Chapter 11 - Outside Story (2)

Sensing an ominous presence, Romans turned to find Daywin charging fiercely toward him on horseback.

'A paladin?'

The rider approached with such overwhelming force that, at first, Romans never imagined it could be Daywin. Only when he was close enough to make out his face did Romans recognize his younger brother.

"How is our youngest...?"

Romans's wavering gaze traveled over Daywin as though he were a stranger—over the snow-white armor, the shining halo. Awe and shock mingled on his face.

"D-Daywin, fall back!"

Snapping to his senses, Romans shouted at the top of his lungs.

"Don't come this way!"

The goblins, their numbers swollen to an uncanny degree, had begun encircling his troops. Even if his younger brother joined them—

Daywin emitted a sudden flash of light.

Riding behind him, Esther found her gaze drawn to it.

'Magic?'

She turned her eyes toward it in a daze.

'... No, this isn't just magic.'

The light Daywin had created gradually took shape. The shining circle bent and became a human figure: a tiny person, no larger than a finger, drifting through the air on fluttering wings sprouting from its back.

Elegant, delicate, and sacred. A fragment of the Goddess that Esther had encountered only in myths and fairy tales.

'A spirit...'

A light spirit—a being of mana also known as a gift from the Goddess.

Spirits fought alongside their wielders, cast buffs on them, and hindered their enemies. Few people formed contracts with spirits, but anyone who could command one effectively had a dependable partner at their side. Simply being able to command a light spirit, in particular, was enough to mark someone as exalted.

And the deeper the bond between spirit and wielder, the more powerful its effects became.

As Esther pondered this, Daywin swept his finger through the air and began casting another spell.

One gesture, one spell. He wove prayers and incantations together in his mind and released them through his fingertip.

A magic circle appeared on the spirit's back. Esther widened her eyes, determined not to miss a single detail of his magic.

'Increased movement speed.'

Then:

'The second one is increased movement speed too.'

And the next:

'Increased movement speed again...?'

Daywin cast the movement-speed buff on the spirit five times in total. Just as Esther had explained in her academy class, the effects stacked on a spirit, whose body was itself a mana circuit.

'Is he planning to use its small size for a swift attack?'

But Esther did not know that surviving until the end of the world had required abandoning common sense altogether.

PING!

At a command from Daywin's finger, the spirit stopped displaying its graceful wingbeats and fixed its gaze on the forest where the goblins lay in ambush.

Then—

WHOOOOSH!

It flew off like an artillery shell.

Only then did Esther recall that a spirit's body was a mass of mana. An enormous quantity of mana was compressed into that tiny, finger-sized form.

If such a mass hurled itself forward at tremendous speed—

BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!

The spirit crashed into a tree and blew itself up. A massive mana explosion engulfed the trees and goblins whole.

'Huh? It just blew...'

Not only Esther, but Romans and all his soldiers stared at the impact site in utter bewilderment.

'What...?'

In a past that was also the future, this man had commanded the paladin order.

He had been the most irreverent paladin in its ranks.

'He used that noble spirit... as a disposable mana bomb...!'

There was nothing holy or knightly about this paladin.

Spirits were not mere objects made of mana. They were living beings that thought, decided, and acted.

They were alive.

They had names.

And yet—

KABOOM!

Daywin summoned a second spirit and immediately slammed it into the forest. Another mana explosion shook the woods, sending dust and shredded leaves billowing into the air like clouds.

'I've never even heard of anything like this...'

This was madness.

Ordinarily, people deepened their bonds with spirits to improve their stats. Daywin did the opposite.

Instead of raising one spirit to level 100, his strategy was to unleash a hundred newborn level 1 spirits.

And they were not merely level 1 spirits, either. The equation changed when they received buffs from a paladin who had gone all in on Enhancement magic.

'Even so...'

What Esther found particularly incomprehensible was the uninterrupted succession of summoned spirits. He was practically kicking away the Goddess's gifts the moment he received them, yet she kept sending more.

Universal love.

Or favoritism.

The Goddess loved Daywin enough to inspire jealousy.

BOOOM!

He did not stop. Expressionless, Daywin continued the bombardment.

BOOM!

A moment later, his gaze abruptly sharpened.

"... Found you."

His voice was cold as frost as he stared at one side of the forest.

Watching him from behind, Esther followed his gaze.

A man in a black mask.

He had been hidden among the goblins in the trees. Now he was fleeing, using the branches as stepping-stones.

Meanwhile, Daywin rose to his feet on the horse's back, balancing precariously. He summoned two spirits and had them cling to his back, pressing their tiny hands against his armor.

WHOOSH!

With their movement speed buffed, the two spirits shot upward and propelled him into the air. Daywin plunged into the forest in a single leap.

A brief moment airborne.

As he landed, he caught the intruder darting through the branches by the throat.

"... Ghk!"

Still gripping the masked man's throat, Daywin slammed him to the ground.

THUD!

"Gaaagh...!"

The man groaned in agony as his back struck the earth. He twisted his entire body, trying to escape, but Daywin's grip remained immovable.

Daywin slowly looked him over.

Clothes black from head to toe. A mask that concealed not only his face but his hair as well. A goblin's hatchet in his hand.

'Romans died in a goblin ambush. The marks left by a goblin's axe were the evidence.'

The harder the man struggled, the tighter Daywin squeezed, as though he meant to snap his neck.

'So a human used a goblin's weapon.'

The masked man finally swung his axe, but Daywin moved first and pinned his arm as well.

"I've imagined killing you over and over. Cutting you down, burning you alive, strangling you. Yes, it was all in my head, but now we've finally met. So—"

Remembering the game that had offered its player dozens of choices, Daywin asked a question. This time, his role was the opposite of when he had been the player.

"How would you like me to kill you?"

The extra offered a choice.

011

As I squeezed the assassin's throat, the light began fading from his blue eyes. He seemed to lack even the strength to struggle anymore.

I reached for his mask to check his face.

"R..."

He forced the words out with all his remaining strength.

"Run...!"

Run.

What did he mean, run?

RUSTLE-RUSTLE!

A silhouette burst from the underbrush.

No—silhouettes. Plural.

The same clothes and masks as the man in my grasp. More assassins.

Like a swarm of insects hiding in the dark suddenly exposed to a fierce light, they fled deeper into the forest.

There wasn't just one.

No, why had I assumed there was only one in the first place?

A sudden sense of dread made me whirl around. Instinctively, I looked toward Romans.

"No, no. You don't get to run away now."

I saw a man in a black mask and robes strolling leisurely toward Romans's troops.

His face was concealed by pitch-black cloth. Emerald eyes were barely visible through it. An axe in each hand.

This man was different from the other assassins.

Step, step.

Even after all the others had fled, his steps remained light, almost dancing. Romans's troops noticed the lone masked man too and raised their shields and spears to hold him at bay.

But they were too late.

He struck like lightning. The last assassin leaped alone into the heart of Romans's troops and slashed.

SWISH!

How many had he cut down in that single stroke?

In the literal blink of an eye, Romans's soldiers fell helplessly.

Limbs severed through their armor. Shields torn apart like paper. Screams begging for their lives.

The horrific scene jolted all five of my senses awake.

The crude axes in his hands had devastated Romans's troops.

"... No."

I ran like a madman.

I couldn't fail again. I couldn't let him die again.

But as though mocking my desperation, the assassin—

BANG!

—shattered the ground beneath him as he sprang forward, landing right in front of Romans.

Less than a second. He closed the distance in that brief instant.

His legs weren't the only things that moved fast. Even as he approached, he swung his arm—

THUNK!

—and buried an axe in Romans's chest.

Dark red blood splattered across his mask and seeped into the cloth.

"Ghk...!"

Romans coughed up blood. The man, meanwhile, kicked his body away with contemptuous ease and pulled his axe free.

Then he pointed the dripping axe blade at me.

"You there. Third young master."

His vivid green eyes stared straight at me.

"You're a little different from the intel, aren't you?"

WHOOSH!

He tossed one axe into the air and caught it again.

"When we first looked into you, they definitely said the third son had no power at all. Well, I suppose you still couldn't do anything while your brother died."

By the time I arrived, Romans's blood was already soaking the ground. I frantically thrust my hand into the pouch holding the potion bottles.

"What are you doing? A potion?"

He cocked his head sharply with the exaggerated movements of a clown and grinned.

"I wouldn't get your hopes up. I like to make sure a job's done properly."

TING!

He flicked an axe blade with his finger.

"I coat them with poison. You never know, right? Well, having to step in myself means this job wasn't exactly done properly to begin with..."

He met my eyes, smiled, and continued.

"But I wasn't expecting something like you to show up either, so let's call it even."

Ignoring him, I knelt beside Romans and pressed a top-grade healing potion firmly into his hand—the very potion he had secretly packed to keep me safe.

"Give it up. No matter how good that potion is..."

I slowly rose to my feet.

Five spirits flashed into existence at once, and I closed the distance.

"Ah, I get it! You're thinking you have to avenge your dead brother, aren't you? Sorry, but I don't have time to play. Like I said, you've thrown things a little off schedule."

"My dead brother? What are you talking about?"

"... Huh?"

"You're the only person dying here today."

That was how I had decided to rewrite it.

I would overwrite it with a different outcome.

"Start!"

Keeping my eyes fixed on him, I spoke to someone else—someone who had stayed beside me all day for this very moment.

"Esther!"

"Yes! I'll do it now!"

While he was swinging his axes, Esther had already finished preparing her spell. Her face taut with nerves, she gathered her mana.

The instant she planted both hands on the ground, a vast magic circle etched itself across the earth. Radiating warm light, it enveloped the soldiers whose lives were fading—and Romans.

HUMMMM!

Severed limbs grew back. Shattered fragments of bone returned to their proper places. Romans's heart, pierced by the axe, began beating again.

Axes or poison—it made no difference. Before Esther's overwhelming mana, both were useless.

Perhaps rattled by this unexpected turn, the assassin took a step back.

I took a step forward after him.

Step, step, step.

As I advanced on him, my footsteps grew faster.

And faster.