Chapter 225 : Chapter 225
Chapter : 225
The Quest had changed.
Before I could properly check it, a wind as sharp as a blade grazed past my cheek.
When I turned my head toward the direction the wind had come from, I saw Lucian and Ouroboros facing each other.
The moment I saw that scene, memories from several years ago surged over me like a tide.
It was a scene I had already seen once before.
Where, you ask? In the game, of course.
This scene was close to the final fight between Lucian and Lerwon Sunbae.
The exception was that the one facing Lucian was not Lerwon Sunbae, but Iris.
If there was another exception, it was that several companions were somehow fighting Iris together for Lucian’s sake.
BOOM!
With a roar, a figure shot past Theo’s side.
Judging by the color of his hair, it was Zephyros.
It had happened before he could even control himself with wind.
｢Zephyros stops｣
When I hurriedly wrote the words, Zephyros, who had seemed ready to crash all the way into the end of the space, stopped and dropped to the floor with a FLUMP.
You idiot, that was dangerous! If he had struck like that, he might have landed spine-first and died instantly.
“Hey, is your body all right?”
I limped a little as I approached Zephyros and asked.
“Does this look all right to you?”
“No, it does not.”
I had thought of using healing magic, but Zephyros waved his hand as if it did not matter.
“Save your mana.”
“All right.”
There was no telling how I might end up using magic again.
Instead, I shoved an Elixir into his mouth.
Iris had been driving us back one-sidedly without even giving us time to drink Elixirs.
“What about Lerwon Sunbae?”
“He is stable for now. Though he has been cursed again.”
“Is that not dangerous?”
“We just need to keep everyone here quiet.”
I was a little worried about Fel and Hartain, but the two of them could somehow be persuaded.
The problem might come from elsewhere instead, unexpectedly.
“Do we have time to chat among ourselves right now?”
“There is no way we do.”
Zephyros answered flatly and leapt into the battlefield, where sounds like bursting stars rang out.
It was deeply regrettable that I had to jump in there too.
Since it seemed dangerous to bring them in with me, I took Lou and Albedo out from my arms and placed them on Lerwon Sunbae’s body, where he still lay unconscious.
“If things go wrong, protect Sunbae.”
《Even if I have to draw out the power of my true body?》
“Even then.”
After all, that sharp-eyed Ferdiel guy seemed to have noticed already.
Thinking about how he would interrogate me later gave me a headache.
“I’m counting on you, Albedo, Lou.”
Leaving that small request behind, I threw myself willingly into the storm-like space without looking back.
---
The snake’s venomous fangs came fiercely for Lucian’s neck.
The Holy Sword and the fangs collided, and sparks crackled.
Those sparks grazed past Lucian’s cheek.
“Kh!”
Ouroboros’s combat ability itself was not that high.
But dealing with him could not be fully described by a word as simple as difficult.
Unless they used the power of the Holy Sword, the thing called Blessing, people lost their will to fight in an instant.
That was a natural reaction. It was not easy to reject fear engraved upon the soul.
The second troublesome thing was, as expected—
“Dodge!”
Lucian blocked the blood sword headed for Mordin with the Holy Sword.
The Holy Sword’s sacred light completely shattered the blood sword and perfectly purified even the blood, which possessed a poison so extreme it could corrode the floor.
Lucian was, in the truest sense, Ouroboros’s natural enemy.
‘I see.’
There had been a reason for going through such a complicated process to make absolutely sure he woke up.
The reason Iris Viden had incapacitated him with that carefully crafted curse must have been this as well.
There was no way Ouroboros did not know that.
The person who ought to be killed first was, as expected, Lucian.
Yet the giant snake’s fangs were aiming at Mordin.
‘Dangerous!’
At the killing-intent-filled attack, Lucian lowered his body, moved swiftly to Mordin’s side, and pushed away the fangs with the Holy Sword.
At that moment, the snake smiled maliciously.
The snake’s tail surged up from beneath his feet and began coiling around Lucian’s body, crushing him.
“Kh!”
It was a trap.
It had known that if it attacked as though it intended to kill one of them, Lucian would rush in to save them before weighing anything else.
‘How cunning.’
Lucian faintly furrowed his brow at the immense pressure.
He had to break free, but the snake’s strength was too great.
It was not as if he had never been caught like this while training against monsters in the Repository, but Ouroboros was far stronger than the monsters in those illusions.
“Urgh.”
His breathing was gradually growing ragged.
The other sunbaes and Mordin were also attacking somehow to free Lucian, but it was not enough.
Ouroboros seemed determined not to let him go until Lucian suffocated to death.
But Lucian was not shaken by something merely on that level.
If he could not endure even an attack like this, how could he promise victory to anyone?
A grinding CRRRK rang out, and Ouroboros’s body slowly began to be pushed back.
The sound grew even more grotesque, and Lucian, now completely freed, shouted.
“Lilia Sunbae!”
Hearing that cry, Lilia threw her rapier.
Lilia’s advantage came from her speed and great strength.
But that was also her weakness. There were not many weapons capable of withstanding Lilia’s speed and power.
No matter how extraordinary the swordsmith who made a sword especially for Lilia was, if it lasted long, it lasted a month. If it was an ordinary rapier, it was impressive if it endured a single day.
In that case, she simply had to carry dozens of disposable rapiers.
However, that would make her look bizarre, walking around with dozens of rapiers dangling from her, so what she had devised was a weapon shaped like a palm-sized stick that became a rapier when extended.
Ten swords had already broken while facing Iris, but she had brought more than several dozen, so handing over one posed no problem at all.
The small stick cut through the air and landed in Lucian’s hand, becoming a rapier and piercing Ouroboros’s flesh.
Though it should have been painful for the rapier to sink deep into his flesh, the rapier embedded in Ouroboros’s flesh instead melted from the poison.
The moment Lucian was startled at the sight of it seeming ready to melt away completely, a familiar voice came from above his head.
“You are not giving up already, are you?”
Lucian answered as he used the Holy Sword to pry open the wound the rapier had made.
“There is no way I would.”
Unlike the rapier, the Holy Sword did not melt under Ouroboros’s poison.
Ouroboros, who had looked utterly indifferent even when the rapier stabbed into him, lightly swung his body as if in pain and shook Lucian off. Lucian recovered the Holy Sword and dodged the attack.
“I will bring victory.”
---
Seeing Lucian’s firm declaration, I recalled the Main Quest that had briefly flashed before my eyes.
Among the filtered information, did the ■■■ refer to Lucian?
Prevent Lucian from becoming a hero? Why on earth?
Before there was time to answer that question, Ouroboros, seemingly angered at being attacked, glared this way.
KABOOOM!!! A roar rang out as Lucian blocked the attack.
“Theo, what should we do next?”
“Isn’t sealing it the most ideal option?”
If we incapacitated Iris, who had become Ouroboros, like this and all escaped together, Professor Beatrice would close the Door of the Seal.
It was exactly as we had planned from the beginning.
Though I had not expected Iris to end up half-swallowed by Ouroboros.
“Lerwon Sunbae changed after eating that capsule, didn’t he?”
“That’s right.”
Did that mean Iris had a chance to return as well?
Tightening my grip on the staff, I decided to bind Ouroboros first.
CLATTER-RATTLE! Chains shot out from the air and firmly seized Ouroboros.
Thanks to the staff, the effect was outstanding.
Ouroboros began thrashing to break free.
“How about cutting off its head like this?”
Zephyros, leaping up as if flying on the wind, tried to cut off Ouroboros’s head with a fierce wind.
But the blade made of wind instead bounced off Ouroboros’s neck and merely caused cracks in another part of the space.
Standing beside me atop the wind, Zephyros lightly rolled his neck and stretched.
“That did not work.”
“If it were that easy, it would not be called the God of Snakes.”
It would not have been able to swallow an entire world either.
“It looks like the Holy Sword and your magic are the only ways to deal with it.”
“I agree.”
Most weapons melted under its deadly poison, and magic cast normally, rather than through the staff, seemed to be deflected.
Even now, all ordinary binding magic was being repelled, and only the binding magic cast through the staff was properly holding Ouroboros in place.
If there was an exception, it was the Writer skill… but when the System was suspected to be the true ‘god’ of this world, displaying the System in front of Ouroboros seemed like an idiotic thing to do.
Therefore, it seemed better to avoid using the Writer skill while in active confrontation with Ouroboros.
“How about cutting off its head with the Holy Sword while you hold it down?”
“I think openly aiming for its neck will be difficult.”
Even now, we were locked in a taut tug-of-war, and if we started blatantly aiming for its neck here, it would become troublesome because it would truly start rampaging.
So it seemed we would have to modify the plan to some extent.
“Our goal is to incapacitate Ouroboros as quickly as possible and return. I have figured out a certain portion of its attack patterns, so follow my instructions.”
This was Ouroboros, the one I had killed dozens, hundreds of times while playing the game.
Since it was Iris instead of Lerwon Sunbae, the pattern might have changed slightly, but it should not have changed greatly.
Fundamentally, Ouroboros’s most lethal attacks were the ferocious Extreme Poison that melted everything and the enormous body that spewed it.
“The main attacks will come from Lucian and me. Everyone else, please support us!”
“Got it.”
Just as everyone gripped their respective weapons and was about to fight in earnest, the space shook.
The vibration transmitted through the floor, and the cracks in the flow of mana visible through Inscription.
It did not take long to judge all of it.
“I am going to revise the plan.”
We are X-ed.
Truly, genuinely X-ed.
As if it had intended all of this, Ouroboros smiled spitefully.
I gripped the staff and declared the sentence.
“We have to subdue Ouroboros within five minutes.”
The world of the dungeon was collapsing.
Professor Beatrice had reached her limit far sooner than expected.