It was over.
That was what everyone thought.
Not because of the disparity in strength, nor the unfavorable state of the battle.
In the one area where humans had always held the edge, they had been utterly surpassed by the monsters. That fact cut deeper than the situation itself.
And for mages, a collapse in morale impacted combat power more directly than usual. On top of that, Yustia Kingdom soldiers had extremely little experience being backed into a disadvantageous position — every factor compounded in the worst possible direction, and this was the result.
"I—hgh, don't come—aaaagh!"
"Why is this—damn it—!"
The front lines began to crumble.
Before they even reached a gap in combat power that couldn't be overcome, morale had been critically destroyed. There were still those who could fight — the Third Princess's personal mages among them — but it was precisely because that alone had never been enough to guarantee victory that the full mobilization had been ordered. Inevitably, once the front lines that were supposed to be held by "everyone else" collapsed, there was no chance the operation could succeed.
Where Katia and the others couldn't cover everything, where the bulk of the responsibility had fallen to the Kingdom's rank-and-file soldiers, the pressure began.
Slowly, inch by inch — like a silk cord tightening around a throat. An inexorable reality piled up, and one soldier after another was cut down, overwhelmed, and seeing their comrades fall, the rest buckled at the knees.
For many of them, this was perhaps their first taste of true despair and defeat. There had never been any point in resisting it — no one blamed those who broke, because every last one of them felt the same way.
There was no way they could win.
When every soldier shared that awareness, a section of the front that had been pushed back collapsed catastrophically, surrender carried along with it —
Right before that final moment.
"...Don't you dare joke around."
Surely no one had predicted it.
One Bloodline Magic user — not aligned with the Third Princess's faction, someone everyone had long since written off as broken and fallen — forced his trembling body forward and charged into the overwhelming army of monsters. Everyone present witnessed it.
◆
For a long time, it had been a question.
"Ghk—ah—"
Only First Prince Helc.
In a battlefield where everyone had broken, where even Bloodline Magic users had bent their knees to despair, he was perhaps the only one still fighting.
He whipped his aching body into motion, swinging his arms. He overrode the dull pain piercing every inch of his body through sheer willpower, activated his magical tool, and used his reinforced Bloodline Magic to freeze and mow down the monsters crowding before him.
Naturally, in the grand scheme of things, this amounted to nothing more than a feeble gesture that would not sway the battle one way or another. He did not possess the power to single-handedly turn the tide of war.
From the day he was born, this was what he had been.
His own desires, the expectations placed on him by those around him — both lay somewhere far, far out of reach, in a place he could never close the distance to with his own steps. And yet the talent he did possess was hopelessly mediocre. Even if he gritted his teeth and pushed himself for a fleeting burst of effort, no miracle occurred. He trailed behind those with real gifts — the former witch, his brilliant younger brother — and not a single person spared him a second glance.
But even so. First Prince Helc thought — from the depths of his heart, he thought.
So what.
For a long time, it had been a question.
In the Royal Palace, he had heard so many words.
*"How pitiful, having an unrealistic goal forced on you."*
*"Why don't you tell His Highness, Your Majesty? If it's beyond him, there's no need to keep pushing."*
*"He simply didn't have the talent. To refuse to accept that and keep flailing about is nothing short of grotesque."*
There had been no shortage of people who spoke to him that way — people who had recognized the warped expectation born from the phantom of the Sky Witch and had realized, with undisguised superiority, that *"we who see this clearly are better than the rest."*
Those people were truly everywhere, and every last one of them thought the same: in this country, ability is decided the instant a person is born, so the correct path is to cut your losses early and give up. To struggle on despite knowing it's hopeless is unsightly beyond measure, and to gracefully accept your reality with dignity is the beautiful thing to do.
Again and again, he had been told this.
And for years — for years — he had thought, don't you dare.
"Why..."
He raised his magic once more.
Even after a brief rest, his body was no less close to its limit. The cumulative side effects of using his
ancient magical tool
without pause were manifesting everywhere — every part of his body screaming in protest, the wounds and pain from within showing no sign of subsiding, growing worse with every spell he cast.
...So what.
"Why does everyone give up so easily? Dressing it up with words like talent and destiny, and stopping in your tracks — is that really so beautiful? Is that really the right thing to do?"
He knew.
Even if he did this, the battle wouldn't change.
The effect he was having was no more than a single drop in a desert — that was all the resistance permitted to someone with so little talent given to him. Even burning his body away, enduring excruciating pain, sacrificing everything he had — that was all he amounted to. He had never been the kind of person who could change the world.
He knew that. From the day he was born until today, he had been made to understand it more times than he could count.
Even so.
"...Show me. Show me you can struggle."
Through a feeble, desperate act of resistance,
his true feelings spilled out.
"I'm sick of it! Stop looking at me with those knowing expressions! It doesn't have to be beautiful, it doesn't have to be right — since when is giving up so clean and virtuous?! I don't want a world where everything's wrapped up in pretty words and nothing ever happens! That — that's what I hate more than anything!"
*Amazing, incredible.*
*Well, it can't be helped.*
*There was nothing we could do — this was fate.*
*Every last bit of it — to hell with that.*
Before you dress it all up in neat little phrases and step back to play the wise man — had you ever once fought back, even a little? Had you ever pushed yourself past the breaking point, vomiting blood, to reach for the absolute limit and truly exhaust every last possibility?
Before revering those better than you, those more brilliant than you — shutting off your thoughts to worship them as something divine, without even trying not to resent them — even if it meant showing your worst, most pathetic side, even if you couldn't contain the ugly jealousy and envy — had you ever truly confronted yourself and pursued who you really were?
There had never been anyone like that around him.
And so, and so —
"I —
am telling you —
this is
what I've
been doing
all along!"
Because... protecting others with your back turned toward them — that's what royalty is supposed to do.
Even if not a single person looked his way, as long as his own heart screamed at him to keep going, he believed he should continue.
He carried that conviction, that principle — the feelings he had borne alone as a prince throughout his entire life — and he screamed them from this battlefield of death.
"Fight! Don't give up! I don't care if it's ugly — who cares if you're covered in mud, no matter how pathetic it looks — just know this: you're doing better than me! So...!"
He had never been blessed with extraordinary talent. Compared to others, he had lived his entire life with far less given to him.
He could never be someone who shone brighter than anyone else, someone beautiful.
So instead, he would be the one to wallow in the mud more than anyone. More wretchedly than anyone, suffering more than anyone, even as someone who fell short — he would keep reaching, keep striving.
Because — at the very least, he wanted someone to think that there was at least one fool out there who felt the same way.
Whether his scream had reached them, he didn't know.
There was no way to check — the tide of monsters had already surged past the point where one man could hold them back.
Even so, he didn't stop. Even if it shaved away his life, even if he was drenched in pain and suffering far beyond what any effort could justify, he would struggle until the very last instant. He had decided a long, long time ago that this was how he would be.
With that conviction in his heart, he pressed on without hesitation — firing magic, cutting down enemies, struggling, struggling.
At the end of his resistance.
"...Uwah."
— And yet.
As if to drive home, more thoroughly and completely than ever, that he was a being who could never influence the world, that no matter how hard he fought, it meant nothing.
"You're something else. I really thought you'd died a long time ago, but here you are, flailing around with that filthy, blood-soaked magic."
Descending from the sky as though alighting from above — as though untouched by the grime of this world — a beautiful, white-haired boy appeared. The strongest monster on the field. The Demon King's heir. The incarnation of the greatest despair.
"You look *really* pathetic, you know that?"
Karma — the being with the least chance of defeat — descended before Helc, ready to crush his final resistance.
Sorry this turned out longer than expected!
We'll get things moving next time — update planned for 11/19 (Saturday), so stay tuned!