Chapter: 276
Thump The divine energy started to spread throughout my body via the blood vessels of my heart.
Whoosh The pieces of my body that strayed from their places returned, healing the damaged spots.
Crack The broken bones fused back together, regaining their former solidity.
Stretch The torn and bruised muscles returned to their original form, binding strongly together.
Of course, quickly recovering doesn’t only have its benefits.
Ouch The things that should happen naturally were forced, filling my mind with pain!
By the time I could hardly bear the pain and my consciousness faded and returned, my body had already regained its integrity.
Chill All the unpleasant sensations I had forgotten while being engulfed by fear came rushing back.
Shutting my eyelids, I still had to face the corpse. Isn’t this a bit too much?
Huff I exhaled a long breath and opened my eyes, ignoring the corpse’s face and observing my body instead.
Thanks to my tight grip during the beating, Anquir was still by my side.
Zoom Ruel’s mace seemed to have flown somewhere, but that was okay.
As long as the mace is my possession, it has to respond to my call!
Whoosh I opened my right hand, and soon after, Grandpa’s voice echoed in my ear.
“Are you okay?! Are you coming to your senses?!”
Wheeze A slightly hoarse voice mixed with moisture.
He must have been calling my name desperately ever since I dropped the mace.
Grin “Grandpa, were you that worried about me?”
“Oooh! What a relief! Truly a relief!”
Whoosh As soon as I gave an answer, Grandpa started making a fuss.
“How’s your body?! Do you think you can move?!”
“Yes, I can move just fine.”
Having received Armadi’s Mercy, my body was almost completely healed.
Although I had used almost all of the divine energy for recovery, leaving me nearly without any for immediate use, it wasn’t a big problem.
As long as I have enough divine energy to illuminate Anquir, I can face Nakrad.
Thud I got up while hearing the sound of footsteps approaching from afar.
“I see you were ambushed; have you lost your hearing too?”
“No, I haven’t.”
Thanks to Anquir’s ability, I had retained my hearing, which was still performing its function.
I just didn’t know what trick Nakrad pulled off, but he was only hiding his own sounds.
“He hid his sounds?!”
“Yes.”
“Damn it. How can we fight in a state of lost senses! For now, step back!”
“I’m fine, Grandpa.”
“What do you mean, you’re fine?!”
“I’ve been through something similar before.”
Of course, I was talking about the time it was still a game.
Right now, I felt like I could replicate my memories from that time here.
A few months ago, I had to crawl on the ground, unable to do anything against Nakrad.
There was that much of a gap between us.
Even now, there’s a clear difference between Nakrad and me.
No matter how steep my growth over the last few months has been, the gap between me, who can’t use divine energy, and the pervert who wanted to torment me without minimal consumption simply can’t be ignored.
However, this difference wasn’t as wide as when we first met in the back alley of the academy.
It’s not a gap between an ant that must die when stepped on and a human, but it’s more like the difference between a child overwhelmingly overpowered by an adult.
That’s not a small gap, but for me,
For this rotten water,
This gap is enough.
If flailing is allowed, that would be sufficient.
“So please trust and watch over me.”
“Do you have confidence?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Then… I understand.”
Putting aside Grandpa’s voice, which seemed to respond reluctantly, I fully stood up.
As soon as I did, the footsteps halted, and a disgusting sound from trash flowed out.
Snicker “So you’re making a fuss. If you have that much strength, you should have bitten your tongue instead.”
“Then why don’t you bite yours?♡ Instead of living as a pervert who torments girls, wouldn’t it be better to die and stick by your disgusting hikikomori master’s side?♡”
With each word, the fear that once filled me was replaced by ecstasy.
The growing ecstasy clearly told me something.
The sanity of the guy in front of me is gradually disappearing.
Ha. “Talk all you want. The angrier you get, the greater the pleasure when you scream later.”
“Wow~♡ The mindset of a perverted hikikomori is on a whole different level from a common person.♡ I can’t even bring myself to imitate you since you’re so disgusting.♡”
It seemed the growing ecstasy showed that he was definitely getting heated up, but he didn’t reply.
The reason was clear. He didn’t have the confidence to win the verbal duel, so he shut his mouth.
Seriously, what a petty guy. Once I gain the upper hand, he’ll surely get excited and ramble on.
“What’s strange?♡ Why is it quiet?♡ Until just now, your disgusting voice was echoing next to me, wasn’t it?♡”
Chirp I kept moving my lips, trying to draw out that sensation.
Even when I was ambushed at first, and my hearing was neutralized, the iron wall had still played its role.
He always warned me of danger.
I just couldn’t follow it.
So this time, I focused solely on the voice of the iron wall from the very start.
Ignoring all the little things, I strictly followed the iron wall.
“Front.”
As I moved my body following the iron wall’s commands, I realized just how messed up my body had been moments before.
So this is how lightly my body can move.
Haha. No wonder I couldn’t keep up and ended up in ruins.
With a chuckle, I raised my shield just in time to feel an impact.
This wasn’t the impact of receiving something.
This was the shock delivered by magic.
“Again to the front.”
Before I could even think, the iron wall alerted me to danger again, and I moved the shield.
Bam! Again, I felt the immense impact.
This bastard Nakrad.
Instead of coming up close and creating variables, he chose to suppress me safely from a distance.
Yeah. I knew you’d act like this.
You petty coward.
“You big coward!♡ Scared?♡ You think you’ll lose if I get close, so you’re running away?♡”
After my knowledge from the game was shattered by that skeleton, I went through a lot of contemplation.
I couldn’t trust the many boss weaknesses in my head.
Hah! “Well, you’re a coward and a shoddy weakling!♡”
But the more I thought, the more I realized one thing: that my weaknesses had most often been right.
As long as the opponent doesn’t realize my weaknesses and doesn’t focus on them while moving, my knowledge tends to hit the mark.
“Bumping into me might break you, but what can you do?~♡ You have to run and flee like the filthy, ugly coward you are!♡”
This tendency grew the less sanity the opponent had.
The angrier they got, the more their normal judgment faltered, the more it intensified.
At that point, I came up with an idea.
If I could make him lose his sanity, I could move according to the knowledge of the rotten water.
“I get it~♡ The middle school syndrome guy runs away no matter if your lover dies, huh?♡ Compared to that, it’s no surprise you’re running from a girl!♡”
As I spoke, the iron wall hastily warned me of danger.
Boom! Before I could think, I raised my shield just in time for another impact.
“Did I make you mad by mentioning the one you abandoned?♡”
The voice of the iron wall warning of danger kept echoing, followed by the impact coming through the shield.
Though the shock wasn’t light, I steadfastly continued talking.
Ha! “Why don’t you act like this when your lover was dying?♡ Ah~ Could it be?♡ The monsters attacking your lover looked scary, and I seemed like trash to you?♡”
Silence…
“You petty coward!♡ The trash that abandoned the one he loves to save himself!♡”
“No! I didn’t abandon her!”
Boom!
With a scream-like voice of Nakrad, a shock far more immense than before hit the shield.
The impact felt like a cannon had exploded right in front of the shield.
In a state where I couldn’t even attempt a parry, I had to endure all of that shock, clenching my teeth to hold my body from flying away.
“It’s not true! Aaaaaah!”
Soul. I think I’ve achieved my first goal.
Now it’s time to move on to the second.
Time to verify my thoughts.
I need to see if Nakrad will stick to his pattern.
Grunt I kept my teeth clenched while fending off Nakrad’s attacks.
While doing so, I engraved his blows in my mind.
Before me were still the faces of the corpses.
The smell of blood was the only thing entering my nose.
I could only feel the sensation of bugs crawling across my skin.
The only thing I could hear was Nakrad’s screams.
In terms of assessing the opponent’s attacks, I could only rely on the iron wall’s voice and the pain coming through the shield.
This was sufficient to decipher Nakrad’s pattern.
Now, in a state of lost sanity,
In a state of lost thoughts,
Acting like a beast following instinct, Nakrad was no different from the intermediate boss Nakrad I encountered in the game.
Wasn’t the next pattern bound to be a wide-range attack?
After half a second, I rolled to the right twice to evade.
“Looks like the middle-school syndrome guy has worse eyesight than me?♡ Why are you attacking the void?♡”
“Shut up!”
What follows is one of two things.
A surprise attack using teleportation or a barrage of magic bullets from a distance.
Considering the voice came from afar, it’s probably the latter.
Step back.
Then two steps forward.
Then sidestep to the side and dash straight forward.
“Oh~♡ Is it because you’re old?♡ That’s why?♡ In your youth, you saw your dying lover’s face well, right?♡”
“Shut up and die!”
Every time I broke through Nakrad’s pattern, his voice became closer.
If he had any reasoning left, he would think to create distance.
But he didn’t have the luxury for that.
While losing his mind to the voice of the Mesugaki breaking through his trauma, he was preoccupied with just trying to shut me up.
Thanks to that, I was able to keep moving forward.
“Do you not see me well?♡ I’m such a cute and pretty girl!♡”
By provoking him, I denied him the chance to think.
“Could it be you’re into ugly women?♡ Is that it?♡”
“You pest of a trash!”
One step. Another step.
As I drew closer to Nakrad,
“Oh~♡ I see, then the face of your unforgettable lover might also be worth a glance~♡”
Eventually, I reached the point where I could hear Nakrad’s voice right in front of me.
“Please!”
What was his near combat pattern again?
Pushing the user over with Tariki’s energy.
What’s the counter?
By dispelling the darkness with Anquir’s divine energy.
“Shut your mouth!”
Thud! I lunged forward.
Bang! I slammed my mace into Nakrad’s face.
Wham! As the mace made contact with something, the thought of having broken something flashed through my mind.
A rough sound pierced my ears, and not long after, I heard the sound of a human body crashing helplessly to the floor.
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