378. Their Contributions
378. Their Contributions
***
The sunlight slowly spread its domain through the interior, announcing the morning. The sunlight gradually wrapped everything its rays touched in warmth, and the woman with her silver hair in wild disarray atop the bed was no exception.
How long had it been since the sunlight began warmly illuminating the whole interior?
The silver-haired woman furrowed her brow and shifted in bed. After tossing and turning for a while, she eventually opened her eyes in a daze.
Serin brushed aside the hair covering much of her vision and mumbled vacantly.
"Already... morning?"
It felt as though I had only blinked a few times, yet reality was already telling me it was morning.
Compared to yesterday, which had felt so endlessly long, why was the time spent asleep so short? Entertaining such idle thoughts, I slowly sat up.
Slip.
As I pushed the blanket aside and rose... a deep fatigue wrapped around my whole body, and every joint seemed to creak.
"Haaah..."
Yawning wide enough to split my mouth, I picked up the smartphone lying nearby.
—September 8, Wednesday.
8:17 a.m.
Checking the time, I figured I hadn't slept as long as I'd thought.
"The time we agreed to meet today was 1 p.m., wasn't it..."
I muttered in a voice still thick with sleep, and as the meeting time came to mind, the drowsiness quickly fled.
There were a little over four hours left. And within that time, I had to come up with an answer somehow. Yesterday, in my deep fatigue, I had decided to sleep first and think later. I had shoved everything onto tomorrow's me.
Slip...
As I swept back my wildly disheveled hair, the more I thought about it, the more I realized I had slept with absolutely no plan.
A hollow laugh escaped me as I considered things one by one.
"If I think in broad strokes, about three things?"
The fact that Belua and Arianne had called me Grand Duke and had some kind of relationship with me.
The absurd feats performed through the Heavenly Demon Cheon Ryuhwa.
And the need to reach an agreement with Sua about the video that would go up for the Five Million Project.
There were surely more questions the two of them would ask me, but for now, these three broad topics came to mind.
"..."
As I focused and thought deeply for a moment, I felt that for the other matters, I could somehow deflect or find something to say in response.
Except for one.
"Hah..."
The Heavenly Demon Cheon Ryuhwa. How in the world was I supposed to explain her feats? No suitable answer came to mind. Even as I blankly swept my hair back, a sigh escaped me.
The best answer I could think of was to say it was one of the techniques derived from Divine Blood, a Descent-type skill, and gloss over the details.
Beyond that, no suitable answer came to mind.
Would Sua and Yujeong accept that explanation, which was nearly the truth? Even I found it questionable.
It wasn't even the entirety of Divine Blood, just one derived technique. Yet the aftermath of that technique had been greater than all the other Divine Blood techniques combined.
I felt more keenly than anyone how utterly absurd it was to summon an absolute being like Cheon Ryuhwa into my body.
"...I made it, but I didn't know it would turn out like that."
I muttered vacantly. It was a technique that surpassed even my own understanding.
In the past. When all the journeys in Black Ark had ended, and I had crossed over to another continent. That was when I met her, Cheon Ryuhwa. Obtaining a fragment of her soul directly from her had been nothing short of heaven-sent fortune.
At that time, there was one technique that troubled me the most.
—Dance of the Heaven-Filling Slaughtering Ghosts.
A dance performed with the souls of all the slaughtering ghosts in the world.
Dance of the Heaven-Filling Slaughtering Ghosts could be called the most special technique among the Dancer's skills.
In terms of raw destructive power alone, it was undeniably, overwhelmingly higher than any technique except the Awakening Skill, Final Performance.
However, because using the technique placed a mental burden on the user, I had half-sealed it and treated it as though it didn't exist. At that time, having awakened Divine Blood, I had been agonizing over changing the technique's details all at once.
The strongest technique had a restriction, so the idea was to remove that restriction.
If my soul kept being eroded by the souls of all the slaughtering ghosts in the world, then I would use the strongest slaughtering ghost of all—the Heavenly Demon Cheon Ryuhwa—and with her soul, completely suppress all those other souls by force.
At first, that was the idea. I had incorporated the soul fragment Cheon Ryuhwa gave me with the intention of erasing the technique's danger.
But the technique that was actually completed... had somehow transformed into a kind of Descent technique that summoned the Heavenly Demon herself to me.
Among the Dancer's dances, there had originally been techniques belonging to the Descent category. I simply hadn't used them because I judged them inferior to wielding the Crescent-Moon Weight. In effect, I had unintentionally created a Descent technique.
"...Even I, who created the technique, don't understand it. So it can't be helped if Sua or Yujeong don't understand either."
I muttered, thinking that was simply reality.
I had no intention of answering everything they would ask with lies. But if I told the whole truth, it would cause great confusion, so I planned to mix lies into the truth.
But still, if they couldn't accept it...
'Then there's nothing I can do either.'
Knock knock.
"Serin. Are you up?"
At the sound of Seoyun's voice knocking at just the right moment, I slowly organized the thoughts filling my head and opened my mouth.
"Yeah. I'm up."
"Breakfast's all ready. Come out and eat."
Listening to Seoyun's voice, I got fully out of bed. I tied back my wildly disheveled hair and changed clothes.
As I did, I decided to lighten my mood entirely.
'Still, it's those two.'
Sua and Yujeong.
Especially Sua—I thought she would accept what I said even if she found it a little absurd. And judging by how Yujeong had treated me over the past few days, I thought she would probably accept it too.
***
Another World.
Yujeong's personal house.
Within a lavish mansion and a background tinged with an eerie blood-red atmosphere, there were three women.
A garden lush with greenery within the vast mansion grounds.
Seated around a circular table at its center, they faced one another to settle yesterday's raid rewards and to talk.
And ironically, the first to speak among them was Serin.
"Both of you seem a bit low on energy today. Are you okay?"
"...Yes. I'm okay."
"I just couldn't sleep much... I'm only tired. You don't need to worry."
At Sua and Yujeong's replies, Serin tilted her head for a moment.
'Did they both have a rough night?'
Exhausted expressions. Or rather, should I say they seemed drained. The two of them visibly didn't look well, enough that it showed on the surface.
"Then I'll wrap up the Five Million Project by finishing the raid settlement."
As Sua moved to get straight to the point, Yujeong nodded with a tired look. I nodded along as well, thinking this meeting might end sooner than expected.
Then Sua shared the raid settlement window, and a hologram appeared in the center.
*
————
【Zervallua Subjugation Cleared!】
A massive and dangerous journey spanning five phases!
You have succeeded in subjugating the Great Demonic Beast Zervallua!
Due to the wondrous achievement of a small-party subjugation, all members who succeeded in the raid will receive the title 'Savior of the Grandelia Empire.'
Raid Reward: All members may confirm their rewards after checking their contribution.
『Check Contribution』
————
*
"Ah, by any chance... have you two checked your contribution?"
Before checking the contribution, Sua spoke first, and Yujeong slowly shook her head.
"No. I haven't yet... What about you, Rin?"
In contrast, I answered with a faint smile.
"I checked my contribution yesterday."
I'd checked because I was tired and wanted to finish quickly, and I had no particular reason to hide it now.
"You checked already. Then I'll check right away without delay."
As Sua said that and moved her hand to Check Contribution, a small light flickered on the hologram, and detailed contribution figures began to appear.
*
————
Zervallua Subjugation.
Total Contribution Results for Phases 1-5.
Rin: 78.3%
Bloody Night: 11.6%
Plea: 10.1%
【Check Raid Reward】
————
*
As the contribution figures were revealed, I found myself observing the two of them before looking at the numbers.
Their eyes went wide as though greatly surprised by the contribution figures, and then they turned their gazes toward me. Receiving those looks, I felt a little apologetic.
"To be honest... I don't think I did quite this much."
Because in Phases 1 through 4, I thought each of us had sufficiently performed our roles.
But even at my words, Sua let out a small laugh and shook her head.
"...Honestly, the contribution figures are pretty shocking, but considering everything you did, they're not that strange."
"I can't deny it either. In Phase 5, you really did do everything, Rin. Still, no matter how you look at it, in a 3-person raid, for the two of us to have only 10% contribution each... I guess you could say the situation is just a little funny."
Seeing the two of them accept it more readily than I expected, I could only laugh awkwardly.
Honestly, I figured the weighting for Phase 5 must have been enormous.
Moreover, as we had discussed yesterday, the raid reward would be settled according to contribution. Thinking about that, it was obvious the reward would practically be monopolized by me.
But the more I thought about it, the more it felt wrong.
"Sua. Wait, before we check the reward, I'd like to change the reward settlement method."
I felt the need to adjust it so that at least a little more of the reward went to them.
It wasn't as though I was the only one who had struggled yesterday. In Phase 5, it was true that I had performed using my techniques, but I didn't think the reward was something I should receive entirely on my own.
As I said that and looked at Sua, for some reason...
Sua burst out laughing and covered her mouth.
"I somehow knew what you were going to say. What about you, Yujeong?"
"Ah. Me too."
As even Yujeong smiled and they looked at each other, I briefly wondered if I had said something strange.