A ruined plaza near the city’s south gate had been strangely untouched by much of the fighting. The cries of combat were distant here, and even the violent crash of steel sounded more like the clanging of a smith’s hammer accompanied by the roar of the forge. The battle standard of some familia lay discarded on the ground, sticking out of the rubble and fluttering in the bone-dry wind.
“………”
Beneath smoky skies, the ruins stood like tombstones marking the graves of the city’s dreams. Zald stood alone, taking it all in.
“What are you doing, Master Zald?”
From seemingly out of nowhere, a man with bloodred hair emerged. It was Vito, lieutenant of the Evils known as Faceless. Despite his abrupt appearance, however, Zald showed no surprise, as if he had known the man was there all along.
“Gazing upon the fruits of my efforts,” he answered. “Burning them into my mind. As humans, we forget things. Not just what we had for lunch, but even the streets we grew up in. This is something I don’t want to forget.”
“And what, pray tell, is the value in remembering a doomed city? I never took you for a man of sentiment, child of Zeus.”
Zald and Alfia were the remnants of Zeus’s and Hera’s familias. When people said the word conquerors, everyone knew that it referred to them alone; symbols of the two forces that ruled Orario unchallenged for a thousand years.
Thus, this imprudent remark was tantamount to blasphemy, but Vito seemed not to realize or care. He only snickered as though something were highly amusing.
Zald did not even turn to answer the man, the sole follower of the dark god Erebus.
“Value is not something that is found, but created,” he said. “What you refer to as sentiment, I simply call…my payment.”
The conqueror’s statement sounded like a simple matter of fact. But no one could possibly understand what was going on in his mind as he gazed upon the ruins of his old home. Certainly not Alfia, another conqueror, or the gods above, either.
“Payment, you say? Payment for what, I wonder?”
“You are much like Freya’s mewling brat. You ask too many questions. I’m starting to see why Alfia detests this world so.”
Vito’s impertinent and persistent queries caused Zald to furrow his brow. For the first time, Zald glanced over his shoulder and locked eyes with the man.
“You are…Faceless, if I am not mistaken,” he said. “Are you sure you should be here?”
“Oh, but it matters very little where I stand, sire. Our victory ultimately hinges upon you.”
There was not a sliver of doubt in Vito’s words. He spoke like a philosopher describing the essential nature of reality.
“A few isolated losses here and there hardly make a difference in the grand scheme of things,” he went on. “Why should it matter if I’m a little late to the party?”
“Then why have you come?”
“Because I have a question, sire. A question I’ve been meaning to ask a hero like yourself for a long, long time.”
At this point, there was a slight but noticeable change in Vito’s tone.
“Because, make no mistake, you are a hero! You see, I’ve always found heroes fascinating! They aren’t content to live in an imperfect world! They rise up against absurdity! They fight against the irrational! How noble they are! How sublime! They are the ones worthy of my praise, not the gods!”
Vito’s disdain for divinity was clear. He opened his eye a crack and spread his arms wide.
It was as though he had come face-to-face with a character from a fairy tale. His voice was as sweet as melted sugar, but his gaze was like that of a child who knew only betrayal.
“What I want to ask you, sire, is this: How could such a noble man as yourself turn your blade to evil?”
Zald stood unmoving, looking over his shoulder, without the slightest change to his expression.
“I see,” he muttered. “You are a broken man; that much is clear. You fail to even realize your own contradictions.”
At this, Vito gave a puzzled look, but Zald went on.
“What you feel for heroes is not respect—it is scorn. Forgive me, but I must ask: Is this because you are blind to color?”
“Hrk!”
Zald’s question gripped Vito’s heart like a vise. His eyes flew open with shock. But Zald didn’t stop there.
“No…that’s not all, is it? Your hearing, your smell, your taste; none of them work as they should. The only sense of yours that functions properly…is touch.”
“H-how did you…?”
“Because I have eaten a great deal,” came Zald’s answer, “and my senses have grown sharp. Your defects are clear to me from sight and smell alone.”
This bold claim was not a simple lie or misdirection. It was how Zald had earned his title—Glutton—and another part of his incalculable might.
“Imagine a slab of beef placed before you,” he explained. “Before it even passes your lips, you can imagine how it must taste. The smell, the crispness of the edges, the texture as your teeth bite down…those are all harbingers of the flavor yet to come. In the same way, your defect was obvious the moment I set eyes on you.”
Vito was aghast. All his former frivolity was stripped away, replaced by a mask of anxiety and sweat.
Zald, meanwhile, spoke without pity or ridicule, but the ease with which he cut to Vito’s core caused him to twitch.
“It is that defect that births your hatred,” he went on. “And it is your obstinacy that sustains it. Have you tired of playing at humanity already?”
“Grh…! You’re a monster…!!”
But Zald didn’t rise to Vito’s insult. He simply chuckled at the ineffectual retaliation of a powerless man.
“Didn’t you know?” he said. “Monsters and heroes are two sides of the same coin. It should come as no surprise whatsoever that I stand alongside people like you.”
Zald was unperturbed. He had seen it all, heard it all, and eaten it all. The gulf of power between him and his fellow man was so wide, there was almost no reason to consider him the same species.
“But to answer your previous question,” he said. “I fell to evil…because it was necessary.”
At this point, the conversation between the two of them came to an end. All that punctuated the space between them was the soft moan of the wind.
Vito was still so shocked he couldn’t move a muscle. Zald, meanwhile, simply turned his gaze forward once more. It was then that a cry came from the southwest, and an Evils soldier came running toward them.
“Lord Zald!” the messenger cried. “I bring orders from Lady Valletta! She requests you advance on Central Park to eliminate the adventurers lying in wait at Babel!”
“It is time… Very well. I have said my farewells to this city.”
With that, Zald placed his helmet atop his head. His plate armor, so heavy that its weight would crush an ordinary adventurer, creaked as he walked. He turned and set his gaze on the alabaster tower at the city’s center.
“All that remains is to annihilate Orario’s disappointments…with my own two hands.”
With a sword as large as a dragon’s jawbone strapped to his back, the man clad in all black set off. The cries echoing in the distance were like a hymn of praise in his name, or perhaps a song of lament for the despair he would soon bring. With his crimson cloak fluttering behind him, Zald left.
Vito watched him go, dumbstruck, before maniacal laughter began working its way out of him.
“Heh…ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! He can’t be stopped… Not by us…and certainly not by the adventurers!”
He clenched his fists tightly in a vain attempt to stop them from trembling and spoke once more of the true nature of reality.
“Today marks the end…of Orario.”