An Ominous Premonition
Mom. There's something I have to tell you.
I raced through the forest, urging us onward. A fierce wind trailed in our wake, whipping across my face.
"Alina... faster..!!"
"Understood. Hold on tight, my lady."
Alina cracked the reins once, and the horse surged ahead with even greater speed.
Athena.... she might die soon.
I clenched my teeth and wrapped my arms tighter around Alina's waist. From the moment I had heard Mari's words, we had been riding without a single pause.
No.
That couldn't be. Athena, dying? And yet the sudden change in her demeanor — the way she had let me go without the slightest hesitation — gnawed at me relentlessly.
Mari, back in her dragon form, clung to my shoulder. She nuzzled her tiny face against my cheek as if telling me to calm down.
"Hah... hah!! Can't we slow down just a little..?"
Sepheer flapped her wings alongside us, gasping for breath. Sweat poured down her face; she looked ready to collapse. It was hardly surprising. We had been running nonstop for hours already.
".....Sorry, Sepheer. We're almost there — just hang on a little longer..!"
I looked ahead again. In the distance, the outline of Athena's mansion began to take shape. I had never imagined I would be returning so soon, but there was no way I could simply ignore what Mari had said.
I'll just see her face... and then leave again.
It wasn't as though I wanted to come back here myself. I only needed to settle this uneasy feeling — confirm that she was safe — and then I would go.
"We've arrived, my lady."
The front gate of the mansion came into view. I scrambled down from the horse and ran toward it. But before I could step inside, I found myself face-to-face with someone I had never expected to see.
A massive frame. A man dressed in a billowing Japanese-style kimono.
"...Y-you..?"
"It has been some time, young lady."
His face was hidden beneath a deeply pulled-down sedge hat, but the thick, bushy beard spilling out below and the mysterious air surrounding him made his identity unmistakable.
"...Sword Saint.."
His gaze drifted briefly to Mari perched on my shoulder, and his eyes went wide with shock.
"....I can scarcely believe it. To keep a dragon — a living calamity — at your side. Just what are you, young lady?"
"Why are you here?"
At my question, the Sword Saint let out a sigh and drew a small scrap of paper from his robes. I took it from him. On it was written a single, barely legible phrase — scarcely even words at all.
Don't look for me.
"......"
"It weighed on me, so I came looking... only to find Athena already gone."
The Sword Saint removed his hat as he spoke.
"Young lady. Did something happen between you and her?"
He asked as though seeking an answer — yet the look in his eyes was already steeped in sorrowful understanding, as if he knew everything.
I told him. About what had happened with Athena. Of course, I didn't tell him everything. I had no desire to speak those things aloud. But I explained that I could no longer stay by her side, the color of her soul that Mari had seen, and what that color meant. He was one of the few people close to Athena. He deserved to know at least that much.
"I see."
The Sword Saint smiled faintly, a bitter curve of his lips.
This isn't the time.
Why the Sword Saint had come here didn't matter. What made my heart thrash with terror was the fact that Athena was gone. Her sudden change in attitude. The color of her soul that Mari had seen. The note she had left for the Sword Saint. All of it was winding my nerves tighter and tighter.
"Athena... do you know where Athena is?"
I asked him urgently. He thought deeply for a moment, then exhaled a long sigh.
"I have a guess. But..."
A sliver of hope seemed to glimmer in his words.
"Where is it?!"
He hesitated, saying nothing at first. But after a glance at my desperate expression, he finally opened his mouth.
"Athena is not the sort to take her own life. But throwing herself into a reckless battle with her life on the line... that, she would do."
"...A battle..?"
"Yes. A fight fought with the resolve to die."
A battle so great it could kill Athena. She was someone even the protagonist could never match. Who on earth could possibly kill someone like her?
"Someone like that..."
"There is one, is there not? Our enemy — a being of overwhelming power, a living terror."
His words drove into my mind like a nail.
There was. An opponent even Athena, called invincible under heaven, could never defeat.
"....The De... Demon King?"
"It is only a guess. But if, as you say, she has truly resolved herself to die... then that would be the most likely place."
"....."
"And even if I am right, there is nothing we can do. The Demon Realm is not a place one simply walks into."
Thump— thump—
My heart was pounding violently. The anxiety was slowly hardening into reality, closing in around my throat.
"N-no... that can't be."
The Demon Realm. A place no non-demon could enter lightly — and even if one did, a place so harsh that survival was nearly impossible. She had gone there alone? Truly, to die?
...No, Athena. You're not really thinking something that stupid, are you?
But there was no way to confirm it either way. As the Sword Saint said, the Demon Realm could only be reached through magic — a realm apart. If one were to go on foot, it would mean finding one of the underworld passages known only to a select few.
"The Demon Realm... the Demon Realm... how.."
I was biting my nails, fretting in agitation, when—
"Um... excuse me.."
Sepheer, who had been standing quietly behind me, carefully peeked out her pink hair.
"Hm?"
The Sword Saint frowned at the sight of her and rested a hand on his sword hilt. A sharp, cutting aura began to swirl around him.
"I must have grown rustier than I thought. To fail to notice a demon standing right beside me."
"Hyaaaaah?! W-w-w-wait?!!!!!"
"Quiet."
The Sword Saint drew his blade from its scabbard. With a cold, whispering sshing, the pure white steel emerged into the open air.
"Th-th-th-th-that old man — stop him, Hera!!"
Terrified by the Sword Saint's killing intent, Sepheer scrambled behind me and began to tremble violently.
"True to a demon's nature — so underhanded. Hiding behind an innocent. It will do you no good. There is nowhere my blade cannot reach."
"Wait?!!! Wait!!!!!!!"
"Worry not, young lady. It will be over in an instant."
"...Sword Saint, wait—"
I was about to explain when Sepheer, drenched in cold sweat and shaking her head frantically, squeezed her eyes shut and shrieked.
"If it's the Demon Realm, I can take you there!!!!"
"....Hm?"
"What..?"
The words left my mouth and the Sword Saint's at the same time. I stared at Sepheer with wide eyes, and she hurriedly pressed on.
"I-I may not look like much, but I used to be a legion commander — opening a passage to the Demon Realm is nothing for me..!!"
"...Come to think of it, I believe I have seen her somewhere before."
The Sword Saint studied Sepheer intently for a moment, then turned his gaze back to me.
"Young lady. Is she someone you know?"
I hadn't meant to, but Sepheer's words had seized my full attention, and I completely ignored his question. I grabbed Sepheer's shoulders at once.
"Sepheer..! Can you take us to the Demon Realm right now?"
A thread of hope seemed to shine through her words. As the Sword Saint lowered his killing intent, she let out a breath of relief and answered.
"I can take you. But it's far too dangerous, Hera."
The moment she finished speaking, Mari hopped down from my shoulder and shifted back into the form of a young girl.
"I can protect you."
She looked up at me with clear, steady eyes.
"We have to go, Mom. Right?"
"Mari..."
Mari was right. If we could go, there was no reason to hesitate. Even if Athena wasn't there, I had to confirm it. And this ominous feeling that kept clawing at me was screaming that we could not afford to waste another second.
I spoke to Sepheer in a grave voice.
"Sepheer. Take us there. Right now."
"Urgh.."
While Sepheer hesitated, the Sword Saint sheathed his blade and took a step toward us.
"I will come as well. With me there, your lives should be secure."
"..Sword Saint."
He looked down at me with an expression of mild wonder.
"You seem to possess a strange charm that ensnares the living."
"....Pardon?"
"Never mind. Let us hurry. I have a bad feeling about this."
Sepheer set her jaw with resolve and tightly clasped my hand.
"Haa. Fine. But Hera — promise me."
Her expression was far more serious than before as she laid down her conditions.
"If things get dangerous, I'll open the gate again — and you run. Immediately. Got it?"
There was no time left to dawdle. I answered her at once.
"Yeah. Got it."
"And if, by any chance, we run into the Demon King... then you get out without even looking back."
"Yeah."
The Demon King. The name struck my heart with a force that made it shudder — but the anxiety clawing at me over Athena buried it just as quickly.
Having finished her warnings, Sepheer let out a short breath and immediately poured her magic into the air. The mana scattered through the atmosphere resonated, then reshaped itself into the form of a door. Beyond that door stretched a vast crimson sky.
I did not hesitate. I ran straight through the gate, desperately hoping the Sword Saint's guess was wrong.
But premonitions like this — damn them — always turned out to be right.
"Huh...? Why is the Demon King's Castle.."
Sepheer stared ahead with trembling eyes. Before us stood a structure so thoroughly destroyed it could barely be called a castle — nothing left but rubble and ruins.
"She's here."
Perhaps it was because I had once carried her mana within my body. I could feel it. Her vivid mana. Telling me she was right ahead.
I ran. Without looking back. I sprinted on both feet toward the source of that mana. And when my steps finally stopped—
"A...thena..."
A woman with crimson hair, vast wings unfurled. And beneath her, lying in a pool of her own blood, eyes closed, drawing shallow breaths — was Athena.
"Athena!!!!!"
From that moment, instinct took over my body. I ran. Sepheer and Alina shouted my name at the top of their lungs, but I didn't stop. I kept running.
I knew. Charging barehanded toward the Demon King. If even a shred of caution had remained in me, I never would have made that choice. But Athena's condition — so close to death that it would not have been strange for her to die at any second — narrowed my vision to a pinprick and erased every other thought.
The Demon King turned her head and looked at me. Eyes a red similar to mine, yet a deeper, darker blood-crimson — they widened the moment they met mine. But only for an instant.
"I leave Athena to you."
With those few words alone, the Sword Saint shot forward at a speed the eye could not follow. He collided with the Demon King and, like a single bullet, the two of them vanished into the distance beyond.
I ran to Athena, who lay where the Demon King had been, and hurriedly checked her condition. There was not a single uninjured place on her body. A pool of her blood had gathered on the ground beneath her. Her eyes were tightly shut, without the slightest movement.
"No.. no.... Athena... Athena!!!"
No answer came. No matter how I shook her. No matter how many times I called her name. She only exhaled faint breaths that could cut out at any moment. Her eyes remained peacefully closed.
"Please... Athena!!!"
Tears welled up from sheer terror, but I forced them back and called her name once more.
"Heal."
Mari had somehow come to my side. With a dark expression, she placed her hands over Athena's body and began to treat her.
"Mom. We have to wake her up first."
At Mari's words, I called out to her again without hesitation. But no matter how many times I called, no matter how hard I shook her body, her eyes remained gently closed.
Something surged up inside me — a hot, choking fury at the sight of her like this.
Who gave you the right. You drop a fire into someone else's chest and then just casually try to die like this?
And so, in the end, I—
"You damn bastard!!!!!!"
Crack—!!
With a force hard enough to leave a stinging handprint, I struck her across the cheek.
And then—
"......Hera...?"
Her golden eyes opened once more upon the world.