"Escape?"

I couldn't understand what he meant.

But before I could ask more, I thrust the plate toward him. It was dinner prepared by the most skilled cook among those I'd brought along.

Kisis didn't even glance at the plate.

"Yeah. As soon as we get back to the Imperial Capital, report it and prepare for an organized escape."

"Eat first."

"The mages can draw a dimensional teleportation circle and we slip out through it. They've honed it for ten years, so it won't burst even if a lot of people pass through."

"Eat."

Thud!

Kisis swatted the dish away heavily.

I smoothly caught the flying dish with my left hand.

Not even a drop of food spilled.

Kisis looked at me with an incredulous expression.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm offering you a meal."

I meant it.

When I stared straight at him with wide-open eyes, Kisis's voice lowered.

"You don't get the situation?"

"If you really can't eat, I'll at least do a transference for you."

I actually wanted to make him take a bath too.

But that felt like crossing a real line, so I just insisted on the meal. Honestly, my mind had been unsettled for two straight days. Seeing fragments of his ten years of life while cutting away the corruption had made it worse.

Where on earth had he even found decent food to eat?

Hiding my inner thoughts behind a brazen expression, I held out the plate again.

"If you really don't want it, I'll do the transference."

"You and your empty bravado, still going to puke anyway. You still called the World Tree's Unfilial Scion?"

"I've heard Unfilial Traitor too. And keep the puking a secret in front of the juniors."

Everyone in the world knew I was a child of the World Tree. The golden eye was our trait.

But I stubbornly avoided using absorption or transference. That's why those who hated me called me the World Tree's Unfilial Scion. Unfilial Traitor was a recent upgrade. Maybe because I didn't mind Unfilial Scion, they escalated it.

But calling me an Unfilial Traitor just for not using the World Tree child's traits was too much, wasn't it?

Unfilial Scion might have been fair enough. Of course, my knights under me couldn't accept even that nickname. I'd had to jump in multiple times to stop subordinates who charged at anyone who called me that.

But that wasn't important right then.

Since he didn't seem like he'd eat, I stood up to do absorption followed by transference.

At that moment, Kisis lunged at me.

Thump!

"Hey, what the hell!"

"If you're offering, eat it."

This madman was on a whole other level.

Normal people would have just eaten by then. Or quietly accepted the transference.

But this swordmaster and prince hated things going the way others wanted.

Kisis pinned me down and gripped my wrist.

I rolled my eyes and grumbled.

"For transference, it's easier if you touch my palm."

"Do even you absorb magical beasts?"

"Yes."

So I thought there might still be hope for the world.

Summoners had succeeded in taming some magical beasts, and we had succeeded in absorbing them. The rapidly spreading corruption could be purified, and magical beasts born from corruption could be tamed, killed, or absorbed. I didn't want to believe Kisis's words that there was no hope for this world yet.

Things like dimensional teleportation were hard to understand, being mage stuff.

Kisis crushed my hand.

I let out a sigh.

"I'll do the transference."

Where had Cecil gone? The silent, beautiful mage. She was the only one who could appear by Kisis's side without warning, grab his neck, and teleport him to the Imperial Capital.

Afraid to ask about the mage's safety, I started the transference before I could speak.

The share was for two days of not eating while sleeping.

"The ashes left after burning have nothing left to absorb."

I couldn't understand what Kisis spat out with a sneer.

*

Five days after finding Kisis.

I finally understood his mutterings.

"Let's go back."

Amid shouts of "Call the mage!", "You must avoid it!", "Bring water!", I looked at my knights and said.

"To where the flames can't reach."

It was blue flames.

Dizzying heat enveloped the camp. Kisis wasn't surprised. Instead, with eyes that said he'd been waiting, he coldly watched the blue flames that covered the corruption. He must have foreseen this situation already.

They probably wouldn't go out normally. Those flames would devour everything they wanted until the corruption they fed on ran out, then fade.

To cut off the flames' path, I severed the corruption.

"Where is Cecil?"

I finally asked the question I'd delayed for days.

Kisis smirked and reached for his sword.

"She disappeared."

"What?"

"While opening a dimensional gate, she got pulled in. Couldn't bring her back."

My face stiffened.

Kisis didn't take his eyes off the burning blue flames.

"For ten years, I racked my brain for a way to evolve past that thing, but no good solutions came up. Magic doesn't work, holy power doesn't either. It advances while burning the corruption, and the burned areas become uninhabitable for people."

"So that's why you talked about dimensional teleportation..."

"You, being ignorant about magic, probably think it's nonsense."

The unit retreated.

To the point where Kisis and I had completely severed the corruption with our sword paths. The knights followed us in silence. Even when the corruption's spread sped up, it hadn't felt this hopeless. A few years ago, we'd succeeded in breeding magical beasts.

In fact, I'd encouraged the knight order with that basis.

The situation was getting worse, but not that destructive.

We were trying too, so the world wouldn't collapse...

"There must be a way, right?"

A rookie knight suddenly broke the silence.

I turned to him, and Kisis snorted without looking back.

"Like how we've always found a way... There must be something this time too?"

"If we stop bestowing benedictions, maybe hope will appear."

The prince muttered in a low voice.

"But that's impossible, isn't it?"

A state we couldn't return from.

I knew well that it was impossible. Because it was obvious. Who would give that up? No matter how much we petitioned, it would never be completely eradicated. Even then, with limited recipients for benedictions, there were too many desperate attempts to get them.

Was it because we tampered with the natural order we shouldn't have?

Anyway, as I comforted the rookie knight with "We'll have to try," Kisis muttered to himself beside me.

"It's too late."

I caught his small mutter, barely audible.

"That arrogant old man will realize I was right."

*

Grand Duke Zack understood Kisis's claim.

A few hours later, the grand duke emerged from his office with a terrifying expression and said to me.

"Gather the mages."

"Grand Duke."

"It's already far too late."

From his blazing voice, I read the severity of the situation.

The prime minister, with his white hair neatly combed back, looked at me with burning eyes.

"It's the calculated result. Even if we start organized escape preparations now, not everyone in the Imperial Capital can escape. But if we dawdle, it'll get worse! Call the archmage holed up in the tower first! Gather the mages!"

"Yes."

"I'll go to His Majesty."

As I answered promptly, the prime minister said to his attendant beside me.

"Right now."

We moved quickly.

After that, many things happened. The Imperial Clan moved. They never took Grand Prime Minister Zack's words lightly. It was already too late, but the leader heeded the advice of his outstanding subordinate and son.

There was no delay after the desperate reality was reported.

The Imperial Capital moved to survive.

Even from his sickbed, the emperor issued commands without rest. The first imperial prince and first imperial princess stopped their power struggle and joined hands. The nobles forgot old family feuds and clasped hands with their enemies. What could they do if they didn't? If they burned with the world, they'd lose power and life alike.

All the nation's power focused on escaping this place. Mages slowed the approaching corruption to the Imperial Capital, and mages prepared dimensional teleportation circles. Kyle, Ray, and I severed corruption with them, led the members, and suppressed disturbances.

Hecate oversaw security in the Imperial Capital and organized escape teams.

Meanwhile, the world outside the Imperial Capital burned.

"Did the World Tree burn too?"

Ray muttered as he watched the plains, once dazzling with a golden horizon beyond the mountains enveloping the Imperial Capital, now burning.

To sense the World Tree's presence, I probed my sixth sense.

The golden spores poured from the tree.

"Not all of it yet."

The presence I'd felt clearly whenever I looked inward since that day had now grown faint.

"You feel it too."

"The fire's speed is increasing."

Ray didn't answer, and Kyle, slumped down, muttered.

"At this rate, it'll reach the Imperial Capital in less than fourteen days."

Our hands were covered in bright red corruption. We'd bought time by cutting it from the ground over and over. When it all felt futile, I thought of the ten years Kisis had sent.

Ten years.

In that time, he'd accomplished much. He knew the fire would burn the corruption and scorch the world. He confirmed the flames couldn't be extinguished by magic, a swordmaster's sword, or holy water. He calculated that the Imperial Capital would be overrun by corruption, or even if not, perish in the flames extending from it.

After the calculations, he didn't despair but found a way to survive.

A way for us to live on, even leaving the world behind.

Through countless sacrifices.

Kisis's unit had been wiped out, leaving only him.

"If we'd put in more manpower when the corruption first started, would the outcome have been different?"

Ray muttered to himself.

I thought about his words and slowly shook my head.

If we hadn't stopped the benedictions that sickened the tree, it would have been just a matter of time.

"Probably not."

Kyle, thinking the same, answered for me.

"In the end, we'd have seen this sight anyway."

The burning plains.

We looked at the reed fields overtaken by blue fire.

The Imperial Capital, backed against it, came to mind.

The citizens packed their belongings, the knights led them, and Grand Duke Zack repeated incomprehensible calculations hundreds of times to input the number of destinations the moment the dimensional teleportation circle activated. Kisis gave sly advice to people, then assisted the emperor, while the prince and princess rode around checking if dimensional teleportation preparations were going well.

"So we should keep trying to survive without losing hope until the end."

Because everyone was trying to live. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

Because that was the essence of life.

"The dimensional teleportation circle is perfect, so if things go like this, we can escape smoothly."

I muttered with desperate hope.

Completely forgetting that the world had never granted my earnest wishes.

With my old friends, I stood for a long time watching the beautiful, rippling flames.

*

Three days later.

The fire engulfed the Imperial Capital.