— — — — — —
Kazuma used teleportation to enter the royal palace. It didn't take long before he found Erza curled up in a corner.
She was hugging herself, clutching the electronic watch in her hands. The mirror-like screen was cracked now, spiderwebbed from being thrown to the ground. Her eyes were red and swollen, as if she'd already cried herself dry.
"Erza," Kazuma said gently, "whether it's you in this world or you in another one, you're still the same."
"No matter how strong you pretend to be on the outside, your heart is still fragile. So tell me. Why are you crying?"
He sat down cross-legged beside her, reached out, and lightly patted her head, laughing softly.
"So… I'm like that in another world too?"
Erza looked at him. Her lips trembled, and before she could stop herself, tears spilled out again.
"I never wanted to betray the kingdom," she sobbed. "I just wanted everyone to survive. I never once thought about abandoning my homeland!"
"I… I brought this to His Majesty to show him, but he just threw it on the ground."
"I tried to explain, I really did, but he wouldn't listen at all. I… I lost my honor as a knight."
"Was I wrong? Should I have died bravely on the battlefield instead?"
Her eyes, swollen and red, looked up at Kazuma. There was no resolve left in them now, only confusion.
Confusion about her future. Confusion about what she was supposed to do.
"A watch, huh? That kind of thing doesn't mean much."
Kazuma looked at the watch she was holding as if it were her last shred of hope, her final proof that she hadn't been wrong.
Smiling, he reached out and took it from her. Then, without hesitation, he crushed it in his hand. When he opened his fingers again, the watch had been reduced to fragments.
"So it really was useless…" Erza murmured blankly. "Was all that talk about technology just a lie after all?"
Watching the watch shatter felt like something inside her breaking too.
"It didn't lie to you," Kazuma replied.
He grabbed her arm firmly and pulled her to her feet. Then he shouted toward the outside. Almost instantly, a massive dragon swooped down from the sky.
Kazuma jumped onto its back, pulling Erza along with him. The dragon beat its wings and shot upward, climbing fast. In the blink of an eye, the kingdom below shrank into something tiny and distant.
"What are you doing?!" Erza cried, panic rising as she looked down at the rapidly shrinking city.
She tried to struggle, but she had no strength left in her body. It must have drained away at the moment her inner resolve collapsed.
"I'm letting you really see this world," Kazuma said calmly. "It doesn't belong to the king alone. And it's not something the king gets to define by himself."
"A watch doesn't prove anything. You took something trivial and tried to use it to earn someone else's approval."
"That was never going to work. No, the moment you thought about seeking validation from others, you were already wrong."
"What other people think of me has nothing to do with me. I do what I want to do. That's why I keep getting stronger."
"Through life-and-death battles, I gained power beyond everyone else. I don't need anyone's approval. My own is enough."
His gaze was unwavering.
He was cruel. Tyrannical. The kind of man who would rather kill the wrong person than let an enemy slip away. But he had never once wavered.
Kill as many as it took. If someone cursed him, then kill them too. Kill until no one dared to speak again.
"You might think I'm ruthless," he continued. "That's fine. I don't care. All I want is to keep moving forward with those who follow me and those I cherish."
"Even if the road ahead is piled with corpses and flooded with blood. I'll keep walking," Kazuma said, looking down at the land below. "That is my duty."
"… duty," Erza repeated softly.
She stared at him, her heart shaking. Until now, she had only seen him as a terrifying monster of overwhelming strength.
But now, her view changed.
This was a king who carried everything on his own shoulders.
"Are we… your subjects?" she asked quietly. "If we are, will you protect us?"
"I will," Kazuma said without hesitation. "Just watch. It won't take long before I change this world completely. I'll free it from the chains of magic."
"Not with something as small as a watch, but with achievements and feats that the entire world itself will bear witness to."
"Wherever my eyes can see is my territory. Everyone who lives there is my subject."
He pointed at the land far below, then turned back to Erza.
"You were wondering whether what you did was right, weren't you? Then let me answer you."
"You don't know what you should do next, right? Then I'll tell you. Follow me. Obey my orders."
"If one day these choices are proven wrong, then all the blame and all the curses will fall on me."
"That king didn't acknowledge you," Kazuma said firmly. "But I do."
.
.
.