The Evil God of Darkness (10)
Divinity began to spread through the vessels of my heart, flooding out into every corner of my body.
Organs that had been knocked out of place slid back where they belonged, and the wounded flesh knitted itself whole.
Broken bones fused back together, reclaiming their old, unyielding strength.
Torn, bruised muscles returned to their proper shapes and bound themselves tight again.
Of course, rapid healing wasn't all sunshine and rainbows.
When things that were meant to happen naturally are forced through all at once, the mind drowns in the agony of it.
Whether I simply couldn't bear the pain or not, my consciousness dipped under and resurfaced — and by the time it did, my body had already been restored to wholeness.
Along with every last one of those foul sensations I'd forgotten while terror had swallowed me up.
Even with my eyes shut, I have to come face to face with corpses? Isn't that just a little too much?
I let out a long breath, opened my eyes, and ignored the corpse's face as I took stock of my body.
Thanks to keeping a death grip on it even while I was being beaten senseless, Ankir was still standing guard at my side.
Ruel's Mace seemed to have flown off somewhere, but that was fine.
As long as the mace belonged to me, it had no choice but to answer my call.
I spread my right hand open, and before long, Grandpa's voice arrived at my ear.
<Are you alright?! Are you back with me?!>
A hoarse, strained voice, thick with tears.
He must have been screaming my name for dear life ever since I'd lost my grip on the mace.
Grandpa. Was I really that much of a worry to you?
'Grandfather.'
<Oho! Thank the heavens! Truly, thank the heavens!>
The moment I answered, Grandpa erupted into a full-blown fuss.
<How is your body?! Think you can move?!>
'Yes. I can move just fine.'
My body, blessed with the Mercy of Armadi, had recovered almost perfectly.
True, using every last drop of divinity to mend myself meant I had next to none to spare at the moment — but that wasn't a real problem.
As long as I kept enough left to light Ankir's glow, I could fight Nakrad.
I rose to my feet, listening to footsteps approaching from somewhere far off.
<Just now — the way you were ambushed without a whisper. Has even your hearing been stolen from you?>
'No, it hasn't.'
My hearing, preserved by Ankir's power, was still working at full capacity.
I had no idea what trick Nakrad had pulled, but he was simply concealing his own sounds.
<Concealing his sounds?!>
'Yes.'
<...Damn it all. There's no fighting a battle when your senses have been stripped away! Fall back, for now.>
'It's fine, Grandfather.'
<What do you mean, it's fine!>
'I've done something like this before.'
Granted, that was back when this was still just a game.
But I had a feeling I could recreate those memories here, right now.
A few months ago, facing Nakrad, I hadn't been able to do a single thing — I'd crawled along the ground like a worm.
That was the gap that existed between that monster and me.
Even now, a clear difference remains between Nakrad and me.
No matter how steeply I've grown these past few months, how could there be no gap between me — unable to use my divinity — and that pervert, who'd been tormenting me without spending so much as a mote of his own power?
But that difference is nothing like the one from that night in the academy's back alley.
Not the gulf between an ant to be crushed dead underfoot and a human — just the difference between a child and an adult, overpowered but not annihilated.
It's no small difference, mind you. But for me —
for this rotten-water veteran —
this much of a gap is enough.
As long as I'm allowed to struggle, that's plenty.
'So just watch me. Trust me and watch.'
<You have confidence in this?>
'Yes. Of course.'
<Then... very well.>
I pushed Grandpa's reluctant voice to the back of my mind and rose fully to my feet.
The moment I did, the footsteps stopped — and the trash began spewing his disgusting noise.
"Struggling, are we? If you had the strength for that, you'd have been better off biting off your own tongue."
"Then why didn't YOU bite yours off?♡ If it's a choice between living as a panting pervert who torments little girls, or dying and standing guard beside your disgusting shut-in master — seems like an easy pick to me?♡"
With every word out of my mouth, exhilaration flooded the place where terror had once lived.
The swelling rush inside me was saying one thing, loud and clear.
The monster in front of you is losing his mind.
"Ha. Ramble all you like. The more you enrage me, the sweeter the pleasure will be, come the day your four limbs scream for mercy."
"Wow~♡ The mind of a freak pervert hand-picked by a musty shut-in really is on another level♡ You're so gross I wouldn't even know where to start copying you♡"
That rush swelled even bigger this time, so he definitely took it personally — yet no rebuttal came back.
And the reason was obvious. He'd shut his mouth because he had no confidence in winning a war of words.
What a petty little rat. Later, when he thinks he's got the upper hand, he'll be chattering away like an excited kid — guaranteed.
"What's wrong?♡ Why so quiet?♡ And here I could've sworn I heard that disgusting voice of yours just a second ago?♡"
I kept my lips moving without pause as I reached out with my senses.
Back when I was ambushed — even in that instant when my hearing itself had been neutralized — the Iron Wall had still done its job.
It had cried out danger to me, just as it always did.
I'd simply failed to keep up with it.
So this time, from the very start, I listen to nothing but the Iron Wall's voice.
I ignore every trivial thing and follow only what the Iron Wall tells me.
'Front.'
As I moved my body to obey the Iron Wall's command, it hit me all over again just how wrecked my body had been until moments ago.
Oh. So this is how lightly my body can actually move.
Haha. No wonder I couldn't keep up with the warnings before — I got smashed to pieces.
With a hollow laugh, I threw my shield up — and the impact came the instant it rose.
This wasn't the shock of taking a physical blow.
This was the impact of magic.
'Front again.'
The moment I made that call, the Iron Wall cried danger once more, and I moved the shield.
And again the massive shock rolled through me.
Nakrad, you filthy bastard.
So instead of closing in and creating variables, you'd rather subdue me safely from a distance.
Yeah. I knew you'd do this.
From a petty, cowardly piece of trash like you? Of course I knew.
"Big, spindly scaredy-cat twig♡ You're scared, aren't you?♡ Ran away because you were afraid of getting caught if you came close?♡"
After the skeleton dismantled my in-game knowledge, I did a lot of hard thinking.
It meant I could no longer blindly trust the countless boss counters stored in my head.
"Puhaha♡ Well, I guess a scaredy-cat twig who's also a pathetic, weak-ass punching bag would run♡"
But the more I thought about it, the more one truth came into focus: my counters had been right the vast majority of the time.
As long as the enemy wasn't aware of my counter — as long as they weren't moving while factoring it in — my knowledge held true.
"One light tap and you'd snap in half, so what else can you do~♡ Run away, all filthy and pathetic♡"
And this tendency only grew stronger the less reason the enemy had.
The more rage boiled over and drowned out sound judgment, the truer my knowledge became.
And from that, an idea bloomed in my head.
If I could just blow their reason away entirely, I could move exactly by rotten-water veteran's knowledge — couldn't I?
"I get it~♡ A chuuni twig is the type to run away whether his lover lives or dies♡ Compared to that, fleeing from a little girl barely even counts♡"
Mid-sentence, the Iron Wall urgently cried danger.
Faster than thought, I threw up the shield, and the impact crashed home.
"Did that hit a nerve?♡ Me mentioning the person YOU threw away?♡"
The Iron Wall's warnings came without pause, impacts chasing right behind them against the far side of my shield.
Each blow was anything but light, but I stood my ground and kept talking.
"Puhaha♡ Should've been screaming like that when your lover was dying, huh?♡ Ah♡ Wait, was it this?♡ The monster attacking your lover looked scary, and I just looked like a total nobody?♡"
"..."
"Petty, cowardly little rat♡ Trash who abandoned the woman he loved to save his own skin♡"
"I DID NOT ABANDON HER!"
KWAAAANG!
Along with Nakrad's near-scream, a shock beyond anything before it slammed into my shield.
It felt like a shell had detonated right in front of it.
With no hope of even attempting a parry, I had to bear the full brunt — I clenched my teeth and locked down a body threatening to go flying.
"I did not abandon hereeeee!"
Welp. Looks like objective number one is complete.
Time to move on to objective number two.
Verifying my hypothesis.
I need to confirm whether Nakrad moves according to his patterns.
Gritting my teeth, I hold back his onslaught.
And with every attack he unleashes, I carve it into my memory.
My eyes are still full of nothing but corpses' faces.
My nose catches nothing but the stench of blood.
My skin crawls with the sensation of insects skittering across it.
The only thing reaching my ears is the sound of Nakrad shrieking.
The only things I have to read my opponent's attacks are the Iron Wall's voice and the pain transmitted through my shield.
But to dismantle Nakrad's patterns, that's more than enough.
Stripped of reason.
Stripped of thought.
Nakrad, attacking on pure instinct like a maddened beast —
was no different from the mid-boss Nakrad who appeared in the game.
After this pattern comes the AoE, right?
Wait half a second, then roll right, twice.
"Guess a chuuni twig's eyesight is worse than a girl who can't even see?♡ Why are you swinging at empty air, huh?♡"
"SILENCE!"
Next comes one of two things.
Either a teleport ambush, or a stream of mana bolts from long range.
His voice sounds far away, so the latter, apparently.
One step back.
Then two steps forward.
Then a sidestep — and sprint straight ahead.
"Ah~♡ Is it your age?♡ Must be!♡ Back in your youth your eyes were good enough to watch your lover's face as she died, weren't they?♡"
"SHUT UP AND DIIIIIE!"
With every pattern I dismantled, the source of Nakrad's voice drew closer.
If even a sliver of judgment remained in him, he would have realized he needed to widen the distance.
But he has no room for that.
Driven out of his mind resisting a mesugaki's voice as it digs into his deepest trauma, all he can think about is stuffing my mouth shut.
And thanks to that, I can keep pushing forward.
"Can't you see me?♡ And here I'm such a cute, pretty little girl?♡"
Denying him even a moment to think with an unbroken chain of provocation.
"Or do you only like ugly girls?♡ Is that it?♡"
"You insectile piece of trash!"
One step. One more step.
Slowly, steadily closing in on Nakrad, I —
"Ahh~♡ Ohh, I see~♡ Then you'd have no trouble looking at the face of the lover you've never been able to forget~♡"
— finally reached the point where his voice came from right in front of my nose.
"STOP!"
His pattern at point-blank range?
Bursting Tariki's dark energy to blast the player back and interrupt them.
The counter?
Drive back the darkness with Ankir's divinity, and —
"STOOOOP!"
— charge forward.
"I told you to shut that MOUTH!"
I drive the mace straight into Nakrad's face.
CRUNCH!
The fleeting sense that the mace had just crushed something to pieces flashed through my mind —
then a ragged, wet sound burrowed into my ears,
and moments later came the wretched noise of a human body tumbling hopelessly across the floor.