Struggling (11)

My thoughts flowed a bit faster.

It didn’t take long to see Erica right beside me and realize something was wrong.

It could be said to be immediate.

When I met her snow-white eyes, like a midwinter snow mountain, which had returned to their usual appearance before I knew it, I couldn’t help but feel self-hatred rising.

This wasn’t the structure it was supposed to be.

I was feeling her kindness as pleasure, but that should have been just a momentary amusement.

That means it shouldn’t take the central position in this grand plan.

I quickly shook off the two hands holding my shoulder.

The part where the bone was exposed, crushed by the axe blade, was already cleanly healed.

“…..I’m fine now.”

Why did you help me?

I was going to say that, but my mouth blurted out something else.

I was craving love, relying on her kindness.

It’s a mistake.

This is a mistake.

Before I knew it, I was trying to maintain daily life with the gentleness Erica gave me.

My rotten mind abandoned the essential plan and sought pathological pleasure.

A moment of worry flashed across her. Soon after, watching Erica turn her gaze around, I felt my head idling once again.

Why did you help?

What are you saying? There’s no need to harbor such doubts.

She helped you then too, at your house.

How is that different from now?

Back then.

I don’t know.

It’s full of unknowns.

“The facility seems to be damaged beyond repair. We’ll need to conduct another overall search operation.”

Saying that, Erica approached the fallen hunters first.

I quietly caught my breath. My breathing was so rough that my brain was ringing.

Let’s think simply.

It’s about discussing the edge of our relationship again.

She just knew. That she couldn’t subdue me in that situation.

The Association’s hunters were already injured and this operation wasn’t over yet.

She just humored me.

It’s no different from what she usually says.

She’s just watching out. She just pretended to care to prevent future terrorism.

There’s nothing else. Nothing more, nothing less.

And I, knowing nothing, relied on her kindness and failed to execute the plan I had carefully built up today.

I concluded that this situation would end when I defeated the necromancer knight.

I abandoned the picturesque scene Erica and I were creating, and chose to lean on her warm embrace.

How stupid.

It shouldn’t be like this.

The plan is getting distorted.

She needs to shine a bit more and I need to be trampled a bit more.

It’s natural that useless pleasure should be neglected.

I looked around while messing up my hair.

This place is a necromancer group. There’s no way there isn’t a laboratory. I moved my steps to eliminate any remaining personnel that might be there.

Anyway, I need corpses for the birth of Behemoth.

When I climbed the stairs to the 2nd floor, I felt surroundings with a different texture.

Dark walls with red carpet.

And firmly closed rooms visible at the end of several corridor branches.

It goes without saying. Feeling a distant magical power, I walked straight there, injected magic power into the door to burst it open, and entered.

For a moment, smoke rose.

“J-just, just a little more….. Just a little more and it’s done!”

I saw the back of a man in a gown in one corner of the interior. As the man was writing down magic formulas, a magic circle flashed.

When I raised my gaze, there was the figure of a reaper bound in chains all over its body.

It was wrapped in a robe all over its body, with a silver scythe tied to its back, its head lowered.

It wasn’t very large in size.

In terms of nomenclature.

“Is it a lich?”

“Why! Why isn’t it working! Why!”

I twisted my side hair.

Well, he seems to be the type who doesn’t care what happens downstairs, so he probably won’t hear my voice.

“Is the formula wrong? The control? Or….. Aagh!”

When I approached and pushed the man, his noisy voice subsided.

Seeing his violently shaking pupils, I smiled.

“Shall I help you?”

“Fuck! What are you!”

I reached out towards the man. Soon after, the precise mouth of a monster cut off the man’s ankle.

A scream rang out.

[ Just kill him….. ]

“I’m not that bad of a person.”

[ Not killing in this situation makes you a bad bitch! ]

Everyone’s like that only to me.

I’m showing a bit of mercy. Still, shouldn’t he see his research bearing fruit?

I looked at the lich again.

It had a similar composition to the knight army I saw earlier. A hybrid body mixing the necro race and the spirit realm side.

That’s why it had a core.

I could also see mist escaping from inside the robe.

It has a core and even a soul.

If I awaken this as is, it becomes an attack-type monster with self-awareness. It would rampage even more without these chains blocking the emission of vast amounts of magic power.

For a moment, I imagined a battle scene with Erica.

To control the situation itself, it would be good to modify this lich’s build from attack-type to summoning-type.

“Can I use this?”

“Mmph! Mmph! Hmmmph!!”

Come to think of it, it was noisy so I sewed his mouth shut with a needle.

“You say I can? Thank you. You’ll be blessed.”

“Mmph! Hmp! Hmmmph!”

I twisted my side hair.

I sprinkled blood drops. I transformed it into a greatsword and stabbed it into the man’s heart.

Blood splattered. Bloody flipped over the rising wave.

[ Kyaaak! ]

“You’re still alive, right? Necromancers don’t die even if their heart is pierced by a sword, do they?”

[ That level of fatal wound kills necromancers too! It just delays the time of death! ]

Why are you making such a fuss?

I twisted my side hair. After watching the man’s breathing rapidly subside, I turned my eyes back to the lich.

I reached out towards the lich. As blood-colored mist slowly escaped, I clenched my fist. The mist transformed into individual letters and fixed in the air. Watching it gather into sentences before I knew it, I sprinkled blood drops.

The sentences were thoroughly soaked in red waves. In the empty space created by the melting and collapsing letters in the air, I slowly wrote using my finger as a writing tool.

convoquer.

It could be said to be similar to dealing with genetics. It could be said that magic formula modification itself requires vast knowledge and much skill in practical applications.

Le remodelage…..

My life stained with blood for 4 years made that possible.

…..matiere premiere

Interpreted, it’s a command phrase meaning to modify the build using blood as raw material.

“I’m sorry for changing the build as I please. But the result of the birth will be the same.”

Seeing the man’s eyes flash for a moment, I smiled. Is it the final struggle in his body?

I swung the greatsword. When I cut the chains constraining the lich, red eyes flashed from the dark place inside the robe.

Mist filled the ground and a chilly air was felt. The screams of the dead were heard everywhere and the area shook.

Bone feet touched the ground. A scythe was raised.

“Isn’t it good that you can see your results bear fruit?”

I just wanted to feel reassured like that.

Seeing the color disappear from the man’s pupils, I turned my body.

I entered the central corridor of the 2nd floor. I raised the greatsword again. When I infused it with magic power, red energy fluctuated. I stabbed it straight down towards the floor.

With a faint noise, the ground was destroyed and collapsed. As I felt the wind brushing past my body, my body started falling downwards.

Thud.

I set foot on the ground. It was light.

The surrounding noise wasn’t. Walls and bricks were falling around after collapsing. Mist and smoke thickened, then cleared, and when I looked ahead.

Erica was looking at me with a bewildered face.

“It was a good judgment.”

I said that and grasped a black cube. It didn’t take more than a few seconds for the cube to crack under pressure and break, and for familiar screams to pierce my mind again.

“All of it, showing interest in me and treating me like usual.”

“…..What do you mean?”

“It’s no use playing dumb. Did you think I wouldn’t do anything? Did you think I’d be happy and grin if you treated me so well?”

After a moment of silence, Erica’s eyebrows twitched.

“Wasn’t it like that?”

“Ah, right. That’s right. It would have looked like that.”

I didn’t particularly feel like refuting.

“But what can I do. I’m just like you. I was pretending too.”

I tried. I tried to maintain this relationship again. The one where she hates me and I smile at her like that.

So I lied. Saying that Erica just treated me well while watching my reactions, and I pretended to be fooled while knowing that.

“I’ll try hard. So you can become stronger. I, really. Really hard.”

Was it dependence on her? Or desperation? Whatever it was, I didn’t care. In this already dirty life, Erica was the only thing I could look at.

When I faced her glaring at me, the surroundings were already hazy with mist.

The lich revealed itself. The scythe was swung. The skeleton army awakened and a witch with a lantern appeared.

“Please take care of it.”

“…..It was quiet for a while, but.”

Erica wasn’t flustered. She took her gaze off me and quickly started taking a stance while looking around.

“Attack! Attack! It’s an attack, attack!”

I shouted desperately. Suddenly, I felt like my voice was cracking.

Tired? Difficult? For me who had been cooped up at home, outside life was still hard.

But it’s good, isn’t it?

Because I like her who’s drawing beautiful curves with her sword in that army even now.

The witch shook her lantern. Green mist spread widely and surrounded Erica. Bone hands, one by one, started to constrain her.

“Restrain! Restrain her!”

It was meaningless. My simple shout was in vain. The blade and sword edge tore off all the hands and shattered the skeletons rushing in with a quantity offensive.

The lich opened a huge book. A magic circle was drawn and a skeleton knight with a double-edged sword appeared. When the witch screamed, a wolf-like monster awakened and howled.

“…..What is this!”

“The Project to Torment Erica!”

A snow-white, but huge sword pierced through the ceiling and stabbed down at them. A spear wrapped in rings of magic power rushed low across the ground and swept through the army.

But you know. If I don’t do this, I feel like everything’s collapsing. I reach the point of feeling anxious because the daily life I spend with you is too good.

You shouldn’t harbor special feelings for me. That’s a problem about me before discussing our relationship. For trash like me, someone like me, who’s already receiving too much, that’s.

But even in such a situation, this body craved her. My sickly mind trampled even my own resistance.

Does this battle have any meaning? Really.

I opened my wings and flew up. A blood-colored hammer flowed into my hand. When I struck the earth, blood-colored thorns rose and rushed, aiming for her.

The army disappeared, torn by the thorns. Smoke rose and raged everywhere.

A snow-white shield was raised. As soon as the huge thorn was blocked, I kicked off the ground and ran. I swung the hammer. The shield shattered and pieces fluttered through the air.

Through the gap, I saw Erica.

“…..Pretty.”

“…..Ugh!”

The lich screamed and reached out its hand. Mist rose and Erica covered her mouth for a moment.

I shattered the hammer and transformed it into a greatsword. In an instant, two swords clashed. Sparks flew and as the distance widened, I gathered blood again.

I swung a red double-edged sword quickly. Her sword, which barely blocked, shattered to pieces. Erica choked on the mist. I raised the scythe. A long scar was engraved on her abdomen and blood gushed.

I rotated my body and thrust in my foot. Erica, pushed back, crashed into the back wall.

“…..That must hurt. What should I do.”

Looking around, I saw three hunters resisting the approaching skeleton knights. Their bodies were exposed with many wounds. They were drenched in sweat even while swinging daggers, seemingly very tired.

“I’m sorry I can’t save you! But I guess it can’t be helped!”

The lich screamed. In the smoke that started to entangle them, skeleton spirits with two heads each appeared. Watching the spirits rushing from all directions swinging swords.

In the blink of an eye.

At the center where everything was shattering into bones by the white sword blade drawing curves.

Erica appeared again.

And once more, when the sword rushed towards the lich standing in the back from there.

As if there was nothing there, the sword vainly passed through the lich.

“It’s useless!”

It sounds like a villain’s line, but it can’t be helped.

“Because it won’t die so easily.”

It starts now.

I will continuously strive until she suffers more and ultimately destroys me.

“Please stop!”

Were we that kind of relationship? A relationship where I stop right away if you tell me not to act like we’re close?

“I told you to stop when you were hitting me too!”

“This and that are different!”

But you know.

Even this conversation doesn’t make sense.

I resisted. As if dancing, I rotated my body and sprinkled blood drops.

The red energy that gathered before I knew it reached the lich, and at the moment it was about to scream even louder.

A huge tombstone was erected in the center of the battlefield with a thud.

The lich, dropping the book it was holding, shuddered and suddenly started losing light.

“…..What.”

My bewilderment didn’t last long. For a moment, I saw a silver-haired man in the corner of my vision.

The lich sat down with a powerless scream. Soon after, a white sword pierced the lich, and when I faced the owner of that sword right in front of me.

My heart was also pierced by her sword.

“…..This is, too much.”

Really. Isn’t this too much, Reaper?

It’s just starting. Why are you interfering with me?

Seran too, and Reaper too.

Everyone’s like this only to me.

I really feel wronged.