Tyrant Subjugation Battle (Complete)
The mana blanketing the space was drawn back in.
Roughly… thirty percent left, maybe.
With every seal broken, it really had been strong. I’d figured I’d have about sixty percent remaining, but I’d burned through twice that.
The greatsword in my hand vanished, and the one driven into the earth reappeared. I pulled it free and walked toward the Tyrant.
It was in so many pieces you could hardly call it alive—yet it was. Watching the chunks of flesh squirm and try to knit themselves back together… yeah, definitely still living. Ugh. Gross.
I twisted my stiff body this way and that, checking my range of motion. Not great. Whether the Elixir and mana still left inside me would be enough, I didn’t know—but I had to try. The thirst hadn’t fully gone away yet, either.
As I drew close, the Tyrant’s eyeballs rolled wetly in their sockets and fixed on me.
Grrk— grrk— gurrrk—
Its mouth worked open and shut, but with the body in pieces all that came out was bloody foam, bubbling up and down.
I crouched first and stripped the hide from the larger, more intact slabs of flesh. Once I’d salvaged every usable scrap of leather, I crushed what remained. I scattered it, tore it, smashed it. I pulverized the heart. I burst the eyes. I even picked up Kalt’s sword and brought it down again and again until nothing whole was left.
“Hah…”
I watched the chunks that could no longer even spit foam—only twitch—then put some distance between us.
Heart, eyes, body, catalyst. I’d wrecked every last piece past any hope of revival. Even if the blessing activated, there was only one thing it could still do. It had probably been used to break the Tyrant’s seals in the first place… but just in case, I’d made certain.
From the scattered fragments of flesh, a faint light began to rise. That dim glow swelled into a dazzling radiance of divine power, wrapping around us and sealing the space off from the world.
A pure white expanse unfolded—warm, brilliant, overflowing with sacred energy. It was so absurd I let out a short laugh and offered a greeting.
“Hey, Lilith.”
A voice thick with fury answered.
“You… what are you?”
Right now she was prickly, rude, and full of loathing. But once she had been warm, gentle, and lovely.
“How about we talk for a bit?”
The voice of the one I had stabbed through the heart with my own hand.
Rubia’s voice.
I ran without rest toward the place where the thunderous roar had echoed. Until moments ago a foul mana had lingered there; now… now it was divine power I felt. It made no sense. At the same time, dread closed in. I shook off the crushing pressure and kept running.
Little by little the mountains revealed a landscape utterly unlike the one I knew—the scenery of a ruined world. The chaos left by the battle with Kalt looked like child’s play by comparison. Everything except the sky was ash-gray. The autumn leaves that had once blazed orange. The rocks that had shared their mood. The snow that should have blanketed the ground in pure white. The thick spatters of blood. Every single thing, without exception, was ash.
And in the very center of that grayness stood a single being of a different color.
Noah.
I ran. My legs gave out and I fell. I tumbled, rolling in an undignified heap—but I scrambled up and ran again.
“Noah…!”
I cried her name as I sprinted. Yet she only sat there blankly, staring up at the sky, as if she couldn’t hear me at all.
Her figure filled my eyes. Grew clearer. No wounds. Her clothes were soaked in blood… so why wasn’t there a single injury? A potion? But there weren’t even scars. Maybe it wasn’t her blood.
Closer. An expression empty of any emotion. Eyes floating vacant. I could hear her breathing. My steps gradually slowed. I stopped.
I slowly lifted one limp hand. At the same time, Noah’s face turned toward me.
“Oh… Rubia?”
A smile bloomed on the blank face. The dull, sunken light in her eyes brightened. A Noah I did not know looked at me.
I was certain. This wasn’t Noah. It was Noah… and yet it wasn’t.
There were too many things I needed to ask. Too many things I wanted to ask. I wanted to pull her into my arms right now and breathe her in. Stroke that cute crown of her head. Feed her the jelly I’d brought in my pocket. But first—
“Noah… is it all right if I call you Noah?”
“Huh?”
Her eyes went round at my question. She worked her mouth for a long moment, then managed a difficult nod.
“Yeah… Noah. You can call me Noah.”
“I see…”
I didn’t know how to treat her. The air she gave off was completely different—expression, gaze, smile. Nowhere could I find the Noah I knew. If this had been the Noah I knew, I would already be holding her close, breathing her scent, stroking her hair, and slipping jelly into her mouth all at once. I couldn’t bring myself to speak carelessly.
Why could she see now? What had become of the Noah I knew? Was this the real Noah? And if it wasn’t… what would happen to this Noah when the original returned? If it was… then how on earth was I supposed to act?
I couldn’t ask. I was afraid the answer wouldn’t be the one I wanted. Afraid it would hurt her. Afraid it would hurt me too much.
“Um… Rubia.”
“…Yes?”
I must have lowered my head without noticing. I slowly raised it. Noah was holding up a white pelt, wearing a bitter little smile.
“This is Tyrant hide, you know? If you make a coat out of it, it’s seriously warm. Just one layer and winter’s nothing. Ah… of course Rubia can keep ‘me’ warm with divine power too, but… next to me Rubi— no, no need to say that…”
No stuttering. No polite speech. Her voice carried strength.
“Ahem! Anyway, wear it with ‘me.’ If you don’t need it you can sell it… the material’s so good you’d get a fortune for it. I was going to keep some fangs and claws too, but… yeah. That part didn’t work out.”
And yet her hands were trembling. Her voice trembled too. She couldn’t meet my eyes. Guilt clung to her face. When I finally followed her gaze, I saw a pond of blood with chunks of flesh floating in it. Not a puddle—a pond. Was that… the Tyrant right now?
“Is that the Tyrant’s corpse…?”
“Yeah.”
“You took it down alone…?”
“Yeah.”
“How in the world…?”
The answers were so bright and easy that I turned, curious what expression she was wearing—
“Pretty well?”
—and found her simply beaming.
“It’s the Tyrant.”
“Right?”
“A Master… could only manage to seal it.”
“True.”
“And… it looked like several seals had already been broken.”
“All of them were.”
“…All?”
“Rubia.”
“Y-yes?”
“We’re short on time, so let’s head down first. I’ll tell you the details over a meal.”
Noah suddenly stood and took my hand, pulling me along. My body, limp and unresisting, stumbled after her.
“Oh right—let’s grab the fragment first. Think the central guild will want it? Well, can’t be helped. I can get strong enough without something like this anyway.”
She stirred the bloody water, then lifted her hand with a bright smile. Strangely, not a single drop of blood clung to it. And in that clean palm rested a blue fragment.
“Ta-da.”
“Is that the Tyrant’s Fragment…?”
“Yeah. Just bringing this should be enough for them to acknowledge I took down the Tyrant.”
She turned the fragment this way and that, then slipped it into her pocket and took my hand again.
“Let’s go.”
And she walked ahead, smiling. In that smile, still—
there was no happiness.
“Woooow!”
At the sight of the mountain of jelly I’d stockpiled, Noah’s face lit up with a radiant smile.
“C-can I really eat all of this?”
“Of course.”
“For real…? You didn’t buy these for someone else?”
Did she understand what that question meant? How tightly it squeezed my chest?
“They’re all yours, Noah.”
She tilted her head for a moment, then nodded and stuffed a whole fistful into her mouth.
“Mmmph! Meyer!”
The way she smiled while eating jelly, at least, was exactly the same.
“Aren’t you hungry?”
“Nothing’s open right now… and you said Lebuije is bringing food, right?”
“That’s true, but… he said it would take a while.”
“Mm. It’s fine. I’m filling up on jelly.”
Even the way her hair swayed gently with every chew was the same. Watching her, a little—just a little—of the weight in my heart eased.
“Anyway, Rubia. The festival will have fireworks and lots of tasty food, right?”
Noah swallowed a jelly with a gulp and looked at me.
“I suppose so.”
The festival. The moment we came down from Karahan, Lebuije had met us and I’d given him a brief report… He’d burst into tears, dropped to the ground in a full prostration, and declared he would pour his entire fortune into holding a festival—insisting the heroine Noah absolutely had to attend. Plenty more had happened after that, but the upshot was that Urusphier itself would throw a festival. A huge one. They were even going to make today an annual holiday and celebrate every year.
“There’ll be all kinds of accessories for sale, and lots of clothes too.”
“Probably… yes.”
“But the highlight will be the fireworks. Fireworks… they’ll be insanely gorgeous, right? Loud, too… and so many people. Exploding in the night sky makes them even more spectacular. And tons of couples will form in the middle of it all, don’t you think? You know the feeling. That sudden courage, like everything’s going to work out…”
“…Yes.”
“Sounds fun.”
It wasn’t an expression of anticipation. She was smiling, yet not smiling. Looking at me, yet not looking at me. She wasn’t glad. She wasn’t happy.
“Two days from now, was it?”
I nodded quietly.
“I see.”
Noah, who had been gazing out the window, turned her face to me.
“I really want to see the fireworks go off.”
In that faint smile was regret.
“With you, Rubia.”