This was Resheph's trump card. The unleashed basilisk had already killed the tamer. It had not been controlled by the whip, perhaps because the collar placed around one of its fangs—which was as large as a grown man—might not have been a finished product. Either way, the monster had crushed the annoying man yelling orders at it with its giant tail.
The basilisk swung its thick neck, as if only humoring the dead tamer's final words, and focused its gaze on Ottar.
"OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Its body was over twenty meders long.
It tore through the sea of sand and charged straight at Ottar. It was an assault intended to crush anything in its way, a lethal technique that would leave nothing in its wake.
To take it on, Ottar, who had until that moment only been holding his sword with one hand, finally wielded it using both hands.
And then—
—he split the giant serpent's body with a single slash. " "
There was a loud noise as the two pieces of the serpent's body fell to the ground and a curtain of sand flew into the air. And there was an enormous, deep slash left in the sand where Ottar's attack had split the ground. The desert fell silent.
His swing had caused a tremor that shook the entire battlefield. It had reached not just the Warsa forces or Shalzad's army but even Ali, who was watching from afar.
While the soldiers of Warsa were frozen in place, the curtain of floating sand gradually cleared, and their dusty faces turned pale as they stared, speechless.
The basilisk had been split perfectly down the middle and was lying dead on the sand. And in the middle of its corpse stood the boaz warrior still holding his sword where he had swung it down. The man who had unleashed that tremendous slash slowly released his stance and put the sword back on his shoulder as he had been carrying it before.
"Raise the white flag." "What…?"
"We're surrendering."
Gorza lowered his binoculars as he gave that simple order to the soldiers close by. Ignoring their confusion, the commander looked off into the distance as he cast aside his fighting resolve.
"There's no way we can match a monster like that."
"A wise general…it would be a shame to kill him."
Seeing the dozens of white flags being waved, Ottar thrust his giant sword into the ground. His rust-colored eyes narrowed as he spoke.
"Hedin, I'm not going to kill them all. I want to give this potential a chance to grow."
The strongest adventurer left those words to the wind after destroying the enemy's will to fight with a single strike instead of rampaging through countless soldiers.
The Battle of the Sindh ended with the warrior's single blow.
"Prince! Prince Aram! General Jafar has rushed to your side!"
An old general and the troops he led approached Ali, who was standing atop a high sand dune overlooking the battlefield. Behind the general was the Shalzad army marching beneath the battle flag of the moon and jasmine.
"Your cunning in preparing a preemptive surprise attack is nothing less than spectacular! Allow us to join in as well! We shall crush the villains of Warsa! Where is the enemy?"
The old general Jafar was beside himself in joy at the prince's growth, and the soldiers behind him raised a hot-blooded battle cry. But in response, Ali just continued to stare into the distance, absorbed in the scene in front of her.
"I-it's over…" Ali said, looking on in shock as she slowly raised a hand and pointed to the results.
"Huh?"
"It's…it's really over…"
Countless Warsa soldiers were collapsed all across the giant desert that lay before them. The tiny shadows at the edge of the horizon were all the same. The corpses crumpled atop one another, and the horrifically broken weapons and armor all combined to form tens of thousands of gravestones. The atrocious Resheph Familia members had all been killed. The wind was gradually burying their leader Seal's corpse under the sea of sand.
The main force commanded by Gorza, which had surrendered, was bound with ropes and being led away by nervous Fazoul Trading Company merchants who had stuffed themselves into armor. Jafar and his troops froze at the sight, their jaws dropping.
"The giant walls surrounding Orario…" Ali caught her breath as she subconsciously started speaking. "They aren't for protecting their city from outside attack, are they?…They're for keeping the adventurers locked away inside…?"
Ali was sure of it. And she was correct. That was why the Labyrinth City hated allowing its assets to leave the city. Part of it was to keep other influential groups from gaining power, but the true reason was to keep the powerful upper-tier adventurers from being let loose upon the world.
If Orario unleashed their adventurers, it might lead to genocide. That thought was precisely what they wanted to keep the rest of the world from thinking.
Ironically, all of their precaution was to prevent the world from knowing that adventurers were just as much monsters as the calamities they were fighting.
In the ancient times, people had built a fortress to keep the monsters from flowing out of the giant hole and spreading across the land, a predecessor to the current city walls. However, Ali realized that the modern wall also served as a cage to keep the adventurers locked in after witnessing that battle.
The victors standing atop the sand dune numbered just eight. A boaz, a catman, a dark elf, a white elf, and four prums.
Ali was struck with awe again at the overwhelming victory that the adventurers had achieved. The battle that decided the fate of Shalzad and Warsa had been brought to an end by just those eight followers.
The sun hung low, nearing the horizon as the sky gradually darkened.
The natural results after a battle were occurring in the Sindh Expanse. The soldiers of Shalzad, who were disappointed at not getting to fight, looked like they were in a dream as they carried away the utterly ravaged corpses of the Warsa soldiers who had caused them so much suffering. They still had not cleared away all the dead bodies.
Resheph had disappeared in the chaos, running away somewhere. The being who had sparked the flames of war himself had not been captured, but the goddess had merely said, "Was there even a god called that? Whatever, just leave it be. He's not worth the effort," as if she was incapable of caring less.
The war was over. It was honestly debatable whether it could even be called a war, but either way, the fighting was done. The invaders had been removed—the girl's oasis country was liberated.
"Ahhh, Solshana…! I've returned!"
Leaving the cleanup work to the soldiers, Ali and the generals headed back to the capital first to report the destruction of Warsa and the return of peace to their people as soon as possible.
There was a white marble palace and a castle town around it. The beautiful cityscape had been wrecked during Warsa's invasion and the defenses had been mercilessly destroyed, but inside the walls, the citizens who had been persecuted so badly raised a thunderous, rolling cheer. And the voices that reached Ali's band were hailing a hero's triumphal return. It was a bit uncomfortable for the generals who had not done anything, but for Ali, it was a cheerful moment.
The capital she had fled so pitifully. The homeland she was finally returning to. Her eyes began to fill with tears.
"…Freya!"
As the generals began to dismount from their camels, Ali turned back and ran.
The goddess and her eight followers were standing with their backs to the red sky.
Ali ran to the familia that had saved her.
"You have my eternal gratitude! Thanks to you, peace has returned to
Shalzad!"
"It has."
"I could never have done this myself! Neither returning to my homeland nor returning the smiles to my people's faces!"
"Indeed."
"Please accept my thanks! Though it may have been nothing more than a whim to you…I was saved by you!"
"I've been accepting it for a while now."
No matter how many times she shouted her thanks, Freya's responses were calm and collected. And having shouted too much, Ali was gasping for breath as she quietly tried to calm her breathing and locked eyes with the goddess's silver gaze.
Time did not wait for her as the sun continued to set. Their shadows grew. Long, shimmering shadows stretched out into the sea of sand. The girl's shadow flickered in the desert wind, trembling faintly. As if she were fighting something within herself.
"…Freya…I…"
Lit by the sunset, she was struck by a feeling as if she were gradually becoming just Ali and not Aram. The feeling of losing the mask and armor of a king, her feelings being exposed. It had not even been two weeks, but the time she had spent with Freya seemed to hit her all at once. The anger, sadness, and despair. Each and every word the goddess had spoken during that time echoed in her heart. A maddening, indescribable thing was clawing at Ali.
Freya was just looking at her, making no attempt to say anything. Ali was currently being faced with a choice. The goddess and her followers before her. And the magnificent palace and her people, her country, behind her. As if the sunset was telling her to choose, forward or backward.
"…"
Ali glanced at the catman. Allen seemed about to say something, but in the end, he said nothing. She could feel his gaze telling her, Make up your own damn mind.
"…Prince Aram?"
Jafar and the others finally noticed Ali and turned around.
It'd be fine, wouldn't it? Just take her hand.
No, of course it wouldn't be fine to cast my country aside.
But what I truly want is—
Desire and conflict. A taboo agony afflicted the last remnants of her rationality. And having lost Aram's armor, the naked Ali could not resist the impulse. She could not reject the irreplaceable time she had spent with the goddess.
I'm sorry you were not born a man. I could not even grant you happiness as a woman—
The words her mother had left her. That Ali would not be able to find happiness as she was.
If it were me, I would fulfill your every need, whether as a man or a woman…
The words of the goddess whose figure overlapped with her mother. Her bold claim that she could grant Ali happiness.
For the first and final time in her life, Ali, who was unable to be fulfilled as either a man or a woman, wanted to scream out her selfish desires.
Just as she was about to stretch out her trembling hand— "I don't need you."
The goddess's voice stopped her. "Eh…?"
"I said I don't need you, Ali."
Time froze for Ali as Freya repeated herself. Not understanding what was happening, the girl froze.
"It was a miscalculation on my part. You aren't suitable to be my Odr."
The goddess's eyes narrowed coolly, as if measuring the brilliance of the girl's wavering heart.
Ali's face filled with despair. The pain of being cast away rippled through her like cracks opening up in her body. The disappointment from the goddess, the one being in the world she did not want to disappoint, seared her heart, causing tears to well up in her amethyst eyes.
Wait. Please. Don't go.
While those voiceless shouts filled her throat, the goddess started to turn away.
"So go forth and live as a king."
" "
Ali's eyes opened wide. And what she saw was not disappointment or scorn on the goddess's face but a smile lit by the setting sun. And just like that, as if it were nothing, Freya turned away and started walking. And her eight followers followed after her. There was no farewell. No promise to meet again. No good-bye. The goddess just passed from Ali's sight like a breeze.
The desert wind blew, and hair fluttered as a lone tear trickled down a single cheek.
"Are you sure, milady?" Ottar asked.
"Yes," Freya responded as she continued walking. "She can't set aside her country. Even if she did what I wanted, her radiance would be gone."
Freya had seen Ali's conflict. Not only that, she had not allowed the girl to choose. She had pushed Ali away herself.
"The reason she could resist my beauty was because she was a king. What captivated me about her was the brilliance she had as she tried to behave as a king. If she stopped being that, then that brilliance would become something boring…would degrade to something no different from anyone else."
An Ali who was not a king was just a girl like any other. Just an unpolished gem that might as well be a stone. Because Freya could not attain her, she could become a glimmering jewel whose brilliance Freya could respect and enjoy from afar. So Freya would respect that beautiful radiance rather than try to keep it for herself.
"I got a little bit attached, but…using that excuse to please myself and rob her of her potential would be wrong."
She looked back over her shoulder just once. The girl was still standing there, her eyes not looking away at all despite how far they had gotten. However, finally, she raised her arm and rubbed her eyes. And as if conveying her determination, she turned her back on Freya and started walking. Toward the people waiting for their king. Toward the desert kingdom.
Freya smiled one more time, like a mother watching over her child.
"Sorry, Allen. I wasted all your effort."
"…I don't know to what you might be referring. Did you perhaps imagine something?" Allen responded indignantly.
"Hee-hee. Sure. Let's call it that," Freya said, giggling softly.
Ottar and the other followers glanced back at the girl just one time. Hedin looked back the longest, but finally, even he turned his back. As followers who had sworn their loyalty to their goddess, they would accompany her. Freya stopped at the top of a high sand dune with them at her side as she announced her farewell to the desert realm.
"So, shall we go back to boring Orario, a place more intense than any other?"
The series of battles involving Shalzad and Warsa and later Israfan would later come to be known as the Calamity of the Hot Sands.
From the impossible-seeming start of losing its capital, the Kingdom of Shalzad faced a threat to its very existence, and having survived that, it started developing at a pace that left neighboring countries in awe. And it went without saying, of course, that the brilliance of the fifteenth king, King Aram Raza Shalzad, was crucial to those developments.
The Battle of the Sindh led to the decline of Warsa and neither they nor Resheph Familia—who had been active behind the scenes in the lead up to the battle—ever threatened Shalzad's peace again. Rumors spread from the Labyrinth City that their country was under the protection of a certain strongest familia, though those rumors were never confirmed or denied.
It is impossible to determine the truth of the matter, but a statue to the eight gallant heroes who were said to have saved the country was constructed in the central plaza of the reconstructed Solshana at King Aram's behest. And apparently there was quite a debate about whether or not those statues' faces resembled some certain adventurers.
And while the kingdom was developing, it was said that the muscular organization, the Fazoul Trading Company—which had apparently undergone a muscle revolution—was always there supporting it. Bofman Fazoul, who had worked so hard in the shadows during the war with Warsa to
aid King Aram and continued to support the king afterward, was the man of the hour, and on the back of his muscles charisma, his trading company became extremely successful. The rebuilding of Leodo progressed, and having stepped away from the slave-trading business, the Fazoul Trading Company became famed for never losing out to armies in terms of military power—a rather dubious claim to fame.
Shalzad experienced a golden age thanks to the rule of King Aram.
The king was widely hailed as the greatest player of Halvan in the Kaios Desert, and he used his strategic prowess in political and military affairs as well, and when the time came to put up or shut up, history remembered him as always daringly stepping up to the table. It was said that the king experienced an awakening during the Calamity of the Hot Sands, though he had a playful side as well, and would steal away from his advisers to go play Halvan around town, and he was seen many times out walking around enjoying a kebab.
King Aram was a handsome man who was wise, indulged in many pleasures, and was always beloved by his people. He would later be known as King Aram the Wise. At the time, he was recorded as having said:
"In the midst of that turbulence, a silver light shone upon me.
"It resembled both the moonlight high in the night sky and the ripples on the surface of the oasis. That light delivered a revelation from the heavens. In order to never turn my back on the teachings that light granted me, I continued pushing forward so that I could hold my head high with pride. That was all."
He left a successor and continued to rule justly until the very end, and he was hailed by all for his enlightened rule. His reign and his immense efforts led to the first-ever great power being born in the central region of western Kaios.
"The Heroic King."
"He Who Rules the Board." "Aram and the Eight Warriors."
He was known by many different names and his tale was passed down to later generations in anecdotes and children's stories.
And whether a certain beautiful goddess smiled when word of those feats reached her ears—the world may never know.
6
I guess there really isn't an Odr for me?
Freya had nothing but time on her hands after coming back from the Kaios Desert.
Ali had been fantastic. Despite her immaturity, she had overturned Freya's expectations, and the way she transformed to such a brilliant jewel had been enough to give Freya some hope.
But in the end, it was not her. She was not the one Freya was looking for. Her brilliance was a radiance intrinsic to her regal stature. If Freya tried to take her for herself, that radiance would disappear.
If she had made Ali hers then and there, she would have been reduced to nothing more than any other girl. Just another inconsequential person seeking nothing more than the goddess's love, just like everyone else. If that happened, Freya would soon bore of her and start looking for another encounter. That was why there wasn't anything she could do. But it was disappointing enough to cause a fair amount of sighing on the goddess's part.
Her aimless days continued as before.
The mortal realm was stimulating. That much was certainly true. A smile would cross her lips when she heard the stories the children wove for themselves, and she was happy to see her followers grow as well. But at the same time, it was true that something was missing for her. Some corner of her heart was still unsatisfied.
Despite the invitations of various deities, she did not make an appearance at the feast of gods or at Denatus, choosing instead to wallow in the poison of boredom.
I guess I really can't find my Odr in this mortal realm—but just as she
was about to give up—
That was when she found that boy.
The glimmer of his soul was incredibly small. It paled in comparison to the brilliance of her followers. But it was clear. Entirely see-through. A color Freya had never before seen.
White? A snow white. No, it's translucent.
She had never seen a soul like that before in Orario. White hair like driven snow and rabbitlike rubellite red eyes. A human. Freya spent a lot of time observing the children of the city, but it was her first time seeing him. A new arrival to the city? A new adventurer starting out on his journey? No, none of that mattered—
—I want him.
That was what she thought the moment she saw him. It was a feeling she had not had for a while. Not since she had left Ali. A chill as her body trembled, a twinge in the pit of her stomach, an ecstatic sigh crossing her lips. The unseemly, childish desire to make him her own reared its head.
It was a purely divine sort of desire. Faced with the unknown, deities would never lose interest.
But on the other hand, another wish took root, like a pure bunch of flowers beginning to blossom.
What sort of color will it become? Perhaps it'll stay translucent and clear? And most importantly, can he fulfill my true wish?
Her lips spread into a smile that no one could see. She had only just seen the boy for the first time.
First I need to find out his name. And what familia he's in. If he's another god's follower, I'll probably steal him away someday. I should find out his relationship with his patron god.
She had messed up a bit with Ali. She had been in too much of a rush and ended up inspiring too much reverence in the girl. What she sought in her Odr was not a one-sided sort of a respect.
It was true that she had wanted Ali to shine all the brighter, to shine bright enough to make even a goddess like Freya long for her. But this time she would rein in that divine imperiousness a little. She decided to watch his
development for a while first.
I probably won't be able to resist flirting a little bit, though. But getting to know him slowly, ever so slowly, will be fine. Just gradually shrink the distance.
All the effort that deities might consider unnecessary would absolutely be required in order to fulfill her true desire.
She smiled in her heart, where no one else could see. There was just a single thought in her mind that no one else could know.