Chapter 218 — The World Is (3)
「You can… sleep a little longer. You don’t need to step forward anymore… You can rest now.」
No! Wake up! You still have something left to do! So get up right now and……!
* * *
…Even so, she must not fall for it.
[You’re not coming? You’re really going to retreat like this? Even though you’re the Hero?]
The Inquisitor squeezed her burning eyes shut, then opened them again.
Moisture brought on by irritation made her vision slightly blurry.
[There’s a Great Demon here that you’re supposed to kill.]
It was true.
Even so, she must not fall for it.
As long as the Great Demon was openly waiting for her, there was far too high a chance that place was a trap.
[Ah, were you a coward instead of a Hero? How disappointing.]
…But if she did not go there, what exactly was she supposed to do?
If she did not defeat that demon, then there would have been no point in Berserk remaining alone before that monster.
If she did not protect the people, then the reason the Demon Knight had come here alone…….
Ah.
The Demon Knight.
At some point, the Inquisitor raised her lowered head again.
She could not sense the Demon Knight’s Demonic Energy.
Of course she couldn’t.
There was no way she could distinguish his amid that enormous current of Demonic Energy.
But.
But…….
She could not hear fighting either.
What did that mean?
Had he already been injured so badly that he could no longer fight?
Or had he…
Had he…….
“No!”
There was no way he was dead.
That man could not have died.
He had probably just suffered a serious injury and withdrawn somewhere.
That must be it.
There was no way he was dead…….
Really?
The image of someone’s back came to mind.
Someone who seemed as though, when the moment came to die, he would simply accept it without struggling.
A terribly cold person who would never give her even one chance to reach out.
『Do not be late. Fate will not wait for you.』
The Inquisitor bit down on her lip.
BANG.
The next instant, her armored hand struck her own forehead.
Unable to bring herself to let go of the mace, she hit herself while still holding it, then opened her eyes firmly.
[Who knows. No matter how much you deny it, you look enough like a coward right now.]
Meanwhile, the one who had misunderstood her denial sneered at her.
She did not care.
The Inquisitor’s green eyes caught the drifting sparks and glittered almost gold.
“Say whatever you want, demon!”
Whether the Demon Knight was dead or alive, one thing was certain.
At the very least, he was currently unable to move.
And there was also nothing she could do for him right now.
The Inquisitor painfully accepted those realities.
She could not save the Demon Knight immediately.
“I will never be swayed by your tongue!”
But did accepting reality mean she despaired over it?
No.
If reality was what she had accepted, then she had even less reason to stop.
Behind her were countless people she had to protect.
The ground beneath her feet was filled with those who had sacrificed themselves to create this moment.
She could never retreat.
BOOM!
So the first thing she did was strike the nearby Mimic with her shield.
Perhaps because the higher-ranked entity—the Great Demon—had given it separate instructions, it showed no intention of moving.
That made it easy to attack.
After taking the Mimic’s life almost for free, she returned to a defensive stance.
“If you want me, then come yourself!”
A Gargoyle flying past slammed into a Divine Power barrier she had created and crashed down.
CRACK!
Its head burst beneath her mace.
The headless body naturally went limp and died.
“I will not let a single one of you pass!”
[Ha. So that’s how you want to play it.]
The Great Demon chuckled.
But the Inquisitor did not waver.
Her foremost duty was to buy enough time for the people to evacuate, not to fight the Great Demon.
Unless it moved to kill people, there was no need for her to fight something content to remain in one place.
BOOM!
Rather, she needed to fight the others.
The Inquisitor intercepted the many demons trying to pass her, doing everything possible to reduce their numbers by even one.
The fewer demons escaped past this point, the more visibly civilian casualties would decrease.
[I’ll make sure you pay in full for forcing me to move personally!]
BOOM!
And in response, the Great Demon finally moved.
The lava giant demolished buildings with an enormous hand.
The streets filled with something resembling molten metal.
[With your death!]
And rising from within it was the faceless demon.
Pandemonium, Seat of Greed and Avarice, as Berserk had told her.
One of the sources of evil that would someday have to be eliminated extended a finger toward her.
Chunks of rock containing the power of fire began raining down.
Each one was threatening enough to make her wonder whether she could block them all.
“God.”
But this was the moment she had chosen over both the Demon Knight and Berserk.
How could she possibly say she could not do it now?!
“Your lowly servant prays.”
The Inquisitor threw away the doubts she had carried all the way here.
Could she do it?
That question no longer mattered.
“May the ground beneath my feet become Your ground, and the hand I extend become Your hand.”
She would.
She would succeed.
“And through them, may all evil upon this land perish! This I dare to pray!”
Divine Power spread from her like an incoming tide, illuminating the world.
“So be with me!!”
A sun rose upon the earth.
A sun bright enough to evaporate even a young man’s tears.
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* * *
「Shut up, vermin. This person has already done more than enough.」
You little bastard—! Do you even understand what you’re doing?!
* * *
“Turn there! There’s something I need to take from the workshop!”
Deathbringer felt anger boil up as he looked at the person making demands so confidently even in a crisis like this.
“You think your research is important right now?!”
“Of course it’s important!”
Lunatic!
Annoying bastard!
The shout of someone raised without deprivation, a precious young master who had spent life doing only whatever they wanted, made the back of his neck ache.
If Meister were not someone with abilities valuable enough for an entire city to treasure, Deathbringer would have thrown them straight off the horse.
“But what I’m going to retrieve isn’t research material!”
“I don’t care what it is, just leave it behind!”
“What the hell do you know……!”
“Fuck, I don’t know how valuable your research is, but I do know how valuable the people who went to places where they might die just to buy civilians time to evacuate are!”
How many people had left for certain death just to buy evacuation time?
And the ones who had gone to the most dangerous places were all his companions.
The Demon Knight.
Berserk.
Even Miss Prim-and-Proper.
Every one of them had gone to their own deathtrap.
And Meister wanted to use the time they had bought to satisfy some personal desire?
Should he throw this bastard off the horse after all?
Deathbringer’s mind filled once again with dangerous impulses.
“…Do you think I’m doing this because I don’t know that?! I want to bring the thing that purifies water! The river near Zwerg Hill has poor water quality. People will get sick if they drink it untreated!”
That impulse was finally suppressed.
If Meister had wanted to retrieve something for selfish reasons, that would have been different.
But something meant for the evacuees afterward was worth spending time on.
“It’s still better than saving all those people through sacrifice just for them to die from stomach illness!”
“Then say that from the start, you bastard! Tell me where it is!”
“Turn there! And you’re the one who didn’t give me time to explain! Stop flaunting that defective brain!”
Deathbringer hurled curses at Meister, received plenty in return, and turned the horse.
Fortunately, the workshop district lay along the evacuation route, so they did not need to make much of a detour.
“Here!”
Too hurried even to wait for the horse to stop properly, Meister jumped down, threw open the workshop door, and rushed inside.
The lights came on automatically as if reacting to their entrance, illuminating the interior.
“Damn it, I should’ve organized this place beforehand……!”
It was absolutely filthy with every kind of object imaginable.
Deathbringer tied the horse in front of the door and stepped cautiously inside, his face twisting.
Would they even be able to find what Meister wanted in this mess?
Thud.
Then something Meister had absentmindedly struck while rushing in finally fell to the floor.
Apparently it had been barely balanced on the edge of a desk and had finally lost against its own weight.
“Seriously. If you can’t find it in five minutes, we’re leaving.”
“I remember where it is. There’s just too much junk in the way……!”
Good for you and your amazing memory.
Wondering whether there was anything he could help with, Deathbringer followed Meister farther inside.
Tap.
At the same time, he picked up what had fallen from the desk and placed it back on top.
Hmmm.
The thing glittered strangely while giving off a faint vibration.
What the hell would anyone even use something like this for?
“Anything I can help with?”
“Move this aside. What we need is inside the white box.”
How much stuff did they stack in here?
Deathbringer frowned and followed Meister’s instructions.
Perhaps because two healthy adult men were working together, dozens of boxes were moved into the corridor in no time, revealing the object they wanted.
Fortunately, it was not as large as he had expected.
“Now let’s go…….”
But Meister, who had turned as though the business was finished, abruptly stopped.
“Why is that glowing?”
“What?”
“That! The Mana battery!”
Meister was pointing at the “whatever-this-is” Deathbringer had just picked up.
* * *
「Don’t listen to that voice. Keep sleeping. When you wake up again, by then…….」
* * *
“The people just keep coming.”
“Bemurchen is a large city.”
Perhaps because she was a Mage, Archmage had been able to cast magic from the safest position and had even been given priority when evacuating, allowing her to escape early.
Even if she wanted to return, reality would not allow it.
Helping the evacuation was one thing, but the greatest problem was the famously poor physical ability of Mages.
With a body like this, going back would only mean dying pointlessly.
Archmage stared bitterly toward the land where the younger ones remained.
The endless evacuation procession looked like waves.
“Do not push! Don’t push! Leave calmly!!”
At least most people obediently followed orders.
She admired the foresight of the lord, who had even organized civilian security forces in preparation for times when the army could not move, and checked the spell again.
The protective barrier she had established around the gate was for emergencies.
“The water’s rising…….”
“Spread out! Prepare for mermen!”
Then she felt the waterways filling more quickly.
The soldiers nearby became even more hurried.
They already had to reorganize arriving troops, guide the unstructured mass of civilians, direct the injured toward the Temple, and prepare for riots or attacks.
Now another task had been added.
There was little they could do about it.
“If only I could put up another barrier…….”
Her feelings and reality were separate matters.
Her Mana had already been spent creating the current barrier, and whatever recovered would need to be reserved for emergencies.
She could not act now.
Archmage lowered her head again in helplessness.
“You survived.”
At that moment, someone approached while limping with support from another person.
It was Wave-Cresting Blue Coral.
Startled, Archmage helped the younger Mage seat Blue Coral on a nearby chair.
“You’ve done well. Go on.”
The young Mage bowed deeply with an overwhelmed expression, then hurried away.
“Should you really be moving already?”
“Of course not.”
…Right.
There was no way they were fine.
Their skull had been injured, and they had also suffered serious internal damage from magical recoil.
Because the Temple was refusing anyone who was not in immediate danger of death—which was only natural, considering the patients they were currently treating were in far worse condition—the treatment Blue Coral had received amounted to little more than emergency first aid.
The fact that they could open their eyes and walk at all was miraculous.
“Then you should rest…….”
“If I could do that, I wouldn’t have come here.”
“…….”
“What about the kids you were traveling with?”
“They’re fighting over there.”
“Of course they are. Stupid question.”
Still, it was not difficult to understand Blue Coral’s feelings.
Archmage had heard that Blue Coral’s grandson was still back there as well.
Two old people who had left cherished younger ones in a place of death twitched their fingers and swallowed the emotions rising inside them.
KYAAAAAAAGH!
Then an enormous scream struck the evacuation procession.
It came from a short distance away.
“Stay calm and keep moving! If you rush, you may end up leaving even later, so remain calm!”
The soldiers hurriedly soothed the agitated civilians while others ran toward the rear.
“Let’s go too.”
“Are you all right?”
“…I want to see my grandson come back before I close my eyes.”
“That sounds like you’re talking about dying, so you’re forbidden from saying ‘close my eyes.’”
“That would be the fault of the person misunderstanding me, not mine.”
They joined the soldiers heading that way.
Some soldiers voiced concern, but unfortunately, there was no one who could overrule two Grand Sages.
KYAAAA!
“AAAAAGH!”
“Help me!”
“Get away! Come this way!”
“Everyone, long spears!”
And when the two limped into the area, they found a blood-covered Harpy and crowds of civilians being attacked helplessly.
“Demons…….”
They clenched their teeth.
“More are coming.”
Despite the sacrifices of the young ones, the demons’ claws had finally reached the people.
“…It’s over.”
One civilian’s cry struck their ears with particular clarity.
* * *
「Because the place where you were originally meant to be will welcome you.」