The Pale Star Accepts
"There's another way," Horizon said.
"If I kill you right here, right now, the only bastard who keeps making my life a pain in the ass disappears."
Horizon — the Star of the Spear — was bluffing. She meant to frighten the Hero into backing down. Any ordinary human would have taken a step back.
But the Hero was a man with no reverse gear, a man whose screws had come slightly loose and whose edges had begun to fray. Trying to predict someone like that had been Horizon's mistake.
"Yes. You're not wrong about that."
"But if I die, things get a lot more inconvenient than they are now."
The Hero already knew she was posturing. This was a woman who weighed human lives against the inconvenience they caused — a woman who had been dragged into war by the First Saintess, fought, and the moment the fighting ended, retreated straight back into her mountain.
His words were full of arrogance, but if the Hero died, the shockwave would be enormous. The one person capable of taking the Demon King's head would be gone.
A Superhuman's body is tempered with starlight, forged into something beyond flesh. But a weapon is different. The Holy Sword — the only armament in the world that holds starlight — can change everything. The weapons Superhumans wield are extraordinary, every one of them, yet none can withstand the full force of their power poured into a single strike.
It was a faucet. The Holy Sword was a faucet with an infinite aperture — an unbreakable vessel that would not shatter no matter how much power a Superhuman forced through it. That was why only the Hero could cut down the Demon King.
"If I die, what do you think happens to the war?"
"Winter and Autumn still haven't shown themselves on the front lines."
"If I'm gone, who faces them?"
Only a Superhuman can stand against a Superhuman. The same holds for Disasters. The Empire had exactly two Superhumans it could field — and the idea that those two could defeat the three remaining Disasters was absurd. The Hero's words sounded, at first blush, like the arrogance of a man who believed no one else could do the job. In the end, they weren't wrong.
Horizon didn't know what the Disasters, the Beasts, and the Demon King truly wanted — but she knew perfectly well they would never leave her alone.
A flicker of silence passed. Then Horizon spoke.
"So. What's your proposal?"
What she chose, in the end, was to pretend to accept. Hear the offer one more time. Buy herself a moment. The only thing that beats an inconvenience is a greater inconvenience. A simple enough truth.
"I'll say it again."
"Teach me how to fight. And cooperate in killing the Demon King."
"Within one year, we kill the Demon King. Then you go back to your mountain and live exactly the way you always have."
A long, heavy sigh reached the Hero's ears.
Titia simply watched the two of them from the side.
Horizon's mind began to race.
This kid doesn't have the power to pin me down and force a contract the way that lunatic did back then.
I can just run.
No matter how hard he chases, if a Superhuman decides to disappear, no one catches her.
...Should I run?
She glanced, almost casually, at the Hero's eyes. He was clearly weaker than her. But something lived in those pupils. The light in them was conviction — and the murky color staining that light was a thin film of madness, of obsession. She knew those eyes. She had seen them before: the eyes of the First Saintess.
This kid isn't right in the head.
If she ran from this place, he would follow her to the ends of the earth. She was sure of it. Running was a hassle too. All she had ever wanted was to settle somewhere and live out her days in one spot. Spend a lifetime on the run? Damn it.
"Fine."
The long stretch of calculation and second-guessing ended. Horizon accepted with the air of someone who had decided to let the chips fall wherever they fell.
Chop off the Demon King's head within a year and come home. That should do it.
She genuinely meant to leave it to chance.
And the Hero smiled and said:
"Excellent decision!"
Jerome sat alone in his room, lost in thought.
I am too weak.
Am I nothing but a burden?
His lifespan was nearly spent. He had never been blessed with the overflowing talent required to become a Superhuman. No matter how hard he worked, he saw no progress — as if a wall stood in his way. His growth was too slow, too faint.
To stand on the same line as Spring — said to be the weakest of the Disasters — he had burned nearly every year of life the Scales would take. Even then, the time granted to him was short.
What, from this point forward, was he supposed to live for?
He had come to protect people. But protection had been nothing more than an ideal — a fantasy, a hollow dream. The battlefield was bitter, thick, and left a taste that seemed as though it would linger until the day he died.
And yet — if someone asked whether he regretted following the Saintess here, the answer was no. At least here, he could fall into the sweet delusion that his life had acquired some kind of value. That was happiness enough. Better to thrash and swing a sword without end in this place than to burn through his days at headquarters, repeating the same tedious duties with nothing in his head.
Jerome believed that. A human who stops thrashing eventually stops forever.
But he had been selfish. He had never told his family about the lifespan he had burned. He had never written a single letter to his younger sister. He had simply run toward his own purpose, his own value, his own wish.
I want to become a knight. A true knight. That was the dream. He would do anything to make it real.
And so he asked himself: Was I a knight?
If he could answer that question with a clear and proud Yes — I was a knight!, that would be enough.
And once more: was it knightly to burn through every year of life, then stop and lament that growth was slow?
No.
Jerome rose and swung his sword again. The sun went out. The moon swelled full. He kept going. He hammered at a wall that seemed as though it would never break. Steel heated white-hot, met the hammer and threw sparks, then cooled in cold water. His body burned; his blade met straw men and caught the moonlight; the night air cooled him again. Over and over.
If only a catalyst would come — a shabby wall that looked ready to crumble stood before him. He had talent, and that talent shone. He had worked, and work would be repaid.
Someday.
The Saintess headed for the black market.
The Hero and Jerome were both absorbed in other things — the perfect window when no one was watching her. Ideal conditions for moving in secret.
And she thought.
When she first used the Madman's Notebook, she had known how the item worked. Write a name. Hit Use. When she first found the Voice Chat scroll and applied it, she burned it and hit Use.
So what about a Skill Book?
If every skill, at its core, consumed the same kind of resource to activate — if a Saintess who already possessed a Superhuman's body could use techniques beyond holy arts alone — how would the game system apply? She didn't know. When she used the scroll and transmitted her thoughts to others, they acted as though they had never seen such a miracle, such magic. Something only she could use. The use of game items.
The Emperor used the Threads of Tuning, but that was a unique item bound tightly to him. The Pope, likewise, had simply given her paper and a fountain pen.
The black market was dark. Nights in the Imperial Capital were always bright — but this place stayed dark even at noon. A few shadows tailed the new customer. The Saintess paid them no mind. Just some nuisances latching on, she thought.
If this works, my odds of surviving go up.
Above all else, the Saintess prioritized her own survival. The Hero was under the delusion that she was some other personality, and he had suddenly vanished somewhere. Jerome was alone in the training yard, beating straw dummies from dawn to dusk. It was as if the world itself had arranged the perfect opportunity for her to move. She could not afford to waste it.
The shadows trailing her were variables — and variables were always more comfortable once eliminated.
Deep in the black market, a straight corridor with only a single passage open. A dead end. The Saintess walked toward it, and as intended, they followed her in.
She turned.
Several figures in black masks. She counted. One, two… five in total.
A little excessive for a job meant to grab — or kill — one person. The Saintess had never been skilled in combat, after all. Even as a Superhuman, the title was little more than a symbolic ornament. People still assumed her physical abilities were merely human.
Among the black-masked figures, the one who seemed to lead the group took a single step forward. The distance was slightly awkward. Thinking in PVP terms, a rogue's range was very short — ambush was far more effective. Even a priest could manage to run at that spacing. But if she ran, they would keep coming. Better to settle it cleanly here.
They were human too. But she had to survive.
"What brings a person of such standing all the way down here?"
I have something to find.
He flinched as though startled, but recovered quickly enough to continue the exchange without panicking at the voice inside his head.
"Not here for heretic purges or cleaning up the capital's back alleys, I trust?"
The oddly polite, unpleasant manner made her frown.
I came as a customer. You're being rude.
How discourteous. She had introduced herself as a customer, but his suspicion hadn't eased in the slightest.
"A cleric's ransom runs quite high, you know."
"Do take care of yourself."
What a load of crap.
…The curse slipped out before she could stop it. Not being able to speak aloud did have its advantages.
If your business is finished, leave.
"Ah — yes."
And just like that, the five shadows who looked connected to the black market scattered in different directions.
Had they seriously only come to check on her? Well. Fortunate, either way.
She already had the locations of every shop that sold skill books memorized. She left the alley and headed back toward the black market's bookstore.
She opened a gloomy door of black hardwood and stepped inside. The shop was so dark that her eyes needed a moment to adjust before she could see anything at all. Looking at the shopkeeper — a man she had met countless times while playing the game — she felt a strange, almost fond familiarity, as though he were a kindly old grandfather. He glanced at her briefly, then switched his attention off. The way a merchant survived long in the black market was by killing curiosity. A wise choice.
She searched the shop thoroughly, turned it inside out — and still found no skill book of the kind she wanted. Her theory had been that simply using a skill book would let her absorb the skill raw. But if skill books didn't exist here to begin with, the entire premise was wrong.
She put the question to the shopkeeper.
Do you have any skill books?
He flinched at the voice in his head, then answered with practiced calm. A seasoned merchant indeed. Living a long time meant surviving a long time.
"Skill books? No such thing."
He reacted as though he had never even heard the name. The disappointment was sharp.
In the end she returned to the Imperial Palace empty-handed, claimed an empty room at random, and fell asleep.
Was there truly no way for her to grow any stronger than this? Or rather — why did things that existed in the game not exist in this place?
This world resembled the game. It was not the same.
So… who is this, exactly?
"My name is the Pale Star — Horizon, Star of the Spear! As of yesterday, I'm that damn brat's teacher!"
"…Titia. Why are you here?"
"…Sorry."
…This is a complete mess.
The Hero, who ought to have been sorting the situation out, was simply standing by — as though he found the whole noisy spectacle entertaining. As though he were reminiscing.
And so.
We returned to the front lines, and began preparing for the Summer Subjugation Campaign.