“…Now you’ve done it…!”
Gald glared at Lowe with bloodshot eyes. The white flame daggers vanished from Lowe’s hands, and there was nothing left after.
But the corners of Lowe’s lips quirked up as he muttered, “You handle the rest.”
That moment.
The heavy thud of impact sent Gald flying. Alina, with the curse patterns undone, had slammed her silver war hammer into Gald’s side.
“Gwah…!”
Gald’s body flew right in a straight line, bouncing twice atop the stage and sliding. But having swallowed a god core, his body was inhumanly sturdy, and even though he’d been hit with a Dia skill, he didn’t have a single serious wound.
“You bastard—”
But that didn’t matter. Alina didn’t let Gald get up, catching up with him again to thwack him into the air with her war hammer as he was sitting up.
“Guh…! Ngk, Flama!”
Gald, who realized at this rate that he would get beaten over and over without getting to hit back, forcibly shot Flama at Alina from midair. The Flama went right for her face as she was chasing down Gald.
But Alina didn’t back off or evade.
“Haaaaaaaah!!” Swinging her war hammer sideways, she swept away the Flama with brute force. Even just the scattered bits of flames were fearsomely powerful, and they burned Alina’s hair and arms, but she ignored them, plunging forward.
“Wha…?” Her intensity made Gald’s face freeze—and that was right where her war hammer sank in, swung in rage.
“Gerf, gah!” Gald’s body was whacked like a toy, bouncing on the ground. His brain was rattled in his head. Bursts filled his vision. As he lost his sense of balance and crawled on the ground, Alina stood before him.
“W-wai—!”
His cry to stop was drowned out by the smack of the war hammer. He was struck right in the gut.
Sent rolling across the ground once more, this time Gald panicked and leaped up, swiftly checking around him. As Alina pursued him closely with an intense roar, he let out a sharp cry.
“Wait!”
Alina stopped right on the spot—since she knew what Gald was after.
“Look at this! If I move even a little, he’ll go up in smoke.”
Gald’s arm was stretched out straight to the side. He had summoned a blue flame in his hand, and he was aiming at Jade, who had used up all his strength.
“…”
Seeing Alina finally stop her fierce attack, Gald laughed triumphantly. “Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! I didn’t think that was all you had, Executioner. Where’s the value in fighting for a little scrub like this?”
“…Scrub?”
“That’s right, a scrub. He’s a scrub! A scrub who flaunted his great skill everywhere, but then couldn’t even beat magic—”
Gald’s scornful laughter was cut off halfway.
The war hammer slammed right into his side with a bathunk of heavy impact roaring out.
“Guhh…?!”
As he was sent rolling, Alina strode up to stand before him. She looked down at him coldly and said quietly, “—You don’t know anything.” With that muttered remark, Alina wrung her shaking voice out from between her tightly clenched teeth. “…You don’t know anything…not about the overtime nobody would help me with…or the work that never lessened…the battles with loneliness and sleepiness…the way your mental state gets negative late at night…”
“…What?”
“And just how grateful I am to hear the words, I’ll help you with overtime. How much it makes me feel better just to have someone work with me. You don’t know anything!”
“…Over…time…?” Gald seemed unable to understand, his expression frozen.
Not giving a damn about his reaction, Alina squeezed the handle of her war hammer. “I’m not talking about whether Jade is strong or weak…! I’m saying that I won’t let you steal him from me…!”
Alina had always been alone.
Even in her third year as a receptionist, Alina was still doing nothing but overtime, always alone in the empty office late at night.
But that was the path she had chosen. Ever since that day Shroud had died, Alina had chosen the path of dealing with things alone. She decided to become a receptionist, then became one, dealt with overtime, hated adventurers, and created a secret in order to get rid of overtime.
Since if she was alone, she wouldn’t have to lose anyone.
But before she knew it, Jade had showed up at the office where she was supposed to have been alone.
No matter how many times he nearly died, he would absolutely never die—he’d stick with her like a zombie. Jade’s presence, not leaving Alina alone, had saved Alina from her fear.
The fear that she would lose someone and the curse of continually being afraid of that—Jade had freed her from that.
“And by the way, just so you know! Jade training in that composite skill was, you know…!”
Heedless of Gald’s confusion, Alina bared her teeth.
“For—,” she started saying without thinking, then abruptly stopped. Incredible embarrassment rose up, and she snapped out of it in an instant, as if she’d been splashed with cold water, and her anger cooled.
“For…,” she started to say, opening and closing her mouth a bunch of times, balling her hands into fists.
But I have to say this. I have to argue back—no one else but me.
Alina pressed her lips together, then steeled herself and yelled like a slam, “For me! It wasn’t for the dark god! It wasn’t for you! Can you stop getting the wrong idea and laughing away like that?!”
Jade had looked like he was suffering so much, vomiting blood as he trained, and maybe it was silly for him to rely on composite skills, with their uncertain effects. But it had never been meaningless. He wasn’t some scrub.
If his determination and his attitude had managed to ease even some of the fear that had settled in Alina’s heart, then that was far, far more meaningful than any powerful ultimate attack.
“You don’t know anything…! So stop with that constant gross laughter…!”
Alina flared her eyes wide, bounding off the ground to approach Gald.
“! Dammit…!” Panicking, Gald looked between the oncoming Alina and Jade, and left without a choice, he fired his Flama at Alina. Alina swung her war hammer through the empty air, aiming for those things flying at her.
And with a whoosh, it swept up a golden shock wave.
Intense wind pushed back the oncoming Flama, driving it toward Gald instead.
“?!” The blue fireballs flew back at him, burning one of his eyes and melting his arm.
“Gwaaagh!”
The moment Gald twisted around in pain, Alina was already in front of him, swinging the war hammer up overhead.
She felt a hot pulsing from the war hammer in her grasp. It was different from the cold silver war hammer she’d been feeling before.
It was Alina’s golden hammer, which smashed all obstacles that would try to steal from her what mattered.
Because she didn’t want to lose anything anymore. Because if she just cried in sorrow, if she just lamented her misfortune, it would be stolen from her again.
So she would fight.
“…!”
Gald shivered, his cheeks spasming. He couldn’t do anything now, just dumbly looking up at Alina.
“St—!”
“Diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeee—!!”
Alina’s strike pierced Gald’s stomach.
The war hammer smashed the god core he’d swallowed, pulverizing the dark god’s power along with it. The mark of Dia vanished from Gald’s forehead. Lightly sent flying, Gald rolled along the ground and then stopped moving.
Eventually, his body became dust and scattered.