Chapter 23
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 23
Chapter Title: I Have to Save Them
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I have to save them.
About fifteen minutes before the incident unfolded.
Upon crawling back from the brink of death, Ian took one look at the chaos outside and his first thought was,
Ah, we're fucked.
His second thought was of the humans still slumbering in the banquet hall.
Nobles, no less.
If any upper-class humans went missing or died inside the Britna estate, it would be a disaster.
And if even one of them snapped awake from the faint ripple of mana—sensitive as nobles were—thanks to some freak accident, it was game over.
He couldn't let them leave alive, so at the very least, he'd need to silence them completely or find some other way.
...If things escalated that far, even Rachel wouldn't be able to do a damn thing.
Halfway to the heart of the banquet hall,
the demons that had fled into the mansion blocked his path.
"...Damn it all."
It took a hefty toll on his stamina to deal with those gorilla-like musclebound freaks using his remaining magic tools and formulas.
The dizzying haze of excessive blood loss hit him the moment he woke up, and every crash from outside urged his feet faster.
The more time passed, the more demons swarmed in.
What the hell was going on out there that even these demons were fleeing in terror?
Just two lowly ones had left him in tatters.
His mana overload had ruptured his core—maybe not permanently, but deploying unfamiliar magic formulas nonstop, let alone drawing on Rachel's traits, would surely cause lasting damage.
His body was riddled with holes of all sorts, barely suppressing the bleeding by dodging vital organs.
His vision shook like he was hypnotized, cold blood trickling from his forehead as his body chilled.
A state where he'd be bedridden without mana. His fraying sanity, jolted awake only by sharp neural sparks, was nearing its limit.
"Hah,"
Main Episode Progressing
[The demon sealed beneath the family estate senses a presence and revives.]
📍 Objective: Protect Rachel - and Yuria.
⏰ Time Limit: None
❓ Failure: ...???
🎁 Reward: Condensed Life x1
I knew it.
In the original story, this bastard revived pretty late, but it did come back eventually.
But right now, too many variables were stacking up.
Rachel, who sealed it, would be the top target.
The demon began writhing beneath the grand mansion's foundation in the form of a small dragon.
Yuria's massive mana surge might have accelerated its awakening by dozens of times—no way to rule that out.
Gritting his teeth, Ian knew he had to find Rachel fast.
The banquet hall's center was crumbling.
His pre-set magic tools could handle debris, maybe, but not a direct demon hit.
At least scatter their attention, sow some chaos.
......
The earth trembled from Yuria's mana.
From the rubble of the shaking mansion emerged none other than Ian.
"...Rachel?"
As he crawled out spewing blood nonstop, his eyes met Rachel's startled gaze.
"I...an? No, don't call me by name... Wait. Wh-what...? How...? You...?"
Rachel, confronted by his form, looked utterly shaken, like she'd seen something she shouldn't have.
And no wonder—despite unleashing her full power, the demons had been far stronger than expected.
She'd believed Ian's death was certain because of Yuria.
The emptiness and futility of failing to save him in the end.
Add in her past traumas, and it made sense why she sat alone amid the rubble, staring blankly into space.
Had his sudden appearance triggered her?
Rachel was renowned for her cool composure, after all.
Was she on the verge of breaking?
"..."
Rachel's mana quivered violently.
Having cloaked herself in demonic energy for that brutal brawl, she hadn't fully purged it yet.
That meant she'd fought with everything she had. For him.
Demonic taint on her body meant nothing; she moved only to slaughter the enemy. Yet her old killer-machine edge was gone.
Ian knew that feeling of being backed to the cliff's edge all too well.
He'd felt it in his old world once.
That powerless helplessness.
A woman battling with world-ending fury right before his eyes.
Feeling pathetic and small was inevitable.
Just seeing Rachel's trembling gaze fixed on him since he called her name told him how dire it was.
"You're... a fake."
Unable to accept reality, Rachel drew her sword from its sheath beside her.
She probably had no mana left even for frost arts.
One step toward her, and she retreated one, wary.
"Sh-shatter...!!! What have you... done with my... son's skin?"
"Calm down, Mother."
"Shut that mouth. Don't toy with my heart anymore. I've had a pretty good idea who that voice echoing in my mind has been all this time."
"No, that's not—"
-Slash!
A deep gash marked the floor right at his toes.
A clear warning: come any closer, and she'd cut him down.
She was hypersensitive to emotions now.
Couldn't even judge the situation properly anymore.
[Target Rachel is expressing hostility toward you!!!!]
[Get away from there immediately.]
See? Even the quest was telling him that.
Rachel wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone right now.
Mood? The situation was downright awful.
With demonic energy clinging to her, her fate was sealed to die slowly.
First things first: calm her down, or nothing else could happen.
"...Rachel, please lower your sword for a moment."
"Don't make me say it twice."
She still aimed her blade at him, radiating hostility.
One step over the line etched in the floor.
She froze.
"...Kuh."
Biting her lip, Rachel took another step back.
"D-don't... come any closer."
Even the hand gripping her sword was trembling now.
Her face betrayed a storm of emotions.
-Rumble!
A rising clamor.
The ground quivered faintly.
The sword slash.
The floor where Rachel stood cleaved apart, ending at the edge of the ruined mansion section.
As if the line drawn on paper made it slice even easier.
Rachel's eyes widened as she plummeted from the mansion's brink.
Without mana to spare, she was as fragile as any ordinary woman.
And ordinary women didn't survive falls from this height.
Without hesitation, Ian bolted forward.
....
In his fading consciousness,
he saw his pitch-black reflection.
Beyond his narrowing tunnel vision, like a dark tunnel, came a desperate voice calling him.
-...Ra-chel!! M-moth...
Then, rough hands shook his shoulders, and he slowly opened his eyes.
A warm mana aura enveloped him, tingling against his skin.
"...I-Ian?"
No mistaking it for anyone else's mana.
Realizing that, Rachel's eyes flew wide.
As she came to from her demonic stupor, her gaze locked with Ian's earnest one.
"Really... really, is this... you, Ian...?"
Feeling him truly alive, Rachel's eyes shook.
Sorrow, pain, remorse.
Memories of her past sins against him flooded her mind.
She yearned to cling to him and beg forgiveness.
"Here, sob. How...? More importantly, don't... hold me now. Can't you read the situation?!"
She slapped away his hand veering toward a dangerous spot.
But he ignored it, reaching again.
"Pardon me for a moment, there's definitely..."
"Stop! Ian, please don't... sob, ahh..."
He ripped open her uniform at the chest, extracting one magic tool from within.
Something the size of a fingernail.
A potion.
One he'd painstakingly siphoned bit by bit from the stash in Rachel's room, mixing it to look real.
His daily visits were partly to pilfer it gradually.
That explained why potions never worked 100% on him.
He poured half over his head and handed the rest to Rachel.
"Hurry, drink it. It's dangerous if you don't right now."
"N-no. I don't deserve..."
"Rachel, snap out of it."
"...You, shut that mouth. Are you really trying to—"
Smooch.
A brief press of lips.
Rachel's eyes widened in shock at first, then melted into bliss as she swallowed.
The affection system couldn't be defied, it seemed.
Good thing this trick worked reliably.
It restored her mana output. And let his body move somewhat normally.
But one variable Ian hadn't accounted for in his plan:
Yuria.
Who had witnessed the whole scene.
"..........Huh."
Their eyes met midair, and Ian's body froze stiff.
A feast of blood.
The phrase fit perfectly.
Eyes filling the sky densely.
A waterfall of falling corpses and blood.
Demons tearing each other apart in pandemonium.
The hellish sight was far worse than glimpsed from the window.
...That's the final boss?
And what made it worse:
The bridge of demon corpses.
A woman with crimson eyes approaching slowly, flanked by hordes of minions.
No—a maid.
The problem was her ripping apart what looked like a mid-tier demon and heading straight for him.
Her ferocious mana unleashed a scream-like killing intent that cowed the surrounding demons.
Even his legs were buckling; no way demons weren't terrified.
Yuria was nearly upon him now.
Wondering if she'd lost her reason, he ventured,
"...Yuria?"
Blink. Her eyes widened, and she halted.
A reaction meant his survival odds weren't zero.
Then she rambled, barely furrowing her brow.
"Ra-chel, stay here a moment...."
Oh, shit. Slipped out.
The moment "Ra-chel" hit Yuria's ears, the icy glare returned.
"..."
"You are a fake."
Why are you calling me fake too?
"I was lonely. Hurt. How could you do this to me?"
"..."
"I single-handedly subdued five hundred that woman couldn't. So... I deserve a better reward, don't I? Right?"
He swallowed his terror and replied.
"...Y-yeah?"
"Right? Don't you have something to say to me?"
Lies.
Yuria was lying.
Her lips twitched like she was ecstatic.
Her eyes screamed future retribution; delay the answer, and she'd seize his leg, drain him dry here and now.
"Not even about bolstering my forces with these underlings... or announcing me as your wife at the banquet. Or, well... anyway, not hearing you'd take me as your wife."
""...."""
Rachel, watching from behind, tilted her head.
-Ian? What does that mean? Marriage...?
Her anxious voice tugged at his heart.
Caught between scorching stares from front and back, Ian's words jammed in his throat.
This was shrimp backs exploding in a whale fight, plain and simple.
But with Yuria's noose tightening by the second, he could only nod desperately.
"...Master?"
"Y-yeah. We definitely made that promise. When for the ceremony...? I'd prefer just the two of us."
"I want to officially announce our relationship... but if that's your wish, Master, no helping it."
A smile like it was painted, but behind it lurked a honed blade.
"..."
"Master. It seems we need to create a 'bond' between us. Come here, quickly. You can't go off alone again. Surely you don't plan to make this young vampire a widow. Oh, and you watching from behind—the family head proxy—I'll bear you the finest heir, so just sit tight."
...Bond?
Widow?
Yuria's face beamed with utter happiness as she spouted those mind-numbing words.
[Final Boss (Yuria)'s Affection Status has changed!!!!]
[Ascended to 'Love' stage. You are now bound by eternal chains.]
[You can never escape Yuria's grasp! Congratulations!! You've bound yourself to the world's most beautiful woman. Shall we make heirs now?]
What heirs, you crazy bastard.
The notifications and status windows were on the verge of going haywire.
What... do I do now...?
With the heart of a pig dragged to slaughter,
as she giggled and hauled him away by the leg, he reached for Rachel.
But Rachel turned away.
Meaning, deal with it nicely.
Tomorrow, he might not even wake up.
The nobles in the hall? Could pass it off as demon kills, somehow. But that'd make Rachel's life hell.
Still, he'd... survived.
It worked... sort of, fuck.
Yuria clung to his neck, refusing to let go.
Monsters below.
Why me only?
Ignoring the dragon manifesting at the banquet center, Yuria closed her eyes softly, cradled in his arms, and suckled blood from his nape.
Fresh blood regenerated by potion.
"Slurp... ahh... haa... mmm, so good... heuk..."
Her flushed cheeks and thrilled crimson eyes said it all about her ecstasy.
He owned up to his share of blame for wrecking the mansion with blood and mana...
But seriously.
I'm dying.
I'm gonna die.
For real.
-Grrrrowl.
Before Ian's eyes soared the fully revived dragon.
Two of them.