Chapter 99: Kang Geomma Origin (3)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 99: Kang Geomma Origin (3)
High in the sky, blade clashed against blade. A thunderous boom unleashed a massive shockwave, shattering the few trees that were still standing.
Rachel tilted her head back, staring at the standoff between Abel and Kang Geomma. She muttered softly under her breath, "...Abel. You've gotten ridiculously strong."
Geomma had not completely lost his mind yet. Rachel could see it. Though he looked almost like a solid mass of black, a faint ember flickered near his chest.
It was his humanity.
The identity as a human that Kang Geomma could not bring himself to abandon, even while submerged in the unconsciousness of his rage.
Thanks to that, there were no casualties among his allies. He was undoubtedly holding back.
"...If Geomma were serious, it wouldn't end like this..."
Rachel looked around her.
Swoooosh!
Tidal waves roared toward them from every direction. It was a terrifying sight, yet no alarm bells rang in her mind.
And small wonder—if Geomma had gone all out, the entire island would have vaporized.
A single strike.
Just one strike would have been enough.
Using her unique ability, Rachel estimated Kang Geomma's true power, coming remarkably close to the mark.
'Well, generation after generation of the Spear Saint family only marries people based on their martial potential. Maybe our family's specialized in assessing power.'
Either way.
The times Geomma had used his full strength could be counted on one hand. Perhaps he had never once done so in front of his friends, fearing they might get caught in the collateral.
"Abel."
She was measuring her distance against such a person—no, against a demigod.
Even if he was showing mercy, she was standing toe-to-toe with that very Kang Geomma—the one who hadn't let dragons, angels, or even Nephilim come anywhere near him.
"Why do I feel like I'm losing here?"
Rachel smirked, pulling up one corner of her mouth.
"The original household with a rule against losing is supposed to be us Myura family, damn it!"
Though that trait might have seemed diluted by the belligerence of the Sword Emperor and Abel, the tag of competitive spirit originally belonged to the Myura family.
Whoosh!
Rachel raised her Sky-Piercing Halberd above her head and spun it. It rotated, spinning faster and faster. Before long, the shape of the halberd became almost impossible to discern.
The moment a silver disc hovered above her head, the muscles in her thighs contracted in sharp definition.
BOOM!
She stomped the ground with incredible force. Explosive leaping power combined with the spin of her Sky-Piercing Halberd.
The Spear Saint of Raw Strength.
Rachel de Myura, niece of Richard de Myura, soared into the sky like a human helicopter.
In a flash, she shot up to the same height as Geomma. Everything below looked tiny, as if the world were nothing more than a toy.
Was this...
The Omniscient Geomma Perspective?
Rachel raised her eyes. Geomma half-turned his head toward her. An ashen film coated his pupils.
An aura so intense it felt like her chest was sinking in.
Rachel steadied her resolve, refusing to shrink back. She parted her lips with all her strength.
"Geomma."
So this is the view you always see.
Even from a height like this, you somehow tried so hard to look at the same scenery as the rest of us. Truly...
You really went through so much.
"Ugh..."
The groan came from Abel. Her strength was slowly reaching its limit. She was giving it her absolute all, so she hadn't even noticed Rachel's approach.
"Ah, damn it!"
Rachel shouted a battle cry, jolting Abel back to awareness.
"Rachel?!"
"I'm sorry!"
S-So suddenly?
More importantly, what are you apologizing for?!
"Anyway, I'm sorry!!"
"What on earth are you—"
Abel's heterochromatic eyes widened mid-sentence. The others, who were also preparing to re-engage, were equally stunned into silence.
Tidal waves rushed in from all sides, and the sky screamed above. Yet despite all that, everyone fell into a solemn hush.
And with good reason.
Because...
Huuug.
Out of nowhere, Rachel hugged Kang Geomma tightly from behind. If she had been trying to bind him to restrict his movements, it would have made sense, but...
Huuuug...
It was a pure embrace. Looking at her posture alone, there was not the slightest hint of restraint intended, and above all, her earlier apology utterly destroyed that possibility.
The reality was subtly different. Rachel intended to lean on that faint ember of humanity remaining in him—the size of a match flame. Physical force had already done all it could. The reason a thread-thin gleam had appeared in Geomma's vacant eyes was thanks to the advance team, and Abel—who mustered her courage for even just one strike—was the prime contributor.
But they were still missing a decisive final blow.
And as luck would have it, that role seemed to have fallen on Rachel herself.
Because she was the only one who could see Kang Geomma's weakness—his humanity.
Besides, she couldn't just tag along all this way and get a free ride. That would be smearing mud on the Myura name.
So she hugged him.
Believing that pressing heart to heart might reach him...
It was an extremely simple-minded thought. But precisely because it was so simple, she figured the impact would be certain... That was the motivation behind her actions.
"Oh, wow."
An exclamation slipped out of Leon's mouth involuntarily. A thick hand intruded into his vision. Metatron nearly covered his son's eyes as he spoke.
"Don't look at things like that."
"Huh?"
"It's vulgar."
"Father... I've been an adult for a long time now..."
"Now, now. I said no."
Metatron was an angel. His moral standards were high—altogether too high. Just as Leon was about to make a sulky face—
Sssss...
Like a miracle, the tidal waves began to subside. Furthermore, the sweltering heat scorchingly heating the sky began to cool.
It was utterly inexplicable.
Calling it a coincidence, the timing was far too precise.
"..."
The expression on Abel's face, still frozen in her sword-thrust posture, changed as well. To be precise, it froze solid.
"Geomma."
"..."
"Geomma?"
"..."
Abel gave a stiff, forced smile. As she did, she slowly lowered Nothung.
A moment later.
Abel abruptly dropped. Her airtime had run out, sending her falling toward the ground.
"GEOMMA!"
Abel's sharp, furious roar receded beneath the feet of Kang Geomma and Rachel.
*
A time gap exists between dreams and reality. Whether you call it a disconnect or a variance, typically, the time elapsed in reality is absurdly brief compared to what one experiences in a dream.
Ryozo had been talking with Mesther for three hours already. Yet in reality, not even five minutes had passed.
"Excuse me. How on earth does the logic work out that you're Geomma's first love?"
"It's true! I met Geomma before anyone else! A million years before you were even born!"
The nerve.
Still, since it literally had been about a million years ago, Ryozo didn't have a proper comeback.
"That's only if you look at it strictly through timeline shenanigans. Sigh. Never mind. As if modern logic would work on a cavewoman."
"Then Geomma's mine?"
"That's not what I meant!"
Five minutes by the real world's clock.
In that short span, their relationship had already evolved into bickering back and forth.
Over those five minutes—or three hours—Ryozo had listened to Mesther's story.
The tale of how Geomma had jumped across timelines through the <Artifact: Monolith>, drifted back into ancient times, and rescued Mesther from the angels.
The way he eliminated the angels was truly typical of Kang Geomma.
And his soft spot for a woman in distress... no, for anyone in trouble, was also classic Kang Geomma.
While she found herself falling for him all over again because of it, an ambivalence washed over her, making her wish he'd stop poking his nose into everyone else's business.
Geomma, seriously, you go around charming people way too much.
'I guess I have no right to scold Abel after all.'
Encountering Geomma's self-proclaimed first love made Ryozo sympathize with Abel's grievances anew. Mesther raised her chin haughtily.
"You know, don't you? A man never forgets his first love his whole life."
"..."
A heavy wave of exhaustion crashed over her. Ryozo rubbed her face with both hands. Taking someone so dense seriously would only hurt herself.
'Still.'
She wanted to make a childish jab.
"He's your first love, not the other way around."
"We are each other's—!"
"Yeah, yeah, sure. Let's pretend that's true."
Mesther pouted.
And to think this person was supposed to be the Wisdom of the Ancients.
How on earth a line of luminaries like the Sage, All-Power, and the First Association President descended from her bloodline was a mystery...
Wait, what?
"They are similar."
"Similar? What's similar?"
"Your descendants. To you."
"Ah?"
"Don't 'Ah?' me."
And besides.
"The fact that you have descendants means you got married. So what's with suddenly claiming to be his first love?"
Caught off guard, Mesther choked out a gasping sound. Clutching her solar plexus, she panted heavily.
"Cold-blooded woman."
"I'm just being realistic."
"You lack empathy!"
"Call it being rational, please."
"How could someone like you ever win Mister's heart—"
"But you married someone else, didn't you?"
"Ugh!"
Gotcha.
Ryozo wore a triumphant smile. She sure is fun to tease. She crossed her arms and tilted her head up.
"By the way, Miss Loser. You left out the reason why you summoned me here. How about you tell me your business now?"
"Grrr... Repaying a favor with enmity!"
"What favor? You were just trying to lecture me over something ridiculous."
"I! Huh?! I didn't say anything because I didn't want to brag, but saving your dying self through 'Id'—that was all my doing, you know?!"
"Mhm. I thought as much."
"As much?"
Ryozo nodded submissively.
"I pretty much guessed it while listening to your story."
Driven by a burst of anger, she had impulsively stormed the villains' main stronghold. Though she had Hontail's assistance, the enemies were formidable opponents in their own right.
Basically, villains possessed tougher vitality and greater strength than pure humans. Handpicked from among them were the twelve known as the Villain Twelve. Even for Ryozo, revered as the Immortal Archer, taking on all twelve at once was realistically impossible.
As a result, she took heavy damage. Though Hontail shielded her with her wings at the final moment, allowing her to keep breathing, Ryozo had definitely sustained critical injuries that put her life on the line.
Yet here she was, alive and dreaming. Ryozo laid out the events in sequence to narrow down the possibilities.
'Something supernatural saved me.'
And that was Mesther.
Through a dream, the Wisdom of the Ancients and Yggdrasil had appeared. To write it off as a coincidence, the pieces fit together far too perfectly. The world was full of inevitabilities disguised as coincidences—Ryozo was someone who firmly believed in that.
"Then this will go quickly."
Mesther took off her flower crown and stepped forward. Ryozo flinched and tried to step back.
"Scaredy-cat. Afraid I'll steal Mister from you?"
"...Talk about holding a grudge. You're relentless."
"Hmph. Whatever. If I wanted to hurt you, I would have done it long ago, so put this on."
Ryozo looked back and forth between Mesther and the wreath woven from flowers, then slightly lowered her head. A moment later, Mesther placed the flower crown upon her head.
Tap.
Instantly, Ryozo shuddered where she stood.
Her breath hitched. Her heart felt as if it were about to leap out of her throat.
Gurgle.
She could hear it.
Gurgle.
The subtle movements of cells racing through her blood vessels.
Gurgle.
Her near-vision, which could capture details down to the atomic level, transformed into a far-vision so vast that even the Milky Way appeared as a mere speck.
Information?
No.
This was experience.
The memories, the laws of the world, joys and sorrows, longing, deep anguish, hope, and grief accumulated by the Wisdom of the Ancients over eons—the totality of it all flooded into Ryozo.
Inception.
Memories further compressed within a dream that had already condensed real-world time surged directly into her mind.
"You saw it, didn't you?"
The resolution of the world, which had dimmed, brightened once more. Ryozo nearly gagged.
"...The reason you nurtured Yggdrasil."
"Yeah."
Mesther replied as she adjusted the wreath she had placed back on her own head.
"Mister saved me, so I really wanted to save him at least once."
"Even so... for ten thousand years."
Ten thousand years.
An immense expanse of time too overwhelming for a single human to bear.
Yet Mesther had endured with a single-minded devotion, watching over Yggdrasil's growth.
It was astounding. Unbelievable. Had she not witnessed Mesther's memories, she would have thought so.
"Do you understand now?"
"...Yes..."
Mesther had endured.
All to repay the grace she had received from Mister—from Kang Geomma.
Ryozo looked at Mesther.
For some reason, her bright, innocent smile felt far sadder than a downcast face ever could.
"...Why did you heal me, bring me here, and even show me all your memories?"
At her newly respectful tone, Mesther wore an inscrutable smile. She wrapped her arms around Ryozo's neck and whispered.
"As I persevered for nearly ten thousand years, I caught a glimpse of the truths governing all creation. And in doing so, I happened to see it. No, feeling it would be a better way to put it."
"..."
"I guess you could call it fellow feeling. Because I know the agonizing times of endurance that you and another girl will have to bear for Mister's sake."
Mesther patted her back. As she did, a fragrant floral scent wafted over.
"Hang in there."
Mesther pulled away.
"Saki Ryozo."
The surrounding landscape, Yggdrasil, Mesther's face, and her smile all faded into darkness.
"Be sure to find Mister."
—Kang Geomma Origin. End.
With that, Ryozo opened her eyes in reality. The feeling of the dream had not yet fully dissipated.
Her mind felt hazy. Ryozo forced her leaden upper body up.
Right then, something entered her blurry vision.
"...?"
Kang Geomma and Rachel.
The scene of the two joined as one.