218. Zervallua, Beast of Destruction
218. Zervallua, Beast of Destruction
***
"Ugh..."
Groaning low and frowning deeply, Serin was having a dream.
And it was one of the brutal pasts she had lived through.
......
In the world of Black Ark, four demonic beasts of particular notoriety were called the Great Demonic Beasts.
And one of them was the Beast of Destruction.
—Zervallua.
Zervallua had the form of a wolf, and the beast's size was that of an ordinary wolf inflated thousands of times over, until it took on a massive shape like a mountain. Its red fur, which seemed steeped in blood, covered its body in sharp bristles, giving it a bleak appearance even from the outside.
But more than anything else, the main reason Zervallua's notoriety had spread so widely lay in the beast's head. On the wolf's head, thousands of eyes existed in grotesque fashion.
Thousands of eyes that made anyone who saw them feel instinctive revulsion and eeriness. Zervallua's appearance was so monstrous that it was said those with weak wills would have their minds shattered merely by facing it.
The moment a beast the size of a great mountain flashed its thousands of eyes and fixed its gaze on someone, there were not many who could stand against it and keep their will to fight.
—The Seven-Person Subjugation Party.
And the Empire, believing that no matter how great a numerical advantage they held against such a Great Demonic Beast, it would bring enormous loss of life, formed a subjugation party of only seven individuals.
Among that subjugation party, there was a woman with the most striking appearance.
Beneath snow-white silver hair that reached her waist, blue eyes filled with utter indifference.
'Rin' was part of that subjugation party.
Even though the Emperor had tried to exclude her from the party early on, she had instead volunteered for it herself.
The subjugation party, gathering the Empire's First Knight, the Eastern Magic Tower Master, an S-Grade mercenary, and others whose names were all widely known, was only able to face the Beast of Destruction a week after setting out.
The city of Elysium, destroyed in only a few days—no living being could be seen there, and at the center of that Elysium, the beast lay curled up with its eyes closed.
At the beast's attitude, which looked as though it were savoring its leisure after a sufficient feast, every member of the subjugation party frowned deeply.
"It bulked up that much in only a few days...?"
"For Elysium, known as a city of paradise, to fall like this—just how much damage has been done?"
"Which is exactly why we must end it here!"
As various words passed among them, Rin was gazing at the blood-red beast far away, like a great mountain, and feeling a rare tension.
A massive sense of crisis that made the fine hairs all over her body stand on end, and an instinctive tension. But those emotions, rather, made her aware that she was alive.
The subjugation party, carrying a variety of emotions—horror, anger, crisis—all of them, including Rin, shared one thing in common.
The Great Demonic Beast's body was swollen to a bizarre degree, and the situation they now faced was worse than they had imagined.
Even before they had entered the city, the beast's clearly visible form carried a presence of the utmost savagery.
Amid a sense of crisis like walking on a blade's edge, while everyone was studying the beast's appearance.
Rustle.
Rin suddenly broke from the formation and stepped forward.
The moment the subjugation party's gazes all turned to her.
Zervallua, the Great Demonic Beast curled at the center of the destroyed city of Elysium, reacted as well.
————!
The thousands of eyes on the beast's head opened all at once, radiating overwhelming madness, and as if recognizing something, those thousands of eyes leaped across the vast distance and fixed directly on Rin.
—Ding! Ding! Ding!
Even as countless warning alerts filled Rin's vision, Rin calmly held her ground and unleashed her presence.
Whoooosh!
From beneath Rin's feet, blood-red energy burst forth like a flicker and instantly wrapped around her body.
"Another reckless act...!"
"What in the world are you thinking?!"
The Eastern Magic Tower Master and the Empire's First Knight cried out in alarm, but soon they too had no choice but to hastily raise their own presence to resist the enormous pressure the Great Demonic Beast was emitting.
At that, Rin burst into laughter as if howling, and slowly moved her lips.
"I'll take the vanguard."
The moment Rin spoke and kicked off the ground, a massive red light shot toward the Great Demonic Beast like an explosion.
————!
Zervallua's thousands of eyes immediately flashed along the red trajectory crossing the city, and right after, as if reacting, it raised a huge red forepaw high.
As the beast's forepaw, raised as if to cover the whole world, came crashing down upon the earth, Rin deployed a technique.
Her legs became dyed in an even deeper blood-red, and her body, now shooting forth like light, accelerated further. The red trajectory burst out in an instant, emitting a violent blood-red glow and embroidering the ruined city in every corner.
FWHOOOOSH!
The blood-red Crescent-Moon Weight extending along her arm drew a massive blood-red arc, and the beast's red forepaw slamming down toward her was vividly clear.
'There's no way it'll hit.'
She was certain.
Then, at the moment the rest of the subjugation party also kicked off from their positions and raised their presence.
Zervallua's massive forepaw bent at a bizarre angle that should have missed, and came down as if striking Serin directly.
BOOOOOM!!
Right after, the entire world was dyed in blood-red.
......
Serin's whole body was soaked in cold sweat, and her condition looked utterly abnormal at a glance.
Rustle, rustle.
Serin tossed and turned uncomfortably, as if something kept pressing down on her body.
"...!"
Serin, who had kept frowning and groaning, finally opened her eyes wide.
The world that had been dyed red now looked pure white, as if it had regained its original cleanliness.
No—what was blocking her vision was snow-white skin.
Serin stared at it blankly, then raised her hand amid the feeling of her whole body drenched in clammy sweat.
"A nightmare...?"
As she muttered blankly and moved aside the white arm covering her vision, she saw bright sunlight shining into the bedroom.
Realizing blankly from that sunlight that the next day had come, she also became aware that someone was lying beside her on the bed.
She remembered drinking on the terrace yesterday evening, and at the end, Sua helping her to the bedroom—but after that, her memory cut off as if severed, and nothing came back.
'After moving me, did Sua just fall asleep with me?'
A sigh escaped Serin at the sight of Sua with her arms and legs draped right over my body, and she simply let it go.
"...She's got surprisingly bad sleeping habits too."
At the sight of Sua, who had apparently taken her clothes off somewhere and was deep asleep with her snow-white skin exposed, Serin pressed a hand to her own head as if dizzy.
Her mind was unsettled for no reason.
The massive forepaw of Zervallua, Beast of Destruction, slamming down at an impossible angle—that was a past that did not exist.
She wondered what kind of nightmare that even was, but she didn't know why the arrogant self of those days kept coming to mind.
—Subjugation of the Great Demonic Beast Zervallua.
In the end, the sole survivor of that subjugation party had been her alone.
The desperate struggle against the Great Demonic Beast. The Beast of Destruction, having grown in power, had been a threat beyond imagination.
So much so that even her prime self could not face it alone.
If she had thought of a slightly different move back then, would the result have been different?
As the thought she had agonized over dozens, hundreds of times suddenly flashed through her mind, Serin shook her head hard.
Slide. Slide.
She pulled Sua's leg off her waist and instead pulled the blanket over Sua's body, which was exposing snow-white skin.
Feeling that pointless worry would only muddle her head, she got up.
Her whole body felt heavy, but more than that, she wanted to shake off this filthy feeling she had right now.
Clack.
Serin went out to the living room and drank cold water to clear her head, then soon woke Sua.
At that moment, the time was 11 a.m.
......
Bubble, bubble!
With the sound of the pot boiling, Serin and Sua were in the kitchen.
"Sua, what exactly happened after that yesterday?"
Serin, about to boil ramyeon as a hangover cure, looked at Sua and asked.
Sua, who had been collapsed as if sprawled over the kitchen table, swept back her disheveled hair and opened her mouth.
"...I don't know? I remember carrying you from the terrace to the bedroom... but after that, I'm not sure."
When Sua said it as if she simply couldn't remember, Serin laughed as if dumbfounded.
She didn't know why someone with such low alcohol tolerance liked drinking so much.
"Sua, seriously, don't drink outside. Something's going to happen."
"Right. From now on, I'll just drink with you. Right?"
Serin let out a small laugh at Sua's playful answer, and when the water seemed to be boiling, she tore open the ramyeon seasoning and put it in the pot.
Sua, who had been quietly watching Serin, suddenly opened her mouth as if something had just occurred to her.
"Oh, you know the Five Million Project I mentioned before."
"Yeah."
"I've got a feel for what the project's theme should be!"
When Sua spoke in a bright voice, Serin stopped stirring the ramyeon and looked at her.
"What are you going to make the theme?"
Sua opened her mouth with confident eyes.
"I was thinking it might be good to do a 3-person raid project, including you and me."
"A 3-person raid?"
"Yes! Watching you solo clear the Grim Reaper yesterday, I got the feeling that this is really the project. We form a party with you, me, and one more skilled person, and do a 3-person raid."
At Sua's lively words, Serin made an uncertain expression.
From the way she was talking, it clearly seemed like she wanted three people to clear a high-difficulty raid, but Serin honestly wasn't that confident about raids.
She knew there was a lot of talk about the Grim Reaper solo clear because she had looked around the community yesterday.
But that was because she had completely mastered how to deal with the Grim Reaper in Black Ark. She had known all the patterns and instant-death mechanics, so she had been able to handle it easily.
So if asked whether she could pull off other raids like the Grim Reaper, Serin honestly felt ambivalent.
"I don't know much about raid monsters."
When Serin spoke in an awkward voice, Sua smiled brightly as if telling her not to worry.
"Really, don't worry! I can teach you everything. Honestly, with your level of skill, there probably isn't much to teach. Actually, I'd been preparing the 3-person raid concept for NewTube for a while, but I couldn't find the right person for it, so I'd only been thinking about it."
"Yeah?"
"Yes! And this time, since we can get a lot of support through the project, recruiting the last person will definitely be easy. Same with other equipment."
"Well... then I'm fine with it. If we do the project as a raid, it'll be easier for me anyway. But what monster are you thinking of? I'd prefer it if it's a monster I know."
The raids in Another World had quite a variety of types, more than one might think.
So that users of various builds could all enjoy them, there were raid monsters exclusively for veteran players, and also raid monsters that relatively low-level users could enjoy.
Accordingly, there were naturally dozens of raid monsters as well. Just as Serin was thinking she hoped it would be a raid monster she knew.
Sua's eyes curved into an arc, and then she spoke a single name.
"How about Zervallua, Beast of Destruction?"