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Rine is on fire.

Literally, she's burning! It's like she's sweating flames out of her whole body, radiating an intense heat that makes even breathing close to her painful. Or in my case, just a lot more painful. As the flames protrude out of her body, the dirt on her armor burns away, and even her headband turns into a crisp, though her hair flows softly upwards as if it's a blonde flame in itself.

I hear the priest mumbling something: “At her age...” So this was to be expected at some point!?

I check Rine's status, but I see no new [Condition], no new [Skill] or [Spell], nothing that would explain it.

I mean, I kissed her well knowing that she's confused and needed to latch onto something, and I'm a huge jerk to use the feelings she has for me due to the curse for it, but I didn't know how I could give her that little shove otherwise.

Still, I didn't expect her to literally flare up! That's not a shove, that's equipping her with a rocket booster!

You gain 20 WP. You have finally shared a first kiss with Katarine von Stolzherz, giving her the strength to overcome her own doubts. What a beautiful moment.

This kinda comes late, though it drives home exactly how I kinda exploited her most-likely-artificial feelings for me.

Yet I have no chance to think about it, as Rine suddenly charges at Gottfried. Every step she takes leaves a black scorch mark under her feet. As Ara-san distances herself from the old knight, which turns to Rine, smiles, and draws his sword. Suddenly he makes a sidestep, as Rine draws her weapon as well and swings it, which creates a massive wave of fire that barely misses her instructor. “To be honest, I didn't expect that,” he says with a grin. “This will be a handful.” Is he enjoying it!?

Ara-san dashes towards me, as Rine is about to unleash her second attack. While Gottfried parries it, a huge squall meets another flameburst, as if parrying her attacks alone wasn't enough anymore to save him from harm. The dispersed flames roll through the sky and the ground and leave the earth black and smoking.

As the wizard and the priest are about to make their moves, Gottfried yells at them: “Don't interfere! Leave this to me. Just throw me my shield.” So he's taking it seriously enough to actually use his whole equipment!?

The priest makes a pitiful throw with a shield that can be strapped on the forearm and only covers as much, but Gottfried dashes torwards it, picks it up with his blade, and then equips it swiftly. “Now back off a little.”

Even Ara-san and I take his advice. As Rine jumps forward, the flames surrounding her body grow and intensify so much that even several meters away I can still feel the heat.

“Do you have any idea what that is, Ara-san!?” Gottfried’s moves are very different from before, taking much more effort and movement to evade and parry the attacks Rine throws at him. He seems to know exactly what he's facing!

“I have a hunch. Remember, when I told you the story of Hagen von Stolzherz?”

“The founder-guy? What about him?”

“The stories always mention the Flames of Freedom and how Hagen wields them. In several of those stories, he clads himself in them. When researching Hagen, I found out that there are stories about how prominent figures of the royal family also surround themselves in flames during a fight, but these reports were from unreliable sources. Also, I expected that it would be just a [Spell] they learned and didn't disclose to the public.”

“It's not a [Spell]?”

“I don't think so. If it were a spell, it would drain Katarine-san's MP.” She's right, Rine's MP is stable at full. “Also, we should have some indicator of it in her status, which leads to a rather surprising preliminary conclusion.”

“That is?”

“That it has nothing to do with the hero-system at all.”

…wait. I mean, each [Spell] is somehow noted down on the [Status] and when things aren't, it's because it's either not a proper spell or something that the individual was able to do before becoming a hero. However, Rine is a native hero, so maybe her status is incomplete by nature. I mean, it would make absolutely sense and we just can't see it, because she's a literal bug in the system.

However, considering Ara-san's explanation and what I heard from the priest before, this... Well, I can't come up with something else.

As the two fighters become quicker and quicker, the only thing I can see is how the uneven plain becomes more and more of a scorched battlefield, but I also see something on Gottfried's face I've never seen before: His sweat.

―○●○―

Meldorn faces off against the old man, or rather: He shoots arrows at him that just bounce off his skin, no matter what angle or distance. This seems to be a formidable foe, and now that Bob and the girl are out of reach, he should finally declare this person his quarry.

Releasing Bob from the marking, Meldorn puts it on the man in his maybe-eighties. He's definitely older than Sir Gottfried and as the retired knight already struggles with old age, this has to be true for this one as well.

[Quarry] is a skill that allows the hunter to pin-point a creature's location and use several other skills with it, making the target more vulnerable, finding the weak spots, protecting against attacks, and such. If a hunter can follow it through, only a large margin in power can make up that difference, that's one of the main-reasons why Meldorn was able to deal with Bob so well, who turned out to have grown a lot.

However, Meldorn faces a problem with this old man. Quarry doesn't work on him. Meldorn never had this happen to him, but he immediately knows what it means. That in no way this person is a quarry for the likes of Meldorn. It's like a beetle declaring a mammoth as a quarry.

This means Meldorn can't win. Yet this may also mean that this man will make a huge difference when facing Sir Gottfried. That's why Meldorn decides to at least stall him. “Don't,” says the old man, most likely sensing the change of mind in Meldorn. “Don't waste your time. You know you can't win, and I won't be able to win without killing you.”

Indeed, Meldorn was thinking about laying his life down for this, but this doesn't have to be necessary. “What do you suggest?”

“Let's sit down and wait. We're the same, men of regret.” Despite his obvious superior strength, the old man sits down cross-legged and yawns. “Not like two dudes duking it out will decide this. Kehehe.”

Meldorn feels no imminent danger coming from this man, but he feels like they're at some kind of stalemate here which is only based on the whim of the other person. Therefore, he follows the old warrior and sits down as well. “So you won't interfere?”

“Only if I need to, but the lad’s got a plan, right? Maybe I may even escalate things, so keeping you away has to be enough for now.”

Something changes in the air, and Meldorn looks into the distance. Because of the uneven land, he can't see that far, especially from a sitting position, but he smells something burning in the wind. “It has begun.”

“Is that so? I wish I had some booze, then we could drink some together.” This man seems to be hellbent on doing small talk, something Meldorn doesn't enjoy at all. “You have family?”

This question hits Meldorn deeply. “Not anymore.”

“Did they die?” The hunter shakes his head slowly. “Well, I'm certainly not the person to give family advice. You could say that I messed up big time my whole life in that regard, and I started to regret it much too late. I'm old and there are things I can't fix anymore and I'm on a journey because of the sheer hope to right one of the many wrongs I did. Too many to count, too many to forget.” He scratches his beard, obviously unsure how to continue his speech: “Well, I'll do my best until then, and you know what? I'm able to help someone right now for a change!” His grin seems to be too youthful for a man his age.

“...” Meldorn nods, not to the old man, but to himself. He survived another day. Maybe that can change something.

It's strange... since then, Meldorn has taught many youths how to survive in the wilderness. Not asking any questions, not doing anything special. Yet now he is being lectured for a change.

―○●○―

Gottfried deflects another fireblast, this time by using a [Shockblock] with a diameter of eight meters (~26 feet). Using the shield for it is much less draining than trying to blow away or even cut the flames. If he doesn't disperse the attacks in full, their collateral challenge would be devastating.

This fight is welcomingly difficult. It would still be easy to kill Kati immediately, but that's exactly what he tries to avoid. Just hurting her is difficult, as the moment he tries to hit her without a weapon, her flame will burn the used limb instantly. The flames around her also act as a shield, which will intensify and incinerate any attack from a non-magical weapon. Dirt? Air? Pure pressure? All of them weakened or nullified the moment they get close because of Kati's battle sense and instincts, all things he personally drilled into her. While her body may not keep up with his attacks, her flames do so easily.

Also the heat. He has to hold his breath when he's close to her, as otherwise the hot air would cook his lungs and boil his blood, and if he stays too long in close-quarters, even his clothes would catch fire. That's exactly the reason why she got the armor made out of fryon leather, because of its fire resistant nature. Otherwise, she would fight him naked by now.

However, being able to use [Korona] at her age... Her father Heini was only able to use it when he was ten years older, and he's rather talented, but this shows just how much of a genius Kati is. How much potential she has. Will she begin to use more and more of her bloodline in the future? Gottfried is almost euphoric, as he imagines himself repeating this battle in three, maybe four years. Maybe he will be able to keep his form for another decade, if he can look forward to something this tasteful.

However, something makes him feel extremely sour. He would have been able to overcome her by now, if he could read her blade like before. To be precise, he can still read her blade, but it doesn't help if all he can read is KentaKentaKentaKentaKentaKenta every time they clash swords.

Usually, he would commend her for finding a way to overcome this weakness of hers, but Gottfried did his best so that this girl won't think about boys all the time! Couldn't she think about swords instead!?

With her aggressiveness, this creates a fine fight overall. He can't keep close to her, but she follows him as quickly as she can, and she can be absolutely quick, causing him to move around without taking a breath for a minute. Her [Korona] protects her from cheap shots and quick brawling, so she only needs to keep track of his blade, as even hitting her with his buckler may cost him the arm. He can't read her intentions to make an opportunity for him to overcome her quickly, he can't kill her, and her attacks are so massive that he takes the environmental damage into account and does much more work than needed to make sure that this landscape will be able to recover in a decade.

However, that's exactly why he will win. Kati just evoked [Korona] for the first time, the flames are unstable and unnecessarily strong, there is no focus at all. It's a strong skill, but she literally burns up all her energy and her body won't be able to take this output much longer. Even if her father can't match her in raw talent, currently he's much stronger and has a much cleaner, less consuming [Korona] and he can upkeep it for at best ten minutes while fighting.

Kati will run out of stamina soon enough, and then everything will be over. While Gottfried's back hurts and his bones creak, he's still confident that he could manhandle Heini at this point, so what chance does his daughter, his current inferior in all ways, stand?

“[Crescent Moon]!” She swings her sword once more, combining her flames with the skill, creating an abomination of a technique, but Gottfried hits it aside with his buckler. Yet she's jump-kicking at him, and this is his cue to quickly evade and take some distance.

“Huuufff.” He exhales and inhales again, while looking at the crater she left. Not the most beautiful he has seen, but the flame pillar that comes out of it now is certainly the most impressive thing he saw since leaving Esse.

Around five minutes since they started. By this point, she should start to feel the strain of [Korona]. She charges at him once again, another bout. Then the next. And again. While he's able to deflect her attacks, he feels no change in her inner Kenta-chant, the same with the sharpness and the power of her strikes or flames.

Does that mean... that she isn't getting tired? This is not like someone pushing herself, as then her attacks wouldn't feel so fluid and much more pointy at the end, and her blade would tell him something like 'I can do it! Keep it up!' This is also not someone not recognizing how exhausted they are, as each attack has substance. Neither is it someone saving power, as each attack comes with her full weight.

This is just someone keeping performing at their peak. This is just... just like a hero.

In this moment, something dawns Gottfried. The prophecy that warned the royal family of Feuerberg, which brought a responsibility on them.

Listen to me, as I speak of the future that may come.

Fire lives in your veins, as the blood of a hero.

Yet if heroism and your blood are mixed once again,

then devastation will engulf the world soon thereafter.

Flames will swallow up heaven and earth, burning them to the ground.

The world will die and the people will cry for their gods.

The gods themselves will be eaten by the fire, and the rage of who holds both.

Your blood and the hero's blessing may never cross, unless the world is to be destroyed and reshaped by the whims of the child.

Only the death of that kin can prevent it before it can start.

Listen to me, as I speak of the future that may come.

Carry these words throughout history and never forget them, unless you want to doom the world.

Only the royal family, the higher-ups of the church, and some selected individuals know of this prophecy. Up till now, everyone just thought that as long as the royal family doesn't have descendants with heroes, this will never come to pass.

That's the reason why Feuerberg never summoned heroes before as well. Yet Heini let the church talk him into it, most likely led by the Four of Feuerberg, who have little contact with the mortals. It was a calculated risk.

Yet back then, nobody would have imagined a child of the royal family becoming a hero. Kati may be the reason why the world will be destroyed, and it was the responsibility of the royal family to not let that happen. As their knight, it was Gottfried's responsibility.

Now that he's seeing how the bloodline and the heroism interact, it becomes clear what he has to do. He has to kill her, just for the off-chance that she may be the one.