Salvation (2)
"You're really not hurt anywhere?! Or did that bastard do something to you, Lilith—?"
"N-No, I'm perfectly fine, so it's all right…."
If she had to nitpick, her arm did throb a little where Ethan had yanked her out just now, but she couldn't very well haggle over that with the man who'd saved her. It wasn't as if he'd pulled her out of the water and then demanded her luggage back.
After all, if Ethan had been even a little later, she would have been dragged into that mindscape from which there was no return. Right now, even an eternity wouldn't have been enough time to express her gratitude to him.
"But by the way, how on earth did you know? I was nearly pulled all the way in—through that tiny sliver of a gap, you shouldn't have even been able to see my face."
"…I just… had a feeling you were there, Lilith."
"I'm sorry, what?"
"Something was slowly closing the space shut, and I saw a single hand. And somehow, I just knew it had to be yours. I'm glad I wasn't too late, Lilith."
"……."
So he'd deduced that I was being dragged away by McHart from a hand alone? That was strangely touching and yet somehow deeply unsettling at the same time.
No, no. I'd decided I was just going to be grateful for now. How intense Ethan's obsession with me actually was could wait for later—there were more pressing problems staring us in the face.
"…A shame. I really thought I almost had her."
With Lilith pulled out of his grasp, McHart apparently no longer had any reason to linger in his own mindscape either, and he reopened the space and stepped back into view.
From the outside, it looked as though he were peeling open the empty air and walking out of it. Once clear of the breach, he put a little distance between himself and the pair, squared off, and murmured as he studied them.
"I was startled when you showed up so quickly amid all that commotion, but you're clearly not that Hero fellow."
"…So it was your doing after all. Lady Blaze's disguise magic suddenly vanished, and then Prince Antonio came bursting out of nowhere—I did wonder what was going on."
"That's right. Fun, wasn't it? Thanks to that, the Hero and his party seem to still be stuck at the banquet hall. All that worrying for nothing."
Thanks to Ethan, they'd managed to escape McHart's mindscape, but the battle between Lilith and McHart was far from over.
If anything, it had only just begun. Until moments ago, a fight against McHart had been utterly hopeless for her alone—but now, with a Sword Expert like Ethan at her side, it was a fight worth having.
His sword, sure—but his entire body is wreathed in blue aura. Could it be that he's fully bloomed?
Until now, Ethan had only ever dipped a toe into the Expert realm for fleeting moments, but what radiated off him now was a torrent of aura so abundant that it could only be called a full flowering.
Granted, she'd seen something similar during the Kraken subjugation. But that had faded once the battle ended, so she'd written it off as a temporary phenomenon.
Seeing him occasionally bloom into Expert territory even during sparring sessions with Harold, she began to suspect that Ethan was simply the type who grew stronger in great battles.
Thinking back to how the original game's Ethan had been disproportionately powerful in the mid-boss fight despite being a trivial early-game villain, she was fairly certain he thrived on life-or-death combat. Whether that was a trait unique to the man himself or just a coincidence that happened to overlap with the original story, she couldn't say.
Thud.
Having slipped down from Ethan's arms, Lilith likewise gripped a dagger in each hand and readied herself for the real fight. After all, it would still take time for Gehmajoshigi-gwat and Serista to arrive, and until then, she and Ethan would have to face McHart alone.
"Be careful, Ethan. Whatever happens, we have to avoid getting pulled into that world of his."
"…Understood, Lilith."
"Planning to hold out until the others arrive? Hate to break it to you, but it's already too late!"
"Oh no—!"
With McHart's words, the scenery around them darkened once more. Panic bloomed for an instant as the world drained of color and shadow closed in—but as her eyes took in the new landscape and she grasped its shape, a quiet smile rose within her.
This place was nothing like the deep, suffocating darkness of the mindscape he'd shown her before. She knew at a glance that this space was nothing but a bluff McHart had conjured for show.
"For a woman who's been caught in my grasp once, sealing her back inside my space is easier than stomping an ant crawling on the floor. What a pity. You came to rescue your beloved fiancée, only to end up trapped right alongside her."
It was a bluff. If he'd truly possessed such a means, he could have ambushed her anywhere inside the Academy, and there would have been no need for that chase through the rear courtyard of the annex in the first place.
McHart's mindscape, forged through physical contact with his target, was a terrifying ability—one that could make even moving a single limb an agonizing ordeal. But a mindscape constructed at a distance like this posed nowhere near the same threat.
Within this space, McHart could not perfectly subdue the two who had been drawn in. It was, in the end, an arena that demanded a second, all-out battle from both sides—which was why he'd held it in reserve until now.
Of course, since it was a space of his own making, McHart could wield his unique ability far more efficiently within it. But the same went for Lilith and Ethan. In her case especially, having escaped the annex's grounds meant the restrictions on her magic had vanished along with them.
No matter whose space it was, if it came down to magic against magic, she could manage well enough. And with Ethan fighting at her side, it was hard to picture a scenario where both of them went down.
"'Trapped alongside her'? What a joke."
"…Hm."
"For me, a world without Lilith is the only thing that's fake. So even if this is such a hollow space, as long as she stands beside me, this might as well be my real world."
"……."
…Ugh, that's so goddamn cringe, I swear.
She couldn't tell whether he'd said it deliberately, but Ethan's words left her face burning for no good reason. Thankfully, the drab black-and-white backdrop made it hard for anyone to notice the color rising in her cheeks.
Even McHart seemed caught slightly off guard by that answer, wavering for just a moment. He quickly gathered himself, though, and pressed on with what he'd been saying.
"No need to posture in front of a woman. In the face of death, men and women all become the same anyway."
"……."
"And besides, I never had any interest in that woman in the first place. I bear you no particular grudge, either. Honestly, I'd rather not fight at all."
"Your tongue runs uselessly long, doesn't it? You wield power borrowed from the demonkin, and yet you lack the confidence to face Lilith and me at once?"
"Within this space, I can crush the both of you at my leisure—and the woman standing over there knows that better than anyone. If you think it's empty posturing, I'll gladly give you a moment to ask her."
"……."
Having set foot in his space twice already, McHart had apparently assumed that Lilith feared it.
Well, if she'd truly been ignorant of his patterns, being dragged back into this space might have sent despair surging through her first. But she was, after all, a hardened veteran who had cleared Luminor Academy 24.9 times—a grizzled old-timer among old-timers.
The woman who had sliced off McHart's head twenty-five times in-game could hardly fail to recognize a pattern telegraph. If Ethan asked, she could tell him the weak points of this space in a heartbeat—along with the fact that McHart was bluffing—
"That won't be necessary."
"…What?"
"…Excuse me?"
"I believe I made myself perfectly clear. No matter what kind of space this is, the only real world is the one with Lilith in it."
"……."
"……."
"The greatest reason I ever took up the sword was for Lilith's sake. So you can threaten me all you like—tell me to abandon her and flee—but it's a wasted effort. Such a thing will never come to pass, not until my bones crumble to dust. Rather than cling to a coward's life while leaving Lilith behind, I would sooner stand at the front and become the shield that guards her. You could not scratch so much as a hair on her head until you had torn my body to shreds first.
And even if you were an enemy too strong for me to defeat, I would sooner fall fighting at Lilith's side in this world where no one knows us than flee alone. That is both the reason I began learning the sword, and the answer it gave me."
What on earth goes through this man's head on a daily basis, that he can spew dialogue that cheesy without a single stumble, dead calm?
As for Lilith, standing right there listening, Ethan's knightly declaration had her bowing her head in shame on roughly seventeen different levels.
…Call it a gut feeling, but the moment it crossed my mind, I knew—once today was over, I was going to have a very different kind of trouble looking Ethan in the face.