111 – Ethiopia – 5
“… Nice! Ike!”
“… Whoops!”
As soon as I let out my breath, my consciousness was awakened.
When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was an unfamiliar gray ceiling.
“Ike, are you okay?”
“Ah, Raina….”
Beside me was Reina, who was looking at me with a worried expression.
“Hey, creeping?”
Looking back, this place seemed to be a passageway.
There was a stairway going up on the left side, and a long road on the right side so you couldn’t see inside.
“Don’t you remember? When I was fighting with that executive named Cron earlier, I got hit back and flew back into the cave where Avatar’s home base was. Miss Helen and Atal-sama are waiting up there.”
… I remembered.
I thought I was attacking for an opening, but I was attacked at the same time I realized that it wasn’t a piercing sensation.
Did you get blown into the cave at that time?
“Wait a minute. So you’re saying Miss Helen and Atal-sama are fighting that person alone?”
“… Huh. I’ve heard that you have to keep the majority at all costs.”
I’m sure you made that promise.
However, it was clearly a mistake for Reina to follow me all this way to find me.
Even when 4 of us fight together, the opponent who doesn’t have the chance to win, splits into 2 of them on their own.
That’s downright suicidal.
When one person was isolated in the first place, wasn’t the person left alone hiding and waiting?
“Miss Helen said it was fine.”
Reina continued her words as if to answer my question.
“For three months, Miss Helen and Atal worked hard. If those two said it was okay, it would be fine.”
“… Okay. Then, since we woke up, let’s go upstairs quickly.”
“Yes.”
Fortunately, Neia was right next to me.
I got up slowly and reached out my hand to Neia.
“Ugh?!”
“Ike?”
At that moment, she felt a sharp pain in her left shoulder.
I gritted my teeth while frowning at the pain spreading to the point where my left arm trembled.
This is the Buwind that was healed by Atal after being pierced by Cron’s spear earlier.
After that, even when she wielded Neia, her shoulders were only slightly stiff, but her movement was not hindered, and there was no sharp pain.
But why all of a sudden?
“Reina, was my body seriously injured when I was down?”
“… No. There were some bruises here and there from falling down the stairs, but they were all treated.”
Raina looked at me worriedly.
Let’s clear things up for a moment.
The place where my arm now hurts so much that it trembles is the left shoulder that was pierced by a spear.
But her shoulder has already been healed by Atal.
However, a sharp pain felt suddenly.
‘… All right. But please be as careful as possible.’
I told you to be careful because it’s no different than Atal only returning the form.
I checked to see if the wound was open, but the shoulder was apparently still normal.
No, in the first place, when we started fighting again, we fought with as much strength in our left arm as possible, and even though we fell down the stairs, at most we were told that only bruises remained.
“….”
I began to feel an inexplicable sense of incongruity.
I think I’m missing something.
“… Wait for a sec.”
Obviously I said that I was counterattacked by Cron.
But if he correctly read my attack and countered, how come I’m still alive?
Why did you send me into the cave, the stronghold of Avatar?
If I had just fought back with all my might, that alone would have killed me.
“Rayna, did the man say something?”
“… Obviously Ike, I said you’d be dead. So even if I go down, there is no point.”
It’s strange.
A person with that level of skill couldn’t properly grasp the life and death of the opponent?
Above all, in the original work, Cron Illusin was obviously set to feel the joy of checking the corpse after taking the life of an opponent.
To think that a man like that stopped Reina by saying that he would have died anyway.
“Nonsense.”
Suddenly, my thoughts began to organize.
When Crone counterattacked, the area he struck must have been my left shoulder.
The reason is to make me faint.
Maybe he noticed that my left shoulder wasn’t completely healed.
I would get up and come back immediately with an halfway attack, and if it was a solid counterattack I would have died.
That is.
“… Did you intentionally knock me out and send me to Avatar’s stronghold?”
Why?
I thought he was a very strange character in the original work, but I don’t know even more now that he’s actually been through something like this.
“But first, I have to go up.”
You don’t have to care what the other person’s intentions are.
Our purpose will not change anyway.
“Let’s go, Reina.”
“… Are your shoulders okay?”
“Yes. It’s just that I’m not as strong as usual. If you tell Atal-nim, you’ll be healed right away.”
Wielding Neia was quite possible.
In the first place, I suffered so much pain that I gave up counting for three months.
“Come on, let’s go quickly.”
The moment she comforts Reina and tries to get up from her seat.
“… One more useless thing added.”
From the passageway inside, I heard that voice that I shouldn’t have heard now.
“Cron guy. Are you kidding me again?”
Raina’s complexion turned pale.
I’m sure it’s the same for me.
Slowly look back.
“Well, it doesn’t matter. The results do not change.”
A man over 2m tall with jet-black hair.
If there’s anything impressive about her impassive expression, it’s definitely the long scar around her right eye.
But what was even more impressive was that Neia, a two-handed sword claymore, was carrying a large sword on her back that could be treated as a toy.
No, do I need to explain in the first place?
A person I’ve already met once.
That was also the opponent who came to kill me.
“It’s been a while. Ike Axus, Reina Rogelia.”
Rex, who was the only one named “Disaster” In the original work, was standing there.
★
“Are you okay with that?”
“Yes. For my purposes, that is enough.”
“Nearly a thousand years.”
“… Rex. I am different from you. Would you know?”
Rex was speechless at Dyt’s words.
Diet and the other executives of Avatar are literally different.
No matter how close to a thousand years of obscurity it is, its depth is different.
“I am an avatar. If that’s the truth, the path I’ve chosen is the ending of Avatar. I would have said that the guys also got her nod after all?”
Yes.
Date finally convinced ‘them’.
No, the word obeyed was more appropriate than persuasion.
“There is only one thing I want right now.”
And what made it possible.
“All you have to do is defeat him from the front.”
It was a strong desire that surpassed the obsession of a thousand years.
“Ike Access. Let me ask you one thing.”
Rex asked Ike, who was standing in front of her, with an expressionless face.
“The future you tried to change, changed. Is that really worth more than a thousand years?”
Rex complies with Diet’s words.
No matter what happens, that much will not change.
Any absurd order.
Even if Diet ordered her to commit suicide, Rex would stab her greatsword into her chest without blinking an eye and without her hesitation.
But.
“A collection of people’s obscenities accumulated over a thousand years. Do you think that an action to save just one life can be reversed?”
I didn’t mean that he had no feelings.
That’s why I couldn’t help but question the decision Diet made.
Because there were certainly plenty of possibilities.
“… I don’t know what that means.”
Ike answered Rex’s question with a slight frown.
It was as if he had no idea what the question was.
“Of course I do.”
Why did they come here in the first place?
It is only a promise to destroy Avatar.
There was no way he would be able to answer even if he was asked a question he didn’t know the reason for or the meaning of.
“… Good night.”
So Rex made up his mind.
For the first and last time, let’s disobey the lord’s order.
“I’m killing you here and now. Reina Roselia in the back, and Atal, Helen Oberon, and Charlotte Isolde in the top. I will kill them all.”
I thought I would know something then.
I thought I could find out what kind of man Ike Axus was, who destroyed a thousand years of obscenity.
“So if you want to stop me, go with all your might.”
The man called disaster began to move.
And the last enemy of his life, his left shoulder trembled and he quietly grabbed the sword.
★
“It must have already started. A little faster!”
“By the way, did you hear the exact location?”
“… I heard about it, but I can’t remember exactly. He lost his notes too. In fact, I’m still looking for it to some extent.”
“Isn’t that a big deal then?!”
“I don’t know what you’re thinking. Why is this guy….”
“Ah, sorry! Really sorry! Please take a look! Yeah, but I think you’ll know for sure if you go around. You will feel the flow of magical power!”
“Is that a matter of course?”
“Still, don’t say too much. He said he was busy traveling all over the empire, so he couldn’t make that much of a mistake…. No, I can’t do that either.”
“Ah! Sorry!”