——A piercingly clear firmament gazed down upon the lives unfolding below with a grand, sweeping eye.
A brilliant white sun flickered across the sky, and great white clouds drifted lazily across its expanse.
A gentle breeze grazed the nape of her neck as she stood with thin blue hair drifting behind her, breathing quietly and deeply.
She let the world fill her senses, becoming acutely aware that she was a part of it.
It felt as though someone had made a profound and eloquent declaration about something terribly difficult. But if she was told this was what she needed right now, then rather than questioning it, she should act on it first.
She had sought out this teaching of her own volition. Her days at it were still few—far too short a time to simply give up.
And yet—— "I…can't lie about feeling impatient."
She gently pressed a hand to her chest and waited for the air she had drawn in to take effect in her lungs.
She couldn't tell whether this sensation was truly enriching her from within. That uncertainty gnawed at her, and her habit of demanding immediate results annoyed her to no end.
No—perhaps the urge to see results right away wasn't so much her nature as it was a consequence of the situation she found herself in.
Not toward herself, but toward the person who was absent from this place, carrying out a role elsewhere—— "Oh! There you are!"
A voice called out to her back as she sat in quiet meditation, and she remembered she had been holding her breath. Exhaling the air she had gathered in her chest, she turned around to see a small figure running toward her.
A young boy with wispy, peach-colored hair bobbing with each step. He had a cherubic face with rosy cheeks, and the bare legs poking out from his short trousers were dazzling—a child who looked as though he might break at any moment.
Appearing to be around eleven or twelve, the boy arrived in front of her, smiled, and said: "Priscilla-sama is calling for you! She wants you to come along!"
"Understood. Thank you for coming all this way, Schult."
"Not at all! There's no need to thank me for anything, no need at all~"
He humb deflected the gratitude, though his cheeks flushed with delight.
But the errand he had come on was still an errand. She couldn't just sit there grinning.
Thinking this, she tightened her cheeks, let out a small sigh, and nodded.
"Then shall we go together?"
"Yes we will! Rem-san and I shall go together~!"
Schult bounced on his toes and saluted with a hand to his forehead. Startled slightly by his exuberance, the young girl—Rem nodded, and the two of them set off toward the one who had summoned them.
Toward
△▼△▼△▼△ Approximately ten days had passed since the fall of the fortress city of Guaral—a staggeringly absurd plan had been executed, and as a result, the city had been taken with minimal loss of life.
Fortunately, there had been little chaos within the city. The skill of
The presence of those two had prevented the armed from running rampant, nipping confusion and tragedy in the bud.
Of course, those capable of fighting were not the only ones in the city.
Far from it—the townspeople, with no connection to warfare whatsoever, vastly outnumbered the combatants. Even so, the citizens of Guaral were far from meek.
At first, Zikr and the imperial soldiers had been met with deep contempt for having surrendered the city hall without so much as a fight, allowing their authority to be stripped away.
However, that resentment among the townspeople had been swiftly extinguished.
The reason was simple—— "It is the way of the Empire to follow the stronger. Thus, to any eye, it was clear that my actions held more righteousness than the mouths of those who merely talked."
"That's…"
"Or would you have it that bowing your head to weather the storm, then crying out once the wind has died that you shall rebuild your ruined homes—that such words hold greater value?"
"I think that's a rather extreme comparison, and it's unfair."
Beyond their simple positions, Priscilla looked down on her conversational partner from an even greater height. Rem quietly pushed back against this method of sealing off any escape.
After a beat of silence, a faint click sounded in the back of her throat.
"So you call me a coward, do you? How bold—you truly have no fear of death, Rem."
"If your life were on the line, I'd say you were fearless. But I don't think Priscilla is the type to lose her temper so easily."
"You dare judge me by your own measures?"
"I don't have any other measuring stick to use."
Gazed upon by those crimson eyes, Rem held her ground with her rebuttal.
For Rem, who had lost her memories and possessed no tangible past, everything she saw was fresh, and every action she took was an unknown experience.
This sometimes meant earning the displeasure of those around her, but dwelling on that fear would paralyze her completely. What she knew for certain was that from the time her current self had come into being until now—roughly twenty days, with the last several spent in particular—she had been surviving in the company of the woman before her without dying.
And so—— "Hmph. How tedious. You are a thoroughly unendearing girl."
When the other party withdrew her blade like this, Rem could more or less count on it happening.
There were occasions when incomprehensible reasons led to unreasonable outcomes, but the woman before her—Priscilla—could fundamentally be characterized as someone who made alarming statements while concealing a rational mind beneath. That was Rem's impression of her.
Priscilla lounged in a lavish armchair, a book spread open on her lap. She carried herself like the mistress of a palace or great estate, a picture-perfect image—but this was, after all, a borrowed residence.
Currently staying in the fortress city, Priscilla had commandeered the largest mansion in the city and was passing her days in leisurely comfort within. The mansion was the grandest building outside of the city hall, its space—large enough to comfortably house twenty or thirty people—wastefully squandered.
Of course, the original owner of the mansion had pushed back against its seizure, but that dispute was settled in the Imperial fashion—the barbaric fashion—with a small amount of blood spilled.
In other words, a show of force to enforce one's position—— "—"
Rem's gaze drifted briefly to a corner of the room.
When summoned by Priscilla and gathered in the room as her attendants, there was, besides Rem and the ever-smiling Schult, one other person present.
That man was the one who had wielded a sword in the "duel" over the disposition of the mansion.
"Heinkel."
"What?"
"I thought you were looking at me rather meaningfully, so I was wondering if something was wrong."
The man responded in a low voice to Rem's call, and at her follow-up question, his expression darkened. Without another word, he roughly clawed through his red hair.
"It's nothing major. I was just thinking it was incredible that you'd talk to Priscilla that way—what a reckless girl you must be."
"After fearless, now reckless, is it? I wouldn't say that's quite…"
"That's how it looked to me. Don't nitpick every little thing."
He clicked his tongue softly and waved off his own hand, which had been scratching his head.
This man was a towering figure with flame-red hair and a naturally rugged bearing, his appearance somewhat marred by a lazy stubble. His name was Heinkel, one of Priscilla's subordinates.
After Priscilla decided of her own accord to remain in the fortress city of Guaral, the two who had flown in from their original base of operations were this Heinkel and Schult. Along with that helmeted man—Al—the three of them made up Priscilla's retinue.
"Of course, Rem-san is also one of our companions now!"
"Don't just decide that on your own, shorty. This woman is supposed to be the daughter of our enemy. She's not an ally—she's a potential threat."
"Huh!? Rem-san, you were our enemy!?"
"Um…that's still up in the air."
Rem answered Schult, whose eyes had gone wide with surprise and panic. Heinkel's phrasing was extreme, but Rem couldn't deny it—her own position was that complicated. With her memories gone, she lacked both the self-awareness and the information to determine where she truly stood.
Of course, the person who would contribute most to clarifying Rem's ambiguous position was—— "…That person."
She knew that the black-haired young man who had left the fortress city to fulfill the role he had been given—
And yet, accepting that honestly and lending an ear to his words was something Rem found herself unable to do.
The reason his actions and words wouldn't easily settle into her heart was the abhorrent miasma that clung to Subaru's entire being—no, by now that was no longer the only reason.
The miasma had certainly been an obstacle to seeing Subaru for who he truly was, but Rem had already acknowledged that there was no deception or malice in what he said and did.
The reason she couldn't simply accept him was that her own footing was uncertain.
Who she herself was, and what relationship she had once had with Natsuki Subaru and the others.
If she couldn't face that, then neither Rem's time nor her stalled feet would begin to move.
She wanted to face Subaru in order to make her own existence feel real, but in order to face Subaru, she needed to make her existence feel real first.
It was a dilemma with no exit—a labyrinth she had wandered into with no way out.
"You appear to be quite troubled. Those furrows between your brows are ample proof."
"That…is true. I've been trying to put Priscilla's advice into practice, but…"
"What is it?"
"Priscilla's words are always…difficult to understand."
With downcast eyes and no small amount of embarrassment, Rem confessed that her own lack of learning was to blame.
She didn't say it outright, but Priscilla's choice of words was arcane and hard to follow. Moreover, Priscilla's mind worked at extraordinary speed, and on top of that, she rarely considered others' perspectives.
She was someone whose nature closely resembled Abel's—no, rather than saying they were similar, she should say they possessed the same nature entirely. If she said as much aloud, she would likely earn the displeasure of both Priscilla and Abel, so she had no intention of voicing it.
"Advice? Advice? What's that about? Priscilla, you've been giving this girl advice?"
"Yes, Heinkel-sama! I know all about it! Rem-san is studying at Priscilla-sama's side! She takes care of Priscilla-sama's daily needs, just like me!"
"Hey, hey, hey—are you in your right mind, Priscilla? What could you possibly gain from doing that? You're just raising an enemy."
Heinkel, who hadn't been informed of the details, learned of the arrangement between Rem and Priscilla and nearly had his eyes fall out of his head.
He lumbered up to Priscilla on her dais, pointed at Rem, and opened his mouth.
"I thought you were keeping her around as some sort of maid… That means everything about our camp is wide open. Deliberately putting yourself at a disadvantage—this goes beyond mere play…"
"Silence, fool. You dare presume to instruct me?"
"Guh…!"
"I've beaten you black and blue countless times, and yet you never learn. I don't have the time to discipline you—I tolerate your presence only because you serve the role of turning pages."
Priscilla traced the cover of the book on her lap and fixed Heinkel with a glare.
Her voice carried no particular fury, yet Heinkel reacted as though a sword had been thrust in his face, drawing a sharp breath and retreating a step, then two.
His level of fear struck Rem as excessive.
Of course, she had seen with her own eyes that Priscilla's abilities were extraordinary—her swordsmanship had defeated one of the Empire's strongest warriors, one of the so-called "Nine Divine Generals." Setting that fact aside, Rem could feel through her skin that Priscilla possessed unmatched power.
But—— "Heinkel doesn't seem to be that far behind, though…"
She had to preface it—as far as she could see, at least.
In the struggle for this mansion, Heinkel had faced the swordsman standing as the property owner's proxy and had stripped the man of his sword without allowing him to do anything at all, claiming victory without taking his life.
His clear sword intent and superior swordsmanship were far beyond what any number of imperial soldiers could hope to match.
And yet, the way Heinkel cowered struck her as the very peak of overreaction.
Of course, Rem was a novice when it came to being a "self." Those who could perceive the world of the strong might have a way of seeing things that Rem simply couldn't access.
In any case—— "My interest in that girl is nothing more than a whim. But picking up Schult when he was half-starved on barren soil, and summoning you when you were bleeding for futile efforts—these are all equally my whims."
"Yes they are! Priscilla-sama saved me because she felt like it! I was very, very lucky~!"
"You're fine with that, are you…"
Priscilla tapped the cover of her book and declared that everything was entirely at her own discretion. At those words, Rem was caught between exasperation and awe, while Schult beamed with pride in his good fortune.
Heinkel, too, seemed to have released the fear he had shown moments ago, though a trace of wariness still lingered in the way he looked at Rem.
He was probably the one who had the most level-headed perspective of anyone present.
"So, Priscilla, why did you summon us?"
"Hmm."
"If it's just about your daily needs, then Schult and I should be more than enough. I couldn't figure out why Heinkel was here too."
In terms of division of labor, Rem and Schult could handle all of Priscilla's needs in the mansion without difficulty. She had grown quite accustomed to life with a walking cane and had no qualms about basic housework.
Perhaps she had been someone who naturally took on such tasks.
That was precisely the kind of division of labor at play, leaving no role for Heinkel.
If she brought that up, then the real question was—— "What does Heinkel actually do around here? I've only ever seen him swinging a sword, drinking, or playing with Schult."
"…For the record, I have no memory of playing with that brat."
"That's right! Heinkel-sama doesn't mind me at all, but I'm the one who keeps going up to him on my own! He always looks so lonely when he's by himself, so I thought I'd keep him company…"
"Oh, is that so? Schult, you're very kind."
"Hehehehe~"
Rem solved the question that had been gnawing at her and gently stroked the cowlick on Schult's head. She simply couldn't help wanting to pet him—it was part of Schult's mysterious charm.
Within the city, there was also Utakata, who darted about here and there, and Rem often felt the urge to pet her as well.
Perhaps it was simply because she wanted to dote on those younger than her.
"Damn it—can't you just answer the question, Priscilla? If there's nothing else, I'm heading to the bar…"
"…The ones who left the city should be arriving in the Demon City around now, I'd wager."
"Oh…"
"If things are going to move, it will likely be in conjunction with this moment. Stay sharp."
With her cheek resting on her fist atop the armrest, Priscilla delivered those words, and the atmosphere in the room shifted palpably.
The dry, taut air was the unmistakable sign that consciousness had been realigned by Priscilla's words. Heinkel's expression sharpened, and Rem felt a sensation as though something had pierced her chest.
Schult, his hand still resting on Rem's head, was the only one who said, "Al-sama, good work on your long journey~," congratulating the departed party.
"—"
If things were going to move, Priscilla had prefaced. But one thing was certain—the party that had departed, including Subaru, would see changes brought to them, for better or worse.
The negotiation with one other being who might possibly be an ally—that outcome would heavily determine the future of what Abel was trying to accomplish.
"When you say things will move in conjunction with this… Priscilla, you have something in mind?"
"No. Nothing specific. It's merely based on my own experience."
"Your experience? What do you mean…?"
"When great events begin to unfold, everything moves at once as though the previous stillness were a lie. As though in agreement, they topple all at once—like a row of stacked blocks being knocked over."
There was an ineffable persuasiveness in Priscilla's measured words.
In the end, it all boiled down to a single point: don't let your guard down. Rem took a deep breath and looked back at her own feet. Worrying about Subaru while neglecting what was right in front of her would be putting the cart before the horse.
In fact, upon putting it into words, she realized just how disagreeable it was that she had been obsessing over Subaru for so long.
"He's a troublesome person, whether he's around or not…"
"Rem-san? Are you alright? Your face looks a little red."
"I'm fine. Just…a little something welling up. Bubbling over—anger."
"Angry people are no good! Rem-san looks much better when she's smiling~!"
As Schult flapped his arms and legs in a frantic appeal, Rem's eyes softened at the corners. Meanwhile, Heinkel, who had taken on a grave expression in response to Priscilla's warning, spoke up.
"Priscilla, if that's all there is to talk about, I'm heading out."
"As you wish. Drowning in liquor or loafing about—the choice is yours."
"I'm not in the mood for drinking. I'll go have a word with that shaggy-haired commander at the city hall."
Heinkel said this with a serious expression and strode out of the room in long steps. Watching his departing back, Rem turned to Priscilla.
"So, Priscilla—what will you be doing?"
"Are you concerned about my activities?"
"Well…yes. I don't mean to say that everything Priscilla does is right…"
Even so, Priscilla made her judgments using knowledge and insight that Rem simply did not possess. For Rem, who had so few resources of her own, that was invaluable information in deciding what course to take. At Rem's words—which were, in a sense, the height of impudence—Priscilla gave a soft "fufu."
"Are you afraid of becoming a mindless doll? If not, then there was no point in keeping you at my side."
"Priscilla?"
"To answer your earlier question—Heinkel and the Shudrak people will handle the preparations. That 'general' and the Shudrak tribe are both capable in their own right. As for me…"
"And Priscilla will…?"
Rem held her breath slightly, waiting for what would follow. She didn't realize that beside her, Schult had also clenched his fists in anticipation, waiting for his mistress's answer.
Meeting those two pairs of eyes, Priscilla narrowed her long, narrow pupils.
"—I shall take a bath. Scatter flower petals and burn incense."
"…Huh?"
"What? Don't make me repeat myself. I'm taking a bath. Prepare the bathhouse at once."
With a flutter of her hand, Priscilla shooed Rem and Schult off.
Of course, Rem couldn't hide her bewilderment, stammering "Wh—but—but," while Schult snapped to attention with a crisp salute.
"Understood! I'll go fill the tub right away~!"
With a spirited answer, Schult bounded out of the room. Rem watched his small back disappear, then turned back to Priscilla.
Priscilla still had her cheek propped on her fist and was preparing to resume reading her book.
"Aren't you going? If you leave everything to Schult alone, he might forget to stopper the drain and flood the place with wasted water."
"I'll help Schult. But—what are you thinking about?"
"That suspicious nature of yours is a reflection of how strong your preconceptions are. Do you really believe I am some omniscient observer of the world, manipulating all events to my whim?"
"N-no, I wouldn't go that far…"
Laid out in such logical terms, Rem's momentum for questioning faltered.
Rem's reaction drew a scoff from Priscilla, who continued, "Listen well."
"All things in this world exist to my convenience. But that does not mean I can bend everything to my will. Such boredom—I would never desire it."
"Boredom…from having things go your way?"
"If everything that could happen turned out exactly as I wished, what meaning would there be in welcoming tomorrow? Rem—have you wished, since the moment you were born, for a world where everything had already ended?"
"——"
At Priscilla's question, Rem fell silent.
Priscilla's words were once again difficult to parse, but she could just barely grasp the meaning. To live according to one's wishes meant never encountering anything new or unknown.
And for Priscilla, that was not a desirable thing.
However—— "That's a luxury of a refusal for someone like me, who can't do anything properly."
Rem, who had been left behind in the fortress city while Subaru departed, placed at Priscilla's side—her root desire was a hunger for the "Rem" she had lost, and a search for the means and the catalyst to escape from her own current inadequacy.
For Rem, who suffered because nothing went her way, Priscilla's way of enjoying things not going her way was something she simply couldn't understand.
Even if that meant Priscilla would write her off as a girl without appeal.
"I don't expect you to become like me, or to desire the same things. Do as you please."
But to Rem, who had steeled herself with a sense of tragic resolve before speaking, Priscilla's response was unexpectedly gentle.
Looking at Rem with wide eyes, Priscilla regarded her the way one might look at a high-maintenance dog.
"The world is beautiful simply as it is."
In Priscilla's quiet murmur, Rem sensed the woman's unvarnished, genuine feeling.
Having thought that, Rem immediately dismissed her own interpretation as absurd. Because if it truly was Priscilla's unfiltered heart, then the scale of it was far too vast.
It would mean Priscilla loved and cherished something impossibly enormous.
"Cherishing things with care—that's the complete opposite of my impression of Priscilla…"
"Did you say something?"
"No, nothing important…"
Rem shook her head slowly. The haze in her chest had thinned, ever so slightly.
Not everything had been cleared away, but the dark clouds from moments ago had dissipated. Just as Rem had reached a tentative conclusion in her self-analysis—— "Wh-wh-wh-whoa~! The water—the water is overflowing! I—I'm going to drown~!!"
An urgent shriek from Schult drifted over from the mansion's bathhouse. As expected, Rem pictured Schult in precisely the situation she had imagined and lifted her head.
Her eyes met Priscilla's, and the other woman tilted her white chin toward the door in a "go" gesture.
"I won't become merely an extension of Priscilla's will, you know."
"But you surely can't ignore Schult's screams either. See—victory is mine."
Her meager resistance—simply asserting that she wouldn't be told what to do—evaporated helplessly.
She couldn't protest further, because Schult's safety was very much in jeopardy.
△▼△▼△▼△ ——Priscilla's warning had driven its wedge deep into Rem's heart.
When great events unfolded, they didn't care about any one small human being.
They swept away everyone caught in their path, heedless, like a tidal wave.
Rem thought she had already learned this through personal experience.
When she had awakened with no memory, she found herself in a strange place, cradled in the arms of a stranger—that was the beginning of Rem's memories.
She had escaped from that boy, only to encounter him again; she had been captured by numerous imperial soldiers, pulled from black smoke and flames, and carried by the currents to this city where she had been spending her days.
"Turmoil" was a word that felt tailor-made for everything Rem had experienced up to this point.
——And yet, she would soon realize that even that understanding had been naïve.
"…Priscilla?"
Rem furrowed her brows as Priscilla slipped smoothly from her grip and rose to her feet.
Amid billowing warm steam, Rem—wrapped in a bathrobe—was in the mansion's bathhouse. The existence of this splendid bathhouse had been the primary reason Priscilla had seized the mansion in the first place.
The bath, large enough to stretch out one's limbs while soaking, had apparently been built to suit the tastes of the mansion's former owner, and there was simply no substitute for it elsewhere.
In truth, Rem had been given a soak on the days when her duties tending to Priscilla were done, and she understood viscerally why this was something one could become desperate to claim.
In any case, in the midst of their bath, while Rem was washing her hair, Priscilla slipped away from her hands, slowly rose, and walked toward the window.
"Priscilla, you haven't finished washing yet—ah!"
Priscilla ignored Rem's call as she, without a shred of hesitation, bared her beautiful naked form and flung open the bathroom window.
Cold outside air flooded into the bathhouse—far colder than the steam could compare to—and Rem involuntarily shrank back. But Priscilla's sudden action didn't stop there.
She leaned out through the opened window and stepped out onto the balcony beyond the bathhouse.
"What—what are you doing!? Other people will see! Even if this is the top floor…"
Rem snatched up a cane and towel and hurried out after Priscilla. She draped the towel over the woman's slender shoulders, silently rebuking herself for having grown accustomed to this kind of impulsiveness.
But paying no mind to Rem's self-reflection, Priscilla kept her gaze fixed outward.
"—The sky."
"The sky? It's not that high up. Come on, let's go back inside before the water gets cold—"
As Rem reached out to pull her back in, her arm was stopped.
Priscilla's finger pressed gently against Rem's lips. With eyes wide, Rem watched as Priscilla let her blood-colored pupils shimmer.
"Look at the sky, Rem. …It seems the 'transformation' has come to an end."
The words made no sense, but something in the tone of her voice prevented Rem from hesitating.
Guided as though by an invisible hand, Rem lifted her gaze and looked up at the same sky Priscilla was watching. She focused her blue eyes, trying to see the same thing.
But her effort not to miss anything was in vain.
Because—— "That…is…"
Above the balcony, where wind swept over Rem and Priscilla, a black dot was slowly approaching within a vast sky where an oversized sun blazed with light.
The dot was one—no, two, three, multiplying gradually. As the blurry shapes became clearer and clearer, Rem found herself gasping without realizing it.
The multiplying black dots, drawing closer by the moment—their true nature was— "—Hurry. Arm those below. There is no sport in hunting a flock of wyverns."
Priscilla's warning had taken on a vivid intensity, and Rem's skin—her very soul—felt it.
△▼△▼△▼△ ——At that same moment, gazing down upon the walled city from above, a pair of golden eyes narrowed.
Wrapped in the blue sky like a second skin, commanding the vast expanse with an air of ownership as they flew shoulder to shoulder with white clouds and cut through the wind—they were the most magnificent creatures in this world. A flock of winged dragons.
"The fortress city—Guaral."
The name of the target city rolled across her tongue, and a burning battle fervor heated every drop of blood in her veins.
In response to that rising bloodlust, the companions circling around her grew ever more fired up. Their roars mixed with the beat of their wings against the sky, and their anticipation of the hunt before them swelled to bursting.
To call that eagerness premature would be an insult to these hunters of the firmament.
Any being whose blood did not surge with such anticipation was nothing more than a coward unworthy of flying beside the white clouds.
"—"
"I know. I'll do the job properly, just like the old man said."
The plea rising from below was the anticipation of the hunt bubbling up from the beast whose back she rode upon.
The figure standing on the back of the flying wyvern, arms crossed over a short pair of limbs, acknowledged the excitement.
Sky-blue hair matched at the temples, and blazing golden eyes. The dazzling outfit that enveloped her slender frame betrayed nothing of the ferocity and violence of her true nature.
At first glance, one might even call her adorable. But that impression would last only until one noticed the two black horns atop her head.
Even in the Volakia Empire, where horned races were hardly rare, one would virtually never see those "black horns"—no, one would absolutely never see them.
They were, after all, the proof of a being that should no longer exist.
"Everyone—ready?"
At the call of the figure who bore horns that should not exist, countless roars answered—the flock of wyverns, rulers of the sky, an impossible flock numbering in the hundreds.
Carrying the sun on their backs, crossing the blue sky, they surged forward like a storm cloud of annihilation.
When they descended, battle cries and screams would resound, every living thing would be crushed, all would be swept away in a tide of calamity.
Coincidentally, at the very same moment that the "Great Calamity" was threatening to destroy a city in a distant land, a different form of disaster bore down upon this walled city.
Before the opening act of an inescapable, absolute, cruel hunt, the being—Madeline Eschart—narrowed her golden eyes and twisted her lips into a smile.
The "Ninth" of the Nine Divine Generals, the "Wyvern General" who had been commanded to annihilate the city, delivered her proclamation.
"Tremble. Flee in desperation. There is no escape for you. —The dragons have come."