The one whose story had been stolen glared furiously at the thief. Disgust surged from their eyes, overflowing like a flood.
Butier snatched up the sword splattered with Leonardo's blood using his crosier. The sword blade caught on the hooked end of the staff, which was curved like a shepherd's crook, and with a wide swing of his arm, he flung the sword away.
Clunk!
The dragonbone sword, caught in the bent hook, scraped against metal as it flew far off and landed on the snowy plain. Having lightly taken a few steps back during the process, Godric burst into hearty laughter as he looked at Butier standing before him.
"I thought you'd keep hiding in the back and playing it safe like you always have. But now you're making reckless moves."
"…"
"You really do have some wolf-like traits."
However, when Butier did not react much to the provocation, Godric ostentatiously used the writers' messenger to flaunt his newly elevated status.
[Main Author: Well… I suppose that's why you made someone like Leovald the protagonist.]
[Sub-writer 1: It's a relief, isn't it? At least it's not someone like you.]
Godric and Butier traded sharp words.
But it didn't matter to me.
I ran to Leonardo and silently pressed against his wound. Blood gushed out in heavy spurts. The blood flowing from the split wound seeped through my fingers, soaking my palm. It was slippery, metallic-smelling, and hot.
I had to stop the bleeding… but my hands trembled against my will.
Had the venom clinging to the dragonbone sword affected his body? The veins around the deep wound darkened into a blackish hue. Leonardo, seeming to be in tremendous pain, bit down hard on his lip.
The tendons bulging from his neck strained and pulsed painfully, giving me a glimpse of just how much agony he was enduring.
In that moment, my mind was pulled back to the underground labyrinth of Sinistra.
To the first time I witnessed his death with my own eyes.
As we struggled through the pitch-black maze where we couldn't even predict a step ahead, Leonardo led the way. He trusted me, even as I muttered incomprehensible things about needing to "map the labyrinth" for the next reset.
We walked, and walked, and kept on walking endlessly.
When Leonardo, utterly exhausted, could no longer move even with my support — when he had to lean against the wall just to take a single step.
When we barely managed to fill the exploration rate of the map and collapsed against the wall.
When I realized that the puddle pooling on the ground wasn't from groundwater, but from Leonardo's blood.
I still feel as if I'm trapped in that moment…
My heart pounded so fast it felt like it couldn't beat any faster. The pounding was so loud it drowned out every other sound.
Snowfields, blood, drifting ashes.
Everything around me was stained red, white, and sooty black. Raw colours swirled together in a chaotic, dizzying dance. The outlines of people and things blurred, and my vision spun.
'This isn't the time for this.'
I knew it.
I knew this wasn't the time to sit here dazed. I knew that just because I collapsed, time wouldn't stop and wait for me. But my body refused to obey. It felt like my soul had floated away, drifting aimlessly, leaving my body behind.
And then, a red mass rushed into my field of vision.
A beat too late, I flinched — and in that moment, a warm presence brushed near my cheek. It wasn't cold. It wasn't the chill of a corpse. It was the living warmth that only a human body could have.
"Isaac."
As the fog lifted from my deafened ears, that single short word rang out, vividly clear.
At last, Leonardo's hand cupped my cheek in a familiar way.
His thumb traced a gentle curve from my cheek down to my jaw, then brushed softly along my shoulder line, his arm slipping carefully downward — and finally, as if to comfort me, he grasped my hand firmly.
That was what anchored me again, pulling me back down to the earth from where I had been drifting aimlessly.
Only then could I truly see Leonardo again. He gently pressed his forehead against mine. The blood flowing crimson, the howling blizzard, the roiling black tide — all of it vanished from my sight. Everything else faded away, leaving only his clear, silver gaze fixed directly on me.
"Don't be afraid."
If it's possible to feel the greatest fear and the greatest comfort from a single person, I don't know what you would call it.
If someone can both steal your breath away and allow you to breathe again—
Then maybe, what I truly should have been preparing for wasn't any disaster or accident… but the very existence of the person standing before me.
Reluctantly, Leonardo lifted his forehead from mine and staggered as he rose to his feet. As he moved, the wound tore open again, and blood surged forth anew. Even so, Leonardo did not release his weapon.
I could not fathom the force that kept him rising to his feet again and again.
Was it his thirst for revenge against Godric, so fierce it made him forget even pain?
Or was it his unwavering resolve to set right this twisted situation?
「It's alright.」
Was it just because Leonardo was the protagonist? Because he was designed that way?
「Isn't it my duty to see your mission through?」
Leaving only those words behind, he moved forward.
"Agh!"
Meanwhile, Butier, who had been clashing with Godric, collapsed onto the snow-muddied ground.
Godric immediately reversed his grip on his sword, preparing for the execution.
The blade, rough and jagged like a giant beast's tooth rather than refined steel, looked like it was ready to tear through flesh and splinter bone like a saw.
Godric lowered his fluttering lashes.
[Main Author: I'm just grateful you came to me of your own accord.]
And in the instant a flash of light sparked—
Bang!
Leonardo's greatsword struck aside the blade sliding toward Butier's neck, and a sharp metallic clang echoed across the battlefield.
Without giving even a moment's rest, Leonardo's greatsword carved a wide arc — aiming to cleave his opponent in two.
"Kill the wicked!"
But just then, another noble wielding a dragonbone sword recklessly charged at Leonardo, attempting to stab him.
As Leonardo evaded, the trajectory of his swing shifted slightly. Instead of a fatal blow, the blade merely slashed a long line across Godric's cheek before passing by.
Godric, retreating with a casual ease, brushed his hand across the spot where the sword had grazed him. As his fingers slid over the thin red line left on his cheek, the wound vanished completely.
As if he had never been cut at all.
'Ah.'
Of course.
Godric, too, had borrowed the body of a corpse to take the stage. Minor damage could easily be repaired.
It was no different from the regenerative abilities we had already witnessed — unless he suffered a truly fatal injury, he wouldn't die.
And as we had already learned from the case of Orlie…
The weak point was the head.
But could you really even call that a weakness?
Leonardo's injuries were already critical. Butier had been relegated to a sub-writer role, and the Archbishop's body didn't seem particularly suited for battle.
Moreover, Godric, fully aware of his own vulnerability, would surely focus all his efforts on protecting his head.
Godric was already beginning to overpower Leonardo and Butier little by little.
The nobles, distorted in their perception by
And there was Godric himself, constantly aiming for Butier's neck as if trying to absorb his writing authority as well.
In this situation, I…
'…Something's wrong.'
Above all, that thought struck me — something was off.
Butier wasn't foolish. He knew everything: that with Orlie's exit, Godric had absorbed his narrative weight, that it had propelled him to the position of main author.
Yet knowing all that, he had still come here himself?
The timing of his arrival — intervening just as Godric tried to kill Leonardo — had been so perfect that I almost missed it.
But really, was it necessary for him to personally bring the Archbishop's body here? A body unskilled in battle?
If, at this point, Butier himself were to be eliminated by Godric, his writer's influence would surge to nearly 63%, absorbing even his share.
Meanwhile, the still-unaccounted-for share of Sub-writer 2 remained at 37%.
'If he gets absorbed too, there'll be no one left to stop Godric. He must know that — and he still came here?'
Rather than setting up a 63% to 37% power split, it would have been far wiser to keep his 31% influence separate and combine forces against him.
Surely Godric must have thought the same.
Hadn't he all but admitted it himself?
[I had saved it for when it was certain…]
Because he was aware of Sub-writer 2's existence, he hadn't immediately killed and absorbed Orlie — he had only imprisoned him.
[I thought you'd keep hiding in the back and playing it safe like you always have. But now you're making reckless moves.]
Just as he said — there was definitely a sense of wrongness about it.
At that moment, text appeared before my eyes.
[Sub-writer 1: Isaac. Just do what you can.]
Unlike Butier's current appearance — bloodshot and strained from fighting Godric — the words he wrote and sent to me were calm, almost unnervingly so.
Along with that loaded message, I made my decision.
[Main Author: It's only temporary. Just hold on a little longer!]
They had said that Godric's widespread
[Kill the wicked!]
And the nobles were under a hypnotic suggestion — the suspicion that Leonardo was it.
A twisted belief that he was no longer human, and that he intended to assassinate their king.
Godric had merely redirected their doubts onto Leonardo, steering them away from the truth — that the king was already dead and replaced.
It was similar to what happened with Ferdinand, who, under
Back then, we were able to forcibly break the suggestion through the power of an Apostle. But this time, I intended to try a different method.
'Leo.'
「I'm listening.」
'Godric will focus above all on defending his neck. So when I give the signal, aim somewhere else, not the neck.'
「Will the arm do?」
'Yeah.'
Maybe it was because he had become so used to reading and carrying out my intentions.
Even though it was inefficient — ordering him to aim somewhere other than the neck, despite it being the weak point — Leonardo didn't question it and obeyed without hesitation.
I drew in a deep breath and shouted:
"The neck is the weak spot! Aim for the neck, Leo!"
Leonardo immediately pulled back his greatsword as if following orders. The moment Godric instinctively leaned back to guard his neck—
Slash!
The greatsword twisted its course mid-swing and severed the arm that had been shielding his neck instead.
The ornate sleeve embroidered with golden thread, along with the pale arm, spun through the air and fell to the ground.
Godrick glanced briefly in my direction.
"I must say, it's almost pitiable to watch you struggle like that."
The next moment, the pale severed arm, lying on the snowy ground, pressed its fingers against the earth and crawled back toward the body — as if it had a life of its own.
And Godric, as if it were nothing, reattached the severed arm to his torso.
"Such a pointless effort…"
It wasn't pointless.
The goal wasn't to land a fatal blow on Godric.
At that moment, something broke. Immediately, gasps of horror erupted from the nobles.
"Monster!"
The effect of
"Is this all you can do? Awaken some puppets?"
I knew that this alone wouldn't immediately put us in an advantageous position. I knew we couldn't defeat Godric.
But this was enough.
'Right now, opening a path is the priority.'
Thanks to Leonardo, I realized what I had to do.
If he was willing to become the hero to carry out my mission, then it was my role to open the way for him.
At that moment…
[
At an unexpected moment, words appeared in my vision.
[#Devotion]
Soon, the spotlight began to shine down upon my head.
[All