episode_0025

They bore a somewhat strange black light, yet they were so beautiful that even that impression was rendered meaningless.

It was a scene born from a kind of paradox.

The heavy frost was tinged with shadows.

The fresh spring that had bloomed.

As if it had never been, it was covered by the winter night.

Those who witnessed the contradictory seasons had their gazes stolen by an intense ecstasy.

Meanwhile.

“Haa, haa······”

At the center of the arena.

There stood a girl breathing roughly.

“Cough… Ugh.”

Her dry cough was tormenting.

The girl, standing exhausted, was none other than Emilia.

Her slender steps staggered.

Crunch!

Footprints were left on the softly piled snow.

Before the surreal backdrop spread before her, the girl murmured to herself blankly.

A white breath billowed out.

“······What on earth.”

What had happened?

She fell into thought.

The last thing the girl remembered was the sight of ten thousand spears falling.

And the next moment.

-Shatter.

Winter shattered.

In an instant.

The vibrant scenery from moments before disappeared as if it were a lie.

Scattering into countless fragments.

“Ah.”

It felt like being enchanted by a dream.

If she just closed her eyes and opened them again… wouldn’t everything disappear, and she’d wake up in her soft bed?

Of course, the fantasy didn’t last long.

Snowflakes fell on her cheek.

As the coldness permeating her body proved reality.

Emilia raised her head.

“······.”

What appeared in her blurry vision was a golden snake.

It was a pair of sinisterly smiling narrow eyes.

The boy was filled with composure.

Unlike herself, shriveled and pathetic, he was graceful.

Only then did Emilia realize.

The fact that she was weak.

She unleashed magic, hoping to at least touch the boy’s toe, but even that was utterly insufficient.

It was truly an irrational disparity.

“Do you still intend to continue?”

A softly questioning voice.

Her breath hitched.

A deep sense of exhaustion enveloped her entire body.

Her legs, devoid of strength, trembled.

But.

“······Yes.”

She did not fall.

A venomous light still glinted in her blue eyes.

It was a terrifying obsession.

Emilia bit her lip.

She forcibly regulated her breathing.

Hallucinations echoed in her ears. A few words she had heard sometime before.

-Grow stronger, Emilia.

Her chest tightened.

-Otherwise, you won’t survive.

A single memory stubbornly made the girl stand.

Of course, she wasn’t expecting a reversal.

She had already sensed it from the previous attack.

It was an overwhelming disparity.

To the point where even daring to look up was too much.

“It’s not over yet.”

Emilia simply didn’t know.

Because defeat meant only death in her life, she had never learned how to kneel.

It was the path she had learned to survive her harsh fate.

This time was no different.

The girl clenched her fists.

Scraping mana from the bottom of her depleted reserves, she could barely create one ice spear.

Her last desperate struggle.

“I won’t lose… Never.”

Her demeanor was ferocious.

As she pointed the sharp spear tip at the boy, a lamenting murmur was heard.

“Oh dear… I didn’t want to treat you roughly.”

The snake flicked its tongue as if delighted.

Was it really that enjoyable?

Well, it was the process of trampling a bug that didn’t know its place.

‘Of course it is.’

She didn’t feel particularly wronged.

Wasn’t it something she had tried to do in the first place?

Indeed, if one intended to stab an opponent, they must also be prepared to be stabbed in return.

The sinister narrow eyes smiled.

“It can’t be helped! I wanted to finish this with more courtesy, but······.”

A smirk.

The boy’s lips twisted into a chilling grin.

A powerful surge of murderous intent spread.

“This is the result of the Young Lady’s choice.”

The snake brought its hands together.

Black mist rippled around him.

Emilia, sensing something ominous, tried to step back, but the boy’s subsequent action was faster.

He clapped his hands lightly.

Smack!

A sharp, straight blast.

The next moment.

“······Huh?”

The gravity surrounding the girl flipped upside down.

Her body lingered in the air for a moment.

Not long after.

“Ah… A-a-aah!!”

Her blue hair shot up towards the sky.

***

In the original work, Yuda is described as the strongest evil.

He acts like the protagonist’s ally until the latter half, only to reveal his true colors at the most crucial moment.

He plays the role responsible for a shocking twist.

[What?]

[?????????????????]

[No, is this for real? Yuda betrays them?]

[Damn, narrow-eyed characters are always suspicious.]

[No way, stop messing around.]

[More importantly, why is that bastard so strong?]

[Since he’s a narrow-eyed character, he must have been hiding his power.]

The guide video I uploaded also received a passionate response.

He was always kind, and sometimes a clumsy comedic character.

An auxiliary character who had cemented a likable image among players, was in fact the mastermind behind all the tragedies.

Perhaps because the foreshadowing was meticulously hidden.

In the first playthrough, it was nearly impossible to notice.

The problem didn’t stop there.

A power truly close to disaster.

The protagonist’s party, without time to recover from the shock of betrayal, had to step forward to prevent the world’s destruction.

Yuda’s strength was vastly beyond the norm.

[Is this difficulty for real??]

[If the guide creator failed, we can’t even lay a hand on it.]

[Galimard’s faculty annihilated in 30 seconds?]

[Seriously, is this right?]

As such, many intense scenes appeared.

Among them, the most talked-about scene was the ‘Continent Gravity Reversal’ that appeared in the [Final Battle].

《It’s getting a bit boring.》

《Shall we… make the world a little more interesting?》

He defies laws.

When the boy clapped his hands once, the gravity of the entire continent was reversed.

People fell upwards towards the sky.

A world endlessly plunging into ruin.

It was a scene that still remained etched in my mind.

[How do you even beat that?]

Of course, that was only possible because it was the original Yuda.

The power I possessed was nowhere near enough.

Even though three years had passed since my possession, the ability called ‘Lie’ was still difficult to handle.

It was hard to reach the peak with insufficient output.

Flipping the gravity of an entire continent in the first place.

How on earth does that even work?

It was a level of power I simply couldn’t comprehend.

‘However.’

That doesn’t mean I can’t do it at all.

The ability to manipulate reality with lies.

It was merely a decrease in output, not a change in the core ability itself.

If it’s within a narrow enough range that I can handle, defying the world’s laws is easy.

Smack!

That’s exactly how it was now.

“Ah… A-a-aah!!”

The principle was the same ‘gravity reversal,’ but it was a vastly scaled-down version beyond comparison.

If the original Yuda’s designated target was a continent.

My designated target was merely one girl.

Watching the rapidly vertically rising afterimage, I wore a regretful smile.

-I won’t lose… Never.

As expected.

Emilia showed no intention of surrendering.

Rather, a ferocity to fight to the very end.

To break that, I had to use a somewhat rough method.

If she intended to keep standing even knowing the difference in power.

Then I just needed to shake her so much she couldn’t stand again.

“Heh heh.”

The referee didn’t seem to have any intention of stopping it either.

That must mean it’s fine to continue the duel.

Just as the girl’s head reached the clouds, I clapped my hands once more.

Smack!

Immediately after, the gravity surrounding the girl returned to normal.

Her blue hair, caught at the edge of the sky.

She seemed to float in the sky for a moment, then began to fall towards the ground.

A faint scream could be heard.

“U-uh, ugh, aaah…!”

Emilia descended rapidly, accelerating.

Even with a sturdy body, falling from such a height would result in severe injury.

Furthermore, she was in a state where mana exhaustion, fatigue, and lethargy were all compounded.

The girl was clearly about to hit the ground without preparing for the impact.

Of course.

“Let’s go up again.”

Smack!

I didn’t just leave her to it.

Just before her flowing blue hair touched the arena, I brought my hands together with perfect timing.

Emilia’s face receded upwards again.

“For someone who spoke so solemnly… your screams are quite cute.”

The small villainess, shot up by the mastermind.

I clapped repeatedly.

Smack!

Smack!

Smack!

As soon as she seemed to reach the sky, I dropped her, and as soon as she seemed to descend, I sent her back up.

Occasionally, for variation, I would shift gravity horizontally.

“······!!”

For a while, only faint screams echoed in the arena.

How much time passed like that?

I only stopped clapping after a system notification appeared.

-Ding!

[The output of unique ability ‘Liar’ has been mostly depleted.]

[Current remaining output: 4.7%]

“Time to wrap things up, I suppose.”

Smack!

I clapped one last time and waited in place.

Standing with my arms outstretched, I soon saw the girl plummeting at a terrifying speed.

Her blue hair left a long trail.

“Oh dear.”

I lightly caught the falling girl.

Using my ability, I erased her acceleration, and gently embraced her weakened body.

“Are you ready to give up now?”

“······.”

Emilia was completely out of it.

I deliberately whispered into her ear as if teasing her, meaning that if she didn’t surrender immediately, I’d show her something worse.

Her slender shoulders twitched and trembled.

“Hmm hmm.”

I set the villainess down on the ground.

Her legs wobbled the moment they touched the ground.

Sure enough, Emilia immediately collapsed onto the spot.

Her chin trembled like an aspen leaf.

“Young Lady.”

“······.”

“Young Lady?”

“······.”

No answer came.

Grinning broadly, I only then realized that something was amiss.

Did I tease her too much?

Still, she’s a capable student. That’s why I played around with her with peace of mind.

Her eerie reaction was unusual.

‘Wait a minute.’

As I pondered, one setting belatedly came to mind.

‘Now that I think about it… I remember hearing that Emilia had an extreme fear of heights.’

It was a detail I vaguely remembered from an extra booklet that had been released sometime ago.

A feeling of cold dread washed over me.

“Good heavens.”

‘Oh, damn it.’

I hastily checked on Emilia.

The villainess was kneeling with blank eyes.

It was already too late.

“Young Lady! Are you alr-…? Oh?”

The girl’s pants were soaking wet.

A small puddle had formed around where she was sitting.

The black snowflakes that had accumulated from the previous attacks rapidly melted as they touched the spilled water.

At the same time, white steam rose.

“Oh.”

My brain froze.

Yellow liquid.

No matter how I looked at it, it was water that had come from beneath the girl.

I hastily raised my head, trying to pretend I hadn’t seen it, but by unfortunate coincidence, my gaze met her blue eyes.

“······.”

“······.”

Her pupils trembled as if they would shatter.

Tears welled up gradually.

The trembling intensified.

Ultimately.

“Hiccup…! Ugh, waaaah…!”

Emilia burst into tears.

Oh dear.

I messed up.