Alliance

It went back to when Frida was a child.

She had just turned sixteen, an age that finally allowed her to follow her father's path.

They were on the road, collecting prisoners or accepting volunteers from the Empire and the Maresa City Union, then escorting them to the fortress.

The rain was falling in thick droplets, making the green leaves of the Maresa Forest glisten with a somber light.

In the distance, the mountain where Kehil stood was shrouded in fog, invisible.

Among the grass, heavy and drooping with rain, she found a collapsed boy.

He was gaunt, emaciated, as if he had wandered for a very long time on an empty stomach. His haggard face was a world away from good health.

Was he a human slave who had fled the Empire?

Or an experiment that had escaped from Anurtin?

Who knew. He might have been a deserter from Sorgeperk.

Whatever the truth, one thing was certain: he was not ordinary.

The boy had strikingly dark hair, black as the night sky, and vivid teal eyes like clear seawater. But Frida, still a girl then, turned away with indifference.

He looked about fifteen. Her age, more or less. But all she felt was a vague pity.

In Geladrion, where saving strangers was anything but the norm, her reaction was perfectly typical.

Just as she was about to spur her mount and put some distance between them, her father slid off his horse and walked over to the boy.

If he had not done so, so many things would have been different after that.

Frida's father was a man of few words, for better or worse.

A massive blue mana tattoo covered his entire right arm and climbed all the way up to his face.

He was a warrior ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠with a frame so imposing that, even at a glance, you could believe he could tear a man apart with his bare hands. His appearance lent his quiet nature an immense gravity.

He carried an axe on each hip and walked on strange metal prosthetics shaped like bare human feet. He went by many names.

Master of Combat.

Former chieftain of the Crown Tribe.

The man who had once been king of Baramunz.

Duke of the Empire.

But most people called him by one name.

Budongong Astak.

A warrior who held the fortress of Liam immovable against the Abyss.

A man who slew the priests and monsters that poured from the swelling Abyss, who drove deserters and volunteers alike to their deaths in order to protect the entire southern continent. A Guardian.

Someone who would abandon one person to save many more.

And now, that man was, uncharacteristically, saving someone.

His mouth was a hard line, betraying little emotion, and his eyes revealed just as little, but the girl understood.

He had not done it without a reason.

And so it proved.

It did not take Frida long to realize.

That the boy was not just strange, but an uncanny existence.

When he rambled, asking how old he looked, and then asked if this was truly Geladrion, she briefly wondered if he was simply mad. But he was not.

In no time at all, the boy became calm.

And then he introduced himself with an expression that seemed, at a glance, steeped in melancholy.

He called himself Aslan.

And he asked to be taught how to fight.

The girl found it suspicious.

Barely moments ago, he hadn't even recognized the land he stood on, yet now he had identified who her father was and was personally requesting training.

Could he be a priest? Or a spy from another nation? She thought so, but Astak began educating the boy without a hint of suspicion.

The intensity of that training was anything but ordinary.

Even the girl, who had been trained by her father to succeed as the next chieftain until she turned sixteen, could not keep up.

Aslan was battered in sparring every single day, collapsing into sleep.

Upon waking, he would cram food into his mouth until he was on the verge of vomiting, then hurl his body back into the beating that was Astak's teaching.

As if there was no tomorrow. As if he had nothing to lose.

Thanks to that ferocious effort, and to being taught with full commitment by a man who was the Master of Combat, the boy grew into a remarkable warrior in a single year.

His body was packed with hard muscle, every inch a warrior's physique. His eyes were sharp. His trained limbs always seemed ready to thrust out a weapon, a fist, or a kick.

In that one year, Aslan became beloved by everyone in the fortress called Liam.

With his friendly nature, gentle smile, natural good looks, and that punishing training regimen, he became a person no one could dislike.

Budongong Astak took the boy in as an adopted son.

And then he declared he would give the boy his position.

He asked if Aslan would become his successor.

She never learned what happened after that.

The boy left a few days later, and Astak never spoke of him again.

Only occasional letters that flew into the fortress proved the boy was still alive.

Frida could not understand Aslan.

He had been offered the seat of an Imperial Duke, the greatest on the southern continent. Master of the vast and storied fortress of Liam. A family.

Yet he had vanished.

Did he not need a family?

Or perhaps, deep down, had he secretly hated or resented Frida and Astak?

Or had he truly been a spy? Had his conscience pricked him at the last?

There were many hypotheses, but none of them held any meaning.

The girl became a woman, and the woman became a chieftain.

Just as the boy had become a warrior, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and become the Master of Combat.

So none of it could be known.

If there was one certainty, it was only this: that Astak must have let Aslan go.

Whatever the boy had held in his heart, he had succeeded in persuading Astak.

Only when that cheeky younger brother reappeared and declared he would kill all the evil gods, mentioning Kehil, did she finally understand what he must have said to Astak.

Twelve years.

For twelve years since leaving the fortress of Budongong, Liam, the boy had roamed the world to slay the evil gods.

With no one to acknowledge him, all alone.

Frida finally beheld the fruit of that journey with her own eyes.

"Sister."

When she opened her eyes at the whispered word, she saw her younger brother's face.

Her vision was narrow from having lost one eye entirely, but since she had long been blind in that eye, it made no difference.

"...Yeah."

Her left arm was gone. So was her right leg. Yet no blood flowed.

Because she had already bled so much, her head was fuzzy and her limbs tingled, but the first aid had been perfect.

She turned her head slightly and saw a physician. Likely a mage of the Restoration School.

All around the scene, people were coming and going.

Soldiers who had come from within the fortress, still whole, were retrieving the bodies of the dead. Others were frantically moving the wounded at the mages' request, or administering their own crude emergency treatment.

It was a scene of countless dead and wounded. And yet, Frida caught herself smiling.

"We really... won."

It was a laugh of hollow relief.

A laugh born from the fact that even though so many had died, so many had been hurt, they had triumphed in the end.

She rolled her eyes, and Frida's blue gaze met Aslan's teal eyes.

Those teal eyes, always steeped in melancholy, gleaming with a sorrowful light.

Eyes like stars hanging in a rainy night sky.

"I'm sorry."

Aslan, the boy he once was, said that, and Frida reached out her intact right arm with the smile she had worn for him.

Her hand tapped his cheek, a rare tenderness in the touch.

"What do you have to be sorry for?"

"...If I hadn't collapsed, so many people wouldn't have died."

"That is not your fault."

Aslan seemed unable to agree. He hung his head, his expression full of sorrow. But Frida merely lifted her hazy head and looked toward the horizon.

Yes, countless people had died.

Countless commoners who had risen to defend this place, and peerless heroes, had lost their lives or been maimed.

It was unmistakably a scene of slaughter.

Yet she could not see it only as slaughter.

To her, this battlefield appeared as a place where victory had been seized, even amid the appalling carnage.

Certainly, countless people had died on this spot. They would have died in agony. Some would have regretted it. Their bodies were mercilessly torn apart, and they met death.

But what of their will?

What of the resolve and will they burned with as they threw their bodies forward?

What of the noble sacrifice of those who hoped more people might live, who prayed for the overturning of this absurdity, who fought to buy even a sliver of time and, in the end, to achieve victory?

Frida could answer with conviction.

Their will had not been trampled.

The proof was that the soldiers being carried off were not dead, that Aslan was alive, and that light was falling upon the battlefield.

Wearing a relaxed expression she had not shown in a long time, Frida stroked the cheek of the brother who shared not a single drop of her blood.

"You did well."

Humans cannot defeat gods.

Even with thorough preparation. Even with a miracle in their hands.

Humans are fated to lose to gods.

For the four thousand-odd years since the heavens opened, that long history had been a stark record of human defeat.

Humans cannot defeat gods.

This was an irrefutable truth.

At least, it had been until this very moment.

But now, that clear truth had been overturned.

For the first time in four thousand years, humanity had finally taken victory from a god.

They had slain and toppled a being that even the world's own creators could not overcome, and in doing so, they had seen their will through to the end.

Some might view this as a defeat. They might see it as a crisis that dealt a grave blow to the alliance itself.

But Frida saw it differently. She regarded it with greater optimism than that.

She saw that not even a high priest, who had received divine power and seized a miracle that surpassed all preparation and prediction, had been able to bring humanity to its knees.

The ones who made that difference were humans, but the one who had driven those humans forward and seized the miracle was a single man.

A boy who had once lain upon wet grass, clutching his starving belly, on the verge of death.

A boy who would have died then and there if he had not been picked up that day.

Only now did Frida understand why her father had picked the boy up, and why he had let him go.

A hand was stroking her cheek—Aslan's. He wore a look of awkwardness, or perhaps bewilderment, at the touch. Frida tapped his cheek with a gentle smile.

"I'm proud of you."

"I...."

"Baramunz acknowledges you as one of us."

His teal pupils quivered faintly. Frida quietly lowered her hand and placed her one remaining arm over her stomach. Her body was a map of freshly sutured wounds.

She had lost an arm and a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠leg, and her already lost eye was now gone completely.

And yet, she did not feel despair.

If anything, she felt remarkably cheerful.

At the thought that humanity had finally landed a blow against a god.

That it was her younger brother's doing. That it was an achievement won by all the humans her younger brother had gathered.

She managed to say the words only because her head was foggy. I'll probably be embarrassed when I wake up, she thought, but the woman smiled softly nonetheless.

A rare glimpse of his sister's affection. As Aslan looked flustered, Frida blinked slowly.

"Then I'll... rest my eyes for a bit."

The words sounded somehow, just slightly, different. As Aslan's expression hardened faintly, Frida slowly closed her eyes.

"I'm... a little tired...."

Her closed eyelids trembled faintly. The hand resting on her stomach slipped and fell to the floor.

The moment Aslan, his face rigid, seized his sister's shoulder, the Restoration School mage beside them who had been casting spells flinched and let out a sharp cry.

"...Sister?"

No answer came. The shoulder he held was shockingly cold.

As if she were dead.

"Sister?"

Even at his call, the woman only drooped her head in silence. Her lolling head was pale and drained of color.

"Sister, Sister?!"

Aslan shook her by the shoulders. His eyes were thick with the fear of loss.

Not like this. I can't part with her like this.

Even if we are a family who shares not a drop of blood, I don't want to lose family again.

Desperately, Aslan shook his sister's cold body. He shook her and shouted.

Please live. Don't die. The voice that was about to cry out in denial of reality—

"No, Sister, Si—!"

Snore.

The cry was cut short by the sound of snoring.

Rumble

A rasping breath, a heavy snoring sound, mingled with Frida's breathing.

Aslan stared at his sister's face with a blank expression.

And then he let out a bewildered laugh.

"You set up so many death flags I really thought you'd died...."

He shook his head, murmuring words the nearby mage wouldn't even hear, let alone understand.

*

As the Age of Man drew to a close and the Age of the Evil Gods approached,

there had appeared a Warrior Monk who revealed himself, slaughtered countless lesser deities, and silenced innumerable heroes.

Myth Killer, Sword of the War God.

A true powerhouse who had lived for nearly four thousand years had now died.

And ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠not at the hands of another evil god or a high priest, but at the hands of a human.

Butchered like a monster being hunted down.

With the conclusion of the battle at Nechagni Fortress, the news—both devastating and triumphant—that humanity had at last defeated a god spread rapidly across the continent.

Some saw that news as an opportunity.

Some had no interest in the news.

Some doubted the truth of the news.

But none among them could deny that something was changing.

The era was shifting.

And at the epicenter of the upheaval, Nechagni Fortress,

a week had passed since the fall of the oldest Warrior Monk.