Chapter 124
[Pope · Callistus I is being controlled by the Laurel of Creation.]
[Find and destroy all of Callistus's Life Vessels. (0/5)]
[This is Beelzebub's true power... I shall condemn heresy without fail.]
“Sis, watch out!”
Adela screamed toward the sky.
The world is turning upside down. I suppose it looks that way because I'm falling headfirst.
When I blinked, I saw the sun beyond us sinking below the horizon. Since everything was upside down, it looked as though the sun were hiding above us.
A single blow sent my body flying.
I thought I would have died in one hit if I hadn't gathered the minimum number of opportunities and adjusted my stamina stat by Part 3.
[‘Nyangster Call’ donated 1,000 won!]
-It's all over now... It's over...
In the upside-down world, a gigantic fly was leisurely strolling through the sky.
Its ten thousand eyes moved independently before all turning to look at me at once.
“That's seriously creepy.”
[Cast: Elastic Modulus Adjustment]
The ground swelled up like an airbag in an instant, enveloping me in the soft scent of earth.
As expected, people should live with their feet on the ground. Flying is something only vermin do.
The sinking feeling in my heart, like when riding a roller coaster, subsided, and I slowly got back to my feet.
[SaveTheGradStudent: NoName, why did you kill Daniel!]
I knew.
I knew that without Pama's Executioner's Sword, I would have to search every other map for Callistus's Life Vessels one by one.
And I knew that would drastically slow down the clear.
I gripped Schiavona, which had been with me all this way.
The Pope, now transformed into a fly the size of a house, flapped its buzzing wings and drifted through the sky.
“Are you okay, sis? Are you hurt anywhere? What were you thinking, jumping at that monster? You scared me!”
Adela restrained her emotions and helped me to my feet.
-It's your fault, King Kitty ^^
-We have to move between maps to find the Life Vessels!
-Please stop being so stubborn, boss
-Sorry, Dellaㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ
-NoName must have a plan. I believe in them
-It's an aerial mob, so even with the Executioner's Sword, you can only attack when it comes down to the ground. It already takes forever, and now there's no way we'll clear it
[Everyone, pay attention. Stand in awe. Welcome the god who will descend upon the world!]
A gigantic wing spread across the sky. The weeds around us all began to rot.
Crows whose origin I couldn't identify flew in from every direction, circling the Pope in unison and creating a cacophony.
“It's noisy from every direction... Chatter, chatter...”
“Adela, hand me one of your daggers.”
“Huh? Sure... Here...”
The handle, warmed by Adela's body heat, was warm to the touch.
I gripped the blade in a reverse grip and concentrated all my aura in my legs.
I widened my eyes and began running toward the damned fly.
As I hummed a nursery rhyme I used to sing long ago.
“A ship set sail across the distant sea to find a continent.
Carrying the dreams of thirty-two passengers.
When a violent storm swallowed the bow,
The ship split in two.”
-?
-?
-?
-What?
-^?^
The Pope—or rather, the demon now called Beelzebub—roared.
In time with its roar, the crows swooped in, transformed into whirling blades.
“The captain was an upright man.
Women and the elderly first.
The ship floated up again.
Now sixteen remained.”
The dagger had watched Adela fight so often that it had absorbed most of her movements.
I easily deflected the blades flying at me from random directions and increased my speed even further.
The moment I shot past beneath Beelzebub,
Embers rained down from the sky, as though refusing to let me pass through its territory.
They had poured from the fly's wings.
“They raised the sails on a warm, sunny day.
The ship crashed into a reef and broke apart.
Captain, captain, water is filling the ship.
Who will you save first?”
-Let's leave the old folks behind
└ The phrase 'leave them behind' sounds kind of badㅋㅋ;;
-Just pick randomly?
-Still, wouldn't it be better to save the relatively younger ones first?
“The captain was a compassionate man.
Those who couldn't swim first.
The ship floated up again.
Now eight remained.”
I held my breath against the stench of burning firewood, rotting corpses, and sewers all mixed together, finally reaching the first position and driving the dagger into the ground.
[El (1)]
“I could see the continent far away through a telescope, but
A shark appeared and tore open the deck.
Captain, captain, water is filling the ship.
Who will you save first?”
-What kind of bullshit is thisㅋㅋ;;
-Let's sort them by age again
-You die if it even grazes you, what the hell are you talking about!
└ Those last words... holy shit
There was no time to hesitate.
I pulled out the dagger, sprang to my feet, and ran toward Baal again.
Properly enraged by my taunting, it soon began trembling its antennae.
“The captain was a just man.
Those who had committed no sins in life first.
The ship floated up again.
Now four remained.”
My ears throbbed for a moment. My vision blurred, and the ground undulated like waves.
The waves emanating from Baal's antennae were toying with my brain.
A five-year-old wouldn't fall for a cheap trick like this.
[Write: Inverse Laplace Transform]
[2nd Circle Reverse Casting: Destructive Interference]
“I could see the continent beyond the mist, but
Pirates appeared and fired their cannons.
Captain, captain, water is filling the ship.
Who will you save first?”
-Come to think of it, why does the captain never get off?ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
└ Seriously, it's fucking annoyingㅋㅋㅋ
-Because the captain has to steer?
-With the ship in this state, what does the captain have to do with anything?
-Is that thing drawing a magic circle?
-The singing is making me dizzy, boss!!!
I headed back to the other side and inscribed runes into the pre-engraved general-purpose magic circle.
[Ras (2)]
“The captain was a brave man.
Those who would fight alongside me first.
The ship floated up again.
Now two remained.”
[Are you making a fool of me! I won't let you off easy!]
Beelzebub's six legs swept across the ground.
They had looked small while it was airborne, but once they reached me, they were as thick as the enormous pillars of a temple.
Mud and filth rushed past in a frenzy, clouding my vision.
My foot was caught when the ground suddenly caved in, and I nearly lost my balance, but Adela's help let me escape by the skin of my teeth.
I reached the side facing the sun and engraved the third rune.
[Maven (3)]
“The continent was right before our eyes, but
Lightning struck, and the ship was shattered.
Captain, captain, water is filling the ship.
Who will you save first?”
-The captain is seriously a fucking asshole
-So only two of the thirty-two survived? Three, counting the captain?
-We don't know the ending yet
What I was doing now was inscribing runes into a general-purpose magic circle.
When suppressing Sloth's Corruption, or when facing a gigantic enemy like this, I needed a magic circle of a corresponding size.
In particular, transmutation formulas based on arabesques became more efficient the larger they were, so I made this one with the utmost care.
[Samattra (13)]
The amplification coefficients of Earth-element magic: 1, 2, 3, 13.
Even at the bare minimum, having the third amplification coefficient should be enough.
After finishing the records of all the runes, I returned to the center of the colosseum and breathed heavily.
Even though this was a game, overexerting myself this much seemed to make fatigue build up rapidly.
“The captain was a benevolent man.
Pregnant women first.
The ship floated up again.
Now one remained.”
Mana poured into the magic circle, fifty meters in diameter.
All the mana in the atmosphere was sucked toward the runes in the magic circle.
It wasn't even enough; the circle seemed ready to scrape up every last bit of mana inside my body as well.
The wind blew my hair around, and Adela's skirt fluttered.
The magic circle, which had been emitting an excess of light, suddenly went dark,
[Universal Cast: Arabesque's Knot – Earth]
Krrrrrrrraaaack!
With a dazzling burst of light, chains bearing geometric patterns rose from the ground and wrapped around Beelzebub's torso.
They had no end, and the magic circle greedily devoured mana as it generated knot after knot until the entire torso was bound in chains.
Arabesque's Knot, also called the Executioner's Knot, was a useful spell against creatures like Beelzebub that resorted to cheap tricks such as transferring their life force.
After severing every lifeline, it forcibly granted life and flesh to the shell, then took its life once more.
It was a convenient killing spell: no matter how much life the main body had left, all you had to do was bring it down.
“The Utopia reached the continent.
The captain and the woman got off the deck.
Cannibals appeared and captured them.
Before she died, the woman cried out,
The captain was a truly bad man.
My husband was among those you abandoned.
The ship never floated up again.
Now no one remained.”
-That ending... holy shit
-They all died
-ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ
-What was the captain supposed to do?
-Seriouslyㅋㅋ
While the magic enveloped the demon's entire body, I turned my gaze toward the chat window.
“The captain met a miserable end after trying to save as many people as possible. What lesson can we take from this?”
-Let's not get cucked?
-Still, he seems like the type who can repair a ship well
-The price of misandry?
└ Misandryㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
└ No, it's true—he said he only saved women at the beginning
-Sailing on a ship is a really dangerous business, boss
“It looks like a reasonably rational standard, but in the end, the result is catastrophe. Even if it was the best possible choice... Would things have turned out differently if he hadn't abandoned everyone from the start? Probably not. So what is the point of my story?”
I grabbed the hilt of Schiavona, which I had roughly shoved into the ground.
I had to put some strength into my arm to pull it completely free from the rock.
The tip of the sword pointed toward the mummified fly. What I had to do from here was perfectly clear.
“The captain shouldn't have set sail on a stormy day in the first place. Isn't that right, everyone? Those who aren't prepared, or who lack the power, don't even have the right to make moral choices.”
If the captain really believed he had remained moral to the end, he could only have been a fool.
That was how shortsighted people were, and they never judged the right and wrong of their past actions.
The same was true of a man named Daniel.
Those who charged headlong after the single goal of survival couldn't even recognize what they had done wrong.
The excuse that they had no choice was terribly convenient.
That was evil, and the banality of evil.
In the real world, ordinary people living ordinary lives might display behavior more befitting the actions of the 'villains' we imagine than people like the Pope, who blindly took pleasure in murder.
And the reason I condemned him wasn't because I was exceptionally virtuous, either.
[Quick Cast (0.2x): Unique Magic – Estacia Style, Form 2 - Schadenfreude]
The difference between him and me was this.
“I'm strong enough without that damn executioner's sword.”
[Copy: Alphonse Shipot]
[Cast: Unique Magic – Ashtail's Ring]
The blueprint containing his unique magic unfurled with a rustle in the library inside my head.
I never would have guessed it, but it was a sword technique based on the Pauli exclusion principle and applying electron degeneracy pressure.
If Alphonse had been in the Mage Tower during my previous life, I would have wanted to take him on as my personal disciple.
“Tree Wiki is god... I am invincible...”
That was when I resolved to defeat the fly quickly, before my mouth could babble anything else.
“So stop doubting me, you pieces of shit, mmph...!”
Damn, that was so fucking embarrassing. I hurriedly covered my mouth and switched off the camera audio.
The insect, with its six legs writhing out from between the Arabesque's Knots, looked like it had been caught in a spiderweb.
Putting my entire weight behind it, I drove a bolt of lightning into Beelzebub's body powerful enough to knock down even a Demon King.
* * *
A swirling thundercloud reached above Baal's head.
From the clouds that stole the light from all things in the world, dark-blue flashes of lightning struck down.
Five lightning bolts pierced the giant fly's head and body.
The Arabesque's Knot gave off a brilliant flash for an instant and tightened its contents even further.
Beelzebub's body was crushed, and the parts squeezed out between the knots looked grotesque.
Just as the contraction reached its limit, a crack appeared in the gigantic cocoon.
Paaaaaaang-!
Amid an ear-splitting boom, the fly's magnificent body turned to dust and scattered, and a sound announcing the boss clear rang out across the world.
[Part 3: The Collapsing Tower of Babel END]
[Part 4: $#%%&#%@^]
[system: No boss can be found in this area.]
[system: Invalid access.]
[Access denied for User NoName#3947292]
[Error Code: 75015]
[▶Quit World of Arseria.]