Casillum Conquest (5)
The world was hazy.
My consciousness was hazy, and I couldn't feel any sensation in my body at all.
The feeling of my usual leather gloves tightening around my hands, the feeling of the strings tied tightly around my thighs—it all meant nothing now.
Just as if I had always had this body, it floated in a completely natural way, as if I didn't have a single thread on me.
All I could hear from Lucas's ear was faint ringing, and my visible field of vision was dim, like I was standing in an empty, pitch-black space.
'...Did I lose consciousness? Why am I here?'
But soon I realized that I hadn't actually opened my eyes. Or rather, I couldn't even be sure if I had.
The view changed. The hazy scene in front of my eyes gradually grew clearer, and it became a vast grassland with blue grass.
There, one woman and one man. And compared to them, a much younger knight was sitting, staring out at the horizon.
The woman and the man both had a few wrinkles on their faces. Compared to them, the knight looked so young that he was almost blue.
Lucas knew them. The young knight with the blue hair was him from twenty-odd years ago.
And the man and woman beside him were the generation above him—the senior Heroes who had guided him and taught him so much.
"Sister, I'm sorry I couldn't help this time either. I just freeze up when I see a monster in front of me...
"It's fine. Lucas. You're still young. Before you became a Hero, weren't you a scholar? This is your first time on a battlefield after becoming one, right?"
"Of course it's normal to be shaken. We were even younger than you when we first became Heroes. Ahahaha."
The two veteran Heroes gently encouraged the young, flustered Lucas.
Lucas still clearly remembered those two people who had embraced him when he was just a raw Hero recruit.
As a human named Lucas, he had a separate father and mother.
But as a Hero, he thought of those two as parents to him.
"But, Lucas. It's regrettable, but you need to pull yourself together a little more."
"The two of us have aged as Heroes. Gradually our strength is fading, and there will come a time when we can't stand on the battlefield together anymore."
"Plus, since we became Heroes at the same time, we could rely on each other. But you don't have anyone to rely on like that, and as your seniors, it pains me to see you suffer."
At the time, it was despairing. When he heard those words, what if the two of them disappeared at the same time? How was he supposed to bear the weight of being the Hero all by himself?
Could he do it alone? Wouldn't he run away out of fear? For days and nights, his heart ached and he was terrified; it was torture.
Finally, in his mid-forties.
Now, he had lived as a Hero longer than them. He finally understood the worry they had for him.
For just over twenty years, it had been an incredibly hard and painful life. There had been joy as well as sadness.
Now that he was roughly the same age as them—or perhaps a bit older—Lucas found himself saying the same things to the younger Heroes who came after him.
Those two stroked his young head and spoke up.
"Lucas. We've entered the twilight as Heroes. But you're not. You're the dawn, and your potential is boundless."
It sounded like the cruellest words possible. Once life started, it would eventually end. How terrifying and desolate that was.
He still thought the same even now, after all this time. The world divided people into those who left and those who remained.
"Even when we're gone, your time won't stop. Please, become the brilliant sun that continues to shine on the world behind us."
He had said those words to him, and not long after, the two of them saved him on the battlefield and died. And he had walked the path of the lone Hero from then on.
After that, the number of Heroes had gone from three to two. He hadn't known why, but time had passed and he had welcomed a new junior.
Just a few years later, the junior had died. Another junior had come in. That junior had also died after just a few years.
Even though only he had survived, he had gradually begun to lose hope that his juniors would keep surviving.
'Is the action I'm taking as a Hero really meaningful?'
He had given his life to save theirs.
But he hadn't been able to shine as the brilliant sun illuminating the world for twenty-odd years, and he hadn't been able to protect his juniors either.
Only he had survived, while countless juniors had died over and over.
His heart had sunk into despair. Now, alone, looking back at the past, Lucas began to reflect on his life.
And with a meaningless smile, he spoke weakly.
"Hah... what a pointless life."
At the same time as the disappointment, another stimulus began to enter Lucas's consciousness.
"...!!"
The ringing in his ears, which had been echoing, gradually became clear. At that moment, his body was violently shaken and he felt a shock.
His vision went black. When he opened his eyes, his junior, Luke Frok, was looking at him with a pale face.
"Are... you conscious?"
***
Lucas finally understood after his head throbbed once.
He was still inside Casillum, and he hadn't died yet.
He realized that what he had just seen wasn't a deathbed flashback, but a dream, and he lifted his upper body.
"Luke, you...
"I'm fine. My legs might not be able to move, but I'm okay."
His cheek stung; he must have slapped it awake. Sweat covered Luke's body, and he could see blood on the floor stretching all the way from far away. It looked like Luke had crawled here to wake him up.
He couldn't even guess how long he had been unconscious. His bones ached and throbbed, and he felt as if several places were broken.
"Rigel! Is Rigel okay?!"
"Rigel is holding back Loktur."
KWAANG!!
A huge sound echoed. At the same time, a massive body of Loktur appeared, and Rigel, bleeding from the head, backed away from Loktur after dodging the attack.
Rigel's condition was clearly dangerous. One eye was swollen shut with blood and he couldn't even open it properly. While doing so, he barely dodged wild punches.
Loktur looked completely helpless against Rigel, as if he had gone berserk.
As if they had forgotten about himself and Luke, they were only focused on Rigel.
Lucas smiled weakly.
"Now... I can do it."
SLURP, Lucas gripped the sword he hadn't let go of even in the middle of losing consciousness.
Rigel was buying time with his life and drawing the enemy's gaze.
If Loktur's attention was completely fixed on Rigel right now, there was a chance.
"Rigel, please hold on just a little longer."
A light began to gather in Lucas's sword.
***
CLANG! CRASH!
Fists and swords collided. Loktur wasn't wearing any gloves or other equipment.
Even so, the sword bounced off only his fist. Every time it hit Rigel's hand, it felt like a lump of metal striking, not flesh being cut.
'...Just a little more, a little more.'
One eye was covered in blood and he couldn't see properly. Even so, Rigel gradually responded to Loktur's savage movements.
He didn't think of anything else. He focused solely on the fight right now, moving his body only in response to every single action of the Loktur in front of him.
SWISH-SWISH!!
Just a moment ago, he hadn't been able to respond properly to Loktur's movements, but now it was different.
He didn't know if he had gotten used to the speed or if he had grown in that time, but at least he could make a minimal response.
The next one felt and appeared.
'Even if I can't leave a single scratch with the sword in my hand.'
It was barely a response. Even if he swung it with full power, the sword couldn't pierce the arm because it was harder than his body.
But that was enough. Right now Rigel was using the fist to knock it away.
The moment the sword touched the fist, he turned the force away so that no shock would be transmitted to the sword.
His body barely dodged, and he redirected the force upward.
CRASH! CRASH!
For a moment, Loktur's shoulder visibly shrank. It seemed he was trying to use a counter to deliver a finishing blow.
"Rigel."
A voice came from behind. Rigel smiled, stomped the ground hard right before the fist shot forward.
He had to cancel that out. As someone with overwhelmingly inferior attacking power, he couldn't hope to dodge such a giant mountain-sized fist.
So he had no choice but to gather all his strength from his whole body.
He gripped the sword tightly with both hands. He crouched his upper body down and sideways, gathering power to deflect the blow.
Loktur's fist shot out. One tempo faster, Rigel swung the sword widely and collided with the fist.
And behind that, a brilliant light leaked out.
Luke jumped forward, sword raised, from behind Rigel.
KAAAAANG!!!
The fist that was about to wipe everything out collided with Rigel's sword.
If he could just barely twist the trajectory even a little, Luke's strike would end everything.
Closing his eyes, pouring every ounce of strength into his body, he began his final desperate struggle.
SWOOSH!
But at that moment, a sound that made him doubt his ears echoed.
A sound of something breaking came. Opening both eyes, he saw that the blade of his sword had floated up into the air.
The sword had broken. The broken sword couldn't block the fist and slashed through the air.
A massive fist was flying straight toward them. It was about to cover both Lucas and Luke at the same time.
At that exact moment.
PSHHWIIK!!
The sound of piercing skin rang out. The sword shot up with a spray of blood.
A massive greatsword was embedded in Loktur's shoulder. Luke's greatsword had pierced straight through Loktur's shoulder.
When he turned his head slightly in the direction the sword had come from, Luke was lying face down, barely supporting his upper body with his hands and panting heavily.
With the shoulder pierced, Loktur's posture collapsed and the fist's trajectory twisted sideways.
Now.
"Lucas."
A pillar of brilliant light rose in front of Rigel. At that moment, the sun lit up the night sky.
***
"Hah, hah..."
His breathing came in ragged gasps. He hadn't focused like this and poured his entire body into effort before.
After only a few minutes of battle, it felt like time itself was moving slowly, and he had poured out everything.
"Rigel, are you okay?"
"H-Haa... I'm fine."
Luke seemed fine too. His legs couldn't be used for a while, and he had used up all his strength and blessings, but he didn't seem to be in immediate danger.
More importantly, they focused their attention on the giant body lying in front of Lucas and Rigel.
"Krr... rugh."
The sword of light. Lucas's sword strike, pouring out all his strength and blessings, struck Loktur's body directly.
The result was to sever one arm and leave a huge wound on the torso. He had thought the body would be split in half.
'...It's tougher than it looks.'
But in the end, they had managed to neutralize Loktur. All that remained was to cut off its breathing.
He pulled Luke's greatsword out from Loktur's shoulder. When he did, it spat out blood and soaked the ground.
And he aimed the greatsword at Loktur's neck. Far away, red light began to appear on the city walls.
The sun was slowly rising, and he thought the light was illuminating the sky.
'At last.'
The moment humanity had yearned for and prayed for for hundreds of years was right before his eyes. Of course his heart was overflowing.
He raised Luke's greatsword, stained with black blood, high, then gathered all his body strength and struck it down in one swing.
SWOOSH-SWOOSH-SWOOSH-SWOOSH!!
At that moment.
A deep fear that seemed to rip out his heart assaulted him.
A black chain that had somehow appeared tied up the falling sword.
CHENG!!
And it broke the sword blade with just a simple twist, rendering it unable to function as a sword.
"No. No way."
A woman's voice sounded. A faint, terrifying fear that felt like a well-honed sword was carving away at the flesh of his heart.
As if sinking deep into the ocean, his body tightened with dense magi. It wasn't just a feeling—it was reality.
Lucas, Luke, and Rigel looked toward where the voice had come from.
There stood a black-and-white figure. A Calamity Witch who was terrifyingly white, covered in white spots. And one who wrapped his body in pitch-black armor was watching the three of them from the unbroken city wall.
The Calamity Witch, Carteia.
And the Hero Slayer, Valtuar.
The two of the Four Calamities were positioned here.