novelraw Chapter 59 : An Unusual Minor Demon Realm (3)
Chapter 59 : An Unusual Minor Demon Realm (3)
An Unusual Minor Demon Realm (3)
It was different.
It was much fiercer and faster than when I threw it at the impet and Skel.
Sword Energy wrapped around the utility knife,
That slicing force it created was probably reducing air resistance.
Gardoc reached out with an open palm to block the flying utility knife.
But right then, I had activated Hunting Time at the peak of my mystical power.
My utility knife flew between his fingers and charged toward his large face.
I could see the slight hint of panic on the barbarian's face.
That's right, you bastard.
Your carelessness is the reason for your defeat.
—But the moment I was certain of victory and the utility knife stabbed into his eye,
'Damn.'
It was over. The strength buff from the rice was gone.
"......."
Gardoc's head was twisted ever so slightly.
But that was all.
The barbarian warrior did not fall.
Ultimately, although my utility knife touched his eye, it did not reach his brain.
"!!"
He looked at me with a chilling smile, completely different from before.
I knew right then I was absolutely screwed.
Mana started twisting violently around and inside his body.
Gardoc lifted one leg high.
He stomped on the ground,
And opened his mouth so incredibly wide.
Jjeo-eok.
"!!!!!"
Overwhelming energy burst forth from that gaping mouth and body—kkruik.
I raised my long arms to protect my face, keeping my eyes fixed on Gardoc.
A suffocatingly intense pressure poured out for a long moment,
And then I noticed something strange.
'Plerine?'
Plerine was standing stiff and trembling uncontrollably.
Blood trickled from her mouth.
It was as if she was possessed.
Legion went a step further.
The Special Investigator had collapsed like a young girl, bloodshot eyes weeping tears of blood.
Though I was confused, my brain deduced what was happening immediately.
'Warrior's Roar!'
A unique skill of higher-rank barbarian warriors,
A terrifying skill that stuns all nearby enemies.
But I was unaffected.
It was probably because... I had lost my hearing.
'This is how it turns out?'
Soon, Gardoc finished his roar and closed his mouth.
He pulled the utility knife from his left eye and moved his lips.
I could only guess what he was saying from the shape of his mouth.
How amusing.
Let's finish this.
Black hair.
You're the last one.
'Watch your comrades die.'
Ret-tanun.
Gardoc, mouth shut, took a step toward Legion.
I hate to admit it, but I was relieved Plerine wasn't first.
Thud. Thud.
The sound began to return.
The buff from [Chaos Awakening] was over.
Simultaneously, the flow of mana visible to my eyes vanished.
Even so, I could see clearly what Gardoc held in his hand.
A brown aura wrapped around the utility knife!
'Damn it.'
Sword Energy is colorless, but aura has color.
Gardoc was truly ending playtime.
'That was pointless.'
I'd made Gardoc angry with Hunting Time.
If I hadn't,
If I'd just played along, trusting Ralph to handle it...
'Perhaps things wouldn't have turned out like this.'
This is the worst.
The harder I try to do well, the more it all falls apart.
If I hadn't reached 3rd-rank,
If I hadn't put imp wings in the rice ball,
If I'd realized sooner that this minor Demon Realm was an irregular one!
No, from the start,
'If I hadn't coveted the Demon Realm.'
Yeah. It's all my fault.
All this happened because of my greed.
'Damn it.'
That's why,
I felt disgusted with myself for even thinking, for a moment, about running away.
A comrade who fought alongside me,
An employee who trusted and followed me was in mortal danger.
Right at that moment,
-'Hey, you bastard!!'
Ralph's voice seemed to ring in my ears.
-'Yeah, Alec! It's me! Big-Jaw Ralph!'
-'Ian. Let's go back to the village.'
-'You have to save them. Please. I'm begging you.'
His purpose in coming to the Demon Realm, his own wish to become stronger—
Even more important to him was the lives of his comrades.
'That Ralph... he's probably still searching for the medium, risking his life.'
He trusted me and followed my inexplicable orders without complaint.
Grinding.
I clenched my teeth.
Finally, I pulled myself together.
I had to act.
'Since I started meddling, I'll keep going until the end!'
This whole situation was my doing.
I would take responsibility for it.
Thud. Thud.
Gardoc stopped.
It was in front of Legion, her eyes half-closed in resignation.
Just as the barbarian raised the utility knife, brown aura swirling,
"Gardocccccc!!!"
I gathered all my remaining strength and mana and shouted.
It might not be even a tenth as loud as Gardoc's roar,
But it was enough.
Gardoc paused.
His head slowly turned toward me.
"How? How are you fine, black hair?"
Chill.
His expression was truly that of a wild beast.
My whole body felt paralyzed.
Was this how Han Chul Lee from Earth would feel facing a tiger in a safari?
But now I was not Han Chul Lee, I was Ian.
I had to steady myself, and I could.
I picked out words to provoke Gardoc.
"You think I'd fall for a pathetic roar like that?"
"Ret-tanun. As expected... kuhuhu. You really are that outsider."
"... Yeah!"
Your opponent is me!—but before I could finish, Gardoc interrupted.
"Wait. I'll send you to Ret-tanun soon enough. These women first."
Gardoc once again looked at Legion.
He looked ready to strike at any moment.
But I couldn't let that happen.
"Don't be ridiculous! Even if you die, you'll never get to Ret-tanun, you'll be stuck here! Trash like you isn't even worthy of Ret-tanun's name—"
I couldn't finish.
Gardoc's body and hair began to burn red.
'Berserk mode.'
Damn it.
I didn't think my taunt to buy time would work this well.
Still, maybe I was lucky.
He was ignoring Legion and coming for me.
"Ret-taaaaaa-nuuuuuun!!"
Boom, boom!
He charged at me full force.
He closed the distance in an instant.
Gardoc pulled the utility knife far back,
Ssssssssk.
The mana and aura streaming from his body covered the utility knife, again and again.
A once-small utility knife
Became a battle axe wrapped in brown aura.
Utterly massive.
"Huh?"
My field of vision tilted.
Then it dropped downward.
Thud.
My upper body rolled on the ground.
Before I could even process what happened,
As I tried to push myself up off the ground,
I saw a severed lower body collapsing before my eyes.
"!"
I realized it immediately.
The owner of that separated lower body was no one but me.
*
I hadn't seen it at all.
How he swung,
Or even if he did.
Anyway, he'd sliced clean through my pelvis at the hip,
And for whatever reason, he let out a jubilant roar.
"Reeeet-taaaaa-nuuuuuun!!"
My abdomen wasn't cut, so my guts didn't spill out,
But blood was still gushing down in streams.
This situation was so unreal I couldn't believe it.
'My upper and lower body are severed and separated.'
Yeah, I was probably,
Going to die soon.
Ping—
The moment I realized my death, my head spun.
I'd struggled so hard to survive,
And now, I was dying like this.
As my life flashed before my eyes,
Mutter-mutter-mutter-mutter.
A strange sound snapped me back to reality.
'Plerine?'
Plerine was sucking in all the surrounding mana,
And her body floated lightly into the air.
Black glowing rings began to form in her hands.
'Damn it.'
I mustered my last strength and shouted.
"Don't do it, Plerine! Don't!!!"
If the effect was the same as in the game,
What Plerine was trying to do was self-destruct.
She was starting a self-destruct spell.
After all the time I'd bought with my own life!
"Don't, plee—!"
Cough!
Blood poured from my mouth and I couldn't finish.
Ah. Dizzy.
Thud.
Strength left my hands, and I collapsed.
At that moment,
A strange scene unfolded before my eyes.
Sarruk. Pasasasasa.
"...?!"
The ceiling of the boss room was crumbling into dust.
I rolled my eyes to check the rest.
Walls, altar, decorations, even the floor—
Everything I could see was falling apart.
Debris instantly turned to powder as it hit the floor.
And the powder danced in the air, disappearing as if dissolving into the air.
I'd never seen a scene like this in the game,
But I immediately knew what it meant.
'Ralph... he did it.'
The security squad leader had destroyed the medium.
Thank goodness. Really, thank goodness.
I barely managed to keep conscious and looked around.
Gardoc's berserk mode had been dispelled at some point.
Gardoc muttered in despair.
"Damn it, black hair."
His body, like this space, began to crumble.
From the toes to the knees, then upward.
Fsssss. Thud.
Gardoc was shrinking by the moment.
"What a shame. I... couldn't kill you. My father's enemy."
At last, the barbarian became a mere torso.
As he sank into the ground, he gazed longingly upward.
"Ahhh. I'm coming, ret..."
Crack.
Gardoc disintegrated into dust.
'... Is this a Thanos finger snap?'
Even in the middle of dying, I'm cracking jokes—how dumb.
But thank goodness.
At least, I made it so Employee No. 2 would survive.
That's enough.
"Boss!!"
From far away, Plerine came running.
"Don't sleep, boss!"
Ah, but what now.
My eyes are closing.
Blink.
Just a blink and Plerine was right in front of me.
Could she use blink too?
"Hang in there!"
Sizzle!
The smell of burning meat—
"Grraaaagh!!"
Agonizing pain hit me.
It was such an insanely rough method of stopping the bleeding, it was hard to stay conscious.
Honestly, if I passed out now, I'd die.
I absolutely couldn't lose consciousness.
"Mmmmph!!!!"
I must have bitten through my lower lip.
A metallic taste filled my mouth.
Tasting thick blood,
Made me, absurdly enough, not want to die.
Taste, pain, emotion—all things you can't feel when dead.
I want to live. Even as a cripple with no legs.
Creak.
Even the air of the boss room began to crack and split—creak, creak, creak.
At last—
Crash!
Everything visible shattered.
.
.
.
【 You have 】
【 Cleared the Minor Demon Realm. 】
【 The being of chaos bestows grace upon you. 】
【 Returning. 】
.
.
.
The boss room had been relatively bright,
But now, in an instant, darkness overtook my vision.
My pupils adjusted to the moonlight,
And a small temporary building appeared.
It was Outpost 13 at the spirit stone quarry, where Alec would have been.
'I'm back.'
Outside the minor Demon Realm boundary was stained with monster meat and blood,
But inside the boundary, it was spotlessly clean, like nothing happened.
And my lower body—
There was no trace of the brown aura axe.
"Crazy?"
A curse slipped out of my mouth.
Not out of annoyance, but pure happiness.
"Boss, this?"
Plerine, right next to me, spoke in amazement.
'My lower body is attached just fine?!'
There was the minor issue of not a single thread on my lower body,
But so what?
I could feel sensations in my legs, coming up to my brain.
The snow on my skin was ice cold!
At last, I couldn't help it—I stood up on both legs.
Chak! Chak!
They moved fine. My legs!
Perfectly fine, my legs!
"My leeeegs!!!"
As I reveled in surviving death, letting out a pitiful version of Gardoc's roar and throwing my arms up in triumph,
"......."
I saw Legion standing in front of me.
The small, red-twin-tailed girl stared at me expressionlessly.
No, rather, she stared at my body's exact center rather than at me.
Dangle—
I had no idea how to react,
But Legion spoke in her usual unchanging tone.
"You have quite an impressive asset there. Care to join me sometime?"
Crackle.
There was a faint spark.
*
I searched for my severed legs, but couldn't find them.
Really, I was searching for pants rather than legs.
Now that I'd survived, the dignity of a modern man felt urgent.
'But really, I have no idea what's going on.'
It was similar enough in the game.
Clearing the minor Demon Realm or a labyrinth brought you back in full health.
But I was the only one who recovered from their wounds.
Legion's long arms were still broken.
'And the scars on my face are still there.'
Could it be only I returned to my pre-Demon Realm state?
Also, I was unsettled by the odd system notification.
'The being of chaos bestows grace upon you, it said.'
I had no idea what was happening.
I need to run the inn, and get stronger to prepare for war,
But the weirdness keeps piling up.
Well, all that can wait until I get home to sort out.
'Haaa. I give up. I can't find it.'
Eventually, I gave up the search for my lost lower half,
And instead wrapped my legs with my outer padded armor.
But I found something I was far happier to see than my lower body.
"Squad leader Ralph!"
Today's raid hero and Big-jaw big brother were limping over,
Thud.
And collapsed.