Chapter 624
Chapter Title: Witch
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‘The Great Spirit of Fire?’
-That's right. You have the blood of the Tongkon royalty flowing through you, don't you? If so, I can save you from this crisis!
Ista said confidently.
-I have studied your bloodline for ages! If you're of Tongkon's lineage, I can lend you my power even without a contract!
Ista's reason for wanting to save Reina was simple.
‘I'm ruined!’
Ista instantly felt that his life as a spirit had become thoroughly twisted due to his encounter with Leo.
The sanctuary he had painstakingly built over many years had already collapsed disastrously.
To make matters worse, all the subordinate spirits he commanded had gone over to Elsie.
Furthermore, the lesser spirits who had defected to Elsie held immense hostility toward him.
In that situation, Ista couldn't help but recall his past deeds.
‘I told you to collect the dewdrops that catch the earliest sunlight!’
‘I'm sorry! I'm sorry!’
Alsia, the first to break free from Ista's dominion, was the subordinate spirit who had served him the longest.
Even to Alsia, he had often been this tyrannical.
‘I might have to live my whole life being tormented by them!’
He also considered fleeing from Leo.
Although he had lost his base and his subordinate spirits, the fact that he was a Great Spirit remained unchanged.
However, he soon had to give up the idea of escaping.
‘The fire spirits are the least of my worries. At least they won't try to extinguish me. But the other Great Spirits are different.’
Ista's relationship with the other Great Spirits was extremely poor.
‘Especially Undine, the Spirit of the Deep Sea! That one will surely try to extinguish me!’
Long ago, Ista had destroyed the Deep Sea Spirit's sanctuary.
Ever since then, Undine had harbored a strong grudge against Ista.
If such an Undine were to find out that he had lost not only his base but all his subordinate spirits, she would surely try to exact revenge for that time.
Ista's body trembled.
‘In the end, a pact with Leo Flove is essential for my safety right now!’
Any other summoner would have undoubtedly begged to form a contract with Ista.
A Great Spirit was, after all, an existence worthy of being revered in its own right.
‘But to Leo Flove, I'm not that valuable!’
Being a Great Spirit, he wouldn't be treated like a roadside pebble.
But he didn't think he would be treated with any special regard either.
The very reason Ista had refused a pact with Leo in the first place was because he couldn't accept that he wasn't of great value to him.
‘Leo Flove is the one who has not only the Great Spirit of Light, Lariel, but also that unidentified spirit as his pact-bearers.’
On top of that, the three great phantom beasts.
In Ista's memory, there was only one summoner comparable to the current Leo Flove: Lisinas, the King of Wisdom.
‘If I'm going to make a pact, I want to be treated well!’
And so, as Ista desperately racked his brain for a way to be treated well, his eyes fell upon Reina in her moment of crisis.
Ista also knew that Leo had come here to save his mother.
And Reina just happened to be of Tongkon blood.
‘If I lend her my power and rescue her, he'll treat me favorably!’
At the very least, he might be able to avoid the fate of being tormented by the lesser spirits he used to command.
-This is a deal, Reina Flove!
‘A deal?’
-Yes! If you overcome this crisis with my power! Just put in a good word for me with Leo Flove later!
‘What?’
-I'm begging you! Let me help you! My future life as a spirit is on the line!
Reina knew that the royalty of Tongkon had always received the blessing of the Spirit of Purification.
And Leo was now inheriting the legacy of Tongkon.
If so, it wouldn't be strange for him to form a pact with the Spirit of Purification.
But to beg her to let him help?
‘Why are all the summoned beings connected to Leo so strange?’
Shaking off her momentary doubt, Reina spoke to Ista.
‘You're saying... you can lend me your power?’
-Yes! Then it will be possible to escape this crisis!
‘Then can you also give me the power to fight this guy?’
-You want to fight? Him?
‘Yes. Lend me your power.’
-You know what that means, don't you? Are you prepared to risk your life?
For a moment, Ista's voice turned cold.
Leo, who had thoroughly toyed with Jorua, was just an exceptional monster.
The fact that he was a being of catastrophic power who had slaughtered countless heroes remained unchanged.
To fight against such a being, one naturally needed the resolve to risk one's life.
But the resolve Ista spoke of was different from the resolve needed to face a powerful enemy.
The power Ista had first offered to lend was only enough to escape from Jorua.
But what Reina wanted was more than that.
Among the myriad elements, flame was a power with a particularly wild and dangerous nature.
The power to annihilate an opponent by burning even oneself—that was the very essence of flame.
-You lost your aura long ago, didn't you? That means you have no way to protect yourself from my flames. The moment you make even the slightest mistake in controlling them, my flames will burn you.
‘I know.’
Reina said calmly.
‘But right now, I need the power to fight him.’
Even if she took the risk and gained Ista's power, there was no chance of victory.
But...
‘I might be able to help those kids, even if just a little.’
Reina thought of the hero cadets now fighting for the Flove domain.
Last summer.
When the training retreat was held in the Flove domain, Reina had seen the way Leo looked at the hero cadets.
A gaze that wished for their swift growth.
Though fundamentally different, it resembled the look parents give their children.
‘He was a strange child from a young age.’
Leo had never cried, even as a newborn, and was a strangely precocious child.
‘Sometimes, he even looks at me, his own mother, with the impudent eyes of someone looking at a much younger child. At other times, he looks at me as if he genuinely finds me pathetic.’
Reina grumbled.
‘I can't tell if he's my son or my friend.’
Still.
‘I know because he's my son.’
That Leo has a grand goal beyond her imagination.
‘And to achieve that goal, he needs those kids.’
She couldn't just stand by and watch the comrades her son had chosen fall into crisis.
‘Crucially, I'm their senior, aren't I?’
Although she had now lost her power and retired from the stage.
Although she was nothing but a burden without borrowing Ista's power.
As a senior who had once walked the same path, she couldn't let the next generation be broken.
Even if it meant sacrificing herself.
‘Helping the next generation advance into the future. That's the duty of an adult.’
That was why, now, once again.
She was trying to force her way back onto the stage she'd had to leave long ago.
-The slightest mistake means a pointless death. Even if you're lucky enough to survive, you might suffer aftereffects. Are you sure you won't regret this?
‘If that happens, I'll surely regret it. But...’
Reina's eyes blazed.
‘If I run away from here... this bastard will definitely attack our people.’
Jorua had now cast aside all pretense of hypocrisy.
He would slaughter the people of the Flove domain to vent even a fraction of his rage.
And right now, the hero cadets didn't have the power to stop him.
That was something that must never happen.
In the end, Reina would come to regret not fighting at this moment.
In that case...
‘I choose to fight and regret it.’
At Reina's resolute will, Ista fell silent.
-Yes... that was the kind of bloodline yours was. It doesn't change, generation after generation. No matter how many times you change form. Even if the name Tongkon has vanished. You people never change.
A nobility that allows one to sacrifice oneself for others.
Such individuals have always been born from the Tongkon lineage.
-Yes. That was why I chose you.
It wasn't because they possessed the bloodline most suited to his flames of purification that he had formed pacts with them.
It was because of their conviction that he had chosen Tongkon.
“Still smiling? You wench...!”
At that moment, a dense killing intent erupted from Jorua's body.
“Let's see if you can keep smiling.”
The moment Jorua raised his hand with a vile smile.
Grab-!
“...?”
Reina's hand caught Jorua's wrist as it was twisting around her neck.
“Futile resistance.”
Jorua scoffed, as if finding it pathetic.
Fwoosh-!
“...!”
Blue flames erupted from Reina's hand.
“No!”
Jorua had to let out a cry of shock at the flames of purification that had instantly turned his hand to ash.
Just then, a sword aura of flame scattered.
Jorua, who barely dodged the sword aura, stared in disbelief at Reina, who was now standing in mid-air, clad in blue flames.
Small wings made of fire flared from the heels of Reina's feet.
The flames enveloped her whole body like light armor, and in her hands burned a sword and spear of fire.
The master of the flames was undoubtedly Ista.
But the one controlling those flames with complete freedom was none other than Reina.
Watching the flames burn according to her will, Reina clenched her fists.
A long-lost sensation returned.
The goal of being a hero, now unattainable... a dream she had to let go of unfulfilled.
Another side of herself she had to forget without even being able to prepare for it.
‘When this is over, I'll never be able to go back.’
That's why she had to give it her all.
‘Because this... will be the last time in my life I surpass my limits.’
Fwoooosh-!
Flames greater than those of her prime erupted from Reina's body.
Seeing this, Jorua asked in disbelief.
“You... just what are you?”
“Me?”
The corners of Reina's lips curled up.
A smile like that of a mischievous rascal... yet at the same time, eerie and captivating.
It was, quite literally.
“A witch.”
The smile of a witch, itself.