Until the Morning Star Comes

In the rearmost car, where the special-class seats were located, only the sound of the train wheels on the tracks echoed, and all but one compartment was dark.

Inside the illuminated compartment, Luna and Flare were talking about Scarl with their arms crossed.

“Scarl, you said he’s in Haimon territory now, right?”

Flare responded to Luna’s words.

“Haimon, Haimon. That’s where he was, wasn’t it?”

Luna, surprised by Flare’s rare use of “he,” made an “aha” expression.

“Berk was so obviously into you—”

Berk Haimon.

Scarl had met him recently, a year above him, and he had made his affection for Flare so obvious before the regression that Sophia often used his name to tease Flare.

“Eeeeek!! Sister! I told you, I don’t like him! He’s so greasy, what’s with that guy! And… I’ve always only had eyes for Scarl.”

Flare spoke boisterously like a tomboy, waving her arms, but when referring to Scarl, she became a demure maiden, twisting the hair beside her right ear as if nothing had happened. Luna, dumbfounded by her sister’s behavior, snorted.

“Yeah, yeah. Who’s stopping you?”

Flare, her face flushed, shouted.

“Are you any different?!”

Luna, feeling as if Scarl was watching from somewhere, changed the subject.

“…Let’s stop talking about that.”

“You brought it up first!”

“Sorry. I’m sorry, Flare.”

Luna asked about the demon related to Haimon.

“Was the demon associated with Haimon named Samigina… or something?”

Luna spoke uncertainly, her memory hazy, but Flare seemed to remember it clearly.

“That’s right. He was a pain. No matter how many times we killed him, he kept resurrecting… Did we kill him eight times? A grotesquely ugly old hag popped out.”

Luna began to remember as Flare mentioned slicing him eight times.

“Ah, yes. I was surprised when he suddenly got bigger.”

“How did we deal with him… I don’t remember well, it wasn’t that difficult.”

“He didn’t die peacefully. But I remember he used some unusual magic.”

“Ah, right! We were trapped in a weird barrier. We would have been in big trouble if it weren’t for you, Sister.”

“…When was the announced assassination attempt on Io Haimon?”

“Still two days away. Don’t worry, Sister. Even though running around in there is terrifying, nothing happened. And that’s still two days away, right?”

Luna breathed a sigh of relief at the mention of two days.

“Right? Just in case…”

Flare scoffed as if she was dumbfounded by Luna’s worry, her behavior mirroring Luna’s as if they weren’t sisters.

“Seriously. You worry about Scarl-related things like a little kid going to play in the water. He’s stronger than us, isn’t he? Don’t worry. We’ll probably be needed for something else, obviously.”

They were each other’s best allies when other people were around, but…

“Call him Scarl.”

When it was just the two of them…

“No. He’s my senior to me.”

Luna felt annoyed by her sister, who stubbornly called him “senior” as if she wouldn’t give in.

“You just like him that way, don’t you?”

Flare didn’t seem inclined to take Luna’s words to heart, unlike usual.

“What else can I do! Senior is Scarl, and Scarl is Senior! Frankly, Scarl just has narrow eyes and a dirty look—”

Flare crossed the line.

The atmosphere in the compartment turned icy as Luna reacted to Flare’s comment about Scarl’s appearance, as if it were a region where eternal snow fell.

Luna was cold for the first time in a while.

“Flare. Stop it, okay?”

The fiery Flare didn’t back down.

“What? Sister, do you know how fake you are? And you used to hate—”

Luna quickly covered her sister’s mouth as Flare was about to reveal Luna’s embarrassing past, and checked to see if anyone had heard.

“Ptooey, ptooey. Who would hear us here?! We rented the entire train car! With Senior’s money! He really has a lot of money.”

Luna blushed and ducked her head slightly at Flare’s words.

“That’s always been your problem, Sister. Huh? I…”

Luna finally stood up from her seat, overwhelmed by Flare’s relentless attack.

“Hey! Flare! Stop it!”

“No! Ebebebe!”

“You!”

Even as the two bickered, the train silently moved toward its destination.

“Hmm.”

Startled by the sound, Io quickly covered Scarl’s mouth with both hands.

Scarl gave Io a reproachful look, as if asking what she was doing, and Io replied in a small, apologetic voice.

“Shh. That’s supposed to mean shhhh… Haha.”

Scarl, annoyed that she was silencing him while talking herself, said one word.

“No one—”

He initially tried to speak because there was no one around, but he signaled to Io as the encirclement tightened again.

-Enemies. Coming here.-

Io didn’t see Scarl’s hand signal.

Knowing somehow that shadows were closing in on their location, Scarl slung Io over his shoulder and began to run again to escape the encirclement.

Carrying Io in his arms, Scarl was becoming increasingly aware of the possibility of dying.

However, she didn’t feel any sense of crisis, as if it were a death in a game, and she only thought to herself that Scarl, who was running so hard, might lose his strength.

‘As long as you’re with me, I have no fear.’

As the fear of death rose, so did her infinite faith in Scarl, preventing her from panicking. Io thought that she couldn’t understand her own heart.

Rather, she was filled with thoughts of him in the familiar thrill, and her heart began to race wildly as if in response.

‘If I said that your hand signals are more wonderful than a hundred sweet words…’

Perhaps a man like him was her unknown preference, befitting a daughter of a family with military blood. Io thought that Scarl’s movements, maintaining security while moving, were clean and without unnecessary frills, even without mana.

‘What am I thinking, to the person who is trying so hard to save me.’

One thing was clear: Scarl Bernatore’s stake in the heart of Io Haimon, trapped inside the dream forest, was gradually increasing.

At that exact moment, as Io was smiling faintly, drawing a rosy picture of the future in Scarl’s arms, Luna and Flare felt a chill at the same time, stopped fighting, and looked at each other.

“Flare.”

“Sister.”

The sisters, making eye contact at the same time, frowned as if they had seen a bug suddenly appear.

“Something.”

“Feels weird? You too?”

“Yeah.”

“I felt something strange. Just now.”

“You too?”

“You too?”

The sisters sat down as if they had received some kind of revelation.

“What could it be? I hope nothing bad has happened to Scarl.”

“…It’s Scarl. He’ll be fine. He’s much stronger than us.”

Flare instinctively thought of an enemy.

“That’s true. But Sister, have we ever met someone named Io Haimon?”

“I don’t think so? She was already dead when we went to Haimon.”

“Right? What did Berk say about how Io Haimon died…”

“Did you hear anything that could help with the current situation?!”

“What did he say back then, definitely. Ugh…”

“Try to remember, Flare. Whatever it is, it might help Scarl.”

Flare frowned, twisting her temples back and forth with her fingers.

“Ah!”

“What is it! Did you remember something?!”

“This is bad!”

“Why?”

“What time do we arrive?”

“5 a.m.? About two hours left, right?”

“Sister, we don’t have time to be doing this! Faster! We need to go faster!”

Due to the nature of trains with the driving mechanism in the front, the special compartment for reducing noise and vibration was naturally located at the rear.

After hearing a rough explanation, Luna took Flare and ran to the front of the train car, toward the employee who was guiding the special compartment.

The two woke up the male employee who was dozing off in front of the door, passing through the dark corridor.

“Excuse me.”

“Mister!”

The employee wiped the drool from his mouth and blinked.

“Ah, ah. Ah! Yes, Heroes.”

“We need your help.”

“It’s urgent.”

“What’s wrong—?”

Luna cut off the employee’s words.

“Can you make the train go a little faster?”

“Huh? Even if you’re Heroes, that’s…”

Flare, as if there wasn’t enough time to listen to an answer, grabbed the large employee and pulled him along.

“Let’s go to the engineer first, quickly!”

“Uh, uh, uh?”

Despite his large frame, he was easily led by Flare’s small hand.

The employee almost fell from the rattling of the train, so Flare let go of his hand. Then, the employee barely regained his balance and stopped them, sweating profusely.

“I’m sorry, Heroes. We’re already doing our best. We won’t be late, so you don’t have to worry too much…”

Flare, frustrated by those words, thumped her chest and grabbed one of the employee’s arms.

“Ugh. Sister! You have to push these slowpokes with force at times like this!”

Luna grabbed the employee from the other side, as if agreeing.

“You’re right sometimes!”

The employee thought that he was dreaming when the pretty Heroes suddenly appeared and grabbed his arms.

The two warned the employee, who was about to continue his delusion with a loose smile.

“Don’t fall like you did earlier!”

“Be careful.”

The employee’s face, which had been trying to make what he thought was a cool expression, quickly changed to that of someone passing through the most dangerous part of a roller coaster.

“Flare Hero. Luna Hero. The joke is too far… Ughhhhhhhhh!!”

“Run, Sister!”

The wild dash continued until the engineer’s room came into view.

Luna and Flare looked the same as when they first appeared, unlike the employee, whose hair was disheveled.

It was the engineer’s room that they had come to without warning, but the other party was the most famous Heroes in the Empire.

“Yes, yes. Yes. Yessss. They want both of you to come in.”

They followed the employee into the engineer’s room.

Luna explained the situation calmly, but the engineer looked troubled.

“I understand the situation. Even at the fastest, 70 minutes is the limit until arrival.”

The remaining distance was a problem, and they had to pass two stations in the middle.

The engineer explained that pulling it off by about 30 minutes was the best he could do.

Flare and Luna understood those words rationally, but they acted emotionally because the sense unique to the Heroes they possessed continued to sound the alarm.

“Just ignore them!”

“Run at full speed without stopping right now. Right now.”

What reason would there be to see the excited Heroes?

The engineer, pressured by their momentum, thought that he could be fired from his job depending on the Heroes’ mood, and stammered, bringing up the Imperial law, his best shield.

“No, Heroes. That’s something that has never happened in the history of the Imperial train. Article 1 of the Imperial Train Law states that we must stop at the station no matter what. Even if a knife is held to my throat, I can’t do that! It’s a matter of trust!”

The sisters looked at each other at the engineer’s strong words, and Flare tapped her thigh repeatedly with her index finger as if she was anxious.

“Ugh! Do you know who we are?”

The engineer began to beg.

“That’s why I’m telling you this.”

Luna, unable to say anything more to the employee who was sobbing next to her, could only sigh.

“…”

Unlike Luna, who was hesitating, the fiery Flare had already made up her mind.

Her sister, unable to watch any longer, shouted instead of Luna.

“I’ll take responsibility! Just step on it. Compensation or whatever. We’ll do it all!”

“Flare?”

“We’re going to do it anyway! Time is of the essence! What are you dawdling about?! Step on it quickly!”

It was just a hunch, but the two’s hunch wasn’t just a hunch.

“Q-Quickly. Listen to Flare!”

The engineer, overwhelmed by their force, began to increase the train’s speed to the maximum.