Come to think of it… I had only just become a dungeon explorer. I was still nothing more than a complete rookie. Maybe these stats the Hero had rewritten weren’t actually that unusual. Perhaps, for someone with ordinary growth potential, they were perfectly average.
“Haha. Already giving up? Man, that’s disappointing.”
The Hero casually flipped his sword from one hand to the other, twirling it as though he were playing with a toy. His expression was one of unmistakable disappointment.
Anyone watching could probably tell at a glance.
My shoulders had slumped, and I was sure my face had gone dark with resignation. The will to fight had completely left me.
“With stats this low…”
“I don’t mind a man who knows when to quit. But when you fold this fast? That’s just irritating.”
“…”
“Tch. What a letdown. I thought you’d struggle a little—at least make this entertaining.”
The Hero let out an exaggerated sigh, looking every bit like someone who had already lost all interest in me.
Unfortunate as it was… I had always been the type to know when I was beaten. I wasn’t the sort to waste my time with hopeless resistance.
Besides, if I die here… there is a slim chance—only a slim one—but maybe he’d let Satsuki-chan live.
He said she was still useful to him. If anything, sacrificing myself was probably the most sensible choice in this situation. It hadn’t been a long life but it had been a good one.
Thank you, everyone.
…The rest is in your hands.
The livestream chat exploded with comments.
| > Hey, old man! Don’t give up! > Why’re you acting like you’ve already burned yourself out? > Fight! Struggle a little! > But aren’t his stats completely hopeless? > A level 5 Priest… > Yeah, there’s no way out…. > Can’t he at least use healing magic? > What’s the point now? > Screw it! Go all in with Hell Gate! > Take your stance! Get into position, Daishi! > Clench those butt cheeks! |
At last, the flood of comments from the livestream’s audience—now over five million viewers—caught my eye.
Messages of encouragement. Messages telling me not to give up.
But…
“…It’s fine.”
I let out a quiet sigh.
“Just do it.”
The words slipped from my lips with an indescribable calm, as though I’d reached some state of perfect emptiness.
Oddly enough though… even with death staring me in the face, my heart is completely at peace.
“Hmph! Look at you, acting like you’ve attained enlightenment. That just pisses me off even more.”
The Hero clicked his tongue.
Is that so?
“…Very well.”
He smirked.
“In honor of your resolve, I’ve decided to erase you with everything I’ve got. I’ll reduce you to dust.”
The moment he finished speaking, he casually tossed his sword onto the ground.
“After all… when you think of a Hero, this is what comes to mind, right?”
“…!?”
He must have activated a skill.
An aura gathered in the palm of his right hand.
Crackle… crackle…
The air split with sharp, snapping sounds as the condensed energy transformed into blinding lightning.
Lightning…
Yeah. For old-school gamers like me, lightning magic was practically synonymous with Heroes.
“Relax, Priest.”
The Hero grinned.
“I’ll send you to the afterlife so fast you won’t even realize you’ve died.”
The crackling only grew louder. The energy gathering in his hand swelled to a terrifying level, compressing into a seething sphere of electricity.
Seriously…?
Did he really need something that overpowered just to kill a Level 5 Priest?
…Well. Whatever.
If it was a technique that powerful, at least it would probably be painless. Better that than being tortured to death by some half-baked skill.
And while he was charging it I have the time to prepare myself.
Ah… if there was one thing I’d regret…
“I wish I could’ve eaten that meal in the Gourmet Room… just one more time…”
(“Hey!”)
“…Huh?”
(“Don’t tell me you’re giving up already!?”)
That voice.
It’s a very familiar one.
That unmistakable loli’s voice suddenly echoed inside my head.
(“Honestly! I stayed quiet because talking too much would give me away, but you’re being so pathetic I just had to say something!”)
(…Loli b-baa…-sama?)
(“…Do you want me to kill you myself? No, this isn’t the time for jokes.”)
(…I…)
(“Listen carefully! Don’t let something as trivial as a machine’s evaluation dictate how you feel! A status screen is nothing more than numbers and words!”)
(…Huh?)
(“Believe in yourself. The you who has attained enlightenment… is… the… stron…gest…”)
“Ah!”
Just as the loli goddess had predicted, the connection was cut.
“Tch. That old hag just had to interrupt at the best part.”
As expected, the Hero had noticed her interference immediately and shut it down.
“You…”
“Don’t underestimate the pinnacle of human ingenuity, you damn goddess.”
He sneered.
“A displayed status… .is absolute!”
At that moment, the lightning in his hand reached its peak. The amount of energy concentrated in his right palm had become visibly monstrous.
Damn it…!
Believe in myself?
Don’t obsess over my status?
She couldn’t just appear out of nowhere and expect those words to change everything.
The overwhelming strength I’d felt before…
It was gone.
Gone…
…Hm?
“This is the end, you damn Priest!”
“…”
“Giga Thunderstrike!!!”
The condensed mass of energy erupted into a cascading wall of lightning, gouging the earth as it hurtled toward me at the speed of light.
Well… since it was moving at the speed of light, I couldn’t actually see it. But the very fact that I had time to think that meant one thing.
I hadn’t been hit.
“W-Whaaat?!”
“…I’ve been wondering something.”
I looked at the stunned Hero.
“Why did you need a technique that powerful just to kill a Level 5 Priest?”
By the time the lightning struck, I had already moved completely out of its path.
At the moment… I was standing right beside him.
“Damn it!”
“…There’s a reason you deliberately chose that attack.”
“RAAAAGH!”
In one fluid motion, the Hero snatched up the sword he had discarded and brought it crashing down.
But—
“…!”
“The reason is simple. You needed that attack to kill me.”
His blade never even came close to landing. The slash wasn’t worth dodging.
My shoulder remained perfectly unharmed.
Instead…
His sword shattered cleanly in half. An ordinary sword strike could never break through my defense.
“Damn… damn you…!!”
So that was it.
He put on quite the performance, but in the end, all he’d done was falsify my status to throw me into confusion, then choose the one attack powerful enough to pierce my real defense. He tried every trick he could think of to crush my fighting spirit.
Too bad.
Those cheap bluffs don’t work on Daishi, the Enlightened Supreme Priest!
(“…He totally did.”)
“…Is that all, you damn Hero?”
“W-wait, Priest! Let’s settle this peacefully! Surely we can negotiate—”
“Too late!”
“Bghah!!”
The absurd proposal irritated me so much that I instinctively drove the back of my fist straight into his face. The Hero shot across the arena like a cannonball, smashing into the wall at the far end.
“…Ah.”
Oh crap!
I lost my temper and punched him without thinking…
That might have been a really bad move.
“…Satsuki-chan…”
As the adrenaline faded, cold sweat poured down my forehead.
The problem of Satsuki-chan being held hostage hadn’t been solved yet!
This is translated by Yume Neiji. Kindly read at yumeneijiworks.com
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