Savior
Savior
A colossal monster barreled toward me, shoving air aside, wreathed in a vicious mist of bloodlust.
Blood-flecked saliva drooled from its gaping maw, and its murderous eyes glared straight at me.
Every detail of that sight made me regret the choice I had just made.
I gritted my teeth.
Fwoosh! The Sky Wing Feather hanging behind my back stretched out vertically, then coiled thickly around both arms like gauntlets.
I forced every last drop of aura inside and outside the wrapped Sky Wing Feather. The bottom of my mana pool scraped dry. My recovery speed could not keep up with the rate of consumption.
I threw a punch.
A hand too small and pathetic to block the massive forepaw swinging at me.
The furious Blood Cloud and the woven aura fluttered like a candle before the storm.
Srrrk! The vicious, lethal claws raked down my right arm. The aura split apart. The Sky Wing Feather tore, and skin ripped open. Blood gushed out.
Kwaaang! The massive forepaw swung down like a pile driver. I blocked it with my other hand. Crunch. A hair-raising sound rang from my arm. The muscle fibers encasing the bone ripped apart one by one.
Unable to dissipate the impact, my body skidded backward. My upper body nearly collapsed. I planted my legs firmly on the ground.
Even so, my legs dragged. Weak and trembling, as if all strength had fled, they were pushed back inch by inch.
Kwaaang!
A brutal shockwave spread through my entire body. My consciousness flickered for a moment.
The location changed.
Before I knew it, the door was shattered.
My body had smashed it down and was now tumbling through a long corridor.
It hurt. Agony burned my mind white-hot. My sightless vision flickered ceaselessly between pitch black and stark white.
A warning flared down my spine. I threw myself into a roll. Crunch! The thick forepaw slammed into the spot where I had just been.
Its claws pierced through my aura and grazed my side. Blood flooded onto the floor. My consciousness rapidly dimmed.
My stomach lurched. My internal organs twisted, threatening to spill out through the wound. I wrapped the Sky Wing Feather around it and plugged the wound.
Aerus had no mercy for my situation. Its forepaws cloaked in Blood Cloud and its gaping maw came rushing at me relentlessly.
My Spatial Perception, unable to hold steady, wavered.
The pain receded. The sensation of life faded away.
With my sightless vision, the approach of death beckoned me seductively, guiding me toward an easy path.
Comfort was not alone in its call. Beside it, compromise beckoned to me.
Let's just run. Even now. Maybe it's possible. At least I could survive. What do the people behind me even mean to me? Nothing. Just abandon them. Aren't I the most important person? Survive now and save them later. I don't need to do this now. Later, I could save even more people...
Crrunch!
I clenched my teeth with crushing force. Cracks shot through a tooth. Blood burst from my gums.
At least this pain was vivid. Spitting out the gush of blood, I lashed out with my hand.
Kwakakak! A volley of slashes erupted from my hand, sweeping over Aerus. The control was clumsy. My own left hand was caught in the barrage and mangled as well.
I tumbled across the ground. My left hand, its flesh torn away, barely managed to plant itself against the floor. Pain flooded in. I forced my staggering body upright.
I forced my legs forward.
Death loomed closer.
No.
I was the one approaching it.
I was the one thrusting my neck out toward death.
This was not coercion. It was not an unavoidable situation. Nor was it some inescapable fate.
Wandering the rampaging dungeon to fight was my choice. Killing the monsters was my choice. Saving people was my choice, too.
Standing outside to block Aerus was my choice. Crawling in here with it, latched on and refusing to let go, was also my choice.
'I...'
Vicious claws flew at me. I twisted my body to dodge. The blood-red slash extending from the claws grazed my shoulder. Blood splattered out. Strength drained from my left arm.
The offensive continued. My body became a wreck. My aura gradually dispersed. I swung my limbs with desperate screams. I squeezed the circuits dry and manifested magic, even including myself in the area of effect.
My body was steadily pushed back. Contrary to my will, it kept giving way.
I wanted to run away right now. I didn't want to die, and I didn't want to be in this much pain. I didn't want to be locked in a brawl with this kind of monster.
'I'm such a pathetic human being.'
Memories of the past overlaid my darkening vision.
My life was barely over twenty years long. I had never even wandered freely through the wide world.
Yet I had seen many people. Even without face-to-face interaction, the sea of knowledge contained a multitude of human portraits.
There were many people living in the present. Among them, there were plenty who were happier than me.
A cozy nest that was neither cold nor hot. Parents who loved their children. Circumstances that kept them from worrying much about the future.
I burned with a jealousy that could tear my belly open. I didn't have the upright disposition needed to set them as a goal and strive for it.
Looking up made my stomach ache. Yet with that attitude, I had no confidence to climb up there. It never felt like I could ever obtain that kind of happiness.
So I deliberately looked down. I looked at places below me, places I could fall to at any time. There were many people happier than me. And so I searched for people unhappier than me.
Although there were many happy people, there were twice as many unhappy ones.
I was always beaten like a dog by my parents. There were far too many parents like that in this world.
My stomach had been split open by my parents.
Still, I lived. There were those who were butchered and turned into meat by their parents, and lives abandoned in the snow to become lumps of ice.
I had never had a proper meal at my parents' house. I always starved. I had many memories of stuffing myself with cigarette ash and alcohol.
I did not starve to death. In countless regions, death by starvation was absurdly common, going far beyond just going hungry.
I was not loved by my parents. There were far too many parents in this world who did not love their children.
Even the present was like that. The 21st century back then was like that. Even the recorded information alone confirmed it.
The 20th century. What were those harsher times like? The 19th century, the 18th century, the 17th century...
I tried to fathom all the eras of human existence, considering the cases of those who were never recorded and buried unjustly in the ground.
Could anyone dare to count them? How much unhappiness had there been? It must equal the happiness... no, there must be a number of unhappiness incomparable to it.
I used that as comfort.
There were so many people unhappier than me. Relatively speaking, I was not among the unfortunate. My circumstances were manageable enough.
Whining about being unhappy over this trivial situation was unsightly. The truly unfortunate were buried in the cold ground before they could ever whine.
I belonged to the ordinary.
So, don't make a fuss.
I repeated that to myself. Even I thought it was a truly pathetic and ugly way of thinking.
Unable to look up at happiness and climb, I was a bastard who consoled himself by looking down at unhappiness below.
I hated myself like that.
"What difference is there between you and a bug?"
Whenever that happened, my parents' words filled my head. Just recalling their voices made me nauseous, but I couldn't help but bring them up.
"All you ever do is eat without producing anything. Even pigs leave behind their meat when they die, so what the hell are you? Huh?"
My parents did not love me. I longed for affection, but they gave me none.
Parents ought to naturally, rightfully care for the children they bring into the world. My parents did not do that.
For some reason, the language I understood without being formally taught was always full of abuse. It overflowed with negative emotions like hatred, contempt, jealousy, and envy.
They were wrong. Assuming the moral and social principles I had learned were correct, they were a wrong sort of people, failing as both parents and human beings.
"Something like you should never have been born."
"Why was this kind of thing born? I never wanted to give birth to this thing."
"Disgusting little brat."
Filthy and disgusting. A vile and selfish bastard. A creature that should never have been born.
My parents were wrong. That was what I thought. Therefore, everything my parents said had to be wrong too.
But when I chewed over my own ugly thoughts, I could not deny it entirely.
When I used others' unhappiness as a source of comfort, I felt like the trash that matched my parents' words.
Even though it had been years since my parents died, I still could not escape their shadow, and I felt so pathetic for it.
I had to deny it.
I could not even say empty words that I was a good person.
I had not often done small good deeds in my life.
I never stepped forward to do anything. I never went out of my way to find other people's discomforts and help them.
Because it was outside my field of vision. Because I couldn't see it. Because deliberately finding it and helping was too uncertain, too bothersome and annoying.
Also, because it was something I couldn't do. Because I couldn't save people dying on the other side of the world. Because I couldn't solve all the world's hunger and suffering. Because my abilities were too pathetic to help others.
But there were times when such excuses couldn't leave my mouth.
Things inside my field of vision. Things I could sufficiently help with.
And beyond that, things only I could do right in this exact moment.
It was the same back then. I don't remember it exactly, but it was an ordinary day.
There was a car driving erratically, and someone failed to avoid it. I was the only one nearby.
The only person who could help was me, and by my own judgment, I sufficiently could.
So I threw my body forward. I pushed that person out of the way and got hit instead. My leg became crippled.
'I...'
It was the same now.
I felt everyone in need of help through my Spatial Perception.
Among the superhumans caught up in the outbreak, I was the strongest.
Right now, I was the only one who could stand in Aerus's way.
'I have to deny it.'
I could not become the bastard my parents spoke of. I could not become the trash my parents spoke of. I had to prove them wrong.
But if I showed my back and ran away from this place, where I was the only one who could help, the only one capable of doing so...
For the rest of my life, I would never be able to deny it. I would never be able to make excuses for myself.
When someone asked me if I truly felt wronged by my parents' words, I would not be able to answer without a moment's hesitation.
'I can't let that happen.'
Crack! Unable to withstand the force, my teeth split apart as if they were about to shatter.
I threw a punch.
Boom! A rough reverberation rang out. Aerus's massive form was pushed back slightly. The monster that had been bearing down on me widened its two eyes.
Aerus pulled its body back. Perhaps it intended to simply watch, thinking its dying prey was making a final desperate resistance.
My hand trembled faintly. I forcibly jammed my fingers, bent in grotesque directions, back into place and clenched my fist.
My left arm had no strength in it. I grabbed the bone sticking out and twisted it, forcing it back into its socket.
I did not want to die. I hated getting hurt, and I hated being in pain.
But I did not want to run away from here and live the rest of my life in regret. I did not want to live without being able to make excuses.
That was the person I am. Before any goodwill of helping others, I could not retreat even for my own sake.
'I stop it.'
Even if only within my capacity, since I am the only one who can do it... I must do it.
I stop this monster. I will give it my absolute best.
If I survived to see a later day, I had to be able to state with my head held high that I had done my best at that moment.
The thoughts of the person called me.
One of the elements that constitutes and sustains me.
An ideology distinct from others.
A uniqueness that differentiates me from other entities.
Was it because I faced death?
Because I was feeling the sensation of myself disappearing, paradoxically, the entity of 'me' felt vivid and clear.
Boom!
Just then, something resonated loudly inside my body.
Boom!
A violent pulse shook my spirit.
Boom!
The pulse continued.
My dying heart pounded, boom boom.
Along with the heartbeat, my innate talent became realized.
'Ah.'
I only realized it on the verge of death.
A hollow laugh escaped me.
Mana Affinity and All-Rounder.
They were not granted. They were given by no one. I was simply realizing what 'I' had possessed from the very beginning.
Spatial Perception was... indeed granted. In fact, it wasn't just one, but two.
More than anything, I had no idea why these things were with me.
Questions overflowed, but I pushed them back because my life was the priority right now.
After all, the time that had been flowing by slowly was gradually returning to normal.
Craaack. The sound of something cracking echoed through the corridor. It was not the sound of teeth, nor the sound of bones breaking.
Aerus, who had been staring at me, flinched and then lifted its head.
Its gaze turned upward.
The sky was nowhere to be seen.
How could it be, when the ceiling blocked the view?
A sly sneer appeared. It was a sneer directed at myself.
'Because this is reality, not a game.'
Don't treat the world like a game. Think properly, because this is reality.
For me, that very thought was the ceiling obstructing my recognition of my innate talent.
Because it wasn't a game. Because a world without magic or supernatural abilities was the obvious common sense for me.
No matter how much I was in this world now, I was still a human from my original world.
It was a narrow-minded way of thinking that made me blindly assume and believe there could be no unique ability within me, that it couldn't possibly exist.
Crash!
A part of the cracking ceiling collapsed. Debris rained down onto Aerus.
And my Spatial Perception collapsed.
Spatial Perception? That was wrong. This was merely me binding two immense things together arbitrarily, according to my own level.
As what I had called Spatial Perception crumbled, its 'information' disappeared. The map stopped updating. The senses remained, but the map was now crude and inferior compared to a moment ago.
It was no problem at all.
I knew exactly how to restore this map.
Ding!
An alarm sound rang out from beyond my foggy, clouded consciousness.
What could it be? It was strange.
My smartwatch connection had been severed long ago.
* * *
Ding!
[The Player is becoming aware of their Innate Talent.]
[Unique Ability "Mana Affinity" grows.]
[Unique Ability "All-Rounder" grows.]
[Reading the Player's emotions.]
[Player Correction System: Measurement]
...
▶Mental State
"Brink of Death": Standing over death.
"Salvation": Saving those in danger.
"Goodwill": A will belonging to good.
"Sacrifice": Discarding one's own for others or for a purpose.
...
[Conditions partially met.]
[Activating Savior Correction System temporarily.]
[Assisting the Savior.]