—
As everyone knew, he was not the "Sword Saint," nor had he earned the "Van" sword name bestowed upon those who distinguished themselves through their own swordsmanship. His position as Deputy Commander of the Royal Knights of the Kingdom of Lugnica was merely ceremonial.
In short, Heinkel was a man who had never been chosen for anything that required being chosen—and that held true even in the Volachia Empire.
He had been swept along into battle, his spirit broken by sights that seemed impossible in this world, and at the place he fled to, he had scraped together what remained of his life. There, swept along once more, he had returned to cling desperately to a feeble hope.
That hope was nothing more than an escape route laid out by those who expected Heinkel to serve as a sacrificial pawn, and he lacked even the awareness to see through their designs—a dullard's resignation.
—That was precisely why, unlike Rouan Segmunt, who had defied battle strategy for reasons of madness, Heinkel had tried to fulfill his role properly, only to draw the worst possible short straw.
"Son of a bitch..."
Heinkel was assigned to cover both the south and southeast points of the five peaks of the imperial capital's defensive wall—both positions that were supposed to be shared with Rouan. He headed south toward the first peak, where the main gate allowing entry and exit to the capital was located, with the intention of seizing it.
To put it plainly, it was a reasonable judgment—a sensible choice entirely devoid of ingenuity.
And at the end of that reasonable, sensible choice, Heinkel encountered— "—I am Mezoreya. Heeding the voice of my beloved child, I shall become the wind from the sky."
The majestic sight of the white dragon unfurling its wings as if to guard the first peak— △▼△▼△▼△ The room was piled haphazardly with treasures and ornaments.
Craftwork wrought with lavish amounts of gold and silver, garments and hair ornaments studded with gemstones—all manner of rarities were crammed, rolled, and strewn about in a single glittering, ostentatious chamber.
In the center of that dazzling room, Madeline Eschalt opened her eyes.
"——"
The sweet golden irises, glazed with the haze of half-awakening, blinked several times. Two black horns extended from her sky-blue hair swayed as her small body rose to its feet. Instantly, the treasures scattered around her clattered and tumbled, crashing noisily across the floor, but Madeline paid them no mind.
She did, in truth, enjoy such things—treasures, gold and silver, anything that glittered.
Humans were weak, fragile, noisy creatures she disliked, but the craftsmanship they produced with gemstones and gold possessed a charm all its own.
Completing tasks assigned by humans and receiving these items as reward was not unpleasant.
Piling them up in her nest, packing them in, sleeping surrounded by them—these contributed mightily to Madeline's peaceful rest. But even gold and gemstones could not fill the void in her heart.
"——"
Swaying gently, she turned her head and pushed open the door to her nest.
This was a different nest from the one she had inhabited for some time after becoming one of the "Nine Divine Generals." It was a hastily arranged new lair, created after the recent turn of events.
It lacked her own scent, and the treasures had been scraped together from those within the castle, so the satisfaction it provided was far from ideal—but it was better than nothing.
More importantly, the reason she had abandoned her familiar nest lay right here.
That reason was— "Carrion."
Stepping out of her nest, crossing the corridor, and emerging onto a balcony where a warm breeze blew, she found a wyvern resting its wings there.
"————"
Called by name, the wyvern turned its head toward her—its entire body covered in gruesome cracks, its dark eyes bearing golden pupils, unmistakably displaying the husk of a vessel from which life had departed.
Like the humans reviving one after another, many wyverns had been dragged back from the beyond. But while she could not communicate with those that had been wild in life, with a select few—like the wyvern before her, Carrion—such communion was possible.
In fact, Carrion responded to Madeline's call by quietly bowing its head.
Other undead wyverns would attack mercilessly, even at Madeline, if they deemed her a living being. Of course, she felt no mercy toward such presumptuous creatures and would not hesitate to shatter them— "I don't want to break you, you know."
Madeline stroked the bowed head of Carrion, her lips tightening at the cold she felt.
A wyvern's body, built for flight, naturally lacked excess fat and ran cold. And yet, the warmth transmitted through her fingertips was nothing but the chill of a gemstone—the same cold as touching the jewels laid out on display.
The difference was that, unlike a gemstone, there was no brilliance or beauty to be felt here.
Even so, the preciousness of having Carrion alive and before her could not be replaced.
—For Madeline, Carrion was the first wyvern she had ever seen that had been tamed by humans.
As the last surviving dragon person, and owing to the nature of Mezoreya, who was nothing more than a dragon husk, Madeline had lived her entire life without ever touching the world beyond the Cloud Sea.
Excluding Mezoreya, the only beings Madeline had ever encountered were the wild wyverns that inhabited the fringes of the Cloud Sea, and even they were merely creatures that submitted to dragonkind.
The vast, unbridgeable gap between herself—a dragon person—and the wyverns.
It was something rooted in instinct, with no room for questioning why or for what purpose. It was a natural divide, allowing no space for pessimism or doubt.
Those who had never beheld the beauty of gold would never covet a golden crown.
But Madeline's contented days, born of knowing nothing beyond the Cloud Sea, came to an abrupt end.
The one who brought about that end was none other than Carrion himself—a straggler who had been coaxed and comforted by Madeline, who loathed the rising presence of the "Cloud Dragon" Mezoreya, and who had plunged into the Cloud Sea— "Where is Barloy? Your husband, I mean."
Madeline asked, tickling the base of Carrion's neck with her finger.
The name she spoke was familiar to Carrion as well, and as it rested upon Madeline's tongue, the poison spread through her chest with a slow, seeping ache.
That poison—the kind that corroded even the soul—was the reason Madeline had flown beyond the Cloud Sea and descended to the earth where humans lived.
But now, that poison had begun to feel different from before.
"————"
Madeline savored the poisonous ache in her chest. Beside her, the wyvern she had been stroking slowly raised its head and let out a soft growl.
Sensing from its gesture and cry that someone was behind her, Madeline turned around.
From the corridor leading to the balcony, a figure approached. The figure waved its hand breezily, adopting an easy manner toward a dragon person.
"...That kind of insolence—were it anyone but you, I'd crush you between a dragon's fangs."
"Oh my, I doubt anyone else would dare take such liberties with a dragon person as exalted as yourself. That's what I'd like to say, but you'd be surprised—there are quite a few who show disrespect toward the 'Generals,' you know."
"That's true. Honestly, humans are just exhausting."
"Ha ha ha, I've no comeback for that."
At the bitter smile and shrug of that figure, Madeline exhaled through her nose with exasperation.
But she felt an unmistakable emotion tangled in that breath, and she admonished herself, sweeping her hand as if to hide the warmth of her flushed exhale.
An unmistakable emotion—an overflowing, boundless passion for the person before her.
Even though his complexion and the shape of his eyes had changed entirely, his feelings bore no falsehood.
The same preciousness she felt even for the undead wyvern Carrion—she felt it even more strongly for him.
"Barloy, where have you been?"
Stepping half a pace closer to him as he arrived before her, Madeline demanded.
When she had fallen asleep in that treasure-filled nest, he had been by her side. If she could have, she would have wanted him there until she woke.
To Madeline's unspoken question, Barloy seemed to divine what she had left unsaid. He touched his own head and said, "My apologies,"
"It seems a few rats have been scurrying about inside the imperial capital. Sir Palladio made quite a fuss about them, so I went for a quick reconnaissance and report."
"Rats... You killed them properly, right?"
"Well, you see, these rats turned out to be rather stubborn. When I reported that they'd slipped away, Sir Palladio was absolutely livid—squeezed me dry, he did."
Barloy shook his head slowly at that. At his words, Madeline's pupils narrowed.
The "Palladio" he mentioned was one of the resurrected members of the Volachian imperial family, was he not? A man of the Demi-Eye race who had lost to Vincent—who had risen to the throne after winning the Volachian custom of sibling bloodshed—and had subsequently been resurrected— "If anyone makes things difficult for my husband, a dragon can tear them apart with her own claws."
"Now, now, don't say anything so frightening. Even if they died once, they're Volachian royalty... Among the resurrected, there are不少 who obey unconditionally. You'd end up making enemies of all of them, too."
"You're saying a dragon and Barloy would lose to a bunch of the dead!?"
If so, that would be a colossal misunderstanding.
There was no way the undead could prevail against Madeline and Barloy working together. If they stood in the way, she would simply crush them to the last.
Madeline's breathing grew heavy with agitation, but Barloy gently placed a hand on her thin shoulder.
"That's not what I mean. The question isn't whether we can win or lose."
"What do you mean...?"
"You should understand. Our freedom as the dead is held in the palm of that '
"——!"
At Barloy's admonishing words, Madeline clenched her back teeth and fell silent.
The "Witch" was the very person responsible for turning this imperial capital into a city of the undead, and the reason Barloy and Carrion now stood before Madeline.
The "Witch," with her unnatural body structure eerily similar to Mezoreya's dragon husk, touched upon mysteries of Od Laguna that even Madeline, as a dragon person, did not know.
That was why she could call back so many souls and reproduce them in their living states.
However, if the "Witch" were to whimsically interrupt that miracle— "What Madeline says is true—if we fight, we can beat just about anyone. But there are only two of us and one wyvern, versus Palladio, who can command hundreds or thousands. I couldn't say which the 'Witch' would find more useful."
"She'd choose humans over dragons?"
"Who knows? After all, no one understands what the 'Witch's' grand ambition actually is."
It was nothing but frustration, but Barloy's answer held more than a grain of truth.
The "Witch," whose intentions no one could fathom, had placed Madeline in the Crystal Palace she had seized—but only on the condition that Madeline cooperate. Being ordered about with a nod of the jaw was infuriating, but Madeline had already swallowed that humiliation the moment she descended to the surface and accepted Berstetz's proposal.
What she could not swallow was not knowing the other's intentions—that single point.
"——"
As Barloy said, until they understood the "Witch's" goal, Madeline was in a state equivalent to having the edge of a blade pressed against her reverse scale for all eternity.
Without that, even Barloy would never have accepted this situation. He would have fled with Madeline beyond the Cloud Sea, to where they had promised to hold their wedding ceremony.
Yes—that unfulfilled promise.
"Finally, we meet again like this."
"...Madeline."
Overwhelmed by the surge of emotion, Madeline threw herself into Barloy's arms.
Barloy was far taller than the diminutive Madeline. When she pressed against him, her black horns nearly pierced his neck. He deftly dodged them and patted her on the back.
That gesture reminded her of the time her embrace had caused her horns to stab deep into him, resulting in a hemorrhage so severe it became a disaster—and her eyes glistened.
His body, pressed against hers, was cold. There was no softness where their skin met.
His eyes, once the same blue as Madeline's hair, had become dark orbs bearing golden light—making it difficult to read his emotions at a glance.
And yet, they shared the same memories. And yet, he understood her wishes.
They had fallen in battle, been parted by death, and now touched once more—yet the body before her carried neither blood nor warmth. So what of it.
"Barloy is here. ...That's all a dragon needs."
Life and death were irrelevant.
The dead were not necessarily consigned to remain beneath the earth. If by some chance the dead spilled out above ground, and among them were those one held dear—by what right could anyone call this wretched miracle an abomination and declare it a sin?
Before Madeline Eschalt, the dragon person—who would dare say such things?
"——He's here."
Pressing her face into her beloved's chest, relishing their cold reunion, Madeline let out a low growl.
Sensing what her voice indicated, Barloy—who had been gently patting her back—stopped and turned his gaze beyond the balcony, far into the distance, toward the south of the imperial capital.
Something had triggered it. Madeline's senses—or rather, the senses of Mezoreya, the dragon husk.
No matter what it was, she had been commanded to guard that place.
She would say it again: it grated on her. But Madeline would not waver. What she wanted was right here.
"I'm heading out. Barloy, this time—"
"I understand. While I'm not needed, I'll stay by your side."
"—Now that's what I call a dragon's husband."
He never made promises he couldn't keep—like swearing he'd never leave her side or that he'd always be nearby. That was precisely why Madeline could love Barloy for who he was, without excessive expectation or disappointment.
Having reaffirmed that—Madeline's body suddenly went limp.
"——"
Her limbs went slack and she collapsed where she stood. Barloy caught her on instinct, firmly supporting a weight that belied her small frame.
And so he lifted Madeline—no, he lifted her back into consciousness.
"————"
"I know, I know. I'll carry her gently, I promise."
The soft growl of the beloved wyvern was worrying over Madeline's condition.
Barloy nodded at Carrion's cry and once more turned his gaze to the state of the imperial capital.
"Even if we die, we'll meet again. That's all I ask. I'm the same way, Madeline. —As long as we can meet again."
△▼△▼△▼△ —The battle began one-sidedly and ended one-sidedly.
A battle, by definition, was the clash of total commitment between two parties willing to fight, continuing as long as that will endured.
By that definition, the instant one side's will to fight was extinguished, it could no longer be called a "battle."
"————"
It was something so feeble it could not even be called a threat.
And yet, there was no appropriate term for something that approached with hostility and ill intent. "A trivial threat"—that was the most fitting expression.
Indeed, the trivial threat merely flicked its tail like a broom sweeping a street, and was blown away like a leaf, buried in a cloud of dust along with the surrounding buildings.
It was an anticlimactic result. But there was no need to lament it or pity it in particular.
That was the gap between dragons and humans—as living beings, they were simply incomparable.
When facing a dragon, which differed in the very quality of its existence, humans were easily reduced to dust.
Admittedly, in extraordinarily rare cases, there were exceptional individuals who defied that norm—but they were aberrations within the human species, and in plain terms, something other than human.
Even so, even those something-others were ultimately no match for a dragon as living beings.
He reinforced his recognition of this fact—a fact that would someday have to be proven definitively—by repelling the trivial threat once more.
In that sense, even this trivial threat had value in existing.
It had demonstrated the overwhelming power of the "Cloud Dragon" Mezoreya to the "Witch" once more, and it had given the dragon itself an opportunity to reassess its own reason for existence— "...Son of a bitch."
Suddenly, a voice that seemed to curse the very world cut through the air, and the "Cloud Dragon" halted.
The dragon had been flapping its wings, about to return to the wall with its back to the street it had swept clean, intending to demonstrate once more that nothing bearing ill intent could breach that point.
That motion stopped. Because a voice had spoken—one that should not have been heard.
"————"
Slowly, the dragon turned back, and with a grinding rumble, a mountain of rubble collapsed.
From within the tower of wreckage—formed by the street demolished by its tail and the remains of the tall buildings that had been heaped there—a battered figure crawled out. It was a grimy human with red hair and blue eyes.
A human the dragon had judged to be a trivial threat, and who had proven to be exactly that.
By the definition of "battle," if that figure were to draw the sword at its waist once more and face the dragon again, it would mean the curtain had not yet fallen on the battle thought to have concluded.
But there was not a trace of fighting spirit or fighting will anywhere on the crawling figure's body.
"It's always like this..."
Choking on the dust it had inhaled, the human muttered hoarsely.
Once again—it was a voice that cursed. Not the dragon, but the world itself. The ground beneath its feet, the air surrounding it, everything about its circumstances—and above all, the person at the center of it all: itself.
"I always... get abandoned by luck at the crucial moment..."
Finding that lament utterly grating, the dragon drove its tail downward—vertically this time.
Where before it had swept the street clean as collateral damage, this time it brought its tail crashing down in an upward scooping motion, directly onto the wavering, fragile figure.
Struck by the tail's spinning blow, the human's body was sent flying like a kicked stone, punching through walls and buildings, tearing through three or four streets in succession.
From above, the imperial capital's streets stretched out in immaculate order.
The human, hurtling through that ordered grid and shattering it into chaos, was ugly in its very existence—in its flight, in its death—scraping against every nerve of the dragon.
It was infuriating to watch something beautiful be destroyed for the sake of this.
And to top it all off— "—Ugh."
From far away, beyond the streets it had pierced through, a groan.
No matter how devastating the injuries, no matter how faint that final breath—it should not have been audible at all.
A being that could take a dragon's tail strike without its life bursting apart... should not exist.
"...I..."
Should not.
"ALL OF YOU—DISAPPEAR—!!"
Surging with an uncontrollable impulse, the white destruction of the "Cloud Dragon"—of Madeline Eschalt, wrapped in her dragon husk—was released from her mouth, raining down upon the human who was meant to be nothing more than a trivial threat.
This was not a "battle."
It was the beginning of a one-sided—utterly one-sided—massacre.