And so –– what was bound to happen, happened.

“Yuno-san…!” the goddess Athena’s voice, filled with grief, rang out.

Tears welling up from her eyes, she ran into the arena.

“…Huh?”

“Hey, isn’t that…?”

Yuno, like the spectators, was unable to hide his shock.

“K-k-kami-sama!?”

Yuno had been flying through the air, but judging the situation to be an emergency, he righted himself and ran over to Athena.

The next moment, Athena hugged him.

“It’s okay already…! You’ve done more than enough!” she cried, tears streaking down her cheeks.

Athena looking up at him with teary eyes was the strongest attack Yuno had received the entire fight.

“Kami-sama, I––”

“…It’s alright already,” she said quietly, hugging Yuno gently.

Yuno’s head, which had been full of thoughts about the fight, cooled down immediately.

(…I’m so stupid.)

He felt he should have seen it coming as he recalled the sight of Athena standing in front of Pochi transformed into Yuno to block an attack by the Evil God Noah.

He thought to himself that the goddess he had made a contract with was a reckless, yet very kind goddess.

Athena wiped the tears from her eyes, then stood in front of Yuno as if to protect him and glared at the monster with as much hostility as she could muster.

“Uuuu…!” she growled at it.

Nobody said it at the time, but it resembled the menacing growl of a small animal.

“Giiiiiiiiii” the monster screeched back at her.

“Tch…!” Maro Burn clicked his tongue.

And Yuno Astario––

“––––”

–– was dying inside.

The monster’s red eyes turned to Athena, and since there was no way Yuno wouldn’t notice that, he stepped in front of her to protect her, then looked at her over his shoulder.

“…Kami-sama, I’m sorry.”

“…Eh?” Athena answered, frozen, unable to understand what he was apologising for.

“I made a mistake. There’s no point if you cry,” he said, smiling at her, spinning his spear in his hand.

“I told you, didn’t I? That I’d beat everything.”

The next moment –– a blast of wind blew across the arena, causing Athena’s silvery-white hair to billow out behind her.

The wind wasn’t the monster’s doing, however.

The magical power flowing out of Yuno’s body had caused it.

He was confident that he could beat the monster even without using his magical power, but he was also aware that it would take a while.

The simple motivating reason of him wanting Athena to smile even just a second sooner made him decide to use his magical power.

Having come this far, the option of throwing the match didn’t even exist for him anymore, so he would use his magical power for the sake of his goal, and to defeat his enemy as soon as possible.

(Time’s up for the flashy battle.)

He had used Lloyd März’s magical power as reference, but he was still suppressing plenty of his own magical power.

And yet––

Sensing that magical power, the corners of Lloyd März’s mouth arched upwards.

He recognized Yuno as a flawlessly powerful person.

And not just Lloyd. Everyone who was able to measure how much magical power was flowing out of Yuno widened their eyes in surprise.

“Ahahahahahaha” Zwei’s laugh was a mixture of delight and madness, her face dyed red.

“…”

Seeing that, Selena couldn’t help but feel afraid for what was in store for Yuno.

Vier and Sechs simply stared at Yuno, frozen.

Alice’s shoulders shook, her blue eyes wide in surprise, while Kraim had a smile of mixed amazement and happiness on his face.

All their reactions were different, and as surprise and shock enveloped the arena, Yuno thought thusly: ‘I have no regrets. I’m hiding my power properly. And with how far I’ve gotten in this match already, Athena’s name is sure to spread. And––’

“It’s not like it matters anymore. I’m no longer the incompetent Yuno Astario anymore…”

Yuno readied his spear as he looked towards Maro, who stared straight back, fighting spirit in his eyes.

“Giiiiiiiiiiiii”

“Uoooooooooooo!!”

The monster screamed at the same time as Yuno let out a battle-cry, used wind magic, and kicked off from the ground.

The magic beast ran at Yuno with terrifying speed, its beak ready to attack.

Somehow matchingly, Yuno also ran at it, his spear held out in front of him, its tip pointing at the monster––

–– and stabbed through it.

He had stabbed through the whole monster.

To the untrained eye, it appeared almost as if they had run past each other, if it weren’t for the black fragments of monster in the air.

It had crumbled as if made out of sand, which then let off a black glow before it dissolved into the air, disappearing.

It was a fantastical, beautiful sight.

The wind ruffled Yuno’s hair, just having caught up to him as it blew against his back.

There were no cheers; everyone was desperately trying to make sense of what had just happened.

Maro collapsed to his knees.

Yuno was still standing in his stabbing-with-his-spear position.

“The winner is… Yuno Astario…” Lloyd said in a small voice, breaking through the silence. And as his voice carried over to the seats––

“““Ooooooooooooooooh!?!””” applause and cheers painted over the silence.

“Yuno-san!”

Smiling at Athena as she ran towards him, Yuno held his spear high up into the air.

Once again, Athena jumped at him and hugged him.

“Thank goodness you’re uninjured…! That was amazing…! You’re amazing, Yuno-san!” she said, tears starting to well up from her red eyes again even though she was smiling, the sight of which caused Yuno’s shoulders to finally release their tension.

“Thank you,” he said, smiling back at her.

While that was going on, Lloyd had walked over to Yuno.

“The selection is over. The rest is up to you…” he said to Yuno, handing Yuno a piece of paper.

Yuno took it with a small nod.

“Hah…”

With a faint smile, Lloyd walked out of the arena, not sparing Maro a glance.

‘I wonder if it worked…?’ Yuno thought.

He could hear voices of praise.

He would find out soon enough whether he had been able to achieve his goal of making the goddess Athena more famous.

‘But, for now, ––’

“…this is enough,” he murmured to himself in a satisfied manner, the cheers filling the arena drowning it out.

He glanced down at the piece of paper in his hand, which turned out to be a map and a line of text.

{When the Sun is deep asleep –– at the Promised Land

-Shadow Moon}

“Where the heck even is that…”