Fresh blood painted the knight’s sword, hands, and chest red.
I’m dying.
I’m going to die.
Ahhh… That was thoroughly enjoyable.
Would that the fight could have gone on forever, but it had to end eventually.
A blissful feeling of satisfaction washed over the minotaur.
The two of them had fought for longer than a full day and night. They had exhausted the limit of their skills, and they gave and received many blows.
After a while, the question of which one of them was going to survive began to feel trivial to the minotaur.
Then, in the final moment, just as the minotaur’s life was about to expire, it cried out from the depths of its soul.
This isn’t over!
I’m still alive!
The minotaur twisted its body violently. The knight’s sword slipped from his hands, and he stopped moving.
Now!
The minotaur mustered the last of its strength and swung down the remains of the longsword in its left hand onto the crown of the knight’s head. It thought it felt the knight’s skull shatter, but it could not see anything through the red obstructing its vision. The minotaur then collapsed.
In the small amount of time it took for the minotaur to fall to the ground, the figures of the enemies it had encountered throughout its life flashed through its mind.
The sorcerer, the thin sword user, the shield user, the knight, and a multitude of monsters.
They were all magnificent enemies.
They had made for very fun battles.
And in the end, it was able to have a satisfying, all-out fight to the death with the strongest enemy it had ever encountered.
It had no greater desire than that.
The minotaur’s body collapsed on the stone floor.
The knight then collapsed on top of the minotaur.
Within its fading consciousness, the minotaur felt its body enveloped by a strange warmth.
It’s them.
The one who gave me this second life is here. The one who allowed me to fight again.
They were probably by my side this entire time.
They watched me intently to see how I fought and how I would use this life they gave me.
The minotaur felt as if the existence that watched over it asked if the minotaur’s wish had been fulfilled.
It could answer only in the affirmative.
But then its thoughts took a sudden turn.
No.
No, wait.
What if there is a new version of this human?
And also a new version of me?
Yes, that’s right.
One more time.
One more time.
I want to fight one more time…against the new version of this human.
I want to fight until I’m satisfied one more time.
Give me more!
Give me more, more combat!
More bloodshed!
Give me the chance to keep fighting!
The minotaur pleaded strongly.
Then came a voice in its head—one that it had heard before.
The minotaur did not understand language, so it did not know what the voice was saying.
The minotaur’s consciousness faded into a tender darkness.