"—You say Roswaal and Krinkend can do it. They can, right?"
That was
Emilia's decision to leave the battlefield to them without hearing the details—it wasn't the rashness of a thoughtless person, but born of genuine trust. Roswaal felt admiration and gratitude toward her for it.
Given the circumstances, Roswaal had been half-prepared for the moment when he would need to reveal Krinkend's true identity, even if it disrupted his long-held plans—to reveal that he was the dragon person of the Divine Dragon.
"If we're going to reveal that, it means touching on the matter of our contract as well."
Naturally, Roswaal had accepted Krinkend into the Mathers household as a servant knowing whose dragon person he was. That was not because he valued Krinkend's extraordinary abilities as a house steward, but because he considered his existence useful.
For Roswaal's own unavoidable destiny—and as an indispensable asset toward it.
"Even if you tell them, I don't think anyone's attitude would change. A suggestion."
Krinkend, who knew the situation, offered this counsel to Roswaal, who insisted on keeping it hidden.
There was no stubborn reason to deny it. In truth, Roswaal agreed with him. Most likely, even if Roswaal revealed his circumstances, the attitude of the camp—of Emilia and the others—would not change.
And yet Roswaal could not reveal his circumstances—it was simply in his nature.
Roswaal could not face others unless he held the advantage. He needed to understand their intentions, grasp their weaknesses, and ideally keep a hostage in reserve.
Years upon years of failures that could not be tolerated had shaped Roswaal into a cowardly villain.
That was why, even knowing that Subaru, Emilia, and the rest were the most good-hearted people imaginable, Roswaal could not bring himself to bare his true heart.
"That said, I don't think it would be a hindrance, do you?"
What mattered was not baring everything, but demonstrating one's true worth commensurate with one's abilities.
On that count, Roswaal prided himself on not being outdone by his companions. Rather, burdened by the guilt of hiding his true feelings, he felt all the more driven to prove results.
"…Guilt? Me—the apprentice of the
Even as such a question arose in his heart, Roswaal set it aside.
Regardless, without revealing Krinkend's circumstances, Roswaal would still join the same battlefield—to fight the enemy who had seized the Divine Dragon's dragon corpse.
And then— "Let me take this opportunity to test it. —My long refinement, for the purpose of killing the Dragon."
△▼△▼△▼△ —There was no such thing as a warm-up in that fight.
Removing his monocle and wreathing himself in violet lightning, Krinkend—with two black horns now sprouting from his head—shed the mask of the all-purpose house steward he had worn for so long, becoming simply a dragon person.
One step forward, and lightning was born beneath his heel, the initial burst matching the speed of sound.
"——"
The atmosphere detonated with each step, cannonball-like footfalls shaking the world.
Using the exploding violet lightning as acceleration, Krinkend charged straight toward the majesty enthroned in the midheavens—the Divine Dragon Volcanica, spreading its noble dragon wings and bearing the sun upon its back, opening its maw.
'————!' In that instant, the exhaled breath became a white thermal beam that caught Krinkend head-on.
The Dragon's breath was a torrent of pure mana—force unbound by any magical directionality. And yet, like how a single harmless droplet of water becomes a flood capable of sweeping away an entire nation when gathered in multitude, the mana, having gained overwhelming momentum, scoured through the physical world with ease— "—For an opening salvo, that's rather unimpressive. Childish."
Krinkend cleaved the city-leveling white light in two with a downward chop of his hand.
The breath was split down the center, passing behind him to avoid direct contact. In its place, the scorched earth was peeled away, the shattered rock fragments turned to sand, which in turn melted into a viscous, red river.
Leaving that behind, Krinkend's body soared high, bearing down on the Dragon of the heavens.
'Che, what a pain!' The howling Dragon twisted its body, swinging its thick, powerful tail. The sweeping tail strike, killing the wind as it spiraled, caught Krinkend dead on with nowhere to dodge—a thunderous boom resounded.
Violet lightning more intense than any before lit up the sky, and what was sent reeling was the Dragon's tail.
The principle was the same as when kicking off the ground—an impact wave generated by the detonation of his wreathed violet lightning. Krinkend produced it at the soles of his feet in midair, using the shock as a foothold, and unleashing a chain of thunder explosions from shoulder to elbow to fist, delivered a punch of inconceivable power against the Dragon's tail.
And what was terrifying was that this violet lightning— "I'll keep you company a while longer. Endless."
In the clear sky where clouds had been blown away, lightning flashed in defiance of the weather, flickering in layer upon layer.
'Oooooooooh—!!' The Dragon roared in fury, beating its wings as it wheeled about. Around it, Krinkend leaped wildly in every direction, accelerating with each burst of violet lightning.
Just as before, the detonating violet lightning beneath his feet kept him aloft, granting this wingless dragon person the right to move freely through the sky. Naturally, the diligent dragon person did not merely enjoy aerial traversal—he did not forget to rain fierce blows upon the Dragon.
"————"
Dodging the Dragon's swiping claws by a hair's breadth, he landed a strike wreathed in lightning upon the face of an opponent whose size and reach advantages were absurdly vast, triggering a thunder explosion at its apex. Strike plus thunder—a one-two combination—layered not once or twice, but ten or twenty times in the span of a blink.
'Damn—!' Deprived of aerial superiority by the cascading violet lightning explosions, the Dragon spat a curse and climbed even higher.
The ability to choose a battlefield without restriction—in three hundred and sixty degrees, across all three dimensions, not just the vast wasteland below but the sky itself—was the privilege of the winged Divine Dragon.
However— "—Al Duet."
—The Divine Dragon, having climbed to greater heights, plunged headfirst into a colossal mass of water, losing all sense of up and down.
'—!?' The Divine Dragon's great surprise created enormous bubbles. What had enveloped its massive body was a sphere of water exceeding dozens of meters across, formed by converging ambient moisture and underground water currents into a single point.
The water groaned under its own pressure, and within its liquid prison, the Divine Dragon opened its golden eyes wide.
"How heartless of you to get so caught up that you forget about me."
Below the Dragon, standing upon the very ground that the sphere's searing heat had vitrified into blackened glass—the ground where the breath Krinkend had first cleaved had scorched the earth—Roswaal pointed up at the water sphere in the sky and pressed his attack.
Duet meant double, and this magic did not end with trapping the Dragon in a sphere. Moments later, the sphere sealing the Dragon began to froth and boil from the searing heat generated within.
Then, another bolt of violet lightning flashed fiercely— "A touch flashy, this. Thunderclap."
Krinkend's fist, driven with a thunderous roar, plunged into the water sphere. In that instant, a flash of light ran through the entire mass of water, violet lightning racing within to scorch the Dragon and the sphere itself.
The next moment, heat and pressure reached their limit—the sphere detonated with a thunderous roar.
Stranded violet lightning tore across the battlefield, a storm of steam rivaling an inferno exploded outward in a radial blast, and white-hot masses of water survived to rain down from the clear sky upon the earth below.
"————"
The resulting cataclysmic explosion had the power to annihilate an entire small town.
Even with the dragon person's aid, this was the destructive force forbidden to any single mage—a force unleashed without restraint. Even the Dragon, mighty as it was— '—Aaah, damn, my head's cool now.' White steam was torn apart by dragon wings, and at the center of the blast, the Divine Dragon muttered thus. —Yes, muttered. Had it sustained any significant injury, those complaints would have turned to curses.
In other words, the Dragon in midair was unharmed. —No, it was completely unscathed.
"…I knew it, but seeing it in person is really disheartening, isn't it?"
Gazing up at the Dragon's unscathed return from the ground, Roswaal closed one eye, keeping the blue one open.
Against all that firepower, the Divine Dragon had sustained no damage whatsoever. This was not because Roswaal's magic was weak, nor because the Dragon had improvised the ultimate defense in the spur of the moment. —The truth was closer to the latter, but the reality was more despairing still, overwhelmingly unreasonable.
"Master, please don't lose heart. Encouragement."
Krinkend, who had escaped the cataclysm and descended, landed beside Roswaal.
Drying the water from the sphere off his body with violet lightning, Krinkend spoke without changing his expression or tone—but in his words was a faint concern conveyed by the length of their companionship. —Over that long companionship, Roswaal had told him about the Divine Dragon's unreasonable nature as well.
"—As I thought, the dragon scales and dragon haze protecting the core are the real problem."
Uttered as no real answer to Krinkend's words of encouragement, Roswaal spoke it as proof that he had not lost his will to fight. —Dragon scales and dragon haze: those were the greatest reasons why the Divine Dragon Volcanica was called the strongest being on earth, and the unreasonable barrier that had to be overcome.
"————"
—The difference between the Cloud Dragon Mezorea, the Evil Dragon Balguren, and the Divine Dragon Volcanica—between these two Dragons and the one—lay in the dragon scales and dragon haze.
Mezorea, still young and in the midst of growth as a Dragon, and Balguren, who had lost the balance of his spirit and its future when his dragon person died—neither had been able to fully develop their dragon corpse, and so could not forge either of the two armors possessed by the Divine Dragon.
Those were— "Dragon scales that don't allow physical attacks to pass, and dragon haze that won't let magic attacks through."
"Without breaking through both armors, you cannot reach the Dragon's core. Reconfirmed."
These were Krinkend's words tinged with despair—the greatest obstacle to defeating the Divine Dragon.
The dragon scales of overwhelming physical defense, and the dragon haze of extraordinary magical defense—until those two immense defenses were stripped away, no attack could reach the core that was the Dragon's weak point.
Not one or the other—both. Unless both armors were removed, it was impossible to overcome the terrifying regenerative power of the Dragon, a being made of mana, and render it incapacitated.
That was why defeating the Divine Dragon required two experts—one for close combat and one for magic.
That said— "Before stripping away the dragon haze, to take zero damage from even that firepower is quite the feat."
"The title of 'strongest Dragon on earth' is no idle boast. Sigh."
"Was that a somewhat proud sigh? I was the one who became you, after all. You could at least secretly tell me about some weakness only you'd know."
"I can. The Dragon Sword. Immediate answer."
"That's terribly anticlimactic…"
The Dragon Sword, given as an immediate answer, was a demonic blade capable of cutting anything.
With the Dragon Sword's capabilities, one could bypass both dragon scales and dragon haze and strike directly at the core. One could even simply beat the Divine Dragon with the Dragon Sword itself and potentially cause damage.
Of course, speaking of a weapon one did not possess accomplished nothing, and the situation would not improve.
"For reference, the weakness of the dragon scales is the reverse scale on the neck—an old wound. As for the dragon haze… that depends on your efforts, Master. Expectation."
"You say that so casually to me, the one whose first trump card just bounced right off."
"Is that so. —Lady
"————"
Well, indeed—the length of their companionship went both ways.
Even knowing it was calculated, Roswaal felt a genuine fire kindle in his heart at Krinkend's brazen addition.
Of course, even now, Roswaal harbored no delusion of having reached his teacher's level—but— "A student cannot allow herself to bring shame to her teacher, now can she?"
His inescapable karma, and the heartfelt wish he longed to fulfill, breathed life into Roswaal's battered soul, filling the eyes that regarded the challenge before him with renewed strength.
The history of magic was a cycle of trial and error, and Roswaal's life was no different.
Solve one problem, and the next immediately stood in its path. Seek the solution, and press forward. But it was because he had untangled every last problem that he stood here now.
Just as he had been since losing his teacher—alone.
"There is no one alive with a greater chance than I."
He dared to declare it. Roswaal was, without question, the greatest mage of the modern age.
There existed no one with a greater probability of breaking through the Divine Dragon Volcanica's dragon haze than Roswaal himself. —No, even that infinitesimal possibility had been cultivated over these four hundred years.
In the field of magic, it was impossible for Roswaal to fail at overcoming a wall that needed overcoming. It could not be allowed to happen.
That was the vow of
And therefore— "—I stake my entire being on overcoming this problem."
With that single word of resolve, Roswaal once again began inscribing into the sky the spellwork for the unprecedented breakthrough of the dragon haze—formulae so complex they would scorch an ordinary person's brain.
△▼△▼△▼△ —Krinkend reflected that the position of "dragon person" was truly a troublesome thing.
A dragon person was, at its core, merely a next-generation form of a Dragon. Strictly speaking, they were not the same being as the original Dragon from which they were born. And yet, they inherited many of the Dragon's memories, experiences, and emotions—a jumble of spirits that made it difficult to accept that they were a separate being.
Krinkend was no exception. The influence of his time as Volcanica was deeply reflected in his present self. —A prime example was his intense envy toward the potential of the unripe.
Born as Volcanica—an absolute species unto itself as a Dragon—Krinkend found the unfinished quality of humans, who defined their own nature and grew toward their goals, to be dazzling and precious.
That disposition carried over even now that he had become a dragon person, and at present, Krinkend held a reverence, admiration, devotion, and boundless love for those young beings brimming with immense potential—infants.
Others, particularly Frederica, greatly misunderstood this aspect of Krinkend—his so-called nature carried over from a previous life. However, Frederica had dragon person matters of her own that she wished to keep hidden, so he had deliberately avoided dispelling the misunderstanding, herself included.
"That said, being kept at a distance from Lady Annerose, Petra, Lady
In any case, it was not merely Krinkend—a profound and inseparable bond existed between Dragons and dragon people.
A dragon person's growth spurred the Dragon's growth, and a dragon person's death killed the Dragon's spirit. The connection was clear. —In fact, when necessary, a dragon person could house their own spirit within an empty dragon corpse and wield the Dragon's original power to its fullest extent.
"In the Empire, it's said that Mezorea and her dragon person girl did as much. Interest."
Krinkend had been a dragon person for a long time, but contact with others of his kind had been virtually nonexistent. He hoped to eventually exchange words with Madeline, newly born in Vollachia.
The soul-embedding into the dragon corpse that she had performed—Krinkend had done the same thing several times when returning to the Divine Dragon Volcanica's body, to fulfill the covenant with the Kingdom of Lugnica.
"Though currently, control of the dragon corpse has been seized by some means. Foul play."
Originally, for a dragon person to embed their soul into their Dragon, merely touching the dragon corpse was sufficient. But Krinkend's homecoming to the soul—his first in approximately forty years—had failed. The dragon corpse was in the hands of a usurper.
"I had some concerns… but this is a bitter blow."
No matter how powerful the Dragon species was, the means to seize an empty vessel were not zero.
Among Krinkend's knowledge, there were evil spirits capable of possessing another's bodies, and among his companions they had discussed whether such powers could be used to seize the dragon corpse as well. —Juice, the evil spirit so named, had not been seen in quite some time.
"Sentimentality won't help now. Nostalgia."
In any case, examples of Dragons having their dragon corpses stolen were conceivable, and Krinkend knew that in order to reclaim the corpse, the core had to be struck. —The problem was that the stolen corpse belonged to the Divine Dragon, and the dragon scales and dragon haze stood as barriers before the core.
"I'll handle the reverse scale on the dragon scales, but breaking through the dragon haze falls to you, Master. Concentration."
The absolute defense possessed by the Divine Dragon—the core guarded behind the dragon scales and dragon haze—striking it was the victory condition assigned to Krinkend and Roswaal on this battlefield.
Fortunately, there was already a way to breach the dragon scales. —The white, ancient wound carved into the neck by a lethal exchange with the Sword Saint,
"That the strike from that discourteous brute ends up being the key to our path forward is infuriating. Anger."
That aberrant flesh-eater had once demanded his tail, forced him to eat intestines, and at one point tried to gouge out his heart. What did he think a traveling companion was?
They had ultimately fought to the death—regardless of how the wound came about, the means to breach the dragon scales already existed.
Therefore, the path to victory hinged on whether Roswaal could overcome the wall of the dragon haze.
"My duty is to buy the time for that. Dedication."
For four hundred years, Roswaal had refined his craft. That would be put to the test now. —Standing witness to this ultimate trial, Krinkend reflected once more that being a dragon person was truly troublesome.
The way Roswaal's life burned from such an unfinished place—that brilliance—appeared to Krinkend as precious, dear, and worthy of his cherishing.
'————!!' The roar of the Divine Dragon that made the heavens tremble, the earth shudder, and the world quake thundered across the sky.
Its powerful voice sent vibrations propagating through heaven and earth, the sound splitting the sky as a torrent that engulfed Krinkend. The tearing sound—caught within it, Krinkend's body was being ripped apart, about to burst, when at the last moment he dove into the dense mist that had formed, wreathed in violet lightning, and the devastating sound dissipated within it.
The fine particles of water had carved a path through the sound, greatly attenuating the cataclysmic shockwave.
"—Al Trio."
Flying over Krinkend, who now raced through the mist on lightning, three colors of radiance bore down on the Dragon.
Red, blue, and green—three types of light resonated brilliantly, and in the next instant, the swelling radiance scorched the sky. —A detonation and inferno spanning a hundred meters erupted, a maelstrom of ice and flame raged in the gale, and the apocalyptic color, the apocalyptic scene, repainted the clear sky of the battlefield into hell.
'—Gah!' Into that hell, Krinkend hurled himself, hurtling through the air alongside bolts of lightning.
The apocalypse—this hellscape of a battlefield—even this was a space he could survive in, wielding his power as proof of his very existence. This was the mark of a powerhouse who had lived in the Witch's era.
'—WELCOME!!' The Divine Dragon, having proven itself unharmed, bellowed grandly over the sky where the discordant, blended colors of light converged.
Behind the spread dragon wings of the Dragon, a pair of colossal arms made of stone hovered, and all twelve of them—twelve—groaned ferociously like a triumphant welcome, their iron fists meeting Krinkend's charge.
"—Seal Lock, second release."
Just before colliding with those stone arms, the light emanating from the black horns on Krinkend's head intensified a stage.
Bursting with violet lightning, Krinkend temporarily obtained defense equal to the Dragon's. He used that sturdiness both offensively and defensively, his entire body an indestructible weapon that withstood the Divine Dragon's assault.
A thunderclap and a flash—the explosion of violet lightning that raised a cry to the heavens shattered the Dragon's stone arms, making possible a wild melee between two beings of vastly different stature.
"You certainly fight without concern for appearances. Hardly what I'd expect from a Dragon. Creativity."
'We're past the stage of picking pretty fights. My style of villain lately is the one who's actually strong and doesn't hesitate to play dirty!' One arm, two, three—smashing through them, Krinkend nodded in agreement with the answer.
Self-praise was not his forte, but he knew better than anyone that he was the one who could wield the Divine Dragon Volcanica's dragon corpse most effectively, most powerfully. No matter how formidable the vessel, if the contents were different, its true potential could not be realized.
To compensate for that deficiency, the usurper had resorted not to drawing out the dragon corpse's true value, but to a proliferation of petty tricks that a Dragon would never employ.
And those petty tricks extended into territory that was far from endearing, pressing Krinkend hard.
'—Guh.' The Divine Dragon—twelve colossal arms, dragon claws, and a storm of tail strikes unleashed at will—at the back of its throat, light churned with a deep, rumbling resonance.
Simultaneously, torrents of flame and water were being refined and compressed within the Dragon's maw. This was no ordinary cancellation of fire and ice. Enormous heat and moisture were sealed within, and with nowhere to escape, the pressure sought release and ruptured—in that instant, Krinkend generated a shockwave of violet lightning directly before himself and was blown backward, attempting to put distance between himself and the Divine Dragon's aim.
'—!' But stone arms stretched out to encircle him, blocking his retreat. A stone palm grasped him like a cradle—Krinkend tried to blast it away with a storm of thunder explosions, but— '—Get blasted!' —Moments later, a sound that ruptured the ears was followed by a cataclysm as if the entire battlefield had been punched.
A scorching wave that incinerated everything it touched, and a shockwave that tore the world apart—both crashed down upon Krinkend's defenseless body, delivering excessive divine punishment upon the fool who had challenged the Dragon.
"…!"
Gritting his back teeth hard, Krinkend dissolved the barrier of violet lightning that had shielded his body. In the spur of the moment, he had excited his black horns to their maximum output, raising a barrier rivaling the dragon haze itself. Even so, had he taken the attack head-on, even Krinkend would not have escaped a fatal wound.
Yes—if he had taken it head-on.
"—Al Quartet."
The one who spoke was Roswaal, behind Krinkend, chanting the grand magic beyond the crumbling stone arms that had been incinerated beyond recognition.
Roswaal, who had taken to the air with flight magic and joined the aerial battle between Krinkend and the Divine Dragon, had used the extraordinary feat of simultaneously activating all four attributes to neutralize that devastating cataclysm.
'No way… seriously?' The Divine Dragon's startled voice was entirely justified.
That last attack from the usurper carried city-level destructive power. For a human being to neutralize it and still shield Krinkend was a feat of control that defied reason.
One wrong move, and they might have amplified the Dragon's attack instead, leaving both of them charred cinders. It was truly a divine technique—like threading a needle from a kilometer away.
However, it could not be called a complete victory.
"…I'm spent, I suppose."
Roswaal murmured weakly, swayed, lost control, and plummeted straight down.
"Master! Hurrying!"
Krinkend kicked through the air to catch up with the falling Roswaal, and what he saw made his eyes widen.
Roswaal's body had been torn to shreds by the mere aftereffects of the explosion he had neutralized. His right arm, the most damaged, was a grotesque mass of charred, blackened flesh.
Roswaal could use every type of magic—but the one thing he could not do was healing magic. Whether he could continue fighting with these wounds was— 'Don't feel bad about it, Origin's waiting for me, y'know!' '—!' Yet even as Krinkend held the injured Roswaal, the Divine Dragon did not relent.
Dragon wings slicing through the wind like blades of light bore down on them; Krinkend dodged through the sky with explosive bursts of violet lightning, fleeing, fleeing, fleeing. Kicking through blades of wind, catching the sweeping dragon wings with his body, triggering thunder explosions at the point of impact—blown backward by the shock, he forced distance between them, recovered his footing— In the next instant, the Dragon's tail strike descended.
'—!' He converted the impact of the thunder explosion into rotational force, but was struck head-on by the descending blow.
In the spur of the moment, he shielded his head with his arm and avoided a lethal hit—but the force was driving him straight toward the earth. If he hit the ground at this velocity, inertia would dig his own grave— '—Finishing blow incoming.' As Krinkend and Roswaal fell, the Divine Dragon took a deep breath.
In a battle where offense and defense traded at high speed, any action requiring a charge-up was fatal. That was why the Dragon's full-power breath—sealed off after the opening move—was released now.
Against this annihilation that even lightning-fast movement could not escape, there was nothing Krinkend could do.
"—Al Quintet."
Roswaal—his body limp, having dumped the entirety of the battle's offense and defense onto Krinkend—released the maximum firepower he had been conserving.
—The activation of the completed spellwork materialized a colossal magic circle in the heavens, binding five lights into one.
Fire, water, wind, earth, and light—the opposing principles, overlaid and converged beyond the bounds of human reason, constituted an overwhelming force of destruction that could exist only beyond the boundaries of order. Released directly into the path of the Divine Dragon's breath, the two forces collided—and in that instant, the world was drained of sound and color.
"————"
The unleashed forces of power cleanly tore apart the very boundary between heaven and earth.
Flames roared, the sky froze, winds spiraled, the earth heaved violently—and all of it was amplified by light, five contradictory forces becoming pillars of light, causing the battlefield to collapse in a chain reaction.
What had once been a rock-strewn wasteland before the battle began was filled with a chaotic dance of light and thunder so overwhelming that one could no longer tell up from down. Everything was swallowed into a crucible of chaos.
"————"
This was a spellwork that, in terms of unbalancing the world, rivaled the forbidden techniques that Od Laguna had erased from existence. The reason it had not been destroyed as a forbidden technique was simply that no one capable of using it had existed—it went without saying.
The only two people who had ever realized this grand magic—no, this supreme magic—were Echidna, the Witch of Greed, and Myongmyong, the First Wizard.
A supreme magic that touched the threshold of the forbidden—it was not a blow of "destruction," but one of "negation."
"Master, you truly are… I tip my hat."
Who would believe that this cataclysmic spectacle was the proof of a single person's lifelong refinement?
The path that person had walked and the footprints left behind—many would find the details to be acts that violated ethics, revile them with curses, and deny the way he had been.
But Krinkend did not deny it. He did not despise it either. It may have been worthy of contempt, but when one witnessed something that transcended all bounds, the shock that visited the heart was no different for humans or Dragons.
He was simply, utterly overwhelmed. That humans could accumulate so much.
—Krinkend loved the potential of humanity.
Born weak, fragile, and imperfect, they never ceased to aim and reach for things—that was a fascination with no end. From that perspective, Roswaal was close to holding the highest score.
As far as Krinkend knew, no one else had clung so desperately to a distant, improbable potential while making such a sorry spectacle of themselves.
—If he had possessed talent, he could have given up sooner.
—If he had been chosen like the Sword Saint, he could have been spared this suffering.
What Roswaal possessed, being neither of those, was only an inhuman obsession.
That was why Krinkend respected his way of being, affirmed his path, and lent him his strength.
"That prayer still shines within me. —Vow."
Speaking that vow aloud, Krinkend slowly lowered Roswaal to the ground.
The blood weeping from his eyes, the full-body convulsions from the extreme overuse of his gate—this peerless mage deserved better than this desolate bed of sand, but for now it was the best that could be offered.
—For the Divine Dragon, which had weathered the mage's ultimate assault in the heavens, remained completely unscathed.
△▼△▼△▼△ —And so reality caught up with Roswaal, whose life hung by a thread.
"Five seconds, Master. Report."
What greeted the return of Roswaal's scattered consciousness was an exceedingly calm voice.
That said, there was no reason to blame Krinkend. Five seconds was enough for the Divine Dragon to have killed Roswaal fifty times over. —Given that it was apparently operating under a "no killing" restriction, it would probably crush his limbs and freeze the wounds to render him incapacitated.
Roswaal would do the same, if incapacitating someone was the goal.
Krinkend had protected Roswaal from that damage and fulfilled the role of vanguard admirably.
The problem was— "My own performance, was it?"
Being unceremoniously reduced to near-death while trying to intervene in the fight between a Dragon and a dragon person—that was the pathetic reality of his current state. He had not underestimated it, but he had believed he could do better.
"————"
With Petra's courageous effort in taking on the Witch Factor, the battlefield that had drawn in the Divine Dragon was thoroughly covered with Roswaal's preparations. He should have performed what was arguably the greatest magical battle of his lifetime.
This was a fight comparable to his battle alongside Krinkend against the Melancholy Demon—though judging by results alone, it was not simply a matter of the Divine Dragon being stronger than the Melancholy Demon.
In any case— "…The victory conditions need to be changed."
Perhaps Krinkend was still fighting, believing in Roswaal's recovery, but he knew his own limits better than anyone. His stamina was spent, his body was wrecked inside, and the extreme consumption of mana had even drained his life force considerably.
The grand magics he had prepared had not been sufficient to break through the Divine Dragon Volcanica's dragon haze. Even five Al-rank spells simultaneously had failed. If there was any remaining possibility, it would be six attributes simultaneously—but a spell that had never succeeded even at full capacity could hardly be expected to succeed in his current state.
The sensation of his brain boiling and the pain of blood flowing backward in his veins were proof that his gate—the finest his family had produced, selected over four hundred years—was on the verge of collapse.
Any further was pointless. If what he had prepared was not enough, then lower the threshold and fulfill the minimum objective.
Originally, the purpose of this battle was to prevent the Aldebaran plan—and as long as they could keep the Divine Dragon stalled here, that was enough.
Therefore, wisely, flexibly, he would devote himself to supporting Krinkend in his continued resistance.
That was— 'Roswaal, you mustn't push yourself, but you have a really important role. So do your best!' 'Roswaal-sama, I've caused you so much trouble until now. Finally, I can repay your kindness. Together with that person… let's become a strength for Subaru-kun!' 'It's something you said you'd do, Master, so don't go back on it. …I don't like you, Master, but I do honestly believe you won't lose to anyone.' 'Roswaal, may fortune favor you in battle. —And then, please do as you see fit.' "…Oh my."
Wisely, flexibly, devoting himself to supporting Krinkend—that was what was supposed to happen.
But by the time he realized it, Roswaal was standing unsteadily on his feet, cradling his mangled right arm against his body.
"————"
Something was wrong. He had intended not to follow the path of the great mage he had once admired, but instead to fight like a more cunning, victory-hungry, ordinary mage.
Why—why had he stood up?
Surely he did not intend to say he hadn't given up. Not when what he had prepared was insufficient. Not when he had never once achieved results beyond his actual ability.
'—What's this, you got up? I was about to take over your role.' Surprised by his own action, Roswaal was in turn not startled by the sudden voice.
"————"
The voice's owner slowly stepped forward across the desolate wasteland—ravaged as though depicting the end of the world—and came to stand beside the unsteadily swaying Roswaal.
Only— "Sorry, but I don't have the energy to crane my neck either. …You're so short I can't tell who you are—this isn't a stage for children, you know."
'Who are you calling a child! You truly are an insufferable man…!' Half-joking, half-sincere, those words of Roswaal's drew a genuinely furious response, and the previously unseen figure gradually rose into view at the edge of his vision. The other person had not grown taller. They had used magic to raise the ground, creating an improvised platform to match his eye level.
What truly pointless use of magic—and he didn't hate it one bit.
Setting aside Roswaal's inner thoughts, the small-statured figure in black robes and green hair crossed their arms— 'Let me carve it into your memory once more, so you never forget who I am. —I, Ezzo Kadner, the "Grey," will surpass the Divine Dragon before you do!'