Published at 25th of March 2019 10:00 pm

Chapter 80: Together and Beyond.

I have no victory routes left. Nor any paths that lead to my survival.

But… I can take this guy out with me, and force a draw.

The cane I’m grasping in my right hand. While talking to the evil god, I’ve been storing mana in this cane right up to the critical point. That out-of-control attack magic.

…According to the saint, it had immense destructive power, enough to blow away an entire mountain. With this rampaging mana, maybe I’ll be able to vaporize this guy.

「Wha…」

The evil god makes a shocked expression. At this late juncture, he must not have expected me to still have an ace up my sleeve. Perhaps he himself wasn’t aware of a technique like this.

Based on the pattern for myself and the previous sages, this guy could probably use attack magic from the beginning. Just like the other sages, I shouldn’t be able to produce attack magic in a situation like this. Well, I doubt any religion wrote about something like a sage making attack magic run out of control and blowing himself up in their scriptures. The Church of Medine was concealing it, at least.

-I take the mana that I was boosting to the very limits of my control, and release it.

I feel the same sensation that I felt before, back when I started to lose control during the magic lesson from Fran. My mana rapidly swells as it flows into the cane.

Most likely, once this goes out of control, I will inevitably die. I didn’t feel like dying in the least, but now that things are like this, there’s no escaping it. There’s absolutely no way I can let this guy trample over the labyrinth city.

「Tch…!」

The evil god clicks his tongue and swings down his sword. He most likely felt my mana expanding. But it’s useless now. Before his sword splits my head, my magic is going to blow away this entire area. I resolve myself to death from the torrent of rampaging mana.

「…!」

I shut my eyes.

…Is this the part where my life flashes before my eyes? Within the span of a moment, all sorts of thoughts run through my head. About Eris, about Ruruka, about the saint.

…And, about Yuel.

I was supposed to come back. Without making Yuel sad, so that she wouldn’t get hurt, I was planning on settling everything myself and coming home to that labyrinth city unharmed.

The evil god has forced me to go down along with him. But when I die here, just what sort of face will Yuel make? Yuel was saying “I will definitely protect you”, so if the evil god and I go down together, I’m sure she’ll be tormented by that.

…If it’s come to this, maybe it would have been better not to acknowledge Yuel as my Hero.

Yuel is still a child. And she’s also a dark elf with an extremely long lifespan. I just hope she will forget about me and recover, to live out a fresh life in a world with no evil god.

Thoughts like those are the only ones that end up coming to mind. I can no longer stop the rampaging mana even if I wanted to. And the evil god’s sword is fast approaching me.

With my eyes shut, my life as the Sage is going to end like this.

-However.

From my hand that’s holding the cane, I feel the sensation of another hand softly touching it. And then, for just an instant, a high-pitched metallic sound rings in my ears.

「…!?」

…The magic doesn’t invoke. Furthermore, the evil god’s sword doesn’t hack me to pieces. What in the world?

-I open my eyes to take a look. When I do, there’s an unbelievably beautiful woman right in front of them.

Her height is around 170cm or so? Even from over her clothes, I can tell that the stylish beauty in front of me has a magnificent rack.

Characteristic tanned skin, accented by glossy silver hair. And from within that hair, long ears are poking out.

…It seems like she’s a dark elf.

That beauty intercepted the evil god’s sword in front of me, and added her hand to my cane. I can sense my mana steadily being drained through my hand.

…Did this hottie stop my mana from going berserk?

But man, she truly is gorgeous. Her huge tits are good, her glossy hair is good, her facial features are good; she hits my strike zone dead in the center. For a moment, I end up forgetting about the evil god and staring at her.

「At last I was able to find out. After that, Master destroyed the evil god along with himself, and… died.」

The lovely lady in front of me turns her head around a little, giving me a smile.

「Master…?」

By “Master”, is she referring to me?

…Besides, I died? I’m still alive, though. I wonder what the heck this beauty is talking about.

「The labyrinths certainly may have been a device for god’s intervention. But they were also a magnificent trial from god that will grant a wish to those who pass, even turning back time.」

The enchanting dark elf in front of me declares to the evil god.

「Wha…!?」

For a moment the evil god is unable to digest her words; he’s looking at the beautiful woman with a dumbfounded face. After that, he soon comes to his senses and shouts.

「You made it to the end…? That labyrinth…? The one that even I couldn’t complete, you fully traversed it!?」

The evil god bares his hostility towards the bewitching dark elf woman. After that, with no warning, he emits a heat ray from his palm.

-Chantless magic. That heat ray is unmistakably about to pierce through the alluring dark elf woman in front of me.

-I have to protect her, that’s the feeling I get. At once, I try to dive in front of the woman to cover for her, but she instantly creates a giant ice pillar in front of her which somehow reflects the heat ray.

「For killing Master back then, I will absolutely never forgive you.」

The evil god avoids the reflected heat ray… then, their battle begins.

「Tch!」

Clicking his tongue, the evil god swings his sword. The dark elf easily catches it with her ornate sacred sword.

Every time the evil god swings his sword, the dark elf defends with her sacred sword in one hand and a thick knife in the other. When the evil god fires off chantless arcane magic, the dark elf counters it by casting chantless arcane magic of the opposite element. Riposting with swords and sorcery.

The evil god is terrifyingly skilled, but the dark elf doesn’t fall behind in ability either. My eyes can’t follow them as they move about the battlefield at breakneck speed. This is too high-level; there’s no room for me to step in.

「What should I do…?」

That second, max-level flame magic fired off by the evil god crashes into max-level freezing magic fired off by the dark elf. The shockwave from their collision brushes past my cheeks.

「What the hell! What the hell are youuuu! You’re not even an otherworlder, how are you getting in my way! What purpose did you even have for coming here!?」

For a moment, the battle stops.

…The evil god is short of breath. By some chance, he might have run out of mana. Well, he did just finish fighting off that many monsters. And his revival was supposedly incomplete, so he may not be able to engage in a drawn-out fight.

「I will absolutely never permit a world where Master dies.」

「Don’t foock with me!!」

The evil god makes a terribly irritated expression at the dark elf’s reply. After that, he turns in my direction and holds out his palm.

…Ah, this is a dangerous one.

I try to take cover at once, but I’m slightly too late. It’s going to be close, but it will pierce me.

-Or so I thought, but that instant.

A giant ice pillar rises up once again in front of me. It reflects the heat ray, and the heat ray gets magnified into an even more enormous heat ray as it bounces back at the evil god. The giant heat ray gouges out the earth as it progresses. Then, the evil god… is engulfed by it.

When the heat ray disappears, there’s nothing left. The evil god has vanished without a trace.

…Is it over?

That evil god was done in as easily as twisting a baby’s arm. Just who the hell is that dark elf?

No, I can come up with one possibility. However, it’s so outlandish that even though I can wrap my head around it intellectually, my heart can’t fathom it.

…But that appearance. Plus that attitude, calling me Master. And then there’s that familiar-looking sacred sword the dark elf is holding. That sacred sword is the one I promised Yuel that we’d go get from the church next time…

As I’m pondering, the dark elf rushes over to me.

「Master…!」

Then, once she’s standing in front of me, tears well up in her eyes as if she simply can’t hold back.

「I wanted to see you so, so much! For so very long, I’ve wanted to see you!!」

After that, she breaks down and starts to cry. This crying face. It lines up perfectly with Yuel’s face.

「…Could you be, Yuel…?」

「Yes, Master!」

This woman… no, Yuel, said that she made it to the end of the labyrinth. She said that the labyrinth will grant a wish, even turning back time. Plus I’m pretty sure she said that I died here.

…Somehow or other, I get it.

I most likely died here once along with the evil god. But… Yuel couldn’t approve of a conclusion where I died.

「Master, I, I tried my best. I wanted to meet you again no matter what; I tried so, so very hard. To complete the labyrinth, to save Master from the evil god, I tried my very best! And finally… at last, I was able to save you.」

Yuel comes up and embraces me. Her head touches my shoulder. This height is considerably different from the Yuel I know. This Yuel looks old enough to be called an adult.

「Master… it really is you…」

She touches my face with her hands, staring at me like she’s trying to absorb every last detail. In this Yuel’s face, happiness, sadness, a sense of accomplishment… all sorts of expressions are mixed together.

The beauty who just defeated the evil god… was Yuel.

I can’t even imagine it… just how much time did she spend studying, to be able to obtain that level of ability? That long, deep labyrinth that nobody has been able to traverse thus far, just how much perseverance did she have in order to get through it?

As I’m looking at Yuel and wondering, she raises her head slightly and gazes into my eyes. Then, in a whisper.

「Master, I worked incredibly hard. You told me, right? That if I worked hard, you’d give me a reward… way back when we used to enter the labyrinth together.」

「Yeah, anything is fine. What do you want?」

Did I say that? I don’t remember, though. But if there’s something she wants, I should give it to her. It seems like she really worked hard and all. It’s so sudden that I don’t really know how to feel, but this Yuel did save my life from certain death.

And, before I can finish saying “What do you want?”, Yuel’s face instantly comes closer.

「Master, I love you too!」

And, along with her voice.

-Her tongue enters. That’s the first thing I feel.

I’m being kissed. I’m being kissed by Yuel.

「Fmmh… mmmh…」

「Mmmmph…!?」

As if she’s trying to take back something she lost, as if she’s full of insatiable desire, Yuel kisses me over and over. While her tits are pressing against me and making me wonder if it wasn’t a miracle that they grew out this much from that flat chest, Yuel repeatedly kisses me countless times. Yuel’s delighted, contented face is right in front of mine, continually kissing me.

…I’m starting to feel a little strange.

Hold on, this is Yuel. Doing such things is definitely wrong.

…No, isn’t it fine since she’s an adult? But it’s Yuel we’re talking about. I start to get a variety of unpleasant feelings. But I wonder why they’re unpleasant? There doesn’t seem to be anything unappetizing at all about her now that she’s become an adult.

And, as I’m feeling conflicted.

「Oi, you’re kinda… glowing?」

Yuel starts to glow dimly. Moreover, I feel like her outline is becoming somewhat vague, as if she’s getting fuzzy.

「Are you alright, Yuel!?」

「…I may have never existed now.」

When I ask, Yuel gives me that answer.

「You never existed now?」

「I understood that. Because in a future where Master didn’t die, the current me… would not exist.」

If I don’t die anymore, this Yuel won’t exist either. And she knew that…? Which basically means that even though Yuel knew she would have to throw away her own existence, she still came to save me…

「Being able to meet Master in the end, I was content. That I can be together with Master for this moment, I am truly, incredibly happy.」

The amount of light dancing around Yuel gradually increases. Yuel’s outline becomes more and more indistinct.

「…Please give the rest of my reward to my younger self.」

「Yuel…!!」

I hug Yuel tightly. For a moment, I feel the sensation of her touch. However, she soon turns into particles of light and disperses.

…The evil god was easily dispatched by Yuel. Through her all-too-sudden intervention, my life was spared.

But that adult Yuel, I wonder what she was feeling when she was about to come save me. For her to manage to get through the labyrinth, just how hard did she have to work before she was able to accomplish that?

There are so many things I wanted to ask her. Most likely, there were many things we should have discussed as well. But Yuel has already vanished into particles of light. I have no means of confirming it anymore.

How did Yuel feel?

Here on this plain, now that both the evil god and Yuel have departed… that’s all I can think about.

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