Reiden looked up at her massive form silently and then closed his eyes.
“But you abducted the Holy Woman, and even tried to take her life. Doing that was an act of aggression against the Mythical Beasts. If you kept your vile acts contained to the human continent, we would have overlooked it. But raising your hands against her was forbidden. If anyone were to try and harm the Holy Woman, we would act. That was something we had already relayed to the humans and the demi-humans. And since you engaged the others in war, Edesa Kura must have known that. You went after the Holy Woman knowing the consequences, didn’t you?”
“The thing wearing Feles’s skin wished for as much, so you must be right,” Reiden said. “That country has probably been dead for the last twenty years, so it probably doesn’t matter that you erased it from the map now.”
“Reiden…” I murmured.
Dad and Shida exchanged a glance behind me. As Reiden stood there, his eyes closed, Dad took out a rope.
“Reiden Park, we will now tie you up.”
“Very well,” he nodded. “But there’s one thing I need to tell you.”
“What is it?”
“That country was full of Feles’s puppets. Everyone who was charged with governing it were under her thumb.”
“Yes, we know. That is why we did not save them.”
“Is that right? Impressive…” Reiden said.
Does Curalius mean the Kaguya’s body doubles?
Come to think of it, the Mythicals were able to pick up on the body doubles’ scent. That means they left all the humans who were infested by the Kaguya to die along with Edesa Kura.
“Reiden Park, did you realize Feles Kura was taken over and infesting other people?” Dad asked. “How long did you know?”
“That doesn’t matter. Not now,” Reiden replied coldly. “I noticed, but did nothing to stop her. That is my crime. My sin. I, who couldn’t protect even a single apprentice of mine…”
“…I see.”
His apprentice. Meaning Reiden was Feles Kura’s teacher once upon a time, when the girl still lived.
Dad tied Reiden up and, after glancing at Sugol, the mechanized soldier who’d remained at Reiden’s side the whole time, led the alchemist away.
I wondered where Dad was taking him, but I soon learned the answer.
“Tinaris!” I heard a voice I knew all too well. “Are you all right?!”
“Tina!” I heard another familiar voice.
“Lico!” I turned around to see her approach. “Nakona!”
“Oh, thank goodness you’re safe!” Nakona said, catching me in a hug.
Over her shoulder, I could see an even larger group of people than the Edesa Kura refugees.
“The alliance army!” I looked to Lico, guessing who they might be, and she nodded.
“You going missing made the army march on Edesa Kura ahead of time. I’m glad you’re safe,” she said.
“S-So that’s…?”
“No, that’s just part of the first battalion that arrived first. It’ll take a week for the main force to arrive. Well, not that it’s necessary anymore,” Lico said, looking at the drowned remains of Edesa Kura.
The soil was hollowed out, and the waves had swept entire buildings away. But then, a massive mass burst out of that black sea. Even from afar, I could see the glint of its golden eyes.
Wh-What is that?!
“Oh, Renne’s going to clean this up. Just leave it to her,” Curalius said behind us.
“Th-That’s a Mythical?!” Nakona and I asked as one, our voices overlapping.
“Yes,” Curalius said casually.
Wait, I know this Mythical!
This was the water dragon Renne, who guarded the seas between the human and Mythical continents. She was bigger than I imagined!
“Oh, by the way, adventurers that are regulars at the Rofola Lodge joined us too, saying they wanted to help rescue you,” Lico told me.
“Huh? Adventurers?” I asked quizzically.
“You know, Aaron and his group?” Nakona appended.
“Ledo’s group should be here soon, too,” Shida said. “I used magic to come ahead of them.”
Aaron’s party, and Ledo and the others. They’re all coming here just to help me…
I felt hot tears build up in my eyes.
“Really, I’m so glad you’re safe,” Nakona said. “But, well, looking at what’s left of the place, I guess I ended up worrying for nothing!”
“Y-Yeah. The Mythicals really are amazing…” Lico agreed.
“Lico, I’m sorry, but could you join me? I’m handing Reiden over to the alliance army,” Dad said.
“Oh, yes, sorry. You’re right, let’s go,” she responded.
The two of them escorted Reiden over to the alliance army. He was, after all, Edesa Kura’s highest-ranking alchemist in both name and substance. He was the creator of the mechanized soldiers, so he couldn’t be left to his own devices.
But still, since he mentioned the automatic selling magic, I hoped we could work together once the war was over. As an alchemical apothecary, I had a lot I wanted to ask him.
“We’ll help with transporting the captive Edesa Kura citizens, then,” Curalius said. “Renge, you make sure the Holy Woman is safely returned to Deshmel.”
“Yes, King Curalius,” Renge said, and then frowned uncomfortably. “About Revi…”
“I’ll leave him to you.”
“I-If you say so…”
Curalius lifted her large body and glanced at the flustered people atop the hill. Come to think of it, Revi was nowhere to be seen.
Did he not come with them? I’d think he’d be the first to show up and wreak havoc.
For how curt Curalius was, I could only assume she was upset with him for stealing my Saint Elixir. But he only did it to save his mother, so I wished she wouldn’t get too mad at him.
“Now, it’s about time I fulfilled my role,” Shida declared. “The role for which the Elf of the Sun is worshipped! Ahaha!”
“Oh, come on! Don’t overexert yourself, Shida!” Nakona chided.
“I know, dear wife! Worry not, my love is yours alone! Ahahaha!”
“I swear, you always let things go to your head…” she mumbled in annoyance.
I chuckled as I watched them. I didn’t know they had started caring about each other so much while I wasn’t looking.
Aaron’s group, Ledo’s party, Curalius, and the other Mythicals…
I caused them all so much trouble by getting captured, but put another way, so many people were willing to help me in my greatest time of need. It was an amazing realization, and I could almost cry with gratitude.
“Leave cleaning up the mess to them and let’s go back to Deshmel,” Renge told me. “Or do you want to drop by Rofola first?”
“No, the people over at Deshmel are worried about me, I think. Ah, but I want to ask Reiden to help us develop the automatic selling device. Hm… Maybe we can say hello to the alliance army’s people before we go?”
“Right, there’s Aaron and the others, too… Gina was very worried about you, after all,” Nakona said.
“That’s true!” I nodded, thinking about the others.
“Right. That’s right. We need to discuss this, too,” Renge said, looking up at the sky covered by a boundless, black mass.
The Sugula. Even with the Kaguya gone and my power of the Stella present, it wasn’t getting any smaller. It completely blotted out the sky as far as the eye could see.
“Renge, is this…?” Nakona asked, looking up with a frown.
“Yes. It’s beginning its approach. We…don’t have much time,” he said.
“So soon…?!” I exclaimed.
“We need to discuss this, too. All the countries, all the races need to work together to overcome this cataclysm.”
I could only hold my breath wordlessly.
✦ ✦ ✦
♣♣♣
A day had passed since my rescue. I was in Deshmel’s war room, where an impressive situation was unfolding before my eyes.
“The Sugula’s beginning to fall?! What’s the meaning of this?!” a stout man, Dwarf King Regizof, shouted.
I always imagined dwarves as being half as tall as humans, but the king was larger (and louder) than the average dwarf. He was sitting on the other side of the table from me, but his voice still made my ears ring.
“Calm yourself, Dwarf King,” Elf King Gaelon said calmly.
He was the very image of a high elf; a handsome, tall man with blonde hair and blue eyes. He then shifted his gaze to a white-haired, old woman. This was Curalius in humanoid form.
“Renge, explain for them,” she said.
“Yes, King Curalius,” Renge responded with a nod. “It’s going to fall into the center of the human continent—meaning, this place. It’ll happen in two weeks. It’ll take ten days before it enters the range where I can destroy it.”
“What?!”
“T-Ten days…”
Panicked whispers filled the room. The representatives of the human countries went pale with terror. And I couldn’t blame them. Hearing that the Sugula was going to drop on this fort filled me with anxiety, too.
“Wh-What is the meaning of this, Marcus?!” one of Fei Lu’s major politicians raised his voice at Dad. “You said that monster in the sky would go away if the Holy Woman kept purifying monsters here!”
I couldn’t quite remember this man’s name, since there were so many people attending this emergency meeting that I had never met before. Dad and Renge tried to keep me as far from the politicians as possible over the years, and I appreciated it.
“Calm down, Lord Zabado,” Dad said. “When we investigated Edesa Kura’s ruins, we discovered something terrible. This.” Dad placed what looked like a jar of jam on the table, except its contents were pitch black. The jar itself wasn’t charred, though.