Chapter Season 2 733

Translator: Alpha0210

Las faltered and stepped backward.

Only then did he realize that this was what people commonly called ‘backing away’.

His jaw would not move, as though it had frozen stiff, while his throat, by contrast, felt parched dry.

‘What the hell is going on?’

His head was a jumble of questions, but even at a moment like this, Las had subconsciously realized what the symptoms he was experiencing meant. After all, countless beings had shown the same reaction before him.

And yet, he could not bring himself to acknowledge it, because never once in his life had he experienced an emotion like this.

‘No.’

Las shook his head.

‘This isn’t fear.’

He was feeling something else.

Maybe he was tired.

Perhaps the battle with that wench just now had drained more of his mental strength than he had expected. Though they had been weakened and he had fought them one at a time, he had still faced two Archdukes. It was only natural.

So, this was.

“Rest easy.”

“…….”

For an instant, Las’s expression relaxed. Then he flinched in surprise, his face turned cold, and finally it blazed with fury.

A succession of emotions surged through him in the span of an instant, but the last one he felt was rage.

It was not merely because of the man’s arrogant tone.

What truly enraged him was himself, for feeling relieved by what that man had just said.

“…You certainly spout amusing nonsense.”

Las’s lips twisted.

“Looks like you have one or two unusual tricks up your sleeve. But you’ve gone too far. A bluff only means something until the moment it’s exposed.”

“That word doesn’t suit me very well.”

“Have you come to pay me back for the humiliation at the temple? So you made thorough preparations before tracking me down. I’ll admit, you got me there.”

“…….”

The other man gave him a bored look, but Las was certain he had hit the mark.

Once he had seen through the man’s intentions, there was no longer any reason to be swayed by him. As proof, the oppressive sensation from moments ago was gone.

Las now had enough composure to even wear a faint smile.

“Rest easy? Just who do you think you’re saying that to? Do you even know who I am– no. You aren’t even worthy of knowing. You have incurred my displeasure. For that alone, you deserve to die in the cruelest way possible. Lukas Trowman, the human I came here for. I’ll make you die even more painfully than him.”

“Well, now.”

“What?”

“It seems our goals coincide.”

The man, Residue, sat down on a suitable rock. His gaze briefly shifted toward the unconscious Iris, then toward Schweiser’s grave beyond her. The grave was slightly damaged, but she had kept the remains intact. Impressive woman.

“So that human is your target as well?”

“That’s right.”

“Then why did you come here?”

“Because you were about to cross the line.”

“…You lunatic.”

“I’ve been hearing that insult rather often lately. For the record, my mind is always perfectly lucid. More importantly… you’ve been doing far too much of the talking. Let’s do this. From now on, every time you say something pointless, I’ll cut off one of your limbs.”

“Bullsh–.”

His vision seemed to flash.

A moment later, Las’s body lurched sideways. For the first time in thousands of years, the balance of his body was thrown off.

There was a burning smell nearby. It was a smell he knew well.

The smell of blood and flesh burning.

“Gaaagh……!”

Las screamed as he clutched the stump of his severed arm.

His right arm dropped limply to the ground. Whatever had cut it, not a single drop of blood fell from the severed surface.

“I have no intention of killing you. There’s no reason to. Put another way, though, if even the slightest reason comes up, I can kill you. Understand?”

“M-my arm, my arm…….”

“First time you’ve lost an arm? Seems like it. And as an aside, now I understand why someone with potential on Lord’s level remained only a partial Absolute for tens of thousands of years.”

“What are you… talking about……?”

“I’m saying the average level of this universe is pathetically low. Low enough that even trash like you had trouble finding a worthy opponent. No crisis means no growth. Must I really explain even this to you?”

Residue wore the expression of someone who thought he had explained things perfectly well, but Las could not understand what the man was talking about.

Residue frowned slightly before continuing.

“No. Is that not quite it? ‘Dragons’. Very few Demigods ever fought them, and Lord dealt with most of them himself. Fools like you only fought specimens that hadn’t fully matured or were already on death’s door. It was more like playing a game than fighting a battle.”

“What… are you saying……?”

“Overprotection is something worth thinking about too. How does it feel to have spent thousands of years as an infant?”

“What you’re saying, I do not understand.”

“A baby. I said a baby. You don’t know what a baby is? Waaah.”

The instant Residue snapped his fingers, something flashed again.

“Graaagh!”

Las screamed.

The pain he had felt in his right arm now struck his left.

Had his senses sharpened because of the pain and fear?

This time, Las saw what had severed his arm.

“L-lightning. You used lightning? You… like Indra…….”

“You have absolutely no sense of scale. You can’t go mistaking the sun for a match flame.”

Both of his arms had been severed before he could even react.

And Residue was still looking at him as though he were some insignificant creature.

At that moment, Las’s patience finally ran out. His anger had overtaken his fear of the unknown.

Even without his arms, Las still had means of fighting. His ten legs, the very ones that had defeated two Archdukes, remained intact.

With a monstrous roar, Las charged toward Residue. His rigid legs went soft and pliant, changing their nature as they had before. Possessing terrifying elasticity, they lashed toward his enemy like whips.

Residue snapped his fingers. In truth, even that was unnecessary– and the legs that had not suffered so much as a scratch in the previous battle were destroyed all at once.

“…What is this?”

Las muttered blankly.

“You keep making a nuisance of yourself. It’s making me reconsider what to do with you.”

“Y-you, what the hell are you? Why are you trying to kill me?”

“Because you’ve become a nuisance. And killing you doesn’t seem likely to cause any major change in the future. For one thing, you weren’t around four thousand years from now. In other words, you were destined to die before the main event even began.”

Once again, he said something Las could not understand.

Watching Residue slowly approach, Las spoke urgently.

“I-is it because I insulted you that you want to kill me? What happened back then was–.”

“What insult?”

“What……? Didn’t I slap you across the face at the temple……?”

“…Ah. That did happen.”

Residue nodded and said,

“Don’t worry. The reason you’re dying has nothing to do with that. Who considers being bitten by a bug an insult?”

“A bug……? Me…….”

Grit.

Las ground his teeth and shouted.

“Don’t make me laugh……!”

With a monstrous roar, Las charged once more.

The instant Residue’s gaze turned toward him, another bolt of lightning crashed down from the clear sky.

And no more voices could be heard in the desert oasis.

***

He had not intended to kill him.

There had been no lie in his first words.

Residue looked at Las, now reduced to blackened charcoal, and thought.

Originally, he had not intended to reveal himself. Considering what lay ahead, from this point onward he had planned to avoid revealing ‘Residue’ to this world whenever possible.

So why had he broken that resolve, shown himself, and disposed of this piece of trash?

“…….”

Because of this woman, unconscious and lying there as though dead.

He glanced over, wondering if the commotion just now had woken her, but she was still unconscious.

“Getting stubborn over something pointless.”

He had more or less grasped the situation.

Iris PeaceFinder could simply have let Las leave.

That insect could not kill Lukas anyway. The Blue Knight was beside him. …Of course, there was no way Iris could have known that.

She knew Pale was with him, but she probably had no idea whatsoever how monstrous that woman’s power was.

He understood.

He understood, but.

“…….”

For some reason, Residue felt the urge to rap the unconscious Iris on the forehead with his knuckles, but decided against it in case she woke up and made things troublesome.

“Pointless stubbornness… but I suppose it’s like you.”

Residue murmured.

“Get some proper rest. You have plenty to do from here on as well.”

The sun was slowly beginning to set.

Residue looked toward Sarman.

***

There was one question Residue had carried with him all along.

–If Lukas had to die, why did I choose this particular point in time?

Judging from all the information he had pieced together, the right to decide where the ‘Passage’ would take him had belonged entirely to Residue.

And he could have killed Lukas at any moment.

Immediately after he was born, while he was living in the orphanage, when he had only just begun Magical Studies, when he made friends he truly got along with, when he received instruction from his master… and not only then.

…Four thousand years later, when he opened his eyes in Frey Blake’s body. When he prepared in that body to fight the Demigods. When he finally defeated Lord and encountered God…….

…When he became an Absolute, when he declared himself the god of humanity, when he first reached the Top Universe, when he saved the universe while holding on to hope, when he grew utterly exhausted by such acts and gradually began to wear away…….

…When, after countless twists and turns, he returned to his home universe, when he was then dragged into the World of Void, when even there all he did was wander…….

At every one of those moments, Residue could have killed Lukas.

Yet on The Island, Residue had deliberately chosen this particular point in time.

He had chosen the moment just before Lukas was sealed within the Bottomless Pit.

Now he knew why.

Because Lukas’s mind had not yet been tempered at this point.

…Soon, Lukas would be imprisoned in the Bottomless Pit. No one at this point in time realized it, but that period of absence was, in truth, a period of growth.

There, Lukas would temper his mind over four thousand years. By the time he finally opened his eyes in Frey Blake’s body, he would already possess an indomitable will that could no longer be broken.

From that point onward, Lukas would become a hero bordering on perfection.

No matter how trials came crashing over him like waves, no matter how much crises made him suffer, he would never give up.

But not now.

The Lukas of this time was lacking in many ways, inexperienced, and fragile.

Fragile enough that even a tiny part of Agolet’s scheme could shatter his mind and leave him broken.

That was why it had to be now.

This was the only time Lukas Trowman could be driven to give up.

Residue suddenly stopped in his tracks and said,

“This is what you wanted, wasn’t it? Blue Knight.”

“…….”

Pale, leaning beneath the shade of a tree, smiled brightly.

“I really like Residue.”

“…….”

“I like Residue second only to Lukas. Because Residue is the only one in the world who can lighten Lukas’s burden.”

“…….”

“If all you do is make him give up, then it means nothing. That alone won’t make the Unified World’s ‘Fifth Destruction’ disappear. ‘Lukas’ will still remain the ‘Fifth Destruction’. But–.”

“If I become the Great Mage in place of the Lukas who gives up at this point.”

Pale’s smile deepened.

“Residue will be imprisoned in the Bottomless Pit instead of Lukas, endure four thousand years, and then awaken afterward as Frey Blake,”

“…….”

“…wipe out all the Demigods, meet God, save the universe while pretending to be humanity’s god– and that way, you can perfectly play ‘Lukas Trowman’, right? Residue.”

“I can. Because I remember every single path he walked.”

And now,

Residue already possessed a body identical to Lukas’s.

“There’s nothing difficult about it, Residue. Lukas has done enough. He’s struggled so much, and suffered so much. But for all of that to end with him dying as a Destruction… I can’t accept that.”

“…….”

“So do it in his place, Residue. Please? Live as Lukas, and then die as the Fifth Destruction.”

Residue did not answer.

Even so, Pale gave a slight smile as though she had heard an answer that satisfied her, then left.

…Nothing difficult about it? She wasn’t wrong.

It might be a little boring, and he might get fed up with it halfway through, but there was nothing difficult about it.

All he had to do was follow exactly the same path Lukas had walked.

“So no one in the world will ever know, but at this point, the real Lukas disappears. How about that. Isn’t this truly the ‘death of Lukas Trowman’?”

Residue murmured to himself, then shook his head.

“There’ll be a lot to deceive. Not only everyone connected to Lukas, but myself, and even the world.”

To an observer in the Unified World, it would happen in an instant.

In the blink of an eye, the Fifth Destruction would simply change from ‘Lukas’ to ‘Residue’.

But the road Residue would have to walk was long.

Inconceivably long.

So long that even Residue, who had already lived a lengthy life, could not see its end.

And by the time that journey ended, Residue would probably have become no different from Lukas himself…….

…Then all I would have to do was willingly offer my neck to those who sought to eliminate me, the Fifth Destruction.

*****

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