Chapter 202

I can still vividly recall the scene when those guys died.

To be honest, for a while after they died, I was in the depths of disappointment and despair.

I was angry with myself for not being good enough and with Nero for not being good enough.

And the hatred for the demon race that is constantly welling up.

For a while, I was even thinking of doing something stupid like going straight into the Demon King’s territory and killing all the demons from the ground up.

If I had done that, I would have definitely fallen into the wrong path.

In that time, the mental state of the time, I was trapped to the point where I could have done something as brutal as that, but I was able to stay in place because of the dying words of Aul, her second-in-command. I think.

“I do not regret that I fought under you.”

These are the words she spoke even though she was mortally wounded by Nero’s magic sword.

“You will always be our admirer.”

I’m not sure if she can hear me at all.

She smiled at me calmly, out of place in my desperation to cast a healing spell, but at the last moment she left behind a curse that will never go away.

“That’s what you are, captain, from ……”.

These words have held me together as a person.

It’s the only thing you can do to stay alive and be the person they admired you to be.

They would have laughed at me if they had seen me trying to take revenge.

They would have laughed like idiots and said, “It’s not like you to do that.

That’s why I decided to live my life in such a way that I could show my face to them, and I formed a lifesaving group.

Not to dwell on the past, but to help me move forward.

“R–o–s–e!!!”

“Oh?”

Nero’s angry voice brought me back to my senses.

Oh, we’re in the middle of a fight, aren’t we?

I hold up my fist to Nero, who approaches with a gliding motion on the ground.

This is my second fight with Nero Argents.

He was the one who had tried to kill me and take my life, but I was surprisingly calm as I faced him again.

I drown out the continuously released wind blades with my hand sword and intercepts Nero.

One thing I have to be careful of when fighting this guy is that he never hits the magic sword.

“Humph!”

I hit my back fist against the belly of the demon sword that is being swung to cleave the body, and forcefully deflect it away.

The blade of wind released from the sword’s tip flies far backwards, crashing into the tornado surrounding us, and an exceptionally large wind blows from behind us.

Once we’ve blocked it, it’s not enough.

Nero comes at us with a slash with flowing swordplay.

“…..Still relying on the magic sword?”

Crush the attacker’s attack, pop the sword’s belly with your fist and simply avoid it.

This alone would prevent me from being hit by the sword itself, but the demon tribe in front of me is not an easy opponent to manage with that.

As I was dealing with the sword while retreating backwards, Nero, with his palm pointed at me, released a gust of wind.

“Ha!”

“Ah!”

Suddenly, the wind blows you backwards.

As soon as I adjust my stance in the air and land on the ground, a large blade of wind is approaching me.

A slash of wind from a strengthened lineage!　This is bad if you don’t avoid it. ……!

I leapt on the spot and avoided the wind blade.

However, in front of my eyes as I flew into the air, Nero, who had already set up his sword at his waist, was about to charge at me.

“Ohhhh!”

As my eyes widened, Nero unleashed his magic-laden sword with a roar.

The impact on my torso and the magic power contained in the magic sword was released as a daisy, carving lacerations all over my body.

However, my torso is still connected.

“Don’t get carried away,……!”

“What the hell?”

“How many times do you think I’ve seen your sword ……? Huuh?”

Nero’s eyes widen as I hold the belly of the sword between my fists.

His mouth twists more than ever as he heals the wounds all over his body with healing magic.

“Do you laugh while you’re covered in blood, you monster ……!”

“I’m the one who’s under attack. I’m the one being attacked, and you’re the one who needs to take some of it!”

Aiming at the moment they both land on the ground, they swing their right arms wide, hooking their sword-holding arms around each other’s necks as if to wrap around each other and slam them to the ground.

“Gghh……!”

I know that I am unharmed by the wind armor, of course.

But even that – just rip it off.

As it is, he forcibly grabs the ankle and, swinging it carelessly, slams it into the raised ground created by Nero himself.

With each smash, a single lump of earth bursts into pieces.

Despite the impact, Nero does not let go of the magic sword in his hand and cheekily tries to suppress the impact by applying wind magic to the clods.

After slamming Nero into the last dirt clod with even more force, he throws him down and slams a kick into his stomach, which is writhing in shock.

“Oraa!”

“—!”

I watch as Nero is blown away as he is.

It seems from the sensation that he could not break through the wind armor.

They’re definitely more robust than before.

“…… Is that what happened earlier?”

I used this technique when I punched Nero, who was talking nonsense about hating me.

I used it just to test things out, but it was unexpectedly effective on Nero, which was unexpected even for me.

This made Nero even more cautious, and he turned his wind armour into something more solid.

However, it turned out that the technique could be used to penetrate Nero’s armour.

“You’re a really unpredictable guy …… Usato.”

I smile, remembering that guy who is not here.

—If true, that guy should have been the last.

The first thing I asked for when I created the rescue squad was a healing magician who could act in my place in case of emergency.

That’s what I call a “non-lethal subordinate”.

Like me, a healing magician.

But the plan failed miserably.

Simply because none of the healing magicians could keep up with the training to reach the standard of the target healing magicians.

As expected, when I was about to give up — I found Usato.

“…… ha”.

What I remember is Usato turning his rebellious, glazed-over eyes on me in the midst of a training exercise that would make anyone break down and run away.

At the time, I was uncharacteristically and seriously surprised.

I thought he was just a kid, that he would start crying and run away immediately, but in fact he is a very strange guy. It’s hard not to be surprised.

“I guess that’s when it started.”

Following the words of Aul and her team, I tried to keep moving forward without any guesswork, but I decided on a predetermined goal…….

“Usato, you set my time in motion. It’s not Aul, it’s you.”

I mutter this to myself alone, not needing anyone to hear me.

Aul and the others had my back when I was stuck in the past.

And Usato pointed the way for me as I stumbled forward.

“Rose ……!”

“It’s time to end this. Nero Argents.”

Standing in front of me, blowing away the dust cloud, was Nero with an even stronger wind.

Still unharmed, he swings his tightly clenched sword to the side as if to deny my words.

“No, it’s not over. ……! Our fight has been going on since that time ……!”

“Then you should end it even more!”

This is one of the paths I could have chosen.

He’s turned his remorse for forcing his men to die into an obsession to fight me.

He’s trying so hard to fight me because he thinks it’s the only way he can repay them for their deaths.

That’s why I can see his struggle so clearly.

Still unable to admit it, Nero begins to draw in the wind around him, cloaking his magic sword in magical power.

“…… Apparently, they’re serious over there, too.”

Perhaps I won’t be able to stop the sword and prevent it like I did earlier.

But even if my attacks were to hit them, they would be blocked by the wind armour.

“I’m going to kill him with one blow …….”

You have to make sure you destroy the wind armour and then hit him with your fist. In order to do that, you have to directly stop his movement so that he can’t escape with wind magic.

I decided what to do and poured magic power into my right arm.

The most important thing to remember is that the best way to get the best out of your car is to get the best out of your car.

“……”

“……”

An eerie stillness enveloped them, and they stared at each other.

Only to hear the sound of the tornado cutting through the wind — Nero, who has been lowered, is on the move.

Nero is pushed forward by a wind so powerful that it could be mistaken for an explosion of air. The magic sword in both of his hands is held in the upper position, and it seems that he intends to cut me in two.

I saw that much, let out a short breath, then bit my teeth, took a half-step forward and—-.

“……!”

–I catch the base of Nero’s sword with my left shoulder.

As soon as he feels the sword digging into his shoulder and recognises the pain on his skin, he reacts – he grabs the hilt of the sword with his left arm and grabs both of Nero’s hands.

“You took the blade yourself ……? Are you crazy?

“Apparently, this was the only way to hit you directly, so ……!　Now you can’t get away, can you?”

Blood overflows from my shoulder, which has been slashed halfway into the magic sword, and drips onto the ground.

I’ve got a wound that can’t be healed with healing magic, but it’s a small price to pay if I can defeat this guy. ……!

While holding Nero’s hands with my left hand, I squeezed his right arm, which was filled with power and magic, wide.

“It’s a technique I’m very proud of. Take it!”

The technique used by Usato, in which he dares to unleash his magical power.

That guy was treating it as a risk-free technique through a special gauntlet hand — a technique that I, the same healing magician, could also perform.

I slammed my fist into the ground with a step so hard that the ground cracked open.

The impact released with fresh blood from the fist destroys Nero’s wind armour and strikes his bare flesh directly with his fist with all his might.

“Ga…..!”

Nero’s body folds in on itself, and the hand holding the magic sword weakens.

I firmly fixed Nero’s body without regard to this and started running, pushing out my fist as I did so.

“I know you can’t take this much! I’m sorry, Sorry, but I’m going to have to be thorough.!”

“G-o-o-o-o……!”

As soon as I reach the wall created by the tornado, I swing my arm out and blast Nero into the tornado.

As a result, Nero plunges into the tornado with moderate momentum — the huge tornado, which had brought so much harm to the surrounding area, disappears in an instant.

“…… You’ve come up with a hell of a technique. That guy.”

Glaring in the direction Nero was hit, I pulled out the magic sword that is still stuck in my shoulder.

A sword with a blood-red colour that cannot be forgotten.

“I don’t know what I think of ……, but I think we should just tear this stuff down.”

I can’t let someone pick it up and misuse it.

With a slight frown at the pain in his shoulder, he smashes it as if he were stomping on it as he throws it to the ground.

It is not clear whether it was protected by Nero’s own magic, but he is a little surprised that it shattered so easily.

…… Next is the wound in his shoulder.

“Can’t you break the curse by shattering the sword? …… As long as I don’t heal this wound, my left shoulder will be useless.”

Although it can’t be helped, it seems unlikely that the left shoulder can be healed until the curse acting on the wound is lifted.

Take a bandage out of your trousers and wrap it tightly around the top of your clothes.

This is only a first aid measure.

The first thing you need to do is to go back to the base and treat it without healing magic,……, but before that, there are things you need to do first.

“Well, let’s go and see if we’ve got him.”

Of course, I know he’s not a man who would go down at that level.

If he can still stand, I’ll beat him thoroughly.

With this in mind, I hold my left shoulder as I walk towards the direction where Nero would have been blown away. In the midst of this, the corpses of the demons that were brought in are left behind, and amongst them you can see the corpses of demons and humans.

“……”

After closing my eyes for a few seconds, I walked again and caught sight of the soldiers of the Demon Lord’s army in the direction Nero flew.

They look at each other in bewilderment.

They are surprised and frightened by the unexpected situation. ……

“…… what is it?”

Something is wrong.

While they are upset that Nero was blown up by me, they also seem to be scared that something unexpected is happening.

As I pause to look at the panicked soldiers, the dust cloud ahead of me clears.

“Ah, gahhh ……”

There is Nero, on his knees, holding his abdomen and vomiting blood.

Nero is on his knees, holding his abdomen and vomiting blood. …… He doesn’t have the strength to fight any more.

“What is this……!”

“Oh?”

It’s not like him to use honorifics.

Nero, who raised his voice to me, or rather to something that was not anyone else in the room, looked up at the sky in a frantic manner and continued to speak further.

“‘Evacuate if you don’t want to get involved’, what the hell are you doing ……! My Lord!”

“?”

At that moment, I was tormented by a chill that I had never felt before.

Something is coming.

I was the first to detect the source of it, and I immediately looked up above my head — speechless.

“—“

A black pattern can be seen in the gaps between the clouds that cover the sky.

It floated in such a dense and massive quantity that I could see it, forming a circle like a magic circle, and spreading to cover the whole of this battlefield.

At the same time, I became aware that several signs that I had not felt before appeared from behind me and were approaching me.

I immediately turned my head to intercept them, and what entered my field of vision was — a glow wolf, a demon that was supposed to be a corpse until a moment ago.

Spattering blood and moving its wounded body, it was still moving.

“The dead body’s moving?”

“Gee-uh-oh!”

A few glow wolves with snarled screams, without looking at me, go straight through, bite Nero’s armour, which is still injured, and try to take him somewhere else.

“Demon King-sama ……! Why! Why? !”

Nero makes a pretence of resisting, but Glow Wolf pulls him along without question.

The demons that had been corpses start to move following it, forcing the demons who cannot move to carry them away.

The body of Glow Wolf is now engraved with a pattern similar to the magic used by Usato’s messenger, Nea.

“Witchcraft. If so, that thing in the sky……….”

When I look up at the sky again, I can see a kind of light emanating from a black magic circle floating higher than the clouds.

At the moment I squinted my eyes and recognised it faster than anyone else, I ignored even the state of my own wounds and headed at full speed towards the base where my men and the healing magicians were.

“‘That Demon King is one hell of a big idiot ……!’

What was released from the magic circle, drowning out the clouds and falling down was — a fireball so charged with magical power that it seemed ridiculous to even count it.

This battle was literally a battle in which the entire strength of the demon king’s army was at stake.

If they lose, there is nothing left to do.

That is why the Demon Army absolutely had to win.

In other words, whoever did this was probably trying to say this.

“I won’t let you win for free.”

Everything will be ruined.

The fight, the sacrifice, everything up to this point.

I understood this, and with such anger that I didn’t even feel the pain in my shoulder, I began to move to protect my allies from the threat that was raining down on them from above.

Author’s Note:

What the heck is this thing? (in comedy: repeating the same gag or silly line)