A New Spiral Begins

"Your Highness! Dodge it—!"

Mihai's voice cut the air.

Serius watched the enormous glowing blade come down out of the sky.

His body had already taken evasive action on its own; his attention, however, was being drawn into the light.

A floating sensation took him.

He kicked off Caligula's back and turned in the air.

He felt — for an instant — the death-god's scythe pass alongside his body.

He felt — for an instant — a bony hand rap him on the shoulder.

He felt — for an instant — a hand of nothing-of-this-world cool brush across his cheek.

He landed on a roll, came up at once.

A picture out of dream came into his eyes.

"—"

His order to Caligula to move had come too late. The over-obedient red dragon had been bisected by that.

A dragon split in half was, at this instant, almost beautiful. He thought he would never see this picture again.

"Your Highness—!!"

Past the line the demon-blade had cut into the earth, Mihai came running. Apparently he had evaded to the opposite side of the line.

Following Mihai's voice, Serius's eye moved left — and there, finally, he noticed the change in his own body.

His left arm was gone.

— Grazed me, did it.

He'd thought, on landing, that he had lost balance strangely.

He'd put four limbs out to brace himself; the body had still tilted.

In fact, he had stood up on three.

"What insane output."

A wave of force, shed off the demon-blade's blade-light like spray, had taken his left arm.

Compared to that blade, that spray was not a meaningful piece of force.

But that spray had hit his arm — and the flesh had been erased.

"Truly insane output."

Along the cleave-line, nothing remained. Everything had been blown out.

Even watching that picture —

"…"

Serius was, even now, calm.

To his own surprise.

Probably, having been cornered had, on the contrary, sharpened his thinking.

It was, in its own way, proof of the depth of his survival instinct.

And calm-headed, Serius — at this precise moment — made a decision.

He glanced once at Merea, who had just swung the demon-blade, and once at Hasim, somewhat off, with the demon-spear in hand. A bare beat of silence. Then his gaze went to the faces of his own subordinates.

To Mihai, running up to him, Serius said it clean.

---

"— Withdraw."

---

"…Eh?"

To Mihai's startled re-question, Serius answered evenly.

"Withdraw, Mihai. To stay any longer here will start to bleed into the war on the other fronts. — Leave him. The northern front is going well; we cannot afford to lose more force here. Father will understand."

Serius said it cleanly to Mihai, who had begun tying off the stump of his left arm with cloth.

"More than that — I taking a wound is the bigger problem. I am not bothered, but —"

He looked at his men, and saw the visible shake in them.

"— the soldiers are shaken. I'll say it of myself: this is the first time I have taken a serious wound in front of the troops."

"…Yes."

The faith the men carried in him had, for the first time, become a weight.

There was a quiet I knew it would come to this in him — and at the same time, the recognition that the strength produced by that faith was what had brought him this far.

Which of those was, in net, the better — Serius could not, at this moment, weigh cleanly.

"But — these soldiers, in this engagement, have seen it. From the next time, they'll fight without that wobble."

Mihai nodded.

He kept his hands evenly working at the tourniquet. As the tying was nearing completion, however, he noticed something.

Looking carefully —

Serius had not broken a single line of sweat.

Mihai, noticing it, felt a chill in the next breath.

The cornered prodigy of an age of war, having taken a serious wound, had not had his fight-spirit dampened in the slightest. If anything —

"And I'm not stubborn enough to stay over this. After the western and northern fronts settle, I'll come crush this again. By that time —"

Serius's eyes — frighteningly sharp — had locked onto the 〈Demon God〉 standing across the field, demon-blade in hand.

For an instant, Mihai thought he saw a fight-eager smile flicker at the corner of Serius's mouth, and felt his own skin prickle.

"I will be the one to stop that Demon God. That monster is the core of all of it. If I stop it, the field's providence resumes its old order."

Serius, even now, was getting larger.

A great kingdom's prince was not an ornament, and not a name-only post.

"The opening engagement — yours. — But our history has only just begun."

He said it cleanly.

The new spiral of history started by that line would, in time, ride over mountains, over seas, far past the eastern continent and into the affairs of many kingdoms on other continents — though Serius himself did not, at this point, know it yet.

That history was about to draw the world in.

"Back to the homeland. Use 〈Prototype Cure-All Formula (Paleo Raftere)〉. The arm should heal under it. After that — accumulate strength, immediately."

He said it as he stood.

He was not, evidently, going to revoke the call to withdraw.

In fact, given that Merea was, at that moment, prepared to overrun his Violent-God mode timeout, Serius's withdrawal-call here was — almost certainly — correct.

Had Serius mis-read the moment to disengage, the casualties would have widened.

"But Your Highness — that will cost lifespan —"

Mihai, while obeying the order, caught a particular word and felt cold.

"My life, after pacification, is irrelevant. The post-pacification governance — let my son do it."

Serius Brad Mūzeg has no interest in what comes after victory.

He has overwhelming interest in victory itself.

The fixation Merea and Hasim had both called deranged — having found, in Merea Mea, an absolute wall in front of him — only ran wilder.

A monster sparks a genius.

"— Hah. Not bad. Having a higher one to climb to is not bad, Merea."

In front of an opponent he wasn't sure he could even clear, Serius had — instead of being cowed — found something close to fulfilment.

— Possibly I should not have been born a prince.

He said it inside, not out.

"But I am Serius Brad Mūzeg. — Mūzeg."

He said it toward the distant black-haired Demon God and the once-friend with the clean aqua-blue eyes.

About then, in the far north-east, an azure mass came into the picture.

"Zuria's 〈Azure Spearmen (Calleum Lansania)〉. — Crisca. Some part of me would like to see her. Not now. — Muran will be along soon enough, magic-stone cannon in hand."

He said it, then turned to Mihai.

The order: full withdrawal.

---

"They're — pulling back…?"

Elma, watching the Mūzeg movement, said it dumb.

Beside her, Merea was watching the black armours' movement too. The demon-blade was still in his hand.

Then —

"Merea—!"

— Hasim came riding up from behind, shouting.

Hasim, having been at Merea's back, had caught something.

"Tch — your body —"

From under Merea's clothes, an absurd quantity of red was seeping out.

Blood.

"The recoil from the Violent-God art. — Not enough yet to panic."

Even saying so, the back of his clothes was already soaked dark red.

What was underneath was something Hasim did not want to picture.

"Until Mūzeg is no longer in my eye, I cannot fall. If I show weakness here, the time before retaliation only shortens. That I'd like to avoid."

Merea didn't show even a flicker of pain. He stood, formulae still deployed, and watched the black force pull back, unmoving.

Standing rigid like that — formulae still up, body unmoved — read as superhuman, and at the same time, somewhere, human.

"— Don't cry, Elma."

Beside Merea — as if to vocalise the pain Merea could not let himself voice — Elma was head-down, soft sob in her throat.

She had been doing her best to look composed enough not to be noticed crying. The tears, however, would not be held.

"— !"

A wordless small sound out of her, while her hand closed on Merea's.

The number of times she had been saved by that hand was past easy counting.

Both as one of the Demon Lord party, and as Elma Eluiza personally.

For the same number of times — she had, in her own way, added to the load on him.

"This isn't on Elma. I took it on myself."

Merea, his free hand on Elma's head where it pressed against his shoulder, said it gently.

He meant it as comfort — but he wasn't lying, either.

"I'm not particularly resolute. I have to corner myself, a little, to move properly. What I'm reaching for sits very far away — for that, I have to keep my own legs moving. And on top of that, I'm a person, so sometimes I'd like to run, sometimes I'd like to give up — but —"

A small smile.

"— at those times, the load on my shoulders is what stops me."

Elma tightened her hand on his.

"…Won't that load — crush you."

A trembling voice, head still down.

"— at those times — I'd be glad if you helped carry it."

Merea, smiling again.

A clean, undefended smile.

Hearing that, Elma resolved, in the same breath.

"…All right."

She lifted her face.

"I'll —"

A hard light in her eyes, locked on his.

"— Even if the load did crush you — even then, I'll be next to you."

She had been about to say I'll help you carry it.

It hadn't been enough.

Carry was — already a given.

But if even carrying wasn't enough, and Merea was still about to break — he would, again, push her away. Push all of them away — and try to break alone.

That —

— No.

If that came, she would cling against the push.

Without fail —

"I won't let you be alone."

She tried for a stiff smile, to stop him worrying further.

Merea, briefly blinking, looked surprised — then his face shaped itself into a small troubled smile, and at the end —

"— I see."

— became a delighted smile.

Probably he had read what she was saying under the line.

And probably, to him, the line was salvation.

For someone whose birth was as strange as Merea's, knowing that an inhabitant of this world cared for him that much was — among all things — the deepest support.

"All right… enough now…"

In the same beat, watching the Mūzegan ranks recede into the dust and fade out of view, Merea felt the held-on tension drain out of him. An unmistakable letting-go.

His arms started to feel too heavy to be his own; the waist that had supported the upper body felt as if it had hollowed out.

Last, his feet lost contact-feel where they touched the ground.

"…Tired…"

"Merea—!"

He folded, knees first, as if the strength in him had run out.

The formulae sheathed on his body cleanly vanished; the black mana that had been pouring out endlessly thinned; the black hair returned, gradually, to snow white.

The impact of his knees hitting the ground sprayed bright blood from him onto the wilderness, painting the dirt scarlet.

Even in that state, Merea's face carried a relieved, let-go smile.

Elma caught him reflexively, gathered him into her arms with the care of a mother holding a child.

The body that, until very recently, had felt almost weightless — was very heavy now.

"…The sky's red."

"…Yes."

Merea, in Elma's arms, was looking at the sky.

He kept watching the world right up to the moment his eyelids dropped.

"The earth's red."

"…Yes."

A small voice on the edge of sleep — almost vanishing.

"And my hands —"

The line did not finish.

Elma understood what he had been about to say, regardless.

So she wrapped her hand around the hand he had stretched up toward the sky.

She knew. She knew what he was going to say.

Even so —

"— Thank you."

Elma said it.

At some point Merea had closed his eyes and his breathing had settled into sleep.

Elma — Merea pulled in against her chest — let her gaze drift around them.

The picture, as Merea had said, was red.

The red of the sky. The red of the wilderness. And — a deeper crimson.

But across that picture, the comrades were running toward them.

People walking the same road as he.

Coming toward the light that was their compass.

Their forms, in that picture, were not painted over by the crimson.

"— I won't let you walk alone. So — sleep, for now."

Elma, smiling to set them at ease, let her black hair lift on the wilderness wind.

That day, the eastern sky of the world was — as if to mark the beginning of a new history — dyed a clean, vivid red.

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