Chapter Season 2 722

Translator: Alpha0210

He did not remember much of what happened after that.

His mind went completely blank, then immediately seemed to turn red, and even his vision began to swim. He thought he might have let out some kind of monstrous cry, something between a roar and a scream.

Yet even amid all that chaos, even as his mind crumbled, he had the strange sensation that his body knew exactly what it had to do on its own.

Lukas fired Absolute at Noxtantine.

It was strange.

Noxtantine had laid such an elaborate trap and struck precisely at every opening Lukas and his companions had shown, yet she made no preparations whatsoever against the Absolute that was suddenly fired at her.

That fatally careless display was unmistakably the true nature of the Demigods Lukas Trowman had known.

His two companions seized perfectly upon the Demigod's carelessness.

Ignoring the attacks of the statues closing in from every direction, Lucid and Kasajin pinned down both of the Demigod's shoulders. Lucid with his sword, Kasajin with his entire body─ the amount of strength they could bring to bear in that instant was tremendous, enough that even the hulking Demigod could not easily break free.

But Noxtantine's response afterward was far too inept.

Being difficult to break free from did not mean being impossible to break free from.

Lucid and Kasajin were already exhausted from their battle with the statues.

Had Noxtantine struggled a little more desperately, she might have broken their restraint.

But Noxtantine did not.

Perhaps she had refused to show mere humans the sight of herself desperately struggling to survive, a sight that could, depending on one's perspective, be considered humiliating.

Perhaps she had been overconfident in the hardness of her scales.

Or perhaps she had possessed some other means.

He did not know.

And now he never would.

All that mattered was that Noxtantine failed to break free of the two men's restraint, and that fact alone decided the battle.

Squelch.

Noxtantine was pierced straight through from the forehead.

The Absolute Lukas fired entered through Noxtantine's forehead as she lay stretched flat, tore its way through her entire body, then burst out through the groin on the opposite side. Only then did Noxtantine's eyes fly wide open. Blood surged out in thick gushes from her grotesquely writhing, bright yellow eyes.

[This... this... This cannot be......!]

Only then did Noxtantine cry out in disbelief.

Her vitality, at least, was truly astonishing. Of every living creature Lukas knew, not one could have uttered even a single word with its skull pierced through.

Yet even in that state, the monster thrashed about madly before screaming curses at the top of her voice.

Lukas could not properly hear what she was saying. A constant buzzing filled his ears, as though a swarm of bees were flying around his head. His vision was fading in and out as well.

Even so, he could not afford the luxury of simply collapsing.

The Demigod was dead, but dozens of statues still remained. Taken together, they were every bit as dangerous as the Demigod herself.

Lukas had hoped that Noxtantine's death might cause the statues to stop functioning, but nothing of the sort happened. Their movements themselves did become considerably more sluggish, however, allowing the three of them to silence every last statue without suffering any further harm.

"......"

After the most grueling battle of his life, Lukas did not have enough strength left to twitch a single finger. He sank to the ground as though collapsing.

His physical and mental exhaustion had undoubtedly reached their limits, yet strangely, there was no sign that he was about to lose consciousness.

Was it because there was still something left to do?

"The building... isn't collapsing."

Kasajin muttered in a subdued voice, but neither of the others answered.

"Was she bluffing? Or......"

At last, Kasajin spoke the name all three of them had been avoiding.

"...Schweizer."

"......"

As though that word had flipped a switch, Lucid was the first to move.

Did he still have enough strength left to move? It did not seem so. His powerful body, kept strong through constant training, had reached its limit long ago, and Lucid too moved almost as though crawling, using his sword as a walking stick.

"Where are you going?"

"We must retrieve him."

"What?"

Kasajin reflexively asked, then closed his mouth.

Lucid was heading toward Noxtantine's corpse, and once that fact clicked into place, Kasajin belatedly understood what he meant.

Noxtantine had died with her mouth hanging wide open, so entering through her maw itself was not difficult.

Until that moment, Lukas had remained sitting there in a daze. But when Lucid disappeared from view, he flinched and rose to his feet. Then he too headed toward Noxtantine's maw.

"Lukas."

He belatedly heard Kasajin call his name from behind, but ignored him.

The inside of the Demigod's mouth was like a damp, pitch-black cavern.

A revolting stench permeated the throat of the being who had called herself a god. Unidentifiable chunks of meat, rotting blood, and stomach acid had mingled together, creating an odor foul enough to make anyone gag regardless of how strong their stomach was. Lukas immediately wanted to turn around and leave.

He ignored that instinctive warning.

He continued walking down the disgusting, slippery throat.

And not long after, when he came to a stop, Lucid was standing before him.

"Did you find him?"

"......"

Lucid did not answer.

He was not ignoring Lukas. Lucid slowly approached and held out something he had been gripping in his hand.

It was Schweizer's staff.

"This is all there is."

Don't be ridiculous.

This could not be all.

He was not even hoping that Schweizer had somehow survived by some miracle. But there was no way his entire body had already been digested. They had killed Noxtantine immediately after she swallowed him in the first place.

Lukas clenched his fist with crushing force and was just about to continue farther in.

Lucid held out a hand to stop him.

"I advise against going any farther."

"Move."

"This is far enough, Lukas."

Lucid spoke in a forceful voice.

He was not a man who often took such a tone.

"Your body crossed its limits long ago. Surely you know that better than anyone."

"Is that a reason to leave a friend's remains unrecovered?"

"......"

"I'll say it once more. Move."

Lucid ultimately did not step aside, but the hand that had been stopping Lukas fell limply to his side. Lukas went straight past him and continued through the damp, horrific place.

It was stiflingly hot, wet, and foul-smelling, while the ground beneath his feet yielded with an unpleasant softness. Even as Lukas thought that it felt like walking through hell, he clenched his fists.

...Lucid had probably meant to spare him.

Perhaps Schweizer's body was in a far more gruesome state than Lukas imagined, and Lucid had not wanted him to see it. Realizing that belatedly, Lukas regretted having snapped at him so coldly.

He would apologize later.

But the horrific sight that soon revealed itself shattered Lukas for an entirely different reason.

"......"

He had prepared himself thoroughly.

He thought he had considered every terrible possibility there was to consider.

Had it been arrogant even to think that?

Farther inside, just as expected, lay Schweizer's corpse.

There were wounds, but the body was relatively intact. Perhaps because the surroundings were so dark, at a glance Lukas could almost have mistaken him for being alive.

The closer Lukas drew, the more violently his heart began to pound again after having finally calmed during the walk through Noxtantine's throat.

There were not many wounds on the corpse. But Schweizer seemed to have lost a great deal of blood.

Then what had been the fatal wound?

Lukas knelt on one knee and examined Schweizer's body until suddenly, he found it.

A hole through his chest.

A hole far too clean to have been made by Noxtantine's sharp teeth─ Lukas knew what sort of attack left a wound like this.

Dark crimson light.

Lukas's strongest spear, capable of piercing any armor.

Absolute Line.

"...Urk."

Lukas staggered backward, only for his feet to slip on the slick ground and send him crashing down.

"Haa, hah......"

His breath caught painfully in his throat, and cold sweat trickled down his skin.

Schweizer wavered beyond his unsteady vision─ a pristine corpse that, save for the wound in his chest, did not look dead at all......

...Had he been alive?

Perhaps Schweizer had still been alive when Noxtantine swallowed him. Yes. He might not have known how to fight, but that did not mean he had possessed no means of protecting himself. Using some magic tool Lukas knew nothing about─ perhaps he had somehow managed to preserve his life. Perhaps he had survived the danger.

If that was true, then the one who killed Schweizer was not the Demigod, but the dark crimson line that pierced Noxtantine, the wielder of Absolute.

Lukas Trowman.

"Bleurgh......!"

Noxtantine's throat.

He had held back his nausea even while making his way through that hellish place, filled with its revolting stench. Now it surged back up all at once. Before he even had time to cover his mouth with both hands, Lukas vomited up the contents of his stomach.

"Blech. Bleurgh......"

He retched as though he were vomiting up his own entrails and felt his cheeks grow wet.

"...No."

The words spilled out together with his vomit, though he did not even know whom he was saying them to.

"No......"

***

There had been many crises on the road that brought him this far.

More than he could count.

Skill, experience, talent, bonds, or simple chance.

Sometimes separately, sometimes intertwining with one another, those things had saved Lukas from crisis after crisis.

And each time, Lukas had grown stronger.

But in the end, his fundamental circumstances had never changed. He was still struggling, clawing his way toward greater heights.

He had never forgotten that. Nor had he let his guard down.

Or so he had thought, until Schweizer died and finally made him realize what an idiot he had been.

Somewhere in one corner of his heart, he had been optimistic.

He had believed no one would die. He had believed he would lose nothing.

That the world would only ever give him trials he could overcome, that fate was on his side. Even if he had never consciously recognized them, such disgusting and childish thoughts had undeniably existed somewhere deep in his heart.

Yes. Perhaps Schweizer had already been dead by then. Perhaps Lukas's Absolute Line had merely pierced a corpse.

But who could prove that now?

No one could know whether the cat inside the box was dead or alive until the lid was opened. What mattered was that when Lukas observed Schweizer, the body before him was unquestionably dead, and the mark left by Lukas's own magic remained in his chest.

In the end, Lukas was the one who had created this situation.

This was the price he had paid for failing to be more thorough, for facing the situation with a mindset that had grown lax.

In the end, regardless of what the Absolute Line through Schweizer's chest ultimately meant, Schweizer might as well have been killed by Lukas.

And Lukas could not endure that fact.

***

"...Noxtantine spoke thus, 'Relationships are deeply personal. One who is precious to oneself is not necessarily precious to another, and there are times when one friend cannot share friendship with another......', 'Therefore, we must be clear about what we place first, and when the moment of choice comes, we must judge carefully so that we are left with no regrets......'."

Agolet murmured in a low voice, then closed the scripture.

Even without the slightest shred of faith, he could move the believers who listened to him. That was purely because Agolet possessed a pleasant voice.

For the sake of a better performance, Agolet would sometimes recite the scripture aloud in his room. It was an exercise in finding the most pleasing tone of voice. In the process, he had read through every scripture of the Church of Noxtantine at least once and memorized them all along the way.

"...Relationships are deeply personal."

He murmured the passage once more.

He had never expected to find himself sympathizing with the scripture of a fabricated religion like this. Apparently, when enough stuffy clerics put their heads together, they occasionally managed to distill a truth or two.

Some said that what others cherished should be cherished as though it were one's own, but Agolet could not sympathize with that sentiment.

Goodness? Hypocrisy? That was not the issue. For Agolet, this was something far more fundamental.

Since falling into this world, he had possessed more time to think than he knew what to do with, and he had spent a long time reflecting on what had happened on the island.

The one Residue had risked his life to protect. Lukas Trowman.

Then was Agolet supposed to follow Residue's will as well?

He did not care in the slightest what happened to the world.

A life in which he had known nothing but being deprived since birth, the horrific malice inside his head, his contradictory and opposing states of mind...... Amid such a life, the first truth he had ever obtained.

And that truth had sown yet another seed of conflict.

Was loyalty about serving the king, or following the king's will?

This, at least, was something Agolet had to answer for himself, and he had found his answer.

Snap.

He closed the scripture.

To borrow the words written in this book, at least he had reached his conclusion before the 'moment of choice' arrived. That was why he had been able to maintain his composure even in front of Residue.

──Whatever happened to Lukas Trowman was none of Agolet's concern.

Even if that man were to spend the rest of his days walking a road through hell, suffering every moment from the mere fact that he was alive, cursing his own fate, dragging on through a ruined life until he finally went mad─ Agolet did not think he would feel much guilt over it.

And today, the first piece had successfully fallen into place. The plan that had been proceeding secretly beneath the surface had finally emerged into the open.

In other words, there was no turning back now.

From this point on, Agolet would proceed exactly according to the original plan,

...and even if this caused him to come into conflict with Residue, he would not particularly care.

*****

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