Chapter 735: The Wrong Heroine
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 735: The Wrong Heroine
Creak.
Muen pushed open the door.
Blood.
So much blood.
Hot, crimson, fresh blood.
It flooded the entire room, leaving nowhere to step.
"Where is this?"
Muen looked around. The room’s decor was quite ancient.
The patterns on the walls and windows were strikingly similar to the bizarre designs he had seen in Gutons Fortress. However, beyond that, many areas looked as if they had been erased from a painting with a literal eraser, leaving behind abrupt, jarring patches of blank white.
It was eerie.
Yet, strangely, Muen felt no sense of abnormality within his heart. He simply walked into this ancient, peculiar room, stepping over the flowing blood until he reached the very center.
A young girl lay there.
The blood was pouring from her delicate body, gurgling and gathering into a small red river, as if it would never run dry.
Had this girl been brutally murdered?
How pitiful.
Though bloodstains and long hair obscured her face, Muen could tell she was young.
"Hello? Do you need help?"
Muen instinctively knelt down. While calling out to her, he began searching for wounds on her body.
She was still alive. If he acted quickly, he might be able to save—
"Ah, this wound..." Muen froze as he found the injury.
"..."
At that moment, the girl suddenly moved.
She grabbed Muen’s hand just as he was preparing to bandage her.
Her hand was incredibly slender, looking as though it would snap with the slightest pressure, yet Muen found that no matter how hard he pulled, he couldn't break free from her grip.
"I'm sorry..."
The girl murmured. It seemed some crystalline liquid fell at that moment, mixing into the blood.
"Sorry for what... or to whom?"
After a moment of silence, Muen asked tentatively.
"I'm sorry..."
But the girl didn't answer.
She didn't even seem to notice Muen standing before her, continuing her self-absorbed whispers:
"I'm sorry... I was too cowardly... I was too weak..."
"It's my fault... I failed to lead you all... I'm sorry..."
"I'm sorry..."
"I'm sorry..."
"I'm sorry..."
"So... please... save her... and them..."
The girl repeated her apologies many times, but as she reached the final sentence, her tone shifted. Muen finally felt her gaze upon him.
It was a look of profound sorrow.
Was she... pleading?
"What do you mean by 'save'? Her? Them? Who are 'they'?"
Utterly confused, Muen pressed for answers.
"They are..."
Before he could get an answer, Muen heard a sharp crack, like glass shattering.
Fissures spiderwebbed through the room, and then a profound, deep darkness came rushing in.
Everything was swallowed by the dark.
Everything vanished.
Muen stared blankly at his surroundings. Before he could recover from the bizarre vision and the sudden upheaval, he felt his body... plummet.
A terrifying sensation of weightlessness swept over his soul. He felt as if he were falling from an unimaginable height, with no end in sight.
And it wasn't just the weightlessness.
Coming along with it...
Was pain.
An agonizing, piercing pain, like countless insects gnawing at his heart and bones!
...
"Hiss—it hurts!"
Muen snapped his eyes open and instinctively tried to sit up.
The sensation of his wounds tearing made the pain even worse.
"So it was a dream? Dammit," Muen cursed under his breath.
A dead woman, flowing blood, falling from the sky... even his nightmares were such clichés. Couldn't they have a little more originality?
Like, say, a sexy female ghost crawling out of a TV and getting stuck halfway...
"Anyway, where am I?"
He tossed aside those meaningless thoughts.
The last thing he remembered before losing consciousness was that bastard Divine Will summoning something incredible, followed by that incredible thing using an incredible move.
Then An had forcibly teleported him away...
"An..."
A flash of anger crossed Muen’s eyes.
Once again, he had failed to protect her.
Instead, he was the one protected by An. As a "Young Master," he was really...
"No, now isn't the time to be depressed!"
Muen slapped his head, forcing himself to wake up.
An is still waiting for me.
I'm not dead yet, so it’s not over. The most important thing right now is to figure out the situation, and then...
"Huh?"
As he was thinking, Muen suddenly noticed something. He slowly raised his hand.
That familiar warm, wet sensation on his palm was...
Blood?
Muen stiffened and looked down, seeing a massive amount of blood on the ground.
"No way, was that not a dream?"
Or did the female ghost feel his disrespect and actually come out to find him?
Don't do that! Coming out so boldly and directly... Liya will crush you with Holy Light, and Celicia’s Imperial Authority is no joke either!
Unfortunately, it wasn't a sexy ghost.
It was...
"Ariel?"
Following the trail of blood, Muen quickly found the girl lying not far from him.
She was a sight even more unexpected than a ghost.
Her long black hair was a tangled mess, her body covered in wounds as she sat weakly against a wall.
One of her hands was still deathly gripped around the hilt of that conspicuous Crimson-Gold Greatsword, while the other clutched the broken half of a black spear.
Drip. Drip.
Blood flowed from the tips of her hair, the blade of her sword, and her fingertips, drop by drop.
The gore had painted her red; only the pupils in her half-lidded, weary eyes remained pitch black.
"Ariel!"
Muen reacted instantly, grabbing her hand to check her pulse.
Good. She wasn't dead.
But she was barely hanging on.
Her mana was dry, her fighting spirit exhausted, and her life force was incredibly faint.
If her skin hadn't still felt soft and elastic to the touch, Muen would have thought he was looking at a mummified corpse that had crawled out of a graveyard.
"You... how did you end up like this?"
Muen frowned. Although Ariel was the "Soaring Phoenix" protagonist of the original novel and frequently faced life-and-death crises...
This was the first time he had seen her so battered and covered in filth.
"Ah... you're finally... awake?"
Accompanied by a faint voice, those black pupils shifted slightly.
Then, Muen saw the corner of the girl's mouth curl into that signature, unruly smirk.
"That's... great."
"Don't talk about it being 'great,' you're heavily injured! Here, can you still swallow?"
Muen hastily produced a healing potion pill and watched as Ariel struggled to swallow it.
His brow remained furrowed.
While these healing potions were of high quality, they could likely only stabilize Ariel’s condition temporarily. Her recovery would depend on her own strength.
Her injuries were simply too severe.
"With wounds this bad, who on earth were you fighting?"
Muen scanned the surroundings, and then... he froze again.
Over a dozen mutilated corpses were scattered around the area... yes, scattered. Some were even reduced to piles of charred remains.
It was a gruesome scene. While it didn't quite match the horror of the Evil God incidents Muen had experienced, it was shocking enough.
It was clear that when Ariel fought these people, she didn't have the luxury of aiming for vitals. She had swung her blade like a butcher’s cleaver—brutal and direct.
While this saved energy, it was a suicidal fighting style that traded wounds for lives.
Most importantly, based on the uniquely marked clothing and the broken bone knives scattered on the ground, Muen identified them.
Skinners.
"You... you fought this many Skinners head-on? While you were already injured?"
Muen hadn't forgotten that Ariel had been knocked off the high tower by Zagu earlier. Falling from that height, even if she were made of steel, she should have been dented by a few centimeters.
Yet she dragged that broken body into a fight against an entire squad of Skinners?
Is "health gating" just a standard cheat for her?
"More... or less..." Ariel said weakly.
"Are you crazy?"
Muen couldn't understand. "Why fight them head-on? With your combat experience, shouldn't you have slipped away in this situation?"
In Muen’s memory, while this girl was often stubborn, she wasn't a brainless brute. On the contrary—perhaps because her nutrients didn't need to go to certain "other" areas—she was usually quite sharp.
Especially in battle, her instincts were incredibly precise. She wouldn't be the protagonist otherwise.
So why...
"Because..."
Ariel suddenly struggled to lift her one movable hand, grasping Muen’s palm.
"You were already tagged by the enemy. If I ran... what would happen to you?"
"Tagged?"
Muen blinked, and the image of those chains piercing him flashed through his mind.
Was it then?
Even though An had teleported him away, the enemy had found him quickly because of that positioning tag.
And Ariel, who had likely just happened to find him, had been forced to fight these Skinners head-on to keep him from being killed?
"I couldn't... I couldn't abandon you..."
Gazing into Ariel’s sincere eyes, Muen’s heart skipped a beat. A surge of genuine emotion rose uncontrollably from the depths of his soul.
This girl...
She clearly hated him so much.
He had stolen her childhood sweetheart.
On a normal day, she looked like she wanted to skin him alive.
And yet, in a crisis like this, she still chose to save the "blonde bastard" she despised...
"Miss Muse..."
"..."
Wait.
Miss Muse? Who’s that?
As the light returned slightly to Ariel’s eyes, Muen finally saw that the reflection in her pupils wasn't some "blonde bastard" she hated to the bone.
It was... a delicate, beautiful girl with long golden hair!
Ah.
So I am Miss Muse...
Muen’s touched expression slowly stiffened.
Dammit! How could I forget! This girl is still obsessed with the "Miss Muse" she thinks I am! You bastard!!
Wait, has the potion not worn off yet? What kind of medicine did Senior Sister Anna give me this time? Why is it so potent?
"..."
He didn't have time to wonder if his Senior Sister had done this on purpose or by accident.
Because right now, Ariel was gripping his hand tightly with her one good arm, enduring the pain to maintain a "cool" expression, smiling as she murmured:
"Please run... Miss Muse..."
"The enemy will surely catch up again..."
"Don't worry about me... I... I'll be fine..."
"Please... run..."
With that, she fainted in a "cool" fashion.
In some cliché CEO melodrama, this would be the textbook "CEO saves the damsel from eighteen thugs with machetes and then faints heroically" scene.
So brave, so self-sacrificing, so dashing—just like a Hero from a story... If I were actually a beautiful girl, I’d probably be completely moved by Ariel right now and fall head over heels for her.
Unfortunately.
There are no "ifs."
He, Muen Campbell.
Though his current appearance was female—and his levels of cuteness, beauty, and charm were off the charts.
Inside, he was a manlier man than pure gold.
And this Ariel Bugard.
Gender: Female.
Preference: Female.
Most hated thing... is a male with blonde hair.
So...
"Now... what the hell am I supposed to do?"
Feeling targeted by fate once again, Muen covered his face and wailed.