282 – Fighting alone
A big, wiggly, weird thing. When Ardein realized that it was beyond what was visible to the naked eye and was close enough to be seen in detail, Ardein stopped in place for a moment without saying anything. He just stared with blank eyes at the mass of six walls moving with a force that no one could explain.
‘Looking at it this close, what can I say…’
A lump of meat made of flesh, muscles, and tendons replaced the rock and formed a large, distant mountain. Eyeballs were stuck between the lumps of flesh, and countless small mouths connected to blood vessels were popping. It seemed that the creatures living in hell could not be more terrible than this.
‘It’s disgusting. ‘To the point where I want to buy eyes that haven’t seen it.’
When I looked at that directly, it felt like my eyes were rotting away. It was dirty, ugly, and grotesque. There were even strange tentacle-like things fluttering about here and there on the body.
If it were tentacles, it would have been nice, but there were a lot of strange organs that I had never seen before, spreading out all over the place. I had no idea what role they played or why they were sprouting.
Like some creatures that cannot be found on land but only live in the deep sea, this strange creature was extremely alien to human aesthetic standards. If it had been smaller, it would have been different, but each eyeball was so large that it could contain an entire person, so it was not only disgusting, but also terrifying.
When I saw the sight of the clouds rising high, continuing endlessly, I didn’t even have the will to draw my sword. I doubted that it would even flinch even if I popped several of its eyeballs with a dragon-shaped steel cutter.
There isn’t just one guy like this, it’s just an advance team. Even after calming down and taking a closer look, there wasn’t anything that looked like a weak spot. I expected there to be a nucleus, but at least it wasn’t visible on the surface. Even if there was, it would probably be buried deep in the flesh, and there was a high possibility that it wouldn’t exist at all.
‘There is no way to defeat it. No. ‘This is… unreasonable.’
The Yongah Sword, which was strong against any powerful enemy, now looked like a thin skewer. If it maintains this momentum and reaches the system, what should we do now? Should I run away? Should we fight until the end? Or should I give up and just go back to the party and enjoy the party?
No matter what she does, the result will be the same, but she had already drawn her own conclusion. Even though she knew she would be no match for her anyway, she pulled out her dragon sword and plunged it into her ground.
There is no limit to strength. There are only limits to people. She couldn’t pull out the dragon shape steel and wrap around that entire mountain. Realistically, there is no human being who can do such a thing.
At most, I will leave a few scars on that gathering of flesh and run out of strength, but even so, I have no intention of running away. Anyway, she was the princess of the empire.
Looking back, I never really helped the empire, but I still didn’t feel too sorry. Her empire didn’t treat her well either. Help means giving and receiving, so I wasn’t sorry if I didn’t receive anything or had nothing to give.
Still, even that country was her homeland,
She was even a member of the royal family of that country.
If the last moment came, she still wanted to greet it like a princess. This city is her home, so where will she go if she leaves?
‘I wish I could have said goodbye.’
All other family members are here, so there is no need to worry about leaving alone and lonely in the underworld. But there was just one thing, one thing that bothered me. Where is the man who set fire to her own heart, and what is he doing now? Does he even know that he misses him?
“We shouldn’t have parted ways there.”
Although she never actually said it out loud, she secretly became more and more attached to the people she made on her own adventures. The reason she felt sad when she thought the beastmen had left was because she had become somewhat attached to them in the end. If they were bastards, I wouldn’t have cared whether they left or not. No, he might have been happy as if a lump had fallen off.
To the half-dragon chimera girl, and to the real dragon,
Even to that annoying wolf.
Especially to that wolf.
“If I had followed along, I wouldn’t have had to wait like this.”
I don’t know why I became attached to it because it had a pretty corner. I didn’t think about this when I was close, but maybe it’s because I was far away. Just like family members who normally bicker suddenly start missing you when you leave for a faraway country.
So finally the noise of the world stopped,
When the shaking earth stabilizes,
When the magical beast that was slowly extending towards this place stopped its movement and began to fall silent, she lost sight of that amazing sight, lost in her thoughts.
That will probably be something she regrets for the rest of her life. Some were addicted to pleasure, some were addicted to drugs, and some were drunk, and hardly anyone was sober at that critical moment.
The change occurred without any warning, and once it was noticed, it was already over. There were surprisingly few people who observed the shaking subsiding and stopping from beginning to end.
The princess, who easily passed up the opportunity to have an experience she would never forget again in her life, glared into the eyes of the great harvester, not even noticing that the earth had stopped shaking. Her eyes were fixed motionlessly upon her, and she, too, opened her eyes wide without avoiding her gaze.
‘What is that? ‘Are you really trying to fight me?’
The other side didn’t close its eyes first and didn’t turn its pupils away, so Ardein didn’t do that either. It was unpleasant to look at that hideous, unholy creature, but I felt like I was losing if I avoided my gaze. I definitely hated it more.
So she frowned and did not avoid eye contact. She had a snowball fight with one of its many pupils. Whether it worked or not, she soon realized that the massive mountain wasn’t moving at all. It was moving forward slowly just a moment ago, but now it has completely stopped.
Perhaps.
Really, just in case.
Is it stopping like that because it was conscious of me?
It is perhaps natural for such thoughts to come to mind.
What she remembered was the story of hunters hunting wild animals. I heard that the warriors of the foreign tribes on the outskirts of the empire never run away even if they encounter a tiger while climbing a mountain alone.
It’s not that they don’t know that their lives are a waste, or that their livers are bigger than a tiger. This is because the tiger knows full well that there is no mercy for those who run away.
If I make the first move, the tiger will perceive itself as an absolute weakling and a mere prey, but if I show off and stand with my shoulders back and glare at the tiger, the tiger will also be confused.
Before biting me once, I think about whether that bipedal creature in front of me is my food and whether there will be any problems if I touch it.
Unless they are very hungry, wild animals do not take unnecessary threats. There are no hospitals or doctors in the wild. Since there are no priests, even the slightest wound can sometimes be fatal. Therefore, it is said that wild animals do not attack carelessly if they feel that the opponent is strong.
So, I’m sure I heard somewhere that if you encounter a tiger or lion, don’t run away or play dead, but instead stare into the eyes to show that you’re not easy.
Because I had heard such a story somewhere else, I was convinced that what I was doing now was working. She strained her eyes and bulged them out as if her eyeballs were going to explode.
It sounds really crazy, but you never know. Maybe this snowball fight is giving that guy an unknown fear and preventing him from coming closer. It is said that even a tiger has such instincts, but wouldn’t it be more stupid than a tiger?
If you think about it, perspective can vary from person to person. Even among the same people, their aesthetic senses are different. So what about that giant piece of flesh of a different race?
Perhaps, in its eyes, humans like itself appear to be a blasphemous and hideous mass of living reproductive cells. Her strange confidence gave her strength and courage.
Even when the sun set, the moon rose, and her eyes became so dry that they hurt, the princess did not close her eyes. We had a snowball fight while glaring at the distant mountains. With superhuman will and magical power, I forced my eyelids, which were trying to close, open.
And so, on that historic day that would be known in future generations as ‘the day when disaster stopped,’ Ardein opened his eyes wide, not even knowing that destruction had missed him. In fact, it stayed like that until the whole night passed. Her eyes suffered to the point where blood vessels and blood began to appear and turn red, but she could not tell anyone what she had done. It would probably remain her secret forever.
“What…”
Finally, the next day, when the sun rose and dawn broke, the bright sunlight shone all around her and she could clearly see all around her, and the princess was finally able to wake up from her own fantasy.
“You’re just not moving…”
Did you faint while standing? Did you have a heart attack? Or perhaps orthostatic hypotension?
I don’t know why, but it just stands there without blinking its eyes. Not a single bunch of tentacles or pseudopods were shaken. The vascular bundles sticking out here and there stopped moving and no longer showed any response.
Only then did her face start to feel hot. Although no one was watching, she covered her face with her hands. I was so embarrassed that I was embarrassed to be seen by others. She felt like hiding in a rat hole.
She thought that she was doing something meaningful in her own way. She was filled with courage and an uncanny sense of mission whose origins were unknown until just moments before.
But all of that was meaningless nonsense.
Of course, the world was saved. But,
For her part, she felt like she would rather have the world perish.