CHAPTER 196. The Best Way to Keep an Undefeated Record
At the time Aster started running—
Demian, who had been keeping his eyes closed, slowly opened them and took in the space.
The space was wide and clean. There was no sign of the battle to come. Only the “thud, thud, thud” echoing in his ears hinted that something ominous was about to happen.
Holding that sound in his ear, Demian drew in a light breath. It was the leeway he could afford because, before separating from Aster, they had put quite a distance between themselves and Infernal.
“Will you be alright?”
Without turning his gaze toward Mycelln’s voice, Demian spoke.
“About what?”
“I mean, can you hold out?”
Demian thought.
Can I hold out?
Even for Demian, this question was hard to answer.
Infernal was strong, and on top of that, he had chosen his attribute to be ice (氷).
This ice (氷) mana was the opposite of flames, and in the end, the stronger side always won—so in that situation, whether his magic could withstand Infernal’s flames wasn’t something he could answer easily.
As the silence dragged on, Mycelln spoke again.
“Your talent is astonishing, but no matter how I think of it, it’s too much. It would be right for you to join forces with this old man instead.”
“Then wouldn’t Master be in danger?”
“This old body—what is there to live for longer?”
“That’s true.”
“…….”
“I’m kidding.”
Demian gave a faint smile, then sharpened his hearing. Infernal was drawing closer. With the fight near, Demian sank into thought again.
It didn’t take long for him to speak.
“I’m having fun.”
“Fun…?”
Demian nodded.
“My friend always plays alone. But this time, we’re playing together. So of course it’s fun.”
“…?”
Mycelln tilted his head.
He couldn’t understand what that meant.
So he looked at Demian—and learned one thing.
He didn’t know what Demian was talking about, but… right now, Demian looked genuinely happy.
That resolute gaze wasn’t much different from when he’d thought Aster was dead, but the emotion inside it was different.
When Mycelln grasped that much, Chenbi approached.
“Sir Mycelln, please step back now.”
Mycelln quietly studied Chenbi.
He looked fine, but an emotion Chenbi couldn’t hide lived in his eyes.
It was… a sense of inferiority toward himself for being able to do nothing. He was retreating to a safe rear, but his heart was in excruciating pain.
So—
“…Even if it’s only a small effort, I’ll lend a hand. I’m not sure how much help I’ll be in a situation where even the spirits can’t step in, but it’s better than nothing.”
Mycelln chose to step up in Chenbi’s place.
To lessen the young mage’s guilt, even a little.
“…Thank you.”
“It is only natural.”
And when Chenbi, his heart a bit lighter, withdrew outside the cavern—
Thud, thud, thud….
The footsteps were even closer. Infernal stepped into the space where Demian was, and took in Demian and Mycelln.
Maybe it found it strange—those rats that had only been running away now standing proudly to face it?
He couldn’t know that.
As they faced each other, Demian stared up at Infernal, then slightly curled the corner of his mouth.
“What are you doing? Not playing?”
Was that sentence the signal?
Whooong—Bam!
Infernal’s fist slammed into the ground. Stone dust scattered. Sparks snapped—tadak, tak—while Demian, who had thrown himself into motion, took his stance and cast magic.
Cheung, cheungcheungcheung….
Countless ice blossoms blooming in midair. No—those weren’t blossoms. Each and every one was an ice blade packed with vicious killing power.
Frrrrt, kwadeuk!
The ice blades that surged at Infernal faded without inflicting any real damage…
But Demian was smiling.
I didn’t stop, running through walls.
Sometimes I drilled through walls, and through walls, and through walls—then when a corridor appeared, I quickly reset my direction and plunged back into a wall again.
As I ground through walls like that, a thought crossed my mind.
‘Could this be… an innovation for the mining industry?’
No complicated equipment needed. And since I was only opening a path about one person wide, there was little risk of collapse.
If you dug into a mine like this and found a vein?
After that you’d still need manpower, but you could save the labor and time spent before locating the vein.
Of course, it was nonsense. Here I was drilling through a wall from one existing path to another; a mine was a completely different environment.
Anyway, I kept moving forward, wiping away worry about Demian with pointless thoughts, and after some time—
[There! That!]
The spirit that had been close on my heels raised its voice.
Just as I was about to ask what it meant, an open, widened sense rushed in, and a broad space spread out before my eyes.
I thought it meant the wall ended and a corridor appeared, but what stood ahead wasn’t a corridor—it was a wide room.
The structure was simple.
A floor carved with all sorts of metaphysical patterns. In the center lay a crystal about two meters long, and I could easily tell it was a barrier stone.
I stopped for a moment and fixed my eyes on the barrier stone—
Fwoorrrk, fwoork….
Suddenly, heat “whooshed” into the room.
When I turned toward that heat, a huge Infernal greeted me.
It was massive—almost the same size as the one that had been chasing us earlier.
Sensing an intruder, it slowly rose. As I measured the heat, a line slipped out of me without thinking.
“That’s the weakened one?”
[…Right.]
“It looks about the same as the one from earlier.”
[Originally, stronger. Ones guarding barrier, strongest.]
In short, it had scammed us.
But only for a moment did I falter.
I tore my eyes away from Infernal and looked back at the barrier stone.
‘So there are three more like that?’
Someone else in my situation might have despaired. One was hard enough—there were three more.
But it’s fine.
My hands are faster than my eyes, and my feet are faster than Infernal.
Meaning—
‘…I’m running past it.’
Thud, thud…!
Ignoring the Infernal approaching, I dashed forward. The barrier stone rushed toward me—whooosh—yet I didn’t slow down.
A person, by nature, goes straight.
Kwachaang…!
The barrier stone shattered more easily than expected.
I cut through the fragments flying in the air, then drilled through the wall and charged straight toward the second barrier stone.
Kwagararak!
As the familiar vibration wrapped around my whole body again—
I thought.
‘One, down.’
The best way to keep an undefeated record is not to fight. So I don’t fight Infernal.
I only destroy the barrier stones.
But there was one thing I hadn’t considered.
Bam! Bam! Bam! Kwagarak!
A monstrous noise from behind.
A hot heat surged up against the back of my head—whoof.
Why, when I should’ve already been far away, was that heat still there?
When I flicked my eyes back with that question, I couldn’t believe what I saw.
“…Damn it.”
This thing… was following me?
Aster ran hard, dragging Infernal along.
If it were a flat sprint, he might have been able to shake it off somehow, but drilling through walls—and drilling through the solid internal material between walls—was never easy.
Meanwhile, as the barrier stone broke, a change swept through Baharmut’s space.
Ssssk, ssssss—
The barrier that had wrapped all of Baharmut in a dense net. Like peeling an onion, it grew thinner by one layer.
The change was so faint that not even Aster, nor Demian and Mycelln and Chenbi, could notice it—
But for someone, it was a change felt clearly.
[Done! Done? Not yet. Three left. But broken! Barrier, weakened.]
The spirits in the grand hall burst into cheers at the thinned presence of the barrier.
A barrier that had imprisoned them for endless years—unchanged for thousands of years—had lost power, even if only one layer.
Of course, it still wasn’t enough to escape Baharmut, but…
[Ah, ahh.]
Over and over, the spirits cried out at the fact that the restraint that had oppressed them for so long had become thinner by one layer.
But then—
[But….]
A single voice within the joy-filled voices.
[…Will it be okay?]
Inside the grand hall, a spirit that was watching one area of Baharmut through the crystal orb’s function voiced concern.
[What? Okay? Not okay? Problem? Is? Why?]
The spirits, who had been cheering, murmured—wondering if something had gone wrong—when the voice that had raised the topic continued.
[We must see. There.]
[…?]
The spirit pointed to two places.
One was—
- Damn it.
Aster drilling through walls while running.
Behind him, a familiar spirit followed, and farther behind that, the Infernal they feared so much was giving off a savage presence as it chased.
There was still some distance before it caught him, but the sight was truly precarious.
[…Ah.]
At that sight, the spirits let out a different kind of exclamation.
They knew.
For now, it wasn’t a big problem, but soon, the Infernal trailing behind would become two, and in the end, it would become four.
But what was the problem with that?
The problem was that Infernal did not stop operating even if the barrier broke.
Meaning… even if all the barriers were destroyed, the savior would not be freed from the four Infernal units.
As the spirits didn’t know what to do at that sight, the spirit that had first raised the topic pointed in another direction.
[This side, too.]
The other place was—
The battle site between Demian and Infernal.
No—could you even call it a battle?
- Kwaddeudeuk! Bam! Kwajik!
Unending booms.
In the midst of freezing winds raging through the air, the chilling cold was quickly erased, helplessly, by heat that flared up in an instant.
Then, without fail, Infernal’s fist hammered the ground, and before it, the small boy could only roll his body with difficulty.
It was one-sided.
And desperate.
All the boy could do was hold out.
His magic was intense, but it was endlessly weak when it came to dealing meaningful blows to Infernal, while Infernal’s attacks were simple—yet each strike, each strike was murderous.
- Be careful!
The old spirit mage gave help now and then, but unable to properly draw on spirit power, it was meager.
At that scene, the spirits fell silent.
And in the meantime, a thought suddenly brushed past their minds.
‘Maybe….’
In the future they had seen—
The one who found these ruins might not have been only one savior.
The reason the spirits had thought Mycelln, Chenbi, and Demian were “risk factors” was because, in the future they had seen, the one who met them after their liberation was only Aster.
So they worried that seeing the three meant the future had derailed, but maybe it wasn’t that.
…If, even in that future, four had come—
And in the end, only one remained—
And that was the scene they had witnessed?
[Danger? Danger. Boy, danger? Old human, danger? Three, danger?]
At the possibility suddenly rising, the spirits stirred.
Because if the future they’d seen was true, it meant everyone except the savior would eventually die here.
…Then.
- Keok…!
[…Danger!]
Infernal’s fist struck the boy squarely. Steam completely filled the space.
The spirits held their breaths and stared.
Even the steam that blocked their view scattered quickly under the heat, and when the space came fully into view again—
[…Relief!]
The spirits cheered at the sight of the boy staggering up. He’d been hit so hard he couldn’t even breathe properly, but a bright light wrapped his body, healing him.
That he hadn’t been burned away was probably because, in that brief instant, he blocked it with magic and a force field.
- Are you alright…!
- …….
The old spirit mage hurled himself in, saving the boy from Infernal’s follow-up attack, and the boy, without even time to fully recover, plunged back into the fight.
And watching that, the spirits thought:
[Help. We help?]
Shouldn’t they help?
[How?]
But there was no way.
The boy wasn’t a spirit mage, and their power did not work on Infernal at all.
Of course, there was the old spirit mage, but… to the spirits, the old spirit mage had grown far too weak to accept their power.
And above all, what pressed down on them was—
[…Fear.]
Fear of Infernal, engraved into them over countless years.
They had watched it their whole lives.
They had seen how spirits dying by Infernal’s hand vanished with screams so horrific. How many spirits had died in those flames.
And so, time was passing.
…Toward the future the spirits had observed.
