It Wasn’t the Only One

After Ellie disappeared and I stood there dumbfounded, I finally snapped out of it and headed for a nearby sofa. I raised my wrist as if checking the time, reconfirmed the state of the runic letters, and briefly pondered what to do with the remaining time.

I don’t know how the situation outside is unfolding. The novel ‘The Hero’s Harem Can’t Help But Win’ is told from the protagonist Roel’s perspective, so I didn’t bother thinking about what kind of fight Ellie, who remained at the academy, was having.

I simply wrote that after Bella’s sacrifice, ‘The capital fell, and Ellie, who barely survived, desperately held off the demons at the Liberty Plains, humanity’s last line of defense, until Roel defeated the Demon King.’

The reason Ellie, who became a Great Wizard, didn’t join Roel’s hero party is simple. It’s because the character Ellie overlapped with the existing position that Flavia had. Flavia, with her infinite magic power, and Ellie, the master of the Black Magic Tower who integrated all elements. Two characters couldn’t occupy the same position as a mage, so one had to be removed from the hero party.

I thought that removing Flavia, who had been with Roel from the beginning, and having the late-joining heroine Ellie participate in the hero party would be like asking to be keyboard-smashed by the readers, so instead of including Ellie in the hero party, I gave her powerful strength and a role to hold out in the rear.

Apparently, the world judged that that level of plausibility was insufficient, so it seems they changed the reason Ellie remained at the academy to guilt and longing for Ross. I’m starting to think that maybe plausibility is a better writer than I am.

Plausibility is a device that makes the flow continue smoothly, not a role that twists the flow. In other words, Ellie being injured and fleeing to Liberty City is a future that will happen. Although I’m worried about Ellie getting hurt, I can rest assured in the definite future that she won’t die and return to my original world.

While briefly organizing the events I’ve experienced in this other world in my head and deciding what to do when I return to my original world, a huge roar suddenly came from somewhere.

The entire room vibrated, books on the bookshelf fell to the floor, and something broke through the wall and pushed into the room. The installed magic activated and blocked what was pushing in, and as a result, the ceiling and floor twisted, and the structure of the room rapidly collapsed.

I hurriedly hid under the desk to avoid the falling debris, and it was only after a long time that I could crawl out from under the desk. The vibration still transmits under my feet. Could the academy building have collapsed? Perhaps Bella’s suicide attack with the cult leader caused the aftermath to collapse the academy building. With the power to blow away the capital, the academy building wouldn’t have been able to withstand it.

It seemed I survived thanks to the secret room acting as a bunker. With a sigh of relief, I looked around and soon discovered a strange phenomenon. Where the walls used to be in the room, it had turned black as if the color had been taken away. The remnants of the adjacent room that had pushed in and the wall seemed to be mixed together.

Slightly approaching this phenomenon I was seeing for the first time, I picked up a book that was rolling on the floor and brought it to the black area. Strangely, I felt something familiar about this thing I was seeing for the first time. The red book was seen to immediately lose its color as it entered the black area.

Watching it with fascination, I tried to take the book out to see if it would return to its original color. No matter how much force I used, I couldn’t pull it out at all, as if something was firmly holding onto the book. However, unlike pulling the book out of the black area, there was no resistance to putting the book in further. Is it a condition where intrusion into the area is possible, but escape is impossible?

I’m glad I didn’t rashly put my hand in. It seemed like a temporary phenomenon caused by the collision of magic. Scratching my head for a moment, I looked at where the door used to be. That place is also a black area. There was no way out because all the walls had collapsed. The closet was also broken, so I wouldn’t be able to move to another place. It didn’t seem so bad to stay here until the runic letters on my wrist turned green.

Scratching my head for a moment, I discovered that the book I had put into the black area, which was suspended in the air, had completely turned black. The black area is gradually expanding, albeit little by little.

Feeling something strange, I tried to read the spatial coordinates of the black area. But I couldn’t read them. The black area in front of me has no spatial coordinates. I feel a sense of déjà vu. I’ve had a similar experience before. The experience of spatial coordinates collapsing during the fight with Dwin.

Could it be related to that somehow? I scratched my chin and thought about it, but I couldn’t figure it out. Anyway, the entire room will turn black over time. Realizing that I couldn’t stay here, I looked around to find a way to escape the room. The black area existed as if surrounding me. It seems to have formed in the location where the walls used to be. The only way to get out of here was to break through the collapsed ceiling.

I took out a seed pouch from my space storage. I was planning to rapidly grow a beanstalk to break through the ceiling. The entire ceiling could collapse to the floor due to the impact, so I supported the ceiling with several beanstalks, except for the area I was breaking through, just in case.

As planned, I safely broke through the ceiling and grabbed onto the beanstalk to climb up. Since the secret room is located on the 2nd basement floor, I thought I would arrive at the 1st basement floor of the main building. But because the building had collapsed, it was all just collapsed walls and debris, so I couldn’t distinguish the floors at all.

After somehow breaking through the blocked path with the beanstalk, I finally found a small light. I came out of the building through a hole that was barely big enough for one person to pass through. Only after coming out did I realize that the place I came out of used to be a window. The academy’s main building had collapsed to the point where its shape was unrecognizable.

I sighed in relief, thinking I had safely escaped, but suddenly felt a huge shadow covering my body and hurriedly turned around. And I couldn’t help but gasp.

In front of me was a demon.

A huge presence that seemed to crush my entire body. A monster over 5 meters tall with its entire body covered in muscles wore a hideous smile. Blood dripped down its chin, and several pieces of flesh I didn’t want to know about were stuck in its teeth. The weeds growing on the ground were rapidly withering under the influence of the murderous aura it emitted.

“Huh? What’s this?”

I need to take out the spear. Not the Spear of Shadows, but the Spear of Destruction. If I don’t kill it in one blow, I’ll die. That thought flashed through my head, but ridiculously enough, my hand wouldn’t move. It’s not that I’m scared out of fear. I can’t move recklessly because I’m certain that my head will be torn off the moment I move my hand.

Biting my lip and looking at it silently, the monster narrowed its brow as if it didn’t like my silence.

“I’m asking why you, who should be locked up in the Demon King’s castle waiting for execution, are here. Dantalian.”

What is he saying…? Dantalian? It seems the monster has mistaken me for someone else. If I speak, it might notice that my voice is different. I wondered if there was a way to continue the misunderstanding, and entrusting it to luck, I silently managed my expression and just shrugged.

“Hmph, you arrogant bastard. Did you finally persuade the Demon King with your silver tongue? Keuheuheuh. I thought you would surely die this time, even though you are favored by the Demon King.”

The monster, who was laughing loudly, brought something it was holding in its hand to its mouth. It was only after it let out a shrill scream that I realized it was a person. A female student wearing the Transcendence Academy uniform. The monster tore off the upper half of the female student with its teeth as if eating a chicken skewer. The scream stops. Intestines and blood pour down to the floor like rain. The monster munched its mouth and skillfully spat out the uniform covered in saliva and blood.

“Get the hell out of here. This is already my territory. If anyone eats even one without my permission, I’ll tear out their entire stomach and chew it.”

I turned away, suppressing my nausea at the sight of the monster putting the remaining lower half in its mouth. I felt an intense gaze staring at my back, but I pretended not to notice and moved forward aimlessly until the gaze disappeared.

Finally, when the gaze disappeared, I hurriedly crawled into a corner and vomited. Since I hadn’t eaten anything since coming to this world, there was nothing to throw up. After spitting out yellow stomach acid, I took out water from my space storage and drank it, recalling the situation from earlier.

The monster thinks I’m Dantalian. But the existence of Dantalian doesn’t appear anywhere in the novel. According to the monster, the real Dantalian seems to be locked up in the Demon King’s castle. The fact that he’s locked up in the Demon King’s castle means that Dantalian isn’t a person, but a demon. It seems he couldn’t cross over to the human world following the Demon King because he was locked up underground.

Was it just good luck? I felt an unsettling sense of unease. The probability of a demon existing who resembles my face is not very high. If it’s not just simple luck, but plausibility…?

Suddenly, a roar came from somewhere. A wave of magic power swept past me like the wind. It’s familiar magic power. It’s Ellie. The female student whose upper body was torn off by the monster a moment ago flashed through my mind. Before I knew it, I had taken out the Spear of Destruction and was running aimlessly in the direction where Ellie was. It was a more instinctive action than I thought.

Ellie was staggering alone in the academy’s courtyard. The corpses of demons were piled up around her to an uncountable degree. But even more demons were surrounding Ellie. I gritted my teeth and gripped the spear, thinking of breaking through the encirclement, when one of the demons sensed my approach and turned around.

I read the spatial coordinates around me and finished preparing to fight by drawing out the power of destruction, but for some reason, the demon who discovered me didn’t seem to have any intention of stopping me. No, rather, it even slightly moved aside to make way for me to pass.

Could it be that this guy also thinks I’m Dantalian?

I cautiously took a step forward, and the demon who had moved aside tapped the shoulder of the demon who had been turning its back. The demon, who turned around irritably, opened the way slightly as if nothing had happened when it saw my face. As I moved my steps, that was repeated, and a path to Ellie opened.

I don’t know what’s going on, but I rushed to Ellie for the time being. Ellie, who was about to swing her staff while gathering magic power, hurriedly stopped her staff and glared at me when I popped out from among the demons. Ellie, who was looking at me with narrowed eyes, soon opened her mouth and asked with a dumbfounded face.

“Ma, magic power is connected. Not an illusion, but a re, real Ross…? No way… I thought I was dead…”

I approached Ellie, who was muttering to herself like a crazy person. I only examined her briefly, but I could tell that Ellie’s injuries were severe. Several places on her uniform were torn, and there was bleeding in her abdomen to the point of soaking her skirt. The flesh on her right arm had been torn off, and she was gripping her staff with her awkward left hand.

And one of her obsidian-like eyes, which was looking at me, had turned white and seemed unable to function. I was worried about Ellie’s condition, but the demons might attack at any moment. Only one puzzle piece was missing to resolve the situation. I had a hunch about what it was.

I looked straight at Ellie and asked.

“Ellie, when exactly did the me in this world die?”

Ellie wore a bewildered expression at my out-of-context question, but instead of questioning, she immediately gave me the answer I wanted.

“…The day the triathlon started. He died at the hands of Roel oppa.”

My prediction was correct. At Ellie’s words, I had to change the thought I had taken for granted until now. I had thought that this place was one year before the first world that had reached the ending of the original work. A world that follows the flow of the novel, but with a different timeline.

So I thought that the death of Ross that Lycan mentioned was the same death as in the novel.

But that thought was wrong. The Ross in the novel dies before the end of the first semester of the first year. But the Ross here finished the first semester and died in the triathlon in the second semester.

That difference is the identity of the unsettling sense of unease I felt.

The puzzle pieces in my head become one. The clues gather and create one conclusion.

The goosebumps that climbed up my spine made my brain tingle.

Just like I became a yuri that didn’t appear in the novel, the Ross here has become Dantalian.

I muttered to Ellie, who was blankly looking at me, what I had realized.

“The Ross in this world changed the original flow… just like I’ve been doing.”

The Ross in this world, who twisted the flow of the novel and became Dantalian… like me, knows the flow of ‘The Hero’s Harem Can’t Help But Win.’

He was a possessor.