After the Liberators left the capital, one of the remaining Holy Templar Knights desperately tried to heal Lelei, the last remaining captain of the regiment.
“Lelei-sama! Please don’t leave us!”
Coughing up blood, Lelei looked up at the knight with unfocused eyes and asked, “What’s...the situation?”
“Rejoice, Lelei-sama! God didn’t abandon us after all. He summoned an endless army of apostles and forced the heretics to retreat!”
“What about...the commanders?”
Lelei was, of course, asking about Kaime and Selm, who’d been appointed to lead the Holy Templar Knights after Laus had defected.
“We believe they were kidnapped. Please, don’t speak. Just focus on your recovery for now.”
With how crippled the Holy Templar Knights were, they couldn’t afford to lose their last remaining leader. The knights wouldn’t know what to do if she died too.
Lelei realized just how badly they needed her as well, so she let herself be treated without kicking up a fuss. She closed her eyes and let the magic wash over her.
“Hm? Nnngh! Gaaah! Wh-What the—?! Who are you?! Stop!” she suddenly shouted, gripping her head and writhing around in pain.
“Lelei-sama?! What’s wrong?!”
The other surviving knights rushed over and cast their healing spells on her as well. But a few seconds later, Lelei’s fit ended as abruptly as it started.
“L-Lelei-sama?” one of the knights said timidly. Lelei remained still for a second, after which her eyes shot open.
“Sorry, it’s nothing. Continue your treatment,” she said in an emotionless voice, her gaze surprisingly cold. Confused, the knight resumed casting healing magic.
After five minutes, Lelei’s most serious injuries had healed and she waved the knight away as she rose to her feet. She then ordered her knights to round up the survivors while she walked over to the palace’s crumbled wall and looked down at the capital, where she could see five apostles chipping away at the giant tree in the plaza with disintegration magic.
Sensing a familiar presence behind her, she turned around and said, “I see you survived, Hearst-sama.”
“Us apostles are simultaneously one and infinity. As an immortal being, it would be impossible for me to die.”
It was indeed the same Hearst that Meiru had sealed away that came to stand next to Lelei. The injuries she’d suffered from Revival Reversal were completely gone.
“There’s no need to act humble. We all know that you’re the first of our lord’s apostles, as well as his favorite.”
Hearst didn’t reply. She almost seemed to be feeling regret over the fact that her master had needed to heal her not once, but twice now, so instead, she asked in a pointed voice, “Shouldn’t you be worrying more about yourself? You lost everything.”
“I can’t argue with that. I really did lose it all. As time passes, there are fewer and fewer people born with powerful special magic. It might not be possible for me to collect hosts of as high a quality as before.”
“I was asking after your soul, not your body.”
Lelei placed a hand to her chest, cocked her head, and replied, “I did lose a bit of it during my defeat, but I’ve managed to integrate with this host quite well. Either way, I won’t die until I retrieve the Holy Sword. She belongs to me, after all.”
Lelei’s last sentence was spoken with an inordinate amount of obsessive zeal.
Hearst simply said, “I see,” and turned on her heel.
“But for now, we are to leave the Liberators be. I shall make the preparations for this era’s final act, so in the meantime, I need you to control the situation.”
“As you wish.”
Hearst flapped her wings and flew away.
“U-Umm, Lelei-sama?” one of the knights asked. He’d come to ask for further instructions, but had been waiting for Lelei to finish her conversation with the apostle. He seemed understandably confused by the familiarity with which Lelei had been addressing Hearst.
“I’ve decided to abandon that name. From now on, you can call me Darrion Kaus,” the woman once known as Lelei said, causing the knight to feel even more confused.
Ten days had passed since the decisive battle at the theocracy’s capital.
Miledi was sitting on the porch of a beautiful two-story wooden mansion, her legs dangling over the edge. She was wearing a pale-green yukata instead of her usual dress. Her hair was down, and she was gazing idly at the garden below. Her eyes didn’t seem to be taking in any of the splendid views, however. It was hard to tell if she was lost in thought, or simply not thinking at all. Moreover, she looked at once both serene and composed, and impatient and worried. Whatever the case, she was clearly not her usual annoying self, that much was certain. It was hard for anyone to even approach her.
“Oscar-kun, go pin her down and kiss her,” Meiru said, tugging on Oscar’s inky-black yukata.
“You want me to kill myself?”
“It’s called shock therapy.”
The two of them were hiding behind a corner of the hallway, watching Miledi from a distance.
“I feel like she’s calmed down a lot from when we first came here,” Oscar said.
“I know, but...I still can’t bear to see her like this,” Meiru replied, folding her arms. Her boobs threatened to spill out of her sky-blue yukata at any moment. Since coming here, her manner of dress had gotten sloppier and more revealing, causing the residents of this mansion endless headaches.
“I think Miledi just needs some time to reflect. We all do, really,” Oscar added, leaning back against the wall and looking up.
“I guess we just have to wait for now, then,” Meiru replied gently.
Though Oscar’s glasses hid his expression, Meiru could tell he was in a similar state to Miledi. Both of them were desperately trying to find a way to narrow the gap in strength between them and Ehit, but they couldn’t think of anything. They were burning with impatience and anxiety, but as Meiru had said, all they could really do was wait.