Protagonists and Heroines Must Stay Together (4)
"Kyaaak?!"
Arty screamed as she began plummeting into the abyss. In her panic, she flailed desperately, trying to grab onto anything, but the walls had already receded far beyond her reach. Realizing there was nothing she could do, she understood she was hurtling straight toward death and spiraled into full-blown panic.
"Arty?!"
[You have approached your obsession target.]
[The effect of Obsession has been removed.]
Yet amid the fall, Joyeon's voice and the system notification reached her. When Arty opened her eyes, she spotted him several floors below, staring up at her with a deeply shocked expression.
[The effect of Attachment has been activated.]
[You have entered a state of mental reassurance.]
[Physical abilities have increased.]
The notification felt utterly mismatched with the situation of plummeting toward the abyss floor. Still, it cleared her mind enough to think. She needed to do whatever she could right now.
"T-Take this!"
Arty hurled the mana reactor she had been clutching all this time with every ounce of strength she had. She couldn't save herself from falling, but this was the one thing Joyeon needed most. The reactor flew straight toward him even as she dropped, and Joyeon lunged forward to catch it.
Then—
"Arty!!"
Joyeon ignored the mana reactor completely and threw himself toward the falling Arty instead.
****
He wasn't thinking at all. The moment he saw the vivid bloodstains covering Arty's arm, his body simply moved on its own. Logically speaking—
Idiot! What the hell are you doing?! Throwing yourself like that won't save her!!
The words of Jeokgol, cursing beside Joyeon's head, were entirely correct.
"Shut up!"
Utterly hopeless trash..!
[An apple falling to the ground is causality. Twisting it is the beginning of evil.]
Even while hurling insults, Jeokgol squeezed out the last of Joyeon's remaining mana and began chanting Reverse Gravity to save him.
"Don't interfere and get lost!"
But at the very last moment, Joyeon intercepted Jeokgol's chant and canceled the spell right before it could activate.
You..! You insect..!
Having used up every last drop of mana just to maintain his existence, Jeokgol vanished mid-sentence.
Perhaps because he had canceled the spell—
Thud!
"Got you...!"
Joyeon managed to grab Arty's hand at the last possible second. He pulled her tightly into his arms so she wouldn't fall, and Arty, realizing there was nothing else she could do, clung to him just as desperately.
Joyeon's Soul's Eye pierced through the darkness and confirmed what lay at the bottom of the abyss: nearly a hundred thousand undead, and the solid ground supporting their massive numbers.
"J-Joyeon..!"
Arty called out to him in a trembling voice. If they hit the bottom like this, both of them would inevitably become just another pair of mindless undead wandering the abyss floor. So—
"Lara~!!!"
Joyeon called out to his follower, certain she was somewhere nearby. Shouting Tiasia's name in the middle of the abyss—there was no way Tiasia, who was fighting the Church's knights on the surface, could possibly hear him.
[A Dominator's call is a follower's reason for living!]
KABOOOOOM!!
Yet the entrance to the abyss that Arty had fallen through exploded outward as Tiasia appeared.
"I have received my master's call!"
Tiasia plunged into the abyss at incredible speed and threw herself into the pit without the slightest hesitation, as if she already knew exactly where Joyeon was. But saving someone who had already been falling for so long before they hit the ground was, logically speaking, impossible.
Still, Joyeon shouted at her.
[A Dominator's command is a follower's reason for living!]
"Even if I have to carve away my very soul!!"
[The follower's physical abilities have temporarily surged in response to the Dominator's command!]
[Lara Tiasia's 'Devotion' effect has activated.]
[She has inherited a portion of her master's power.]
[Lara Tiasia has inherited the 'Status Window'! She can now open her status window at will.]
[Lara Tiasia has inherited 'Death Aura Lv1'! She can manifest Death Aura using her own killing intent rather than mana.]
[Death Aura Lv1 has activated!]
[The abilities of all followers within the aura have increased.]
The Dominator's command. Death Aura. And Tiasia's desperate resolve, forged from every previous failure, to never disappoint Joyeon again.
"Hraaaaaaah!!!"
BOOM!
Tiasia kicked off the sheer cliff wall of the abyss, head pointed toward the bottom. Her body shot downward like a bullet—far faster than freefall.
CRASH! CRASH! CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!
She kicked off the walls in a straight line toward Joyeon, rapidly closing the distance.
"Master!!"
KABOOOM!
Tiasia reached Joyeon and successfully grabbed him with one final push. But it was far too soon to feel relieved. They were still falling toward the abyss floor at over 100 km/h. Even if she threw Joyeon and Arty toward the walls with stairs or prison cells, the two humans wouldn't survive the impact. And landing while holding them wouldn't cancel out the shock completely either.
Of course, Tiasia hadn't come without a plan. She looked up at the ceiling of the abyss, adjusted her posture midair, and grabbed Joyeon by the back.
"Master! Pardon me!"
With that, she hurled Joyeon upward toward the sky.
"Kgh!!"
"Kyaaak!"
Joyeon and Arty's falling speed slowed dramatically from the throw, while Tiasia plummeted even faster from the recoil.
KUOOOOOOM~~!!
Tiasia hit the abyss floor with a thunderous roar and a massive cloud of dust. Meanwhile, Joyeon and Arty began accelerating downward again.
Clatter!!
'Master!!'
Then came a familiar voice from above—or rather, the sound of bones striking together, rapidly approaching. Joyeon finally saw them: a vast white skeleton and hundreds of war trolls filling the sky. His followers had thrown themselves into the abyss to save him, and Tiasia had created the opening they needed.
Clatter!!
'We must catch him at all costs!!'
More than three hundred followers who had burst from their graves along the abyss walls now hurled themselves toward the center to catch Joyeon. Those who came first threw themselves inward, and those who followed grabbed onto them in turn. A massive net woven from undead bodies, formed not from any plan or coordinated command, but purely from the single desperate wish to save their master.
Jack and May, the first to leap after him, finally succeeded in catching Joyeon.
Clatter!
'Got him!'
Clack!
'Hold on!'
Jack and May shouted to the followers holding onto them. The net of followers, already stretched taut, tightened their grips on one another at the command.
Creak-creak-creak!
The war trolls at the very bottom had their muscles tear apart from the strain.
Pop! Pop! Pop!
Some even had their arms ripped clean off… But they weren't called war trolls for nothing.
KUOOOOOH!!
When muscles tore, they held on with bone. When bones snapped and arms fell away, nearby war trolls grabbed the remaining arms still clinging to the walls. Their monstrous strength and unnatural judgment kept the net from ever breaking.
And finally—
"Agh… Huh?"
Three hundred meters above the abyss floor, the freefall that had spelled certain death for Arty and Joyeon came to a halt.
****
Still held by Jack and May, Joyeon looked down at the ground and let out a long breath, finally realizing he had escaped death. Then he noticed Arty was still trembling.
"I-Is it… stopped…?"
Arty clutched at Joyeon's clothes with shaking hands, as if she still couldn't believe it. Seeing her like that, Joyeon gently took her hand with a sympathetic expression.
"It's stopped. So don't worry anymore."
"It's stopped… It's really stopped… Thank goodness… Thank goodness…"
Perhaps the tension had finally drained from her. Arty, overcome by accumulated fatigue and the relief of having Joyeon beside her, collapsed into his arms and fell asleep as if passing out.
"……"
Clatter!
'Master! Are you all right?!'
Clack!
'You didn't get hurt, did you—'
"Get down. Quickly."
Cl-clatter!
'Ah, yes!'
Startled by Joyeon's flat tone, Jack and May hurriedly carried him to a section of the wall near the lowest level of the abyss rather than the floor itself.
Once safely on solid ground, Joyeon immediately examined Arty's condition. The first thing he checked was the dark red bloodstains on her arm—the very reason he had thrown himself after her. Thanks to Luna's treatment, the wounds beneath the dried blood had already closed without a trace.
Her face, however, was etched with exhaustion so deep that dark circles had formed beneath her eyes. Arty, who always took meticulous care of her appearance knowing how beautiful she was, now lay covered in dust, sleeping as if dead. Joyeon couldn't understand how she had ended up in such a state after being separated for only three or four hours at most. He could only assume something unimaginably difficult had happened to her.
Having reached that conclusion, Joyeon truly felt how much more dangerous the situation had been than he'd realized—and how close Arty had come to dying.