Chapter 221: Residents of a Ruined World (End)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 221: Residents of a Ruined World (End)
And quite out of the blue, at the absolute worst possible timing, Siegfried regained consciousness.
“Gah.”
Or, to be more precise, he was forced awake by the sheer impact crashing into him.
The moment Death—unable to pay the price for using power beyond its limits—retreated, Siegfried regained control of his body. However, this also meant that the physical backlash Death had been absorbing hit him all at once.
The former Hero, possessing a mind that never lost its cool regardless of the situation, analyzed his predicament in an instant despite the soul-shattering pain and reached a calm conclusion.
Ah, I’m screwed.
If he had been in control from the start, he might have at least tried to mitigate the damage. But thanks to that idiot who had stubbornly resisted with brute force before fleeing, his posture was a complete mess.
Actually, forget posture; judging by how his limbs were bent in all the wrong directions, he probably couldn’t even move properly.
He slowly closed his eyes and accepted the future that was about to arrive.
A storm laden with flames, a torrent of platinum mana, and the essence of swordsmanship forged since ancient times to hunt aberrations.
All of it became a lethal weapon, hacking away at the body of the Hero who could not die.
…Wait? Platinum mana? Did she get her body back?
Amidst the onslaught of violence, that thought flickered through a corner of the Hero’s mind.
* * *
It was unfair.
The entity that had been a god—now unable to pay the price—vented its resentment as it felt its qualifications slipping away entirely.
Yet there was nothing it could do. At most, it could only struggle to keep its remaining power from vanishing by hiding inside its contractor.
But even that was a futile resistance; it could no longer maintain its Authority.
At this rate, it would slowly lose its power until it was eventually demoted, ultimately forgetting even what it originally was.
It hated that.
It had been so close to grasping it. It could have reclaimed its qualifications. If that black-haired boy was here, it could have tried one more time in this world.
But no matter how resentful it felt, the result would not change.
It had been defeated, and there was nothing left for the loser to do.
Yes.
— Child, take my hand.
Unless, of course, someone reached out.
“It,” which had been holding its breath and waiting for this exact moment, intervened in the incident once again.
Death turned its gaze toward the voice.
If it touched that, “itself” would disappear.
It would become a mere fragment of something massive, slowly melting away until it lost everything and became a part of that being.
Yet, Death reached out.
To it, becoming a part of a Great Being was far more valuable than falling into a degraded existence.
Accepting the offer that its contractor had ignored through sheer willpower, it chose the path of becoming one with the voice.
* * *
Park A-ram, who had been scattering platinum light, noticed something was going wrong.
The dungeon’s mana was returning to her faster than she could absorb it. Normally, she wouldn’t have thought that was a problem.
“Oh, seriously. Stop bullshitting me. I thought it was finally over…”
That was, until Siegfried—who had been taking a one-sided beating and couldn’t even steady his body—spat out a curse.
[Insufficient mana to maintain the dungeon.]
“Huh? What do you mean? How much could I have possibly drained?”
Of course, since it was artificially created, its mana capacity would be lower than a natural dungeon, but for it to collapse this quickly meant someone other than her was siphoning the dungeon’s mana—or perhaps the core itself.
Or maybe both.
“Aha. I don’t know who you are, but if you’re going to bolt, leave my mana and Zeke behind.”
She hurriedly tried to change the target of her Energy Drain, but Siegfried’s body was already turning transparent, in the middle of a teleportation.
However, to the Platinum Witch who had reclaimed her true self, a teleportation formula was something she could easily dismantle. She reached out to seize him.
“I haven’t finished hitting him yet! Where do you think you’re taking him…!”
[The Authority of the Creator temporarily cuts off your mana.]
“Wh-what?”
She stood there in shock as her mana was repelled by something she couldn’t quite hear, forced to watch as he vanished.
[Dungeon collapse is accelerating.]
“No, how is this even fair…!?”
Amidst the crumbling space, she poured magic toward her exhausted friend, but it didn’t seem to mean much.
* * *
And I, too, had to make a choice at this moment.
Should I use the Authority of the Creator residing in my heart to catch Siegfried, or should I focus on safely rescuing the people from the dungeon collapse?
…Well, I say “choice,” but the answer was already decided.
Even if it was an artificial dungeon, as long as it was connected to the Otherworld, getting caught in its collapse would lead to a very bad end.
Lately, the Authority has been sulking and hasn’t been listening to me, but in the end, it’ll react to anything involving my life.
The entity inside my heart, reading my thoughts and acting out as if to say “no,” gripped my heart tightly. But when I threatened it with, ‘Oh? Then I guess I’ll just die here?’ it flinched in shock and lent me its strength.
Seriously, it’s the spitting image of its original owner.
As I used the Authority to hold the collapsing dungeon together, a door leading back to the original world appeared—perhaps because the dungeon master had vanished, and it was treated as a “clear.”
Is that a relief? If I had to open the door myself, I probably would have overexerted myself and collapsed again.
As everyone hurriedly escaped, I briefly glanced toward the spot where Siegfried had disappeared.
It felt as if someone foolish was watching us from there.
“Hey! Get out here, quick!”
“So-hyun, hurry!”
Well, I couldn’t look for long.
It would be troublesome if they misunderstood and thought I was stuck because I ran out of strength while trying to keep the place together.
“I’m coming now.”
It was a slightly bittersweet ending that couldn’t be called perfect, but I decided to find meaning in the fact that I finally resolved an incident without overdoing it and without collapsing.
At least this time, I wouldn’t have caused my precious people any worry.
Immediately after escaping the dungeon with that soft-hearted thought, I realized something.
This time, it might have been better to just overdo it and collapse.
If I had just passed out, I wouldn’t have had to face this situation.
— Did you really think nothing would happen after you caused such a scene?
There was Ha-ni’s father, glaring at me with an incredibly intense aura for some reason.
And the Platinum Witch, whose expression was quite complex but clearly showed she was furious.
Then there was my sister, whose face was full of worry but whose soul seemed to have left her body in a state of enlightenment.
And Professor Cathy and Ha-ni, both glaring at me with strangely suspicious eyes.
“Daddy!”
Everyone except for our little Spirit, who came running toward me with a beaming smile, was pressuring me.
…Should I have just fought Siegfried harder and passed out?
The first person to grab me while I was trying to escape reality was someone I was meeting for the first time.
His momentum was so fierce that the others actually stepped aside to give him his turn.
“You.”
His voice was so cold it gave me the illusion of a blade pressed against my throat.
“Can I hear exactly what kind of relationship you have with my daugh… child?”
“That is… Father.”
“Who is your ‘Father’? When have I ever seen you before?”
…Well, then what am I supposed to call you? “Mister” would be even weirder.
* * *
In truth, Kang Ho-in had already mostly calmed down, as if his initial excitement had been a lie.
High-ranking superhumans had a habit of calming down quickly whether they wanted to or not, and he was no exception.
In the first place, no matter how big of a mess she had made, it hadn’t even been a year since he was separated from his daughter. Having a granddaughter that age was impossible no matter how he thought about it.
Furthermore, the heterogenous energy felt from that girl was proof enough that she wasn’t human.
She had likely come to perceive this boy as her father and his daughter as her mother for some reason.
Then why was he acting so prickly toward the boy in front of him?
There were several reasons.
Just before he arrived, he saw his daughter using the swordsmanship he had told her never to use unless her life was in danger—all for this kid’s sake.
The way his daughter looked at this boy was strangely soft, not cold like when she looked at other men.
And despite that, there were far too many gazes of romantic interest directed at this kid from the surrounding women.
If he had to list the reasons, they would be endless, but there was a decisive reason that made all of those trivial.
“Then, what should I call you?”
“Think of it yourself. Do I have to tell you even that?”
It was because he wanted to test the power he had felt from him in the dungeon, even if it was barely detectable now.
Perhaps, just perhaps, the person he had been searching for—using the excuse of finding a successor to inherit his swordsmanship—was right here.
The thought that a boy who might be able to protect his daughter in his stead might be standing before him made him want to test him.
Of course, if he turned out to be some mediocre nobody who relied on his face to seduce women without having any actual ability, he would cut him down without hesitation.
After appearing to agonize over it for a long time, the boy opened his mouth.
“…Then, Father-in-law?”
…Is this kid insane?
* * *
Ah, I said it, but that was a pretty crazy answer.
Regardless of my relationship with Ha-ni, she’s currently dressed as a boy, so calling him “Father-in-law” at this stage is a bit weird.
Except for Ha-ni and her father, everyone else around us had expressions that said, ‘What kind of nonsense is he talking about?’
Ah, only Professor Cathy was looking at me with a suspicious expression.
“Watch your tongue. Don’t say things you can’t take responsibility for.”
My “Father-in-law” ramped up his pressure.
The bloodlust emitted by a seasoned swordsman was certainly very threatening, but unfortunately, I wasn’t so unskilled that I couldn’t recognize a bluff that lacked true killing intent.
Before my regression, receiving bloodlust far worse than this was a daily occurrence, so I could easily distinguish whether it was sincere or not.
Perhaps displeased that my expression didn’t change, his aura became even more ferocious.
“No matter how I look at it, it doesn’t seem like you can protect my daughter.”
Ah, he’s been making slips of the tongue since earlier, and he finally did it again. He must be agitated.
Not just Ha-ni, but even the professors looked surprised.
Look at Ha-ni, she’s struggling to make excuses to the professors.
Actually, up until this point, I was having peaceful thoughts like, ‘How should I persuade him?’ or ‘Does he really dislike me that much?’
However.
“I’m planning to take my daughter with me. Do you have a problem with that?”
The moment I heard those words, my mind went blank.
Take her? Ha-ni? Where? Ah, to the house where the family is?
“Just look at this incident. I don’t understand why my daughter, who is still a cadet, is in such a dangerous dungeon. It’s only natural that I can’t trust those Association bastards or the Academy, isn’t it?”
He said something else, but honestly, I couldn’t hear him well.
Is he trying to take something precious away from me ‘again,’ as if it naturally belongs to him?
Inside my white-washed mind, the murky emotions hidden deep in my chest began to leak out.
They soon hardened into my expression.
Before I knew it, I was staring at him.
“…What’s with that look?”
I don’t know what kind of face I’m making right now.
But I knew exactly what I had to say, because I had regretted it to death in the past.
“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.”
I suppressed the urge to snap with the last of my reason, but in the end, I couldn’t hold back the words that wanted to come out.
“Because she’s mine now.”
“…What?”
Oh, he looks truly angry now.
But so what?
I warned you. I tried my best to let go. But she crawled into my arms of her own accord.
So now, she’s mine.
I’m not letting go.
I will never yield.
“I said she’s mine now, so I have no intention of letting her go.”
This moment.
It might be recorded as the worst first meeting with a father-in-law in history.
But this is how I truly feel, so what can I do?
Gazes from the surroundings poured over me as if I were a madman in many senses of the word.
“Hic.”
But Ha-ni, whose face was flushed red, didn’t seem to hate it, so isn’t that all that matters?