“Damn it! Everyone, retreat!” the commander of the Praha Guard shouted, whirling to face his knights.

Killing the two Demonkin was supposed to have settled the matter, but the situation had clearly spiraled out of his control.

A desperate urge to flee clawed at my own throat. I could imagine his panic.

“We should get out of here too,” I said, turning to my master.

“…Yes.” His voice was heavy, his gaze fixed on Solamio’s body. His eyes trembled, and a muscle jumped in his jaw, clenched so tight it seemed it might crack.

I worried he might lose himself to fury and charge the enemy, but thankfully, his discipline held.

He clenched his fist in a small, final gesture, then turned away.

“Let’s go.”

With those words, the Divine Archer departed.

I followed, supporting the Grand Duke and Mihaila.

“All units, full speed!” the commander’s orders echoed behind us.

And then it happened.

WHOOSH—!

The black mist billowed out, a tidal wave of corruption devouring the demonic landscape.

“N-no…!”

Knights who couldn’t escape fast enough were swallowed by the fog.

We saw limbs flailing, hands reaching toward us in their last, desperate moments.

I watched them die.

Whatever the mist touched, it transformed.

The corruption was not uniform. One man’s legs twisted into the hindquarters of a horse; another’s warped into the shaggy limbs of a wolf.

It wasn’t a controlled change but a chaotic, random mutation.

Can I save any of them?

I considered the dying men with cold detachment. They were pawns, brought here to be sacrificed. Their deaths were already factored into my plan.

But their deaths had to mean something. To let them be wasted like this was a strategic failure I couldn’t accept.

They still had value. They could have served as shields for Lea or as decoys to draw the enemy’s attention. But dying like this…?

It’s a worthless death.

If I had intended for them to perish so pointlessly, I never would have brought them. This was a tactical blunder, a waste of resources.

What’s the move?

I weighed my options, searching for the optimal path.

Letting them die was never a choice… not when they could still be useful. Even if they had insulted me, their value was predicated on dying for a purpose.

Mihaila was recovering, but slowly. The Grand Duke was a liability. Entrusting them to my master was the logical move.

In a running battle, occupying his hands would be a fatal mistake. But this wasn’t a battle.

You couldn’t loose an arrow at mist or parry it with a sword. That meant he could carry them without compromising his combat ability.

The breach of etiquette was immense…

But that’s a problem for after we survive.

Decision made, I moved to my master’s side.

“…What is it?” he asked, his voice still strained.

He clearly hadn’t shaken off the shock. This mist must have been connected to his old trauma.

“I have a favor to ask,” I said, handing him both the Grand Duke and Mihaila.

“I-I’m fine!” Mihaila protested, waving her hands, but the truth was plain in her pallor. If she ran on her own, the mist would claim her.

At any other time, I might have let her try. Not now.

She still has a use.

Besides, with a little more rest, she would recover enough to run on her own.

“You’ll bear it for now. The situation is too dire for complaints.”

“What do you mean by—!”

I ignored Mihaila’s grumbling and met my master’s gaze. He stared at me, worked his jaw, and let out a shallow breath.

“…Are you trying to play the hero?”

A hero…

A faint smirk touched my lips. “Hardly.”

Such irony.

When I served another with perfect devotion, they called me a hound.

Now that I acted only for my own vengeance, they called me a hero.

It was a promotion, of a sort.

“They simply have a use,” I said.

“…Tsk. You magnificent bastard,” my master muttered, shaking his head as he took the Grand Duke and Mihaila.

“Don’t worry about us. Just don’t get yourself killed trying to be clever.”

“Of course.”

Leaving his concern behind me, I turned and headed back into the chaos.

Moments later, the commander of the Praha Guard, who had been following the main group, grabbed my arm. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“There are still soldiers back there, aren’t there?”

“And you’re going to save them?” he demanded, his tone filled with incredulous rage.

“I am.” I nodded.

His voice erupted. “Are you insane?!”

I frowned. He was wasting my time.

Irritation pricked at me. “Let go.”

“It’s not as if we wanted to abandon them! Do you have any idea what it took to leave them behind—!”

“I said,” I repeated, my voice dropping, “let go.”

I flicked his hand away. His feelings were irrelevant.

“Must I understand your sentiment? Do what you can, not what you can’t.”

I shot him a cold glare and started walking again.

Fortunately, the commander wasn’t a complete fool. He didn’t follow.

“Tsk. A waste of time.”

In those few seconds, I could have saved a dozen men. I quickened my pace, determined to salvage what I could and buy time for the rest.

* * *

Do what you can?

The commander of the Praha Guard watched Louis’s receding back, his jaw tight. Shame and fury fought within him.

As if he hadn’t wanted to save his own men. He had served with them for decades, lived and breathed with them since before they were Royal Guards.

What kind of monster would be at peace watching them die?

“I… I wanted to save them too…!” he growled, grinding his teeth.

He wanted to, but he couldn’t. It was impossible.

This was a calamity, and you didn’t fight calamities. You didn’t charge into an earthquake or try to punch a tidal wave.

He had no desire to be the fool who tried to fight mist.

But then why? Why did that man walk forward without a shred of hesitation?

He knew. It was all an excuse.

Was I wrong?

The commander stared at his trembling hands.

They weren’t shaking from rage. They were shaking from terror.

He hadn’t tried to save them because he was afraid. Afraid of dying. If he had truly wanted to save them, he would have slung one over each shoulder and run until his legs gave out.

He knew it. He had known it all along, but he had looked away, wrapping himself in the comforting lies of being an honorable knight, a true commander who loved his men.

“…Some knight. Some commander.” A bitter sneer twisted his lips.

He was a coward who had thrown his men away at the first sign of real danger. And when confronted with that truth, he had lashed out at Louis Berg.

He gave a hollow laugh, scrubbing a hand over his face. Men around him were shouting, urging him to run, but his feet felt rooted to the ground, held fast by the sheer weight of his shame.

“…A hero,” he murmured to Louis’s distant figure. “You… you are a true hero.”

Louis had to be. He had to be a hero, if only to overshadow the commander’s cowardice.

“…Please, come back alive.”

With those final words, the commander turned and forced his legs to move. He ran, praying the hero wouldn’t die for his failure.

* * *

“Damn it, I can’t see a thing.”

I pushed forward, manipulating the ambient demonic energy.

Thanks to the power Pepia had injected into my Aura Heart, I had a degree of control over it.

The cataclysmic wave was beyond me, but the thinned, scattered wisps were manageable.

“Help me…! Please…!” A voice cried out nearby.

I turned toward the sound and found him: a knight with the Praha Guard’s short-cropped hair.

“Is anyone there? Please!”

His leg was pinned beneath a rock from a cliffside collapse during the initial retreat.

Unlucky.

I clicked my tongue and shattered the rock with a flicker of Aura.

Crack!

The boulder dissolved into dust. The knight gasped, his panic finally giving way to relief.

“Th-thank you!” he stammered. 

“Never mind that. Drink this,” I said, tossing him a potion. “Where are the others?”

“Th-they’re still coming from that direction!” he exclaimed, pointing back into the mist.

I activated a skill, focusing my senses.

Fwoosh!

My vision pierced the gloom. The mist roiled like a dust storm, and within it, I saw dozens of knights struggling, their movements growing sluggish.

“Understood. Once you’ve recovered, run.”

Ignoring his repeated thanks, I raced toward them.

The mist seemed to be slowing as it digested those it had already consumed. It was now moving at a pace a mid-level Aura Expert could just barely outrun.

For my purposes, this was a welcome development.

I steadied my breathing, extending a hand as I ran. I drew on the demonic energy coiling around my Aura Heart and activated two skills simultaneously.

One controlled demonic energy; the other purified it. I would force them to become one.

Bend to my will…!

Normally, forcing two skills to merge was impossible. But I understood the principles, the very design of my Aura.

For a genius like me, the impossible was just a challenge.

“HRAAAGH!”

I felt the disparate threads of power lock into a new, stable form—a synthesis born in the heat of the moment.

VWOOM!

A silent wave of midnight-blue energy pulsed from my hand.

It was not a blast or a beam but a bloom of pure annihilation, an intricate, blossoming pattern of light that devoured the very darkness it touched.

And then—Flash!

The roiling mist of demonic power froze.

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