Chapter 133
The black storm clouds at the center of the sky were spinning in a spiral like a top.
Purple lightning boomed, scattering embers throughout the forest.
The vortex continued growing larger, as if it intended to swallow the entire world.
[system: Run as administrator]
[system: trig/0xf29a31 has been added.(Command: RECOVER)]
[Notification: Skill - ‘Pantomime’ has been added.]
[Notification: Trait - ‘Curse of Immortality’ has been added.]
I confirmed everything the operator had promised me. Aside from administrator privileges, I could obtain all of it directly in-game, but these things were essential for saving time.
Without time to think, I rolled down the stairs of the Papal See.
[Adella: 18 km]
The game system let me know Adella’s location immediately.
It was fortunate, at least, that I didn’t have to use magic to get all the way here.
The buildings that rose high into the sky disappeared one by one into the background.
At the edge of my vision, a black curtain was descending over the ridgeline. The dense forest was being devoured by fog.
It would be more accurate to say that the world was being swallowed as it collided with another world.
I inhaled deeply until the cold air made my insides ache, then exhaled toward the front.
[Cast: Constructive Interference]
“Hnnng... Adellaaaaaaa!”
The sound spread in every direction, and as if answering it, crows cried out and busily flapped their wings.
[Adella: 395 m]
[Adella: 390 m]
I moved.
Thankfully, she must have heard my voice.
Before long, a silver cat appeared from the dark forest, running toward me with its ears perked up.
“Uwaaah... Sis... Sis! Waaahhhhh!”
The sobbing girl leaped into my arms without the slightest hesitation.
Looking at her now, her arms and legs were covered in cuts and scrapes, making it impossible to call her appearance anything close to unscathed.
“Adella.”
“I knew you’d never leave me behind and go somewhere... Yeah... Hic... Uu... I’m scared... So scared. I don’t know what to do now. Y-you suddenly disappeared... The whole world turned black and white... Hic... The ground was collapsing way over there...”
Adella began trembling violently and sobbing. Her plaintive cries mingled with painful moans.
As though blaming me for suddenly disappearing, she tightened her arms around my waist more and more.
“It’s a dream... It has to be a dream... Sob... Sis, don’t leave me, I’m so scared...”
Adella confessed to me, tears dripping from her eyes.
My hand moved to her head before I even realized it.
I gently stroked her hair as if she were a fragile baby, removing the leaves and twigs tangled in it.
This might be a game to some people, but to her, it must have been her entire world.
I could feel throughout my body the fear, terror, and anxiety she was experiencing.
Yes, just as any human being would feel those emotions upon witnessing an Invasion for the first time.
Even apart from an Invasion—earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, typhoons, and so on. In the face of overwhelming, one-sided violence that cannot be resisted, all living things are equal.
I clasped her dainty hands together and lifted her chin so that her tear-filled face turned toward me.
I met her narrow, vertical catlike pupils.
“Adella.”
“I’m going to die... It’s a dream... Hic...”
“Adella!”
“Eek!”
“Have you ever had anything go wrong because you listened to me?”
“Hic... No...”
“I’ll save you and this world. In return, promise me one thing. No matter what happens, trust me unconditionally. Even if you start thinking otherwise, my word is always right, and I’m always right. Understand?”
“Mm-hm! I understand...”
“There’s no time. Follow me without falling behind.”
[Greater Heal lv.2: Restores 3000 HP over 10 seconds.]
[MP Cost: 1200, Cooldown: 45 seconds]
The power of the four laurels far surpassed the magic of the real world.
Adella recovered all her strength in an instant, dusted herself off, and chased after me.
As we retraced the map we had passed through, I quickly reviewed the conditions we needed to consider for the ending.
First, find the ‘Laurel of Death,’ which contained the cornerstone of Mephistopheles.
The moment the Laurel of Death took over Adella’s body was the trigger for the final boss to appear.
Then who had the laurel now?
“Sis, there’s a wall straight ahead! A wall!”
“Ignore it and keep running! We can pass straight through it right now!”
Normally, whenever the map changed from Part 1 to Part 2, or Part 2 to Part 3, it was impossible to return to the previous map.
This was partly for the sake of smooth story progression, but also because of the limitations of the open world.
But with the open worlds colliding at this very moment, that distinction had no meaning.
Just as Gene Chronicle had passed through the crowds, the moment we crossed the black fog, we were little different from ghosts.
Crash!
“Eeeeek! What is this?! A turkey...?”
“My dinner...!”
“Ah...! Sorry, bald mister! I’ll pay you back later... Anyway, enjoy whatever food is left!”
In the midst of it all, it seemed some interactive object had gotten mixed in, because the bald man who had lost his dinner overnight began stamping his feet.
After traversing the hyperloop devices in each region in the shortest possible time, we had already reached the imperial capital.
“Where is this...?”
I slowed down and checked the minimap, but it gave no response, like a navigation system that had stopped working.
I had no choice but to recall the full map I had seen on TreeWiki and find our way from memory.
“This is Abyss headquarters.”
“Abyss headquarters? Wait, wasn’t this the imperial palace?”
It was the Baroque-style palace visible from the back gate of Remnant Academy. Since we had just crossed its garden, her question was perfectly reasonable.
“More precisely, it’s beneath the imperial palace. The head of Abyss is none other than the crown princess.”
Abyss was the crown princess’s secret organization, created to stop the crown prince, who worshiped demons.
Unable to trust either the Empire or the Holy Kingdom, she had recruited personnel herself, set them against one another, and tried to find every laurel and eliminate them from this world.
But in the original Part 4 story, Gestalt returned to headquarters, overcome by grief at losing Adella, seized the one remaining laurel, and resurrected the demon.
The demon that found a perfect body could manifest by taking up residence in Adella’s body, and that demon was Mephistopheles.
The operators described what happened here as “overwriting it with a ‘generation code.’” Even though I didn’t understand all of it, I could guess at the meaning.
The Laurel of Death had been assigned the role of a key, while Adella had been assigned the role of a lock.
In other words, if either one was missing, Mephistopheles could not be encountered, and the world would collapse.
It was absurd that we had to summon a demon intent on destroying the world in order to save it, but that was the only way we had.
When I reached my hand into the vault wrapped in three layers of security, the laurel came out so easily that it felt anticlimactic.
[Error]
[Laurel of Death]
[Synchronization is compl##$%$@ted.]
[그뭵곐게 홿뻁?의 축썛뀄 듃?길.]
[You can now use 5th-circle magic.]
[Level: 30 → 31]
[HP: 39250 → 43750]
[system: error 0xff021a43]
Minor errors had occurred, but there was no problem with continuing the story for now.
We had passed the first step.
“Adella, do you remember the demon that stole your body in the first playthrough?”
“You mean Asmodeus?”
“Yeah. I’m going to summon Asmodeus here.”
“Whaaat? Are... are you crazy? You’re not saying that seriously, are you? I... I heard wrong, didn’t I?”
Since Normal difficulty had multiple routes, it also had a variety of final bosses, and Asmodeus was one of them.
In the Nightmare story, however, he was an unfortunate demon who met his end without even showing his face when Adella committed suicide.
Asmodeus’s unique skill was ‘Soul Exchange.’
By mixing up all the souls within a designated area, it made the player fight in-game as a random party member.
Perhaps reflecting the needs of players who wanted to fight directly as the fire mage Giselle or ice mage Luna, the boss battle with Asmodeus was a special event even within WoA.
But that setting had been reused in the Nightmare story, resulting in this whole mess.
As expected, Adella recoiled in horror and jumped back.
“More precisely, I’m only bringing over Asmodeus’s skill.”
“The skill? Haah... You scared me half to death...! But what are you going to do with it?”
“Isn’t it obvious? Is there anyone here besides you and me?”
[Pantomime: Steals one of the opponent’s skills and uses it.]
[MP Cost: 2000, Cooldown: 80 seconds]
Because I was a priest-class character, I couldn’t use it in multiplayer, but in the story, skills could be learned freely regardless of class.
Otherwise, there was no way a pure healer could ever clear this hellish difficulty.
Originally, Pantomime could only be used on enemies, but I had administrator privileges transferred to me now.
That meant I could copy the code exactly even by using it on a single ‘object,’ the Laurel of Life.
“Adella, take good care of my body for a little while.”
[‘Soul Exchange’ has been stolen.]
[Instant Cast]
[A random ally within the designated area will undergo ‘Soul Exchange’.]
[Adella ⥨ NoName]
[NoName ⥨ Adella]
I had just been getting used to elven ears, and now I had cat ears.
Surely my tail wouldn’t be implemented along with them too?