"—Domain Expansion, Matrix Redefinition."
Adapting to changes in the situation, he carves the world forward—second by second, instant by instant, heartbeat by heartbeat.
For Aldebaran's Authority, which could not rewind time by any great measure, this was a gamble that both pulled victory firmly within reach and risked letting it slip through his fingers decisively.
"—Domain Expansion, Matrix Redefinition."
Step by step, move by move, action by action—he verified, confirmed, and tightened his grip on the board.
That the supreme warriors could accumulate this within a ceaselessly advancing river of time, within a world of unending single-shot gambles—it was, truly, beyond imagination.
"—Domain Expansion, Matrix Redefinition."
Not just warriors, but the supreme strategists as well—they were the same in terms of thinking power that transcended dimensions.
If anything, perhaps even more monstrous, for they built the progression of the world entirely within their heads, without practical experience, never knowing the scent of real blood or the sting of real wounds.
In any case— "—Domain Expansion, Matrix Redefinition."
They had every right to trample upon the refinement of warriors and the deliberation of strategists, to ignore the logic that you could not simultaneously witness the outcomes of two choices, to curse and despise and loathe Aldebaran's way of snatching away nothing but victory.
He would let those malicious words cut him to pieces all he liked. In exchange— "—Domain Expansion, Matrix Redefinition."
He would absolutely steal away nothing less than victory with this filthy method.
* * * "...I wish you had at least the charm of a pig begging for slop."
The swine-faced words, spun in a low, growling voice—the "Pig King" Durtelo Amur's joke was thinner than the heavy despair he had radiated until now.
That was only natural. His entire body was riddled with lacerations from steel wire, and he was hemorrhaging from countless wounds. Rather, the fact that he was still conscious and showed no trace of anguish on his face was far stranger.
"Having gone through all that, I can tell you're not afraid of dying. But even if death doesn't scare you, pain still hurts, doesn't it?"
"Don't you understand by saying it yourself? Death and pain both ultimately produce fear. Then all we need to swallow is the fear."
"...I don't get it."
Durtelo's logic equated the fear produced by death with the fear produced by pain. But according to Aldebaran, they were different things. The fear born from death and the fear born from pain were not the same.
Moreover, since pain was a stimulus directed at the body, it also seemed fundamentally different from fear.
"—. No matter what you say, it's just a pig squealing."
Before Aldebaran, foam flecking the corners of his mouth, Durtelo uttered those words.
Around the thick neck of the "Pig King," multiple layers of impossibly thin steel wire had wound tight, compressing his trachea. Durtelo had thrust his fingers into the noose to resist, but the two fingers that had sunk into his neck had lost their purpose, and the massive body, its blood cut off from the brain, finally dropped to its knees.
Surrounding Durtelo as he knelt were the fifty-five subordinates he had brought with him.
Taking on this "Pig King" while defeating the others one by one had been, without metaphor, a bone-crushing, flesh-tearing ordeal in which he had lost his life many times over. Twenty-three thousand and eight times, to be exact.
Among Aldebaran's hard-fought losses across a hundred battles, this volume of attempts ranked among the very top.
This was partly because the "Pig King" and his "Black Silver" subordinates had launched an impeccably coordinated assault, but above all, it was due to Aldebaran's own lack of talent.
The steel wire wrapped around Durtelo's neck—it had not extended from Yae's hand, but from Aldebaran's, after he had borrowed the ring from her.
Manipulating a single strand of wire, he had tightened his grip on Durtelo's ferocious assault move by move, looped the thread around his neck, and managed to bundle together enough of it to compress that massive throat. In this unforgiving domain, it had taken over twenty thousand iterations to master the art of steel wire from scratch and become proficient with it.
"————"
With a heavy thud of a fist slamming into the earth, Durtelo's consciousness slipped away entirely.
Even so, the "Pig King" who had reigned over the underworld did not let his body topple sideways—propping his massive frame on the fist pressed against the ground, he proved that his pride would not break.
Enemy or not, it was a posture that demanded respect.
"Ahh, Lord Al, you're incredible! Back in the village, I boasted that no one but me had mastered it, but now isn't that just completely embarrassing~?"
Speaking words like these while gasping for breath was Yae—who had hoisted into the air every enemy except Durtelo. She stood beside the panting Aldebaran.
Her narrowed, cat-like eyes were fixed on the steel wire technique Aldebaran had used to bind Durtelo. That said, he couldn't accept her admiration at face value.
"You've gotta be kidding. With one finger, every muscle from the top of my head to my toes is cramping up. And you're doing this with all ten fingers? You may look slender, but are you secretly built like a bodybuilder?"
"Ehh? Lord Al, are you curious about what's under my uniform~? I've offered you that chance so many times, but you turned down every single one, you meanie~"
"...Lend me the ring a little longer."
Responding to Yae's teasing provocation, Aldebaran ran his finger over the ring on his right hand's ring finger. He had tried various placements, but the ring finger felt most natural.
Honestly, there was some resistance to wearing a ring on that particular finger, but he had lost his left arm long ago. Such girlish sentiments had no place on the battlefield.
In any case— "Old man, you okay? Sorry I couldn't spare any attention to your side."
"I—no, that's fine. I'm alright."
Heinzel nodded, stumbling over his words, as Aldebaran checked on him.
During the fight with Durtelo, Heinzel had been, frankly speaking, a dysfunctional deadweight. However, he had contributed by knocking unconscious the men Yae had bound, and by smashing the "Dialogue Mirror" used for reconnaissance—so Aldebaran acknowledged that he had done his share of the work.
As expected, against opponents of a certain caliber—not just Durtelo, but someone like
Everyone had someone they simply could not bear to face.
For Yae, that someone was Aldebaran—and as for Aldebaran, well, that was beside the point.
"...Aldebaran, what the hell is going on with you?"
"Hmm?"
"You didn't stand a chance against that pig-man. Technique, power—everything was above you. And yet, in the end, you won. Not only that, you came out nearly unscathed, completely dominant."
"————"
Heinzel spoke with the eyes of someone beholding something dreadful.
Listening to Heinzel's words, Aldebaran revised his assessment—this was a man who observed more keenly than people gave him credit for.
Having watched from the sidelines, Heinzel would have found Aldebaran's otherness all the more striking.
Aldebaran had not grown stronger, nor did he have a natural advantage against Durtelo. If anything, it looked as though he had stacked a hundred lucky guesses on top of each other to win.
"—He's a monster."
That was why Yae's attitude—stating it bluntly and asking nothing further—was almost refreshing.
She answered Heinzel in Aldebaran's place, and neither fear nor dread showed on her face. In Yae's mind, her impression of Aldebaran had already been settled.
"Lord Al is a monster. We're the ones who travel alongside a monster."
"...I know plenty of people who seem like monsters. But this guy is—"
"There's a difference between people who seem like monsters and actual monsters. Don't go lumping them together, okay~?"
Her tone was measured, her expression a smile, yet utterly beyond argument.
Heinzel, overwhelmed by the outwardly gentle ferocity of Yae's manner, found himself unable to say another word.
"Whether I'm a monster or not, we're keeping the same plan going forward. Yae keeps the numbers down, and I take out the strong ones. Old man, follow my lead and handle the mirrors."
"R-right, got it."
"Yessir~ Whatever Lord Al commands~"
As Heinzel nodded meekly, Yae raised both arms in a cheer, her fingertips dancing nimbly to manipulate steel wire. The threads obeyed her dexterous movements, coiling around the unconscious Durtelo, binding the limbs of the "Pig King" who had insisted on not falling, and hoisting him into the air like the rest.
Even knowing this was a safety measure in case Durtelo woke, it left a bitter taste. The same was true of Rachins, who had needed to be punched into unconsciousness.
"My head hurts..."
Honestly, he had underestimated
Everyone except Reinhard could be considered non-combatants, minus those from the east. And yet, there was still that old giant, plus Grasis and Gaston, and the real threat—Felt herself— "If you just released one of my shackles, Lord Al, I could be so much more useful to you?"
"————"
"I don't think I need to say it, but... I'm better at strangling than binding, you know."
Time and again, Yae would utter words that seemed designed to seduce Aldebaran for some reason, and her whisper struck his eardrums far more sweetly than any invitation to the bedroom.
Unlike Heinzel, whose abilities were hampered by psychological reasons, the only reason Yae could not display her true skills was because Aldebaran's ego demanded it.
If he removed that shackle, the densely wooded forest would instantly become Yae's domain. Even if the enemy numbered five hundred, it wouldn't take long to paint the green leaves red with blood.
Still, Yae was not complaining that she couldn't do it.
Following orders, no matter how unjust, was simply her nature.
That was why she whispered to Aldebaran like this— "—Thanks, but no. You're overstepping."
"Oh my."
She stuck out her tongue with a "bleh," showing no shock at having her proposal rejected.
It had never been a proposal she expected to be accepted. Surprisingly—or rather, not surprisingly at all from Yae's perspective, who wanted Aldebaran to achieve his goal—it seemed she had been trying to rouse him.
Thanks to that sweet temptation, Aldebaran recovered some of his depleted resolve.
"We could cut through the south side of the forest, but considering what comes after, that's off the table. Sorry, but Felt and the others are going to lose here."
"Understood. Then, as planned?"
The atmosphere of their previous exchange evaporating, Yae tilted her head, and Aldebaran nodded.
Then, picturing Felt and the old giant scheming to win on the other side of the forest, he murmured quietly: "You're strong, all of you. It's just—your luck was bad."
* * * —Receiving word that the third "Dialogue Mirror" had been shattered, Old Man
"As I thought, they've done more than merely see through our strategy."
He removed the spent "Dialogue Mirror"—its paired counterpart destroyed, now useless—from the gauntlet and tossed it aside, then contemplated the optimal course of action for the helmeted one: identifying the mirror-bearer at a glance and denying them any gathered intelligence.
Rachins had fallen. Even Durtelo, who had rushed to the scene, had been defeated.
He had predicted the possibility, but to learn that the "Pig King" had been bested was, for Old Man Rom who had known the man for a long time, a surprise he could not suppress.
"Born a decade earlier, he might have left his name in the history books during the Demihuman War."
Durtelo himself would probably laugh at the exaggeration, but within Rom, this was a fair assessment.
That said, the Demihuman War had not been so close that Durtelo alone could have tipped its balance. Even if his name were to appear in the history books, it would most likely have been as one more who fell to the "Sword Devil" or the "Sword Saint" of that era.
In any case, Durtelo had been defeated. If so, was the opponent on the level of the "Sword Devil"?
"No, that can't be."
Rom shook his broad head and dismissed that pessimistic thought.
Honestly, for Rom, the "Sword Devil" was a kind of trauma. Against the "Sword Devil," even if a thousand of them faced one of him, there was absolutely no sign of victory.
This was not to say the "Sword Devil" was the strongest on earth—it was about the caliber that made people believe so.
Even if they weren't actually that strong, there existed those whose bearing made it impossible for their opponents to believe they could win.
Felt, too—neither in martial prowess nor in intellect, she seemed capable of matching the titans of the underworld head-on. And yet, they still looked to her as their queen.
That was what you called an unshakable "caliber." And it was something the helmeted one lacked.
Frankly speaking, there was no fear. And you could say that fed into his unknowable nature.
"It will be necessary to extinguish that unknowable quality one piece at a time. —Fire!"
At Rom's command, roughly twenty soldiers remaining at his side sprang into action.
They ignited the fire magic ore and launched the contents of the tube—a mana cannon, portable and, once cooled, reusable, a precious tool. But the magic stone they fired was even more precious still.
It was— "—Night Sweeper."
Immediately after, white light slashed through the battlefield's sky like lightning, and the clouds parted in an instant. The blue sky revealed beyond chased away the encroaching dusk, rewriting the hour. No—that was not quite right. The effect of "Night Sweeper" was merely a reproduction of daytime.
If fired at night, it would rewrite the night sky and reproduce a daytime sky there. If it reproduced a clear sky on a rainy day, it could create the bizarre spectacle of rain dripping from a cloudless expanse.
Originally, "Night Sweeper" was used to dispel the chaos of night descending upon a battlefield, but this particular magic stone held a different effect that most were unaware of.
It was the power to overwrite reality with illusion, just as it rewrote night into day and Moon Period into Sun Period.
In other words— "—If you've been watching us from the sky, your eyes are useless now."
Prepared for the eventuality that night would fall and the battle would drag on, Rom had readied the "Night Sweeper" magic stone.
Judging this a rare stroke of fortune, Rom countered the helmeted one's possible moves—cutting off the surveillance of the Eye of Heaven.
However— *'Six, I found the helmeted one! I'm going to—Uwoah!?'* From the mirror-bearer assigned as Number Six, a report came through—followed immediately by silence. From this, Rom confirmed that the helmeted one had shattered the fourth "Dialogue Mirror" and that the Eye of Heaven had been lost.
Still, there was no disappointment. He had always estimated the Eye of Heaven's usefulness as low.
Against the helmeted one's optimal course of action, Rom's first gambit had been to rotate mirror-bearers at regular intervals and transmit the next move through text on the mirror's surface.
But the helmeted one had adapted, taking out two consecutive mirror-bearers from the start.
Even if the enemy observed their movements from above, it would be impossible to respond in time.
So what remained was— "Either a Great Spirit unknown to me, a powerful divine blessing, or the ability to see into the opponent's head. Or else, what's being seen isn't the contents of the head at all—"
Listing the possibilities in order, he devised a plan to eliminate them one by one.
Given the helmeted one's behavior, a Great Spirit seemed unlikely. A spirit's forte was magic, and there was no trace of the helmeted one borrowing a spirit's power to break through the situation. Even if it were a Yin- or Yang-aspected spirit, their magical augmentation would be harder to detect compared to other elements—but such spirits were exceedingly rare.
The possibility of allies was not zero, but— "Low priority. —Number Seven, advance east. Number Nine, advance southeast. Rush to Number Six's engagement zone. No—skip reinforcing Number Six. Instead, coordinate between the two units. Combine magic stones and stone-throwers, and by all means, force them to use two or more blessings."
A divine blessing could normally only inhabit one person.
Those who bore more than two blessings could be counted on one hand throughout history, and if both were usable, that number shrank further. It was absurd that such abnormally blessed individuals—the "Sword Saint" and the "Mad Prince"—existed in the current era, but the helmeted one very well could have been the third.
Therefore— "You learn an opponent's blessing by the way they bundle and stack difficulties, and how they untangle them. —I didn't earn my reputation as the man who killed more blessed individuals than anyone else in this world for nothing."
* * * From the moment of the sudden "Night Sweeper," Aldebaran sensed the situation deteriorating dramatically.
Deliberate inaction had begun mixing into the enemy's movements, making it a struggle even to identify the mirror-bearers. In other words, the order of magnitude of his trial-and-error attempts had shifted.
"They keep shuffling the mirror-bearers, so by the time I make contact, the one holding the mirror has changed...!"
Moreover, attacks that were not simply aimed at suppressing and killing Aldebaran's group, but rather seemed designed to test their reactions, had increased dramatically. Setting aside the intent behind them, Aldebaran struggled to deal with attacks that didn't directly threaten his life.
When an attack was clearly lethal, he crushed it without mercy and took steps to seal off that avenue without hesitation. But when the intent was unclear, or when the impact was minor, removing every one was like clearing pebbles from a road—the required actions became enormous.
"To put it in extreme terms, I'd have to redo everything even for a scratch."
Yet he couldn't ignore attacks with delayed effects, either—the kind where merely receiving them might force Aldebaran into a save. The result was that once suspicion set in, Aldebaran had to deal with every single attack, and the order of magnitude shifted once again.
"You really are something, you old coot."
* * * As the number of shattered mirrors accumulated, Rom grew increasingly alarmed by the rate of progress.
Thanks to advance notice from the leaders of each organization, the underworld's roughnecks followed Rom's orders with surprising obedience. Some would even fall without knowing the slightest thing about their role—yet not a single complaint escaped their lips as they went down. Rom had to tip his hat to that.
As a result, his own hand was thinning at a dangerous rate—but in return, the identity of the enemy's hidden cards was being steadily, reliably exposed.
"These are people with their resolve made. The relationship with
By using "Night Sweeper" to seal the Eye of Heaven, by altering the mana concentration across the area through successive waves of magic stone bombardment to create a space that intoxicated spirits, Rom had confirmed the absence of allied spirits. By questioning the efficacy of versatile blessings, by alternating between close-range and ranged attacks, physical and magical strikes, he had tested every blessing he knew of—limited to those whose performance could be verified using Reinhard as a benchmark—and eliminated ninety percent of the candidates that might fit the current situation.
"It's not like 'First Sight' or 'Second Coming.' If it's not 'Storm's Blessing' or 'Tiger's Den,' then there aren't many candidates left."
The remaining ten percent could, depending on use, serve a specialized purpose—but they were not the kind that could respond universally to a desperate situation. He filed them in the back of his mind and all but discarded them.
From here on, it was time to suspect not magic, not spirits, not blessings—but an Authority.
"To twist the logic of the world—such arrogance that transcends humanity, Helm."
* * * The flow of the wave attacks changed, the enemy's movements shifted again, and the worst possibility that had been festering in Aldebaran's mind proved correct—he gritted his teeth.
It seemed the old giant—Valga Cromwell—had noticed that Aldebaran was using his Authority, breaking through each approaching crisis by stacking countless Matrices.
The successive waves of attacks, the varied barrages that had come in quick succession—all of it was meant to narrow down how Aldebaran was escaping his overwhelming disadvantage.
He probably hadn't figured out that the existence of his domain and the Matrix Redefinition granted him a near-infinite number of trial-and-error attempts—hadn't pinned down the true nature of his Authority—but he was getting uncomfortably close.
The obvious possibilities like magic, blessings, and spirits had already been picked apart. Now they were entering the phase of suspecting an outrageous, unconventional Authority. And like Ezzo Kadner at the
Even so, even if they saw through it, pinning Aldebaran down would be difficult. Ezzo's decision to flood escape routes with water magic had been one kind of optimal solution, but replicating that in this much more open space would be nearly impossible.
Still, a faint premonition refused to fade from the depths of his chest, making Aldebaran hesitate about updating his Matrices in shorter intervals—and gradually, incrementally, increasing the difficulty of recovering from a single failure.
And why, of all people, was Valga Cromwell—who had been famous during the Demihuman War—alive, and moreover, cooperating with Felt? Valga was a notorious misanthrope, wasn't he the ruthless chief strategist who had orchestrated the deaths of thousands? His head was about to boil over with resentment at this incomprehensible pairing. Something was seriously off.
* * * By this point, the worst premonition had become virtually undeniable, and Rom braced himself against the nauseous sensation rising in his chest, running a hand over his bald head in a meaningless gesture.
He was now almost certain that the helmeted one was an Authority user—wielding an extraordinary power, neither blessing nor magic, that had once been controlled by a "
Moreover, as much as he hated to admit it, the helmeted one's Authority had been narrowed down to one of two possibilities: reading minds, or short-term precognition. At this point, however, he was leaning more toward future sight than telepathy.
Given that the enemy kept dodging all of their attacks, Rom figured that if someone were reading minds, it had to be his own—and he had devised a test.
He gave different orders to two separate units: the first was to pass through without attacking, while the second launched a full assault. The helmeted one, however, had initially ignored the first unit as he should have, then tried to engage it—and ended up in a pincer trap with the second unit. If he had been reading Rom's mind, or the mind of someone in the first unit, he had taken on unnecessary trouble.
At that point, it was confirmed that the helmeted one's Authority was not mind-reading. His true power was all but narrowed down to "precognition."
But being narrowed down was no cause for celebration. Sphinx had spoken of it with a straight face as the power to twist logic, but "precognition" was just too much. What could you even do against that? Something was seriously wrong.
* * * "—Anyone who can't use Flow Arts, fall back! But don't stop moving!!"
Bellowing in a booming voice, Gaston burst from the group and charged at the helmeted one.
Through the mirror-bearers, Gaston had already heard Rom's theory—that the helmeted one apparently knew what was going to happen a little in advance.
"Then even if you know, just fight through it!"
With a thunderous roar, Gaston shifted from a single decisive blow to a rapid flurry of strikes, cutting off the helmeted one's escape routes and prioritizing landing hits.
But against this barrage, the helmeted one drove his foot hard into the ground— "Smart move, Gaston. But here, it's the wrong call."
A wall of earth surged up to shield the helmeted one, and Gaston's throttled attacks were stopped by the earth barrier. Just as the helmeted one had said, it had backfired—and before Gaston could curse his luck, the helmeted one had already made the earthen wall an extension of his gauntlet, driving a fist into Gaston's forehead and sending him reeling backward.
Even as Gaston staggered, the helmeted one was already closing in for a follow-up.
"Come on!!"
Gaston launched a backward spinning kick toward the incoming presence.
The nimble, rotating kick mimicked the cat-like acrobatics Felt used when trying to escape Reinhard's grasp. No one would have expected such agility from Gaston's massive frame—a move he had perfected by landing a hit on the old Astrea household gardener during training— "I hit you, four times over."
With a nonsensical declaration, Gaston's kick cut through empty air.
A technique he had honed to the level of a finisher hadn't connected. But before he could even lament that, a strange sensation seized his body.
A crushing pressure, as if gripped by a giant's hand, and his right leg was hoisted upward. —Looking down, he saw it: an impossibly thin thread extending from the helmeted one's right hand, restraining him.
Not just his red-haired maid companion—the helmeted one could use it too.
"I've only got one strand. Though honestly, she's a genius, that one."
Hearing the helmeted one praise his partner in an oddly subdued voice, Gaston gritted his teeth.
His right leg was hoisted by the wire to head height. His supporting left foot was on its tiptoes, leaving him with no leverage. In this ludicrous pose, Gaston was completely immobilized.
And with Gaston neutralized, the helmeted one turned his back— "Old man, he's yours. I'm going to back up Yae."
With that, the helmeted one walked off as though Gaston's disposal was a foregone conclusion.
Stepping forward in his place was, as he'd heard, Reinhard's father. The same hair and eye color as Reinhard, yet the aura around him felt entirely different.
Most of all, Gaston hated the expression on his face—the look of someone following the helmeted one's orders with reluctance and resignation.
So— "—Don't you dare move carelessly... wha—?!"
Heinzel caught Gaston's fist against his hardened cheek, and in that instant, Gaston lunged at the helmeted one's retreating back. But his arm couldn't reach before his posture crumbled—the half-turned opponent dodged his body tackle, and Gaston flipped hard into the ground.
He had failed. —Forcing himself free of the wire, his torn ankle could no longer support his weight.
"With that leg of yours..."
"What the hell does one leg matter?! I'm fighting for my life here! Don't treat this like some game where you quit when it starts to hurt!"
"————"
"Most of all, what pisses me off is that you people are doing this against your will! You're picking fights with that attitude—the kind you can't even laugh off as admiration for a comrade's skill!"
As the helmeted one stood in silence, Gaston roared his fury and summoned every last ounce of strength to stand.
Blood still streamed from his right ankle, and in the gash, white bone was visible. But Gaston could stand because of the weight of what he carried on his shoulders.
Gaston had a woman he loved.
She was the one who had trembled, fearing that villains wielding the "Divine Dragon" might come, and he had held her, told her not to worry—and she had pushed him to go with Felt, even knowing it might mean his back would be the last she'd see.
Gaston had men he loved.
Friends who complained endlessly yet couldn't stop worrying about those around them. Wavering, spineless at their core, yet never running when it mattered—fellow sufferers bound by years of shared history. A mentor who dispensed tedious lectures but looked after everyone, insisting each had the potential to achieve greatness. A bad-luck companion who loved the girl reaching for her dreams and turned even a cursed past into strength.
Gaston had a man and a woman he admired.
A man so strong he could protect anything he wished to protect.
A woman so radiant that, wherever she was, you couldn't help but be drawn to her.
—Gaston had reason to fight with his head held high.
"Those of you who don't have that had no business stepping into the ring where someone's giving their all!!"
From the depths of his heart, Gaston roared, and once again charged at the helmeted one, deliberately planting his right foot.
Even if that step shattered his leg, tore it apart, and left him unable to walk ever again—fine. Even then, Gaston would find something he could do, and even then, his comrades would not abandon him. He knew that for certain. —Right now, he wanted to beat the helmeted one.
He launched himself, Gaston's massive body rising as he drove his left knee upward in a rising knee strike. Even if the earthen wall stopped it, he had the follow-up: both arms raised overhead, a twin hammer blow ready to fall.
Either way, he would smash that helmet obscuring the helmeted one's face— "—Honestly, that one landed."
Matching Gaston's charge and leap, the helmeted one had closed the distance as if he'd known it was coming.
Gaston's throat let out a faint groan, and an instant later, a fist sheathed in a stone gauntlet slammed into his face as he hung airborne, snapping his head backward.
"You piece of... crap..."
In the end, none of Gaston's attacks had connected. Yet the helmeted one said it had "landed"—whether as a joke or sarcasm, there was nothing funny about it at all.
With the blood loss from his foot compounding, Gaston's consciousness rapidly receded— "—Raaahhhh!!"
—And at the very end, at the edge of his fading vision, he saw white light erupt alongside a familiar, high-pitched voice.
* * * —That "
It was said that most of the "Meteors" in existence within this world had been crafted by a single "Witch" in the grip of curiosity and desire, as playthings. But the "Star Scepter" stood apart from the rest.
It was a crystallized wisdom that the "Witch" had invested serious effort into creating for a specific purpose—and that purpose, however trivial it might seem (silencing a mouthy "Dragon"), was backed by genuine power.
It absorbed the user's Mana, and the released force omitted all formulae—becoming the stellar radiance of al-Shario.
Of course, compared to al-Shario, the version capable of killing even a "Dragon," this was a mere flicker. Still, as power available to an individual, it was an extraordinary gift obtained without any training whatsoever.
Chased by the starlight that would not stop tracking until it hit its mark, Aldebaran deployed every defensive measure he could think of—but none allowed him to emerge unscathed.
This type of attack, one that cut off all escape routes, was also Aldebaran's nemesis. Therefore, weighed against his internal priorities, there was only one option.
"Sorry, Old Man."
Offering that apology, Aldebaran took Gaston's counterattack, and after Heinzel had been knocked flat on his rear, he raised the earth beneath him and used him as a shield between himself and the starlight.
Naturally, Heinzel, who had divined the intent, snarled "Aldeba—" with fury twisting his face—but in the next instant, the erupting white light struck the red-haired swordsman dead-on, and the impact that could silence a "Dragon" tore through his entire body.
"—Gu... oh... guwaaa..."
As a firsthand experience, Aldebaran could tell the damage would have been enough to scorch his brain and internal organs. Yet Heinzel, eyes rolled back, managed to stay on his knees, even writhing in place.
His abnormal toughness—proven by what had happened in Volachia, by the events with "Aldebaran," and throughout this brutal battle. —Saved by a durability that seemed to bring its owner absolutely no joy, Aldebaran looked toward the source of the light.
There— "—So you're Cambary."
A small-statured man leaning against the now-darkened "Star Scepter," blood dripping from his nose.
This had already been repeated twenty-nine thousand, two hundred and twenty-one times since the battle began. Aldebaran now understood the gathered roughnecks better than they understood themselves.
At this point, he could name every opponent he had encountered, without exception. You could even say a kind of unearned familiarity had taken root. Sorry—that was a lie. He was sick of fighting tough enemies.
In any case— "...Even if you know how to activate it, a half-baked wielder shouldn't be able to use a 'Meteor.' How the hell did you get it to fire?"
"How did I... manage...? Heh heh, wonder about that for the rest of your life..."
"—Wait. Hexel?"
Seeing blood pouring from Cambary's eyes and nose, the bulging veins on his neck and forehead, Aldebaran realized this was a side effect of a certain prohibited substance.
Called "Hexel," it was a banned drug made from Poko Fruit that activated the Mana within the body—and its use was forbidden even in the
Under the effects of that doping, even someone unworthy could wield the "Star Scepter."
"Even so, it'll wreck you from the inside out. To go that far..."
"I'm the only one... who can't back out. Rachins... Gaston... everyone's giving their all... Reinhard too, you know? Heh heh... I'm... in a pretty great place..."
With a deathly pale face, Cambary made no effort to wipe the blood tears and nosebleed that appeared strangely vivid against his pallor—truly looking like a man on the verge of death.
Yet his words, tinged with a wry smile, lacked the fatalism of someone who had given up.
"Everyone here..."
Beyond Heinzel, who was still writhing from the starlight's burns, Gaston had lost consciousness.
He too was one of the people who had clashed with Aldebaran head-on and dealt damage—not with his fists, but with his words. There had been many such people in this fight against Felt's forces.
Aldebaran was standing here now because he had taken down every last one of them, meticulously and carefully.
After twenty-nine thousand, two hundred and twenty-one iterations of stacking attempt upon attempt— "—You helmeted bastard... have you ever once fought with your life on the line?"
"————"
"I have. Right now. ...I have both the reason and the courage to fight with my life on the line. And I... proved that..."
His voice trembling, Cambary gripped the "Star Scepter" tightly, attempting to summon the starlight once more.
But that was impossible.
"Guh—"
There wasn't enough Mana to handle the artifact. —As if punishing him for his presumption, the "Star Scepter" backfired, burning through Cambary's Gate, and white smoke poured from his diminutive body.
When someone unworthy followed the activation procedure, the artifact not only refused to activate but imposed a minor penalty—a safety valve the "Witch" had installed to keep children from playing with it. The fact that he had considered this a safety valve showed just how little the "Witch" understood about human nature.
Either way, struck down by that very safety valve, Cambary's eyes rolled back and he began to topple backward— "Ka-kun!"
A woman rushed forward and caught his small body in her arms.
She had tanned skin and wore a provocative dress—based on her appearance, she was the female boss of the "Flower Prison." Cradling the unconscious Cambary, she fixed Aldebaran with a sharp gaze.
"...Don't look at me like that. I don't have the leisure or the inclination to kick a corpse."
"You lot..."
"Seven days... no, six days now. We only intend to liven things up for six more days. —None of you ever believed us."
The boss of the Flower Prison—
She had been tormented plenty by Durtelo, the "Black Silver" boss, but her eyes as she held the man important to her were razor-sharp.
Meeting that gaze, Aldebaran narrowed his helmeted eyes as if to ask, "Shall we?"—probing Toto's will to fight. Come to think of it, this was the first time he had encountered a woman on this battlefield.
He still hadn't seen the faces of Grasis, who had dealt him a painful first blow, or Felt, the representative.
Seemingly indifferent to Aldebaran's contemplation, Toto kept her limbs tense and jerked her chin at Aldebaran, as if to say, "Go."
A bitter smile escaped him, and Aldebaran turned his back.
And then— "—Guh... ah..."
From behind Aldebaran, he heard the sound of Toto dropping her iron fan, struggling to tear away the steel wire wound around her neck, failing, and collapsing.
Arriving beside the fallen Toto, Yae picked up the iron fan from the ground and— "Whoa, there's poison loaded into this. By the smell and color... Ziranme, is it? A fast-acting lethal toxin—she was ready to go all out, wasn't she~?"
"Don't be mad."
"But I'm so adorable, and you're mad at me? How mean~ Besides, this is Lord Al's fault, right? Turning your back to a woman all willy-nilly just because she's female. I mean, maybe for you it doesn't matter how many times you die, Lord Al, but—"
"That was the first time. Thanks to you, I didn't have to take it even once."
Not flattery—it was genuine. Yae had ensured he never had to suffer even a single surprise attack from Toto.
At Aldebaran's answer, Yae went "Hmph" and fell silent, a complicated expression on her face. It was his way of showing gratitude, but for someone who complained he wasn't grateful enough, this reaction when he actually said it was almost not worth the effort.
"In any case, these ones are all secured. ...And Old Man?"
"He's charred, but alive and kicking. That man's a little odd too, isn't he?"
"Of course he is. He's from
"Is House Astrea the excuse for everything?"
Even so, it seemed that even as a member of House Astrea, the "Star Scepter's" blow was no joke.
Checking on Heinzel, who appeared to be in more pain than ever before, Yae cast a glance at Aldebaran suggesting they should abandon him here.
Ignoring her gaze half-heartedly, Aldebaran's attention was directed to the northwest.
"————"
A battle that had begun with them driven southward through the forest by smoke and pursuit.
After steadily cutting down over five hundred enemies, Aldebaran and his group had finally circled back.
Circled back to— "What a strange feeling—like I'm seeing you for the first time, Helm."
"Same here. Maybe because I've been thinking about you this whole time."
At the very plain where they had first been chased, Aldebaran had finally, officially succeeded in facing his enemy—Valga Cromwell—head-on, after twenty-nine thousand, two hundred and twenty-one iterations of trial and error.
* * * Valga Cromwell sat cross-legged on the vast open plain, resting his cheek on his fist.
Even taking a second look, he was enormous. The fact that his head was roughly the same height as Aldebaran's despite sitting down spoke to just how massive his frame was—or perhaps just how short his legs were.
"I feel a kinship. I've always been self-conscious about my short legs."
"For the record, I've never been preoccupied with leg length. When I was younger, I did covet a bigger body and longer arms, but—"
"You still look plenty young, old man. How old are you?"
"Who knows. I stopped counting past a hundred."
Valga's reply was dismissive, but the Giant race was indeed long-lived.
Excluding the Elves—said to be unable to die unless killed—the Giants were probably the longest-lived race in this world. And the fact that the Giants had been pushed to the brink of extinction because they had angered a single "Witch" suggested that the people of old had no concept of moderation in their grudges.
"A swordsman who slaughtered dragons because he liked their meat, a 'Witch' who nearly wiped out an entire race because one person angered her, Elves who caught the fallout from the 'Witch of Envy'—it's ridiculous."
"You seem unusually well-versed in history for a young man. And I hear you're on good terms with the 'Witch of Envy,' no less?"
"On good terms? That's the worst joke I've ever heard."
Provocation met with counter-provocation—Aldebaran couldn't help but fire back at Valga's obviously deliberate barb.
Being on good terms with the "Witch of Envy"—he could not let that evaluation pass as mere irony or humor.
"That lady hates my guts. We've never even made eye contact."
"...Make eye contact with the 'Witch of Envy'? Now that truly is a joke beyond laughing at."
"If you think that's bad, imagine my side. She went out of her way to do the one thing I hate most, every single time... What about Felt?"
"Holding that girl down would have been the quickest resolution for you. Do you really think I'd leave her within reach?"
At that answer, Aldebaran clicked his tongue. Valga snorted and glanced behind Aldebaran—at the forest where the brutal battle had raged—before continuing: "You sure made a mess. Five hundred people killed?"
"Your kill count during the civil war makes mine look cute. And besides... ah, no, that's our business. Never mind."
"————"
Another exchange of provocations—Aldebaran caught the words he had started to say and swallowed them forcibly. —In this battle, Aldebaran's group had not taken a single life.
They had gone as far as inflicting near-fatal wounds to reduce combat capacity, but every opponent should survive with proper treatment.
But even if he said that here, it wouldn't affect Valga's impression of him favorably.
It would only raise questions—why do something so unnatural?
Of course, as Yae had pointed out repeatedly, there had been many situations where it would have been easier to simply kill the opponents and break through. Even if that changed the order of magnitude of his attempts, Aldebaran had stubbornly adhered to this constraint.
He had decided. Aldebaran had.
He would not let anyone else be taken from the world she loved—not within the range of his influence. The sole exception being
For that, Aldebaran had sacrificed no one's life— "—You can no longer bear watching lives be lost before your eyes, can you."
—.
———.
—————.
————————Huh?
"—Huh?"
"I had my suspicions. When I heard that Ezzo and Flam had been taken out at the Pleiades Watchtower, but that their lives had been spared—"
"Hey..."
"Having Flam use the 'Divine Blessing of Telepathy' to send word, then intercepting the 'Sword Saint' who received the report at the Augria Dunes where he'd be at his weakest... that's a sound strategy in itself, but it's no reason to keep Ezzo alive. Flam would have been disposable after using her blessing too."
"Hey, old man... you geezer..."
"You severed all ties of obligation. And yet you failed to do what was necessary. —You asked me where I'd sent Felt. I sent her along your escape route. And then—"
Ignoring Aldebaran's trembling voice, Valga raised his arm—the gauntlet with the "Dialogue Mirror" set into it—and tapped the one remaining uncovered mirror with his finger.
Aldebaran's group had shattered twelve mirrors so far. The one in the gauntlet was the thirteenth and final one. At the other end of that "Dialogue Mirror" was Felt.
"You haven't taken lives, and among those you've incapacitated, more than a few could still fight if freed. Even if five hundred is too much, do you have the capacity to face over a hundred once more?"
"You... old... man!!"
Grinning as he spoke those words, Valga watched the vein pulse on Aldebaran's forehead inside his helmet.
The audacity to take Aldebaran's no-kill constraint and use it against him, methodically preparing to return the incapacitated to the fight—the nerve of it was breathtaking.
But Aldebaran's group hadn't been idle, either. Beyond simply binding enemies, they had broken limbs and made returning to the fight difficult— "I've prepared 'Hexel' for everyone. This time, it won't be people who fear pain, but people who can't feel it."
"—Fine! Bring a hundred, bring two hundred. I'll do the same thing all over—"
He was about to shout the rest through sheer momentum when— Watching Aldebaran seethe and raise his voice, Valga's eyes narrowed suddenly. It was as if he were peering inside the helmet—and Aldebaran found his breath caught.
Then Valga pressed his words in.
"I see. —This conversation is a first for you, isn't it?"
"————"
For an instant, Aldebaran didn't understand what that meant and froze.
But it was only an instant. The fierce cold rushing up his spine told him that the being before him might be even more dangerous than the "Sword Saint."
"YAE—!!"
In that instant, Aldebaran strained his voice and ordered Yae to attack.
He needed Yae's steel wire technique to bind Valga Cromwell and shut the mouth that was speaking his thoughts. The fastest way was to kill him. But he would not do that.
Not for the reasons Valga had described—of his own free will, he would not.
"I'll put you to sleep for six days."
He hadn't thought of a specific method, but that was the optimal plan.
He ordered Yae to move— "—There."
What reached his ears was an incongruous man's voice that reeked like a pot in which countless poisons had been reduced.
A man lying prone in the grass of the plain—his body covered in tattooed scales, with a grotesque appearance—turned his gaze toward a point in the forest and writhed his abnormally large right eye.
It was as if an eyeball that didn't belong to him had been forcibly crammed in—and that gaze was fixed on Yae, who was about to leap into action.
The man—who must have been Manfred of "the Scales"—had seen through even a shinobi's concealment.
Then, pressing his palm against his right eye, Manfred caught Yae in his left eye—which was equally ill-fitting— "Don't move."
The instant that command flew, a subtle disturbance rippled through Yae's launching movement.
This was the effect of the "Divine Blessing of Compulsion," which interfered with others through the weight of words. But if he had pinpointed Yae's position using the "Divine Blessing of Farsight," that meant two different blessings used simultaneously.
"A disciple of
While Aldebaran ground his teeth, Yae severed the blessing's coercive force in an instant.
Recovering her composure in the very next step, she reached out with her steel wire toward Valga using her shinobi mobility.—But that single misstep was enough for the transmitters to intervene.
"Flam's grudge."
Like Manfred, Grasis leaped from the grass and drove a kick into Yae's torso. Yae blocked it instinctively with crossed arms, but the blow from this young girl who had mastered the "Flow Arts" was terrifyingly powerful, sending Yae's slender body flying.
"I have no relation to your sister!"
"Basically everyone's got a grudge over Flam."
Grasis's indiscriminate revenge gave Yae no room to breathe.
Heinzel, rolling in the forest behind them, had still not recovered from the "Star Scepter's" blow—and even if he had, he was useless in this situation.
In other words— "—Domain, re-expand. Matrix Redefinition."
From here, Aldebaran would seal Valga Cromwell's mouth on his own strength.
For that— "—Losing your composure, I see. That has always been the losing side's downfall."
The instant he activated his Authority and expanded the sensation of twisting the world to his own rules, Aldebaran recognized the motion of Valga crushing something in his mouth.
He knew, because he had a habit of biting into the poison capsule concealed in his own molar. —And in this situation, there was only one thing Valga might take.
"Hexel."
An instant later, a giant palm expanded before Aldebaran's eyes, and he was forced to throw himself backward.
He hit the ground. In his place, the giant's body surged upright—and whether from the forbidden drug's effects, his frame seemed to have swelled even larger. Aldebaran held his breath.
He did not know Valga Cromwell's direct combat strength.
But in this moment, Valga's fighting spirit radiated the same intensity as the many warriors Aldebaran had faced—only someone staking their life could carry such ferocity.
In the instant he was about to be overwhelmed by that pressure— "—ALDEBARAN!!"
The man he had least expected to perform cried out, pointing at the sky.
Aldebaran only caught a glimpse at the edge of his vision, but in this situation, the only reason Heinzel would point skyward with urgency rather than fear— From the distant sky, the very deadline that would end this battle was arriving.
"This time—"
"—Time's up."
Rom's voice overlapped with Aldebaran's words as the situation whirled around them. But something was off. There was no resignation or frustration in that voice.
On the contrary, it was as though Valga, too, had been waiting for this moment.
—In the next instant, in Valga's hands, the light that had once illuminated the sky flickered to life again.
* * * —In that instant, using the Hexel-activated body, Old Man Rom crushed the "Night Sweeper" magic stone in his hand and made the final move to defeat the helmeted one.
"The helmeted one's actions don't quite add up—whether through mind-reading or precognition."
He had eliminated the line of reasoning involving mind-reading.
So he had considered whether the enemy was dodging by predicting the future, but even that didn't quite fit.
The future was something that existed at the end of countless accumulated choices. Not the choice of a single person, but the endpoint of innumerable choices made by innumerable people.
Reading that and responding to it perfectly seemed somewhat unrealistic—impractical, even. Moreover, even if you could see the future, you shouldn't know where the mirror-bearers were.
But if you saw the result after the fact, that was a different story.
If the helmeted one's Authority was not predicting the future in advance, but observing results that had already occurred in the future—then his actions up to now made sense.
Sifting through someone's belongings to identify the mirror-bearer. Confirming the success or failure of that result, then moving on. Repeating this cycle—it all aligned with the helmeted one's behavior and its outcomes.
"What in the world is that?!"
Even though it made sense, Rom raged at its senselessness.
Mind-reading, precognition—neither had worked, but this ability to see the result and go back—whatever you called it, it was an outright cheat. How could he counter it?
"But there's a hole."
If this were truly an omnipotent ability to observe every situation and respond to all of it, the helmeted one could have avoided encountering them here altogether.
He had succeeded in setting a trap for Reinhard, but avoiding Reinhard entirely would have been far safer than engaging him.
The reason he hadn't done so was because he couldn't.
—The time window in which he could see the result and redo things was not very long.
And if he could choose when to use this Authority of his own volition, then by creating a gradient between safety and danger, the helmeted one would naturally want to establish a safe haven in that gap. —That was where the trap should be placed.
All he had to do was turn the place the helmeted one believed to be safe into an inescapable crucible.
And the final piece to place in that assembled trap was— "—I've called back the 'Divine Dragon' who fights on your side."
"————"
The instant that figure was spotted in the distant sky, both the helmeted one's camp and, naturally, Felt's forces understood it meant the battle was over.
The presence of an overwhelmingly powerful being was, after all, the only reason this battle had been able to take place at all.
If the "Divine Dragon" returned and swept the plain with a single breath, no amount of resolved roughnecks—five hundred or a thousand—could possibly stand against it.
To prove this, the "Divine Dragon" unleashed a single shot meant to strip them of their will to fight. —This was, without doubt, a breath that would always be fired as the ritual to end the battle.
And to force a misfire in a situation where it could not be dodged— "—The effect of 'Night Sweeper' is to make night appear as day. Conversely, it conceals the real landscape behind an illusion."
Normally, directing the "Night Sweeper" magic stone with precision was difficult unless you were a highly skilled magic user, but Rom—pushing his Gate beyond its limits with Hexel—could manage it.
Why? —Because this was, originally, one of the strategies that had not been executed during the Demihuman War.
A variant of the plan that would have used a person the Kingdom Army couldn't ignore as bait, luring the gathered enemies together and unleashing a devastating spell—an exchange of life for victory.
"Back then, the plan was to designate someone as bait and have the enemy fire magic at that location. But today is different."
The illusion created by "Night Sweeper" expanded, enveloping Rom and the helmeted one.
—As a result, from the distant sky,
Without noticing that Rom and the helmeted one were there, it would be tricked into firing at the empty expanse.
Making the dragon fire where it believed no one was—that was how Old Man Rom, Valga Cromwell, sealed the safe haven he had constructed against the helmeted one.
"—"
The helmeted one tried to escape, but Valga Cromwell seized his foot.
Realizing there was no escape, the helmeted one looked up to the sky. The "Divine Dragon's" eyes could not see them. Its maw filled with white light, the breath was about to be unleashed upon the "empty" plain.
"—Felt."
In that instant, across the mind of Valga Cromwell—no, Old Man Rom—the image of his beloved granddaughter flickered.
From infancy, through childhood, to the person she had become now—all of it passed in a single breath. Rom wondered if this was what one saw at the threshold of death, and an out-of-place smile crossed his face.
His enormous body, which should have been overflowing with hatred and rage, showed not even a flicker of the faces of Libre or Sphinx, with whom he had shared the brink of death.
With that final thought, Rom—along with the helmeted one—was about to be engulfed by the "Dragon's" breath— "—ARE YOU JOKING?!!"
In that split second, the starlight that erupted pierced through the "Dragon" hanging in the sky, diverting the breath meant for the plain into a completely different direction—truly detonating upon the uninhabited wasteland.
"Wha—"
Swallowed by the tremendous plume and shockwave, Rom lost his footing and was flipped over. Caught in the tumble, the helmeted one let out a pained "Guhwah!"
The unbelievable power of the "Dragon's" breath—if things had gone as planned, it would have driven the helmeted one into an inescapable corner and ended the fight.
And yet— "A bad feeling? This is exactly what I'm talking about! There's a huge difference between having the resolve to die and wanting to die right away, you old fool!!"
Shattering Valga Cromwell's strategy to splinters, red eyes blazing even redder as she roared—it was the cute granddaughter who held the "Star Scepter," tears streaming down her face.
—It was to his cute granddaughter that Valga Cromwell had been defeated.