The People Left Behind (1)
The Northern Duke didn't hesitate for a second after receiving the Academy's call for aid. He knew running on foot would be faster than taking a portal, so he charged forward like a blizzard whipping across the snowfields, arriving at the old Northern Wall.
When he reached the battlefield, the first thing he saw was the demon.
More precisely, the demon's arm—jammed in the dimensional rift, stubbornly refusing to be severed.
Why was a demon's arm here? The Northern Duke didn't ponder it.
He needed nothing else. Just the singular thought: cut it down.
Drawing his sword, he projected his heart-image onto the blade. He believed power surpassed everything—the laws of the world, the demon's resilient flesh. Nothing held up against overwhelming might. This stubborn, almost brutish conviction infused his sword.
Indigo aura rose like mist, then clung to the blade as if sucked in, warping the surrounding air.
The Northern Duke swung.
A ferocious torrent of power ripped through, tearing the demon's arm clean off like flesh from bone. The severed forearm crashed to the ground, kicking up thick clouds of dust.
At the same instant, a soul-piercing scream echoed from beyond the rift, and the crack began to close.
That was it. The only proof of the assault was the massive demon arm lying severed and rolling in the dirt.
Only then did he withdraw the aura from his sword and ask curtly, "Situation?"
It was a natural question, but for some reason, everyone fell silent.
That was when the Northern Duke sensed something off. How had they held out this long against a demon trying to descend? And why were there no bodies?
Puzzled, he scanned the area—and finally spotted it. Something that looked like his daughter, surrounded by the saintess and some unknown girls.
He had spent long years on battlefields, witnessing horrors aplenty, yet even he felt a chill of devastation. She looked as if she'd been left abandoned on the barren fields beyond the wall for days—her condition was wretched.
Blood-red ice crystals jutted from her limbs, worst of all on her right arm clutching the sword. The back of her hand and inner arm were torn and twisted by crystals erupting from within, bone fragments visible amid the ruin.
Her breathing was faint, her face pale as a corpse's.
Yet she was smiling.
The Northern Duke stared without blinking, etching his daughter's form into his eyes. That brief moment stretched like an eternity for everyone present.
Slowly, he walked toward Ilisha.
In a flat tone, he commanded, "Explain."
No shouting, no rage, no blame, no reproach.
Yet that single word tensed everyone there. One slip of the tongue, and who knew what might happen—they couldn't even imagine.
Even the saintess hesitated on how to respond, but Reinhardt broke the silence first.
"…I'll report on the battle."
The Northern Duke listened wordlessly to the second imperial prince.
Demon worshippers had opened a rift, unleashing hordes of magic beasts, and finally, one had carved a path for the demon's descent.
Ilisha had ended up like this because she'd drawn out every ounce of strength to land two solid hits on the descending demon.
"…At the time, this was the best we could do. Had your daughter not stepped in, we might all be dead."
The Northern Duke gazed quietly at the prince.
The best.
He knew it too. His daughter was the only one here who could strike the demon effectively.
So yes, this had been the best option, as the prince said.
But he couldn't bring himself to agree.
"What bullshit…! What do you mean 'best'?! You call this the best?!"
Resonating with his sentiment, Lucia spat her resentment at Reinhardt.
"Ilisha's… ended up like this, and you call it the best?! This… ughhh…!!!"
But she couldn't muster a proper rebuttal. She just let her overflowing emotions spill raw.
"…Saintess. How is my daughter?"
Knowing emotions were pointless, the Northern Duke—the man who grasped that truth with ruthless clarity—turned to Cecilia, still healing his daughter.
Cecilia answered promptly.
"I'm doing everything I can…but I don't know. Her condition's worsening faster than it's improving. At this rate…"
She explained Ilisha's state softly, but her hands, gripping the girl to heal her, kept trembling.
The cold, probably, he assumed. His daughter's body turned brutally frigid after expending power. Even a saintess couldn't escape the chill.
He glanced at Dorothea, muttering beside the saintess.
She seemed near panic, mumbling as she projected a magic circle over Ilisha's body.
"Wh-what should I do…? Reconstruct the meridians…? No, that'd accelerate circulation, then the crystals…? That'd cause bleeding…"
Her small hands moved endlessly in calculations, but her frame shook pitifully.
"…Ah, ugh. What do I do…"
Watching it all in silence, the Northern Duke leaned down and asked Cecilia, "Can you hand my daughter to me for a moment?"
Cecilia yielded Ilisha to him without protest.
Cradling his daughter—who seemed so frail today—he hugged her tight.
To outsiders, it looked like a father's final farewell to his child. But those watching closely paled and tried to stop him.
He was absorbing the ice-attuned ether rampaging through her body.
Scooping out the overflowing energy like water from a bucket.
In exchange, frost settled on his arms and hands, veins bulging prominently. No one would call it normal.
Anyone but him—a veteran of such treatments on his daughter—would see it as suicide.
He just gritted his teeth, trying to draw out even a fraction of the cold tearing her apart from within.
After a time, a faint color returned to Ilisha's cheeks.
She wasn't better, though. Still a horrific sight, fragile as if she'd shatter at a touch.
The Northern Duke withdrew his hands. His fingertips were deathly white, white breath escaping with every exhale. Yet he stood with an impassive face.
He looked from Cecilia to Dorothea and issued a command that sounded almost like a plea.
"Save her. Whatever it takes."
Cecilia bit her lip and bowed her head. Dorothea, face ashen, nodded desperately somehow.
He gazed at his daughter once more.
Lying there half-dead, on the verge of her last breath.
And he murmured so quietly no one could hear.
"…Is this truly what you wanted?"
Awaiting an answer that would never come.
In the end, he couldn't say a word.
There was so much he needed to say. Why this had happened. Why Ilisha had acted.
But when he opened his mouth to speak, nothing came out.
Not from lack of words, but because anything he said would sound like pathetic excuses.
He'd thought he'd given his all. Twisted his body, drawn on forbidden power to somehow slay the Dimension Slasher.
But was that truly his best?
Ilisha still had to step in. End up nearly dead, in a state where she could drop any second.
She'd swung her sword.
Twice.
He'd watched her throw her body away again.
If he'd truly given everything. Mobilized all he had.
Couldn't he have ended it before she reached that point?
If he'd burned his life like she had, resolved to die for it.
Shame burned him.
Having gotten a second chance, yet failing to make it count.
Shame so deep he wanted to die.
For that fleeting thought that her dying right there would be easier.
Disgusting.
He loathed himself for even thinking it, unbearable.
No more unpredictable variables. No more dragged into her antics.
From the moment that thought crossed his mind, he couldn't forgive himself.
…He hadn't truly wished for her death. It wasn't sincere, he could claim.
But what use was that? The fact remained.
He ground his teeth until they creaked.
The Northern Duke stared silently down at Ilisha.
If only he'd been faster. Stronger.
She wouldn't have needed to step up.
…He lacked power.
Power to save everyone.
So he needed power.
…To lose no one.
No matter how he looked, he couldn't understand Ilisha.
What the hell was she?
At first, he'd pegged her as a frivolous, thoughtless idiot leaning on her family's prestige.
When she first picked up a sword, he'd wondered if she was unexpectedly strong.
But no—not for a true powerhouse.
A strong person wouldn't throw their life away like that.
Strength meant enduring, surviving to the end and seizing victory.
That's what he'd been taught. What he'd believed.
But Ilisha was different.
She didn't endure. Didn't seem to fight for survival.
She acted like victory justified discarding anything—even her life as stakes in the gamble.
That was utterly alien to the strength he'd learned.
No—its opposite.
Not living to win, but winning to live. Intensely so.
She'd opened a path the Imperial Guard couldn't, swung her sword when all had given up, and ultimately contributed massively to repelling the demon.
Witnessing it all with his own eyes only deepened the confusion.
Was she strong or weak?
A madwoman who'd discard her life for victory, or a frail soul who couldn't even care for her own body?
Both, yet neither.
What grated most was how she shook the truths he'd taken for granted.
What was strength? No value outranked life. Defeat wasn't the end.
Those teachings wavered every time he saw her.
Could he have done it?
In that situation, gone that far?
Demon arm descending, battle turning sour, all abandoning hope.
Knowing it'd leave him wrecked, swing without hesitation?
He couldn't say yes.
That discomfort was indescribable.
He'd always thought he knew the answers.
Always made the right calls.
Now? He didn't know.
What was right, what wrong.
The once crystal-clear world blurred.