Chapter 251
Chapter 251
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 251
Chapter Title: Meek, and Do Not Get Angry #2
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I could tell exactly where Elfride was heading without needing anyone to tell me.
The flames shooting up into the dark night sky made it obvious where she was and how she was moving.
The screams of people following in her fiery wake, along with the firefighters and guards rushing around dumping buckets of water, were practically guiding me right to her.
"Fire brigade—suppress those flames! Put out the fire! Blast it with magic!"
"Damn it, this isn't ordinary fire. It's ignited by mana!"
"It's spreading toward the city center! We have to stop it at all costs!"
Shwaaa—
A water cannon blasting from the tip of a staff. To summon that much water out of thin air—those water mages had clearly reached a respectable level of mastery.
Thanks to their efforts, the raging flames were starting to get one by one under control.
As expected of the east gate district where the wealthy lived, it seemed well-equipped with infrastructure and countermeasures.
If this had been the west gate slums with their ramshackle wooden shacks pressed together, by the time the guards and fire brigade arrived, everything would've already burned to the ground.
Luna's workshop would've gone up in flames too, and we'd all be out on the streets.
The thought made my head spin. Or maybe it was just all the toxic smoke I'd inhaled.
The important thing was that Elfride seemed to be heading toward the city center.
Why the city center?
As I'd mentioned several times before, the city center housed all sorts of vital city functions—government offices, temples handling religious services and guild affairs, that sort of thing.
If Elfride, rampaging around setting everything ablaze in her rage, was making for the city center, her goal was probably to burn the whole place down and paralyze the city entirely.
The city center burning because of Elfride?
Ugh, shit. I couldn't even imagine the grilling I'd get.
Worry, agitation, and a jumble of other emotions made my gut and legs feel like they were floating weightlessly.
"More water here—"
"Evacuate everyone—"
"Lord Jupiter—"
The flames blazing in the night sky and people's voices all blurred together, stripping away my sense of reality. Running through it all, I felt like a straggler who'd stumbled into one of Van Gogh's paintings.
I just kept running, running as hard as I could.
By the time I finally reached the city center, I barely caught a glimpse of Elfride's back.
She was sprinting at full speed just like me, but her clothes and slippers were mostly burned away, leaving her looking like some kind of vagrant.
Fwoosh, fwoosh.
Every time she took a quick step, flames erupted from her footprints.
Leaving fire instead of footprints. I'd never known Elfride had such a powerful technique until today. And honestly, I wasn't thrilled to learn it.
Chasing right after her, I was dying from those flames.
On an already sweltering summer night with fire everywhere, sweat—whether from tension or heat—was pouring down my forehead like rain, stinging my eyes.
"Hey, Elfride! Stop! Fuck, just stop!"
"..."
At my shout, her shoulders seemed to tremble slightly—or maybe it was my imagination. In any case, she didn't stop, barreling straight into the wide grounds of a familiar structure.
It was the Temple of Venus.
Elfride charging into the temple with her body ablaze.
Was she planning to burn it down?
I couldn't think of anything more blasphemous or horrific in this world than destroying a temple.
If Elfride wrecked the Temple of Venus, things would spiral into utter chaos. I had to stop her.
"Ugh—!"
I pushed my legs to their absolute limit. But for some reason, the distance between us wouldn't close.
If anything, it was growing. Wasn't her body creaking earlier? Had the World Tree's brand restored her condition?
Were those flames at her feet acting like boosters?
I had no idea.
In the end, unable to catch her, all I could do was watch as she set the Temple of Venus's gardens ablaze.
Fwoosh, crackle, pop—
The park in the Temple of Venus grounds—where Luna and I often went on dates, with its grass, flowers, and little critters—was devoured by the parched inferno, scattering embers everywhere.
Amid the thick black smoke blotting out the sky, Elfride even leaped into the man-made pond.
Sizzle—
Just when I thought that would extinguish her flames, the pond itself spewed massive clouds of steam and evaporated in a flash.
I rushed close to the pond and yelled.
"Hey! Stop! Put out the fire already! You really gonna burn everything down? Fine, I'll say I lost the bet! Just stop! Fuck, if this keeps up, it's all over!"
"..."
Only then did Elfride turn to look at me. Her red eyes gleamed like burning rubies, but ironically, they weren't filled with rage—they were streaming with tears.
"Won't stop—everything'll burn—everything—get out while you can—"
Fwoooosh.
Her body erupted in flames like it'd been doused in kerosene, her form vanishing entirely. A sharp scream pierced through from beyond—I found that a bit odd.
Was Elfride trying to burn herself too?
On second thought, maybe she couldn't control the flames at all.
Maybe her magic or mana had gone berserk, driving her to this temple—a sanctuary of the continent—for some reason.
Crackle, crackle—
But the growing pillar of fire obscured her completely, spreading in width and height with enough power to destroy everything. I stopped thinking.
Whatever the case, I had to stop her.
But how?
Unless I was a stuntman coated in special fireproofing, I had no way to approach Elfride while she was burning hot enough to evaporate a pond.
"Meteor!"
Just in case, I chucked some nearby rocks into the flames, but they vaporized before even getting close to the fire pillar.
Rocks evaporating in the blaze. I'd figured it wasn't normal fire, but this was crossing a line.
Fuck, if I got near that, I'd be literally hot stuff—cooked alive.
What the hell do I do?
Swoosh.
As I hesitated, I sensed a presence behind me. Turning, I saw a man standing there, arms crossed, staring coldly at the flames.
He was a head shorter than me. His slender, lithe frame was draped in a gray robe, giving off the vibe of a needle honed to lethal sharpness—not scrawny, but exquisitely trained to the limit.
His name was probably Daltor the Lightning Flash.
Daltor spoke.
"The flames of destruction are raging out of control. At this rate, no one can stop it. This city is finished."
"What?"
The city finished?
I thought about this city, Sodomora. My first impression had been a filthy, crude, noisy hellhole—totally alienating.
But after causing all sorts of trouble here and meeting so many people, I'd grown oddly fond of its chaotic mess.
I'd built my own shack.
Put up a fence, tended the yard garden.
The idea of it all turning to black ash pissed me off.
"What the hell are you doing? You'll burn to death, you barbarian."
He clicked his tongue at the sight of me striding toward the flames.
But I couldn't just sit there watching the city burn—I caught my breath and pressed forward.
Fwoosh.
The flames lashing at my face were brutal.
My skin and organs beneath felt like they were searing.
But surprisingly, it wasn't unbearable. Sure, I tired easily in heat, but I'd never actually gotten sick from it.
As the son of a bathhouse owner, I was used to scalding hot tubs and hellish steam.
I might wilt in the heat, but my skin's resistance to high temperatures could rival those restaurant aunties grabbing hot rice bowls barehanded.
Sliiiide.
Proving it, my outstretched hand parted the flames as it advanced.
"What? Enduring the flames of destruction...? Never seen anything like it. Withstanding the Twilight Conflagration—what the—"
"Shut up for a sec. I'm right in the zone here."
My lungs stung, my leather clothes clung to my skin like glue. The center of that fire pillar had to be incomparably hotter. Even I might not survive it.
"Nox—"
『Cannot use "Night Armor" due to surroundings being too bright.』
"Damn it."
No good.
Hoo—
But it wasn't hopeless.
"Huuu—"
I regulated my breathing through my parched throat and mouth.
The heat flooding in felt vividly alive as it coursed through my body to my fingertips and toes.
The external heat made every part of my body—spread out into the world—feel sharper, more defined.
Ironically, in this hellish inferno, I was acutely aware of my very existence.
Throb, throb.
What invaded my body wasn't the deadly heat or the eye-stinging smoke, but a strange pain in my gut.
A sensation I'd grown familiar with through repeated meditations.
"Hoo—"
It merged with the incoming heat from my breaths, accelerating the blood flow through my veins.
"She's gathering qi amid those flames. Strengthening her body with stamina to endure the heat? Impossible. No one can regulate their breathing in that."
From behind, Daltor spouted impossibly negative commentary.
"Even that won't hold against the heat. Don't go further. Your soul will vanish, barbarian."
Step.
I took a step.
My vision went black. Probably couldn't take the relentless heat. But I didn't stop—one more step.
Step—
Then, all sound cut out. Maybe my ears gave out from the heat, or my consciousness sank inward.
Deprived of sight and sound, my awareness plunged deeper into myself.
Like a salmon soaking in a river of flames, swimming upstream.
That was me now.
Salmon swim upriver.
I was facing the blasting heat head-on, swimming against it.
It was just a hunch, but if I overcame this, I'd emerge as a newer, stronger version of myself.
Did salmon feel this too?
Is that why they challenge the impossible current?
Of course, salmon challenge the impossible for simple reasons.
They mate, spawn new life, sacrificing their bodies. No grand enlightenment or truths for them.
Just spreading their kind, perpetuating life.
And that's why it's the most vital thing.
The most basic, simple things are always the most important.
Life begets life, burns itself out in cycles to sustain the world. That's the purest instinct and law.
No higher truth or rule exists.
Death and newborn sprouts—parallel lines that never meet—touch, forming the world, driving evolution to better beings.
Life is evolution.
Unable to bear the heat, my mind wove unrelated thoughts into a tangled mess.
Disconnected ideas forcibly linked, ironically refreshing my head like a splash of soda.
Strange new sensations—energy boiling from my gut through my body—felt wondrous, yet irrelevant right now.
Truth was, I was just taking steps to say one thing.
Forget the fancy rhetoric.
To say one thing to Elfride, I swept my hand through the scorching flames.
But my hand only sliced empty air. In this sightless, soundless inferno, she was out of reach.
Probably just one step away.
One step ahead.
Yet no matter how I strained, that final step wouldn't come. Elfride was beyond this wall of heat.
I didn't know much, but that much I knew for sure.
So, hoping she'd hear, I spoke. My hand might not reach, but maybe my voice would—
—This might be our last moment together.
"Elfride—"
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