Chapter 290: The First Life He Took

Yuuta stepped away from the refrigerator and slowly walked toward the end of the narrow passage. The main street was only a few steps ahead, illuminated by damaged streetlights that still somehow continued working despite the destruction around them. Somewhere beyond those buildings were the same demons that had chased him across the city and killed the officers who had tried to protect him.

Every step toward them felt wrong.

Until now, Yuuta had always been running away from danger. Even inside the dungeon, when death had come for him several times, survival had usually meant finding some way to escape whatever was trying to kill him.

Now he was deliberately walking toward it.

Yuuta stopped just before reaching the street.

His legs were trembling.

He looked down at them and clenched his teeth.

Seriously? Now?

Yuuta took a deep breath and tried to remember everything he had survived before tonight.

Don’t be afraid.

He had faced death several times already. He had survived the dungeon. He had trained under Isvarn, and although the old dragon had nearly driven him insane more than once, Yuuta had finally learned how to channel aura properly.

I can fight.

His legs continued trembling.

Yuuta stared at them for a second.

"...Very convincing."

Apparently, telling himself not to be afraid wasn’t enough to make the fear disappear.

But maybe that was fine.

Yuuta didn’t need to stop being afraid.

He only needed to walk forward.

His gaze moved across the debris scattered around the passage until he noticed a broken wooden stick lying beside the wall. It looked like part of some destroyed furniture, roughly the length of his arm and thick enough to hold comfortably.

Yuuta picked it up.

He turned it once in his hand and tightened his grip.

It wasn’t a sword.

It wasn’t even a proper weapon.

But Isvarn’s training hadn’t depended entirely on what Yuuta was holding. What mattered was whether he could channel his aura through it.

Yuuta looked toward the main street again.

"Let’s do it."

He stepped out.

The glow of the streetlights immediately fell across him.

Above the road, the Poison Demons had spread out to search the surrounding streets and buildings after losing sight of him. Some hovered near rooftops while others glided slowly between buildings, their long black robes moving behind them.

One of the demons turned and immediately spotted him.

"There he is! Warden, I found him!"

The others began turning toward the shout, but Yuuta’s attention remained on the demon closest to him. Seeing the creature clearly still made his stomach twist.

Its distorted face and glowing violet eyes were hideous enough to make every instinct warn him that what stood above him wasn’t human, yet compared to that monsters he had encountered inside the dungeon, its appearance alone wasn’t enough to make him run.

The difference was what these creatures had done.

Yuuta remembered the civilians screaming after discovering their eyes were gone, followed by the officers who had tried to save him only to be swallowed by poison.

The monsters in the dungeon had wanted to kill him, but these demons had laughed while hurting people.

Remembering that laughter didn’t remove Yuuta’s fear, but it gave him something stronger to stand beside it.

The demon above him reached beneath its black robe and produced another spherical bottle filled with violet liquid.

Yuuta recognized the poison immediately, and his heartbeat accelerated as the memory of it eating through metal and flesh flashed through his mind.

Every instinct told him to dodge as he had done before, but this time Yuuta tightened both hands around the wooden stick and remained where he was.

The demon smiled and threw the bottle.

It crossed the distance between them at inhuman speed.

Yuuta closed his eyes and concentrated on everything Isvarn had taught him, forcing himself to ignore the fear screaming at him to move.

He felt the aura inside his body and guided it through his arm, wrist and fingers until it reached the piece of wood in his hands.

Don’t think of it as something separate. The stick is part of my body.

The sensation was difficult to maintain at first.

The aura wanted to remain within him, but Yuuta continued pushing it outward until he finally felt it spreading through the wood.

The ordinary stick became strangely familiar in his grip, almost like an extension of his arm rather than an object he happened to be holding.

Then Yuuta noticed something that made his concentration deepen.

Even with his eyes closed, he could feel the bottle approaching.

He didn’t understand how. There was no time to understand it. He simply knew where it was coming from, how quickly it was approaching and exactly when it would reach him.

Yuuta planted one foot against the pavement and swung.

The aura-covered stick struck the bottle with a violent crack. Instead of shattering against Yuuta, the bottle was knocked backward with even greater force, spinning through the air toward the demon that had thrown it.

The demon’s smile vanished.

"What....?!"

It tried to move, but the bottle was already there.

Glass shattered against its chest, and purple poison burst across its body.

Yuuta remained where he was, still gripping the wooden stick as he stared at what he had just done. His hands were trembling again and his heart was pounding hard enough to hurt, but for the first time since the demons began chasing him, he hadn’t escaped one of their attacks.

He had sent it back.

The demon looked down at the shattered bottle on its chest as the violet poison spread across its robe.

"How...?"

Its confusion lasted only a second before the pain hit.

"AAAAAAARGH!"

The demon clawed desperately at its chest, but the poison only spread farther across its body. Its flight became unstable, and it crashed onto the road, screaming and thrashing as the same substance it had thrown at Yuuta rapidly ate through it.

"HOW?! HOW DID A HUMAN.....?!"

Its words collapsed into another scream.

Yuuta stood frozen with the wooden stick still raised.

A few seconds ago, he had been almost relieved. He had done it. Isvarn’s training had worked, his aura had responded when he needed it, and for once he hadn’t been forced to run.

Then the demon stopped moving.

Its scream ended.

Yuuta’s relief disappeared with it.

His eyes widened as he stared at the remains on the road, where the poison continued bubbling and hissing around what was left of the demon.

The wooden stick slipped several centimeters through his fingers.

I killed him.

Yuuta’s stomach turned.

He had seen people die before. Tonight alone, he had watched more death than he ever wanted to see again, but this was different in a way his mind hadn’t been prepared for.

I did that.

His hand had swung the stick.

He had sent the bottle back.

That demon had been alive only seconds ago. Yuuta had swung the stick to save himself, but his own hands had still sent the bottle back.

And now it was dead.

Yuuta suddenly felt sick. His breathing became uneven, and for a moment his fingers wouldn’t stop trembling around the stick. Somewhere in the back of his mind came memories of Sister Mary’s teachings from childhood about valuing life, showing kindness to others, and never treating another person’s life as something he had the right to casually take away.

"But..."

Yuuta stared at the remains.

It was a demon.

It had chased him while he was carrying Elena. It had helped slaughter innocent people. It had thrown that poison intending to cripple or kill him.

None of those facts changed what Yuuta was feeling.

He had killed for the first time.

There was no satisfaction in it.

No excitement.

Only a horrible weight in his chest and the realization that if he wanted to survive tonight, he might have to do it again.

Yuuta’s thoughts immediately went to the refrigerator hidden between the buildings.

Elena.

His trembling fingers tightened around the stick.

If I don’t fight, they’ll kill me.

And then they would keep searching.

They could find her.

Yuuta swallowed hard.

He didn’t suddenly become comfortable with what he had done. He couldn’t. But he also understood that the demons weren’t going to stop because he was uncomfortable with killing them.

Above him, the remaining Poison Demons had gone silent.

Their attention moved from their dead companion to the human standing below.

"A mere human..."

One of them bared its teeth.

"He killed one of us!"

Vezrath’s expression twisted with rage.

"Attack him!"

The demons immediately spread out above the street and reached beneath their robes. Several violet bottles appeared in their hands at once, surrounding Yuuta with threats from different directions.

Yuuta looked up at them.

His face was pale, his stomach still churned from what he had just done, and the wooden stick trembled slightly between his fingers.

But he didn’t run.

He tightened his grip.

I’m sorry, Sister Mary.

The demons drew their arms back.

But I have to survive.

The Poison Demons attacked almost immediately. A bottle came hurtling toward Yuuta, and he gripped the wooden stick with both hands before swinging with everything he had. Aura surged through the wood as it struck the bottle and knocked it away, but before Yuuta could even recover from the movement, another demon threw from above.

Yuuta saw it coming and swung again.

CRACK!

The bottle flew away from him, only for two more to follow almost simultaneously.

"Shit!"

Yuuta couldn’t repel both. He threw himself sideways and barely escaped as the bottles passed him and shattered against the road, purple poison splashing across the pavement. He scrambled back to his feet, but another attack was already coming, forcing him to swing again before he had even regained his balance.

The demons weren’t stopping.

Every time Yuuta knocked one bottle away, another appeared behind it. Sometimes two came together, forcing him to dodge instead, and with each desperate movement his exhausted body became slower. His arms were beginning to ache from swinging the stick, sweat ran down his face, and panic steadily overwhelmed the concentration he needed to maintain his aura.

I’m going to die.

Yuuta barely knocked another bottle away.

I’m going to die.

The thought wouldn’t leave.

He had survived so much already, but none of that seemed to matter here. There were too many demons surrounding him, they could attack from above, and he was already exhausted before this fight had even begun. One mistake was all it would take for that poison to touch him.

If I die, I can’t go back...

Yuuta’s eyes widened.

Elena.

She was sitting inside that refrigerator because he had promised he would return for her.

If he died here, Elena wouldn’t simply lose him. She would be left alone in the middle of this nightmare, waiting for Papa to open a door that would never open.

Yuuta’s fear intensified for a moment before another realization struck him even harder.

*And if I die...*

He would never see Erza again.

Yuuta froze for a fraction of a second as her face appeared in his mind. He remembered her smile, the awkward way she sometimes looked away from him when embarrassed, and then the expression she had worn during their argument.

The tears.

The pain in her eyes.

The way she had left.

His own words returned with painful clarity.

If Yuuta died tonight, those would remain his final words to her.

He would never get the chance to find her and apologize. He would never be able to tell her that he regretted everything he had said, that he didn’t hate her, that he never wanted her to disappear from his life.

No.

Yuuta tightened his grip around the stick.

No!

He forced his trembling legs beneath him and stood properly.

"I WON’T DIE!"

Yuuta screamed with everything in his lungs, his voice tearing through the ruined street.

"NOT UNTIL I SEE ERZA AGAIN!"

His crimson eyes burned with desperation as he looked toward the demons above him.

"I’M NOT DYING TODAY!"

Vezrath’s expression hardened.

"Then die trying."

The Poison Demons raised their hands.

Yuuta’s breath caught.

It wasn’t one bottle this time.

Every demon had several.

They threw them almost simultaneously.

Yuuta stared upward as several dozen violet bottles descended toward him from different directions, each one traveling with inhuman speed. The streetlights caught the glass as they fell, flashes of purple surrounding him until it seemed there was nowhere left to dodge.

Yuuta’s fingers tightened around the wooden stick.

There was no opening to run through.

No direction he could jump.

If he tried to repel them one at a time, the others would reach him before he finished the first swing.

Yuuta stared at the approaching storm of poison.

Then his grip on the stick shifted.

To Be Continued...