Chapter 6
A scene reminiscent of a bombing site, a chaotic mess.
Dust billowed thickly in the area, and in the center of it, a man emitted hazy steam.
Terry, half-dazed from the recoil of the muscles he had squeezed to their limit just moments before, was panting heavily.
"Huh…! Huh…!"
But only for a moment. Quickly catching his breath, Terry saw the splattered blood nearby and grinned fiercely.
"Ha…! You crazy bastard, acting so tough…!"
A smile of relief, certain that his opponent had fallen. Just as he was about to relax his tense body while wearing that smile,
───Thump!
A streak of smoke shot out like an awl, and the one who emerged was.
"Oh…!"
Garrick.
Despite the blood splattered everywhere, the wounds all over his body had long since regenerated.
"Indeed…! So that's what it was!"
Garrick, looking as if he had figured something out, wore a meaningful expression and made some kind of assumption.
Naturally, Terry, who couldn't understand this,
"What the hell are you talking about?!"
Reacted irritably, but Garrick continued speaking as if he hadn't heard him.
"Yeah, that's what it was!"
Now, Garrick suddenly looked at Terry with a sad face, his gaze deep.
"You…! You wanted to burn your last moments brightly, didn't you?"
"What the…"
Garrick's eyes welled up with tears.
"Somehow, you seemed so weak for an A-rank… a terminal illness… right?"
Feeling a strange fear towards Garrick, who had fallen into such a frighteningly serious delusion,
Terry had no choice but to silently readjust his stance with a stiff expression.
"I, Garrick, as a man to a man, will thoroughly watch over your final moments."
"What the hell are you spouting…!"
Terry, gritting his teeth, once again carefully stepped forward and lunged at Garrick.
His body hadn't fully recovered from the recoil of the technique he had used just before, but Terry suppressed it with sheer force of will…
─Kwaang!
Blow.
─Wunggg!
Uppercut.
That fist, capable of shattering even rock,
Garrick simply accepted it head-on with both arms wide open.
"You can do more! Remember yourself before you were hurting! Burn even brighter!"
No, beyond that, he was genuinely cheering for Terry.
"You crazy bastard…!"
Terry shifted up another gear and threw punches at an incredible speed.
─Peoeok!
Blow.
─Pak!
Hook.
Even so, it was the fist of a Physical System A-rank. Moreover, it was aimed only at the vitals of a completely defenseless opponent.
But Garrick didn't budge. He merely scolded him with an even more resolute expression.
"More, more, you little shit! It's your last chance!"
"Aaaaaargh!!"
In an instant, Terry's eyes flashed, and he unleashed a straight punch with all his might.
Terry's decisive blow, using up all the energy in his body, pierced Garrick's vitals.
───Kkwaang!
The shockwave from that punch cleared all the dust in the area.
No matter how strong Garrick was, he wouldn't be able to withstand this attack.
Terry looked up at Garrick with a triumphant smile.
At the same time, something hot dripped onto Terry's forearm.
It wasn't blood, but,
"Keuheuk…!"
Tears.
A man's hot tears.
"Your will… I understand it well."
Garrick was crying.
"I'll send you off handsome.”
Mental System A(?)
Sympathy
Mental System Specialist.
Garrick All Damon.
His mental ability was a powerful 'self-hypnosis' that was strong enough to affect his entire physical ability.
Garrick, mistaking Terry, who was far weaker than he had initially thought, to be so because of a
Terminal illness.
Soaked in the sympathy evoked by that delusion, Garrick had now become the man who would receive Terry's last flame!
Garrick, now with tears streaming down his face, struck down with his fist sorrowfully.
─────Thuuk!
The heavy sound of destruction reverberated nearby.
Terry, struck directly on the crown of his head, was slammed into the ground like a nail.
"Keuh…!"
Even in that state, Terry twitched weakly. Garrick, now with a resolute expression, took the double-bladed axe he had been carrying on his back,
"Terry! I'll remember you!"
He conveyed a heart-stirring sincerity(?) to the target he would forget as soon as his self-hypnosis wore off.
With that, he crossed the two axes and raised them high.
It was a near-masterpiece from the North,
To.
And Reu.
Garrick didn't know which was 'To' and which was 'Reu'; he just called them whatever he felt like.
"Goodbye."
As he said his reluctant farewell and clashed the crossed axes together,
Kwaang—!
Kwarung──!
A bolt of lightning struck down from the sky, enveloping the two axes.
At the same time, Garrick brought the axes down on Terry.
＊ ＊ ＊
….
I had lost too much blood.
To make matters worse, my opponent's ability was Phenomenal System, completely the opposite of mine.
To be precise, the problem was that the parameters of that Phenomenal System were A-rank.
The Phenomenal System is treated as the most extreme among the 4 Systems.
In other words, the difference between its low and high points is stark.
Broadly speaking, it's the duplication of objects; deeply, it's the manifestation of intangible thoughts. Furthermore, it even manifests thoughts, ideas, and will.
Therefore, it is inherently and thoroughly the polar opposite of the Weapon System, which wields mastery while holding a tangible object.
And now, I was keenly feeling that wall of opposition.
Those blade-shaped streaks emanating from my opponent's fingernails.
Those were probably the result of their sadistic tendencies manifesting.
Despite having the power to easily cut through steel, they had no weight,
Yet they were exquisite weapons that could be wielded simply by flicking a finger.
My cheap weapon couldn't handle it.
It would break after just a few clashes.
That's why I had to thoroughly guard my sword and evade until now, and as a result, I had ended up in this state.
But unintentionally, an opportunity had arisen.
"Alright, here I come? Left knee!"
The one who had now entered the game stage against me was openly aiming only for my left knee.
This one chance,
I couldn't miss it.
To the one presenting ten lines of death to me just by moving their fingers intricately,
I would land a blow.
For the first time, I actively swung my sword, drawing chaotic trajectories, and consecutively struck down three of their constricting streaks.
Thanks to that, the blade of my sword became dangerously chipped, but it didn't matter.
More than the blade,
As long as the sword's body itself was intact, that was enough.
Concentrating my gaze on the narrow gap created by sacrificing the blade,
I instantaneously exploded with all my strength!
Weapon System B
Horizontal Slash
The swung sword turned red.
───!
From the tip of that red-hot sword, a small straight line of sword energy erupted with a ringing sound.
This was the ability of my Weapon System, 'Swordsmanship.'
Its content was the ability to emit a portion of the sword's trajectory.
The intangible straight line trajectory that left the sword's tip struck Emilia directly.
Perhaps they hadn't expected a dying mouse to suddenly fight back.
Emilia, directly hit by the sword energy,
"Aaaaaargh──!!"
Staggered backward with a piercing scream.
In the process, something rained down onto the floor.
Fingers,
Three of them.
Their Physical System was weak, about C-rank?
I didn't miss the opportunity and adopted a stance to draw the next horizontal slash, but,
"You goddamn…!"
Emilia, seeing that, was easily thwarted with just two fingers.
"Keuheuk!"
Two streaks pierced my shoulder and thigh cleanly.
"Damn it! If you're a toy, act like one!"
Emilia, her face twisting into a hideous expression with a scream close to the sound of metal, nonetheless,
"Ah… no way! My fingers…!"
Frantically picked up the fingers that had fallen to the floor.
To be this flustered, did she really not think she would be attacked at all?
Instinctively, I wedged my five senses into that unexpectedness.
Then, calculations flashed through my mind like a panorama of falling.
Two streaks were piercing me,
Three fingers were on the floor,
The remaining intact hand was being used to retrieve the fallen fingers.
Even the pierced areas, shoulder and thigh, weren't critical vitals.
This meant that even in that situation, my opponent hadn't abandoned their instinctive sadism and obsession with me.
Having finished all my calculations at the end of a split second, I didn't hesitate.
With my shoulder and thigh still pierced, I twisted my body and readjusted my grip on the sword.
Emilia, feeling my movement through her two fingers, showed an extreme reaction.
"I told you to stay still!!"
As she bent her two fingers, the two streaks piercing me also pointed downwards and slammed into the floor.
Crack!—
For a moment, the pain of bone and flesh being torn apart made me almost lose consciousness.
Nevertheless, I was able to straighten my posture with even less effort than before.
Because the two streaks stuck in the floor had become supports for me, conversely.
At my appearance, Emilia's eyes widened grotesquely,
"Huh? Uh-oh?!"
She hurriedly threw away the fingers she had barely picked up and frantically tried to add her remaining five fingers towards me.
Horizontal Slash
But by then, the sword had already been swung.
The sword energy unleashed while pierced, grazed her once.
Not stopping there, I continued to swing my sword.
The sword's body began to melt from the heat, and accordingly, the deformed, terrible sword energy spurted out in all directions.
Even so, I didn't stop my sword.
Just as I was about to squeeze out my last strength to swing the sword,
─Thud!
My whole body suddenly slumped down.
The two streaks that had been piercing me had disappeared.
….
It's over.
"Hah…."
No sooner had I let out a long breath than my body fell backward.
I couldn't even tell if the darkness that spread above me was the sky or the color of my closed eyelids.
"What a perfectly good day to die."
"Die my ass. You're already regenerating."
I was trying to be sentimental for once, but a head suddenly popped into my view, breaking my reverie.
"Wow, as expected… I told you, right? You're definitely an A-rank superhuman!"
"Shut your mouth, Garrick."
"How does it feel to step onto the shortcut?"
"Still crawling through the present."
Garrick chuckled at my grumbling and sat down next to me.
"Hey, Yohan. We have to move right away."
"Can't you just leave me here?"
"Is that even a question? We need to find that Senghus or whatever quickly."
＊ ＊ ＊
"Hey, are you crazy? Why are you going there?!"
The short blonde man in the passenger seat exclaimed, trying to stop him, but the long black-haired man in the driver's seat didn't even pretend to listen.
At his cold reaction, the short blonde man sized him up before immediately changing his attitude.
"Your dad will take care of everything…."
As if mocking him, the woman sitting in the back seat suddenly leaned forward and squeezed between them.
"Idiot, are you scared?"
Then, she kissed the man in the driver's seat on the cheek and playfully whispered,
"Senghus is above the law, what can they possibly do to him? Right, right?"
The man in the driver's seat, Senghus Tail, gave a sinister smile in response.
The blonde man, who had been silently observing their reactions, finally couldn't take it anymore and blurted out his pent-up worry.
"Why don't you listen to your dad even now? There's still some time before your flight…."
"Aish, then get the fuck out, you little shit."
However, Senghus, with an agitated expression, slammed on the brakes and simply tapped the man's cheek once.
"Why should I leave here? All those Deliverer bastards are going to die anyway, just like last time. This time, I'll make sure to show it to them live."
With that, Senghus took out his SWAP and tapped the forehead of the man in the passenger seat with it.
"You know what's funny? The bastards living here will suck up anything as long as it's stimulating, you know? If we show them the law or whatever those Deliverers have getting crushed, all those bastards will change their tune, you watch."
"Even so, the current situation is…."
"Ha, fuck. It's just an accident, right? Huh? It's not like I was in my right mind, and it's just two dead people, what's the big deal? Those inferiority-complex bastards in that citizens' alliance are stirring things up, so all the beggars are getting riled up, aren't they? Huh?!"
The woman, who had been looking at the SWAP, then added nonchalantly,
"Hey, there are tons of people asking when you're going to upload the video and when the next race is? Saying they're only waiting for you, telling you to hang in there? Hey, look at this, Senghus, you got two points. Hehe!"
Disgusted by the two of them, the man shook his head and carefully got out of the car.
"Yeah, get lost, you little shit."
Senghus, throwing him a look full of contempt, arrogantly drove the car and sped towards the outskirts of the city.
"Oppa, is it here?"
"Shut up for a bit."
Senghus, his nerves on edge, rolled his eyes around as he drove through the deserted outskirts.
Then, in the distance, a place that clearly looked like some kind of incident had occurred came into view.
"Crazy, Oppa, look at that. It's completely destroyed."
"It's totally wrecked. Looks like it's already over?"
The two, thoroughly excited, drove the car deeper in.
Soon, the car, having spotted something, stopped on the spot.
In front of them,
Were two men with bewildered expressions, looking a complete mess.
