“What are you so afraid of? Smile. We will win in the end.”
When the war that would decide humanity’s survival began, she said that with a smile.
Though a hellish landscape had unfolded before his eyes, he had admired the sight of her back as she strode onto the battlefield with a single sharp sword in hand, and he had vowed that one day he would stand proudly at her side.
So how had it come to this?
“Staff Sergeant Gale!! Run!”
Her shout reached his ears as she stood there, bleeding heavily, with the hilt of a broken sword in her hand.
Then came the pure-white blade piercing through her body.
“Guh…!”
“Major Reina!!”
The gate to another world had opened in the heart of the Ravion Empire.
We called the beings that poured out from it Celestials.
Their power existed on a different level from that of the ordinary magical beasts we knew.
Unknown beings that had watched this place from beyond the distant cosmos.
The power of those angel-shaped beings far surpassed the strength humanity had built over thousands of years of survival upon the earth.
THUD.
Major Reina’s body collapsed to the ground as the Celestial’s blade was pulled free.
Gale, who had been watching, was battered all over, but he kicked off the ground without another moment to think.
Gale’s gaze fixed directly on the enemy.
A white halo floated above its head.
It was an upper-tier Celestial, one of the more powerful types among Celestials.
Its body was torn in several places from its battle with Major Reina.
It’s worth trying.
Thinking that, Gale swung his sword wide.
The Celestial’s hand, which had taken the form of a blade, collided with Gale’s sword.
CLANG!
A heavy shock traveled into the hand holding his sword.
An upper-tier Celestial’s strength was greater than that of an elite knight in imperial service.
If he kept exchanging blows like this, he would fall before they had clashed even ten times.
Gale channeled mana into his hand.
The magic circle that appeared shone green.
It was wind-type magic.
‘Haste.’
“SKREEE!!!”
As he cast the spell, a gentle tailwind wrapped around his body, and the body that had felt as heavy as a thousand pounds grew lighter.
Gale knocked away the Celestial’s blade, then used his now-agile movements to widen the distance.
“Haa… Haa….”
As he panted roughly,
the Celestial stared at him for a moment, then turned its head.
“SKREEK!”
Then it began moving toward Major Reina, who lay fallen a little closer to where it stood.
That movement was aimed solely at slaughter.
It had been quite some time since he had stopped wondering why beings in the shape of angels moved for the sake of slaughter.
Now he understood that instinct well enough to exploit it, and the Celestial’s current movement was also something Gale had induced.
As he watched the Celestial’s back as it rushed toward fallen Major Reina, Gale cast the spell he had been constructing with double casting.
“SKREEK?!”
Celestials react to mana.
In the case of upper-tier Celestials, their reaction speed was such that they could see and easily dodge most spells.
Knowing this, before casting the spell, Gale had altered the structure of the formula, reducing the volume of the projectile it would fire and raising its speed to the absolute limit.
A completed black magic circle rose at Gale’s fingertips.
“Black Lightning Spear.”
Dense black mana formed the shape of a sharp spear, then shot toward the Celestial at tremendous speed.
The Celestial sensed the mana and raised its arm to block the spell, but,
“SKRK!”
The black spear, which was advantageous against Celestials, pierced through the Celestial’s arm and buried itself in its body.
BOOM—!!
The spear of darkness exploded, blowing the Celestial’s body to pieces.
The Celestial’s body, like paper clay, poured down from the sky.
Having brought down the Celestial, Gale’s gaze turned at once to the major lying on the ground.
“Major Reina!”
Gale dragged Reina over and propped her against a large boulder.
The wound on her body was fatal.
“Medics!! Please… anyone will do…!”
Gale shouted until his throat felt as if it would burst.
But Rustav, the imperial capital, had already been turned by the Celestials’ attack into something like a burning ruin, and there was no one who could hear Gale’s voice as he cried out like a wail.
Then a faint groan came from lower down.
“Run… Other Celestials will swarm here soon.”
Through breaths she could barely force out, her thin voice reached him. Gale answered.
“I can’t leave you behind, Major.”
At that, she gave a faint smile, and Gale, his face close to tears, staunched her wound.
When pain twisted her face, the hair tucked behind her ear fell loose.
“Hngh… I am burdening you until the very end.”
“Please don’t speak. Your wound will open.”
Reina gazed steadily at Gale, then spoke in a serious voice.
“I always wanted to tell you I was sorry, Sergeant.”
“What do you have to be sorry for?”
“Because I failed to help you awaken your talent sooner. If I had recognized your talent earlier….”
In Gale’s worthless life, her existence was more than a fortuitous encounter.
After Gale had spent ten years in the Imperial Army being evaluated as dead weight and called garbage dullard, Reina had assigned him to her platoon and given him the chance to awaken a new talent called magic.
The magical talent Gale displayed after taking up magic so late was so extraordinary that calling it the best would not have been excessive.
In a mere five years after learning magic, he had not only reached the 6th Tier, but could also use all four elemental magics, and on top of that, he could freely wield the darkness attribute, whose users were so few on the continent that they could be counted on one hand.
“The reason I managed to survive until now is all thanks to you, Major, so please don’t say that.”
“Do you have no regrets? If you had learned magic sooner….”
Her gaze reached the sky stained red.
“…the ending might have been different, might it not?”
Gale wore a bitter expression.
There was no way he had no regrets.
He had fought and struggled like a madman, treading over the corpses of his comrades, but he had failed to protect a single thing. All the surviving Gale could do was blame himself for learning magic too late.
“…Please stop talking now. Before I make it hurt.”
“Please… hold back on that.”
He was in the middle of staunching her bleeding when a small footstep and an unpleasant voice sounded behind him.
“I came to check on the off chance… and there were still survivors?”
When he lifted his head and looked back, he saw a revolting face.
“Raskal…!!”
A body so sloppy it was hard to believe he was a general of the Imperial Army.
Raskal, famous even among soldiers for having risen to the rank of general through flattery rather than skill, had not a single speck of dust on him even amid this war.
Gale gripped his sword once more and rose.
“How dare you show your face here…?”
Gale looked at him with eyes full of killing intent.
“Judging by your uniform, you seem to belong to the Imperial Army, but your tone grates on me. State your rank and name.”
“Shut up! You’re nothing but a traitor to the empire….”
Raskal spoke in a pitying tone, as though he felt compassion from the bottom of his heart.
“Treason? What a hopelessly foolish man. Do you not understand even after seeing this situation? Everything is the will of God. You, who are opposing God’s will, are the one committing treason.”
Gale no longer felt any need to continue the conversation.
More than anything, the ornate medal pinned to his chest explained everything.
The so-called Golden Dawn Society.
The medal Raskal wore on his chest was the symbol of a secret organization that had operated within the empire, the traitors who had finally opened the gate to another world and summoned the Celestials.
His medal bore a design of a red cross within a golden border, a sign of high rank even within the Golden Dawn Society.
Raskal shifted his gaze to Major Reina lying fallen and smiled faintly.
“Now I see. You were the one snooping around the organization with Reina. I remember who you are. Yes… Gale. That was your name.”
A blue magic circle bloomed over Gale’s hand as he stared at Raskal.
Watching it, Raskal spoke with interest.
“Did you learn magic? I am quite sure the report said you were a knight.”
The fact that Gale could use magic was known only to those closest to him.
That was because the moment it became known within the Imperial Army occupied by the Golden Dawn Society that Gale could use darkness-attribute magic, a weakness of the Celestials, he could be put in danger.
“Well, for a man famous for being unable to handle a sword properly, you must have done whatever you could to remain in the Imperial Army. Am I wrong?”
His words were true.
Even when Gale enlisted in the Imperial Army, his physical strength had barely scraped past the standard, and he had recorded the lowest score in swordsmanship sparring.
But at this point, that fact meant nothing.
“Ice Spear.”
Beside Gale’s face, ice compressed with a sharp sound, forming an ice spear.
“It looks like a newborn baby’s finger… Is that Ice Spear?”
The ice spear that floated in the air was, just as he said, about the size of a small finger.
Then the ice spear flew at Gale’s gesture, moving with a speed like lightning-type magic.
WHIZZ!
In an instant, the ice spear grazed Raskal’s cheek and shot past.
His eyes widened.
“Next is your head.”
“You whelp…!”
Raskal’s face twisted as he drew his sword, and Gale began constructing his next spell formula.
But just as the formula for the spell he was preparing neared completion, blood suddenly gushed from his mouth.
“Kgh…! Cough!”
Watching him, Raskal said,
“It seems your body is reaching its limit, regardless of that arrogant tongue of yours.”
Because he had overused his mana over the past few days, mana depletion had set in.
It felt as though thorns had sprouted from the mana flowing through his veins and were tearing the inside of his body to shreds.
Damn it.
He could not collapse here with Raskal right in front of him.
Gale reconstructed the spell formula he had been building.
The reason he had talent in magic was not simply that he had quickly reached a high realm.
It was because he possessed such extreme mana control that he could alter the mana structure of a spell as he manifested it and recreate it in the form he wanted.
After scraping together the mana spread throughout his entire body and barely completing the formula, Gale smiled faintly.
“Dark Strike Detonation.”
Then a black storm, fired from his fingertips after its mana structure had been compressed to the utmost limit, flew forward at tremendous speed.
KABOOM—!!
It sounded as if lightning had struck.
Raskal, his face filled with panic, barely managed to raise his sword, but,
“Darkness-attribute magic? Kgh!!”
Even a sword wrapped in aura could not block 6th-tier magic compressed to the absolute limit.
“Kghhhhh…!!”
Before long, cracks began to spread through Raskal’s sword as it held back the spell.
Gale desperately squeezed his mana heart and shouted,
“Raskal!!!!!!!!!”
CRACK!
At last, the aura-charged sword shattered, and just as the black storm was about to pierce his heart.
“…!!”
Light descended from the sky.
A sacred golden radiance wrapped around Raskal’s body, and when the black storm touched that light.
FSSSS.
The spell, which had resisted fiercely, was ultimately blocked by the wall of light and vanished without leaving a trace.
Raskal laughed.
As though he could not hide his joy.
“Ha… haha!! Did you see that? This is the power of God.”
As he watched the spell he had fired with all his strength vanish in vain, Gale clenched his teeth, but even standing had become too much.
THUD.
He could not breathe.
Gale dropped to his knees and stared blankly at him.
Raskal’s arrogant figure was reflected in his dry eyes.
“Thank you for showing me such an entertaining sight to the very end. That look suits you quite well.”
Raskal walked slowly toward him.
He discarded his broken sword and picked up a random blade from the ground.
“If you have any last words, I shall hear them. Last soldier of the Holy Ravion Empire.”
Before Gale knew it, Raskal had come right up to him and leveled the point of the sword before his eyes.
At the word last, it felt as though the hope in one corner of his heart—that someone might still be alive—had been trampled underfoot.
“Come to think of it, she may not be dead yet.”
Raskal shifted his gaze to Reina, who lay behind Gale.
“Just try… touching the major…!”
“And what do you intend to do if I do? What can you possibly do as you are now?”
Gale wrung out the last of his strength and moved.
He did not think he would be able to do anything.
He merely reached out to protect her.
“How persistent.”
The sword Raskal swung traced a precise line toward Gale’s neck.
The instant the sharp whoosh of it cutting through the air reached his ears,
time stopped with the sound of something falling.
The world was dyed black and white.
He felt the cold blade against his neck.
As a question rose within him and he blinked,
he saw black cloth fluttering before his eyes and a giant scythe soaked in blood.
[Mortal standing before death.]
It was a chilling voice unlike any he had ever heard in his life.
Then the sword touching his neck slowly pulled away, as if time were rewinding.
Gale’s eyes trembled at the impossible sight.
[This body is Demon God Deus.]
Anyone who had ever opened a history book could not fail to know that name.
Hundreds of years ago, he had covered the continent in demonic energy and reigned over a world of darkness.
The history erased beneath that name proved what kind of being he was.
[Fear not. I have descended here to grant you an opportunity.]
Why would a being so utterly evil do that?
[I wish for you to despair once more.]
The sharp scythe wavered.
[I shall lend you power. The price is lifespan.]
When he swung the scythe, Raskal’s neck, which had been under the Celestial’s protection, was severed, and the black-stained sky split with it as pure-white radiance burst forth.
[That shall open a new possibility for you.]
What Gale remembered was...
[Entertain me once more.]
Those words were the last thing.
***
The moment he opened his eyes, what greeted Gale was a boot caked with mud.
“Guh…!”
As he curled up from the sudden impact.
“Hurry up and get in!”
Before he had time to resist, he was dragged into a crude prison made of bamboo.
“This place is…”
Only then did the surrounding scenery slowly begin to come into view.
A prison made of old bamboo.
A bonfire burning before the prison flickered in the darkness, casting eerie shadows over the faces of the bandits around it.
As he looked at the scene, Gale was certain.
That the scene spread out before him was a landscape from his memories that he could never forget.