222

Chapter 222 — The World Is (7)

「…Even if you wake up now, all you’ll do is hurt. It’ll hurt so, so much! Because of the seal, we can’t even regulate it right now, so it really will……!」

The voice that had been sobbing began shouting almost as though trying to frighten me.

Was waking up really that undesirable?

* * *

Demonic Contamination was an insidious, vicious thing.

At first, there was no pain whatsoever.

Not even the first hint of it, until the eyes turned bloodred and black veins began standing out beneath the skin.

But once even a shred of reason began to wear away, things changed.

It hurt.

Not overwhelmingly enough to make one pass out, but slowly, gnawingly.

It was like having the flesh peeled away layer by layer.

The pain accumulated, then crashed down like waves.

“Ha!”

But so what?

For someone who could endure molten lava being poured over their entire body, pain like that meant nothing.

What mattered to her was now.

“Die!”

It was fine if she broke.

Fine if she died.

She had already prepared herself for that the moment she left her homeland and set foot upon this land.

But that didn’t mean she would go alone.

Especially not when a demon was involved!

“Wahahaha!”

She ignored the chunk of shoulder flesh carved away by the merman’s claws and swung the stone clutched in her hand.

Her fist, no matter how much she trained it, could never become harder than stone.

So instead, the fragment of rock shattered the merman’s skull.

It felt similar to the time she had smashed her master’s head apart.

The scalp tore, bone broke, and blood and brain matter burst forth.

Then she twisted her waist slightly to evade the attack of the merman lunging from behind.

Though burdened with eggs, the creatures were not sluggish.

Their claws finally left a wound across her waist, but it wasn’t deep enough for her entrails to spill out.

And as though demanding compensation for the wound, her empty left hand stabbed into the eye of the merman that had just attacked.

Her hooked fingers gave its eyeball a view of the outside world.

“Not even as much as the Trial of the Glacier!!”

Naturally, if one compared the Trial of the Glacier, which only the chosen Great Warriors of the tribe could challenge, to mere demons scattered everywhere, the latter would come up lacking.

But that was no concern of hers.

Sneering at the mermen, she drove a foot into one creature’s belly.

THUD!

The demon that had tried to make her its nest died, while those rushing in from outside as emergency reinforcements filled the space anew.

You know.

CRUNCH!

It didn’t matter.

Splashing through pools of blood, she hurled the stone in her hand.

Even a simple thrown rock became fairly dangerous once backed by her strength.

The fluid coating the merman’s hide made the stone slip off, but the impact was not completely dispersed, causing the creature to stagger once or twice.

If we really die here.

Her grip did not miss that opening.

She seized the merman’s hand and twisted its wrist, staging a scene in which it died with its own claws buried in its throat.

The merman impaled by its own claws toppled backward, tongue lolling out.

Which Vidr’s death will you mourn?

SLASH!

Then something split into five strips.

A strike meant for her had been poorly positioned and instead shredded the corpse of another merman.

Splash.

But mermen were not the only ones striking their own kind.

Her movement halted for a fraction of a second before she barely avoided another creature’s attack.

Shhk!

The ones she failed to evade left their marks upon her body as wounds.

Mine?

Or……

“Stop.”

Her fingers hooked into the merman’s mouth.

Rrrip!

By cleverly slipping between its teeth, her fingers tore open the corner of its mouth before they could be bitten off.

“We promised we wouldn’t talk about that.”

We’re about to die.

“Unnie.”

Berserk.

Then her body bent with astonishing flexibility.

Her upper body dropped backward, and for an instant the muscles of her waist, curved like a bow, supported her entire body.

The merman’s claws cut through empty air just above her abdomen.

Whoosh!

Once the claws passed over her, she snapped herself forward again.

The serratus muscles stretched taut along with her waist released, firing her shoulder forward.

Her palm struck the merman squarely beneath the jaw and sent it flying.

Or should I call you Weapon Master?

“Unnie…….”

Yeah.

Either is fine.

I just…

I want you to face it.

Her abdominal muscles twisted like a vortex, allowing her to evade another set of claws by a hair.

The arm that had risen as her waist bent dropped again and caught the merman by the neck.

Unlike a human’s, that neck was thicker than its head and filled the entire crook of her arm.

The contradiction of mourning someone while insisting the one you mourn is still alive.

CRACK.

But a neck trapped between chest and arm usually had only one possible future.

She applied force and snapped the creature’s cervical bones.

It clawed desperately at her thighs and pelvis in its death throes, but that probably wasn’t a serious problem.

Probably.

Instead, she seized the corpse with her free hand and swung it around.

Several attacks rushing toward her one after another were stopped by the meat shield.

I want you to stop calling something that’s merely one side of you your Unnie.

She could not become complacent merely because she had stopped the enemy’s offensive.

Exploiting the opening between attacks, she threw herself into the gap.

Her thigh muscles bulged under the sudden exertion, spraying blood as they carried her body to a comparatively safer place.

There was no need to worry about the enemy that had occupied her landing point.

Its brow had been crushed beneath her foot.

For a moment, she had room to breathe.

Please.

Let’s stop.

“Haa.”

Did she?

She breathed out hot air.

Whether the heat came from moving several steps without breathing, or from the Demonic Energy being only moments away from reaching the crown of her head, she could not tell.

At this rate, when death finally stands before us, we won’t even be able to properly mourn Vidr.

She simply wanted to run away.

Even though she knew there was nowhere left to run.

“Damn it!!”

She moved her hands while groaning under the Demonic Energy rising through her and clouding her mind.

Or perhaps she screamed because the choice she had refused to acknowledge was finally being thrust before her eyes.

CRUNCH!

Another merman was created with its eyeball crushed and its eye socket shattered beneath her hand.

“I know! I know too!!”

…Berserk.

“I know it perfectly well!!”

SLASH!

But she was approaching her limit.

There were too many mermen swarming her, and the reason being clouded by Demonic Energy was driving her into a corner as well.

A mind that could no longer clearly distinguish right from wrong finally resulted in a puncture wound near her lung.

“I know you’re dead too!!”

And for one instant, everything stopped.

No.

Time continued flowing.

Thirteen years old.

Even the time that had stopped on that childhood day—

began moving once again.

“I know Unnie is dead too—!!”

BOOOOM!

“……!”

At the moment it felt as though time had stopped, the floor instead collapsed.

The rotten flesh could no longer bear the weight of dozens of mermen and dropped them into the hollow space that had formed below.

Thud, thud.

The uneven terrain dropped her, rolled her, and dropped her again.

Her huge body tumbled over slick chunks of flesh until she was completely soaked in blood.

Berserk.

It was a sight remarkably suited to the name.

Roll, roll.

As if even that was not enough, her body continued somewhere worse.

It reached the largest pit of blood.

SPLASH!

Rather than stop herself from rolling, she had chosen to use the momentum to temporarily remove herself from the immediate fight.

Only after plunging into the blood did she finally rise.

Splash.

Even at the edge of the pit, the blood reached her shins and rippled around her legs.

It looked like a lake.

“Ha.”

Apparently the mermen had not rolled this far.

Aside from herself, every other presence was still some distance away.

She staggered once, then leaned against a nearby rock—

or whatever it was.

At least it wasn’t flesh.

Blood that had soaked her all the way to the tips of her hair streamed down her body.

“I know… I know too…….”

As though following it, a voice close to lamentation echoed above the pit.

It carried the resonance of a last testament spoken by someone who sensed the end of life approaching.

“I know, but… how am I supposed to stop?”

She still remembered.

The person who had shone like the sun and illuminated the snowfields.

The one who had raised her and supported her in place of their parents.

That embrace that had always seemed endlessly vast……

“How am I… how could I?”

My sun.

My world.

My giant.

My……

“Unnie…….”

In truth, she had realized her sister’s death a very long time ago.

It was why, even when she challenged the Demon Knight to a spar, she had been unable to ask him to kill her.

It was why, instead of shattering her master’s final wish, she had quietly listened.

And why she had not ended her life on that snowfield that day.

If she died, mourning her sister would become strange.

Should she mourn the person she herself had created?

Or the one who had already died, whom she had spent all this time refusing to face?

However far she went in circles, eventually she would be forced to look directly at the truth.

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Let go of your stubbornness.

“Please, Vidr.”

I’m fine.

We were one from the very beginning.

“Poor Unnie.”

I’m only returning to where I was always supposed to be.

What’s wrong with that?

She hated it.

She hated that so terribly.

『I challenge you, Great Warrior.』

She did not want to acknowledge that you had died beneath a sky where even the sun had not risen.

She did not want to acknowledge the end of the person who had walked willingly into death to save her.

『I have only one condition. If I manage to wound you even once, you must take my younger sister in.』

She did not want to believe that a miserable end in which even your remains could not be recovered had been the final destination of the person who had once been nothing less than her entire world……

So… for Vidr’s sake too, let’s stop.

“You… You’re so selfish…….”

But a child’s stubbornness had to end someday.

The same was true of stubbornness that had lasted more than thirty years.

Just as the halberd passed from master to master, and from one master’s master to their own master, enduring for more than a century before finally shattering—

what needed to break would someday have to break.

She rose while sobbing like a child who did not want to grow up.

Splash, splash.

At the same time, something emerged from the lake-wide pool of blood.

It was the largest and most vicious-looking merman she had seen yet.

[Yo-You, sh-shouldn’t, c-come, heeere.]

And honestly, if we’re going to die and go to Vidr anyway, isn’t it better for us to go as one whole person instead of split into two?

[H-Human, n-no.]

Right?

Was she afraid of it?

If someone asked, the answer would be an unequivocal no.

“…Yeah.”

Berserk finally acknowledged it.

“You’re right.”

Weapon Master, the burden she had inherited after killing her master—

that too was her name.

[D-Die. D-D-Diiie.]

No more voice sounded inside her head.

It hurt.

* * *

「The demon put you into a seal. You might be unable to move at all and simply feel the pain. And even in the unlikely event that you break free of the seal, with your body in its current condition, there’s a very high chance you still won’t be able to move. Even then, will you wake up? Even knowing that, are you still going to choose to wake up……?」

And yet I didn’t dislike hearing it.

Probably because I could hear the concern beneath the words.

* * *

“Haa, haa.”

The Inquisitor drew in huge breaths, desperately trying to maintain the breathing that had risen all the way to her throat.

Even inhaling as much air as possible through both nose and mouth wasn’t enough.

The moment the air passed down her throat, it scorched her airway dry.

[Are you almost finished?]

But before she had even fully recovered her breathing, a projectile made of lava flew toward her and struck the entire right side of her body.

The lava pierced the chain mail beneath her armor, roasting her blood and flesh golden-brown.

“Ahhk.”

A scream slipped from between her clenched lips before stopping.

Her pride would not allow her to make a weak sound before a demon.

Crumble.

Meanwhile, some of the lava that had cooled while stuck to the Inquisitor’s armor cracked apart and shed powder.

It was the result of her lacking even enough strength to purify something unclean.

[Persistent, aren’t you.]

And yet she did not lower the barrier.

The Inquisitor swallowed the burnt taste caked across her tongue and twitched her fingers.

The heated pieces of armor struck one another with a faint metallic clatter.

Even though she had worn this weight for half her life, it suddenly felt unbearably heavy.

Truthfully, she had no strength left to move.

The edges of her battered vision had become horribly pale and hazy.

“…I.”

I won’t lose.

Unable even to finish the words, she opened her mouth as pain pierced her side.

At this point, surely the very sensation of pain could simply disappear.

Why did this body insist on painstakingly collecting every single hurt?

Her fingers trembled—

then went completely slack.

[Still being stubborn? You could just give up.]

But.

But……

“O God.”

She prayed in her ruined state.

Please watch over this city.

Please watch over those to be pitied.

Please watch over the devotion of the one who was merely consumed by a demon—

and yet is nobler than anyone.

[Honestly. Humans…….]

…And if there is a next time, then instead of this inadequate person, please choose someone better as the Hero and grant the world another chance.

[Though in the end, even the title of Hero is merely a name bestowed upon a suitable vessel.]

Someone who can save more people……

“Do not… profane Him…….”

[Ha. You really hate hearing your god insulted, don’t you?]

“The revered… One…….”

[So what? In the end, that being is merely an existence equal to our King.]

Perhaps because victory seemed assured, Greed approached in its true body and ground her beneath its foot.

The leg made of stone and flame pressed down on her.

Her armor heated until it began melting the Inquisitor’s skin beneath it.

Unable to escape, the heat swirled inside the armor and magnified her agony.

[We don’t even revere our own King. So there’s no reason I would ever revere your little god.]

“Demons are…….”

But not yet.

Not yet.

“…All the same……!”

[……!]

The Inquisitor forced her drooping eyes sharply open and brought forth the small fragment of strength she had been scraping together all this time.

A slash formed from the edge of a plane grazed the demon’s body.

Pandemonium leaped far backward.

[Yes. That one was my mistake.]

“…Degenerates who don’t even understand the word revere. Our God has no desire whatsoever for reverence from the likes of you. Just die.”

During that time, the Inquisitor struggled to force her body back into fighting condition.

But the lava scattered everywhere was the problem.

Whenever she recovered even slightly, it produced all kinds of filth and spikes—

KABOOOOOM!

ROOOOAR!

[……?!]

Before she could finish speaking, something surged toward them from the distance.

She had no idea how the waterways had been broken open, but a massive wave charged in with enough force to flood part of the city.

Portions of the lava touched by seawater hardened instantly and lost their heat.

[…I left those rats alone because they seemed like they’d die without any help, but I never expected this.]

Pandemonium frowned.

[You. Go kill them—]

KABOOM!

Then, just as Pandemonium was about to command the demon guarding the antique-looking structure—

an enormous surge of Mana roared.

A meteor-like beam of light struck the earth.

It had precisely targeted the structure and the demon standing in front of it.

BOOM.

The hole from which demons had been crawling endlessly vanished, leaving only the structure behind.

The demon that had guarded it was already dead without so much as a sound, only its lower half remaining.

[…….]

Pandemonium fell silent.

“This……”

The Inquisitor, meanwhile, understood almost instinctively and awkwardly lifted the corners of her lips.

Somehow, she could almost see that slick little bastard waving from somewhere beyond her sight.

[Foolish human……!]

“Stupid bastard……!”

Strangely enough—

she found the strength to stand again.

Golden light once more blocked the lava writhing in response to Pandemonium’s fury.

* * *

And so I accepted that concern with a smile.

Still, maybe I’ll be able to save someone.