Elara, You Were Amazing
Elara, you were truly amazing! I want to keep you with me for the rest of my life!
The very mass of the air had changed.
The small back standing before me no longer belonged to a child trapped in black-and-white logic, sniffling on the verge of tears.
She was a hero.
"Heh heh... Hey, did you hear that? Night-owl Lillian. She says take it if you can handle it."
"...Who are you calling night-owl?! Shut your mouth!"
"How pitiful. To think something like that could be a hero candidate. I shall personally put you through the curriculum of pain."
Those fools had no idea.
They had no idea what reverse scale they had just touched.
Clank.
A bone-chilling metallic scrape clawed at my eardrums.
The young man called Gaila let a steel chain drop to the floor with a careless thud.
This was not the chain he had used to bind the slave girl.
It was his personal weapon—the chain-sickle.
At the tip of the chain that writhed like a cold serpent, a razor-edged blade gleamed like a viper’s fang.
Those were the eyes of a born killer who saw people as nothing more than slabs of meat.
"Hey, Gaila. Don’t underestimate her. You know what Elara can do."
"Ability? Hah! Just cut her throat before she can use it."
Fwoosh!
The instant the words left his mouth, Gaila’s form blurred.
The chain scraping the ground erupted upward with a grotesque tearing sound.
The dagger at its tip shot in a straight line for the girl’s throat.
Fast.
That was the speed of a man who had actually killed people.
Sensing danger, I reflexively reached out—
"Fufu. Don’t worry, Teacher."
Elara’s voice was as gentle as a spring breeze, yet—
"I’ll keep you safe."
—her hand was colder than a winter storm.
She reached toward her empty hip.
It was the flawless form of a draw, as if pulling a blade from an invisible scabbard.
Shiiing—
The moisture in the air screamed as it instantly forged itself into the shape of a sword.
A brilliant ice sword born of pure mana.
The moment her fingers closed around the blade that had materialized in midair, she drew a light line toward the weapon hurtling at her face.
KRAAAAAANG───!
A sharp, shattering crack.
The assassin who had been right in front of my eyes was suddenly frozen midair, pinned in place.
More precisely, the entire arm holding the chain had been sealed inside a massive block of ice.
"Guh—gahhk?!"
CRACK!
Unable to bear the weight of his frozen arm, he slammed face-first into the dirt in a pathetic heap.
S-so strong...
No wonder they called her the next Hero.
"...Gaila. You’ve gotten a lot slower. Been stuffing yourself and skipping training?"
Elara lowered the tip of her sword to the ground and smiled coldly.
The gap was overwhelming. Gaila, pale with terror, could only tremble; he didn’t even dare stand.
"Interesting... Now this is more like it."
Lillian twisted her lips upward, trying to hide her shock.
But her eyes weren’t smiling. Instinctive fear of unexpected power flickered there.
"So what if you took down Gaila...! You know nobody can handle a gang-up! Lidia!"
"Kyahahahaha! I’ll bestow upon you the grace of the gods!"
Two figures burst forward at once.
A fanatic wearing the mask of a saint, and an archer with a vile glint in his eyes.
The saint began chanting chains of mana to bind Elara, while the archer used the rebound of his leap to draw his bowstring.
A seamless combo worthy of a former Hero party.
By all rights she should have been at a disadvantage...
CRACKLE-CRACKLE-CRACKLE───!
It felt as if the world itself had stopped.
A blue wave expanded outward from Elara like a dome.
"GYAAAAAAAH MY LEGS!!!"
"KYAAAAAAAH!! My hands—my hands won’t move!"
The archer’s lower body fused with the earth itself, and the saint’s clasped hands froze solid into a single ice sculpture.
"...You idiots! Did you forget Elara’s power?! That bitch controls ice! You should have kept your distance!"
Even Lillian’s scream-laced shout left Elara’s expression bored.
Instead she elegantly shook the blue frost from her blade and began walking toward Lillian with deliberate, clicking steps.
Click. Click.
The sound of her shoes on frozen ground rang like a countdown squeezing Lillian’s heart.
"We didn’t forget."
Elara’s voice was close to absolute zero.
"You’re just that weak."
"Y-you monster...!"
Lillian stumbled backward, then spat out mana in a fit of pure spite.
A soft mist blanketed the surroundings—her specialty, illusion magic.
"Hey, you insolent bitch! I’ll make you suffer forever inside the memory you hate most!"
Screams and voices of resentment rose from within the fog.
Elara’s past trauma. The citizens’ condemnation, her comrades’ bullying, her own powerless conscience. A dirty but reliable method that targeted psychological weak points.
But.
WHOOOOSH!
Elara casually swung her sword, and the resulting gale tore the mist to shreds.
The eyes that emerged were perfectly still.
"...Lillian. Our Teacher once told me something."
"Hah...? What the hell are you babbling about?"
"A rock doesn’t reflect. But a person can reflect and move forward."
Those were the words I had spoken when I smashed their statues.
She had already risen above the knots of her past.
"You crazy...! Then how about this!"
Lillian hurled a blazing crimson sphere.
Fireball.
The most primal and powerful offensive spell. Yet the furiously burning red flames turned into a blue sphere before Elara’s fingertips even touched them.
Overwhelming cold that mocked the laws of physics.
CLINK—!
The “frozen flame” hanging in midair lost its power, crashed to the ground, and shattered into glittering shards.
"Impossible... My fireball... froze?"
An earthquake hit Lillian’s pupils.
Her strongest attack had been chewed up while completely ignoring elemental advantage. Cornered, she roughly yanked on a chain.
The rag-clad girl who had been cowering in the corner was dragged forward.
"At least be useful, you damn blood-relative bitch!"
"Khh—!"
Lillian roughly clamped her elbow around the rag girl’s throat.
"Elara! Are you listening?! The second you touch me, this girl dies too! Hand over the Holy Sword!"
...A textbook third-rate villain.
The sheer ugliness of scraping the absolute bottom almost made me laugh out loud.
"Can’t you hear me?! Drop that sword right now! Or I’ll twist her neck and kill her!"
The chain bit into the girl’s thin throat.
I sucked in a breath.
It was a critical situation.
But Elara didn’t move. Her eyes held not panic, but pure contempt for irredeemable trash.
"Lillian. You’re pathetic right to the end... This is exactly why people call you a disaster instead of heroes."
"Shut up! You’re a traitor! How dare a runaway lecture us!"
"...I know. That’s why I’ll live reflecting and atoning. At Teacher’s side."
Elara reversed her grip on the ice sword.
"What the hell are you—! So you don’t care if this girl dies?!"
The instant Lillian screamed and tried to yank the chain hard—
Chang—!
The world stopped, and only a blue flash carved through space.
Elara’s form vanished like a mirage and reappeared right in front of Lillian’s nose.
What followed was not the sound of cutting, but of shattering.
KANG! CLINK-CLINK!
"...Huh?"
The chain in Lillian’s hand crumbled into fine powder and scattered.
She hadn’t simply cut it. In an instant she had flash-frozen the chain, dropped its durability to zero, then pulverized it with nothing but sword wind.
Precision bordering on divine technique that left not a single red scratch on the hostage girl’s neck.
"My... my chain...?"
"Do you understand now?"
Elara’s cold blade tip tapped Lillian’s cheek.
"If you refuse to reflect, nothing will remain in your hands."
"Y-you arrogant little—!"
THUD!
"KYAAAAAAAAH!!"
Elara’s fist buried itself in Lillian’s solar plexus.
Lillian’s body flew like a scrap of paper and smashed into the wall. A clean, perfect victory.
"Teacher..."
Elara smiled brightly and looked at me with a refreshed face. I returned the same quiet smile.
"Elara."
"I... I feel like I can do anything now."
Time passed.
The fall of the “Hero Party” was wretched.
It wasn’t simply because they had attacked Elara’s mansion.
Their greatest crime was the nationwide fraud of using a powerless slave girl as a puppet to deceive the Imperial Family and the Church.
In the end, the ringleader Lillian had every magic circuit destroyed and was locked in a solitary cell of Tartaros, the “Eternal Prison” where not a single ray of light entered. The remaining remnants became slaves who would swing pickaxes until the day they died.
The article tucked into a corner of the newspaper delivered a rather satisfying ending.
The problem... was what came after.
"Um, Lady Elara?"
"Yes? Teacher?"
"How long do you plan on clinging to me?"
I put on a deliberately stern face and looked down at my arm.
But far from letting go, Elara deliberately hugged it even tighter, as if to show off.
A soft, unfamiliar sensation pressed against me.
The body heat and curves transmitted through my shirt were far too blatant.
"Mmm~ Who knows?"
Elara hummed a little tune and rubbed her cheek against my shoulder.
It was hard to believe this was the same owner of the Holy Sword who, not long ago, had frozen people without batting an eye. Her face was completely melted.
"Do you hate this sort of thing?"
"It’s not about liking or hating... Aren’t you hot?"
"Teacher. Did you forget I’m the hero who uses ice?"
She giggled and lifted her head to look up at me.
Silver eyelashes that held the sunlight trembled faintly.
"I used too much mana, so my body temperature dropped. Teacher is a human heater, so I need to recharge a little."
"...Who’s a human heater?"
"Right here. My warm, reliable personal heater."
Elara went so far as to use my arm as a pillow, leaning against me with a bashful smile.
Of course, I didn’t hate Elara acting spoiled like this.
No—to be honest, I rather liked it.
But ever since I had been transmigrated into this game world, there was one absolute taboo for me.
The rule stamped in red letters on the system window.
Romantic acts with heroines are prohibited.
Especially forming a relationship was practically suicide.
Because of that, the Elara currently hanging off my arm was nothing less than a lovely time bomb that could explode at any moment.
No, my favorability is already maxed at 100 and I’ve cleared every event—why won’t the ending trigger?!
I was at the point of needing to post a question thread on the gallery.
"Um, Lady Elara. I have some work to do for a moment. Could you give me a little space?"
"I don’t wanna─────? More importantly, Teacher. Your heart is racing so fast. I can see your ears turning red."
She poked my earlobe with her index finger.
The cold tip of her finger made my shoulder flinch without thinking.
"Ah, that... please don’t tease me."
"What am I supposed to do when your reactions are so fun?"
Elara looked satisfied as she even laced her fingers through the arm she had already linked with mine.
Fingers locking tightly together.
It was silent pressure that she would never let go.
"But really, Teacher, you have no manners."
"Excuse me? What do you mean?"
Elara pouted her lips.
"Shouldn’t you at least say something like, ‘Elara, you were really amazing! I want to keep you with me for life!’? Hmph. Even though I saved you..."
"...That last part has way too much personal desire mixed in."
"You caught me?"
She stuck out her tongue without a shred of embarrassment.
That boldness was annoying, yet somehow not hateful at all.
"Still..."
I mixed a sigh into my voice and carefully returned the grip of her laced fingers.
"When Elara swung her sword without hesitation, I was a little surprised."
"..."
"I thought, ‘She’s truly all better now.’ And... I liked seeing you smile so brightly."
At my plain praise, the playfully smiling Elara’s expression froze for an instant.
She opened her eyes wide for a moment, then buried her reddened face deep into my shoulder.
"...That’s cheating."
"What is?"
"If you suddenly hit me with that, it’s bad for my heart."
The murmuring voice had lost its laughter, replaced by a ticklish shyness.
The hand wrapped around my arm tightened a little more.
"So take responsibility."
"There you go leaping to conclusions again."
"I don’t care. Just take responsibility. I’ve become someone who can’t even hold a sword without Teacher anymore."
This girl knew far too well how to win. As expected of a former hero.
...And even in front of me.
Pretending I had no choice, I gently stroked the hair of the girl leaning on my shoulder.
Beneath the afternoon sunlight.
The girl who once agonized over dividing the world into black and white was gone.
There was only a kind, playful, and lovely girl.