The biggest problem with the fake Big Krum was its regeneration.
But according to Pier, his greatsword possessed the power of destruction, which could solve this problem.
Simply put, living creatures that come in direct contact with the sword will receive wounds that cannot be regenerated nor healed.
“I mean, why are you saying that now!”
Said Simon, losing his cool. Pier clicked his tongue.
[It’s because I can’t get out! Look! There are so many eyes around.]
That was true. Since it was an emergency situation, over a dozen Observers were roaming around Big Krum.
“Could I maybe borrow your sword and use it, Pier?”
[This is a spirit sword made of my body! No one but me can lift it, let alone wield it.]
Simon pondered for a moment, then snapped his fingers and smiled.
“Then how about this?”
[Say it.]
After hearing Simon’s plan, Pier burst out laughing.
[What a crazy idea!]
“Well, no harm in trying, right? Let’s give it a shot.”
[Sure!]
Simon opened up his subspace, and Pier dropped the greatsword to the ground. Just in case, Simon tried to grab the handle and carry the sword, but it wouldn’t even budge.
“Well then, I’ll begin.”
Simon once again opened the subspace. But this time, it wasn’t on the ground.
Whirrrrr!
Instead, he opened the subspace using Pier’s greatsword as the floor.
After a while, Pier, still in the subspace, reached out with his skeletal arm and grabbed the sword’s handle.
“There we go! Just keep holding it and raise it up there!”
Creak.
Pier’s arm from the subspace turned the greatsword upright. Simon and Elizabeth exclaimed in unison,
“It worked!”
“You really are ingenious, Commander!”
[Ingenious, my ass!]
Pier’s clone shouted as though dumbfounded,
[You want me to swing my sword in this state? I can’t do anything more than hold it!]
“Just holding it will be enough.”
Simon approached and placed his hand on the handle of the sword still gripped by Pier. Pier focussed his vision with his clone and strained his hand.
“Turn it upright!”
At Simon’s words, Pier moved the greatsword, and it moved just as if Simon was the one wielding it.
Of course, Simon was only pretending to hold it. Pier was the one who supported the weight and strength of the sword.
“You’re good at this!”
[……This feels strange. I’ve never held my sword like this in all my life nor afterlife.]
“We can’t help it. This is better than being caught by Kizen and getting chased after.”
Elizabeth pulled a string out from her fingertips and wove it into Simon’s clothes before tying it to where the sword and Pier’s arm were visible, hiding it.
Now this made it perfect.
“……By the way.”
Simon felt a bit dizzy. Jet-black was constantly being sucked into the ring on his finger.
“It takes quite a lot of jet-black to keep the subspace open.”
“This will strain the subspace too. Let’s keep it closed until you reach in front of the Big Krum.”
Simon closed the subspace again, retrieved Pier’s greatsword, and ran.
Originally, it seemed like he would have to run for a long time, but in a disguised blessing of fate, Big Krum turned his back and returned to the central Kera Island after rampaging through the southern island.
‘I definitely need to stop him from getting there, no matter what.’
Today was the third day of Island survival.
The majority of students would be gathered on Kera Island.
If Big Krum attacked Kera Island, the assessment would definitely be halted, and in the worst case, a catastrophe could occur.
While running, Simon activated the magic communication device.
“Lorain! Can you hear me?”
A buzzing noise was heard, then, after a moment, Lorain’s voice came out of the device.
[Loud and clear! Other than that, the situation isn’t so great right now. The monster is heading back to the central island.]
“I’m looking at it too. I have a way to defeat that monster now, you know?”
[What’s that?]
“I have a weapon that suppresses his regeneration. I have to be the one to wield it. Can you seal off the monster’s arm for just 5 minutes? Please tell Serene, too!”
Having said that, Simon also wondered if he was giving the notice too unilaterally, not giving much explanation.
But…
[Alright.]
Responded Lorain unhesitantly, before cutting off the communication. She then turned her gaze and looked at Serene flying nearby.
“You heard that?”
“Hah.”
Serene let out a feigned laugh.
“Who is he to use us like this?”
“He said he has a way to suppress the regeneration. Got any better ideas?”
“I mean, do you really believe that?”
“Yeah.”
Lorain nodded her head as though it were obvious.
“I definitely trust him.”
“……”
“You take the left hand.”
After leaving those words, Lorain pulled at her skeleton horse’s reins and left.
‘……Sigh.’
From Serene’s point of view, the world was full of things she found difficult to understand.
As she lowered her gaze, she saw Simon was indeed charging toward Big Krum.
“Your method only increases the number of your enemies.”
“Agh, for reeeaaal!”
Muttered Serene in anger as she crossed her arms. Countless feathers fluttered around her body in the air.
Meanwhile, Simon was soon reaching the base of one of Big Krum’s feet.
As he approached it, he saw it wasn’t just kicking up the dust around it, but the ground, too, creating a yellow-ish haze.
“Eliza! You ready?”
“Anytime!”
“Here I go!”
The moment Big Krum’s foot touched the ground, Simon stepped on a jet-black platform and jumped up with all his might, landing on the top of the foot.
Pshk!
Then, he plunged the sword down into it.
The giant’s eyes turned downward as if he felt the pain. Its gaze alone was enough to make Simon start sweating profusely.
‘Here I go.’
Translator – Ramen
Proofreader – Artethrax
There was no time to hesitate. Simon started running, bringing forth all the jet-black in his body and dragging with him the greatsword still dug into Big Krum’s flesh.
From the top of the foot to the ankle, and from the ankle to the leg.
“Haaaaaaaaah!”
He ran straight up with the greatsword buried in flesh.
What Pier said about the power of destruction looked to be true. The wounds made by the greatsword weren’t regenerating.
Big Krum didn’t just stay still, either. Every strip of the biological bandages surrounding his body tore off and started flying at Simon.
Simon concentrated on his vision.
‘……Focus!’
He reproduced the image that Bahil taught him. Time slowed down, and both his running speed and the speed of the bandages flying toward him slowed to a crawl.
Simon avoided the bandages with the smallest movements possible, keeping the same form to keep dragging the greatsword through Big Krum’s flesh.
“You need to keep running while making a deeper wound with the greatsword!”
Shouted Elizabeth, who was still transformed into Brett. She was running side by side with Simon.
“You have to keep him in pain to weaken his attacks!”
“Got it!”
He could definitely feel the number of attacks lessening as he shoved the blade in deeper and kept running.
But this time, a lump of flesh came up from Big Krum’s abdomen, and a third arm burst forth!
‘He has an arm on his abdomen?!’
It opened its hand and came down to grab Simon.
“Leave it to me!”
Elizabeth overtook Simon and collided head-on with the arm. Having grabbed it, she shouted,
“You go on ahead!”
“Thank you!”
Passing over Elizabeth, Simon had now reached the giant’s navel.
But all of a sudden, his surroundings went dark. Big Krum’s large right hand was coming down to grab Simon.
Elizabeth shouted, “Dodge it!” while watching from behind, but Simon bit his lip and kept running straight.
Slaaaash!
Just then, Big Krum’s entire wrist fell off, revealing Lorain standing behind it.
“Keep running, Simon!”
On her head grew two straight horns, reminiscent of a devil’s.
Slice! Slice! Slice! Slice!
Each time the black dagger in her hand danced, the monster’s arm split like butchered meat.
In an instant, she had climbed up to the monster’s shoulder, ripped its entire right arm from its body, leaped into the air, and rode off on the skeleton horse waiting in the air.
‘As expected from Lorain!’
Big Krum, having lost his right arm, stretched out his left arm this time.
Flutter!
Black feathers wrapped around the arm. Serene released her crossed arms and swung them gracefully.
[Chain of Ten Thousand Wings]
Clang! Clang!
Feathers disassembled themselves into magic circles before turning into chains, which linked together.
The links fitted together perfectly, and a chain, formed into a pretzel-like shape, sealed the left arm and fixed it in the sky as it was.
[Gwooooooooooooooh!]
Big Krum roared in fury and shook his left arm, but the chains just clanged against each other, refusing to break.
He eventually moved his right arm, which was cut off by Lorain. The pieces of meat torn into seven pieces stuck together like a sticky jelly and slowly began to return to their original shape.
Lorain, riding on her skeleton horse, swooped in and swung her black dagger once more.
Creeeaaak!
This time, she diced the arm up into many cubes, all sent flying in different directions.
However, they weren’t able to completely scatter, a viscous liquid quickly rejoining them.
The only person who had made any lasting damage was Simon, who had climbed further up while slicing through Big Krum with Pier’s greatsword.
“Huff! Haah! Phew!”
He had reached Big Krum’s chest, but Simon was already feeling the limits of his stamina. No, he wasn’t just feeling them. He had already passed his limits several times over.
Even though Pier was the one carrying the greatsword, he had to run up a nearly 90-degree incline while maintaining his jet-black stepping and subspace, all while dodging flying bandages.
The conditions were, needless to say, atrocious.
Nevertheless…
‘I’ll pull it off no matter what!’
If he fell now, he wouldn’t survive the landing.
With a distant view of the ground below, Simon forced his stiff legs to run.
‘Ah!’
At that moment, the strength in his right foot, landing on the chest, lost its strength, and Simon started to stumble.
Then, his body wobbled… and fell.
[Oh my, are you already tired?]
A feather fluttered in front of Simon’s face.
‘Serene?’
Ta tap!
Tap!
Feathers began to attach to Simon’s back.
[I’ll give you a push.]
The feathers immediately dissipated and formed into one magic circle, which soon emitted a tremendous force resembling a rocket.
With the aid of this force, Simon managed to muster the strength to step back on the giant’s chest with his right leg.
‘Huuf!’
He started running once more.
Feathers now supporting his back, it became several times easier. It felt more like flying than it did running.
“Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
With a wild shout as he leaped up to the giant’s shoulder…
Finally, he could see the clear sky.
There was nothing more on top. From the side, he could see the giant’s shoulders and neck.
Simon then landed on the shoulder and ran toward the neck.
‘Pier!!’
[I’m ready, Boy!]
Simon was rushing in, Observers focussed only on him.
And beyond that was Serene, wearing a complicated expression.
‘……Simon Polentia.’
Truth be told, she was planning on replacing the Commander with someone else.
What she needed wasn’t a boy named Simon, but the undead that the boy possessed, and the power known as ‘Commander’.
There were plenty of necromancers in the Ivory Tower who’d become infinitely stronger if they got the Legion, and Simon was destined to disappear, no matter what.
However…
The image of a boy running toward the neck of the monster—his legs reaching their limits, face frowning in the force of the buffeting winds, and voice yelling at the top of its lungs—was all Serene could see.
An unbreaking will
‘Could the……’
Could the necromancers of the Ivory Tower pull that off?
Could they even imitate it?
Simon, who had overcome all obstacles, reached the giant’s neck, and swung the pure white sword with an explosive shout.
Slaaaaaaaaaaaaaaash!
He split the world in two.
The giant’s neck, several dozen times bigger than Simon, was cut neatly in half, severing the head from the rest of the body.
Serene felt like she was being swept away by a flood of thrills.
She…
…had no choice but to admit it.
‘Irreplaceable.’
No one in the Ivory Tower could replace Simon Polentia.
[Bwahahahahaha! You did it! Boy! You did it!]
Simon also smiled at Pier’s shout. Then, as the giant’s head flew away, Simon started to lose his balance.
All the way up in the sky, where the cold winds blew, Simon felt exhilaration wash over him.
And…
“Simon!”
He lost consciousness.
——
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