The Main Scenario

The first sign of the fall was dryness.

Crackle.

The monstrous bird of flesh, its body still slick with blood and oil, began to wither from the extremities inward.

The second sign was Ruby's warning.

She was the first to catch the wrongness, and she reported it on a sigh.

"We're falling."

Fine. He had already expected as much.

"How long until we hit?"

"About three—"

"Three minutes is enough."

"Two...... one......"

The count had barely finished before the bird's body crumbled like dead leaves, and all of them fell with it.

"...!!!"

Wait. Wasn't the universal rule that you went all the way to zero, and then the bang?

He was too stunned to scream, locked rigid in the air—while the members, Luna excepted, gaped in open admiration even as they dropped.

"As expected of the Captain...!! You're not even surprised...!!"

"Keh heh...! You all felt it a moment ago, didn't you...!! He's already taken that much of his power back. As if a little fall could threaten the Captain...!!"

"Indeed. The Captain—it is! I believed. In him—I did!!"

What are they even saying. Somebody save me.

He glared at the ground rushing up to meet him, falling with nothing he could do, and his newly wakened survival instinct began to spin tight.

If I hit like this, do I live?

Impossible.

If I ask the members to save me?

They'd get suspicious. It might turn out as dangerous as it had with Ruby.

Won't they brace for it on their own?

They might. They might not.

Damn it. Then is there anything usable among the skills?

......There was. He'd only just gotten it.

Huh?

Come to think of it, what time was it?

That question was the last. His private game of asking and answering himself came to an end.

"The ground is upon us."

At Ruby's warning, the members prepared to land. Ruby formed a parachute out of flesh. Dalan set himself to draw. Hanryang wrapped Luna tight in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠his arms and braced to take the impact exactly as he was.

And Nahan—

It said once a day and it's already past midnight it said once a day and it's already past midnight it said once a day and it's already past midnight it said once a day and it's already past midnight.

He hammered it in his mind, mashing at Black Wolf's second skill—Invincible—which refused to catch.

One kilometer. Eight hundred meters. Five hundred. A wasteland stretched between noble territories, looking for all the world like an abandoned village, and it was coming up fast. Two hundred meters. Fifty. Five.

In the instant less than five meters remained between him and the ground, and death peered up at him—

Thud.

The moment Skill 2—Invincible—activated, he simply set down on the ground.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

He nearly lost his balance and toppled, but excellent reflexes carried him through. The skill's effect was beyond doubt. He had fallen from that height and didn't have so much as a scratch.

Did it erase the impact itself? Treat the whole thing as if it never happened? ...Yeah. I'm sold.

So the words invincible for eighty seconds hadn't been written there for show.

......Yeah. I am genuinely sold.

Past flustered, into a blank daze. It didn't feel real—as if he had stepped into a game whose physics engine had broken.

Pat, pat-pat.

Nahan was absently brushing the dust from his clothes when the rest of the members, each having landed in their own way, came over.

"Captain! You just fell like that? Bare? From that height!?"

"Youth is a fine thing, I'll grant you."

"That is not a matter of youth!! Just how much stronger are you trying to get!?"

Ruby closed in, still horrified. Dalan came stroking his chin.

Still too shocked to get a word out.

He turned his face up to the sky, meaning only to catch his breath, and the two of them—grave all at once—asked, as if deeply impressed.

"So you knew all along, Captain."

...Huh?

"Indeed. Youth is a fine thing. I've only just caught on myself, you see."

Caught on? To what?

Unable to swallow the question, Nahan took a few steps toward them.

"What in the world—"

Tok.

KRRRROOM!!

A faint impact tapped the back of his head, and then a deafening roar followed, as if a massive boulder had come down behind him. He turned. What met his eyes was a rock even larger than he had imagined.

"......?"

While Nahan stood there lost, Ruby and Dalan bowed their heads.

"Thank you, Captain. Because you blocked it, we weren't hurt."

"We'll handle things from here. Your orders."

"...?"

What had they been saying this whole time?

Unlike the reeling Nahan, Ruby and Dalan had already grasped all of it. This was the Ash-White Wasteland, lying between the earldom of Gardner and the viscounty of Coppel. Whatever had seized Luna had lured them here, and by snuffing out the monstrous bird it had succeeded in dropping them. Ruby and Dalan, apart from Luna, had slipped free of that something's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠influence the moment the bird vanished—but Hanryang, who had been shielding Luna the entire time, had been taken by it and left entranced.

Which was why, just now, the enormous boulder wreathed in aura that Hanryang had hurled had come flying straight at them. Only because the Captain blocked it were they unharmed.

As expected of the Captain.

Ruby's eyes, lifted to Nahan, glittered as if they held starlight.

I thought he had lost most of his power after that incident. An old man's needless fretting, was it.

Relief settled into Dalan's gaze as he looked at Nahan long and steady.

Nahan met both of them without looking away, and thought, in perfect seriousness:

That rock is stupid huge.

Take a hit from that and he'd actually be dead, wouldn't he?

Thump.

He leaned his back against the boulder as he was.

Looks like Hanryang and Luna came down a fair ways off.

Reading the situation with keen insight, he asked the two of them:

"I can rest, can't I."

He would settle his heart. They could go find Hanryang. For a moment he worried that giving nothing but orders, while doing no work himself, might look shameless—but the two had already taken off their masks, and they ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠answered with bright smiles.

"Of course, Captain."

"Rest well."

And with that, they were gone.

"Fast."

Captain of the worst hidden cabal in the entire setting. At times like this, they almost seemed decent.

Anyway, that worked out.

Calming his startled heart was one thing. There was something else he still had to check.

"......They did leave, right?"

Only after he had confirmed, twice, that there was no sign of anyone did Nahan's gaze settle on a single point.

The system window had surfaced the instant the monstrous bird vanished and Luna's erosion rate crossed fifty percent. He could have accepted at once. Nahan chose to wait.

He had reason.

This is a scenario I've never seen.

The main scenario of Babylonia was the tale of the Hero and his companions. It had ended in a bad ending, yes—but that was precisely the novel's main scenario. Which meant an episode called Those Who Were Not Saved was a story that appeared in neither the original nor the setting compendium. He was seeing it for the first time.

My head's already killing me keeping track of everything else. No penalty, unlike the other quests. Should I just decline?

But information would be given. All his scrambling had won him this and that in the way of basics, and still he hadn't obtained the important memories—the characters' pasts among them. Nahan turned it over.

The main quest was to save the Emperor and the Hero. Said the other way, those two had not been saved.

Then wouldn't this "basic information" hold something about the Emperor, or the Hero?

Granted, for that, the timing was awfully strange. Even so—

No penalty if I decline, no penalty if I accept. Better to take whatever's being handed over.

Done deliberating, Nahan leaned back against the boulder again and pressed Accept.

Thud!

"Ghk!"

Like miscounting the stairs and having the step drop out from under him, he tipped backward and fell.

"What? The boulder was definitely......"

He turned, brow furrowed, but the boulder was already gone. That was not all. The Ash-White Wasteland around him had vanished without a trace, and a darkness with no end to it had spread wide, with Nahan at its center.

"What is this......?"

His survival instinct woke again and hauled him to his feet—and in that same moment, from behind him, came a sound.

...Patter-patter.

Footsteps, short and light, like a small child running with everything they had. He snapped his head around, but his vision was narrow, as if a thick fog had settled over it.

Three meters? ...No. I can see out to five.

Calmly taking the measure of his sight, Nahan checked what remained of Invincible.

A shame. Not the worst. It meant that for fifteen seconds he could look this place over without fear.

...Patter-patter.

Listening to the footsteps draw nearer, Nahan thought it through once more.

If I stand here and wait, Invincible will end before I meet whatever that is.

But if he ran?

Roughly fifteen meters. I can reach them before the effect runs out.

If they were going to meet anyway, better to meet while he was even a little safer. The thought had barely finished before Nahan turned.

The speed of the child running. The speed of himself running.

Twelve seconds...... Eleven......

Meet them before Invincible ended, and if they were an enemy, cut them down with Sunflare.

...Hiss.

Golden madness bled into Nahan's black eyes, settled there like frost, and flashed sharp.

Kill them. Kill them before I die.

Bloodshot, he set his hand on the sword and finished the draw—

Fwoosh!

The thick dark split left and right, and something woven of gold and green came charging at him.

Threat. Kill.

Click.

Black Wolf's sword was about to bare its edge for the first time since the possession when—

"Found you! Now Big Sis is iiiit!!?"

"A kid?"

A tiny child, not even halfway to his waist, had been about to fling herself at him, then faltered and drew back.

"...A demon?"

"A human."

He answered with his hand still on the sword, and the child yelped and retreated.

"Nuh-uh. You seem like a demon."

"I said human."

"Demon King."

"Oh, for—"

He sighed and knit his brow, and the child grinned as if this were the best fun she'd had.

"Kidding."

"......"

"Oh! Introductions."

Scrub, scrub.

Startled at herself, the child wiped her hands hard on a grimy white shirt many sizes too big for her, then stuck up a thumb and beamed.

"Luna!"

"......What?"

"My name! It's Luna! And......"

An emerald light began to spill from the girl's eyes. She scratched at a face full of scars and added:

"I'm not dead yet!"

Well, she might die soon, though!

The girl dreamed a nightmare every day.

Dreams of the days she had lived in that horrific circus troupe, where the only way to survive was to smile. Even so, the girl had never once woken crying, or startled.

Because that was the only way she could live. So this time, too, she closed her eyes. Because that was the only way she could live.

......Right, Mom?

The moment Black Wolf's permission fell, the two of them sprinted for the place the boulder had come flying from, and they found Hanryang and Luna.

A corner of the Ash-White Wasteland. On a fog-choked plain, a vast circus tent stood stark, its canvas badly torn. Sensing something, Ruby clasped her shaking hands and asked Dalan:

"We'll have to kill them, won't we?"

"We will."

"Is there no other way?"

"There isn't. ......Not for us."

A brief silence.

"Don't you die, Dalan."

"I'd ask the same of you, Branch Leader."

Flap.

The two of them stepped inside the tent.