8. Curse Plague (26)
8. Curse Plague (26)
A gouge dozens of meters long scarred the earth in the direction Wonderstein had thrown his punch.
Dust churned along its length like smoke from a blast furnace.
At the far end of that line lay a rocky hill that hadn't been there moments before. The spot had originally been a cliff face rising along the slope of the hill. A single impact had pulverized it into a heap of rubble.
How many cannon shots would it take to produce that result?
Ella had seen it with her own eyes and still couldn't believe it was the consequence of one man's fist.
It drove something home. The threat that he could end her mentor and her friends back home whenever he felt like it—that had never been an empty boast.
The most rattled person present, however, was the one who'd taken the hit: Reaper himself.
Pinned under a mound of boulders, he took stock of his body. Mercifully, nothing was seriously damaged—just a few broken bones.
The black wings on his back had shielded him the instant before impact.
"What human could possibly wield this kind of power..."
He gestured at the air. The rocks pressing down on him floated upward.
Throwing aside the shattered cliff, he emerged to face the man in black who was walking toward him. By outward appearances, the man was indistinguishable from any other human.
Reaper would not make the mistake of dismissing him again. The force he'd just demonstrated meant his body could no longer be called human at all.
Wonderstein noted that Reaper's Scythe was not in his hands. He couldn't say why, but the reaper was currently unable to use it.
That made this the right moment to finish him. Wonderstein held the advantage in raw physical ability, but once the scythe came back into play, the fight could swing unpredictably.
There was a more pressing reason to end this quickly: the power he was drawing on was not permanent. The tea Yurakne had brewed for him had boosted his stats for one hour.
Right now, all three of his basic ability scores were doubled. "Doubled" sounded deceptively simple—to raise them through standard point investment would require over ten thousand Devoluts.
It was a staggering inflation of his capabilities. The conditions for unlocking Yurakne's Affection level 15 reward had been a headache, but the potency of the reward itself was undeniable.
"Kyaaak!"
Reaper charged him again. The shriek was far more desperate than the one from only minutes before.
Wonderstein kicked off the ground and met him head-on. The enhanced musculature boosted not just striking power but speed as well.
-Muscle Strength: 6.0 (+6.0 Yurakne's Devotion) (Tiger on Cereal → T-Rex Down a Glacier)
The modifier that flashed across his Status Window brought to mind a domestic film he'd watched as a child.
The protagonist was a tyrannosaurus implanted with psychic powers by aliens. When it awoke from a glacier and rampaged through downtown Seoul, the government deployed a brigade of gorillas—secretly bred and put through military training—to fight it.
Slipping inside Reaper's guard, he recalled the creature's signature move and thrust his fingers forward. Ho-ee.
Crunch. The muscle of Reaper's thigh tore away like a sheet of paper caught on his fingertips.
This time, Reaper didn't panic. Instead, he bared his teeth in a grin.
The exposed thigh was bait he'd deliberately left open. His plan was to offer the leg, trap the opponent's arm, then strike with his claws.
Whatever method the man had used to amplify his strength, he was still a living creature. Reaper's claws could shear through steel—once they found their mark, even he would bleed.
The talons carved into Wonderstein's back. A clean hit.
Just as Reaper was about to let his laughter burst free— Crack. The sound of something snapping.
Reaper's eyes bulged. The noise had come from his own body.
Something he could scarcely accept had just happened.
His claws—the pride of his species—had snapped clean off.
Wonderstein grinned at the sight. Tough luck, being just tough enough.
-Tissue Hardness: 6.0 (+6.0 Yurakne's Devotion) (Bulletproof Glass → Diamond-Plated Armored Vehicle)
Reaper could not process what he had just witnessed. His claws, unable to penetrate human skin? He wanted to deny it, but the stinging shock radiating through his knuckle joints insisted it was real. The man's skin was harder than his talons.
"I cannot... believe it... What in the..."
Reaper scrambled backward. Wonderstein aimed an insufferable smile at him.
"Fufu. If you intend to scratch my back, you'll need something a little sturdier."
The mockery didn't even anger Reaper anymore. The man wasn't bluffing. He wasn't using tricks. He was simply strong enough to back up his arrogance.
Just as something like a sense of defeat began coiling up from the pit of his stomach, Reaper felt a signal racing along his spine.
Far across the ground lay his weapon. Reaper's Scythe. It had been freed from Demon God Kairal's curse.
Ordinary physical force couldn't wound that man. But what about Reaper's Scythe?
Infuse it with magic, and it could sever any material. Even dragon bone.
Reaper launched himself toward his weapon. Wonderstein gave chase.
Reaper was faster. No matter how much his strength had been enhanced, the fundamental structure of Wonderstein's musculature remained human. The explosive spring of a beast's hind legs gave Reaper the edge.
He snatched up the scythe and immediately poured magic into it. A deep vibration thrummed through the shaft.
He swung it at the oncoming Wonderstein.
Slash. It bit.
Reaper's eyes curved into twin crescents. His scythe had sheared through that monster of a man's arm.
"Kirrr. How does it feel, being cut by Reaper's Scythe?"
Wonderstein stumbled from the impact. He'd already known about the scythe's offensive properties.
In the game, the description "unblockable attack" translated to "fixed damage" that ignored defense stats. Here, it meant an attack that was genuinely impossible to defend against.
But damage itself wasn't his primary concern. An arm—he could regenerate that as many times as he liked, as long as he supplied the Devoluts. In fact, right now, he didn't even need to.
-Cell Regeneration: 6.0 (+6.0 Yurakne's Devotion) (Weed Patch After Rain → Bean Sprouts on a High-Speed Camera)
From the severed stump, bone shot up like a bamboo shoot. Muscle fibers tangled and knitted together like pulled noodles as his arm began to regrow.
Ella and Reaper stared at the spectacle, spellbound. In under a minute, the arm he had lost was perfectly restored.
When she'd first laid eyes on the two exorcists, Ella had allowed herself a fleeting thought: What if she asked them to defeat Wonderstein for her?
She understood now how foolish that impulse had been.
While his arm regrew, Wonderstein stood in place, staring vacantly into space. His lips still held their smile, but a look of something like loss had crept into his eyes.
"Reaper." His smile turned hollow. "Thanks to you, I've lost a few things."
He read the message that had appeared on his Status Window and let out a sigh. The instant Reaper's Scythe had cut him, part of what he'd accumulated had been erased.
[As payment for being cut by Reaper's Scythe, experience points are deducted before memories. {Do not show again (X)}]
[Devolut -180]
Most of his remaining Devoluts were gone. The moment the blade had connected, a squirm of unpleasant memories had stirred in his chest—and then vanished the instant the Devoluts drained away.
Reaper's Scythe, it seemed, really did sow melancholy and steal happiness, just as the game lore described. But because he operated under the system's power, he could pay the toll in experience points instead. That it was such grim news meant the scythe's intended effect had still managed to land, in its own small way.
"Kikiki! It's working!"
Reaper saw the change in Wonderstein's demeanor, heard the shift in his voice, and felt relief. The man's monstrous regenerative ability had been alarming, but his attacks were not meaningless after all. The severing worked. The memory absorption worked.
"Kirrr! Let's keep going, then!"
Reaper threw himself back into the fray with renewed glee. They traded blows several more times.
In the process, Reaper identified his opponent's weakness. The man had almost no combat experience. His movements were technically flawless, but his timing and his reactions often left openings.
At first, Reaper had suspected it was a ruse, but after watching him flounder through several more cuts from the scythe, it was unmistakable.
Wonderstein was aware of it himself. Before coming here, he had invested Devoluts into a Skillbook to register "Hand-to-Hand Combat." That was what allowed him to execute techniques with perfection.
But fighting existed in a different domain from technique.
It was the same in real-world combat sports. No professional boxer failed to throw a perfect one-two on the mitts. Even low-ranked fighters routinely displayed uncanny head movement during pad work. The moment they stepped into the ring, however, all of it became a contest of split-second decision-making. No matter how flawless one's technique was, the inability to distinguish a feint from a real strike, or a heartbeat of hesitation spent calculating the next move, decided every exchange.
And those few hits Wonderstein allowed had led to the worst possible outcome.
[As payment for being cut by Reaper's Scythe, experience points are deducted before memories. {Do not show again (X)}]
[Cell Regeneration: 6.0 → 5.0]
Most of his Devoluts had been stripped away. His maximum capacity had been halved. "Palm Mouth" was gone.
Now his basic ability scores themselves were starting to take damage.
Reaper noticed.
"Kirrr! What's the matter? Your regeneration has slowed considerably. Are your reserves running dry?"
He had no idea that his scythe was chipping away at Wonderstein's stats. The very fact that he sensed things like a target's Affection level or a circus troupe's Fame showed that the system operated on a level beyond the comprehension of this world's inhabitants.
The fight, which had raged for over half an hour, settled into a brief lull. Wonderstein and Reaper caught their breath, watching each other.
"You mean to beat me without letting me land a single blow? You've surely had several opportunities. You're softer-hearted than I expected."
Wonderstein couldn't refute Reaper's taunt. If he'd been willing to take a hit from the scythe, he would have had openings to counterattack.
But that meant trading bone for flesh. To preserve his overall strength, he'd had to prioritize evasion—and those missed opportunities had been the price.
To Reaper, it could only look laughable. The man appeared to be nothing more than someone who was terrified of what the scythe could do.
Well, it happened from time to time. Even among heroes, there were those whose spirits were fragile compared to their innate power.
"Are they that precious to you?"
"I can't let everything I've struggled for months to accumulate be erased for nothing."
"They must be very dear indeed. But that reluctance is what will seal your death."
Even Ella, watching their duel from a distance, could hear the exchange.
Struggled for months to accumulate...
...precious things.
She clenched her fists. Her nails bit into her palms.