Chapter 111 – Sorry. I Dragged It to Show This (2)
Finally, the day of the showdown.
The hero Luke swallowed dryly, stopping in front of a now familiar place. The mansion of Baron Ragna Armageddon, in the center of the Armageddon Territory. Although his current title is only a baron, as if to prove that he was once a founding contributor and one of the three great dukes, Luke’s body shrank involuntarily at the strange pressure emanating from the magnificent mansion boasting overwhelming majesty. Moreover, that place is the home of the last enemy he has to defeat, and at the same time, it is a place where he has challenged twice in his journey and been defeated both times. It was a place where I couldn’t do it even if I wanted to look at it positively.
“After…”
But that didn’t stop Luke from moving forward. Luke passed through the wide open gate and stepped into the inner garden of the mansion.
As far as Luke knows, nobles tend to have a garden in their mansion and take good care of it, enjoying showing off to others that they have a garden this wonderful, but the garden in Baron Armageddon’s mansion was different. It’s pretty well-maintained, but that’s all. It was a place that made me feel strange and unpleasant, as if I was looking at elaborately crafted fake fruits. In the garden, where the flowers shed their leaves to endure the approaching winter and were ready to fall asleep until the warm spring to come, a man in black attire sat on a white bench and greeted him.
“You’re finally here. Besides, you’re alone.”
“As you said, I came alone, so you’ll have to keep your promise that you won’t lay a hand on my comrades, even if I’m defeated.”
“Don’t worry too much. I’m such a bad guy, but I’m the kind of person who always keeps promises I make.”
“I hope that’s not a lie. So… Are you going to do it right here?”
As Luke put his hand on the hilt of the sword hanging from his waist and began to emit a bloody force, the man in black, Baron Ragnar Armageddon, who was still sitting leisurely on the bench, shook his head with a wry smile.
“If you do, this garden will be ruined. Although I’m not fond of gardening, I don’t want to ruin it in consideration of the hard work of those who deliberately tended the garden to my honor. I’ve prepared a suitable place, go that way.”
Ragnar Armageddon said that, and when she flicked her hand, the dark blue magic circle that appeared on the ground emitted a faint light, and eventually warped the space and created a passage leading somewhere.
“I’m asking just in case, where is that place?”
“The warrior’s grave.
Warrior’s tomb.
A huge cemetery with many weapons instead of tombstones. It is a land steeped in the blood of countless people, and a place that can only be passed by on the way to the underground temple where the immortal dragon was sealed. And… A place that is somewhat disadvantageous to Rag or Armageddon, whose main means of attack is magic, as they can pull out and use weapons stuck on the floor. Choosing such a place as the battlefield for the final battle… Luke’s doubts, which had been close to speculation, now spread to certainty.
“Come on, eggplant. Let’s put an end to this damn story.”
Ragnar Armageddon got up from his seat and walked through the portal first, as if proving that this was not a trap. It was only after he confirmed that he reached the hill where the weapons were stuck in the floor through the passage, that Luke also followed the passage to the warrior’s grave, and as soon as he passed, the portal disappeared.
“Greatswords, longswords, battle axes, maces, and halberds… Oh, there’s also a spear. The design isn’t quite my taste, though.”
In a situation where he might lose his life in a duel that was about to begin, Luke was dumbfounded by the sight of him leisurely looking at the old weapons stuck on the floor.
“Aren’t you afraid of death?”
To that question, which was casually uttered, Ragnar Armageddon answered calmly, without changing a single expression.
“Yes.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The fear that people commonly feel is largely divided into ‘fear of the knowledge’ and ‘fear of the unknown.’ It’s more like an instinctive fear of the unknown realm. And death can also be said to be an unknown realm. Unless you directly experience death, you don’t know what will happen after it, and even if you know it, you’re already dead. Can’t come back to life. But I’m not afraid of dying. I’ve already died, I know what’s next, and I know what’s going to happen in the future.”
“…Have you already died?”
“It’s a little different if you look at the details, but it’s a rough estimate. There’s no reason to say more than that. But how long will you be standing? Didn’t we come to fight? When you’re ready, go ahead.”
“…”
Luke took the posture he had been practicing while pulling out the holy sword-Unikor, the sword he had been wearing around his waist. A posture specialized for stabbing and pulling, with the hand holding the sword facing forward and the empty hand behind the back. Revealing the swordsmanship he had systematically learned, albeit immaturely, rather than the stance he had wielded ignorantly, Luke spoke to the enemy he was about to stab.
“I’m sorry.”
“What?”
“While I fight you here, my comrades will assemble and deal with the remaining men of yours.”
At that, Ragnar Armageddon shrugged his eyebrows and expressed his doubts.
“What?”
“You are a tough enough enemy to deal with alone, but with your subordinates, you are an enemy that you cannot stand to win. But without you, no matter how good your subordinates are, you will be able to fight against an army composed of many countries and mercenaries. You can’t stop them all.”
“Hmm, so… It looks like I blew a punch, didn’t I? Couldn’t it be that you used what I might think of you to set a trap in this way? But isn’t it a little too early to reveal that to me? What if I leave you here and go back to the mansion alone now and wipe out all the damn bastards who dare to rob the nest while the owner is empty?”
“If you act like that, ‘she’ will come forward herself. I made a promise to you.”
“Hmm, yeah…? Okay, then I’ll tell you something in particular.”
Eventually, Ragnar Armageddon, as if all the relaxed, human-looking face he had been making up until now were masks, ominous darkness wrapped around his hands and a wickedly twisted, distorted smile floated around his mouth.
“What you think will never happen.”
“…!”
Receiving the creeping death as it was, Luke, not to be outdone by this, raised the two divine powers of different colors contained in his body as much as he could. Eventually, a turbid darkness that seemed to swallow all light and a dazzling flash of two colors collided on the earth that swallowed the deaths of the warriors.
*
The final battle that finally began, the climax leading to the finale. Even though the play immediately fell through, I had no intention of dealing with Luke casually. More than one task, I do my best until the end. As a villain, he fights desperately with Joo-yeon and meets a neat end befitting him. That was the condition for me to obtain the right to wish from the goddess, but now it has changed to satisfy the ancient foreign press. It doesn’t matter.
Yeah, the important thing is… This is the last fight and you have to do your best.
Deal with Luke. With all the tools I have.
…No need to look any further.
Yes, this one
“Then, start lightly… One!”
It means a chance to beat Luke to his heart’s content, harder than he legally hit him last time!
I pulled out an old spear stuck in the floor and wrapped it in the darkness that filled my hands. Weapons left unattended without being able to avoid the flow of time looked like they would break at any moment, but the durability of weapons was not that important to Luke and me. For those of us who can strengthen our weapons with dark magic and divine power, the shape and length of the weapon itself were more important than the durability and power of the weapon itself. The long spear, which seemed like it would break by itself even if it was swung, far from being able to withstand even a single attack, was smelted by the ominous magic of darkness and formed into a new shape.
The weapon I pulled out from the darkness was similar to a halberd, but instead of an ax blade, the blade made of darkness shook eerily, reminiscent of a sickle. Leaving a trail of dazzling light, I rushed right in front of him in an instant and swung the spear in his hand at Luke, who swung his sword. The blade made of magic caught the tip of the sword wrapped in divine power, and dazzling sparks flew and intense shocks were transmitted to both hands one after another.
No matter how much the power was calibrated with the divine power, it could not be this much. My wrist was bruised from the impact of being hit head-on by a car running at 100 km/h, but the wound regenerated at a speed similar to that of broken bones, twisted wrists, and splattered blood, as if turning back time to me. A scene appeared to return the damage inflicted to nothing. While Luke couldn’t stop admiring it, he pushed his blade away with force and swung the scythe again, but the blade attached to the spear only cut through the air, not Luke’s body.
Ensuing confrontation. Like the saying that Luke flies like a butterfly and stings like a bee, he avoids my stings and cuts and seeks an opportunity. Thanks to the power of darkness, I am immune to most damage, but Luke’s divine power was rather a fatal weakness for me, so I didn’t allow him to stab even once. As for the blade stabbing at his neck and heart, he twisted the trajectory by striking it with a spear, or kicked Luke in the abdomen with a kick to widen the distance, and then either fired the spear again or swung the blade attached to the spear like a scythe to counterattack.
Me and Luke, who exchanged attacks like a sparring match without having done a single meaningful damage to each other, pierced the opponent’s shoulder blades with a simultaneous strike as if they were meshing, and stepped back and increased the distance.
“Kuu…!”
Luke immediately used his divine power to heal his wounds. But…
“Write…”
Conversely, my shoulder, far from being healed, looked like it was being eaten by moths.
In fact, in terms of the speed of recovery from wounds and the amount of energy consumed, this one had a far superiority. However, the only thing I can recover is the wounds other than ‘damage received by divine power’. I can recover from the shock of Luke’s devastating attack reinforced by divine power, but I can’t heal the wounds that were directly damaged by divine power, even if it was just a little bit. On the other hand, in Luke’s case, the speed of recovery is not so fast, and in order to recover the wounds, the divine power to be used for the attack must be distributed, but there is no limit to the wounds that can be recovered.
In other words, if you repeatedly accumulate damage to each other in this way, as a result, my side will be at a disadvantage. Noticing that I hadn’t healed the slight wound on my shoulder, Luke didn’t miss the opportunity and started attacking me again with the force of a fury. Besides, this time he was somewhat prepared for the risk of being attacked, and as the bold blows followed, naturally I had no choice but to focus on defense. Convinced that he had the initiative, Luke delivered a rather unreasonable stab that even if I attacked, he could not defend… That was the opportunity that came to me.
“It’s big..?!”
Luke’s body froze as he did not dodge the spear I threw at all, but rather boldly stabbed the blade. It was because the spear that had grazed his body about halfway through had pierced Luke’s side with vicious thorns sprouting from the spearhead. This spear in my hand is a weapon with my mana overlaid on the skeleton of an old spear that has always been here. And if you use a little force, it’s as simple as changing the shape of the weapon.
“Kuh… Big!”
I retracted my spear and pulled out the thorns stuck in Luke’s body, and Luke staggered as bright red blood poured from his torn side. Shortly thereafter, the wound was enveloped in the dazzling light unique to divine power, the blood stopped, and the torn skin grew back to its original state, but even if the divine power healed the wound, it did not even erase the pain.
“You’re such a simple guy. Have you never thought about why I left my magic behind and only dealt with you with melee battles that I couldn’t even use well? That’s even when I risked being hurt by a divine power attack that I couldn’t recover from. I mean.”
I can’t even use it well, well, I handle it well…! I laughed as I looked down at Luke who muttered in a barely audible voice.
“I deliberately dealt with melee combat and didn’t use other means. By showing that the wounds from my attacks can heal over time, but the wounds I received directly from your attacks cannot be healed, I hope you can boldly defend your defense. I induced your thinking to do an ellision that accumulated as much damage as possible without giving up. To prevent you from predicting that such an irregular attack would suddenly come.”
“Then it’s impossible that I just got hit in the shoulder…”
“Of course, I did it on purpose. In the darkness where you can’t see an inch ahead, you’re blinded by the only fire you can see. So you don’t see the flames heading for the giant monster’s jaws. Now, then, why am I telling you this now? Can you guess the map that explains everything to you?”
“That’s…”
Before Luke could finish his words, I threw out my spear, and Luke, who was unable to immediately respond to the attack at an unexpected timing, cut his thigh with the blade. I laughed slyly as I fired my spear again at Luke, who was kneeling on the floor and recovering from his wounds.
“The first reason is to show your skills in earnest since you have roughly learned how much you are capable with your body senses, and the second reason is to turn your thoughts that way so that you don’t react to my attacks!”
Luke hurriedly responded to my attack with his left arm, and the sound of breaking bones resonated clearly. Then she struck Luke in the chin with her spear, knocking him over, and then, stepping on his right hand with her right foot, brought the blade of the spear right in front of his neck.
“If I had just acted the way I thought I would normally, things would have worked out much better. If I hadn’t ruined the plans I’d carefully made like a dog, neither you nor I would have had any problems. It’s a pity.”
“Kuh… Ugh…!”
“This kind of thing is called a hero… I’m really dumbfounded.”
If I slam the spear point down like this without any hesitation, Luke’s neck will go straight and fly away. But I partly didn’t. As if he could end your life at any moment, like an arrogant villain who was sure of victory, he purposely insulted and ridiculed him to pass the time without landing a final blow.
“Is that all? Well, the fact that Selena managed to defeat Violence was due to the fact that Selena inflicted a fatal wound on her. After all, even defeating Serberg the Destroyer and Sillip the Mad seems to have been a fluke.”
“Huh, ugh…!”
With Luke’s right hand, vast divine power expands as if it would explode at any moment. I backed away from him one tempo faster than he could unleash his divine power, and took little damage from his massive divine power. I pointed the tip of my spear at Luke, who had risen from his wounds, and provoked him again.
“Come on, try again. The most incompetent warrior.”
“…Aaaaa!!”
