13

“Agreement was obtained. In that case, those furnishings—their value is already mine…”

Without caring in the slightest about Rubelmel raising her voice, Darius merely pointed his right arm at the knights.

If this had been the Darius from before, he would have been cowed by Rubelmel’s overbearing tone and reacted like a petty man, shrinking back while putting up the blustering threat of a small dog.

But Darius now seemed as though he had shed a layer of skin.

“…If it is everyone here, then the value is a little insufficient. But if it is only these knights, then it is enough.”

Panicking at the conclusion she had drawn from Ains’s deployed right arm, Lizelotte issued orders to the knights.

“You lot! Get away from there at once! He is already no longer the Darius Sobi we knew!”

He was supposed to have become a sorcerer through the “dialogue” with Ains.

If so, then what he was aiming at the knights with was the sorcery Darius had awakened to.

Even for the Eternal Witch, Darius’s unseen sorcery was nothing but a threat. For knights unfamiliar with sorcery, they were candles in the wind.

However, it was too late.

“Show me, Darius. Your desire, your arrogance, the moment that justice takes form and distorts reason.”

Ains looked at Darius with clear delight.

Darius spoke.

“—Restriction Lifted: ‘Golden Word (Noble Order)’”

Not as Darius Sobi, eldest son of the Sobi House, but so that others would see him as simply Darius, listen to his words as simply Darius, and know his worth as simply Darius—that was the sorcery for that purpose.

At Darius’s words, thin threads descended from the air. They were so fine they were nearly transparent, like spider silk.

Those threads wrapped around the knights’ four limbs and fixed them in place.

Startled by the threads suddenly winding around their bodies, the knights shook themselves, trying to throw them off, but the threads, though thin, showed no sign at all of breaking.

They drew their swords and slashed at the threads hanging in the air, but their blades passed through them. They could not interfere with them.

Darius spoke to the bewildered knights.

“Cut down the enemy before you.”

The threads hanging in the air snapped taut.

“W-what is this!?”

The threads wrapped around their limbs forcibly controlled the knights’ movements.

Those holding swords raised them high, while those who still had theirs sheathed drew them and raised them.

And standing at the end of that raised swing were fellow knights.

And knights who were enemies to Darius and Rubelmel.

“N-no way! Stoppp!”

It was a scream.

Though their bodies would not move as they wished and no longer obeyed them, their minds alone remained sharp.

And so they could imagine it, the tragedy that would come next.

“Kirishiya-sama, you must not!”

Seidel immediately covered Kirishiya’s field of vision with his hand as she stared blankly at the scene.

“…Do it.”

At Darius’s murmur, the threads moved.

Each of the knights slashed at the comrade facing him.

One cut across a neck from the side, another, already cut and dying, had his movements forced and drove his blade through a comrade’s torso.

One was cut to pieces while screaming a death cry, and at the same time cut his comrades to pieces himself.

Immediately after came the stench of death spreading through the room.

Then the light sound of armored knights collapsing.

“With this, half has already been spent.”

Before the spreading pool of blood, Darius muttered as though calculating something.

“…Lord Darius, what in the world is this?”

Even though she had talked big, Rubelmel was astonished by the utterly unexpected result.

“Rubelmel, this is no time to be surprised. We have to get out of here.”

The next four people Darius targeted were Lizelotte, Kirishiya, Seidel, and Ains.

“Restriction Lifted: ‘Golden Word (Noble Order)’”

Threads descended toward the four of their bodies.

Ains watched the scene with an easygoing smile on his face.

Lizelotte too immediately thought to counter it, but with Ains standing before her, she did not wish to reveal too much of her own sorcery.

“(Before that first sorcery of his, the Clockwork Demon Eye, I do not want to show him my sorcery. It is still too soon to let him peer into my abyss…)”

In addition, Lizelotte had a premonition at the same time.

If he intended to kill the four of them, then he should have finished it at the same time as the knights. But the fact that he was separating them like this meant there was some reason he could not do that. Most likely, they were not in mortal danger.

Even Ains, whom she watched from the corner of her eye, showed no sign of taking any action.

…A Restriction, then.

“I do not know whether people like these have that much value, but take the remaining half. …You lot, do not move from here until we have escaped.”

At Darius’s words, the threads wrapped tightly around the four of their bodies.

Even Lizelotte was in a state where she could not move a single finger.

“…To think it could go this far.”

Lizelotte resentfully thought of what kind of knowledge Ains had bestowed upon Darius.

“Rubelmel, let us go. There is no need to rush, we can walk out of here.”

Darius began walking slowly.

“T-this is…. Amazing…”

Rubelmel was so confused that she wondered whether the scene before her was a dream.

After all, right before her eyes, the Eternal Witch was frozen in place, unable to move in the slightest. And the one who had made that happen was Darius, standing beside her.

Just before this, Darius had undergone something at Ains’s hands. Though it had only been for the briefest instant, that had triggered his blooming.

And the result had produced achievements on this scale.

“All that remains is for you to keep your promise. Lead me there.”

From near the exit, Darius turned back and beckoned for her to hurry.

Rubelmel still did not fully understand everything, but whatever the case, they had escaped their life-threatening situation.

In that case—

“…It might not be a bad idea to deal with the witch here.”

A defenseless Eternal Witch right before her eyes—this would probably be the first and last chance for such a thing. If she let it slip by, there might never be another chance. Rubelmel’s heartbeat quickened at this once-in-a-thousand opportunity.

She started walking as though heading toward Lizelotte.

However, Darius’s voice stopped her.

“Stop, Rubelmel. If you do that, my sorcery will be released. That was not part of the order.”

If Rubelmel took action, then the threads Darius had wrapped around them would be severed, and the four would regain their freedom.

“…If that is what you say, then I suppose it is so, though I do not understand it myself. A feast set before one should not be left uneaten, as the saying goes. It is regrettable to waste such a chance.”

Rubelmel let out a breath and relaxed her shoulders as she passed by the four.

Then she began walking ahead of Darius.

“Lord Darius’s new power. It truly is wonderful—I would very much like you to become one of our comrades.”

“My aspirations are not the same as yours. But my worth is more like myself at your side than it is here.”

The eyes Darius had now were no longer those of the spoiled young master Rubelmel had known.

“My apologies, Lord Darius. Earlier, I called you a brat…”

“It is fine, Rubelmel. I really was just a brat. I probably still am now, but even so, I want to live on as myself. I do not know your ideology or your ideals. So long as you people see me as myself, that is enough for me.”

Looking at Darius’s back, stretching straight ahead, Rubelmel smiled.

It was a back that seemed to have grown a size larger.

“Ufufu. Then let us go, Darius. We of the Next-Era Luminaries welcome you.”

The threads wrapped around the four were not released until Darius and Rubelmel had crossed the academy grounds and vanished from sight.