Killing a high-ranking mage was difficult. Quite literally, “difficult.”

Regardless of their school, mages of every kind used all manner of bizarre methods to give themselves spare lives. Protective spells, life-preservation spells—it made no difference.

Asked which school was hardest to kill, Ivan would think of necromancers without hesitation. Half the reason was the spell known as the lichification procedure, which split the soul and preserved it inside a phylactery. The other half was that even when their bodies were destroyed, those bodies were swathed in horrific curses.

The worst of them, naturally, had been Aviditas. Even without his spells, his true body was a dragon capable of taking on a legion through its own strength. Destroying it unleashed a torrent of curses, and even if killed, he would resurrect and return within ten minutes.

He flew through the skies, raining down curses like bombs and commanding tens of thousands of dead. Anyone who broke through all that and reached his true body then had to fight an undying dragon in close combat.

Mana that burst hearts merely through exposure. Curses that rotted everything within sight. Divine power that shattered minds at the mere sound of a whisper.

Desire incarnate. An evil dragon who, in life, had mastered a thousand spells, amassed a thousand treasures, and laid waste to a thousand cities. Master of all necromancy and the dead.

Aviditas, Lord of Death Dragons.

Ivan always counted that battle among the most horrific he had ever experienced. It had pitted him against his cruelest adversary, on the day that had taken the most from him.

Perhaps that was why he sometimes dreamed of that day. The dreams always differed, but their ending was the same. Everyone but him died. Looking at him, whispering as though in resentment.

You, stranger from the world beyond. Why did you alone survive?

Ivan could never answer. All he could do was relive the battle in regret.

If only he had moved a little faster. If only he had charged a little harder.

If he had not made that choice, reached that judgment, attacked that way.

Like a defeated Go player reviewing a game, he retraced each move and lamented it. If he had done that, might one more person have come home alive?

But like every regret and lament in the world, Ivan's solitary replay always reached the same ending. Regret changed nothing. He was still alone.

You, stranger from the world beyond.

When he finished his review and looked out the window, that voice rang out beyond it. Words that might have come from the ghosts of the departed, or might have been laments whispered by his own reflection in the glass.

Ever since the war ended, right up to the present.

* * *

But now the dragon was dead, and the maggots feeding on its corpse were pretending to be dragons. Presumptuously declaring that they would take revenge on him.

The right to revenge had never belonged to them. It should have been his alone. They had no right to dare speak of revenge.

“Next.”

“Uh, uhh... This one, right?”

“Yes.”

PFFT.

Ivan plunged the needle into his forearm and crushed the cylinder.

HISS.

The drug was drawn into his veins.

A stinging sensation began in his forearm and gnawed through his body as though eating it away. Potent drugs were, fundamentally, potent poisons, and even his enhanced body rejected them.

“Come ooout!! Show yourself, Ivaaaan!!”

The booming voice swept through the entire factory district. Rats, bats, and other creatures moved between the buildings, searching for him.

There was little time. Ivan slowly regulated his mana, injecting the drugs Lucia handed him into his forearm one after another.

Immune boosters, magic-resistance enhancers, neurotoxin neutralizers.

These drugs were closer to poisons, inflicting severe damage on liver function, the mana organ, and the central nervous system. But that was fine. Thankfully, a superhuman body had the strength to withstand them all.

Even alchemists diluted these drugs as much as possible when performing the most horrific surgeries. Pouring them into himself undiluted, Ivan could feel his internal organs being destroyed in real time.

The smell of iron filled his nose. Blood surged up involuntarily, wetting his throat before flowing back down.

This much was necessary. If his opponents possessed even one percent of the power of Aviditas's true form, he would have to accomplish everything his team had done, alone and without support from the rear.

Surely they, too, had spent these past years honing their abilities solely for revenge, plundering the dead Aviditas's legacy to fatten themselves.

Ivan was never complacent. He alone in this world understood the limits of his abilities. Combat capability was a kind of tool, and a good agent had to know the exact listed specifications of the tools he used.

So he did what was necessary. Silently, he poured toxins into his body. Aviditas could never be faced alone, and his disciples would have come here no less prepared than Ivan.

And Ivan, too, had absolutely, absolutely no intention of fleeing this place today.

Only death would remain as today's conclusion. His, or theirs.

“Whew...”

The final adjustments were complete. Ivan closed his eyes and brought his feverish body heat under control. His heart was pounding.

“Lucia.”

“Yes, Senior...?”

“Signal Enrique. Request pickup at Rendezvous Three in three hours.”

“What...? What?”

“Run to Rendezvous Three as fast as you can. Your role here is over.”

“B-but, Senior!”

“There is nothing to gain from watching this fight.”

Ivan answered the bewildered Lucia coldly.

Lucia had served two purposes in this operation from the outset: exchanging real-time intelligence with Enrique, and learning through actual combat.

Now that the operation had reached its final stage, communicating with Enrique was meaningless. Kill or be killed. Whatever the outcome, the “other operation” would proceed as planned.

And Lucia had no need to learn this kind of combat. The girl would become a member of the Hero's Party. She had no need to learn how to fight alone at the cost of injury.

She had companions who would support her from behind. Unlike him.

So this battle must not become a lesson. That era had to end with his generation. Even the Hero had not faced the Demon King alone.

This was the battle of those who had failed to become heroes, who had failed to join the Hero's companions. The battle of ordinary people. The desperate struggle of mere mortals. Not transcendent heroes, but human beings.

Ivan opened his eyes and stood. Lucia held his gaze for a long moment, then worked her lips and swallowed her words.

“Go.”

“Men... Honestly...!!”

Lucia burst into tears. She continued, her voice thick with sobs.

“Next time, back at school, you're teaching me the rest. I... I still want to learn. Even if I don't need to know how to fight alone, I want to learn how to fight as a ‘pair.’ Do you understand?”

When Ivan did not answer, Lucia stepped onto the windowsill and looked down at him.

“Today is the last time I'll be a burden. Next time this happens, you won't be fighting ‘alone.’”

“You still fall short of what it takes to be a good agent.”

“Ha ha... Your standards are way too strict.”

With that soft complaint, Lucia vanished into the darkness beyond the window. It was a vampire's distinctive mode of movement. Ivan's eyes followed the long trail she left behind.

The moisture scattered along it was more befitting a human than a vampire.

Ivan gathered the last of his gear and headed to the window on the opposite side, to a sniping position overlooking the center of the factory district. Axe in hand, he counted his rounds and tightened his armor plates.

Keeping in mind how long the drugs flowing through his body would remain effective.

With a light tap of his foot, Ivan vanished from the window.

* * *

TAP.

A lone figure landed in the middle of the clearing.

The noisily chirping venomous insects, the necromancers venting their rage, the Dwarves muttering in tension—the clamor died away from everyone present.

In the greasy silence, the man who had revealed himself slowly raised his head.

“Ivan Petrovich!! I am grateful that you still live!!”

Jubilation rang out, breaking the silence. Beyond the terrified Dwarves, an enormous corpse dragon cast its shadow.

Ivan stared steadily at the shadow. The thing was an exceedingly close replica of Aviditas as he had been on the day he died.

Perhaps because they had failed to recover the dragon's remains, the monster's skeleton was made from the bones of countless humans. An abomination pieced and tangled together like a mosaic.

Its oppressive presence, however, was comparable. Countless hatreds, resentments, obsessions, and curses were entwined within it, pulsing like veins.

“Look. Look upon what you failed to accomplish. You did not survive. You were merely granted a reprieve from death. You have returned deep beneath the earth. You have returned to your death!”