The Absolute Gap
Dark red demonic energy settled heavily over the chamber.
It was so dense that merely breathing felt like it would corrode one's lungs.
In the oppressive air, Roan stared at the half-human, half-demon standing before him.
Demonic energy that had not yet been fully reined in seeped from every pore of the creature's body.
Even though it was an unadapted half-breed, it seemed to possess formidable strength.
...It's a shame I don't have a sword.
It wasn't that his bare fists were weak, but having a sword was always more comfortable.
Nothing to be done about it. He would just have to look around—
"Oh!"
Thwack!
As Roan looked around, something flew straight into his grasp.
It was the sword he usually used.
And the person who would throw such a thing...
"No way...!"
"Fighting something weird again, I see."
A grumbling voice echoed.
"Indeed... Leaving us out of the loop like this makes me a little sad..."
A slightly reproachful, admonishing voice followed.
"U-Um... uh... huh? E-Excuse me, but... what in the world is going on here..."
And a voice utterly bewildered, frozen in shock at the massive entity before them.
His three comrades, including Charbun, had tracked him all the way here.
Even Roan couldn't help but be surprised by their sudden appearance.
"What... How did you find me?"
"What do you mean, 'how'? You were practically begging us to find you, radiating that energy all over the place."
"...Though there were people trying to stop us."
Looking closely, Roan could see people collapsed outside the entrance.
Guards had tried to block their entry, but his party seemed to have handled them easily.
"So?"
Jane, already warming up as if fully prepared, glared at their opponent.
"So the Emperor really was in league with a demon? Talk about hitting rock bottom."
"Indeed... To think such a thing was happening in a great empire..."
Though they spoke lightly, Jane and Belgard were already preparing for battle.
The two of them naturally glanced behind them.
"U-Um... excuse me..."
"Charbun, this is your first time dealing with something like this, right? You can run away if you're scared."
"We're not forcing you. Roan would have said the same thing. Right?"
"That's right," Roan agreed.
"You don't have to do it if you don't want to. What truly matters to me is all of us making it to the end in one piece."
They meant those words sincerely, but the recipient took them differently.
The seniors risking their lives and sweating blood while the rookie just sat back and watched?
With Charbun's personality, that was absolutely unacceptable.
After a brief moment of hesitation, he finally steeled his resolve.
Though his knees were still trembling violently, he clenched his fists and raised his head high.
"M-Master Roan! I-I shall join the battle as well! I-I am a member of your party, after all!"
It was a spirited shout.
Roan gave an equally hearty nod in response.
"Whatever you choose! I respect your decision!"
But!
"Keep this one thing in mind!"
Inhaling deeply to emphasize his point, Roan stepped forward, positioning himself as a shield between his comrades and the demon.
"I will make absolutely sure none of you get hurt, so rest easy and show me everything you've got."
A heavy trust.
An immense responsibility, precisely because they knew Roan would keep his word no matter what.
Their hearts finally united as one, the party turned their gaze toward the Emperor.
"Thank you for waiting," Roan replied.
A brief exchange.
With that, everyone fell silent.
The Emperor unleashed the power he had temporarily held back.
The dark red demonic energy seemed to drag at their ankles.
The overwhelming pressure suffocated them, choking the very air from their lungs.
A tension thicker than any they had ever experienced filled the hall.
The battle against the Emperor began.
...
BOOM!
An arm swirling with dark demonic energy slammed down, but Roan's defense held firm.
"Whew."
A deluge of dark red death poured down.
Even though the attacks targeted the hearts of his comrades as well as his own, Roan blocked every single one with flawless precision.
"Why is everyone so obsessed with my body?"
The Emperor and Roan were relaxed enough to exchange banter.
But the other three were not.
They simply could not keep up with the flow of the battle between those two.
"Kh...! Now...!"
A spear of pure flame.
Jane's magic tore through the air, scorching the space as it flew.
However.
Sizzle...
The damage was nonexistent.
The magic vanished without leaving even a trace.
It had been completely snuffed out, its mana consumed by the Emperor's overwhelming demonic energy.
"This... makes no sense..."
"L-Let me try...!"
"I-I will also attempt an attack, sirs!!"
Belgard and Charbun followed up with their own attacks.
Slashing and striking blows, rather than piercing ones.
They rushed toward the Emperor.
Crackle...
But the result was the same.
Forget meaningful damage—there wasn't even a scratch.
All of their attacks simply dissolved into the empty air.
"...This is cheating. With a scrawny body like that..."
Jane grit her teeth.
She glared at their opponent.
She had unleashed every attack at her disposal.
She had poured out everything she had conceptualized, trained, and perfected.
Yet none of it worked.
The Emperor had absorbed every single blow without even a disruption in his breathing.
RUMBLE!
And amidst all this, something else deepened their sense of helplessness.
It was the Emperor's counterattacks, which flew at them every time Roan blocked.
Attacks that would prove fatal if even a single blow grazed them flew at them at every moment.
"Hup."
CLANG!
And at every moment, Roan stood in front of them to block them.
The aura of death, the mycelium of the demon realm, the dark red rain pouring from the ceiling.
A myriad of lethal attacks surged toward them, but everything was neutralized before Roan's blade.
"You guys still okay? I'm counting on you."
Even as he spoke, he casually helped them back onto their feet.
Was this the fifth time... no, the tenth?
She had lost count of how many times Roan had extended his hand to pull them up.
Staring at his hand, a sudden thought flashed through Jane's mind.
Perhaps it isn't the enemy, but our own ally who is pushing us to the brink.
A chasm so vast that no amount of growth seemed capable of bridging it.
In that instant, the crack between Jane and Roan split wide open.
The widening rift became an insurmountable divide, shrinking Roan's figure into a distant, unreachable speck.
The other two felt the exact same way.
The light faded from their eyes, replaced by despair and helplessness.
He blocked every attack, while every strike from the enemy was lethal.
Even if Roan focused entirely on defense, if this war of attrition continued—
"Don't you dare think it's impossible!"
Roan's voice snapped them back to reality.
He was trying to rebuild their resolve in his usual manner.
"My defense will never break! So—"
Roan cut himself off.
Because the flow of the battle had shifted from the norm.
The Emperor lightly withdrew his demonic energy.
It was as if he were mocking the weakness of Roan's companions.
"Stop..."
Jane muttered.
Her voice was barely a whisper.
The confident voice she had shown in the arena now felt like a distant lie.
That's not true. Right now, you guys are among the strongest on the continent. It's just that this opponent is an anomaly; it's not that you are weak.
The words Roan wanted to shout remained trapped in his throat.
Because offering encouragement in the face of such an overwhelming opponent would change nothing.
"...This won't do."
Roan lowered the sword he had been using to defend.
"No, I'm going to keep moving forward. I resolved to do so the moment I was given this second chance."
Roan gripped his sword tightly.
His stance was entirely different from when he was purely defending.
"But blindly trusting someone only ends up hurting both sides. If I'm going to encourage them, I should do it after I've cleaned up this mess."
Roan stared at the Emperor as the latter scoffed.
Viscous demonic energy coated the floor thickly.
It was a swamp where taking even a single step was an ordeal.
Roan stamped his feet a few times as if testing the ground, then nodded.
"It's enough. Though I might be a bit rusty since it's been a while."
—if you can actually do it.
The moment the Emperor was about to finish his sentence.
"...Huh?"
He was gone.
And then, he appeared.
Roan, who had been standing firmly in place just a millisecond ago, vanished in an instant.
And before the Emperor could even blink, Roan materialized on the opposite side of him.
A parlor trick.
The Emperor, attempting to dismiss it as a mere trick and react, suddenly realized something was terribly wrong.
Crack.
His armor of demonic energy shattered, and the tender flesh beneath was carved away.
SPURT!
Everything was a step too late.
The eruption of a fountain of blood.
His vision splitting vertically.
His body collapsing.
His consciousness fading.
The demonic presence rooted deep within his body being snuffed out.
Even opening his mouth to speak.
And finally.
Slash!
Even the sound itself was too late.
As the Emperor's severed scream died out, time, which had seemingly frozen, began to flow once more.
Blood and demonic energy swirled like a vortex, sucking in his bisected corpse.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
As if reversing time, the swirling mass was drawn inward until, finally—
Pop.
It vanished, leaving only a single speck before disappearing completely.
A silence so profound it felt freezing.
The one to break that silence was the sound of teeth grinding.
"...It's exactly the same. Just like before."
"Indeed. It makes one feel so empty..."
"I-I suppose... I wasn't even needed at all..."
The sheer futility of everything they had done.
It was anger and frustration at the fact that Roan had handled everything—both defense and offense—entirely on his own.
A shadow fell over them.
It was Roan.
The dejected trio couldn't even bring themselves to look up.
They had barged in on their own accord, only to end up doing nothing but taking up space.
But Roan was resolute.
"You're absolutely right! You guys are incredibly weak right now!"
"Kh..."
"But!!"
Roan met each of their eyes one by one, as if to show he was completely serious.
"In the future, you will become far stronger than me. So, don't look down. Keep your eyes fixed upward."
And.
"Remember this feeling. That way, when I'm the one who ends up helpless in the future, you can say these exact same words back to me."
With a mischievous grin, Roan coaxed them to lift their heads.
A single beam of sunlight pierced through the dissipating demonic energy.
It warmly illuminated the imperial chamber.