Morning broke.
Ludger, Hans, Alex, and Bellaruna had finished preparing to depart.
“You are leaving already?”
Vierno could not hide his regret.
They were benefactors who had saved the kingdom, and he wished to show them more hospitality.
“We appreciate your kindness, but we still have work to do. Having accepted a commission, we must deliver our report.”
“Even so...”
“Moreover, no matter how much we helped, it would not look good for humans to remain in the Elf Kingdom. Those unaware of the full details would voice their objections. The last thing we want is to stir further unrest in an already chaotic situation.”
After all, they had even brought an airship to rescue Sedina.
If someone used this as a pretext to drag matters into international dispute, the situation would spiral out of control.
So while their airship’s identity remained undiscovered in the middle of this chaos—when all eyes were on the World Tree—they needed to slip away.
The disaster caused by the World Tree’s rampage was far too overwhelming for anyone to focus on the airship.
“There may still be watchers even now, and what this land needs is to recover from the scars of civil war. Thus, it is best that we withdraw.”
Every word of Ludger’s was sound reason.
Vierno, swallowing his regret, had no choice but to nod.
“I was too selfish, thinking only from our side. My apologies.”
“You were only showing us consideration, were you not? Will you remain here, Professor Vierno?”
“I’ve already submitted leave, so for now I’ll stay with my family and deal with matters here. There’s too much to clean up.”
Vierno smiled bitterly.
The armies of the three great families had been almost annihilated, one even losing its head.
But their main houses had not fallen.
Some survivors were already moving to seize the World Tree, and he had to stop them.
“Even in this catastrophe, the rats still squirm. Power truly is terrifying.”
That was what Ambella said when she heard the situation.
Her leonine mane of hair shook though no wind blew—clear proof of her frustration.
Ludger glanced at Ambella’s prosthetic arm and asked,
“How is your arm?”
“Oh, this?”
Ambella raised her newly fitted arm and smirked.
“It’s even better than my old one. I can feel sensations, just like with a real arm. But it’s harder and stronger. At this rate, maybe I should switch the other one too?”
“Judging from your jokes, you seem perfectly fine. Did you come to see us off?”
“Not you.”
Ambella shot Ludger a glare, then turned her eye to Sedina standing beside him.
“Thank you.”
“...Huh?”
“You gave a swordswoman a new arm.”
“That’s... Aunt Ambella, you worked hard to save me as well, so...”
“...Aunt?”
At the unexpected title, Ambella’s single remaining eye widened.
Sedina fumbled in panic.
“Uh, am I wrong? You lived with my mother like sisters...”
“...Ella told you that herself?”
“Yes.”
At Sedina’s answer, Ambella nodded and gave a small laugh.
“That she still thought of me as a sister even though I did nothing for her... It’s enough to bring me to tears.”
She longed to meet Ella again, but since she could not connect to the World Tree, it was impossible.
Still, knowing Ella lived on inside it, even as a spirit, was enough for Ambella.
“I won’t try to hold you back. Even if you can communicate with the World Tree, I won’t force you. And if anyone else ever tries to, I’ll draw my sword myself and deal with them. So go without worry.”
“...Are you truly fine with this?”
“No.”
“...What?”
“Of course I’m not fine. But I’ll let you go anyway. We are beings who’ve lived long lives—do you think we’d disgrace ourselves by clinging to a child and begging her to revive our kingdom? Our pride as elves would never allow it.”
Ambella, who had been smirking mischievously, softened into a gentle smile.
“Still, if you want to return, you are always welcome. If you wish to stay, then stay. Even if you only pass by, that’s fine too. We will always receive you warmly. Even if only half of you belongs here, this is your home and your birthplace.”
Overcome with emotion, Sedina bowed deeply to Ambella.
“Thank you.”
“...Ahem. If you linger any longer, you’ll only grow attached. Best to depart now. Take that airship with you.”
Ambella jerked her thumb toward the wide clearing where the airship was docked.
It had suffered some damage during the fight with Ventmin, but it was still capable of flying them home.
“Leave it here any longer and someone else will notice it, and that will only make things troublesome.”
“Yes.”
With their farewells exchanged, the group boarded the airship one by one.
“Is everyone aboard?”
Robert checked each person.
His gaze landed last on Sedina.
“I’m relieved you’ve returned safely, young lady.”
“....”
“I will see to it that you are escorted comfortably all the way back.”
The airship lifted off.
Ambella and Vierno raised their heads to watch it ascend into the sky.
“You didn’t truly want to let her go, did you?”
Vierno asked Ambella quietly.
“What are you saying?”
“Lady Sedina. You wished she could stay, didn’t you?”
“Hmph. Forcing her to remain here would do her no good. And what I said earlier, I meant it. To rely entirely on a child for help—our pride as elves would not allow that.”
“That’s true enough.”
“Besides, that girl... she may one day return to this place.”
“Perhaps so. Then do not be too lonely.”
Ambella shot Vierno a sharp look despite his smile.
“Hah. Weren’t you an academy professor? You can meet her whenever you like, can’t you? Easy for you to say.”
“I never said that.”
“Acting shameless. I liked you better back when you were stiff and uptight.”
“Everyone changes. That goes for us elves too, does it not?”
“Change...?”
For elves who had remained rooted in place for centuries, the word was unfamiliar.
Even Vierno and Ambella, the two who stood here, were only barely close to what might be called change.
Compared to humans, who lived each day desperately, elves were like infants.
“Ella and Ventmin... they both sought ways for our people to survive in a changing world.”
“Their methods were exact opposites.”
“And I won’t disparage either. I feel the same. That’s why we must strive. Not leave it to others, but cultivate it with our own hands.”
By now, the airship was no longer visible.
It had vanished into the white clouds drifting across the blue sky.
“Let’s go.”
Ambella began walking.
“We’ve work to finish.”
Vierno thought the same and was about to follow when—
Both of them froze.
They had no choice.
For in the spot where no one had stood moments ago, someone was there, silently waiting.
“...Who are you?”
Ambella asked in a voice taut with tension.
Even if she tried to act otherwise, the oppressive pressure she felt from the other person forced that reaction out of her.
A black-haired man wearing a black robe and a white mask over his face.
The # Nоvеlight # soldiers should have been keeping a tight watch on the perimeter—so how?
“Nice to meet you.”
The uninvited guest spoke, eyes smiling from within the mask.
“I am called Zero Order.”
* * *
Aboard the returning airship, Sedina fell into a deep sleep.
Bellaruna was the same.
There was no way the fatigue that had piled up until now could be relieved by a mere day of rest.
The only ones still awake and sober were Ludger, Hans, and Alex.
Naturally, the three ended up talking about what to do next.
“Boss. What are you going to do now?”
“We go back and sort out the situation. I’ve put a debt marker on the Roschen family, so we’ll be able to secure a massive investment from them.”
“You’re not planning to swallow the entire corporation?”
“Try to gulp down something that big and you’re bound to choke. If Walter Roschen handles things on his own, the board members under him will push back. In the end, we’d only be able to scoop up scraps—bits split off and shrunk far smaller than the original Roschen company.”
“Hm. So for now you’re saying we keep the structure intact on the surface, and siphon a bit more from behind the scenes.”
“There’s no need to slit open the belly of the goose that lays the golden eggs.”
Hans gave a faint chuckle.
“You’re not itching to do something rough to that girl’s father?”
He said it while looking at Sedina, who was fast asleep, curled on a sofa inside the airship.
Ludger didn’t bother to answer. Hans hadn’t asked expecting a reply, so he moved on to the next topic naturally.
“Did you find what you wanted?”
“Yeah.”
“Then there’s only one left. Never thought we’d end up having to come this far.”
“Oh. So there’s just the last piece left? If there’s only one left, we’ll knock that out quick, right?”
Alex chimed in, voice full of excitement.
But despite their hopeful outlook, Ludger’s expression wasn’t very good.
Sensing it, Hans asked carefully,
“Boss. Is there a problem? Don’t tell me you still don’t know where the last piece is.”
“The Relic’s fragment showed me where the last piece is. If there’s a problem, it’s the scenery the Relic showed me.”
“Huh? What do you mean...?”
“It was a landscape I’d never seen in my life. And I’ve wandered the world from end to end.”
“What kind of place are we talking about?”
“A world where everything is smeared together like watercolor. The sky was blue and purple and green, and the nearby forest and ruins looked twisted somehow.”
At Ludger’s answer, Hans and Alex exchanged looks.
Do you know?
No. I have no idea. You?
I asked because I didn’t know either.
With neither of them knowing anything, the two turned back to Ludger.
“Does such a place exist?”
“What is that supposed to be—some backwater in the far south?”
“I don’t know either. I’d never seen anything like it. Even when I tried to get a read on its location and direction, I couldn’t.”
He didn’t know the location or the bearing, and the partial scenery shown as a clue was a place he had never seen before.
Finding the last remaining piece looked like it would be quite the ordeal.
“When we get back, we’ll start by asking around for a place that matches what you described.”
“Yeah. I’m going to dig through texts and records too. Might be good to ask my teacher as well.”
“Ugh. Only one left, and it still won’t be easy.”
Alex dropped his head with a “to hell with it” attitude.
Chiiiiik.
[Ah, ah. Do you hear me? We’ll arrive at our destination shortly. Well done to everyone on returning safely.]
At the captain’s announcement, Sedina and Bellaruna woke from their sleep.
The airship touched down safely on the large landing field in front of the Roschen family’s grand mansion.
When they stepped out of the airship, Walter Roschen came to greet them.
They hadn’t been able to give advance notice of their arrival time, so the fact that he was here meant he had been waiting all along.
“Ah.”
Sedina flinched when she saw her father, Walter.
Walter also gazed at Sedina in silence.
Cold, hollow eyes. A face with no change in expression.
If he hadn’t come to this place, he would still have looked like a man who had no interest whatsoever in Sedina.
But the Walter standing here now was clearly agitated.
He felt relief that his daughter had returned alive, but even more than that, the way he had treated his daughter harshly over the years rose up in his mind.
What should he say?
How should he approach her?
When it came to making money and growing a company, there was nothing he didn’t know inside out.
As a businessman, he was undoubtedly excellent.
Beyond first-rate—one could even call him top-class.
But as a father, Walter was not.
He lost the wife he loved, and he didn’t know how to treat his one and only daughter.
He could read the flow of money better than anyone, but he could not read the heart of a daughter who had lost her mother.
It was his first time.
‘But that’s all just an excuse, isn’t it.’
Walter knew.
That calling it his first time was nothing but a justification to escape his own guilt.
Everyone’s first time is their first time.
And yet there are many harmonious families in this world.
He himself could have done better.
That he didn’t was because he himself was lacking.
Because he was a poor excuse for a father.
Walter looked at Ludger.
The benefactor who had saved his daughter was looking at him with a gaze as calm as still water.
Walter did not know what that gaze meant.
If he said it was reproach, it looked like that.
If he said it was understanding, it also looked like that.
It was like a mirror.
All the more so because the other’s eyes seemed to change depending on what he himself was thinking.
‘I see. Even here, I was trying to run away.’
Walter couldn’t help but realize it.
Right now, he wanted to hear the right answer from someone else’s mouth.
He had forgotten that, if he truly wished to set things right, the words had to come not from someone else, but from his own mouth.
“I’m sorry.”
Having steeled himself, Walter bowed his head to Sedina.
Perhaps because Walter, who seemed like a man who had never in his life bowed to anyone, bowed his head to her—
Sedina was so taken aback that she couldn’t speak properly.
“Everything I did to you—I know it cannot be forgiven. I also know that even this action of offering only words gives no comfort at all.”
In truth, this sort of apology could have been made when the two of them were alone.
For the chairman who leads a corporation to bow his head in front of witnesses was an affront to his pride.
“Even so, there is one thing I absolutely want to say.”
Nevertheless, Walter bowed.
Because the guilt of having done nothing as a father weighed heavier than guarding his pride as a corporate chairman.
“I’m truly grateful you came back safely.”