Right now, Frondier said it.
That he would abandon Pielot and go.
He made a decision that no one here could accept.
However,
“Pielot will come back.”
“......He took an arrow. I said he was badly injured. He couldn’t even sit properly just a moment ago.”
“Even so, there’s no problem.”
“Frondier!”
Elodie shouted.
Frondier took a deep breath and looked at Elodie again.
Those eyes were unmistakably the Frondier she knew well.
“I was sparring with Pielot right up until I came here. I know his strength well.”
“......But, in this situation.”
“Elodie. The reason I can’t control my anger right now is the opposite of yours.”
Frondier said it.
That he couldn’t control his anger right now.
“The opposite reason?”
“Pielot will come back without fail. I’m certain. And yet my heart, just like yours, tells me to run to Pielot this instant. Even though I, who know Pielot’s strength for sure, know better.”
“......!”
“I’m angry at myself for not trusting Pielot.”
After saying that, Frondier looked at Arald and Riri.
“If this is a trap laid to draw me in, their main force will be there. We proceed as is.”
Arald and Riri looked into Frondier’s eyes.
Frondier was not confused. It was a judgment derived by unmistakable reason.
As long as Frondier did not lean into emotion, they would follow his decision.
'...Come to think of it, he’s doing the opposite.'
Riri thought.
If Frondier had truly lost his reason, he would have run straight to Pielot.
Or he would have agreed to Elodie’s suggestion and sent her.
But doing none of that, Frondier chose to leave Pielot behind.
It certainly looked like a crazy choice, but it was also not a choice swept up in the emotion called anger.
“Then we’re leaving. ......Vasileo?”
And when Riri got back into the car.
Vasileo was trembling all over inside the car.
“......I, I—”
“Vasileo. Calm down.”
“I—I didn’t, anything—”
Thunk.
Riri set a hand on Vasileo’s shoulder.
Vasileo’s eyes turned to Riri. Tears dripped from bloodshot eyes.
With eyes steeped in fear and regret, he looked at Riri.
“T—the explosion, and arrows came flying, and Pielot got hurt and was dragged off, and I—I didn’t do anything......”
Vasileo spoke while shaking. He was looking at Riri, but it was only that his eyes had landed on her; it didn’t feel like he was truly seeing.
In the past, in the classroom, Vasileo had made a mistake. His mentality shook, he manifested magic recklessly, and he almost hurt students.
He had learned from Frondier. The mindset a magician should have.
However, what one learns, what one resolves, and actually facing it in reality are different.
—If you keep that up, you’ll be the only one left alive.
“I—I haven’t changed at all—”
Slide.
Riri gently pulled Vasileo into an embrace.
“That’s not true, Vasileo. No one could have foreseen it.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Ms. Riri. Mr. Frondier, Pielot......”
It was nothing for Vasileo to apologize for. In reality, no one had been able to respond.
But Vasileo was swallowed by the shock that he had been consumed by fear and unable to move the whole time.
While soothing Vasileo, Riri thought.
'Frondier, you knew Vasileo’s condition.'
As he was now, Vasileo was in no state to fight. In the current situation where a large-scale monster raid had been foreshadowed, one powerful magician was gone.
'There are many people who need protecting.'
If Elodie or Frondier left here now, even this place would become endangered. Frondier knew that.
As the monsters drew nearer, Riri felt it too. Far away, there was unmistakably an existence set apart by an overwhelming gulf from the other monsters.
A group of Minotaurs? Or something even more formidable?
“Vasileo. My voice may not reach you right now, but listen well.”
“.......”
Vasileo did not answer. In truth, Vasileo had been swallowed up inside himself, and his surroundings were hazy.
“Those eyes of yours—I know them all too well.”
“.......”
“Everyone who sets foot on the battlefield has felt that way, without a single exception. Me as well.”
Riri let go and stepped back from Vasileo. He needed sufficient comfort, but there was no time now.
“Rest for a little while. You need that time. And after that—”
Riri went to the driver’s seat and said,
“—stand up again.”
The engine started, and Riri’s cold eyes faced forward.
“At that time, you’ll be a magician.”
***
After trading information with Frondier, Colin sent him and his party off and closed the shop doors.
Closing time was drawing near, and he had to hurry if he was going to sync up with Frondier’s plan. Above all, this place was now dangerous, so he had to move where he stayed as quickly as possible.
While his hands busied themselves here and there across the cupboards—
[Is it truly the right judgment to attach ourselves to that man?]
From the basement stairs, a voice rode the air and reached his ear.
Colin answered with the same face as ever.
“I told you. This isn’t a judgment. It’s a hunch.”
This time it was a different voice.
[That man is certainly strong. But not enough to betray a connection like Caron. Do you not understand the danger of that?]
“What’s done is done.”
[You’re being too complacent. We don’t know when Caron will catch on and storm this place. There’s no guarantee that so-called Frondier will save—]
Jingle.
Just then, the shop bell rang.
Colin raised his head.
“I’m sorry, we’re closed for today—”
Colin continued as he took in the man who had entered.
“......We’ve closed. Sir Caron.”
“Seems that way.”
Called “Caron” by Colin, the man shook cold eyes between his long white hair.
Colin stared for a moment, blinked twice, then went on with closing.
“What brings you here?”
Even as Colin asked, Caron took a slow look around the shop. As if he were conducting a search.
Meanwhile, Colin straightened the cupboards and closed a swing-door, locking it with a key.
“I came to hear your report.”
“A report, you say?”
“A man who came dragging along four women with an unbelievable appearance—he didn’t come, did he?”
“He did not.”
So answering, Colin pulled out the last key and inserted it.
It had been a “locked door” from the start, and—
“——Is that so.”
Now for the tenth time.
Rattle!
From a shelf he took up and lifted a piece of magitech—a silver knuckle you wear on your fingers.
Crack—
“!!”
The moment the knuckle formed a magic shield straight ahead, it was torn by Caron’s sword.
Thud!
Through the gap rent in the shield, Caron’s kick came flying in.
KWA-BOOM!
The wall leading to the basement shattered yet again, and—
Thud! Thunk!
Colin tumbled down the basement stairs.
“......Huff......!”
Barely managing a breakfall, he lifted his head to the unhurried steps of Caron drawing closer, step by step.
“Colin, do you know?”
Step—each footfall was accompanied by words.
“The question I just asked—”
Step.
“—was my last mercy to you.”
Listening to Caron, Colin edged backward little by little.
His thought was simple.
—How was I found out?
It had been only hours since Frondier and his party left—there was no way he’d be found out in such a short time. It should have taken days, or at least half a day.
And even if he were caught, it would take quite a while for Caron to get here from wherever he normally stayed.
'Had he suspected me from the start and come today to test me? Did the lie get caught?'
In the answer just now, Colin had replied in the exact same way as before.
Previously, Caron hadn’t noticed that kind of lie. So he shouldn’t have noticed it this time either.
And even if he had felt a hint of falsehood, he wouldn’t move like this based only on suspicion without proof.
Ssshhk—
Crunch!
Caron’s sword came down from above. Colin rolled his body. The blade scraped the ground roughly, and Colin, smelling dust, pushed himself up with an elbow.
'The information is leaking. Long before I made a deal with Frondier, they’d already had a bead on his movements.'
Then from where?
Was it a person? A means?
Tap!
Colin ran toward the door. °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° The small room where he always received secret guests.
Also the room where those who shared his purpose were.
However—
Thunk!
“......!”
A blade lodged in Colin’s thigh as he tried to flee.
If it were only pain, that would be one thing, but Colin dropped to his knees amid a sudden surge of dizziness and nausea.
'Poison?'
The moment that thought flashed by, Colin moved his still-intact remaining leg and rolled forward.
In the empty space he’d left, Caron’s sword swept horizontally.
“To run that well in that state.”
“......Do Paladins even use poison?”
Colin forced the words out through lips that barely opened.
Looking down at him, Caron said,
“They do not.”
“......I see.”
He understood what that meant. Colin asked no more.
Caron looked at Colin with a face mixed with boredom and irritation. As if observing.
“No matter what I do, that expression doesn’t change. I was a little curious—do you truly feel no emotion and no pain?”
“I feel both. Even now, intensely.”
Scrape, scrape—
Using his elbow and his one leg that still worked, Colin pushed himself back the little distance he could.
Caron asked,
“Do you want to get to that room that badly?”
“If I say yes, will you let me go?”
“Of course not.”
Originally, Caron had also been a guest of that room. Naturally, he would know the room’s structure. There was no way he would let Colin go.
“You die here, Colin.”
Caron raised his blade. Colin could run no more. Hobbling like this, he could not evade that sword.
Without delay, Caron brought the blade down—
Slice!
In the place that sword carved—
[......Kraa.]
—there was a crow.
“......Huh?”
“?”
Both Caron and Colin stared, surprised, at the crow cut in two.
A crow lying on Colin’s belly. Having been cut in two by Caron’s sword, it was of course an instant kill. It was still alive, but its remaining life would not last more than a few seconds,
[I came to meet Frondier, and it looks like I’ll end up saving the wrong guy.]
The crow glared, eyes wide, and spoke.
For a voice from a crow that was about to die any moment, it was far too composed.
No—how was a crow even speaking human words in the first place...?
“What is this thing, a monster?”
Caron frowned and spoke. The situation was too bizarre even to call it a monster, so the word slipped out of him: monster.
[Monster? You don’t even know a crow?]
“Get lost.”
“Urk?!”
Clang!
In the instant opening the crow produced, Colin rolled his body and dodged. The blade struck the floor and rang loudly. Every time his leg touched the ground it hurt enough to make him cry, but that was secondary for now.
Crow or whatever—it was something trying to save him. That alone was more than enough to justify a desperate struggle to live.
“As if I’d let you—”
Kraa—
Once more, a blade swung by Caron struck a crow and sent it crashing down. This time it was a different crow.
That other crow, sprawled on the ground, flashed its eyes wide and spat out the same voice.
[Ah, killed another one. You bird-killing bastard.]
