Time of the Setting Sun - 1

"…Curte. Hurry up and flee, fool."

Within one of Lithia's spires, Regnejee was cowering as the city fell. As his breathing grew fainter and fainter, he was still giving orders and gathering the final reports from his wyvern troops. While Curte fretted over the severe burns on her best friend's body, Regnejee still rejected her advances to nestle up against him.

"Regnejee. Wh-why…? Is this your blood? How could you be beaten? I can't believe it…"

"Lithia is finished. I owe Taren. The swarm, too… Kraw, kraaaw. I always protected them. Increased our size, controlled them, guided them. The whole lot of scum. Serves 'em right."

Regnejee gave a pained laugh. Within the wyvern flock, he had been nothing more than a small, average individual, easily lost among the group.

"But with this, it's all gone to waste. Too bad. But…in the very, very end, I still won, Curte."

"..."

"My prized treasure's… Krah-ha-ha."

Despite his incessant abuse and continued rejection of her touch, Regnejee had always been by the blind girl's side. What he truly longed for wasn't a country. It wasn't even the peace and order of the swarm.

He'd always refused to accept it. In truth, he, too, had wanted to abandon the swarm. He wondered how great it would have been to live as a solitary wyvern with Curte. So long as he could listen to her song in peace and tranquility, that would have been enough for Regnejee.

"…Run away. Before the Aureatia Army gets here… As long as you live…that's enough for me…"

Alus had let Regnejee go. He had assumed Regnejee was an inconsequential dying soldier. That was fine with Regnejee. He was fine being a wretched loser, a fool, who had made the wrong choice that fateful day.

"I'll win in the end… You'll see…Alus the Star Runner." "…Regnejee."

Curte smiled with loneliness. She could remember the days she spent with the wyvern, even without her diary nearby. She knew there was always someone with bloodstained wings aiding her, a young girl without the strength to live on her own.

She turned to the dying Regnejee and tried to find the words with which to part from him.

Suddenly, the door opened. Standing there was a soldier holding a musket, looking weary and worn out. He was exhausted and looked very unbecoming for a general.

"...D-don't move…!"

The man barging into the wyvern commander's room was named Harghent the Still.

Amid the chaotic battle, with the other Mage City soldiers falling one after another, he alone, with his long record of wyvern subjugation, had identified the wyvern commander's position and had been able to plunge so far ahead.

Slipping through tumultuous battles in enemy territory, he believed he had arrived at the city's central hub of power.

However, seeing the conditions within the room threw him into confusion, sending his desperate efforts and resolve up in a puff of smoke.

He wasn't in a wyvern's nest at all. The room was a residence for a young girl.

"N-no… Impossible…" "...Who's there?"

The girl, Curte of the Fair Skies, stared at the Sixth General with her unseeing eyes. On the other side of her, still succumbing to his lethal burns, Regnejee glared at his enemy, ever serving as the girl's attendant.

"I-I'm…the Sixth General, a member of the Twenty-Nine Officials of Aureatia. H-Harghent the Still. On the request of Mage City, I've come here…to defeat our foreign enemy…!"

"…I see. Aureatia… It really is the end, then."

Curte unexpectedly stood up. She was a blind girl without any combat

ability, but before her figure, her overly long, faintly colored hair, Harghent found himself shrinking back.

He wanted to believe this young girl had been taken captive by the wyverns.

But he knew. Even if no one else believed him, Wing Clipper Harghent knew.

Even if their relationship was that of predator and prey, even if they would have been eternal enemies.

"Stop."

It was possible for bonds to form between wyverns and humans.

"Stop. You can't do this. It's not good. That's a fearsome beast who's slaughtered civilians. As a minia, it's my d-duty…to kill him."

"Regnejee's… He's my friend. A precious friend who's saved me more than any minia ever has."

"You, girl… You're still so young! Th-there's…there's no need for you to shoulder such guilt! Get away from him. Please. People are dying. I've had enough. I—I don't…I don't actually want to kill anyone, either. So please…" "…I knew. I only pretended like I didn't, but from the very beginning…I

knew what I was doing… What Regnejee was doing—" "Stop…!"

Harghent was unable to move as he kept his barrel trained on the damnable wyvern. He only needed to slightly pull the trigger, yet his finger was heavy, as if frozen solid.

"You were always…my angel, Regnejee." "He's the enemy of all minia! He's a wyvern!"

"Don't say it, scum! Incompetent scum! Boneheaded fool! Say any more to Curte and—"

Leaping up, Regnejee's talons closed in on Harghent's head— With a loud bang, the wyvern's throat was shot clean through.

The bullet pierced a straight line through Curte's chest, too. If she hadn't risen, she most likely would have avoided the bullet's path.

The shot had come from the open window.

"Don't make fun of…," the shooter mumbled, far off in the distance.

There was no one to hear the words. "…my friend."

It was the wyvern champion who had once spared Regnejee's life.

Why did Alus the Star Runner come to Lithia? Why did he first appear over Mage City, where Harghent was fighting? The rogue who was greedy above all else.

Harghent knew the reason. He knew why Alus the Star Runner had returned to Vikeon the Smoldering's ravine, to kill the dragon after already defeating him and stealing all his treasure.

"Of course I'm going to try and save my friend."

Faced with the sea of blood before him, Harghent fell to his knees in shock.

"Ah… Aaaaaargggh…!"

The lead wyvern he was supposed to hunt down and the young girl he was supposed to protect were now piled on the floor as if dumped in a ditch. Their blood intermingled, and with forlorn vigor, the dark crimson spread across the floor.

The scene was Harghent's—the incompetent Sixth General's—conclusion to the war.

"Aaargh, Alus… Alus…!" Rage.

Despair. Sorrow. Regret.

Self-condemnation.

The unbearable emotions all blended together, and Harghent fell to the ground and screamed—

"Alussssss! Damn youuuuu!"

A number of memories were passing through her visionless eyes, like a slideshow. A number of her personal events, starting from that day, the day the True Demon King stole everything from her.

The general named Harghent had left to find help, but given the severity of Curte's wounds, she knew the general didn't think she would be able to hold out for aid to arrive.

She could feel her own weakening heartbeat.

Crawling across the floor with her fingers, she touched Regnejee for the first time.

"Oh…Regnejee…"

Tears flowed from her blind eyes. Curte had realized the truth. But the wyvern never let her touch him, to prevent her from discovering it, to keep her dream alive.

"You really were a wyvern after all…"

She heard the door open quietly. She was unable to see who entered, but she could tell it wasn't Harghent. The long-gaited footsteps came to a stop beside Curte.

With her failing breath, she called out. "…Who's there…?"

A deep voice responded gently.

"If I said an angel, would you believe me? We've come to see you off, little girl."

The man had stooped down and was rubbing Curte's back. His hand was big and warm.

An angel had come. The song she'd heard that day must've been an angel's song after all.

"I see… Thank you… Angel… Th-the truth is…there's something…I've always hoped for…"

"I understand. Everyone has the right to be saved. You can ask me for anything."

"It's my mother…"

Until her final moments, Curte continued singing her song. The song she

sang for Regnejee.

The angel of death's blade quietly ended her pain.

Many events were already over. At the very least, they were for Taren the Punished.

She had lost the feeling in her right hand, but she still gripped her sword tight. She wondered how many of the Aureatia and Mage City soldiers who had broken through the defensive line she had killed on her own. It might have been ten or maybe twenty.

On her path forward toward the central fortress, there was a mercenary wrapped in a tattered cloak. A skeleton.

"…A first-rate ending for a self-proclaimed Demon King, Taren." "Hmph, there you are, Shalk… You've put in a lot of work, too, I bet." "Don't mention it. I never really did much to begin with."

"I don't know. As far as I'm concerned, you've done plenty."

Shalk's white spear, like her own sword, was dyed red with blood. She hadn't been given any information about what he had done after using up all his might to head off the abomination named Soujirou. In the end, he was the only one to return to Taren's side.

"Regret fighting a losing battle?"

"…Never. Entering battle means you need to accept defeat and loss, too… Actually, no—"

Leaning up against a wall, Taren took a ragged breath. A self-deprecating smile spread over her face. She had the feeling such smiles had become more frequent since she'd become the lord of Lithia.

"That's a lie. The truth is…the soldiers who idolized me, the citizens, Curte…I'm sad I couldn't make them happy. Involving them all in my yet- unrealized ideals and seeing them rewarded with death, unable to witness anything concrete, is what's most regrettable of all."

"…I see."

"Hmph. I lacked the capacity as ruler to create peace, I suppose… The only world I ever lived in was on the battlefield…"

"Don't let it bother you. I'm in a similar position. Even after dying, this is

how I ended up."

"Shalk the Sound Slicer. You wanted information about the Final Land… where the True Demon King perished, right?"

"..."

"Don't you think it's strange? No one knows anything about the True Demon King. Both you and myself… There's nothing we can put into words, and yet, everyone knows just how terrifying the monster was. But I know… there'll come a time when we need to discover for ourselves…"

Propping herself up with her sword, Taren took out a piece of paper from her breast pocket with her free hand and passed it to Shalk.

"I can't read."

"Then have someone read it for you. We searched for the Final Land a number of times, but our survey team…they were completely blocked off. There's some form-unknown monster in that place after all. Totally uncharted territory… However, there was one place our survey team barely managed to reach."

"..."

"The Hero's corpse and the Demon King's corpse have yet to be found." "…Learning that is plenty. Had I worked harder, I probably could've

helped save you."

"I can't give you any more reward than this. Now, go wherever you like. You'll earn no profit if it is discovered that you served a general like myself." Taren knew someone would appear soon to put an end to her. She didn't plan on giving up without a fight, but she didn't want to embroil a soldier of

Shalk the Sound Slicer's caliber in a losing battle.

"…Capacity to be king, huh? I think you would've made a pretty good one, myself."

"Hmph. Not quite the word." Taren grinned.

"You mean Demon King."

Shalk the Sound Slicer departed without another look back. Taren knew she wouldn't see him again.

"Waaaah!"

How many times was it now? Having mustered the courage to face death, Yuno's fist meaninglessly swiped through the air. She was working from zero knowledge of hand-to-hand combat to begin with.

"…Listen."

Dakai appeared truly, from the bottom of his heart, baffled as to why Yuno was going so far.

"You really gotta escape, or things are gonna get bad fast." "Shut…up! Haah, haah, haah, I haven't…landed a single…" "Ah, right…"

There was a relatively weak smacking sound—the sound of Yuno's fist hitting Dakai's cheek. With her strength, she couldn't even make his neck shake. Dakai shrugged.

"There you go, one punch. We done? It's really rare for me to play along with someone for this long—you know that?"

"A-auuuggghhh…!"

Yuno crouched down and cried. Her hatred and grief were completely worthless, holding no meaning to anyone besides herself. It had been that way in Nagan and now here in Lithia, too.

"I don't think we'll ever see each other again, Yuno."

Dakai began to depart, indeed appearing completely unconcerned with Yuno's feelings. A powerful deviant, out of reach of the average person. Yuno couldn't follow his fleeing footsteps, much less take the man's life.

"…Wait…"

The hand she held out to pull him back didn't reach Dakai, but nevertheless, his feet stopped.

Outside of the prison, in the middle of his path, someone was lingering like an evil spirit.