Chapter 181: The Girl in Purple

I had no idea how long I had been fighting the Mantises in the elven village…

When I happened to look up, the sky had already grown considerably brighter.

“Dawn will be here soon…”

I was currently holding the defensive line alone in place of Gar and the others.

I’d had every elf defending the line, along with Gar, take the sleeping medicine specially made by the Blue Ring Knights.

It was excellent stuff: sleep for one hour after taking it, and you got the equivalent of four hours’ rest.

They’d taken it about an hour ago, so they should be waking soon.

Even after an entire night, the Mantises showed no sign of settling down.

If the elven village was in this state, then the city of Sandra must be too… And First Lady Miria was there.

I absolutely wanted to protect both the elven village and Sandra.

But with no prospect of solving the situation, my impatience kept mounting little by little.

We don’t have enough fighting strength.

I had only twenty percent of my mana left, and to be honest, my stamina had fallen so low that merely standing was becoming painful.

Even so, I somehow continued holding the defensive line alone until Gar and the others woke. Then an explosion suddenly sounded from the area serving as the rear entrance.

The Mantises must have broken through one of the back entrances.

But all the elves who had been maintaining the defensive line, as well as Gar, should still have been asleep.

Worse, that direction was bad.

That’s where the children have evacuated!

I instinctively tried to head there, but I couldn’t abandon the swarm of Mantises before me.

Each second felt many times longer than it should have. Yet, for some reason, I heard the sounds of battle and cheering from deeper inside.

I continued cutting down Mantises while fretting over what was happening, until Gar and the elves soon arrived. It seemed they’d dealt with the Mantises in the rear and repaired the broken wall too.

“You saved us, Gar.”

“All we did was repair the wall.”

“What about the Mantises?”

“The kid had already killed every last one.”

“A kid…?”

I left the defensive line to Gar and headed farther inside, to the place where the children had gathered.

Among roughly two hundred children stood a dignified human girl with purple hair.

She looked about my age, perhaps slightly younger. Her back was perfectly straight, and her stance resembled that of a soldier.

“I was hiding among the children, but it seems I’ve been found.”

Was she not the age she appeared to be? Her composure carried the air of a veteran who had survived countless battles.

“Did you kill the Mantises?”

“Yes. That many were nothing worth mentioning.”

“I see. You helped us.”

“You’re a human child, aren’t you? What are you doing in a place like this? And what’s with that strange mask…?”

“I’m one of the Royal Shadows. I came at the royal family’s request to relieve the elven village and the city of Sandra.”

The girl stared at me suspiciously.

“You don’t seem to be lying, but… what can a child like you possibly do…?”

Apparently, she saw me as an ordinary child.

It felt like it had been a long time since anyone had treated me like one… What a strange feeling.

The girl looked at my complexion and frowned slightly.

“You should rest for a while. You look terrible. Now that I’ve been discovered, I’ll help too… I need to improve the elves’ opinion of me, even if only a little.”

She’d muttered the last part quietly, but I’d heard it. Did she owe the elves a debt?

“Then I’ll rest for just one hour… Thanks.”

She looked like a young girl, but if she could kill Mantises, she should be useful in battle. I was worried, but right now everyone was merely balancing on a tightrope and somehow making things work.

I’m sorry, I apologized silently, then took one of the knights’ sleeping pills.

One hour later—

The sounds of battle woke me just as the sun was beginning to rise.

As expected of the knights’ sleeping medicine. My mana remained at about twenty percent, but the drowsiness was much better.

When I went to check on Gar and the others, I found him praising the girl from earlier.

“You’re small, but you’ve got real skill. An ordinary member of the Magic Corps wouldn’t stand a chance against you.”

“Well… I suppose so.”

Relieved to see that the girl was safe, I spoke to Gar.

“Gar, I slept for an hour. Thanks.”

“Oh, has the star of the show finally arrived?”

At Gar’s words, the girl looked at me doubtfully.

“I’ve only got twenty percent of my mana left. Even if I push myself, one more battle will empty me…”

“I see. You’d need four hours of sleep for a full mana recovery. But if you’re gone for four hours now… We’d have to retreat…”

While Gar and I wore equally grim expressions, the girl raised her voice and snapped us out of it.

“Why are two grown men making such gloomy faces? Aren’t you ashamed to rely on a child? Move your hands instead of your mouths.”

“…You’re right. Sorry.”

Gar returned to the defensive line with the elves.

The girl then stared at me and spoke.

“It seems you can fight a little, but children should rest farther inside. I’ll buy you enough time to recover your mana.”

With that, she stretched onto her toes and patted me on the head, even though I was taller than she was. Then she turned and used an air step to pass over Gar and the others before landing on a rooftop.

An air step… Huh? Someone other than me, El, and Ashera can use it? Huh? Why? How? What in the world is going on?!

The shock was so great that my thoughts couldn’t keep up…

F-for now, I need more information…

I ran up the stairs inside the house and stared fixedly through a window at the girl fighting.

Her fighting style was that of a pure mage. From the rooftop, she shot down the Mantises.

What astonished me was her accuracy. Destroy the head of any living creature and it ceased to function.

Monsters were no different. The girl mainly used Wind Cutters.

One shot, one kill. Every single spell killed one Mantis without fail.

Depending on the timing, the remaining force after severing one neck would kill a second.

“Amazing…”

Until now, I’d never seen a mage superior to my mother, the Ice Witch.

Yet the girl possessed something that made me wonder, Could she possibly…?

Mother was probably better at mana control itself, but this girl was accustomed to battle…

She always took the initiative in doing whatever would trouble the enemy most.

Her figure was exactly that of a soldier—a standard fit to lead an army, shining amid the dirty reality of actual combat.

By killing Mantises at scattered points within the swarm, she provoked them into cannibalism, then even manipulated the surviving Mantises into fighting one another.

It felt as though she were displaying a different kind of mastery from the Ice Witch’s.

Standing alone on the battlefield and toying with the enemy, the (child’s) figure resembled a single flower blooming amid the fighting. I honestly found her (terrifying and just a little) beautiful.

That was the moment two feelings were born within me.

Thanks to Gar and the elves having rested, and to the girl’s help, the defensive line was stable for now.

I’d fought continuously for so long that I’d stopped making calm decisions.

I felt bad for the girl, but I would use this opportunity to sort out the situation. Why she could use air steps wasn’t the issue right now.

First was the defense of this village. When I reconsidered it calmly, the defensive line’s collapse was only a matter of time.

I hated to do it, but I had no choice except to order a retreat.

The problem was the elves.

We could create a territory and flee to Blue Ring… If I asked Ao, he could probably transport the elves with us.

If Gar and I served as the rear guard, we should be able to buy enough time for them to escape…

But there were five hundred of them. It would be impossible to silence every single one completely.

If it affected only me, that would be fine. But the lives endangered by my sentimentality would belong to my future children, my family, and the people of Blue Ring…

I simply couldn’t make the decision to save the elves.

People called me an “Apostle” and a “Shura,” yet I couldn’t even manage something like this.

A dry laugh escaped me at my own lack of ability.

The village chief must have been watching me. He addressed me in a calm voice.

“Lord Royal Shadow, may I have a moment?”

“…Yes.”

“As one would expect of someone sent at the king’s request, Lord Royal Shadow possesses frightening strength.”

Small talk at a time like this? I looked at him suspiciously, and he continued, resignation floating in his eyes.

“Yet even with Lord Royal Shadow’s great strength, restraining the Mantis swarm proved impossible…”

“…”

“With your power, you could escape if it were only your group… Especially with that technique that lets you walk through the sky…”

“…”

“But if you continue acting alongside us, your mana will run dry, and Lord Royal Shadow will also be swallowed by the Mantises.”

“…”

“Am I wrong?”

“…”

“…”

“…”

“…Please flee.”

“What?! What are you saying?”

“You are young. You also appear to be straightforward by nature, with enough kindness that you cannot decide to abandon us.”

“…”

“In the future, you will surely save many people. For you to be lost here would be a loss to every race…”

“I’m not capable of anything like that…”

I still didn’t want to leave these people to die. That was simply how I felt.

Just as the helpless reality nearly brought tears to my eyes, my ring began to glow.

“Aldo, take out the Miasma Stone immediately!”

Ao appeared without warning, and both the village chief and I opened our eyes wide in surprise.

“Aldo! Hurry up! Big Sis is going to hit me!”

“W-wait a moment…”

“There’s no time! Take it out now!”

Faced with Ao’s entirely uncharacteristic intensity, I used some of my remaining twenty percent mana to retrieve the Miasma Stone from Storage.

“All right, everyone, move back a little!”

As Ao spoke, the Miasma Stone floated into the air, and its blue light gradually intensified.

For a moment I hoped El, Ashera, and Mother were coming to reinforce us, but two Miasma Stones still remained inside Storage.

They must still be in the Great Serpent Forest.

But if Ao created a territory here, I wouldn’t have to worry about mana consumption. Even that alone would be enormous.

I should be able to fire Condense Ray twice. If I could somehow protect the elven village with those and then head to Sandra…

As I considered it, the temporary territory seemed to finish forming, and my mana recovered rapidly.

“Ao, you saved us. But why did Mother tell you to make me use the Miasma Stone?”

“Hm? Ask her yourself.”

With only that, Ao vanished.

As always, communicating with him was difficult. I could never quite understand what he was trying to say.

When I glanced at the village chief beside me, I found that at some point he’d prostrated himself and was muttering something in Elvish.

“Great Spirit… That was a great spirit. This person must be the Divine Envoy. The great spirit sent the Divine Envoy to save us in our hour of need…”

It seemed the Elvish term for “Apostle” was “Divine Envoy”… But that didn’t matter right now!

Because of Ao, transporting these people to Blue Ring had become even harder… That idiot had even called me by name.

Now they know I’m an Apostle beyond any doubt!!

Even if I saved the village, how was I supposed to keep them silent…?

Maybe if I said I wasn’t really a Royal Shadow but a Royal Bald, they’d laugh and forget everything.

They wouldn’t, would they…?

With yet another problem added to the pile, my painfully aching head made me clutch it.

Haah. It couldn’t be helped. I would brace myself. I’d already boarded the boat, and there was no way I could ever harm these people anyway.

I slapped my cheeks and gathered my resolve.

“Chief, please keep this confidential. I don’t want to become your enemy…”

“As the Divine Envoy commands…”

Just as I resolved myself, the Miasma Stone flashed, and El, Ashera, and Mother appeared together with Ao.