The Falling Sky Island

Next to the central tower, where only small whispers were exchanged in response to Mira’s words, Mu, who had been keeping her eyes half-closed, suddenly opened them at the telepathy that came into her mind.

A signal came to the telepathy that she had only left connected to her mother.

Mu responded to the telepathy as naturally as possible so that others wouldn’t notice.

[Mu, can you hear me?]

‘Yes, Mother. I’m listening.’

A voice with noticeably rough breathing, felt even through the telepathy.

Mu wanted to think that the reason for the rough breathing was because she had won after a fierce battle with the Demon King, but unfortunately, the answer that came back was the opposite.

[The subjugation of the Demon King has failed, so we’re retreating. However, don’t activate the magic right away, but 30 seconds later. I need to have a final conversation.]

‘Understood. I will activate it exactly 30 seconds after the telepathy is cut off.’

The failure to subjugate the Demon King. It was something she had half expected, but hearing it from her mother’s own words made it hard to believe.

No way, no way could there really be a being that could defeat her mother.

But once an order has been given, she must act. That’s the purpose for which she exists as a tool.

Therefore, Mu picked up the staff she had put down after finishing the construction, after cutting off the telepathy with her mother.

“I received a telepathy from unnie.”

“From Aria-san? What did she say?”

“From the professor?!”

As soon as she mentioned that she had received a telepathy from her mother, the quiet atmosphere broke, and Mira, who had been helping with the construction of the transfer magic, and the students behind her rushed over in surprise.

Mira asked Mu as calmly as possible since she had to focus quite a bit on maintaining the magic, while the students approached Mu with faces that couldn’t hide their emotions.

“Is the professor alright…?”

“Did something happen by any chance…”

Arin and Kana wore worried expressions, seeming anxious despite knowing about her mother’s strength. Riana and Shati beside them looked similar.

Feeling the consideration from those expressions, Mu considered whether she should hide this too, but soon realized there was no point in hiding it and told them the truth as it was.

“Unnie… lost to the Demon King. So we’re retreating. But it doesn’t seem like the Demon King will attack again…”

Her mother’s defeat. For them, it was the defeat of the teacher who had taught them.

Perhaps because they knew about her mother’s strength, the shock of the truth seemed even greater than expected.

“No way… Of course it’s the Demon King, but still, for the professor to…”

“I can’t believe it…”

“For that person to lose… Then how strong must the Demon King be…”

“Well… I guess terrifyingly strong.”

Arin and Kana denied it, Riana questioned it, and Shati reluctantly accepted it.

For them, her mother was an unparalleled strong person even among demons, so now that they heard the truth, their heads seemed to be in a mess as they started to realize the Demon King’s power.

Honestly, it was hard for Mu herself to believe, but if her mother herself admitted defeat, what could she do?

Rather than answering, Mu focused on counting the time she had been keeping track of, leaving Mira, Arin, Kana, Riana, and Shati behind as they started to whisper among themselves.

The activation 30 seconds later that her mother had mentioned. As this was an order, it was more important to the current Mu than even her own death.

She counts clearly, not letting even a single second go to waste.

27… 28… 29…

“Now it’s 30 seconds… I’m activating it.”

Exactly 30 seconds after the telepathy was cut off. As soon as the time came, Mu struck her staff hard on the ground.

Flash──

With that as the start, magic circles appeared beneath everyone’s feet and began to glow.

“Huh? Ah, w-wait a moment…!”

“It’s already too late…”

Mira, who had been maintaining the magic together, flailed her hands in surprise as the magic suddenly activated, but before she could say anything, Mu took control of the shared magic and adjusted it at the last moment.

Knowing that Mira would surely cling to her again if they went down to the ground like this, she moved Mira’s transfer location to a place as far away from herself as possible.

And only after moving the transfer location of her mother, who would be far away, to near herself, did Mu entrust her body to the light of the magic circle engulfing her.

While praying that everything would be alright.

It hurts like hell.

That was the first thought I had as soon as I opened my eyes after moving to the ground through transfer magic.

No joke, my entire body hurt to an unbelievable degree.

I hadn’t felt it at all when excitement and adrenaline were being secreted in large amounts, but as they cooled down and the heat left my body, the wounds that had been torn and ripped by demonic energy were endlessly causing pain, and all I could do was spout profanities.

“Damn it, rot, it hurts like a dog. It really hurts like hell.”

What I’m actually saying is just “fuck,” but what comes out of my mouth are somewhat sanitized curses.

Because of that, I cursed the filtering that was faithfully performing its role even in this situation, while looking down at the wounds on my body.

“It’s truly a sight to behold.”

There was no place on my entire body without wounds, but the first place I saw was, of course, my palms. Starting from my palms, I looked over various parts of my body.

Both palms that had first gripped the sword had burst skin from blocking such large impacts in succession, and my arms were spewing blood from wounds cut as if a honeycomb pattern had been carved into the flesh.

From my shoulders to my pelvis was split in a straight line by the Demon King’s slashes that had torn through my clothes, and besides that, dozens of small wounds had turned my body into a bloody mess.

Demonic energy slows down recovery, so I had long since shaken off all the demonic energy that was on the wound areas, but regardless of that, all the wounds are deep.

“I suppose this is what it means to face the Demon King. This is the first time I’ve been injured to this extent.”

To begin with, this was the first time I had been injured to this extent. Since coming to this world, the most I had been hurt was when I directly inflicted wounds on my body to draw blood to create Mu.

It took about 5 minutes for that small wound to heal, so wounds of this extent would probably take a good 10 hours.

In other words, it meant I would have to endure the pain of these wounds for those 10 hours, but even so, I didn’t particularly feel at a loss this time because I had obtained a bundle of information.

Yes, with this much information, it would take an enormous amount of time just to properly organize it, and by the time I finish organizing the information obtained today, these wounds should be healed too.

And if I switch to another body, Aria’s wounded body will be in the avatar slot, so if I choose any of the remaining avatars and transform, after 10 hours Aria’s body will have healed on its own.

Therefore, I wanted to change bodies right now to deal with this immediate pain, but…

“Professor!”

“Oh my, those wounds…! Are you alright?!”

“We should stop the bleeding right away…!”

“Sh-should we call a doctor?”

“…You’re all noisy. Be quiet, all of you.”

I couldn’t do that because of these four who came running as soon as they saw me from afar and started making a fuss.

No, more precisely, rather than making a fuss, they were sincerely worried about my wounds and trying to treat them, but from my perspective where switching to another body would solve the problem, it was honestly a hindrance.

However, if I said such things to their faces, I would be disqualified as a professor, so it can’t be helped.

Thinking this way, I endured the pain roughly and pushed away Arin, Kana, Riana, and Shati, when suddenly magic flew in from somewhere, settled in my body, and all the pain wrapping my body disappeared.

Judging by the complete disappearance of the pain spread throughout my body, it must be an anesthesia magic. And there was only one person here who could use such high-level magic on me.

Pat pat, the sound of footsteps like a cat’s approaching.

I turned my head towards the owner of those footsteps.

“Is that you, Meiyel? Thanks to you, I can live a bit.”

“Yeah… unnie is needed right now. There’s also what was said in advance…”

Mu nods, affirming that she cast the anesthesia magic on me, and glances up at the sky. Following Mu’s action, I also raised my head, and seeing the enormous Sky Island, I nodded.

“Hmm, ah yes. That’s certainly true.”

“I’ll handle the fragment cleanup… unnie will do the destruction.”

I had forgotten for a moment due to the variable of the Demon King appearing, but thanks to Mu, I remembered only after seeing the Sky Island.

As we had said in advance, the Sky Island loses its buoyancy due to the schemes of the demon executives and falls towards the Kingdom of Puhara.

Originally, the player character would make it fall elsewhere to prevent the destruction of the Kingdom of Puhara, but now that we’ve moved everyone who was on the Sky Island to the kingdom like this, the original method has become useless.

That’s why I had told Mu in advance that we would resolve this matter by a different method.

And needless to say, that different method was to destroy the Sky Island.

I thought that destroying the Sky Island without a trace would be the quickest way to handle the matter, since all the residents had already turned into undead and died.

But it seems these four beside me and Mu didn’t know anything, so Arin, as their representative, carefully asked me.

“Um… Professor, are you really alright? And what do you mean by destroying…”

Arin fumbled with the emergency bandages she was holding, unfolding and folding them, seemingly worried about what might happen.

Seeing such behavior from Arin, with concern that didn’t match her trust in me evident, I patted her head, thinking it was admirable.

“Don’t worry. I’m fine because Meiyel cast an anesthesia magic on me. And as for what I mean by destroying, I’ll explain it simply…”

And before answering Arin, who was asking about the meaning of the conversation between me and Meiyel just now, I casually raised my sword to point at the Sky Island floating in the sky.

Then, the four of them moved their gaze to the Sky Island, following my sword.

To the four who couldn’t close their mouths, seemingly frightened as they saw the proper base of the Sky Island for the first time, I calmly said.

“I’m going to cut that down and make it fall.”

In an indifferent tone, as if saying let’s go eat because I’m hungry.

“What?”

“Pardon?”

“What did you just say…”

“What are you talking about?”

It goes without saying that it was only natural for the four to each ask back in response to my words.