Chapter 69: Mountain Walker (3)
Elyes reached out from his wheeled chair and placed one hand against Misha’s arm. His fingers barely carried any strength that shebcould have ignored it, but it still pulled her attention away from Kylo and the wall.
"We have to go."
Misha looked down at him. Elyes had always looked tired, but this was different. His face had grown even paler after using wind magic, and a thin sheen of sweat clung to his forehead. The hand resting on her arm trembled faintly before he withdrew it and placed it back on his lap.
Sebastian stood behind the chair with both hands resting on its handles. His expression remained composed, but his eyes kept drifting toward the wall as well.
"But..." Misha looked back toward the wall. "The floor quest isn’t over."
As if the city wanted to answer her, another explosion thundered from the other side.
BOOM!
The stone beneath her boots trembled. Dust sifted from the newly raised wall, and somewhere beyond it, something enormous roared. The sound was followed by the grinding crash of rock being torn apart, then another impact heavy enough to rattle the shattered windows along the streets.
Kylo remained on his knees before the stone. His shoulders shook despite every effort he made to keep them still. Tears slipped from beneath his lowered face and fell soundlessly onto the dust between his knees.
Misha’s fists tightened, a dull ache spread beneath her ribs at the sight she witnessed.
She was not close to Kylo. She did not even like him. He was arrogant, infuriatingly smug, and seemed to consider provoking people a reasonable substitute for developing a tolerable personality. Still, she knew that posture.
She knew what it meant to stare at the last place someone had been and wish the world would take back what it had already decided.
"Misha," Elyes called again.
She bit down on her lower lip.
Tobias had told her to look after Kylo.
"I’ll leave my boy to you."
The words remained lodged inside her chest, too heavy to swallow and too painful to ignore.
But Kylo was not her responsibility.
He would agree with that too. Loudly, probably. He would tell her to mind her own business, and then find some especially irritating way to imply he had never needed anyone in his life.
That did not make leaving him there feel any less wrong.
She did not want to walk away from Tobias while he fought alone behind the wall. Every instinct in her screamed that leaving would turn this moment into something permanent. That if she turned her back now, the next time she looked, there would be nothing left to return to.
But staying would change nothing. That was the cruel part. Sometimes refusing to leave did not make a person brave. Sometimes it only gave the dead one more body to worry about.
Misha finally lowered her gaze. "Let’s go..."
Sebastian began pushing Elyes’ chair toward where the small church was located. Misha followed, though each step felt reluctant, as if some invisible thread still connected her to the wall behind them. The farther she walked, the tighter it pulled.
Kylo did not look up. They left him there with his forehead against the stone, listening to his father on the other side.
King floated beside Misha in silence. The large black creature had been unusually quiet since Tobias appeared. His golden eyes remained fixed behind them, and even his tails had stopped their usual irritated flicking.
No one else reacted to his presence. They could not.
King had never fully entered the perception of ordinary people. Unless he deliberately revealed himself, the mind simply refused to register him.
Eyes slipped past the space he occupied. Sounds he made disappeared beneath surrounding noise. Even if his shadow crossed someone’s feet, they would remember it as smoke, debris, or nothing at all.
Misha could see him because he allowed it. The souls within her Soul Inventory could see him because they existed within the same authority. And Tobias had seen him because King had chose to reveal himself to the Mountain Walker.
Everyone else saw empty air.
Then his body began to shrink.
Darkness folded inward around him like smoke being drawn into a single point. His limbs shortened. The strange pressure surrounding him disappeared and the other tail dissolved until only one remained.
A moment later, a small black cat dropped lightly onto Misha’s shoulder.
He looked almost ordinary now, if one ignored the unnaturally golden eyes.
The people passing them saw only Misha walking beside Sebastian who was pushing Elyes’ wheeled chair. Their gazes slipped across her shoulder.
King, meanwhile, allowed his body to become solid only against her.
His weight was warm and surprisingly solid. One paw rested near her collarbone while his tail curled loosely behind her neck and lay across the opposite side of her cloak.
Misha lifted a hand and touched his back.
To anyone watching, it would have looked as though she were adjusting her collar.
King did not complain and that frightened her a little.
The roads leading toward the church were packed.
Survivors filled every narrow street connecting the outer district to the city’s center. Some walked under their own strength, others leaned against friends, strangers, or anyone who still possessed two working arms.
A student stumbled past with half his academy jacket burned away and one hand clamped over a wound in his stomach. Blood seeped through his fingers, but he kept moving because the girl supporting him looked even closer to collapsing.
Several Rankers moved through the crowd shouting directions, though their voices had long since turned hoarse.
"Keep moving!"
"Do not block the road!"
The portal had become the center of a different battle.
People shoved toward it in uneven lines, desperate to leave before the wall failed. Rankers stood close to the glowing entrance with weapons still in hand, glancing repeatedly toward the eastern district whenever another explosion shook the city.
No one knew how long Tobias could hold. No one knew whether the Goblin King had already crushed him beneath the rubble.
Misha stood behind Elyes’ chair while the line slowly moved forward.
She kept looking back. From here, the stone wall rose above roofs like an unnatural mountain, splitting Genesis in two. Smoke curled over its upper edge. Every few seconds, the rock trembled from something striking it on the other side.
Still fighting. He was still fighting... At least, she wanted to believe so.
The line moved another step.
Ding!
A blue window appeared before every participant.
「 〔SYSTEM NOTICE〕
The Goblin King has been defeated. 」
Misha’s breath stopped.
For a moment, the entire street seemed to forget how to move. The sounds around the portal changed immediately.
People gasped, some laughed, and several Rankers lowered their weapons as though the strength had suddenly left their arms. One man dropped onto the church steps and covered his face with both hands.
More windows followed.
「 The invading forces have lost their King. 」
「 Enemy command structure has collapsed. 」
「 Surviving monsters are retreating from Genesis. 」
「 Overall threat level is rapidly decreasing. 」
Misha snapped her head toward the distant wall so quickly her neck hurt.
Her heart hammered against her ribs.
The invasion is retreating... He won.
Unlike the monsters on Floor 9, which had continued fighing until the quest’s time limit has ended, the goblin army attacking Genesis depended on the Goblin King’s command. Killing the Goblin King had shattered whatever control held the invasion together.
Grandpa Tobias had done it... He had defeated the Goblin King.
Misha’s chest loosened enough for one breath to escape.
Then another thought followed.
But would defeating the Goblin King alone be enough to clear the floor quest?
The original objective had not been to defeat the enemy commander. It had been to eliminate the invading forces.
Thousands of goblins were still alive. Retreating did not mean they quest was over.