Though she'd agreed to it, what songs could she even play on a harp? Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star?

She hadn't learned any of this world's music. They said she needed a proper teacher, but in reality, she had no money for that. So she could only rely on a few simple tunes she'd learned in her previous life.

Then she thought of one.

Beyond the long pavilion, by the ancient road...

She didn't need to sing the lyrics. The melody alone would be enough.

This one, then. This would do. Undead Lucy was saying goodbye to the people of this town, so a song like this was just right.

Caro followed Lucy all the way outside. There was no one out there. It wasn't hard to guess why. They'd either already been crushed by Arnold, or lured away by him.

Behind the manor, Caro saw it.

A gigantic Void Rift. She couldn't see anything inside it. She could only recognize that a void existed there. Caro tried to find some way to describe the phenomenon, but in the end, she gave up.

"Sing with me."

The harp grew enormous. Caro leaned against the corner of the wall and began to pluck the strings. Her playing wasn't very smooth, but the basic melody was there. Even if she hit a wrong note, it didn't matter. No one here knew what the original score was supposed to sound like anyway. As long as it wasn't chaotic noise, it was fine.

Hearing Caro's music, Lucy showed a faint smile. Her body started as half-transparent, then gradually became more and more unreal, more and more invisible. At the same time, the Void Rift also began to fade.

Inside this residence, many elderly people appeared.

"Lucy..."

They looked at Lucy, now even more transparent, and their expressions were all complicated.

"Sku. I remember when you came to my place for adventures as a child. You actually peed in my yard. I scared you a little, and you ran out without even your pants on. You made such a fool of yourself."

One old man had tears filling his eyes. He wiped the corners of them. "After all these years, you still remember that."

"Mary—back then, you talked to me about romance all the time. If I hadn't given you advice, you never would've won over your old man."

"Big Sister Lucy..." An old woman called out to a girl who still looked so young.

"Tosna, Casio—though I always liked scaring you back then, I was actually happy every time you came to see me~"

...

Caro lifted her head.

She didn't know these people, but all of them were engraved in Lucy's heart. She had always been here in this town. She had existed together with its people. She ran through everyone's childhood and old age alike. This was probably what people called a bond.

Uh-oh~ Feels like I might start crying a little.

A story.

She closed her eyes. This was a story.

Carried along by that emotion, her playing, which had still been a little clumsy, began to flow more and more with her heart. The melody might not match the original anymore, but it suited her feelings better. She actually had been studying how to play the harp these past few days, but she'd never really understood what counted as smooth.

But now, she understood a little.

Did a song only have meaning when you played it with feeling?

Lucy spoke one by one with the hundreds of elderly people gathered here. She became fainter and dimmer. Her voice became more and more ethereal. She remembered every person's name. She remembered every person's story.

At last, she looked at Caro.

"Say goodbye to Lord Arnold for me. And while you're at it... tell him... I like him."

At the very end, those were the words she said.

Caro froze for a moment. The elderly people all showed relieved smiles.

Caro nodded. "I will."

"Lastly, I have one request," Lucy said.

Caro had no reason to refuse. Not here, not now. In a scene like this, there was no way she could refuse. More than that, she was unexpectedly the kind of person who was easily moved by the atmosphere around her.

"Go ahead."

"Please take good care of Lord Arnold for me. A man like him shouldn't have to suffer such a fate. I wanted to stay by Lord Arnold's side myself, but if you're there..."

What could Caro even say?

She didn't think Arnold was the kind of person who needed her to take care of him. No matter how you looked at it, he was still the hero who had slain a dragon. As long as he made it through these hard years and pulled himself back together, he'd once again become that admired figure.

"Leave it to me."

Lucy smiled.

"Lord Arnold still has a long and heavy road ahead of him! I can only help you this much." She said something Caro didn't quite understand.

Then she completely vanished.

The story of Undead Lucy had lasted two hundred years.

Now, it was over.

Caro didn't even know what had happened in the past. But that didn't matter. She looked at the elderly people gathered here. If she took some time and asked them, she should be able to get the answers. And those answers would probably be enough for her to weave a story from.

...

"Arnold! Are you still this stubborn?!" Hua Fanlin, captain of the Golden Lily Knights, gripped her knight's sword and struggled to hold back Arnold's assault. The rest of the order had already been defeated. She was barely holding on herself.

She wasn't Arnold's match. Hua Fanlin had known that for a long time. She'd known it years ago. Years ago, she'd already known that this always-smiling man was strong...

But only now did she truly feel despair.

Having him as a teammate and facing him as an enemy were two completely different experiences.

Arnold burst into laughter. "So you're allowed to drive me out, but I'm not allowed to hunt you? That's not how this works, right?"

He swung his sword violently. Even though Fanlin blocked with all her strength, she was still sent flying far away. She rolled across the ground more than ten times before smashing through a wall and finally stopping.

Fanlin struggled to her feet. Her hands were trembling. Blocking that strike from Arnold had taken too much out of her. She probably couldn't hold on for even two more hits.

She had already sent word to the Sword Saint, but even if the Sword Saint wasn't far away, could she really last until she arrived?

"Hua Fanlin. Tsk, tsk, tsk~" Arnold put on a lecherous expression. "Looking at you like this, you've got a pretty nice figure. How about taking off that wrecked armor?"

Part of Fanlin's armor had already fallen away in the battle just now. She felt humiliated and furious, and even more than that, she felt like she'd completely misjudged him.

"You bastard!!"

"Is that really the right choice? If you strip and serve me properly, I might stay here a little longer and wait for your Sword Saint to arrive. But if you keep resisting like this, how long can you hold me off? Ten seconds?"

He was arrogant, but this man had every right to be. Hua Fanlin wasn't the type to blindly believe in things like willpower and pride. She knew very well that her body could no longer support a continued fight against Arnold. This was a man who could kill dragons...

Trembling, she began to remove her armor.

And then—

She was kicked flying.

Arnold laughed wildly. "Hahaha! You really took it off! I knew back then you were an idiot with no brains! Looking at you now, I was right! How are you this stupid, Hua Fanlin?! You actually believed that? Honestly, when it comes to girls, compared to you taking it off yourself, I'd rather strip you with my own hands!"

This scumbag!!

At that moment, Arnold suddenly looked in a certain direction. He clicked his tongue.

"You're the captain of the Golden Lily Knights. Tell your king this for me. I'm not someone you can just put a bounty on. If he wants me wanted, then he'd better be ready for me to wipe out his kingdom."

At that moment, a savage killing intent showed in his eyes. Those eyes were more terrifying than a dragon's. For that instant, Hua Fanlin couldn't even speak.

Then, in the blink of an eye, Arnold turned grinning and flippant again.

"The Sword Saint is such a pain~ I knew she was a pain ages ago. Even if she keeps chasing me this hard, I'm still not gonna fall for her~ I've already got someone I like. Anyway, I'm out!"

Still wearing that playful grin, he slipped away.

That fleeting dominance from just now felt like an illusion, as if it had never appeared at all. But Hua Fanlin knew very well. Her trembling body told her that every word Arnold had just said was real.

Only then did a streak of sword-light descend from the sky and land before Hua Fanlin.

"Fanlin!" The Sword Saint, Ronatia, had arrived. She helped the trembling Hua Fanlin to her feet. "Are you alright?"

"I-I'm fine."

Of course she was fine. In truth, Arnold hadn't gone for the kill. In a way, that only made it sadder. This was what it meant to have power to spare.

He had enough strength left over to hold back at every turn. The gap between them was that huge.

"Sword Saint, I want to ask you something." Hua Fanlin looked at the silver-haired woman before her, at this Sword Saint. "If you fought him seriously, could you beat him?"

Ronatia froze for a moment. "Did he say something to you?"

"He said that if the kingdom dares to put a bounty on him, it should be ready for him to destroy the kingdom."

"If we're only talking about swordsmanship, he's below me. We've crossed swords before." Ronatia said, "But that's only swordsmanship."

"In truth, with his talent, I don't even know whether his swordsmanship has surpassed mine over these years. He's always been fighting the strongest beings out there. I don't know how strong his sword is now. I don't know what skills he's mastered either. But if it were a fight to the death... then I think it'd probably be nine to one. I'm the one."

The Sword Saint gave her answer.

"Go back and have the king revoke the bounty. If even the Adventurers' Guild can't afford to provoke him, do you think we can?" Ronatia let out a sigh. "The king should've already taken enough profit from his deal with the Guild. And even if he hasn't, there's nothing I can do."

She looked into the distance. That man had changed somehow.

Even without meeting him face to face, she could tell. The man from the past would never have threatened Fanlin like that. He had always been gentle.

In other words, this was a warning.

If there was a next time, he wouldn't just scare people anymore. Was that what he meant?

She sensed the disappearance of the Void Rift within the town.

"Don't worry about the town anymore. Undead Lucy has already vanished. The townspeople should all be back by now. The knights have plenty to do. There's no need to waste effort here."

Had he come here for Lucy's sake?

Or was he simply hunting the Golden Lily Knights, using them to warn the kingdom?