TOFW 39

Chapter 39

October, Imperial Calendar Year 1697.

The Allied Forces of Humanity sealed Mauna Loa in the decisive battle of the Red Mountain Range and repelled the demonic invasion.

The offensive of the demons, who had rallied around Mauna Loa, collapsed under a devastating blow and scattered.

At this time, Kaisen Alter Aradamentel carved his name into the subjugation of Mauna Loa, following after Raminea Alter Aradamentel.

Like his mother, he too faced Mauna Loa, the Lizard Lord.

Though the victory that day dealt a decisive blow to the demon offensive, the toll on humanity was equally staggering. So much so that they could not even revel in such a legendary triumph.

The 2nd Army suffered fifty percent casualties and was nearly annihilated. The 1st and 3rd Armies sustained close to thirty percent casualties each, barely managing to hold the front line. The mountain defense network, swept up in Mauna Loa’s rampage, lost its infrastructure and collapsed.

That was part of the aftermath Kaisen learned upon regaining consciousness.

“Ha! Fine, I’ll admit it, just a little! Now I get why you strut around with your nose in the air. Don’t get me wrong—just a tiny bit of credit!”

Those were the words Trbal threw at him, poking Kaisen’s chest with a finger.

There was no time to celebrate or rest; countless corpses had to be retrieved and cleared away. The entire 1st Army was mobilized, and as soon as Kaisen woke up, he too was thrown into the labor.

That was when he ran into Trbal, who said his piece before slinging his dragonbone spear over his shoulder and walking off into the distance.

“Don’t be surprised. From Trbal, that’s high praise. The two of you might make a good pair.”

That was Mern’s comment. Members of the Iron Cross Order watched Trbal walk away, smirking and flicking coins to one another.

“Your strike was incredible!”
“Not only did you blow away High Kun Tark in a single blow, you clashed with a demon and won! I’ve never seen anything like it!”
“My whole body’s still trembling! From now on, you shouldn’t be called the Uruk Slayer, but the Demon Slayer!”

Such words floated about.

But amidst the hollow smiles blooming over a battlefield littered with wreckage, Kaisen could not bring himself to join in. Perhaps because it felt like a betrayal of his old comrades.

“Isn’t it a little too quiet for the hero of victory?”

The voice came from a silver-haired beauty, smiling only with the corners of her lips.

Seira Alter Solang.

A fellow Feiquarrior from the Chronicles of the Heroic Sword. Her face was smiling, but her eyes were not.

“They say you made quite the ruckus fighting a demon. The rumors have spread this far.”
“It wasn’t just me.”
“Really? If it had been Isla, she’d be running around shouting about how it was all her doing. Adorable, don’t you think?”

Kaisen could easily imagine it. Isla would have done just that—and more.

“That’s Isla’s charm.”
“Oh, listen to you! Did you have feelings for Isla?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Feiquarriors aren’t allowed romance or marriage.”
“All I asked was if you liked her, and you’re already jumping ahead to marriage? I bet you’ve already pictured the grandkids in your head!”
“I haven’t.”
“Be honest. I won’t tell anyone. How many children did you imagine having?”
“None.”
“Why stop there? With your power, you could rebuild a dragon legion. Call it the Isla Junior Corps! Thousands of little Islas running around!”

Thousands of Islas…?

That would be terrifying. His eardrums would bleed daily, and wouldn’t the world suffer a food shortage crisis?

“They’d be so cute even the Forgotten Kings would keel over the moment they awoke. Cause of death: heart failure from cuteness overload.”
“Stop it. I’m not in the mood. And Feiquarriors don’t marry, remember?”

At those words, a memory stabbed through his chest—a flash of his mother and father’s smiles. He had to shake his head quickly, to drive out the pain lodged in his heart like a blade.

“So, what about Isla? Did you see her after the battle? Is she safe?”

Changing the subject, Seira pouted slightly.

“She’s too healthy for her own good. She was even mad at you for stealing her chance to shine.”
“That sounds like her.”
“Right? And Ophelia too—though she never showed it, she had a burning sense of rivalry with you. But in the end, she went ahead of us.”

A silence fell. Seira saluted respectfully over her shoulder and withdrew.

Roberris was approaching. Watching Seira’s retreating figure and Kaisen’s expression, Roberris asked:

“Are you afraid?”
“What do you mean?”
“You look like you’re afraid of forming bonds with others.”
“…”
“Kaisen, cherish your comrades. They’re your only companions and true understanders in this destiny of yours.”
“Is that so?”
“Even Senior Camilla grew darker after the ‘Black Summer,’ but she always kept close with Senior Sharon.”

Roberris’s words were sharp blades—piercing the hole in Kaisen’s soul, torn open in his childhood and widened beyond measure at its end.

“My mother died protecting me. The White Bone Legion met the same fate.”
“…”
“So now, the thought of bonding with others terrifies me. I know all too well it only ends in pain.”

Roberris wore simple clothes, his attendants having stripped away his dazzling rose-gilded armor. From his breast, he pulled out a journal.

“This is my diary. The record of my life.”
“…?”
“When my student died, with their last breath they struggled to speak to me, trying to say something desperately before passing.”

His gaze swept over the battlefield’s refuse, a quiet sorrow in his eyes.

“I have a youngest brother. He’s two or three years younger than you—sixteen this year. I write down all the things I want to say to him.”

A brother…

A faint echo stirred in Kaisen’s mind—the voice of his sister, Latel, who always teased him as her ‘little brother.’ She must have died that day too. No one had even been able to retrieve her body from their ruined village.

“Why do you think I do this?”
“I don’t know.”
“The more my brother knows about me, the more he’ll hurt when I die. You’re making that face. Don’t deny it.”

Camilla had thought the same. That was likely why she always pushed Kaisen away so brusquely.

“Kaisen, here’s how I see it. Once you become a hero—even a false one—your life is no longer your own.”

What was Roberris gazing at? His words carried the calm weight of a scholar, someone steeped in reading and writing.

“This diary isn’t to share the depth of my despair. It’s to show how I overcame it. I pray those words might be a beacon of hope for my brother.”
“…!”
“I’m a false hero. I can’t be everyone’s hero. But at the very least, I want to be my brother’s hero.”

As he spoke, Roberris’s lips curved in a serene smile.

“Didn’t Senior Camilla explain this to you? If it were her, she wouldn’t have said it in words—she would have shown it through her actions.”

Their talk ended there. It was less a conversation and more advice from a senior. Perhaps even a lesson between master and disciple.

At the end of that short exchange, Kaisen remembered the words of Sharon Alter Tasalpo:

—Always keep the habit of thinking. About what it truly means to be a hero.

That flow of thought inevitably led him to his teacher’s final steps.

Even if it was false… Because you were a hero…

That day, in that moment, to save everyone, you…

You always…

Through your actions, perhaps you were trying to teach me what it meant to be a hero…

A single tear slipped free in the twilight of the mountains. He quickly brushed it away from his eye.

The Third Bond:

Thunder Incarnation, Clear Voice, Iron Cross (1)

Three days after the mopping-up of the remnants, the funeral rites were held.

All those who had died were now united into a single death, inscribed upon a single monument as paving stones for victory.

Myrngadia of Clear Voice led the ceremony, lamenting all the deaths with splendid oratory.

“Where’s Kaisen?”

Roberris, who had attended the ceremony with the Iron Cross Knights, glanced around and asked.

“He didn’t come.”
“Where did he go?”
“Probably off training with his sword somewhere. Should I bring him?”

Would attending such a place stir up old memories again?
The memories from when the Bone Corps was annihilated…

Roberris quietly shook his head.

“Leave it.”

At that very moment, as Mern guessed, Kaisen was swinging his swords.

In his left hand was his mother’s blade, and in his right, Aradamantel. He liked this moment.

Thinking of nothing.
Not tormented by memories.
Forgetting even the hole in his chest.

Because he could purely remember his mother and Camilla.

When he struck a pose he’d seen in his memories, his mother’s stance overlapped with it.

And then, in his ears, he heard Camilla’s voice, pointing out the flaws and weaknesses of the stance.

— That’s not it, you idiot!

The sensation…
He had to etch into his body that sensation from when he fought Mauna Loa…

— Here, hold it like this. Yeah, that’s it!

At that time, the gap between sheathing and drawing had opened wide.

The Incarnation of Kings, Mauna Loa, had read that weakness perfectly and dug into it relentlessly.

If not for the Iron Cross warrior party, he would have been dead long ago.

Not enough. Still far too lacking…

Even after receiving the power of the Divine Dragon and the True Dragon, he couldn’t stay this helpless forever.

The use of Dragon Spirit… divine power allowed only for about three minutes…

Only in those three minutes.
He could train in pushing Dragon Spirit to its limits.

Afterward came a forced rest, so theoretically, he could only practice twice a day.

This is my funeral rite…

Before countless deaths, bowing one’s head and shedding tears meant nothing.

Since childhood, he had already realized that in this world, there was no such thing as an equivalent exchange for death.

Building an altar with the enemy’s sword.
Consecrating it with the enemy’s blood.
Offering the incense with the enemy’s stench of corpses.

“And that, you call a swordsman’s funeral rite? Already you’re walking a sorrowful path.”

Suddenly, brilliant sunlight.
A golden breeze came, tickling his body warmly.

“You are…”

From beneath the old straw hat once belonging to Dragon Lord Rain Ludwig, golden hair flowed elegantly.

Setsunen of Thunder Incarnation.

As Kaisen tried to kneel and show respect, she twirled gracefully and spoke:

“Come with me for a moment.”

When Setsunen clasped her hands together, a mirage of light appeared in midair—
A veil of dimensions.

Smiling with her eyes, she stepped through it.

Kaisen hesitated only briefly before following. His body, which had been in the mountain valley, now descended onto a fortress in the sky.

Dimensional travel…

It was the southern edge of the floating citadel, and below spread a world so vast it seemed impossible to contain.

Before him stood a monument engraved with the names of all who had died in the last battle.

From that monument arose a dragon whose beauty was not of this world’s colors—Thunder Incarnation herself.

Setsunen always raised monuments to remember and mourn the dead, sincerely grieving for them.

Praying that their souls would find rest within the light.

“It has been a while, Kaisen. I prayed that your path would always be guided by the light.”

Setsunen clasped her hands in prayer before the monument, then tilted back her straw hat to look at him.

For some reason, though the cold winds of high altitude should have been all around, it felt like sunlight gently brushed his cheek.

“Do you not remember me?”

Remember?

The question pierced straight through him like a spear.

“How could I possibly forget?”

During the Aristapho Retreat, had Setsunen not rescued a million refugees from the old nobility? And in the recent battle, she had saved countless soldiers—and Kaisen’s own life.

“I knew from the first moment that you were Laminea’s blood.”

Suddenly, Setsunen’s voice and thoughts flowed directly into his mind.

This was her signature miracle—the true meaning of Thunder Incarnation: Consciousness Resonance.

She could read the thoughts of beings equal to or beneath her, and transmit her own in turn.

“Ah… if Laminea had seen you grown like this, she would have been overjoyed.”
“Would she really?”
“I know that child well. I saw her since she was but a suckling infant.”

There was a hole in his heart.
A hole nothing could ever fill, and one he could never turn away from.

But why was it, in that instant he heard Setsunen’s voice…

“…She would have been saddened to see me take up the path of the sword.”

For a brief moment.
Just a fleeting instant.
It felt as if sunlight was shining warmly into that hole.

“Yes, she might have. But not entirely, I think.”

Everyone who met Setsunen came to like her—some even revered her.

Not because of her dazzling beauty, but because she cared for all with boundless compassion and love.

Like the sun, she carried a pure fullness that made others smile in happiness.

“I want to give you a gift to break that self-mockery of yours, but… it’s better if you see it later with your own eyes.”

In her cross-patterned pupils danced both playful mischief and motherly kindness.

“See it… later? What do you mean?”

Her gaze swept over Kaisen lovingly, her lips curling into a sincere smile.

“You’ll see it someday. I’d rather not spoil it now.”

Then her eyes turned once more to the distant horizon.

Beyond the mountain range lay lands buried black in volcanic ash, where sky and earth could no longer be told apart.

Past the Crimson Mountains, there was nothing but ash, sand, and death.

It looked like the fate of the world itself—if the mountains could not be held, such fate would come for all.

“In every age of turmoil, there has always appeared at least one hero. Born with the fate to die for themselves and save the world. Whether by chance, or by creation’s design…”
“……”
“Six hundred years ago it was Lista Alter Schirpen. Two hundred seventy years ago, Dragon Lord Rain Ludwig. A hundred fifty years ago, the Apostle of the Void, Arzen. And twenty years ago, Laminea.”

Murmuring in tones like a sorrowful requiem, Setsunen’s gaze returned to Kaisen.

Perhaps like a blade of fate itself, the sword Aradamantel on his back let out a mournful hum.

“Do you know what I mean, miracle child—born of Laminea’s love, raised by her disciple Camilla?”
“…I don’t know.”
“It seems the time has come for you to walk the same path they did.”

Knowing the path and walking it were two very different things.

Do you understand?

The road of fate you must tread—
A burden even your mother could not bear, cruel beyond compare—
And yet, I cannot lighten that load for you… my heart aches so…

But Setsunen could not say these words aloud.

“I will go.”

Before the echo of her thoughts could fade, Kaisen lowered his gaze and answered firmly.

Because on that very path lay his burning, ruined homeland.
Because on that path stood the oak tree planted upon his mother’s grave.

Over that thought, he laid Camilla’s final words, her dying will.

“If the road is that painful, then it is better that I be the one to walk it.”

Now, he had nothing left.

No treasures of life to lose.

So it was better for him, who had nothing, to go instead of those who still had something to protect.

“Ah…”

Such a heart.

To have such a heart at his age meant that the days shaping it had been unbearably sad and sorrowful.