“No!” Remedios screamed, realizing what he was about to do.
But Jaldabaoth didn’t so much as glance at her as he swung his arm down.
Splat.
Calca’s attempt to defend herself didn’t make it in time, so her face slammed straight into the ground.
As Jaldabaoth lifted his hand again slowly, she hung limply, seeming to have lost interest in resisting.
The front of the helmet she was wearing was open. It was designed that way so she could raise the soldiers’ morale with her beauty. But now that once pretty face was flattened—perhaps her nose had been crushed—and covered in blood.
“You bastard!”
“Don’t! You idiot!”
One of Remedios’s subordinates had instinctively drawn his sword and charged. She tried to stop him, but it was too late.
Jaldabaoth swung his “weapon” around so quickly, it was hard to believe he was holding a whole human.
The two collided, and with a forceful metallic clang, the knight went flying.
His armor sported an indent like a giant had punched him, which told exactly how powerful the impact with Calca had been.
Remedios couldn’t take her eyes off the Holy Lady.
Even humans, with more vulnerable outer skin than other races, could robe themselves in chi or mana and take a slash unscathed, if they were powerful enough and conscious.
Yes, if they were conscious.
Her helmet must have flown off somewhere in the crash—her long hair fluttered in the wind. Hanging upside down with her bloodied face and crushed nose, missing front teeth, groaning faintly with only the whites of her eyes showing, Calca no longer had a shred of the beauty praised as the great treasure of a nation. She looked utterly miserable.
“What should we do? Isandro! How can we save Calca?”
“I—I don’t know!”
“That doesn’t help me! I thought your brain was supposed to shine at times like this!”
“I never could have imagined something like this! We have no choice but to withdraw!”
“And leave behind my sister and Calca?!”
“What else are we supposed to do?!”
When he said that, she realized she had no reply.
“Sheesh. You awful humans, how can you waste time arguing like that before an enemy? Time’s about up. Yes, I think that’s enough playing around.”
“What?”
Jaldabaoth slowly looked toward the sky.
“My army has nearly reached this city. I need to hurry, break the gate down, and cause a storm of atrocities and murder.”
“Y-you think we’d allow that?!”
“You don’t need to. Just accept it—like this celestial gift.” Jaldabaoth raised his free hand up into the sky as if reaching for something.
“No!”
Remedios shouted because she realized what he was going to do.
But everyone just stood there watching, unable to move. Jaldabaoth had the Holy Lady hostage, so no one could attack him.
No, they were afraid that if they did attack him, he would use Calca’s body to absorb the hit. What would they do if that was how she died?
Paying no mind to their indecision…the star fell.
Chapter 2 | Seeking Salvation
1
A lone girl walked the streets of the Kingdom.
She had neither a particularly cute face nor the kind of body that would turn heads, but there was certainly something about her that did attract attention—in a bad way.
It was the slant of her dark, tapered eyes, which always made her look like she was always scowling, and the bags under them only accentuated the violent demeanor that wouldn’t look out of place on an inhabitant of some seedy backstreet.
Those eyes may have been handy for walking in a crowd, but they also got her possessions checked extra carefully at the city gate. She—Neia Baraja—looked up at the sky.
Thick, heavy clouds blocked out everything above, so while it wasn’t even noon yet, it already felt like evening.
The worst of winter may have been over, but spring was still a ways off.
Emitting a bone-tired sigh, she activated the keen senses she had inherited and headed down the road to the inn where she was staying.
The reason Neia had her guard so high was that ever since she had arrived in this city, she’d felt something like a sense of rejection as an outsider.
Of course, it was probably just in her head.
She was hiding her face with the hood of her cape. Like that, there was no way to tell she was from another country. But the weight she sensed in the air wasn’t just in her head. Glancing furtively at the people passing by, she saw their faces were gloomy, their steps heavy. They seemed to be cloaked in winter blues.
As she was thinking that the sky was usually clear, it occurred to her that the closed-off feeling in the Re-Estize Kingdom’s royal capital, the mysterious depression, stemmed from something else.
It could be because they recently lost a war. Compared to this, the people of Roebel are practically skipping.
The region of the Sacred Kingdom south of the bay was apparently still safe; only the north was hell.
But knowing that didn’t cheer her up. Not as a member of the liberation army made up of the remnants of the defeated Northern Sacred Kingdom and not as a member of their delegation to this foreign land.
Demoralized, Neia reached for her hip as if toward salvation, and there she felt the cold touch only steel could offer.
The sword she wore bore the crest of the Sacred Kingdom’s paladins that indicated her rank.
Paladins wielded blades that were slightly enchanted, but hers wasn’t—because it was a trainee-sword for squires.
Only after completing her training and being knighted would her trusty sword be imbued with magical power. It was part of the knighting ceremony. Until then, the blade was only a sharp lump of steel, but it had still been her partner throughout the long, arduous training process. It was no wonder she had gotten into the habit
