Chapter. 21. Another Solo Play (28)
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Boom!
The spark that jumps up illuminates the darkness in the fog.
The difference in power breaks down the defender’s balance, and a solid, sacrificial advance penetrates into the gap.
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[I can’t believe you learned the Imperial Sword. Hyde.]
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Cut, hit, and swing. The Imperial Sword rarely uses thrusts, but instead uses many of the movements of pushing the opponent with the broad surface unique to the greatsword.
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[Why?]
[Because the imperial swordsman doesn’t throw himself around like that. Didn’t you learn to act like a moving castle wall?]
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Gaaaaaang!
An attack that targets neither the sword nor the person, but only the enemy’s center of gravity, increases its power exponentially when simply combined with strong force.
‘come.’
If the opponent stumbles to the point where he cannot control his body, if he blocks the most honest and simple sword attack, his body will be crushed, and if he avoids it, he will stumble again and be endlessly pressured.
‘now…!’
The weak point is just before a simple enough blow.
The center of gravity, which was already heavily focused on the left foot, was twisted to face forward.
Crunch!
There was a bad sound from my ankle, but somehow my body moved forward.
The spear blade of the undead hero, who was looking for an opportunity, burst into purple fireballs towards me from left and right.
The blade of the spear got caught on the ‘Party Frame’, a magic engineering artifact protruding from my side, and the flame mixed with the curse was sucked in by Otman’s jewel in my pocket, shining brightly.
The missed spear blade cut deeply into my calf, and the flames that could not be absorbed poured down the back of my neck, making my skin sizzle.
Ignoring defense, the charge dug straight into Gainax’s face as he raised his sword high.
‘okay. The sparring back then was exactly the same as it is now.’
Kaaaang!
Before the unblockable blow is completed, he blocks it in advance with a charge that ignores defense.
Then, as a result of hastily blocking the enemy’s special move, I was hit hard while my balance was off.
“Thinking of the old days… it’s me!”
Blocked attack, imbalanced balance. What followed next was a merciless assault aimed at me, who had limited mobility.
In the past sparring, the sparring ended with such a miserable beating.
Gainax said he would not spar in the future if things continued like this. It’s like insulting the empire’s swordsmanship.
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[I learned it….! Surely!]
[Where is that swordsmanship?]
[They say it is a saint that embodies the essence of imperial swordsmanship!]
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But Gainax. There’s one thing our Emperor doesn’t know.
“That was sparring…!”
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[Then shouldn’t the castle just fall on the enemy instead of creeping forward?]
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Quang!
Swing the sword face to face without deflecting it.
bang! Quang! Bang bang bang!
If the imperial swordsmanship protects one’s own center and destroys the opponent’s center, then
I swing my center as well and crush the opponent.
Even if the misaligned ankle is twisted, the cut calf bursts, the spine, internal organs, and everything connected to the hand holding the sword are shattered and twisted.
Running towards the opponent while consuming my body most efficiently.
“You can’t show something like that in sparring.”
Whoops-!
The sound of swords breaking signaled the end of the endless brawl.
A half-severed shoulder.
Calf with clearly visible muscles.
An ankle that makes it difficult to walk forward properly.
The back of the neck was so painful as to be stabbed with a knife, the back of the neck had been burned and the skin had peeled off.
What I got from it was Gainax’s slightly cut breastplate and dented gauntlets.
There was only a light scar running diagonally across his face and his loose hair.
There is no doubt that there are winners and losers.
Cluck cluck!
“Yes… If you use it against an opponent with a difference in strength, this is a sword technique that is no different from suicide…”
The winner approaches to hit the loser’s neck. A step that is neither hasty nor hesitating.
three.
two.
one.
“…So it needs to be used delicately and calculatedly.”
Fighting.
I smiled faintly as I put the remaining bomb in my pocket.
– Click!
An indefensible blow that splits the sky approaches me, who I don’t even have the power to stop.
What comes to mind is something a little different from the main light.
From the moment I encountered the Imperial Castle, I had it stuck in my head like a picture and thought about it constantly.
‘The imperial castle has been dried out to the point where the stones are cracking due to the influence of curses for a long time.’
‘The ground is full of holes, with countless burrowing bugs appearing.’
‘A tremendous impact that broke the sword of Pasan, which was strong enough to contain the quasi-mana aura created by the fierce battle between Gainax and I and the Auror.’
Gainax takes a strong step to swing the sword.
‘The curse was studied in the basement of the Imperial Castle.’
‘Very deep under the Imperial Castle.’
Kuuuung-!
At that moment, a dull and heavy explosion sounded, unlike the sharp explosions so far.
Push!
The castle floor collapses beneath the feet of the winner holding the sword.
The sword, which has lost its balance, misses the body of the loser.
The winner’s body falls helplessly along the collapsing floor, and the loser, who knew this in advance, throws himself with his broken sword toward the bottomless pit.
‘Destroy the imperial castle.’
A plan that came to mind as soon as I encountered this place.
At the end of the plan, in the endlessly collapsing darkness, the broken sword bursts into white flames and
shouts!
A cold neck falls.
Winners and losers are swapped.
“If I do it right instead of sparring… I win.”
The head shaking as it fell seemed to nod.
bang! Cooung- Boom! Quagwang!
The basement of the imperial castle. The spiral staircase leading to the most secret place was collapsing endlessly along with falling debris.
‘knife.’
My head was dizzy due to anemia, so I forced myself to move my body.
knife.
Lionel.
How far does this underground fall?
The flickering aura that seemed to be extinguished illuminated the falling imperial sword.
Catch it.
You have to catch it.
The last
key…
….slur.
And my mind, which had been stretched so tightly as if it would break, suddenly relaxed.
Darkness fell.
thud!
Kuuuung-!
Rocks poured down endlessly into the basement of the collapsing castle.
****
….Thump.
Cuuuung –
The sound of something collapsing endlessly.
The vibration of the floor resonated through my bones, and it felt as if my entire body was watching the fall.
‘dark.’
It was a familiar and incredibly cozy darkness. The darkness is so comfortable that I want to sleep like this forever.
What woke me up from that sweet embrace was a chill that made my skin tingle.
It’s cold. It’s a word that goes well with a corpse, though.
Crispy!
‘I’m not dead.’
It was not the chill of death, but thin ice created by cold enough to actually freeze the blood flowing from the body.
I only noticed it now, but the blue jewel in my arms was blinking faintly in the darkness.
‘Ottman’s… jewels?’
A jewel blinking as if it had been accomplished by itself.
The faint mana of the wind still lingers around.
The cold enough to freeze your blood… Ramen.
‘Before coming to the capital. The cave I met when I arrived in the empire… was it the wind wizard?’
A wind wizard who was hiding in a cave with a priest of mercy who was treating people suffering from a curse.
When I first saw him, he attacked me, and Otman’s jewel absorbed his attack, which seemed to be a fairly high-level magic.
‘Is this the [Embrace] of water-based magic?…’
Just before the fall, the cold storm contained within the jewel seemed to have been released and reduce the impact. I lost so much blood that I couldn’t tell if I did it or if it happened on its own.
“Hook, huh, huh…”
Just because the wound is frozen does not mean that the blood that has escaped will return.
My vision was blurry, my head hurt, and my body temperature had dropped to a dangerous level.
As my vision kept shaking up and down, I realized that I was dozing off without realizing it.
‘If you fall asleep, you die.’
I focused on the pain. The pain that felt like my whole body had been crushed in a pestle helped straighten out my faltering consciousness.
….No, it wasn’t the whole body.
To be precise, tremendous pain was pouring only from above the belly button.
“…Probably not. “That’s…”
The breath that had been gasping in pain began to gasp in fear.
hand. Although my fingers were freely bent, I still had some feeling.
eight. It didn’t straighten properly as if my joints were stiff, but I was able to stretch forward.
With those poor arms, he crawled towards the place where the light was streaming in.
Jiik- Kak! Jiik – Kagak!
“Heo-eok-heo-”
I squeezed my body between the collapsed rocks and arrived at a place that looked like a mixture of a magic tower and a temple. Perhaps this is the basement of the imperial castle where the curse has been sealed and studied.
It was built so strong that even when the passage leading down collapsed, the facility maintained its shape.
At the center of the facility was a lovely flower emitting a luminous light.
“Curse, cursed flower….”
Perhaps it is the center of the curse that covers the capital.
It is the medium that delivered terrifying power to the twelve legends even after the death of the emperor, the caster, and the core of the curse that has absorbed and stored everything in the capital for the past three years.
Despite all of the above and even the emperor, the caster, facing a miserable situation, the cursed flower was shining, showing off its desirable beauty with the life force it had absorbed.
That ominous light shone on me.
What was revealed was a leg frozen with blood.
‘….It depends. It’s still running…!’
I tried to move my legs somehow, with a glimmer of hope that I would at least retain my old appearance, but
I failed!
Perhaps due to the shock of being dragged for a moment, my frozen leg broke from the knee down.
Even on the legs that had turned into frozen blood.
The thigh that doesn’t move on top of it.
I couldn’t feel anything even on my butt.
I had no feeling in my lower body.
Unlike Lionel, whose grip on his left hand had been broken for some time, he could not feel anything.
Doo doo doo doo doo!
While I was holding the Imperial Sword and staring blankly at the missing leg, a tremor that seemed to be gnawing at the ground was coming towards me.
Quack!
A mouth full of disgusting teeth broke through the collapsed wreckage and vomited out some now quite familiar passengers.
“…Hyde.”
“Uh oh. Kauld… Did he follow you all the way here?”
“Ha hydeu-!”
Wow!
Nigmi, who appeared with Kauld and his bodyguard, rushed towards me with tears in his eyes. Why is he clinging to me like this? Same thing in the canyon.
Kakkakkakkak.
While Nigmi was trying to fit his shattered leg into my knee, Kauld, who had returned after confirming that there was no danger around, approached me.
“Your emperor was taken over by another tunnel worm. “If necessary, move it to wherever you want.”
“…Oh my gosh, why…?”
Cough! Cough!
“…Because we have the affection to stand shoulder to shoulder in the same battle, I can show you the same kindness. “Is there a place on this continent you particularly want to be buried in?”
“You can’t help but choose a grave for a living person. What a remark befitting a monarch – Cough! “Gagging!”
I wondered why it was so hard to breathe, and every time I coughed, a bucket of blood poured out. I think the reason my chest felt like a rock was because my lungs were filled with blood.
“If it weren’t for my legs…”
“My spine was crushed. “You die.”
“uh. “I made a mistake in my calculations.”
“Is that the imperial sword you so desperately wanted?”
“Uh oh. “The calculation was wrong, but the answer was right.”
I got it in the end. Face the professor who has become a monster and find the key to dealing with him.
I barely
managed to lift Lionel in my hand. It was a bit thin, but it seemed like Kauld was supporting it with its tail.
“…Do you know what this is?”
“The Imperial Sword. The sword of the royal family. Or the secret treasure of the imperial family, called the sword of opening heaven.”
“that’s right. Since the founding of the empire…. It is an amazing thing that everyone who has set foot in the empire, from old people to babies who can’t even walk, knows….”
This is a symbol.
A symbol of the story of the first emperor who overcame a battle where defeat was certain and eventually created Baltin’s name as an empire.
Even if the emperor dies and a new emperor ascends the throne, the sword of the imperial family remains unchanged and symbolizes the absolute power of the empire.
This is a symbol of the people’s god that has been revered by billions of imperial subjects for 750 years, a symbol of victory, and a symbol of impossible victory.
It is a new thing that has become so solidified thanks to being believed that way.
“The sword that symbolizes human victory….”
“Yes. So even though Her Majesty Queen Nigmi wanted the empire, she did not stop you from taking it. It is a treasure created by the faith of ‘humans’. “It’s not something we can use.”
“…We’re all here. We’re almost there now. Give this to that guy…!”
Rattling.
Kauld quietly stopped me as I struggled with my stiff body.
“You’ve done enough.”
“….”
“What you hold in your hand is proof that you have defeated an opponent that even I cannot guarantee victory over, and it is proof that you have earned my respect.”
“So I advise you. “Do not fill the end of a knight who deserves respect with regret.”
The beast’s eyes, shining in the dark, were filled with sincerity, so my struggling limbs gradually began to lose strength.
“I have work to do.”
“…Everyone has something to do. So many of my brothers died on the battlefield. Our people all had work to do. They lived for and defended Her Majesty Queen Nygmi, and they did so by dying. “The duty they left behind was taken up by all of us who survived and brought into the present.”
“Hand over your duties…?”
“If there is someone like that. I will hand over the sword in your hand to him. “If you have anything to say, let me know.”
pass over one’s duties
If you die here, even if you come back to life, you will still be a newborn baby. No matter what I do, I can’t reach the professor.
….overstepping one’s duty. To someone.
In my fading mind, I imagined someone holding the Lionel that I had worked so hard to obtain, confronting the professor who had played into the hands of the system, and taking over my duty.
….Plap!
It was unpleasant.
“no.”
Regardless of whether it was possible, it wasn’t possible.
“It’s my responsibility.”
The blood all over my body seemed to be boiling with anger for which I did not know the reason, cause, or target.
I left everything here.
A life that even I don’t remember.
Relationships in life and relationships in the past.
I left everything behind.
Pead deud deuk!
Ttuduk! Tdu-duk!
“That much… is my responsibility!”
Actually, like I said for a long time, I wanted to learn magic.
Because Otman is a person who makes you feel warm just by being with him. I clung to that person for years and desperately wanted to learn magic, and even if it wasn’t magic, I just wanted to go on a trip to the beach together.
There were times when I hated the fucking sense of duty and the fucking longing. It was like that when I was going crazy alone on the island, and when I met a really good person, I wanted to start a family like everyone else and live out the rest of my life in peace.
All the disasters in the world are not a life of searching for them all.
I left it all behind. Everything for a one-moment miracle! All! I abandoned it and came all the way here!
“That… I can’t hand it over to anyone… uh!”
Ttuduk! Tdu-duk! Ttuduk!
Every time I stretched out my arms or moved my shoulders, there was a sound of something breaking inside.
Nigmi cries and clings. Kauld watches with mixed eyes. Everyone shook off everything and crawled forward.
My head felt like a ball of fire. How many minutes do you have left to think properly?
‘altar.’
‘The source of the curse, the first curse.’
‘Nigmi.’
‘Hwangseong.’
I swallowed up the information contained in my blurry eyes and forced it all together.
‘Throw it away and move on.’
The broken body was laid on the altar in front of the curse flower.
“…Aldrich.”
The moment I called his name, he was already next to me.
“Hyde.”
“Ugh… I knew you would be here. “I said there was work left in the imperial castle.”
“That’s my job, right?”
“…Of all the souls I’ve dealt with, the death I’ve dealt with the most is…your death.”
What does it mean? As a being who is close to a demigod and who cares for the dead, does this mean that he could foresee the future of how I would die? Or does it mean that he knew I would act like this?
Whatever it was, it was good. Because you are where you need to be when you need it.
His tongue stiffened and he pointed with his eyes. Cursed Nigmi Aldrich.
“Hyde.”
“Help me.”
“Have you not seen the Emperor’s Marlowe? The curse is this twisted power created by our family that won’t grant you what you want. “I must remain buried in this dark underground forever.”
“Stop right here…Ugh! no.”
“You can stop. I… am going to take you with me. “You deserve a break.”
Tears formed on Aldrich’s devastated face.
“Even if it’s not you… there are people left, right?”
“It doesn’t matter who stays.”
“You guy…”
Aldrich lowered his head sadly. As I raised my finger, Nigmi and Kauld, who were a few steps away, approached the altar where I was.
Aldrich’s body passed through them like a ghost.
“You… that me.”
“Hey, don’t die….”
Why is this guy obsessed with me?
The answer was simple.
“If you die, I… really, huh! Ho be alone….”
Because I am her last remaining direct sibling.
Now that all the Mutes from the 3 World Mute Queen have disappeared, and the Mutes reborn through the legacies of Falcatus and Edeorna have formed a new generation.
It was only me and Nigmi who shared blood from the past.
Anyway, my roots are the mute factor that came from the mute blood that penetrated Professor Park’s body.
It was faint, but Nigmi felt it instinctively.
“Then… will you help me?”
“Sniff! Yeah…”
That’s all I have left. Use it.
‘The curse is completed through the spell catalyst target.’
order. Aldrich, a soul mage who is almost a demigod.
catalyst. The symbolism of Nigmi as the first cursed flower that still seems to be overflowing with vitality and the ‘only’ queen of Mute.
The target is me.
Squeak –
Sharp nails bled Nigmi’s palm.
Hold hands. The Queen’s blood highlights Mute’s blood ties to me.
Aldrich stretched out his hand toward the cursed painting with a sad expression.
“…You won’t be able to get what you want.”
‘i know.’
“You… won’t be able to go back.”
‘I know.’
Although his mouth was tight, Aldrich understood everything.
As the magical light of the cursed fire filled the basement, the blood that flowed from me soaked the altar and drew a complex magic circle.
“How can your brother’s life be so miserable…”
Aldrich finished his incantation.
[It will eventually break at the end.]
[It will eventually reach the end and break down.]
[Prayer]
Hwaaah!
And I saw what was left of my body turning into ashes and disappearing, as if shedding its skin one by one.
The energy coming out of the cursed fire was burrowing into my body like a bug overflowing with terrible vitality.
I also saw Aldrich, with his sad or not-sad face, disappearing as if seeping through.
‘Throw it away and move on.’
When I first developed a sense of self in the professor’s body, I wanted to become human.
A human being who eats, drinks, moves, and breathes air freely like a guy.
‘I’ve lived enough.’
‘I was busy, but I lived long enough for 200 years.’
As the remaining human beings disappear, my faint remaining origin greedily absorbs my strength and grows.
Think about what you want.
Big and strong body.
No matter how much you cut or break it, it will come back to life with tenacity.
The power to crush everything that stands in your way.
The red monster in my brightest memories that I clearly remember.
‘I want to go back.’
The abandoned human body shed its last tears.
I will reach the end, because I have the strength to do so.
But you can’t go back.
The shape of my soul is now different from his empty space.
****
That day, a monster from the past resurrected deep underground in the imperial castle let out a roar of birth. It let out
an exclamation, a roar, or a cry of sorrow for a long time, and in its hand
was a sword symbolizing human victory.
All my preparations are complete.
In the end, after throwing it all away.
****
