Chapter 50
There was a man.
The man had lived as an ordinary young villager in a small village.
One day, he was suddenly cast into a world filled with creatures he had never seen before.
After falling into that strange world where he knew no one,
he set out to return to the embrace of the family waiting for him at home.
Though he spent more time in the other world than he had lived in his original world,
even so, the man’s purpose had not changed from the beginning.
Even if his family had forgotten him.
Even if, by some chance, his family had already passed away.
To bow his head before them and say he had returned.
The life of the man who had run solely for that purpose
-Ahahahaha―!!
was brought to an end in the worst possible way by a witch.
He lost both eyes along with his contracted spirit,
and his companions of many years were wiped out.
And so.
Seven years ago, Osmund Lloyd lost everything.
* *
“And so, I was given new power, along with eyes that let me see again.”
Osmund, who raised a wave the instant our eyes met and summoned us before him as though to threaten us,
“Therefore, all I’m doing now is exacting justified revenge.”
He rattled off his past out of nowhere, then said that.
With eyes that were clearly not those of a sane person.
“I have a lot to say, but let me ask this first.”
“Yes. Please, Miss Ren.”
“Can you actually see with those eyes?”
“…Ren. Please.”
“Ren… Is that really what you’re curious about right now…?”
No, obviously he could see, since he had moved the moment he saw us.
But when creepy black energy was rippling inside those hollow eyes, honestly, it was hard not to wonder.
“You’re more curious about that than about a comrade in danger of dying. You.”
“Haha. What a joke. If I could kill her, I would have done so already. And besides.”
He knew I was Frederica’s comrade.
“Did you ever intend to let us live in the first place?”
I knew guys like this all too well.
They’d try to kill you while making all sorts of excuses, like saying they’d make you suffer the same fate because their comrade had been attacked.
…….
As expected, Osmund fell silent.
Watching him, Huey, who still seemed unable to grasp the situation, opened his mouth.
“Mr. Osmund. Please calm down first and talk this out….”
-Swoosh!
“Shh.”
“Master!”
As soon as Huey opened his mouth, an arrow of water grazed his cheek.
“I’m in a clearer state of mind than I’ve ever been.”
Crazy people always say they’re clearheaded.
In any case, that was beside the point.
“Your comrade’s name was Kevin?”
“…Yes. Kevin, Melissa, and Maduk. They were precious comrades.”
So he knew Frederica seven years ago.
I remember now. No wonder the name had seemed familiar.
“So you were a member of the previous Hero’s party.”
Looking at Frederica, who seemed barely able to move anymore and kept drowning inside the sphere of water with gurgling sounds,
I muttered bitterly.
“So you turned the city into this mess just to kill Frederica?”
“It was an unavoidable sacrifice if it meant killing the Witch Who Slays Heroes.”
“…The Witch Who Slays Heroes?”
“That big-titted… Frederica, you mean…?”
As Osmund spat out the words as though chewing and swallowing them, killing intent pouring off him,
Huey and Lucy turned toward Frederica with wide eyes, as though shocked.
“I’ll explain later.”
Of course, that didn’t mean Frederica was blameless.
But this wasn’t the time to explain.
“Later? Unfortunately, there will be no later for you.”
“Then why call us all the way here instead of killing us the moment you saw us?”
“Because even if you die, you should at least know why you’re dying.”
As if we were ants on the roadside that he could crush at any moment,
Osmund smiled gently while aiming countless razor-sharp arrows of water at us.
Faced with that unbearably arrogant attitude,
“Hah.”
The absurdity made me let out a hollow laugh.
“…Ren?”
“You can laugh in a situation like this…?”
Ignoring the two beside me, who were flustered,
I quietly ignited flames on my wings.
“Hey. I’ll tell you something good.”
The purifying flames I had been gathering inside my body without revealing them until now.
“You’ll regret not killing me when you had the chance, right up to the very end. You little shit.”
“…What?”
-Fwoooooosh―!
Osmund, startled by the sudden spread of flames,
and the other two, who had seen it several times and moved without panicking.
And then.
“Puaaah! Seriously! Would it kill you to let me out already!?”
I shouted at Frederica as she broke out of the sphere of water, which shook against the spreading flames, and complained.
“Shut up! You should’ve just not lost in the first place!”
“Ugh, I couldn’t help it!”
Frederica emerged from the sphere of water and stood beside me, clasping her hands and quickly forming a barrier.
“Phew. This should hold for a little while.”
“Are you all right?”
Huey asked, deliberately looking away from Frederica’s swaying breasts.
“…More importantly, what exactly are you, to still be alive?”
Lucy asked, clicking her tongue with an expression that seemed to wish Frederica had just died.
“Just explain quickly.”
“I was suddenly attacked three days ago and fought back, but lost. I didn’t have the attention to spare for my surroundings, which is why the city ended up like this.”
Watching the barrage outside the barrier, far greater in scale than what had threatened us moments earlier,
Frederica began a brief explanation with a great sigh.
“It must have been right after Ren left.”
From the time we left Swinford until now,
the heavy rain had continued without stopping.
“It seemed strange no matter how I looked at it, so while I was investigating the cause, the water started overflowing.”
Figuring that, cause or no cause, everything would be submerged at this rate, we prepared an emergency evacuation.
“Still, since he was technically a lord, my client took the lead in guiding the city’s people to evacuate.”
Just as the evacuation was nearly complete,
Osmund appeared and attacked me.
“I’ve lived a fairly long time myself, but I’ve never seen a water spirit mage before.”
Apparently, making it rain in the first place was preparation for fighting Frederica.
-Crack. Craaack.
After getting a rough grasp of the situation,
I watched the barrier begin to crack.
“Besides, I don’t know what kind of god it is… but that man is cloaked in divine radiance.”
Without that, I wouldn’t have been beaten so badly.
“Divine radiance?”
“What is that?”
“I’ll explain that, so let’s move for now.”
Since staying here any longer would obviously only get in the way,
the moment Frederica’s barrier broke, Huey, Lucy, and I began moving in search of a safe place.
“Being cloaked in divine radiance means being protected by a god’s power.”
The degree varies according to how much divine power they receive.
But basically, most attacks don’t even leave a scratch.
“There are two ways to damage someone like that.”
Whether by receiving a blessing from a priest or using divine power directly,
one way is to borrow a god’s power to cancel out that radiance.
“Well, the outcome will differ depending on how much power each side draws from their god.”
And the other method.
Personally, I think this one is simpler, so I prefer it.
“The other is to crush them beneath overwhelming power.”
Technically, the latter is hard to call a method.
But it works, so whatever.
-KRAAAAAAANG―!
Well, an example just presented itself.
I gestured toward the crimson-black flash with a wing as it blew away even the clouds in the sky with a thunderous boom.
“Something like that?”
When I said something of that caliber should be enough to pierce through most divine radiance,
“…So you’re saying there’s only one method.”
“It seems so.”
The two of them, wearing blank expressions, accepted that conclusion on their own.
“That aside….”
That thing from a moment ago.
As far as I knew, it was the strongest magic Frederica could use.
“We went to all the trouble of letting her out, and she went and lost again…?”
Even though the spell should have struck him head-on,
I muttered as I watched Osmund, once again trapping Frederica in a sphere of water, looking completely unharmed.
More importantly, why isn’t she using her trump card?
“Tsk.”
“…What do we do?”
“What do you think? We fight back.”
Looking up at the blue sky, cleared by the magic Frederica had used moments ago,
“I’ll buy us as much time as I can. Do whatever you can.”
“…Are you sure?”
“We have to try.”
I sent Huey far away.
“If you’re buying time, I can help too…!”
“You know you can’t with the terrain like this.”
“Tsk.”
Then I shoved Lucy, who wore a frustrated expression as she insisted she couldn’t let me go alone, over beside Huey.
“Hah, you’re in a hurry!”
Feeling the spirit energy enveloping the area shift downward,
I spread my wings and kicked hard off the ground, flying upward.
-SPLAAASH!
As expected.
Dozens of streams of water surged up from below
-CRUMBLE!
and chased after me, pulverizing the building where I had been standing moments earlier.
-Fwoosh!
I hurriedly flapped my wings and fired flames imbued with purifying power,
but the streams of water pierced through the flames and rushed toward me in an instant.
And so.
I was in the middle of flapping my wings, somehow intending to rescue Frederica again while avoiding the streams that continued to chase me.
-Are you really going to be all right?
A voice suddenly spoke to me inside my head.
-It’ll be difficult in that state.
As if it were saying I could win if I accepted myself a little more.
-You’re starting to feel it too, aren’t you? Just how incredible a being known as a divine apostle is.
the voice said.
-Accept it. You have no other choice left anyway.
At those words,
I flew high into the sky and quietly looked down.
“…I told you not to rely on power like that.”
Hidden from Osmund’s sight, Huey raised an arm sprouting black scales,
muttering with his eyes closed as though chanting a spell, while Lucy guarded the surroundings as if protecting him.
And then.
-Rooooar….
As the air trembled with a rumbling sound,
the water covering all of Swinford heaved,
-WHOOOOSH!
in a shape that seemed to surround me,
eight violently spinning whirlwinds began sucking in the streams of water around them.
“Kgh!”
For a while, the whirlwinds around me left me unable to control the wind, and I fell,
but just before I fell into the water, I managed to land on the ruins of a nearby building using wind I barely summoned.
“Now, what will you do?”
As Osmund’s mocking voice reached me while he looked down at me after my fall,
-I guarantee it. With my father’s power and mine, a mere lackey of that Demon God won’t even be a match for you.
As I heard the voice whisper temptingly inside my head,
I decided to steel my resolve.
I….