Chapter Index





    Ch.182Return – 1

    “Cough, hack!”

    My suppressed lungs started working again, causing me to cough. I staggered to my feet. Even though I was sure I had defended myself, my entire body ached. It felt like I’d received an intensely painful massage for hours without a break.

    In the distance, Aria was looking at me with a smirk. It was a smile that suggested everything was going according to her plan. Understandable, since I’d been sent flying backward the moment I felt something being completed.

    “How do you like it?”

    “I don’t know what you did, but I can tell it was something insane.”

    “You don’t know what I did? That’s quite a joke. Can you really say that after seeing this?”

    A yellow flame mixed with orange formed in Aria’s hand. With a slight movement of her arm, she shot the flame toward a nearby thicket. Upon impact, the fireball exploded with light and heat, creating a blast the size of a building.

    “…?”

    The forest remained intact. Despite the explosion appearing powerful enough to have completely incinerated the impact site, everything was fine. It was as if nothing had happened at all.

    Come to think of it, an explosion of that size just occurred, but I hadn’t heard any sound. She hadn’t cast any sound-blocking magic either.

    ‘The wind…?’

    I realized I couldn’t feel the wind anymore. The clouds in the sky weren’t moving at all, and the ground near Aria remained frozen in a half-shattered state. Suspended in mid-air.

    Far away, Leona, who was crouching with my clothes wrapped around her, was the same. Her face showed complete bewilderment, and she wasn’t moving even slightly.

    “Let me ask again, Mira. How do you like it?”

    “…Is this the world you were in? The one you said stopped because there was no one to read it?”

    “Correct answer. I see you understand.”

    Clap! Aria applauded with a bright smile.

    “I lived alone in this world for over a thousand years. It was a very long, difficult, and lonely time. How does it feel? Can you sense a bit of what I felt? How lonely I was, and how difficult it was?”

    Instead of answering, I aimed Eternal at her. Aria tilted her head as if she couldn’t understand my reaction.

    “After all I’ve done for you, you still want to fight me? Even after seeing how I lived? Really, you’re so cold-hearted, Mira.”

    “Why shouldn’t I fight you?”

    “Because I succeeded in my gamble! I could have died if my body had gone ‘bang’ and exploded… but I succeeded in the end. As you can see. Even for someone like you, I wouldn’t recommend fighting me right now. I don’t want to fight you either. You’ll just get hurt for nothing.”

    A magic circle appeared beside Aria.

    “They say seeing once is better than hearing a hundred times, so let me give you a direct experience.”

    With those words, a purple lightning bolt flashed. It was a simple electric magic. I tried to respond with a barrier but hesitated.

    ‘Magic—’

    For some reason, my magic wasn’t activating. I didn’t have time to think about why as I raised Eternal, but I was already a step too late and couldn’t block it completely.

    A sharp pain shot through my abdomen. Electric current flowed through my entire body, and my muscles momentarily stiffened. My feet lifted off the ground as my body was pushed backward.

    I tried to stop myself by stabbing Eternal into the ground, but the blade just scraped across the surface without resistance. There was no sound of the blade scraping against the earth as it should have made.

    In this strangely quiet world, I forcibly moved the blade and barely managed to stop. Bile rose in my mouth, and my fingertips tingled. My abdomen, which had taken a direct hit from the lightning, felt the same.

    ‘Is healing magic the same?’

    Just as defensive magic wouldn’t activate, healing magic wouldn’t either. I slowly clenched and unclenched my fist, loosening my arm. Aria approached, her smiling face unchanged.

    “It won’t work. I added a special function. You can’t use magic from the world you were in. Because this is a world from a different novel. Even if the same author recycled the settings, isn’t it abnormal to casually bring and use magic from another world?”

    Now I understood why that had happened. The defensive magic I tried to use was from the first world, and the healing magic was as well.

    I adjusted my strategy. If I could only use this world’s magic, I would need to fight differently.

    ‘Could that be why the light spear… no, that can’t be it. I couldn’t use it before this happened.’

    For a moment, I wondered if that was why I couldn’t use the light spear, but I quickly dismissed the thought as the timing didn’t match. I lost the ability to use the light spear before Aria succeeded in her gamble.

    “Mira. My feelings haven’t changed.”

    A magic circle with complex patterns appeared in Aria’s left hand. It was a magic circle for wide-area annihilation magic. Aria crushed the nearly completed magic circle in her hand and smiled gently.

    “I’ll forgive you for trying to kill me. It hurt a lot, but I’ll forgive you. We can start over now. From the beginning, as if nothing happened. I can’t accept others, but I can make room for you. You’re not planning to fight me without healing magic, are you?”

    “I can manage. And I haven’t changed my mind either, so why don’t you give up?”

    “Hmm… perhaps I should have left you alone for a thousand years? You’re so stubborn. Well, I suppose that’s why you were destined to be connected to me.”

    “Being trapped like that wouldn’t change my mind. Isn’t it the same for you?”

    “Ah, I understand clearly now. So you’re saying if I give you the same pain that made me change my mind, you might change yours too? You should have said so earlier. We almost wasted time.”

    I was dumbfounded that she could interpret it that way.

    While I was stunned, the outline of a sword formed in Aria’s right hand. I had never seen Aria wield a sword before, so this was probably the first time she was bringing it out—

    “…”

    My face hardened as I recognized the sword. Seeing my reaction, Aria’s smile deepened as she swung the sword in her hand.

    “You still remember it, don’t you? Familiar shape, isn’t it? I believe you fought a demon who wielded this for seven days and nights straight.”

    It was too aggressive in appearance to be called a mere sword—with dozens of sharp blades protruding from it, it looked more like a pointed piece of wood with sharp edges.

    It was the sword used by the Demon King from the first world.

    Seeing the demonic sword emitting an ominous aura, just as I remembered, my grip tightened. I instinctively felt disgusted. My body remembered how much I had struggled to destroy it.

    “Are you ready to face your past, Mira?”

    “Spare me the nonsense.”

    “You’re not going to humor me. How sad.”

    Despite her words of sadness, Aria’s smiling expression remained unchanged as she gripped the demonic sword in reverse.

    She struck the ground with its tip. A crimson shockwave erupted. If time hadn’t been frozen, that single motion would have created a crater dozens of meters deep.

    The shockwave, which seemed to spread in a circle, soon surged upward, gathered together, and then came crashing down toward me like a massive tidal wave.

    I tried to summon the light spear, but still nothing appeared in my hand. It seemed I would have to use a different method of fighting.

    My body naturally assumed a stance. I stepped forward with my left foot, turned my body halfway, and drew the sword horizontally—not slashing or cutting, but lightly, as if writing.

    A light blue crescent moon formed along the trajectory of Eternal’s path. The horizontally positioned crescent collided head-on with the crimson shockwave that was surging like a tidal wave.

    “…”

    It was just a moment, but it felt very strange that despite the blue crescent literally shredding the shockwave, there was no sound at all.

    I continued the motion. This time, I stepped my right foot in front of my left and pushed Eternal into the remaining half of the space. The crescent grew larger, became a half-moon, and then formed a circular shape.

    The moon rose.

    Crimson smoke flowed in all directions from where the full moon collided with the shockwave.

    It didn’t take long for both to be completely annihilated. Aria’s eyes were wide with surprise that her demonic sword’s attack had been blocked so easily.

    “That was demonic sword technique, wasn’t it? How did you do that? You shouldn’t be able to use magic from that world.”

    “Well. I wonder how.”

    Strictly speaking, demonic sword technique isn’t magic. It’s a skill that substitutes the process of drawing magic circles and chanting spells in magic with sword techniques.

    So if I just change the magic circles and spells to ones from this world, I can use it as much as I want. Though the variety would be extremely limited.

    “If you won’t tell me, I guess I can’t help it. Anyway, you’re amazing, Mira.”

    Clap, clap, clap. Aria applauded. The applause didn’t feel genuine at all.

    “That’s an odd reaction from someone who just tried to kill me.”

    “What? Kill you? Me? Kill you?”

    Aria tilted her head.

    “Why would I?”

    “Don’t tell me you weren’t planning to kill me after all that.”

    “Of course not. I made that attack knowing you would block it. The Mira I know wouldn’t die from something like that.”

    “…”

    I wasn’t sure if I should say she was doing this because she trusted me, or if there was some other explanation. Either way, it was clear she wasn’t in her right mind.

    “This isn’t working out. Using it based on fragmentary memories seems to have its limitations.”

    Aria frowned as she tapped the demonic sword, then drew another magic circle. I wondered what insane thing she was planning to do this time.

    “So, I’ll summon someone who can use it better than me. I need to invest time in other areas besides you anyway.”

    As always with her smile, the magic circle turned bright red. It already looked ominous. I gripped Eternal more tightly.

    “…!!!!!!”

    My entire body stiffened as soon as I saw the overflowing demonic energy.

    If time had been flowing properly, just its appearance would have been enough to turn the entire academy grounds into a land of death—such was the terrible, otherworldly demonic energy.

    “How is it? More familiar than the demonic sword, right?”

    The Demon King from the first world. It was slowly walking out of the magic circle.

    Except for his crimson skin and the pair of huge horns growing from his head, he had a face handsome enough to be called beautiful. His eyes narrowed as he looked around.

    His body, which was close to human, was the same. He frowned as if uncomfortable in the human clothing—a suit—he was wearing, and adjusted his attire.

    “…”

    I hesitated, gripping Eternal so tightly that my knuckles turned white. If I had the light spear, or if I could use all the magic from the first world, I might have attempted to fight.

    But not now. Without healing magic, without magic from that world, without even the light spear, how could I defeat the Demon King?

    ‘…I can’t even say I should try, this is impossible.’

    If I didn’t know his strength, I might have been reckless. But because I knew, because I remembered how much I had struggled to defeat him, I couldn’t.

    The only consolation was that the aura flowing from him seemed weaker than when I first met him in that world, but that wasn’t enough.

    The amount of demonic energy flowing nearby might feel slightly less, but his physical body seemed unchanged.

    “Play with Mira for a while. I’ve set it so you won’t kill her, so just beat her up a bit and capture her. Or she can surrender early.”

    Aria handed the demonic sword to him and patted his shoulder. His face slowly turned toward Aria.

    “Go on, keep her occupied. Be careful not to kill her.”

    “How unpleasant.”

    “I have other things to do—wait, what did you say?”

    At that moment, Aria’s body flew at an imperceptible speed and crashed into an academy building far away.

    A crimson shockwave erupted into the sky a beat later.


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