Chapter 422

Chapter 422

The life force that had been draining from Akasha was released at once. A blast of light burst forth, bright and colorful enough to burn your corneas.
“Off!”
“Kaboom!”
The captured maiden screamed and cowered. Even the werewolf in the prisoner’s uniform couldn’t take it, raising his arms to shield his eyes. Only Ronan2, unconscious, could react, his hips twitching.
“Ugh.”
“That’s a good thing.”
Even in the midst of the rush, I was drawn in. The results were not off the mark.
I wanted to kick its pathetic ass right now, but I couldn’t afford to right now. The moment I destroyed the chains and landed, a counterattack flew. A gaping hole appeared in the haze of life particles.
Akasha was on the other side of the hole, extending her fingers toward me. There were three of them: index, middle, and ring fingers.
‘Three, you’re overdoing it for an out-of-shape guy.
With that thought, I went on the defensive, thinking that I could certainly cast a spell on him now that he was weakened. I was about to swing my sword, trying to predict its trajectory.
billion-!
Suddenly, a shockwave ripped through the air, slamming into his face and abdomen.
“Boom!”
A wave of nausea washed over me. My head snapped back and I could see the ceiling. I could feel the shock burrowing into my forehead, rattling my brain and exiting the back of my head.
I bounced and flew, and barely landed with a backward swallow.
“What an asshole—!”
I gritted my teeth. This was a different type of attack than I was used to. I was expecting a big punch to the gut, but I was caught off guard. A mild concussion and intense pain in my stomach were disorienting me.
“Boom!”
But not to the point of collapse. With an animalistic grunt, my shaky focus steadied.
My battered mantle from two parallel world travels had stretched beyond my wildest dreams. My neck, stretched to the limit, returned like a spring.
I looked back to the front and laughed in disbelief.
“That’s not easy.”
Seven holes pierced the haze of life force. More of the same attacks were flying in, in erratic trajectories. If he took any more hits now, he would either die or be stunned.
“But will it work twice?”
But it’s the range I expected. I gripped the hilt of my sword, and the hilt of my sword caught the autumn leaves.
I swung my sword in the air like a dancer. Seven small sword qi shot out in different directions. Almost simultaneously, seven explosions erupted in the air. They were small enough that I could easily slice through them with my sword. Akasha’s intercepted shockwaves scattered into nothingness.
『■■■—!』
Bewilderment sounded from beyond the fog.
He must have sensed that I was different from the last time we fought. I struck a wide blow in the direction of the sound.
Chaaaah!
The fog parted upward, revealing Akasha and Ceniel.
“I knew it.”
Senniel had been freed from his chains, but he was still clinging to Akasha. His ugly fingers, like the teeth of a deep-sea fish, sank into the rock, draining the life force directly.
“I’ll cut your arm off right now!”
proclaimed and ran off.
Akasha had no left arm left to hold me back. My right hand, embedded deep in the rock, was hastily pulled out.
Chirp!
A dark chain slithered out from under his sleeve and wrapped around his right arm. The lively movement reminded him of a snake. The darker color seemed to be made of something much harder than the metal that protected Abel.
The chain and my blade were about to make contact.
“You’re fooled, asshole.”
『■?』
I smiled wryly. It’s always nice when things work out as expected.
I twisted the sword’s trajectory just before it touched the chains. Time slowed as I focused my mind. The only thing that can move at its natural speed here is me and the sword I hold.
“There’s a faint scar, it’s definitely me.
It was a skill I’d established while fighting the Bald King in the last parallel world.
I narrowed my eyes as I looked Akasha up and down. As expected, dozens of strokes were scarred across her body.
It was Ronan2’s sword mark. Through the slow fluttering of his cloak, he could see a torso wrapped in chains, as Abel had done, wrapped in a full suit of armor. Akasha’s waist and left arm had been cut off, a method she had devised herself.
Enchanted chains were actually a bad idea. Even killing Abel, who was protected by thinner armor right now, was going to be a challenge, and given that Ronan 2 only managed to scratch it, it was going to be horribly hard.
‘A big scratch. Cut the same spot.
But I had no other choice. I yanked on the hilt, the blade racing through the slowed world. Dozens of strokes overlapped the sword marks on the dirt.
Time went back to normal with a sudden fatigue.
“Tsk, tsk… It’s a great technology, except for the side effects.”
『——■?!』
Akasha’s eyes widened as she realized what had happened.
Red light glowed over the overlapping stab wounds. Several chunks of shredded chain dripped down Akasha’s cloak.
Pour-a-billion-!
Dozens of stab wounds gushed out of the gaping wounds.
“『■■■-!!!
Akasha let out a guttural cry. It was an eerie cry, even more so than when she’d been cut in half. Blood pulsed in her three bulging eyes.
“Eat it!”
I ignored my fatigue and continued my attack. A slash from the bottom left to the top right made Akasha’s breastbone erupt in blood again.
The roar again. The rift to the next world was shrinking in the distance. This time, it was just a moment before I grabbed the hilt of my sword to slit his throat.
『■■■■!』
“Uh.”
Suddenly, Akasha slammed her right arm back into Xeniel. There was a sound like stone shattering. A bolt of light, many times more intense than the one that had freed him from his chains, shot out of Ceniel.
“Boom!”
His vision went white. It was a flash of pain, a scream of agony, and he immediately thrust his sword down, but it only stung in vain. A mist of life force so thick that he couldn’t see more than half a step ahead.
“Nimi. I need to give him one more shot.”
It must have escaped through the rift. I honestly didn’t expect to be able to kill it right here, but it was too good to miss now. The next world would likely be my last, so I had to push it as hard as I could. The car raced toward the crack like a madman.
Paaaaaaaaah-!
A brilliant burst of color burst from the inside pocket of his coat.
“Ugh, why is this….”
I frowned reflexively. The glowing thing was a shard of Ceniel from the last parallel world. I hadn’t even reached into my inner pocket. The life force flooding the hall swirled toward the shard and began to gather.
“What the—!”
It was like watching a storm being born. In the blink of an eye, the light of a shard that had sucked all life out of me vanished as quickly as it had appeared. My blurred vision cleared.
It was a fascinating phenomenon, as if it was helping me, but there was something else that was more interesting to me now.
『■—■■■■.』
Akasha staggered, sticking her head through the crack as if she might fall at any moment.
It was still an unfinished crack, so it seemed unstable. I swung my sword, bypassing my brain. A blood crescent shot out along the blade’s path.
Chaaaaaah!
The blade that had severed Akasha’s left leg passed right through the bottom of the rift.
“Done.”
『■■, ■■■■!!!』
Her fists clenched. An unmistakable scream erupted from beneath Akasha’s mask.
Severed legs littered the ground. A partially destroyed crack was collapsing at a rapid rate.
Maybe I could really end it. I slammed into the ground with all my might, and that was the moment I delivered the blow.
“『■■■!
Suddenly, Akasha’s body boiled like liquid. The creature’s head burrowed through the crack, followed by its disheveled body.
“What the fuck is a cat?!”
It was unbelievable. I could feel my blood pressure rising until my eyes were pulsing. I plunged my sword into the hole where Akasha had disappeared. Only the slightest sensation of the cloak brushing against the tip of my blade.
The crack that had collapsed from where the sword had cut it had completely disappeared, leaving only a fist-sized area. I’d missed it again.
“Argh, I almost had it!”
He threw the scabbard in disgust. The scabbard bounced back and landed on Ronan2’s head.
All the while, the monkey with my face was struggling to stay awake. The red-haired lady and the scruffy wolf were also passed out, face down.
Staring at the crack, I grabbed my bangs.
‘I’m screwed, it won’t even fit my stuff, let alone my body.
Losing Akasha was bad enough, but this was the worst. Unlike the last parallel world, the condition of the rift was terrible from the start. It was physically impossible to squeeze through, unless I polymorphed into an eel or snake.
Suddenly, I heard a familiar cry at my feet.
“Beep, beep, beep.”
“—What, you stayed here?”
When I looked away, I saw a marten looking up at me with its paws together in front of it. It was Sita2. I held out my hand, as I do with Sita in the original world, and it scampered up my arm and settled on my shoulder.
“That was some shit, I’m glad you didn’t get hurt. Better than your master.”
“Powwww—.”
“What can I do, Sita? If I do this wrong, I’m going home without a side.”
I sighed and muttered.
Sita2 alternated between staring at my sullen face and the tiny crack.
Without thinking, I reached into my pocket and felt the vial Sarante had given me to use for my return. A vial containing Akasha’s blood, which, when sprinkled, would open the rift between the worlds.
It was a car that was wondering if it should go back to the world.
– I got it the hard way. Sita did a great job. It’s barely enough to make a crack.
Sarante’s words flashed through my mind like a flash of light.
“Hold on.”
My eyes widened. I pulled out the vial and examined it. Akasha’s blood was pooling in the glass. Something was wrong.
“I thought you said it would turn into a crack right away?
Sarante had muttered that he had barely saved Akasha’s blood. That was because his blood turned into a dimensional rift the moment it touched air.
But now my clothes, face, and feet were spattered with Akasha’s blood. At first glance, it was many times the amount in the bottle. It wasn’t hard to figure out what had happened.
I snapped my fingers and shouted.
“Yeah fuck it, I didn’t have time to cast my spell!”
“Pahak?!”
Sita2’s fur puffed up in surprise. A small hope sprouted like a bud.
Common sense dictated that there was no way the blood would turn into cracks when she had done nothing to it. The blood that had turned into cracks had been added to by some magic of Akasha’s.
I lifted a bewildered Sita2 off my shoulder with both hands.
“Sita. Do me a favor.”
“Suck?”
“See all the blood on me and around me right now? I need you to gather up some of it and bring it near that gaping hole. As fast as you can.”
“Pow—?”
Sita2 grunted. I waited calmly. If he was Sita, there was no way he couldn’t understand me.
“Ouch.”
Sita2 blinked, then slipped out of my grasp, surveying the scene and fluffing her bushy tail. Its red eyes glowed, and droplets of Akasha’s blood dripped from every surface.
“Bammm!”
“You’ve given so much, and you’re not dead.”
I could see now that Akasha had lost a great deal of blood. It was enough to squeeze two human men my size through a juicer.
Thousands of blood droplets wriggled and flocked to the rift as Akasha’s magic, which had been hovering around the rift, touched the blood.
Chaaaaaah!
All the blood was absorbed at once, amplifying the size of the crack.
Sized to fit a single person through it.
“Great!”
I called it good news. It was exhilarating, like winning a low-stakes gamble. The idea of adding blood as a reinforcement had worked.
Sita2 was huffing and puffing, her tiny tongue hanging out in exhaustion. I picked him up and buried my face in his tail.
“Well done, Sita! You’re the best in this parallel world!”
“Piaat?!”
Sita struggled to get rid of my unruly beard. Whether she did or not, I continued to rub my face.
The landscape inside the rift was similar to the last time I had crossed over from the parallel world. Akasha’s mana, which prevents outsiders from entering, covered the ground, and the landscape of the next parallel world loomed in the distance.
Taking a deep breath, I pulled my face away.
“…Okay. I have to go now.”
“Pout?”
“Those two people over there would appreciate it if you could heal them. I don’t know who they are, but they’d really miss out if you didn’t help them.”
I pointed to the fainting woman and the werewolf. They had been brave enough to stall for time, allowing me to catch up to Akasha.
I wanted to say hello properly and grab a drink, but unfortunately, I didn’t have time for that.
‘This young lady looks like that dwarf with the hair color. I wish she were alive.’
The red hair reminded him of Asel’s face. Now that the great evil that threatened the world was gone, and he had asked the greats like Lorhon and Schlieffen to find him, he would be able to make a triumphant return, if he lived.
May it be so.
Isn’t that a talent too good to be lost to history?
I was about to leave, wishing the survivors well.
“Wait, wait, wait!”
“Sister?”
“Hahaha…I finally got it. What’s so fast….”
The door to the hall swung open to reveal Sister Nabiroze, out of breath from the effort it had taken to catch up. Seeing her face lifted my spirits.
My sister-in-law looked around and gasped.
“No way, it’s already over…!”
“Yep. He’s in a bad way, so I beat him quickly, and I can’t kill him, so I have to go after him right away, but…where are Inspector Lorhon and Jaifa?”
“Still on my way. The cat is helping Mr. Lorhon, who can’t use spatial travel because he doesn’t know the exact location. I’m the only one who got here first.”
“That’s too bad. I’m glad I met your sister, though, because I would have wanted to say hello otherwise.”
I laughed, my back to the crack. My sister raised an eyebrow. She knew what I meant, from past deep discussions around the campfire.
“I’m going to …… to get him.”
“Yes. I need to see the end.”
“Am I never going to see you again?”
“Maybe. I owe you one.”
“—Yes, I am indebted to you. If it weren’t for you, I’d be in Rodolan, or a pawn in their hands. You, my benefactor.”
My sister smiled. It was a smile that looked a little sad.
“I did what I had to do.”
“Everyone has dreams, but few realize them. Don’t undermine your own greatness.”
“Then I stand corrected. I said it’s something you have to do, something you can do.”
“There’s a new horse I haven’t seen in a while.”
She slowly approached and stood in front of me. She was beautiful, as I always felt. I liked her more for her dignity, like a noble lioness, than for her splendor.
His sword Urusa was broken, but that didn’t dampen Nabirozé’s confidence one bit.
You can leave with peace of mind.
And there we were, making eye contact.
“Ronan.”
“What?”
“Close your eyes for a moment.”
I didn’t even ask what that meant.
She grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and yanked hard. Our faces came closer. Grayish-white hair brushed her forehead.
A few seconds passed, and my sister-in-law smiled bitterly.
“——That’s you.”
“I’m sorry.”
My sister’s lips were covered by my hand.
The blood from her busted lip smeared her palm like lipstick.
“I don’t think I can do lips, I have a fiancé.”
My sister lowered her magpie feet. I carefully cupped her face in both hands. I pressed our foreheads together and opened my mouth.
“Thank you, I’m sure my sister will find someone better.”
“——.”
No answer came back.
She looked up at my face and suddenly bowed her head heavily.
“Uh, are you okay?”
“——No. This is what it feels like to get dumped.”
“Sister.”
“This is worse than I thought it would be, but I’m okay now.”
Her lips pursed, she looked up. Her eyes were slightly reddened. The awkward silence didn’t last long, as every minute was precious.
I jerked toward Ronan2, who was still asleep.
“Well, I’ll take care of that idiot, he’s a bit of a wreck right now, but he’ll have a good taste for teaching, after all, it’s me.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve already announced you as my apprentice. The jewel of talent cannot be stolen by a wicked cat.”
“That’s good, he’ll be more interested in learning from you than Jaifa.”
“Why?”
“Well, you’re a beautiful woman, so you’re asking the obvious.”
“Whoa–I know that. I just wanted to hear it from your mouth.”
She smirked. Now it was really time to go. I stepped into the crack as we waved goodbye.
“It was a pleasure, Nabirozze.”
“Goodbye, Ronan. Thank you for saving me, the world.”
Instead of answering, I smirked.
Cleared the accusation of the gnome to be hanged.
He killed the pseudo-regent and reinstated the emperor and the swordsman.
You have jailed the Masters in the Fortress of Screams.
Cured the Archmage’s dementia.
Defeated an alien evil that would one day invade the world, wiped out a cult.
I found and saved myself from another world.
Your sister should be happy now.
Our adventure in the second parallel world, which was long if long and infinitely short if short, was over.
“Wait. Akasha.”
Now the next world was the last.
I took another step, the flashbacks passing by like a lantern. The crack swallowed me whole.
In the distance behind her back, she heard Nabiroze’s voice.
“Whatever you wish for, may it be granted.”