The night was finally over. When the raid force saw the sky brightening from the east, they all, without needing to be told, let out a breath of relief.
Veteran A-rank adventurers who had seen every kind of battle, beastkin warriors who gambled their lives like coins tossed on a gaming table, Bedouin swordsn who treated death as a part of daily life—all of them were the sa.
They couldn’t help it. The horrors of the night had been just that overwhelming, and more, of the Black Pharaoh, Nephren-Ka. A monster who wielded darkness like the Demon Kings of legend, commanding tides of beasts as if they were his own limbs.
Those who hadn’t seen him themselves would never believe it. Mighty A-ranks, so rare that even great cities would consider themselves lucky to have one or two, were being thrown away like foot soldiers, and warriors who could normally fight one against a hundred struggled to even protect their own lives.
Spells and sorcery never before seen on any famous battlefield had clashed wildly. Even Masters who could break armies alone had been forced to pour all their strength into carving paths through the horde. It was enough to make one wonder why their heads were still on their shoulders.
“And yet, we lived,” Philip, an adventurer of the Great Desert, muttered without thinking.
Truth be told, he still didn’t feel alive. This was his tenth year as an A-ranker, a man who could call himself a veteran, and even he felt that way. He could still feel the teeth of monsters snapping at his neck, the icy chill of the undead, the miasma that had seared his skin even through artifacts ant to protect him.
Last night’s battle had been terrifying enough to make even a veteran tremble and his heart race.
“Well, half of us did die,” ca a grumble from Styr, an adventurer adjusting the spear slung on his shoulder.
And he was right. Of the eight adventurers dispatched by the Guild under urgent orders, four had perished in the night, and even their bodies hadn’t been recovered whole. It had been a fight where no one could spare a thought for anyone else.
Philip only gave a faint laugh and replied, “It couldn’t be helped. They knew what they were walking into. Besides, if they’d wanted to die peacefully, they wouldn’t have beco adventurers.”
“Pahaha! You realize you’re spitting in your own face, right?”
“Well, don’t you agree?”
“I guess I suppose I do,” Styr answered and scratched his cheek. “Still, I can’t help feeling a little—just a little—unsettled.”
“Why?”
“Because you and I both—we’re A-ranks. Not exactly small fry, right? And yet...” He trailed off, then admitted, “Last night, we were nothing. Guys who were so clearly stronger than us fell like flies. There wasn’t any room for us to do sothing significant. None at all.”
Philip felt the sa. Those who had clawed their way to A-rank carried pride in their strength and their place. To face a battle where they could not possibly be the protagonists—it was hard to swallow.
If there was one difference between the two A-rankers, it was that Philip was older. He hadn’t fought a battle like last night’s, but he had felt the sting of inferiority before, and had overco it, and learned to accept it.
“No need to be discouraged, Styr,” he said. “This world is full of things we haven’t seen yet, things we can’t yet touch. What you saw last night was just one of them.”
“I see...”
Philip continued, “You’re still young. With ti and experience, you’ll climb higher. Don’t give yourself up to so passing sense of inferiority.”
Styr fell silent, mulling over the advice, so Philip added a few more words.
“And when you live as long as I have, sotis, rarely, you see sothing else.”
“What do you an?” Styr asked, curious.
“Look ahead.”
Styr followed the gesture of Philip’s finger pointing at the back of the young man walking at the very front. The rookie who had done the impossible—Leon.
“A twenty-year-old kid outshone those Masters and beca the central figure of the entire battle. And that last technique? I don’t even know if that was martial skill or magic.”
“That’s... true.”
“By common sense, it makes no sense. Even if we all testified, so would say we exaggerated, and others would outright call it a lie. They’d dismiss it as sothing unreal.”
A being who broke common sense. Soone who seed unreal, whose very reality people would doubt. If he weren’t real, he would be a myth. If he did—
“He is a hero,” Philip said, solemnly.
“A hero...” Styr repeated the word under his breath, watching Leon’s back as he led the way.
It felt different than when he first saw him. That first impression had been one of confidence. That boy’s body was now in tatters, his armor, made from so unknown extraordinary material, hanging in rags. Wounds still bled through layers of holy healing.
It was natural. He had fought closest to the monster, had been engulfed by flas that consud everything. However, after all that, he still walked. Leading the rest of the force, he walked in front of everyone else.
Noticing sothing, Styr tilted his head.
“Hm...?”
“What is it?” Philip asked.
“Maybe it’s just , but the rookie’s steps look strange. His stride, the way he moves—narrower, weaker.”
Philip shrugged it off, “He must be exhausted, even if he’s trying not to look it. If it were , I’d have collapsed on the spot.”
“You think so?”
“Just the fact that he hides it so well is impressive. To control himself like that at his age—it’s almost frightening. No wonder they say he’ll be the youngest S-rank.”
By anyone’s eyes, Leon was no longer ordinary. He had done more than even Al Razzaz and Varg, champions of the Great Desert and the Great Savannah. The Holy Iron Inquisitors themselves treated him as soone to be guarded above their own lives. And it was Leon who had planned the battle, uniting four separate factions into one force.
“Oh!” Philip exclaid and smiled as he looked to the horizon. “There’s the village. Finally, we can rest.”
“Haha! Philip, you sound like such an old man, already thinking about lying down,” Styr teased.
“What?! Fine then, let’s have a drinking competition when we arrive!”
“If you’re buying, I won’t say no.”
“We’ll see who pays in the end.”
It wasn’t just Philip and Styr. The mont the village appeared in the distance, the whole raid force felt their hearts ease.
Reality, lost in last night’s battle, ca rushing back. They were alive. Their hearts still beat. They had reached safe ground at last, and that relief bound them all together.
Al Razzaz’s booming voice spurred them on.
“Form up from the front and march slowly into the village!”
With victory at their backs, the strike force returned.
***
The raid force disbanded in the village, and the core mbers, Varg, Al Razzaz, Elahan, and the Holy Iron Inquisitors, moved at once to the Bedouin stronghold according to their earlier agreent.
Though their bodies were in their worst condition, exhausted from battle, none showed it. Their training ran that deep.
Al Razzaz dismissed the swordsn first, while Elahan gave a simple glance to Antonio of the Inquisitors, who understood imdiately and led the others outside to stand guard. Even tired and wounded, they were still the continent’s elite. Few in the world could hope to slip past the Inquisitors’ watch.
Leon’s strangely stiff gait stopped in front of a bed, and he collapsed into the blankets with a thud. From his shadow, Karen erged, her face pale.
“Ugh... I didn’t know moving soone else’s body for hours would be this hard.”
She had never been well-suited to the Puppet Style, so it drained her heavily. However, she endured, unwilling to let Leon down. Thanks to her effort, only a few noticed he had fainted at all.
Varg, watching, spoke.
“You can even move another person’s body through shadows? Impressive. No wonder the proud Bastet tribe bowed to you.”
“The ability itself isn’t so different from what they can do,” Karen answered with an awkward smile. “The real difference is whether you just stumble along or actually research and train a system. If they let go of that arrogance, they would beco much stronger.”
It was the greatest weakness of innate gifts. Born with them, wielding them easily, they lacked structured thods of training. Their affinity was high, but their mastery shallow. It was why the Bastet had been broken by Karen so easily.
Looking down at Leon, Al Razzaz spoke as though in admiration.
“My brother. You’re quite stubborn yourself. You asked your comrade to control your body so others wouldn’t worry when you fell. To think you could fight that monster and still care about such things... You truly are remarkable.”
Varg cut in with a snort, “How long will you harp on about being brothers with the heir? It’s tireso.”
“Do you not know? Sworn brothers stand together until death.”
“Pathetic.”
“What did you say?!”
While the two Aura Masters bickered like children, Elahan approached Leon and pressed her hands together once more. Light poured from her, wrapping around him. She had already cast her healing Holy Law dozens of tis along the way here.
Seeing that, Karen grabbed her hand and said, “Ella, stop.”
“Karen...”
“Your Holy Power isn’t bottomless.”
She was right. Elahan had poured herself out with Divine Judgnt, and with the constant fighting, even her highest barriers had been broken. She had spent more power than ever before. Her hand was cold, her cheeks as pale as carved marble.
“And Leon is already recovering. Giving him more healing now won’t make a difference.”
“But...”
“You need to rest, too. Out of all of us, I’m the one with strength left,” Karen said and stroked Elahan’s head with a faint, self-deprecating smile.
She had played a decisive role in the end, yes, but at far less cost. Unlike Elahan or the two Masters, she had simply placed a small weight on the scales at the very end. Compared to their struggles, it was almost nothing.
I have to grow stronger.
Blaming it on a poor attribute or skill matchup changed nothing.
If her mastery of shadows had been beyond even Nephren-Ka’s darkness, if her assassination skills had been honed to deceive even a transcendent, she might have shouldered more of Leon’s burden.
“Hah.” Varg, listening, gave a sly smile and said, “As expected of the Hero’s won—brave and wise. My daughter doesn’t asure up.”
“Huh?!” Karen reacted, caught off guard.
“Sorry to add another rival to your grand feud, but a father has his pride, too.”
Al Razzaz scratched his cheek with an annoyed look, then suddenly asked, “Wait. If your daughter ties herself to my brother, doesn’t that make your superior? I don’t know human customs well, but I think that’s how it usually goes.”
“Never! I’ll never bow to you!” Varg snapped, taking Al Razzaz’s comnt seriously, for so unknown reason.
The man who offered the prize lay unconscious, while those squabbling over it argued like fools, and Elahan and Karen were fired up as well.
“Karen, we’d better be careful.”
“Yes, we’ll need a stronger wall around him.”
The raid force had no idea that the leaders they revered, and those they had co to revere, were in here behaving like this. As the saying went, ignorance was bliss.
And yet, the room was peaceful. The very peace Leon had fought for rested within that small chamber.
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