novelSoar up, O Hero! ⑰
| ← Ch.081 | Ch.083 → |
It was a disturbing thing which resembled a spinal cord, white bones connected by joints covered in a dark membrane.
It seemed like it would span a good 7m if it were spread wide to either side, and from every joint protruded horns like thorns.
There were three pairs of these sets of bones.
Membranes covered the gaps to form a wing.
Wouldn't they look like an umbrella if seen from afar?
"Looks more like weapons rather than wings...?"
The ends of the wings were sharp and thus looked good for stabbing.
It just so happened that I was lacking a working hand from losing an arm. This should be able to satisfy me.
I decided to test it out immediately.
Stab!
I used my wing to stab in and out of the belly of Miss A, who had untruthfully called me a "demon king".
"Kyauh...?!"
Her neat, pure white dress now dyed red, the cry of a soprano resounded from Miss A's mouth instead of a magic incantation.
The flesh of her lower belly was violently torn, like the mouth of a fish caught on a hook.
But that wasn't all.
Slop...
Miss A's glossy light-pink innards came out hanging on the wing's horn.
Miss A's eyes rolled back in their sockets and she plunged down into the ocean.
As Miss B tried to fly down to save Miss A, I gave her a slight jab in the back, too.
"Hold my han—Kyaagh~?!"
This time my wing gouged out a pancreas. No, is this a kidney? I decided to ask its owner what it was.
Splash! Splash!
But that idea was cancelled due to the two ladies, who refused to converse, and the strange man all jumping into the ocean.
While I became displeased at being so blatantly ignored, I chose to respect the girls' sense of virtue like the gentleman I was.
Anyhow...
"I don't think this'll come out again if I stab wrong..."
It seemed caution would be necessary.
"Stop!"
The old prince yelled desperately at the sight of the ladies' deaths and closed in on me at a high speed.
His previous composure and leisurely manner was nowhere to be found.
"Haha! Thatta boy!"
I didn't dodge and received the old prince's challenge.
Though of course, I had no intention of just taking it.
"Kyagh~?!"
"Aargh?!"
I began a delivery service.
Stab! Slash!
I used my wings to stab or Holy Sword 2 to cut down the fleeing ladies, their initial spirit fueled by the power of love lost and their faces filled with fear.
There was even one who gave up resisting and begged for her life.
"Excellent judgement."
Chop.
I cleanly cut the throat of Miss E, who had thrown away her weapon.
"How could you do that when she surrendered...?!"
Another one questioned me when she wasn't even the person concerned.
Her attitude of trying to represent another without permission was rude and offensive, but I gave a full explanation to Miss F whom I'd soon be parting with.
"Isn't that why I sent her off painlessly?"
"You demon...! Gugh!"
End of consultation!
This time I bashed the girl's face instead of stabbing with my wings.
I left the blood-covered Miss F to drop down. Her use was to hold back the prince who was chasing after me, roaring like a wounded beast.
It was quite effective.
"Go to your beloved's embrace... Mm?"
I saw Miss F's eyeball dangling off my wings like a bell. Its optic nerves were just caught on one of my wings' horns, on the verge of breaking off.
"You didn't really have to give me this... You wanna eat this?"
I generously asked this to the very lovely-looking Miss G, who had been looking this way and that.
She answered without much hesitation.
"N—Aughb~!?"
"No need to be reserved since it's your friend's!"
My wings slipped as I fed Miss G the eyeball and I ended up raking off her scalp full of hair like grilled thin pork belly.
What should I do about this?
I decided to pretend I didn't see.
"Stop right there!"
"Woah! You startled me!"
The old prince's roar caused me to put too much strength into my tense shoulders.
Holy Sword 2 slipped in my hand as a consequence, and ended up cutting the passerby Miss H between her 2nd and 3rd lumbar vertebrae.
Oh! Goodness gracious!
"I didn't get it between the 4th and 5th!"
It was my first time making this sort of mistake in 7 years.
I grasped hold of Miss H's intact neck in order to recover my honor. This time I made no blunder in accurately gripping the spot between her 6th and 7th cervical vertebrae and—
"No~!"
"Your Highness, sav—!"
Crack.
Her neck broken, Miss H went powerlessly limp.
It looked like she had lots to say to her beloved, but private talk like that should have been held in the heat of night beforehand.
What remained now was...
"Sob-sob...!"
"Don't cry. It makes your ruined face pretty!"
I caught up to Miss G, who was flying away clutching her scalp that was torn to the point of showing her white skull.
There was a deeply sensual charm to her eyes moist with tears.
She seemed to have been running rather diligently, love and friendship flung out the window, but she was much too slow in comparison to me with my bizarre wings.
Shall I cut her? Stab her? Break her?
I decided to ask for her thoughts.
"How do you want to die?"
"No! No! I don't want to die! Sob-sob!"
Miss G began to shake her head and throw a tantrum at my question.
Why's a grown adult acting like a child?
"O Hero! Please spare her alone at least...!"
The prince flying over from afar cried out in a pleading voice.
By looking at Miss G's Status, I was able to analyze without difficult why he was taking a somewhat overly humble stance.
?Race: Human
?Level: 999+
?Job: Crown Princess(Prince→Ability↑)
?Skills: Charm(SSS) Coquetry(SS) Glamor(S) Magic(S) Eternal Youth(S)...
?Condition: Fear
The Jobs of the ladies I'd killed until now were all production types or combat types; they didn't clearly state the status of a "wife" like Miss G's.
Jobs didn't just appear.
While there were quite many Jobs like Robber which could be easily obtained through robbery, Jobs that involved rank and position had extremely strict requirements.
For instance...
The rulers of small countries and vassal states without any recognition, regardless of how much they asserted themselves, would not be able to attain the Job of "King".
This strict standard applied to marital relationships as well.
Political marriages between influential families or powerful nations were a slight exception, but normally it required something like true love.
In any case.
Chop.
I didn't give a damn for the family affairs of others.
"No~~!"
"The only good killer is a dead killer."
I jeered in response to the prince's howling.
I had no interest in what kind of person Miss G was.
She was no more than a bloodthirsty murderer from the moment she joined the group trying to kill me. There couldn't be any compromise or understanding in this.
Miss G's severed head and torso dropped into the ocean.
But before it could be swept away by the waves, the old prince nimbly caught her corpse.
He then yelled up looking towards me.
"Just what did you learn in the dimension of Fantasia?! What were they thinking to raise and let loose a monster like you into the world! To think they created an even fouler monstrosity to defeat us! Have they truly gone mad?!"
"I agree with you on that!"
How could they have captured a good-natured Earthling like me for 17 years! The teaching staff are definitely out of their minds.
"You scumbag Hero! I swear I will kill you...!"
"That again at this point?"
We tried to kill each other from the start.
Was there really a need to reconfirm that?
Flap!
I descended towards the prince, who was howling in a voice filled with hatred.
It was for this very moment that I dealt with his harem first.
"Ahh, that's the stuff."
Endorphins unceasingly drove my body and mind to ecstasy.
It's fine if my left arm's cut off, if I lose my abilities, if I kill people, if I destroy the world.
Fear, pain, worldly desires, worries and the like all disappeared.
Although I felt as if I had even lost slight control of myself, how many powers with no side-effects were there in the world?
It was a hundred times better than an uninsured exclusive contract, fantasy powers, which could end up a "sh*t dream" at any moment depending on a certain transcendental being's whimsy.
Fwoom-!
I vertically swung down Holy Sword 2.
I didn't waste any seconds showily gathering strength this time, but merely aimed for Miss G's corpse that was retrieved by the prince with prompt swiftness.
Blatantly at that!
"Bastard...!"
The old prince retreated.
I chased after him and allowed no distance.
"..."
"..."
Our gazes met.
The old prince's eyes were full of conflict and anguish.
He would surely be able to fight properly if he were to let go of his beloved woman's corpse, which heavily hung in both his hands like a pair of handcuffs. But the prince who had lost his composure and turned emotionally couldn't easily do so.
He possessed a whole two transcendental domain Skills yet he was unable to make use of them at all.
It was all he could do to mourn in his grief.
Whether it be physically or mentally, he was no opponent of mine.
That was all there was to this fight.
"Wake up from your love and friendship, foolish prince."
"What on earth are you...?"
Slash-
Even until the moment his body was split apart, the old prince was unable to let go of his lingering attachment and hung onto Miss G's corpse.
"How idiotic."
You can't protect anything if you die.
Though of course, he wouldn't have lost so simply if he had the leisure to make that level of rational judgement.
I didn't allow the prince's body that was split in two to fall into the Pacific Ocean.
The last thing I wanted was to go through a possible round two, after all.
I shredded his corpse with a whirlwind blended with the powers of Divinity(Z) and Dark Energy(Z), so thoroughly that there couldn't even be a smidgen of possibility for resurrection or revenge.
A neat cleanup that left no uneasy foreshadowing or future trouble.
The virtue of an excellent Hero.
"Who cares if my abilities are false or borrowed."
While there was the variable called fantasy ability neutralization, it was within the acceptable ranges when compared to the dismal intelligence of my 1st Playthrough companions who were companions in name only.
It was all actually a sh*t dream!
Isn't this the kind of development I've always been wary of?
I wouldn't be surprised even if all my abilities were taken away.
The corpses of the harem ladies were swallowed by the Pacific Ocean waves.
While it was possible there were survivors in the waters feigning death and waiting for me to leave, I didn't want to be concerned with that.
My time was precious, after all!
Time didn't flow 10 times as slow right now as it did in the dimension of Fantasia. In other worlds, wasting a second here meant losing a second of my cultured life.
Just the mere thought of it was horrible.
"Master, here."
Saintess H drew near, elegantly flapping her pure-white angel wings, and brought me my left arm that was cut off.
And she brought the old prince's lightsaber as a throw-in as well.
It just so happened that I was feeling the need for a new sword, as even Holy Sword 2 was on the verge of becoming destroyed like Holy Sword 3 before it.
"Well done, Rice Cake. As for the lightsaber... huh? Is it just registered?"
The moment I received the lightsaber from Saintess H after sticking my left arm back on like an assembly robot, I naturally realized the trick to store it.
That wasn't the only trophy from the battle, however.
?Type: Skill
?Name: ■■
?Rank: A
?S: □□□□.
?A: Confuse target.
?B: Ruin target.
?C: Induce oblivion in target.
?D: Will not fall into chaos.
?E: Cannot be destroyed.
?F: Will not forget.
As I obtained EXP from the old prince whose Job was marked with "■■A", my previously B-rank Black-Box became promoted to A-rank.
But I simply couldn't get a feel for it.
"Geez! I gotta know how to use it, don't I?"
The old prince caused an explosion of purple light from his eyes, yet I didn't know how to use the Skill aside from activating it.
There was another problem as well.
Flap-flap.
I had to do something about the wings that had sprouted from my back.
It was admittedly good to be able to fly freely, but I couldn't meet my parents with such a disturbing appearance.
You're my son, regardless of how you appear!
... I had no expectations for this sort of movie-esque touching reunion.
It would be a relief if they didn't grab a tennis racket screaming and whack their son who had returned after 17 years in the chin.
"Is this Master's home planet?"
"It is. It is, but..."
I took a look around me.
Submarine volcano, tsunami, typhoon, whirlpool, heavy rain, shipwreck...
The Pacific Ocean had become the very picture of chaos and destruction.
This was all that wicked alien's fault. What would an innocent and naive Hero who hadn't even come back to Earth for a day know?
In any case, it was the alien's fault.
"I think the planet will be annihilated if you fought a second time..."
"... This is my speculation. About an hour before we came to Earth, a bunch of aliens had an intense marital quarrel here. Definitely."
"Yes... yes?"
I unsummoned Saintess H who just couldn't keep in tune with me.
"The Pacific Ocean problem is over with this and... what's left are these wings."
It was difficult trying to figure out a way to hide my wings in a state of maintaining flight.
I needed to land somewhere and have some time to calmly think.
As luck would have it, I discovered a fine location for that.
However...
"Mr. Kang Han Soo! I knew you were alive!"
There was already a passenger before me on the shipwreck.
"Huh? Factoria died in a plane crash. Who are you? Ah! Are you her clone aiming for her assets and boyfriend? What an obvious development."
"You're totally off the mark?! And my name is Victoria, Victoria! Please remember it will you!"
I reunited with the munitions factory lady whom I had thought dead.
| ← Ch. 081 | Ch. 083 → |