And Moorin just so happened to be on one of those falling sleds. Her eyes met Ruth’s. Knowing he couldn’t reach her, Ruth nevertheless tried to stretch his arm out to her. Moorin smiled slightly, then shook her head.
“Don’t look,” she said, and Ruth hugged Corrin so tightly she wouldn’t be able to watch as Moorin disappeared into the valley below.
“No, this can’t be...” Corrin muttered in a trembling voice.
Sadly, this crazed world didn’t even give the two siblings time to grieve. There was a series of war cries, and then the members of the demon army hiding within the forest charged at the disorganized group.
The few former test subjects who’d elected to go with the group as guards tried to fend off the demons, but there were only fifty of them and nearly a thousand demon soldiers. If they didn’t find more favorable terrain, they’d be overwhelmed soon. Seeing the writing on the wall, one of the chimera warriors shouted, “Get out of here, kids!”
Until Meiru and Laus had healed her, the unfortunate demon woman had been an empty husk who’d muttered incomprehensible things to herself. But now, she was reaching into the sled packed to the brim with Oscar’s enchanted swords and pulling out weapons to help her fight back.
Another former test subject who’d been just as beaten down as the woman from earlier flashed Ruth a smile, then charged toward the demon army.
“W-Wait! You’ll die if you fight them! No one asked you to go that far for us!”
“And no one asked you to save us and treat us so kindly!”
The kindness Corrin and the others had shown them gave the chimera test subjects a reason to fight again. They wanted to do what they could to repay the Liberators who’d rescued them from hell and the children who’d made life worth living again.
“Stop! Stop! We didn’t treat your injuries so you could die!” Corrin shouted in a pained voice.
The adults who couldn’t fight hurried up and gathered the sleds that were still intact, then started loading everyone onto them.
“If we could just fix the sleds...!” Ruth shouted, running to one of the shattered sleds. The ice wolves were fast enough that anyone who couldn’t fly wouldn’t be able to keep up with them, which meant if Ruth could repair enough of the broken sleds, they’d be able to take the former test subjects with them.
Unfortunately, the Liberators were far too outnumbered. Determination alone couldn’t change that. Some of the demons’ spells made it past the chimera warriors’ defenses, and one of them landed right next to Ruth. The explosion momentarily deafened Ruth, and his head swam from the impact. Through his blurry vision, he could see Corrin running toward him.
Susha was huddling over Yunfa, trying to protect her younger sister from any stray explosions. A dozen or so demon soldiers managed to make it past the chimera warriors, and two of them beelined straight for Susha and Yunfa. The adults and the ice wolves tried to intercept the demons, but they were blocked by the other demon soldiers that had made it past. Then, another demon made it through and started heading for Corrin.
“Big brother, please save Corrin and the others! Pleeeeeease!” Ruth shouted, praying that Oscar would show up.
Right before Corrin was run through by a spear, someone stepped in and blocked the thrust with their sword.
“Unfortunately I’m not Oscar-nii-san, but technically, I am your big brother, so hopefully I’ll do.”
With a twirl, the fighter smacked the demon with the flat of his blade, knocking him unconscious. Ruth and Corrin watched in amazement.
“D-D-D-Dylan?!”
It was indeed Dylan who’d stepped in to knock out the demon and save Corrin...and he wasn’t the only one either.
“What am I, chopped liver?”
“Katy?!” Corrin exclaimed.
Looking over, she saw that Katy had sliced through the tendons of the demons that had gone to attack Susha and Yunfa. She was wielding one of the enchanted swords that Oscar had mass-produced.
“K-Katy-chan? Th-Thank you.”
“Umm, thank...you? Katy-san?”
“He he, you’re welcome!” Katy said with a smug grin, brushing her twintails back. The two of them sounded just like their usual selves, but they also looked like seasoned warriors, just as they had when their souls had been hijacked.
“It is you two in there, right, Katy? Dylan-onii-chan?” Corrin asked hesitantly. If their warrior skills had reawakened, then that was well and good, but it’d be a problem if their personalities had been destroyed again because of it.
Dylan and Katy smiled wryly as they replied to that question.
“Well, it’s us, but we still have the souls of old warriors mixed within us somewhere.”
“We haven’t just been sleeping this whole time, you know?”
The two of them cut through the barrage of fireballs like it was nothing. Even with the mana-severing properties of Oscar’s swords, that still wasn’t an easy feat.
The adults watched in awe as Dylan and Katy danced across the battlefield. Of course, they’d known that everyone would awaken eventually thanks to Oscar’s artifact, but it should have taken them another five months. All of the other children who’d similarly had their souls tampered with were still sleeping, so no one was expecting them to suddenly wake up and turn the tide of the battle.
Ever since Meiru had first started using restoration magic on them, Dylan and Katy had been training within the confines of their minds, absorbing the memories and experiences of the warriors whose souls resided in their bodies.
“We’ll explain later, but first, we need to get out of here,” Dylan said.
“Corrin, get everyone inside the ice wall while we buy time!” Katy shouted.
For now, Dylan and Katy were managing to fend off the demons who made it past the chimera warriors. But even with their superhuman abilities, it was only a matter of time before they were overwhelmed due to the sheer difference in numbers.
The adults hurriedly loaded injured kids onto the sleds, and Susha rushed over to help. Ruth continued working on repairing as many sleds as he could, while Corrin and Yunfa got on one of them.
Suddenly, there was a massive explosion to the east and a ball of flames rose into the sky. A shock wave strong enough to flatten the frozen trees rippled across the forest. Everyone dropped to the ground to avoid being blown away.
“Isn’t that where Margaretta-san and the others are fighting?!”
Before anyone could think to go check what had happened to them, everyone heard a low rumbling noise...and one of the men paled.
“It’s an avalanche! The explosion destabilized the mountainside!”
The ice wolves took the sleds that could already move and started running.
“Ruth, that’s enough! Come back!” one of the adults shouted. Even if he did manage to repair more of them, the chimera warriors no longer had any way to get back in time.
“Goddammit!” he shouted, running back to the sled Corrin and the others were on with tears in his eyes.
A few seconds later, the front line was swallowed whole by the avalanche. Dylan and Katy hurried back to the sleds as well.
There wasn’t a moment to lose. However, right before they set off, Yunfa looked around at the other sleds and shouted, “Sue-nee?! Sue-nee, where are you?!”
Surprised, everyone else looked around as well. They’d seen Susha helping the adults gather people, but none of them had seen her board a sled herself. Turning toward the crevasse, they saw her head and one arm poking out over the edge. The explosion had knocked her into the chasm. She didn’t have the strength to pull herself up and was struggling just to keep hanging on.
Susha turned to look at the advancing avalanche.
“I’m coming to save you, Sue-nee, just wait!” Yunfa exclaimed as she tried to jump out of the sled. However, Corrin and the adults held her back with pained expressions on their faces.
“Don’t!” Susha shouted in such a stern voice that Yunfa stopped struggling. Yunfa and Susha then locked eyes, and Susha smiled lovingly at her younger sister.
Yunfa paled as she realized what Susha was about to do.
“Take care of Naiz-sama for me, okay?” Susha said...and let go of the cliff.
“Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!” Yunfa shouted as Susha vanished into the depths of the chasm. Corrin hugged Yunfa tightly as the ice wolves pulled the sleds away from the oncoming avalanche, crying all the while.
They had survived, but at a great cost. And all of this happened just one day before Oscar and Naiz found them.