Chapter 51
In front of me stood a supreme-grade water spirit, and behind me, a high-grade wind spirit.
Because of the whirlwinds raging around me,
I could no longer keep flying away to buy time.
It was too far to rescue Frederica as I had earlier.
There was too little time to wait for Huey's technique to be completed.
So I had two choices.
One was to follow the words I heard in my head.
To once again align the gear deep within my soul and submit to this body.
And.
The other was.
…….
To face death like this.
There was no need to think about which one to choose.
-Right? You have to survive first—only then can there be a next time.
As I listened to the voice in my head cheering happily,
I faced the gigantic water serpent that had already drawn close enough to be right before me.
-Huh? W-wait! What are you doing right now!
I kicked my leg upward.
“Haha. What a cute struggle.”
The serpent's head, which had split apart as though scattering for an instant, quickly restored itself.
As though that were the signal, water droplets poured in from every direction.
-Grind.
As I watched droplets, each one capable of effortlessly piercing a human body, rush at me from all sides,
I clenched my teeth, ignited the greatest flames I could produce on my wings, and
-Fwoooooosh!
scattered them around me as though erecting a wall.
-Wham!
But it seemed that blocking all of this with my current strength was impossible after all.
Droplets of water broke through the wall of fire and battered my body.
“…Ugh.”
Even so, my body had not been pierced, so it had been worth it.
After staring for a moment at the places where my exposed skin had turned blue, I decided to move again.
-What are you doing right now!
Ah, you're noisy. Seriously.
-Then you'll really die!
As I pushed the noisy voice in my head into the far reaches of my consciousness,
I repeated the words like a vow to myself.
Yeah. I definitely will die.
But listen.
Rather than gradually forgetting who I used to be and living on while submitting to this body,
“I’d rather die as myself…!”
That was me.
That was how Ren lived.
“Hup!”
-Crack.
After quickly surveying the terrain around me,
I kicked hard off the rubble beneath my feet and ran in a straight line toward Osmund.
-Gloop.
At the same time, the whirlwinds raging around me scattered,
and a gigantic wave rose right before my eyes, as though it would swallow me whole.
And far away, Osmund sat arrogantly, beckoning to me with one raised finger.
As if to say I was still nowhere near reaching him.
“Tch, now that I’ve experienced it myself, it really is a load of crap.”
Suppressing the anger welling up inside me,
I decided to steel my resolve.
-Gulp.
A foot that was sharp but had little surface area.
Reverse-jointed legs that still felt unbelievably awkward.
If I failed, I would die on the spot.
But.
If I succeeded, I could at least land one hit.
Just thinking about it made me feel wonderfully relieved.
I couldn't find any reason not to do it.
-Rumble, rumble…!
I raised my leg toward the lower part of the wave that had already reached my eyes.
Enduring the pressure that felt as though my leg could snap at any moment, I brought it down with all my strength,
“Phew.”
And narrowly avoided being swept away by the wave.
I thrust my leg, where a dull ache was rising, forward,
-Slaash!
then kicked off the water's surface and threw myself toward Osmund, who was staring at me with a startled expression.
“Die—!!”
Divine radiance or not.
I had the momentum to grab his neck and tear it apart with my claws.
But.
“…Huh?”
My claws, which had seemed certain to seize Osmund's neck in one motion,
only sliced through empty air.
Immediately afterward, along with the sight of a shadow falling over my head,
-It says that water spirits have the ability to manipulate space….
I remembered talking about water spirits with Huey and Lucy while reading Osmund's journal one day.
And the price of remembering such an important fact only then was—
-Crack.
The pain I felt in my head,
-Wham!
the sensation of being sent flying by something large and thick, as though a snake's tail had swung at me,
-KRAAAAAANG!
“Kuh… gah!”
and finally, the delayed pain, as if every bone in my body had been crushed.
-Tap. T-tap.
“Kgh, ugh.”
Groaning as bits of stone fell onto my body, I looked around.
Apparently, I had been hurled into the armory where the soldiers' weapons were stored inside the lord's castle.
At the sight of spears, swords, axes, and other weapons strewn messily around me,
“Ptooey.”
I barely managed to turn my head and spit out the blood pooling at the corner of my mouth, then looked outside through the large hole, presumably in the direction I had been thrown.
“…Ha.”
This was already the second time he had spared me despite being able to kill me.
Although I felt pain so intense throughout my body that I could not even move,
“You’re really something else.”
The humiliation I felt while facing that attitude—as though he could kill someone like me at any time—was far more painful.
-Rumble.
Feeling so empty that I didn't even think of igniting flames to heal myself, I simply lay there,
when a familiar rumble of thunder came from the sky outside, which had once again filled with dark clouds.
-Flash―!
“Ugh.”
Soon, accompanied by a blindingly intense flash of light,
a bolt of lightning of tremendous size struck the place where Osmund had been.
Was that the technique that had supposedly roasted that mutated sandworm?
After the sound of a beeping tone lingered in my ears for a while,
beneath the blue sky that was gradually clearing,
I caught sight of a spirit coiled up as though protecting Osmund.
And.
I also saw Huey running toward Osmund with an arm covered in black scales and tipped with sharp claws.
“…You should’ve just run away.”
As I watched Huey, whose furious expression was visible even from far away,
for some reason, one side of my chest began to stir.
-Rustle.
Immediately afterward, a small sound came from the corner of the armory.
A soft, fluffy noise, as though a ball of cotton were moving, reached my ears,
and before long, a familiar figure cautiously revealed itself while looking around.
“That….”
A brown teddy bear about as tall as an adult's knee. It was Frederica's doll.
…If you had enough presence of mind to control something like that, you could at least help me out a little. Damn witch.
Just as I was about to click my tongue at the absurdity,
“Huh?”
Along with a small glint, I noticed that the doll was carefully cradling something in its arms.
“Kyu.”
“……”
The doll's eyes sparkled as it trembled, seemingly having spotted me.
…Are you really controlling that? More importantly, did it just make a sound? It's a doll.
I sat there with my mouth hanging open, stunned by the absurd sight to the point that I forgot the pain in my body.
“Kyu! Kyu!”
As if to prove that the sound I'd heard moments ago hadn't been an illusion,
the doll hopped toward me.
Having come up to me, it showed me what it had been carefully cradling in its arms.
After opening the cap of a small vial sloshing with transparent medicine that glowed red,
“Kyu!”
it whined as it poured the contents of the vial into my mouth.
“…An elixir.”
Before I even had time to be surprised by the pain disappearing from my entire body in an instant,
“Kkyu!”
-Pook!
the doll split open its own belly with both hands this time.
And when I saw what emerged from between the opening halves,
“Ha.”
I couldn't help but laugh.
Inside the doll's split-open belly
was a prototype of the medicine Beatrice had made to return my body to its original form.
* *
-KRAAAAAANG!
“Kugh!”
“Master!”
Huey, who had been moving quickly with his entire body wrapped in white lightning,
raised both arms covered in black scales to block the surging streams of water, then
“Damn it!”
roughly tore off his sleeves, which had been shredded into rags, and cursed.
“Huff, huff.”
“Master. Are you all right?”
Immediately afterward, seeing Huey panting with sweat pouring from him like a waterfall,
Luciela approached him worriedly.
And.
“K, kh.”
By then, black energy covered half his face,
and grotesque laughter escaped Osmund.
“I never imagined that wouldn't work…!”
Struggling desperately to hold on to his gradually fading sanity,
Huey clutched his chest in frustration.
“Master. At this rate….”
Even after drawing his strongest card, he could not leave so much as a scratch,
and was it truly so frustrating to realize that his opponent was far beyond him?
“Grind.”
With his teeth clenched tight,
Huey gathered lightning throughout his right hand.
“Manifest—Spear of Thunder—!!”
He fired the lightning spear he had created,
this time aiming for Osmund's heart, but
-Crack. Craaack.
with a sound like something breaking, a black fissure appeared in front of Osmund.
And the Spear of Thunder vanished as though being sucked into that fissure.
“…Ha.”
Watching the spear fly off in a completely different direction far away from Osmund,
Huey let out a hollow exclamation.
In the end.
“This is as far as I can go. Even you, Master, escape somehow.”
Even though she was already battered from forcing her way through unfavorable terrain,
Luciela was still worrying about him first.
“Damn it. There’s no way I’d run off and leave you and Ren behind.”
Clinging tightly to the thread of reason that had been growing faint,
Huey took a deep breath.
That was when Huey and Luciela began preparing for their final moment.
“Hey—!! Over here—!!”
A familiar voice came from far away.
“Ren! Are you safe!?”
“That idiot! What is she doing now….”
Luciela had been shouting that if Ren had survived, she should have hidden herself instead of carelessly doing something like this, but
“…Huh?”
like someone who had seen something impossible,
she raised a dazed hand and pointed toward the direction from which Ren's voice had come.
“Lucy. What’s wrong?”
“Master. Look over there….”
Only after noticing that Osmund, too, was staring at Ren as though entranced
did Huey look toward the direction where Ren was.
“…Ren?”
What stood there was unquestionably Ren, but
her appearance was markedly different from what they knew.
Not the sturdy, birdlike legs made of a metal-like material,
but the impossibly delicate white legs of a human girl.
And.
Though it was only one arm,
contrasting with the red wing on her right,
there was a white left arm with slender fingers.
Thus.
With her one remaining wing, Ren held against her chest the sword she had picked up from the armory,
then briefly looked at the fingers moving according to her will,
and quietly gripped the sword's hilt.
“I’ll show you.”
“Who I am.”
“I’ll show you.”
“Who I am.”