“What’s happening…?!”
RIIIP!
Was it too late to unfold the sacred barrier? Or did they think it would be pierced if they tried?
Imelia, her complexion drastically changed, hurriedly rolled away, creating distance.
WHOOOSH!
Just as she dodged, a massive sword whizzed past, smashing into the ground and sending up a fountain of dirt.
The destructive power shattered the ground like a snack. It looked like a bomb had fallen.
“An intruder…!”
“What the heck is that thing!?”
Even for them, the power seemed abnormal, as Imelia and Irina quickly assumed a combat stance, glaring in the direction the sword had come from.
I turned to look in the same direction as them.
“…Friede?”
I couldn’t possibly not recognize that voice. Just a few hours ago, we had been laughing and chatting together.
But I never imagined we would be reunited like this.
“Hilde!”
A girl with black hair dashed towards me, her face etched with an urgency I couldn’t even describe.
Her cloak billowed like a bird’s wings as she leapt from tree to tree, her movements so fast it was like I blinked, and she was already right in front of me.
THUD!
Friede landed in front of me, tracing a parabola as she soared through the air.
“Hilde! Are you okay!?”
Immediately, she turned her head to look at me, urgently asking about my wellbeing.
“You’re okay, right!?”
Her eyes were filled with concern.
Her pale face was drenched in cold sweat.
…What should I say in response?
Does this look okay to you?
Should I be thankful that I almost got hit and she saved me?
Neither was the right answer. The former was an unbelievably inconsiderate statement, and the latter couldn’t possibly be true.
“Why did you come…! You silly… didn’t you read my letter…?”
So instead, I just blurted out a sincere question that surged from within me, asking if she knew where she had followed me.
Had she not even seen my letter?
CRUNCH…!
Quickly scanning my disheveled appearance, Friede clenched her teeth and furrowed her brow.
“…I came because I saw it! What the hell is going on!?”
She raised her head, taking a deep breath, and shouted in anger.
It wasn’t that she hadn’t read the letter; she had read it and urgently chased after me.
“Leaving just one letter and running off on your own—what kind of mess is this!?”
“I’m sorry….”
Yeah. What a mess this is.
To think I was attempting to escape everything but ended up trapped, about to be sacrificed to Gunther.
Even I found this situation pitiful and ridiculously embarrassing.
“We’ll talk about the details later.”
Grinding her teeth again, Friede reached toward the massive sword stuck in the ground. Her golden eyes sparkled with fierce rage.
“First, I’ll kill those who made you… made you like this!”
…I guess I can deal with the explanations later. For now, I need to get myself out of this mess.
Being rescued by her should warrant my thanks, yet… sadly, I couldn’t do that.
“No… just back off. You don’t want to fight them, no….”
I pleaded with Friede, my voice trembling and weary.
Sure, a regular bandit might be manageable, but these two were Imelia and Irina, who were much stronger than before.
How could Friede possibly stand up to two people I couldn’t even defeat?
I appreciated her intent to save me, but it merely doubled the tribute going to Gunther.
I didn’t want to see that ending.
That’s why I gave her this advice.
Although I really… really didn’t want to end up like this, dragging Friede into this situation was out of the question.
That was a line I absolutely couldn’t cross.
“…That’s not for you to decide, Hilde.”
However, instead of taking my advice, Friede rejected it with a tone I had never heard from her, standing her ground.
…Well, I mean, I said to back off but even I knew deep down that it wouldn’t work. I had a feeling like my words wouldn’t get through to Friede at all.
She wasn’t the kind of person who could abandon a party member in danger and run away alone.
Especially since that party member wasn’t just any ordinary one, but someone she had feelings for.
With her beloved about to be assaulted, she wouldn’t calmly back off; if she was going to lose it, it’d make sense.
It was never going to be advice that would resonate with her.
“How foolish… it started with a lie, you know? If you read the letter, you’d know. I—I’m….”
That was why, as a last resort, I pulled out my confession that the name you know, the adventurer Hilde, was a falsehood from the beginning.
I revealed that I was actually Brunhilde, a fugitive who had disguised herself as an adventurer all along, deceiving everyone—
“What do you mean by that? I’ve known about Hilde’s identity for a long time!”
“…You knew?”
My strength left me in an instant at her shocking retort.
‘You knew? That I’m Brunhilde? Since when…?’
The thought that she knew I was Brunhilde left me stunned, it was that shocking even in this situation.
“Not just me; everyone knew. Amy and I pretended not to know for your sake, and Kikel just didn’t care.”
“……”
Oh my. All this time I thought I’d been deceiving them, but it was all just my delusion.
I finally realized.
I wasn’t a master of acting and rhetoric, deceiving my party members; I was merely the protagonist of a Truman Show—no, a Tru-woman Show.
‘So… everything I said to cover up my identity never actually worked…?’
Everyone knew it was a lie, but they happily let it slide, thinking I was sincerely trying.
Memories of everything I had said to conceal my identity flooded my mind like a movie reel.
“…….”
If there were a blanket, I would’ve kicked it all the way to outer space.
The tremendous embarrassment was leagues beyond just being exposed. My whole face turned crimson from shame.
I felt like my face was going to catch fire from the heat.
“So….”
Friede, wishing to say something more upon seeing me like this, suddenly narrowed her eyes and swung her massive sword.
CLANG-CRACK!
The sound of metal grinding as deep scratches etched into the blade of the massive sword that struck.
Friede’s great sword was thicker and sturdier than my armor, so it wasn’t pierced or broken with a single hit, but…
‘No way. It can’t hold out.’
If she took a few more hits like that, it would shatter soon enough.
Once she lost her weapon, Friede would be in the same situation as I was, rolling on the ground and wallowing in defeat.
“Just… run away… Friede…!”
Friede did not respond.
“Scatter shot…?”
She only turned her body to the direction of an arrow that flew by, startled.
“No, it can’t be….”
Turning her back on me, Friede finally faced the enemies she had to confront.
The faces she didn’t get the chance to see when rushing in.
Well, even if she saw their faces, would she immediately recognize them?
“Oh no, Imelia and Irina? Not the pursuers from the Kingdom of Rhine…?”
…So she figured it out.
That was quite surprising. I didn’t think she’d recognize them at a glance. Were they faces she already knew?
“Damn it, of all people…!”
Friede, gripping her sword at an angle, scowled. Her voice was noticeably panicked.
“What are you? Who’s this little brat acting like she knows us?”
Irina clicked her tongue, sounding displeased, nocking another arrow to her bow.
Perhaps it was unpleasant for being recognized right off the bat, or maybe it was annoying to have her name called out so suddenly. It might even be both.
“I don’t know who you are, but if you know us, step aside. This is an issue between former party members. It’s no place for an unrelated third party.”
Imelia, in a relatively calm tone, urged Friede to retreat.
This was a matter between the former hero party… in other words, an internal dispute among the trio of traitors from the kingdom.
She spoke in a manner that seemed courteous and composed, but essentially it was a polite way of telling her not to be a nuisance and just get lost.
“……Ugh.”
Hesitating, Friede bit her lip softly, a moment of doubt flickering in her.
I understood. She couldn’t help but hesitate.
Recognizing that Imelia and Irina were from the hero party indicated she realized she was up against those who were foes of the heroes.
If they were just regular pursuers, it wouldn’t matter, but given the situation with the hero party as enemies, even Friede would instinctively retreat, sensing the danger of defeat.
That was why she hesitated to dash in swinging her blade.
“…Run, Friede. You know now, don’t you? That you can’t win.”
Thus I tried once more to convince her, even though I had failed repeatedly.
Now that she knew who they were, I asked her to reconsider and run away.
Actually, I’d love to ask her to send me off painlessly while she was at it, but that thought didn’t dare cross my lips.
“I wouldn’t blame you if you ran away….”
“…That’s not it.”
Friede, gritting her teeth, reluctantly replied with a lower tone, as if suppressing her emotions.
“Ugh… this is the worst. There’s a limit to misfortune.”
Taking a deep breath, she buried her sword in the ground.
“At this rate, there’s no other option… but… sigh….”
She mumbled, seemingly in deep internal conflict.
What was she hesitating about if it wasn’t whether to run away? I couldn’t comprehend her response.
“Ah… seriously, not like this… I didn’t want it to come out this way….”
Covering her face with her left hand, sighing heavily once again, Friede turned to look at me, her lips curling into a pained smile.
“Hilde, you said you’d grant me one wish, right?”
Then she asked me.
“Uh… yeah, I did.”
“I’m going to use it now.”
With a forced smile, Friede reached out her right hand, holding the hilt of her sword up towards the air.
An incomprehensible question. An incomprehensible action.
“What on earth are you trying to wish for in this situation…?”
That’s why I asked back, with a tone suggesting it was absurd to be talking about wishes at a time like this.
“…Forgive me.”
Friede replied.
Still, it was an utterly confusing answer.
“Forgive what…? What do you mean?”
Grasping at the empty air, she smiled bitterly, her face showing weariness.
“This.”
Suddenly—
SHATTER!
With a noise like a frozen river cracking, the empty space before her shattered like a glass window struck by the wind.
“…Huh?”
An utterly surreal sight. I stared wide-eyed at the broken and fragmented air before me.
…No, to be precise, at the radiant crimson light bursting forth from it.
WHAM!
The surroundings were illuminated by an intense flash.
From the gaping hole in the air, something gold with a hint of red gradually began to emerge.
Like the sun rising over the horizon, scorching through the darkness of night.
“Wait, that’s…!”
“Th-this can’t be…?!”
Both Irina and Imelia were wide-eyed in shock, about to attack Friede. Honestly, I shared a similar sentiment.
All three of us were far too aware of what that phenomenon meant.
They had witnessed it firsthand, and I had learned about it through descriptions in books and illustrations.
Amber Steel. A rare metal more expensive than gold by weight, glowing crimson.
A self-luminous crimson blade was slowly being drawn from the void like a massive sword, like a scabbard.
No, it was Friede who was drawing it out. With a firm grip on the hilt that had formed beside her.
A long hilt. A gorgeous golden crossguard adorned with intricate designs. The blade itself was far more splendid, shining crimson.
Everyone here recognized that sword. We all knew it. Myself included.
“Nibelung…?”
I muttered the name of the sword in a dazed tone. The sword that Friede had drawn—the sword that was never meant to be here.
Nibelung.
The holy sword of the Kingdom of Rhine shone with crimson radiance.
According to the original story, it should’ve been wielded by Kim Seung-woo, who must be gaining strength by now, but instead it was in the hands of the little girl standing before me.
“Oh no, this is nonsensical. Nibelung, how did it…?”
It was unbelievable. Why was that sword here? Why was it in Friede’s hands?
The knowledge I held—my understanding of the original story was shaken to its roots.
“Friede, you… what on earth…?”
I looked back and forth between Friede and Nibelung, my mouth agape, my trembling eyes wide.
“…I’m sorry for deceiving you. Hilde, no… Brunhilde.”
Friede turned to me and apologized, then pointed the glowing crimson blade of Nibelung at Imelia and Irina.
“You told me to step aside, Imelia. I’ll return those words to you.”
Then she declared.
“Go back. Tell Gunther that if he comes again, I will definitely kill him. Both you traitors and Gunther, who instigated the betrayal. I will definitely, definitely kill you.”
She revealed her true identity that she had concealed until now.
“In the name of Nibelung, and the hero of the Rhine, Friet.”
The names from their past that they recognized.
“And, in the name of the hero Siegfriede, which they cannot possibly know.”
Silence fell.
A silence so profound it seemed to blanket the entire forest, a deathly stillness.
The three girls, stunned in disbelief, gazed vacantly at the girl gripping the radiant crimson sword.
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