Ch.107Fairy Kingdom (1)

Crack.

A single punch infused with spirit energy shattered the shield the commander had deployed.

As his defensive barrier tore like paper, the guy stared at me with wide eyes, clearly shocked.

“What…?”

“Your judgment is slow. So you’re some kind of black mage, huh?”

The commander seemed to lack combat experience, as he didn’t immediately move even after his shield was destroyed.

‘I should probably give him a wake-up call.’

I had no intention of killing him without a fight, but I wasn’t about to overlook such an opening either.

Whoosh-!

My fist tore through the air at high speed and struck the commander’s face before he could even react.

Crunch-!!

A grotesque sound came from where my fist connected with his face, and the commander went flying from the impact.

“Kuhak!!”

“Your shield is weak… You’ll die if you don’t make a choice quickly.”

I shook his blood off my fist while telling him this was his last chance.

I was only keeping him alive to vent my frustration, but that didn’t mean the original rules had changed.

‘If he doesn’t plan to use the ring… he won’t even make a good punching bag, so I’ll just have to kill him.’

My thoughts must have been clear to the commander, as he put on a ring he pulled from his pocket with a resentful expression.

The fact that he only used it when facing death suggested he desperately wanted to live longer.

“Damn it…! Damn it!!”

“If lifespan is so important to you, couldn’t you just steal someone else’s? Oh, are you too low-ranked to have learned that yet?”

Despite my mockery, the commander didn’t respond and began summoning undead.

At the same time, he gradually increased the distance between us, apparently trying to buy time and drain my combat duration.

Considering how much he valued his life, it was a very stable and characteristic choice for him.

“Now you’re finally getting serious.”

“How long do you think you can remain so relaxed…!? You’ll regret giving me this chance!!”

Perhaps he thought he could hold out long enough, or maybe he was just expressing anger about his nose being shattered by my fist.

He built a wall of undead between us and shouted loudly from an awkward distance, clearly agitated.

Instead of responding with words, I took action.

Tap-

I accelerated in an instant by pushing off the ground, and though the undead he summoned tried to respond, their reactions were too slow.

As a result, he failed to properly distance himself and once again allowed me to attack.

“You..!?”

“I misjudged. At this level, I probably could have just left everything to Luna.”

Slash-

I cut off his arm in one motion.

The arm sprayed blood as it flew through the air before falling to the ground, and the commander clutched his empty shoulder, rolling on the ground.

“Aaaaargh….!!!”

“I’ll give you five seconds. Try something.”

Since his pain wasn’t my concern, I looked down at him expressionlessly and counted.

“5… 4… 3… 2… 1.”

I counted at a pace that was neither fast nor slow.

It didn’t matter either way, so I counted accurately.

As all the time passed and I was about to swing my sword to behead him—

Thud-

The commander grabbed my ankle and activated a spell.

“Heh… hehehe… You should feel this pain too…!!”

“…”

As the spell activated, I felt intense pain surge through my face and one shoulder.

Pain also radiated from other parts of my body—my back, waist—despite having no wounds there.

“…A curse of shared sensation.”

“Haa… haa… That’s right!! If you stab me, you’ll feel more pain too!”

“So what?”

Indeed, my entire body was in pain now.

My expressionless face naturally grimaced, and the hand holding my sword seemed ready to drop it if I lost focus.

But this level of pain was something I could easily endure.

“I actually prefer physical pain to mental exhaustion. And your skill level seems low, so it doesn’t hurt as much as the real thing.”

“You monster…”

“Pfft, if you wanted to hear me scream, you should have used a curse to amplify pain.”

Of course, that would have increased his own pain too, so he didn’t have the courage to do that.

Squelch-

I moved my sword and stabbed it into his remaining shoulder.

Positioning it so that a slight twist would sever his arm, I lowered myself to look at the commander.

“Since you showed some grit, I’ll ask… Did you collect all the other elixirs?”

“Haa… haa… You won’t spare me even if I talk, will you? Just kill me… damn it…”

Despite his seemingly defiant words, his eyes were filled with fear of death.

His survival instinct, his desperate desire to live—even if it meant making a deal with a devil if one appeared—was clearly conveyed to me.

Unfortunately for him, I was the one before him, and I had no intention of letting him live.

“If you’d answered well, I might have given you a clean death. You’ve only dug your own grave.”

“Aaaaargh!!”

With those words, I twisted the sword and cut off his remaining arm as well.

The pain transferred directly to my arm too, but I stoically endured it as I stood up.

“Whew, it really does hurt. But I hope you suffer as much as possible before you go.”

“K-kill me…! Kill me, I said…!!”

“In your condition, you’ll die in ten minutes anyway. Why not cherish your final moments?”

“In this state… cough!! I can’t stay like this…! Please… kill me…!!”

Despite wanting so desperately to live, he didn’t want to die slowly.

The commander moved his armless body, begging me to kill him now.

Of course, I had no intention of letting him die comfortably.

“As I said, this is a kind of stress relief.”

“Kill me, I said…!!”

“Oh, right. Don’t commit suicide or self-harm.”

I used a True Word to prevent any possible suicide attempt and turned back to return to Luna and the earth mages who would be waiting for me.

“Hmm… I guess I should call them earth warriors rather than earth mages now.”

* * *

“Ugh… my body aches.”

“Kuoong!!”

“Whoa, Luna, if you hug me in your large form…!”

When I returned to the base, Luna was the first to welcome me.

She must have finished dealing with the black mages before me and had been resting here, full of energy.

The problem was that I was still suffering from the shared sensation curse, and Luna had grown even heavier in her giant form.

Thud-!

As a result, I couldn’t resist at all and was immediately pinned under Luna’s massive body.

“Kuoong!”

“You’re heavy…”

Amid this tension-relieving commotion, Luca, who had been standing guard while I went to relieve stress, also returned after setting the bombs.

“Well done, everyone.”

“You did more, Frey. So what are we going to do now…”

“Originally, I was planning to find more elixirs for Luna, but it seems they’ve all been taken. We should head to the Fairy Kingdom for now.”

If there had been any uncollected elixirs left, the commander would likely have used them as bait to beg for his life.

But he refused to answer at all, which meant he had probably already moved everything to the collector of the Black Pillar.

At least regarding this place, she probably knows everything I know.

‘I can… cut her. And for your sake, I should cut her…’

Even though I had just relieved my stress, I could feel it building up again.

This part would probably be difficult to handle no matter how mentally strong I tried to be.

“Ugh, I miss Lilly and Kitsune again…”

“Frey-!!!”

“Sigh, I must be so stressed that I’m hearing things.”

Perhaps this stress was less about problems with acquaintances and more about the hard work of making all the bombs used in this defensive battle.

I thought that I should definitely stay away from alchemy kits except in situations like this.

[Don’t take your frustration out on innocent alchemy kits.]

[That’s not an auditory hallucination.]

“What?”

At Lumia’s words, I expanded my spirit sense and detected a magical energy rapidly approaching.

It was a very familiar and longed-for magical energy, and my tired expression softened slightly, but I could feel that its speed was incredibly fast.

“Um… Luna, just a moment…?!”

I got up and tried to move Luna aside to prepare myself, but it was already too late.

“Frey!!!”

“Oof?!”

Lilly, flying at full speed, easily tore through the wall I had set up and collided directly with me.

At the same time, the greatest impact I had felt since coming to this immaterial realm struck my body.

“The… culprit is… Lilly….”

“Eh? Frey..!?”

I left my dying message as my vision began to blur.

“Princess!! You must maintain your dignity…!”

“Hey! Don’t call me that! What kind of princess am I at this age! Do you know how embarrassing that is!”

The last thing that entered my vision was the fairies making a fuss about maintaining dignity and Lilly expressing her extreme disgust at it.

“Thud…”

“Huh? Huh?! Frey!!”