The Right Choice (2)
"What the—?"
Balkan's battlefield horn relayed an unbelievable fact.
'The vanguard's trajectory has been altered.'
In an instant their formation veered at a tremendous angle, and a messenger immediately reversed course and raced back.
"Urgent report!"
They didn't even need to hear it to understand.
"Hohoho! What's this? It failed after all, didn't it? Humans—pathetic. Terrible as commanders."
Paimon's taunts didn't reach him.
"No. This can't be."
After Zetaro, Smodo, and Natasha, even Balkan was being toyed with by the enemy's forces.
"...Change direction again."
Balkan, having made up his mind, said with wide eyes.
"We must not go to Bashka. If they're this desperate, there has to be something there."
Paimon had had enough of Balkan's brazenness.
"So what is it?"
"I can't imagine it. But it's safer to assume there's something unimaginable. All units, I order you! Immediately change the vanguard's course to—ugh!"
A dull blow slammed into the back of his head and Balkan's vision spun.
"What bullshit."
As he twisted toward Paimon's voice, her fingernail darted at him again.
"Ugh!"
Balkan leaned back and swung his sword from the saddle, but his sense of distance was off.
"Hohoho! Still, you do have one trick. But you'll be fine, yes? A lethal dose of poison."
No sooner had she finished than Balkan staggered. Damn it! Betrayal...!
He used Skima to control his blood flow and slow the poison's spread, but he wouldn't hold out long.
"For you to do this to me... that means Havitz betrays us too, right?"
He squeezed out the last of his strength to warn them, but Paimon only sneered.
"What are you talking about? Everything is His will."
"What?"
As his spinal nerves went numb and Balkan slumped from his horse, Paimon stepped forward and lifted his head.
"Satan's tired of you lot. He doesn't bother with toys that've lost their novelty."
"Havitz..."
Only an unbearable conclusion remained, and Balkan's eyelids slowly closed.
"Hah, pathetic."
Paimon dropped Balkan's head as if discarding trash, and the demons—who'd been simmering with discontent—closed in.
"Shall we kill him? Or shall we show them the terror of the demons?"
"Hmm."
According to the messenger Paimon had heard, Havitz's humanity was completely gone.
'That doesn't mean it isn't Havitz.'
She issued an order.
"Detain them for now. It'd be a pleasant sight to have that quartet of idiots locked up side by side."
"Understood. What about Natasha? If she wakes, she'll be trouble."
Her power made even the demons click their tongues.
"Hoho, no problem."
Paimon's eyes flared violet.
"Nonstandard Protocol: Ban."
She created a containment zone in a specific space that robbed those trapped within of their mobility.
"Take him away."
A demon grabbed Balkan and flew to the rear, and Paimon climbed onto his mount.
"Phew. Feels like a rotten tooth finally pulled." Everyone felt the same relief.
"Lady Paimon, lead us. We thirst for blood. We want human suffering."
"Hohohoho!"
Paimon spread her hand.
"As of this moment, ignore formation. Scatter! Take the shortest routes and converge on Bashka!"
"KRAAAAA!"
The demons' roars rolled like thunder.
"Go! It's a festival of blood!"
Like cockroaches scattering from rotten food when the light comes on, the legions of hell fanned out in all directions.
The crusade's command was in an uproar.
"Demons are advancing toward Bashka! Confirmed strength so far: three million! No—four and a half million..."
Iruki raised a hand to cut off the report.
'This is only the beginning.'
With the flowerbed—the front yard of Bashka—breached, it was only a matter of time before an army of a hundred million gathered.
"Call the Lucky Boy."
The time had come.
"Understood."
Reality finally sank into their skin, and the commanders filed out of the command room with terrified faces.
In the quiet room after everyone had left, Iruki focused on nothing but opening and closing his eyes.
"Iruki."
Nade entered with a bright expression, but Iruki couldn't bring himself to look back.
'Pathetic.'
He felt disgust at having dragged his friend into an act that would stain history.
"I heard. The legions of hell are coming to Bashka. Finally, a chance to turn the tide."
Nade tried to put a good spin on it.
"...I'm sorry."
Nade's tone softened as he continued.
"When you came to me and said you'd do this, I stayed silent. This operation has no second chances. So I kept my mouth shut. Even though I knew what you'd have to protect—your family, Ms. Riz—I let my desire for perfection make me selfish."
There were many technicians in the crusade.
But Iruki wanted to send someone he could be certain would take responsibility no matter what.
"If you'd told me to go back, I would've. I'd have returned home to protect my parents and Riz—they're what matter most to me. But..."
Nade tightened his eyes.
"If I'd gone back, I'd never have seen you again. You'd be worth so little to me. That's the truth."
"Nade..."
"You weren't the only one worrying. I thought about countless things when I came to the crusade. But I reached one conclusion: if not me, then there's no one else I can trust with this."
Iruki bowed his head.
"What if there's a defect in the vessel? What if the detonation mechanism fails? What if an unpredictable variable remains? What if the carrier changes his mind? Would we be giving up before even trying?"
Hissing—hissing—the rough breaths filled the room.
"But I thought, if it were me, if it were you, no matter what worst-case scenario came, we'd pull it off. That's the thought I had."
Iruki couldn't answer. He only lifted his torso with each breath, holding back the tears that welled up.
"When you stayed silent, to be honest, I felt genuinely relieved. If you'd told me to go back, I'd have been mortified. Hahaha!"
Iruki let out a laugh that broke into tears.
"Don't worry. You'll do well. You've worked hard. Leave it all to me now."
With Nade's single sentence, Iruki felt thousands of tons lift from his shoulders.
"Nade."
Nade, heading for the door, stopped and looked back.
"Yeah?"
"Succeed no matter what."
Even faced with the weight of humanity, Nade smiled and gave a thumbs-up.
"No problem."
As he opened the door he said, "I am the Lucky Boy."
Having slipped out of the demons' tide, the allied forces watched the situation without letting down their guard.
'Good. They don't seem to be turning back.'
They didn't know Paimon had already ordered the demons to gather at the capital.
Dante spoke.
"Wouldn't it be better to retreat? If the operation succeeds, this place won't be safe."
They were within range of the elemental bomb.
It felt wrong to evacuate and leave Bashka's citizens behind, but there was nothing else they could do.
"Let's go."
Miro said as if taking responsibility.
"We all feel the same. No one will be praising us if we stay. Let's leave now."
Amy asked, "Where are we going? If the demons push into Bashka, don't we have to follow them in?"
Dante licked his lips. 'Come to think of it, you became a legion commander in this war. You still don't know the operation.'
Amy pressed again. "Why do you all look like that? There's something I don't know, right?"
They couldn't proceed with the operation while ignoring a mage who'd reached the Elemental Realm.
"To Bashka—"
As Lupist opened his mouth, Miro felt a chill and turned.
"What is that?"
On the horizon, a force bathed in light was flying in.
"The army of Heaven." Angels and Mara sped through the air; fairies ferried giants aloft and followed behind.
"Oh? Uh?"
When giants fell from a kilometer up, the allied troops were dizzy just watching.
With a thunderous thud they raised clouds of dust on the dry ground and slowly brought their torsos upright.
'Huge.'
Eight meters barely counted as small; the truly enormous ones approached eighty meters.
"Starting from here?"
As Imir rubbed his fist and stepped forward, the demons around him blocked his way.
"What are you, then?"
Some demons knew of heavenly beings, but most here had never seen giants.
As Imir's brow twitched in displeasure, a demon with sickle-shaped arms approached.
Sniffing, it said, "What's that smell? It's so different from humans. And they look so dumb too."
The demon hooked Imir's jaw with its sickle and drew its face close with a sneer.
"Krk, completely frozen. Hey—say something. At least call the big guy behind you."
The demons assumed the eighty-meter giant was their leader, but their expressions had drained pale.
"Decided."
Imir grabbed the demon's sickle and the arm bent as if it were taffy.
"Aaah! My arm! My arm!"
The demons' eyes blazed with fury, but Imir loosened his stance and moved on.
"We'll start by clearing out the trash."
"Kill them!"
As the demons raised their weapons, bared their fangs, and charged—
"Huuuuup."
Imir took a deep breath, puffed his chest, and lifted both arms high.
Girshin reached out, alarmed. "Imir—! Wait—!"
Before his voice finished, Imir dropped his stance and slammed both arms into the ground.
The sound of the world was erased.
'Is time moving slowly? Or quickly?'
The allied soldiers watching from afar all felt drunk on the sensation.
'What the hell is that?'
The earth rose like a tidal wave, and a vortex appeared in the sky, its colors blending into one another.
'I'm sleepy. I want to go home.'
A strange yawn escaped them.
Their eyelids slowly closed and their fields of vision narrowed.
"...Home!"
A voice, thin like an earthworm, slithered into their ears and slipped out.
'Hehe, how strange. I can see sound?' A mental disturbance caused by the shockwave.
KWAAAAAANG!
And those who experienced that state vanished from the world in the next instant.
Screeeetch!
A flash of Mass Teleport landed two kilometers away.
"You all okay?"
Miro's magic had performed an emergency evacuation, but they hadn't been able to save everyone.
There was no time to mourn.
"Again! Again!"
As the Mass Teleport tore into the sky, an enormous seismic wave swept the spot.
Rumble. Rumble. Rumble.
The sound of the ground ripping around Imir spread out in endless echoes.
"Tch, how annoying."
There were no demons left in the flowerbed, and even the angels in the sky watched with strained expressions.
'A monster is a monster.'
The question that had first come to mind when Imir was born now spread through the entire army of Heaven.
'Why does this world... need something like that?'