A Fool's Finale
"PWAHAHAHAHA!"
Lexion finally lost it, bursting into uncontrollable laughter.
He writhed on the sofa for a good while, crashed to the floor with a thud, and even after that he kept cackling, pounding the floor with his fist.
"AHAHAHA! Wow, that is truly a masterpiece. He figured it out in one shot?"
This guy was genuinely a monster.
Alois, standing right there, hadn't even realized he was the fake—yet that creature from so far away had deduced his true identity from circumstantial evidence alone.
"If I'd known this would happen, I should've scavenged a few ghouls and sent them along. Tch."
Having barely recovered from his laughter, Lexion roughly wiped the tears hanging at the corners of his eyes.
"I wasn't expecting much, but this is just unfair."
He'd joined the game partly to hunt for the artifact, and partly to punish the crown prince who was rampaging around without knowing his place—and, if the opportunity arose, to deal with that arrogant human knight as well.
No matter how dim-witted the man was, kin was still kin.
The human had turned his own kind into a spectacle, so he ought to pay the price for it.
"But now it looks like *I'm* the one who got played."
Having to retreat like a dog with its tail between its legs, without gaining a single thing.
"Still, there's a dragon's dignity to consider..."
Just as he was sinking into light deliberation, a presence intruded upon his thoughts.
Someone unexpected was standing at his door.
He blinked at them in puzzlement a few times, then broke into a hissing grin.
"Oh ho?"
* * *
"...Huh? AAAAAH?"
At that moment, a strange scream erupted from Alois's direction.
Arendt snapped his gaze over and discovered mana beginning to churn violently around the crown prince.
"What is this? AAAAAH?"
The ominously writhing mana looked like the calm before a storm.
Thinking he had to stop it, Arendt took a step forward—and a sharp attack came rushing at him.
"...!"
*CLANG!*
A heavy impact slammed into the sword he had instinctively raised.
When had he appeared? A stony-faced young man was blocking Arendt's path.
It was unquestionably a face he'd never seen before, yet the oddly faint, blurred presence felt familiar.
"For a mere attendant, you wield a sword decently well."
"One must go this far to serve a person of high standing."
A somewhat hoarse voice returned the calm reply.
In the meantime, the suddenly intensified storm of mana began whirling around Alois with the force to tear him apart.
Trees shook, the garden grass was ripped out by the roots, and Alois—engulfed by mana until his very figure was hard to make out—let out a scream.
"Hold on! HUAAAAK! What is this? Save me!"
"Hey, you idiot! Just calm down first—ugh, seriously!"
Arendt, shouting at Alois, failed to finish his sentence because he had to counter Stel's oncoming strike.
The tips of his fingers, which had deflected the incoming blade, stung quite a bit. It meant Stel was no pushover either.
Eyes on his enemy, Arendt yelled out.
"That Lexion guy didn't give you anything, did he?"
"Wh-what?"
"I'm asking if he handed you something before you came here!"
Alois, who had been standing there dumbly, finally started frantically searching his clothes. Even in that moment, Stel kept pressing Arendt with light, fluid movements.
The enormous storm of mana raging from all directions didn't bother Stel in the slightest. His steady form as he rained down sword strikes in succession looked unnaturally nimble and weightless.
As expected—not the presence of an ordinary human.
Arendt clicked his tongue.
"I'm busy as hell and he's being a pain in the ass, really."
But there was no room for extended contemplation.
Alois, who had barely managed to pull something from his coat and was about to throw it, screamed out yet again.
"AAAAHK! Get off! Get OFF!"
Alois was desperately trying to pry loose the thing clutched in his own hand. But the mysterious black mass clung to his palm as if it had taken root there, showing not the slightest sign of letting go.
Soon the crown prince's entire hand turned pitch black, and the corruption began slowly eating up his arm.
Black shadows burst out of Alois, taking the shapes of beasts and scattering in every direction.
The largest of them, a wolf-shaped beast, lunged for Arendt's throat.
But in the very next instant—
*KUUUUNG!*
A figure dropped from the sky, landing directly in front of Arendt, and cleaved the massive beast apart with a single stroke.
It was Laios, who had leapt down from a nearby building.
Watching him calmly take his stance, Arendt asked in disbelief.
"What are you doing here? Weren't you guarding above?"
"It's my prerogative."
But the answer came back utterly shameless.
Matthias, who had been listening to their exchange with a dazed expression, suddenly lifted his head.
He could see Cantares, standing on the darkened balcony overhead, leaning out to survey the situation. Behind him, Crown Prince Victor was anxiously struggling to usher the prince back inside the room.
"Could it be...?"
Matthias murmured blankly, then looked at Arendt.
That apprentice knight had lured his brother all the way here, intending to secure incontrovertible evidence.
Using himself as the bait.
Without a doubt, all the delegations from the other nations would have gathered in that room as well, watching the entire spectacle from beginning to end.
A few of the beasts, having caught Cantares's presence, kicked off the wall and hurled themselves toward the balcony.
But they too were soon cut down by the swords of the two knights who had come bursting in, crumbling into handfuls of ash and scattering into the air.
Arthur and Richt.
"All units are in position. We're engaging intruders near the garden."
"The other seniors will handle the strange beasts. Two knights have gone up to where the honored guests are, so there's no need to worry."
"Good work."
Richt's crisp report was followed by Arthur's addition. At that, Stel's perpetually expressionless brow furrowed with displeasure.
The pieces Lexion had planted on Alois hadn't been just the one.
They were supposed to appear the moment battle began—but the Callion Empire's 3rd Imperial Knights Order, already encamped nearby, had strangled their movement before they could.
"You're going to answer for this later, you know. You got the seniors chewed out six ways to Sunday."
"You found the ones hiding too?"
"You think the seniors are idiots or something? Of course we found them all. Took some doing, though."
Arthur grumbled shortly, settling his grip on his sword.
"What the hell are those things, anyway? Their presence is weird. Are they even human?"
Imperial knights, no less—but even they had been forced to struggle considerably to track down these enemies.
If Laios, who had scouted the site beforehand, hadn't pointed out the suspicious spots, they might have wandered around for ages.
"We'll trade stories later. So what do we do now?"
"We save that idiot crown prince first. We've got a lot to hear from him."
Even at this very moment, Alois was clutching his arm and thrashing about.
Richt let out a low groan.
"The mana is devouring him."
The corruption had already eaten up to his shoulder.
The three men gripped their swords afresh, no one needing to say who went first.
Tch—clicking his tongue, Stel moved to lunge at Arendt again—
*KUUNG!*
The menacing sound behind him left him no choice but to turn his head.
Laios stood firm, his blade driven into the ground, quietly fixing Stel with eyes gone cold and deep.
"Your opponent is me. Keep your eyes where they belong."
"..."
Stel's face twisted miserably.
Meanwhile, the three who had slipped free of the surveillance net kicked off the ground toward Alois. The beast-shaped masses of mana snarled ferociously and charged at them.
Arendt immediately activated his artifact, and the other two raised their sword aura as well.
To save the crown prince, they first had to punch through that storm of mana.
A wolf that touched the frost-white blade was torn apart on the spot, scattering into the air.
"AAAAAHK! AAAAHK!"
As if trying to flee his own corrupted arm, Alois thrashed wildly, clawing at his own skin. Eyes rolled back showing the whites, mouth frothing—he seemed to have lost his reason entirely.
Arendt was about to push forward when he froze at a heavy presence closing in right beside him.
But Richt moved faster, deflecting the enormous claw that had been flying at Arendt.
*CLANG!*
Though it was surely just a form made of mana, a rough metallic shriek erupted as metal met metal.
Leaving Richt to fight in earnest, Arendt charged straight at Alois.
The closer he drew, the fiercer the mana storm grew, until it was hard to force even a single step forward.
Taking advantage of the moment his balance broke, the wolf-like enemy lunged at him again—but this time Arthur cut in and blocked the attack.
*CRACK-crack-crack.*
The garden trees shook as if about to snap, and the flagstones laid over the ground shattered and splintered, spraying in all directions.
Finally lifting his head, Arendt checked Alois's condition.
Through the shrieking, banshee-like wind, the crown prince's screams reached him faintly. The vicious mana was crawling up his spine, stretching out into wing-like shapes resembling a bat's.
Alois's body couldn't withstand the dragon's mana, and it was on the verge of running wild.
I can't let him die.
There was still much to wring out of this man.
With Richt and Arthur covering him, this was the last chance.
He kicked off the ground toward the glowing Alois.
Frost-white light scattered like jewels through the mana storm, which swirled as if darkness itself were raging.
And the next instant, Arendt brought his sword down on Alois's shoulder.
The already blackened arm was severed and fell away, and the crown prince, even through his dazed haze of agony, threw his mouth wide open in horror.
But it didn't end there.
The arm that dropped to the ground twitched on its own, erupting with even stronger mana.
Forcing his body upright, Arendt drew the artifact's power to its limit and drove it down onto the core that was spewing out the mana.
A brief silence.
*Crrrk.*
The sound of something cracking brushed past his ear.
The mana storm slowly began to die down.
The black beasts that Arthur and Richt had been fighting froze in place, and a moment later dissolved into motes of mana and dispersed.
What had been Alois's arm swiftly froze over snow-white under the artifact's influence, then shattered with a *crash!* and scattered to pieces.
The churning mana settled completely, and tranquility returned to the surroundings.
Only the wrecked garden proved that what had just happened was no dream.
Stel, who had been facing Laios, quietly surveyed the situation, sheathed his sword, and melted into the darkness on the spot—gone in an instant.
Alois's shoulder, mouth still gaping, was frozen snow-white, the bleeding already stopped.
His life seemed to be in no immediate danger.
Only after the certainty settled in that everything had been wrapped up did Arendt haul himself shakily upright.
"Whoa..."
Perhaps because he'd taken that massive mana head-on, his vision spun and his stomach felt ready to turn over at any moment.
Laios, sheathing his sword, came toward his subordinates.
"You all right?"
"Yes, I'm fine."
"No problems here either."
Richt and Arthur, apparently free of any serious injuries, lowered their swords and looked toward Arendt.
"Hey, you holding up?"
"Not really—huh?"
He was about to grumble out of habit when a strange sensation made him duck his head reflexively.
Blood was dripping, pitter-patter, onto his open palm.
"..."
Blood was streaming steadily from his nose.
As he stood there dumbfounded by the unexpected turn, Laios said calmly,
"Internal injuries. You're not fine, just like you said."
"Aw, dammit."
Pinching his blood-dripping nose shut, Arendt irritably kicked at the ground.