Kutori never liked her very much. She always called Kutori her little sister and treated her as such. Of course, fairies, who aren’t born from the womb of any mother, can’t actually have sisters or siblings of any sort. But she would justify their supposed older and younger sister relationship by saying that they originated in the same forest on the same floating island, or that she came five years earlier than Kutori. Pulling out those coincidental facts as evidence only annoyed Kutori more.

She also apparently had great skill with Dug Weapons, another point that Kutori didn’t like. Kutori remembered watching her fly off to battle, showing off her big sword, then come marching hоme with a wide grin on her face. Right after coming back, she would always barge into the dining hall and chow down on butter cake, an item on the menu at that time, with an expression of pure bliss.

One time, on a whim, the then young and inexperienced Kutori decided to ask her something.

“Why do you always wear that brooch, even though it doesn’t look good on you?”

“Ahaha you’re too honest, Kutori. You’ll make your big sister cry, you know?”

“You’re not my big sister…”
“Ehh? Well I certainly can’t be the little sister.”

“I’m saying we’re not sisters in the first place.”

After a few minutes of their usual light hearted banter, she loosened her smile a bit.

“I once had someone like a big sister too. I took this brooch from them.”

“Took it? She didn’t give it to you?”

“It was one of her treasures. She always wore it and took good care of it, so whenever I asked for it she wouldn’t listen.” At this point Kutori thought she was even more evil than before, stealing such an important item from someone, but like always she laughed away Kutori’s judgmental stares. “I would challenge her to various games, demanding the brooch if I won. Like grades in our training courses, or eating contests, or card games. But I never won. Even so, I kept challenging her because it was fun.”

Kutori could already see how the story would end. If Kutori didn’t know this self proclaimed big sister’s big sister, it meant that she had already gone by the time Kutori came around. Kutori remained silent, not wanting to ask about that, but it must have showed on her face.

The ‘big sister’ patted her back and went on. “Well in the end, I won by default. One day, she went off to battle without her brooch on. She had just left it on the desk in her room, so it became mine.” She laughed, even though Kutori couldn’t see anything funny about her story. “I think it looks bad on me too… but I feel like I need to wear it.”

Again, Kutori never liked her very much. But, looking back, maybe she wasn’t so bad after all. So that day when she never returned hоme from battle, Kutori went to her room. Behind the unlocked door lay a mess of underwear, card games, and other miscellaneous items strewn about. Amidst the clutter, only the top of her desk was clean. A silver brooch sat all alone right in the middle.

And even farther beyond those, he saw the great expanse of land spreading out in all directions. It contained no trace of the green of the forests, or the blue of the rivers and oceans, or the yellow of deserts. The view before his eyes contained only a sea of uncanny, muddy gray sand.

He had come to the harbor for the sole purpose of seeing that view. He wanted to confirm the things he had lost, the things he could never take back. But before long, even that gray wasteland began to melt into the absolute darkness of night.

There were a few things he could agree with. For example, that usage of Venom. Venom is a little like heat, or a flame. You first ignite a spark within your body, feed the fire, then transfer its power outside. But this heat places a burden on the user’s body. If you try to summon a flame beyond a certain strength, your own life force will smother it. This mechanism places an inherent upper limit on the amount of Venom the different races can wield.

So if there existed some twisted life form whose body was not strictly living, it would be able to produce an enormous amount of Venom far beyond what the other races could hope to achieve. That power, which would most likely be uncontrollable, would soon run wild and cause a gigantic explosion, blowing away the user and his enemy, leaving behind only a gaping hole with a lone Kaliyon at its center. The ultimate weapon. It might not be the most efficient, given its one time use nature, but just having that as an option carries significant meaning and value.

One more thing he could agree with: they were certainly strong. A race bred for war. Their entire lives spent for the sole purpose of victory. Carrying that fate alone made those girls worthy. Worthy of being the successors to the Regular Braves. They could become the thing that Willem had strived so hard to become but could not. Great. Wonderful. They probably wanted that too. In that case, he should be happy for them. He should bless them. Woohoo, awesome! I’ll leave all the rest to you! Good luck!

“… I want to die…”

One paper laid out the basic theory of necromancy. It started by assuming the existence of the soul and went on to enumerate other occult beliefs. For example, the soul starts out pure white but gets colored by the surrounding environment as life proceeds. As a result, the soul takes more time to mature than the flesh. Even though a child may have a perfectly fine body, his soul will still be very different in structure than that of an adult.

So if one loses his body before his soul has been fully colored by the world, in a way he will die before he is finished being born. The souls who meet this contradiction somehow ignore the world’s rules, by which they should head towards the afterlife (if such a place exists), and instead continue to wander aimlessly among the living.

Those existences are called fairies. Lost souls that passed away at an age so young they couldn’t recognize their own death. Because of this, their behavior imitates that of babies or young children. Guided by their curiosity, not knowing good from evil, sometimes innocent and sometimes cruel, they continue their mischief.

“But they will never have a place in this world… “

Willem glanced at the young girl still sleeping on his knees, then returned his eyes to the document. The remaining section of the article made him feel queasy. To put it simply, it described a concrete method to artificially birth fairies for the purpose of utilizing them. Once it started talking about a sacrifice or something of the sort, he stopped reading. He wasn’t particularly interested in learning necromancy.

Another document recounted a skirmish that took place five years ago. A fairy, unknown to Willem, had carried the Kaliyon named Insania into battle. She had fought three bodies of ‘The 6th Beast’ almost to the point where her Venom went berserk, but somehow lived and returned hоme. Willem quickly flipped through the pages of the document, which had many similar accounts. Occasionally he spotted mentions of ‘the opening of the gate to the fairy hоmeland’, which most likely alluded to deliberate self explosion by overuse of Venom.

Strictly speaking, fairies, including the subtype Leprechauns, were not living. They counted as a type of ghost. Consequently, they did not technically count as soldiers despite fighting with the army. Even if a fairy fell during battle, she would not be included in the official death toll.

The large, boulder like face of a Reptrace appeared though the communication crystal.

“The prophecy remains. The surge will strike at the previously marked land. We must make haste; release the falcons and sharpen the arrowheads.”

He spoke with the strange manner and hard to understand pronunciation characteristic to the Reptrace. One not used to it would have a difficult time grasping the meaning of his message, which, when translated to plain language, went something like this:

“There have been no changes in the prediction. The attack will be carried out at the previously anticipated place and time. We must hurry to prepare the battlefield and our weapons.”

“… ah, got it. Or, actually, I already knew,” responded Naigrat, trying to suppress the anger boiling up inside her head. If the enemy’s movements were all going according to plan, that meant her’s would too. Can’t you find a way to do this without using those ‘arrowheads’!? Her mouth felt like it would move on its own and scream that if she let her guard down even a little.

So Naigrat locked up all of her emotions inside and, in one corner of her brain, created a new self. One that could always choose the best option without hesitation and act without being swayed by weak emotions. A mechanical self that she could force to do all the talking.

“Three days from now, at the eighth hour, I will dispatch three out of five current Dug Weapon users to the harbor district, fully armed.”

You guys are soldiers aren’t you!? Putting yourself out there on the front lines prepared for death is part of your job, isn’t it!? Then why do none of you die!? Why are our girls always the only sacrifices!?

“One of the three, fairy soldier Kutori Nota Seniolis, will open the gate to the fairy hоmeland during the mission.”

I don’t believe that you’re doing your best! I won’t recognize it! Fight harder! Think harder! Find another way to fight! Save our children!

“The other two, fairy soldiers Aiseia Myse Valgalis and Nephren Ruq Insania, will stand by as reserves. If the battle is not resolved after Seniolis opens the gate, they will go in armed with Dug Weapons at the discretion of those present at the scene.”

They still don’t know what it’s like to be in love. They’ve never known any true happiness. Yet why… why must they go so soon?

“The aforementioned ‘arrowheads’ will be supplied to the Winged Guard by the Orlandri Trading Company’s 4th Warehouse.”

… why can’t we take their place?

But Naigrat already knew the answer to that. Fully grown fairies have the capability to wield immense power. So of course, the superiors in the army knew well the advantages of using them as sacrifices in battle. Not swayed by emotion like her, they probably understood the necessity much better.

Yet the sacrificial nature of the weapons meant that they had to be prepared to suffer permanent losses in order to even have a chance at victory. Still, there could be no replacements for the fairies. Anything else would be like pouring a measly cup of water onto a raging inferno threatening to swallow an entire island. Even though Naigrat might have been feared among the locals as a troll, in the end she was just that: a mere troll. She couldn’t protect a single thing she wanted to protect or take a single thing she wanted to take. Naigrat knew. She knew all too well.

With a snap, the transmission coming through the communication crystal got cut off. And with it, the emotions bottled inside her also snapped.

“Agghhhh!!!” Naigrat howled in agony. “Why!? Why why why!?!?” Facing up at the ceiling, she simply screamed out all the frustration as it came to her.

That mechanical self she created in the corner of her brain? She threw that disgusting thing in the trash can and shredded it to bits.

“Why… why… “

The surge of emotions began to dry up, and her screams turned into quiet sobs. Large teardrops flooded her eyes before dropping down to her knees, staining her skirt.

Naigrat had once decided to be a strong woman. One that the girls could comfortably rely on for support. One that could be the next best thing to the mother that the girls never had. Or, at least, one that could act that way.

That day, she vowed to herself. No matter what happened, she must not cry. The girls were the ones who truly needed to cry, the ones that truly felt afraid. So Naigrat needed to be there to stop those tears. No matter how frustrated she got or how much she had to suppress her feelings, she needed to be able to support the girls with a smile.

I was an idiot… how could I possibly do that? How could I ever stop their tears if I can’t even stop my own?

The failure of a strong woman wailed like a baby. No one was there to comfort her. No one would stop her tears. So she cried, and cried, and cried, with no end in sight.