Two days had passed since the end of the civil war. As with previous days, Mercurio’s army and the punitive force were still clearing away the bodies.

With so many people working together, the process was quick and most of the corpses on the Brissa Plain had already been collected.

……Of course, that excluded the bodies that had been eaten or damaged by beasts and monsters during the night.

If they took too long clearing away the bodies, they risked them turning into undead. And, even if that didn’t happen, leaving corpses until next spring would also risk spreading diesease.

With that in mind, both Mercurio’s army and the punitive force understood the importance of clearing away and properly disposing of the corpses. That was why, despite the tense atmosphere at times, both sides collected and disposed of all the bodies they found without any major incidents.

After Mercurio’s army and the punitive force had gathered all the bodies to a single location……

「Alright, move away.」

Rei spoke after seeing 50 corpses lined up.

Hearing his words, the soldiers quickly stepped away.

The next moment, compressed magic power enveloped Rei’s body as it turned a deep crimson.

「Phew……I’ve gotten used to activating this.」

He muttered to himself as he looked at the Fire Emperor’s Crimson Armour that covered his body.

He had managed to use the skill quite freely in battle, but activating it took quite a bit of effort.

He instinctively knew how to activate it, but he wasn’t quite how or why.

For Rei, who had basically learned the skill by using it rather than understanding how it worked, the process was a little complicated.

Of course, if he continually used it over the course of a day, he would naturally become more familiar with it.

This was one of the benefits of Fire Emperor’s Crimson Armour, the fact that it consumed less magic power than Overlord’s Armour, which ate through Rei’s magic power like crazy.

Overlord’s Armour would have been hard for Rei to keep active for several hours a day.

「Thank you.」

「Thank you for your help.」

The commanders of the units that had brought the bodies to Rei, both from Mercurio’s army and from the punitive force, bowed their heads towards him.

They couldn’t help but feel solemn as Rei cremated the bodies of their subordinates and comrades.

(Well, it would probably be better to use 『Funeral Flames』 if I could……but that uses up even more magic power than Fire Emperor’s Crimson Armour. In addition, the magic power consumption only increases if I want to cover a larger area, unlike Fire Emperor’s Crimson Armour, which I can constantly use after activating.)

Since he couldn’t use holy magic efficiently, Rei thought that it would just be better to practice using Flame Emperor’s Crimson Armour, the skill he had just learned, rather than Funeral Flames, to prevent undead from rising.

He looked over to where the bodies were lined up and detached part of the crimson flames from his armour as he threw it at them.

Deep Flame. The flames transformed into the image Rei held in his mind and the moment they came in contact with the bodies they exploded and engulfed them.

The flames were so hot that the bodies were quickly reduced to ashes.

As for what to do with the weapons, armour, and accessories that the dead bodies had on them, that was left to the people carrying the bodies.

Those who were greedy could take what they wanted.

Those who knew the person who had died might take something as a keepsake for themselves or for the deceased’s family.

Those who just mourned the dead simply carried the bodies as they were.

In this way, the Deep Flame quickly consumed the corpses.

With a battle involving tens of thousands of people like this one, there was no time for prayers after each cremation.

「Bring over the next group.」

After confirming that there were no more bodies where they had been previously lined up, Rei ordered the soldiers to bring in the next lot.

「Y-Yes!」

A frightened soldier stuttered out a response before running away.

Rei was thinking that there was no need to be that scared……but no normal soldier would want to be close to Rei while he had Fire Emperor’s Crimson Armour active.

Well, the fact that the soldier was from the punitive force likely also played a part.

As someone who had participated in the battle on the Brissa Plain and had even been part of the human wall that had surrounded the battle between Rei and Noiz, Rei’s activation of Fire Emperor’s Crimson Armour gave them nothing but nightmares.

It was only natural, considering that it was what allowed Rei to beat out Noiz, a hero of the Bestir Empire, albeit in a roundabout way.

Personally, Rei felt that victory had been given to him by Noiz as he knew that he would have still lost to Noiz in the end if they had kept fighting.

That was why Rei never considered it his victory against Noiz and was determined to win the next time they met. In order to do that, he trained to master Fire Emperor’s Crimson Armour to narrow the gap between him and Noiz, even if just a little.

「Rei-dono, they’re coming over!」

As the soldier from before called out to him, Rei could see soldiers carrying more corpses on carts.

The soldiers then proceeded to lay the bodies out on the ground in front of Rei.

As Rei watched the corpses being lined up in an orderly fashion, his eyes fell on one of them as he shouted out.

「Hey, don’t treat the corpses carelessly!」

Rei shouted out as he saw what appeared to be a mercenary throwing a corpse to the ground.

Mercenaries were people who were used to seeing death.

On a normal battlefield, corpses wouldn’t be lined up nicely to be burned like they were now. The bodies would just be tossed into a pile before burning.

Perhaps those habits were still on their minds as Rei saw the messy way in which the corpses were being handled.

For a moment, the mercenary seemed like they would complain, but they realised who who was shouting at them and continued to line the bodies up with an annoyed look on their face.

「Rei-dono, please calm down. There are all sorts of mercenaries. Some of them will properly mourn the dead and even those that don’t will handle bodies of people they know with due respect.」

The soldier from before hurriedly told Rei, as it would be no laughing matter if Rei decided to go a on rampage here.

To the soldier, Rei was the living embodiment of violence, so his reaction was only natural.

Rei was still covered by Fire Emperor’s Crimson Armour after all, so he was definitely not someone to anger at this point in time.

The mercenary still seemed a little dissatisfied, but obediently followed Rei’s orders as he knew what might happen if he didn’t.

(Who do they think I am?)

Rei thought to himself, but considering the things he had done up to now, it was hard to deny the facts.

「Hah. ……Anyhow, show more respect to the dead. Don’t treat the bodies roughly.」

At Rei’s words, the soldiers, mercenaries, and adventurers carefully laid the corpses out onto the ground.

A few minutes later, all the bodies were unloaded from the carts and everyone left.

「Rei-dono, please. This will be the last lot here, so we will move the the next location after cremating all these corpses.」

「Got it.」

Nodding at his words, tentacles grew out from the shoulders of Rei’s crimson armour as a Deep Flame flew out.

Flying through the air, the Deep Flame eventually landed at the center of the corpses before engulfing them all in flames.

After confirming that all the corpses had been cremated, he deactivated Fire Emperor’s Crimson Armour as he turned to face the soldier.

「So, where’s the next location?」

「……Ah, yes. There’s a place west of here where they’re collecting more corpses, so please go there.」

The Brissa Plain was referred to as a singular location, but it was actually a large area, enough for tens of thousands of soldiers to fight.

Gathering all the corpses to a single location would have been far too inefficient.

That had been the opinion of both the higher ups in Mercurio’s army and the punitive force. As a result, it was decided that the battlefield would be split up into several areas with each area responsible for collecting the corpses within it.

Rei was currently in one of those areas, so after clearing all the nearby corpses, he moved on to the next location.

As Rei disposed of corpses elsewhere, more would be collected here.

Of course, Rei wasn’t hte only one disposing of corpses.

There were other mages around and it was possible to burn corpses even without a mage.

However, Rei’s cremation, using Deep Flames, was much hotter than the fire that other mages could make, let alone ordinary fires.

It was so intense that even bones would be burned in a matter of minutes.

As a result, Rei was assigned many more areas, moving onto the next one as soon as he was done with his current one.

「Okay, I’ll leave this place to you.」

「Y-Yes. Thank you.」

「……Why are you thanking me?」

Rei knew that the soldier was afraid of him.

Rei thought that maybe the soldier was no longer afraid of him, but soldier just gave a slight smile in response as he spoke.

「That’s because, my comrades were properly mourned. They certainly wouldn’t have wanted to be eaten by monsters or beasts, or become undead, or a source of disease.」

It wasn’t that he was no longer afraid of Rei.

No, in fact, out of all the people that he could get along with after what he had been through, Rei wouldn’t be high on the list if he was on the list at all.

But even so, for the soldier, Rei had been one of the people who had mourned his comrades.

It would be truly pathetic of him if he didn’t express his gratitude at this point.

In fact, even as he spoke to Rei now, his legs would start shaking as soon as he lost focus.

「……I know I shouldn’t be the one to say not to worry about it, but once you’re dead, there’s no friend or foe. I didn’t fight out of any particular grudge against you all.」

If Rei had harboured any resentment or hatred towards them, he wouldn’t have treated the bodies as carefully as he did while cremating them.

If they had been people from the Church of Holy Light for example.

However, although he had various relations with the people who participated in this battle, there is no one he truly hated.

The soldiers he had cremated had been complete strangers to him.

That being the case, Rei wouldn’t treat them poorly.

「But still, let me thank you. ……Thank you very much.」

「Well, if it makes you happy, then do what you want. I’m heading off.」

With those words, Rei left the soldier behind as he went over to Set, who had been watching from a short distance away.

「Set, let’s go.」

「Guru~」

Set gave a brief response to Rei before standing up and pointing his back towards Rei.

Rei gently stroked Set before getting on his back, after which Set took a run up of several steps before flying into the sky.

Having seen the two of them leave, the soldier gave a small sigh in relief before preparing to receive the next lot of bodies.

 

 

「Set, sorry to bother you with all this, especially after the civil war has finally ended.」

「Gururu~」

Set shook his head as they flew through the air, showing that he didn’t mind.

To Set, being with Rei was more than enough to make him happy.

Even if he could go anywhere he wanted, it would be pointless if it was just himself without Rei. ……That was a bit of an exaggeration, but it would still be quite boring to Set.

Rei understood how Set felt. He gently stroked Set’s neck with a small smile on his face.

Set gave a happy cry in response.

Rei and Set engaged in such playful exchanges for a bit, but with Set’s speed, even crossing the vast Brissa Plain was just a short flight.

「Ah, we’ve been waiting for you!」

A soldier who had been standing where the corpses were lined up called out to Rei as he got off Set’s back.

However, unlike the soldier from before, this soldier harboured no fear of Rei or Set.

That was a matter of course. Unlike the previous soldier, this soldier was from Mercurio’s army.

To this soldier, Rei and Set were their army’s trump cards and he wasn’t afraid of them, despite what they had done in the battle.

……It was a completely different matter the first time he met Rei and Set of course.

「Well then, let’s get started right away.」

「Yes, I’m counting on you.」

Seeing the soldier step back, Rei activated Fire Emperor’s Crimson Armour.

The surrounding temperature quickly rose.

The soldier seemed a little surprised as he took a few more steps back, away from the heat Rei was giving off.

As he saw that, he realised that Set didn’t seem to mind the heat at all.

Griffons were naturally resistant to changes in temperature……was what Rei thought before he remembered that he had yet to test Fire Emperor’s Crimson Armour with Set.

「Set, are you okay?」

Rei called out to Set while still covered in the crimson flames.

Set didn’t seem to feel the heat at all as he just tilted his head at Rei curiously.

「……」

Rei took one careful step, then two……but Set just stood there unfazed. Eventually, Rei reached out timidly to touch Set……but all Set did was turn to look at him with round eyes as he gave a cry, as if asking ‘What’s wrong?’.

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