Ch.507I Knew It

========[ Outside the Wall, Ten Minutes Ago ]========

Around the time Haschal arrived at the bell tower and encountered Valkers, the battle between four people outside the city was already heading toward its conclusion.

– Thud!

A man with his entire body stained red collapsed, clutching his cracked greatsword.

Blood gushed from his severed arms and twenty-nine sword wounds carved into his body, soaking the ground. His final labored breath dispersed like steam along with his life.

Eljur tore off her tattered sleeves while looking down at the man growing cold with an expressionless face.

“I suppose this is as far as it goes… Still, that was rather impressive. The Empire’s Devil certainly keeps devils as subordinates too.”

Her mocking voice was filled with displeasure.

The fight had dragged on longer than expected, causing more damage than anticipated. For Eljur, the fact that she had struggled against mere children was utterly displeasing.

“Haa… haa… Is this as far as we go? Is that how it looks to you, auntie?”

Millia pulled out an intact arrow from Lavins’ corpse while catching her breath.

Her appearance was miserable. She had minimized her armor to stay light, and now seemed to be paying the price with her body.

Her upper garment, torn to shreds and stained red, resembled scraps of cloth rather than clothing. Exposed skin was covered with burn marks that looked like beast bites.

“Devil? That would be you.”

Demian, who had pierced Lavins’ heart, rested the cracked greatsword on his shoulder as he spoke, staggering with knees half-bent as if his stamina had reached its limit.

His left arm was mangled with crushed bone and flesh, and not a single part of his armor remained intact. Blood from his torn scalp covered the boy’s face.

With half-dilated pupils and irregular breathing, his pale complexion suggested he would collapse soon if left alone.

The two had successfully brought down Lavins by focusing their attacks on him despite the risks, but in return, they had sustained injuries that left them nearly incapacitated.

Meanwhile, Eljur’s clothing was torn in places, but apart from an arrow lodged in her thigh, she appeared unharmed. Even that arrow wasn’t deeply embedded.

In the midst of the fierce battle with blood splattering everywhere, the only damage she had sustained was consuming about a seventh of her mana.

“You speak well. For a ghost-like brat without emotions.”

Eljur created a pack of flame wolves to surround Demian and Millia while casually revealing the secret the boy had been hiding. Demian’s shoulders twitched for a moment.

As an experienced mage, Eljur had clearly identified Demian’s abnormality through mental magic reactions.

Complex illusions affected him normally, suggesting he didn’t possess mana resistance, but magic targeting emotions had absolutely no effect.

Someone who had either had all emotions stripped away or was born with naturally faint emotions.

Though rare, it wasn’t unprecedented. Most such individuals typically became murderers or criminals, so it was somewhat surprising to find one functioning normally as a knight.

“Isn’t it amusing? The lover of a woman nicknamed ‘Imela’s Arrow’… is actually nothing more than a doll without emotions. Where else could you find such irony!”

Eljur laughed loudly as she mocked Millia.

A child bearing the name of the goddess who governs love, entangled with someone incapable of love. A relationship full of illusions and deception, like a joke of fate, was laughable to her.

Of course, Eljur’s reason for pointing this out wasn’t merely to ridicule Millia.

‘The smoke rising from within the walls has two sources. One is the Church of Imela that I burned… the other is from the direction of the Church of Saulite. That means Dirade must be dead. I don’t have much time left.’

Haschal’s group would have understood the situation from the fire at the Church of Imela and their missing comrade on the wall. There was no time to waste.

To accomplish her original goal of killing the blond boy and taking the green-haired girl to break her, she needed to end this fight before Haschal or Ceylon arrived.

‘I’ve almost finished them, but they’re both tougher than expected. If they’re determined to hold out, who knows what might happen. Better to create an opening by disturbing their composure.’

That was the purpose of her provocation. Eljur looked down at Millia with a sympathetic expression and continued speaking while attacking the two with flame wolves.

“Do you know? Your love will never be reciprocated. No matter how many times you join bodies, it’s no different from masturbation with a tool. That doll doesn’t love you—it’s merely pretending to!”

Had she struck a nerve? Millia’s footsteps halted for a moment. A fatal opening.

“Millia!”

Demian shouted urgently as he swung his greatsword to cut a flame wolf in half despite his staggering condition. He too was under attack from the wolf pack and couldn’t help her.

‘To stop in her tracks from just this much—she’s just a little girl after all!’

Eljur’s eyes gleamed with triumph.

The burning wolves all charged toward Millia at once. Though the wolf forms were illusions, the flames were real—hot enough to instantly burn human skin.

Teeth of fire lunged to engulf Millia’s entire body.

“…So what?”

A cold voice. Millia, with an impossibly calm face, clenched her fist tightly and thrust her right arm toward the wolf’s forehead.

– Crack!

The strength of a master-level fighter struck the wolf’s forehead directly. The wolf’s head burst like a balloon, scattering flames in all directions.

“Demian has no emotions? So what?”

The spreading flames licked her arm, raising smoke. Millia gritted her teeth, enduring the burning pain as she swung her bow at the other wolves.

A wooden bow would have instantly broken or burned. However, what she wielded was a steel bow forged from refined metal.

Therefore, the metal object swung with Millia’s strength carried the same impact as a knight’s mace.

The wolves hit by her bow spewed flames as they tumbled down. The blazing fire melted the snow, dissipating with fierce steam.

After eliminating the wolf pack that had charged at her, Millia buried her right arm in the snow to cool the heat, then sneered at Eljur.

“Did you think I didn’t know that?”

She had known all along. She simply hadn’t spoken it aloud.

Of course, she hadn’t always known. She gradually realized it after growing closer to Demian, observing not just the side of him she had admired, but all of him.

It might have been somewhat shocking at first… but now, it was already irrelevant.

At least to Millia herself.

“You knew…?”

Eljur couldn’t help but ask, even as she fired a flock of lightning birds.

She had tried to disturb Millia’s composure but ended up getting drawn in herself, though she wasn’t aware of it.

“You knew? That can’t be. How can you remain so calm knowing that? Shouldn’t you be filled with anger toward someone who returned your affection with deception!”

“What strange things you’re saying.”

Millia nocked one of her three remaining arrows. A special custom-made splitting arrow from Asha’s workshop, with complex engravings on its large arrowhead.

When the arrow she fired met the thunder birds, the arrowhead split into more than ten pieces, scattering in all directions. Several lightning birds burst as they were caught in the black iron fragments.

Of course, this didn’t neutralize all the magic. Birds that had avoided the splitting arrow were still flying toward Millia.

Instead of dodging, Millia nocked a new arrow and stared directly at Eljur.

Just as the illusory birds carrying lightning were about to pierce and scorch Millia—

– Whoosh!

The greatsword Demian had thrown spun through the air, sweeping through the flock of lightning birds.

Fierce lightning climbed up the blade and raged, but since Demian had released the hilt, it was merely a giant lightning rod.

Millia smiled as if she had never doubted Demian would protect her, and aimed her arrowhead at Eljur.

“You say I should be filled with anger. Is it such an infuriating thing that the person I like doesn’t like me back?”

At least, Millia didn’t think so.

If Demian had liked someone other than her, she might have felt jealous.

If Demian had maliciously tried to toy with her, she might have been angry.

But Demian simply didn’t know the emotion of love. He neither liked someone else nor harbored ill will toward her.

So what reason did Millia have to be angry?

‘He doesn’t know the emotion of love? Then I’ll just love him until he does. It might take a lifetime… but someday, Demian will understand too.’

Since realizing that Demian lacked emotions, instead of disappointment and anger, Millia had firmly resolved in her heart.

‘I’ll make it happen.’

The emotion she called love. Hot like flames, sticky like candle wax, sweet like honey, and heavy like chains. A feeling that makes you want to soar as if with wings, yet leaves you breathless and tight-chested—she wanted to help Demian feel it too.

Even if his heart was hardened like stone, if she submerged it deep in the river that was herself, gradually, very slowly, the moisture of love would seep in—that’s what she believed.

“You ask if it’s infuriating? Such a thing is so obvious it doesn’t need to be said!”

For Eljur, who had bestowed “love” on everyone because she wanted to be loved, this was an incomprehensible mindset.

“That’s why you’re in that state. Unlike us. The reason you’re a pitiful kobold that nobody loves. It’s sad. Maybe you’re the one who doesn’t know love?”

Millia mocked Eljur, who had tried to provoke her, and released the twisted bowstring from her fingertips.

Her emotions, fragments of her soul, were imbued in the arrow as it was fired.

Though it didn’t reach the level of a hero’s strike, it was clearly the beginning of a path toward transcendence.

“How dare you…!”

Despite her outrage, Eljur hastily drew up her mana to respond. The spiral arrow was several times faster and stronger than previous attacks, despite Millia supposedly being exhausted. Eljur couldn’t underestimate it.

Layers of mana barriers filled the air, and a vortex sphere enveloped her body.

And all were pierced through.

“This…!”

Gritting her teeth, Eljur poured mana into flight magic to dodge diagonally. However, in the direction she dodged, someone was already waiting.

Demian.

While Eljur’s attention was momentarily focused on Millia, Demian had retrieved his thrown greatsword and leaped to intercept the direction he predicted Eljur would fly toward.

With an expressionless face devoid of even a battle cry, he was swinging his greatsword at Eljur’s waist!

“You little—!”

Eljur changed direction once more to avoid the greatsword. However, Demian pursued her by kicking off the air as if making another leap in mid-air.

“Nothing has changed!”

Eljur created illusions just as she had when Demian targeted her before, once again evading the greatsword.

Simultaneously with her evasion, ice spikes shot toward Demian’s entire body.

“No, this time will be different.”

Demian muttered coldly as he cut through the illusion. Squeezing out what little strength he had left to the very bottom, he swung his cracked greatsword like a storm.

Each time he shattered an ice spike, the cracks on his blade grew larger. The impact felt like his shoulder would tear off. Shattered ice pieces rained down, glittering brilliantly.

– Crack!

Finally, the greatsword broke. Though Demian’s greatsword contained true silver, its lifespan had reached its limit from overuse.

Then, a couple of ice spikes he hadn’t managed to destroy pierced Demian’s body. Pain mixed with cold and heat. Yet, even as he fell bleeding, Demian didn’t look down but kept his eyes fixed on Eljur.

– Whoosh!

Millia’s final arrow was spiraling toward the direction Eljur had dodged.

“Ugh…!”

Noticing the arrow, Eljur bit her lip and deployed defensive magic with all her might.

She couldn’t evade with flight magic because the formula was on the verge of collapsing after several abrupt trajectory changes.

– Crack!

Millia’s arrow collided with Eljur’s barrier.

Like a fierce waterspout breaking walls and overturning foundations, the mana barriers Eljur had deployed crumbled one by one. Millia’s arrow also weakened with each barrier it destroyed.

Eventually, the final mana barrier shattered along with Millia’s arrow. Neither penetration nor defense, but mutual cancellation. The opposing forces dispersed as if erasing each other.

“How unfortunate. With this—!”

As Eljur flashed a triumphant smile and aimed her right hand at Millia, who had fallen to her knees with exhaustion—

– Slash!

The broken greatsword thrown by Demian pierced through her right arm, severing it.