Hearing Tina's words—words she had already realized—began to echo in Hero Claire's mind.
…don't kill them.
Very brief, but clear enough to take root in Claire's head.
Hero Claire had known from the start:
they truly weren't pure monsters.
There was still something human inside them.
Even so…
Hero Claire felt that wasn't really a problem for her. It was visible from her still-flat expression—unlike Rena, who had been startled.
Then, with squinting eyes, Hero Claire shifted her gaze toward Hero Tina and muttered.
Tina… she's truly different…
From the version in her own memory…
Briefly, Hero Claire looked again at the half-monster males, who were moving too slowly to be any real threat to them.
If… this is the version of Hero Tina from the memory,
maybe she would have already unleashed various spells out of fear by now…
Then, with her eyes darting around—sometimes toward the half-monster males, sometimes toward Hero Tina—Hero Claire thought to herself.
This time… Hero Tina… is truly calm…
In front of the three of them now, those creatures slowly approached.
Their bodies remained unnatural.
The giant chicken monster with empty eyes.
The cockatrice that kept scraping its claws against the ground.
The black wolf with hot, blood-mixed breath.
The frog monster with its transparent stomach.
And the slimy fish with human legs, its tiny eyes constantly blinking across its body.
But until now,
there was no sign of attack. They were too slow to be considered predators hunting the three humans—Hero Claire, Hero Tina, and Rena.
Seeing all of that,
Hero Claire shifted her gaze back toward the half-monster males, but this time calmly, and concluded.
It seems that as a hero, I have a lot to learn from her—from how much she has changed…
Hearing those words come out of her own muttering,
Suddenly,
for a moment,
her mind began to drift away from reality.
The sounds around her became faint.
The monsters' growls felt distant. The slow footsteps were no longer audible.
Even so, Hero Claire was still aware that
night had already fallen. This time, in the real world—not in Tina's memory. Yet the arrival of night felt like a continuation of Tina's memory, which had ended in the late afternoon…
Even so,
the cold night wind slowly faded from her awareness.
And what surfaced in her mind instead was—
Hero Anna.
Someone she had known for a long time. Words like that shouldn't be unusual to say to anyone other than Hero Anna.
That's right—an example. Something Hero Claire should have realized from the very beginning when she saw Hero Tina's willingness to change.
Then, after that,
Hero Claire muttered, her eyes now glistening.
Damn… I forgot…
A figure Hero Claire knew very well.
A role model for Hero Claire.
Someone who had stood at the front line all along—because she was a knight.
Who kept fighting even when everything began to change, even if it meant changing herself.
Those fragments of memory appeared uninvited.
Mixed.
Blurred.
Briefly, Hero Claire looked at Rena—who had realized it earlier, even though Hero Claire had known Anna longer.
Then Hero Claire lowered her face slightly.
Dark shadows covered her eyes.
And between reality and her drifting mind, Hero Claire now truly had to decide—what she would choose.