And yet, IX was saying all this had been unavoidable. Something had happened to change him from Crown Prince Salyu, who had rallied the entire west in resistance, to Ward IX.
“You worm, did you just declare yourself my liege’s enemy?” Luna, of course, didn’t care about any of this background. As far as she was concerned, anyone who aligned themselves against the person she had given her true name to was a dead person walking, regardless of their reason or justification. Morality had no bearing in this matter. The All Dragon’s intense bloodlust imposed silence even on those on her side, filling the air so thickly they couldn’t move a muscle.
Surprisingly, IX looked unaffected. He merely smirked and said tauntingly, “So what if I did, Evil Dragon Lunvemt Nachtfelia? You monsters have no hope of beating us Wards. That’s why you were bound for all this time in all those creative little ways. The moment you refused to join us and chose to remain mere monsters, you ceased to be relevant.”
His voice had a negative tone that went beyond hostility to actual malice. His repulsion toward Luna eclipsed the caution he had shown toward Sol, the one he was actually there for. It was likely he knew what had happened to the Evil Dragon, the Elven Queen, and the Demon Lord all those years ago, including how they had come to be bound. Based on that knowledge, he had determined they were no threat to him, as he was confident history would repeat itself. Thus his condescension.
“You want to test that?” Luna bared her canines in a fierce grin. The violence threatening to burst out cast her youthful and breathtakingly beautiful features in a strange light that strongly impressed on those watching that she was indeed inhuman—that she was a monster.
If two sides thought each other beyond forgiveness, further attempts at mediation were a waste of time and effort. The only possible resolution was the complete annihilation of one side. And if they were both subscribers to the usage of brute force, there was no place in the struggle for strength in other forms, such as words.
Pure energy crackled furiously around and within the torrent of mana leaking like a burst dam from Luna’s diminutive form, and every inch of her demeanor screamed her resolve to erase all that stood in her way. She couldn’t have cared less that IX was a Ward or that he possessed Unlimited Sword Glint. Regardless of what his conceit was based on, she had every confidence that she would not fall victim to a move she had already seen once. That said, she was not kind enough to grant an instant death to someone who had dared called themselves an enemy of the liege she could no longer live without. That was why, instead of summoning an Astral, she lowered her center of gravity and tensed up her legs to leap at IX and tear him apart with her bare hands.
“I see. It’s clear there’s still a lot we have to learn.” Sol sighed and plopped his right hand on Luna’s head, then proceeded to muss up her hair. Her bloodlust instantaneously dissipated as she looked up at him and protested with a flushed face, but when he gave the base of her snapped horn a little squeeze, she jolted and promptly fell silent.
Seeing that, Aina’noa circled around to Sol’s left side and pushed her own head into his left hand, and Little Alshunna heaved her customary sigh from her perch on his head. Luna had gone limp, like her soul had left her body, thereby completely yielding Sol the floor. The girls gave them all the side-eye for the sudden laid-back mood while also feeling impressed by Sol’s ability to pull it off with such ease.
Even IX, who had been a split second away from casting Unlimited Sword Glint, couldn’t help but be stunned at the development. He obviously knew that Sol was the nexus being he was after and knew exactly what the three monsters were—perhaps even better than they themselves did. Since he had rushed here directly after awakening, he had had no time to find out what year it was or what had happened since the last time he had been deployed. All he knew was that this was the very bottom of Abyss, one of the Four Great Dungeons, as well as what would be revealed to those who made it through Floor 100 and reached the very last door. He, Ward IX, had been deployed to prevent that from happening and to seal away the being who possessed the strength to fully conquer Abyss.
He most certainly had not been briefed to expect the Evil Dragon, who did not fear even God; the Elven Queen, who controlled the mana that filled the world; and the Demon Lord, the quintessential enemy of humanity—never mind them all acting subserviently to Sol. It was like they were pets and he was their beloved master, and that made no sense at all to IX. The mass of bloodlust from earlier was the embodiment of what he had imagined the Evil Dragon to be based on all he had heard, and the contrast to what he was seeing now gave him figurative whiplash, temporarily robbing him of the ability to form coherent speech.
“You... What? Huh?”
Taking the dazed utterance as an invitation to introduce himself, Sol said, “Hi, I’m Sol Rock. I’m the one who freed these three. To borrow your naming sense, I’m the Boy Who Rules the Monsters.”
He made sure his smile was just right—not too small but not too big, just enough to be cordial. However, the final comment betrayed his displeasure at having been called “The Boy Who Will End the World.”
“I’m not so sure I agree with what you said before, though...uh, Novem, was it? I haven’t the faintest clue why you thought you had no choice, but I do have a word to say about how you, kept asleep for two hundred years, characterized Luna’s thousand years of suffering conscious and in chains.”
What Sol was even more displeased with—in fact, what he was furious about—was the way IX had spoken earlier. Sol welcomed being underestimated and wasn’t someone who would rise to cheap provocation. However, it was a personal choice to join the Wards after losing to them, and it galled Sol to hear Salyu mocking Luna for choosing differently and staying true to herself even in the face of death.
IX balked slightly. “What, are you saying they’re the same?” He apparently thought Sol was contending that all losers were losers, and that if both Luna and he had been cut off from the world, the exact details of their situations made little difference. This got under IX’s skin precisely because, deep down, a part of him actually agreed, even though he was so sure he had chosen the winning side.
Sol frowned. “Definitely not. One capitulated and was put to sleep, and one continued struggling even while going mad. There’s no way to say which is objectively right, but they are complete opposites.”
Some believed that when someone lost, they were duty bound to submit to their victor and serve them. This, too, could be considered a dignified way of life. One could see how such people would regard with ridicule and scorn another person who, after losing, chose to continue resisting, even to the point of suffering the consequences. Even so, the two were not the same. To equate them would just be wrong. And there was no place for one to judge and belittle the other, because they were both equally valid ways to live one’s life.
“My lord...” Hearing her usually composed liege growing angry on her behalf made Luna’s face melt with bliss and set her tail wagging so hard it seemed at risk of falling off.
Morality was important too, but the most important thing among companions was to share the same values. Regardless of how a group first met, be it calculated self-interest, simple inspiration, physical attraction, or even misplaced idolization, after their initial encounter, values were what determined whether the relationship could develop other qualities, such as trust, affection, and perhaps even love.
“You...dare?” IX gritted his teeth with barely suppressed anger. He was incensed at being called a mere traitor with a holier-than-thou attitude and at the sheer audacity of Sol passing judgment on him despite not knowing his story.
“Come on, don’t lose your composure so easily. You’re the strongest person in the room, aren’t you? Speaking of which, even if you have something up your sleeve that makes it impossible for Luna to beat you, we humans can do it ourselves. That’s what my power Player is for.”
Sol had never known Salyu, so he couldn’t tell if IX was letting through real emotions that he had been trying to hide or if the IX persona was a mask and the true Salyu was showing through. Either way, although it had been a while since he’d last faced an opponent that wasn’t a monster, this was clearly a kill-or-be-killed situation.
Seeing that his opponent was willing to talk before the fight, however, Sol wanted to obtain as much information from him as possible. There was a new magic tool that should help with that, which Gawain, inspired by Blue Water, had spent the past month developing. Sol didn’t know how effective it would be, as it wasn’t something that could be casually taken for a trial run. Though the monsters were his trump card, he was leery of sending them up against an opponent who was confident in the contingency plan he had prepared for them. Therefore, before doing so, he wanted to play it safe and first expose as many of IX’s cards as he could using his human party.
Instead of becoming angrier, however, IX reverted to being condescending and sighed. “All humans are truly incorrigible creatures. The arrogance to believe you, with your borrowed power, can defeat me, a Ward! Then again, I was you once, so I suppose it would be a little unfair to give you a hard time for it.”
The inability to take criticism for one’s chosen way of life often suggested shame, but apparently the tongue-in-cheek stroking of his ego had restored his mood.
“All humans? You Wards have risen above it all, then. The amount of time you’ve observed us is long enough to be called history, so I’m sure you know best. We should be thankful you don’t strike us all down where we stand.”