Harvest Festival (6)

1.

The bell announcing the start of the Harvest festival echoes throughout the academy.

Once.

Twice.

Finally, as the ninth bell rings.

The nightmare begins.

One-third of the students gathered in the plaza, cheering, collapse simultaneously.

Not a single error.

It was as if the strings connected to the puppets in a puppet show had all been cut at once.

The cheers subside.

Silence descends as if time has stopped.

The students standing on two feet stare at the students sprawled out like corpses.

Dumbfounded faces, not fully grasping the sudden event.

Except for one person.

The Saintess, watching from a high vantage point, contorts her face.

“…Shiiiiiipal.”

The Saintess curses without realizing it.

But no one hears her voice.

They are in no state to hear.

Everyone is distracted by the bizarre spectacle unfolding before their eyes.

“Quarantine them immediately! Now!”

The Saintess shouts.

At her cry, the knights begin to creak into motion.

Even though they don’t know what happened, they decide to take them to the temple first.

“Move faster!”

The Saintess shouts urgently.

A memory from long ago resurfaces.

That night.

That nightmare.

The puppet show from that time is about to be reenacted here.

Time, which had paused for a moment and then slowly started moving again, resumes its normal pace.

The knights move busily.

The professors begin to assess the situation.

The Saintess feels a headache and presses her temples.

“Haha…”

She lets out a hollow laugh and rubs her face roughly.

She had worried about the worst-case scenario, but she didn’t expect it to actually become the worst-case scenario.

“…This is too fast.”

To think she would reunite with a Legion Commander in the academy, not the Demon Realm.

She hasn’t met him yet.

But she will meet him.

She will personally go to meet him.

He is definitely somewhere in the academy.

“The sooner, the better.”

The Saintess smiles.

A smile as benevolent as an angel.

But a terrifying smile that would terrify a demon if it saw it.

Has it been several decades?

The time has come to do what she couldn’t do back then.

The Saintess only has one thing to do.

To cut off his head.

“You think it will be like back then?”

2.

At the same time.

At the same moment.

Hundreds of students faint.

It’s not just the students in the plaza who collapse.

Nearly half of the students who participated in the Harvest festival and scattered also collapse.

The cause is quickly identified.

Their Mana circuits are poisoned by Demon Energy.

An impossible event.

Demon Energy Poisoning in the middle of the academy.

“This isn’t the Demon Realm…”

“It might become the Demon Realm.”

“What do you mean?”

Professor Erec of the Swordsmanship department says with a grim face.

“This happened a long time ago. You must have heard of it? What happened in the Western Plains. I was in that nightmare back then too.”

It was when he was very young.

A chaotic time when anyone could join the Imperial Knights.

Professor Erec, who was 14 years old at the time, was also on that battlefield.

So he knows.

What will happen this time.

“So, you’re saying a Gate to the Demon Realm will open in the academy?”

Professor Erec nods once.

“This is no time to be standing around! We need to issue an evacuation order immediately…!”

“Calm down.”

“Is this the time to calm down?!”

Time is of the essence.

Even if we start evacuating now, it’s uncertain how many people will survive.

What is certain is that if a Gate to the Demon Realm opens, the academy will become a living hell, and death will be more prevalent than life.

“The Saintess.”

“What?”

“The Saintess has put out the immediate fire.”

As soon as he realized the signs, Professor Erec was ready to run away immediately.

When the Gate to the Demon Realm opens, the academy’s forces will not be able to stop it.

It’s a pity for the students who will be sacrificed, but the best thing to do is for those who can survive to abandon them and survive.

If the Saintess hadn’t taken action.

He doesn’t know how she knew.

As soon as the incident occurred, the Saintess quarantined the students poisoned by Demon Energy.

Those students would have rampaged and attacked other students while the gate was opening.

Becoming puppets of Liches, Mortis.

By quickly quarantining them, they can reduce the damage that will occur when they open their eyes. But it only reduces it, it doesn’t prevent it.

The Saintess purified the 114 students quarantined in the temple.

It didn’t require a long process either.

She simply prayed once.

As the Saintess prayed, Divinity bloomed and suppressed the Demon Energy.

The wriggling Demon Energy, like parasites.

Of course, that alone cannot prevent the gate from opening. It only delays it.

The person who caused this will try to open the gate even by replacing the sacrifices. Unless that person is caught, the gate will open no matter what.

“The Saintess told us to save as many people as possible.”

“That’s too idealistic. If we’ve bought time, we should evacuate in the meantime. That’s saving as many people as possible. So, let’s hurry. That’s what the Saintess meant.”

Professor Erec thinks the same.

That the Saintess bought time to evacuate.

But is that really what the Saintess wants?

She rushed out of the temple as soon as she purified the Demon Energy. Despite the knights’ dissuasion that it was dangerous outside.

The Saintess left these words before leaving the temple.

‘I will protect it.’

3.

Among the students participating in the Harvest festival, each party leader was given a bracelet with a Magic Stone.

A bracelet for communication.

It was distributed to request help in case of an emergency.

The academy used this bracelet to order the participants to return to the academy.

But.

Yohan and his group were still in the forest.

They did not receive the message.

To be exact, the message could not reach them.

A Magic Field that interferes with external Magical power is blocking it.

“Reine! Reine!”

Yohan shakes Reine wildly.

“■■■■I■■■I■■■■.”

Reine mutters strange words, mixing in unidentified languages.

No matter how much he shakes her, she doesn’t come to her senses.

It’s as if she’s been possessed by a ghost.

“What the heck is going on?”

Estel blinks her widened eyes.

Among the three swordsmen who use their bodies rather than their heads, no one could understand and explain the current situation. It would be different if there was one more Wizard.

“This won’t work. Let’s go back for now.”

Yohan carries the trembling Reine on his back.

If they return to the academy, the professors will do something about it.

If the professors can’t, the Saintess will.

Reine opens her eyes.

“Ugh… what?”

Her head hurts.

She remembers being transported to the forest.

After that, she has no memory.

-Fwoosh!!

Flames rise fiercely.

“Shit… what is this?”

A hellscape unfolding before her eyes.

Flames surge like waves.

It’s hot. So hot that just breathing feels like it will burn her lungs black.

However.

She doesn’t feel like she wants to get away.

Rather, she wants to get closer.

Fire is the identity of the Agnia family.

It is also a friend.

The closer she gets, the more proud she should be.

“Fi…”

Reine is startled and turns around at the sudden voice.

“Who is it?!”

Surging flames rise.

A figure made of flames walks out from within the pillar of fire.

“Rage… endlessly burning flames…”

“Who are you!”

“Jealousy… fuel for rage… rage… the source of power…”

“Are you deaf? Can’t you hear me?”

Instinct is ringing alarm bells.

She shouldn’t get close to that being.

“Why are you afraid? I am your flame.”

“Wh, what are you talking about…?”

“Your fire, your rage, your jealousy, and you. Come closer.”

The flame beckons.

“How long will you keep this power rotting inside?”

“Uh…?”

When she comes to her senses, Reine is standing in front of the being.

“I will give you a new birth.”

“I don’t particularly want to be reborn…”

“How long will you keep being robbed? How long will you keep looking up? How long will you keep falling behind?”

The voice echoes.

“No one pays attention to your small flame. Yes, no one. You may think you’re great, but you’re not even a speck of dust on the path of magic. So, take my hand. Burn brighter. Be reborn.”

One voice becomes two.

Two voices become three.

Thus, multiple voices fill Reine’s ears like the footsteps of insects.

They give her all sorts of humiliation.

They stimulate the emotions she has often felt recently.

Her heart throbs every time her jealousy is poked.

The flame grows larger.

Reine was a frog in a well.

The outside of the well was full of things she didn’t know.

There are many people who are prettier than her.

There are many people who are better than her.

“Yes, you are incompetent as a Wizard… as a woman…”

She feels breathless.

“So, I will help you. I will give you power.”

The flame spreads its arms.

The flames surging around her rage like a sea in a storm.

“Let’s be reborn, you useless child.”

Reine’s body is drawn into the embrace of the flame.

And that was when.

Flash!

A light stronger than the intense flame pierces the flame’s head.

A light that makes her feel warmth even in this heat.

It was Divinity.