After the World Shattered
Krrk!
Crreeeak!
The instant the void-blade carved through dimension itself and felled Silaje, Herseba's world began to break apart.
'Ghk!'
At the same moment, Simon felt a crushing wave of exhaustion and backlash crash over him, and he dropped to one knee. The sword of void in his hand dispelled and vanished.
His vision warped, and his mind went blindingly white.
'I can't black out. Not now.'
He couldn't afford to lose consciousness here. He had certainly cut Silaje down, but that didn't mean the entire Blood Sky Cult was finished. He still had to deal with those survivors outside, and above all, the effect of the Blood Stone Castle might yet linger.
'Somehow… I have to hold on…!'
Crreeeak!
Krrk!
Crraang—!
The world shattered into pieces.
Erzsébet and Akemus, who had been shouting something as they rushed toward Simon, winked out of existence. Prince, still battling the cultists, vanished as well.
The mummies, along with the Golden City, Deathland, the spider lair, and the jungle—
Even the zombies, corpse spiders, and Skullwings.
Every single being Herseba had 'pulled' into this place returned to its original location.
Before long, the landscape around them shifted, and they were back where they had been before the Third Authority had ever been invoked.
The Dungeon Lord's chamber. Towering black cliffs rose around them, and trees encrusted with ore glinted in the gloom.
'The Blood Stone Castle?'
As for the castle Silaje had conjured, it had already been shattered to pieces. Clean cuts marked the rubble—sliced apart by something razor-sharp.
"It's—we're out!"
"We escaped that horrifying world!"
The Blood Sky Cult fanatics were rejoicing over nothing more than the fact that they had escaped the 'World of Sand'.
What remained was Simon, Herseba lying limp on the ground, and Pier, whose strength was all but spent.
Before long, the gazes of the surviving fanatics turned toward Simon.
"Looks like he's finally worn himself out."
They raised their weapons and began trudging toward him.
Simon tried to rise, but his body wouldn't so much as twitch. All he could manage was keeping his eyes open, clinging to consciousness by a thread.
"The whelp who took down the Archbishop himself."
One of the fanatics flicked his tongue over his lips.
"Offer us your head, and you'll at least earn a bishop's seat—"
The sentence never finished.
Crimson slashes tore through the air from every direction, and a dozen-odd fanatics erupted in fountains of blood all at once.
Fwish! Fwish! Fwish! Fwish! Fwish!
From above, pure-white feathers came streaking down, striking the fanatics square in the napes. Every one of them either foamed at the mouth or simply collapsed.
"Wh-what the—!"
"Ambush!"
The fanatics plunged into chaos. Simon lifted his head.
'Ah.'
As if a pair of saviors were descending from the heavens itself.
Like an angel and a demon.
Two girls came drifting down.
One sent black hair streaming in the wind, the other platinum blonde. Gravity whipped their hair upward, and then it fell slowly back over their shoulders and down their backs.
"Simon! Are you all right?!"
The black-haired girl asked urgently.
"Fufu. I knew you'd pull through~"
The girl with the platinum hair winked, her fox-like eyes curving into crescents.
"Lorraine! Serne! How did you two—!"
Fwoosh!
Simon stopped mid-sentence. Lorraine had charged over and thrown her arms around him. Her faint scent tickled the tip of his nose.
"…You've been through so much."
Her eyelashes trembled. He had only ever seen her as imposing and effortlessly composed—he had never seen her look this fragile.
"Hey, that's cheating, hogging him all to yourself like that!"
Serne complained in a pouty voice. In that instant, one of the fanatics tried to sneak up from behind—only to be struck down by a feather winging in from above.
"…This was Walter's doing. No—Professor Silaje's, wasn't it?"
Lorraine asked. She seemed to have pieced it together from the black magic on display, the Blood Stone Castle and the rest. Simon nodded.
"Yeah. It's over now."
Lorraine slowly lowered him down to the ground.
"Leave the rest to us. Get some proper rest."
At that single sentence,
Simon finally let go of the thread of reason he had been fighting so desperately to keep from snapping. His eyes slid shut.
"…."
Ruby-red eyes gazed quietly down at the unconscious Simon. She opened a subspace and drew out a pillow.
A pink pillow covered in frills, brimming with her exact personal taste. She always carried it with her, since she could never sleep well in unfamiliar places.
She tucked that cherished pillow beneath Simon's head, then rose to her feet.
Whooosh!
Anger blazed to life in her red eyes. The fanatics flinched.
[Pay the price.]
Two horns rose from her forehead. The empty air behind her split open like a mouth, and from within, scarlet flashes of death lanced out at the fanatics.
Overwhelming firepower.
Each time a crimson pillar that annihilated everything in its path carved across the battlefield, the earth split apart and gale-force winds howled. The Blood Sky Cult remnants could do nothing but be hurled aside.
"Serne! Don't let a single one escape!!"
Unleashing her special ability in a relentless barrage, Lorraine shouted.
"You've been grinding your teeth at me this whole time, haven't you~?"
Serne crossed her arms and sent feathers flying.
"Don't order me around. I'm not working for you—I'm working for Simon."
Shhhrrrrrrrrk!
Hundreds of feathers soared into the sky. Some dozens spread out into a barrier, some dozens raised a Dark Flare high in the heavens. And still others rained down to become feather soldiers, sealing off the fanatics' retreat.
Peak firepower, dazzling utility.
For better or worse, these two worked together like clockwork.
No matter how low-quality the Blood Sky Cult's faithful might be, a few of them were veteran necromancers who exceeded the level of Kizen first-years. Yet even they crumpled without mounting the slightest response to the two girls' assault.
"We—we can't even get close to them!"
"You're telling me those things are actually students?!"
The Blood Sky Cult's remnants were subdued in the blink of an eye.
[Kheheheh! Truly the rulers of the next generation.]
Pier muttered, perched on a boulder.
"Excuse me."
Lorraine glanced back at him. Even as she fired beams in every direction, she looked entirely at her leisure.
"Are you Simon's Ancient Undead?"
Pier only smirked and gave no answer, but that reaction was answer enough.
Her eyelids lowered slightly.
"So Simon really is the Legion Commander of Betrayal…."
"Oh my~ Only figuring that out now?"
Serne, toying with the cult remnants using her feathers, puffed out her chest.
"…I suspected as much. Mother never told me, but still."
"That's too bad~ Simon told me 'himself'."
Lorraine shot Serne a sharp look, then let out a sigh.
"This isn't the time for that."
Whether Simon had succeeded in felling Silaje or not, the Blood Ring that had sealed the dungeon entrance was slowly crumbling away.
The adults would soon storm the dungeon. They had to clean this up before then.
"Serne. You can erase these people's memories, can't you?"
"It's not hard~ I do it all the time."
Serne gave a sly, knowing smile.
"But you know, haven't you always scolded me, every single time, saying I have no right whatsoever to erase a human's memory?"
"…."
Caught off guard by the counterstrike, Lorraine bit her lip lightly, and Serne shrugged.
"Telling me to never do it again, then arguing both sides of it with one mouth? And you, Nephthys's successor?"
"…Then what would you do instead? You can't possibly want the picture where Simon gets captured and executed as the Legion Commander of Betrayal, either?"
At the word executed, it was Serne's turn to fall silent. Then, with a sly, suggestive smile creeping across her face, she said,
"Oh my~ Are you threatening me with Simon's life right now? I think Simon would be rather sad if he found out about this later~"
"Stop needling people and think rationally. Letting this stand when we have the power to save him would be a far greater sin."
"Kizen is always like this, isn't it~ Always acting like the world revolves around them?"
"I—!"
[Kheheheh!]
The sudden laughter made both girls stop talking. Pier, still perched atop the boulder, was grinning.
[Rulers of the next generation. Your physical prowess is remarkable, but your mental growth has further to go. Now is not the time for petty emotional sparring.]
Pier pointed a skeletal finger at the crumbling sky.
[Will you side with Kizen, or the Ivory Tower? Or, of course, there is another way—we sever our ties with both forever, and I take the boy and vanish.]
So much resentment had piled up between the two of them that it had simply exploded in front of Simon. But in truth, both Lorraine and Serne knew perfectly well that this was the moment to join forces.
"Let's hurry."
* * *
"…."
Simon had no idea how much time had passed. Drifting endlessly through the depths of unconsciousness, he opened his eyes.
A white ceiling. Sunlight filtering in through the window. The cheerful chatter of birds.
He thought it seemed like a peaceful place.
Blinking a few times, he managed with great effort to turn his head and look around.
'The Kizen medical wing.'
He was dressed in a patient's gown, and tubes were connected to his body at several points. His sense of smell must have returned, because the scent of medicine reached him a moment later.
Beyond the window, the familiar Kizen campus stretched into view.
Little by little, his mind began to clear, and the memories he had forgotten came trickling back, one by one.
Simon reached for the very last of them.
"Leave the rest to us. Get some proper rest."
Lorraine's voice, the last thing he had heard.
What a relief.
He had half expected to wake up in the underground prison beneath Kizen headquarters, but seeing himself back on campus, lying safe and sound in a sickroom, it seemed those two had handled the aftermath without a hitch.
"Ugh!"
He had barely begun sorting through his memories before his head felt ready to split. As Simon groaned and grimaced, the door burst open amid a clatter of frantic footsteps.
"S-Simon! You're awake!"
The medical wing attendant's eyes went wide. She gestured wildly toward the corridor, saying something to someone out there, and a flurry of footsteps came hurrying in response.
"Simon!"
The medical wing's doctor followed right after.
Muttering rapidly under his breath, he felt Simon's forehead, checked the readings on the magic circle, and finally let out a sigh of relief.
"Thank goodness you woke up safely."
"Wh-what happened? What about the others?"
"No one was injured. Thanks entirely to your efforts, Simon."
With that, the doctor turned his head and sighed deeply.
"And just how long do you intend to stay hidden over there?"
A white sheet puffed up from below and sprang into the air. It flung itself aside with a flourish, and out popped a tiny, adorable girl with silver hair.
"Hiya! Long time no see~"
"Lady Nephthys!"
Simon's face lit up.
Tadadadat!
Just then, hurried footsteps echoed down the corridor, and the sickroom door opened once more.
Two of Kizen's elite necromancers—the Crow—knelt on one knee before Nephthys.
"Lady Nephthys! We bring a report on the state of the battle."
The doctor snapped at them for barging into a sickroom where a student was supposed to be resting, but Nephthys listened with a smiling face and issued a few instructions.
The Crow bowed their heads in unison and left the room.
"Is—is something wrong?"
Sensing the unusual atmosphere, Simon asked.
"Yep!"
Nephthys beamed.
"Actually, we're at war with the Blood Sky Cult right now!"