245Th Chapter. Metamorphosis
The golden waves that had enveloped the world disappeared as if they had never been there.
What unfolded behind them was a clear blue sky.
The ominous purple light that had covered the sky had vanished without a trace, and the scene was peaceful as if nothing had happened.
The people regained their senses.
The rampage of smashing everything in sight, driven by fear and terror, had stopped.
The black power that had been inciting them, just before the final limit was broken and they became irrecoverable, had completely disappeared.
There was no more oppression.
There was no longer the feeling of being watched by something enormous.
All that remained was a world no different from usual.
At that moment, in the sky.
A shooting star was falling.
“Airship! It’s falling!”
The former Allied headquarters.
An emergency call was made to the command center.
An airship specially modified to go beyond the atmosphere was now losing power and falling.
The sight of the huge hull glowing as it entered the atmosphere was like a shooting star.
It looked like a meteorite.
The parts attached to the exterior melted and fell off due to the heat.
As even the frame of the hull began to fall apart.
“Now!”
With the signal from the White Magic Tower Lord, the magic circles installed on the spires of each tower began to emit magical power.
What was being cast was the 5th-tier spell, Telekinesis.
The spell, using the five towers as its core, slowly decelerated the rapidly descending airship.
Just before it hit the ground, the airship’s speed was almost zero, and it landed gently.
Thud!
As the red-hot hull hit the ground, flames shot up into the grass.
At the gesture of the magicians, the flames were extinguished in an instant.
When the smoke cleared, what was revealed was an airship with all its paint and external armament gone, leaving only the hull.
It was the airship that had first gone into space, defeated the dimensional entity, and returned.
“As I thought······.”
“Yes. They are unlikely to be unharmed.”
The Archmages shook their heads.
The airship was emitting so much heat that it was difficult to get close to it.
It was obvious what had happened to those inside.
The Frost Lord, the Witch, and even the newly titled Archmage, Nameless.
They had lost several superhumans.
Faced with the crisis of the world’s destruction, they had unhesitatingly sacrificed themselves.
The magicians were paying their respects when they suddenly thought of this.
“······?!”
Thud! Thud! Thud!
A loud noise came from inside.
Didn’t this sound like a rescue signal?
The magicians all became busy.
Amidst the commotion of how to approach the hot hull, and that they should call in cold-type magicians to cool it down first, the hull suddenly warped.
Then, with a bang, the hull wall was torn open.
Instantly, the entire area was covered in a cold chill.
The grass froze, and the air became cold.
“Whew. I told you to get me out, but you made me come out on my own.”
The interior of the airship, which had been completely frozen, was revealed.
The Frost Lord and his party walked out calmly from inside.
They were all unscathed.
The magicians all scratched their heads.
Even the Archmages did not know the details of what had happened up there.
Because they had reached the pinnacle of magic, they could tell what they did not know.
The being that ordinary people simply thought of as something huge was a being beyond imagination.
Just looking at it would make one lose their mind.
It was a forbidden being that one could only return to their right mind by having all memories of seeing it erased.
Those who had returned to their senses, protected by the golden light, would only think that some dangerous calamity had struck and then receded.
However, the Archmages could sense a glimpse of what kind of feat they had accomplished and returned with.
They had not prevented the destruction of the world.
They had prevented the collapse of a dimension.
They had surpassed the limits of magic, the limits of engineering, and the limits of mortals, and had defeated a being that could be called a god of a dimension.
“Let us pay due respect to the heroes.”
The magicians and soldiers surrounding the burnt black lawn all knelt on one knee with heartfelt respect.
It was something that would never be known to the world.It was because there was nothing to understand.
Therefore, it was the duty of those who had reached a small part of it to remember today and honor their achievements.
“Now, wait······! Everyone! Ugh?!”
The body of the witch, Julia, who had rushed out in a hurry, froze.
The warm sunlight and the gaze of countless people.
Her voice was stuck in her throat as if she had been baptized by the things she had so avoided, and she cringed as if a worm was crawling over her body.
But Julia gritted her teeth and moved forward.
“P-please······. Save Eugene······. Save my Eugene······.”
Julia sobbed as she pushed the man on the stretcher forward.
Outwardly, he seemed to be fine.
However, the medical staff became busy as he lost consciousness, broke out in a cold sweat, and failed to regain consciousness.
“Waaah! What do I do! I don’t want to leave again!”
“Oh, this is nothing. It’s just a hangover, really.”
“How can the Lord of Frost be so cruel······ Ugh······.”
“No. It’s really a fuss.”
Julia, who was clinging to Eugene and crying, and Yerina, who was embarrassed because she didn’t know why she was doing this.
Even though Yerina was tired and sighing, someone who made it even more noisy arrived.
“Kyaaah! What is this······? Eugene again, by any chance······?”
“No. No. Saintess. Shall we calm down for a moment and listen to my story first? There are a lot of eyes watching, so for now-“
“Ah, no! Don’t go! Don’t go, Eugene! You said you’d come back! You promised you’d come back for real this time······!”
“I don’t know anymore······.”
Yerina turned her back, tired of the two women clinging to the stretcher and crying.
It was the ultimate fatigue.
***
Eugene’s condition was more serious than expected.
Contrary to the initial diagnosis that he had simply fallen asleep from exhaustion, he did not wake up for a long time.
As the time he remained unconscious exceeded 12 hours, Julia and Jill became anxious as if they were about to suffocate.
Eugene groaned and shivered as if he were having a terrible dream.
The sound of bones creaking and cracking could be heard occasionally from inside his body.
It was basic to have a cold sweat running down his body without a break.
Jill and Julia refused even the help of the nurses and wiped Eugene’s body almost once an hour.
Jill poured her magic into Eugene without getting tired.
She cast healing spells and infused him with divine power.
Even so, the symptoms did not improve.
‘A disease that even the Saintess cannot cure?’
‘Is this by any chance······? Is fate, the law of the world, trying to eliminate Eugene······?’
Jill was breaking down in real time.
The trauma that she had almost forgotten was now coming back to life.
She was thinking about whether she should isolate Jill separately, thinking that she would really go crazy if she continued like this.
“Uh······. I think I know the diagnosis.”
“What is it, doctor?! Don’t just say it’s a fatal disease! Please! Please······!”
“This is a metamorphosis.”
“Metamorphosis?”
“Yes.”
“······?”
Jill’s expression became blank at the unexpected diagnosis.
Metamorphosis? Why is that suddenly coming up?
“Metamorphosis is······.”
“Yes. It’s the metamorphosis that you all know. When someone has great talent or awakens their abilities, but their body cannot handle that power, their body rapidly changes into a body that can handle that power, and they suffer from severe pain.”
“Isn’t that usually something that superhumans experience during their growth period?”
It was understandable.
Jill, Julia, and Yerina had all experienced it.
Those who were born as mortals and had talents that did not suit them either died young because they could not handle that power, or they were reborn as vessels of superhumans through metamorphosis.
“Yes. That’s right. Looking at the current situation, the metamorphosis is in its final stages. The skeleton has become much stronger, the skin has become harder, and the flow of magic within the body, which was not smooth, seems to have stabilized. The metamorphosis has been successfully completed, and I think he will wake up soon.”
“What, what······? So Eugene has been······. He’s been an ordinary person who hasn’t even undergone metamorphosis······?”
She was so dumbfounded that she couldn’t even laugh.
He had only just become a superhuman?Doesn’t it sound like Eugene has been fighting against those powerful enemies with his weak and inefficient body up until now?
Their thought circuits broke down due to the unimaginable information.
And the same goes for Julia and Elina.
‘Of course’, Eugene thought he was the same as them.
Isn’t he a human who has mastered the magic that ordinary people’s bodies can’t withstand and has seen beyond it?
Does that mean Eugene felt the pain of his bones twisting and muscles tearing every time he fired a magic bullet?
Does that mean he endured the sensation of his life force being sucked out of his entire body every time he cast a spell of the 5th level or higher, and the pain of his blood vessels drying up?
Does that mean he endured the magic eroding and rotting him to the core every time he handled magic?
What was natural to them was not natural to Eugene.
At that simple fact, Jill, Julia, and Elina were shocked for a moment and couldn’t continue speaking.