“Wow....”

Beta forgot the situation and stared in awe.

Because Seka’s sword dance was unbearably beautiful. His blade was soft and fluid, and at the same time it diverted the falling storm of steel and cut off lives in a single breath. The drops of blood that sprayed upward looked like flowers blooming at the tip of his sword. Like plum blossoms in winter, lighting the white snow red.

“Young master!”

“Ah, Tom.”

Tom, who had been watching his master’s mood, called out to Peruan. The person he had been ordered to protect had gone # Nоvеlight # off to the other side, so Tom was tightly on edge.

“Are you perhaps planning to duel that man......”

Tom asked the question carefully after agonizing over it for a long while out of worry, but Peruan’s eyes sparkled when he heard it.

Looking into those eyes, Tom knew by instinct.

He had made a mistake.

“What a wonderful idea, Tom!”

“......Young master.”

Tom glanced at the handsome man with platinum hair, then looked away.

They were talking, but both of them were moving diligently.

Sweat dripped down Tom’s exhausted-looking face.

“They seem to be remarkably skilled people.”

Of course he would be.

Peruan thought that to himself and nodded.

“Then—he should be able to break the demonstone, shouldn’t he?”

Peruan looked at his tingling hand and the demonstone that did not have a single scratch on it.

His eyes sharpened.

Just what was the relationship between Ren and that man?

But trying to argue about that now would only be ridiculous, and it was not as if he could drag Ren back over either.

First, they had to get out of this place before they could do anything.

Peruan was just about to say that their reunion had gone on long enough.

Then Ren raised his head and yelled.

“Luman! That’s enough already, so blow it all away—!”

It was a voice that made him laugh despite the situation.

***

Ren blinked blankly.

It was a peaceful, warm embrace.

As if the screams around them had nothing to do with him at all....

Blink, blink. Sleepiness seemed to come pouring over him. Ren, who had almost closed his eyes without realizing it under the hand stroking down his back, snapped them open.

Light filled his pale green eyes. He slapped Luman’s arm, which was holding him firmly.

“Let go of me already! Everyone’s going to die!”

“......Yes. I suppose I should.”

His voice was so full of regret that Ren’s cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

But they did not have time for this.

Even now, the sounds of blades clashing and screams were tangled together from every direction.

“Luman! That’s enough already, so blow it all away—!”

Ren clenched his fists at the scream that brushed past his ears with a chill.

After hugging Ren one last time, Luman released him from his arms.

Ren looked up at Luman, who was so much taller than him, then stared at the golden spear glittering in his hand.

‘Why do I feel uneasy?’

Bright and beautiful—exactly the same as when he had first seen it.

But somehow, strangely, it looked like it might break.

Ren bit his lip.

‘Why am I thinking useless things? Luman is a Hero too. The Indomitable Hero.’

“We need to break the demonstone, but unfortunately, my sword can’t break it. That is blocking the entrance.”

At Peruan’s words, Luman’s eyes swept over the demonstones embedded throughout the walls.

Tom had attached himself to Ren’s side again and was protecting him.

But there were hundreds trying to kill them, and fewer than ten people protecting them. Around them, there were people struggling to survive with swords in their hands, but how good could the skills of people who had never properly used a sword be?

Naturally, the corpses kept piling up.

Luman looked around with indifferent eyes, spear in hand.

“Are you listening to me?”

In his golden eyes, human emotion seemed to have evaporated, leaving only a dry, crumbling brittleness.

Hell on earth.

And within it—

Luman’s eyes turned toward Ren.

Luman hid his aching gaze behind a perfect smile.

Ren was alive. That was enough, and—

“Ren. Do you want to save all of them?”

Was Ren the only thing he could see?

Ignoring Peruan’s words again and again, Luman asked only Ren.

‘Can Luman do it?’

The current situation was a problem ordinary people could not solve.

No matter how outstanding the swordsmen were, even they had to have limits to their stamina.

Ren was not unaware that their breathing was growing rougher and rougher.

“......If they can be saved.”

Ren hesitated for a moment, then nodded.

‘If it’s possible. Isn’t saving everyone the right thing to do?’

I wish I had that kind of power too.

The bodies had already piled up beyond counting, and those who wanted slaughter kept flooding in without tiring. The people who had barely managed to grab weapons, their arms and legs bound, were doing nothing but thrusting their swords with all their strength toward their opponents’ hearts as Seka had instructed. It worked on less than a third of them. Instead, many dropped their blades at the horrifying sensation traveling up their hands and collapsed screaming, meeting death.

“Ren.”

Luman called him softly.

As if telling him there was nothing to worry about.

“Close your eyes.”

“My eyes?”

Ren asked back reflexively and looked around. People’s faces swept through his vision. Seka, swinging his sword without hesitation or pause with an unstirring expression; Cedric, panting hard as he supported his brother; Kenta and Beta swinging clubs; Tom. And even Peruan, who was looking at him. His sleeves had long since been stained red.

Ren, who had no strength to move his body and no strength to hold even one sword, had no place to cut in.

There were things that could not be done with only heart and will.

Ren quickly cast aside the self-mocking thought of whether it was all right for only him to stand still like this.

‘Asking someone who can help to help me is also...’

Courage.

Ren obediently closed his eyes.

“Okay.”

Luman looked at Ren, who had squeezed his eyes shut without even asking, with a gaze full of love.

Then he turned his head and raised the spear in his hand high.

“If Ren wants it, then I have to grant it.”

The unguarded words flowed out like song.

Ren kept his eyes tightly shut.

Was it really all right to do this in the middle of this horrific scene that made him think of war?

At a scream that made him flinch, he realized it again.

‘But the best thing I can do is...’

Ask Luman.

So he had to do as Luman said.

‘I hate just asking and standing still. I need to think of something I can do too.’

The screams seemed to fade into the distance.

Along with the sensation of light flashing, something warm touched his hand.

‘What is it?’

Even with his eyes closed, it felt bright, as if lightning had struck.

Ren swallowed hard.

He wanted to ask Luman what that had just been, whether he could open his eyes, but Ren could not bring himself to speak in case his question got in Luman’s way. He stood utterly still, unable to move, and waited for Luman to speak.

“Luman?”

Shaaaaaaaaaaak------.

He heard something sticking, peeling away, and slicing.

It sounded almost like a long, ringing bell.

“What should I do, Ren?”

Only when he heard Luman’s voice did Ren realize that had been—

A scream.

Ren snapped his eyes open and hurriedly looked for Luman.

“Luman?”

Ren stared wide-eyed.

Beneath his feet was a puddle of black blood.

And the human shapes that had rolled in around Luman like a single clumped mass had turned to ash.

And Luman too.

He was pitch-black.

No, was that red?

“—Luman!”

Blood burst violently from his mouth.

“Luman—!”

What kind of power had he used?

With trembling hands, Ren grabbed Luman’s arm.

The masked figures were frozen, not moving at all. From their eyes, opened wide as if in shock, puslike bloody tears flowed.

Looking at Ren’s shaking eyes, Luman patted the hand gripping his arm.

But it seemed hard for him to speak, so his mouth stayed shut. After a brief silence, Luman opened it.

“I expected this, but it isn’t easy.”

Ren forced himself to swallow all the words he wanted to throw at Luman.

What did you do to make yourself throw up blood? Are you all right?

“What the hell!”

“Th-that’s insane......”

“What happened......?”

Bewildered voices burst out from every direction.

Seka, too, examined the situation calmly with a stiff face.

The masked figures who had been charging like mad had stopped dead.

Had Luman, that man, done something?

Peruan had seen nothing. Ren had closed his eyes briefly and opened them, and in that interval the masked figures had frozen.

Was this the power of a Hero?

Something ordinary people would not dare to see or approach.

As if they found Luman’s now-ghastly appearance grotesque and frightening, the people standing behind him took frightened steps back.

They could not know what had happened.

They had seen nothing.

It only looked as though, in the span of an instant, the masked figures had suddenly stopped, and Luman, drenched in blood, had appeared before their eyes.

Peruan, who had been watching him, stepped forward.

“Could you explain? It seems we’ll need that before we can escape and remove the person in charge. We need your help.”

Peruan asked as he grasped Ren’s shoulder, which was trembling so hard he looked ready to stagger.

After letting out a long sigh, Luman lifted his head.

His gaze rested on the impossibly high ceiling. Far above, something black as a tiny dot could be seen. And through that gap, faint light showed.

Peruan looked at the masked figures, stopped as if struck by lightning, with startled eyes, then signaled to Tom. Tom understood at once and set off to check the entrance.

The situation had unfolded in an instant, too quickly for an ordinary person’s mind to follow.

The masked figures who had burst onto the stage in the middle of the play. The swordsmen who had leaped in after them, and the ensuing blade fight. The air-raid shelter humming as if it might break. The golden light that had poured down from the ceiling far, far above. The ones swinging their swords mercilessly as if to kill the slaves, and those trying to stop them.

And then, like a lie, the masked figures stopped with their swords still in hand.

“Wh-what is this......”

Suppressed voices broke out from the horrified audience, where empty seats were scattered throughout... and only then did the hundreds of people seated there finally grasp the situation and surge to their feet, running toward the entrances on either side.

There were also people in the audience who remained stiff and unmoving, unable to rise. Beneath their hoods, they were wearing masks.

Aaaah—this is madness! What is this! We only came to watch the auction......! Master, this way! Over here!

People tripped over one another’s arms and legs. The sight of them writhing and fleeing looked like a wave. But unfortunately for all that frantic movement, the small, narrow entrances designed for security could not take them all. To make matters worse, all the entrances were blocked. Screams and shouts rang out from the people trapped in the passages and jammed at the doors, unable to come or go.

But those sounds did not leave much of an impression on the captured people standing on the stage or on Ren’s group. Dozens upon dozens of corpses were lying and rolling at their feet, and they had already endured hell once. The smell of blood wrapped around them like fog. They picked up fallen swords and stared, horrified, at the masked figures stopped right in front of them.

Dozens among the slaves—the captured people—who had crowded behind Seka and Cedric to avoid the masked figures joined the commotion in the back and ran like dogs in an attempt to escape.

“Almost like......”

Like insects, Peruan swallowed back, and let out a pitying sigh.

After glancing at the humans moving like a swarm of ants, Luman finally answered his question.

“Well. Because of a taboo, I can’t tell you easily.”

“Is that so? That’s troublesome. Then can you tell me how long they’ll remain in that state?”

Peruan shrugged lightly, as if it were nothing.

Luman closed his eyes briefly and opened them.

“Five minutes.”

“Five minutes, you say?”

Peruan hummed and looked at Luman and the masked figures as if fascinated.

The humans clustered at both rear sides of the wide air-raid shelter did not become a subject of concern. Leaving personal feelings aside, would it not be fine to leave them be? After all, these masked figures seemed likely to target those people only after they had killed every person on the stage first.

Ren, who had been frozen, pushed Peruan’s hand away.

Right now, Ren’s eyes reflected only Luman. Luman, who was acting as if the blood he had calmly vomited meant nothing.

“You didn’t say you were going to get hurt.”

Those were the words Ren managed after barely regaining his composure.

Unlike his sulky voice, which strained to suppress its trembling, his gaze was full of worry.

Luman had not wanted to scare him.

After briefly looking away in apology, Luman ended up smiling at the selfish emotion that bloomed warmly inside him. He was satisfied. So satisfied that he thought he would not mind being hurt any number of times if it meant he could receive that expression.

‘Ah. Is that thought too disgusting?’