Chapter 131: Nightmare. (END)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 131: Nightmare. (END)
My reaction was delayed by the somewhat shocking sight, and the light of the Holy Sword pierced through my body.
It hurt.
The energy that had surged into me was clashing with the demonic energy inside my body, attempting to erase it without leaving a trace.
However, my mind was so chaotic that the physical pain hardly mattered.
The regret I felt in the dream, and the emotions I felt while looking down at the dead version of him.
These were feelings incredibly similar to what I had felt when I first saw him on the day of the entrance ceremony.
Come to think of it, it made sense.
That day, I had felt an unusually strong urge to help Lilac.
“So-hyun, get a grip…!”
He was shouting at me.
— I believe in you.
Even while looking at me, who was deceiving him, he had walked into the jaws of death, saying he believed in me.
The boundary between memory and reality was blurred, leaving me profoundly confused.
No matter how much of a madman I was, I wasn’t in a state where I could easily keep up an act.
As I stopped resisting, the demonic energy in my body began to wither away instantly.
Normally, I would have laughed and thought, This son of a bitch didn’t even hesitate to shank me!
…Ah, I already thought that.
Lilac, this son of a bitch, didn’t even hesitate to shank me.
My mind was flickering back and forth, much like my eyes, which were oscillating between purple and red.
“Uh…?”
And just before all the demonic energy vanished from my body.
Lee Yu-na, having joined at the worst possible timing, stared at us with a confused sound.
Cheon Yu-hak keeping me in check with his spear, Kang Ha-ni looking ready to cut me down with her sword at any moment, and Lilac, who had pierced my stomach with the light of the Holy Sword.
…Oh, this is a scene that’s incredibly easy to misunderstand, but it’s not what you think. They aren’t brainwashed, Yu-na! I’m the one who’s brainwashed! Wait, am I not!?
Lee Yu-na, who couldn’t possibly know my internal confusion, let out a scream, and her panicked holy spells poured over me.
Fortunately, the worst-case scenarios didn’t happen—like her engaging in “main wife behavior” by deciding to hit me just because Lilac was, or conversely, attacking the others to help me.
However.
For some reason.
The demonic energy remaining in my body began to run wild again upon receiving Lee Yu-na’s spell.
“…!?”
…Uh, but this looks pretty flashy on the outside while being actually fine? I wonder if the kids will believe me if I say I’m sane now?
* * *
Cathy had lived as a hero since she was quite young, ever since being saved by the Chairperson.
Back when she wasn’t as seasoned as she was now, she had encountered many walls and despaired each time.
Her innate talent was the trivial art of martial arts, and even with a trait and repeated training, it wasn’t easy to defeat those born with inherently powerful talents.
But it had been a very long time since she had faced a wall as massive as the one before her today.
The realization that this wasn’t an opponent she could beat by getting emotional caused her head to cool down.
Even when she tried to confuse her with feints, her gaze didn’t flicker; feints didn’t work.
She easily blocked the concise and precise strikes she specialized in, as if she had predicted them.
How long had it been since she was pushed back this much in a one-on-one duel?
[Is that the end?]
Ah, no. It had happened recently.
Back then, it was the masked man.
Was there some law that everyone wearing a mask had to be strong?
“I’m far from finished.”
[Seeing your speech return to normal, it seems you’ve calmed down quite a bit. Yes, that’s how it should be. It’s been so long; we can’t let it end so simply.]
“Whew…!”
She couldn’t give her distance.
The opponent’s weapon was a staff. Hers was martial arts.
While both were striking-based, the difference in reach was overwhelming.
The only saving grace was that the opponent seemed arrogant enough not to initiate the attack. In that case, she didn’t need to hold back.
“Hah…!”
Her kick, bolstered by acceleration, was easily intercepted by the staff, but she hadn’t been aiming for a hit in the first place.
She didn’t even think about retracting the extended staff, maintaining a posture that seemed to dare her to try more.
Until now, she had simply charged in out of anger, but this was a habit she could exploit.
She infused mana into the foot touching the staff to create suction and ran along the length of the weapon.
The opponent quickly spun the staff to throw her off balance, but she was faster, leaping to close the distance.
[You are quite nimble, but I can hardly praise the recklessness of touching an opponent’s weapon.]
She wouldn’t have done this against anyone else.
But against an opponent like her, who wasn’t trying her best and seemed to be testing her, it was a reasonably effective method.
The distance was closed.
She threw a straight punch with absolute conviction.
A strike faithful to the most basic principles.
The posture she was most confident in, straighter than anyone else’s.
She recreated the form, aiming for the strike of that day.
A light enveloped her fist.
[And I never said I was weak at martial arts, did I?]
However, even her desperate, most confident strike was lightly blocked.
[Not bad. But a strike that is merely faithful to the basics cannot oppose a being beyond the wall.]
Her attitude was as if she were delivering a lecture.
No, was she actually intending to teach her?
[Don’t try to do what you can’t; focus on what you’re good at. That will suit you better. Flashy variations and feints for deception. The people those things suit are born with them.]
The opponent clenched her fist.
[Make your strikes more deliberate, more precise. Your movements must be light and fast, but your fists must swing with weight.]
It was a posture similar to her own, yet something was different.
Something beyond the basics seemed to be visible in her fist.
A straight punch.
Something beyond the basics—the answer to what she had yearned for so much was right before her eyes.
An attractive force that felt like her fist was being sucked in, and a sense of helplessness as if a great mountain were approaching.
Yet, seeing that, Cathy forced her fist upward.
She felt that even if her fist shattered, she wanted to experience it directly.
The lunging fists collided, and the impact shook her entire body.
Far from being an equal match, the impact was so great that the mana pathways throughout her body were in shambles.
If this hadn’t been the dream world, she would never have been safe.
[As expected, I like you best out of the bunch. Your personality isn’t crooked, nor are you foolish. Your obsession seems a bit excessive, but that’s at a cute level. I’ll be rooting for you.]
Rooting…? For what? Was she talking about martial arts?
In her battered state, Cathy blankly recalled the impact from a moment ago when her voice reached her ears.
[I mean that you’re a good match for that fellow.]
Cathy, who had been grasping at a glimpse of a new realm, was so startled that she let it slip away.
It was frustrating, but she didn’t feel entirely bad.
* * *
Leaving behind Cathy, who had lost consciousness after being bopped on the head with the Ruyi, Sun Wukong turned in another direction.
What Sun Wukong had said to Cathy was half-sincere.
After connecting with Kang So-hyun through Synchronization, she had looked into the boy’s memories with the intent of teasing him a little. However, after confirming the fragments of memories Kang So-hyun held, she had reached a conclusion.
This fellow needed someone by his side to hold onto him.
She had only read a tiny fraction of the memories. The security was so tight—whoever had set it up—that she had only seen a very small part, but even that was enough to make her reach this conclusion.
He had even resorted to the lie about a “web novel” just to keep his composure.
The boy was the type of person who would drive himself to ruin if no one held him back.
Usually, he was infinitely gentle, but in unacceptable situations, he was the type to break rather than bend.
Above all, he was a person who couldn’t love himself because of his past memories.
He was even held captive by things he couldn’t remember, swayed by the emotions in his memories as if he were under a curse.
To keep such a fellow grounded, rather than telling him to love himself right now, it would be faster to give him something to cherish and obsess over in his stead. It would be even better if the other party felt the same way.
For example, a lover.
So she had tried taking the form of a woman, but whether it was because of their first meeting or because she was an artifact, it didn’t seem very effective. She had to look among those around the boy.
By Sun Wukong’s current standards, the woman named Cathy was the closest to the passing mark.
She was soft yet strong, firm but not harsh.
She was kind and, of course, a beauty.
Since she seemed to like the boy, there were no emotional issues, and with a little help, she showed potential to reach a higher realm.
Most of all, she liked that she had overcome her own trauma and matured mentally.
Well, if her strong obsession was her only flaw, it could actually serve as a strength in preventing the boy from throwing his life away.
She saw a few other decent candidates, but well, there was no rule saying he could only have one lover.
[So, why aren’t you coming in?]
On the other hand, the woman currently at the end of her gaze was the worst.
She had expected a bit more since she was the boy’s sister, but the combination was a total mess.
What the boy needed was someone who would stop him and block him when he tried to drink poison, not someone who would drink it with him and crumble together.
To be honest, Sun Wukong didn’t like the woman named Kang Na-hyun very much.
“…Because I’ll only be a hindrance to Unnie.”
[You know your place well. Then let me ask the opposite: why are you taking a stance only now?]
“Now that Unnie has fallen, I have to save that boy.”
Those were truly admirable words.
If they were all sincere, that is.
[How can you look at a living person and think of the dead?]
In fact, if one only looked at the scale of obsession, this one was no less than Cathy. However, in Sun Wukong’s eyes, the obsessions of the two women were of entirely different lineages.
The fact that the root emotion was affection, and that both had once thought of the dead upon seeing him—they had many similarities, but the two were different in a decisive way.
One had overcome and moved forward, while the other was still hesitating.
With delusion in her own heart, she had almost no expectation that she could become someone’s support.
[You are disqualified.]
“…Who do you think you are?”
[I wonder. At the very least, I can be considered closer to that fellow than you are.]
The moment Sun Wukong slowly picked up the Ruyi.
Her attention was snatched away by a sudden storm of demonic energy mixed with holy power.
“…?”
Why is that fellow acting like that again?
He seemed to be finishing his act quite successfully; did something not sit right with him?
[Well, it’s him, so I’m sure he’ll handle it fine on his own.]
“So-hyun…!”
Looking at her again, Sun Wukong saw that she seemed genuinely worried, yet her eyes were still full of delusion and hesitation. It was truly a strange thing.
…Should I give her a chance?
* * *
First, I identified the cause of the rampage.
I didn’t expect to experience this firsthand.
Well, as in many novels, holy power and demonic energy in this world clash and have properties that repel each other.
However, it’s stated that if certain special conditions are met, one can instead wield the immense power resulting from that repulsion.
Since possessing both holy and demonic power simultaneously isn’t easy, it’s a very special case, but coincidentally, there are two characters here who meet the conditions.
One is Lilac, who has protagonist buffs, and the other is Lee Yu-na.
Lilac hasn’t appeared in the original work yet and only exists in the settings, so I’ll skip him. In Lee Yu-na’s case, she’s a half-demon by birth, but thanks to her father, she’s a special half-demon born with holy power at the same time.
Most of her demonic characteristics are sealed, except for her eyes and talent, but the important point is that a tiny bit of demonic energy is dissolved in her innate holy power.
Normally, it’s such a weak amount of demonic energy that it wouldn’t even be noticed, but the situation changed when it entered through my wound.
The holy power, which was accustomed to demonic energy and didn’t repel it, met the residual demonic energy left in my body and awakened as “Holy-Demonic Energy” in the truest sense.
Well, since the demonic energy isn’t my original power, it’ll be a temporary phenomenon, but the problem was that it was currently too conspicuous.
No, but Yu-na, thanks a lot.
I was so dizzy just a moment ago that I couldn’t even act, but thanks to this shock therapy, I’ve come to my senses.
Now, let’s organize the situation.
First, through a series of coincidences, I’ve temporarily taken into my body the Holy-Demonic Energy, which was the power Lilac was supposed to use in his final form.
Thanks to that, I’m currently floating in the air in a very sparkly state.
Since Holy-Demonic Energy is different from regular demonic energy and is a power Lilac is destined to wield, it was described as having a very divine yet sacrilegious feel.
Because of that, once the storm of demonic energy subsided, the kids didn’t seem to be able to clearly judge what state I was in.
First, let’s open my mouth.
Since my tongue has always come up with answers before my brain, maybe it’ll take care of itself this time too.
“You finally made it come to this.”
…This actually works?
Thanks to my “Acting” trait, which made my performance even more natural, my words flowed without a hitch, and no one doubted me.
“Though I yield this time and relinquish control of this body, it won’t be like this next time.”
Because there won’t be a next time, you bastards. If there isn’t one, it won’t be like this.
“I will not disappear. I will watch for an opportunity from within him forever.”
The kids were looking this way with grave expressions.
Don’t worry, there won’t be any more “Demonic Energy Erosion Kang So-hyun.” The masked villain is already more than enough to handle.
Fortunately, my prediction that it was temporary was correct; my body slowly descended as the energy began to fade.
Now, let’s slowly close my eyes.
Right, I’m losing consciousness from overexertion. By the time I wake up, everything will be over.
Just as I thought that.
— Touch of the Devil has completed contracts with 106 remaining Lesser Succubi, 35 Intermediate Succubi, and 3 Superior Succubi.
— Through the contracts, authority over the Dream World has been delegated to you.
A voice that hindered my escape echoed in my head.