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“Oho, good control there, Momo—gugeh!?”

I botched the landing and slammed face-first into the ground.

It wasn’t that Momo’s control was bad by any means—the problem lay squarely with my own lack of athleticism.

Rubbing my throbbing nose, I looked up, but my vision was still swimming with afterimages.

“Ugh…! Damn it, the sensation’s totally different from magecraft-assisted braking…!”

Luckily, I’d managed to wedge in a cushion of wind at the last moment, so my nose wasn’t broken, and there wasn’t any bleeding.

…Still, something felt off. Momo would normally be the first one making a loud fuss in a situation like this.

Feeling a strange sense of unease, I turned to look behind me—but there was no sign of Momo or the others. Only an ink-like darkness spread out before me.

“…Momo?”
“Huh? Who’s that? Your girlfriend or something?”

At the sound of a voice that shouldn’t have been there, I instinctively fired a fireball.

The searing-hot flame struck the face of the figure standing behind me—but there was no way someone like this would be taken down by a basic spell.

If it was the real thing, even more so.

“Gahack! Goff—guh! Bweehh!! That’s a hell of a way to greet your teacher!”
“*I*¹ don’t recall being raised by a monster. You died a thousand years ago.”

The figure wore the distinctive garb of an Outlander—“Kasaya” and “Amigasa (braided hat)”—and carried a staff that chimed with a clear, tinkling sound.

She brushed away the sparks with one hand, and the face and long black hair that emerged were untouched by burns. She took a swig from a leather flask, no doubt filled with liquor to soothe her smoke-scorched throat.

That habit was unmistakable. The person before me was none other than Yuuri Rin, just as I remembered her.

“So I’m dead, huh? Well, that’s life. Still… you’ve gotten adorably cute, haven’t you?”
“Shut up. Or better yet, drop dead again.”

Leaving the idiot in front of me aside for now, I needed to take stock of the situation.

Looking around, there was no trace of Momo or the others, not even a scrap of the bones that had littered the place before. At some point, even the floor had turned pitch black.

A hallucination? But it was far too vivid for that, and yet too inconsistent. The detail in the figure and the environment didn’t match—like a memory projected from within rather than a foreign construct imposed from without…

“…I see. A dream, huh.”
“That’s right. My disciple is such a scatterbrain.”

A sharp blow, like being slapped hard on the back, jolted my body forward.

As if that was the cue, cracks spread through the pitch-black world, and a blinding light swallowed up my vision.

“Once you realize it’s a dream, you’ll wake up right away. And if it’s you, you’ll figure out the cause in no time. But be careful—once you’re awake, it’s straight into the fire.”
“…Even in death, you’re still a meddling fellow.”
“Naturally. I am the master who loved you more than anyone else in the world, after all.”

✦✧✦✧✦

**“……nnn… woof woof… woof!! Woof woof!!”**
“—!”

A chill, like an icicle being rammed down my spine, yanked me awake. I immediately rolled off the floor.

Just then, *something* came crashing down through the ceiling and stabbed into the spot where I’d been lying not even half a second ago.

“Daigorou! Wake up Momo and Hoshikawa! Bite them if you have to!”
**“Woof!!”**

That was close. If it weren’t for Daigorou’s barking, I would’ve died right then and there.

But reflection could wait—first, I had to get a grasp on the situation. What just happened? What had fallen?

This wasn’t some accidental cave-in. It was an attack—one laced with a clear intent to kill.

“…Tch. Would’ve been easier if you’d just died right there. Tough luck, huh.”
“I don’t know who you are, but if you want to talk, show yourself. Didn’t your parents teach you any manners?”
“…Oh? You’ve got guts. Fine—then I’ll kill you head-on.”

The crack in the ceiling widened with a thunderous rumble, and a cascade of rubble and sand came pouring down through the gaping hole.

The shockwave was even more intense than before—I could barely stay on my feet. And the sheer pressure of the magic in the air was enough to twist my senses.

“Momo, get down!!”
“H-Hogyyaaah!?”

It sounded like she got buried under a ton of sand and bones, but it seemed all three—two people and one golem—had come out unscathed.

If everyone was awake, the next step was figuring out how to survive this situation. But would the person in front of us really just let us go?

“So, nice to meet you, human. I’m Theo. I’m the calamity who’s about to kill you in the absolute worst and most glorious way possible. Make sure you remember my name—right before you die.”

A red-haired girl pinched the hem of her dress and gave a mock-curtsy with exaggerated elegance.

Peeking out from her smiling mouth were sharp canines, and her slit-like pupils resembled those of a lizard. Out of context, she might pass for a vampire, but the fact that she was basking in direct sunlight made that unlikely.

More importantly, I recognized the name “Theo.”

“…Wait a sec. What are you doing here? I almost mistook you for a human and crushed you flat.”
“Huh? Are you talking to me? What are you going on about?”
“What do you mean, what? Did you forget my face, you idi—… *Wait. Who are you*?”

The magic that had been hanging heavy in the air suddenly turned razor-sharp, brimming with murderous intent.

As much as I didn’t want to believe it, it seemed she hadn’t even been in battle mode until now.

“M-Master! Are you all right? I’m coming to—”
“Don’t! You’ll just get in the way! Take Daigorou and the others and run!”
“…Understood! I’ll go get help right away!!”
“I won’t be holding my breath, but I’ll be waiting. Go!”

The only reason the red-haired girl hadn’t moved while Momo and the others made their escape must’ve been sheer luck.

The opponent in front of me was on the same level as Ragna or War—possibly even greater in terms of sheer magical power.

The red-haired “Theo.”

If my memory served, that name had appeared in a book I read back in Rigel—listed among the Seven Great Calamities.

“……Honestly, I’m utterly disgusted with humanity. As if Noah wasn’t enough—you’ve stooped to even more repulsive acts.”
“I have no idea what you’re going on about, but if you’ve got no business here, would you mind leaving? As you can see, we’re kind of busy.”
“Silence! Don’t you dare open that mouth again! You, I’ll kill thoroughly and without mercy!!”
“Tch. And here I was, trying to keep things civil. What a savage.”

I kicked up the sand at my feet with a gust of wind and used the cover to put some distance between us.

She was an unknown opponent—and I still didn’t know what exactly had pierced through the ceiling earlier. Charging in blindly would be reckless.

“You really think keeping that distance will save you against *us*?”
“…Yeah… This is turning out way worse than I thought.”

I followed Theo’s pointing finger up toward the sky.

Above her head stretched a cloudless blue sky, but the sand near the ceiling had half-turned to glass—likely from intense heat.

And there, casting vast shadows across the sun, were two figures with majestic, outstretched wings.

“Pure dragons… just like Valka Muetta. Two of them, even.”
“As a final mercy, I’ll let you choose—will it be a “dragon” that kills you? Or a ‘star’?”