Chapter 51
The white aura erupted around Kagami, spiraling outward with enough force to whip up powerful gusts. The sudden, unmistakable change left everyone staring at him in confusion.
“What is that...? Does he still have something else?”
“It’s a Skill I learned at Level 900. It’s useful, but I can’t use it. Once I activate it, I can’t move at all, and my HP drops to 10. In exchange, I gain twice the power from my base stats.”
“Twice the power...!?”
They couldn’t help being astonished. With Kagami’s current stats doubled, even if only for a moment, he would gain power close to that of a Level 999 Hero.
“I wanted to keep fighting that thing and get stronger, but that’s not our goal this time, right? So I got strong enough to take it down for sure... This is the last time. Let’s settle this with a contest of strength.”
At that moment, Rex scoffed. He’d realized why Kagami had grown stronger without needing anyone to explain it to him. When he considered the Skill that let Kagami grow stronger by gaining experience, what could be gained from fighting powerful enemies, and why Kagami insisted on fighting barehanded, only one answer remained. Kagami was trying to rise through his own strength, relying on nothing else.
“But our goal is different now. So, Villager... No, Kagami! Use this!”
Rex immediately hurled the sword he’d been carrying toward Kagami, who caught it in one hand.
“It’s not as good as a legendary sword, but it’s a fine blade forged by a master smith. Go! See this through!”
As soon as Rex finished speaking and Kagami smiled faintly, a gust of wind so powerful that everyone there recoiled swept over them. In the next instant, Kagami had vanished. They immediately followed the direction he’d gone, but they still couldn’t see him.
Though Kagami was nowhere in sight, shock waves erupted here and there, blasting chunks of the Atros wasteland into the air as if explosions were going off.
The invisible shock waves gradually drew closer to Messiah. The monster army responded by attacking Kagami with long-range assaults like heat rays, but not one of them hit him.
【Skill: Limit Release】
In truth, the Skill didn’t double his stats. Humans could consciously exert only around thirty percent of their strength. This Skill temporarily released that power up to seventy percent, but only for three minutes. Kagami was already astonishing with the strength he could normally exert; now he could draw out twice as much. That alone was enough to unleash power no living creature in this world could stand against.
“Don’t give me that crap about Level 999 being the limit to growth, or that it’s just how the world works!”
Having slipped past the attacks of countless monsters, Kagami reached the spot directly beneath Messiah and stopped. Shouting those words, he gripped the sword Rex had given him tightly in his right hand, lowered his stance, and braced himself.
A moment later, he opened his eyes wide and gritted his teeth with all his might. Then Kagami poured every ounce of strength he had into kicking off the ground and leaping straight up toward Messiah.
That human cannonball, launched at a speed beyond the limits of human capability, did more than simply leap upward. It unleashed a shock wave powerful enough to blow away the many monsters around Messiah, then shot straight toward it.
Kagami had reached a realm only a Villager could reach—no, one he could reach precisely because he was a Villager.
It was a power he had attained by continuing to defy the odds after being abandoned by God, repeatedly overcoming the many walls imposed by the limits of being a Villager, again and again, without ever giving up. And it was the answer he had found.
“I’ll decide... what my limits are!”
It was simply a single upward swing of the sword he held. But it was an all-out upward slash unleashed from a full-power leap by a human who had surpassed the very limits of their strength. A strike beyond all limits.
【Overbreak】
The rising blade kept climbing under Kagami’s strength, cutting through Messiah’s sturdy black armor as easily as tearing paper. The tip of the blade broke the sound barrier, creating vacuum shock waves that shattered the armor one piece after another. When Kagami’s strike finally destroyed the armor around Messiah’s head, the Demon King appeared beneath it, looking utterly exhausted.
“Hey, Master. Long time no see.”
As Kagami leapt into the air, his eyes met the Demon King’s, and he murmured those words. The Demon King smiled as though relieved, then lost consciousness.
“Dad!”
Struck by Kagami’s slash, Messiah vanished in a shower of particles of light, as if ascending to heaven. Only the weakened Demon King within remained, lying in the Atros wasteland. A middle-aged man with slicked-back dark brown hair, a worn-looking face, and a beard lay there.
Douglas Balnesio. That was the Demon King’s name, and he was also the benefactor who had helped Kagami grow stronger. Nine years ago, when Kagami had only just begun to question the relationship between humans and demons, he set out for the Demon King without hesitation. Finding his way to the Demon King had been nothing short of a miracle. Kagami had slipped into the castle without being discovered and, by chance, reached the Demon King’s bedroom, where he’d learned many things that had shaped who he was now.
“Hey. How are you feeling?”
“You’ve... gotten quite strong. Are you going to... kill me?”
“No, no. I was fighting to save you, remember?”
Kagami sighed as he answered the Demon King, who was lying on the ground. The Demon King gave a soft snort, smiled, and murmured, “...You’re still a strange Villager.”
The Demon King, too, had found Kagami an unusual person. Never before had a mere Villager who’d only just passed Level 100 suddenly barged into his bedroom without a trace of hostility and started asking him, “What do you think of humans?” Kagami was the only one who had ever done such a thing.
The Demon King felt nostalgic as he recalled the day he’d used his standing among the demons to train Kagami, who had wished for the power to change the status quo. The Villager who had run off halfway through his training, declaring he would do something about the relationship between demons and humans, stood before him again, nine years later.
From Kagami’s words—that he had fought to save him—and Alice’s worried expression beside him, the Demon King intuitively understood that Kagami had likely endured many setbacks along the way.
“I’m sorry... for worrying you, Alice.”
“Kagami-san saved you... And so did Takako-san and Rex-san and the others.”
Hearing that, the Demon King forced his nearly motionless body to turn and looked around. There stood a hulking martial artist, Menou, one of his own subordinates, and a group who seemed to be the Hero’s party. All of them gazed at him with bewildered expressions.
“Quite an unusual party. You there, Hero... You could easily kill me now, you know?”
“...I still haven’t sorted things out in my own mind. I have no intention of killing you while I’m in that state.”
Gripping the sword Kagami had returned to him, Rex suppressed the urge to act rashly and pointed the blade toward the monster army still surrounding the Demon King.
For some reason, the monsters did nothing but surround Kagami and the others; they showed no sign of attacking. They had no idea what the monsters were planning, but the situation suited Rex and the others just fine. Rex’s group—and, of course, Kagami—were so weakened that, despite their composed appearances, they could hardly move a step.