Onion (3)
Onion (3)
- GROOOOAAAR!
The monster bellowed from deep in its throat and launched itself forward.
A bovine head with thick horns and a body packed with dense muscle fibers closed the distance in an instant.
Sierra stood in its path, expression still, sword hanging loosely—only drawing a breath before impact.
A single stroke. A clean arc with no need for elaborate description.
The monster's head sailed through the air as it passed. A fountain of blood erupted from the severed neck, and the headless body crumpled.
"......"
Sierra stepped forward a pace, then turned back.
The monster lay collapsed on the ground.
A creature that, by future standards, would barely scrape the 4th Rank—killed in a single, hollow stroke.
'It had almost no unique ability to speak of, its physical stats barely met the threshold, and it wasn't even a large species...'
It was a strong specimen, but not an unkillable monster. Sierra could easily handle it with room to spare.
...Taking it down this casually, in one blow, was something else entirely. Sierra studied the sword with complicated eyes.
A crimson blade. An artifact she had acquired from a dungeon long ago—a sword that had already been broken.
A sword that should not exist now rested intact in her hand. Yet it was the same sword she had been wielding until mere days ago.
A faint dissonance crawled up her hand. A deeper dissonance.
Sierra swept her gaze over the severed cross-section of the bull's head embedded in the ground.
Beyond words—smooth.
And that wasn't all.
No trace of regeneration. The monster hadn't seemed to possess a regeneration ability, but even if it had, the regeneration itself would have been severed in that single moment.
The 'current' Sierra should not have been able to cut that cleanly, nor wield a spatial-type unique ability with such precision.
But she had.
One stroke to sever the monster's neck, and the meticulous application of her unique ability to split even the space between head and body.
Not something the current Sierra could do—but a technique future Sierra could perform as easily as breathing.
An indescribable foreignness traced up her spine.
A sense of discrepancy. The sword she always carried. The sword she had long since lost. The feat she could not achieve. The feat she could achieve with ease. Past, future...
[Ohhh...]
"......"
The sluggish train of thought was severed.
On the battlefield where combat had just ended and the aftermath still hung in the air, Lee Ha-yul approached quickly, prodding the monster's head with the tip of a sword and marveling.
[You mixed sword aura with the Authority of Space. Simultaneous severing and spatial disconnection... I've tried this application myself, but I could never match Sierra's speed and precision.]
"...You flatter me."
Lee Ha-yul was all compliments. Sierra kept her facial muscles under strict control and managed an awkward expression.
Her technique had been seen through. Not merely the manifestation recognized, but the form and principle uncovered in an instant.
'Ast's Observation may be specialized toward foresight, but... to be dissected this easily.'
[Hmm... Aha? So this is how you handle the distribution?]
The sword-edge wavered. So subtle it was difficult to notice without focused attention.
The Authority of Space. More precisely, the application of Spatial Slash through applied manipulation...
Not just seen through—almost perfectly copied.
Hadn't Lee Ha-yul only properly recognized the Authorities for about a year?
It was merely a reproduction drawn from memories, yet it was an application refined over decades of wielding the Authority of Space...
'......'
She knew the reason.
Authority Affinity.
Lee Ha-yul's near-omnipotent unique ability simply made him compatible with the Authorities of Space and Observation granted by the Tower Masters.
...Allegedly, that affinity was far too strong.
A conversation they had shared a few days ago.
He had instinctively released the safety limiters placed on the Authorities in advance and caused an overload.
That alone had been enough to make him faint, but the curses kicked in with miserable timing, and a catastrophe followed: he lost his sight, and his voice was sealed away.
There had also been the incident where Sierra immediately slammed her head to the ground in apology, and a flustered Lee Ha-yul had desperately tried to stop her, but...
Anyway.
Conversation with Lee Ha-yul was always welcome news.
The savior they had miraculously located and poured their full efforts into helping. He possessed a potential that exceeded even the Tower Masters' expectations.
'A second-year Siyoram student.'
Some time ago, he had reportedly faced the vessel of the Tower Master of Purgatory.
A monster he should not have encountered until the full-scale invasion began.
Why Lee Ha-yul, who should have been safe within Siyoram, had come face to face with such a threat was a matter worth foaming at the mouth over.
But Lee Ha-yul had not only survived—he had repelled the Incarnation.
A preposterous outcome.
Sierra—the Tower Masters—knew exactly what kind of monster the Tower Master of Purgatory was.
A fiend who had served as a Tower Master for an unfathomable length of time, invading dimensions and accumulating an especially refined slaughter prowess.
Lee Ha-yul had repelled that creature's Incarnation in barely a single year.
The hope and conviction they had already harbored deepened further.
'......'
Yet Sierra could not feel purely joyful.
.
.
.
"The war situation is exceptionally favorable."
Sierra's adjutant spoke.
A cold, rigid face. But Sierra, who had seen that face for many years, could tell that he was excited.
"We've maintained the offensive throughout, and our casualties are extremely minimal. The barrier wall is stable, and we have almost no loss of life at all."
"...I see."
"Food supplies are likewise not an issue. We have such an abundance that we're finding ourselves issuing additional rations during rest periods."
His tone, uncharacteristically verbose in its reporting, carried a note of hope.
It was utterly unlike the usual black, deathly pall of his reports.
Because the war situation was utterly different.
The Siyoram cadets.
Even the cadets of average ability had grown and adapted rapidly in a short time, becoming combat assets that proudly supported the axis of the front lines.
Lee Ha-yul's contribution in particular was staggering, as he actively employed Taesan and Azure Sea techniques for his training.
He piled up sturdy barrier walls, slaughtered monsters en masse, sustained the front with undead, and caused food to pour from the earth.
He engaged enemies with magic, protected, and even healed.
When armaments ran short, he produced gear of a quality that far outstripped the mass-produced goods of this era.
"We do not yet know when the dungeon's isolation will lift, but at this rate, we can comfortably hold out until it is released."
Eyes glittering with hope.
"...Yes. Well done. Go on ahead."
"...Commander, are you unwell?"
The adjutant tilted his head. Sierra closed her mouth and shook her head.
"No, nothing is wrong. I was moving around a great deal just now; I'm merely fatigued."
"Ah... That makes sense. From a distance, your movements seemed completely different. Have you had some sort of enlightenment recently?"
"Something... of the sort."
"Ah, I knew it. I will take my leave first, then."
The adjutant nodded agreeably and exited the tent. Sierra closed her eyes as she watched his retreating back, his footsteps noticeably lighter.
In the past, Sierra had led a mercenary company.
She later joined the coalition, and when the commander responsible for the front line died, she temporarily assumed the position.
That was the extent of the current Sierra's memories.
"......."
Beyond that.
Memories of the future resided in her head.
The adjutant died. The other company members died too. Most of the superhumans who had held the front through life-and-death struggles would die. In the end, this front line would collapse.
"...Ha..."
Sierra let out a hollow laugh.
Wasn't it absurd? She had memories of a future she had not yet even experienced.
The more ridiculous part was that it wasn't really the future either.
This place was an embodied fake. Records of the past that had failed to recognize their own falseness, given a slight variation.
Future? Would this place simply vanish once it reached a certain point in time?
She had received memories, but this was unmistakably not her. The embodied Sierra would, with the passage of time, disappear as a counterfeit.
It was all the same.
Even if an enraged Sierra somehow managed to stop him, she would vanish regardless. Whatever she did, it would all be erased, undone.
That was what felt hollow. Absurd.
'...How pathetic.'
The ones who were born, raised, and perceived within the observed world—they would have felt this emotion more deeply, more despairingly.
- Creeeak...
Sierra, who had been silent for a while, rose to her feet.
During the lull in the monster assault, she needed to impart various knowledge and experience to Lee Ha-yul.
Joints groaning, Sierra made her way to Lee Ha-yul's tent.
A tent set apart a little from the encampment, standing solitary. A tent Lee Ha-yul had erected separately.
When she reached it, Sierra opened her mouth.
"......"
She intended to speak. Before she could, a strange intuition struck her mind. Sierra blinked, then—knowing it was rude—opened the tent flap without waiting for a response.
- Plop
Something fell to the ground.
Sierra lowered her gaze.
Something lying on the ground. Flopping on top of a crimson pool like a fish just pulled from the water...
A hand.
"...What..."
The sheer suddenness froze her mind. Mouth agape, Sierra stared down at the fallen hand.
The wrist had been torn free as though wrenched off; blood streamed from the severed cross-section.
- Squeak, screeee...
It wasn't just blood. Pure-white circuits protruded jaggedly from the cross-section, grinding with an audible screech.
In time with that, the already-severed hand twisted and coiled upon itself. The fingers twitched with a will of their own, a ghastly sight.
That was the view focused on the severance. Her mind, shaken but coldly collected, observed the hand from a different vantage point.
The mana was twisted. The circuits were bizarrely dispersed and entangled. Something had happened before it was torn free.
...Now that she studied it, the hand was somehow off.
It looked like simply a pale, fine hand on the surface, but through its contours Sierra's eyes discerned that its internal structure had changed.
The number of bones, the properties and direction of muscle entanglement, the nature of the skin itself—all had warped into a heteromorphic deterioration.
...The mana was strange too.
Fire and water and ice, earth... lightning? Wind? Multiple mana attributes were tangled together.
- Burble...!
Soon, various parts of the hand began necrotizing in the colors of those attributes, swelling lumpishly...
"......"
Mouth still open, unable to close it, Sierra creakily raised her head.
"What... What in the world... is going on?"
Her voice came out quavering despite herself. The owner of the fallen hand flinched too.
Lee Ha-yul, who had been about to pick up the severed hand, was sweating profusely.
* * *
