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It was fair to say I was fortunate that it had not landed a direct hit.

However, the blow that could have decided the fight left a wound on my right arm that was not shallow.

“Guh…!”

The voice that leaked out was from pain.

The strike had cut through flesh and reached the bone, which was precisely why I had managed to interrupt it in time.

I kicked Kavasa away, but because he gave up on pursuing, he managed to defend in time, and the result was only that I sent him flying backward. Still, since he did not immediately close the distance again, it seemed he had taken some damage.

Meanwhile, Rachel was trying to pull the spirit sword out of my left arm, so I could not let my guard down either.

Humans were fragile.

Because I understood that all too painfully well, I was being forced to make a decision.

Continuing to fight in this state could end up killing her.

Therefore, in order to avoid only the worst possible outcome, should I destroy her hand or not? If I could just seize the spirit sword, the option of escape would open up.

Then, to keep her alive, I resolved myself—but even that was blown away by Rachel’s voice.

“Yunos. Why did you choose that path?”

The arm I had been about to extend stopped.

Why?

That was obvious.

Because I had wanted to protect my family.

Even if it was not something I could be proud of, I had become a soldier because I did not want to show a shameful side of myself as an older brother.

Training had been harsh, and I did not know how many times I had thought, “I want to go home.”

(It’s true that I used it as an escape. Even so, wanting to protect them was the choice I made that day.)

But those thoughts would not become words.

Her voice overlapped no matter what, and I found myself reaching out toward a place that had become a memory from the distant past.

“…Why did you think that?”

What meaning was there in asking why she had concluded I was Yunos now?

In a situation where I had to break through as soon as possible, terribly leisurely words slipped out of my mouth.

“There is a photograph at my family home. An old photograph, carefully preserved. It showed one family.”

Even as she spoke, I could not stop her from trying to pull the sword out of my arm, and I did not take my eyes off Kavasa in front of me, who had been handed what appeared to be a healing potion by a soldier.

“Three women and one man. Their names were Leeciel, the mother. The eldest daughter, Mireina. The second daughter, Serine. And the eldest son, Yunos. I heard it was taken before the Empire collapsed.”

“How does that connect to me?”

“The surviving Type Goliath candidates can be narrowed down to four. Of those, one was a woman. That leaves three, and one of them was not a soldier. That narrowed it down to one of two, but… if you were carrying a photograph like that, there was no need to think about which one you were. You are Yunos, not Clausen.”

So she really had seen the bromide.

Even though I should have been in a life-or-death situation, I felt a little embarrassed.

“She was a famous model. I was a fan.”

“Then why don’t you kill me? You’ve had plenty of chances. Even now. Saying I merely resemble someone else is too weak as a reason. The moment you cannot bring yourself to strike me down, you are confessing who you are.”

She really watched closely, just like my sister.

However, if I allowed that to become certain, the situation would become the worst possible one.

Then what I had to do was “struggle.”

“…Do you know? Only eight signed bromides of Mireina ever existed in this world.”

“Huh?”

“She appeared in twenty-three magazines in total. Seven photo books. To obtain a signed bromide, you needed all of them, and after that, there was a lottery…”

After saying that much, I closed my mouth once and steeled myself.

For what?

That was obvious—the resolve to throw away my dignity.

“I wanted it! I went around to so many used bookstores! Collected the magazines! Threw countless magazines with only the entry tickets cut out into the trash! Even so, I gathered them all and applied, but I lost the lottery! Do you understand!? Do you understand how I felt back then!? I wanted it! So when I found it, of course I clapped my hands and rejoiced! That’s the kind of bromide it was, so I carried it around carefully! Got a problem with that!?”

My shout made the surroundings fall silent.

Kavasa’s arm, which had been drinking the potion, remained frozen too.

At this shout, which had thrown away all sorts of things, Rachel also briefly showed an uneasy expression that seemed to say, “Huh? Could I actually be wrong?”

Incidentally, the contents themselves were something a school friend had suddenly come before me and shouted, then tearfully begged me to “do something about it.”

Since he was someone I only knew by name, I had naturally refused, but now that everyone had frozen at the unexpected shout, I felt like I would not mind putting in a word for him.

Could this work?

Just as I thought that, a voice rose from among the soldiers.

“That means, either way, you can’t kill the Major, doesn’t it?”

When I looked that way, I could confirm Little Boobs Lady raising her small hand.

Yeah, that was exactly right.

The people who had been overwhelmed by my intensity also rebooted.

As expected, this was about the limit of my brain.

However, throwing away my dignity had been effective.

Seeing this instant as an opportunity, I pressed Rachel against my left arm as if pinning her there, wrapped my right hand around her, turned my back to the base, and started running.

Kavasa came back to his senses and hurriedly drank down the potion, but I had the advantage in speed—in other words, the moment I outmaneuvered him, it was my victory.

(Wait, looking closely, isn’t that one of the potions I had!?)

I nearly cursed, but right now, taking Rachel and escaping was the top priority.

Kavasa started running, but there was no longer anyone who could stop me.

No, there was one thing.

“Don’t hit the Major!”

“No, shoot with the intention of hitting me!”

Kavasa said not to hit her, while Rachel said to aim.

“What the hell is she saying!?” I glanced for an instant at Rachel in my hand, but she was convinced that I would protect her, and she was beautifully correct.

In fact, the instant I sensed through the mana reaction that the magic gun would be fired from directly beside me, I offered up my own body to shield her.

“As I thought, you are…!”

Before Rachel could finish, I started running.

The vibration made the arm pierced by the spirit sword hurt.

The arm that had been cut hurt too, and so did the shoulder where the bullet had lodged.

I leapt over the soldiers who had shifted to surrounding me and continued running toward the forest.

I was being shot from behind, but ordinary guns could not pierce the outer skin on my back—just as I thought that, one hit the back of my knee.

My leg nearly tangled a little, but even at full speed on two legs for the first time in a while, I somehow managed.

Immediately after I almost let out a breath of relief, pressure closed in from behind.

“You think I’ll let you escape!?”

I could tell his position from the presence of the spirit sword without looking behind me.

That was exactly why I understood.

(The distance is shrinking!? You’re kidding!)

No, seriously, what was with this guy?

I did not think I had underestimated him, but Kavasa kept exceeding every one of my expectations.

It seemed I needed to revise my understanding of the spirit sword itself, but right now, I had to deal with Kavasa.

I could not stop.

In that case, the time had come to try the idea I had thought of when I learned what monster Type Goliath had been based on.

Although I was in the position of the pursued, because I could grasp my opponent’s location, my tail—something no human possessed, capable of counterattacking while I ran at full speed without turning around—wreaked havoc.

I strengthened only the part that entered his range with Assault Mode and swung my extended tail at the approaching Kavasa.

I heard a click of his tongue, and my tail was knocked back.

His speed fell, but as expected, this much was not enough.

The result was as expected, but the next one would not be the same.

I focused my mind on the tip of my tail as it was swung again and aimed for Kavasa’s head.

However, my aim was not damage. The instant I confirmed the movement of his sword through its presence, I released mana.

It was a flash—a blinding attack performed by shortening a lighting spell to its limit and releasing a strong light for only an instant.

With my mana and skill level, it would only be effective for a brief moment, but right now, that was enough.

My tail was knocked away by the spirit sword and wounded, but I still swung it and succeeded in landing a hit.

However, the price of forcing that blow into Kavasa was paid in the form of my tail being severed.

My tail, brilliantly cut off by a counterattack, danced through the air, and without confirming it, I clenched my teeth and continued running.

(Now this is exactly what they call cutting off a lizard’s tail!)

The Goliath Lizard was a lizard, after all, so of course I would think of a tactic like this.

The flash had almost been done without practice, but more than anything, I was glad it worked.

The distance from Kavasa opened up, and I escaped from the guns’ range as well.

Just when I thought I had won for real this time, the presence of the spirit sword swelled so much that I reflexively turned around.

“I told you I wouldn’t let you escape, didn’t I?”

I heard that voice clearly, and a chill ran down my spine.

“Ah, this is bad,” I thought, and just as I turned my body around to intercept him, Rachel, peeking out from between my fingers, shouted.

“Lieutenant Colonel! You do not have parliamentary approval!”

At those words, the swelling presence stopped for an instant, but as the pressure intensified again, I nearly gave up on fleeing. However, her next words made me keep running.

“He cannot kill me! I will definitely return! Send someone to retrieve me!”

I continued fleeing north.

As long as the blood I had spilled continued, they would be able to track me.

That was why I kept running.

Thanks to my high healing ability, the bleeding stopped quickly.

There was probably still some distance before I could see the forest, but if I had come this far, there should be some leeway.

Judging that, I lowered Rachel to the ground, but her hand was still gripping the spirit sword embedded in my arm.

“Hand over the sword.”

“I refuse.”

Well, that was the answer I had expected.

“Then I will crush that hand and take it.”

Rachel silently sent me a challenging gaze, as if to say, “Try it,” so I gripped the sword and seized her hand.

Then I pulled the spirit sword out of my arm, wrapped both my hands around hers, and carefully peeled her fingers away one by one.

“So you cannot even hurt me after all. And you still call yourself an Imperial soldier?”

“I was a trainee. Not a regular soldier.”

After I peeled away all her fingers, the spirit sword fell to the ground.

The moment it left Rachel’s hand, I could feel the presence of the spirit sword.

Apparently, its presence disappeared when she held it… but at the very least, I did not remember it having such a property.

Had Alberto simply failed to notice this ability?

After that, the question was how to carry it.

For the time being, I kicked the spirit sword far away so it could not be taken back.

I could not hold it, so there was no helping it.

If I made it to the forest, I could manage somehow, so while it was not the best choice, it was not a bad one.

With this, my objective was achieved.

When I checked my own condition, I seemed to be one step short of being completely covered in wounds.

“You can follow the blood and return. Go already.”

“Are you telling an unarmed, fragile woman to return alone? What a cold-hearted blood relative you are.”

“You have a gun, don’t you?”

The moment I said that, Rachel drew her gun and pointed it at me.

“Pointless. You should know something like that won’t work on me.”

No sooner had I said that than she silently pulled the trigger.

“Stop. Don’t waste bullets.”

A standard-issue handgun could not wound me even at this close range.

After confirming that, Rachel let out a deep sigh.

“Why did you stop Kavasa?”

“I told you, didn’t I? Without parliamentary approval, the Lieutenant Colonel cannot use his trump card. I should have gotten it in advance. I misjudged.”

It seemed Kavasa had a trump card that probably involved heavy backlash or some kind of price.

(The performance seems to change when the wielder changes, and I really don’t understand spirit swords. I should ask one of the elves sometime… No, there’s no need for that anymore.)

Before I knew it, I was trying to live again.

I shook my head and checked my arm, which had stopped bleeding.

“Go. Buying time is pointless.”

I made my arm, which could move without issue, and my hand, which could not clench tightly, look unharmed as I told her to leave.

However, Rachel did not move.

“Why did you answer the draft? If you lived in the Imperial Capital, you should have been able to refuse.”

There was no need to reveal what was in my heart.

I thought I would ignore her, but my mouth moved on its own.

“I wanted to protect my family.”

Once my mouth opened, I could not close it, and words began spilling out one after another.

“I was called a useless son. A troublesome younger brother, and a bad older brother. Even so, I became a soldier because I thought there was something I could do, and I believed I could become a force that would protect them. Then I learned that was a mistake, understood that I was a tiny, insignificant existence, and reached for power that could be obtained easily. The result… is this.”

Before I realized it, I had sat down on the spot and poured it all out.

The feeling that I had wanted someone to hear it had certainly existed.

Even so, I swallowed the words that had almost come out, determined not to speak only weakness.

Rachel stood in front of me without saying anything.

“Go already.”

At my words, she finally moved.

She passed beside me as I remained seated and walked south, where her comrades were waiting.

“Ah, that’s right.”

Just as I was about to stand up and start walking too, Rachel opened her mouth as if she had remembered something.

“My ancestor, who lived in the Imperial Capital, was apparently in the south just before the Empire collapsed. It seems contact had been lost with a family member who was supposed to have become a soldier, and when they investigated, they learned he had been assigned to the south. So, the whole family went south to see him, and right after they arrived in a southern town, they heard there had been a great explosion in the Imperial Capital.”

After saying only that, Rachel began walking again.

Without turning toward her back, I answered only, “I see.”

I did not know whether what she had just said was true.

However, if my sister’s descendant was alive like this, perhaps I could believe it.

I knew it was a convenient story.

(But it had meaning.)

If the choice I made that day had led to saving my family, then nothing could make me happier.

Our paths would never cross again.

There would be no meeting, no seeing her, and no day when I would hear her voice again.

That was fine.

It had meaning—just knowing that was enough.

The sky I looked up at was clearly visible.

No tears flowed.

Even so, surely, I was crying.