Counting Stars... The Falling Night
“What, what are you saying?!”
“Ah, I guess here I should've gone with the cliché line.”
Lerven confidently delivered a line he'd always wanted to say at least once in his life now that he was alive, but what came back from Sidus was, predictably, the reaction of someone dealing with a madman.
Lerven didn't hide his considerable disappointment from her.
“You block one attack and suddenly you're all cocky, spouting nonsense...!”
Sidus was furious at Lerven's attitude and the fact that her attack had been blocked. She stomped her feet in midair.
As in countless tales, the dragon Sidus possessed the arrogance and lofty pride inherent to her kind, and that sky-high pride was now being chipped away by Lerven.
And there was only one way to restore that damaged pride right now.
“I'm not holding back anymore! I'll crush you completely!”
Nothing but thoroughly trampling the one who'd scratched her pride: Lerven.
Sidus's face twisted viciously, her pupils narrowing into thin vertical slits—a clear sign that the dragon was truly enraged.
And in an instant, she swung her arm with claws extended.
“...Crazy!”
Kagagagagak!!!
The moment Sidus swung her arm, her slashing strike hit Lerven's card.
A pressure that felt like it would send his entire body flying backward surged toward Lerven, who had blocked the strike.
The slash cut through the air at a speed that screamed everything before had been mere child's play.
If Lerven hadn't read Sidus's furious expression and prepared his defense in advance, he surely would have been eliminated on the spot.
“Hup...!”
Judging that the impact, proportional to that speed, was too much to block head-on any longer, Lerven added his free right hand to his left, which held the card facing forward, and tilted it sideways.
Kagagagag─ak!
The slash glanced off the tilted card's surface, veering off course and flying behind Lerven.
The errant strike shattered trees and upheaved the earth, the deafening roar leaving Lerven's ears ringing.
Ordinary.
But that didn't give Lerven any reason to fear Sidus's attacks. On the contrary, it only solidified his resolve that he had to block them.
Kagagagagaga─ak!
Kagagaga─ak!
Kaga─ak!
To break Lerven's unyielding will, countless blades rained down on him endlessly.
It was an endless chain of trials that might go on forever, but he deflected Sidus's assaults over and over.
Yet it was obvious his stamina wouldn't hold if he kept blocking in the same posture.
So Lerven considered more efficient movements with every deflection.
He instantly acted on split-second judgments, leading to constant refinements in his motions.
Kak!
“Hoo....”
The moment Lerven perfectly timed his deflection to meet one of Sidus's incoming strikes finally arrived, and no more attacks came his way.
Sidus had finally stopped her assault on Lerven.
“H-how did you block all of them...?”
Sidus's trembling voice reached Lerven as he clutched his numb arms, gasping for breath.
Lifting his stiff neck from the tension, Lerven met her gaze and noticed her eyes shaking violently.
For a dragon like her, swollen with arrogance and pride, it was unbearable that a mere human had blocked all her attacks.
“What the hell did you do? Tell me right now.”
Sidus's voice quivered as she questioned him, desperate to deny the truth. She hoped it was an illusion or some trick.
She couldn't—no, she wouldn't—accept reality.
After all, she was a proud dragon princess of Dracapolis.
“......”
But even if she asked how, Lerven had little to say.
Sidus's attacks were so straightforward they required no deep thought; he'd simply deflected the frontal assaults.
Still, her intense stare was too much to bear in silence, so he told the plain truth.
But Lerven had overlooked a few things. First, the words that came to mind were unfiltered. Second, his mental strain made it impossible to rephrase them politely for a princess. And third, the adrenaline surging through his veins from the extreme tension.
“How? Your attacks are so pathetically simple, like a damn kid's.”
Combined, those factors made Lerven blurt out his raw, unvarnished thoughts.
“Hup.”
“......”
Realizing his mistake, Lerven slapped a hand over his mouth, but spilled words couldn't be unsaid.
They hit Sidus squarely.
Those mocking, utterly disrespectful words, devoid of any respect, reaching her when she was already boiling over—it meant one thing.
No turning back, no matter what he did now.
Snap.
“Ha.”
The thread of Sidus's patience, held taut by her noble pride alone, snapped clean.
“Ahahahaha!”
She no longer needed to care about nobility or decorum.
She'd just smash it all anyway.
“......Ha.”
Sidus looked up at the sky, her eyes gleaming with rage bordering on madness.
“O brilliant beings who traverse the vast world beyond the heavens, those who walk the path of light illuminating creation.”
“I, bearer of a star's name, earnestly beseech you.”
⟨ Nox ⟩
With a voice stuffed to the brim with suppressed fury, she murmured incomprehensible words toward the sky.
But Lerven witnessed the result they summoned.
The sky darkening like ink being stirred in, even with the sun still high.
A curtain of pitch black blotting out the sun, etched with brilliantly shining stars.
A light twinkling as if about to pour down.
“Grant a fragment of that light. Let it descend upon this world.”
Lerven realized Sidus's murmur was the same type as the words he uttered when using Arcana.
A power that beseeched miracles from the world, ultimately manifesting them on a small scale in reality.
Sidus used it to summon stars from a night sky impossible in daylight, willing their power to descend upon the land.
“Nox.”
That was Sidus's unique skill, Nox.
A power to bring any desired celestial body crashing to earth.
“If that hits... I'll die before I even get eliminated...?”
Faced with the miracle manifesting overhead, Lerven turned tail and ran without looking back.
*Truth be told, I already knew there was no escaping that attack. Why? Because when a star falls to the ground, how do you run from it? Especially on an island with no exit!
“This is insane. Why do I always get tangled up with these lunatics?”
I bolted toward the island's edge for dear life.
Fortunately, Sidus seemed unable to move while casting her skill, and maybe—just maybe—I could find a way off the island at the edge.
I ran into a few examinees and phantom beasts on the way, but they'd noticed the anomaly in the sky too and were fleeing just like me.
Hell, who cares about points in a situation like this? Even the phantom beasts running was a surprise, though.
“...Tch.”
But when I, the other examinees, and the phantom beasts reached the island's edge at full speed, despair set in.
The boundary with the sea was sealed by the sturdiest barrier imaginable.
Bam! Bam!
“Aaaagh! Open this! Can't you see we're about to die?!”
“What the hell is the academy doing?!”
“Grak!”
“Kaaak!”
Unable to accept it, the examinees pounded the barrier, venting their shock and rage freely. Even the phantom beasts scratched at it desperately, ignoring the people beside them, desperate to escape the island.
Leaving them behind—equalized in the face of apocalypse—I turned to the sky.
“...This sucks so bad.”
From the blackened heavens, a star beckoned toward the ground.
Pushing through the atmosphere, piercing the clouds, a massive constellation descended agonizingly slowly.
It looked sluggish, but no one here could dodge it.
“...Huh.”
Facing this colossal doom and finally thinking give up, I glanced at the card in my dangling hand.
The upright Hanged Man, much fainter than when first drawn.
But it had faded not from blocking Sidus's attacks, but because time had passed, dimming the miracle infused in the card.
“......”
Time enough for the card to fade meant Arcana's cooldown had long expired.
“...Draw.”
Fwaat!
With the mindset to at least flail and get eliminated fighting, I drew a card.
[XV – The Devil]
Direction: Upright
Meaning: Selfishness, Bondage, Corruption
The mystical power infuses hands reaching from the deep abyss.
The card in my hand was the upright Devil.
I alternated glances between the new upright Devil and the previous upright Hanged Man.
[XII – The Hanged Man]
Direction: Upright
Meaning: Self-Sacrifice, Patience
The mystical power realizes the virtues of self-sacrifice and patience.
Tarot cards usually had vague, multifaceted meanings, but the cards from this Arcana typically aligned with their standard interpretations and uniform abilities.
Like the Strength or Death cards.
So these two should have powers not far off their described meanings.
“With these two, maybe... just maybe...”
I racked my brain, inferring their abilities.
Not certain, but I had to believe now.
Gripping both cards, I kindled a faint spark of hope.
“...Alright. Let's give it a shot.”
My turn starts now.