This is purely hypothetical, but if Ferd had killed Gyu Ri’s host, Gyu Ri would have turned into a spitting image of Ferd; he would have also turned into a perfect copy of Lara, Sazaki, Stein, Elrica, or Erhard if one of them had been the killer. But because Max had still had room to grow at the time, unlike his already almost perfect comrades, he’d improved, just a little, even during the course of that battle, allowing him to surpass himself from just moments prior and barely emerge victorious, albeit coming out of the fight half dead.
Hypothetically speaking, in a one-on-one fight, this perfect copying ability, which had no upper limit or exceptions, could be used to aim for mutual death against more than half of the Hero’s party, so a perfect recreation was more than this simulation could manage.
“Come dooooown!”
“Shields, come forth!”
“Raaaaah!” Max and his weapons slipped through the rain of flying armaments and charged into the group of shields Gyu Ri had deployed, breaking through them as well.
“Argh!” Max’s face—or rather, Gyu Ri’s—was tinged with panic as he was struck by the battle-hardened weapons, one after the other.
Next, Max put all of his strength into his spear, piercing through his fake self’s cracked armor and penetrating his heart. The shooting star kept falling with the same momentum until it crashed into the ground. The accompanying sparks also bit into the fake’s limbs and neck, piercing them as if sewing them into the ground.
“He’s dead, right?! Like dead for real?! Nice, he is!” After causing thunderous noise and a cloud of dust, Max shouted zealously as he confirmed that his troublesome foe had sunk into the earth and died.
“Looks like it’s over.” Lara, who’d been observing the fight, sensed that the mirror world had started collapsing.
“If I’m not mistaken, there were many more troublesome guys on the surface, right?” Meanwhile, Sazaki, who’d been routing through the foot soldiers on the ground, was a bit confused.
“Yes, they’re clearly inferior in both quality and quantity. It seems that the Great Demon King here has remained conceited,” Stein agreed.
Nothing extraordinary had taken place; the demon army had just been cut apart by a sword and pulverized by a pair of fists, but this fight should have normally been more worthy of being described as a decisive battle.
“Things probably unfolded in such a way that he assumed the mortals were no stronger than this.”
“Mm-hmm. That’s what most likely happened.”
Elrica and Ferd had also noticed how feeble the enemy soldiers on the ground were.
In this simulated world where the Hero’s party lay defeated, the Great Demon King had easily trampled down on mortals—just like in the game boards made by the Arzyna Kingdom—so he’d never made a serious effort. As a result, he’d only deployed what he believed would be sufficient forces, without including any of his close aides, so this battle ended up worlds apart from the life-and-death situation that Ferd and the rest had experienced.
“Oh... That’s me, isn’t it?” Elrica muttered. Before the calculation results were rewritten with the fact that the demon army had been defeated and this place collapsed, she looked up at the power of light that rose toward the heavens from the depths of the great temple, and judged that her power had come to fruition in this simulation.
“On to the next one,” Lara prompted.
“Very well,” Elrica replied, smiling nostalgically.
The party headed to the next large mirror, where the scenery and the world itself changed.
“Stop them!”
“Defend to the last! Hold the lines!”
“Don’t retreat! There’s nowhere to run!”
The massive military force the Rin Kingdom had so desperately mustered was clashing against the demon army in a wasteland.
“That creature... Could I have died fighting against that? I’ve only heard stories about him, but that might have been a bit tough of an opponent for me back when I first left the castle and had only ever fought against dragons...” As Max looked at the scene before them, he realized why he was dead in this world. This place was the same as the previous one: A monster that shouldn’t have been here was taking part in the battle.
“Black Smoke is alive? That must mean I messed up in this scenario.” Stein was familiar with the humanoid creature made of pitch-black lava that was walking at the forefront of the demon army.
In the real world, during the decisive battle on the Boiling Mountain, which had ended with the mortals’ victory, Stein had fought a fierce battle to the death against Black Smoke. Even the Great Demon King, the creature’s creator, had been puzzled over how something like him had come to exist. And in this hypothetical world, Black Smoke had killed Max, who’d had little experience fighting anything besides dragons. He was the strongest mutant among the true monk slayers—not the fake ones in the Nightless Inferno—whose powers had extended to incinerating concepts instead of merely burning objects.
Black Smoke, huh? As Stein plunged into the mirror, he thought about one of the formidable foes he hadn’t seen in seventy years. This black lava monster was an enemy he’d fought at the foot of the Boiling Mountain, one he should have defeated at the end of a fierce battle where they’d locked eyes for over ten minutes, then exchanged a single, deadly blow with all their might.
“I’ll take Black Smoke on,” Stein briefly told his comrades as he entered the mirror world, then started running toward Black Smoke, who stood on the front lines of the enemy army.
“Okay.” At the same time, Lara brought forth natural disasters with her magic, but Black Smoke, the enemy commander, was unable to deal with them.
The only sounds that echoed in the area were that of footsteps on gravel, earth, and sand. Although this was but a simulation, the monk who’d reached the pinnacle of ability was facing a formidable enemy for the first time in decades.
He really has the same muscles as seventy years ago. This simulated world is certainly impressive if it can perfectly re-create Black Smoke.
He’s old, but...is that Stein? No matter how you look at it, he’s grown old. So instead of dying back at the Boiling Mountain, he got swallowed up by some space-time disturbance?
Amusingly, Stein and Black Smoke were perceiving each other with similar senses. In other words, this mutant monk slayer had similar senses as Stein, so the perfectly re-created Black Smoke was a monster capable of killing Max when he’d still been inexperienced in combat. However, while they had similar senses, Black Smoke couldn’t perfectly grasp every aspect of physical matter like Stein could, so it could be said that he was clearly inferior.
But is this the result of aging and decline? The quality of his muscles has changed, and his reach has shrunk a little. It would have been better if he’d died in his prime instead of getting caught up in a space-time disturbance. Black Smoke, who’d only just been created for the decisive battle on the Boiling Mountain, was strangely unfazed by the situation and was disappointed by his archenemy, who should have died moments ago but was now clearly old and frail.
Stein no longer possessed the muscular body and fighting spirit that had made him worthy of being called the embodiment of destruction, and his reach had also decreased, if only a little.
But that was enough analysis. Both of them took a step forward with their left leg, taking a stance, and stared each other down, ignoring the tumult of the battlefield. This was a reenactment of the legendary decisive battle on the Boiling Mountain. The pair ignored Lara’s cataclysmic magic, Sazaki’s slashes, Elrica’s light magic, Max dancing in the skies, and even Ferd’s brilliance. Slowly, steadily, little by little, just the tiniest bit of movement. But as long as something was moving, it would eventually meet its end. The last time, they’d continued glaring at each other for over ten minutes, but since Stein looked clearly weakened, Black Smoke took action the moment their reaches overlapped.
Black Smoke thrust forward with all his might. Even though his body was made of lava, the thrust generated by the twisting and springing force flowing through his legs, waist, torso, and arms advanced in a straight line, erasing even sound—quite literally. If monk slayers burned monks with their lava bodies, then the body of this mutant, Black Smoke, had the power of erasure. In other words, he possessed the ultimate body in terms of both attack and defense; he erased anyone he touched along with all their defenses, and any enemy who touched him got erased along with their attack.
Stein’s options were limited. He could either use the pseudo-Null power to forcibly smash his foe apart like he had done before or surpass him with pure skill. He moved gently, like a leaf floating on water. His fighting spirit hadn’t simply weakened with age, nor had his reach shrunk because he’d grown frailer. This was the result of him achieving even greater heights by condensing his power to such high density that nothing leaked out of him.