Chapter 62

Mana Armor Valziart, Sen Sorti's masterpiece.

This armor, created by extracting metaphysical beings from the other side of the world like threads and weaving them tens of thousands of times, was alive, fluid, and transformed according to its owner's will.

It was tougher and more resilient than any metal, and incomparably elastic.

I clad my entire body in such mana armor.

Not only that, but I also wrapped ropes reinforced with Valziart around my arms and body, further strengthening my defense, and the ‘Fantasy Finger’ even surrounded my body.

I was confident I could block even if the white snake Lacrosha crashed into me.

However, I couldn't block Amethus's single sword strike.

The fog bank, the valley and I split simultaneously.

Boulders of unknown weight poured down and I hastily clutched my half-severed shoulder with my hand.

The pain and bleeding were severe.

“Kuh……!”

My vision spun for a moment.

I bit my tongue to regain my senses.

I had almost lost consciousness.

Valziart climbed onto my half-severed shoulder.

It would serve as first aid.

It was uncomfortable to breathe.

‘Among the wounds I've suffered since my regression… this is the most severe……!’

It was dizzying.

If the sword's trajectory had been slightly different, my arm would have been severed.

In that case, there would be nothing I could do with Valziart.

No, if the sword had struck my torso, my internal organs would have been damaged and everything would have been over.

“…If I hadn't tripped your foot, you would have really died. Right?”

“When did you learn such a petty trick……”

Amethus drew his sword over my ankle.

Several layers of black rope were tangled around it.

I snickered.

From the beginning, I had secretly laid them on the ground and then pulled them when he swung his sword, tripping him.

Thanks to that, my life was extended a little.

“Anyway.”

He kicked away the ropes and raised his double-edged sword.

I broke out in a cold sweat looking at the jade-eyed man.

He was right.

I had no more tricks prepared.

In the first place, I hadn't even imagined meeting Amethus here, nor did I think he would defeat the horned white snake Lacrosha.

“You don't seem to be able to respond to sword strikes from outside your range, Your Highness.”

“…Well. What do you think?”

“It's a matter of finding out.”

I was forcing a smile, but that was all.

There was nothing I could draw out or call hope.

I would do my best and not give up, but there was nothing to spit out but a sigh.

If I had just a little more time, I might open the third secret, perhaps even the fourth…….

I clicked my tongue, tsk and waved my hand.

The ‘Fantasy Finger’ clung to Amethus.

Each one possessed the monstrous strength to throw rocks, yet Amethus paid it no mind.

His eyes blazed fiercely, and his body trembled, and the ‘Fantasy Fingers’ bounced off.

“Did you do something, Your Highness?”

“…I did something, but it was a shame.”

“That's regrettable.”

Swallowing my regret, I opened my eyes wide.

Amethus had already swung his sword.

I, Shion Pollinglight, gritted my teeth and leaped sideways with all my might.

A sword strike followed.

My foot was slightly cut off.

Thankfully.

There was no time to clutch my foot.

The jade-eyed man's sword did not rest.

The descending sword cut horizontally.

As if to separate me from top to bottom.

I had no choice but to roll on the ground.

Soil and scraps of grass and such were plastered all over me.

‘……’

I was not ashamed.

In the first place, such things had been lost a long time ago.

If I could survive, if I could achieve my destiny that way, I would gladly crawl on the ground and drink muddy water.

However, Amethus.

The man who had always been my nemesis since before my regression.

A threat that I could never escape from, even if I crawled on the ground and drank muddy water.

A monster who could swing his sword once to cleave a valley and then unleash thousands of such sword strikes.

‘Ah.’

The moon was setting.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

I was simply indignant.

‘…Is this the end?’

***

It was the moment I had braced myself for death.

“Hey, wait!”

A voice.

Neither familiar nor unfamiliar.

“Wait, wait, wait!”

A man came running with a loud wadadada sound.

Even from a distance, his voice was surprisingly loud.

He had no distinctive features.

He looked a little younger than Amethus and I was still too far away to confirm his features.

“You two, stop!”

“Who……?”

It sounded like a wadadada sound.

I touched my neck.

My neck had been on the verge of being severed.

If Amethus hadn't been distracted by that man, it would have truly happened.

Looking at the running man, Amethus gripped his sword tightly.

“Your Highness, another petty trick……”

“…No, he's a true stranger……”

“…Really?”

The man was not far.

He came running noisily.

Amethus shouted loudly.

“Stop!”

His jade-green eyes blazed.

He lightly swung his double-edged sword, leaving a deep scar on the ground.

It was a line the man should not cross.

“As a security knight of the Imperial Security Bureau, I declare. Entry to this place is forbidden.”

This was the Rubeko Valley.

A place of fog and poisonous snakes that even nearby residents avoided entering.

And on top of that, a giant snake lay dismembered, and the smell of blood permeated the air.

“Since you suddenly appeared in a place like this, you have no right to complain even if you arouse suspicion. Withdraw at once.”

“Oh my, what, the snake is in pieces……”

“I will not warn you a second time. If you do not withdraw, I will have no choice but to cut you down.”

Amethus shouted.

I tried to subtly step back, but meeting his fierce jade-green eyes, I immediately stopped.

Provoking him would only hasten my death.

“No, just listen to me!”

“I will count to three!”

The man did not stop and came closer.

He held up his two hands, but Amethus was adamant.

“One, two……”

“Three!”

“……?”

“Ah, you said you'd cut him at three? What are you doing?”

The man laughed heartily, waving his hand, and Amethus blinked blankly.

“…Isn't he someone Your Highness truly called? His actions are exactly the same.”

“Am I like that? I should reflect.”

Amethus let out a deep sigh.

He didn't want to cut down someone whose face and name he didn't know.

“Phew……”

But the Fifth Prince Zionis had to die here.

No one could interfere.

“…Do not resent me.”

He swung his sword.

A sword strike that cleaved the valley and dismembered the horned white snake.

The man laughed noisily.

He came closer once more.

As if nothing had happened.

“This is refreshing!”

“……?”

Amethus rubbed his eyes.

I did too.

Another sword strike came.

It happened several times, but that noisy man just laughed and had not a single wound.

And so he approached, striding.

I muttered softly.

“…Amethus, did you cut him properly?”

“…I cut him as I would cut Your Highness.”

“Meaning you cut him with plenty of killing intent. But why is that man unharmed?”

“Hmm.”

Amethus let out a groan and took a stance.

Just by taking a few breaths, the air seemed to shimmer.

I clicked my tongue.

Was he that overwhelming, even when he wasn't at full power earlier?

The double-edged sword was fierce.

A strike almost like a flash of light.

The cleaved air hummed afterwards, and the man just laughed without dodging.

The valley, struck by the sword, split again.

“Hmm. Better than before. It stung a little.”

However, the man had not a single wound.

“…This too!”

“…What, is that human?”

The current Amethus was a monster just below the Ten Great Generals.

The man who could easily capture a thousand-year-old mythical beast was swinging his sword with all his might, yet there was no reaction.

He didn't seem to be an illusion, so what was going on?

“Your Highness……”

“…Why?”

“…Did I say earlier that I hadn't seen anyone as dangerous as Your Highness? I retract that statement.”

Amethus threw away his scabbard.

His eyes flashed.

The man with ghost-like intuition seemed to have sensed something again.

“That man, he is no less than Your Highness.”

“……”

Neither Amethus nor I could take our eyes off the man.

We just stared.

One had to be sufficiently beyond common sense to even ask a question.

As we were staring, the man approached, laughing noisily.

“Hey, it's been a long time!”

He abruptly grabbed my hand.

“Shion! You look like a mess!”

“Huh……?”

I, Shion Pollinglight, tried to flinch away, but I couldn't.

The man was already wiping the dust from various parts of my body beside me.

His touch was so gentle that Amethus glared fiercely.

“Your Highness, you said you didn't know him?”

“No, I really don't know him……”

I scratched my cheek in bewilderment.

That man had a strangeness that made their fight take a backseat.

The man asked with a beaming face.

“Huh? Why are you talking like you've never seen me before? It's hurtful.”

“…Because you're someone I've never seen before?”

“That's really disappointing! It's me, it's me!”

The man patted his chest.

“Juet Acrobat Troupe clown, Beila Beile!”

***

“I don't know him, that person!”

I shrieked.

Beila Beile, the strange man who claimed to be the clown of the Juet Acrobat Troupe, pouted his lips and thrust his face close.

“Don't be like that, take a closer look. This face, haven't you seen it before?”

“…Huh? Huh? Now that I look closely, he does look familiar. I think I might have seen him a couple of times during meals……”

I mumbled.

It seemed as if there was such a face in the Juet Acrobat Troupe.

But only to that extent.

“…No. Still, he's too suspicious.”

I tried to recall the names I knew from the acrobat troupe.

Vice-captain Helena, Henry Horbi, the twins Roten and Rite.

If I had to, a-very s-small addition, the wolf woman Pen-Houchil or the strongman Poltel?

I had never heard the name Beila Beile.

“A clown appearing out of nowhere without any context?”

I was a regressor and I was confident in my memory.

I had never heard the name Beila Beile, neither before nor after my regression.

No, how had the clown of the Juet Acrobat Troupe managed to avoid Amethus's sword strikes in the first place…….

“…You're not a real acrobat troupe member, are you?”

My eyes were sharp.

“What nonsense.”

Beila touched his mustache.

The mustache that hadn't been there just now was suddenly there.

No, he had suddenly become a pot-bellied man in a swallow-tail coat.

“I, Beila Beile, am the clown of the Juet Acrobat Troupe and the hidden captain.”

“…Captain? You?”

“Yes. I decided to be. I asked all the members for their understanding. It's not difficult, is it?”

“What are you talking about? No, don't tell me……”

I realized.

There had been something strange.

Vice-captain Helena was originally the captain.

It had definitely been that way before my regression.

I had thought it was simply a mismatch in timing, but was it this man's doing?

What tricks had he used?

“Hey, Shion. But how long are you going to nitpick over unimportant things?”

Beila twisted his mustache.

“You're really heartless. You saved your life thanks to me, shouldn't you be a little more welcoming?”

Amethus gripped his sword.

As his bewilderment disappeared, he realized the strangeness of the man named Beila Beile, his danger.

However, he couldn't draw his sword.

His arm wouldn't listen.

His jade-green eyes blazed blue, but nothing changed.

“I came all this way to save you at your master's request, you know.”

“…Master's request?”

“Yes. Just like that snake over there that's dead.”

“Is that so……”

Only then, only then could I somewhat accept this strangeness.

If he was involved with my master, such oddness was understandable.

I also wondered if this was the 'arrangement' she had prepared.

“…No, it's strange.”

I snapped out of it.

I had almost fallen for a strange feeling.

“You say you saved me. That means you knew I would be in danger here at this time.”

“Why wouldn't I know? It's blatant.”

Beila Beile snickered.

“A foggy valley, a newly acquired gift, and now if only there was time……! Isn't it the perfect time for a pursuer to suddenly appear and put you in danger?”

“…You're talking as if my life is some kind of novel.”

“Why do you think it isn't?”

“……”

What was this man?

This man who poked and prodded as if there was no boundary between what should be known and what should not be known?

“Actually, I just intended to save your life. I was planning to step in when you were about to have all your limbs cut off while watching. Because I have no reason to be docile to your master's words. And his story seemed more interesting anyway.”

Beila snorted.

I was astonished.

His master, the Last Magician.

To treat her, who was even worshiped at one time, as if she were his equal, then, could this man be…….

“But I, I got angry.”

Beila Beile squinted.

“That Lacrosha fellow… he was quite a friend.”

He looked at the hundreds of pieces of corpse rolling around over there.

The horned white snake, the end of a thousand-year-old monster.

“I was quite fond of this acrobat troupe and was thinking of taking them on a trip with me, but……”

Anger flickered across the face of the man who had always just laughed loudly.

“I didn't know he would die so futilely. A fellow who had lived for a thousand years, a bastard who had received the power of Origin!”

The man got angry.

“I hadn't met him since the Hotus era, so I was quite excited!”

“Hotus?”

Amethus asked back unconsciously.

“The Hotus I know?”

“If you're asking about that country that collapsed in ancient times, then yes. Was there another Hotus besides that?”

Beila Beile chatted on.

Amethus asked fiercely.

Even a man who never lost his composure found it hard to speak gently when bewildered.

“This snake too and then… you too, you talk as if you've been alive since the Hotus era, a thousand years ago.”

“Uh-huh. That's what I said.”

“Then are you saying you're one of the Hotus Eight Gods?”

The man grinned.

“Oh?”

I got goosebumps.

Amethus was no different.

Whether a regressor or a swordsman who had surpassed his limits, as a human, he was inevitably overwhelmed.

“Oh, oh! As expected, your friend has good intuition! Correct, that's correct!”

He realized.

When he had seen such a being.

Didn't his master act this way?

If it was a being that even considered things like eras and causality to be laughable, there could be no other.

Beila Beile smiled.

His face contorted grotesquely.

“Hey, Shion? You really don't know me? We've met before. A long, long time ago, you saw me then, when no one could speak of it?”

“…You, that's right, you were the clown, weren't you.”

“I said so from the beginning!”

Beila Beile's face was completely white.

His lips were red and a black aura shimmered around his eyes.

He had the face of a clown, appearing angry, sad, and inhuman all at once.

“You don't have to worship me! I'm not even charging an admission fee today!”

The man, older than the Empire, laughed so hard his mouth tore.

No, his mouth really tore, and the top of his head rolled on the ground.

His head rolled on the ground and still snickered.

An irresistible fear tried to seize the two of them.

“But at least show me a smile, huh? Friends! I was a god, after all, you can do that much for me, can't you?”

The Hotus Eight Gods, the Last Clown.

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