Cleanup
Watching the tears stream down Number 17’s face, I couldn’t deny the strange tangle of feelings that rose in me. Whatever his true intentions had been, it was clear he had also been trying to save the world from the apocalypse.
But everyone present knew that didn’t justify a single one of the atrocities he had committed up to this point.
Mana began to surge once more.
“You don’t actually think someone who’s done anything—and I mean anything—to stay alive would just give up now, do you?”
The other witches hastily drew up their own mana, but I stepped forward and blocked their path.
“You don’t have the right to kill this man.”
I scattered killing intent as a warning. The witches flinched in surprise and started glancing at one another for cues. The Great Witch gave a small nod and ordered them to stand down.
Even while he continued to manipulate mana, Number 17 dipped his head slightly toward me. I hadn’t said it expecting thanks. He was going to die either way.
Still, if he felt even a scrap of gratitude that he wouldn’t die by the witches’ hands, I wanted to use that too. So I asked him straight out.
“How were you able to handle mana with Arianne’s Flower nearby?”
“Heh. So you even know about Arianne’s Flower, do you?”
Number 17 let out a dry, incredulous laugh. Apparently deciding everything was already over, he began explaining in surprising detail.
“While I was fleeing the witches and completely lost, a magic beast tore off a leaf and told me to take it.”
“……Don’t tell me it was a moon werewolf with a black mane?”
I floated the guess half-expecting nothing, but his eyes went round with shock.
“How? How the hell do you know all of this?”
There was no chance he had stolen or forcibly taken Arianne’s Flower from “that guy.” The beast was oddly soft-hearted; I figured it had simply shown mercy.
“So you used that leaf to grow the flower yourself?”
“That’s right. It was a hell of a lot of work. Along the way I also figured out how to reverse the flower’s properties and control mana through them.”
This time it was my turn to be honestly surprised.
Even the most brilliant mage would struggle just to counter something as lethal to magic users as Arianne’s Flower. Copying even a partial version of it was another level entirely.
Now it makes sense.
From everything I’d seen, Dogfight had known a fair amount about the Demon World Forest. They possessed the knowledge and technique to graft the abilities of countless magic beasts into human bodies, after all.
That was why it had never made sense that, in my previous life, they had been completely wiped out while trying to conquer the forest—vanished without a single trace left behind.
He must have noticed they cloned Arianne’s Flower.
That changed everything.
Once that beast started moving, not even Dogfight could survive in this forest. With that razor-sharp sense of smell, it would have erased every last scrap of information about them from the entire continent.
So that’s why I never knew a thing about Dogfight in my past life.
It left me feeling hollow, but I finally had the solid sense of having reached the correct answer.
Taking a leaf given out of mercy and casually cloning the beast’s treasure? That was basically begging to be killed.
“I suppose last words make for long conversations.”
Number 17 poured every scrap of mana he had gathered straight at me. A barrage of spells crashed down. Even the witches, who were experts in magic themselves, looked startled by his skill.
It felt like watching a magic tournament.
That was how thoroughly Number 17 was throwing everything he had left—showing me and the witches that he was no mere ingredient for potions or spell components.
That the likes of us had no right to decide his fate.
On top of that, he pulled something very peculiar from his coat.
It was a hand.
The wrist had been cleanly severed. The hand looked strangely familiar, and on the back of it was a mark I recognized all too well.
“The Helios crest?”
“So the boy knew about this too, after all?”
Number 17 held the hand up with clinical indifference and poured mana into it. A portion of the Helios power Ares used began to weave itself into his spells.
“……”
“What? I’m a villain. Did you actually feel sorry for me because I lived a pathetic life?”
“No.”
I didn’t particularly like Ares. He wasn’t exactly a great friend.
But if you asked whether he had done anything bad enough to deserve having his hand cut off, the answer was no.
As villains went, he was third-rate—neighborhood thug level at best.
I kept advancing, dodging the incoming spells or batting them aside with a mana-coated blade.
Like a fuse burning down, the closer I got the more directly he felt his life ending, and the more frantically he hurled magic.
Even so, my sword finally reached right in front of his nose.
Perhaps because he had poured every last drop of mana into offense, not even a simple barrier protected his body.
I hadn’t meant it as revenge for Ares, but my blade moved on its own and cleanly severed the right hand that was still gathering mana.
“Gaaah!”
Number 17 let out a harsh groan and staggered hard. I didn’t stop there. I drove the sword straight through his heart.
A thin moan escaped him as he actually leaned forward, resting his weight against me. With his remaining hand trembling weakly, he gripped the blade.
“The Earliest Apocalypse…… comes in ten years.”
“Well, you could look at it that way.”
“Can you…… stop it?”
He had done everything for survival, yes, but after gaining his freedom he had spent every remaining moment trying to prevent the end of the world.
I knew what he wanted to hear from me, so I whispered it quietly.
“Rin will no longer become the Apocalypse.”
Did he catch the meaning behind those words? He looked at me with startled eyes, then slowly sank to his knees.
And that was the end.
Even the infamous leader of the underworld organization called Dogfight—men who grafted magic-beast powers into themselves and clashed with the Execution Squad—still died when a sword went through his heart.
“Is it over?”
The old woman approached slowly, leaning on her staff.
Adrina moved to support the Great Witch, but she waved her off with a gesture and came to stand beside me.
“How truly pitif—”
“In front of me.”
I cut off the Great Witch as she looked down at the cooling corpse and began to speak.
“Don’t run your mouth carelessly.”
It was true that Adrina’s help had let us make instantaneous jumps while cleaning out Dogfight this time.
But the witches could not escape responsibility for the creation of the organization itself.
Their damned, twisted traditions had caused all of this.
I slowly picked up Ares’s hand from the ground.
The palm was thick, calloused from what must have been genuine hard work.
“This is my friend’s hand. Go reattach it.”
The witches’ eyebrows shot up at the high-handed command. One of them finally looked ready to snap back, but the Great Witch’s soft snort stopped them cold.
“You only bowed your head because you didn’t want a fight, and now you think that makes us easy? If you want a favor, you ought to offer something worthwhile in return.”
The Great Witch chuckled dryly.
Apparently living so many years had left her completely unable to read the room.
“I have no intention of pitying this man, but it’s obvious your inhuman traditions were the starting point of this whole mess.”
“……”
“A price? Fine. I’ll pay it.”
I yanked the sword free of the man’s chest and locked eyes with the Great Witch.
“I’ll spare you.”
“……”
“Right now, I won’t kill you. I’ll let you live.”
The return trip was always going to take time.
The witches lived hidden deep in the forest, so of course they had zero warp markers connected to the outside world. Amusing, in a way.
In the end a strange little party formed—me, the Great Witch, and Adrina—and we set out for Elgrid.
The Great Witch and I barely spoke. Adrina was stuck between us doing nothing but reading the atmosphere. That awkward journey finally ended when the tall buildings of Aeos Academy came into view.
I headed straight for the hospital and had no trouble spotting a familiar face in the corridor.
Eve was sitting in a chair reading a book.
Warm sunlight poured through the window and bathed her. Just looking at the scene loosened some of the tension that had been clenched tight inside me for so long.
It was an ordinary sight I saw all the time, and that was exactly why it felt like we had truly returned to peaceful everyday life.
“Eve.”
I called her name softly, almost under my breath. Eve startled and whipped her head toward me.
Then she tossed the book aside without even marking the page, ran over, and threw her arms around me.
“Daniel! You’re back!”
I had already told the others I was going to finish Dogfight and then used Adrina’s ring, so she must have been waiting on edge the whole time.
“Are you hurt anywhere? Is your body all right?”
“Yeah. I’m not hurt.”
I answered with a small smile. Eve lifted her head a little. The corners of her eyes were damp.
Eve had grown a lot in her own way recently, but seeing her like this brought back the small, soft-animal feeling I’d had the first time we met.
That was how anxious and frightened she must have been.
“Where are the others?”
Once she had calmed down enough to step back a little, I asked. She pointed along the row of rooms lining the corridor.
“Every room here has our school’s students in it. Bertia too.”
“……”
“Everyone’s pretty banged up, but they’re all safe. Don’t walk in with such a dark face—please smile for them.”
“But……”
In a way they had gotten hurt fighting for me and my sister. Showing up with a smile felt almost shameless. Eve shook her head.
“They fought like that because they wanted to see Daniel smile.”
“……”
My words stuck in my throat.
I still hadn’t figured out what I was supposed to say when I saw them, but there was someone I needed to meet first.
As if on cue, Eve’s expression darkened.
“And Daniel, you probably don’t know this, but there was actually an attack on the hospital too. The truth is, Ares……”
“I know.”
I gave a small nod and pointed to the two people behind me. Adrina already knew Eve, so she just gave a little wave in greeting.
“Which room is Ares in?”
Eve’s finger pointed to the room at the very end of the hall. I hurried toward it.