Chapter 364
Chapter 364
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 364
Chapter Title: I Caught You
-----------------------------------------------------------------
She felt it.
The tower she had been tirelessly building had finally reached completion.
She had found the answer. Now it was time to put it into action. Blood trickled from Raniel's nose. Burst blood vessels turned her eyes a deep crimson.
...
Spells were interferences in the world's natural order, forged through transactions with the stars.
Raniel decided to skip the process entirely. No deals with the stars. She wove her spell on the logic of twisting the laws on her own whim first, then paying the price later.
Of course, it wouldn't be that simple.
No human brain could handle the computations involved. Yet Raniel's limit-transcending computational power made it possible. She immediately tapped into supercomputation—the hallmark ability of a mage superhuman.
Compute. Interpret. Execute.
Bypassing any transaction with the stars, Raniel interfered directly with the natural order. The moment she reached out, no mana rose to meet her. Upon the rules etched into the world, Raniel's circuit added a single stroke.
The spell she wove became the new rule. The new natural order.
Smite.
It happened in an instant.
A pure white beam of light tore through space, manifesting as if it had always been there. The beam collided head-on with Kyle's sword.
Kaaaaang!
Space itself warped.
Cracking sounds echoed as the surrounding area began to fracture. The beam tore apart against Kyle's sword, yet it still managed to cancel out his strike. It was a law the Reverse Heaven Sword could have cleaved through—but Kyle no longer had the strength to wield it.
For the first time, the blade Kyle swung was repelled.
Raniel didn't miss the opening.
She lunged forward, thrusting her hand straight toward Kyle's heart. Her fingers closed around it.
The one circuit she had kept hidden.
The circuit crafted by the Goddess of Ashes, etched into Raniel's palm, made contact with Kyle's heart. She flashed a smile at Kyle, his eyes wide in shock.
"You don't need it anymore."
Keeeeeen!
"Take it back, you damn bastard."
A handful of starlight—only as much as her soul could bear.
Leaving just that behind, Raniel poured every last drop of her starlight into the circuit.
Flash.
Starlight overflowed.
"I've agonized over this for so long." "Wondering if there was another ending. If I could talk with Kyle again. If there was a way to turn Kyle back into a human." She had agonized, she said. Over and over.
The Goddess of Ashes, who had spent thirteen years drowning in regret, gave a bitter smile as she traced something into the empty air.
"I've been searching endlessly." She laughed through her tears.
"And now, at last, I've found the answer." It wasn't an answer she had found alone, she declared. Countless variables had aligned, reshaping the future to reveal it.
"Don't end up like me." What she had completed was a circuit. Handing it to me, the Goddess of Ashes pleaded.
"Don't become a god." "Don't thirst for starlight." "Power accomplishes nothing. Gods are hollow shells. Never deny the path you've walked. That's why..." Recalling her words.
"Give it back." "You don't need it." I reached out.
"Don't become like me. Live your own life." I reached out and gripped Kyle's heart.
In that moment, the circuit etched into my palm flashed fiercely. From the circuit that devoured all but a handful of starlight, light rippled outward like waves.
Brilliant platinum radiance blazed.
Starlight seeped into the hole in Kyle's heart. The shadow rooted there writhed against the influx. Like purging a foreign invader from its body, claw-like hands erupted madly from Kyle's heart.
Crunch. Crackle.
The surging claws seized my arm. They raked my flesh, shrieking in my ears. Ignoring the screams ringing in my head, I gripped harder.
'Think I'm letting go?'
No chance in hell.
Go ahead, claw away. Break my fingers if you can. Even if my skin shreds to the bone, I won't release it.
How many crises had I overcome to reach this point? How much suffering? I'd brushed death dozens of times—at least. Times I'd truly nearly died. I'd clawed my way through hellish straits again and again to get here.
So I couldn't let go.
'This is the last chance.'
The light intensified.
The starlight surging like waves reached the seed buried deep in his heart. The seed Sara had devoted everything to plant there.
It was Sara's origin.
The foundation of her life as a Saintess, the desperate wish she had poured her entire existence into. I seized it. To grant her final desire.
Starlight seeped into the seed.
Devouring the flood, the seed sprouted. It budded, took root, and began expelling the shadow from the heart. Amid the overflowing starlight, pure white beams began to surge upward.
...
This was my goal all along.
The circuit from my future self was little more than a fragment. It alone couldn't reverse Kyle. That's why she had said it—useless for Cardi, probably.
It had to be that way.
Because Kyle had resisted to the bitter end, leaving a wound in his own heart.
Because Sara had given everything to save him.
Because my future self had endured thirteen years of hell.
All of it together gave this circuit meaning. Miss even one, and it would have been worthless. So I gripped harder.
To make their efforts count.
To make their lives matter.
My role was to guide all those variables to a single answer. That's why I'd come this far.
"Hey, Kyle."
At the end of that connected path, I gave a bitter smile.
"Hurry up and come back."
I said with a smile.
"We've got a lot to talk about."
Flash.
The erupting blaze of light painted everything purest white.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ 2.
Kyle blinked.
How many times? As he blinked repeatedly, the filth clogging his head began to drain away. Like soot flaking off, his mind gradually cleared.
Kyle Toben.
Remembering his name, Kyle pulled himself upright. All around stretched a night sky-like vista. A star-studded night sky. Beneath his feet gleamed a path of pure white light.
The path he had walked.
The life Kyle had lived.
Ahead lay a road drowned in filth. A path that denied everything until now. One more step, and Kyle would have followed it to the farthest ends.
Kyle looked down at his feet.
The foot he had lifted hovered just before stepping into the muck. Right as it nearly touched, the filth washed away like it had been cleansed.
"...Ah."
Seeing it, Kyle smiled.
The worst hadn't happened. It seemed she had succeeded. Succeeded in killing the monster he'd become.
Good, Kyle muttered.
Raniel from the future had told him.
Her world had perished. Now Kyle knew the cause. Himself, turned to calamity. Unable to stop him in time, her world had fallen.
That's why he had worried.
Worried, he had thrashed to the very end. He wanted to believe plunging the holy sword into his heart had helped her.
...It must have meant something.
Either way, the horrific future she described wouldn't repeat. Relieved, Kyle felt his heavy steps lighten a bit.
"......"
Silently, Kyle looked ahead.
Where the filth-choked path had vanished, only emptiness remained. A void of nothing. The end of the road. Death. Eternal oblivion.
That was Kyle's allotted end.
Before death, Kyle exhaled shortly.
His role was done. Now he could rest. On the cusp of death, Kyle instinctively glanced back.
"Came a long way."
A short life, if brief.
But long to Kyle. He couldn't say he'd lived it well. It had been ugly, stumbling, full of things he shouldn't have done. So the path behind was anything but straight or noble—twisted and shabby.
So many mistakes.
So much regret, in hindsight.
Reflecting on his life, Kyle dreamed of other endings that might have been. Not impossible hypotheticals. Futures he could have reached with a bit more effort.
'If I'd tried harder.'
If I hadn't given up, chased after you.
Fallen, despaired, stalled—but stood again and followed. Or back at our first meeting with the changed you, if I'd tried seeing you as the same person.
Could there have been a different end?
Walking together, bickering like old times on adventures as four, reaching the Demon King. Even taking the long way, arriving at the ending we wanted.
...And after it all.
You and I, no longer hero or sage, sitting in some dingy tavern like before, sipping drinks and chatting about nothing.
'That would've been nice.'
Swilling booze, recounting hero days, poking at old mistakes with jokes, bragging about ridiculously tough foes—"How the hell did we beat that? What was our trick again?"—getting tipsy on our own tales, the silliest future.
Kyle envisioned it.
"...Ah."
A laugh escaped.
An impossible future. That's why it shone so beautifully. Chuckling, Kyle stepped his raised foot forward.
Time to end this life.
As his foot descended toward the void—flash—pure white light met it instead. Kyle's eyes widened as he looked down.
Snap.
A path was forming.
Like a seed sprouting, budding—slowly, a path extended. A finished life seeking to continue.
And.
Grip.
Someone seized Kyle.
He turned. There stood Raniel, teeth gritted, having chased him down. Panting heavily, she lifted her head. Looking utterly exhausted, she grinned.
"Gotcha."
Raniel yanked Kyle back.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ Blink.
Kyle blinked.
Only after repeated blinks could he take in the surroundings. Crumbled ceiling. Shattered pillar remnants. Long, gouged sword scars and scorch marks on the floor—traces of brutal combat littered everywhere.
Next, Kyle checked his body.
Limp arms. A body cracked and broken.
A state where dying wouldn't be odd... yet his heart kept beating. Thump. Thud. The rhythm echoed in Kyle's ears.
...Can't move.
No strength left.
Sleep tugged insistently. Something unknown was mending his body, but agonizingly slowly. Full recovery would take an eternity.
But this defied logic.
The more he assessed, the more shocked Kyle felt. He should be dead. No way to survive that.
"...How."
Kyle murmured absently.
"How am I... still..."
"How are you still alive? You idiot."
Before he finished, someone smacked his head. With dull pain, Kyle slowly raised his gaze.
"...Raniel?"
There she was.
A battered Raniel looked down at him. One eye half-shut, left arm dangling limp. So much blood loss left her deathly pale.
Yet she was smiling.
"You have any idea what I went through to save your sorry ass?"
Smiling, she thwacked his head repeatedly. Hard enough that Kyle's skull rang. Before he could protest, crack! A sharp snap rang out.
"Kyaack!"
Raniel, mid-thwack, screamed and clutched her wrist. Forcing her wrecked arm had finally snapped it.
"Thick-headed jerk! Nghhh!"
Screaming and hopping in place, she ignored her broken ankle and thudded face-first to the floor. Crack—her ankle twisted too, of course.
Another shrill scream echoed through the basement.
"...What are you doing?"
Kyle finally muttered, unable to watch.
Raniel glared daggers, but her fierce eyes softened quickly.
"Jeez..."
She sighed deeply.
Words piled up, but where to start? Lips parting and closing repeatedly, she suddenly grinned mischievously, like a fun idea had struck.
"Hey, Kyle."
"What."
"You got your ass handed to you by me, right?"
Kyle's brow twitched.
"Yeah, yeah. You won, so I..."
"You got your ass handed to you by me."
"......"
"Spent all day getting pummeled, then at the end you desperately try close quarters? Hey, what kind of swordsman settles it in melee against a mage?"
Raniel grinned.
"And I won? You lost to me. Even in close range. Pathetic."
I won.
I won.
"Now it's 1-1."
Truth be told, she'd lost more often—but Kyle always held back, and even her losses weren't all-out. So they didn't count toward the official tally.
She stressed it fiercely, enunciating every syllable.
"It's a draw."
Her pride and competitive fire filthy strong, the utterly shameless great gray mage beamed radiantly.