Lady Ravina vanished, leaving only the shotgun and ammunition behind.
Should I be relieved that she didn’t leave her clothes behind too?
Whatever the case, this was clearly no ordinary situation.
- Where’d Raa go...?
- (Did she die...? priest emote)
- She was finally starting to seem happy...
- You bastards, don’t make her dead already
But I am Han Yuyeon. An authority on flexible deduction.
First, I stored the shotgun and ammunition in my subspace and tried to infer the situation.
After all, I had just stepped into the realm of deduction masters.
Clue 1.
There was a large discrepancy between Lady Ravina’s footprints and the position of the fallen shotgun.
Unless Lady Ravina suddenly threw the shotgun, this clue made no sense.
And since there was no way Lady Ravina would have thrown the shotgun in the first place, it made even less sense.
Clue 2.
There were no signs of resistance or combat whatsoever.
I turned back for a moment and checked the footprints again.
Judging by her stride, Lady Ravina’s guard had loosened a little up until she drew the heart.
But after that, as if she had sensed something strange, I could tell she had advanced with a defensive stride.
Lady Ravina, who had been on guard so that she could pull the trigger at any moment, suddenly disappeared without even being able to resist.
I couldn’t understand that part, so I thought about it some more.
If she had been ambushed with a powerful blow before she could resist, there should have been traces of the dust scattering.
But the fact that there were no traces at all of the force that neutralized Lady Ravina... didn’t that mean the True Ancestor could wield an extremely precise, formless power?
Clue 3.
Why do I need to use my head? I have power, don’t I?
“True Ancestor, True Ancestor. Please give Lady Ravina back. I’ll trade the audience chamber for her.”
- Eh?
“I’m not the only one with a hostage. Please understand that I can destroy the audience chamber at any time.”
- Hieeeeeek
Did he hear my voice?
Suddenly, the audience chamber shook, and the ceiling began to be torn away.
“?”
- No, Lady Yuyeon, what on earth did you do?
- So now you can tear off ceilings just by standing still?
Thanks to the torn-off ceiling, my view opened up, and I could see the red moon.
I couldn’t lose, so I strengthened my body with aura and mana, then stomped hard on the ground.
With an even more violent tremor, the ground and framework maintaining the audience chamber collapsed with a roar.
- Uh...
- I believed you could destroy the audience chamber whenever you wanted, but I didn’t think you’d 3-second-cut it...
- Okay, next time I’ll expect a 1-second-cut
After the structures making up the audience chamber were destroyed, only the blood-red throne remained.
Just as I was about to wonder why it hadn’t been destroyed, the True Ancestor revealed himself.
“True Ancestor. Did you perhaps hate the audience chamber? I didn’t think you’d destroy it before I even stepped in.”
- Excuse me...?
- You’re the one who destroyed it, so what are you saying, Lady Yuyeon?
- Shh, she said the True Ancestor destroyed it
- True Ancestor, you crazy bastard, how much did you hate the audience chamber?
I could also see Lady Ravina floating in the air, as if caught by some formless force.
Could it be that because I gave her a shotgun instead of the holy sword, she couldn’t deal with that power?
I was about to rescue Lady Ravina, but the True Ancestor tossed her over to me.
“Eeng.”
If I hugged Lady Ravina tight—she might break.
So I lifted her up—and carefully laid her on the floor.
It seemed she would need time to regain consciousness.
To think she was already out of commission as soon as we met on the 10th floor. I was worried about frail Lady Ravina.
“I did not kill the priest of Serbein.”
“Thank you. I’m Han Yuyeon.”
- Remember it, the name of the human who will kill you
- (I’ll remember! wizard emote)
As expected, the True Ancestor did not return my greeting.
It seemed the True Ancestor really disliked communication.
“I do not dislike communicating with those who are qualified.”
“? Did I perhaps say that out loud?”
“I can read your thoughts.”
“Aha. Come to think of it, you were the one who gave J the power to read thoughts, weren’t you?”
- Damn it, another mind reader
- I want to read Lady Yuyeon’s thoughts too
- I wonder what Lady Yuyeon usually thinks about
VVVVVVVVVVVVV.
VVVVVVVV.
“If you are doing that because you are bothered by having your thoughts read, stop. If you do not want me to, I will not read them.”
“I don’t mind if you read them. You’re kinder than I thought, True Ancestor.”
“Because you are worth it.”
“Do you perhaps want me to serve you?”
“I did.”
“?”
When I tilted my head for a moment at the answer in the past tense, the True Ancestor continued.
“You are too strong to stand beneath me.”
“V.”
“For one such as me, who has lived my whole life by the logic of power, there is no logic by which I could make you my limbs.”
“VV.”
The True Ancestor destroyed his own throne and descended through the rubble.
For some reason, I could feel both a dreadful loneliness and exultation in the True Ancestor’s voice.
“Are you not curious why I tried to destroy humanity?”
“If I’m curious, will you tell me?”
“Because I thought that if I tried to destroy humanity, an existence like you would inevitably appear. An existence that would quench the thirst of my lifetime, one I felt I could not defeat even if I threw everything I had at them.”
Ah, I think I understand the nature of the loneliness the True Ancestor feels.
“Do you know what remains when eternal life is combined with strength that has no equal?”
It was a different kind of loneliness from what I had felt in my previous life, but I could understand it.
“Do you know what remains when a life that can only find joy in fighting the strong is combined with a world where the strong no longer come into being?”
The True Ancestor pointed to his own heart as he spoke.
His heart, which had been filled with loneliness for so long, had finally begun to beat after meeting me.
He could not hide his joy at feeling that heartbeat for the first time in ages.
Though the nature of it was different, I could still feel that loneliness.
Perhaps because he read my thoughts again, the True Ancestor’s expression changed.
“...You know it far too well.”
“I also had a time when I was lonely. Though it felt a little different from yours, True Ancestor.”
- ?
- Lady Yuyeon...
Perhaps because he felt a sense of kinship, there was a trace of pity in the True Ancestor’s eyes.
“You endured a hellish span of time. Perhaps even more so than I.”
“I don’t think debating who suffered more is a very good topic.”
“You are right.”
When the True Ancestor reached a hand into the air, a sword burst through the rubble and flew to him.
It seemed the formless power that had subdued Lady Ravina was telekinesis.
He had used telekinesis to lift and subdue Lady Ravina without even giving her time to pull the shotgun’s trigger.
Only now did the traces make sense.
“The priest of Serbein was weak. Weak enough that she could not even resist telekinesis. She relied far too much on the weapon you gave her, rather than on her own divinity.”
“Gasp.”
“The fact that I did not kill such a priest and left her alive is unmistakably my goodwill. Han Yuyeon.”
“Is there something you want?”
“I believe you know what I want better than anyone.”
I could feel from the True Ancestor a fighting spirit honed over an unimaginably long time.
I could feel a battle lust rotting away because it had found no place to pour itself out.
Even without being able to read thoughts, I could read his heart.
The True Ancestor wanted a battle against an overwhelmingly powerful opponent who could overwhelm him.
“J made a similar request. When I face you, True Ancestor, he asked me to use my full strength.”
“J did.”
“He said that if the time came for you to be defeated, he at least wanted it to be by my full strength... but I promised him I would use my full strength except for one method, you see?”
“What is that one method?”
I took out the EX-grade broom and showed it to him.
Perhaps he could see the philosophy dwelling within the broom, because the True Ancestor was aghast.
“What... kind of horrifying weapon is that?”
“Well, you know. It’s a bit much, getting done in by something like this. But to answer your goodwill, True Ancestor, I think I’ll have to exclude one more thing.”
I put the broom into my subspace and took out the holy sword to show him.
Judging by the circumstances, the True Ancestor was an immortal being.
The standard strategy would be to use Lady Ravina’s holy sword to sever his immortality and kill him.
But if I used even the holy sword, I felt like the True Ancestor would die before he could even feel anything...
Thud—I stabbed the holy sword hard into the floor.
The True Ancestor, who could read my thoughts and could not possibly fail to understand the meaning of this action, broke into a broad smile.
“You are excessively kind to someone who tried to destroy humanity.”
“You spared Lady Ravina, didn’t you?”
This was my own form of pity for the True Ancestor, whose only way to resolve his loneliness seemed to be fighting the strong.
***
Valerius had been born strong from the beginning, but he was not the sort to rely only on his innate strength.
Swordsmanship, spearmanship, hand-to-hand combat, magic, sorcery... Valerius was the culmination of combat accumulated over thousands of years.
The sword he had grasped for the first time in ages trembled, as if excited by the fact that it had to face a powerful opponent.
The first strike was a hard sword.
Having read my sword path, Han Yuyeon put her hand between her cleavage and drew out a sword of her own to meet it.
‘How does a sword come out of her cleavage?’
There was no time to entertain such a question.
The soft sword that perfectly deflected my hard sword overturned my field of vision before our blades could even meet two or three times.
“V.”
The upside-down world meant that my neck had been severed in a single strike.
The world reversed by that flawless, elegant sword path felt entrancing.
The saying that one sees as much as one knows was truly cruel and fantastical, and laughter escaped me, impossible to hold back.
‘No matter what I do, I cannot beat her with a sword.’
I stitched my neck back together with telekinesis.
With my body made whole once more, I drew in a spear that had been buried in the rubble.
As if responding to my move, Han Yuyeon also pulled a spear out from her cleavage.
‘Why on earth does she keep taking weapons out of her cleavage?’
I was about to read her thoughts, then stopped.
Right now, I wanted to focus entirely on this battle alone.
Without the slightest hesitation, I thrust with all my might.
That thrust, which had pierced the hearts of countless powerful beings and which I had thought had no room left for improvement, collapsed before a thrust closer to perfection.
“Ha...! Hahaha!!”
“VV.”
The spear that pierced my heart was withdrawn without the slightest lingering attachment.
It was absurd that Han Yuyeon, who had produced such a perfect strike, was making an incomprehensible hand gesture with her doll-like face.
It felt truly delightful.
Regenerating my heart, I summoned even more swords and spears embedded among the rubble.
Telekinesis. With my innate power, I constructed dozens of attack routes without using my hands.
Swords, spears, and hand-to-hand combat.
Even if it was Han Yuyeon, it would be difficult for her to block the multifaceted combat I had built up.
‘...Naturally, restraining her with telekinesis is impossible.’
Even if it was impossible to bind Han Yuyeon’s body, it did not matter.
The moment I launched swords and spears with telekinesis and attempted close-quarters combat, Han Yuyeon lightly touched my swords and spears here and there.
And every time Han Yuyeon’s hand touched them, my swords and spears vanished without a trace.
Amid that incomprehensible phenomenon, we clashed barehanded.
Just as I wondered whether she could possibly be good at barehanded combat as well, my vision spun, and my heart was destroyed.
When I came to my senses, I was lying on the floor, looking up at the sky.
“Huahaha! Hahahaha!!”
The laughter would not stop.
This overwhelming feeling, this sensation of standing before a wall I could never surmount no matter what I did, filled me with joy.
And so I continued to attack.
Handling magic and sorcery simultaneously, summoning the weapons buried in the rubble one by one, again and again...
Han Yuyeon, who overwhelmed me with her full strength at every moment and yet, far from tiring, seemed to contain infinite power, felt wondrous to me.
“If you are that strong, your life must be terribly tedious as well.”
“Not necessarily.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t particularly like fighting.”
Even without reading her thoughts, I could feel Han Yuyeon’s heart.
The reason a human who had lived in a loneliness even greater than mine had become this strong was to find someone to communicate with.
Unlike me, who had become lonely because I had grown too strong, Han Yuyeon had become strong because she had been lonely.
Unlike me, who could only resolve my loneliness through battles with the strong, I envied Han Yuyeon, who could resolve her loneliness merely by having a conversation.
“When times are hard, you should try doing peace signs too, True Ancestor. When you do peace signs, you feel better.”
So that strange hand gesture was a peace sign.
I tried imitating it, but I did not feel particularly better.
“I have lived this way precisely because I cannot feel happiness from something like this.”
“Goodness.”
Our conversation in words ended there.
I squeezed out my power and forged a massive blood sword.
After grasping the enormous blood sword, easily over fifty meters long, with telekinesis, I aimed it at the benefactor who had relieved my loneliness.
“This is my strongest strike.”
“Oh. Then I’ll show you my strongest quick-draw technique.”
As if she had been waiting for this, Han Yuyeon once again put her hand between her cleavage.
She said it was her strongest quick-draw technique, so why did she keep putting her hand between her cleavage?
“...Just what—”
The moment I could no longer hold back and tried to ask the reason, an ice sword began to emerge from between Han Yuyeon’s cleavage.