Chapter 188

INTERLUDE The Bitter Boy Does Not Understand His Apprentice’s Feelings We’d retrieved the Bangle of Devouring, added Olivia to our party, and another completely unforeseen existence joined our group, too. After Mephisto’s annihilation, Oliva looked back and forth between me and Rogue, a perplexed frown on her face. It was easy enough to understand why. Despite being corrupted, Olivia felt guilty for turning her blade against me, and she was suspicious of Rogue. Explaining everything would take a long time, which was presumably why Olivia didn’t ask. Rogue turned to her and said, “I’ll explain my story later…escaping comes first.” Everyone nodded. We were in enemy territory. This was no time to stop and chat freely. And so we departed Velkratt in a hurry. Once beyond the city’s border, Rogue explained briefly who he was. Anyone from the modern era would’ve had a tough time accepting his story, but those from the old era… “Ah, that makes sense.” “Hey, you helped us out. That’s good enough for me.” “Yes, the fight made your skills clear. And anything besides that is of no interest to me.” Alvarto, Elzard, and Olivia accepted Rogue quite readily. Immediately after, Olivia’s eyes darkened a little. She opened her mouth to speak. “I don’t need an apology,” I said, cutting in. “You’re back to being yourself. You don’t need to atone for anything.” “Oh…okay.” The therianthrope’s ears perked up, and her tail wagged. Relief plain in her expression, she added, “Well…that aside, I intend to make you atone for all the horrible things you said to me during our fight, so watch your back.” I sighed, laughing cynically. “Every bit as ruthless as you ever were.” Then I looked at my other self and said, “You’re joining me, when the time comes.” “Huh? Are you an idiot? What have I done wrong?” “I’m you and you’re me. In other words, you’re responsible for half the things I do.” “Wow, I didn’t realize I was so obtuse.” Rogue shrugged and frowned. I thought I saw sadness in his features, perhaps owing to what was to come. “Sorry, but when this is over, I’ll be annihilated.” “Annihilated…?” I echoed. “Yeah. I can’t go back to the world I came from,” Rogue explained stoically. “I will be erased from this world by fusing with you, Ard Meteor.” “Fusing? What…do you mean?” “Before I can answer that, there’s something I have to tell you,” Rogue said. “Traveling to another time or world always negatively impacts the world you come from. World-to-world travel consequences are particularly dire. A short stay isn’t so problematic, but if I remain too long…the place I come from and this realm will join together and trigger anomalies the likes of which are beyond imagination.” How does he know all of this? Rogue must have sensed the question on my mind. “I found out about this before coming here. The being calling himself a god appeared before me again. He told me all of this and then said, ‘Once you carry out your task, your future will cease to exist. Will you still go through with it?’” I’m sure Rogue accepted without hesitation. The man who once thought more about saving himself had chosen to forfeit his life for everyone else’s. I understood his desire. He was another version of me, after all. And that’s why I had to push back. “No…there has to be a way.” My mind raced, searching for an answer. “What about the Outer Ones…aren’t they visitors from another world? Why haven’t they caused negative anomalies? I’ve never seen any.” “Mephisto’s supernatural ability took care of that. His wish bent the rules of this world to his will.” Rogue stared hard at me. His gaze told me to give up. “My annihilation is an absolute requirement for Mephisto’s destruction. It cannot be avoided.” Determined, I tried to argue, but Rogue shut me down. “In my reality, I spent eternity working on the Jamming spell for the Bangle of Devouring and thinking up ways to defeat Mephisto. And as I explained during the fight, it took so long that I almost lost my mind. Yet I still couldn’t find a strategy I was wholly confident in.” “Clone or not, you easily bested Mephisto,” Alvarto reasoned. “If you harnessed the powers of the bangle…” “I could try using it in a fight, but it won’t be enough,” Rogue answered. I had to agree. Mephisto was an Evil God in every sense of the word. A Demon Lord or a Champion couldn’t hold a candle to him. Even a Demon Lord who lost his Champion and went all out was no match for him. “Defeating the devil with brute force is as good as impossible. If there were some way of making that possible…it would be very outside the norm.” Whether a full-frontal assault using the Bangle of Devouring or a sneak attack, both were insufficient to kill an Evil God. “Fusion, huh?” I muttered. Rogue had mentioned that earlier, and now he finally elaborated. “At the moment, it’s nothing more than a theory…but if like entities from different worlds were to unify, their combined energies may multiply.” Then Rogue added a caveat. “Ordinarily, this is the sort of thing you’d want to test first, but there was no way to do that in my world. The entity that would have made such a thing possible was gone in my dimension.” At that, a girl’s name popped into my head. “You’re talking about Verda.” “Yeah. We need her power to make this theory a reality.” Verda’s supernatural abilities were destruction and creation. Put differently, they were disassembly, synthesis, and reassembly. So without Verda, Rogue’s plan won’t work. “Okay, so are we going to find this Verda person next?” Elzard asked. Rogue nodded. Then for now, his annihilation is postponed. Verda’s our immediate concern. We need to get her back. I’m sure it’ll be even more difficult than I can imagine. Olivia rested a hand on my shoulder. “If anyone can do it, you can,” she declared. “Agreed. You’ve already done the unthinkable and wrested one person from Mephisto’s control,” Alvarto said. “Okay, that’s nice, but where do we find this Verda person? If it’s far away, you’ll just have to fly there yourself. If ya think I’m gonna fly with all of you on my back, you can forget it,” Elzard snapped. As long as I have them…as long as I have my friends… …anything is possible. With a faint smile on my face, I gestured to the east, toward Verda. “Let’s go, everyone.” To get one step closer to victory. To get everyone back. To build the future we all wish for. I flung myself, body and soul, into a new and greater challenge, with my friends by my side. On a street corner in the ancient capital of Kingsglaive, a giant metropolis that retained the rich atmosphere of the old world, stood a certain woman’s lab. The exterior design had a quirky design that truly befitted her, yet the interior was surprisingly sparse. And in one room of that lab, a pair was engrossed in a spirited board game, surrounded by countless glass vials filled with liquid. One of them leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms, then bent forward and moved a chess piece. And as he took one of his opponent’s, Mephisto Yuu Phegor said, “My honey never ceases to amaze me.” His right eye reflected a distant locale. It was the fight in Velkratt, Saphiria’s capital. The former Demon Lord accomplished a succession of expectation-breaking feats. Overjoyed by the wonderful sight, Mephisto grinned with obvious exhilaration. “I never, never would have thought that my sweetheart from another world would show up! That was definitely something I didn’t consider. Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee!” The devil took great joy in his defeat. As his opponent moved her chess piece, she looked Mephisto up and down. “Don’t praise him. You are the one who never ceases to amaze me, Master.” An inorganic voice issued from between her lips. Verda Al-Hazard wore her short, curly golden hair in two ponytails, and a bulky white lab coat covered her small frame. She was a pretty girl with a prominent youthful appearance. By all visual accounts, she was Verda. However, there was none of her usual impudence behind the facade. “Can you really say that this unexpected turn of events was entirely his doing?” Her hands moved her chess piece with a mechanical stiffness. Mephisto took his turn in response and said, “Are you suggesting that my supernatural abilities merely brought out his heroics?” “I think it’s entirely plausible. I mean, you didn’t try to win this time. Even more so than usual.” Mephisto Yuu Phegor’s supernatural ability allowed him to corrupt reality. He could impose his desires on the whole world if he wished to. At first glance, such a power was unstoppable… “The only way for you to fail is if you bring it on yourself. Your deepest desire has always been your own loss and destruction. For all your posturing over this being a farewell game that you’re playing to win, I think that desire has only grown stronger. Isn’t that right, Master?” Verda moved another piece on the board, and Mephisto grinned sardonically before responding, “I can’t refute that, but I can’t confirm it, either. Not even I know the answer, you see.” He picked up a chess piece, played with it a little, and then sighed. “By the way, my dear apprentice…how much longer are you going to keep up the act?” Verda sighed deeply. “Aw, shucks. You got me.” She stuck her tongue out and smirked. Immediately, the innocent doll-like persona melted away, replaced with Verda’s usual smugness. “I thought I could keep it up a bit longer. But man, you’re sharp! Didn’t think you’d catch on to it that fast.” Mephisto peered at his apprentice as she cackled. “I don’t think it’s right to say I caught on. It’s more like you intentionally left clues for me.” Verda had noticed that Mephisto had corrupted her persona, and she’d righted it by herself. Not even the devil had expected that from her. She’d managed to conceal the truth all this time. “You could have struck me by surprise at just the right moment and saved your friends. I can’t fathom why you’d waste such a plan.” The excitement in Mephisto’s eyes made it clear that he found this amusing, though. Verda shrugged. “Hey, Master…do you seriously mean that?” Mephisto gave her a curious tilt of the head and folded his arms, as if to show her he had no idea what she meant. “Haaaaaaaaah.” After a long sigh, Verda stared up at the ceiling and said, “Well, whether you meant it or not, you’re still as wicked as you’ve always been.” Her lips were curled in her usual smile. However, her eyes were as dark as could be. “Guess what I’m saying is, I’ve been on your side from the very beginning, Dad.”