The thrown torch ignited the kindling, jumping flames obscuring vision, bringing unbearable burning heat.
Looking at the overly ceremonial church, Aponia’s bright azure eyes gradually dimmed, just like the sky at this moment — gloomy colors obscured the sky, as if eager to replace something.
No hope could be seen.
The crackling of burning kindling and people’s cheering gradually blurred, until—
“Whoosh—!”
Like a meteor, pink light cut through the sky, piercing the clouds and dispersing all gloom.
The dawn light that had been obscured poured down through the gap onto the earth, also illuminating the dimmed eyes.
In the azure that could see no hope reflected the pink girl standing atop the church, a girl as delicate as a fairy from fairy tales slowly lowering the incredibly gorgeous crystal bow decorated with flowers in her hands.
Under people’s astonished gazes, ‘she’ raised her sleeve and leaped down to the ground. Just like in a movie, amid everyone’s instinctive bewilderment, she landed in front of the stake, raised that dream-like face, looked at Aponia and smiled:
“Mm~ looks like I’m not too late.”
The breeze that rose up stirred that beautiful flowing pink long hair. At some point, the flames wrapped around the stake had unknowingly extinguished.
“…”
This somewhat dreamlike scene left Aponia a bit dazed.
Although she was well-loved among the lower class of Twilight Street due to her charitable work, she had never considered the possibility that someone would come to save her.
In this Twilight Street, there probably didn’t exist anyone who would abandon life and death to rescue her.
But—
This scene that looked like it would only appear in movies had indeed happened at this very moment.
Just like a ray of light, illuminating her heart that thought it could no longer see hope.
However, at this moment, Aponia’s heart held more worry than joy.
“You…”
Although 【Elysia】 clearly wasn’t an ordinary person, they were currently on the pyre. While the surrounding ‘audience’ might not react at first due to being stunned, once they came to their senses, those people had already shown unfriendly expressions.
Especially those church members belonging to the Apocalypse Church, they had already taken up weapons and begun slowly approaching.
This development made Aponia want to persuade this suddenly appeared girl to leave quickly. Although she was very moved that someone came to save her, if they couldn’t succeed and instead got themselves involved, she would consider it her sin.
Moreover…
No matter what, she didn’t want anything to happen to this girl before her.
It might seem strange to say, but even though they didn’t even know each other’s names, when Aponia saw her, she felt in her heart that — if there really was someone who could save those pitiful people, it might be this girl she’d never met before.
But before Aponia’s words of persuasion could be spoken, the girl’s slender index finger pressed against her lips, blinking and smiling while shaking her head.
The tight restraints, rough ropes that showed no mercy left countless wounds, but under the influence of an unknown power, those ropes that had been bound extremely tightly to ensure the condemned couldn’t escape loosened on their own. Aponia, who fell from the stake, didn’t have time to say a word before letting out a surprised “ah” and falling into 【Elysia】’s arms in a princess carry — at this moment, Aponia’s cheeks immediately reddened. Although her tolerance for embarrassment was quite high, this kind of experience… this was definitely the first time!
She had rarely even seen similar scenes, only occasionally glimpsing them on TV programs when going out.
“Mm, surprisingly heavy.”
The pink girl remarked, unconsciously comparing her to Miss Fatty she had held before. Much heavier… well, she is an adult female character after all.
But not too much heavier, probably just… a 5kg difference? For Aponia’s height and build, that’s very well controlled~
That kind of voluptuous feeling was much more exciting than when Jiang Qiao touched 【Elysia】.
Eh… seems like I shouldn’t continue thinking this way.
Someone who could sense 【Elysia】’s displeasure, Jiang Qiao, laughed and dismissed thoughts of comparing Miss Fatty.
— The sight of a girl-sized figure holding adult-sized Aponia looked particularly strange. After the girl’s sweet and mischievous voice saying “Hold on tight, we’re taking off?” rang in Aponia’s ears, Miss Discipline, who was still somewhat confused, cried out in the next moment.
Lightly tapping the high heels of the Flame-Chaser outfit, a massive airflow naturally arose from beneath her feet, carrying the two of them soaring into the sky.
The resulting massive air pressure knocked all the approaching Apocalypse Church members to the ground, rendering them unconscious.
Moments later, the pink girl holding Aponia touched down with her heels, slowly landing.
Miss Discipline, who had been held, finally felt the stable sensation of solid ground. Mm… looking at those somewhat trembling pale thighs, she obviously wasn’t very comfortable with the feeling of flying in the sky?
“…Are they dead?”
The somewhat shaken Aponia’s first question wasn’t about anything else, but about the people at the scene.
“How could that be? They were just knocked unconscious by the airflow. Uh… they might have some eardrum bleeding afterward? Anyway, they probably won’t wake up for a while, but don’t worry, someone will come to handle them later.”
“That’s good.”
Although everyone at the execution site could be said to be guilty, Aponia still showed a relieved expression upon hearing this news.
Her personality was just like this, even after suffering unfair treatment, what she thought about was how to discipline those people to walk the right path.
“Oh right, the people from the sanatorium!”
“Don’t worry, Phyllis has already rescued them.”
Although the target was only Aponia, Jiang Qiao hadn’t neglected those sanatorium people who were captured along with Aponia.
Unlike Aponia, those sanatorium people were all locked in the church’s dungeon and would be dealt with later — given that there wouldn’t be too many guards, with the ‘autonomous defensive crystal flower’ he had given her, Phyllis alone could rescue all the sanatorium people.
As he spoke, the crystal flower he carried transmitted Pardofelis’s excited voice:
“Sister Ellie, I’ve already brought everyone from the sanatorium out!”
“See~”
Although somewhat surprised and curious about how a crystal flower could be used for communication, when she heard that the sanatorium people were fine, Aponia exhaled in relief and then sighed:
“Phyllis… that child.”
Although Pardofelis often hid from her, her impression of this child, whose methods weren’t exactly honorable but whose heart was very kind, was quite deep.
One of Aponia’s great regrets was not being able to capture this child into the sanatorium and guide her back to the right path.
“Beautiful girl and warrior from Fire Moth — Elysia. Those closer to me might call me ‘Ellie.’ Choose whichever you prefer to address me.”
The pink girl put her hands behind her back, stepping and moving her body, showing off her impressive bust that could be called full by girl standards, introducing herself with a smile at extremely close distance — the overly close distance even allowed them to feel each other’s warmth, and they could faintly hear the beating heart. Aponia’s face, which had returned to its usual calm, reddened slightly again. But in the next moment, 【Elysia】 smiled and stepped back to the alley entrance, turned around, looked back with a light laugh:
“As for what Fire Moth is, you’ll have plenty of time to understand later. For now… I guess you probably want to return to the sanatorium to see those sanatorium people, right?”
…