Date: January 2, 2018 | Time: 12:43 PM
Location: Scarred Crater - Below Hell
Perspective: Lucas
The air didn't just feel heavy anymore; it felt like it was trying to replace the blood in my veins with liquid lead.
One second she was ten yards away, and the next, the smell of ancient lilies and wet earth was right in my face.
「 Warning: Reaping Blink detected. Move left or become a statistic, Lucas. 」
I didn't think. I reacted. Lightstep II kicked in, my speed surging by 175% as I blurred to the side. An obsidian claw hissed through the space where my neck had been, the mere wind from the strike turning a stray rib bone on the floor into grey ash.
"Celia, counter her!" I barked, my lungs burning.
"Don't tell me what to do!" Celia screamed back, but she was already moving.
Her hair chains exploded outward, hooking into the jagged floor to propel her upward. She spun mid-air, her palms glowing with a sickly, bruised purple light.
"Mors aeterna, carnis ruina!" she shrieked.
A whirlwind of thorned vines erupted from her hands, lashing down like rain. The Mother didn't look up. She simply raised a hand, and the sea of bones around her rose in a rotating hurricane—Skeletal Sanctuary. The thorns clattered against the wall of ribcages, sparks of cursed energy flying everywhere.
She's just standing there. She hasn't even let go of the kid.
「 Probability of a frontal breakthrough: 0.1%. She's reading your mana ripples, bro. You're being too predictable. Stop thinking like a mage and start thinking like a fighter. 」
Shut up and give me the coordinates!
I manifested three Celestial Mirrors in a triangular formation around her bone shield. I wasn't aiming for her; I was aiming for the reflections.
"Celia! Cross-pattern! Now!"
Celia landed, her eyes bleeding a faint red mist. She instantly understood. She didn't just attack; she adapted. She saw the Mother's shield had a slight lag on the left side where she held the child.
Celia lashed her chains into the ground, vibrating them at a frequency that shattered the floor, forcing the Mother to adjust her balance.
"I've got her feet!" Celia hissed, sweat beads rolling down her forehead. "Kill her, Lucas!"
I surged forward.
I'm the best. I'm the only one who can do this.
I fired a beam of light into the first mirror. It ricocheted at a 90-degree angle, hitting the second, then the third, accelerating and sharpening until it was a needle-point of white-hot celestial fury.
The Mother flickered again—Reaping Blink—but the System had already calculated the landing zone.
「 Target re-materializing in 3... 2... 1... Fire. 」
I swung my light daggers in a dual arc, meeting the light beam as it reflected off the final mirror. The energy fused with my blades. I felt my arm muscles scream under the pressure, but my ego pushed through.
I don't miss.
I slammed the daggers into her side, right below the ribs. At the same time, Celia's cursed thorns wrapped around the Mother's throat, pulling with enough force to decapitate a dragon.
The impact was massive. A shockwave of light and dark energy cleared the bone dust for fifty yards.
We got her. I saw the blade sink in. I saw the blood—thick, black ichor—spill onto the white floor.
"Hah..." Celia panted, a manic grin stretching her face. "See? Just meat. Just more meat for the—"
"rrr-chhh… hhh-eeee… nngh-vrrs."
The baby "cried" again.
The Mother didn't scream. She didn't even flinch. She stood there with my daggers buried in her side and Celia's thorns digging into her neck
Slowly, she looked down at the wound.
The black blood didn't fall. It flowed backward.
The gashes in her skin knit together in seconds, the flesh weaving itself back like a video being played in reverse.
The "Eternal Heartbeat" of the crater thumped—THUM-THUM—and I felt a wave of exhaustion hit me so hard I almost fell to my knees.
She reached out, her obsidian fingers gently stroking the child's red birthmarks, ignoring us completely for a second. Then, her giant golden eye rolled toward us, dripping with an eerie, suffocating affection.
"Oh, my little children…" she whispered, her voice vibrating in my very marrow. "You play so roughly. Look at the mess you've made of Mama's dress."
She took a slow, heavy step forward. The air grew ten degrees colder.
"I told you it was nap time," she crooned, her jaw unhinging slightly to reveal rows of needle-teeth.
"If you won't sleep willingly... I'll have to tuck you into the earth myself."
「 System Update: Boss health restored to 100%. Strategy efficiency dropped to 40%. Advice: Maybe it's time to stop being an 'aura farmer' and start being a track star, Lucas? 」
Not a chance, I thought, my grip tightening on my fading daggers.
If she can heal, we just have to kill her faster than she can remember she's dead.
If I can't kill a mother holding a baby, how am I supposed to conquer this world? I didn't get reincarnated to be a "close second." I'm the protagonist.
「 Oh, he's cooking! Look at that aura! Ladies and gentlemen, the main event has finally arrived! Don't trip on your own shoelaces, Lucas! 」
Shut up and track her center of gravity.
The Mother flickered, her form blurring like a glitching video file. She held the child tight inside that rib-cage stomach of hers, her obsidian claws weaving a tapestry of death in the air.
"Celia! I'm taking the lead! Don't let me down!"
"I'll kill you if you get in my way!"
"Left!"
"Already there!"
"Mirrors up!"
"Bleed for me!"
We moved like a single pair with two jagged edges. I slid under a reaping swing, the cold wind of her claw taking a few strands of my hair. I didn't stop. I slammed my palms against the bone-littered ground.
Ex caelis descendat iustitia, lux aeterna frangat umbram!
Celestial Magic: Pillars of the Seven Heavens.
Seven translucent, golden spears of pure celestial energy plummeted from the orange sky, pinning the Mother in a geometric cage of light. Each pillar hummed with a frequency that made the cursed mana in the air sizzle and pop.
The Mother let out a distorted hiss, her body vibrating as she tried to phase through the light using Vail of the Stillborn.
"Not this time, you bitch!" Celia screamed.
She had already adapted. She wasn't just throwing chains anymore; she was vibrating them to match the Mother's phasing frequency.
Sanguis marcidus, ossa fracta, mors sit tua solus finis!
Cursed Magic: The Widow's Mourning.
Her hair-chains turned a deep, obsidian crimson, dripping with a rot that ate through the very air. She lashed out, the chains wrapping around the celestial pillars, weaving a net of light and rot that clamped down on the Mother's throat and torso.
The Mother shrieked, her golden eye darting wildly. She was fast—unbelievably fast—even pinned, she shifted her torso, tilting the cage-stomach to keep the child away from the searing light.
「 OH! THE COORDINATION! THE SYNERGY! 10/10 FOR THE EXECUTION! FINISH HER! 」
"Lucas, now! While I have her grounded!"
"On it!"
I didn't just fire a beam. I became the beam.
I activated Lightstep II and Divine Protection: Grotesque Slaughterer simultaneously. My mana pooled into my right dagger, the blade extending into a three-meter-long saber of concentrated heavenly fire.
"Mirrors! Focus! Maximum Output!"
Six mirrors appeared in a hexagonal ring above me. I leaped, spinning into the center of the ring.
"Switch!"
"In!"
Celia retracted her chains at the exact millisecond I passed her. She dropped to the floor, her thorns erupting from the ground to boost my jump even higher.
The Mother's golden eye widened. She saw the trap. She tried to swing her obsidian claw to parry, but the celestial pillars were still burning her skin, slowing her down by a fraction of a second.
"This is for the 'happy home'!" I roared.
I slammed the saber down. The light hit the mirrors, reflected inward, and condensed into a single point of absolute destruction.
Celestial Art: Grand Cross of the Fallen Star.
The explosion was blinding. A cross of white and purple energy carved through the crater. We felt the Mother's mana field buckle.
But then, a sound cut through the roar of the explosion.
A tiny, sharp, high-pitched wail.
The smoke cleared. The Mother was still standing, but she was broken. Her left arm was gone, turned to ash. Her dress was shredded. And there, on the cheek of the static-filled child inside her cage, was a thin, glowing red scratch.
A single drop of black fluid leaked from the infant's face.
The Mother went silent. The eerie, motherly warmth in her mana didn't just vanish—it curdled.
"You…" she whispered. The sound wasn't airy anymore. It was the sound of a thousand graves opening at once. "You… touched… my… treasure…"
The orange sky of the crater didn't just darken. It turned a visceral, wet crimson. The bones on the ground began to liquefy into a sea of bubbling blood.
The Mother's form began to warp.
Her height doubled. Her skin tore open, revealing a muscular, flayed-red anatomy underneath. The golden eye turned blood-red, and the static child began to merge with her chest, its screams turning into a rhythmic, deafening pulse.
[WARNING: BOSS HAS ENTERED 'BLOOD MASSACRE' FORM][RANK EVOLUTION: S+ -> ???]
「 Uh oh. Lucas? Bro? Remember when I said we were cooking? I think we just set the whole kitchen on fire. We should probably run. Like, right now. 」
The Mother—the thing that used to be the Mother—let out a roar that shattered every remaining bone in the crater.
"You... will... drown... in... my... heart..."
She was a flayed monument to rage, her muscles twitching under raw, red skin as the child merged into her chest like a parasite sinking into fruit.
"You… little… maggots…" Her voice was a tectonic shift, grinding and hateful. "I offered you a quiet sleep. Now, I will grind your souls into the dust of this crater!"
She moved.
She smashed through my Celestial Mirrors like they were cheap glass. I barely had time to cross my daggers before an obsidian palm slammed into my chest. The impact sent me skidding fifty feet, my heels digging a trench through the liquefying bone-floor.
「 Warning: Ribs 4 through 6 are currently structural suggestions, not reality. HP: 34%. 」
"Celia! Rear guard!" I coughed, spitting a glob of dark blood.
Celia didn't answer with words. She was a blur of crimson thorns, her face a mask of primal terror and fury. She lashed her chains out, trying to bind the Mother's legs, but the monster simply stepped through the curse.
"Is this the best you can do?" the Mother roared, her unhinged jaw spraying black bile.
"Weak! Pathetic! I've seen insects with more spine than you!"
She swung a massive, flayed arm. Celia leaped, her chains boosting her into the air, but the Mother's other hand was already waiting. An obsidian claw caught Celia's leg mid-air. There was a sickening crunch—the sound of a dry branch snapping—and Celia's scream was cut short by a gasp of pure shock.
Blood sprayed, hot and vivid against the red sky. Celia tumbled to the ground, her right leg mangled, the bone peeking through the shredded meat.
"S-Sanguis reviviscere..." Celia choked out, her fingers trembling as she tried to weave a healing curse. "Vulnus... claudere!"
"Silence, brat!"
The Mother was on her in an instant. She grabbed Celia by her long, black hair and slammed her face-first into the bloody floor. The sound was dull, heavy. Before Celia could even groan, the Mother raised a massive heel and stomped.
CRACK.
Celia went limp. The silence that followed was worse than the screaming.
"Celia!" I lunged forward, my mana screaming as I tried to manifest one last spear of light.
But I was too slow. I was always too slow when it actually mattered.
The Mother turned, her red eye fixed on me. She didn't blink. She just ran.
I fired the light, but she swerved with a fluidity that defied physics, closing the gap in a heartbeat. Her hand—large enough to crush my skull—clamped onto my face.
Everything went dark. The smell of her rotting, red flesh filled my nose.
Then, she slammed me.
The back of my head hit the crater wall with the force of a falling star. My vision shattered into a million white sparks. She didn't let go; she threw me. I felt the wind whip past my ears before I hit the ground again, tumbling like a ragdoll until I came to a halt in the rising lake of blood.
「 Critical Alert. Mana: 2%. HP: 5%. Consciousness fading. System rebooting... Bro... don't go into the light... it's literally just me... Lucas? Lucas! 」
I tried to lift my head. My arm felt like it belonged to someone else—someone who was already dead. The Mother was walking toward me, her silhouette a jagged shadow against the blood-red horizon. Every step she took made the ground tremble.
"Such a waste of breath," she hissed, her needle-teeth glinting. "Die knowing you were nothing."
She leaped. High into the air, her claws extended like obsidian scythes, descending for the final kill. I stared up, my eyes widening, my heart hammering a frantic, final rhythm against my broken ribs.
Is this it? Reincarnated just to be a stain on a floor?
CLANG.
The sound wasn't a splash of blood. It was the high-pitched ring of steel meeting obsidian.
A figure was suddenly there, standing over me. A black overcoat fluttered in the gale of the Mother's descent. Two daggers—plain, simple, and terrifyingly sharp—were crossed, holding back the weight of the monster's entire body.
The Mother recoiled, her golden-red eye flickering with confusion. She landed heavily, skidding back. "Who... what are you? Another gnat?"
The figure didn't even look back at me. He just stood there, his back to me.
"Who, me?" Kaiser's voice was smooth.
He tilted his head, a small, dangerous smile playing on his lips.
"Just an E-rank passing through. You're making a lot of noise for a graveyard, lady."
"K-Kaiser...?" I managed to wheeze, my vision blurring.
How? He wasn't even in the crater...
"Stay down, Lucas," Kaiser said, his tone shifting from sarcastic to cold enough to freeze the blood lake.
"You look like hell. Rest for a bit. I'll take it from here."
The Mother roared, her rage hitting a fever pitch. "I will tear the skin from your—!"
She never finished the sentence. Kaiser was gone.
He appeared in her blind spot, his daggers flowing.
Slash. Slash. Slash.
The Mother screamed, turning to strike, but Kaiser was already under her arm, his blade carving a deep literal 'X' into her red bicep.
She swung again—a wide, desperate arc—and Kaiser simply performed a backflip over her arm, his coat snapping like a whip. While mid-air, he kicked off her shoulder, spinning and plunging a dagger into the side of her neck.
He was adapting to her every movement before she even made it.
"Too slow," Kaiser mocked, landing lightly on a pile of bones.
"You're all bark and no bite. Is this really S?"
The Mother lunged, her body a blur of red muscle. Kaiser didn't move until the last second. He stepped to the side—a movement so small it looked like he didn't move at all—and as she passed, he drove both daggers deep into the static-filled "stomach" where the child was held.
He didn't just stab. He twisted.
The child inside let out a final, soul-shattering shriek. The cage-stomach burst open, black ichor spraying everywhere. The Mother collapsed to her knees, her form beginning to dissolve into grey ash, her eyes losing their red luster.
Kaiser stood over her, his daggers clean, his breathing steady. He looked back at me, that annoying, iconic smirk back on his face.
"See, Lucas? Take a break now. Rest."
The world began to tilt. The exhaustion finally won, pulling me into the darkness.
Finally...
SLAP!
「 Divine Protection: Anti-False Reality activated. Back to reality, Lucas. 」
The image of Kaiser—didn't just fade. It shattered like a cheap mirror hitting a concrete floor.
SLAP!
My head whirled. The pain was real. The blood in my mouth was real.
"Wake up! Lucas, move!"
I blinked, my vision clearing just enough to see Celia. She wasn't standing tall. She was dragged across the bone-dirt, her mangled leg trailing a wet, dark streak behind her. Her face was a mess of tears and grime, her hands glowing with a faint, sickly purple light as she pressed them against my temples.
He's not here.
The realization hit me harder than the Mother's fist.
Kaiser wasn't coming. There was no E-rank miracle.
My brain, faced with total annihilation, had cooked up a "dying wish" just so I wouldn't have to die feeling like a loser.
The Mother hadn't been defeated; she was standing twenty feet away, her flayed muscles knitting back together as she prepared to finish what she started.
SLAP!
"I'm awake! Stop hitting me!"
"Then stand up!" Celia screamed, her voice cracking. "I can't... I can't hold her alone!"
「 See? This is why we don't rely on 'Main Character' tropes, bro. You really thought a mysterious hero would just drop from the ceiling? Pathetic. 」
Shut up, System. I get it. I'm the only one here.
I pushed myself up. My ribs groaned, and my mana pool felt like a dried-up well, but the illusion was gone.
"Where... where is Kaiser?" I croaked, my mind still trying to cling to the dream.
Celia grabbed my collar and yanked me forward, her eyes wide and bloodshot.
"Kaiser isn't here! He doesn't even know we're in here, Lucas! He's not coming to save us! If we don't move now, we're both going to be part of this crater's floor!"
Right. No more miracles.
Just us.
I stood up, my legs shaking. The Mother let out a guttural, wet roar, the blood lake around her feet rising in a tidal wave of gore. We couldn't outrun her. We couldn't outfight her.
System, I need a logic-defying distraction. Something that hits her right in the 'Mother' instinct. Brainstorm. Fast.
「 Searching... analyzing... logic dictates that even a Blood Massacre Boss has a priority sequence. Priority 0: The Child. If the child is happy, the Mother is stationary. If the child is curious, the Mother waits. 」
I can't fight, but I can craft.
System, sync Earth and Fire. We're making a toy.
I slammed my hands into the red muck. I didn't try to build a spear or a wall. I focused everything I had left—every scrap of mana—into a single, tiny visualization.
Earth to shape. Fire to glow. Make it beautiful.
Make it impossible to ignore.
From the blood-soaked earth, a small, glowing shape began to rise. It was a pony—a miniature, ceramic-like horse made of hardened clay, infused with a pulsing, golden fire that made it look like it was breathing. It galloped across the blood lake, its hooves making little tink-tink sounds against the bones.
The Mother paused. Her obsidian claws, inches away from Celia's throat, froze.
Inside her rib-cage stomach, the static-child stopped wailing. It tilted its blurry head, its tiny, translucent hands reaching out toward the glowing, galloping toy.
"A... toy?" the Mother whispered, her rage momentarily short-circuited by the child's sudden, high-pitched giggle.
"Now! Celia, grab on!"
I didn't wait to see if it worked. I grabbed Celia by the waist, ignoring her hiss of pain.
"Lightstep II! Maximum output!"
We became a streak of white light, blurring toward the jagged stone stairs that led out of this hell-hole. My heart was a drum in my ears. We were halfway up the stairs when the Mother's scream returned—not one of rage, but of realization.
"Give... it... BACK!"
The air behind us exploded. A shard of cursed mana grazed my shoulder, tearing through my coat and skin. She was coming. The "pony" had been crushed, and now she was twice as mad.
Move! Move!
「 Divine Protection: Fate activated. Probability shift in progress. 」
Suddenly, a loose rock tumbled from the ceiling of the crater, striking the edge of the stairs. It didn't hit the Mother. It hit the child's cage.
The infant let out a piercing, terrified cry—not a curious one, but a scream of pure, infant terror.
The Mother stopped instantly. She didn't chase us. She plummeted back to the crater floor, her massive, flayed arms wrapping around her own stomach, her voice turning into a frantic, distorted lullaby.
"Shhh... baby... Mommy's here... Mommy has you..."
She had forgotten us.
For the length of a heartbeat, the child's fear was greater than her hate.
I reached the top of the stairs, my lungs burning like I'd swallowed hot coals. I turned back for one second, slamming my fist into the stone archway.
"Earth Magic: Tremor Collapse!"
The entrance to the crater groaned and caved in, a massive slab of rock sealing the "Blood Massacre" away in the dark.
I didn't stop running until I felt the soft, cool touch of grass beneath my boots. The crimson sky was gone, replaced by the fading light of the afternoon. I stumbled, my knees finally giving out, and laid Celia down on the greenery.
She coughed, a spray of dark blood hitting the grass, her red eyes fluttering as she looked up at the sky.
"We... we're out?" she whispered, her voice barely a thread.
"Yeah," I wheezed, collapsing beside her. "We're out."
I closed my eyes, the adrenaline fading into a cold, hollow ache. But as the silence of the forest settled around us, a shadow fell over my face.
SLAP!
I winced, my eyes snapping open.
Beside me, Celia was a wreck. Her white hair was stained with that grey bone-ash, and her red eyes were burning with a mix of exhaustion and pure, unadulterated spite.
System. Status. Give me the good news before I pass out again.
「 Oh, so we're awake? Thought you were going to take a permanent nap in Dream-Kaiser's arms. Anyway, you're not dead. Congrats. 」
「 Level Up: 25 ➔ 29. That Boss-room 'participation trophy' exp and insect slaughtering hit different, didn't it? 」
「 You have 12 Stat Points available. Try not to waste them on 'Charm'—it clearly isn't working for you. 」
Put it all into Perception, System. Every single point.
「 Allocated. Perception: +12. Maybe now you'll notice when reality starts melting, or at least see a slap coming before your brain rattles. 」
I felt a sharp tingle behind my eyes, a sudden clarity that made the rustling leaves sound like a symphony.
I wasn't going to get caught in a mental trap again. Never again.
"I can't believe it," Celia hissed, slamming her fist into the turf.
"That... that bitch. We should have killed it. I had the thorns ready. I had the chains. And we just... we ran."
I sat up, wincing as my ribs reminded me they were still held together by hope and a few scraps of mana.
"We didn't just run, Celia. We got handled. We went in there thinking we were the main characters and got an ego-check by it."
Celia looked at me, her expression flickering from rage to something sharper—a cold, calculating resolve.
"It's not a loss," she said. "It's a lesson. We know the pattern of her shriek now. We know the reach of those claws. We get stronger. We go back. And I will personally kill that child out of her ribs."
She held out a bruised, grime-covered fist.
I grinned, the metallic taste of blood still in my mouth. "Next time, she's the one who gets her ass kicked."
Clink. Our knuckles met.
For a second, the shared adrenaline felt better than any healing spell. We sat there in silence for a moment, just breathing the non-toxic air.
"So..." Celia started, her tone shifting to something dangerously playful.
"Why were you screaming for Kaiser? You looked like a lost child, Lucas."
Then, the embarrassment started to crawl up my throat.
"I—it was the illusion! I fell for it, okay? My brain just... it projected the most capable person I knew. It was a hallucination. Shut up."
Celia didn't shut up. She laughed—a sharp, jagged sound.
"Don't be so embarrassed, hero. I saw him too."
I froze. "What?"
"Same thing," she said, leaning back on her elbows.
"He came down like some god of daggers, shredding that monster with two blades and a smile. I actually felt... safe. For a second." She paused, her eyes narrowing.
"But I woke up first. You were still drooling over the 'miracle'."
"How did you break it?" I asked, genuinely curious. "I had to wake up late due to my protection coming a bit later..."
"My heel," she said, pointing to the red heels Kaiser had bought her.
"My right heel started itching. Not just a little—it felt like a thousand ants were biting my skin. It was so annoying I couldn't focus on Kai's 'iconic' speech. The second I got irritated, the illusion cracked. I realized Kai couldn't be here. He doesn't even know we took this quest."
She started giggling, deepening her voice in a mocking, breathy tone.
"Oh, where is Kaiser? Save me, Kaiser!"
"I didn't sound like that!" I snapped, reaching over and giving her a light smack on the head.
"Stop laughing! It's weird, though. Why would your foot itch? That monster's illusions are mental, they don't cause physical irritation unless you're being attacked."
「 Coincidence? In this story? I THINK NOT! Lucas, check the boot. Something is vibrating on a very specific frequency. 」
I looked at Celia's heels. "Hey, give me your shoe."
"Excuse me?" she barked, her 'yandere' guard going up instantly.
"Kai bought me these. You touch them, you lose a finger."
"Just let me check something! It's for science, Celia!"
After a minute of arguing and a few threats involving cursed thorns, she kicked the right boot over. I inspected the sole—nothing.
I checked the bottom—perfect quality. But then, I ran my thumb along the inside of the top.
There. A small, paper-thin bump.
I peeled it back. It was a tiny, circular sticker, etched with microscopic silver runes that pulsed with a faint, blue light.
"What is that?" Celia leaned in, her anger replaced by confusion.
「 Analyzing... It's a Sylvaris-Grade Anti-Mental Interference Seal. Standard issue for high-rank adventurers going into the Deep Woods. It doesn't block the illusion—it's too small for that. Instead, it's designed to 'irritate' the wearer when a foreign mana signature tries to alter their brainwaves. Basically, it gives you a phantom itch to keep your brain grounded in the physical world. And notifies the owner who bought it once its removed.」
I explained it to her, watching her face go through three different stages of shock.
"Impossible," she whispered.
"When? He was asleep when I awoke... wait." Her eyes widened. "He insisted on polishing them for me before we left. He said 'fine heels needs a fine touch'."
I stared at the little seal. That bastard.
He knew. He didn't know what we were fighting, but he knew we were idiots who would walk into a trap. He didn't save us in person; he saved us with a glorified mosquito-bite sticker.
"He did this while you were asleep or 'polishing' them," I muttered, feeling a mix of profound gratitude and intense irritation.
"He predicted we'd need help."
Celia took the heel back, clutching it to her chest. She looked happy, then immediately scowled.
"So... we didn't escape on our own. Not really. He's still looking after us like we're toddlers."
"Yeah," I sighed, looking back at the sealed crater.
"We wanted a miracle, and we got one. Just not the one we wanted."
"He thinks he's a mastermind," I muttered, my fingers closing around the seal until the edges dug into my skin.
"He's sitting back in the city, probably drinking tea, while he moves us around his little board like pawns who can't be trusted to walk in a straight line."
Celia didn't say anything for a long time. She was looking at her heel, her red eyes reflecting a mix of that intense devotion she had for him and a new, bubbling rage.
Her ego wasn't like mine—it was fierce, rooted in the blood and thorns of her Cursed magic. She wanted to be the weapon at his side, not a pet on a leash.
"He didn't tell me," she whispered, the air around her beginning to chill. Cursed mana started to leak from her pores, turning the nearby grass grey and brittle.
"He let me go out there thinking I was strong enough. He let me feel that confidence... just to have it proven as a lie by a sticker."
She looked up at me, "I don't want his miracles, Lucas. If I die, I want to die because I wasn't enough, not live because he decided I shouldn't."
I felt the same heat rising in my chest—the part of me that had just dumped 12 points into Perception to never be blinded again—was roaring.
Being babysat was a slow death. Every time he saved us, he stole a piece of our growth. He was "carrying" us, and in this world, being carried meant you never learned how to stand.
"He's playing a game where he's the only mastermind,"
"He considers us his playthings. His little 'prodigies' that need a safety net."
"It's insulting."
I stood up, the grass crunching under my boots.
"This was the last time," I said, looking down at Celia.
"No more miracles. No more 'coincidental' help. If we can't clear a zone without his invisible hand holding ours, then we don't deserve the names we're trying to build."
Celia stood up slowly, "I love him," she said, her voice like a funeral bell.
"But I will not be his doll. The next time he sees me, I want him to look at me and feel threatened."
That was the ego I needed to hear.
The fierce, destructive pride of a girl who refused to be his pet on a leash.
I extended my hand toward her, my palm open. "Sis. It's time we surpass that bastard. Never again will I let him look down at us like we're something to be protected."
Celia reached out, her hand cold and steady as she gripped mine. "Once we're done with this world... we'll be the ones looking down at him."
We stood there on the edge of that crater, two "miracles" that had decided they were done with being saved.
Perspective: Kaiser
The sun was hitting the plaza just right, the kind of warmth that makes you forget about things like 'Cursed mana' and 'existential threats.'
I was sitting on a wooden bench, leaning back with my eyes half-closed. To my left, Bibi was frantically trying to keep a scoop of strawberry from sliding off her cone, her tiny hands sticky and her focus absolute.
To my right, Ami was delicately eating a vanilla swirl, looking as composed as always despite the smudge of cream on her cheek.
I took a long, slow lick of my own—triple chocolate, the only logical choice.
"Master?" Ami said, glancing at me. "You look... pleased. Did something happen?"
"I told you to not call me that, anyways…"
"Nothing much," I said, the cold sweetness of the ice cream melting on my tongue.
"I just felt two very small, very loud egos finally catch fire. It's a good sign. It means I don't have to buy any more stickers for a while."
Bibi looked up, blinking. "Stickers? Can I have one?"
I chuckled, ruffling her hair and ignoring the sticky residue she transferred to my sleeve.
They were probably cursing my name right about now. Good. Anger is a much better motivator than gratitude. I don't need to interfere or take responsibility for now.
As I have other business.
I took another bite, leaning my head back against the wood.
"Man," I sighed, a genuine smile tugging at my lips.
"I love ice cream."