Catastrophe
I ran for hours on end.
Even racing through the night without rest, I never tired.
The green forests gradually thinned, the dense trees dwindling one by one.
And at last, I arrived at the city.
“Ah…?”
They were all dead. Every last one of them.
Monsters glowing purple roamed the streets, tearing into people and devouring them.
“Prey! Kwaaaaaah—!”
“I’ll rip the flesh right off you!”
In that instant, the pack of monsters charged straight at me.
“St… stay back!”
Fwaaat—
I summoned my sword and swung it wildly.
“Gyaaaaaah! It’s the Hero! The Hero!”
The purple monsters that saw my blade screamed and faltered. Those that brushed against my edge sprayed violet blood and crumbled to dust.
“The Hero has appeared!! Kyaaah!!”
“What? The Hero?”
“We have to tell the Witch!!”
The Witch?
So you lot… are her minions? Her underlings… something like that?
“Out of my way!!”
I swung my sword and bolted straight ahead.
“Gyaaaah!”
I lost count of how many I cut down.
Every time the tip of my blade touched them, the monsters sprayed violet blood and disintegrated.
Without a moment to catch my breath, I ran like a madwoman.
“Please… please be safe, Mister Raon…”
My breath clawed up my throat as if it would tear free, and tears had already blurred my vision until I could barely see. Still, my feet never stopped.
And then, when I turned down a familiar alley…
“Mister…?”
There was the restaurant.
The place where, for such a short time, I had laughed and eaten and slept beside him.
“Ah… Mister…”
I flung the door open and rushed inside.
But the interior was silent.
No people. No fire. No monsters.
It was so quiet it choked me.
“Mis…ter…?”
There was nothing on the floor.
Kitchen tools scattered here and there, tables thick with dust.
In that moment, the tears came pouring out.
“Hic… Mister… where are you…? I’m here… I came…”
My ankles gave way as if they had snapped; I dropped to my knees and collapsed onto the floor.
Only my sobs echoed through the empty restaurant.
“Hic… hic… sob… hic…”
After crying for a long while, I wiped my tears with the back of my hand.
“Right. From the start, Mister must have been captured by people.”
For the crime of protecting me.
And if protecting me was a crime so enormous… if it rose to the level of high treason against the nation…
“Mister… even if he’s alive… he wouldn’t still be here.
The fact that he isn’t here means he’s still alive.”
He had committed a crime, so he would be in prison.
There were only two possibilities that he wouldn’t be in a cell.
He had somehow escaped… or else…
“He’d been executed.”
My throat tightened with a burning tension.
“No… no… Mister is alive.”
I had to force myself to believe it.
If I didn’t, I would fall apart.
I pulled the coat from my bag, clenched the embroidery over its chest tightly in my fist, then put it back.
“Mister… please wait for me.
I’ll find you… no matter where you are.”
And then I stepped back outside.
Leaving the empty restaurant behind.
Even as my heart tore itself to shreds, I clung to that single thread of hope.
I stood before a house where the last faint flames were dying out.
The door had been ripped away, and from inside rose a metallic stench that was neither sweet nor warm.
This was the house I had lived in.
The house I had shared with my blood family.
When I stepped inside, four corpses came into view.
Four people lying on the floor, soaked in blood.
My mother and father, and my older brother and sister.
Their eyes were still open and frozen, their bodies marked clearly by the monsters’ teeth.
“Just as I thought. They’re dead.”
I had grown stronger.
Mentally. Physically.
The mother and father who had never treated me like a human being, who had constantly said they regretted giving birth to me, who had beaten me half to death and threatened me with knives at the slightest provocation.
And the older brother and sister who had kicked me every day, punched me, and left me covered in bruises.
In the narrowest room of the house… surviving on the scraps of food they threw me after they finished eating had been my daily life.
The deaths of that garbage blood family did not stir my heart at all.
The only one who could shake my heart… was Mister Raon alone.
I walked. I walked without hesitation.
Toward the royal palace.
And to save Mister.
As I drew near the palace, a chaotic slaughterhouse unfolded before my eyes.
People collapsed and bleeding.
People screaming as they fled.
And packs of purple monsters chasing them down to devour them.
In the midst of it all, knights swung their swords and held the line.
“Hold formation!”
“Raise your shields! Do not fall back!!”
“Ugh… there are too many! We’re being pushed!!”
The front of the palace was already a battlefield.
The monsters’ roars and the humans’ screams mixed together and tore at my ears.
I did not hesitate.
I pictured Mister’s face, then stretched out my hand.
Fwaat—
A dazzling light surged from my palm, and a white sword took shape.
“What is that…?!”
“That sword… could it be the Hero?! But those eyes…?”
A knight stared at me with startled eyes.
The monsters spotted me, roared, and charged.
“Uwaaaaaah!!”
I swung the sword.
Light exploded outward, and a monster’s body split cleanly in two.
Violet blood soaked the ground and sprayed in every direction.
“It’s the Hero! The Hero has appeared!!”
“B… but those are red eyes!!”
The knight’s voice wavered with conflict.
I did not answer.
“Focus on the rear! I’ll clear the front!!”
I shouted and began cutting the monsters down.
The sword was impossibly light.
My body moved as if it no longer belonged to me.
One after another, the monsters’ roars turned into screams.
“Gyaaaah!! It’s the Hero’s sword!!”
“We have to… report to the Witch…”
Several monsters staggered and fell.
The remaining pack recoiled in terror and backed away.
The knights still watched me warily.
“Red eyes… who are you?”
“Seria Luciel.
And someone fighting to save Mister Raon.”
“Seria… Luciel…”
The knights repeated my name and nodded.
“Fine. We won’t ask questions now. We need your help.”
I nodded.
Then I carved through the monster pack and ran straight for the palace gates.
The knights guarding the doors tried to stop me, but the ones who had already seen me shouted.
“Open the way! That child… that child is the Hero!!”
“But those are red eyes…”
“No one but the Hero can wield that sword!!”
After a brief hesitation, the knights parted.
I shoved open the heavy palace doors and stepped inside.
And there—
A queen with radiant golden hair and sapphire eyes sat upon the throne.
Her name… I thought I had heard it before.
Queen Aurelia.
The one who had handed down every crime and every judgment.
The queen who had crushed Mister Raon underfoot.
I stopped, gripping my sword.
“So you’ve finally arrived, Hero?”
The queen’s voice rang out coldly.
“A Hero with Blood Eyes… pfft… how utterly ridiculous.”
She snickered as she looked at me.
“Where is Mister?”
“Hmm… whatever are you talking about, Hero?”
“Mister Raon… Raon Han. What did you do to my Mister!!”
I screamed until my throat tore.
“Ah! That traitor, I remember him. The traitor who protected a Blood Eyes. So the one he protected was you?”
“I’m asking what happened to him.”
“Pfft… and if I told you I executed him without a second thought?”
“I’ll cut your head off right now.”
“Then my royal guards would crush you to pieces.”
“I don’t care. If Mister is dead, I’ll destroy every last one of you.”
The queen elegantly crossed her legs, propped her chin on her hand, and looked down at me.
Her sapphire eyes caught the light and glittered coldly.
“Ha. That traitor… I didn’t kill him.
I personally showed him mercy… cut off his right leg and locked him in solitary.
In a rotting prison where not even light can reach.”
“..!!”
My breath stopped. The world before my eyes seemed to turn blood-red.
I forced down the scorching something that tried to burst from my chest.
His leg… she cut off his leg?
“You… you did that to him…”
Rage nearly swallowed my reason whole, but I barely held it back.
“Anyone else, I would have beheaded on the spot. But that man… I rather liked the look in his eyes.
Those eyes that never bowed and stared straight at me. It would have been a bit of a waste to kill a man like that so carelessly, don’t you think?”
The corner of the queen’s mouth twisted upward.
“So I cut it away. His freedom. His leg.
And I locked him in solitary. Still alive.”
My hands trembled violently.
The light of the white sword surged fiercely, as if answering my fury.
“You…!!”
My voice cracked. My heart pounded as if it would explode.
Something hot streamed down from my eyes.
“How dare you… do that to Mister Raon…”
“Pfft… that furious face of yours is quite lovely. Truly worthy of a Blood Eyes.”
I clenched my teeth.
“I will never forgive you. Not you, not your kingdom… not a single thing that crushed Mister Raon.”
“Ha.”
The queen’s smiling face crumpled in an instant.
“If I give the order right now, the jailers will kill that barely-living man in a heartbeat.
Ah! Simply cutting his throat would be a waste.
I could have them bring him before you with all four limbs severed,
sear him with fire, ram red-hot iron spikes into his ears, gouge out his eyes, and then smash his skull open and kill him. That would be perfectly fine, wouldn’t it?”
“W… what?”
A twisting rage churned in my gut.
“You… you piece of trash…!”
“Do you want to protect that man?
Then listen to me.”
I clenched my fists.
My nails dug into my palms hard enough to draw blood.
I ground my teeth as if I would shatter them.
“Defeat the Witch. Hero.”
The queen spoke with a mocking smile.
“If you do that, I will pardon that man’s crimes, release him from solitary, and set him free.”
Every drop of blood in my body boiled.
I wanted to kill that queen right then and there… but…
“Hmm… are you actually hesitating? How stupid. All you have to do is bow politely and obey.”
I gripped the hilt of my sword hard enough to crush it.
Tears spilled from my eyes.
To the queen who cut off Mister’s leg… I… had to submit…
But…
But…
Right now… if it was for Mister…
The air grew cold.
My reason fell silent.
“Hero Seria Luciel will obey the command of Queen Aurelia.”