Chapter 160
Chapter 160
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter Title: Vivid Night
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"Anis."
"Yeah?"
"What do you think stars look like?"
Someday, Betty asked Anis.
Under the vivid night sky, countless stars twinkled.
Betty yearned for the stars. She loved the stars that filled the pitch-black night sky, shining brightly without ever fading.
When Anis asked why, Betty replied, "It's the only place I can't go."
No matter her abilities, she could never reach the stars.
So she often gazed at the night sky with Anis. They'd watch the distant twinkling stars, and if a shooting star streaked by, she'd dash around searching for where it fell.
Even when Anis told her it wouldn't be anywhere to find, Betty just laughed it off.
Maybe for her, the joy was in the chase itself, not the result.
Stars.
Twinkly, pretty stars.
Shining so beautifully.
"They sparkle even from this far away, so up close, they must be even prettier. Right?"
"Um..."
Anis let out an ambiguous murmur. She knew stars weren't always beautiful up close.
Stars were beautiful precisely because they were distant. They shone proudly alone from tens of thousands of light-years away—a faint, ethereal presence that seemed within reach but forever out of grasp.
But if you closed that distance and faced the reality...
"Who knows."
You might be disappointed. It could be different from what you imagined.
You might feel disgust at the dust and gas, or terror at the overwhelming scale beyond comprehension.
"Probably not."
Anis rarely contradicted Betty. Betty bounced up in surprise, raising her voice.
"Ehh!? Why!?"
"Um..."
Anis hesitated. Betty didn't know the true nature of stars yet. But was there any need to shatter her innocence?
"You know, you're right. They must be pretty."
"Right!?"
Anis took back her words. For now, she'd go along with it.
Betty stomped her feet in obvious delight.
"Hehe. Someday, let's pick up a star. And see what it really looks like."
"...Yeah."
Anis nodded, as if entranced.
Captivated by her pure longing.
"And... someday, I want to go to the stars ourselves, right?"
"...Yeah."
"Don't worry! I'll train my ability hard and take you there someday! So we can see for ourselves with our own eyes..."
Excited, Betty stuck close to Anis's side, chattering nonstop.
She looked just like a little rodent, so Anis simply smiled and nodded along.
"...Yeah. I'm looking forward to it."
But.
Anis already knew.
No matter how hard you chased a shooting star, you'd never find its trace.
We could never get close to the stars—not until the day we died.
The night was deep and dark.
The darkness clung thickly, enveloping the city.
Even beneath that pitch black, lights persisted.
Faint flames rose in the distance, burning their own bodies to fend off the gloom.
It was a feeble but vivid glow.
"Ugh."
Betty rubbed her hands together and shivered faintly. The air was chilly. The night breeze brushing her ears felt piercingly cold.
It wasn't quite cold enough for visible breath, but for her above-average body temperature, it was plenty brisk—especially up on this high rooftop.
The sky from the rooftop felt far closer and sharper than from the ground.
Looking straight up, gloomy clouds sluggishly blanketed the night sky.
Thick overcast.
With the sky sealed shut, the wind grew bolder in its chill.
Betty stared blankly at the sky until the clouds fully obscured it, then lost interest and looked away.
That was when it happened.
-Boom!
"Huh?"
Something crashed successively into spots across the district. Betty reflexively rushed to the railing and peered down at the streets below.
"Ah!"
Maybe. Betty's eyes sparkled. Could it be a star fallen from the sky—?
She hadn't been able to see the sky properly due to the overcast, but it might have been a shooting star.
And luckily, right in this district where she was!
Thick dust billowed from the impact sites, blocking her view. A vague excitement bloomed on Betty's face.
If that dust clears, I can see the pretty star I've always gazed at from afar.
If I pick it up and bring it to Anis, she'll be so happy.
That's what she thought.
However.
When the dust settled, no star appeared.
What emerged instead were heroes.
"......Aw."
Betty was disappointed.
Heroes had fallen from the sky.
Well, that wasn't quite accurate. From her vantage on the rooftop, it was clear they hadn't dropped from the heavens—they'd flown in from the front lines.
Once the barrage of incoming heroes tapered off, they regained their bearings, exchanged a few brief words, and began forming up.
Most were familiar faces—people she'd spotted here and there while patrolling between the center and the front.
They'd barely finished organizing when the magic beasts launched their assault.
Heroes clashed with beasts. The streets, filled only with quiet darkness moments before, erupted into chaos.
Flashes burst forth, magic flew wildly.
Shouts mingled amid rising flickers of flame.
The surroundings turned into a battlefield in an instant.
'What the...?'
Betty tilted her head. She couldn't make sense of how the situation had unfolded.
When she'd first teleported here, she'd assumed it'd wrap up quickly one way or another.
Back then, demons and heroes had been on the verge of colliding at the front lines—a total war that would decide the city's fate.
...It should have been.
Yet somehow, the fierce struggle between heroes and magic beasts was playing out right beneath her feet.
The numbers were noticeably thinner than at the front, but they were fighting here regardless.
Why?
"...No clue!"
Betty neatly gave up on puzzling it out.
The battle dragged on in a stalemate. Beasts roared and charged; heroes parried. Heroes swung spears and spells; beasts dodged.
The narrow alleys and abundant cover unique to urban areas made the fight messy. Formations tangled uselessly, and stray attacks crumbled innocent concrete walls.
"Hmm..."
Betty, perched on the railing and observing, let out a groan.
The fight was stretching longer. Screams and clashes reached her ears without even trying.
There wasn't much she could do about it.
She didn't know how to fight in the first place, so she couldn't join in. She wanted to escape this place and return to Anis, but her mana hadn't recovered yet.
She should have regained some after resting this long, but she still couldn't use her ability. She'd apparently pushed herself too hard dashing around earlier.
'Still, gotta do something...?'
It looked even at a glance, but the heroes were minimizing damage unlike the beasts, dragging it into an attrition war. She had a bad feeling the beasts would get pushed back at this rate.
Betty drew a revolver from her bosom. It was one Camilla had snagged from Han U-sol's weapons for the refugees—she'd kept it for self-defense.
On the skeletal rooftop of the skeletal building, Betty aimed downward.
-Bang!
With the gunshot, a hero sheltering behind a wall crumpled. The man's aimless gaze drifted into the void.
"........."
Betty gazed down at the death with a blank expression. Her face twisted slightly... but it stayed mostly impassive.
Guns really were great. They eased the guilt.
The end result was the same—death—but it left a cleanliness worlds apart from other methods.
Unlike stabbing with a blade or throttling a throat, there was no disgusting tactile sensation of grinding through flesh.
No torment from blood on your hands.
No agonized screams, no thrashing, no wrist-grabbing tussles, no rolling on the ground.
Anis always griped, "Get rid of that damn ranged weapon already," but Betty preferred guns.
No guilt, no blood on her hands, no self-inflicted scratches from struggles. Just a flick of the finger from afar, and it was all solved.
That was part of why she'd summoned the beasts rather than getting hands-on. It was a psychological pardon.
Shifting the blame for deaths onto "sudden natural disasters from the sky," not herself.
A mental hideaway: 'I didn't kill them. The beasts did.'
Silly, but surprisingly effective self-consolation.
-Bang!
So, likewise, she hadn't killed that man. The bullet had.
Thinking that way made the guilt melt away like snow. It didn't matter who infused mana into the summon stone or pulled the trigger.
If she blamed herself for every little thing, she'd end up crying someday.
Better to pin it on someone else. Turning a blind eye and dodging responsibility was far easier.
Guns made the whole process effortless. That was why Betty favored them over swords.
For some reason, Anis always made a huge fuss whenever she used one...
-Bang!
But guns were so much more convenient.
-Bang! Bang! Bang!
Betty pulled the trigger mechanically. Over half the shots missed, but she still managed a solid hit about one in every three.
Struck heroes collapsed limply one after another. The brief lull in fighting turned frantic.
The bleeding beasts, unable to endure, launched a desperate all-out charge.
And Betty's timely gunfire had thrown the heroes into disarray, letting the beasts press the advantage.
Cracks formed in the heroes' organized distance-keeping formation, and the beasts exploited the gaps.
Betty lent a hand to the slaughter from the rooftop.
-Bang!
"Ah."
In the midst of firing intently, Betty let out a feeble sigh.
She'd aimed for a hero whose legs had given out, but she'd accidentally hit the beast charging at him.
The beast tumbled pathetically with a hole in its flank. The spared hero looked around in utter confusion.
"........."
Betty took aim at the hero again. She'd botched it and killed a beast by mistake, so she needed to line up properly this time.
Then, the slumped hero glanced her way. It felt like their eyes met.
"......Hmm."
Betty hesitated a moment before holstering the revolver.
"This should be enough."
She'd thinned out plenty of heroes. At this rate, the beasts ought to take control smoothly.
Besides, the revolver was pretty conspicuous. The shots were loud enough, but the divine power made the bullets flash visibly from afar.
No point risking detection by the heroes—it'd just cause headaches. Time to stop.
"Ah, so cold."
The thickening clouds made the air even chillier. Betty cupped her hands over her rising white breath and blew on them.
Her hands felt like ice after gripping metal so long.
She even pressed them to the revolver's barrel, but since it didn't use gunpowder, it wasn't warm.
"Something... like a fire would be nice."
The moment she muttered that.
-Whoosh!
Flames surged up, dyeing her vision red in an instant.
"Kyaaak!?"
The blaze rushed straight at Betty, slamming squarely into her unguarded back.
Sudden scorching agony. With a short scream, she rolled across the rooftop.
-Thud!
She'd barely extinguished the flames when a heavy blow hammered her abdomen. Her ribs creaked as a floating sensation enveloped her body.
"Kuhuk...!?"
Her vision spun. Her body launched into the air before crashing back onto the cold cement.
Before she could catch her pained breath, someone mounted her. A vise-like grip immediately crushed her throat.
"Guh, kuhok, you, you...!"
Betty's eyes bulged in shock.
"Cold, right?"
There was Yoon Na-rin, pinning her down with sharp, glaring eyes.