this… Lady Karalin’s true power?’
Eclipse shuddered. Had the frost magic she used during their spar been nothing but a polite restraint?
It was fortunate no one else was in the central plaza on this rainy day. Had students been present, the casualties would have been catastrophic.
She could not leave the situation like this.
‘I have to calm her down somehow…’
She erased any thought of running away. No matter how much of a coward she was, that was what someone who admired heroes had to do.
Yet even with her resolve firm, the tiny Eclipse could not think of a single effective method.
The gap in power was simply too vast, and this was not a situation that could be solved by force. How could raw strength suppress emotions that had already gone berserk?
This was the first time Eclipse had ever faced anything like it.
Just as she was wondering what to do—
Bwoong—
“…I was told you would come to the lady. It seems he was right. That man really is incredible. How could he predict even this?”
“…Eh?!”
A magician in white robes floated in the sky above them. Mana poured from both his hands as he deployed a wide-area sealing formation.
“Hyaat…!”
He succeeded in trapping the entire blizzard swirling around Karalin inside the barrier.
Kwoogwaaaang—
“Are you the one called Eclipse?”
“That’s me…?”
“Then take this.”
Without ceremony he dropped something from above.
Clatter—
“Peonies and a letter?!”
“They aren’t fresh, I’m afraid.”
“B-But why are you suddenly giving me these?! What am I supposed to do with them?!”
Even as she spoke, the storm trapped inside the sealing formation grew fiercer. Karalin’s instability was accelerating.
The magician staggered in mid-air.
“Ugh… damn it…”
The range-sealing formation consumed both mental energy and mana to neutralize all power within its bounds. Even a magician of his apparent caliber seemed hard-pressed to endure the pressure of Karalin’s spirit.
“Just take those inside the barrier and deliver them to the lady. That’s all you need to do.”
“R-Really? It looks like I’ll be torn to pieces the moment I step inside…!!”
“I know it will be hard. But right now you are the only one who can do it. I will maintain a barrier for you, so please—I’m begging you!”
“Even so…”
“Besides, it’s better than someone who uses holy magic like me going in! Fire is the complete opposite of her power, so keep your mind clear. You’re good with flame magic, aren’t you?!”
Eclipse could only blink in surprise.
“How did you know I can use fire magic?!”
“Stop talking and go while I can still hold this—!”
“F-Fine…!”
There was no time to hesitate. Eclipse gripped the items tightly, steeling her resolve.
No matter how much she hated hurting others, this was different.
This was about saving a friend.
She adjusted her sword and took a step forward.
At that moment—
Flutter—
“Hey, Cryan. You gonna hog all the fun for yourself?”
Kwoong—
A man bearing dragon wings descended from the sky and landed with a heavy thud.
“—Jurchen?! How are you here?!”
“Doesn’t matter. Looked like Sigmund had gone to hell, so I came looking for the cause.”
Jurchen glanced around once and instantly grasped the situation.
“Got it. The woman rampaging in there is Yohan’s lady, right? We need to stop her. You two want to get close, yeah?”
His sudden appearance left her confused, but there was no reason to refuse help offered so willingly.
Eclipse nodded vigorously.
“The lady has gone berserk! We have to reach her!”
“You have a plan to calm her down?”
“…I’m not sure if it will work.”
“Then stick right behind me, kid. I may not look it, but I’m pretty damn good at being a meat shield.”
The Bruised City.
An unexpected rescue.
An unintended connection had brought forth the appearance of a Special A-Rank tanker.
None of them knew it, but the combination of Jurchen and Eclipse was a classic pairing in Eternal Eclipse, one that perfectly complemented each other’s strengths.
Of course, given Eclipse’s righteous nature, bringing him into her party would normally have been difficult.
Yet the dark-haired man had bound such fates together anyway.
Whether he had planned even this, no one could say.