Chapter 618 — Arc 9, Chapter 30 – “Plan B”

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???: [――When you talk to me, look at me properly!!]

The moment he was struck by the intense kick unleashed, an alarm blared inside Aldebaran’s mind. The cause of that alert had been the kick itself, alongside various factors surrounding it.

Firstly, the sheer force of the kick had incurred tremendous damage, leaving him astonished at the absurd length of the leg that had punted him, thinking “From here to there is all leg!?”. The tip of the icy slipper worn on the kicking leg bore into him, smashing past his stone chestplate and placing him in a serious bind; the ice had begun to freeze over his chest, causing his sternum to creak.

But, the greatest reason for that clamorous alarm was the fact that she had hit the bullseye on him with piercing words leaving him no room for excuses.

――Look at me properly, she had said. And priorly, you look lonely when you talk to me, as well.

Aldebaran: [――Hk.]

Honestly, it was shocking that she had correctly guessed the complex emotions Aldebaran harbored.

He was not so conceited as to think he had done a good job of hiding it, but he had arbitrarily assumed that she was ignorant to these sorts of subtleties. But, on reflection, she was simply bad at harboring ill will towards others, though alert to such malice stemming from those others. ――She had been born into this world a silver-haired half-elf, so that was only natural.

Aldebaran: [The tuition fee cost a damn fortune… hk.]

Just below where the frost had begun to erode the abdomen of Aldebaran, as he spat those words out in frustration, clinging was an ice-made man modeled after an odious individual.

The ice-man obstructed his movements, and so, grabbing its head with a stone left arm crafted through magic, Aldebaran mercilessly ripped cranium from torso. The cries of its sculpture audible as an “Ahhh!”, the decapitated body of the ice-man shattered in a ruthless manner, its ice scattering to the ground.

Not only did they look the same, even the ease with which they died was spot on.

Aldebaran: [There, you take it!]

Emilia: [Kyaa! Geez, that’s awful!]

Unlike the shattered body, the decapitated head was attempting to bite him, so he threw the ice man’s head back towards the woman who had been chasing him―― Emilia. After glancing back at Emilia, who caught the head before her body as if it were a dodgeball, Aldebaran looked down at his stomach.

The frost began to spread from where the kick had landed, and as things were, his entire body would end up being frozen in ice――,

???: [If that happens, you’d be done for, uncle. You know what to do, don’t you?]

Affixed to a pillar of earth, topside down, was the spectator feasting his eyes on the clash between Aldebaran and Emilia―― Roy Alphard, grin stretching from one ear to the other, hinting at how Aldebaran ought to deal with the ice.

He had no need for advice from a Sin Archbishop. Without needing to be told, Aldebaran grit his teeth, gouging his own abdomen with the tip of his sword as it began to freeze over. Through feverish pain and spilling blood, he forcibly closed up the wound, an inch away from having been a seppuku, with stone, evading the bad ending of being encased in ice.

His vision flashed bright red in agony, and the heartfelt, jovial laughter of Roy grated on his eardrums with “Ah-haha~! That’s it!”.

Emilia: [――Hk, such a painful countermeasure.]

Aldebaran: [Oioi, you ain’t giving me any other choice. “If you don’t like pain, then yield and be frozen in ice.” You’ve gotta have some awareness that that’s the sorta attack you’re using, Lil’ Miss.]

Emilia: [――. Yes. I think the same thing. But, don’t get the wrong idea, Al.]

Aldebaran: [Wrong idea?]

Emilia: [You can’t withstand using the same method that you used for your stomach for your entire body, can you?]

That was a declaration of her intent to assail his body with the same blows she had delivered unto his abdomen.

As if to substantiate that, the heartrending grimace of Emilia’s beautiful face lost its harshness, and white fumes began to blow with a cool wind in the vicinity of the Prison Tower. As white powder snow fluttered down to encoat the war theater, in his chilly fingers did Aldebaran feel the gravity of Emilia’s seriousness.

Aldebaran: [This is the part where I’d wanna say that you’re cute even when you’re angry, but honestly, it’s just plain terrifying. Besides…]

As Aldebaran cracked a joke, the atmosphere creaked before him as the head of the ice-man clutched in Emilia’s arms began to regenerate its body. As if to say “Here’s a new body!” instead of “Here’s a new face!”, the ice-man completely recovered in just a few seconds, making an appeal of his good health by doing stretches. [1]

That meaningless, incendiary liveliness was a faithful recreation of the original, and so truly annoying.

Aldebaran: […You’ve got him down to even the finest details, it’s disgusting.]

Emilia: [Your way of complimenting’s the same as Ram’s. It has a reputation among everyone at the mansion, they all think it’s reaaally just like him.]

Aldebaran: [Heh. Though, he himself must have been the only one to react with an unpleasant face.]

Emilia: [How did you know?]

Aldebaran: [I get it. It’s the face he’d wanna not see the most.]

At his reply to the simple question, Emilia’s widened eyes tensed in anger. She may have thought he was speaking contemptuously, but it truly was Aldebaran’s unreserved opinion.

In the first place, if she was going to make someone out of ice, it would have been better to use a more reliable, strong outer appearance―― for example, someone like Garfiel, as a model, and yet she had chosen Natsuki Subaru, of all things.

Thanks to that, Aldebaran had been able to destroy the ice-man with zero reluctance.

Aldebaran: [If it’s a soldier, shouldn’t you have used the most reliable guy as a model?]

Emilia: [――? But that’s why I used Subaru as the base?]

Aldebaran: […I see. Shouldn’t have asked.]

Sticking his tongue out inside his helmet, Aldebaran felt as if he had eaten a bitter bug.

Even more so than the damage he had received from being kicked, the mental damage from speaking face-to-face with Emilia like this was incredibly draining.

For Aldebaran’s Authority, for the maintenance of his Territory, a stable mind was indispensable. Despite that, Emilia was the very character that defined the meta of easily disturbing Aldebaran’s mind.

Aldebaran: [Damn piece of shit.]

In all honesty, encountering Emilia here had been outside his calculations.

After returning to the Kingdom from Vollachia, Aldebaran had controlled the party headed for the Pleiades Watchtower to his convenience. Of course, he had grasped that Emilia and Otto would head to the Royal Capital, but he had intended on quickly retrieving Roy and departing the Royal Capital safely before trouble could be encountered. ――To think the rug would be pulled out from under him by a Zodda bug.

Aldebaran: […I guess the one who started this string of bad luck, would’ve been Lil’ Miss Felt.]

In order to engage Reinhard in his worst possible condition, in the Augria Sand Dunes, Aldebaran had deliberately made use of Flam’s Divine Protection at the Tower, having her inform her little sister of his betrayal. As a corollary of that, Reinhard had appeared at the Sand Dunes, and an ambush had been prepared by Felt’s group―― Felt had not kept that information to herself.

It was a state of emergency in which her allies at the Pleiades Watchtower had been wounded, and the Divine Dragon, which was supposed to be the protector of the Kingdom, had submitted to the enemy, so she had done well to display such a composed ability to make decisions. He had thought it might have been another suggestion from that Valga Cromwell, but to that notion he had to shake his head.

Felt was someone whom Priscilla had recognized as an adversary. Her caliber to be Monarch ought to have been praised with sincerity.

Either way, Felt had chosen the best course of action amidst high pressure circumstances, and so Emilia, having received the information from her, would not put it to waste.

Consequently, his escape from the Prison Tower had been obstructed, leaving him with the worst-possible present, facing off against Emilia.

Aldebaran: [――――]

To his fore, Emilia slotted her hands into gloves of ice while standing beside the aggravating ice-man who had taken the Gear 2 pose, and she cast a gaze of vigilance over Aldebaran.

In her amethyst eyes could be felt a strong ardor, as if to say that she would not lose no matter what Aldebaran might do, but even without all her vigilance, there were not many things Aldebaran could do.

He had been fending her off with swords of rock that mimicked her Ice Brand Arts, calling it Earth Brand Arts, but the effectiveness of the weapons each of them made was a difference of day and night. Their respective staminas were not even worth comparing, and neither could Aldebaran create reliable soldiers of earth.

Moreover, it tormented his heart to bring harm unto Emilia, let alone wound her psyche. ――This was the fatal flaw that the being known as himself had been furnished with since birth.

To make matters worse, Emilia’s techniques, specialized in capturing people alive, had the worst affinity for Aldebaran’s Authority.

Ergo, now that the ones considered to be the greatest obstacles to his plan, Natsuki Subaru and Reinhard, were out of the picture, Emilia would be the natural enemy of Aldebaran―― excluding one other person, she was his worst “enemy”.

Aldebaran: [Regardless――]

No matter how he analyzed the situation, he could not find even a single good ingredient and wanted to cry, but not once had he experienced a precedent of his complaints breaking through such an impasse.

If he could not forge a decisive blow through his own merits against the opponent who was unconsciously countering him, he would have no choice but to rely on outside help to end this. ――And then, it happened right when he was about to play his trump card.

――Piercing the cumulus, he bore witness to the Dragon descending upon the Noble District.

Aldebaran: [Are you serious?]

As it sliced down through his vision, Aldebaran unconsciously muttered.

Beyond the foggy white sky, currently drawing a line of pale blue light descending through the sky, was “Aldebaran”, planned to be Aldebaran’s trump card. If it was headed to the Noble District with such vigor――  to where he had kept Yae and Felt on standby, then it was very likely its objective was to rescue them.

That was to say, a being that Yae could not deal with alone had been dispatched to the Barielle Villa.

Since “Aldebaran” had intervened immediately, Yae’s survival would have been fifty-fifty. ――At the same time, it meant that Aldebaran would be unable to borrow a hand from “Aldebaran” in his predicament.

Aldebaran: [Are you serious…]

With the same words, Aldebaran became even more keenly aware of how much worse his situation had become.

He could try to redo with his Authority, and call “Aldebaran” to himself before Yae and Felt. But, if he did so, Yae, without any reinforcements, would likely succumb to the unidentified enemy.

Neither Yae, nor Felt, could be described as essential to Aldebaran’s objective.

They could not, but――,

Aldebaran: [SHIT!]

Relinquishing his chance to swallow the poison in his mouth, Aldebaran cursed out.

Using “Aldebaran’s” draconic aura to dispel the cold wave Emilia had used to put the entire field under the control of her snow, thus allowing for a safe withdrawal from the battlefield, had been the trump card of Plan A. Now that he could no longer use that, he would have no choice but to urgently enact Plan B.

And, in order to execute Plan B, he would have to hurry and think of a Plan B.

In the meantime――,

Aldebaran: [You see that, Lil’ Miss? At this rate, my partner’s gonna rampage through the Royal Capital――]

Emilia: [I was told that I’m not in charge of worrying about over there!]

Emilia resolutely charged at Aldebaran, the latter wishing to prolong his time to think.

While sensing beyond the wall the assault of “Aldebaran”―― the Divine Dragon, Emilia’s courage to trust in her allies and ignore it was simply far too much. That alone was likely proof that she had faith in the person who had concocted this strategy, but this was not something a person could do just because they were told.

Thus, the fact that it was the best possible move against Aldebaran made it all the more unbearable.

Emilia: [Hiyah! Tei! Dudoh! Yah!]

Following her initial policy as if just having remembered, Emilia abandoned dialogue and unleashed a tumultuous chain of attacks.

The frost-clad fists fired off a volley of innumerable punches, smashing right through his hastily made boulder shield. Amidst the scattering debris, he caught the frozen spearhead with a prosthetic rock arm, only to discard it when the ice began to encase it, and he leaped backwards. ――Thereupon, the ice-man had circled around, crashing into him with a Tie Shan Kao. [2]

Aldebaran: [Goh, ahh――!!]

On the receiving end of the secret Bajiquan technique, learned through imitation, Aldebaran was launched forward. Waiting for him there, Emilia transformed the lance of ice into a glacial mallet, resolutely holding it aloft. Pulling down her slender, supple arms, she unleashed a full swing of inconceivable might.

The atmosphere was pummeled by the frigid blow, laden with drive, and as soon as Aldebaran accepted that he would be unable to dodge it, he encased his entire body in earthen armor, leaving nary a gap―― the tremendous might struck him true.

Aldebaran: [――Hk!]

Unable to raise even cries of pain or screams, Aldebaran spun through the air.

He had defended against the ice eroding his earthen protections, but his defenses had provided no more comfort than if there had just been a handkerchief between himself and the weapon. His vision spinning wildly as he was blown away to a position unknown to him, he was caught by a strong impact, falling to the ground.

Roy: [Uhya~, that looked painful. Seems like the end of the road for you, uncle.]

With his hand down on the snow-blanketed ground, hearing the delighted voice of an onlooker from above him, Aldebaran realized that he had crashed into the pillar of stone to which Roy had been affixed. He had been sent flying ten-odd meters, and there was a grating pain in all the bones in his body. He had not even had the time to clap back with abusive language.

Aldebaran: [Shit…]

It was not desirable for Aldebaran to waste any more time on this.

Plummeting the temperatures around her, Emilia’s fighting style was a devilish method in which debuffs would accumulate over time in a manner akin to snow, and it was also possible that enemy reinforcements would begin to show up as he dawdled.

The more opponents that showed up, the level of difficulty in emerging triumphant would rise exponentially; he had become keenly aware of that in his battle against Felt’s faction. ――And, it was entirely possible that his “natural enemy” could be among them.

Roy: [Can’t really see because of the snow, but it seems things are getting tough over at the town too, doesn’t it~? Gonna try and call for help at the very top of your lungs or something? Uncle.]

Aldebaran: [Shut… the hell up. You… just keep quiet and stay――]

Roy, upside down, conscientiously piqued Aldebaran’s nerves as he was backed into a corner.

He felt his rage well forth, wondering if he should pointlessly die an additional death just to deck that grinning mug―― and beyond his indignation, what Aldebaran saw was the fluorescent hope of a Plan B.

Aldebaran: [If he’s me…]

Afar, from the sensation of the white haze being swayed, it transmitted “Aldebaran” being engaged in a raging battle.

Within the farthest extents of Aldebaran’s knowledge, there were not that many candidates capable of engaging in a fight to the death against “Aldebaran”, but he had no choice but to believe and entrust that victory to the Dragon.

And that which he had to believe in was not merely the Dragon’s triumph, but that “Aldebaran” must have also been laying foundations for the unbeknown Plan B while knowing that it could not assist Aldebaran.

In order to realize that unascertained Plan B――,

Aldebaran: [Roy! If you don’t wanna die then lend me a hand!]

Emilia: [――Hk! Al!!]

As Aldebaran shouted, Emilia widened her eyes, her voice honed in rancor.

At the sense of disbelief resounding through her voice, Aldebaran was astonished that his stocks still had the margin to be devalued after he thought they had already hit rock bottom when he released Roy out of the Prison Tower―― no, when he entrapped Natsuki Subaru.

Aldebaran: [But, if it’s necessary, then even the power of a Sin Archbishop is to be borrowed. Natsuki Subaru did the same thing in the Empire, yeah? What’s so bad?]

Emilia: [Even though you know it’s not that sort of problem!]

Aldebaran: [Guess so. I’m saying that while fully aware. Loathe me all you want.]

He was accustomed to being loathed by Emilia. ――A falsehood.

In truth, his position was that of not even ever being noticed, let alone loathed.

Emilia: [You―― hk!]

Upon Aldebaran’s response, ire flaring through her sorrow, Emilia created stakes of ice in the air.

Capable of magician-esque battling styles besides hand-to-hand combat utilising ice, Emilia pointed the floating ice stakes towards Aldebaran and Roy and avalanched them as though carpet bombing. Anyhow, though it was an expression of her intent to stop their wiles, Emilia’s rushed attack was intercepted by Aldebaran pulling off the ground like a carpet through magic, as though overturning tatami.

Roy: [Even if you ask for our cooperation, you see~.]

The ground rocked by the piercing impacts, this hurriedly constructed shelter of earth would not last much longer either.

Aldebaran’s concentration was torn in its maintenance, but despite being subject to the same predicament, Roy paid no attention to that whatsoever and crooked his lips in displeasure,

Roy: [As you can see, our limbs are fractured, and we have been prohibited from eating. So then, what are you telling us to even do? Or perhaps… you’re giving permission to eat that onee-san, is that what it means?]

Aldebaran: [Wrong. Neither am I letting you eat her, nor am I letting you go on a rampage.]

Roy: [Then what even is there for us to――]

Aldebaran: [There is. ――Spew it out.]

A low-toned edict, Aldebaran met gazes with Roy, who was upside down on the earthen spire shielded behind him, and connoted Gluttony a third choice besides eating or rampaging.

Roy rounded his eyes at the bid, then immediately smirked a broad grin,

Roy: [Geez, uncle, just how much do you know about us? It can’t be that you’re truly our real father, right~?]

Aldebaran: [If I’d brought up brats like y’all, I wouldn’t be able to live with all the apologies I’d have to give to society.]

Their relationship was one of forceful compulsion to listen, bound by a curse mark. Aldebaran’s attitude, in no manner intending to establish friendly relations, was yet welcomed by Roy with a licking of lips.

He was Roy Alphard, commanding the name of Gluttony, therewithal Bizarre Eating per his accord. How would a glutton whose mouth partook no matter what crude product, have evaluated Aldebaran? ――A useless thought regardless, he did not have the leisure to enquire.

Emilia: [――Stop!]

That instant, what smashed through the mud shelter was an enormous ice boomerang―― identical to the Flying Wing Blade used by the Empire’s Madelyn Eschart, it was thrown in, and through the opening of the piercing ice, Emilia charged towards them.

Aldebaran obstructed Emilia’s path with an artificial rock arm created to be a size bigger. His palm was covered from above in a manner akin to a baseball glove, thwarting her path with tenderness and certainty.

However――,

Aldebaran: [――Hk, a decoy!?]

Placing its hands on the glove of rock, the ice-man leapt over the obstruction through hand springs.

Acting as the vanguard and using herself as a decoy, Emilia let the ice-man proceed forward. He wanted to point out that normally between oneself and their creation, the role of being a decoy would be the other way around, but he had utterly fallen for it.

The ice-man vaulted over Aldebaran’s head and approached the pillar of earth. Shards of rock did Aldebaran create, pincering the ice-man to the sides in an attempt to shatter it to fragments, but――,

Aldebaran: [It’s harder than before!]

With elevated bone density, nay, glacial density, the sturdy ice-man’s new body repelled the shards.

Dismissing the obstruction, the ice-man stretched its arms towards the affixed Roy, drawing closer to hinder any action―― at that split second, its head bid its torso a tearful farewell.

Emilia: [What!?]

Having witnessed first hand the ice-man’s decapitation, Emilia shouted after slashing the rocky glove with a sword of ice.

She remained nescient of what had destroyed the ice-man, rebuilt in strengthened tenacity. ――To think it had been begotten by a steel thread spun from the ring on Aldebaran’s right ring finger.

The silver thread glistening in the icy haze perforated through the ice-man’s defenses, decollating it. That which he mastered in the midst of his battle against Felt and the rest, a single finger’s worth of the Steel Thread Technique.

Art would bring bread. An instant subsequent to embodying that idiom――,

Roy: [――Given the choice, I guess this one would be the most amusing~.]

As he heard a voice lacquered in dour glee, Aldebaran―― nay, the world cried out.

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Instantly, that which had assailed Aldebaran, was a vomiting sensation of the soul.

Roy: [Oergh.]

He believed he had understood the principle. He had even managed to conceive of what would occur.

But, once it actually transpired, comprehension and imagination had been of no use whatsoever.

Neither unto flesh nor unto spirit, that was an onslaught unto Memories intangible.

Roy: [Oergh.]

There existed a phenomenon known as déjà vu, where during the first time one laid eyes upon something, they would feel as if it could by no means be the first time they were seeing it; currently, Aldebaran was―― no, every single person undergoing these effects, was experiencing something several tens of thousands of times more pronounced than déjà vu, a “regurgitation” that could not be ignored.

As evidence of that――,

Emilia: [――Ah.]

Spilling a husky breath, from Emilia’s hand fell a javelin of ice. Feebly dropping that which she had been ready to throw, its form unravelled, returning to Mana before it hit the ground.

Vehement turmoil flickering through her widened amethyst eyes, she fell to her knees on the spot. Gazing over her state of being, Aldebaran grit his molars, and leaped backwards.

Roy: [Oergh.]

A vociferous sense of disgust, there was. But, not enough to bring him to his knees.

The impact of “regurgitation” would vary from person to person. A matter of course. Emotional attachments were to each their own. Between Aldebaran and Emilia, the ardor they respectively harbored towards those Memories differed.

Odious though he might have been, Roy had made the appropriate selection. Accurately, he had selected Memories that had inflicted a great impact unto Emilia, while not going as far for Aldebaran.

Hence――,

Roy: [Oergh.]

Bearing the nauseating sensation of emesis, Aldebaran raised his hand aloft to the heavens.

The whitish haze of ice yet shrouded the Royal Capital’s sky, obstructing him from regarding it with due reverence. However, there did Aldebaran believe that “Aldebaran” had laid the groundwork for Plan B.

――’Twas a boon of the combat experience they had acquired during their battle against Reinhard at the Augria Sand Dunes.

In that battle, Aldebaran and “Aldebaran”, fellows in whom dwelled the ego of the same man, had exercised magic through a shared magic signature―― they had assumed a system in which Aldebaran borrowed the Mana of “Aldebaran” to invoke magic, but it was the reverse this time.

The Plan B that “Aldebaran” had prepared above the clouds―― with a mechanism awaiting activation, it instead fell to Aldebaran to follow the magic signature, and pour in Mana to flip the switch.

A conception reached only because their egos were one and the same, the execution of a Plan B that had not existed prior――,

Aldebaran: [――Oergh.]

Subsequent to the invocation, bearing witness to the entirety of what “Aldebaran” had prepared as a Plan B, Aldebaran spilled out a belch distinct in essence to those that had come before, yet it still fell in line with Roy’s “regurgitation”.

Plan B, the entire picture of that was――,

Emilia: [No… hk.]

Sensing an intense torrent of Mana, Emilia’s lips quivered, still down on her knees.

She was not standing, however, with her visage raised, her amethyst eyes managed to grasp it. ――Floating in the sky of the Royal Capital, was a rocky mass around a hundred meters in size.

It was a sense of scale that seemed as though some small hill had been unearthed in its entirety and raised up. Though Aldebaran had never encountered it, this might have been the same feeling that people had given accounts of experiencing when beholding the White Whale from nearby, overwhelmed by witnessing such a mighty thing skybound.

Either way, the intent of “Aldebaran” in elevating that rocky mass to the sky was obvious――,

Roy: [Oergh.]

The next instant, there resounded a report of the sky shattering, stemming from numerous cracks fissuring through the rocky mass, as was apparent to all who had noticed the abnormality in the aether.

The hill-sized mass split into boulders numbering around ten or twenty, and at that rate would continue down towards――,

Emilia: [NO…!!]

Foreseeing that outcome, Emilia reprimanded her trembling knees, and stood up.

She had surely understood. Even if it had fractured into pieces, if the heavy boulders, each bigger than ten meters, were to fall, there would be a great amount of damage to the city, leaving a large number of casualties.

Thus, the only way to avert that, was for people capable of preventing it to go put a stop to it.

Aldebaran: [Even now, I’m going at this with the intention of not letting a single person die. That’s why…]

Emilia: [――Hk, Al!]

Aldebaran: [I trust you to not let even a single one of those fall onto the city.]

Forcing a selfish, one-sided request upon her, Aldebaran disregarded Emilia’s voice, shrill with fervent emotion, and ran up the earthen pillar to secure Roy.

Akin to the foul odors emitted from the anal sacs of a frightened weasel, the ice-man, once again reduced to being merely a head, rolled over in one last ditch effort to impede him, but Aldebaran mercilessly crushed it underfoot, and removed the affixed Sin Archbishop from the spire.

Roy: [You’re quite the nasty guy, uncle.]

Responding not to Roy’s superfluous words, Aldebaran carried that small body on his shoulders, and ran.

With nary a glance back at Emilia with whom he had been doing combat until a moment prior, as fast as his legs would carry him.

Emilia: [Al! You can’t! Don’t run away… AL!!]

He could hear Emilia’s heartbroken appeal, but no attacks were issued to halt his steps. Naturally. All of her strength was now being fully diverted to the purposes of saving people.

Were she able to simply pursue Aldebaran at this point without thinking of the consequences, she would have had an easier time living her life. Undoubtedly, if she had been a person capable of that, it would have been a salvation for both Emilia and for Aldebaran.

But, Emilia did not give in to selfishness, and by wielding her magic to save people, she had ended up letting Aldebaran get away.

Emilia: [Don’t go! Return Subaru, return Beatrice――!]

In concert with the heights of those emotions, sounds of glaciation could be heard in the sky loud and clear.

Aldebaran invoked the protrusion of the ground beneath him, and with that as a foothold he surmounted the wall enclosing the Prison Tower, withdrawing from the white battlefield made manifest by Emilia. With legs still unhalting, he ran, and ran, and ran.

Roy: [She’s crying, you know~, that onee-san.]

A fact ignorable had it not been delineated, the detestable Sin Archbishop deliberately did delineate.

The tearful voice rending his heart, Aldebaran continued running, never halting his feet. At this moment in time, hoping only for all his accomplices to be present at the point of regroup, he continued to run.

The torrent of boulders meteoring down upon the Royal Capital was intercepted by towers of frost that sprang up one after another, preventing harm from befalling the city.

Neither to the enkindling perpetrator, nor to the stalwart savior, to nobody did it bring glee.

Merely――,

Roy: [――Ah~, thank you for the treat-!]

Only Bizarre Eating, licking his lips to surfeit the acrimonious joy and saccharine sorrow, was smiling.

Translation Notes:

[1] – 新しい顔よ “Here’s a new face!” is a reference to popular Japanese cartoon Anpanman, who gets new faces. His uncle typically says this when presenting him with a new face.

[2] – 鉄山靠, Iron Mountain Lean, or Tie Shan Kao is a short range Bajiquan (八極拳) technique involving crashing into an opponent and striking with the side and/or back of the body. Bajiquan is also known as Hakkyokuken or Eight Extremities Fist, and is a Chinese martial art using explosive short ranged power.