Chapter 140 - Bait

It might have been a country estate, but it had once belonged to a noble family.

That also meant it wasn’t the kind of building that could be brought down by ordinary magic or a simple explosion.

’An explosion of this magnitude...’

Neither Regent Ferda nor that member of the Demon Race should have been able to survive.

And yet the commander sprinted toward the collapsed manor.

Regent Ferda could not be allowed to die.

At the very least, not until they understood what would happen if he did.

Through the thick cloud of rubble and dust, he saw a lone figure still standing tall.

Could it be the demon?

The commander drew his sword, Aura surging from its blade.

But to his astonishment, the silhouette belonged to a man he knew.

Ferda Valdrova.

The man stood proudly at the center of the ruins.

"Your Excellency the Regent, are you all right?"

The captain of the knight company rushed over.

Ferda hurled a sphere of Mana toward them.

It exploded precisely beneath their feet.

Boom!

"Gah! What are you doing?!"

"Don’t come any closer."

Ferda’s warning.

His gaze remained fixed on a single point.

"He’s not dead yet."

Not dead?

A moment later, just as Ferda had said, something stirred beneath the rubble and rose to its feet.

It was exactly where the captain had been running.

"I was hoping to take a few more of you with me... but you saw right through it."

"Even when you’re on the verge of death, you still won’t drop that ridiculous way of speaking."

"Indeed... I never thought you were weak, but you’re far stronger than I imagined."

The demon tried to stand on his mangled legs, only to collapse again and again.

Even the regenerative abilities unique to the Demon Race were no longer working.

"That strange light... it’s so powerful that even my regeneration won’t work. At this rate, I’m definitely going to die."

He extended his claws and smiled unpleasantly.

"So... how about coming with me as my companion?"

"I already have one."

"How enviable. That beautiful Tyrant, was it? I almost wish I’d been born a woman..."

The demon’s remaining life was slipping away.

Drawing out his final breaths, he forced out one last question.

"Would you tell me... what exactly you did to me? Think of it as a farewell gift before I return to the Void."

"Do I look like that much of a fool?"

"Heh... you’re a difficult man to the very end."

At last, he fell to one knee.

"Then how about I tell you a secret instead?"

"I don’t need it."

"My objective... was never anything more than waiting for you to come here."

Ferda let him continue speaking.

At the same time, he began chanting a spell, preparing to end the demon’s life.

Blue lightning forged from blue Mana crackled in his hand.

"But ultimately... you were never the true target."

Ferda’s incantation stopped.

"What do you mean?"

The man answered with a smile.

"It wasn’t you I wanted to lure. It was someone else."

"Someone much smaller... much more fragile... that adorable little creature."

A small, fragile, adorable creature.

At that moment, only one person came to Ferda’s mind.

She was the only one who was alone right now.

’Luri.’

***

Luri Silverwind.

As the inheritor of the Silverwind bloodline, she was the fastest warrior alive, bearing the title Nightmare of the Frost Giants.

To someone like her, beast-type monsters were little more than children’s toys.

Unlike the other knights, Luri didn’t wait for the monsters to arrive.

She intercepted them midway along their route and chose to slaughter every last one before they reached their destination.

Twenty beast-type monsters.

Thirty Melted.

The time it took her to eliminate them all was barely one minute.

’I’ve gotten dull.’

Luri gave herself an objective assessment.

Back when she had commanded the Special Mobile Brigade Silverwing, a force like this would have taken her no more than thirty seconds to wipe out completely.

’Have I become too accustomed to peace?’

People said peace was a poison that rusted the sword.

Back in Silverwing, she had practically needed to swing her axe even while sleeping.

But ever since becoming an Attendant of Valdrova, she had hardly needed to use force.

No matter how consistently she trained, becoming rusty was only natural.

’Even if I can’t return to my absolute prime, I need to train harder and restore myself.’

There was far more she had to protect now.

Having renewed her resolve, she turned her head.

She looked toward the place the monsters had originally been heading.

The location that was supposed to be attacked.

Now that the monsters had been stopped, it should have been safe.

"Still... I should check on the village."

Luri spread her wings and flew toward it.

Unfortunately, the concern that had prompted her to see it with her own eyes proved justified.

Something about the village was wrong.

’It’s too quiet.’

Her hearing was sharp enough to distinguish even the chirping of insects.

Yet she couldn’t hear a single human breathing.

That could only mean one thing.

The village had already been dead before she arrived.

It was then.

Her heightened senses suddenly detected a presence.

Before her mind could process it, her body reacted first.

Luri hurled her axe.

The massive weapon spun in a great arc as it shot straight ahead.

But as expected of someone capable of concealing his presence so perfectly, his response was equally extraordinary.

The axe, tracing a deadly trajectory, disappeared into a grotesquely torn rift in space and was swallowed whole.

Within the crack that obscured her vision, she caught sight of a man.

"We’ve already met before, haven’t we?"

A man wearing a gray robe beneath the blazing midday sun.

The sunlight cast a deep shadow over him, yet even that darkness couldn’t hide his unnaturally pale face.

"I’ll return your axe."

The instant he gestured, a chill ran down the back of Luri’s neck.

The very axe she had thrown at him was now flying toward the back of her own head.

She instantly kicked off the ground, performing a huge somersault through the air.

At the same time, she caught the spinning handle of the axe.

Bracing her body, she stopped its momentum and landed firmly on the ground.

Then she spoke the name of the being before her.

"So... you’re Curved Demon."

He was the man responsible for the sudden monster incident in Hestia Village.

"I suspected as much. Were you also the one who made those gigantic monsters appear out of nowhere?"

"Of course. Summoning twelve of them simultaneously was a little exhausting, but still quite manageable."

Curved Demon smiled faintly.

It might have been difficult back then, but a month had already passed.

He had surely recovered completely.

She absolutely could not assume he was weaker now.

’Just how strong is this man?’

Luri carefully measured his strength.

She already knew he was a mage who manipulated space.

’Even Tower Master Erika was defeated by him.’

Although Dragon Spawn tended to look down on the spawn of other dragons, Luri wasn’t foolish enough to underestimate him.

He had held the advantage even in battles between mages.

And because he controlled space itself, the matchup was naturally unfavorable for a warrior like her.

But Luri was a descendant of Silverwind.

’If brute force isn’t enough...’

Silverwind embodied the Aspect of Strength and the Aspect of Wind.

’Then I’ll overwhelm him with even greater force.’

She simply had to strike faster than he could possibly react.

Her eyes narrowed sharply.

"Tormenta!"

As she summoned the High-ranking Wind Spirit, pure white wind wrapped itself around her feet.

Then—

She vanished together with the wind.

"Oh?"

Curved Demon let out a sound of admiration.

It looked as though she had used Teleport Door magic.

But in truth, it was nothing more than overwhelming speed.

"If you’re that fast..."

"I’ll simply move at a speed worthy of matching it."

Curved Demon moved a finger.

The space surrounding him split apart, blocking her path.

At the same time, the surrounding space twisted violently, triggering deadly explosions.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

As the air warped around her, the previously invisible outline of her body became visible, revealing her trajectory.

She wasn’t merely fast.

It was as though inertia itself had ceased to exist for her.

She changed directions freely, slipping through every distortion with dazzling agility.

Luri relentlessly targeted Curved Demon’s blind spots.

"No wonder Silverwind favored you."

Though Curved Demon sounded genuinely impressed, Luri took no comfort from the praise.

’He’s predicting everything.’

Even when he appeared to expose an opening, he continuously filled it or transformed it into a trap.

Despite attacking with absolute speed, the advantage still remained entirely his.

’One hit.’

She felt that if she could land just one solid blow, everything would change.

But that single opportunity never came.

"Let’s end this pointless prelude."

The fractured spaces surrounding Curved Demon all closed.

Luri’s axe shot toward his body.

But the torn space swallowed him before her attack could reach him.

Had he disappeared?

No.

He had merely widened the distance between them.

She immediately sensed his presence nearby.

She turned her head.

He was standing beside the tightly sealed village warehouse.

Luri threw her axe again.

This time she didn’t aim at the center of his presence.

She targeted the warehouse’s supporting pillars.

Crash!

The tremendous force of the axe shattered the pillars inside.

Naturally, such an attack couldn’t inflict any meaningful damage on him.

All it accomplished was eliminating the enclosed space that had restricted movement and vision.

Now the area was no different from an open plain.

The collapsing wooden boards didn’t even touch Curved Demon.

They merely brushed harmlessly against a round barrier surrounding him before falling away.

Now!

Like the seasoned warrior she was, Luri seized the opportunity to finish him.

He neither fled nor tore open space.

Instead...

He pushed something forward.

If it was merely a hostage, she intended to cut straight through both of them.

Back when she had fought as a Silverwind warrior, she had learned one lesson above all else.

Half-hearted mercy only invited greater disaster.

Luri raised her axe high.

Curved Demon calmly asked,

"What does this look like to you?"

Whoosh!

The pressure from the descending axe exploded outward.

Luri’s axe stopped just in front of Curved Demon.

She had reached him.

She had the perfect chance to cut him down.

And yet she couldn’t.

Not after seeing what he had placed before himself.

"Ah..."

A gasp escaped Luri’s lips.

She couldn’t believe her own eyes.

Standing in front of Curved Demon...was a brown-haired boy who looked to be about seven years old.

"...No..."

Luri denied what she was seeing.

The boy opened his mouth and cried out in a desperate voice.

"N-Nuna..."

The word pierced straight into Luri’s ears.

The axe of the girl once known as the Nightmare of the Frost Giants began to tremble violently.

She took a step backward.

The boy’s eyes filled with tears as he pleaded through choking sobs.

"Please... save me..."

"No... you’re..."

Already dead.

You died a long time ago.

Buried so deeply in memories so distant that she could no longer even remember your name.

There was no way you could be standing here now.

"Please... don’t leave me... just this once... please..."

Her mind knew it was a fake.

And yet...

She couldn’t deny it.

"Ah..."

Thud.

Luri let her axe slip from her hand.

She reached out, trying to embrace the approaching boy.

As though she refused to lose him ever again.

She stepped forward, trying to hold him close.

Thrust!

But the figure shattered.

A spear that had flown in from behind pierced straight through the boy’s head like a skewer.

The weapon that had impaled him was a throwing spear forged from silver and steel.

Luri recognized it instantly.

There was only one person who wielded that spear.

Before she could even think of his name, another figure descended toward it.

Massive wings, more than five times larger than a human body, swept down from the sky.

The newcomer caught hold of the spear and dragged it across the ground.

KRAAAAAASH!!

The image of the boy Luri knew instantly crumbled into countless particles before disappearing completely.

A cloud of dust obscured Curved Demon from view.

The silver spear pierced through the dust toward him.

But where Curved Demon should have been...space had already sealed itself shut.

The battle was over.

Luri stood there blankly.

The enormous silver wings folded away and disappeared.

Goz Silverwind.

The man who had stood closest to Silverwind, and who now sought to inherit his Dragon’s Essence and become the next dragon.

He had arrived.

"What were you doing?"

He asked Luri in a cold, mocking tone.

"You dropped your weapon while facing an enemy."

"Were you trying to commit suicide?"

"I... I..."

Luri couldn’t answer.

Instead, she silently stared at the boy’s figure that Goz had mercilessly destroyed.

The blood of humans and Dragon Spawn was red.

But that one...was green.

Which meant it had never been human in the first place.

What Luri had seen had been nothing more than an illusion.

And yet...

The shock still left her unable to move.

"Why did you hesitate?"

"..."

"Don’t make me ask a second time."

"If I keep looking at that pathetic expression on your face..."

"I don’t know what I might do."

Luri forced herself to speak.

"...This is Imperial territory."

Instead of answering his question, that was all she said.

She meant he had no right to be standing here after crossing another nation’s borders.

Goz merely snorted.

"I know."

"Do you think I’d set foot on this land without a reason?"

"Then that means..."

"The Emperor formally requested my assistance."

"In exchange for repaying part of the debt owed to the name Silverwind."

So he possessed legitimate authority to enter Imperial territory.

A surge of disgust toward the Empire welled up inside her.

But that wasn’t what mattered right now.

She was standing face-to-face with Goz.

The man she had once feared...

Now carrying even the authority of Silverwind himself.

He stood before her.

"So you’re going to ignore my question until the very end."

"..."

When she remained silent again, Goz let out a sigh.

"Fine."

"What would I gain from knowing what you’re thinking anyway?"

He glanced back at her over his shoulder.

"I expect nothing from someone who has become too weak to even call herself a warrior anymore."

The contempt in his eyes pierced straight through Luri’s heart.

It hurt.

More than she could bear.

"One who has abandoned a warrior’s heart..."

"Isn’t even worthy of an honorable death."

He pulled out his spear and began walking away.

"You won’t have to fear me anymore."

"I won’t be looking for you after this."

"Go back to that castle and live your life."

"Even if you were to change your mind and return..."

"The North will never again be your home."

Leaving only those words behind...

Goz disappeared.

Luri lowered her head.

Both of her clenched fists trembled with grief and frustration.

She stood alone in the empty village.

Just like she had on that day.