The Final Lesson
The moment he saw me, he called me a “dog of a god.”
Even the great Wilhelm seemed flustered.
I smirked.
“Wasn’t it a ‘dog’ of a god?”
“······.”
As if I’d struck a nerve, Wilhelm gave no answer.
His face was utterly expressionless. There was a change so minute it would have been invisible without microscopic scrutiny.
A faint tremor.
His eyelids quivered, ever so slightly.
But that was enough. It was proof that Wilhelm—who never showed emotion before others—was thoroughly rattled.
I couldn’t understand why seeing him flustered made me so happy. Moreover, this was the first time the two of us had ever faced each other like this.
Either Wilhelm had been trapped, or I had. It was always one or the other. A structure that made communication impossible. We had never properly spoken, let alone seen each other’s faces—despite having spent so much time together.
Shing.
I lightly gripped my sword and spoke.
“Well······ it’s not as if we’re the sort to chat about trivial things anyway.”
Had we ever properly exchanged words? Never from the beginning. And never again in the future. More than anything, the time left to get to know each other was far too short.
Remaining transformation time via the ‘Complete Golden Rule’: 7 minutes 32 seconds
Barely eight minutes. How much real conversation could we possibly share in that span? Resolving the moldy, long-accumulated feelings between us in that time was impossible.
So.
We began with the sword. We would end with the sword.
For people like us, a single exchange of blades was worth far more than any spoken word.
Wilhelm.
I had no doubt you felt the same.
Shing.
Wilhelm raised his sword in turn and leveled it at me.
That was enough.
For us.
“······ The victor shall be the one who is right.”
You and I—let’s lay everything bare.
And find out.
Which of us is more of a “dog.”
Raiga watched the scene unfolding before him as if entranced.
He who had been called the Imperial First Sword, who had claimed the title of Pangenia’s strongest—
“······.”
—was now witnessing a clash of a higher realm than his own.
Of course, he had already acknowledged Wilhelm as the “strongest man.” Yet before long, another battle of “the strongest” had begun.
Wilhelm, who had reached the summit, collided with Randolph, the God of Eternity.
Their duel made even Raiga’s palms sweat.
This is······ absurd.
Raiga found the entire situation simply ridiculous. He had always been the one to seize control and lead. Sitting still, holding his breath while someone else resolved a trial for him—this was a first in his life.
Moreover, Wilhelm now seemed several stages beyond even the man Raiga had once fought, having ascended to the peak.
And yet.
This Randolph, who stood as Wilhelm’s equal—just who was he?
Randolph······.
No matter how many times he turned it over, the man was a complete stranger. A powerhouse of that caliber should have been known to him.
What was certain was that this “Randolph” had warped the Tower of the War God. The distorted trials, the appearance of Baal, the summoning of the Blade Dragon God, the Ant King controlled as if it were his own body—the “Eternal Randolph” of all those events had to be connected to the man before him now.
At first he had even recalled the vanished “Golden Goat.” He had assumed that mysterious figure who had risen so quickly to the ranks of the Death God Religion’s officers was deeply linked to Randolph.
··· No. This is different. Not the goat from back then.
He had crossed blades with the goat once in the Empire. The Randolph now swinging a sword at Wilhelm was nothing like that goat. Incomparably stronger—so different that comparison itself was meaningless.
Above all, the goat was no sinner. Randolph, on the other hand, was highly likely to be one.
And that was not all.
“Lord Wilhelm······!”
“Ah!”
Judging by the reactions of Isabella and the others, this Randolph was definitely not the goat. Had it been the goat, Isabella especially would have cast worried glances his way. Instead, every gaze was fixed on Wilhelm.
Raiga turned his head again to watch the fight between Wilhelm and Randolph.
At the same time—
······ Was I the frog in the well all along?
Raiga clenched his fist with all his strength and bowed his head.
It was shameful. His face burned. He could not lift it.
He had been certain no one stronger than himself remained in this world, and so he had thrown himself wholly into exploring the Abyss. But that had been a delusion. A foolish thought. He had been the frog at the bottom of a well, boasting of being the greatest without knowing how vast the world truly was.
In the end it was only a well. No different from choosing to remain still of his own free will.
The world is wide. The strong are many.
Then—
Thump! Thump!
His heart pounded madly. Watching Wilhelm and Randolph duel, a competitive fire that had lain dead for decades began to stir and rise.
He wanted to reach them.
He wanted to win···!
To do that, he had to leave the well. And the way out was right before his eyes.
The clash of two powerhouses who had surpassed him. To take it fully into his eyes and review it afterward—that was the rope hanging down into the deep well.
He had to seize it.
He had to absorb it.
And for that, he first had to admit his own insufficiency. Empty himself completely, then fill himself anew.
It feels as if I’ve returned to those days······.
It had been a very long time since he last felt such hunger. Back in a childhood he could barely remember, when he had first been chosen as a successor of the Palga and taken up a sword—he thought he had felt this then.
I want to learn.
I never want to be a slave again.
If I gain power, I will live a life of my own choosing.
······ And now?
Had he truly kept that original resolve?
Ssshh.
Raiga gripped his sword.
Could he catch up to those two?
Could he reach their realm?
Raiga did not so much as twitch. Even so, sweat poured from his entire body. Simply watching and absorbing was already overwhelming. He held a sword, yet could not bring himself to swing it.
“······.”
“······.”
He was not the only one who felt that way. Everyone watching shared the same thought. Their duel made hearts race and sent shivers through the body merely by being witnessed.
At the same time, a chill ran down every spine.
—What if the tower collapses?
—What if Randolph appears as an enemy?
······ Even imagining it was horrifying.
If Wilhelm failed, everything was over. No one would be able to stop that monster called Randolph.
Yet Randolph was a player. Even if the tower had twisted his state, for his martial power to be this far beyond the ordinary—!
—What have we been doing all this time?
—Why am I so weak?
Randolph’s appearance had come even later than most other players. No matter how rare the information he had monopolized, no matter how lucky he had been, without effort beyond that he could never have reached his present height.
But there were also many who held the opposite view.
“It’s just······ too far beyond us.”
“This isn’t about effort anymore. That thing is······ simply a different kind of being.”
“How the hell did the Great Expedition fail, then?”
Faced with strength of another dimension, people began to give up one after another. No matter how hard they tried, they felt they could never reach it. A realm beyond the heavens. They abandoned hope because they believed it was unreachable.
“It can be reached.”
But Raiga cut their despair short.
His voice, carried on mana, rang in the ears of every one of the hundreds of thousands present. His expression hardened as he continued.
“It must be reached.”
Desperately. In a tone of absolute urgency.
······ Only two short sentences, yet that was enough. No one failed to grasp the meaning in Raiga’s words.
The realm of the sword that Wilhelm and Randolph were exchanging—their duel was presenting them with possibility. It was showing them that a higher sky existed.
If they grew complacent in the present and failed to strive more fiercely, the world—and humanity—would fall to ruin.
Therefore it had to be reached.
If it could not be reached, ruin would come anyway.
That was when it happened.
“W-what is that ‘sword’······?”
The blade Randolph summoned. A sword vast enough to swallow the world itself came crashing down toward Wilhelm, carrying absolute “death.”
The instant the Supreme Sword touched Wilhelm—
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM—!
A colossal explosion erupted, and the entire tower shook.
Rrrrrrrumble!
Even the place where they stood rocked so hard they could barely keep their balance.
Yet—
Whether they pressed themselves to the floor or clung to someone else, no one tore their eyes from the broadcast screen.
And before long, when the smoke cleared—
“Ah······!”
It was a sight they could not believe even with their own two eyes.
Wilhelm was gripping that godlike sword with his bare hand.
And the sword stroke that followed from Wilhelm—
“······?”
“······ Huh?”
In that instant the crowd fell into confusion.
The broadcast had cut off without warning.
“O-of all times!”
“What’s going on? What happened?”
No matter which way they looked, the screen no longer transmitted anything. While everyone glanced at one another in bewilderment, one man alone stood with a hardened face.
Watching the final sword Wilhelm had swung, his body trembled.
Raiga.
He murmured softly, almost to himself.
“That one······ I can’t reach.”
······ That final “sword” alone seemed utterly beyond his grasp.
“Messy.”
After several exchanges of blades, that was the first word Wilhelm spoke.
Messy.
My sword.
My technique.
No—not that.
It was not limited to the sword.
Wilhelm was speaking of my entire being. Of my true identity.
Right now I was messier than I had ever been. Branches sprawled in every direction without any unity. Climbing the tower, meeting the gods of Calamity and Ruin—it had only grown worse.
And so he said it.
Messy.
That it could not possibly be messier than this!
“Unify them into one. Are you deliberately refusing?”
The words scraped at my nerves in a peculiar way. Yet I could not understand exactly what he meant by “unify them into one.” Not pruning the wildly spreading branches, but fusing them into a single whole?
Seeing my confusion, Wilhelm let out a short laugh.
“Or is it that you can’t? O ‘dog’ of a god?”
······ This bastard.
He was stressing the word “dog,” speaking as if he were mocking me.
··· Mocking me?
No.
He was definitely mocking me. Rebuking me for being a god who still could not manage even that.
Yet······ I could give no reply.
Because Wilhelm was right.
I had become so messy I no longer knew what to do. What to grasp, what to swing, how to advance—none of it would take shape.
It became clearer than when I had swung my sword in the swamp of the mindscape.
At this rate I would never reach Wilhelm—this dog of a man.
And yet I was already captivated by the path of the sword he was leading me along.
Through the blade, he was speaking to me.
Teaching me.
Things I had never seen.
Things I had never known.
In short—
“Keep up well. From here on it will only grow harder.”
This was Wilhelm’s final lesson, teaching me.