This time, the moment I lost consciousness wasn’t too long.
I think I slept just a little over 12 hours?
Considering I once slept for over three days straight, this wasn’t too bad.
And as expected…
“Ugh. You’re awake, Yoo Jin? Are you feeling okay? Hurting anywhere? Huh? Hmm?”
As soon as I woke up, Jill, who had been lying beside me, hugged me.
She pressed her ear against my chest and started feeling around as if checking if I was alright.
I’m fine.
I’m so fine that I feel so refreshed, it’s like my body could float away.
It feels like all the accumulated damage and fatigue from my body has disappeared.
Must be thanks to Jill’s healing magic.
“Really, you’re not hurt anywhere? You need to tell me right away, Yoo Jin. Hurry up. Hurry!”
“I told you I’m fine. I just lost consciousness for a bit, why are you making such a big deal about it?”
“It’s not that simple! Yoo Jin, you… you… You underwent a rapid transformation while you were sleeping!”
“Transformation?”
According to Jill, the intense pain I experienced during my sleep was called transformation.
Every time I swung a martial arts secret, my bones would crack, but now they’re much stronger so I could swing it tens, hundreds of times without a problem…
Isn’t this completely broken?
I can freely use a technique akin to an ultimate technique as many times as I want without limitation?
I suddenly felt that thought, but when I realized that most of the superhumans besides me were like this, I kept my mouth shut.
I felt unjust all of a sudden.
“So if you have any pain or something weird is going on, you need to tell me right away. If the transformation has gone weird, your bones or nerves could harden damaged. If we correct it before the transformation is completely finished, we might be able to fix it.”
“I don’t really feel anything weird. Just feels like my body could float away—”
“Float away?! Why? Is there something wrong?”
“My eyesight has become strangely better—”
“Your eyesight is weird?! Really?”
“……”
It took quite a while to shake off all her worries since Jill was in a frenzy over every word I said.
After carefully letting the light of the ultimate technique observe inside my body, there was no anomaly.
But if you call an overall improvement in physical ability an anomaly, then sure, there was one.
However, something strange appeared from outside my body.
‘I can no longer feel the system.’
One of the reasons I felt refreshed was precisely this.
That annoying presence that had been lurking inside me, the system, had disappeared.
Even when I called for the status window or brought up my profile, it was of no use.
Various traits had become unusable.
The trait that amplified my stats by 7 times, Guardian Knight, also ceased to function.
Of course, now that I’ve transformed, I am much stronger than when I activated the Guardian Knight in my former body.
‘As expected. The system was related to Draken.’
If I deceive all three heroines and achieve a completion rate of over 95 percent, it would inevitably lead to catastrophe.
And if I killed Draken, the entire current world would be doomed.
Either way, there was no happy ending.
What was the system thinking, forcing me to regress while presenting me with this impossible task?
‘No, I should be thinking about why this round had to be the last.’
Did the system simply exist to push me into the pit of despair and torment me?
That couldn’t be.
I had to approach this differently.
I needed to find the ‘reason’ why the regression halted in this round.
Was this round the most satisfying result?
For whom?
As I asked such questions, answers began to come naturally.
At that moment, Jill slipped out of my embrace and knelt before me gently.
“Yoo Jin…”
“Hmm?”
“I’ve really thought about this for a long time. Let’s get married.”
Saying that, Jill reached out her hand to my chest.
Then swish, a burst of light gathered at her fingertips, forming a dagger as it was drawn out.
I felt the dagger from my inner world fading away.
And that dagger was soon held in Jill’s hand.
It wasn’t the beautiful and sharp form I first saw.
The gleaming blade had lost its shine and rusted.
The edge was severely damaged, resembling saw teeth.
It seemed to be worn down considerably from expending too much divine power.
“Waking up together and going to sleep together is nice. That alone is great, but… I’m not satisfied. We should definitely have a wedding ceremony. I feel like I need to let the whole world know that I’m your bride and you’re my husband. Is this greedy…?”
Jill looked up at me with earnest eyes.
Is this really something to be considered greedy?
I chuckled softly and took Jill’s hand, which held the dagger.
“Sounds good. I’m completely fine with it, but are you okay? I mean, a priestess marrying a commoner?”
“Hmm? That shouldn’t be a problem. Basically, anyone who undergoes transformation is treated as nobility. The offspring of superhumans are also highly likely to inherit that talent.”
“So then…”
“Yep. It’s not some forbidden love or anything. There’s nothing to obstruct the wedding ceremony. Honestly, we could hold it today.”
“Really? Shall we do it today?”
“Ehehe. That would be wonderful.”
With a bright smile, Jill reversed the grip on the dagger, aiming it at her own chest.
The old dagger embedded in my inner world was now pointed at Jill.
Huff huff she panted as she placed her hand over mine.
“I truly… don’t know how long I’ve waited for this moment… I lived every day in regret. Back then, what if I had been more honest? What if I had thrown away my pride and confessed first? Thinking of such futile things tormented me… sniffle”
What’s past is past.
Both Jill and I know that, but the scars and guilt remaining in our hearts cannot be erased.
“So Yoo Jin… this. Please stab it in yourself. I want to feel your pain as well. I don’t want to make you suffer alone anymore.”
We are going to carry everything together.
More than the pain we caused each other.
Because we love each other.
“I love you, Jill.”
“Ugh…!”
Thud.
When I plunged the dagger deep inside her, Jill gasped for breath.
The pain spread across her face, but she seemed to feel an even greater happiness, soon exhaling short breaths with a gentle smile.
Soon, the dagger completely became a burst of light and penetrated into Jill’s chest.
The dagger embedded deep to its root.
The dagger, saturated with all the pain, memories, and suffering I’ve endured, now resided within Jill.
Now Jill must be able to feel it.
All the cycles I have gone through.
As Jill embraced all of those at once, she smiled brightly and responded to me.
“I feel it too…!”
*
It was a calamity that struck the entire current world.
The sky turned completely black, and the people went mad.
As one by one lost their reason to the overwhelming malice and turned into monsters, they gazed at a small golden light shining in the sky and began to pray as if entranced.
Then, the light gradually grew larger.
And it covered the entire current world.
No more black darkness would approach.
Then both the golden light and the darkness receded, and it was over.
A clear and tranquil blue sky unfolded again.
The world became quiet.
That was the day people recognized.
How much to hide and how much to reveal.
I decided not to overthink it.
Was there even a reason to hide it? If asked, there was absolutely no reason to.
As Jill said, I’m a noble now too.
However, the problem was, who would recognize me as a noble?
Normally, when someone becomes a superhuman, the leader of the nation they belong to bestows them the noble title.
So, from whom should I receive it?
None dared to try.
Honestly, I didn’t care, but the Pope of the Holy Kingdom, the King of Gallia, and Yerina, the leader of the Northern Region, all uniformly rejected bestowing me a title.
They all seemed to have the reaction that they’d rather bite their tongue and die than grant me a title.
Was I really that disliked?
It seemed to weigh heavily on them that it was me being ‘bestowed’ upon, so they were hesitant.
As if treating the hero who saved the current world as a lower being would provide a good excuse to later hold it against them or something.
I would think about the noble title issue later on.
It wasn’t urgent.
Above all, what was important was something else.
“Draken?”
“The stabilization has been completed. If we hadn’t done exactly as you directed, it would’ve been on the brink of collapse…”
Cern’s daughter reported with a haggard face as she followed closely beside me.
It seemed that while I was unconscious, they successfully activated the clockwork machine using the mana stone containing Draken’s soul.
Thus, they successfully neutralized Draken without ‘conquering’ him.
According to my calculations, I had led him into a blind spot of the laws of the world with this mana stone, but…
Whether it had succeeded was still an unknown quantity.
If it worked, his will would not be distorted, and communication would be possible.
If it didn’t, his will would simply manifest as malice.
Then there would be no point in conversation, and I’d have no choice but to seal him within a main circuit from which he could neither input nor output.
“Linda is connecting the input/output parts and training him in language so he can communicate. It should be ready by now.”
“Linda, are you ready?”
“Oh! You shouldn’t just barge into a lady’s dressing room like this…”
“……?”
As I opened the door without hesitation, Cern’s daughter looked bewildered and tried to stop me.
A lady? What on earth did that mean?
