The Road, I Can See It

— Will I be able to repay what they entrusted to me.

He was floating in a pure-white space.

A place that read as sky and as sea at once.

The view was hazy; outlines hadn't yet sharpened.

Even so, in the depths of the white space, he could see a clear, deep-jade light.

— The resolve I've taken on in this world — does it carry the size and depth to answer what they entrusted to me.

The clean jade light shimmered like a knot of flame.

Slowly, his vision came clearer.

— I don't know.

Merea, in that space, gave his own question that answer.

The jade light at the centre of his vision pulled at him; meanwhile his thinking, smooth and unobstructed, kept running.

A strange feeling.

— I don't know. — But I've decided.

He could not, indefinitely, hold up their wishes as his shield.

If he hid behind the shadow of their wishes, when the moment came, the weak part of him might step forward and try to put their wishes between himself and the danger.

"It's all right to be weak, you know."

A voice, suddenly, from somewhere.

The jade light at the centre of his vision shimmered again, like a flame.

"Surely you don't think one person can do all of it alone."

— Yes.

He had learned, talking with them on Lindholm, exactly how steep a road this was.

Their history told him.

"Then — don't repeat the same path. Being weak isn't a sin in itself, and humans aren't, on the whole, that strong. Being called Demon Lord doesn't change that — they're still human. Same with Hero. The words sound grand, so it's easy to misread them as marking something better."

That might be right.

"The substance isn't very different. — And — comrades stand around you already. Comrades you yourself drew in by what you actually did."

— Yes. They are around me.

"Then — value the bond with the ones living now. — I envy you, you know. Leilas and I ran out of strength before we got there."

— Lei… las… —

"And — I'm proud of you. You've done what we couldn't: put your hand on the opening of the road we never reached. The wounded hearts of those people, gathered into one — that was you, who was truly trying to save them."

— Flan… der… —

"Don't worry. You are answering our wishes. More than answering — you've grown, on your own, into something past what we asked for. We have nothing more to add. — You — stay true to your own —"

The view opened.

Outlines snapped clean.

The many jade lights standing in front of him were the souls of the men who had once pulled him up out of the sea —

---

"…Flander."

The pure-white space was gone before he noticed it leaving.

After the deep red he had seen last, the sky had dimmed slightly; cloud was melting into it, in his vision.

His own hand, reaching up to that sky, flickered into the corner of his eye.

"Merea-sama!"

Voice with worry on it. He raised his head.

There —

"…Marisa."

— a beautiful face, contorted close to tears.

Looking again, there were tear-tracks down her cheeks. She'd been crying earlier, perhaps.

It was around then that Merea realised he was being lap-pillowed.

A soft feel against his back.

He reached and found a balled-up piece of fabric tucked under him.

He let his eyes drift around. Several of his comrades were standing nearby in shirtsleeves — their coats, almost certainly, were what was packed under his back.

Still on the wilderness. Sharp stones scattered around.

So they wouldn't dig into his back, the others had wedged the cloth in.

"Hah…"

The body was still heavy.

Thinking had come back; movement was a chore.

Given a stretch, the 〈Resurrecting Body of the Life King〉 would patch him up. The internal fatigue, however, would probably linger past the body-repair.

Lying in the same posture, he turned his head to take in the comrades standing around him with worried faces.

After looking each of them over, he noticed who was not there, and asked, quiet —

"— Hasim?"

"The Three Kingdoms reinforcements arrived; Hasim went with them on the pursuit. Said the more wounds we land now, the more time we buy before retaliation."

"Right."

Elma, near him, answered.

He breathed out, as if accepting it.

"Hasim has it hard. His subordinates probably harder."

"…Yes."

Merea, eyes lowering thoughtfully.

The other Demon Lords' reactions were similar.

"That said — thanks to Zuria's Azure Spearmen and Kushana's Magic-stone Cannon, the push has real momentum. They aren't planning to chase too deep. Probably no major risk."

"— Magic-stone Cannon?"

"Yes. Right after you went down, an azure shell came in across the wilderness. Just one unit, brought up at speed, apparently. The bulk of them are with the main force, but they read it that the main force wouldn't get here in time, so they pushed one ahead alone."

"Mm."

"And — those Lemusan infantry Hasim peeled off earlier — they linked up with the advanced Magic-stone Cannon unit and fed it the magic-stones Hasim had had them carry from the start."

"That's why the infantry was so far behind."

"That man is, in his way, formidable. Foreseeing that Kushana's reinforcement would lag, and pre-routing his own infantry on a separate axis with magic-stone fuel — thorough doesn't begin to cover it. Mind, in a cavalry-led engagement like ours, infantry might not have done much anyway —"

"He read that the infantry's better return was on that path. Hasim's calm about that kind of trade."

Another small smile from Merea.

"In a fight you knew was tilted against you from the start, you have to think that way. The result worked. I'm fine with it. Mind — striking a bargain with that man is, from now on, going to be hard work —"

He was, himself, weak at that kind of negotiation.

Physical-combat negotiation, fine. Once it tilts toward commercial or political war, he was inexperienced and might show his shortfall.

But —

"At those moments — leave it to the rest of you. Shaw, the man visibly built for that side, is right there."

— and, on cue, Shaw, from the corner of Merea's vision, popped his head in —

"As the Sherwood Firm's chairman, and as a member of the Demon Lord party my master leads, I will, without fail, deliver good results to you. — If money's involved, I do not lose."

— and, with a stage-actor's flourish, took a bow with full confidence on his face.

"Hah — reassuring. …That side of the road is also something we'll have to think through carefully, but for now — after Hasim and the rest are back."

A long breath. Sleepiness came down on him again.

The body was still asking for rest.

Merea's wry smile returned. Last, a small tap with his hand on Marisa's knee under his head —

"One more loan, if you don't mind."

"Of course. Anytime. Indefinitely."

— and on the over-generous reply, another small wry breath, then he closed his eyes.

He hoped that by the time he next woke, the comrades' faces would have lost some of the fatigue. He would, as advance, take the rest first.

---

He woke.

The sky had nearly turned to clean indigo.

In the same breath, his eye caught something.

A few small star-points were starting to surface on the indigo canvas, and across them, something large passed.

Through a gap between clouds — a shape, just for an instant. Given the hour, almost certainly only he had noticed it.

A dragon with great wings, by the silhouette.

A dragon flying through the sky.

That is — Sky Dragon (Teishia).

Merea, catching the shape, smiled in spite of himself.

— You are a worrier, in your way. Cortista. — Thank you. I'm fine.

He sent the thought toward the dragon-form already passing out of view.

— Right.

He brought his focus back to the ground and noticed that his body was swaying.

He was on something, being moved.

"Mm —"

A small shift to test the body, and he sat up.

"Oh — the saviour's awake. Let me look. Let me look at the face of the Demon Lord master who, more or less single-handed, sent off the Mūzeg force Serius was leading."

The first sound to land in his ear was an unfamiliar voice.

He turned his head, and looked at the speaker.

"Hi. Muran. King of Kushana, despite appearances."

"Despite appearances really is the operative phrase."

"Sharp tongue when it suits you, Fasalis!"

The first man in his view was a slim man with light-coloured long hair tied back in a single tail.

Almond eyes with a slight droop at the corners.

The kind of beautiful eyes that pulled both opposite-sex and same-sex looks; with the slim face and the pale skin, the impression came down on androgynously beautiful.

"Aaah, easily as good a face as me. Stop, stop, good-faces don't gather around me, I get washed out."

"Speak so you can be understood, Muran. Your speech jumps in every direction with no manners about it."

Beside him, in clean visual contrast, a powerfully-built man.

Upright on horseback — like a great tree.

That straight-backed centre that even a violent gust would not bend was, in its own way, beautiful — in a different way than the slim man.

And on the man's face there was, as if by accident, a gentleness that made Merea instantly read the man as honest.

"Apologies, Demon Lord master. — No, that's poor manners."

"— Merea Mea."

"Right. Then, Merea. My name is Fasalis. I'm one of the Three Kingdoms — King of Filarfia."

"Lots of kings in this picture."

"There's a fool who pulls those kings around with him. The fool who happened to fight alongside you first."

"Hasim."

The picture coming into shape, Merea looked for Hasim.

Found him at once.

"Body all right, Merea?"

"You doing all right yourself, Hasim?"

"As you see — worn out."

Hasim was directly behind.

Merea, it turned out, was on a wagon-bed.

Drawn by two armoured horses.

Familiar comrades on either side, Hasim at the rear.

In front, Muran and Fasalis on horseback, riding lead.

The whole formation read so theatrical that Merea, briefly, felt like an offering laid out for the gods, and laughed.

"Brutal arrangement."

"Don't complain. Protecting the engagement's biggest contributor isn't simple."

Hasim said.

"Are we still in combat status?"

"No. War's over. — Done."

A beat, then —

"Our win."

"…I see."

Hasim's face was on a smile, but Merea could see a thin note of something gone underneath it.

"Until we're inside Lemuse, though, we can't drop guard. So — bear with the theatre. We haven't fully come out of beast-mode either. War is a tedious thing in that respect. Switching the heart back is not an instant operation."

"I think so too."

"The perimeter is under Zuria Queen Crisca's 〈Azure Spearmen (Calleum Lansania)〉's watch. By the time we reach Lemuse, you'll be able to meet her."

"Lots of kings."

A wry smile, and the line again.

"Don't worry. You're a kind of king yourself."

— of the Demon Lords.

"That is — quite a thing to be told."

Merea scratched the back of his head and let himself lie back on the wagon.

"Merea-sama, your body —"

Marisa, popping her head up over the wagon-side.

Beside her, Aiz — apparently riding pillion on Marisa's horse — popped half her face up the same way, anxiety in her eyes. Like a small animal sticking its head out of a burrow to check the surroundings.

"Better. Much better."

Merea waved at the two of them, looking up at the sky.

"…I've put myself in a flashy place, haven't I."

"Do you regret it?"

Marisa, smiling small.

"No. No regret."

"…I see."

"Mm."

In the short exchange, a number of unsaid things passed too.

None of them were bad ones.

As if to confirm it, Marisa hid her mouth behind a hand and let a small pleased laugh out.

"O-oi, Merea, you're up?"

A voice from a little further off — Salman.

Other comrades' voices joined in.

"Going to get noisy."

"Please bear with it. You are master, to us. They are worried. — As you worry about us."

"I know. — I know."

Before Salman and the others reached him, Merea closed his eyes one more time.

Behind his eyelids, the road he had chosen ran on.

"Yes. I can see it."

"Merea-kun, your eyes are closed, though?"

A beautifully accurate retort from Aiz; Merea broke into a real laugh.

Laughing, he tousled Aiz's head theatrically; she, ticklish, broke into a small rolling laugh of her own.

The sun had finished setting; in its place, the stars were coming up over the wilderness.

The picture burned itself, deeply, into Merea's eye.

The column moved east.

In a wide world, a small country that brings back what little peace one can find in this age.

Small now.

Even so — the pride it carries on it has a depth no other vessel can match.

— Leilas's homeland.

— The country Flander placed his hope in. — 〈Lemuse〉.

"— What kind of country is it."

To the place not yet seen, Merea sent the thought.