Three days.
It’s been three days.
I felt the time slipping away as I mulled it over quietly.
This place is, after all, an unstable world.
Part of Draken had been sealed inside me, hidden away by my memory wipe.
But this time, I had pulled it out and exposed it to the laws of the world.
The time to speak freely is coming to an end.
I can feel part of Draken gradually distorting and twisting.
‘This is the last time. The final chance to face the undistorted truth of Draken.’
I sensed it instinctively.
The laws are twisting Draken’s will.
His true intentions can never reach us.
And now, if this place, where the laws do not touch, collapses, there will never be another chance to hear his will.
We clash without knowing the reason.
We will fight without knowing what our counterpart wants.
It feels so disgusting.
Simply rejecting and killing Draken just because he is the final boss of the original story isn’t enough.
I need assurance.
Assurance that Draken is absolute evil.
“Why do you want to destroy the current world?”
|Destruction… you say?|
Crack.
I gritted my teeth.
As the world trembled, the air tore apart, and everything began to collapse, a single camellia merely tilted its head.
Are you pretending not to know?
Or do you think the destruction of humanity is no big deal?
Or perhaps…
|What does that even mean?|
You don’t realize that your descent will cause the destruction of humanity?
The camellia’s voice trembled, seemingly flustered.
I was at a loss for words too.
I had a feeling.
It wasn’t the assurance I initially wanted.
But I just became assured that there was some misunderstanding.
“If you descend, all living creatures of the current world will go extinct. No intelligent being will survive in a world transformed into that.”
|Eh? Th-that’s… that’s what I wanted…|
“If that’s not what you wanted, then stop right now, Draken!”
|It’s useless! I’m just a part of him! I can’t persuade or stop the main body! Ah, I’m just… just □□□□ □□□…|
At that moment, the entire world brightened, filling my vision with light.
Draken’s voice twisted grotesquely.
I felt myself getting sucked somewhere again.
Huff…!
The moment I opened my eyes.
I was falling from the air and snapped back to reality as Mi Jeong rushed over to embrace me.
“How long have I been gone?”
“About… 10 seconds.”
“Three days left until destruction. We must stop Draken somehow by then.”
“….”
The atmosphere became tense all of a sudden.
.
.
.
In a dark room.
Among shadows, two red eye lights sparkled curiously.
Belphegor gulped.
“Belphegor. Weren’t you the one who served Draken up close?”
|W-well, yes…|
“You couldn’t clearly understand Draken’s will, could you?”
|That’s true. How should I put it… Other than his primal desires, I couldn’t understand anything. Except for wanting to come to this place, the current world, all his purpose and everything…|
“….”
Yoo Jin washed his face and took a moment to gather his thoughts.
It was clearly established that Draken desperately wanted to descend into the current world.
Both Yoo Jin and Belphegor agreed on that.
However, it remained unclear whether that purpose was to destroy the current world.
The total destruction of the current world would only be a byproduct of Draken’s descent.
In fact, Draken seemed to be unaware of what effect his descent would have on the current world.
“This is just my speculation… which is quite dangerous…”
|Go on.|
“It seems Draken has no evil intentions. It’s not about descending to destroy the current world or whatever; he simply seems to want to reach the current world itself.”
|What… does that even mean?|
Belphegor stared at Yoo Jin as if he were spouting nonsense.
Common sense would agree that it sounds nonsensical.
Why does a person eat food?
To savor its taste and feel happiness.
All human actions are ultimately means to achieve an ultimate purpose.
I believe others would feel the same.
But how could Draken be considered an ordinary intelligent being?
No, truly, he is closer to a massive world with its own will.
So trying to understand such a being with human logic led to errors.
As I explained this in detail, Belphegor’s expression softened from scorn.
What he initially dismissed as nonsense started to sound convincing.
Yet on the other hand, there was still that sense of ‘so what?’
|What changes by knowing that? In the end, he is still coming to the current world. When he descends, whether he wants to or not, the current world will be destroyed, and that doesn’t change!|
“That’s true.”
|Are you trying to convince him? To a being whose will is twisted and miscommunicated? That’s pointless. You can’t have a conversation with him; the only possible dialogue is a battle where wills clash and lives are taken!|
Belphegor was right.
Knowing that didn’t change anything.
Draken would inevitably descend into the current world, and Yoo Jin had to stop him.
So what the heck was he still pondering?
Belphegor found Yoo Jin’s thoughtful chin resting infuriating.
|Are you perhaps softening your heart? Now that you know the counterpart doesn’t intend to kill us, are you feeling sorry about it?|
“….”
|Listen carefully, Yoo Jin! You are shouldering the lives of billions in the current world, and every living existence covering the very ground! You can’t let a soft mindset into battle! So! I’m going to make you snap out of it!|
Huff!
Just as Belphegor was about to raise his fist while grabbing Yoo Jin’s collar, his expression quickly turned gentle.
Belphegor was ready to be punched if he had to, thinking Yoo Jin’s state was strange.
But it seemed Yoo Jin was mentally stable enough.
|What are you thinking so much about? There’s absolutely nothing to ponder!|
“I wonder if I really have to kill him. Can’t I convince him to join our side?”
|That’s a loop again! How can you persuade a being you can’t even talk to?|
“I’m not going to persuade. I think I can forcibly knock him out and neutralize him.”
|…|
So basically.
To summarize, he’s willing to risk the total destruction of the current world by trying to capture Draken?
Belphegor’s expression turned blank.
He had never seen such a lunatic in his life.
*
This is a significantly risky gamble.
If my life were the only one on the line, I would dive in without hesitation.
But since it is a gamble with the fate of the entire current world at stake, I had to treat it seriously.
“In the end, is it my greed?”
I felt that I had been sufficiently toyed with by the system until now.
How many times had I run around trying to achieve the impossibly unfillable 95% completion rate?
It was a condition soaked in malice.
The second condition forces me to kill Draken, but Draken is bound and muted by the system.
If someone asked me whether it was possible to capture Draken in that state, I could do it anytime if I just have the preparations.
With the ultimate technique, I could theoretically slice through an entire world now.
Once I take down Draken, the game would be cleared.
And I would immediately return to the real world.
…after eagerly reuniting with the heroines, I’d be torn apart all over again.
That’s something I don’t want.
From here on, it’s purely my desire.
My selfishness.
“What’s wrong with that?”
“….”
“You’ve worked hard enough, Yoo Jin. You’ve risked your life. You’ve even sacrificed yourself to destroy existence…”
Jill trembles as she hugs my waist.
It seems her trauma hasn’t fully healed yet.
While she manages to control herself in front of people, in a space without judgment, she clings to me as though she’s frozen stiff.
“Honestly, if it hadn’t been for you, this world would have been doomed long ago. Honestly, I think it wouldn’t matter if you just wiped it all out.”
“….”
Is that something a priestess should say?
Though I flinched for a moment, I couldn’t be mad at Jill for being honest with me.
If someone asked me if I had thought like that once, I couldn’t claim innocence.
“Well, the priestess might have spoken a bit too radially, but… I broadly agree… I respect your will, Yoo Jin. I hope you do as you wish. You’ve been too swung by destiny up until now… Even if the path is risky and arduous, I think it’s not bad to resist destiny at the very end.”
Yulia chimed in with a statement… or rather, multiple statements.
“Yerina, what about you?”
“I don’t have any particular thoughts. If Yoo Jin does it, I’ll go along with it. I trust him.”
“Really?”
“…. I chose to trust him.”
As long as Yerina still harbors frenzy, there’s no complete trust.
That’s the same for me.
But despite not fully trusting me, Yerina wants to leave everything in my hands.
Including her life.
Including the fate of the current world.
I haven’t told them yet that if I choose this path, I’ll return to the original world.
It’s too obvious what their reaction would be if I brought that up…
Still, the tides of opinion have tilted in my favor.
“And somehow, I just have this gut feeling that this path is the right one. It’s like everything is designed for us to kill Draken. A counterpart who can’t communicate and comes to destroy us? The intentions are too obvious. Yoo Jin, it was the same even when you couldn’t recognize me. If I had cut you back then…”
Shivers run down my spine, and Yerina quivers.
Just as Yerina said.
It feels as if everything is screaming to take down Draken, neatly structured.
If I had followed that structure, I would have died by Yerina’s hand long ago.
Yerina would have deeply regretted it.
It seems the conclusion has been reached.
What I need to do is now obvious.
“First, we need mana stones. The best ones.”
