Chapter 23: Self Execution
Although he desperately tried to control himself, his fingers continued to shake against the frozen ground.
——Ilya.
A memory he had buried deep within his mind.
——Do you want to leave this place? Because I do.
It was a very familiar voice.
’Yes, Mother. I’ll go anywhere with you. Even if we have to abandon everything. This place... it was never meant for us. I don’t think they’ll ever welcome us.’
——You’re such a sweet child, Ilya. Sometimes I wonder what I ever did to deserve a son like you.
A very warm voice he had not heard in years.
——I’ve accepted one last performance in Rabelle. After that, we’ll leave together. Somewhere peaceful. Somewhere no one knows our names. And it’ll just be the two of us.
She smiled.
"Cough! Cough...!"
A smile that never reached anyone else but him.
Crackle——!
All at once, the warmth disappeared.
The gentle sunlight was swallowed by an endless white, snow crashing down so heavily that it erased the horizon itself.
An unforgiving blizzard howled through the streets, and the bitter wind drowned out every other sound until the world became nothing but white and silence.
——Ah.
’....’
——I’m sorry, Ilya...
’Mother...?’
——It seems... I’ll have to leave this world before you...
’Mother...’
——I’m so sorry...
’Mother...!’
——...For being a horrible parent.
’N-No... D-Diane!’
Since that day, the sunlight had never seemed to reach Ilya.
"Can you stand?"
Without waiting for an answer, Siegfried lowered himself onto one knee and slipped Ilya’s arm over his shoulder, helping him back onto his feet. Once Ilya regained enough balance to move, the two of them resumed running, gradually catching up to the rest of the group as the examination continued.
"I figured you’d react when someone mentioned Rabelle," Siegfried said. "I just... didn’t think it’d affect you that much."
"You..."
"You were there that day, weren’t you?" Siegfried continued. "During the Rabelle catastrophe."
"...."
"You don’t have to answer," he said with a chuckle. "Everyone has things they’d rather keep to themselves, and I’m not about to pry into something like that."
Then, Siegfried lightly bumped Ilya with his shoulder.
"Still..." A grin slowly spread across his face. "This really isn’t a good look for you."
"...."
"You’re definitely losing points with Elise. Keep it up, and I might swoop her from you."
"...She’s all yours."
"Heh. Well, I’ll gladly take that as your blessing."
Without another word, Siegfried quickened his pace and moved back toward the front of the group. His footsteps remained as energetic as ever, and before long, he was already calling out directions to the others.
"...."
Ilya watched his back.
His cyan-blue hair swayed, brilliant enough that it seemed capable of catching even the faint sunlight filtering through the snow-laden branches overhead.
Looking at him from behind, it was difficult not to think that the Crown Prince had been born into a world entirely different from his own, where warmth reached people as naturally as breathing.
If Ilya was the embodiment of an endless winter that froze everything it touched, then Siegfried was perhaps the blazing sun itself.
"...."
For reasons Ilya couldn’t quite explain, the sight almost hurt to look at.
After several more minutes of climbing, the group emerged into a wide clearing.
The moment they stepped into it, every single one of them came to a halt.
"...."
"...."
"...."
An indescribable chill crept up their spines.
Scattered across the clearing were professors, instructors, and students. They weren’t the ones who had remained behind to confront the Orange-Labeled Distortion, but an entirely different group.
Their bodies lay strewn across the snow, twisted and bent into disturbing positions, shattered weapons protruded from the frozen earth, and dark crimson blood stained the white landscape in every direction.
"What... is this...?"
"W-We have to leave..."
Even though their minds screamed at them to run, not a single one of them could make their legs move.
Step——
Except one.
"This..." Siegfried murmured, his eyes slowly sweeping across the fallen professors and instructors. "This wasn’t supposed to happen..."
The others looked toward him.
His expression was different.
Gone was the easygoing smile that had rarely left his face since the examination began, but instead, a quiet remorse so profound that it almost seemed as though he had personally witnessed something similar countless times before.
"This is my mistake," he said. "My carelessness... my terrible sense of direction... my inability to remember the proper route..."
He lowered his head.
"I led all of you here."
"Y-Your Highness..." Lucie stammered. "W-What are you talking about...?"
"I thought..." Siegfried laughed bitterly. "I really thought this was the safest path..."
He closed his eyes.
"And yet... even after everything..." He clenched his fist. "I still made a mistake..."
No one understood what he meant.
"I swear it," Siegfried whispered. "On my soul... on every god who might still be listening... I won’t let this happen again..."
Elise frowned. "...Sieg?"
"In the next run... So long as I get another chance... none of you will die."
"...What are you talking about?" Gilbert asked, unable to conceal the confusion in his voice.
Siegfried slowly turned toward Ilya.
"...Especially you."
"...."
"I’ll admit it," Siegfried said with a quiet, self-deprecating laugh. "When we first met, I couldn’t trust you. Every little thing you did made me think you were hiding something, and I convinced myself there was always another motive behind your actions. So I tried provoking you in many ways."
His eyes lowered for a moment.
"But after spending time with you... after getting to know the person you truly are... I realized I’d misunderstood everything..."
A small smile gradually returned to his face.
"So... I don’t blame you for becoming the person you eventually became..."
"...."
"Next time... I swear it..."
"...."
"...I’ll save you, Ilya."
"Sieg...!"
Elise’s voice suddenly rose into a scream.
"B-Behind you!"
Clang——!
In a single motion, Siegfried spun around.
A radiant golden magic circle flared before him, expanding into a translucent barrier just as something immense crashed into it with enough force to shake the entire clearing.
The impact echoed like a cathedral bell, throwing snow high into the air as the barrier rippled under the blow.
Only then did they finally see it.
A towering white figure stood on the opposite side of the barrier, grotesquely thin despite its overwhelming size.
Its unnaturally long limbs dragged across the snow, fingers ending in disturbingly long black nails that scraped against the frozen earth, while curtains of pitch-black hair concealed its face, swaying despite the absence of any wind.
The thing slowly tilted its head.
And then...
"...!"
It smiled.
"It really pisses me off," Siegfried muttered with a bitter laugh, "how I lose my powers every single time..."
"...Your Highness?" Elise called.
"But... I should still be able to buy enough time for all of you to escape."
"What are you saying?!" Gilbert shouted. "Forget about buying time! We all leave together!"
Jerome nodded immediately.
"Yeah! That thing wiped out an entire group of professors! You’re not seriously thinking of fighting it by yourself, are you?!"
None of them paid any attention to Siegfried’s strange ramblings.
Whatever he meant by every single time, whatever he meant by losing his powers, none of it mattered now. All they heard was that the Crown Prince intended to stay behind.
"Sieg, please!" Elise pleaded. "It’s not worth it! We can still run!"
"We have to go!" Lucie added. "Don’t even think about fighting that thing!"
Siegfried smiled without turning around, holding off the Distortion with his barrier.
"If we keep running, it’ll catch us."
The words were spoken with such certainty that no one could bring themselves to interrupt him.
"This thing... isn’t the Orange-Labeled Distortion the professors are dealing with..."
"...."
"This bastard... is a Black-Labeled Distortion...!"
Crackle——!
The barrier shattered into countless fragments of golden light.
The grotesque creature’s elongated arm tore straight through where the barrier had been only an instant earlier, forcing Siegfried to throw himself backward.
He landed heavily in the snow, rolled across the frozen ground, and barely managed to regain his footing before another long limb came crashing down where he had just been standing.
"Your Highness!" Elise screamed.
Without thinking, Gilbert and Jerome immediately rushed forward, while Lucie began forming a magic circle and Elise hurriedly started chanting a support spell.
"We’re not leaving you!" Gilbert shouted.
"Like hell we’re running!" Jerome added.
Siegfried’s expression hardened.
"Stop!"
Before either of them could take another step, half a dozen golden magic circles materialized between Siegfried and the rest of the group, forming a luminous wall that forced them to stop.
"Don’t come any closer!"
The Distortion lunged.
Siegfried thrust his hand forward.
Boom——!
A torrent of golden light erupted from the circles, colliding head-on with the creature and shaking the entire clearing.
The blast bought only a second before the Distortion tore straight through it, with the remaining circles shattering one after another like fragile glass.
"If even one of you stays... then this all becomes meaningless—"
The Distortion’s grotesquely elongated limbs descended with terrifying speed, blotting out the sky above Siegfried.
There was no room to evade, no time left to cast another spell, and in that instant, even Siegfried understood that he had reached the end.
It was then.
Crackle——!
The world froze.
Ice crawled across the creature’s limbs in an instant, crystalline frost racing over its pale flesh before binding it in place. The unnatural appendages ground to a halt mere moments before reaching Siegfried, imprisoned within layers of translucent ice that continued spreading.
"...."
"...."
Even Siegfried’s eyes widened in disbelief before he turned toward the source of the attack.
"...Ilya?"
Standing several meters away, Ilya held one hand outstretched toward the Distortion.
His fingers were clenched so tightly that the veins along the back of his hand stood out, while frost continuously spread around him, swallowing the surrounding snow beneath an ever-thickening layer of ice.
"Ilya...!" Elise cried.
"You’re..."
"Get the hell out of there, Siegfried!"
For the first time since meeting him, Ilya’s voice rang through the clearing without the slightest trace of restraint.
Siegfried stared at him.
"...Ilya... you really are—"
———!
A single fracture appeared within the ice.
In the next instant, the entire prison exploded apart as though it had never existed at all.
The Distortion’s limb burst free and lashed forward.
———!
Before anyone even had the time to process what had just happened, Siegfried’s torso was torn away from the rest of his body as crimson blood splattered through the air.
Thud!
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