Chapter 141
Younger Sibling
Meanwhile, the First Regiment was on the move to hunt down the last monster assigned to them.
The colossal monster towered over the dead land. Thanks to the monsters that had spread like a plague, there were few left to protect their mother.
This one should go smoothly too.
There were no unexpected variables on the battlefield, and both the soldiers’ condition and morale were at their peak.
Olivia intended to advance as they were and smash the colossal monster apart.
“Chief of Staff! Please stop!”
Just then, the commander of the mage company shouted urgently.
“What is it?”
“A powerful energy is gathering around the colossal monster!”
“Energy…? What kind of—”
Before she could finish asking, Olivia felt it herself.
Anyone capable of sensing the flow of the battlefield could clearly feel that sinister energy.
Just as the commander had said, it was swirling around the colossal monster.
It dragged in the white clouds, compressing them until they grew dark and dense. In an instant, the sky over the entire area turned gloomy.
“W-What in the world…?”
The army, which had been advancing with unstoppable momentum, faltered.
Even climate mages could not gather clouds that quickly.
“Is… is the monster casting magic?”
“Everyone, defensive positions! Prepare for an attack!”
Everyone assumed it was some kind of magic being used by the monster, but Olivia thought differently.
She had seen clouds take that shape before.
The clouds gathered and gathered, rising high like a mountain that had made the sky itself its land.
“Don’t tell me…”
Rrrrumble…!
The roar of the heavens shook the earth.
KRA-BOOOOM!
A bolt of lightning struck the colossal monster.
A pillar of light split through its torso and blew it apart.
Everyone stared blankly at the astonishing sight.
Some called it divine judgment against evil. Others called it heavenly punishment.
Olivia called it a disaster.
Standing on all fours where the colossal monster had once towered was a creature of comparable size.
Its body was obscured by filthy chunks of flesh and rising white steam, but even those who had never seen one before could recognize its silhouette.
A pair of wings and a long tail.
An elongated snout and two pairs of horns pointing toward the sky.
Its scales were such a deep blue that, at first glance, one might mistake it for Iorga.
But unlike the Aspect of Water, this creature’s entire body was wrapped in lightning.
That alone was enough to reveal its identity.
—Kwahahahaha!
Storeus, the Thunder Dragon.
The most belligerent of all dragons had descended upon this place.
—Godfrey, that damned bastard! He said something had appeared that was causing trouble for the Empire, so I came expecting to enjoy myself! But these are nothing more than small fry!
He crushed the eggs the colossal monster had been carrying beneath his claws and laughed as though amused.
The advancing soldiers appeared bewildered by the situation.
“I-Is he here to protect us?”
“I think so…”
An image suddenly appeared in their minds—a figure with red scales standing alone atop a solitary mountain.
Driven by that thought, someone took the lead and shouted.
“Long live the dragons!”
“Their great power protects us!”
Those who knew nothing about Storeus began praising him.
“You stupid bastards! Shut your mouths, all of you!”
The knight company commander shouted, trying to stop the wave of cheers.
Those who knew Storeus’s infamous reputation attempted to restrain the others, but it was already too late.
—Hmm?
The praise drew the dragon’s attention.
When his eyes turned toward the temporary alliance, everyone felt a chill run down their spines.
—No, it seems there are still some left who might provide me with a little entertainment.
Grinning, he raised his upper body and lifted his hands toward the sky.
Crackle!
Two masses of lightning grew larger and larger until he grasped them in his hands.
“W-What is that?”
“All the monsters are already dead, so why…?”
Olivia shouted at the top of her lungs on behalf of those who still failed to understand the situation.
“All forces, defensive formation! Every mage, deploy protective magic at the front!”
Only then did they realize it.
Storeus was an evil dragon who threatened humanity.
And an evil dragon showed no mercy, not even toward insignificant small fry.
Everyone hurriedly formed ranks and prepared for battle.
The lightning in Storeus’s hands transformed into two spears.
They were known as the Judgment of Storeus.
A single one of those bolts possessed enough power to reduce an entire kingdom to ashes.
And he intended to throw two of them at a single army.
He clearly meant to annihilate them.
—Now, let us see whether you can withstand this attack. Hmm?
Storeus noticed something among the assembled soldiers.
Amid the mass of armor stood a striking woman with blond hair and blue eyes.
Her beauty was so renowned that even the dragons knew of it.
—Hah! Olivia! You adorable little puppy! So you were there!
Along with his booming laughter, the terrifying spears of lightning dispersed into the air.
The scattered electricity caused everyone’s hair to stand on end.
—I cannot lay a hand on an army that has Olivia in it! Yes, how unfortunate, but I suppose I shall be on my way!
Storeus spread his wings and flew into the thunderclouds.
The moment his enormous form disappeared, the clouds scattered, and the sky returned to its original color.
The dragon had arrived like a storm and vanished like one as well.
He truly deserved to be called the Aspect of the Storm.
Barely a minute had passed, yet the soldiers looked as though they had aged ten years.
Cold sweat poured down Olivia’s face as well.
However, Storeus was not the reason.
It was the existence of someone capable of moving the Thunder Dragon.
The Emperor…
Godfrey Arken, widely regarded as an incompetent emperor.
He alone could summon the Thunder Dragon and keep him under control.
Olivia clenched her teeth.
The subjugation campaign, which she had thought would serve as a smooth stepping stone, would no longer proceed according to her intentions.
The sudden monster disturbance that had broken out immediately after the First Spring Festival thus came to an end.
The encirclement formed by the monsters completely collapsed, and reports of victory arrived from all directions.
Isabella compiled the results of the battles and reported them to Ferda.
—Of the combined force of 6,253 soldiers, the total number of deaths has been confirmed at 220.
“That is an astonishing achievement.”
—Indeed. Even after considering every relevant factor, this result cannot be dismissed.
Pride could be heard in Isabella’s voice.
It was clear that she truly considered herself a member of Valdrova Castle and the administrator of Hestia Village.
Of the dead, 170 had belonged to the Far Eastern Alliance led by Consilus, which was within the expected average.
Most of those casualties had occurred during the first battle, when the monsters had still been clustered around their mothers.
This will further increase the value of tactical infantry.
Tactical infantry were certainly cost-effective.
They might cost slightly more than spearmen, but they were vastly superior in terms of ease of training and deployment. Even if they were placed in the reserves, they would remain perfectly useful later.
The news was good not only for Ferda’s territory, but for the surrounding regions as well.
—We have also received messages from the Pascal Merchant Company and Halim.
“Why would Halim contact us?”
—They said everyone has suffered greatly over the past month, so they intend to send supplies for a celebratory festival. They offered enough festival goods for two days and enough food to last two months.
They could not have asked for a more dependable ally.
Ferda had expected as much from the Pascal Merchant Company, since they were already in the same boat, but he had not expected Halim to be so considerate as well.
“Tell them I am grateful. You must be exhausted too. You have worked hard, Administrator.”
—The hardest work is work without meaning. I am enjoying myself now, so I am fine. Please remain careful until you return safely.
Enjoying herself, huh?
That was true.
Even outside the tent, most of the camp was filled with a festive atmosphere.
Most, because the subordinates of Count Nazarov’s son certainly were not celebrating.
They must have felt sick at the thought of explaining why he had thrown himself into danger like a moth flying into a flame.
As long as one was not connected to that incident, the battle had ended with nothing but joy.
That should be the case…
And yet there was someone who felt no joy despite having nothing to do with Dmitri.
Ferda turned his gaze toward that person.
Luri stood in a corner of the spacious tent.
Her expression was always so businesslike that no one around her would have noticed anything unusual, but Ferda was different.
He could feel the worry in her heart.
“Luri.”
“……”
“Luri?”
Luri flinched and hurriedly raised her head.
“Yes. Did you call for me?”
“You were staring into space.”
“…My apologies. I had something on my mind. Is there something you would like me to do?”
“Make me a cup of tea. I will be sleeping soon, so chamomile.”
“Yes.”
As instructed, Luri brewed chamomile tea.
She looked even more sorrowful as she stared down at the tea.
She was like that when we met again too.
Luri had gone ahead of the others to secure the objective.
Without offering a lengthy explanation, she had simply said that she had failed.
Just as a demon had crawled into Helus’s estate, there had been a demon where Luri had gone as well.
And it had been Gokma.
It was a situation in which failure had been unavoidable, and she had not seemed particularly devastated by the failure itself.
There had to be something more than the simple disgrace of failure weighing on her.
There was undoubtedly another story Ferda knew nothing about.
“Lord Ferda.”
As he waited for the tea to finish brewing, she finally forced herself to speak.
“Is something wrong?”
“…No. It is nothing.”
She closed her mouth again.
Ferda did not let the matter drop.
“You may tell me.”
“……”
Ferda waited patiently for her to speak again.
However, Luri merely poured the tea in silence and showed no sign of opening her mouth.
“Very well.”
Ferda lifted the cup.
“You do not have to say anything if you do not wish to speak about it now.”
“I am… sorry.”
“There is no need to apologize. As long as you are safe, that is enough for me.”
“……”
“When you feel ready to talk about it, you can tell me then. Take your time and think about it tonight.”
Hearing those words, a faint sense of resentment rose within Luri.
He should not have added that last part.
It made her mistakenly believe that he was not being indifferent—that he was telling her he would wait for her for as long as necessary.
Even though she knew it was merely a misunderstanding, Luri found herself speaking.
“Lord Ferda…”
Because if the moment ever came when she finally broke down, she wanted to lean on this man.
“Have you ever had a younger sibling?”
“A younger sibling?”
He had been the third son in a family of three sons and five daughters.
“No, I never had one.”
“I… once had a younger brother.”
She spoke with difficulty.
“Back when I was still a mortal, like the other dragon spawn.”
She began to tell him about the past she had never revealed to anyone.
Dragon spawn were commonly referred to as the children of dragons.
That was because they regarded dragons as their fathers and obeyed them absolutely.
Their bonds were often stronger than those of actual families, and their solidarity surpassed even that of elves.
However, they were not truly born from dragons.
Some had once been human, others elves, and some even orcs.
Any intelligent being could become a dragon spawn through the Ascension Ceremony, which was why their appearances varied so greatly according to their original races.
Luri had once been an ordinary child living the miserable life of a lower-class commoner.
Back then, she had not been called Luri, nor had her hair been silver.
When Luri was born, she was baptized not with joy at the arrival of new life, but with curses.
To impoverished commoners, a daughter rather than a son was merely another burden—one who would eventually leave the family behind.
Luri’s father had been especially sensitive about that.
He constantly complained that there was no point raising someone who would become a burden rather than an extra pair of hands.
Whenever she put a spoonful of food into her mouth, she was met with her father’s tongue clicking and his contemptuous gaze.
The only reason she could endure it was because of her mother.
Her mother had struggled greatly to conceive, and so she had devoted herself to her young daughter.
Luri adored her mother and proved her own value by begging in ways that stirred people’s sympathy.
But everything changed all at once.
Luri’s mother gave birth to a son.
When the boy who would continue the family line was born, her father smiled for the first time, while her mother’s attitude turned cold in an instant.
Neither of her parents showed her affection anymore.
After being treated like nothing more than a useless mouth to feed, she was sold to an orphanage before her younger brother had even celebrated his first birthday.
Her family had abandoned her.
She spent several months drowning in sorrow over losing them, but her circumstances were not particularly bad.
In fact, they were better.
The director of the orphanage treated Luri exceptionally well.
The care he showed her gradually healed the shock of being abandoned by her parents.
Luri came to follow him as though he were her own father.
But that did not last long.
As she grew older and wiser, Luri was forced to confront an unpleasant truth.
The orphanage was actually a child auction house.
The children were ranked according to their potential, and the treatment they received differed depending on their grade.
Luri ranked among the very best of the A-class children.
She was reasonably intelligent and exceptionally attractive, which meant she had enough potential to one day be sold into a noble household.
The director had invested money in her not to raise her as a child, but to shape her into a product worthy of her value.
A sense of betrayal surged within her.
Every word he had spoken about seeing her as a daughter, or even as a human being, had been a lie.
What kind of father looked at his child as money and judged whether to sell her?
She made a vow.
Rather than live as someone else’s doll, she would live as a human being in the gutter.
Luri escaped from the orphanage.
The enraged director organized a pursuit party, but she narrowly shook them off and succeeded in secretly entering a nearby kingdom.
With not a single coin to her name, she made her home in a corner of the kingdom’s sewers.
Although it stank and the ground was hard, it felt more comfortable than anywhere else.
Living on the merciless streets naturally made her personality rougher and more ruthless.
When Luri was twelve years old, an uninvited guest entered her comfortable little home.
Thinking it might be a crazed beggar, she gripped the blade she carried for intimidation.
But the person who appeared was nothing like what she had expected.
Standing there was a boy much younger than her twelve-year-old self.
His nose was running, and his entire body was covered in bruises.
Even Luri, who considered her own life miserable, felt that she had no right to complain compared to the pitiful state of that child.
The boy sniffled and asked,
—Big Sis, do you have anything to eat?
Had another beggar said the same thing, she would have screamed at them to get lost.
But the moment she saw his eyes, Luri was overwhelmed.
They held a pure light that could never be found in the gutter.
It was a strange radiance completely out of place in such wretched circumstances.
Luri had only one thought.
She had to protect this child.
What the twelve-year-old girl felt for the boy she had just met was a sense of responsibility.
Luri took the boy into her home.
She shared her food with him, changed his clothes, and covered him with a blanket.
Her comfortable home became even more cramped, yet it also grew warmer than before.
That was how Luri became the older sister of a boy she had never met before.
For the first time, she truly understood the meaning of the word family.
Luri did everything with her younger brother.
They went out begging together and rummaged through rubbish bins side by side.
With another mouth to feed, the days they spent hungry became more frequent.
But on those rare occasions when they managed to eat their fill, the happiness they felt became the driving force that kept them going.
One day, while wandering outside the gutter in search of food, Luri and the boy saw a child around their age.
Unlike them, who could never escape the back alleys, the child walked along the main road.
One of the child’s hands held their mother’s, while the other held something delicious to eat.
The sight filled Luri’s heart with an inexplicable sense of inferiority and misery.
—I wish we could eat something like that too.
The innocent boy squeezed Luri’s hand tightly as he spoke.
Those few words gave Luri a dream.
She vowed that one day, she would allow her little brother to live like that child.
Luri wanted to become an adult as quickly as possible.
Once she was grown, there would at least be more work she could do, and she would be able to save money.
With enough money, they could live in a house with a roof instead of in a filthy sewer.
Strangely, once she had a dream, the thought of tomorrow no longer felt painful.
As long as they continued living, a day would surely come when they could look back on those times as nothing more than distant memories.
But that dream was shattered as well.
War broke out.
No, it had been less of a war and more like a one-sided extermination.
That day, neither Luri nor most of the kingdom’s citizens knew the truth.
The king of the castle where they lived had insulted a dragon and struck directly at its reverse scale.
More than a hundred dragon spawn descended without warning, falling upon the kingdom like a shower of meteors.
The sturdy walls collapsed, and the houses burst into flames.
It took only an hour for the kingdom to become a ruin.
Luri fled through the deafening explosions in a daze.
When she opened her eyes again, she found herself staring at a devastated wasteland.
The smell of ash pierced her nose, and she felt a hollow emptiness in her chest.
Luri looked down at her arms.
Her younger brother should have been there.
But they were empty.
It made no sense.
Her last memory was of holding him tightly in her arms.
Luri called his name.
She desperately screamed the name she could no longer remember.
When no answer came, she rose and began searching through the wreckage.
They had been together, so he had to be somewhere nearby.
But all her hands found were fragments of collapsed walls and gray ash.
There was no trace of her brother anywhere.
Luri continued moving until her breathing seized in her throat, while questions spiraled endlessly through her mind.
Her brother had disappeared, so how had she survived without a scratch?
Had she continued holding his hand, they would have lived together or died together.
That meant Luri must have released his hand.
But when?
When the meteors and lightning had begun raining down?
When the screams and searing heat had left her disoriented?
Or immediately afterward, when falling stones had sent everyone into a panic?
Then she erased every possibility from her mind.
It did not matter when it had happened.
Luri had survived alone, while her younger brother had disappeared without leaving even a trace.
She had believed that she loved and cherished him, but when faced with death, she had coldly reduced him to a stranger.
She was exactly the same.
Her parents.
The orphanage director.
And herself.
They were all equally selfish human beings.
—I’m… sorry.
She spoke toward her brother, whose body no longer even remained.
—I’m sorry I survived alone.
Having failed to fulfill her responsibility, she became completely hollow.
After losing a part of her life, she simply waited for death.
But death never came.
Ironically, the one who took Luri in was a dragon.
He appeared as a silver-haired middle-aged man.
With a radiant smile, he shared his blood with her.
The silver-haired man performed an impromptu Ascension Ceremony on the spot.
—From this day onward, I shall call you Luri. Forget your painful past. Think only about how you will live from now on.
The middle-aged man’s smile filled the emotions that had become empty.
The Ascension Ceremony was a ritual for forgetting the past and moving forward.
It made one forget even their original hair and eye color, stripping every memory of the past of its meaning until it seemed no more significant than a dream.
Yet even during the ritual that forced her to abandon everything, Luri held on to one thing within her heart.
Responsibility.
The responsibility she had felt when she took in a boy from the gutter became the pillar that supported her.
That responsibility was now directed toward Silverwind.
Luri made a decision.
She would use her failure as a foundation and devote her life to serving this great being.
Luri resolved to become a warrior.
And that was when another period of hardship began.