episode_0085

“My god.”

That was the sight the 13th, who had just climbed to the surface, beheld.

Check and Spade. Their desperate battle.

At first glance, they were evenly matched. Spade was fighting better than he had expected.

In his prediction, the battle would have already ended, and Spade would be torn to shreds like trash, rolling on the floor.

However, defying his expectations, their battle was still ongoing, and Spade was even keeping up with Check’s onslaught almost equally.

But the 13th was an Awakened with exceptional abilities. Even if he had lost power, his eyes, capable of seeing countless things other Awakened couldn’t, clearly discerned the ebb and flow of the battle.

And to his eyes, the situation was far from good.

Spade, fighting to the very limit of her capabilities like a runaway tank.

And Check, still calm and composed, deflecting Spade’s attacks.

Furthermore, the red magical flame Spade was emitting seemed precarious, as if it could collapse at any moment. A single lapse would cause everything to crumble instantly, like a sandcastle before a wave.

It was pointless to even cling to false hope that Check would show mercy as they were comrades.

Most Awakened were out of their minds, and it was no different for heroes. The only reason they could be heroes was that they had slightly more controllable minds than those who were destined to become villains.

“I told her to run if it got dangerous!”

Even if he threw himself into that storm, he would only be torn to shreds.

But as if he had something in mind, he cautiously narrowed the distance towards the battleground with Club accompanying him.

* * *

Spade also realized that fact.

Now that the ‘Door of Possibility’ had opened with the 13th’s help, harboring the heart of a giant tree, Spade’s growth rate was tremendous, but there was a difference between her and Check that couldn’t be overcome by such unconventional means.

Moreover, her body and heart were creaking and screaming. They were pleading that she had reached her limit, that anything more was impossible.

A despairing difference. This couldn’t be bridged with ordinary skill.

Yet, she still had no intention of giving up.

“【Messenger of Nemesis, Hydra of Lerna, Boar of Erymanthos, the twelve labors are etched upon my body.】”

She was inferior in skill. Inferior in magic manipulation. There was a difference in experience. Her technique was lacking.

However, to overturn that decisive disadvantage, Spade unleashed her trump card.

At Spade’s desperate cry, at the words of her incantation, Check, who was facing her, narrowed her eyes.

“【Thus, through trials, this body transcends humanity and reaches the divine.】”

It was magic.

A miracle granted by the constellations, achieving special things unimaginable by common sense.

Revealed by the constellations, etched with the magic passed down by them, Spade now cried out those words of incantation at the top of her voice.

“【With my power, I shall erect new pillars and become a new star that repels disaster!!!】”

Spade cried out loudly.

And at the same time, red flames enveloped her body as if she were igniting.

From those magical flames, something like a beast’s roar seemed to reverberate.

The red magical flames now covered Spade so completely that her form was barely visible.

In proportion, Spade raged even more fiercely, attacking Check with even greater power and speed.

She knew this was her final, all-out offensive. The moment these flames died out, Spade would run out of fuel and self-destruct on her own.

Thus, she drew out everything she had.

Even so, Check was still parrying Spade’s attacks. Even when Spade pushed herself past limit after limit, her attacks still couldn’t reach Check.

Huuuuuuuuuum…

‘…?’

Check suddenly heard a strange sound. It was coming from Spade beyond the flames.

She would only realize what the sound was a little later.

Spade was busy escalating her offensive. But suddenly, the magical flames enveloping her were seen slowly converging towards one point.

The destination of the flames, converging with a sound, was the baton in her hand. The red magical flames gathered on it, where it was still clashing with Check’s staff, constantly sparking.

As the magic gathered, the attacks from the baton became heavier. It felt as if Check’s magic could barely manage it.

“My god… I’ve never seen anything like this…!”

Check exclaimed with a laugh. She didn’t seem so relaxed this time, sweating and breathing raggedly… yet she laughed, as if finding something immensely enjoyable.

And soon, almost all of the flame magic, except for the bare minimum, was condensed into that baton.

The condensed flames were like the light of the sun.

Spade raised the flame-infused baton vertically.

“Ha, AAAAAAAAAAAAH!!”

An overhead strike. As if to split Check in two, the baton swung down from above.

At the same time, unlike before, the flames contained within it were—released all at once.

WHOOOOOOOSH!!!!

A dazzling light, a ferocious blaze that seemed to swallow everything around it, was unleashed from the descending weapon, spreading outwards like an explosion towards Check and her surroundings.

* * *

And then the light and flames receded.

The sounds of violence and destruction that had just been echoing continuously subsided, and the towering dust slowly settled.

Neither blue flames nor red flames were visible anymore.

And from within the receding dust, the scenery of the plaza in front of the abandoned factory gradually came into view.

“…Well, that was a bit surprising.”

One person was standing, and one was lying down.

Check stood perfectly fine, with only minor scratches, but no major injuries.

At her feet, Spade lay unconscious, having used up all her magic and taken a direct hit from the counterattack right after her big offensive.

The battle was decided. This was the end.

Spade’s growth and the final strike she displayed were quite admirable, but they were still several steps short of overcoming the wall that was the 7th Unit Captain.

‘Killing her would be a bit much.’

‘Just in case, maybe I should break her arms and legs.’

Just as Check, who thought the battle was over, was nonchalantly contemplating such terrifying thoughts, that’s when it happened.

“…?!”

Suddenly, Check’s gaze snapped sideways. An intuition that tingled within her for a moment. Not knowing what was happening, she simply turned her head.

And in her turned vision, someone was visible in the distance.

“That’s far enough, Check.”

There stood a man, and beside him, the familiar junior, Club.

And the man was extending his hand towards Check.

The next moment, Check couldn’t tell what had happened.

It was just after she thought she had barely registered the two of them.

――――――――!!!

Check’s body was struck by something and sent flying like a cannonball beyond the plaza.

* * *

It was fortunate that Coco had not killed him.

Thanks to that, he could test this method without wasting magic on resurrection.

Thinking that, the 13th looked at his maximum firepower, the enormous `ship` he had brought forth with all the magic he possessed.

What had appeared in the air and sent Check flying with such momentum was a massive golden ship.

But only a very small part of it, just its bow, had appeared. The rest of the ship remained in the darkness beyond, as if a hole had been torn in space.

Even that couldn’t be maintained for long; it only appeared briefly before vanishing.

He had been diligently extracting magic from Spade and Club through sexual encounters up until now.

Even after using almost all the magic he had accumulated this way, he could only summon a part of it, and only for a very short time.

Clicking his tongue at the more disappointing result than he had expected, the 13th rushed to Spade, who was lying on the ground.

“Hey, hey! Spade! Wake up! Are you okay?!”

He patted Spade’s cheek to check. Spade didn’t wake up. But he confirmed that her eyebrows twitched and she was breathing.

She wasn’t dead. That was a relief. He had truly thought something terrible had happened when he saw her collapse with that blinding explosion at the last moment.

“At least that’s a relief… Maybe I didn’t need to interfere so hastily.”

After thinking ‘just in case,’ he felt he had acted a little too quickly.

Anyway, he had used up all his magic, but it was good that Spade seemed unharmed.

He considered trying to treat her with the scraps of magic he had left, but realized it would only amount to getting rid of minor scratches, so he gave up on that.

More importantly, wasn’t there something else to worry about?

“……Give me a break. That was the most powerful strike I could manage.”

The 13th stared across the plaza, as if disbelieving.

The spot where Check had been sent flying moments ago. Check, who had crashed through the wall like a cannonball, was now placing a foot atop the crumbled wall and returning to the plaza.

She cracked her neck with a pop pop, a trickle of blood running down her forehead, but she looked completely unharmed, not a single part of her body damaged.

Considering the mass and speed of that ship earlier, the impact would have been even greater than being hit by a dump truck.

He hadn’t expected her to die, but seeing her perfectly fine like that made him lose all confidence in many ways.

“…Is it you? It is you, isn’t it? You’re the one who kidnapped, tormented, and bewitched our children.”

Check exuded a formidable killing intent, palpable even from a distance, as she slowly approached him.

Perhaps it was due to the excessive killing intent. It looked like the footsteps of death or a guillotine drawing near.

“First, I need to ask what you did to our kid, Spade, so… I won’t kill you.”

“But I have no intention of letting you off easily either.”

“I’ll beat you senseless until you beg for death.”

Check’s blue eyes seemed to pierce through the 13th as she glared.

It was as if she was saying that if he moved even slightly or made any foolish moves, she would kill him on the spot.

But facing such a Check, the 13th didn’t flinch, instead turning to Club beside him.

And with just one word, he muttered, “Do it.”

‘…?’

Check didn’t understand what was about to happen. She only felt that her threat was somehow futile.

And for some reason, the way the 13th and Club exchanged glances felt somewhat unusual.

But before Check could react to that sight, the ‘last resort’ the 13th had prepared came to fruition.

[Mr. Check, can you hear me?]

In Check’s ears, directly in her mind, that voice resonated.

It was as if it were a radio transmission, but Check wasn’t using any such device right now.

Instead, she knew of an ability that could do something similar: Club’s ability, 『Sensory Sharing』, applied to create a簡易 simple telepathy…

[It seems you can hear me. Good. Then I’ll speak, so listen carefully.]

[『Sleep under the Curse of the Bramble Queen』. Now, stop right where you are, Mr. Check.]

Along with that voice, and the sentence that felt somehow familiar.

Along with one of the two hypnotic keywords prepared for Check.

The light faded from Check’s eyes, and she stopped dead in her tracks, right where she had been approaching.

The iron staff clutched in her hand slipped from her weakening grasp and fell to the floor with a loud clang, abandoned by its master….