Resolve
The forest, which had been swallowed in darkness, brightened in an instant as if it were broad daylight.
No—not the pale light of noon, but a red blaze more intense than the sun itself, as if it would burn everything to nothing.
The flames that erupted from Astria's sword moved like something alive, sweeping across everything around her.
Fwoooosh!
A savage heat rippled outward in waves, charring the surrounding trees pitch-black, while the dry leaves on the forest floor crumbled to ash in an instant and scattered on the wind.
The air was stiflingly hot. Heat seared her skin. Every breath drew in a scorching wind that raked at her lungs.
The entire forest roared like a colossal blast furnace.
The once-silent woods were now filled with the crackle of flames and the gloomy booms of trees splitting and crashing down.
And that wasn't all.
FWOOOSH!
The resurrected assassins who had lunged at Astria melted away without so much as a scream.
The twisted bodies steeped in Lucenoct's darkness were mercilessly purified in the face of pure flame.
They dissolved into black smoke and ash, vanishing without a trace.
As if they had never existed at all.
Astria stood at the center of that spectacle.
Her blood boiled like molten lava through every inch of her body. The sword in her hand was no longer cold steel. It was flame itself—flame that roared and surged at her will, as if her arm had been extended into a living instrument of fire.
At the same time, she felt a strange sense of liberation, as if something inside her were being washed cleanly away.
Lucenoct's shadow—the sickening yoke that had bound her—was melting helplessly before this purifying fire.
"Wh-What in the...?"
Even the assassins' leader was bewildered by the overwhelming sight before him.
What stood before his eyes was a demon of fire, as if it would devour the entire world.
His vision was filled with nothing but searing red. "Bright" didn't begin to describe it.
He almost felt as if every other color in the world had been swallowed whole, leaving only that annihilating crimson behind.
It was consuming the forest like a living Calamity.
Fwoooosh!
"......"
He had forgotten how to breathe. Is that magic? I've never heard of fire magic like that. Then is it swordsmanship? How could swordsmanship cause something like that? A name? You shout a name at a sword and flames come pouring out?
He couldn't understand it. It fit into no category of the world he knew. It wasn't simply strength. It was something incomprehensible—something that ignored order and law themselves.
Just as that thought crossed his mind—
Clack.
With that sound, Astria straightened her burning sword.
This was no longer the green youngster he had been pressing moments ago.
She stood like an avatar of fire itself, radiating an aura that made her blood seem to boil like lava, her eyes burning with a light fierce enough to consume Lucenoct's shadow without a second thought.
"Tch!"
Clicking his tongue, he stirred his mana to face her.
The blood gushing from his body clumped together, forming a massive spear, and shot forward—but—
Sssshk.
Before it could even get near her, it all evaporated.
Astria walked slowly toward him, and—
Shwk!
swung her sword.
He desperately raised his blade to block, but—
"A m-monster... this woman..."
his sword offered no resistance whatsoever, melting into molten steel, and from the red line drawn across his throat, his body began to crumble into gray ash, slowly fading away.
"Lucenoct will come for you again."
"There's no need."
"...What?"
"Because I'll be the one coming to them."
"......"
Hearing that answer, the assassin said nothing more as he scattered into swirling ash.
In the moment she learned her sword's name, Astria realized something else as well—something that had been sleeping inside her, something she had longed for all along.
Her roots: Lucenoct. A shining house—one that carried shadows every bit as deep as its radiance.
Until now, she had lacked the strength and been forced to flee. But—
With this power—
With this flame that devoured everything—if she burned away even the darkness of her house, she could be reborn from the ashes, where nothing remained but embers.
Whoosh.
When the flames consuming her sword vanished, the fire that had turned the surroundings to ash vanished with them.
All that remained was ash and embers, and the lingering heat.
In the silence that followed—
"Astria?"
—a familiar voice reached her.
She turned toward it, and there stood her teacher, Sian.
Astria looked at him and spoke. "Master..."
Everything Sian had said had been true. The sword had given its voice to her, awakened her, and shown her what she needed to do. If not for him, she would have died here at the assassins' hands.
Did Master... know all along?
Even the truth about Lucenoct that I never told him? And that I would awaken this kind of power?
She didn't know why, but she found herself thinking it was possible. Even now, the moment everything ended, hadn't he come here for her sake?
If he had intervened, she would never have learned her sword's name, never have understood what had been festering in her heart. She would have simply become a useless creature that did nothing but accept protection.
She wanted to thank him as she watched Sian approach—but—
Ah...
drained of all strength, she closed her eyes and collapsed where she stood.
And so, Sian—having sprinted frantically to catch Astria as she fell—
"I came running because I thought there was a fire, and what on earth is this?"
—looked around in bewilderment.
It had started when things got noisy outside. He'd stepped out to find the forest ablaze. Torn over whether to evacuate, he'd been assessing how far the fire had spread when, all of a sudden, the flames simply vanished.
Puzzled by the sudden development, he'd come to check—and found the area reduced entirely to ash, with only a few dying embers left. And standing in the middle of it all: Astria.
Sian gazed down at the girl in his arms, breathing softly in her sleep.
"...She put it out?"
A roaring fire didn't just vanish out of nowhere. It only made sense that she had done something. Depending on the scale, a forest fire was a disaster in its own right—and she'd handled it alone?
"But how do you even put out a fire with a sword?"
Had she swung it around and generated some kind of wind pressure? With his limited imagination, that was about all he could come up with. Or maybe she could use magic too, and he'd simply never known.
Either way, he was relieved it hadn't spread into anything bigger.
"Up we go."
With that, he hoisted the fallen Astria onto his back. He couldn't just leave her here—he decided to carry her home and let her rest.
"...Impressive kid."
There had been a fire, and she'd put it out all by herself to protect the villagers. Perhaps out of gratitude, he also felt a small pang of guilt for having lied to her. He'd resolved to come clean the next morning—that everything he'd told her had been a lie.
That was, until she woke up and, golden eyes sparkling, declared:
"Master, I found it."
At first he couldn't make sense of her fragmented words and tilted his head. Found what, exactly?
Whether or not she read the confusion on his face, Astria—her body wrapped in bandages everywhere—lifted her sword and thrust it proudly toward him. "Ryuhwa."
In that instant, Sian understood what she was saying.
"...Your sword's name is Ryuhwa?"
"Yes."
"......?"
Naturally, every question imaginable began flooding Sian's head.
The forest fire—and everything else—suddenly didn't matter.
...No, seriously, what do I even do here?
Anyone—not just him—would have been floored by this. That was straight out of a manga's setting. How was that even possible?
He briefly wondered if she was pranking him, but one look at those innocent eyes and that didn't seem to be the case.
"The fire's power is still too strong... I can't control it properly yet."
So THAT was your forest fire yesterday, huh...
The gratitude he'd felt, however briefly, seemed to be cooling rapidly into frost. Still, he decided not to press the matter. One wrong move, and he might end up as part of that ash pile himself.
"It's all... thanks to you, Master."
Astria clutched her sword to her chest as if it were a treasure. Hearing that, Sian—
Apparently this "Master" person Astria has must be pretty incredible.
—began fleeing from reality.
While Sian was busy in his denial, Astria rose from her seat and spoke. "Master, I... I'm going away for a while."
A completely unexpected statement. A question mark floated above Sian's head. Going where, all of a sudden? From the way she said it, it doesn't sound like she means somewhere nearby.
Ah—could it be.
Is she going to her family's house?
Sian gave no answer, but—
"...I have to go. When the sword revealed its name, I understood what I must do."
—she declared her resolve, believing that he remained silent because he already knew her heart.
"......"
Of course, Sian had no idea what she was talking about and was simply listening. But he did understand one thing: she intended to head to her family.
As for the reason—Sian figured it was probably:
Revenge, isn't it?
She must have fled her house because she lacked the strength, but now that she had power, she'd want to pay back what was done to her. It was the most natural thought any person could have.
By all rights, this felt like the moment where he ought to step in with some speech about how "vengeance only begets vengeance"—but he decided not to.
If she doesn't get her revenge, she'll stay here...
It would not be an ordinary inconvenience. Not even slightly.
Besides, Astria had said she'd be "going away for a while." Which meant that once everything was over, she would come back to this village.
Having heard that much, Sian made his decision.
I'm moving away.
No matter how many times he denied it, no one listened, and the misunderstandings only piled higher and higher.
By now even the villagers had started treating him as some kind of guardian deity of the town, and it was becoming a serious problem.
Just today, for instance...
He'd only stepped out briefly, and the whole village had showered him with thanks over yesterday's events.
"You're the one who put out the fire, aren't you, Sian?"
"No, that was Astria who—"
"I heard you even rescued Astria and carried her back. Is she all right?"
"Living in the same village as a hero—we're truly blessed!"
"I knew it—our village is safe because Sian is here!"
It got to the point where he wondered if they were all just messing with him. But seen through the villagers' eyes, the moment Sian had headed toward the burning forest, the fire had gone out—and then he'd come back carrying Astria on his back. Of course they concluded he'd extinguished the flames and saved her.
The misunderstanding was already far beyond anyone's control; everything now landed in the realm of "it's all thanks to Sian."
"Waaah! I'm Sian!"
"You were the other hero yesterday! Today it's my turn to be Sian!"
Even the children had begun fighting over who got to play Sian now, preferring him over any other hero. At this rate, far from a peaceful country life, he'd be trampled from all sides until, like the shrimp caught between two warring whales, his back would break and he'd die.
And so—
The answer is moving. There's no other way.
That was the resolve Sian finally made.