Having suddenly appeared above ground, Raine frowned and observed his surroundings.
“Such devastation… Hmm?” he said, his eyes stopping on me. “Oh, if it isn’t Allen! It’s been a while! I’m glad to see you’re doing well.”
“Raine… Are you on our side?” I asked.
“Of course. I will always be indebted to you,” he said.
“Thank you.”
Raine had committed a terrible crime in the past, but he wasn’t rotten to the core. He may have broken the law again by breaking out of prison, but that hardly mattered right now. His assistance would be a huge help.
“So what’s going on here?” Raine asked, and I gave him a quick rundown.
“The Holy Ronelian Empire has invaded Liengard with the assistance of the Black Organization. Barel Ronelia withdrew for some reason, but an Imperial Knight named Gauron Leisenberg and an insane shadow wielder named Dodriel are here. I saw a few other people who looked like Oracle Knights, too.”
“I see,” Raine said, narrowing his eyes. “I have a question for you, Allen.”
“What is it?”
“That man with the white mustache is the imbecile who tried to harm Serena, right?”
“Y-yeah…”
The pure, scorching anger underlying his words made me tremble.
“I thought so. You can leave him to me,” Raine said. He began to walk toward Gauron.
“Be careful, Raine!” I called out in warning. “That’s Gauron Leisenberg, one of the Four Imperial Knights! He wields a True Attire and is one of the enemy’s most powerful swordsmen!”
“Don’t worry. This won’t take long,” he said, sounding supremely confident.
“…Huh?”
“Hey there, Gauron, or whatever your name is. I hear you’re acquainted with my daughter.”
“You’re…Raine Grad,” Gauron said.
“Hmph. You know who I am?” Raine asked.
“Of course. You’re the screwup who lost our important strategic base in Daglio and got himself locked up in a dungeon. I guess that explains why you were never able to progress from Oracle Knight to Imperial Knight,” Gauron said, laughing scornfully.
Raine’s expression turned troubled. “Hmm… It sounds like you have quite the wrong idea about me.”
“Hah! How so? I was only stating the facts. You lost to Allen, gave up Daglio, and were thrown into prison,” Gauron said, barking with laughter.
A man in a black robe saw Raine and immediately went pale.
“Gauron! That man is no ordinary Oracle Knight!” he shouted.
“What…?” Gauron said.
“I’m serious! He’s a monster! One of the few people to ever fight His Majesty at his best and survive! I saw it myself!”
Raine closed his eyes.
“Surge, Waters of the Beginning—Origin Drop,” he said, summoning his True Attire. A colossal spirit power swept around him.
But just like that, it disappeared again, vanishing like morning dew.
“Hah, I was right after all. He’s just an Oracle Knight who can’t even properly summon his True Attire,” Gauron mocked.
Raine ignored him and tugged on Serena’s hand.
“Come with me, Serena. It isn’t safe here.”
“…? Okay,” the young girl replied.
Raine led his daughter away, just before…
“WHUH?”
…a mystical droplet fell from high in the sky. It easily pierced through Aurum Cube above Gauron’s head, crushing it and everything else in its path, including Gauron.
“My True Attire is massive,” explained Raine. “Summoning it for too long would turn Aurest into another Land of Rain.”
He had defeated Gauron Leisenberg, one of the Imperial Knights, with a single attack. A single raindrop, even.
R-Raine is so strong… He’s like a different person compared to when I fought him…
Now that I thought about it, though, that was to be expected. Raine had used his Soul Attire, called Eternity Drop, to turn the Land of Sunshine into the Land of Rain. He’d invested enough spirit power to change the weather of an entire country and maintained it for years without rest. By the time we’d fought, he’d probably been suffering from severe spirit power deficiency.
“You did it, Raine!” I cheered, starting to run toward him.
“This…isn’t over…”
Gauron forced himself to his feet. He was heavily wounded but still barely breathing.
“I have a next-generation soul-crystal pill, gifted to me by His Majesty… With that, I can still fight!”
He felt around in his pocket with a trembling hand and took out a blue pill.
“No way… Is that a soul-crystal pill?! Raine, don’t let him take that!” I yelled.
“Understood!” Raine said. He ran at Gauron, but he was too far away.
“Ha, ha-ha… You’re too late!” Gauron yelled. He bit down on the soul-crystal pill, and it exploded in a flash of blinding light.
“Did he…blow himself up…?” I asked.
“…What just happened?” Raine said.
We both stared in confusion as the dust cloud slowly cleared.
“Argh…”
Gauron was sprawled on the ground, breathing raggedly. He looked like he was at death’s door.
“Why, Your Majesty…? Why did you…do this to me…?” he said, his voice strained. Tears streaked his grief-stricken face. It looked like his world had been turned upside down.
…Oh, so that’s what happened? Gauron had thought he’d been given a soul-crystal pill by Barel Ronelia to use in an emergency, but it had turned out to be an explosive.
The emperor had disposed of him.
How cruel…
We were enemies, but I still found myself feeling bad for him.
Gauron’s insides had been burned up, and he was heavily wounded. It was clear he was already dying—which made it all the more cruel when Dodriel stomped on his head.
“Ah-ha-ha! You’ve seen better days, Gauron,” he said.
“Dodriel…,” Gauron mumbled.
“You’re old, Gauron. Ancient. Those traditional values of yours—leadership by seniority, the need for absolute loyalty to commands, the unwillingness to upset established order—are rooted to your core and grown over with mold. You’ve made no attempt to adapt your style or values to the times. That’s why His Majesty disposed of you.”