Chapter 142
Chapter 142
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 142
Chapter Title: Experience Points
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Whoosh!
A streak of light slashed through the air in a straight line.
A momentary flash, followed by the beast's body splitting precisely in half.
"Hoo..."
Klaus let out a short breath and flicked the blood from his sword tip.
Splash!
Fresh blood splattered onto the rotten branch.
With his sword sheathed, Klaus looked down at the bisected beast.
"Something's off..."
Klaus's eyes slowly narrowed.
The beast's face... its pupils frozen in death.
None of it fit the flow of the battle.
The charging beast hadn't worn the face of a starving predator eyeing its prey.
Instead...
"It was a face trying to flee."
The face of hunted prey.
Beasts moved on instinct.
No strategies involved.
Fear triggered the body first.
And this bisected beast... it had clearly been thrashing in escape.
"Something's here?"
Klaus scanned his surroundings.
The Great Forest still breathed its humid sighs.
But... the wind had shifted slightly, and the leaves were trembling.
"......"
Not just the wind...
A reaction to something's presence.
A presence that terrified the Great Forest's beasts into fleeing.
A beast stronger than beasts.
An absolute hierarchy divided by 'color'.
"Red..."
White above gray.
Blue above gray.
And...
Above that, red.
A red beast with even deeper, murkier malice.
"This is bad."
Klaus scanned his surroundings once more.
And spotted an even bigger problem.
—Kieeeek—!!
"Really bad."
Flutter flutter.
High above his head, a massive winged beast circled with frenzied eyes, flapping its wings wildly.
"How do I catch that thing...?"
It was too high.
Out of reach for a sword swing.
Climbing the trees was impossible too.
The trees were too far apart; leaping midway would mean plummeting if attacked.
"If only I could use magic right now..."
Unfortunately, Klaus was hopeless with magic.
He didn't know the first thing about 'ma', his mana control was a mess, and his spars with Erwin always ended with a blow to the back of his head.
"How did Charlotte do it...?"
Klaus racked his brain.
Their daily spars.
He dug through those memories again and again.
But...
"Hmm, no clue."
Even when he wanted to watch, he'd black out the instant he blinked.
No way he'd remember.
"Magic..."
Klaus let out a long breath.
Deep in his chest.
The power pulsing from his heart.
He carefully drew up his mana.
"Magic... magic."
The power rose from his heart, flowed through his veins to his arms, seeped into his fingertips.
And finally... to the sword.
"Here goes."
Whoosh—!!
Klaus swung his sword on pure instinct.
No mana control, no finesse.
Just the intent: 'Cut that winged monster.'
And yet—
—!!!!
The beast shrieking and flapping its wings...
Was cleaved in half in an instant.
Thud.
The severed halves fell limply to the ground.
Without any resistance.
"Oh."
He looked at his sword... not a drop of blood on the blade.
Klaus tapped the blade with his fingers.
"It works."
Klaus glanced back and forth between the beast's corpse and the clean blade, muttering calmly.
"This is magic."
***
"...Cough."
Drip drip.
The sound of red liquid hitting the ground echoed in his ears.
Head bowed, I clutched my chest with one hand.
Chest ripping apart in pain, breath ragged and oppressive.
Tinnitus crashing like waves in my ears.
I inhaled slowly... very slowly.
And then—
✦━━━━━━━━━━━━✦
【Bloodfall Return to Bloom】
Spilled blood reverts to life, blooming into flowers once more.
: Absorbs shed blood to restore stamina.
The blood's circulation rejects death, and life blooms anew.
✦━━━━━━━━━━━━✦
It seeped in.
Blood droplets pooled on the ground flowed backward, defying providence.
Ignoring gravity, they reversed course and absorbed back into me.
The chest-tearing pain vanished, my frantic heart regained its rhythm bit by bit.
Once the wave-like tinnitus subsided, I raised my head again.
"......"
The surroundings were a wreck.
The spot where the singularity had opened and closed.
The ground was cratered, severed stems and dead trees twisted like they'd been mauled by beasts.
Even a meteor strike wouldn't have left it this messy.
'......Ha.'
I let out a sigh laced with self-mockery inside.
Unique magic, when I couldn't even handle advanced spells.
It was absurd.
Advanced magic was a miracle atop the tower of spells one had built, layered with life and conviction.
Magic completed only after constructing one's world and placing oneself atop it.
Unique magic went further.
It required pouring one's entire being into it to become a miracle.
Self-awareness, values, philosophy.
One's existence translated into the language of magic.
'Contradictory.'
The corner of my mouth twisted on its own.
It felt like proof that I was a being adrift in emptiness, touching nothing.
So was I... ultimately useless?
A worthless existence with no place in this world?
'......'
Self-loathing surged suddenly.
No reason for it, yet it seeped in naturally, like it had long dwelled deep in my chest.
...Something was wrong.
Clearly, something... was off.
—Whoosh!
The moment suspicion hit, I instinctively slashed behind me.
【Leviathan】's blade and 【Void Dragon】's blade tore through empty air.
And then...
—Kiiiiiik!?
The grotesque shrieking beast crumbled to dust and vanished.
'Fucking hell.'
Doubt Wraiths.
They planted 'doubt' in people's minds, slowly gnawing it away until they devoured the flesh at its end.
They struck perfectly at moments of psychological vulnerability.
And the problem... was that wasn't their only trait.
—Ki-gik?
—Kiiiiiik...
Doubt Wraiths crawled out from the shadows one by one.
Even their sound was repulsive.
Like nails scraping a chalkboard.
—Ki-giiiiik...!!
And before I knew it...
My entire field of vision filled with the frenzied eyes of Doubt Wraiths.
A hundred?
...No.
More than that.
'What the fuck.'
Doubt Wraiths multiplied exponentially based on their target's mental state.
Honestly, it pissed me off.
No matter how pathetic I was, a mental strength of 32 was pretty high.
Enough to shrug off most mental attacks without flinching.
So what was this?
Why were beasts multiplying in the hundreds right in front of me?
—Ki-gik.
—Kik?
They cackled.
As if reading my expression or heart behind the mask, smirking in certainty that I was 'despairing'.
'......'
That instant...
A spark of fighting spirit ignited in my heart.
...Despairing?
'No.'
I wasn't despairing.
I had no room for such cringe-worthy nonsense to begin with.
If anything, the ones who should despair... were the Doubt Wraiths.
Swoosh—
I wrapped mana thread around 【Void Dragon】's hilt.
The translucent thread flowed along the dagger's surface before snapping off to the ground with a 'plink.'
I gripped 【Leviathan】 tight, feeling its weight in my hand.
And...
'...Heh.'
Strangely, a smile bloomed on my lips.
Laughing in this situation felt ridiculous even to me, but...
I laughed.
'Experience points.'
What stood before me weren't beasts.
Just resources to level up.
Numbers to boost my stats, even a little.
Stepping stones to make me stronger right now.
'...Wish there were more.'
A hundred...
That was almost welcome.
Processing them all at once meant better efficiency.
—Kik...?
The Doubt Wraiths froze in unison.
As if sensing something off.
Did they see my expression behind the mask?
Hear my breathing?
Or...
Realize I wasn't despairing?
Their madness-filled tiny pupils... shook all at once.
—......Ki?
Bewildered, as if unable to comprehend.
Confused that their prey... didn't seem like prey at all.
And—
That confusion soon turned to terror.
—Ki-gik?!
Doubt Wraiths, when terrified, devoured each other's fear.
Stealing emotions, chewing them, tearing them.
In that process—
—Kiik!
—Kk?!!
Their numbers exploded exponentially.
Feeding on each other's fear to multiply, the new ones feeding on more fear to breed, that breeding summoning more fear...
Endless proliferation.
Fodder for my achievements swelling wildly before my eyes.
—!!!!
Sharp claws trampled and crushed each other's backs as they charged me.
Crushing, tearing one another, the horde lunged solely toward the 'prey.'
True to creatures that multiplied on fear, even death was food to them.
—Kiaaaak!!
One trampled a fallen comrade to leap forward, emotions spilling from a half-torn head absorbed by nearby ones, birthing yet more Doubt Wraiths.
Multiplication. Dissolution. Predation. Screams.
All tangled in an instant into a wave.
But...
Amid it all, I felt not a shred, not a moment of fear.
No, rather—
'...It's been a while.'
The sensation of being alive.
Not baseless confidence that I'd never die...
But realization that there was no reason to die here and now.
Not madness, not arrogance.
Just... certainty.
A certainty spreading like current from toe to scalp.
Crackle—
I raised 【Leviathan】.
An abyss bloomed from my fingertips.
Violet waves rippled in the air, devouring the surroundings.
At the same time, the shadow of a dragon swimming through empty space.
【Void Dragon】 traced a circle around me.
—Kiaaaak—!
The Doubt Wraiths wailed.
They couldn't understand.
Why their prey was smiling.
Flutter—!!
Why no fear.
Why— emotions wouldn't stick.
Those beasts would never find the answer.
And... they were far too late to comprehend it.
Just like me.
It was always too late to grasp contradictions.
***
"The weather's not great."
World Tree.
A colossal tree piercing the heavens stood tall.
"Hmm..."
Caden sat on the roof of a large mansion built deep within, gazing at the World Tree before him.
Feeling the blowing wind, savoring the tale, when—
"Hey."
"Ah, Veronica. You're quite late."
A shadow loomed.
Veronica folded her massive wings sprouting from her back and stood beside Caden.
"Smells like shit."
"Seems one of the beasts is on the move."
"So."
"Well... Veronica? What if it hurts the students you dote on?"
Caden shrugged, and Veronica scoffed.
"Wanna bet?"
"A bet... Can you handle it?"
"Oh, this punk?"
Whoosh—
Wind blew in, and Caden lightly cupped his hand to swirl it.
Two small figures formed from the wind.
"Here's the deal. If all the students reach the depths safely, Veronica wins."
Caden held up high a doll resembling Veronica.
Fierce eyes, even the expression was uncannily similar.
"If even one student fails to reach safely... I win."
In his other hand, a doll resembling Caden floated up.
Ashen hair, sly grin—eerily spot-on.
"Winner flicks the loser's forehead."
"Fine. Get ready to die."
"Brace yourself, Veronica. I don't go easy on kids."
"I'm a bit young, yeah."
"Of course, I mean kid-sized."
Veronica raised her hand, face unchanging.
And...
"Yeah, fuck off."
Her middle finger shot straight at Caden.