Chapter 209: OZ (6)

Oz, the Mage of Life.[1]

His name never failed to come up whenever people discussed the strongest characters in the original work.

Not only did he possess exceptional martial prowess and cunning, but every project he devised wielded immense influence.

‘There was even a joke going around that the Cult was just one giant Oz...’

I'd known from the beginning that I couldn't face him with my current strength.

That was why I'd always kept one ticket in reserve for Oz.

To introduce a variable into the board he'd set.

‘Now.’

A brilliant blue screen flashed before me.

A long list of reward options stretched across it.

-Selection Ticket-

[Please select one of the options below!]

1. Obtain Merit Points (250,000p)

2. Damaged Item Repair Ticket×1 [Sold Out]

3. Broken Item Restoration Ticket×1 [Sold Out]

4. Item Rank Downgrade Ticket×1

5. Phenomenon Rank Downgrade Ticket×1 [Sold Out]

6. Space Leap Ticket×1

7. Item Cooldown Reset Ticket×1

8. ■ ■■(???)

.

.

.

28.■■■■■■(???)

29.■■■ ■■(???)

30.■■(???)

Without hesitation, I moved my finger.

My index finger clicked option one.

Ding-!

[Would you like to select reward No. 1, ‘Obtain Merit Points (250,000p)’?]

[Yes/No]

A new screen appeared with a clear mechanical chime.

A white light seemed to coat my status window.

Ding-!

[The item ‘Selection Ticket Deluxe’ has been applied!]

[The reward's function will be enhanced at random!]

[The degree of enhancement is divided into the following stages: Normal/Success/Great Success.]

[Calculating degree of enhancement...]

A die rolled across the screen.

It tumbled a few times before coming to a stop.

It showed a five.

Ding-!

[The degree of enhancement has been set to ‘Great Success’!]

[You will receive 1.5 times the planned reward!]

[You have obtained 375,000 Merit Points!]

[Remaining Merit Points: 381,580]

Then I hit the jackpot.

My status window rang nonstop.

I opened the Saint System.

[Basic Stats]

Vitality: A-

Strength: B

Agility: A-

Mana Sensitivity: A-

[Remaining Merit Points: 381,580]

Nearly four hundred thousand points.

It was a number on a scale I'd never seen before.

‘Let's do this.’

I operated the screen.

Merit Points were consumed, and an absurd number of points poured into my stats.

Ding-!

[Merit Points are being used.]

-The rank of Basic Stat ‘Vitality’ has increased by +1.

-The rank of Basic Stat ‘Vitality’ has increased by +1.

-The rank of Basic Stat ‘Vitality’ has increased by +1.

-The rank of Basic Stat ‘Vitality’ has increased by +1.

-The rank of Basic Stat ‘Vitality’ has increased by +1.

-The rank of Basic Stat ‘Strength’ has increased by +1.

-The rank of Basic Stat ‘Strength’ has increased by +1.

-The rank of Basic Stat ‘Strength’ has increased by +1.

-The rank of Basic Stat ‘Strength’ has increased by +1.

-The rank of Basic Stat ‘Strength’ has increased by +1.

-The rank of Basic Stat ‘Strength’ has increased by +1.

-The rank of Basic Stat ‘Agility’ has increased by +1.

.

.

.

Ding-!

Ding-!

Ding-!

Ding-!

Messages appeared and vanished over and over.

There were too many to check one by one.

[292,000 Merit Points have been consumed.]

[Remaining Merit Points: 89,580p]

Whoooosh-!

A fierce gale rose around my body.

Blue flashes burst out and filled the laboratory.

A sense of omnipotence ran down my spine.

The world slowed, then grew quiet.

Even blinking seemed to happen in slow motion.

After taking a calm breath, I checked the letters displayed in the Saint System.

[Basic Stats]

Vitality: S+

Strength: S+

Agility: SS-

Mana Sensitivity: S+

[Merit Points Used: 292,000p]

Vitality and Mana Sensitivity had risen five levels, while Strength and Agility had risen six.

My average stats, which had originally been A-, had shot past S+ in an instant.

I could feel the difference throughout my strengthened body.

‘...Slow.’

The first thing I noticed was how visibly slower everything around me had become.

My hands and feet, on the other hand, moved at their normal speed.

It was as though everyone except me had been put in slow motion.

Swoooosh-!

‘I can see everything.’

Tentacles rushed in from every direction.

Yet even those looked like feathers drifting down before me.

“...”

I didn't even swing my scythe.

I simply stepped into the tentacles' blind spots, one step at a time, my heels clicking against the floor.

The bare minimum of movement.

Dozens of clusters of tentacles missed me with absurd ease.

The floor was pierced, and broken fragments scattered through the air.

‘Ah.’

I felt like I could count every speck of dust and every chunk of concrete flying apart.

The ecstasy made the back of my neck tingle.

A quiet waltz.

My steps were so precise they could have been called elegant.

Then I lightly kicked off the ground.

Booom-!

The floor caved in beneath my leap.

I shot forward like an arrow, arriving right in front of Oz.

“Activate. Knuckle.”

<Damn...!>

Pow-!

I drove my fist into him without giving him time to react.

Oz's body crumpled at once.

He bent into a C shape.

Then he was sent flying and slammed into the left wall.

Booom-!

A heavy roar shook the laboratory.

While that bought me a moment, I cleared out the nearby mutants.

“Activate. Thorns.”

Shwaaaak-!

Every angle, position, and timing had been calculated precisely.

Pitch-black thorns shot out and swept through the laboratory.

Hundreds of mutants were impaled at once.

Even so, I controlled them so neither Alice nor Ranne suffered the slightest harm.

“L-Lord Viktor...?”

“Sir Viktor!”

The two had been pinned down by sheer numbers.

With the area around them cleared, they were able to join me easily.

“They'll come rushing in again. Watch the surroundings. I'll settle things with Oz.”

“Y-Yes...!”

“Mm! I'll support you!”

Sure enough.

Oz had been splattered against the wall like a burst tomato.

He twitched a few times, then restored his mangled body and rose again.

<Ha ha... Ahahaha!>

The man burst into laughter.

His featureless face stared only at me.

<Incredible! To think you had such a move hidden away!>

“I wasn't hiding anything. I just never told you.”

<What's going on? Have you been concealing your strength this whole time? Or did you suddenly grow stronger? I'm dying to know what trick you used!>

“Magic is at its most splendid when you don't know the trick.”

<I agree! It's fascinating, marvelous, wonderful! I never imagined you'd manage to land a hit on me!>

Oz was thoroughly excited.

Even his formerly refined air had been pushed aside.

<Incredible! And fun! To think someone could make my heart race this much! Not even the former captain of the Imperial Knights made my heart pound like this!>

“Then I'm honored.”

<More! Please show me more!>

“Of course. If it means tearing you apart and killing you.”

I pointed a finger at the man.

The tension exploded.

Ding-!

[Omen of the Apocalypse]

-Category: Activation Skill

-Rank: A

-Attribute: Isolation, Domain

-Description: A skill known to be used by the Four Knights of the Apocalypse, particularly the Red Knight and the Black Knight. Upon activation, it deploys a barrier spanning up to one kilometer around the caster. Any target struck by the skill will be trapped inside the barrier with the caster. The greater the caster's mana, the greater the barrier's strength, duration, and range.

“Open.”

I bit down on the short activation word.

Then a pitch-black domain swallowed Oz and me.

<Oh!>

Oz had been caught in a lasso.

Of course, he wasn't someone who would fail to break through even such a simple trap.

He extended a finger as well.

Then he cast another spell.

-Oz Style Life, Unique Magic Second Form-

‘Gestation’

Creeeak-!

The black domain twisted with an eerie cracking sound.

The spells struggling against each other collapsed at once and shattered into pieces.

Crash-!

[Omen of the Apocalypse] failed in the end.

The barrier receded, and my vision returned to the center of the laboratory.

‘He broke a barrier cast with S+ stats using a single spell...’

He really wasn't an ordinary lunatic.

He was the kind of enemy you’d call a Munchkin, Korean slang for an overpowered character, which made it especially fitting for Oz.

Tap-.

I readied my scythe and rushed at him.

“Hup...!”

Shwaaaak-!

A powerful strike split his body in two.

Yet he regenerated in an instant.

<Ha ha! Excellent!>

Oz spread his tentacles, and I swiftly slipped through them.

We exchanged blows evenly.

But it wasn't truly deadlocked.

Little by little, yet unmistakably, I was driving him back.

‘Good.’

The pocket watch in my hand clicked as well.

Every time I pressed the button, the already slow world decelerated even further.

The scene looked frozen.

I slipped through that gap and swung my scythe.

Oz's head was cut off by the crescent blade.

Slash-!

His head rose into the air.

Unsurprisingly, his head regenerated in an instant, and he laughed.

<Ha ha! Cutting off my head like this won't do any damage at all...!>

“Then what about this?”

Grab-.

I reached out and seized the man's arm.

The arm that had been moving unnaturally all along.

“Activate. Gloves.”

The cause of that unnatural movement lay hidden in the school trip incident.

The clone of his that had been dealt with back then.

His soul had been damaged by nearly thirty percent as a result.

In exchange for restoring it, one arm had remained a weakness.

‘I knew it would come to this.’

How many times had I faced you in the original work? Did you think I wouldn't remember even such a simple pattern?

A skill flickered beyond the glove gripping his arm.

[The second skill of the exclusive weapon ‘Black Mist’ has been activated.]

[Skill Name: Devour]

-Stores all damage applied to the user.

-Even if an attack is successfully defended against, the damage applied can be stored.

An attack Javert had unleashed at maximum output, which I'd stored beforehand.

Its power had been inflated fivefold by the double-counting bug.

I smiled.

The corners of my mask's mouth tore upward in a grotesque grin.

Oz looked down at his arm, then quietly murmured.

<...Oh, my God.>

“Release.”

My lips moved.

And then,

Boooom-!

A pure white flash swallowed Oz and me.

[1] Oz: A reference to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, whose title character is a famed wizard.