Episode 26: “The Battle’s End”
(It’s over…!!)
The moment relief washed over her, all the strength drained from her body at once. Yuria caught her in a hurry just as she started to collapse.
“You okay, Fiine?”
Held in Yuria’s arms, she felt herself relax. As if seeing straight through what Fiine was feeling, Yuria offered her a small, gentle smile in return.
“…Yeah, somehow.”
Fighting through a magic doll had been far harder than she’d imagined.
And this time, on top of that, there’d been the added element of “fighting flashily” — something she’d never normally even consider.
The battle itself was over, but operating the magic doll still wasn’t. Fighting off a faint wave of nausea, Fiine let herself go entirely limp in Yuria’s arms.
“Hey, Yuria.”
“What? Want some water?”
“Could you bring me the cockatrice’s head?”
Slowly, she raised a hand and pointed toward where the cockatrice’s severed head had fallen.
“If we mount that at the village entrance, it should keep working for a while.”
Even low-intelligence monsters, surely, would recognize the danger of this village if the cockatrice’s corpse were displayed there.
That was why she’d used barrier magic specifically to keep the corpse itself from decaying.
“Got it.”
Setting Fiine down gently on the ground, Yuria went off to retrieve the cockatrice’s head.
Making her carry something so heavy felt like an imposition, but Fiine no longer had the strength left to go collect it herself.
Managing, somehow, to stand on her own, she saw Bianca approaching.
She must have been exhausted too, from burning through such a huge amount of magic power. Sweat had plastered her bangs flat against her forehead.
“I’ll go call the villagers over. A hero’s achievements deserve to be celebrated by everyone, don’t they?”
“…Yeah. Please.”
Thanks to Bianca’s barrier, the fields had come through entirely unscathed. The villagers, too, had never fallen into panic.
Fiine could only imagine, with dread, how much worse things would have gone if she’d had to maintain that barrier herself on top of everything else.
“Hey, Bianca.”
“What?”
“If everyone could cooperate properly, the way the people of this village do… would things have turned out differently, back then?”
“…Who knows.”
Bianca murmured it in a voice tinged with both anger and resignation, then walked off to gather everyone together.