Na-me’s every attack was executed within the brief span of 10 seconds.
This time, the Great Sword was taken away.
The sword swung by the Swordsmanship Instructor narrowly grazed Na-me’s side.
With a thrust of his sword into the waist of a man who was half-collapsed, he delivered a proper punishment.
As if allowing not even the slightest resistance, Na-me swung a fist into his chin and kicked the falling sword’s hilt back into the air.
Swish-!
After savoring a taste of disaster, she left a deep scar on the neck of the Shield Knight who still tried to close the distance.
It was an incredibly intricate sword technique that seemed unbelievable as she snatched the sword from mid-air.
The shield proved to be a good weapon capable of breaking the isolated situation.
By detonating the mana centered in the shield, a gap was created even amidst the chaotic battlefield.
She didn’t forget to respond to incoming magic and arrows, of course.
Since the Aura Barrier was not infinite, she avoided what she could as much as possible.
However, for the things that were utterly unavoidable, she had to write counter-spell formulas for each one.
The information gathered from Tree Wiki proved to be helpful in this scenario.
“Crazy…! None of the magic works!”
From the opponent’s perspective, it must have felt like all magic was being rendered invalid.
She not only deflected all magic aimed at her, but also interfered with the caster’s mana circuit, causing it to go berserk, leaving the mages terrified and lowering their staffs.
[Level: 9]
[Hp: 1832/4050 (2400 + 1650)]
Thanks to the Laurel of Life, the gradually restored health was bearable.
By consuming mana, health could be replenished.
In contrast, mana could also be replenished by dismantling the spells cast by opponent mages.
A struggle between Na-me, who wouldn’t fall even with infinite resources, and the Academy side that wouldn’t give up continued relentlessly for a whole hour.
The blood-soaked land glowed red under the moonlight.
And the elf’s eyes shimmering with golden magic appeared even more ominous.
“Demon…”
Someone said among the crowd.
Na-me turned her gaze towards the source of the sound but couldn’t pinpoint the voice’s owner.
The reorganized troops raised their weapons again.
‘Is this method futile?’
Looking down at the cold Alperion, Na-me sighed deeply.
Even after verifying all routes, there seemed to be no way to save Adella.
By now, Adella’s abilities should have been sufficient, but the accumulation of multiple experiences was crashing mentally and structurally, causing psychological instability.
She thought that saving Alperion and Ciciela, whom she could rely on, would serve as a trigger, but in the end, just as the viewers said, it was nothing more than a trap.
“Why… why is this happening! There was no need for this!”
The Red-Haired Girl, holding a wand much larger than her height, shouted.
“I’ve come to get the laurel back.”
“You demon!”
“I’m an elf. Can’t you tell? I’m pretty.”
“What kind of idiotic nonsense is that! Logically, elves shouldn’t even exist in this world!”
The fire mage Giselle’s cry made some viewers question.
– What nonsense are you spouting now?
– What’s in front of you is an elf.
– There are 2m tall animals and animals with beaver bodies and duck mouths, so why not a horned horse?
– Isn’t that nonsense…?
– Oh, there’s the bait!
– This would be a spoiler to mention.
– But how did Giselle know this?
Due to Giselle’s shocking statement that elves do not exist in the world, the chat window buzzed.
With narrowed eyes, Na-me demanded an explanation.
“Then who am I?”
“I’m the one who wants to ask…! What the hell are you?”
Identity, existence, the various words defining a single person.
Na-me had always fought against those.
Looking at the situation complicatedly didn’t solve the problem.
She adjusted her laurel directly and declared in front of the girl, who was boiling with anger.
“I don’t know well, but right now, I’m your enemy.”
“…!”
“It would be nice to meet you as an ally next time.”
“I can’t forgive you!”
– It’s not good to provoke Giselle.
– We’re in trouble!
– She’s going berserk!
– Look at her eyes going wild!
– Of all times, Luna isn’t here…;
– Could that be the thing?
– What thing?
Giselle Phoenix, a first-year student at Remnant Academy born with the curse of the phoenix.
If she didn’t obtain the flower of scorching heat, she would fall among the many substitute bodies of the phoenix; she boasted the highest amount of mana among the first years.
If Luna Pavilis was a fierce damage dealer, Giselle was an all-around character who could serve as a tank and healer while being a mage.
However, there was a time when Giselle Phoenix wielded more power than Luna Pavilis.
[Desperate Technique: Avatar of Flames]
It was when she used the ultimate technique that burned not just the demon’s body but also its soul into nothing.
The reason the choice to save Alperion was a trap.
Even if she continuously attacked at the lowest difficulty, wiping out hundreds of knights, what awaited at the end was the ultimate condemnation from Giselle Phoenix.
Na-me swallowed a smirk seeing the magic circle extending from Giselle’s wand.
While it was complex enough to rival a 7th circle spell, it was simply a doodle with no matching content that needed interpretation.
It was like a scientist in a movie struggling with multiplication tables and the Pythagorean theorem while studying complex planetary motion and relativity.
In other words, pure nonsense. It even broke her immersion.
An artificially created magic that could neither exist nor could exist in the world, a mandatory reset trigger possible only in the game world.
Without a moment to feel the blinding flash, the world turned into a sea of flames, wrapping around Na-me.
An ultimate force she couldn’t resist, an equation that was impossible to dismantle because it didn’t exist; Na-me left a brief thought.
“This is a garbage game.”
*
A resource error that couldn’t be restored was detected.
[Synchronizing with backup server… 1%]
Tap-
Tap-tap-
“Please…!”
Adella bit her lip tightly and sprinted towards the clock tower.
Boom-!
A bright light awakened the people of the silent city where morning had yet to dawn.
Even from a considerable distance, the tremor resounding on the ground caused Adella’s heart to thump wildly.
“It can’t be…! Haah…”
Clenching her fist tightly, sharp nails dug into her skin.
Unaware that blood trickled down, Adella’s gaze was firmly fixed on the holy city’s center.
“Again… it’s happening again… because of me… Aaaahhh!”
Adella, letting out a scream close to a wail, leaped over the wall separating the academy district and arrived at the site of chaos.
The flames raged higher than the buildings, refusing to be quelled.
Normally, it would have been nearly impossible to find NoName in that inferno.
However,
[YOU DIED]
“Ah… Aaaah… No… it can’t be…”
As she spilled mana onto the laurel, she could finally see the incomprehensible string of characters floating in the air.
Going down there, she would surely meet the person she desperately sought.
[Synchronizing with backup server… 13%]
The silver tail burned by the fire stung, but there was no time to worry about it.
It didn’t matter anymore that her favorite combat outfit was torn.
“Ah…”
Adella discovered the blackened corpse of the Forest Keeper, losing strength in her legs at once.
“I should have… I was wrong…”
Adella’s voice trembled faintly.
“It’s all my fault… Because of me…”
From the stone wall with countless names inscribed on it, a memory that should never have arisen suddenly came back to mind.
[How can you compare me to those illiterates? Hehehe, look! I write so well!]
[You have the wrong name here.]
[It was a mistake! A mistake!]
[Not ‘I,’ but ‘you.’]
[That’s what I said! It was a mistake!]
A recollection of sharing conversation while dodging the rain with NoName in the last cycle,
[You were cooler than anyone I’ve met.]
The compliment NoName had given her at some point during an unknown cycle,
[Let’s survive together next time.]
In cycle 4,
[Trust your instincts.]
In cycle 6,
[Thanks for your help.]
In cycle 10,
[We can meet again here.]
In cycle 16,
[Sorry for leaving you alone every time.]
And now, in the 17th cycle, the last words that NoName ever spoke came flashing through Adella’s mind like a panorama.
“Why… why can’t I remember! Why!”
As if the gods were playing tricks, the world has been turned back several times.
Yet the moment Adella regained her memories always came after NoName’s death.
“Please remember! Don’t forget! If you can’t even do this, Adella, you’re truly… a fool…”
There had definitely been a moment she felt déjà vu.
She had felt her abdomen throb every time after being hit by Ballum Benavons, and when NoName told her to hit him, her heart raced.
Though it was her first time tasting a churu, its salty flavor felt overly familiar.
Adella should have died in the first cycle.
Behind Jin Chronicle were the Demon Worshippers, who planted the cornerstone for the demon to resurrect through the Laurel of Life, possessed him.
It was an unwanted death but one without regrets.
That’s why, in the second cycle, she had made the same choice.
But from the third cycle on, everything had gone awry.
In the repeating cycle of reincarnation, it was not Adella who died, but NoName.
“You must have known… you knew everything! Why a fool like me…!”
Adella was certain that NoName remembered every single cycle unlike herself.
Only then did she understand all her antics, piecing together the scattered puzzle on the floor.
NoName was stuck in a hell from which he could never escape, fighting alone.
Until he became strong enough to defeat Jin Chronicle.
“Please… don’t… die anymore. Just let me die there… I’m… not needed…”
Adella collapsed onto the muddy ground, retching. If she didn’t do this, she couldn’t hold back the swelling emotions rising.
[Synchronizing with backup server… 36%]
Had she ever been so sad over someone’s death?
At least there was nothing in Adella’s memories.
In this world, a person’s life is often treated with less value than a worm on the street.
Many ended their lives due to lack of strength, lack of money, or even lack of clothes to wear in winter, so expressing condolences would only result in ridicule.
Adella and NoName had just barely met for the first time today.
Not lovers, not family, not friends—just a flimsy connection as teammates in a dysfunctional team; she couldn’t fathom what meaning she was trying to find.
[Synchronizing with backup server… 39%]
What terrified Adella the most was the fact that next time, she would lose all her memories again.
NoName would willingly sacrifice himself for her, and Adella would have to endure a moment that felt eternal.
Everything was a predetermined sequence.
She bit her lips again. Her canines protruded, and now her mouth looked ragged.
She retraced the path she had walked with NoName.
Before long, she would gradually lose consciousness without even realizing it, and the world would return to its first state once more.
Just as it is impossible to clearly define when she fell asleep, it was impossible to perceive the point when the world disappeared.
‘This is where I first complained to NoName…’
Even when she had belittled herself as a useless being, he had recognized her beyond her abilities.
The places she had escaped to a little at a time were different in each cycle.
Before noble housing, at the slum entrance, Trephise Plaza, and so on.
Her consciousness began to blur.
Letting her aimless footsteps guide her, the last place she arrived at was a stone wall by the roadside.
The common graffiti children from the slum would make.
[NoNaHee] [Adella]
[NoNaIm] [Adella]
[NoName] [Adella]
[NoName] [Adella]
[NoName] [Adella]
After getting it wrong twice, she finally managed to write the right name on the third try.
In a futile sense of defiance, she ended up writing it twice more, filling the stone wall with their names.
“Wait… why is the stone wall still intact?”
She exhaled irregular breaths repeatedly.
If the world had gone back, it wouldn’t still be intact.
Something seemed to click.
In the world that returned to the past, only the thing etched by Adella’s sword on the stone wall remained as it was.
There were surely traces from the previous cycle.
If it were this, she could surely send a message to the next ‘me.’
“The sneaky little cat hid so well.”
“…!”
Zing-
A red beam pierced through Adella’s torso.
Adella’s body fell weakly onto the cold stone floor, vomiting blood.
Cough…!
“I happened to have two laurels with me. Though I don’t want to, I should at least praise you once before I die.”
Jin Chronicle sneered, lifting the laurel he had hidden, dispelling its invisibility.
“It’s my duty as a father.”
Her entire body felt hot.
A sharp pain struck her abdomen.
Trying to block it somehow, she placed her hands on it, but blood dripped down between her fingers.
“Ahhh… hurts… Aaaahhh…”
“Thanks to you, I’ve saved some trouble finding it.”
Without giving a glance at the groaning girl, Jin Chronicle turned to leave.
Adella retrieved a precious dagger from her bosom.
With the correct grip NoName had taught her countless times, she stabbed the dagger into the stone wall with a thrust.
Screek- screech-
Every time she moved her arm, her expression twisted in pain as she looked at the puddle of blood pooled on the floor, incredulous that it all came from her body.
Yet Adella couldn’t stop.
At the very bottom of the stone wall, filled with precious memories, she engraved her last message with all her might.
[Go back]
“Haah… Haah… Hehe. He…”
May the ‘me’ in the next cycle find this phrase.
[Synchronizing with backup server… 99%]
[A critical error occurred due to !$%!@!]
[NoName(NoName)]
[World of Arseria – Priest Nightmare 10/10/10]
[Broadcasting Time – 6:47:30]
[Number of Viewers – 21185]
