Outside Story (2)
Romance turned at the ominous presence and found Daywin already astride a horse, charging toward them with savage force.
A holy knight?
The sheer pressure radiating from the figure as it raced closer made it impossible, at first, even to imagine it was Daywin. Only when the rider drew near enough for his face to become clear did Romance finally recognize his younger brother.
"Why is the youngest…?"
Romance's wavering gaze traced over him—the pure white armor, the gleaming halo—as if he were looking at a stranger. Awe and shock mingled on his face.
"L-Little brother, fall back!"
Snapping back to his senses, Romance shouted at the top of his lungs.
"Don't come this way!"
It was the moment a goblin horde—swollen to a bizarrely unnatural size—began to encircle Romance's forces. Even if his little brother joined the fray—
Flash!
Daywin unleashed a burst of light. At the same moment, Ester, riding with him, found her gaze stolen by that radiance.
Magic?
She stared blankly, eyes wide.
…This isn't ordinary magic.
The light Daywin had created gradually took shape. A round, luminous orb bent and twisted until it became a human silhouette—no larger than a finger. A tiny person, wings fluttering from its back as it drifted through the air. Elegant, delicate, and sacred in bearing. A fragment of the Goddess, known only through myths and fairy tales.
A spirit…
A Light Spirit. A mana entity also called a gift of the Goddess. Spirits fought alongside their masters, cast buff magic, or hindered enemies. Those who contracted with them were rare, but simply being able to command one was like having a reliable partner at your side. Light Spirits, in particular, conferred nobility on anyone who could wield them. And the deeper the bond between user and spirit, the greater the effect.
Even as she thought this, Daywin's finger sliced through empty air. He began casting another spell. One gesture, one spell. Weaving prayer and incantation within his mind, he activated them through his fingertips. A magic circle appeared on the spirit's back. Ester widened her eyes, determined not to miss a single detail of Daywin's magic.
Movement speed increase.
And then—
A second movement speed increase.
And the next.
Another movement speed increase…?
Daywin stacked movement-speed buffs on the spirit a total of five times. Just as Ester had said in their Academy class before, a spirit—whose body was itself a mana circuit—could stack those effects.
Is he planning a high-speed assault using the spirit's tiny frame?
But Ester didn't know. To survive until the end of the world, common sense was something you had to throw away.
When Daywin pointed, the spirit that had been flaunting its elegant wingbeats fixed its gaze on the forest where the goblins lay in ambush. And then—
It shot forth like a cannonball.
In that moment Ester remembered once more: a spirit's body was a mass of pure mana. An enormous amount of power condensed into a form no larger than a finger. If that mana mass hurled itself at tremendous speed—
The spirit slammed into the trees of the forest and self-destructed. A massive mana explosion swallowed trees and goblins whole.
Huh? It exploded…
Not just Ester—Romance and his soldiers as well. All of them stared at the blast site with dumbfounded expressions.
Eh…?
Past and future. The man who had been the commander of the Holy Knights. He had been the most irreverent holy knight in the entire order.
Using those noble spirits… as mana bombs and discarding them…!
That holy knight was neither holy nor knightly. A spirit was not merely an object composed of mana. It was a living being that thought, decided, and acted. It was alive. It had a name.
And yet.
Daywin summoned a second spirit and immediately drove it into the forest. Another mana explosion. The blast shook the woods; dirt and leaf fragments billowed up like clouds.
I've never even heard of something like this…
This was pure insanity. Normally one nurtured a bond with a spirit to raise its stats. Daywin did the opposite. Instead of raising one spirit to level one hundred, he flooded the field with a hundred level-one, newborn spirits. And they weren't even ordinary level-one spirits. Once stacked with the buffs of a holy knight who poured everything into enhancement magic, the equation changed entirely.
Even so…
What Ester found particularly incomprehensible was the endless stream of spirits being summoned. He was essentially kicking the Goddess's gifts aside the moment he received them—and yet the Goddess kept sending more without end. Universal love. Or favoritism. Daywin was loved by the Goddess to a degree that invited jealousy.
He didn't stop. Daywin rained down bombardment with an expressionless face.
A moment later, his eyes sharpened abruptly.
"…Found you."
With a voice cold as frost, he fixed his gaze on one corner of the forest. Ester, watching from behind him, followed his line of sight.
A man in a black mask. The masked figure, mixed in among the goblins up in the trees, leaped from branch to branch as if they were stepping stones. In that interval Daywin rose to his feet atop the horse, balancing precariously. Then he summoned two spirits. They clung to his back, pushing against his armor with their tiny hands.
The two speed-buffed spirits shot upward in an instant, launching Daywin into the air. He plunged into the forest in a single breath. A brief moment of flight—and the instant he landed, he seized the throat of the uninvited guest who had been leaping through the branches.
"…Ghk!"
Daywin slammed the masked man's throat straight into the ground.
"Guh…!"
The man groaned in agony as his back smashed into the earth. He thrashed with his whole body, trying to break free, but Daywin's grip held him rigid in place. Daywin's gaze slowly scanned him. Clad entirely in black. The mask hid not only his face but even his hair. In his hand, a goblin handaxe.
Romance died in a goblin ambush. The evidence was the traces of a goblin axe.
The more the man struggled, the tighter Daywin squeezed—as if about to snap his neck.
So a human had been using a goblin's weapon.
Then the masked man swung the axe in his hand, but Daywin was a step faster, pinning that arm as well.
"I've imagined killing you countless times. Cutting you down, burning you alive, strangling you. Yes, they were all fantasies—but in the end, we've met like this. Now—"
Recalling the game that had offered the player dozens of choices, Daywin asked—the reverse of when he had been the player himself.
"How should I kill you?"
The extra threw the choice.
As I choked the assassin, the light faded from his blue eyes. He no longer seemed to have the strength to struggle. Just as I reached for the mask to check his face—
"R-Ru…"
He squeezed out the words with every last scrap of strength.
"Run…!"
Run. Run? From what?
In that instant, silhouettes burst from the underbrush. Silhouettes—plural. The same black garb, the same masks as the one I held. More assassins. Like a swarm of insects that had been hiding in the dark, now fleeing before a harsh light, they bolted deeper into the forest.
It wasn't just one. No—from the start—why had I assumed there was only one?
A sudden foreboding made me spin around. Reflexively, I checked Romance's direction.
"No, no. You can't run away now."
I saw a man in a black mask and robe approaching Romance's forces with casual, leisurely steps. A face wrapped in black cloth. Emerald eyes barely visible through it. Axes in both hands. That man was different from the other assassins.
Step. Step. Even after all the others had fled, he danced lightly on his feet. Romance's forces, too, noticed the lone masked figure and raised their shields and spears to keep him at bay.
But it was too late.
He struck like lightning. The last assassin leaped alone into the heart of Romance's forces—and cut. How many did he cut down in a single flash? In the literal blink of an eye, Romance's soldiers collapsed in vain. Limbs severed through armor. Shields torn like paper. Even the screams begging for life. The horrific scene assaulted every sense. Those crude axes in both hands reduced Romance's forces to ruin.
"……No."
I ran like a madman. I couldn't fail again. I couldn't let him die again. But the assassin, as if mocking my desperation, shattered the ground as he sprang forward and arrived right in front of Romance. In less than a second. He closed the distance in that brief instant. It wasn't just his legs that were fast. As he closed in, he swung his arm—
And buried an axe in Romance's chest.
Dark crimson blood sprayed onto the man's mask and soaked in.
"Ghk…!"
Romance coughed up blood. The bastard, as if finding it laughable, kicked Romance's body away and wrenched the axe free. Then he pointed at me with the axe blade, blood still dripping from it.
"You there, Third Young Master."
Vivid green eyes locked straight onto mine.
"Somehow, you're a little different from the advance intel?"
He flipped one axe into the air and caught it again.
"When we first investigated, the third son supposedly had no power at all. Well, in the end, you still couldn't do a thing while your brother died, so I guess it's the same."
By the time I arrived, Romance's blood was already soaking the ground. I frantically shoved my hand into the pouch holding the potion bottles.
"What are you trying to do? A potion?"
He cocked his head with a clownish, exaggerated motion and grinned.
"Best not to get your hopes up. I'm the type who handles jobs thoroughly."
He flicked the axe blade with a finger.
"I coated them in poison. Just in case, you know. Well, the fact that I had to step in myself already means it wasn't a clean job, but…"
He smiled as he met my eyes, then continued.
"I didn't expect someone like you to show up either, so let's call it even."
I ignored him and knelt beside Romance. I pressed a top-grade recovery potion firmly into his hand—the very potion he had secretly stashed for me, saying he'd protect me.
"Give it up. No matter how good the potion is…"
I rose slowly to my feet. I summoned five spirits at once and closed the distance.
"Ah—I get it! You're thinking of avenging your dead brother, right? Sorry, but I don't have time to play. Like I said, things got a little off track because of you."
"Dead brother? What are you talking about?"
"…Huh?"
"The only one dying today is you."
I decided to rewrite it that way. I decided to overwrite the outcome that had changed.
"Begin!"
Keeping my eyes locked on the bastard, I spoke to someone else. The one who had stayed by my side all day for this very moment.
"Ester!"
"Yes! Right now—I'm doing it!"
While the assassin swung his axe, Ester had already finished preparing her magic. With a face tight with tension, she gathered her mana. The moment both her hands touched the ground, a massive magic circle was carved into the earth. Radiating warm light, it enveloped the soldiers whose lives were fading—and Romance.
Severed limbs regrew; shattered bone fragments returned to their places. Romance's heart, pierced by the axe, began to beat once more. Axe or poison—before Ester's overwhelming mana, both were useless.
Whether stunned by the unexpected turn of events, the assassin took a step—backward.
In return, I took a step forward. Step. Step. Step. My steps toward him grew steadily—faster and faster.