Nidome no Yuusha

Chapter 52: The Hero, Destroys the Mage 1

The place was full of the splashing sounds you heard when walking across puddles after a bit of rain.

Those sounds of course, did not come from such a wholesome activity.

“HURRDS, ID HURRRDS” “GOFHFH, URGHH” “BLERGH, ERGHGH” “MY ARM, I GOT NO ARM, MY LEG, WHARRR?”

The gentle night wind carried the stink of rust, the brilliant moon shone on the many pools of blood spread all over.

Their convulsing bodies were flopping around, maybe from pain, maybe from bodily reactions, and this generated those splashing sounds made in their own blood. This scene of humans broken apart, crying out in sheer agony, was simply perfect as a prelude to Yumis’ downfall.

All these people had after all walked down the path of trampling over others along with the green haired mage.

That said, these men were also merely pawns to Yumis, if they broke, she just had to get rid of them.

“The hearth of hell shall reduce to ash, and demonic flames shall plunder all, Demon’s Fire.”

With a flourish of her hands, Yumis released a torrent of dark flame that swallowed her incapacitated troops.

“HODD!? AM BUHHRR-GOAHH!!” “Aah, warm, I can die, n…” “BUAA…”

“Aww, you killed them. Well, they were going to be dead in a bit anyway.”

The bastards I’d de-limbed, I made sure they wouldn’t die quickly and while avoiding their major arteries, I instead tore up their meat and broke many bones.

Minnalis and Shuria weren’t as skilled in their technique so their prey would’ve died after 30 minutes or so, but mine, I’d carefully made into meatbags so that they’d live for another 2 to 3 hours. They could’ve even been saved if they got treatment within the first hour.

Then again, pawns who lost could be called useless anyway, so they’d meet the same end regardless was what I thought.

“Oh but it is much more, these Hearth Flames of Hell can…”

“I don’t need the expo. From the way you’re talking, looks like my backup copy theory was correct. The main you seems to still be the 2nd run version.”

If she’d been overwritten, she wouldn’t have tried to explain a spell that the old her knew that I knew.

She now had her knowledge from another world, from the future of it no less. Which basically meant that my soulblade didn’t store and paste her entire soul in this her.

It was great for my revenge if she could remember, but this also meant granting her access to more power. Right now, Yumis had all the knowledge of the spells I helped her develop.

“ Demon’s Fire or Hearth Flames of Hell, a spell that combines spirit, fire, and earth. It’s used to make a Tenebris Ignis Giant, a chimera-fied combination of Flesh Golem and undead creatures using corpses, earth and fire as catalysts. I know your tricks well enough.”

The soldiers who were enveloped in the black flame became pitch black skeletons and started merging together.

“-! Why, you cannot do a thing even if you know, can you? Myself of the future seems to have found you quite the pain with how you played the runaway buffoon. Let me make it up to you for her, and burn you into nothingness right this instant.”

“Oi oi, you sure about that? If you kill me, how ever will you find your sweet precious Sori-chan?”

“That is a non issue, I could use simple ‘necromancy’ to reap all the information out of your soul. Though I am interested in your alien corpse, I simply cannot let you exist in this world for laying a hand on my Sori. You, that beast-kin and Shuria. Do you not expect me to generously free the world of you trash?”

Yumis shrugged her shoulders as she snickered.

But under that calm exterior lay an unimaginable rage towards us. All the better for us, we can enjoy our revenge much better like this.

“GBOOOOOHHH!!”

“BGOOOOOHHHH!!”

Two flaming golems rose up, roaring unintelligibly.

They were manifestations of the defilement of many corpses.

The blackened bones of Yumis’ troops had gathered together to form these 5 to 6 meter tall monstrosities that were lit in violet fire. Rather than sturdy golems that protected their master, these two looked like a pair of demons summoned from hell.

Due to the coating of violet flames all over their bodies, or maybe the ominous presence they gave off, these golems of bone looked bigger than they actually were.

“Alright, I’ll be taking those myself, like we planned. Minnalis, Shuria, can you take care of the prep for later?”

“Very well, goshujin-sama, but please take care not to over do it.” “Yes Kaito-sama, please don’t kill her accidentally, okey? We need to break her together okey?”

“… C’mon, can’t you girls trust me some more?”

“It’s because we can feel your vengeful rage already.” x 2

… … … They weren’t wrong.

The【Holy Sword of Vengeance】 is great at making sure no one’s going to betray you if you form the vow with them, but it gets problematic at times like this because all the rage gets shared around. Neither they or I can hide that sort of feeling. I can’t play dumb basically.

“Ahh, just go already. I’m still sane enough to know when to stop. And I’m not so inconsiderate that I’d start eating the meal before it’s even cooked.”

As I jokingly went ‘shoo shoo’ with my hands, Minnalis lifted up Shuria and leapt away to the back.

“Ok then, let’s get this show on the road.”

“Was that alright? You relinquished your 3 fold advantage of numbers just like that; are you trying to imply that your weakened present self can stand against me alone?”

“Sure I am. If you don’t recall, you’re weaker now too. It’s not as if a few new memories will give you level or stat boosts.”

(Though your Technique did shoot up apparently)

Her hidden status window showed it at B+ right now.

Since she’d stolen most of Shuria’s elemental talent, her magic skill had evolved far beyond what was appropriate for her level, it’d gone from Magical Arts to the higher level skill Sorcery.

The skill’s level was still low, but it was without a doubt strong.

But this wasn’t even near what I couldn’t handle.

“Plus, I don’t see you chasing after them. Isn’t that cause you also want this slight advantage?”

“… Conceited aren’t you, I seem to recall you getting captured and killed by us because you stayed alone, just like this.”

“Oh yeah? Then how come, in the 1st run, after I killed that maniac assassin Gorde you brought along, your side always brought 4 or more people to hunt me down? If I was so weak, how come you never came with 3 or less to finish me off?”

After the princess bitch Alesia told me the truth and I went on the run, I’d let go of all pretenses about my status and techniques, my every hesitation about killing creatures of this world, of murder, completely disappeared.

I’d come to accept that I needed to kill my enemies as something natural.

The mage and the assassin.

Those two probably thought that they could take me head on from our then disparity in status. This mage bitch had teamed up with the assassin, Gorde, and came to hunt me. She likely planned to have the highly dexterous Gorde hold me down as she completed her chant for a high level mind control spell. She might’ve succeeded too, if I wasn’t already desensitized to the act of killing.

At the time, I still had that powerful status down curse put on me from Alesia’s firebolt. Not quite what I’d call tip top condition.

Looking at the results though, I’d completely turned the tables.

I had overpowered Gorde even in that condition, and he couldn’t fulfill his job of buying time for the spell.

Not only was he faster than me in terms of pure speed, he supposedly had a mastery in rogue skills in addition to excellent techniques in assassination. He could’ve been described as roughly my equal.

But he was, in the end, still sub-par.

His sword hand was slow and his feints were too easy to call. From his line of sight, to his breathing, to the flexing of his muscles, to the flow of his mana, I could use all that to anticipate his moves. His skills of deception had turned into childish swordplay for me.

It wasn’t as if I was completely unscathed, but the fight was similar to a cat driving a mouse into a corner, and the mouse desperately taking a bite. The cat might be hurt, but the mouse was still liable to die in the exchange. If only I’d been at full health back then, I could’ve killed Yumis along with that bastard.

But as soon as the witch noticed that she was at risk, she used her already accumulated mana and forcefully changed the spell into one of teleportation. She escaped. If I hadn’t let that happen, I could’ve killed them some more in my 1st run.

Of course, I didn’t exactly have the capacity to have my revenge so easily as I’m having now.

“Since it turned out to be a Backup Copy, guess I’ll just have to have YOU experience it too. You worms can do nothing to me without gathering all your numbers.”

I instantiated two 【Pilferblades of the Adversary】.

“! Enough with your nonsense. You can’t beat me!!”

“Hah!! Showing your true colors are you, YUMIIIISSSS!!”

She commanded the Tenebris Ignis Giants to attack while forming further spells.

First, as a test, I went with normal strength and clashed swords with one of the behemoth’s own purple flaming bone greatsword.

“UGHKAAAA”

“Tch!! Thing’s like a boulder.”

I’d say, as a monster, the Tenebris Ignis Giant wouldn’t rank at anything below C.

It felt as tough as Blackorc hide, and with the amount of power it was exerting, even while using the 【Pilferblades of the Adversary】 I was put at a slight disadvantage in strength. On top of that, its fire that grazed me in such close quarters had the effect of draining my MP.

This kind of made me want to use other soulblades, but then they’d lack the strength to take these things on.

“ Tri Lightning!!”

“Woah.”

Streams of lightning magic headed towards me from different directions.

The other golem was also coming from behind. This one apparently preferred blunt weapons as it had a giant mallet in its hands.

I loosened the strength in my arms to end the sword-lock, used the golems own force to twist out of the way, and then created a thin, cylindrical bar in the air using sky walk and grabbed on to it.

In the same motion, I swung up, dodging the oncoming lightning strikes, and like an acrobat, I placed my feet on the other golem’s hammer, in that instant, I was positioned between the massive weapon and my own bar in the air that wouldn’t last much longer.

“GYUURAAHHH”

I let myself be sent flying by the momentum of the hammer and after doing a spin in the air to steady myself, I landed some distance away.

“Hah, pathetic. The old you could’ve stopped those attacks with pure strength.”

“I could say the same about you. You used Demon’s Fire when you already know much more powerful spells. Of course you did, your status simply isn’t caught up to your knowledge.”

“Impudent fool… You’re being an eyesore. Golems!!”

Yumis probably thought she could win with this strategy, she kept the sword golem by her side as a guard and made the hammer golem dash towards me. She also began gathering mana for her next spell.

I took some distance, careful not to let the golem out of sight, even though with its large body it could only move slowly.

“… … …”

“O great diverging spirit of wind, O lord whose aim is truest of all…”

It was the aria for Multiple Lightning. Her actions, counter-actions to my actions, they were so easy to predict.

I let out a small chuckle at how utterly simple she was.

I readied the technique that let me solo the mountain of monsters just the other day, a method to quite literally surpass my bodily limits. I began filling the 【Viridian Sword of Crystal】 with mana.

“That was enough warm up I guess.”

“Come to life for that single moment, Streak in lightning that denies elusion, Multiple Lightning!!”

“… … … … Overlimit ”

As I muttered the name, confirming its activation, a pale green light enveloped me.

Everything turned gray, slow. I could see the beginnings of lightning bolts racing towards me.

Lightning attacks produced by spells were different from the naturally occurring feat of nature. True, this type of spell is quite a bit faster than your average fireball, but the lightning produced by the laws of physics was much faster. That’s why it was possible to do fantasy actions like directing the magical lightning in a desired path.

I leapt away from the fast approaching lightning and rolled in towards the hammer golem on my tail.

This feat was a step above and beyond what my stats allowed for. A technique to draw out power without concern for the body.

It wasn’t on the edge of not breaking my body, but on the assumption that it’d break, and in exchange for the damage, I could squeeze out tremendous power that defied stats for just a few moments.

And by using 【Viridian Sword of Crystal】 I constantly healed my overexerted, torn muscles, extending the little time I broke through all potential.

“Wha!?”

“HOAAAAA!?”

“Too slow ain’t ya!!”

Once, twice, three times, four, five.

Now facing it one on one, before the bone creature could even swing down its hammer, I struck down with 5 sweeps of my blade, each crushing its body.

My attacks that were more like cannon fire than sword slashes, blasted away at its left shoulder blade, right upper arm, right thigh and left calf, making those areas look as if they were gouged out.

“ORAAAAA!!”

“Damn!! Go-, No, hah!!”

Yumis tried to send her other golem in to aid, but then thought better of it, and fired off a silent fireball.

She of course realized that her hammer golem was at a disadvantage, but she didn’t want to risk leaving herself with no guard.

That was the correct choice. The sword golem wouldn’t have made it in time anyway.

For these golems, if you destroyed their center, their core, they would immediately stop functioning, and crumble into dust.

Even if she sent in the other golem, I’d destroy this one’s core long before the other came close.

“Fuck off back to hell!!”

I dodged Yumis’ fireball and broke the now unbalanced hammer golem at the legs.

Now practically done for, the golem attempted a last struggle by intensifying its weakly lit coat of flames.

This was an action akin to suicide.

The violet fire was the golem’s life force, and if it was used too intensely, the remaining time it could operate would rapidly decrease.

“Give it up, stupid golem.”

I felt my MP draining from the intense violet flames, but I destroyed the core under its thick torso anyway.

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