The dimmed, sinking edge of his reason began to clear when Lante’s voice came again.

I found him.

“Where.”

The port city of Delfona.

“......”

Luman did not answer. He waited quietly ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) for what came next.

The deepest underground level. An old military training base with an air-raid shelter built into it.

Luman recognized the place instantly.

Most remnants of the war had been buried underground. The military training base in the port city of Delfona had vanished the same way. Since it had been built underground to begin with, it had required no effort.

He had known that beggars would crawl into abandoned places.

It didn’t matter. He could go now and wipe them out.

It wasn’t too late—

Wasn’t it?

How many days had passed?

Luman’s head snapped up.

Seka stood beside him. Sensing the movement, he turned to look at Luman.

“Are you all right?”

He held out a handkerchief.

Luman stared at it for a moment, then moved his lips.

His cracked lips split further, blood seeping out.

“How much... time has passed?”

His throat was dry, and he could taste blood.

He could not remember how long he had been like this.

He had only waited a little after receiving Coco’s message, until Lante found Ren.

“Three days.”

“Three days.”

Luman lowered his eyes.

They had already spent one full evening traveling by ship. If three days had passed since then—

Soon. The day of the auction.

“The auction......”

He dragged a hand down his face.

It didn’t matter anymore. He had found him.

A heavy, sticky fatigue crashed over him.

Had he slept? Had he eaten?

Ren.

His mind went completely blank.

He knew it shouldn’t, but it did anyway. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

There had been nothing Luman could do.

If he moved using the power of light while Lante tracked Ren’s presence, he might lose the trail they had barely managed to catch. He had been unable to contact anyone in the kingdom. Only Coco had replied.

Still, Luman trusted Temar.

No matter how much Temar prioritized the kingdom, he would be desperately searching for his younger brother.

The lack of response had to mean the situation was urgent. Luman chose to believe that.

It changed nothing.

But for Ren’s sake, he chose to think that way.

He even found himself wishing that Temar would reach him first.

So, while Lante tracked Ren’s presence, the only thing Luman could do was kill time.

After a single day, even conserving his strength and trying to devise other options had become impossible.

He laughed at his own mental strength.

A Hero of the kingdom, and all he could do was cower and do nothing. How pathetic.

Leaning against the hull, slumped down, Luman noticed Seka hesitating and looked up at him.

He looked like he had something difficult to say.

“The day of the auction...”

The man Luman had beaten was named Sonen.

According to him, the auction date shifted constantly, making it hard to predict, but it usually took place ten to twelve days after he delivered the goods.

The earliest estimate—

Was today.

“The earliest possible day is today.”

Luman looked up at the sky.

The stars filling the pitch-black night were absurdly beautiful.

Their light filled his golden eyes.

“Luvien.”

Flash.

White light condensed in the air, gathered into a single point, and with a sharp burst, a white fox appeared.

The fox twitched its black nose, glanced at Seka, and tilted its head. Its eyes looked sharper now that it had lost weight.

“Take me with you!”

Seka grabbed Luman’s arm.

“Please. My brother is there too.”

Luman, what are you going to do?

“This power...”

Ssssshhh—

At Luman’s gesture, tiny points of light gathered, swirling upward into the sky.

They drifted farther and farther away before scattering like stardust.

“Nothing has been confirmed. That means we may not arrive safely.”

“I would rather try to save my brother than stand here and do nothing.”

“Even if you die?”

“Yes.”

There was no hesitation in his answer.

“How foolish.”

There was no reason to help him.

He could waste his strength. The man could lose his life for nothing.

But the reason Luman accepted was—

Ren.

Because of him.

As Luman extended his hand for Ren’s sake, he wished that same grace would reach this man as well.

He asked Lante.

To carry them, in one leap, across this vast sea to where Ren was.

Luman grabbed Seka’s arm.

Please, let this one live too.

The two men standing on the deck vanished in an instant. Only the sea wind passed quietly through the place where they had been.

***

Port city Delfona, entrance to the air-raid shelter.

“What was that? Wind?”

Men clad in thick armor embedded with magic stones glanced around.

A chill had run through them, but nothing was visible.

“I’ll go down first and clear the path.”

“No.”

Luman caught Seka’s arm. Hidden behind a tree, they silently looked down at the entrance to the underground shelter.

There were not many guards.

Confidence that this was enough?

Or did they possess some kind of formidable weapon?

There could also be more hidden out of sight.

“We should search fir—”

“Why?”

Luman’s lips trembled faintly.

“Is something wrong?”

Wrong—there was something wrong.

More than something.

He had thought something felt off.

“Lante. You can’t go inside, can you?”

Yeah. Looks like they’ve pulled some crap again.

The fox’s annoyed voice echoed in his head.

Luman had been here before. He knew the inside of this place.

But the reason he had come to the entrance was not because of his hazy memory.

Inside—

There was something suppressing his power.

Something like an anti-Hero weapon.

So there was no choice but to break in from the entrance.

Rumble—

“W-what was that?!”

“What’s happening inside?”

“What do you mean what? Aaron is inside. We just guard the entrance! You didn’t forget what happened last time when someone abandoned their post, did you?”

“A-alright!”

Rrrr—

The domed ceiling trembled, stone dust falling.

The explosion coming from inside was louder than expected.

And it became the trigger.

Luman had felt something like this before—in Ren’s village.

But back then it had not erupted like this. It had only lingered faintly, like a trace of perfume.

“Luvien.”

He murmured under his breath.

Light burst.

“What—who is that?!”

Boom!

Clang!

Seka’s hand trembled. He had reflexively drawn his sword to block, and his eyes widened.

The blade he held was the treasured sword he had received for winning the swordsmanship tournament.

If it had been an ordinary sword, his wrist would have been severed, not the attack stopped.

“I asked who you are!”

“Reinforcements! Call for reinforcements! There are suspicious—”

The man never finished.

His body moved on instinct, as if commanded by something unseen.

Luman was already floating in the air above the shelter. His hair fluttered.

There was no need to think deeply.

Ren was inside.

If he couldn’t go in—

Then he would break it.

If the guards at the entrance wore armor like that, then there was no need to imagine what waited inside.

“What are you trying to—”

Let’s go. To Ren.

Moonlight seemed to gather at Luman’s fingertips.

The lights that drifted in like butterflies formed only a tiny sphere, no bigger than a fingernail.

Footsteps thundered from below.

The taut silence of drawn bowstrings. A voice shouting as if someone had recognized him.

Few ordinary people recognized a Hero. There was no need for them to.

What was happening down there?

“Fire!”

Rumble—

The arrows shot toward him never reached him. They crumbled before they could.

That was not all.

Luman flicked the tiny sphere gathered at his fingertip—a bead of light like condensed moonlight—toward the ceiling of the shelter.

The ground roared as if struck by thunder.

“What is that?! What’s happening?!”

“Is it collapsing—”

“That’s impossible! This place is protected entirely by magic stone—”

Rrrrr—

The tremor did not stop.

The ceiling shook violently. The earth groaned without end.

Luman’s expression did not change.

Clack. Thud!

Seka deflected arrows shot by those who had come to their senses, then slipped through the chaos and moved closer to Luman.

Floating in the air, he looked almost like an angel.

Platinum hair shining white, skin pale to the point of translucence. Bloodless eyes filled with light, golden like the sun. And beside him, the white fox standing as if guarding him.

Their eyes met.

Seka understood at once.

Now.

Rumble—BOOM!

A beam of light, no thicker than a child’s wrist, shot upward from where Luman’s sphere had struck the ceiling, as if piercing the sky.

For a moment, everyone lost their words.

Then the light spread wide—

And with a blinding flash, it swallowed everything.

The world went white.

The light devoured all sound and consumed the surroundings in silence.

In the absolute stillness where even breathing could not be heard, Seka tightened his grip on his sword, shut his eyes—

And threw himself forward.

Toward where Luman had been.

There had to be a path beneath it.