The White Wind Howls (21)
The White Wind Howls (21)
#111
Someone inside me intoned.
『Ālaya-vijñāna—Origin Usurpation』
Ah— so that's how you use an Imprint.
The life force of the trees around me, the life force of the nameless grasses and small insects sparsely dotting the ground—
Even the power that had sustained the body of my enemy standing before me—Lily—all of it flowed into me.
Hummm.
Good, this much Netherworld is enough.
What remained was to subdue Lily with this power.
Channeling the mana welling up in my back into my cock, I activated the Unique Magic of my first Imprint.
『Unique Magic—Equivalent Exchange』
O vitality and mana that dwell in the dark forest,
All shall converge into a single stream of violence beneath my fist——
Everything before my eyes would be swept away by my strike.
Everything before my eyes would be swept away by my strike.
『Forbidden Crushing Quake Fist—禁壓震拳』
A single straight punch.
The Netherworld that had filled my Imprint, converted into energy of overwhelming destructive power, flew forward and swept away everything in front of it.
BOOM———!!
An attack that didn't leave a single blade of grass. It swept away everything.
Kaaaaaang—!
Lily relied on a single sword to block the attack, but—
Crack.
"Ugh!"
Starting from beneath Lily's feet, the ground split as if a fracture were spreading. Her knees, already drained of strength, wobbled momentarily and her center collapsed; yet even then, Lily's sword did not waver.
Overwhelming violence withstood by a slender wrist alone.
But the very act of holding on was clearly a red flag that her defense had reached its limit.
I did not stop. The remnants of the Netherworld I had just unleashed still wriggled with a chilling aura behind my back, and the path was open from the blow I had just landed.
Pressing the attack before Lily could catch her breath was the key to victory.
The moment I planted my feet, using the remnants of the Netherworld as the driving force to move my body, the distance between Lily and me shrank by a step—no, three steps.
Whoooosh!
The moment the distance lost all meaning and closed, Lily's sword came up aiming for my chin. Her blade tilted toward me as if grasping at a thread of hope, but the match had been decided long ago.
When I fixed my glare on the faint mana carried by Lily's sword, that mana flowed into my back and her movement halted.
Thud.
Lily's hand dropped limply.
"That's enough."
"My victory, right?"
"Well, it wasn't even a duel. Let's call it Do-yun's win."
She probably hated losing. Since she was a kid, I would just let it slide.
"Anyway, do you think you've started to get a grasp on how to handle Do-yun's power now?"
"Yeah, I think I'm starting to get it."
Actually, I felt like I understood it very well!
"Thanks in advance for your help starting tomorrow with that power."
The tension drained from my body.
The aftereffects of the power I had poured out all at once washed over me belatedly, and the mana that had been lingering behind my back slowly began to subside.
Just moments ago, it had been power overflowing enough to push the night sky's air upward.
Now, like a lie, the power vanished without a trace and scattered. Looking around, the forest had completely died within the radius of where I had stood.
It was hard to see clearly in the dark, but the leaves of the trees, which must have originally been a deep green, had lost their color and sagged, and the small life on the ground had dried up without a single twitch.
... Was that a bit too much?
***
***
I walked with Lily along the forest path, slowly heading back to where everyone was.
At that moment, a somewhat familiar-looking woman appeared ahead.
"... Lady Lucien?"
Nearly melted into the darkness, a single shadow stood still among the trees.
Hearing my call, Lucien flinched slightly and approached with quick little steps.
"D-Do-yun..."
"It's about time for sleep. What brings you here? I was actually just on my way back to you."
"Lu-Lucien was just a little worried about you, Do-yun..."
"Thankfully, my talk with the lady ended well. Ah, and about that favor I asked earlier."
"Ye-yes..."
"I don't think you need to worry about that anymore."
"Y-yes?"
"I properly learned how to handle my Unique Magic from Lady Lily. To put it simply, I've gotten stronger. Enough to surprise even you, Lady Lucien."
"........."
She stared at me intently, as if she couldn't quite believe it.
But rather than a look of suspicion... it was a deeply worried gaze.
"Is, is it really over with just that?"
"Yes, just trust me."
"...... Are you truly okay with just that, Do-yun?"
"With what kind?"
"If you're trying to solve this all by yourself by overexerting yourself, Lucien hates that..."
"No, I'm not really overexerting myself. I just got stronger, so I think I'll be able to handle this matter easily."
A little moisture began to gather in Lucien's eyes.
"Tha-that's not what Lucien wants to say."
"Then what is it?"
Lucien looked at Lily and opened her mouth.
"I don't know what Lily told you... but Lucien thinks that nothing can be solved this way."
"What do you mean by 'this way'?"
"The way Do-yun goes through pain... I hate seeing Do-yun in pain... So, Lucien thinks Do-yun shouldn't be pushed around by Lily anymore."
Lily didn't stay silent.
"What do you know?"
Had Lucien's words touched a raw nerve in Lily?
Even through the bandages wrapped around her eyes, I could feel the anger radiating from her. It was a kind of contextless fury I couldn't fathom—why she was so enraged.
"What do you know? Ah, the fact that Do-yun knew I was a regressor? We already talked that out among ourselves. We decided to join forces until we reach the House of the Great Ones."
Maybe she had a lot bottled up. As if her mouth never tired, sharp words poured out like vomit.
"And, did you think I didn't know what kind of ability you have?"
"H-how could you..."
"You think I wouldn't know? You really think I didn't? You've been keeping quiet all this time, so I just left you alone."
Lucien's mouth stiffened.
"Come to think of it, it looks like you knew everything but just didn't tell him."
Lily's single visible eye pierced sharply into Lucien's heart.
"About what will happen to Do-yun, about which one of us has to die for it to end."
"Th-that's..."
"How selfish. You're in the same league as Estelle, who's trying to drag Do-yun off like a pig to the slaughterhouse. What, because of so-called 'pity'? Did your heart change a little after seeing the livestock?"
Lucien finally raised her voice sharply.
"No—! I just wanted to find another way..."
"You of all people should know that there's no such way."
Silence descended.
"Selfish bitch. Can you die for Do-yun? If not, get out of the way. I'm confident I can die hundreds of times."
"Lu-Lucien can die too..."
Lily let out a scoffing laugh.
"Then you should have acted sooner. What's with this sudden change in behavior after staying quiet all this time? If you really care about Do-yun, give it up. Getting entangled only brings more pain."
.........
Sniffle.
Very quietly, the sound of Lucien sobbing could be heard. Her head was already looking down at the ground—
I thought she was probably crying.
"Lady Lily, that's enough."
Lily didn't respond to my words.
"Let's head back for now."
Lucien nodded her head very quietly.
With those words as the last, we didn't exchange a single word the entire way back.
***
***
#112
"Lady Lucien, I'm sorry about earlier. I had no idea Lily would speak like that."
"Ah, n-no. I suppose Lily had a lot of things pile up in her own way over her regressions... I didn't realize she had that much resentment built up..."
Lucien said, burying her face in my arms.
"And a-also... I'm sorry for not telling you... no, for not having told you from the start how our journey ends... I am, I am—!"
I held her trembling shoulders and comforted her.
"No. The world is full of things that are hard to say. You must have had many worries of your own, Lady Lucien. I understand everything."
Sniffle.
"Do-yun... I want to sleep alone tonight. I'm sorry after asking you to stay together."
"Okay, I understand. Have a good night."
Hoo——
I was fucking dying for a cigarette.
I laid the limp Lucien down in her sleeping bag and went back into the forest. I figured a walk before bed might clear up this complicated mess in my head a bit.
How long had I walked?
At least around here, there didn't seem to be any threats. Even though I had long since left the perimeter of the stealth magic Estelle had set up, not a single enemy scary enough to startle me appeared.
Ah— the moon is really round.
That thought crossed my mind for no real reason.
The moon hanging in the middle of the night sky was absurdly, ridiculously large and round. Hmm, if I had to compare it to something... it was a bit like Lucien's big eyes.
Under that moonlight, the worries that had been churning in my head just moments ago, and the bullshit that made my head spin just hearing it, seemed to quiet down a little.
Of course, it was just a feeling.
Because in reality, not a fucking thing had been sorted out.
Well, this world had always been that way. Ever since I came up to Arcanum wanting to earn some money, not a single thing has worked out right.
Some crazy woman shoved a syringe at my dick, and the next thing I knew, I came to my senses with Risie playing with my cock. Then I suddenly got sent to the future and was somehow told I had some godlike power.
It felt as though more than half the incidents were somehow tied to my crotch, but I decided to gloss over that.
"...... I'm really dying for a cigarette."
No answer came back to the words I'd spoken aloud.
Cigarettes.
A lighter.
In modern-day Seoul, I would've just bought a pack at a convenience store and smoked.
There was no way something like that existed in the Arcanum of the World Collapse. In the first place, I didn't even know if the mages of the original timeline smoked. The sample size I'd met was too small.
Anyway, I never knew I'd miss that tiny flame and little peace of mind this much. The mages around me could pull off insane magic from their fingertips if they felt like it.
But what I actually needed wasn't any of that—it was a single puff of nicotine.
"Fucking headache..."
Muttering to myself like that as I kept walking, I began to hear the sound of water from beyond the darkness.
Fwoosh——
At first I thought it was the wind, but when I got closer and listened, it was the sound of water.
It looked like there was a small river or a valley near the forest.
My footsteps naturally headed in that direction.
It was a river.
A fairly large one at that.
The surface of the water bathed in moonlight was flowing broadly, and on the water, the moonlight broke into dozens of tiny pieces and flowed away endlessly.
"So there was a place like this."
It was clearly not very far from the campsite.
A river as beautiful as a fairy tale was blanketed in a peace that words alone could not fully express.
"What the— why are you wandering around instead of sleeping?"
A familiar woman's voice.
Lily spoke to me, looking this way.
