Chapter 229: Mobius (13)

“S-stop it…! I told you to stop…! Don’t torment me…!”

A pathetic voice echoed through the underground. Petunia Titi looked at me with an expression of not knowing what to do. Milia calmly gathered mana at her fingertips, and Taffy brushed the soot off his face and spat out dust.

Mobius’s barrier was now a meaningless existence. It was only faintly announcing its presence, like the mist rising from a lake or the heat haze that vanishes in an instant under the summer sun.

“Mobius. Let’s stop now. Okay?”

Petunia Titi’s voice was like that of someone coaxing a child. Mobius was kneeling on the floor, having thrown his staff aside. I just wanted to blow Mobius’s head off, but our noble elf seemed to believe Mobius could be redeemed.

Believing in a fallen comrade and family was like faith in religion. Even though nothing changes by praying, one inevitably ends up praying at the altar, because one cannot help but beg for change even without believing it will happen.

How could a person who kidnaps others, conducts ruthless human experiments, and exacts revenge beyond the pale be redeemed? And in what way would he pay for his sins after redemption? There were no answers.

“Please, stop. This isn’t like you. I know your granddaughter died, and I feel sorry about it. Really. But what good comes from solving things this way? Are you truly satisfied? Is manipulating your memories true happiness?”

Petunia Titi spoke with a desperate tone. We remained silent, but she felt an unspoken pressure piercing the back of her neck.

We don’t have time.

We need to quickly kill or subdue Mobius, rescue Sylvia, and escape.

So decide quickly.

Whether to kill Mobius.

Or continue persuading him here until we’re all killed.

“Mobius. You weren’t like this. Please, I’m begging you. Huh? Drop the staff and come over here. Please… I don’t want to kill you. Why are you being so cruel to me? We were comrades.”

Mobius remained silent. Was he waiting for reinforcements? His blunt, hollow eyes made his intentions impossible to discern. We cautiously eyed each other with an uncomfortable, sharp tension, like strangers meeting for the first time, and Milia kept her gathered mana in her hands with a nonchalant expression.

Petunia Titi’s shoulders trembled. I could tell she was crying and trying desperately to hide her emotions.

“M-Mobius…! Please…!”

I don’t want to kill you.

Please come back.

Did her heartfelt plea reach him? Mobius slowly nodded and opened his mouth.

“You want me not to kill you?”

His lips were parched, his eyes bloodshot. The magic-less mage still possessed immense mana. He blinked once more and spoke to Petunia Titi.

“Do you think I’m alive right now? I am dead. I might as well have died the day my granddaughter died. And you want to kill me? My dream is within reach, and you want me to give it all up and live in nightmares again? Do you know what nightmares are? Do you know what kind of dreams I live with?! I cannot give up!”

Mobius’s hand slammed onto the floor.

With a clear impact sound, Taffy’s body, which had been rushing forward, was thrown backward.

Mana erupted from the floor like a blue fountain. Mobius’s mana forcibly connected with the broken hoses and circuits, causing sparks to fly. His already gaunt face grew even paler, and his eyes looked like they were about to roll back.

“No Tower Explosion Incident! No granddaughter’s death! I didn’t fail to save Merilda! Because such an incident never happened in the first place! We will live happily ever after!”

A powerful blue light flared. Petunia Titi drew her bowstring but couldn’t release it. Her hands trembled violently, and the intense mana sparks kept me from getting close. The machine flickered back to life, and the glass tube containing Sylvia began emitting mana again, lifting her body.

“Now, now…!”

Mobius was laughing. Beyond the mana sparks, he reached out towards the glass tube. As if to caress his new granddaughter one last time, his fingers trembled slightly and rolled over the glass surface.

“Soon…!”

Then, blood drained from his fingers. His fingers slid down the glass tube. Mobius sensed something was wrong and raised his arm, but his fingers fell towards the floor, moving in the opposite direction.

“Wh-what…!”

His arm wasn’t attached to his shoulder. It bent like a boomerang, dropped with a thud, twitched like a shrimp, emitted a mana reaction, and then began to char.

Realizing belatedly that it had been severed, drops of blood started to trickle from his shoulder.

“Wh-what! Ahhhhhh!”

The mana spreading around subsided. Mobius’s ragged body rolled on the floor, followed by painful screams. Petunia Titi looked back and forth between the fallen Mobius and Milia with a bewildered expression.

Milia, with an indifferent face, extended her arm and fired another mana blast. As if delivering deserved retribution, she swiftly and accurately bombarded Mobius with mana shots.

“Ugh! Ack! Ahhhhhh! Kkack! Kkeu…!”

Four consecutive mana shots struck Mobius’s body precisely. The attacks narrowly missed vital points, solely focused on inflicting pain. No blue mana flowed on the floor.

Red blood soaked the floor, replacing the circuits. Mobius, still breathing, looked at Petunia Titi. The hand he still had was drenched in blood, making it impossible to tell its original color.

“P-Petunia…! P-Pe…!”

His reason for reaching out was obvious.

Petunia Titi turned her head away, unable to face his end.

Mobius, seeing himself abandoned by his comrade, seemed to realize something. He dragged his broken body towards the glass tube. His hand left bloody palm prints as he dragged his corpse-like form.

“Ahhh…!”

He then reached for the glass tube and tried to utter a final word.

What did he want to say? Was it regret for his life of meaningless revenge and countless sacrifices? Or lingering attachment to Sylvia?

His weakening hand left five trails of red. A winding red path, like smoke. Mobius raised his head once more, attempting to speak his last words.

“Ah…!”

An arrow flew. Just as Milia was about to fire another magic blast, Petunia Titi, with a somber expression, shot the arrow. It pierced Mobius’s vital spot precisely, causing him to let out a sigh like a whistling wind instead of his final words.

As the air left his lungs, his body slumped, and Petunia Titi wiped the tear streaks from her eyes and looked at us.

No questions were exchanged about what to do next.

As if we had predetermined roles, we moved into our positions naturally. Milia magically swept away the debris on the floor, while Taffy and Titi searched for a new escape route through the hole in the wall.

People were starting to gather outside. The silence that followed Mobius’s horrific screams and all other noises had unsettled the mages. Seemingly unconcerned about excavation equipment or the safety of the materials to be delivered, they were planning to visit this basement with stronger reinforcement magic and equipment.

I glanced once more at the glass window where Sylvia was trapped.

The glass wall, now stained with Mobius’s blood, felt unpleasant.

When I punched it, the sturdiness it had shown during the confrontation vanished, and it shattered.

I detached the hoses connected to her body and hugged her tightly, sharing my warmth.

Her body, submerged in blue liquid for a long time, was damp but warm, and her breathing was steady. She shivered reflexively against the cold air of the basement, and I stroked her back, whispering,

“It’s okay. We’re here now. Okay?”

Her eyes, contorted as if from a nightmare, curved into arcs. Seeing her faint smile, I smiled back, and Milia, having spotted the newly created escape route, whispered in my ear.

“Let’s go. Evan.”

Taffy and Titi were looking at us. Faint sunlight streamed through the hole the two were gazing at. Holding Sylvia tightly, I said to Milia,

“Yeah. Let’s go.”

Milia nodded and held out her hand to me. I slung Sylvia over my shoulder and asked,

“What? I don’t have any money right now.”

“You really have no sense. Shouldn’t you be holding my hand right now?”

She seemed to be forcing cheerfulness. It was the same Milia with the same voice as always, yet her aura felt slightly different. I took her hand and asked,

“What’s gotten into you?”

Milia smiled at me and said,

“Just because.”

The sun shone brightly in the distance.

Taffy pulled down his hood and covered himself with his coat.