Spring Subjugation — 3
Flames erupted in the empty air.
The earth seared so hot that heat haze shimmered up from the ground. The fragments of the fortress wall, scattered mid-flight through the sky, froze in place.
On the verge of cutting Spring down, the Hero had no choice but to halt his attack.
Jerome's legs moved.
And a voice reached him.
I can endure more than just immobilized legs.
The Scales' constraints shattered, and the starlight dwelling in his body vanished as though it had evaporated in an instant.
Above the collapsing wall — where time seemed to crawl, or rather, where every object was being controlled by someone — a man appeared.
Flames wreathed one hand. Clad in a black uniform, he stepped slowly across the floating debris, approaching through the air.
Eyes and hair that looked as though they were burning red.
Tremble, tremble, tremble—
Her hands and feet shook. Like a small animal instinctively trying to flee before a predator, the Saintess fought to master her violently trembling body and looked at the man.
Why is this bastard here now…
A being who should not have appeared at this moment. A being she should have faced only on the front lines. One corner of the seasons — one of the Four Disasters — a beast in human form.
Summer. Sweltering Heat. Estas.
Among the countless names used to refer to him, the most famous was, of course, Estas.
The sentence that flashed through the Saintess's mind was simply: We're screwed.
It was a thought so brief it barely qualified as a sentence — but nothing could have expressed the situation better.
The man swept a glance around once, then — deciding, apparently, that neither she nor the Hero posed a threat — walked slowly toward Spring.
It was a blow to her pride, but this was no time to stand on pride. She had to secure her own life first.
The Hero did not tremble. He gripped his sword and fixed his stare on the man. The distance was short enough that a swing would have reached him easily — yet the Hero did not swing.
Because the Hero was a rational man, fully capable of mastering his emotions.
He was not yet as strong as he had been when he subjugated Summer in the past. The Saintess had died not long after that victory, and time had been rewound; even if he returned to that point, he could not guarantee he would be able to defeat Summer again.
In short: if he charged in, he would lose. That much was certain.
So all the Hero could do was watch.
Even knowing full well what would happen if Spring escaped — even knowing that someone might have to die for it — he could only stand and watch. His body shook because of that.
Not from fear. From rage.
The Hero never wanted to feel his own powerlessness again.
The flame-wreathed man scooped Spring up under one arm. Spring thrashed and shouted, flailing both hands, trying to pry free of the arm that held her. The man paid her no mind and spoke quietly.
He had spoken softly — yet in a world of absolute silence, where even sound itself had vanished, his voice was heavier than anything else.
"…Spring. Three Stars are coming."
Spring had been throwing a tantrum, thrashing both arms as if begging to be put down — but at those words, she stopped resisting.
"Already?"
"But three Stars?"
The girl, dangling from the man's side, folded her fingers one by one as she counted.
"Well, the Saintess is already here, so she doesn't count…"
"The Emperor is on his way back…"
One.
"The only bald bastard who'd bother coming all the way out here is that one, right?"
Two.
The man covered his face for a moment, then answered the question.
"The Flowing Star is coming."
Three.
Spring fell silent for a beat — then erupted at an enormous volume.
"What?!"
The girl who had maintained a blank expression, powerful enough to fight them as an equal, crumbled the moment she heard that the Flowing Star was coming.
"Why would that recluse show up?"
Jerome looked completely lost, but the Saintess and the Hero both knew exactly what those words meant.
The Tower Master.
It's the Tower Master.
The Saintess alone sank into doubt.
Why?
Akan — the Flowing Star — had, after a certain incident, shut himself away on the top floor of the Magic Tower and turned his office into a densely packed workshop. You could only see his face after clearing the Tower's long chain of side quests, and he was a tier-one character notoriously difficult to recruit as a companion.
Don't tell me the Emperor's persuasion actually worked? Unlike the original story? Why?
No — no need to overthink it.
Regardless of how the situation shifted later, Akan arriving now was clearly good news for them. He was one of their strongest assets, after all.
If the Hero had grown even a little more before Akan appeared, they might have gambled on fighting both Disasters at once and killing Spring. As things stood, what they needed to do was stall for time.
Judging by Estas's remark that three Stars were heading this way — if they could just pin these two here, there was a real chance they could kill both of them right now.
Half of the four. Killing half of them in less than a month.
Wasn't that a gamble worth taking?
Binding skills, binding skills — what were the binding skills again?
She couldn't quite remember.
Chains of Light
A single chain, recited by pure instinct, shot toward the two of them.
As if it were nothing at all, he brought his flame-wreathed hand to the chain.
Screeeeech—
With a sound like metal being ground away — a sound no one would have believed came from a chain meeting a hand — the chain of light caught fire, blackened, and vanished.
Snap—
But if one was impossible, then two. If two were impossible, then four. If she kept increasing the number and opposing him, she could hold them even a little longer.
For some reason, Spring — still dangling at his side — made no particular move. Even so, though she ranked lowest among them, her combat power was clearly considerable. The Saintess would have to watch her carefully.
Chains of Light × 4
Four chains formed in an instant and fired from behind her.
The Hero seemed to catch her intent as well — he began to move. Not with the thought of cutting down the being right in front of him, but with the thought of stopping his movement by any means necessary.
Sword strikes shot out as if to restrict the space he could move through, grazing the front of the hand that was reaching for the chains.
Heat haze rose from that hand, and the flames grew fiercer still.
Hah. I can do this.
The Hero steeled himself. Against Autumn or Winter it might have been different — but Summer was an enemy he had already killed once. Binding his feet, at least, should be within reach. That was his calculation.
If he could just hold out until that person arrived — just until then — it would be as good as his victory.
The Hero whispered to the Star in the barest of voices.
"Scales."
A golden set of Scales reappeared in one corner of his vision. A familiar girl's voice answered.
What do you desire?
"The power to bind my enemies."
The price?
"An amount of starlight equal to what I desire."
He placed upon the Scales the vast starlight that had always flowed and circulated through his body since he became the Hero — and a slight weakness washed over him. Like a man who had lost blood, the Hero felt a brief wave of dizziness, then sensed, in the slowed world, that only about three-tenths of his starlight remained. He adjusted his grip on the sword.
And the world flowed again.
As the monochrome world regained its vivid colors and time resumed, the Hero felt a surge of elation from the power now dwelling in his body. Strength on a level comparable to when he had faced Summer before. With this much, even against two Disasters, he and the Saintess together could hold them long enough.
And the moment he was about to swing his sword, a voice rang out.
Heat Haze
The sword cleaved empty air.
More precisely — the air itself twisted.
The Chains of Light, robbed of their destination, collided at a single point and fell to the ground.
"Tch."
The pink-haired girl dangling from the man thrashed wildly and said:
"Wait! We have to kill the Saintess before we—"
Clang—
With the sound of something shattering, they vanished as though they had simply evaporated.
The collapse of the fortress wall — which had stopped the moment Summer appeared — resumed.
The Hero sprinted toward the Saintess.
"Saintess!"
Atop the crumbling wall, the Saintess thought:
Again?
Watching the Hero race toward her, she squeezed her eyes shut, resigned to being scooped up once more. Of course, to the Hero's eyes it probably looked as though she had closed them out of fear.
And so, held once again in the Hero's arms, the Saintess flushed red with embarrassment. She had resolved that nothing would change — and so she drew the line again.
The embarrassment seemed to have settled somewhat.
Damn it. I really shouldn't be getting used to this.
She already seemed somewhat used to it.
Erosion Rate: 21%
What? What's wrong with you now.
◈ Erosion Rate has been locked.
Erosion Rate: 20%
…What?
What made it go up again?
After what felt like an eternity, meeting the Emperor and his party beneath the fallen wall came a little later.
By the way — that Holy Knight managed to get down on his own, right?
At that very moment, Jerome — whose physical ability was not quite up to leaping from a fortress wall — was being rescued by laborers performing recovery work atop a section of the wall that had not yet collapsed.