—Dear God, dear Buddha, dear Od Laguna. I vow never to invite anyone into my home for as long as I live.
△▼△▼△▼△ —To set the record straight,
The "insurance" he'd planted was real insurance.
Felt knew the severity of that threat, and if she acted rashly, it wouldn't just be her own life at stake—the potential for catastrophic collateral damage was enormous.
And so, she'd intended to play the part of Filiore Lugunica, stay vigilant, and look for an opening against Aldebaran's group. Annoying as it was, she would go along with Roy's strategy. Of course, she'd planned to outmaneuver him in turn.
But Felt's resolve was forced to change course before long.
"...Felt!!"
Released from the sealed space, steel cold against her neck, Felt poured every ounce of focus into assessing the situation. First priority: playing the part of Filiore to prevent the "insurance"—the threat that could activate regardless of whether Roy was watching. Beyond that, she needed to find an opportunity to shake up every last member of Aldebaran's group present.
All of these preparations threatened to crack the instant a familiar voice called her name.
"...!"
Restrained in a full nelson, she barely managed to raise her face and saw.
Deep in the battlefield, the one who had shouted Felt's name with such urgency was the old man she'd been missing after just two or three short days—
Not Rom's eyes, though. The pale blue eyes of the girl perched on his shoulder.
—In that instant, a torrent of information flooded into Felt's mind with terrifying force.
"—Nn..."
Behind those blinking red eyes, a maelstrom of data churned without rest.
It seemed to be the middle of battle. Aldebaran and Yae were gone. The "Divine Dragon" was absent. Only Roy and Heinkel remained on the battlefield—total warfare, divide-and-ambush tactics, and commanding it all was her Rom, as expected. Reinhard was still handling the
Having swum through the merciless flood of information, Felt raised her voice—this was the best call.
Trembling at the threat of the "insurance" and continuing the Filiore act wouldn't help if Roy, cornered in combat, decided to break his promise to change the situation. He was a Sin Archbishop, after all. Trusting that he'd always keep his word was the real mistake.
Besides, Roy had been lying from the very start. The notion that he and Felt would conspire to escape while Aldebaran's group was off guard was a complete fabrication. From the beginning, Roy had been thinking of nothing but devouring everyone—Felt, Aldebaran, Yae,
So— "—Get out from behind my shadow, you bastard!!"
There was no hesitation, no second-guessing in outmaneuvering Roy.
The only thing that had given her pause was the fear that she couldn't handle the "insurance." But that fear was dispelled by the lineup present—especially Rom's existence.
—If Rom was here, nothing was impossible.
The hope that so many in this world placed in the "Sword Saint"
And therefore— "—The
Even as a horrifying torrent of "death" poured forth from her own shadow, not a shred of fear existed in Felt's eyes, in her heart.
△▼△▼△▼△ —Dear God, dear Buddha, dear Od Laguna. I vow never to watch anyone die for as long as I live.
△▼△▼△▼△ —One of the Three Great Mabeasts, the Plague Mabeast known as the Black Serpent.
By and large, the defining trait of mabeasts as a species was their capacity to harm humanity. But among them, the Three Great Mabeasts stood apart for a simple reason: their nature made the resulting devastation simply too vast.
—The
—The
The terror of these two, both called Three Great Mabeasts alongside the Black Serpent, went without saying. But even compared to the White Whale and the Great Rabbit, the Black Serpent's existence was alien and grotesque.
As stated before, the Three Great Mabeasts were beings whose devastation dwarfed all other mabeasts. —If one followed that definition strictly, the Black Serpent was not one of the Three Great Mabeasts. It should have been called a single, supreme Great Mabeast.
After all, the lives the Black Serpent had taken—annihilating a great nation and reducing the five great nations to four—far surpassed what the White Whale and Great Rabbit had claimed combined.
"—Uwah!?!"
Upon being informed of the Black Serpent's appearance, Rom cried out in shock at what he saw a heartbeat later.
What erupted from the shadow at Felt's feet was a mass of miasma so dense and concentrated that its true form was nearly visible—looking exactly like the shadow itself rearing its head, it was an embodiment of instinctive "death" that any living creature would recognize as evil beyond compare.
And yet— "Oi, oi—what's with those eyes...!?"
Despite the overwhelming presence of a terrifying mabeast mere meters away, Felt's gaze held not fear but unwavering trust, and this made Rom's old heart boil.
It was a luxury for a geezer—overriding the survival instinct that said to preserve one's own life, wanting desperately to meet that trust.
"Petra!"
"Yes!"
In the instant the girl answered, her body sprang up and leaped from Rom's shoulder. Rom clicked his jaw at the quick-witted girl's judgment, then faced forward—and "Compression" activated.
"—!"
A sensation as though the world was being left behind entirely sent a tremor through Rom's soul.
If this power had been available in the countless battles Barga Cromwell had been involved with until now, the tactics, the outcomes, even history itself would have been utterly transformed.
Seeing the power of an Authority, feeling the proximity of a Witch Factor—it was impossible not to recall such "what-ifs." Perhaps that very temptation was why those chosen by the Witch Factor became enthralled by power, drowned in a sense of omnipotence, lost their footing, and fell into wretched existence.
And that— "—Nn."
Petra clenched her back teeth, enduring with a brave heart.
Though for a short time, the Witch Factor was undoubtedly placing tremendous strain on her. He wanted to release her from it immediately, yet reality forced the opposite—demanding she wield the power. Rom was also infuriated to realize he was nothing more than one part of that cruel reality.
And precisely because he was forcing this on her—at the very least, he would bring back the best possible result.
"Thunder Eight, warrior. Flower Eight, soldier."
The sensation of his thoughts detonating and the words his thick lips wove were one and the same.
Following Rom's command, Petra made her decision and, using Compression, pulled Flam, Gracis, and Gaston back and flung them to the rear of the battlefield.
In their place, Rom—having leaped forward the same distance—tore Felt free from Heinkel's full nelson by force and attempted to break away once more.
But— "That's just mean! We agreed to run away together, didn't we?"
In the same instant, a voice thick with cloying unpleasantness overlapped with the sickening sound of flesh being pierced.
The burning pain that followed a beat later made Rom groan, and the spearhand jammed into his right flank met the blood-red grin of its owner, Roy.
Roy—supposedly devastated by the combined assault from
"You bastard—Old Man Rom—..."
"I warned you, didn't I? These guys don't listen to what we say either, you know!"
Snarling at the bristling Felt, Roy jerked his chin to indicate what lay behind him.
A massive geyser of black filth—every living being could instinctively feel with their soul that merely looking at it, let alone touching it, could devour one's life.
It wasn't a bluff or a bluster. The ominous legend known as the "Black Serpent" was truly there.
"—Nngh!"
Gritting his teeth against the pain of his pierced flank, Rom's mind burned white-hot.
Attempting to handle it here would be the worst of the worst strategies. Above all else, they had to escape beyond the Black Serpent's range of influence. But Roy would naturally try to stop them, making a Compression escape difficult. Did Roy have a way to avoid the Black Serpent's miasma, or was this a mutual destruction gambit? He needed to squeeze out the optimal countermeasure—squeeze it out, squeeze it out, squeeze it out— "—Protect the daughter of Fold!"
Why this conclusion emerged from the boiling endpoint of his thoughts, even Rom didn't know. But the entire thought process leading to it had been compressed to its absolute limit, and the result was a shout.
In response to that blood-tinged cry, one man reacted.
"Uhh, aaaagh—!"
Trembling, the owner of that fearful voice reflexively flashed his sword, slashing diagonally to cut the Roy who had been lunging at Rom's massive body, sending him flying.
The silver flash was so sharp it startled even the one who'd swung it. For Felt, who was saved by it, the impact was like heaven itself crashing down.
"You..."
"—!"
Staring wide-eyed at Felt, Heinkel's jaw clenched, and his hand extended. It pushed not toward Felt, but toward Rom's massive body—the one who had drawn Felt close. The unexpected, forceful shove sent Rom's body hurtling.
And before the eyes of the sent flying Rom and Felt— "Lady Filiore, I—"
How could anyone describe that expression, a tangle of confusion, regret, and love mixed with hatred? What feelings were the words from those lips, twisted into something incomprehensibly complex, trying to convey?
Nothing was known. —Before that answer could take form,
"—!"
Under a deluge of corruption like a waterfall, the ground died, stained in ominous black.
Trees withered, grass rotted, water muddied and foamed. Where the Black Serpent's corruption had touched, not a trace of life's color remained—everything was consumed, uniformly killed.
Naturally, Heinkel—head drenched in the corruption—was no exception.
"You—idiot!"
"Ahh, what a waste!"
Watching this, Felt and Roy—ironically—voiced identical reactions of frustration.
But Rom, the other party involved, had no right to lament. He was aware that Heinkel's desperate act had been sparked by his own cry.
And regardless of that awareness, Roy's appetite immediately shifted gears.
"Lady Filiore Lugun—"
"Wind Two, Hunter!"
As lethal corruption geysered like a spring, Rom's voice drowned out Roy's prioritizing of his hunger.
Twisting his body to distance Felt from the lunging small figure, Rom sent a different order to his clever partner—not to escape, but to break through the situation.
"——!!"
"I can't hold that thing back either, y'know!"
Summoned by his order, the massive, monstrous beast with Meili clinging to it appeared.
Roaring defiance and desperate grumbling overlapped as the beast's claws caught Roy head-on, and the Mabeast Tamer pointed at the coalesced mass of corruption, tensed her abdomen, and bellowed: "Sit DOWN!"
Meili's thunderous command slammed an irresistible impulse into the mabeast.
In an instant, the corruption—crawling along the ground, following the shadows, branching out—stumbled. And in that opening, Rom and the others leaped past the beast, escaping the Black Serpent's reach. As they cleared it, breathing resumed, and turning their heads, they finally caught sight of the Black Serpent's full form—speechless.
"—!"
It was no mabeast, no cute living thing. It was a phenomenon called "death."
The filth that had overflowed from the forest's shadows condensed, taking the outline of a serpentine body. But that outline was neither flesh nor scale—it was merely countless plague nodes happening to form that shape.
The scale-like swellings covering its serpentine body bulged and burst, scattering black droplets like pus. Each droplet silently rotted whatever it touched. At what could barely be called the head, that outline's tip split open like a petal, and countless threadlike protrusions writhed—like a tongue, like tentacles, or like a swarm of parasites.
It was, indeed, a being worthy of the name "Worst Mabeast"—an entity that sounded the alarm for all life.
If the White Whale devoured history from the skies, and the Great Rabbit devoured the works of the living on the ground, then the Black Serpent was the calamity of annihilation itself—it sickened the world and rotted it to the core.
"You've got that riiight—!"
Roy clapped his praise, his voice ringing out over the trembling Rom's field of vision, across the land contaminated by the Black Serpent's corruption.
Simultaneously, the towering mabeast—its tail raised high—spewed blood from every part of its body as a palm strike from below sent it flying high into the air.
"Lion-chan—!"
Meili screamed and reached out, but there was nothing she could do.
The mabeast that had been blasted away—Guilty Lau—spun through the air and fell helplessly onto the Black Serpent's corrupted ground. Its massive body was licked by the evil tongue, and corruption devoured it at a terrifying pace. As its pitiful death throes echoed behind them, Roy stood at the center of the corruption. —However, Roy had used his own blood to form crab-like legs, keeping himself elevated off the ground.
"Don't cry, Meili. That one's going to be reborn, just like this."
With a snap of his fingers, the corruption-devoured, blackened mass that had been Guilty Lau swelled—and the mabeast's form transformed into countless rainbow-colored butterflies.
Butterflies of all sizes danced and fluttered, and amidst the Black Serpent's oppressive miasma, Roy grinned with wicked delight.
"Felt, that guy—did he actually—"
"He said he couldn't control the Black Serpent well on his own, but he managed to smuggle it into my shadow with conditions attached. Not exactly making me want to trust him at face value."
"How sad! You don't trust us, so you go and betray us? Trying to deceive a Sin Archbishop—how underhanded. Doesn't the royal blood in your veins weep?"
"Sorry, but my blood's made of slum water and bread. I don't need the kind of tearful sensitivity that cries about who my parents were, y'know?"
Facing Roy's taunts with a brave retort, Felt's gaze briefly shifted to where Heinkel had been swallowed by the coiling Black Serpent's corruption. After witnessing Guilty Lau's fate moments before, imagining Heinkel's end wasn't difficult.
For Rom, and for everyone in their camp, Heinkel hadn't been a man who inspired good impressions. But he was Reinhard's father. As a hostage, Felt had probably spoken with him at some point.
To have his end be food for the Black Serpent—that was far too cruel a retribution.
"—Ur Goa!!"
A savage cry burned away that sentiment.
Something blazed over Rom's head, illuminating the forest with brilliant light as it hurtled toward the Black Serpent. The collision sent the corruption shuddering violently amid explosive flame, and the wave of heat-borne stench confronted them with harsh reality.
The one who had slammed this merciless attack into the Black Serpent was a newly arrived combatant— "Oi, Felt! If you made it back safe, give the order! That's your job!"
Lachins, who had thrown in a flashy introductory blow, shouted the rallying cry.
He'd clearly pushed himself hard—despite having just entered the battle, he was already panting. But his provocation worked wonders. Felt's eyes widened slightly, then quickly hardened with resolve— "Rom. Let me win this one."
"...You're asking for a lot, lass."
"I wouldn't ask if it were impossible."
"I didn't say it was impossible. I said you were asking for a lot. There's a difference."
With a wounded flank, he probably couldn't move nimbly. He needed to focus on what he could do. The blood had drained from his head enough for cool thinking to return.
If Felt's hand were to touch Gluttony—the name Filiore Lugunica would trigger who knew what. —Rom knew the answer, so he suppressed the sentimentality and began to run calculations.
Noticing the resolve in Rom's manner, Felt slapped both her cheeks— "Then, the order you wanted. —Let's go, you lot!!"
"Ohhhh—!!"
To Felt's bold rallying cry, voices rose from Lachins, Gaston, and the rest.
Rom felt a swell of pride at his comrades—facing a Sin Archbishop and the Black Serpent, threats worthy of the name, and instead of cowering, their morale was rising. He slapped his own cheeks.
"Ahh—"
Roy, wrapped in the hostile gazes directed at him, cradled his own body— "I can't take it anymore! —I love every single one of you so, so much!"
△▼△▼△▼△ —Dear God, dear Buddha, dear Od Laguna. I vow never to hold anyone's hand for as long as I live.
△▼△▼△▼△ I want to devour you with joy. I want to devour you with gratitude. I want to devour you with love.
Not with anger, not with sadness, not with fear, not with hostility, not with anxiety, not with disgust, not with hatred, not with resentment, not with lamentation, not with mockery, not with contempt, not with cursing, not with malice—but with love, I want to devour you.
—From the bottom of his heart,
"But there are so many obstacles in the way."
Stripping off his tattered clothes and baring his wounded skin to the wind, Roy licked his lips.
The misfiring of "Eclipse," plus the damage from Ram and the others' welcome party, had been enormous. The composure he projected was a facade—he had no real room to breathe. Massive blood loss was being managed with "Blood Tear Demon" magic, and the mabeasts and forest creatures killed by the Black Serpent's corruption were being recycled into rainbow butterflies via the "Rainbow Phantom Duke." But under the curse mark of Aldebaran, Roy didn't even have the freedom to flee the battlefield.
Even so, with such a feast before him, the thought of running never even crossed Roy's mind.
"We're not like Lye of 'Gourmet.'"
Lye, who was picky about what he ate and chose his targets, was particular about the setting. That much was true—he would use escape or patience as a spice when necessary. But Roy was different. Being indiscriminate meant he felt an appetite toward every target equally.
In other words, Roy Alphard wanted to devour every human being in existence.
So fleeing was out of the question. If he missed someone and never got another chance, the bib he'd drench with regretful drool would need to be replaced countless times over.
"The problem for us is that this setup is a bit troublesome."
He'd missed the chance to devour Ram—"Ram," or "Ram Meizus."
The name change—that much was certain. But if even the most recent memories from her family couldn't be relied on, then the candidates for her changed true name were infinite—and chances were, it wasn't just Ram. Every frontline member had likely undergone the same preparation.
"'
She'd announced that name so loudly, and now it seemed like a massive trap.
That meant the only person Roy could realistically reach on this battlefield was almost certainly Felt, who was Filiore Lugunica—but even that was far from certain.
If by some chance Felt's hit also missed and triggered the "Eclipse" vomiting reflex—Roy would be finished for good this time.
And so, with a heart twisted in anguish, Roy made a decision unbecoming of "Gluttony"— "—Devouring is postponed for now."
Right this moment, identifying the true names of this feast and devouring them one by one was impossible.
To consume them all, the priority here was to prepare preserved food. Fortunately, the Black Serpent—the one head that served him—was perfect for that. —Ideally, he would have manifested the Black Serpent somewhere with far more people, but that too was part of why Felt's betrayal had come at such exquisitely bad timing.
"But that's what makes it—delicious! The effort! Is! Worth! It!"
Dying from blood loss, severely damaged, hungry on top of hungry, experiencing maximum starvation—"Gluttony" at full power.
He pressed his palms together and drew everything—from the edges of his vision to the center—into a single convergence.
Trees with deep root systems were snapped like twigs. The ground, packed firm by nature, was torn open by "Squeezer's" power as he cut off the escape routes of prey that had retreated to safety.
"Gaston! Doltero!"
The two large men threw their combined might against the establishment of that impenetrable earthen wall. The contest lasted a moment—the resistance to compression rebounded against his clasped hands, which were forced open. Before Roy's eyes, flames swirled.
"Lachins! Maid big sister!"
A sanpaku-eyed fireball combined with the wind generated by Ram, and what was born was a fire tornado. Roy consumed three of the dancing butterflies and met it with "Spellweaver's" water lance.
The butterflies that had emerged from residual mana in the corpses were destructive even individually, but they could also be converted into external mana tanks for magic. Roy—who wanted to maintain "Flow Arts" on his critically wounded body using his own mana—had an auto-summoned reinforcement that multiplied every time the Black Serpent killed.
"Flam! Gracis!"
The fire tornado and an iceberg collided, and a blast of steam like a shockwave engulfed their vision.
White sky, black ground—the world repainted in two colors—pierced through by the twins' savage onslaught, which ignored Roy's desire to catch his breath.
With the tough hide of a "Carnivore," he deliberately absorbed their combined assault, then returned the favor with "Fist King" in his right hand and "Snow Eater" in his left, smashing both twins into the corruption-spreading ground.
But just before the lethal evil tongue swallowed the twins, the bone spear of the Starving Horse King scooped them up, extracting them from fatal range. A second bone spear was launched, and the "Tragic Balladeer's" singing shattered it along with the attacker's arm. With so little to show for it, Roy's stomach churned with the gnawing of starvation.
Then— "BIIIIIIG Waaaaaaave!!"
Behind Roy, the Black Serpent had reared its body high toward the sky, and now slowly toppled forward—like a falling tree—toward the gathered prey.
Touch it and it was over. A mass of annihilating intent so absolute that even "killing intent" was an understatement—its hunting was, to put it bluntly, crude and artless, the behavior of a born conqueror. Its mere mass was enough to kill; nothing further was needed.
And it came crashing down without mercy, directly onto Felt and the others— "—Harder!"
"Live—!!"
A unified roar became power, and the Black Serpent's corruption that should have avalanche-crashed into the ground was pushed back.
The strength crew tore up the earth, the magic crew reinforced it into a shield, the technique crew launched it to receive the Black Serpent, and the shield bought a single second before dissolving—time enough to disengage.
Every single person, acting with an impossible synergy and optimal decision-making— "—!"
Bold, brave—what fortitude.
Facing the Black Serpent that spread lethal threats, fighting alongside Roy who turned the presence of every powerful enemy (friend) they'd faced until now into power, they stepped forward without hesitation. Their spirit was inexplicable.
"Normally people would panic or be shocked or terrified!"
Roy screamed at their actions, which had bypassed confusion, shock, and horror—all the impacts they should have felt.
A bond deeper than family or lovers, extreme to the point of abnormal resolve and nerve. Without question, they had been forged. —Every last one of them, an incredibly elaborate single dish.
The moment he thought this, his heart leaped at the realization that in this colorful, varied lineup, there was no appetizer, no side, no main course. Each was an equally precious and profound one-of-a-kind.
As his eyes gleamed with that excitement, Felt—who had rolled out from the smoke—raised her middle finger at him. Baring her sharp fangs: "Stop drooling, you crazy bastard!"
"You're all so lovely it's killing me!"
His love deepened for Felt, at the core, issuing commands for her comrades' movements.
At first he'd been angry that his expectations were being defied, but now he was grateful for the betrayal. To be treated to such a magnificent performance, he needed to return the favor or the title of Sin Archbishop would mean nothing.
"—!"
Glancing over, the Black Serpent's movements were sluggish.
The Black Serpent was a mabeast that used monotonous movement to gradually erode territory, spreading corruption without gaps to maximize damage. Its hunting performance was never high to begin with. It being only one head meant it wasn't at full strength, sure, but even so, its sluggishness was— "Sit... still..."
With her thin arms wrapped around the Starving Horse King, Meili hindered the Black Serpent's movement in a trembling voice.
The girl's eyes were bloodshot red—she had overexerted her blessing, burning blood in its reaction, enduring the sensation of being scorched in soul.
But her "Blessing of Magical Manipulation" was interfering with even one of the Three Great Mabeasts, the Black Serpent. —Honestly, even accounting for that, the Black Serpent's sluggishness seemed significant.
"What a shame! I'll just—supplement—this side then!"
Rather than praising the sealed Black Serpent, Roy praised the one doing the sealing. He pressed palms together—the earth surged, and rainbow butterflies shattered it, scattering corruption like shrapnel.
Deathly corruption—one touch meant game over. If the Black Serpent itself was sluggish, then spreading it was his job. Detonating again and again, the black was dispersed across a wide area.
"Hahaha, hahahaha, hahahahaha!"
Naturally, Roy in the blast zone would be in mortal danger if hit by the corruption. So he coated himself in blood armor, maintaining a perfect posture to avoid the scattering filth.
No one could dodge the rain—save for a few exceptions. And every person on the feast platter was surely no exception, meaning the Black Serpent's corruption bombs would paint the battlefield black without mercy. The prey could only protect each other so much. Ideally, Meili would be incapacitated—but "Hah?"
A vacant sound escaped Roy's throat as he removed his blood face guard.
In his line of sight, amid the forest being corroded by the scattered corruption, there was a pocket of untouched space—the gathered feast members, standing back to back, had blocked every shard of the deadly shrapnel.
"Not happening."
The defenseless rainbow butterfly scales—scattered by the thrashing earth—were intercepted.
"Not happening."
The compression that would have crushed everything from the edges of his vision to the center was stopped at the outset, its activation disrupted.
"I said not happening."
The piercing song aimed to pin them down was drowned out by the explosion of wind and flame.
"Not happening, I said, and it's precisely because it's not—"
He turned the "Stomach of the Soul" inside out, unleashing every card he could grasp without holding back, and the beings feared for their very existence—the reason-defying ones—with their power, induced cataclysm after cataclysm.
But the Aldebaran Busters, centered on Felt, countered every single one with precision, coordinating as if every member was a single living organism, responding with optimal action.
—Something was wrong.
"—!"
Without pause, Roy unleashed attacks that scraped at the world and reason itself, even as questions formed.
No matter what, something was wrong. They were brave, yes. They trusted each other. They shared a single purpose. They were capable and competent. They were strong.
—Even so, something was wrong.
Humans couldn't optimize their actions to this degree.
And yet, against every attack, Felt and the others kept playing the most effective card from their hand at the perfect timing.
Roy knew this feeling. Aldebaran, whom he'd fought in the Prison Tower.
Aldebaran had unsealed Roy's imprisonment and, to demonstrate the gap in power, beaten him senseless. The inexplicable sensation of being completely overwhelmed with no means of fighting back—it was the same as that. Close, but different. That was Aldebaran's individual abnormality. But this was the entire enemy's abnormality.
—Something was clearly wrong.
"—Ah, I misread you."
Beyond ordinary—extraordinary. Beyond reason—irrational. Beyond argument—inconceivable.
Confronted with these anomalous phenomena, his empty stomach nearly filled with questions, Roy arrived at a fact so obvious he mocked himself.
With the rallying cries and all, he'd been convinced the enemy's core was Felt.
Even Roy's own train of thought was part of their strategy. He'd sensed that the true center wasn't Felt but the mastermind hiding behind her, and he'd shifted his gaze.
In that instant, that mastermind blinked once— △▼△▼△▼△ —Dear God, dear Buddha, dear Od Laguna. I vow never to wish for reconciliation with anyone for as long as I live.
—Dear God, dear Buddha, dear Od Laguna. I vow never to get angry on anyone's behalf for as long as I live.
—Dear God, dear Buddha, dear Od Laguna. I vow never to reveal anyone's secrets for as long as I live.
—Dear God, dear Buddha, dear Od Laguna. I vow never to show anyone my weakness for as long as I live.
—Dear God, dear Buddha, dear Od Laguna. I vow never to watch the sunrise with anyone for as long as I live.
△▼△▼△▼△ "—Could it be... you finally noticed?"
The "Melancholy Witch" who had compressed both the thinking process of every ally on the battlefield and the discussions needed to share that process, responded with one eye closed in a wink.