The Song of Roland.
A skill that activates only when Durandal, Orlando’s Muscle Cultivation Method, and Mad Orlando are gathered in one place.
I did not know exactly what effect it had.
That was because skills with “Narrative” attached to their names, like Blancart and Durandal, did not come with detailed descriptions.
But.
There was one thing I knew.
When this skill activated—
I became fucking strong.
When the conditions were met and The Song of Roland activated, a sensation that could not be explained by a mere surge in stats began filling my entire body.
An omnipotence that filled every inch of me, enough for me to confidently believe that, right now, I could block the sword wielded by that mad Sword Demon.
The path that had been blocked opened up before me; not only could I see things I had never seen before, but I even gained the skill to effortlessly follow the trajectory I had only ever imagined.
On top of that, Clarent and the Knight Slayer trait increased the damage I dealt to her by eighty percent.
And the skyrocketing stats granted by the title [One Who Surpassed the Impossible] and the trait [Flower of Chivalry] combined.
Maybe, right now, I could fight her.
That was what I had thought.
Kwwwaaaaaang—!!!!
As the two swords met, an enormous wave of mana erupted.
This is fucking insane.
She did not retreat a single step.
That had been the attack that had cut Arghalia, a Sword Master, clean in half despite his Aura Blade being sealed and his left arm severed…
Yet she blocked it simply by casually bringing her sword up to meet it.
Still.
"You drew it?"
It was not as though I had gained nothing.
The sword that had blocked mine was no longer the ordinary blade from before. It rippled densely with dark crimson aura.
More vivid, denser, and more dangerous than the sword energy wielded by the Angelica of reality.
Proof that she had reached Sword Mastery.
An Aura Blade that contained her own star and story within the sword.
Unlike before, she had drawn her Aura Blade just to block my attack.
Does that mean this attack works?
This can get through.
No…
Can it get through?
The attack itself works.
But that only means something if it reaches her.
And yet, I could not imagine my attack ever reaching her.
As we clashed in that exchange, I activated a skill I had not used in quite some time.
[Insight of One Who Has Seen the End], which had been shoved into some forgotten corner.
[Insight of One Who Has Seen the End activates.]
[Predicting one thousand possibilities.]
For a moment, time stopped, and one thousand possibilities flowed into my mind.
[Predicted possibilities: 1]
After combing through all thousand possibilities, the system produced one answer.
It was exactly like that time.
When I had first sparred with her.
The one possibility I had finally grasped when I absorbed Olivier-style Swordsmanship from her.
Of course, there was one difference from back then.
Then, we had wooden swords. Now, we held real blades.
And this was a fight to the death, with Aura Blades in play, so I could not use the same trick of breaking our swords and ending in a draw.
Enduring her hits like I had then was impossible, too.
In short, I was fucked.
At that moment.
Her Aura Blade surged enormously.
As she twisted her sword, mine began to be pushed farther and farther to the side.
How could that small body contain this much strength?
I too gathered mana, reinforcing my body with Orlando’s Muscle Cultivation Method.
I poured aura into Durandal and strengthened it.
Bang!
The auras tangled between our crossed blades finally exploded violently, and the recoil flung both of us backward.
Yet even in that instant, neither of us stopped. Taking the explosion’s impact head-on, we prepared our next sword techniques.
Mad Orlando.
By a cruel twist of fate, that was the very technique Angelica and I chose simultaneously.
Aura erupted from her sword and mine alike, shooting in all directions as though exploding.
And once more, we collided in a fierce exchange.
What rang out this time was not starlight, but a frenzied tempest in which the stars themselves raged.
The storms from both sides, as though they would grind everything to dust, intermingled, and their colossal waves shook the entire imperial palace.
Slaaash—!!! Slaaash—!!!
Blood streaked across my entire body amid tremendous pain.
It did not even feel as though a second had passed, yet I had already been cut ten times.
And I was still being cut.
Meanwhile, I had not cut her even once.
I expected this.
Even if I raised every buff to the limit and used the same technique.
There was inevitably a gap in our proficiency with Mad Orlando.
What I had copied was certainly Angelica’s Mad Orlando.
But it was the current Angelica’s.
The Mad Orlando I faced belonged to the DLC Angelica who had become a disaster.
So naturally, I, using the current Angelica’s version, could only be overwhelmed.
But.
Swoooosh—bang!
Things kept flying in, piercing through the frenzied storm and striking the dark crimson Aura Blade.
Frost swords brimming with cold.
The frost swords launched by DLC Dante filled the gaps in my assault.
They struck the Aura Blade and vanished as though they had fulfilled their purpose.
Yet even as they penetrated the storm raised by those two Aura Blades, their radiance shone without fading.
In truth, all they could do was slightly alter the trajectory of Angelica’s strikes.
But Dante kept pouring out frost swords.
And that alone was enough.
Because thanks to them, I could see.
Taking countless trajectories head-on.
Deflecting countless trajectories.
I found the ray of light among the thousand possibilities.
I used Phoebusail.
I seized an opening at the end of the madness and drove it straight in.
Kagagagak—!!!
But it was blocked by the surface of the dark crimson sword energy, sparks flying as the sound of metal rang out.
Still, there was a gain.
[The skill Mad Orlando has leveled up.]
[The skill Mad Orlando has leveled up.]
[The skill Mad Orlando has leveled up.]
With the effect of Insight Eye, the more I crossed swords with her, the more my Mad Orlando continued to rise.
It was gradually becoming like her sword.
It was exactly like that time.
The method I had chosen to defeat her.
To face the Sword Demon—
I would become a Sword Demon like her.
And as I clashed with her madly, I could clearly feel faint emotions seeping into the edge of her blade, which had been unreadable until now.
She was flustered right now.
It was faint, but I could distinctly sense that emotion from the tip of her sword.
I did not know why she was flustered.
But wasn’t this my chance, while she was off balance?
At that moment.
[Insight Eye activates.]
[You have identified Angelica’s Narrative, ‘Flamberge.’]
[Acquiring ‘Flamberge.’]
…What?
Before the question spreading through my mind could even fade—
Slaaaaaash—!!!!!
With a sensation hot enough to burn my entire body, the whole imperial palace where we stood was severed at once and came crashing down.
#
[You have acquired ‘Flamberge.’]
I did not know what happened after that.
As the imperial palace collapsed beneath her attack,
I gritted my teeth, gathered all my mana, and kicked Angelica away.
Without missing that fleeting opening, Dante unleashed brutal frost and erected a makeshift shelter, shoving Kafka, Dante, and me inside.
If he had not made that shelter, we would have been crushed to death beneath the falling debris of the imperial palace.
I would survive, but Kafka and Dante would certainly have died.
What a shame.
I should have driven my sword into her instead of kicking her away.
At that moment.
"Ian! Your arm…!"
Dante cried out, all color draining from his face as he hurriedly reached for my arm.
Come to think of it, I had been hit in the arm.
Maybe it was the adrenaline, or maybe this body had simply gone insane, but I did not feel any pain.
But even if there was no pain, the condition of my left arm was fairly serious.
That slash had cut deeply into it.
A fatal wound, so deep that white bone was plainly visible through the gaping flesh.
If there was any saving grace, it was that the wound had been seared hot, so it was not bleeding.
"It didn’t get cut off?"
"It did get cut!"
Apparently displeased by my indifferent response, Dante shouted at me like he was scolding me.
But wasn’t it strange?
The imperial palace had collapsed from that attack, so I thought my arm would have been cut right off.
What kind of body is this?
The Song of Roland’s effect was much better than I had expected.
I took holy water from my inventory and carefully sprinkled it over my slashed arm.
My arm immediately began healing at a rapid rate.
The cuts carved over my body gradually disappeared as well.
"Ian, what are you going to do now? That crazy person called the Disaster of the Sword is waiting just beyond this frost wall."
The instant my arm had fully healed, Kafka suddenly perked up her wolf ears and joined the conversation, her face pale.
"Right. Breaking through a frost wall like this would be nothing to her…"
Dante, his expression stiff, nodded at Kafka’s words.
Even without anyone telling me, I knew perfectly well from the sensation on my skin.
Angelica was definitely waiting for us just beyond this frost wall.
Even though breaking through a wall of frost like this would not be difficult for her at all.
She would not be doing it because she was plotting something.
She had no need for tricks.
No matter what trick, strategy, or trap we used, she was someone who could chew through all of it and still have room for more.
For someone who would be stronger simply swinging her sword one more time than resorting to trickery, it made no sense for her to use a trick.
Was she simply waiting?
There was no use thinking about it. I would not get an answer.
And I had to finish this quickly.
Because I had no idea when The Song of Roland would end.
If The Song of Roland disappeared, I would definitely die. I gripped Clarent once more and prepared to rush out.
Then.
"Stop."
DLC Dante abruptly seized my wrist.
His grip was quite strong.
From his fingertips, I could feel his powerful resolve never to let me go beyond this frost wall.
"I know full well that you are strong, but…"
He briefly glanced toward Dante standing beside him, then continued in a low voice.
"That disaster is something we must face."
Then he carefully clasped my hand in both of his, more firmly than before.
"So when this ice breaks and vanishes… carry that child and the wolf, and run without looking back."
He continued, looking directly into my eyes.
In those eyes, I could see his resolve to burn up his own body if that was what it took to let Dante, Kafka, and me escape.
But…
"The means to stop that disaster are with me…"
"No."
"Why?!"
At my refusal, he let all his emotions burst out at once.
He even grabbed me by the collar and glared at me with bloodshot eyes.
DLC Dante’s emotions went beyond passion into desperation.
But seeing the expression that emotion put on his face only made me want to leave even less.
Because I had seen that expression many times already.
In the DLC, in the wasteland where everyone had been annihilated.
That expression as he stood alone, looking upon ruin.
I—
I did not like that expression.
The fact that you, who burn yourself up for others,
had no one who would cry for you.
I hated it with all my heart.
And.
This was something only I could do.
I lightly shook off the hand of DLC Dante, who had been gripping my collar.
"Ian!"
Kafka and Dante shouted something from behind me, as though trying to stop me, but I could not hear them.
I merely swung Clarent broadly and lightly slashed through the frost wall blocking my way.
As soon as a gap wide enough for one person opened up, I walked out of the shelter without hesitation.
With the imperial palace having collapsed entirely, of course all I could see was the sky.
And it was the sunset, the sun just beginning to sink below the horizon.
Beyond that, standing still as silence amid the thick clouds of dust, was none other than Angelica.
"You weren’t cut?"
Angelica, who had kept her lips tightly sealed until now, spoke for the first time.
Her response was flat, colorless, and seemingly devoid of emotion.
But there was definitely the emotion of bewilderment in her question.
Even now.
"You haven’t changed at all, Angelica."
Even if she was a heroine beloved by everyone.
Even if she was the final boss who cut everyone down.
She had not changed.
She was still Angelica.
Only.
The one before me did not have a rival beside her who would become a monster alongside her.
That was the difference between Angelica and the one before my eyes.
Was that why?
A chuckle escaped me before I knew it.
"Guess I can’t lose, even if I wanted to."
"Why?"
"What she swung hurt much more than this."
"…She?"
That’s right.
The dozens of sparring matches I had exchanged with her were far harder and more painful.
Even if the Sword Demon before me and she were both the same Angelica.
That wooden sword she held back then, without even a layer of sword energy over it, was far fiercer and more painful than the dark crimson Aura Blade rippling before me now.
And that was why I would never lose.
"Why would I lose to an Aura Blade that is inferior to a wooden sword?"
"You’re bluffing."
Perhaps my words had struck a nerve.
Angelica refuted me in an indifferent voice.
She was right.
This was definitely a bluff.
But the moment I gave her the title of rival, I had made a promise, so I could be certain.
Because I promised not to disappoint her.
And yet.
"If I lose to the likes of you, she’ll be terribly disappointed."
That’s right.
Because I was her one and only rival.
And that was why I could not lose, even to her future self.
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