Chapter 230

“Sorry, Naoise. I didn’t want to kill you, but I made up my mind.” Even if everything Mina put in Naoise’s head was true, I couldn’t join in culling the human population. I would find another method. Naoise only survived Gungnir because he used a duplicate, and if he spoke the truth, there were only two of them. Now he was dead for good. I exhaled and began stowing my equipment… “Gah…” …and that’s when a black sword sprouted from my chest. “You were really dumb enough to believe me? I actually had three duplicates. I decided to follow your example and pull a little trick to get you to drop your guard after you killed me the third time. Only a fool would give away something that important.” Naoise was behind me. I see. He gave away his secret to surprise me on the off chance I managed to kill him again. “I figured you were planning something like that.” I—or rather, my projection—laughed. My form then warped and melted, turning into a simple clump of metal. “Wh-what?! My sword…is stuck…!” Naoise tried to force his blade free, but iron bars grew from the ground and formed a cage around him. He should have expected this. There was no way I’d trust Naoise after lecturing him on the foolishness of trusting a demon. I doubted his claim immediately and set up a trap, knowing he planned to ambush me when I killed his third double. The moment I slew the final body double, I produced a metal doll in the cloud of dust that my attack kicked up, then retreated and used a light-bending spell to project my image onto the facsimile. The true ace up my sleeve descended upon Naoise from above—Gungnir. I couldn’t hit a moving enemy, but it was easy to set a decoy and aim for that. I launched the spear into the air as insurance, figuring it wouldn’t be a big deal if it missed. The god spear slammed into the ground at dozens of times the speed of sound, launching a tsunami of dirt in all directions and carving a crater hundreds of meters wide. “Deceit is the domain of assassins. You should have known better, Naoise… You lost sight of who I am.” Naoise was truly dead this time. His mistake was not sticking to his specialty of fighting like a knight. Had he not played my game, he could have won. Actually, his error came long before—when he accepted Mina’s power. And that wouldn’t have happened if not for me. Naoise’s sense of inferiority allowed that snake demon to take advantage of him. “Am I…crying?” I had no right to cry over this. I wiped the tears. There was still something I needed to do, a task so important I killed a friend for it. There was no way I could stop now. I wouldn’t forgive myself. I forced my aching body to walk.