Chapter 178: Floor 31: The Final Journey
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 178: Floor 31: The Final Journey
Dimension Cutter extended his sword.
At Ellie's gesture, the sword flipped 180 degrees, reversing its direction.
In the end, only the hilt of the sword struck the steel armor futilely.
Schlick!!!
The blade pierced not Ellie's heart, but Dimension Cutter's, exiting through his back.
But his obsession didn't vanish even with a pierced heart.
A dark energy condensed on the edge of his hand.
Dimension Cutter's power merely utilized a sword; his true ability was spatial severing. His power could manifest from any sharp edge.
"For the Saintess...!"
The edge of Dimension Cutter's hand cut through the armor, pierced Ellie's heart, and emerged from the other side.
Thwump!!
"Ellie!!!"
'Ellie... Dammit!'
Thud...
The two S-rank figures fell to the ground simultaneously.
I rushed over and used Heal.
I stripped off her armor, pulled her out, and used Heal again. Looking haggard, Ellie opened her eyes to slits, blood trickling from her lips.
"Ah... Sis...ter, I'm a villain..."
"Is that what's important right now? Ellie!!"
Dammit, the wound...
Hm?
Huh? There's no blood. She's fine?
'Heal definitely didn't work on the wound, though.'
Dimension Cutter's spatial severing works by fixing coordinates. Once a space is cut, it vanishes somewhere, making even healing impossible. Our bodies operate on the assumption that our organs are still connected and whole.
Looking closer, I saw her heart and the damaged area were covered in black steel. It seemed she had replaced part of her body with it.
"Sister... Don't tell me you thought I was going to die?"
She gave a faint smile, blood still staining the corner of her mouth.
Overcome with relief that she was safe, I just pulled her into a hug.
"I'm sorry, Sister. This is the kind of villain I really was..."
"It's okay... I'm just glad you're safe..."
I held her tighter.
At this point, who cared if she was a villain or not? As long as she was alive, that was all that mattered.
Meanwhile, the heroes and villains were all watching this scene unfold.
They had all stopped fighting, staring at the unbelievable sight before them.
First, they were shocked to see Pink Spear side with the villains. Then, they were even more shocked when she defeated Chroniel, the S-rank Hero of District 1. And now, they were stunned that the S-rank villain Eclipse was a tiny little girl, and not just any girl...
"That girl... wasn't she Pink Spear's sidekick?"
The fact that she had been operating as a hero's sidekick all this time sent another wave of shock through them.
"No way! She was secretly working as a sidekick this whole time?"
"S-So, what happens now?"
"Ah... This city is finished."
The heroes were shocked, but as the reality of the situation sank in, they fell into despair.
With the main hero force of District 1 nearly wiped out, everything now depended on the decision of those two S-rank individuals. And judging by the battle that just took place, it was highly likely they were on the villains' side.
The villains, on the other hand...
"So our leader was a crazy cute girl?"
"A pretty high school girl is the head of our Villain Alliance? Even a light novel would get flamed for a plot like this..."
"Anyway, has our time finally come?"
"Make our crazy cute leader president!"
They were thrilled by Eclipse's true identity.
Of course, their cheers wouldn't last long.
"Sister... I'm sorry. A lot of innocent people died because of me..."
"..."
She was an S-rank villain, and the target of this trial.
I still had one final choice to make.
'But still... I can't do that.'
The Pink Spear who originally owned this body might have rigidly cried "In the name of justice!" and killed Ellie. But I'm not her.
"Let's start atoning for your mistakes from now on, Ellie."
If fewer people died because of that old futa hag in the future than died in the chaos Ellie caused today... Of course, you can't measure human lives with simple arithmetic, but it would at least be a form of atonement.
"And I'll finish this. Turn on the broadcast."
In the distance, the electronic billboards were still displaying files on Ellie.
Seeing that, I could now fully grasp what that bitch had done.
"Y-You should... probably take this before you go."
She handed me Pink Spear's Hero Watch.
"Thanks."
The location: in front of a demolished building.
With Ellie's hacking, every billboard and TV channel in Raven City switched from the looping exposé to a live broadcast showing Pink Spear's face.
'Hoo...'
I straightened my back, stood tall, and looked straight ahead.
Right now, I am the hero of justice, Pink Spear. I will carry out my final mission.
My hair turned pink, and my plain black bodysuit transformed into Pink Spear's hero suit.
"People of Raven City. This is the hero of justice, Pink Spear. The false heroes who held power in this city, who created and preyed upon villains for their own eternal life, are all dead. All the information you have seen is true."
I gave them a rough summary of what I experienced in the underground base. I sanitized the "rape sex" to "torture" and explained that I had no choice but to kill the heroes because they were brainwashed.
The expressions of the villains, who at first thought this was a victory speech, began to change.
"This city will now change. We will eliminate the powers of the remaining villains and heroes, and create a city not ruled by dangerous abilities, but a city for you... the citizens!"
"What, this wasn't supposed to be a city for villains?"
"Pink Spear is the same as she always was."
"Wait... then what happens to us...?"
The villains started to murmur, but I ignored them and continued.
"I will take responsibility for this incident and capture all malicious villains to completely normalize the city."
There was nothing to be done for those who had already become villains, but for Raven City's sake, both heroes and villains had to eventually disappear. Having lived here for almost a month, I guess I'd grown a little attached to this city. I felt like I should provide some after-service before I left.
"With the exception of those who surrender, I will execute all of them!”
Chk!
My targets were the villains who attacked this area.
“Gasp…!”
“I-I surrender!!”
“Lady Eclipse…!”
They looked to Ellie, hoping she might help them, but…
“Cough…! From this moment on, the Villain Alliance is disbanded. Everyone, cooperate quietly.”
“That… bitch!!”
“Kuaaaargh!!”
The villains were divided into those who surrendered and those who didn't. Naturally, all who resisted to the end were killed.
Ellie joined me in taking down the villains, and surprisingly, she was met with cheers from the citizens.
Some people were still skeptical, but they refrained from cursing her out, figuring, 'Eclipse must have had her reasons for doing what she did.'
We suppressed not only the villains in District 1, but all the rampaging villains in Districts 2, 3... all the way to 16.
It wasn't just the villains.
We raided the underground base again, killing or imprisoning all the brainwashed individuals.
After eliminating the villains, with things a bit calmer, we gathered the remaining sane heroes and administrators to form a new council and also block the contaminants. Power Fist from our District 5 was chosen as the strongest A-rank Hero and became the head councilman.
"This guy is the head councilman...?"
"Haha, would you like another training session in the basement?"
"Kuh, f-fine!"
It turned out he'd been running around like a madman catching villains to protect District 5, just like the old me.
The death toll from this mass villain uprising was around 300,000.
The administration was paralyzed, and villains rose up in every district, resulting in an enormous number of casualties.
[Number of Civilian Casualties: 10392]
My reward grade had already dropped a rank anyway, so I decided to just relax and focus my efforts on stabilizing the city.
From now on, the number of new villains born in Raven City would decrease with each passing year.
And since we had dealt with all the hidden villains this time, it should be safe for a while.
The villains' prison would remain underground.
Until a procedure to safely remove their abilities was developed, they would be put to work exploring the giant pit I saw on my way up and developing the underground base.
'But what was that passage, really...'
I suspected it might be related to some old-world aerospace facility, but with no remaining data, I couldn't be sure.
And just like that, a hectic week passed.
*
District 5, Lee Do-hee's house.
'Now... what do I do.'
I opened my status window. It was still the same.
[Defeat the Final Villain.]
The damn system was still telling me to defeat the final villain, even though she had reformed into a good hero(?).
I felt the urge to smash this Tower to pieces all over again.
Why was it forcing such an unreasonable trial on me?
I tried asking the viewers for advice, but all I got was useless sexual harassment, telling me to hurry up and get to the lesbian sex.
[DoheeTunaSoDelicious has donated 50,000 won]
Why not just rub them together? Defeat Ellie's pussy with Do-hee's pussy kekeke
- Fucking psycho lololol
- Just win the pussy fight kek
- Crazy bastard lol
- Just scissor already
- You're the main cause of global warming!
- Like streamer, like viewers...
- This is a true pussy fight!
- A pussy duel lmao
- I agree
- Just give us the AV
- Just stay there and fuck for the rest of your life
“…All of you, go die.”
I closed the chat window and thought.
“Haaah… Is this why some people deliberately don't finish their trials and just live inside the Tower?”
Sometimes, there are people who choose to live not in the Tower's waiting rooms, but inside the other worlds of the trials, intentionally never clearing them.
Some even get married and have children there. I used to think it was insane, but now, I could kind of understand.
Of course, I had no intention of doing that. I had to clear this trial one way or another.
The problem was how…
'Do I really have to kill Ellie in the end?'
While I was pondering this, I got a call from Ellie.
[Trrrrrring~]
“Uh… Oh, Ellie, what's up?”
“Sister… I have something to tell you.”
'What is it...' I could hear the seriousness in Ellie's voice.
I ran over immediately.
The meeting place was an empty lecture hall at the District 5 Association.
'The smell of blood...'
Recognizing the gravity of the situation, I entered on high alert, but...
“Sister~~”
Ellie smiled and threw herself into my arms.
“Aigoo~ Ellie! Nothing's wrong, is it?”
“Hehe… I just called because I missed you!”
Seeing her so full of life, all the worries I had just moments ago vanished. There was a faint smell of blood, but Ellie seemed perfectly fine.
'Is she just on her period? Well, what's wrong with staying here a little longer? I can think about it slowly. For now, let's just enjoy this.”
“Actually, there is a reason I called. Sister, let's go see the sea!!”
“The sea…?”
Ellie's suggestion was a bit random, but it sounded refreshing.
Ellie said it had always been her dream to see the sea in person.
The area outside the city had been under the complete control of the Council and the military, so she had never been, and apparently, no one had ever actually left.
It was difficult to leave because of the contaminants, and besides, the barrier didn't even have a gate.
But she said it was fine, that she had a way.
“You want to cross the barrier in a car?”
“Yes! That's right! I can just lift the car with my powers.”
It sounded crazy, but it also sounded surprisingly fun.
I thought it'd be interesting to explore the ruined world, and I was also looking forward to a trip with just Ellie and me.
*
The next day.
We set off right away without any delay.
Inside the large camper van, we had loaded up plenty of my favorite Pinkuza meat and hastily stuffed in some daily necessities.
Ellie confirmed via satellite images that the roads were still intact, so we should be able to get there by car.
The city's security was already being re-established by the true heroes of justice and the citizens. My and Ellie's strength wasn't needed.
“Let's go, Ellie!!”
We departed from District 16, heading beyond the wall.
The car slowly rose into the air in front of the heroes and citizens who came to see us off.
The official purpose was the exploration of the outer zones.
For the first time in about 150 years, someone was leaving the walls.
Worried about the contaminants?
Just in case, we brought a device from the city that blocks contaminants and installed it in the car.
'Well... we're both S-rank, so it probably wouldn't affect us much, but you never know.'
Our car flew through the sky, over the massive barrier, and out into the world beyond.
“Whoa…!”
I heard it was a ruined world, so I expected nothing but wasteland, but it was the complete opposite.
Countless green trees were visible in the distance.
A beautiful, endless expanse of nature stretched out before us.
“Wait… why is it perfectly fine?”
The air was clear, and the sun shone brilliantly from behind the clouds.
“Hehe, this was another top-secret the Council was hiding~ If the outside world was this beautiful, people would want to leave, right? So they deliberately kept it under complete control and went around saying it was a ruined wasteland. Of course, the areas that used to be big cities are still a bit unsightly, but most places are now home to plants and animals that have adapted to nature~”
Thump...
Our camper van landed softly and drove along the bumpy, but still-existing, road.
“Ooh… but looking at it up close, something's weird…?”
From a distance, they just looked like plants, but up close, many of them were quite bizarre.
"Did plants like that even exist?"
The plants in the city all looked so tame, but the ones out here... they looked like they could eat people.
Some had sharp, blade-like leaves, and there were trees that grew crooked like snakes instead of straight up.
"Cough...! W-Well, seeing things like this, it really hits you that this is a contaminated world."
"Yeah... It might look fine, but it's definitely not normal."
We occasionally encountered large, bizarre animals, but they were no match for us.
At first, it was fun looking at the strange natural scenery, but later on, I think I mostly just slept.
Ellie must have been exhausted from all the work too, because she slept almost the whole time. She must have quit coffee, because I couldn't smell it on her anymore. Instead, there was a faint scent of blood.
'Are periods usually this long?'
I've never had one, so I wouldn't know.
Two days passed like that.
After driving down the bumpy roads, we arrived at the sea.
"Sister, it's the real sea! The sea!!"
It seemed Ellie had fully recovered her energy from all that sleeping.
"Uh... wait, the contaminant shield..."
As if she'd been saving up her strength this whole time, she just dashed out.
"Sister, over here!!"
Ellie waved her hands excitedly, splashing along the shore as if fascinated by the waves.
Seeing her there by the water in her white dress, it looked like a scene from a photoshoot.
"Ew...! It's so salty!"
She tasted the seawater and scrunched up her face, then went for a swim and played in the water.
I changed into the swimsuit I brought.
'Hmm... It's a little small, but this should be fine, right?'
I was originally going to buy a rash guard, but I got death threats from the viewers, so I just got a bikini.
After changing, I immediately pounced on Ellie, who was playing excitedly like a puppy that's found water!
"Ellieeee!!"
"Kyaaaa~ Sister! Blub blub blub!!"
Ellie, sputtering in the water, looked at my chest and got a little flustered.
"Whoa... those, what, why, why are they so big..."
Her shy reaction was so cute that I pulled her into a tight hug between my breasts.
"Heeheehee..."
"Hnng..."
We played freely on the beach, getting attacked by crabs while digging for breathing holes in the sand, and catching strange sea creatures to grill and eat.
'Is this an octopus...?'
I caught a sea creature with a big head and multiple legs and brought it back.
Of course, this world had something similar to ramen.
I boiled it in the ramen, and it was more delicious than I expected.
"Sister, i-is that good?"
Ellie, seeing a sea creature for the first time, looked a little scared, but when I forced a piece into her mouth...
"Oop!! Oh...? This is really good!!"
Her eyes lit up, and she ended up eating all the ones I caught too.
"Hehehe... Let's grill some meat for round two!"
A place where we didn't have to worry about anyone watching. Our own private getaway.
We played so much that before we knew it, the sun was setting.
Ellie was staring blankly at the red sunset.
I hugged her from behind and looked at the same sky.
"Sister..."
Suddenly, Ellie called my name in a somber voice.
She slowly unwrapped my arms and turned around to face me.
Tears were welling up in her eyes.
'Ellie...?'
And then, she said something shocking.
"Sister, I... I'm going to die soon..."