Chapter 113
[We can meet here again.]
The memories of the sixteenth round rose to the surface.
[I’m sorry I keep leaving you alone.]
“That was definitely something NoName said in the immediately preceding round... But now!”
As she ruminated over every forgotten memory through the seventeenth and final round, her eyes filled with tears.
[This time, I’ll definitely come back alive.]
“Hic... I did it...! I don’t know what I did, but I did it...! I remember everything! So please, God...!”
The moment Adela saw the words telling her to go back, she couldn’t shake the thought that she had to go see NoName.
Sparks suddenly crackled from the stone wall she had absentmindedly caressed, and the mechanical noise that had been muddling her thoughts all this time became clear.
[Recall it. Remember it. Don’t forget.]
At the words telling her to recall, she was able to remember.
NoName had gently brushed her hair today, yesterday, and the day before. Every single ‘today.’
And at the reminder to remember, she finally recalled it all.
During an impossible mission, NoName had willingly sacrificed herself to protect Adela. Then the world had been reset.
Having kept the final promise—not to forget—Adela hurried to the place where her benefactor ought to be.
“This memory...! I’ll never let anyone take it from me. I’m going to save NoName no matter what!”
However, it was too soon to feel relieved.
The conditions for Adela’s memories to return had always been limited to NoName’s death and the collapse of the world.
But Adela was certain that, somehow, this round felt different from all the others.
The scenery changed in an instant, and the Academy’s sparring grounds came into view.
Having already lost her friend twice in the same place, Adela felt as if her heart were being torn apart.
What if she was already too late? What if those strange letters appeared again and foretold her death?
Clutching her pounding chest, she vaulted across the rooftops between buildings in a single bound, avoiding the eyes of the people below.
And then she saw her.
The vivid golden hair rarely seen in the capital, the sharply pointed ears, and, when she concentrated her mana even more, every detail of that prim expression came into view.
She was alive.
“NoName!”
Please let her shout reach her. Even if her voice went hoarse like this, even if she could never speak again, she didn’t care.
“Adela...?”
Adela leaped at Name without a moment’s hesitation.
They had been together just moments ago, yet she was overwhelmed by an emotion as intense as if they hadn’t seen each other in ten years.
“Why did you come here? What about Siciela?”
“I gave her emergency treatment! You told me how, remember? Tissue Regeneration Magic.”
“No, you...!”
Leaving Name, whose movements had frozen in an expression of disbelief, Adela calmly surveyed the situation.
They were still facing each other, but the battle had not actually begun.
There was hope.
“Forest Keeper, let’s run away...”
“What are you talking about? We’re in the middle of a mission—”
“What good is some stupid mission if we die?!”
She found herself hating the elf’s unwavering eyes.
How could she throw her life away without even the slightest hesitation?
“Calm down, Adela. They have no intention of letting us go anyway. And Alpherion is...”
Name pointed toward the knight lying on the other side’s battlefield.
He looked like he was in such critical condition that he could die at any moment.
Adela squeezed her eyes shut.
This was a desperate situation. They never should have accepted this mission in the first place.
But they couldn’t simply leave the demon’s cornerstone inside the Laurel of Life behind.
If the Laurel fell into the hands of demon worshipers, the world’s destruction would be inevitable.
“I thought it was unlikely, but I never imagined you’d still be at the Academy. This is truly unexpected.”
-????????
-What the hell is going on with the story?
-Jin Chronicle came here himself?
-Isn’t this a bug?
A phlegmy, unpleasant voice rang out. The ticking of a pocket watch accompanied it.
Jin Chronicle—the Academy’s vice dean and a demon worshiper—had descended.
The story had gone completely off the rails.
As long as the player remained inside the Academy, they were never supposed to encounter Jin Chronicle.
It didn’t matter how long they stalled while fighting the students and the guard knights.
It made no sense, but that was the restriction the game company had placed on the boss. Jin Chronicle would simply wait, and wait, and wait for the protagonists to leave the Academy.
The man who had descended from thin air walked in a straight line through the enormous crowd.
He passed through the people literally, as if they had never existed in the first place.
-Aaaaaaaaaaah
-It’s a ghost!
-It really was a bug lolㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-I nearly had a heart attack
-Whoa, what the hell
“What... How did you pass through those people...?”
Adela’s instincts went into maximum alert.
It was impossible. Had he really returned as a ghost?
“What people are you talking about? It’s just you, me, and the thing pretending to be a Forest Keeper.”
All Jin Chronicle could see was Name and Adela.
Two different worlds had overlapped.
Even one of them would have been overwhelming, but now she had to deal with both factions on top of that.
“Forest Keeper... how is this...”
“Adela, you said all your memories had returned, right?”
“Ah... Yeah, that bastard... He was a demon worshiper! He wasn’t even from the Empire in the first place!”
“Then keep Jin Chronicle occupied. I’ll handle everyone else.”
A way to escape that wretched Act 1 flashed through Name’s mind.
* * *
A boss fight with Jin Chronicle had broken out without warning. However, Name couldn’t participate in it.
She took the aggro of the entire army upon herself and dashed toward the Academy’s main building. She briefly explained that she was looking for a girl named Giselle Phoenix, then left.
“Has it really been exactly two years?”
At the man’s indifferent question, Adela’s fists began to tremble.
“We haven’t even been apart for a day, you bastard...!”
“How unfortunate. I feel as if I’m seeing you for the first time. I suppose you must have been spying on me from somewhere far away.”
Even after accumulating all her experience across eighteen rounds, the existence known as Jin Chronicle stood on a level far beyond her reach.
Because she had grown stronger, she could understand it all the more clearly.
The title of Academy vice dean was not something he had obtained through nepotism.
On the contrary, she could now appreciate just how extraordinary the Forest Keeper had been to overpower him head-on.
Thinking this, Adela steeled herself and extended her sharp claws.
All she could do now was buy as much time as possible until NoName’s plan succeeded.
A deep fear weighed her down, but what frightened her even more was the possibility of losing her companion forever.
“I’m not as strong as NoName... But!”
Adela crossed her arms. Her eyes flashed blue even in the darkness beyond the blades of her ominous daggers.
“If you had the memories of the previous rounds too, fighting me now would feel like fighting NoName.”
There was no Churu or carrot to rely on anymore.
She had to make every decision herself.
Even so, Adela was confident she could make the same judgment NoName would in every situation.
Overcome by an exhilaration that felt as if she had been born for this very moment, Adela threw both daggers, signaling the start of the duel.
The two daggers shot toward the man like throwing knives.
One flew straight ahead, while the other spun in a wide arc to the side.
Clang-!
The dagger that bounced off the sword aura unleashed by Chronicle was retrieved by Adela, who had already reached him, and she stabbed it toward his neck again.
A look of astonishment appeared in the man’s eyes. This was supposed to be a girl with no potential for improvement whatsoever.
Yet her movements were unmistakably different from those of two years ago.
But he had no time to think any further.
A pocket watch darted in and blocked the attack aimed at his vital point.
He hadn’t forgotten the dagger flying in from the side, either. It wasn’t overwhelmingly powerful, but he had no idea what tricks she might have put into the weapon.
He was not primarily a swordsman himself, so he chose evasion over defense.
In the split second available to him, his gaze locked onto Adela’s head.
Her hair looked as if it had been pressed down slightly.
“So that’s why your skill suddenly improved. You had the Laurel.”
“Hmph, it won’t do you any good even if you try to take it! This isn’t the Laurel of Life you made a contract with!”
“If you can’t use magic, it shouldn’t be much of a problem anyway. I’ll kill you here and take them both.”
* * *
-Anyone watching from Adela’s point of view right now?
-Me
-Me
-Can Adela really handle him one-on-one?
-The boss has something in mind, I’m sure. She only needs to buy time.
-I believe in our Adela!
The perspective of a living NPC could be viewed through Camera 9.
And the small number of viewers watching Camera 9 on NoName’s stream cheered Adela on fervently, even though their cries of support could never reach her.
Show them. Make sure NoName’s hopes for you weren’t in vain.
And just as if she were answering those hopes, Adela landed the first blow on the boss.
-A critical hit right from the start? She’s lucky!
-What the hell are those movements?!
-We won’t know until it’s over
Jin Chronicle dodged both throwing knives fired from different directions. But Adela appeared behind him before he knew it, leaving a slash across his thigh with her blade.
The enraged man fired his signature water cannon disguised as a laser, but her agile body didn’t allow it to land even a single hit.
-Adela’s fucking fast lol
-She hasn’t been hit once?
-I told you this could work, guys!
-We still have to wait and see
To the viewers, it looked as if she had dodged them effortlessly, but Adela had sprinted with all her strength, clenching her teeth so hard they felt ready to crack.
As they had said, even a single hit from the pocket watch would put Adela in danger.
Adela knew that perfectly well.
But she was no longer afraid of death.
Having realized that there was something even more frightening than death, she threw herself between the beams of light.
After exchanging several dozen fierce attacks, she judged that she could gain a chance at victory by destroying the pocket watch that restricted her movements.
“I’m so sick of this damn watch’s noise!”
Drawing out every last bit of the Laurel’s power, Adela infused it into her legs and her sword.
The sword grew so heavy that she would lose her grip if she relaxed her hand even slightly.
Adela’s gaze was fixed solely on the pocket watch. They were the eyes of a predator stalking its prey.
-Go!!!
-Please...
-The breath is coming again!!! Dodge!!! No, destroy it!!!
-Aaaaaaaah
-Shit, she’s too late!
“Farewell.”
“...!”
Before Adela’s blade could reach the pocket watch, the beam Jin Chronicle unleashed was faster.
She was engulfed by the light of the beam as it shot straight forward.
It was a scene where, by anyone’s reckoning, her survival seemed unlikely.
“No...!”
[Laurel of Reincarnation Lv. 1: Death Delay]
[When damage received would be a lethal attack, 50% of the damage received is taken over the course of 3 seconds. The ‘Death Delay’ effect disappears when the enemy is killed.]
[3... 2...]
Taking the beam head-on with her face, Adela swung her sinister dagger.
“You’re the one who’s dying! Because that’s what I decided! Because I promised NoName!”
The blade came down on Chronicle’s neck.
Only afterward did a pain like her brain was burning surge through Adela’s face.
It was a reckless gamble that risked her life.
Adela’s body, reduced to a bloody mess, collapsed on top of Chronicle’s falling body.
[The Death Delay effect has disappeared.]
[Laurel of Reincarnation: (0/30min.)]
“Haa... I wish she’d come back quickly and give me some Churu...”
Even Adela knew it was a reckless attack NoName would never have made, but that was precisely why she felt even prouder of herself for pulling it off.
* * *
Adela had defeated the boss. But she had only been fighting Jin Chronicle without the Laurel.
The Laurel of Life that Name had been carrying floated through the air and was absorbed into the man’s corpse.
“You took care of him at just the right time.”
Name returned from the Academy and rushed over to restore Adela’s health with her Heal skill.
However, at that same moment, the man sprang to his feet, furrowed his brow once, and cast a spell without warning, separating the two of them.
[Ice Prison]
One hundred and eight pillars attempted to bind Name’s body once again.
No matter how hard she tried to resist, she couldn’t avoid it as long as she remained bound by the laws of physics.
“As expected, this is too dangerous. If a little more time had passed, even this man’s power might not have been enough.”
“No... NoName...”
The sight of her sprawled on the ground with her hands trembling looked pitiful.
“Your talent is truly astonishing. You even overcame the curse placed upon your flesh by yourself, you foolish little creature.”
Just as in the first and second rounds, the demon dwelling within the Laurel tried to use Adela’s body as its host.
She had known all along that when he fell, the demon would descend.
But she had no strength left in reserve, and could do nothing but be dragged around helplessly.
“Just touch my body... and see what happens...”
“I am not killing you. I am giving you a new life. Do you not wish to take the body bestowed upon you by Yggdrasil?”
“Get lost... I don’t need breasts that huge!”
“Resisting is pointless. We understand your nature better than anyone. We are merely laying the groundwork to make your dream come true with ease.”
“Get lost! All of you, get lost!”
“What? What did you say about breasts?”
[Higher Casting: Turbulence]
A powerful storm suddenly erupted, sending the blood-covered man flying away from Adela and crashing into a building.
By then, NoName’s hands and feet were free. She cracked her neck with a series of pops and approached Adela.
After witnessing the murderous eyes glaring at her, Adela muttered in a dazed voice,
“How...?”
“It must have been pretty easy dealing with him, huh? Judging by how you can still spout nonsense.”
The unavoidable ‘Ice Prison’ was melting, courtesy of Giselle Phoenix’s ‘Avatar’s Descent.’