In Rian Laute’s, my grandfather’s, first attack… seconds before the entire fake mansion was destroyed, I felt the hands of the A-18 on my shoulder, just like a few minutes before.

And then… we suddenly switched places.

We were in the middle of the forest, kilometers away from the mansion. There was a car behind us, a white, latest model sports car.

But I couldn’t even focus on it.

Because the next moment… a shockwave hit me in the face like I had never felt before.

Trees were uprooted, the corpses of animals were scattered. It was accompanied by an intense heat wave… almost as scorching hot as if I had been without water for days in the middle of the desert.

Not to mention the light, which was brilliant even though it was daytime.

If I hadn’t closed my eyes in time, I might even have gone blind.

This was it, the world of those at the top.

The effects of their fight alone, even though I was a few kilometers away, could be felt so clearly… devastating.

“You are weak, you are sick. As a half-elf, unlike Adrian, you are a flawed product. And you will remain so forever.”

My eyes narrowed involuntarily.

He was right.

This was a level I… could never reach.

No, that aside…

It would be a miracle if I even reached C grade.

I clenched my fist, trying to shake off the… weakness I felt without showing it to A-18. Then, her usual dull voice echoed in my ears.

“Get in the car.”

“Huh?”

I quickly released my clenched fist, a blank, confused expression on my face.

Are we leaving?

Just like that?

And then I paused.

Although… what are we doing here anyway?

We’re going to die the moment we set foot in the place where these… monsters… are.

I didn’t ask any questions or react after this thought. I simply approached the car, but when I was about to get in the back seat…

“Get in the front.”

I was inevitably surprised by what she said.

Because I was always asked to sit in the back seat. Most of the time… they didn’t want me to sit next to them.

Still, I didn’t question it, I got in the front.

A-18 stared at the spot where Leonard Quie and my grandfather were fighting for a while. Then, with a sigh, she also got in the car.

She stepped on the gas, and the car accelerated so suddenly that I found myself glued to the back seat.

“H- hey, why so fast-”

Before I could finish my sentence, though… my eyes widened to their fullest.

It was still midday. So the sun was at its peak. The interior of the car, however, was a bit dimmer thanks to the filmed door windows.

And yet… the blue sky turned completely white, as if a new sun had been born right next to us.

I quickly reached for the door window and looked behind us.

Only then I realized what it was.

It was mana.

It was the pure mana, what gave the sky its white color.

And no… the sky hadn’t actually turned white.

It was just… because of the attack my grandfather had prepared, a white wall had formed between the sky and the earth, just like those white spears he sent to Leonard Quie a few moments ago…

And it wasn’t just that.

There was a constant… flow of mana toward them.

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All the mana in the atmosphere was being drawn there, even though we were so far away from them.

I was in a car, but… even here, the air was getting heavier and heavier, making it hard to breathe. I felt like I was freezing.

This was why A-18 had asked us to get in the car, stepping on the gas full throttle.

So that we wouldn’t be in the area of the attack.

I swallowed, unclear thoughts popping up in my mind.

Would it be enough?

Would we really be able to survive the attack this time… even though we were simply spectators?

But not even two seconds after the car had started moving…

Everything disappeared, including the sound of the car.

As the white wall in the sky fell to the area, a red slash appeared on it.

But the overwhelming one was not red.

It was white.

Everything was covered in a white glow.

Even the inside of the car lit up in such a way that I couldn’t see the slightest thing.

It was so white and pure… and warm…

It was as if heaven had fallen from the sky.

Then, there was a cracking sound. It came from everywhere, not just behind us.

It was as if the atmosphere itself had broken into pieces.

And then, finally…

~BOOOM!

I crouched down, covered my ears, and pulled my knees to me.

I quickly tried to take the safest position possible.

Although the car was already extremely fast, the shockwave coming from behind us accelerated it many times faster, like a child pushing an ant with their fingers.

The world seemed to collapse in on itself.

********

“Hugh… haaah…”

I tried to sit up slowly, but it didn’t take me long to realize that I couldn’t with the difficulty I was having breathing.

“Ugh…”

I tried to open my eyes slowly, slightly.

And… the first thing I saw was the deep blue sky.

There were no clouds, they had probably all scattered.

There were no rustling sounds coming from the forest that had existed not long ago, no birds chirping or anything.

It was simply… silent.

As if I was in the middle of nowhere.

I didn’t move my body this time as I did in the first second I regained consciousness. I didn’t try to sit up, even though where I was lying felt quite hard.

First… I kept breathing.

My whole body ached, I even had difficulty feeling my limbs.

And yet…

“I’m… fine, huh…”

I had survived… that attack.

I was alive, even if barely, somehow.

And being alive meant I could regenerate. My ability to regenerate was unmatched by most people on Lunerra, after all.

Even now, it was working at full speed, trying to repair the unimaginable damage I had suffered.

I gritted my teeth, struggled to at least get into a sitting position. And, even if it was by so much difficulty… I did it.

Looking around, all I could do was smile involuntarily and…

“Hah…”

Laugh.

“Hahahahahahah…!”

A huge, vast plain without anything on it.

There was almost nothing left of the forest.

There were some gashes where I swung my sword, but in general… it was like this.

I was standing in the middle of a seemingly barren area.

“This will be hard to explain…”

I was still in Cevilian lands.

And with the amount of mana being released here, they must have already realized the destruction.

Considering that Aiden had planned this without telling anyone… until they showed up again, all eyes would be on me, I would have to explain what was happening here.

In fact, they were probably already on their way.

I’m guessing in five minutes max, this place would be full of royal soldiers.

And yet…

“I did it, huh…”

Maybe it was an unfair fight because he was already dying.

Maybe we fought when I was at my strongest and he was at his weakest.

But…

“I managed to stand up to him…”

No, I didn’t win.

On the contrary, I lost quite badly.

If he was in front of me right now… he could have easily killed me. He was afraid of whether I would have someone to back me up, so he didn’t want to take any risks, especially when he too was wounded.

So he ran away.

But, despite that…

“Heh…”

I thought of what I had seen before I was crushed by his attack, before I was literally slammed to the ground.

His blood falling from his body onto me.

His dilated eyes, and what he saw falling down with me.

His right arm.

Ah, it really was a wonderful feeling.

Beautiful, even.

“I guess I avenged your arm, huh… Father.”

I put myself back on the ground, felt myself relax, and just stared at the sky.

Now… since everything happened the way he wanted it to happen… all I have to do is sit back and watch.

I did everything that was asked of me…

I think I can rest, even if a little…

…

…

“Don’t you think you have something to tell, Duke Leonard Quie…?”

…?

I paused at the young, but very familiar voice coming from right next to me. All the comfort, all the satisfaction I had felt, vanished.

Fuck this shit…

“Let me rest a little longer, prince…”

Is he really already here?

I thought I had a little more time…

*******

When the effects of the last attack had finally worn off… we were strangely okay.

We had managed to get out of the area of impact without losing our lives.

Only… the back of the car had probably suffered some damage as it was directly exposed to the shockwave and the heat that followed.

But it was a minor detail.

I first looked at A-18.

She was driving with an emotionless expression. Her focus was on the road, she didn’t seem to notice that I was looking at her, but on the contrary… she probably knew very well.

I turned my eyes away from him, to the side-view mirror behind the front door window and looked back at the road we were driving on.

All the clouds in the sky had disappeared. They were all… simply gone.

But, oddly enough, there were no dust clouds.

Usually, after a big explosion like this, a huge mushroom cloud of dust would rise into the sky. But there was nothing like this.

It was as if everything had simply ceased to exist.

But, just then… something caught my eye.

No, not in the sky or behind us.

It was in a specific place that I could see through the mirror.

Just behind my seat…

I slowly tore my eyes away from the side-view mirror as my eyes widened.

My whole body trembled with fear. I couldn’t even look back, I just… stayed where I was.

Is that why she asked me to get in the front? Because she saw this coming…?

I swallowed quietly, trying hard not to let the sweat fall from my forehead, and turned my eyes to the rear-view mirror of the car.

And there I found exactly what I didn’t expect to see, what I hoped I had misjudged.

Or rather, the person.

My grandfather.

I quickly withdrew my eyes.

While the silence inside the car continued, I occasionally glanced at the mirror, trying to understand his condition.

His right arm was… gone.

His hair was tangled and his clothes looked badly worn, dirty, and torn. His complexion was pale and his facial expression made him look like he was in pain.

No one would have believed that he was the feared leader of the Laute Family.

He did not speak a single word during the entire journey.

Neither he nor A-18.

They both continued on in silence.

And, inevitably… me too.

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