Chapter 18 — All the Slave Drivers Will Be Gone! I’ll Finally Be Free!
“What on earth is going to happen now?!”
Hanakawa was happy enough to see Kris gone, but now Takumi and Yoshifumi were squaring off. Though it left him bewildered, it didn’t take Hanakawa long to realize he didn’t mind. If Takumi won, that would be one less slave driver in his life. The boy didn’t seem to have much interest in him either, so that would mean he was finally free.
Hanakawa silently began to cheer for Takumi.
◇ ◇ ◇
Takumi could tell that the fragment of the goddess was within Yoshifumi’s body. All he had to do was pull it out. It would be quite easy. The Sage looked like someone so weak that he couldn’t tell how weak he was. Unable to recognize Takumi’s strength, the emperor was a fool who could do nothing but talk big. If Takumi stopped suppressing his power even a little, his presence alone would overwhelm Yoshifumi. Fighting him seriously wasn’t even worth considering, but given how confident Yoshifumi was acting, Takumi was a little curious to see what he’d do.
“What’s wrong? Not gonna use that light again? Just try it!”
“The problem is, if I attack, it’ll all be over. Wouldn’t it be better for you to start? I don’t mind ending it if you don’t want to do anything, though.”
“Heh! Is that so?! I’ll make you regret it!” A knife appeared in Yoshifumi’s hand. “Yah!”
He hurled the knife at the boy, but his form was terrible. Takumi couldn’t tell what he was trying to do. Maybe this was the Sage trying his best, but the attack was so slow that it would be easy to step out of the way, and even if it landed, it wouldn’t hurt at all.
Well, maybe I’ll just let him hit me.
But Takumi’s consideration was all for nothing. The blade disappeared before reaching him.
“Oh?” Takumi was impressed at the unexpected development. Would the knife reappear and strike at him from his blind spot? He waited patiently to find out. He couldn’t imagine the attack would hurt him, but he was looking forward to seeing if it would surprise him when it reappeared.
Yet, no matter how long he waited, the knife never returned.
Did he teleport it directly inside me? Doesn’t feel like it.
Curious, he did a serious check of his surroundings, but the knife wasn’t anywhere to be found. It wasn’t even in the subspace connected to the area around them.
“So? What did you do?” Takumi was disappointed. He’d liked the part where it disappeared, but if nothing happened after that, it was hardly interesting.
“I guaranteed your defeat!” Yoshifumi stepped closer, an arrogant expression on his face.
“How’s that?”
“Now die!” Once Yoshifumi came within arm’s reach, he threw an exaggerated punch.
“If you’ve got nothing, I’ll just finish this,” Takumi sighed.
Yoshifumi’s fist touched Takumi’s face. He decided to raise his defense a little. That would be the end. Just making contact with Yoshifumi would erase the Sage altogether.
Instead, the punch sent Takumi stumbling backwards. The unexpected pain dropped him to the ground in confusion.
“What?” he blurted out.
“Take that!”
Yoshifumi threw a kick so sloppy that it left him off balance. His foot struck Takumi in the solar plexus, doubling him over. Takumi’s mind reeled as the wind was knocked out of him. He had no idea what was going on.
“You’re weak as hell, aren’t you?!” Yoshifumi stomped on the back of Takumi’s head, pushing his face into the stone floor. Again and again he slammed his foot down, grinding Takumi’s face into a bloody mess.
For a moment, Takumi felt like he had blacked out. This was impossible. Moaning in pain, struck hard enough to lose consciousness, he couldn’t fight back at all.
“N-No way...”
“Oh, you finally said something. Good! Keep going! Keep talking like the idiot you are! Tell me how impossible this all is!”
What is going on? What’s happening?
Takumi finally responded, curling into a ball to protect his head from the repeated strikes. The aura that should have been protecting him wasn’t functioning. His magic wouldn’t work, and he couldn’t teleport. His summoning powers were failing. The power he had received from killing gods wasn’t working.
What is happening?! How is he doing this?!
He was at the end of his rope. It was all he could do to bear the attacks coming his way.
“How pathetic!” Yoshifumi sneered, stopping his attack. “After how full of yourself you were, this is all you got?!”
Takumi looked up at Yoshifumi in fear. He still couldn’t understand the situation he was in.
“Dying without realizing what’s goin’ on is boring, so I’ll explain it to ya!”
A sadistic smile rose to Yoshifumi’s face. There was no way he was explaining out of the kindness of his heart. Takumi could tell he was just doing it to make him despair all the more.
“This thing is called the Wandering Edge.” Yoshifumi played with a knife in his hands. It must have been the knife that had vanished into the air earlier. “It can travel into the past and change events.”
“But how... There’s no way something like that...”
“I’ve got it, so it obviously exists, idiot. Face it.”
Takumi couldn’t accept that. He had been transported to another world and given powers by a god, and then developed those powers enough to kill that god. Growing tired of his new world, he had traveled to others and killed their gods too, becoming known as a serial killer of gods. There was no way someone who had transcended even the gods could be defeated by an ordinary human, and such a pathetic looking one at that.
“You really were pretty strong, but there was a time you were pretty weak, you know. If I aim there, it’s all over. No matter how strong you are now, there’s no way you can stop it!”
“L-Like hell! You can’t—”
“Except I can! That’s why you’re crawlin’ in the dirt, suckin’ on rocks!”
Yoshifumi delivered another kick, catching Takumi right in the face and sending him flying. Blood poured from his nose, leaving him barely able to breathe.
“There you have it. If this thing killed you in the past, you wouldn’t have made it all the way here. That would’ve been easy enough but not very fun, right? So instead, I just killed the life experiences that got you all your powers.”
“That’s impossible! There’s no way...” But his confidence was gone. Had he actually killed gods? Had he really gained all that power? He wasn’t sure what was actually true anymore.
“In the end, as long as everything’s consistent, it’s fine. Whether you got some super strong powers and came here by yourself or dreamed it all up and walked in here thinkin’ you were a lot stronger than you were, it doesn’t change anything for me. This is the truth I’ve seen!”
“That’s not possible! You saw my power for yourself!”
“Did I? I feel like I did, but maybe that was all an illusion? I never got hit by you, after all.”
“B-But I...” Takumi had memories of obtaining power and killing gods. But being told it had all been a dream, he had no way to prove otherwise. In reality, he was totally powerless.
“That’s how it is. So let’s start again. The pathetic ordinary person you are versus the super strong me! Do your best!”
Unable to breathe properly, Takumi could barely rise to his feet. He couldn’t tell what was real and what had been a dream anymore. He couldn’t help but wish that this whole encounter was just a nightmare.
◇ ◇ ◇
It looked like any other street fight. It was exactly like a fight started with the excuse of bumping shoulders on the street, followed by a thug beating on someone who had never been in a fight before. Yoshifumi kicked and stomped on the fallen Takumi, who curled up into a ball. Hanakawa couldn’t imagine someone with the boy’s overwhelming strength losing, but that was what happened. Hanakawa had no idea what the Sage’s powers were.
After a while, Takumi stopped moving. He was likely dead. Hanakawa didn’t feel like his healing power would work in this case. Content that he had finished Takumi off, Yoshifumi walked over to Hanakawa.
“Hanakawa. You weren’t sittin’ there thinkin’ how lucky you’d be if I died, were you? Were you?!”
“N-Not at all! I never thought such a thing! I was secretly cheering for you in my heart!”
“Oh? And here I thought you’d be thinkin’ if I died, you’d be free.”
“‘All the slave drivers will be gone! I’ll finally be free!’ That’s what I think was going through his mind,” Rena said, apparently having recovered a bit.
“I forgot you had the ability to do that!”
“That’s what I figured,” Yoshifumi said, a pitying look in his eyes.
“B-But putting that aside! What on earth is your power?!”
“What? I never told you?”
“No. I never had the opportunity to ask.”
“Well, it’s not like it’s a secret, and there’s no point in hidin’ it. My power’s called Super Hero Time. Doesn’t matter what they can do—once I’m in front of an enemy, I can beat ’em. A new power awakens or I get a new weapon.”
“So...that is totally absurd, is it not?! There are plenty of cheat-like powers in this world, but that is literally cheating!”
“Doesn’t seem like I can lose to anyone, does it?”
“That’s why Yoshifumi doesn’t care who his Four Heavenly Kings are, nor does he care if anyone betrays him,” Rena said as she stood up.
“Hanakawa, heal Rena.”
“Understood.”
Hanakawa did as he was told. Her injuries were straightforward enough, so she recovered immediately.
“All right, then; let’s get going.” Yoshifumi turned to Vivian. “Where’s that World Sword at?”
“Huh? Oh, th-that way!”
They began walking in the direction Vivian indicated.
◇ ◇ ◇
This is no good. There’s nothing I can do...
Vivian had lost her nerve. She was in shock from the fight between Kris and Rena, terrified by the incredible power of the boy who had shown up and erased Kris, and had been dropped right into a pit of despair after seeing Yoshifumi completely overwhelm him. Vivian had had no idea the Sages were so strong.
His power was invincible. Just getting a little power from God wasn’t nearly enough to beat him. She wasn’t even sure if the World Sword would be enough. She had naively thought she could manage as long as she had it, but now she wasn’t so sure. If he manifested a new power to defeat any foe he faced, there was no way to win. He was too strong. If the thought occurred to him, Yoshifumi could take over the world effortlessly. The fact that he had restricted himself to playing emperor over this island country in the middle of nowhere was a fantastic stroke of luck for everyone else.
But if he gets his hands on the World Sword too...
The thing she had thought was the World Sword was old and worn down. But someone had stolen it and run, so it might have been the real thing. If it could be repaired and returned to its true strength, could she afford to let Yoshifumi get his hands on it?
She couldn’t do that. The already incredibly powerful Sage would become even stronger. She had done as she was told to save her own life, but she was starting to think it had been the worst possible choice. Even if it ended the hopes and dreams of her nation, it might have been better to keep the World Sword from his hands.
I should be able to do something...
All she had to do was run away or lie to him. She might die, but that was better than bringing about an even greater disaster. However, resolving oneself to death wasn’t an easy feat. For the moment, she reluctantly did as she was told. There was always a chance that something miraculous would happen and everything would be resolved without her having to die. She could only hope for that virtually impossible miracle.
Vivian walked ahead of the others, leading them in the direction indicated by the Search Shield. She walked slowly through the stone corridors but fast enough that it wouldn’t look unnatural. It probably didn’t mean anything, but that was the only resistance she could offer.
“What is that?” Hanakawa suddenly asked.
He was pointing ahead. A dull light was hovering in the distance. A light floating over his head illuminated the area around them, but it didn’t reach that far. They didn’t know what it was.
“Looks like it’s moving. Is it coming this way?” Rena remarked. It did seem to be slowly drawing closer.
“For such remote ancient ruins, there sure seem to be an awfully large number of visitors,” Hanakawa commented.
“What do we do?”
“What else? Just keep going.” Yoshifumi wasn’t the least bit concerned about the light.
Continuing on, they saw three figures. As they got closer, the figures became clearer until Vivian recognized who they were.
“Run away!” she screamed at them.
No matter what strange powers the trio had, they couldn’t stand against Yoshifumi. If they met him, he would definitely kill them. They may have been enemies of God, but that didn’t mean they deserved to die at the Sage’s hands.
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