At that moment, Gravis caught a glimpse of a stronger glow from among the stars scattered across the continent.
His starry-sky eyes glowed gold.
“Leorino…!”
Gravis pressed his clenched fist to his forehead.
“Your Highness…! Did you…?”
“…Yes, I found him…!”
He had been waiting for this moment.
The men who had been waiting with Gravis got to their feet.
“Where is Leorino?!”
“Zweilink. He is at the fort! …Lucas, Dirk, Josef! Hold on! We’re leaping!”
Gravis prayed to the stars flickering in his mind.
Please let me arrive in time. I don’t want to lose his irreplaceable soul again…!
Please, it can’t be too late.
Gravis leaped with his companions to the buffer zone of Zweilink, close to the inner fortress.
“…?! Ebbo!”
Ebbo Steiger was on the ground, bleeding. His men were frantically holding his wounds.
“Steiger, are you all right?!”
Dirk rushed toward him. It was too dark to see clearly, but it appeared he had been stabbed several times.
“…gghh…gahh!”
“Stay with us!”
Lucas, second in size only to Ebbo himself, supported his large body. Ebbo coughed blood.
He was bleeding internally. Gravis met Lucas’s gaze and nodded.
“Sasha is waiting in the main camp. We’ll carry him there.”
Just as Gravis was about to lift Ebbo and help him stand up, Ebbo’s rocklike hand gripped his forearm.
“Sir…I’m all right… Please, save Lord Leorino.”
The men gasped.
“…Leorino has been with you until now, hasn’t he?”
Ebbo nodded, his lips smeared with blood. “Leorino escaped…from the outer fortress… We found him, but the man kidnapped him again…”
“Leorino was taken back to the outer fortress?”
Ebbo nodded between effortful breaths.
“Its status is…?”
“It’s the same as that day. Lord Leorino said the enemy forces have already taken it over…and it’s all because of that man.”
“The man who kidnapped Leorino, does he have the same Power as me?”
Ebbo nodded once more.
Gravis turned back at his men.
“After delivering Ebbo to safety, I’m going to leap to the outer fortress.”
The general was planning to personally charge into the outer fortress, knowing he would be surrounded by the enemy.
Dirk’s expression was grim, but Lucas didn’t stop him.
“I understand.”
“Lieutenant General…?!”
“Dirk, it’s time for us to make up our minds, too.”
Lucas looked at the general’s adjutant and urged him to make a decision.
What Gravis needed now was to break free from the chains binding him.
Now was the time to give him the freedom to act on his instincts as a man like the rest of them in order to recover his beloved.
“I understand… Sir, your orders?”
Lucas and Dirk were prepared to accept the potential consequences.
That was when the lionlike man smiled. “But I will not let you go alone. I’m coming with you, Your Highness.”
Gravis stared at Lucas. “…Lucas.”
“This is Zweilink. But this time, we’re past the gates. Your Highness…there is only one thing for us to do, isn’t there?”
They would retrieve that precious, irreplaceable soul this time.
Gravis nodded.
“I’ll go with you.” Josef offered, his expression fixed. “I have a job to do, too, and it is to protect Master Leorino.”
The men exchanged glances, wondering what to do. Then Dirk backed Josef up.
“Please take him with you. Josef’s skill with the sword is unmatched by anyone in the Royal Army. He will be of great service to you.”
Gravis nodded in agreement.
“Dirk, the battle will begin before dawn. We must get the buffer zone under our control. I’ll bring you and Ebbo to the main camp, so make preparations for that… May I count on you?”
Dirk slapped his chest.
“By all means, sir. We will endure these hours without you. Sir…be sure to bring Lord Leorino… Bring my brother back, please. Alive this time.”
“I will…”
Then a young soldier, who had been holding Ebbo’s wounds, raised his hand gingerly.
“Sir, please take me with you. I believe I can help.”
“And you are?”
Ebbo replied in a hoarse voice instead. “…Please, take him with you… Tobias Bosse had particularly sensitive hearing, back when he was in the Special Forces with Captain Ionia and me, before he was killed in action, that is… This is his son.”
They looked at him in shock.
The soldier, who wore a deeply earnest expression, was clearly intimidated by the general’s imposing presence, but he held his gaze without fail. He certainly had a backbone.
“I have inherited my father’s Power. I’ve just learned the sound of Lord Leorino’s voice, and I can already make it out from others. As long as I can get close to the outer fortress, I know I will be able to locate him.”
The men who knew about the events of eighteen years prior couldn’t help but think of it as a truly fateful encounter.
Here stood yet another ability user whose destiny had been twisted by that battle.
“I’ll ask you again. What is your name?”
“Gehman Bosse. Sir.”
Gravis nodded at that. “All right, Gehman. We can use the help.”
The flames of eighteen years ago returned.
The fire they once could only watch from outside the gates was now inside them. Gravis and Lucas were no longer bystanders. They were now standing on the grasslands Ionia fought upon.
“…I will not let that day repeat.”
Gravis stood in Zweilink not as a general, but as a man protecting his country and his beloved.
Lucas nodded. They exchanged glances.
“…Your Highness. Alongside Leorino, let us reclaim the souls of Ionia and the men who died here.”
“We shall.”
Leorino regained consciousness. He was lying on a cold, hard surface.
The overcoat he had taken from the Gdaniraque soldier had been stripped off. With the cold mercilessly creeping up from the stone floor, Leorino feared he would freeze.
“You’re telling me this filthy man is the fiancé of the Fanoren king’s brother? He’s a mess. Where’s this unmatched beauty you spoke of?”
The man’s voice was unfamiliar. He was speaking in heavily accented Fanorenese.
“He’s filthy from his escape attempt. If you dress him up, Your Excellency will see that his beauty has no equal on this continent.”
“Hmm. Fair enough.”
When Leorino heard approaching footsteps, someone violently pulled his head off the floor.
A thick palm roughly wiped his face.
“…”
“Oh… I suppose I can sort of see it? I don’t know. He’s too dirty. Hey, bring me some water!”
Leorino was fully awake now. Quickly, he pulled out his dagger and thrust it into the hand of the man gripping his head.
“You son of a bitch! What the hell are you doing?”
“…ghh!”
But Leorino’s arms were too weak, and his blade had only grazed the man’s skin.
The enraged man mercilessly kicked Leorino across the room. His head hit the stone wall with shocking force.
“Gah… Hah…”
His chest hurt fiercely from the kick. He couldn’t breathe. The side of his head throbbed with pain. Soon, one side of his vision was stained red.
Leorino crawled slowly, curling his body into a ball to stave off the pain. Both inhaling and exhaling hurt. His ribs must have been broken.
“My God. How can you hurt such a precious gem?”
“This filthy brat hurt me first! I could kill him if I wanted to!”
Leorino looked at the man who had kicked him, his eyes blurred with pain.
He must have been the leader of Gdaniraque who wanted Leorino as his reward. The beard covering the lower half of his face made it difficult to tell his age. He was a large man with a wild air about him.
A small young man, who must have been a page, brought a wooden bucket filled with water.
The man approached Leorino, grabbed him by the neck from behind like a puppy and lifted his face. He couldn’t breathe.
“I can’t see his face properly with all that blood.”
“Owww…”
The man plunged Leorino’s head into the bucket. It happened so suddenly that Leorino accidentally swallowed the water.
His chest hurt like it was about to burst. He couldn’t breathe.
The man watched Leorino’s hands thrash in anguish with a sadistic smile.
Eventually, when Leorino went limp, his head was pulled back.
The water in the bucket quickly turned brown with mud and blood. With the exception of the blood flowing from the side of Leorino’s head, the filth slowly melted away. His platinum hair glistened.
“Wipe his face.”
With a nervous hand, the page wiped Leorino’s dripping wet face.
Unable to resist any longer, Leorino coughed violently and resolved himself to his fate. His wet upper body was losing heat by the second.
The mud and blood were finally removed from Leorino’s face. The man’s expression changed from discontent to delight as Leorino’s fair, pale skin was revealed and his incredibly delicate, flawless features came into view.