episode_0104

(There are parts with long explanations in the middle to speed up the development a bit…!)

000

The black-haired youth, who caught Aruru as she was about to fall, held her shoulders so she could stand properly again.

“Ah, thank… you.”

Aruru felt a sense of unease at the man’s touch, which felt somewhat familiar, and suddenly recalled someone when she saw his appearance.

“…Mr. Leona?”

Calling out that name based on the commonality of black hair and black eyes could be rude to both her and the man in front of her, but the atmosphere he exuded, and Aruru’s intuition, made her superimpose Leona’s image onto the youth.

However, soon, the youth – Kleon – made a mysterious expression, and Aruru snapped to her senses, bowing her head and apologizing to him.

“So, sorry! You looked like someone I know….”

“No, you’re not wrong, Aruru Tromeia. Come in, there’s someone waiting for you.”

As Kleon supported Aruru to enter Lyla’s mansion, Aruru looked flustered.

“Um… but if I go in without permission….”

Of course, she had come here to find something that was calling her, but was it okay to go inside without the permission of Lyla, the owner of the mansion?

“It’s okay. Lyla is inside too, so you can get permission from her.”

In the end, Aruru entered the mansion, held by his hand as he tried to bring her inside.

She met the eyes of Lyla Flamewatch, who was standing in the entrance with her hands on her hips, looking up at her.

“N-Nice to meet you. Miss Lyla, I am-”

“Ah- yeah, yeah. Aruru Tromeia. I don’t remember, but the guy over there said we’ve already met.”

Lyla waved her hand dismissively and sighed.

Aruru looked flustered, as if she didn’t quite understand her words, and Lyla crossed her arms, looking a little dissatisfied.

“Is this really the hero?”

“Yes. Much better than Albein.”

Lyla made a heated expression as if recalling something from the past at Kleon’s answer, but soon replied.

“There’s no hero more foolish than that guy… Haa. Okay.”

“What you’re looking for has been moved to the workshop. It seems to regenerate faster in a place with a lot of magic power. Follow me.”

With a swish, the hem of her skirt fluttered as Lyla turned her back, and Aruru and Kleon followed her as she walked away with unhesitating steps.

Lyla’s basement workshop was still full of various junk, but in the very center, above the magic circle where magic power was concentrated.

A beautiful sword with a transparent and blue blade, made of glass, was floating in the air, defying gravity.

However, the sword was missing from the middle part down, making it look incomplete at first glance.

“…Arondight.”

Aruru didn’t know why she knew the name of that holy sword, or why she knew that the sword was a ‘holy sword’.

However, she knew that this holy sword was desperately calling her.

It was fervently proclaiming that she was the owner of this holy sword.

As Kleon removed the hand that was supporting her, Aruru, who had been freed from the headaches and hallucinations that had been plaguing her, looked straight ahead and took a step forward.

And the moment she slowly grabbed the hilt of the sword that was waiting for her touch, a blinding light spread throughout the workshop.

The sword slowly changed its shape in Aruru’s hand.

This was a phenomenon that Kleon was also familiar with.

What emerged from the vanishing light was a woman who looked like a noble lady, with beautiful sky-blue hair reaching down to her back and wearing a pure white dress.

Everyone here could easily understand that this was another form of Arondight.

As she slowly opened her eyes, with skin as white as noticeable porcelain, she met the eyes of Aruru, who was holding her hand.

“Aruru… I have finally met you again. It was only a short time in the physical world, but it felt like an eternity to me.”

A calm and transparent voice flowed from her mouth.

However, Aruru still looked at the incarnation of the holy sword in front of her with an awkward and bewildered expression, due to the discrepancy with her still unreturned memories.

“Thank you, Swordsmaster Kleon. Thanks to you, I was able to meet Aruru again.”

“No. I was also able to find out the location of the Black Covenant thanks to you.”

After Kleon replied casually to Arondight’s words of gratitude, Lyla joined the conversation as if cutting in.

“I’m sorry, but there’s not much time to spare. We need to prepare before Enkidu starts moving in earnest.”

“She’s right. Is it possible to restore her memory with your power?”

Aruru also looked at Arondight at the words of the two.

If she was her holy sword, then Aruru herself must also be a hero, even though she didn’t remember it.

Suddenly, she recalled the teachers she had seen on the way here, guiding the students to evacuate.

The fact that the teachers, who would not interfere with the students unless something serious happened, were moving to that extent spoke to the seriousness of the situation.

And, if a great disaster was about to befall the academy, she thought that she should do what she could.

“It is possible. However, Aruru, it will be accompanied by great pain, as it is no different from forcibly removing the Demiurgos factor that is dominating your mind.”

Arondight speaks, as if worried about her master.

Then, Aruru grabbed her hand and said without any hesitation.

“…I don’t care. If it’s something I have to do, then do it.”

“…You don’t seem to have changed that much, even if you’ve lost your memory. I’m glad.”

Lyla, who was watching the scene, grabbed Kleon’s sleeve and turned around.

“Let’s go out. There’s no good in seeing others in pain, is there?”

Kleon also quietly nodded and left the underground workshop, and Lyla turned around and spread a soundproof magic barrier towards the basement.

“With this, it’s just me left.”

Lyla muttered quietly after finishing setting up the barrier.

Kleon could also understand what she meant.

Recovering memories. She was the only one around Kleon who didn’t remember him now.

Then she turned to Kleon and stared at his face for a moment –

She raised her heels without hesitation and tried to steal a kiss from Kleon’s lips.

But she failed because Kleon hurriedly raised his hand and blocked his lips.

“-What are you doing.”

Lyla took her face away, glancing slightly at Kleon as he spoke, slightly embarrassed.

“I wondered if my memories would come back if I came into contact with you.”

“If it was that easy to get back, I would have had you get them back a long time ago……. There is a way to transfer the Demiurgos factor received from Beatrice by mixing bodies, though.”

“Ugh…”

Lyla imagined herself being embraced by Kleon upon hearing that story, and blushed for a moment, but soon shook her head and said.

“Sasha, Kuon, Iona, and Innis. They all say that you and I are in a special relationship. Well, your face isn’t bad, and you seem to have skills. I don’t really understand.”

“Then why were you trying to kiss me…”

At Kleon’s words, Lyla turned her body away, not showing her face, with her hands still behind her waist, fidgeting her fingers.

“That’s…”

“That’s because, Master feels an inexplicable excitement every time she sees Papa!”

In the next moment, Innis appeared from behind Kleon, sticking her face out and making a bright voice.

She stopped acting from the moment Kuon’s memory returned, and openly revealed her original personality.

“Before losing her memory, Master had everything revealed to Papa, and after that, they repeatedly confirmed each other’s feelings, a relationship that is deeply connected as souls. Even if her mind is reorganized, her body and soul are still in a `fall in love` state with Papa.”

“… … Is that so?”

Kleon asked Lyla, but Lyla was stiffened in place with her body still turned away.

Even without looking back, he could tell that her face was as red as her hair.

“Well, Master has been a prim and proper lady since she was born, so she wouldn’t want to have such a fact be known. But just like Papa and Master are connected as souls, I am also connected to Master as a soul. To be honest-”

“Quiet!”

Lyla opened her mouth and gave Innis a forceful order as she tried to reveal things about Lyla in a teasing tone as if she was having fun.

Then Innis’s mouth was still moving, but no sound came out, just like a goldfish moving its mouth.

“… Lyla?”

“Ugh~~~~!! That’s right! It’s just like that idiot said! I don’t want to admit it, but something has been weird ever since I saw you with Iona back then! My heart was beating strangely, my body was getting hot from the inside…! But that’s like. A beast in heat! I want to run up to a man I’ve never met and hug him…! So I tried to ignore it! I was sure you had cast some strange magic on me, or that you were some kind of incubus demon! I even asked Kuon for purification magic! But it didn’t get any better! But you know what’s even scarier!? I’m starting to not hate that feeling…! When I’m spacing out, your face comes to mind, and I can’t think properly, but that situation is actually nice…!”

“… …”

Kleon and Innis, watching her spew out what she was thinking like a machine gun, kept their mouths shut.

“So I asked you when I met you again. If you and I were in a relationship. You denied it right away! We’re colleagues, friends, and family, but not lovers even though we’ve mixed bodies! Then what are we!? Friends with benefits!? The most annoying thing is…! That look of yours that says `I know everything about you!`…! Don’t try to come into my heart as you please when I don’t have my memories…! I, I was willing to do anything to stay the same with Kuon and Sasha forever. But when I came to my senses, everyone except me remembered you and were clinging to you. Why only me…. Why can’t I remember like the two of them…”

“That’s… Sasha and Kuon’s situations were special, originally you’re not supposed to remember-”

“That’s not normal! No matter the situation, forgetting about someone precious is not normal…!”

The sound of water droplets falling to the floor echoed. It was tears, like the aftershock of spewing out Lyla’s resentment, sadness, and all uncontrollable emotions.

Barely wiping away her tears with her sleeve, Lyla turned her body towards Kleon.

Her eyes, slightly bloodshot and red, were still glaring at Kleon as if she was going to devour him.

Then she strode over to him, standing right in front of Kleon and looking up at him.

“Listen carefully, Kleon. I’m going to surpass the me before I lost my memory. I’ll definitely make you say `I love you, Lyla!` before I get my memories back, so be prepared…!”

With those words, she walked up the stairs towards her room, and Innis hurriedly followed her.

Kleon, a little overwhelmed by the force, watched Lyla’s back and sighed.

“…Is it over?”

As Lyla’s door slammed shut, Beatrice, who had been holding her breath and watching the two of them from behind Kleon, peeked out her face.

“I’m sorry for showing you this side of me.”

“No, I understand Lyla’s feelings too……. Maybe she’s feeling the `loneliness` and `alienation` that senior experienced right now.”

For her, it was like thrusting the reality that the things she had been familiar with until now were false.

The situation was reversed, but the psychology she felt might be similar to Kleon’s.

“Lyla is-”

“Strong, you say? I know. I know that Lyla is a strong girl. But at the same time, she’s also an infinitely weak girl. Especially when it comes to you. She’s usually not honest.”

Beatrice gave a bitter smile and looked at her watch.

“It’s almost time…. Just like Iona said, if the Black Covenant shows signs of moving again….”

“…Right.”

Kleon’s gaze turned to Galatea’s room, which was protected by a strong barrier.

The barrier was the kind that Galatea had to open from the inside, but there was no response even when calling from the outside.

“…Galatea.”

His oldest friend and family, and the first woman.

A precious existence that he couldn’t trade for anyone.

Just waiting for her to be safe, he put his teacher’s sword on his waist.

001

It was yesterday that Lyla and Iona examined the traces of the Black Covenant in Vitos’s warehouse after receiving a call from the guard.

When examining the surrounding area through magic vision, there were definitely traces of forcibly tearing space and passing through it.

However, the problem was that the magic power was directed not to somewhere within the same dimension, but to the gap between dimensions.

“That huge golem is gone entirely…”

The top student of the Department of Theology muttered in disbelief, looking around the place where Enkidu had been exhibited.

There were really no physical traces left.

“We can’t track it this way.”

Lyla bit her thumb to injure herself, then attached it to the red magic stone at the head of her staff.

The magic stone, which contained rich magic power, constantly searched for the afterglow of magic power and informed its owner of the location of the object to be found, but the direction remained unchanged beyond the torn space.

“… Enkidu has the ability to pass through the gap between dimensions with its own functions.”

“Why do you know that? Even the academy doesn’t fully understand Enkidu’s identity. Aruru, you must have heard something from someone, right?”

Iona closed her mouth for a moment, thinking about something under Lyla’s suspicious gaze, but in the end, she opened the floodgates to the story, starting with the sentence `There’s no need to hide this anymore`.

“Before leaving for the academy, I had someone give me hints about various things. The Great Sage, Sophia.”

Lyla’s eyes widened at her words.

Sophia, the idiot Great Sage.

She was called a heretic in the magic world, but if it weren’t for her skills and knowledge, the hero Resia would not have been able to finish the fight to defeat the empire, and she was evaluated as the strongest magician and the best scholar.

However, unlike Talchek, who naturalized to the kingdom, or the priest of the hero party who went to the Saint’s Blessing Order, she did not belong anywhere and wandered around without revealing her whereabouts like a traveler.

Whenever she appeared, it always became a big topic, and countless magicians would ask her to make them her disciples.

“…Come to think of it, Iona was that gorilla – Talchek’s daughter. It’s not strange to have a connection.”

“It was my first time meeting her in person. She said she came to see me after confirming that my father had passed away, but she didn’t seem like the kind of person who would do that at all.”

Iona put her index finger on her chin, as if recalling her meeting with her, and was telling Lyla the story she had with Sophia.

“She knew that I was heading to the academy. And about Kleon too. She said that he would need as much power and knowledge as possible in the near future. At that time, she told me about `Demiurgos` and `Enkidu`.”

“Are the two related?”

Iona nodded at Lyla’s question and told a quite shocking story.

“`Enkidu` was originally an armor for exploration created by ancient humans when they first discovered the gap between dimensions, to check what was inside and use its power. It was made using all the technology of the time to prevent it from being deformed even when receiving the power of another dimension. The investigation seemed to be going smoothly. Because even at that time, rare artifacts from beyond the gap between dimensions were being discovered.”

“But the pursuit of power with risks always threatened humanity. Enkidu went deeper into the gap between dimensions and eventually reached another dimension. That dimension and the world we live in were connected through Enkidu.”

“Another dimension…?”

“Yes. The land of demons, a world of sulfur, fire, and dark magic. In theological terms, it is a dimension called `Hell`.”

The top student of the Department of Theology was startled by Iona’s words.

That makes sense, he never dreamed that he would find out how their main enemy, the demons’ homeland, was connected to the world they live in in a place like this.

“The five demon lords of hell who discovered Enkidu invaded our world as it was. They called themselves `gods` who came from the gap between dimensions and began to raise and dominate humans as their energy source. That is-”

“Demiurgos… the five great demons… Then, is the operator of Enkidu the one who brought them in?”

Iona shook her head at Lyla’s question.

“Enkidu started moving without following human instructions from the middle……. Sophia and I are guessing that even though it’s ancient human technology, Enkidu was also affected by spending too much time in the gap between dimensions.”

“What exactly is the gap between dimensions…. And where did the Great Sage get that knowledge?”

“I asked that question too…. I didn’t get a proper answer.”

Lyla closed her mouth after hearing those words.

Of course, this revealed Enkidu’s identity and its connection to Demiurgos, but it was not visible how this would lead to resolving the situation.

“So, what’s going to happen now?”

“Enkidu is originally an `armor`. Therefore, it can be said to be in an `incomplete` state if there is no one inside. But if a human is put inside and it becomes complete, it starts to recover its original functions. All the functions that were made to walk the gap between dimensions. No matter how that golem changes. A complete Enkidu, moving by malice, will be nothing more than a disaster to this world.”

“What exactly will happen…”

Iona speaks as if answering the question of the Department of Theology.

“It is said that when Enkidu returned to the human world with Demiurgos before it stopped working, its form was like a demon. People called that form `Humbaba`, containing the meaning of fear.”

Lyla also knew about the name `Humbaba`. It was the oldest monster that appeared in many historical records, and it was said that its power was enough to easily destroy a country.

Lyla’s head ached at the fact that its true identity was Enkidu, and that Enkidu was now trying to transform back into Humbaba.

“…According to the Humbaba legend, the monster was defeated by a swordsman with a sword that never breaks.”

“Sophia also answered vaguely about that part. But if it’s a sword that never breaks, I only know one. The holy sword that the Tromeia family has, `Arondight`.”

A sword that never breaks. To be precise, it is a sword that continues to regenerate even if it breaks, adding power.

As a result, it revives even if the handle remains, so even if the image is different from a normal sword that does not break, it met the condition of `never` breaking.

“But there is no hero in the Tromeia family right now.”

The top student of the Department of Theology speaks.

The previous Tromeia hero has already retired from his position as hero and is too old to use the power of the holy sword.

But Iona shakes her head.

She knew that the owner of the holy sword that never breaks was alive and well.

It’s just that she herself and the people around her have forgotten.

“…Entering the gap between dimensions after them is suicide. Instead, we need to finish preparing before Enkidu reappears.”

Lyla nodded at Iona’s words.

And according to her proposal, they decided to regenerate Arondight and bring in the owner of the holy sword.

002

Thirty minutes have passed since Aruru entered the underground workshop, but she has not yet revealed herself.

The time that Iona had predicted was slowly approaching, and Kleon, who was watching the city of the academy from the roof of the mansion, holding his breath, heard the sound of the bell ringing from the Tower of Ayon in the distance.

The bell rang 13 times.

The moment it announced that exactly one hour had passed since noon.

The blue sky, which had been cloudless to the point of being ominous, instantly turned black, and something like a glass window burst out of the space between them.

It was a disaster that came without any warning.

The sharp claws that burst out with the cracking sound forcibly tore open the gap between dimensions to create a space large enough for itself to pass through.

What appeared was a giant demon figure with the head of an ominous bird, bat-like wings, sharp claws and nails, and a snake’s tail.

Not as much as the previously faced Realm Tree, but still a size that could not be compared to humans.

Covered in interdimensional magic power, with a body where highly concentrated magic power flowed like mud.

It fell to the ground from the air, like a baby being born into the world through the birth canal.

The place it fell was the city of the academy.

Fortunately, it was an area where the students had already evacuated, and the people who had been waiting near Humbaba’s landing spread a thick barrier to block the monster even a little.

But, it wouldn’t last long.

As Kleon grabbed his sword and stood up, Lyla, who had been observing the situation from a slightly higher place, came down.

“It finally came, let’s go. We have to buy time until Aruru is ready.”

“Okay.”

Defeat Humbaba, and retrieve the Demiurgos factor that Leil has.

With that, a series of events would be resolved and a truly peaceful daily life would return to the academy.

Kleon also glared at the enemy that he had to defeat in order to put an end to the long battle.

That demon, that monster, the echo of the resentment left by ancient people in modern times. Humbaba, which can be said to be the culmination of that, let out a roar containing hatred for everything in this world.

With just that, the ground inside the barrier was torn apart, and flames soared.

It was truly the ancient monster that appeared in legends.

The moment he took a step, he was immediately moving his body to the brink of death.