Ch.87The End of the Battle (2)

Middle school, second year.

15 years old.

A boy at an age where he interpreted adults’ concerns as nagging, expecting something special to happen in his life.

That was the human named Han Se-ho before he became possessed by Vatos, the prince of dwarves.

* * *

I looked at Vatos with an apologetic expression.

Vatos stared resentfully at me and the God-Slaying Sword I had brought.

Having hammered away reluctantly just to return home, Vatos could tell at a glance.

He realized that the sword I brought surpassed the weapons he had made.

He understood that no matter what he did here, even if he spent ten more years hammering away, he couldn’t change this fact.

“Ha… haha… That’s impossible. There’s no way such a thing could exist after coming all this way…!!!”

So he denied the reality before his eyes.

He took out the black cube-shaped sacred object of the Evil God that he had kept close to his chest and tried to activate it.

The black cube, which didn’t even reflect light and resembled a black hole, gave off an eerie feeling but didn’t activate at all.

“Damn it… damn it all!! Why?! I did everything as instructed!! Why won’t it work?!”

Vatos gripped the cube so tightly his hands trembled as he let out a cry of anguish.

“Please… please work, I’m begging you!!!”

Vatos struck the cube against his anvil over and over, pleading for it to work.

Bang-! Clang! Claaang-!!

In the process, his hand gripping the cube tore and began to bleed, but Vatos didn’t stop.

He continued his self-destructive behavior as if he couldn’t bear the current outcome otherwise.

‘No… he’s doing this because he can’t accept it…’

After collecting myself for a moment, I walked toward Vatos one step at a time.

“Please stop now and give that to me.”

“You… who are you to suddenly appear and do this to me…!”

Vatos clutched the cube to his chest and backed away, trying to distance himself from me as much as possible.

As he did so, he threw whatever tools he could grab at me, as if telling me not to come any closer.

They were tools like tongs and hammers that had been heated from forging weapons just moments ago.

But since Vatos lacked strength in his throws, none of them reached me.

“You know your plan has failed.”

“So… I should give up…? Die in this hellish place…? No, I can’t accept that!!”

Saying not to be ridiculous, Vatos finally threw his weapon at me.

As if determined to succeed next time even if he failed now, he threw the weapon he had made for succession but ultimately failed with all his might.

The axe hit my chest, but since it wasn’t imbued with any sword energy, it caused no real damage.

“You know there are no more chances, nothing else left.”

I looked down at Vatos, hoping he would give up.

I could have ended this journey in Gagap with a swing of my sword, but I simply couldn’t bring myself to do it.

“Please… please… just let me see my mother’s face once… She must still be looking for me… I’m all she has…”

“Unfortunately… I don’t have such amazing abilities.”

Why couldn’t I swing the sword I had been wielding so well until now?

Perhaps it was because looking at Vatos kneeling before me, I could see the appearance of a young student I had never met before.

* * *

[Ah, we were so close to success~]

In a pitch-black space.

The Evil God spoke with regret from a place filled with numerous screens.

The monitor the Evil God was focusing on showed Vatos and Frey.

[We were really just one step away from success.]

[I invested so much in this too.]

While the boring melodrama played out on the monitor, the Evil God pondered the reasons for this plan’s failure.

The goddess’s hero.

The coalition army led by the hero.

The dragon’s intervention.

The appearance of the second Titan.

Vulcan’s resurrection.

The reasons for failure weren’t singular. Rather, there were numerous reasons.

But if forced to choose just one among the many reasons, the Evil God would say Frey without hesitation.

It was a natural answer since she had created most of the reasons for failure.

[Where on earth did you come from?]

[It’s not like those capable of killing Reisen are common.]

If such beings were everywhere, the Evil God would have given up invading this world.

Giggling, the Evil God focused on the monitor again, wanting to learn more about the succubus called Frey.

And the Evil God quickly recognized who Frey was.

[Wait a minute.]

[That’s the authority thief!]

The Evil God recalled two recent incidents of stolen authority.

It was a case where two powers stolen from gods of other worlds previously invaded had disappeared.

The Evil God had sent pursuers to find the missing authorities, but they all died, making it impossible to get any leads on the case.

But now, the energy of those missing authorities could be felt from Frey’s body.

[How did she steal my authority?]

[Is she some kind of phantom thief of authority?]

Of course, Frey didn’t have any authority-stealing powers.

The fact that the authorities could escape to Frey’s body was 100% due to the Evil God’s own mistake.

But the Evil God didn’t know this, which was unfortunate.

[Still, it seems some connection remains.]

[You must pay the price for theft~]

Staring at the monitor, the Evil God smiled a chilling smile that would make anyone’s blood run cold.

That smile contained pure evil.

[First, let’s collect the one who has served his purpose.]

[It would be good to make him serve one last purpose, wouldn’t it?]

Tap-

When the Evil God tapped the monitor once, Vatos’s body on the screen began to distort.

At first, it seemed like he was aging rapidly. His youthful body quickly transformed from middle-aged to elderly.

But it didn’t end there.

After becoming elderly, Vatos’s body began to decay without him even dying.

His body started decomposing on its own, creating a gory scene.

[This is better than melodrama~]

After Vatos breathed his last with a short death cry, the Evil God dismissed him from mind and spoke while watching Frey disappear from the monitor.

[You will be mine.]

* * *

“Ah… ugh… I’m sorry… I’m sorry… I didn’t want to do this… I just wanted to go home….. Ah… u….”

Those were Vatos’s last words.

All I could do was listen to those final words.

The feeling of helplessness was certainly not a pleasant sensation.

“This… I don’t think I’ll ever forget this…”

All that remained where Vatos had been was a terrible stench from the decay and the cube, which could be called the Evil God’s sacred object.

While sorting through my troubled thoughts, I reached out toward the cube to retrieve the Evil God’s sacred object.

Zap-

That’s when I felt something like electricity coursing through my entire body.

And the next moment, I felt my vision go dark.

[Welcome.]

I briefly heard a voice that gave an unpleasant sensation.

As I drifted with only my consciousness in a world of darkness without a single point of light, I felt light entering my world once again.

And relying on that light to look around, I found myself standing in modern Earth.

“What kind of trick is this now…?”

“You’d better get your wits about you. It feels like we could get swept away if we’re not careful.”

And beside me stood Frey.

No, let me correct myself.

Beside me stood Lumia, the original owner of Frey’s body.

“Why are you suddenly staring at me like that? Is it because I’m pretty?”

“I won’t deny you’re pretty, but I see you every morning so it doesn’t excite me much. I just thought you were dead.”

As Lumia brought her face close to mine, I calmly pushed it away and demanded an explanation from her.

She seemed to know something about our current situation based on her comments.

“Even if you look at me like that, I don’t know much either. I was just waiting to completely dissolve and disappear.”

“Then what did you mean earlier? I’m also curious how you survived.”

“I think one answer will suffice for both questions, so I’ll answer them together.

I just came back to life through the fox bead. More precisely, only my consciousness has temporarily survived. It seems you’ll need my help to survive.”

At Lumia’s words, I thought about the exact function of the fox bead.

The fox bead had the effect of saving its owner from a life-threatening crisis once.

And this function was far from simply healing the owner.

It was more like adjusting causality to allow the owner to escape the crisis.

‘Using a martial arts protagonist being chased as an example… luckily the escape route leads to a cliff, and when falling off the cliff, again luckily only the protagonist survives.’

That’s the kind of item it was, so it wasn’t entirely impossible for the fox bead to save Lumia who was on the verge of death.

Thanks to that, I understood how Lumia could be here, but the situation wasn’t resolved yet.

We didn’t even know where we were at the moment.

“Do you have any idea where this is? Considering we’re together, I don’t think this is actual reality.”

It wasn’t a question I expected an answer to, but Lumia was able to respond quickly.

“It feels very vivid, so this seems to be someone’s memory. Obviously not mine, so could it be yours?”

“Hmm… no. I don’t have such scenery in my memories. This street is completely unfamiliar.”

“Then… it seems to be that person’s memory.”

Where Lumia pointed, Vatos was walking down the street wearing a middle school uniform.

Seeing this, Lumia and I simultaneously made our assessment.

“”Hmm, it doesn’t suit him.””

It was an identical evaluation, not a word different.

And truthfully, it would have been difficult for an adult dwarf to look good in a school uniform anyway.