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Only fifteen people remained in Gaifa Archipelago when the main unit of the Zipfel Magic Tower and the reinforcements from the main house arrived.
Five people of Zipfel, five members of the Vermont Imperial family, and five beastmen of Kinzelo.
The rest were killed by Proch siblings, Vigo and his knights.
Members of the three factions had already lost both their strength and fighting spirit, so they couldn't stand against Runcandels and the Proch siblings.
Vigo had considered capturing Sandra Zipfel in the process.
But "Murakan and Jin just went back," he made a very wise judgment and decided that he should not capture her.
He remembered the fact that this was a situation where he had to respect the position of a flagbearer who, although lower in external hierarchy, had a much higher practical ranking.
He thought that he should not ignore the decision of the guardian deity of the clan and a flagbearer whose actual rank was much higher than his, although lower in external hierarchy.
"Vigo Runcandel, right? Hahaha, he must have wanted to capture me, but he made a pretty smart decision."
Sandra chuckled as she sipped the fruit juice in front of her.
She was in the commander's room of the battleship Kozec. The other pureblood Zipfel members who had been organized as a rescue support team had naturally moved to other places when she took over the commander's cabin.
"Vigo would have died today if he hadn't given up on capturing me. Hmmm, if it had turned out that way, I wonder if my Jin would have been sad? Jin didn't seem particularly close to him."
"Hoo."
The old man sitting across from Sandra let out a frustrated sigh. He was the second-class butler of Zipfel, named 'Hedo.'
Hedo was also a muscular man who did not fit the image of the world's most famous magic clan's butler. His bulging muscles seemed to express his very disgruntled mood.
"Young lady, you should have fought back properly even after Jin Runcandel left."
"Is that so?"
Sandra's completely carefree attitude, seemed to be turning Hedo's insides upside down.
"I don't know about Vigo doesn't know, but if the Proch siblings had died, my Jin would have definitely been sad, Hedo. You should think about that much. Jin and I are in love, you know."
Hedo shook his head.
The fact that Sandra was a very eccentric young lady had been known to him better than anyone else for a long time.
But suddenly, love? Romance?
'Moreover, she fell for Jin, of all people, the 12th flagbearer of Runcandel. What kind of joke is this from the heavens?'
There had never been such a situation before.
However, one thing he was sure of was that, no matter what the reason for suddenly falling in love with Jin, Sandra would never let go of her feelings in the future.
Hedo had seen Sandra Zipfel for a long time, and she was that kind of person. A completely spoiled brat, an incredibly uncompromising human!
It wasn't a matter that would end as a simple love affair or fleeting romantic emotions. It was difficult for Hedo to suppress the tumultuous feelings.
"...And, young lady, that arm. Are you really going to leave it as it is?"
"Yes."
"You can heal it, right? Why on earth would you leave it as it is?"
"I can commemorate my meeting with Jin every time I see my severed right arm."
"Young lady, you're right-handed. You've done everything with your right hand all your life..."
"I can eat with my left hand from now on."
"It will definitely be inconvenient, very inconvenient."
He was at a loss for words as he tried to control his anger.
"Heheh, it's okay. It's all for love!"
Chiiik!
Hedo took a cigarette from his pocket and lit it. One cigarette was burned down like a fuse as he took a deep puff, and a cloud of smoke escaped outside the commander's room when he exhaled.
Hedo felt a bit more at ease after smoking five cigarettes in an instant, and soothed his urge to shout and curse.
Hedo combed his hair back and met eyes with Sandra.
"...Alright, I understand. But what about the technology leak? It's quite likely that the right arm of the young lady, as well as the space-time device that Jin Runcandel took, will become a problem."
Dealing with the former issue was relatively simple. Sandra's sealed right arm would have come back if she tried high-speed regeneration using the authority of time instead of normal healing.
'But the young lady won't heal her arm until the recoverable time has passed.'
Although the latter is equipped with a safety device to prevent technology leak from the 'space-time device'.
Hedo was not inclined to trust such technology. He remembered the scholars and technicians who had been shouting that there was no way it could leak because they had prepared a surefire prevention measure. The thought made him feel incredulous.
"Yes, that's right. But Hedo..."
"Please, go on, young lady."
"I have to do that so that my lover competes with our clan, no. At least it becomes something like competition, no?"
Sandra said, smiling mischievously as she continued.
"There is literally a gap of egg and rock between my Jin and our clan. So I just thought giving him that chance wouldn't hurt."
"I see, there's a deeper meaning to it."
Hedo nodded as if giving up. Sandra found his reaction quite amusing and burst into laughter for a while.
"Hedo, you understand me, right?"
Soon, Sandra stopped laughing and looked at Hedo. After a brief pause, Hedo replied.
".... Yes, of course. I'll do my best to explain to the patriarch."
"As expected, there's no one like Hedo. Hehe."
***
The land of the beastmen, the headquarters of Kinzelo.
"Ahhhh! Ahhh! It's painful, too painful! I feel like I'm going insane! Aaaah!"
Bubare Gaston has been suffering for several days, complaining of his pain and crying out in bizarre agony. Whenever he contorted his body and let out a scream that sounded like a pig being slaughtered, his bobbed belly swollen grotesquely.
"Bring more painkillers, quickly!"
"Rather just kill me!"
The medical staff and beastmen who were barely holding on to Bubare were sweating.
Berakt, Margiella, and Cold Joe watched from a distance.
"Haah, I thought we were on the verge of achieving the great cause. How did things get this bad with so much bad news piling up...!"
Joe clicked his tongue and said.
"Shut up, Joe. As if I'm not frustrated enough, listening to your annoying voice makes me even more frustrated."
"I apologize, Sir Berakt."
"I told you to shut up. Don't say a word. If you don't want to be eaten alive."
Joe turned his head away with a mouthful of curses.
Bad news.
As Joe said, recently Kinzelo had been going through days filled with bad news.
The leader fell ill after using more power than expected during the time of the Sword Emperor Castle's terrorist attack. And as if that wasn't enough, Zephyrin went wild on her own, causing further strain on the leader's body.
And this time, it was Bubare's turn.
Although almost everyone in Kinzelo, excluding someone like Margiella, despised him, Bubare Gaston would play a crucial role in achieving the great cause.
The reason why Bubare was suffering so much was because of his 'fusion' with Amela.
The process of releasing the fusion was not smooth, causing damage to Bubare's soul and chaos.
If the leader was in perfect condition, he would have quickly sorted this out. But for now, Bubare was just relying on painkillers.
To persuade Amela, Kinzelo decided to highlight the fact that they had more information about "chaos" than any other faction.
As a result, Kinzelo's best warriors took some of Bubare's chaos when they went to Gaifa Archipelago, in the form of a sculpture.
The result was a great success.
Amela was extremely satisfied once she realized that chaos could merge, creating even more powerful abilities.
She felt as if she had obtained a clue about the chaos that she had been searching alone for a long time. From then on, Amela did not even negotiate with other forces at all. It was because someone had spoken to her through the chaos of Bubare.
"If you join me, I will tell you everything you want to know about chaos..." The voice was strangely trustworthy.
"The leader even sent a message to Amela with his exhausted body. She showed a stance that she would kill our warriors after the negotiation was over, saying that we still have to pay for bothering her, but I decided to endure that."
Crack, Berakt continued to grind his teeth as if he was going mad.
In the treatment room on the other side, five warriors of the White wolf tribe and the Red Tiger tribe who had returned from the Gaifa Archipelago, were receiving treatment.
"But now Amela is dead, our warriors are massacred, the survivors are completely insane, and Bubare is in that state! We didn't get anything and only suffered severe damage."
How should I accept the fact that the center of all these bad news is Jin Runcandel? Berakt couldn't fathom it.
Margiella, who was also listening to him, wore a rare dark expression.
"I'm sorry, mister Berakt. I honestly didn't expect Sir Jin to be so uncooperative."
"You don't have to apologize to me, Margiella! I said that because I am frustrated. The leader's condition is constantly at risk... so something needs to change, don't you think?"
Berakt shrugged his shoulders, pointing to a map on the table.
There were various marks on the map, representing Kinzelo, Runcandel, Zipfel, and Vermont, indicating strategic points for their operations.
Berakt spoken while pointing to a point on the map where many marks were gathered.
"What should we do if, by any chance, Jin Runcandel causes trouble here and starts meddling again!?"
It was the location where the 'thing greater than Amela' is at stake, as Jin expected in the Gaifa Archipelago.
"At that time..."
Margiella paused for a moment.
"At that time, I will seriously consider whether Sir Jin is the right person to be with us, mister Berakt."
"Yes, you need to consider it."
"I hope Sir Jin doesn't know what's happening here. If he continues to obstruct us, he might truly become our enemy."
"Hmm!"
He didn't expect Margiella to accept this calmly, so Berakt cleared his throat as if embarrassed.
In reality, Berakt had no other choice but to agree with Margiella, even if she insisted that she was always right and expressed her displeasure.
"Well, he probably doesn't know. If he did, he would have gone there first, not to Amela."
"That's true, mister Berakt."
"By the way, it's a shame that our vice-leader can't witness Bubare's condition. He would have been delighted to see Bubare suffering like this."
"Yes, he would have been very pleased. But mister Berakt, you know that mister Bubare is our friend, don't you?"
***
Meanwhile,
Runcandel's Black Knight, Dox McRolan, was infiltrating the southern region of Huphester, Rikalton, to carry out Jin's orders.
And while he was checking the basement of Rikalton Execution Ground, he noticed a strange and horrific phenomenon.
'What on earth... is this?'