Ch.7070. Hero

Just days ago, Demeia Academy suffered a massive attack by rebels calling themselves the New Resistance. After neutralizing the supposedly impenetrable defensive magic of Demeia Academy, they led approximately 100 giant mechs in an indiscriminate destruction campaign.

At the time, a parade celebrating the Lion King’s birthday was underway, causing many spectators to become caught in the merciless terrorist activity.

Dorothy was no exception. She too was at that scene of chaos while watching the parade with Glinda.

Even now, thinking back to that situation was like recalling hell itself.

People who had been laughing and chatting, enjoying the parade just moments before, lost their lives in a single bombing. Some were screaming with their limbs blown off, and the cries of children who had lost their mothers’ hands could be heard everywhere.

Separated from Glinda in the bombing chaos, Dorothy gritted her teeth and held a child younger than herself in her arms. Though she wanted to confront those committing indiscriminate slaughter, it was beyond her current abilities. All she could do was flee while holding this child who had lost their mother.

She drew upon her mana to create a barrier protecting the child from harm and began running desperately. While evacuating to an area untouched by the bombings, she joined others who hadn’t yet managed to escape.

They were in a state of panic amid this absurd chaos, and Dorothy tried to comfort them while struggling to escape somehow.

But clear limitations began to appear. Avoiding bombardment from around 100 giant mechs with just their bodies was impossible. Dorothy and the academy cadets who could handle mana were fine, but it was difficult to move while protecting ordinary citizens who couldn’t use mana.

In the end, they could only hide in a half-collapsed building and wait for the situation to calm down. If she had fled alone, she might have survived, but her self-respect and pride as a noble wouldn’t allow it. Even if she survived that way, the person known as Dorothy Flamma Hart would be as good as dead.

“It’s okay. Everything will be fine.”

As the child in her arms trembled at the thunderous bombardment, Dorothy gently stroked their head, just as her second brother would do for her. When she comforted them with a gentle voice, she could feel the trembling gradually subsiding.

The situation wasn’t good. Though they were hiding in a partially destroyed building, it was like a candle in the wind before the overwhelming firepower of the giant mechs. The moment a single magical armament or shell fell here, they would literally be finished.

Dorothy tried to find a way out of the current situation, but even with her brilliant mind, she couldn’t find a solution. Even if a giant mech stood before her, it wouldn’t make a difference.

She was just a knight aspirant in training, not a high-ranking knight who actually fought on battlefields.

How much time had passed as she bit her lip and waited for the situation to improve?

It felt like several hours had gone by. Dorothy, maintaining a state of extreme tension, suddenly realized that the indiscriminate bombardment sounds had stopped.

Sensing that something had changed, she carefully looked out the window.

There she saw an academy general-purpose giant mech confronting dozens of enemy mechs.

This mech was handling the attackers’ machines with elegant movements. It moved only as much as necessary, extremely minimizing unnecessary motion. It began taking down the enemy mechs with restrained movements, as if refusing to allow even a single shot.

Dorothy couldn’t help but admire the unknown giant mech pilot, momentarily forgetting the current situation. It seemed like the art of mech piloting had been elevated to an art form.

But the overwhelming display didn’t last long. At some point, the mech moved in front of the partially destroyed building where they were hiding and deployed its magical barrier to maximum. At first, she didn’t understand the intention, but soon realized why the pilot had done so.

They know we’re here?

Dorothy’s expression hardened amid the rain of bombardment. There was no other explanation for why the mech before her eyes would behave this way.

And her thoughts were correct. The mech that until recently hadn’t allowed a single hit was now taking concentrated fire.

She was certain when she saw it spread its magical barrier wide enough to encompass the building where they were.

Dorothy clenched her fists in admiration yet distress at this action of protecting people while disregarding one’s own life. It was clear that no matter how skilled the pilot, they couldn’t withstand such one-sided attacks for long.

The magical battery wasn’t infinite. No one could know how long the magical barrier would hold.

One thing was certain: if they remained here, the knight among knights piloting that mech might die. That moment would likely come when the magical battery reached zero.

Dorothy felt anxious. As the concentrated bombardment began to shake the magical barrier, her anxiety doubled.

This was the end. The moment that barrier disappeared, the mech pilot before her eyes and everyone with her would be annihilated in the concentrated fire.

She looked back. People with faces turned blue from fear were visible. In her arms was a child crying in terror.

Finally, the mech, its magical battery depleted, reached its operational limit and stopped. The barrier that had been blocking shells disappeared, and all kinds of magical armaments from dozens of mechs flew in terrifyingly.

This is the end.

Only then did Dorothy resign herself. They say your life flashes before your eyes just before death, but it wasn’t quite like that. She simply couldn’t believe she was going to die this way.

Just as Dorothy was accepting death, a massive golden magical energy split the sky.

***

Dorothy opened her eyes.

The one who saved her from death was Gilbert, whom she had so strongly disapproved of.

Gilbert appeared suddenly, cut through the bombardment with a single slash, and spoke with the person in the immobilized mech. Using a general communication spell, he told them to take care of this place and evacuate the people.

Surprisingly, the person in the mech was Briana, whom she deeply respected, and following her guidance, they were able to safely escape.

The detailed situation afterward could be seen through the magical recording videos released by the Imperial Family. Gilbert, who remained behind, achieved the remarkable feat of defeating all 23 enemy mechs without retreating a single step.

This was not an achievement that a mere academy freshman cadet could accomplish, yet he did it as if it were natural. Moreover, throughout the battle, he spared no effort to protect cadets and spectators who couldn’t evacuate, and as a result, the academy attack that could have resulted in numerous casualties was successfully thwarted.

After confirming all the footage, she couldn’t help but reflect on her attitude until now. Gilbert, whom she had so ignored and looked down upon, not only saved her life but also displayed the very essence of knighthood that she so admired.

Perhaps she had been trapped in narrow-minded thinking, denying Gilbert’s changed appearance. Though people don’t change easily, Gilbert’s recent behavior was certainly not the Gilbert she had known until now.

Dorothy acknowledged this fact and prepared herself early in the morning to meet Gilbert. It was to thank him for saving her life and apologize for having viewed him with a distorted perspective all this time.

However, she was hesitant to go see him because of how she had treated him until now. That was the reason she was blaming her hair.

“Anna, my hair right now…”

“Miss, I’m sorry to interrupt, but if we stay like this, you might not be able to see the First Young Master.”

Anna, unable to watch any longer, pointed out one fact to Dorothy.

The reason Dorothy was trying to see Gilbert after several days had passed was precisely because of this.

It had become difficult to meet Gilbert, who had become a famous figure at the academy after brilliantly stopping the attack incident.

His heroic actions were witnessed by many people during the attack, and mixed with various political reasons, his fame skyrocketed as he was used for imperial propaganda.

Naturally, Gilbert was called upon from various places, and he was spending extremely busy days after receiving Seraphina’s request and order to help calm the unsettled academy.

Dorothy was well aware of this, which is why she had sent a message through Anna saying she would visit early in the morning. Fortunately, he didn’t refuse, so she got up early and prepared, but Dorothy, whose conscience was pricking her, couldn’t bring herself to go to Gilbert despite having finished her preparations.

“Should I, should I go?”

“Miss, is it difficult for you to see the First Young Master?”

“Sigh… Anna. You know what I’ve done. Since learning that my eldest brother was acting like a scoundrel, I haven’t treated him kindly even once.”

She remembered having a good relationship with Gilbert when they were very young. At that time, Gilbert took good care of Dorothy, his youngest sister, and the relationship among the three siblings, including Glinda, wasn’t bad.

However, from the moment Gilbert began walking the path of a scoundrel, the close bond between the three siblings began to crack, eventually resulting in their current relationship.

“That’s why you said you wanted to apologize, right?”

“But… isn’t it too obvious? Honestly, until this incident, I only spoke words doubting my brother’s sincerity. I never thought he had truly reformed.”

Dorothy spoke glumly with her head lowered.

Logically, it would be strange to believe that a person could change in an instant, but Dorothy, strict even with herself, felt something akin to self-loathing for not believing in Gilbert—no, her eldest brother—who had sincerely reformed.

It was an unsightly thing not to have believed in a family member who had truly come to his senses and started walking the right path after she had wished for it so much.

“I kept going around saying that my eldest brother needed to change his behavior, but when he actually changed, I didn’t believe it. What right do I have to go see my brother with such hypocrisy?”

“Miss, you don’t have just one reason for wanting to see the First Young Master, do you? You told me you also wanted to apologize for everything until now. Was that just an excuse to ease your mind?”

“No. No, it wasn’t. Huff. Alright, Anna. I’m past the age for such tantrums.”

Dorothy stood up after patting her cheeks. She heard Anna’s nagging from behind about needing to be more ladylike, but she ignored it and left the room.

The meeting place wasn’t Gilbert’s room but the physical training hall. When Dorothy requested to meet early in the morning, Gilbert accepted but asked her to come to the training hall instead, a message relayed through Anna.

Hearing this, Dorothy was surprised once more because the Gilbert she knew had never once engaged in training. Despite this, his innate physical perfection made her think more than once that it was an extreme waste of talent.

So she couldn’t help but be surprised when he asked her to come to the physical training hall early in the morning.

Arriving at the training hall with Anna, Dorothy took a short deep breath before entering. She could see her eldest brother Gilbert in a corner of the training hall.

As Dorothy approached Gilbert, she couldn’t hide her astonished expression. The physical training he was doing seemed close to asceticism, almost like self-torture.

Although manipulating mana through meditation was the preferred training method for knights these days, Dorothy knew well that physical training was even more important.

She had dreamed of becoming a knight since childhood and had received systematic training accordingly. Her teacher was a retainer who had fought alongside her father, the Iron Border Count. He always said that mana must be built upon a trained body to avoid collapse, so this importance was deeply ingrained in Dorothy.

But even Dorothy had never seen such an absurd physical training regimen. No one in the Hart Count’s knight order engaged in such brutal training.

“First Brother.”

“Hmm. Dorothy, is it?”

Gilbert, who was dripping with sweat like rain, wiped his sweat as he saw Dorothy standing awkwardly.

Yesterday, Anna had suddenly visited and conveyed that Dorothy wanted to meet him. Knowing that Dorothy had not thought favorably of him until now, Gilbert immediately set up an appointment, wondering what this was about.

However, due to his tight schedule after the academy attack incident, he had to call her during his morning training time, the only period when he had ample time.

“I heard you wanted to see me. Do you have some business?”

Gilbert sighed as he watched Dorothy hesitating. He wanted to speak more gently, but the system was not to his liking in this aspect. Just as he received system assistance in combat, his speech patterns were supported by character settings.

Fortunately, it wasn’t completely forced, so he didn’t have to perfectly conform to the character settings, but there were constraints. That was why his tone became stiff like now.

“Huff. I’ll apologize honestly. I didn’t believe that First Brother had changed. I even thought you might have some ulterior motive.”

After hesitating in front of Gilbert, Dorothy finally gathered her courage and bowed her head in apology. She spoke plainly about her wrongdoing without any excuses.

“But my thinking was wrong. Brother tried to change, and I didn’t properly see that. It was my oversight.”

“Hmm…”

Gilbert looked at his youngest sister bowing deeply and fell into thought. He had wondered what this was about when she suddenly wanted to meet, but it seemed she wanted to apologize for everything until now.

Despite all her actions being justified, she seemed to have carried some burden in her heart.

Even in Tactical Combat, she had been popular for this upright heart, and it seemed that character hadn’t changed now that it had become reality.

“And thank you for saving me. If it weren’t for you, I would surely have died there.”

Even though no one would have said anything if he had just ignored it, she was still bowing and expressing her gratitude, which was truly like her.

“To be honest, I didn’t know you were there. I was just doing what I had to do, and you happened to be there.”

“Still, the fact that you saved me doesn’t change. Thank you so much.”

Even though no one would have said anything if he had just ignored it, she showed no sign of straightening her back. Seeing this, Gilbert unconsciously smiled.

At times like this, her stubborn appearance was identical to the Iron Border Count.

“Huh?”

“Enough. It’s natural for a brother to save his sister. There’s no reason to receive thanks for that. This too was simply what I had to do.”

Gilbert gently stroked Dorothy’s head as she continued to bow. Strictly speaking, Dorothy had been put in danger because Gilbert entered this world. Originally, only Glinda was supposed to attend the Lion King’s birthday celebration.

Because he showed a changed appearance, Dorothy came to the academy to find out why, and as a result, she was put in danger. If anyone should apologize, it was Gilbert, who had been given such strange settings.

Meanwhile, Dorothy, whose head was being stroked, newly realized how large Gilbert’s hands were. To Dorothy, who was smaller than other noble ladies her age, they felt relatively larger.

Moreover, though Gilbert’s touch was rough, it contained warmth. It was similar yet different from her second brother Glinda’s touch. Somehow, she could feel the Gilbert from before he became a scoundrel in that touch.

“Is that all you wanted to say?”

Realizing that Dorothy had straightened her back and was looking up at him, Gilbert withdrew his hand. He had unconsciously stroked her head but worried she might be displeased. Fortunately, she showed no such signs, but he couldn’t keep stroking her head indefinitely.

“For now…”

“Then go back and rest. Although they say you’re fine, experiencing such chaos for the first time might have mentally exhausted you. Such fatigue doesn’t easily disappear. Anna, I entrust Dorothy to you.”

“Yes, Young Master.”

Anna, who had been standing quietly behind, led the dazed Dorothy out of the training hall. Finding Dorothy in a similar state even outside, Anna carefully called to her.

“Miss? Are you alright?”

“Ah, y-yes.”

Only after being called several times did Dorothy come to her senses, showing her usual smile to the worried Anna as if nothing was wrong. Walking back to her quarters with Anna, Dorothy glanced at the increasingly distant door of the training hall.

Somehow, she felt like she had realized something new.