Lurching Toward Danger - 2

Eastern Outer Ward, tenth borough. At this point, all the residents from the third to the sixth boroughs were finished evacuating, but when taking the speed of Alus the Star Runner's attack into account, this zone could quickly fall inside the area of his attack and had thus become an extremely dangerous area.

Fully understanding said danger, Rosclay the Absolute called out to the city residents.

"I am Aureatia's Second General, Rosclay the Absolute! If there are any residents who can hear this warning, please follow directions and immediately evacuate! A self-proclaimed demon king is approaching the district! Right now I ask you to protect not your wealth or home, but the most irreplaceable thing of all, your lives! I repeat! I am Aureatia's Second General, Rosclay the Absolute!" Up until moments prior, he had been shouting from atop a firefighting tower, but now he was walking around the corners of the labyrinthine slums, rescuing

people who weren't able to move freely or who had yet to escape.

Rosclay wasn't doing this alone, and many soldiers had split into groups to carry out this task, but at the very least, he would still need to make another two rounds through the streets like this.

…If Alus the Star Runner came here right now, I'd easily die.

As he verbally called out to save lives, Rosclay's thoughts were morbid.

There was an incomparable gap in fighting strength—however, this wasn't the only issue. As long as the eyes of the citizenry were upon him, Rosclay the Absolute couldn't let himself shirk away from facing a threat.

The fear of losing Aureatia and its people. The tension of death, which could occur at any moment. The intense pain in both legs, broken during the fourth match. The sweat that faintly wetted his skin had fully dried out and was changing over to a chill incongruent with the midday sun.

It seemed he hadn't walked around the city without proper protection like this or stood atop a firefighting tower and called out to the citizens, for a long time. For the past several small months Rosclay hadn't done anything like it. This was because of the fear of an enemy force shooting him from afar.

He was always in fear.

"A self-proclaimed demon king is approaching! Should you know the threat of the Demon King's Army of the past, I believe you will make the correct decision to protect your lives!"

Rosclay's feet suddenly came to a halt in front of a plain home with its door ajar.

He spoke to the soldier accompanying him.

"Please search through that house. There may be a bedridden citizen inside." "Is there something different about this house in particular?"

"I can see a wheelchair in the doorway. Someone who uses a wheelchair must have been left behind while they lay unable to move on their own."

"Understood. I'll carry the survivor in need of help myself."

The soldiers went into the house, leaving Rosclay behind on his own.

He pondered as he gazed at the wheelchair half hidden by the door.

…There's one other thing that's clear. If the door was half open when I spotted it, that means that the resident that had already evacuated from this house—someone who was caring for the infirm inside—must've been here.

The invalid had been abandoned.

He felt that someone was supposed to offer them help. This thought didn't stem from any genuine goodness in his heart.

I'm scared. If there truly is this despair of dying while unable to ask anyone for help, that's all the more terrifying. If I can continue saving people…some sort of karmic force may guarantee that I avoid meeting such an end. If there really is something like that, then—

"Hey there, Rosclay the Absolute."

A chill went down Rosclay's spine. He immediately looked up above the roof. Even he didn't understand why he did such a thing, but there wasn't anything there for him to see.

Instead, there was an ominous man dressed in black ascending the narrow slope.

"…Kuze the Passing Disaster."

"Bweh-heh-heh… Hills start getting real rough on you once you're my age. Hidow the Clamp's given me the general picture. So Alus the Star Runner's coming, is he?"

Kuze the Passing Disaster's ability is automatic counterattacks that bring instant death. Since it activates even if the man himself isn't aware of any danger, any unperceived surprise attacks against him are ineffective.

Right now, Rosclay was on the front lines, fully cognizant of the danger. In the current situation, with the strong chance of getting caught up in Alus the Star Runner's attacks, he hadn't constructed a perfect support structure to provide him backup, either.

It would have been a golden opportunity for an assassination.

His mind raced at high speed to think of what possible methods he had at his disposal, but there was most likely nothing he could do against Kuze the Passing Calamity, appearing at this distance. The only way to avoid his instantaneous lethal counterattack was not to make an attack against him, but that also meant that he wasn't able to put up any resistance whatsoever to any attack Kuze made against him.

Rosclay made a flawless smile.

"I'm glad I ran into a hero candidate here. Alus the Star Runner is moving

from the fifth borough of the Eastern Outer Ward… He's attacking the second borough now. Please head that way and leave the search and rescue up to us."

"Bweh-heh-heh. You're not heading there yourself? You're just as much a hero candidate, too."

"......"

Both men closed the distance between them.

As essentially the symbol of Aureatia, the Order's oppressors, Kuze must have deeply despised Rosclay.

During the fifth match, Nophtok the Crepuscule Bell had even schemed to attack an Order almshouse and force Kuze to withdraw from the tournament. In the end, the operation had been carried out solely at Nophtok's discretion. But assuming Rosclay had been fully healthy at the time, he was sure he would have directed a similar operation himself.

"I would love to, but my wounds from the fourth match haven't fully healed yet. It's quite embarrassing, but…I wanted to keep the casualties to a minimum as much as I could by leading the citizens' evacuation."

He answered with a composed smile. It was a lie.

Even if his whole body had been in perfect condition, he didn't wish to fight against someone like Alus the Star Runner at all.

He didn't want to die.

"I'm not gonna forget about what happened with Nophtok. You think you can still tell me to go off and fight, huh?"

He felt the illusion of the blade of death being directly held up against his throat.

Amid the terror he felt facing off against a shura, concealing their hatred, with nothing but his mortal body, Rosclay remained normal, down to his heartbeat and breathing, without a single shivering fingertip or his face growing taut. He had trained himself to do so.

"…You yourself—"

He looked straight ahead at Kuze. Straightforward and honest, like a champion unashamed of anything.

"—will always be the only one who can decide that. It's about whether you wish to save someone of your own will, regardless of who ordered you to or not. The choice may have you sacrifice your life, or your faith. I've prepared myself to do that."

"..."

He wasn't lying. However, did he truly and honestly believe it?

If Rosclay truly wasn't reluctant to die, then he might have tried to fight Alus the Star Runner.

If he truly wanted to save someone, then he might have been able to go and save them.

"Bweh-heh-heh. Well, what a splendid guy you are, eh?" As he passed by Rosclay's side, Kuze laughed feebly.

Was he going to climb up this hill and head off to fight against the terrifying wyvern? In the case of this man who continued to fight on alone for the sake of the Order, Rosclay was convinced he would do so.

"Kuze the Passing Disaster!" Rosclay shouted, turning to the black-clad figure's back. "In the second borough…of the Eastern Outer Ward!"

He genuinely and truthfully wished to save her.

If Rosclay the Absolute hadn't been Aureatia's champion, if he was allowed to abandon all the other citizens, he wanted to do so, even if he didn't have any power to fight.

Iska was in the second borough of the Eastern Outer Ward.

The young girl alone was the person who served as Rosclay's emotional pillar.

"What's in the second borough of the Eastern Outer Ward, then?" "…Nothing. I just ask that you save the people there to ensure no one else

falls victim to Alus. Please…I beg you."

Rosclay bowed his head deeply at Kuze's back.

It wasn't an appeal or deference to Kuze the individual, but as if he was praying to something.

"See, I can't really save anyone. So if…if someone's life ends up getting saved from here on out—"

The black shadow walked on, without ever looking back. He waved a single hand back at Rosclay behind him. "—just think of it as the Wordmaker saving them instead."

Soon after Kuze had departed, the soldiers tasked with searching the house returned.

"General Rosclay! You were right; there was one person left behind in the second-floor bedroom! Thank you, sir!"

"G-General Rosclay. General Rosclay came to save little old me…"

Rosclay cast a smile at the gaunt senior citizen, being carried by one of the soldiers.

The senior was in tears.

They believed that they had been saved from the danger, that a champion had been there to protect them.

"You did a wonderful job holding out, despite your terrible illness. Please rest easy. I am Rosclay the Absolute. I won't leave anyone behind."

Such a feat was impossible for anyone but the Wordmaker. Rosclay forged a smile, to obscure his fear of losing Iska. "I will save everyone."

The buildings in the second borough of the Eastern Outer Ward were complexly woven between the gaps in crisscrossing canals running through it.

The town's construction hadn't been based on any civic planning. The canals in this district were filled with wastewater and sewage, and the area wasn't expected to be used for residential buildings to begin with.

Therefore, the damage from the fires in this district was tremendous.

The narrow, labyrinthine streets ended up preventing citizens from making a smooth escape.

The wooden footings used as bridge crossings were easily burned apart, dividing the foot traffic.

Among all of the Eastern Outer Ward, the second borough was a district that was especially delayed in evacuating its residents.

Alus the Star Runner had descended on the area.

A wind blew. A terrifying hot blast, blowing in after the buildings were torched one after another, and the flames kicked up and churned in the atmosphere.

The original scenery there had now become black shadows floating among the red-white light, visibly losing their shapes by the second.

Ground Runner—the citizens didn't even know the name of the magic item, but the mass of intense heat, vaporizing the canals as it rushed along, indiscriminately blasted away people, and everything else, regardless of the wind direction or the size of the original flame.

More than anything, though, the sound completely blanketed over everything. The sounds of wood, iron, or even human flesh, being torn apart. Each individual noise was tiny, but they could all be heard simultaneously from across

the city, ringing out loud like a torrential downpour.

"Listen up, men!"

There was a man shouting among the flames, nearly drowned out by the thundering around him.

The mask covering his face, a solid sheet of iron, didn't even have a curve for his nose.

Aureatia's Twelfth General, Sabfom the White Weave.

"All the citizens are watching you conduct yourselves! Will you turn your back here on Aureatia's peril?! Or will you gather up your courage and face it head on?! The day's finally come for you lot to prove who you are, once and for all!"

The courageous general, who had once crossed swords with the self- proclaimed demon king Morio, had volunteered himself to be in charge of evacuating the most dangerous area, the second borough of the Eastern Outer Ward, despite having only just returned to the front lines.

Sabfom didn't wield a sword. Instead, he brandished an iron hammer in each of his hands, and he continued with the rescue operation by forcefully smashing up the blazing houses to create a path forward.

Right now, he didn't have a single one of his men with him. In the midst of this great conflagration, which necessitated that they save as many lives as they possibly could, there wasn't a single soldier in Sabfom's squad who found himself unable to move from the general's side.

The subordinates might have all burned to death somewhere out of Sabfom's sight. Nevertheless, Sabfom continued to yell on his own. "Ah! You think we have no chance to win?! Any cowards who doubt my words?! Still, you all came here anyway! And what for?! To keep the citizens of Aureatia alive! That's victory! You hear me?! I came here today planning to claim dozens and dozens of victories! I was nice enough to give all of you the very same opportunity!"

Sabfom's shout, almost like a triumphant roar, was so full of spirit and vigor, it seemed all but impossible to be coming from a wounded soldier.

It eloquently communicated his location through the fire and smoke obscuring their vision and served as a guide for his men or any survivors to reach him.

While shouting, he mowed down debris blocking the path with his giant hammers, pulverizing it.

There was a soldier rushing up behind him.

"General Sabfom! We've confirmed three families of survivors in the direction of the Eda River Factory and safely finished evacuating them! Also, in

the middle of our search through the corresponding districts, we discovered two dwarf children who had neglected to flee! We have saved them as well!"

"Bang-up job! What's your name, soldier?! Well?! Puol the Thousand Land! Your name and the name of your squad's members have been etched into the memories of the people you saved! Be proud! Next I want you to search the abandoned pond!"

"Yessir…! We lost two of our squad members, but we'll meet up with the other squads and try to re-form our ranks! We'll show…we'll show the prestige of Aureatia!"

"You've sworn on the prestige of Aureatia, have you? Good, then go! Save everyone without leaving a single one behind!"

Perhaps the current status of Sabfom and his men would have been best described as a desperate and mad scramble.

When the reality of fire and death appeared right before their eyes, this was how they became. That was how they had been trained.

This was because the Twentieth General's troops were originally a suicide corps used to annihilate the Demon King's Army.

"Can you hear me, Alus the Star Runner?! I'm overjoyed!"

While letting out a booming voice that seemed to be purposely broadcasting his location, his two hammers destroyed what were once people's dwellings as though made out of paper.

"Even though the True Demon King's dead, there are still those out there giving us hell! These louts who delight in hell have come running here in place of the residents you wish to kill! That's who I am, and these are my troops! Well, humiliating, isn't it?! Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!"

Sabfom the White Weave continued to desire the brilliance from that fateful day. Like his fight against Morio the Sentinel, where he had lost his own face.

She could hear a man yelling from far off in the distance.

They seemed to be helping the residents of the lower district, but to Iska, their tone sounded like nothing but the roar of some kind of terrifying beast.

I wonder if this will all turn out to just be a dream.

Inside a small shack in a corner of the canal, Iska was lying down in bed, wrapped up in a blanket.

Fortunately, the flames had yet to arrive at her house.

She also knew what she needed to do to escape.

Tracing the canal until she reached the underside of a bridge, she would climb up the ladder leaning against it, cross the extended wooden plank bridging two shacks, and climb up and over three steep flights of stairs. There were an innumerable number of different streets from there, and she wondered when she had last seen the large main boulevard that lay at the end.

Iska lived her life bedridden in this house. Even if she evacuated now, she was likely already too late, nor did she believe her legs would allow her to actually escape in the first place.

I'm sure someone will help me out…but perhaps I shouldn't be thinking like that.

She held her blanket as if embracing it.

The other residents might have wished that Rosclay the Absolute would be the one to come.

However, Iska knew better than anyone else that Rosclay didn't have absolute strength.

Nor did she wish for him to come save her before any of the other residents. Even if Rosclay appeared before her right at that moment, she would likely puff out her cheeks and scold him for it.

He'd probably wear that same lonely face of his again.

She chuckled a bit when she imagined it.

People were able to laugh, even when certain death was closing in, Iska mused, as if it didn't concern her at all.

She heard the sound of something crumbling with a clatter.

The inside of the room had gone hazy white from the smoke, filtering in ahead of the fire.

…I hope Mom is still alive.

Her mother was supposed to be out at work at this time of day. She was a worker in a factory here in the second borough; however, sometimes she would be sent out to work as far away as the seventh. Perhaps today just happened to be one of those days, and she might have safely avoided getting caught up in these flames.

…It was hope. Hope was the only thing that came to Iska's mind.

Usually, the only thing on her mind was the despair about when her life would finally be exhausted, and she found it strange that, despite this, when it now seemed that she really would lose her life, her thoughts started going in the exact opposite direction.

When she turned over in bed, she saw the ring that was placed at her bedside.

A red coral ring. She continued to keep the gift, the one she'd claimed that day she hadn't wanted, close by her.

"…You don't want to die, do you, Rosclay."

With her thin pointer finger, she stroked the ring. Rosclay feared death more than anybody else.

Yet despite that, he was also facing death head on. Surely right at that moment, too.

Iska meant to die while turning her back from the fear of death, and she thought that was fine for an insignificant young girl like herself.

"Ah… Now what am I going to do?"

She thought that if she didn't have the vitality to get herself up, she would give up. However, Iska succeeded.

Putting her bare feet into shabby outdoor shoes, she soaked the blanket that had been wrapped around her in the bucket of water.

When I think about you…it seems so very embarrassing to give up like this.

She loved Rosclay.

Iska understood that she would never be able to marry him, but she wished to still have a heart worthy of being at his side.

Perhaps the soldier that kept calling out from far away was coming closer.

The flames might not have gotten that big, and there might barely be a path still available for Iska's escape.

She collected together the fragments of hope she'd imagined in bed and forged the courage she needed to flee.

I'm sure that even Rosclay's doing just the same himself.

His ability to give hope to the people of Aureatia wasn't the flashy power of some perfect champion. She believed that, in truth, it was this courage in Rosclay's heart being conveyed to those he inspired.

That was why Rosclay the Absolute was definitely not just a false symbol. Opening up the door, Iska looked at the scene outside.

The wall of flame had closed in, up to the far shore of the river.

The violent hot blast of air blew in, making Iska have a coughing fit. Her breath caught in her throat.

"Koff! Koff…"

She understood.

She knew that she couldn't survive, and that's why she had needed courage. Iska was glad that she was able to summon the courage to walk on her own

feet.

She would soon run out of oxygen. Her consciousness would begin to fade. And then the flame of her life would be extinguished…

"Extinguish."

"…What?"

The blaze right in front of Iska had vanished.

Its heat, even the smoke, disappeared like it had all been an illusion.

Even the noxious smell of something burning was gone, and the air was now clean and fresh, like that of a morning forest.

"It can't be. How could this…"

She had believed it had all been too late, and this was the end. Yet despite that, someone had done something to save her.

Almost like that hero, who'd brought an end to the True Demon King… "…Who could even…?"

The position was far removed from the Eastern Outer Ward.

Farther away than the central city, the royal palace, the railroad crossing north to south, farther past the vast expanse of the old town, in the agricultural quarter of the Western Outer Ward.

And then, another 529 meters up into the sky. "This feels awful."

High in the sky, wind blowing fiercely, stood a young girl.

Her blond hair and the sleeves of her green clothes fluttered in the wind, but she didn't seem to have any trouble breathing and paid no mind to the freezing upper-atmosphere air.

The sight of this fourteen-year-old girl, suspended in midair, could only be described as extremely abnormal; nevertheless, she had a reason for standing where she was.

It was because that's what she wished to do.

She had heard that alert that the distant Eastern Outer Ward was being attacked by a self-proclaimed demon king.

She had also eavesdropped on the conversations from the evacuees to learn that, as a result, the city was being torched in a huge conflagration.

If she had been in a position to make contact with her sponsor, she probably would have been able to do this sooner. However, right now she couldn't let herself be seen by anyone.

Especially not by any other hero candidates.

"…Not like I'd care even a little bit if Aureatia here gets destroyed or saved, but…"

Even from this height, she could clearly see the intensity of the flames covering the second borough of the Eastern Outer Ward.

She erased it because she found it unpleasant. "Don't show me a big fire like that."

Now, this young girl had a second name. Kia the World Word.

The strongest of all were gathering to bring down a self-proclaimed demon king.