16. Fer-de's Fang (4)
…For the first time, I fled under my own power.
To anyone watching, it would have looked like barely an escape at all — but to me, that escape was an enormous leap forward.
The old saying that you can survive being dragged into a tiger's den as long as you keep your wits about you hadn't been wrong in the slightest.
And so I set the Altar of Grief as my goal and left the Rift Labyrinth behind.
"…"
Suddenly, wondering whether Maeve might follow, I turned back to look at the labyrinth.
…I could still see her reaching out desperately, that image flickering at the corners of my vision.
Maeve would live the rest of her life trapped in the delusion that I had been devoured and killed by the Giant Snake Fer-de.
"…Time to stop worrying about it."
Riding the strange, subtle relief of having slipped free of a bondage I could never relax around, I turned my head away and set off.
While traveling, I twisted my route as much as possible so it wouldn't overlap with the path I'd walked before.
It was to cut off every possibility of running into her — and, starting with Maeve, to block off any chance of crossing paths with the other NPCs as well.
Back when this world was nothing but a game to me, I now walked freely through places that had once been sealed off by invisible walls.
"…I should probably change my clothes soon, too."
The academy uniform that had once looked brand-new was already covered in stains.
My body never got a moment's rest, and so my clothes decayed into a beggar's rags just as fast.
"Ha."
The absurd thought that I was turning into some primitive savage living in the wild made me snort out a laugh.
Back in the old days, I wouldn't have wasted a single thought on something so pointless — I'd have trudge down the road like a zombie instead.
Feeling the truth of how much my mind had recovered, I picked my way carefully over the uneven dirt ground, careful not to stumble.
I moved mostly over soft terrain, doing everything I could to spare the soles of my shoes from wear.
The altar was about a day's walk away, so I planned to walk a few more hours before settling down somewhere for a rest.
"I'll camp here for now."
Putting Maeve's knowledge of wilderness survival to use, I built a makeshift bed beneath a large tree as night fell and hid myself away.
The night air carried a faint, ambiguous chill, but I didn't light a campfire.
I was afraid that the light would give me away — afraid that Maeve would see it and come find me.
…That night, I had a nightmare.
A dream of my eyes being torn out, the ligaments in my wrists all severed, fleeing helplessly before being stomped into the ground and killed.
"…Hghk. Hghk… Ugh…"
I woke in that grey hour before dawn and vomited up bile.
Only when the sour burn of it surged back up my throat did I realize that this place was not a dream but reality.
I had hoped to wake up on the bed in my cozy studio apartment like every morning before. But of course, no such thing happened.
I had hoped today would be a brighter one than yesterday…
Weakly, I forced myself up to erase the traces of my camp.
Clank—
Just then, I felt something catch against my leg, and at the same time heard the sound of something heavy being shoved aside.
Thinking a branch must have blown in overnight on the wind, I nudged the leaves aside with my foot.
"What the…? Why is this here?"
There it sat, plain as day: a brass dagger that at first glance looked rusted through.
Its twisted, serpentine blade caught the eye above all else.
Fer-de's Fang.
The weapon I had set my sights on, only to give up on when I hit a wall I couldn't overcome.
A dagger that transformed into a whip-sword when fed blood had materialized out of nowhere over a single night, for no reason I could name.
"…No way?!"
I snatched up Fer-de's Fang and hurriedly scanned my surroundings, afraid Maeve might have come looking for me in my sleep — but I found absolutely no trace of anyone having been there.
…It made no sense.
Why on earth would Fer-de's Fang appear at my side?
Fer-de's Fang belonged to the class of special weapons obtainable only by slaying a boss.
But I had died the moment I laid eyes on the Giant Snake Fer-de.
"…"
The brass-colored blade reflected my face back at me.
Whatever the reason, I had obtained the weapon I'd been hunting for.
The weapon of my very own that I had longed for so desperately was finally in my hands.
Swallowing dryly, I turned the edge toward my palm.
When I opened a shallow cut across it, blood welled up in a rush.
The blood touched Fer-de's Fang.
Would it really… take the form of a whip-sword?
I'd worried my stats might be too low for the transformation to trigger.
But thankfully, the blade began to drink in the blood, and Fer-de's Fang began to shift its shape.
The short blade divided into segmented layers and lengthened, while the handle stretched into an easy grip.
And so Fer-de's Fang transformed completely — from a Kris dagger into a whip-sword.
Settling into a stance, I swung Fer-de's Fang, and in an instant the blade split into multiple layers and stretched out long as a whip.
As if it possessed a will of its own, it shot along the exact trajectory I pictured in my mind, its blade biting savagely into a tree.
Shuruuuuk—!
When I willed the whip-launched blade to shorten, the weapon — reading my thoughts as though it understood them — tore free of the tree and reverted to the form of a longsword.
No matter how many times I repeated the attack, the blades followed my intent with perfect precision.
I could seize and pull down a high branch far overhead, or twist its path to land strike after strike from multiple angles.
Overwhelming reach against enemies five meters away and beyond — plus the versatility to handle anything that closed the distance.
Calming my ragged, exhilarated breathing, I finally understood why the community had crowned Fer-de's Fang the strongest PVP weapon.
With this weapon, I would never again be slaughtered helplessly by an NPC.
And that wasn't all. With this weapon, I could hunt monsters and level up, too.
A bracing freshness swept through my whole body, as if a road that had been blocked had just swung wide open.
A day that had begun with a nightmare — and yet my hunched shoulders straightened, and vigor kindled in my eyes.
"…Don't get cocky. I'm still only Level 10."
But I couldn't let myself get carried away.
My level was barely 10, and the five NPCs hunting me would be far, far above that.
One weapon wouldn't come close to overturning an overwhelming level gap, so from here on, I needed to focus on grinding as much as I could.
Of course, I had not the slightest intention of hunting people like I had in the 1st playthrough.
Unlike before, I now knew every piece of equipment in this world — and I knew that the truly powerful gear only dropped from slain bosses.
"Let's head for the Altar of Grief first."
With a step far lighter than before, I made for the Altar of Grief.
My checkpoint was still anchored at the Rift Labyrinth, so I picked up the pace to put myself in a more stable position.
« Checkpoint Established ▶ Altar of Grief »
Taking the shortest route, I reached the Altar of Grief around the time the sun climbed to its zenith.
The moment I stepped inside its characteristic damp, musty interior, the notification that my checkpoint had changed appeared.
From the look of it, stepping into a designated space switched the checkpoint automatically.
I debated closing the massive doors behind me, but if I did, the interior would be so pitch-black I couldn't see a thing — and I had a feeling my trauma would flare right back up — so I left them open.
I descended the spiral staircase carefully.
In the past, I had poured every ounce of effort I had into climbing those stairs. Now, I was walking down them under my own will.
Feeling a strange new emotion at how profoundly different the present was, I arrived at the altar at the bottom of the stairs.
"…You look rather pleased with yourself."
The instant I heard that familiar voice, I twisted around.
Eyes glowing an eerie crimson. Hair of pale red.
"…!"
Carmen — the one who had carved an unforgettable terror into me — and I met once again at the Altar of Grief.
Without a word, I raised Fer-de's Fang and took aim at her.
It had reverted from its whip-sword form back into a dagger, so I hurriedly opened a cut in my palm and fed it blood.
The instant the dagger twisted into its whip-sword form, I struck at Carmen without hesitation.
As the blade, split into dozens of segments, came rushing in like a whip, she planted a hand on the ground and spun in a full dancer's turn, evading the attack.
Carmen kicked off the ground with practiced ease, and with a sound like the air itself detonating, her kick reached me.
"Ghh…!"
I swiftly shifted Fer-de's Fang into its longsword form and blocked her swinging fist.
My entire arm buzzed numb.
I was certain that if I blocked one more blow like that, both my arms would shatter.
I swung the longsword, and Carmen retreated a single step, slipping out of my range.
Determined to widen the distance further, I accelerated the speed of my slashes.
As she narrowly evaded my chaining barrage, a blade grazed her cheek and carved a thin, shallow line into it.
A hitch.
At that moment, Carmen's body — which had been slipping past my every attack — froze perfectly solid.
"…Ngh?"
A status ailment: paralysis.
A mere graze from the blade had inflicted a status condition on her.
I could see her straining to move her body, but movement was utterly impossible.
Shllk—
As the duration ran out, the whip-sword in my hand shifted back into its dagger form.
"…Haah. Haah…"
I had clearly won the fight — and yet, strangely, the one most physically spent was me.
"Ungh…"
Even paralyzed, Carmen demonstrated a monstrous strength, shifting her body inch by tiny inch.
If I remembered right, the paralysis lasted barely thirty seconds — I had to finish this before it ran out.
Staggering toward her, I raised the dagger high.
"…!!"
Her eyes, flooded with terror, squeezed tightly shut.
Fer-de's Fang plunged down.
———.
It did not end with Carmen's death.
Because I stopped my hand just before the blade touched her.
My heart brimmed over with hatred — she had murdered me brutally, again and again.
And yet, strangely, the hand gripping Fer-de's Fang would not fall any further.
As much as I wanted to kill her—
I wanted to keep her alive.
It was because of a tangle of emotions that no cheap word like "pity" could ever explain.
And so I let the arm holding the dagger drop, hollow and limp.
At my abandoned strike, Carmen doubted her own eyes.
She must have believed that Dean, of all people, would kill her without a second thought.
…But I was not that man.
Unlike the me of the 1st playthrough, the me of now was alive and breathing in this very moment.
"…Why on earth."
When the thirty seconds ran their course and the paralysis released her, Carmen parted her trembling lips, cautiously.