[469] And Then Again (2)
Gaold opened his eyes.
Dust motes drifted in the sunlight pouring through the window.
Another new morning had come.
A new morning, day after day.
Gaold rose from bed and washed.
The slight body in the mirror was smooth—without a single scar.
By human standards it wasn't particularly handsome, but he liked it. What did the muscles of a living body matter to one who believed in God?
"God? Me? Believe in God?"
The question flickered through his mind.
Come to think of it… why were there no wounds?
"What the—"
Gaold tilted his head and splashed water over himself.
Thoughts didn't linger anywhere; they simply flowed past, and before long he was dressing for the fresh morning.
When he realized that one thought alone refused to pass, the door opened and Miro came in.
"Hey! How can you still be sleeping? Today's the individual combat evaluation, remember?"
Gaold scrambled to cover himself.
"Jeez! This is the men's dormitory!"
Miro stared at him in disbelief as he blushed and buttoned up.
"A man playing coy? Please. We've already seen everything between us."
"Huh? Seen what?"
"Why are you acting like this all of a sudden? We were together last night too."
Gaold blinked.
'Were we?'
He couldn't remember at all.
Thinking about it, he felt like he couldn't remember anything.
Miro put her hands on her hips, sighed, and shook her head as if it couldn't be helped.
"Coyness has its limits. I can't believe I'm dating such a softie…"
She laughed playfully and lunged at Gaold.
"Hey, wait—!"
Before he could speak, she kissed him, drew him into an embrace, and they toppled back onto the bed.
The moment they sank into the mattress, a beautiful song rang in Gaold's ears.
Miro's breath tickled his neck; her hand slipped into his half-open shirt and brushed his skin.
A small voice settled against his ear.
"Time… about ten minutes left."
He could hear his heart pounding.
It was the shock of a heart—stopped for a moment—beginning to beat again.
'It hurts.'
Only when sensation returned did he realize he'd felt nothing until now.
'It hurts.'
Nerves sharpened and a pain that came simply from being alive spread through him.
"Ughhh!"
A sob slipped between his clenched teeth.
- I only wanted to be happy.
"Ughhh!"
Thin, delicate black smoke rose from the chest she had been touching.
- Not power, not honor, not wealth—just the small happiness anyone could enjoy. That alone was what you craved.
"Aaaghhh!"
As his heart raced, more black smoke billowed until it filled the ceiling.
Mind.
The heart that had denied the whole world peered down—its grotesque glare and twisted mouth tearing open a sight.
- The single thing you wanted! The world even stole that from you! Nothing remains for you! She's there! Miro is there!
"Ugh—!"
The whites that had filled Gaold's eyes retreated; his sight returned.
Consciousness, fractured amid two millionfold pain, snapped back. The hallucinations that hadn't been there sank into the black heart and became fuel, igniting into a frenzied rotation.
"AAAAAA!"
What Gaold saw was neither giant nor fallen angel—only blood and flesh and scenes of crushing destruction.
Even while losing consciousness he fought.
He had become a creature whose sole purpose was to move forward; nothing could change that inertia now.
"Stop them! If this place is breached, it'll be dangerous!"
Giants given that order ignored everyone else and surged straight for Gaold.
Hundreds of giants converged like the points of a triangle as they charged, and the brittle, geometric formation warped grotesquely.
Pain at four millionfold.
"RGHHHH!"
Even feeling transcendental torment, Gaold held himself down.
In a scene where friend and foe couldn't be told apart, nothing could remain upright on the ground.
The pain gnawed over his whole body like sinking into a barrel of agony; it crawled into his brain and carried the burning, awful sensation of being on fire.
'It doesn't hurt! I can endure it!'
Gaold repeated one thought to himself.
Pain is nothing but a signal. No matter how agonizing, it's just what the brain sends.
Compared to not being able to meet Miro…
"Nothing at allll!"
All the enemies filling the hundred meters ahead were pressed down as if crushed by an unseen roller.
Blood reduced to dust sprayed up like mist and filled the air.
He could see the capital's exit in the distance. He'd passed more than halfway.
"Go! Faster!"
Clinging to the will to move, Gaold shouted.
Half the whites of his eyes were already showing.
"Ugh! Damn—!"
Kangnan clenched his teeth and swallowed a sob.
'It's going to hurt. No—worse than hurt.'
If this continued, Gaold would break.
Like last time, only now he might never come back.
"Wait! At least let us repair him here—!"
"Don't stop Gaold."
Sein fell in beside Kangnan.
"Don't stop him? If we stall here and then push onward, it'll be the end."
"I know. But if he stops, it's over."
"What do you mean…"
Sein stared at Gaold's rapidly receding back.
"His stride is faltering. His mind must be wavering. That bastard's feeling his limit. If this inertia breaks even once—"
Sein ground his teeth.
"He'll never rise again."
"…"
At last, when they left Rakia's capital, the roads stretching out in all directions came into view.
The seven roads symbolizing sin.
Gaold chose the road before him without thinking.
It was the Path of Desire.
* * *
"Lord Surtr! The enemy has broken out of the capital and entered the Path of Desire!"
At the courier's report, not only Surtr but Kariel and Uriel turned their heads.
Only Miro sat, glaring ominously at the place that remained unseen.
"They already broke through the capital? Is that possible?!"
Surtr burst out in anger.
He coveted the heavenly lottery; to be shamed with such a report in front of Kariel seethed in his voice.
The strongest forces—fire giants, fallen angels, even Mara—had been deployed to stop Gaold and his party.
And yet they had already broken through?
"This is strange to me too. It would be impossible without deliberately opening a lane," Uriel said.
Surtr entertained the same thought.
Either a path had been opened for them, or the enemy crushed the defenders at comparable speed.
But his pride denied both possibilities.
"That could never happen. My subordinates are powerful warriors who do not fear death!"
"Anyway, they'll arrive soon. What shall we do, Kariel?"
Kariel remained composed.
Even though they were lowly humans, they'd come to save the great Miro. Kariel had expected they wouldn't be easy to deal with.
"Answer my summons, Tiara."
A brilliant radiance flashed where Kariel stood, and a beautiful, noble fairy appeared.
It was Tiara, a dominion fairy ranked second among the seventy-two grades.
"Have you called, Great Archangel?"
"Request reinforcements from the Internal Ministry. You know the situation."
Tiara glanced coldly toward the seven roads beyond the bridge.
"I have a rough idea."
"Block them. If they're coming this fast they're throwing everything they have. But destroy their hope and humans, too, will stop moving."
"…Understood."
Without further words, Tiara flew toward the Path of Desire.
As commander of the Internal Ministry, if humans rescued Miro things would become complicated.
Miro ground her teeth.
From beyond the Path of Desire a distant roar swelled faintly.
They were close.
That was also the last chance to change her mind.
"Don't come, Gaold. You must go to the Abyss. If we don't adjust the coordinates at Inglis, we can't stop the final war."
She couldn't be in a position to be rescued by a weakened, near-broken man.
"Sein, at least you stop Gaold. You know this is madness."
"They're coming!"
A giant on the battlements shouted.
No one really believed they'd lose, but the giants who heard the report couldn't help feeling a chill.
"They're already here?"
Everyone's eyes turned to the Path of Desire stretching across the plain.
From here it looked like a single dot, but that dot was crushing armies as it advanced.
"Just a bit more! A little farther and we'll make it!"
Sein turned and urged the group on.
No matter how strong their reason, even he couldn't hide his excitement in that moment.
He hadn't believed they'd actually get this far.
'That fool of the world…'
Things no one expected—things believed impossible—were unfolding before them.
'If only to the bridge—then from there…'
Rule of Domination.
Kuuuuuuung!
At that moment a tremendous psychic force bore down on everyone.
"Ugh!"
Sein looked up.
A fairy, wings of light fluttering, peered down.
Armin said, "It's too high. Stop spells won't work."
Too high? If it could still be perceived, how massive must it be?
'Scale magic…'
Sein bit his lip until it bled.
Fairies have limits; they couldn't open an infinite void like a cosmic rift.
But if the magic exploited the relativity of scale itself, it could be within a fairy's mind to wield—and the anti-magic coming now was nothing compared to what Gaold had endured at Alpheas School of Magic twenty years ago.
"Ughhh!"
Sein turned the Iron Wheel Eye to try to break the psychic magic.
But the harder he struggled, the stronger Tiara's dominion became, and everyone was flattened to the ground.
"Chairman…!"
Kangnan's face, pressed to the earth, was shocked.
Even the trusted Gaold was on his knees, trembling.
Tiara's Law of Domination crushed not only bodies.
The moment inertia vanished, his black heart was crushed, as if it had never existed.
Inertia had been severed.
'Is this the end…'
Sein couldn't hold back his fury and clenched a handful of dirt.
They had poured everything in; they had run without thinking of stopping; that was why they'd reached this far.
But it was only as far as the Path of Desire.
"It's over," Kariel said, a corner of his mouth lifting.
Everyone's feet were caught exactly at the point where the Path of Desire ended.
"How pitiful. At a time like this, wouldn't it be fitting to at least act a bit sorrowful?"
Miro still did not answer.
Thud.
The ground trembled from afar.
Thud.
At the rhythmic vibration, Kariel's gaze shifted to Gaold.
Without a word, he slowly opened his mouth.
"Rghhh!"
Gaold hauled himself up with everything he had.
The heart had no corporeal limits, and a fine filament of smoke bypassed every control to sprout anew.
That sprout grew into a thick trunk, branching into countless limbs, feeding Gaold's heart with vast fuel.
Thud!
Because the spell subdued targets by scale, Tiara in the sky shrank every time Gaold moved.
"Ughhhhh!"
Gaold grimaced and poured in force.
From here he was still only a black blur, but Miro stood on the distant ramparts.
"Going."
The moment Gaold took a strained step forward, Sein finally choked and shed tears.
'Yes. He's going, Gaold.'
Miro is there.
'I can see Miro myself now.'
As Tiara's dominion weakened, Sein at last forced himself to his feet.
'Honestly, Gaold, what you're doing isn't love or anything noble. But that's why I pin my hopes on you.'
Love so untainted it becomes ugly.
'If this is an equivalent exchange of pain and desire, you have every right to desire. No one can blame you. So go.'
Sein's Iron Wheel Eye spun at terrifying speed and manifested two massive rings of light in reality.
Iron Wheel Eye — Equilibrium.
Kakakakakaka!
Tiara screamed as the Law of Domination ground against the gears.
Sein, having poured every ounce of power into dismantling the magic, shouted toward Gaold.
"Goooooooooooo!"
KWAANG!
Gaold's body shot forward like an arrow.
The great heart that had risen in his chest enveloped him.
- I am your heart, your desire. Go, Gaold!
"ARRRRGH!"
Gaold roared like a fiend as he charged.
Every nerve twitched, his eyes wept blood, and his blood-stained tongue lolled down to his chin.
Distance remaining to Miro: ten kilometers.
"Lord Surtr! They've exited the Path of Desire! They're about to reach the drawbridge!"
"I know! All forces, prepare to advance!"
Surtr's elite troops moved beneath the gate to hold the drawbridge.
Now that Gaold's form was becoming clearer, Miro slowly rose to her feet.
'He's really… coming?'
Thump-thump.
Cold sweat ran down Miro's forehead as she listened to the sound of her own heart.