Laura smiled as she wiped off Zara’s face.
“Are you awake?”
Her own face was covered in injuries, but they did nothing to detract from her beauty.
Zara’s entire body was numb, and his senses were dull. He hadn’t yet fully regained consciousness, either. Everything seemed vague and unreal, as if it were all a mirage.
“Just who are you, Zara?”
Laura’s voice sounded distant despite her close proximity.
Zara was lying in a bed. Laura knelt down and buried her head in his chest.
“It doesn’t matter who you are. Thank you.”
He couldn’t see her face, but he somehow understood she had been crying.
Time passed in silence.
He may have lost consciousness for a moment, because before Zara knew it, Laura’s face was right in front of his. She kissed him gently.
He felt like he was enveloped by a sweet, soft wind.
“I thought we would be lucky to save one person. But I knew even that would be impossible. You’re a miracle worker, Zara.”
Zara was finally able to get his mouth to move.
“How many…survivors?”
“Excluding me and the ones who didn’t fight due to injury, all the knights died. Close to one hundred common soldiers survived. The king and the palace are safe, and two-thirds of the populace survived. We won.”
“What about Moura? And Jamagar? And Shariabro? And Orien?”
“All dead. Each one of them died valiantly.”
He couldn’t move his head, so he looked at Laura by moving his eyes. Her right arm was gone. Her bandages were soaked with blood. As if noticing Zara’s gaze, Laura explained what had happened.
“The painkillers you gave us are unbelievable, Zara. I was also sleeping until just recently. The pain from my missing arm hurt so much that it woke me up. But I’m okay now thanks to the painkiller. A desert alligator clamped down on my arm. I was trapped and nearly received a fatal blow from an ogre, but Orien saved me by using a flash bomb to burn my right arm off and free me. Then the ogre hit and killed Orien instead. I used my left arm alone to kill both the ogre and the alligator.”
That was how she’d survived.
They’d actually succeeded in defeating that large of a force. Though it seemed the sacrifice was great.
“I saw the way you fought. It wasn’t just me—a lot of people saw you. No human can fight like that. Everyone is saying that you must be the warrior god Arza.”
“Arza… That is…my other…name.”
Arza was his original name. In order to prevent his identity from being found out, he had changed his name temporarily to Zara.
“Huh? Are you actually Arza? If you are, then I want you to tell me something. It’s said in the Gorenza Empire that the warrior Arza was a servant of the wicked dragon Kaldan. But in the north, they say that he was an attendant of the goddess Pharah. In the desert, it is believed that Arza is the name that the goddess Bora’s brother took after throwing away his status as a god and becoming a human. Which one is correct?”
Zara did his best to answer while still half asleep.
“The goddess Kaldan… Today’s victory…was made possible…by Kaldan’s blessing. The earth goddess Bora’s…blessings were…even greater. The goddess Pharah… I don’t know…much about her.”
“I see. Then from now on, Bia-Dharla will worship the goddess Bora and the dragon goddess Kaldan. A festival will be held on this date. So, Zara. If you can—”
Laura’s speech broke off. There was a big commotion happening in the city.
Laura grabbed her sword with her left hand, said something to Zara, and left.
Zara’s entire body was numb, and neither his headache nor the ringing in his ears would die down. He opened his Treasury without getting up, but he couldn’t move his arms. After much effort, he managed to withdraw Bora’s Sword.
He got to his feet using his sword to prop himself up. Ende’s Shield was leaning against the bed, so he stored it along with the dagger sheathed within it. He checked for the bracelet, charm, and ring. Using the sword, he staggered his way out of the building.
The city was in terrible shape. Many people were looking in the direction of rubble, piled-up corpses, and the crumbled rampart. There were also some fleeing in Zara’s direction.
There were trolls. More than ten of them were approaching.
Trolls were big-bodied and unbelievably strong. Just one swing of a troll’s arm packed the punch of ten ogres. Their skin was highly resistant to blows and cutting attacks, and they could not be brought down with swords or lances. As far as the city’s defenses were concerned, they may as well have been gods of death.
Zara dragged his feet as he approached them; his stiff body wouldn’t move as he ordered it to. He then felt like he heard someone calling out to him. He turned around and saw his guide shouting something and waving his arms.
A single bobo ran up to Zara, spurred on by the guide. It then bent its knees and held its back out in front of him. Zara noticed that it had one black ear. He clung to its back, and the bobo skillfully slipped through the wreckage of the rampart and the corpses and went outside the city.
It would take about twenty more seconds to reach the trolls. Laura was running straight ahead of Zara with a sword drawn in her left hand. Zara urged on his bobo.
There were twelve trolls. They were a variety of sizes. The four smaller ones in the back were probably children. Zara wondered if trolls also felt sadness at the death of children or parents.
Arza had never seen trolls before, but he didn’t think they would be this big. The troll at the front of the pack was especially gigantic. Trolls had long arms and torsos and short legs, but their knees were still even with Laura’s head as she approached.
A giant troll raised the club in its right hand and drew it back. Laura was charging straight at it. Zara felt a sincere sense of dread as he urged his bobo forward, but he wasn’t going to make it on time.
The troll swung at Laura with its club in a sweeping motion. She dodged by dropping to the ground; then she got back up and rotated into a powerful strike that cut off the troll’s right arm.
The troll then kicked her, and her body went flying high into the air. After she landed, the trolls stomped on her mercilessly.
Zara’s bobo reached the foremost troll. The bobo changed course to the right to avoid the trolls.
Zara was thrown off, and he turned toward the trolls closing in on him and rolled like a barrel. The largest troll lifted what was left of its right arm to its head and screamed as if it had just registered the pain. Zara, still lacking total freedom of movement, succeeded in using the force from rolling to slash the troll’s leg with Bora’s Sword.
At that moment, Bora’s Sword gave Zara a tremendous blessing.
The divine sword was furnished with a number of powerful blessings, including Health Leech 10 Percent, which just activated. Zara absorbed 10 percent of the damage he inflicted on the troll. The effect was dramatic.
His body was freed as if being released from shackles, and his thinking, hearing, vision, and his other senses regained their clarity.
He twisted out of the way to avoid being stepped on by the second and third trolls he encountered, and he cut off the leg of a fourth troll. He once again regained a significant amount of stamina, and then he cut off the collapsed troll’s head and ran up to Laura. The eleven remaining trolls headed for the city, seemingly having lost interest in Zara and Laura.
Laura was in terrible shape. Her red armor had just barely protected her from being crushed to death, but the blood flowing from her mouth suggested more than a few of her internal organs had ruptured. Her eyes were hazy, and she couldn’t even focus her vision. Her left leg had suffered a full break and was twisted in an impossible direction.
Laura was going to die. She would pass through the gate to the underworld at any moment. Even a priest capable of working miracles would not have been able to save her.
Then, as if possessed by something, Zara took action that defied reason or explanation.
He lifted Laura’s body, supported her weight from behind, and placed Bora’s Sword in her limp left hand. He then wrapped his left around hers, raised a beast-like cry, and attacked the eleven trolls approaching the city.
He cut. He slashed. And he killed.
Despite the restrictive posture of holding Laura’s body in his right hand and holding the sword through her left, he was like a hurricane as he swung Bora’s Sword. The trolls were probably never even aware of who they were fighting. Their hands, legs, and heads were cut off in quick succession before they ever understood what was happening. Before long, all that was left was Zara and Laura and the mutilated flesh of the trolls.
Zara’s mind was surprisingly calm. Laura had still not opened her eyes. Zara laid her down on the sand, then got on his knees and prayed.
“O Earth Goddess Bora. O Great Bora. I humbly thank you for your divine protection and do beseech thee: grant this woman restful slumber.”
Laura’s lost right arm was restored.
Her left leg was restored as well. Her body, which had been covered in injuries, was brought back from the brink. Her head was still plastered with clotted blood, but the injuries had healed.
She was asleep and breathing peacefully. Less than a thousand paces away, the citizens of Bia-Dharla looked on at the rubble of the rampart without a clue as to what was going on.
A booming voice resounded in Zara’s head.
“Arza, son of Panzel, known also as Zara. The time has come. Honor our agreement and become my blade.”
Zara’s body then disappeared.