Chapter 68: The Conclusion
(Was I too late?!)
That single thought filled Jin’s mind as he leapt down from the carriage.
He knew the opponent would be formidable, but Jin had never imagined that in such a short span of time, three out of five people would already have been pushed into a state of incapacitation. One of them was still propped upright, but the damage looked severe; in practical terms, only the female mage was unharmed.
Even she was safe only because Gerd had leisurely stopped his advance. Given the timing of Jin’s arrival, it wouldn’t have been strange at all if they had already been completely wiped out.
Once again, Jin recognized just how overwhelming the enemy before him was, and he became certain that the man standing there really was the former B-rank adventurer he had heard about at the Tron Adventurers’ Guild.
“Ooh~. Looks like help’s arrived! That’s great for you, Zack~.”
As if he were genuinely happy that reinforcements had come, Gerd spoke cheerfully to Zack.
The reason was simple: no matter who came, or how many of them there were, Gerd would “just kill them.” To him, it wasn’t a problem worth considering. It was the way a murderous madman and a lunatic thought.
“Please stop it, Gerd-san! What the hell happened to you?!”
Thanks to Jin’s sudden appearance, the immediate danger to the female mage had passed, but the situation itself was still dire.
Crushed by the unchanging sense of despair, Zack let out a cry of anguish.
“Hm? But Jessie’s dead, you know? So what’s the problem if you guys die too?”
Gerd said it as if it were the most natural thing in the world. His face was deadly serious. There stood a man who had lost the one he loved most and, in doing so, had lost his sanity.
Casting a glance at the now speechless Zack, Jin addressed Gerd instead.
The fact that the adventurer party that reacted to Jin’s MAP turned out to be Zack’s group and that they had now encountered Gerd, someone they’d known in the past, could only be called a strange twist of fate. But this was no time to dwell on that.
“You’re Gerd-san, correct? My name is Jin. I’ll ask just in case, but you don’t plan on coming quietly, do you?”
For a moment, Gerd looked blankly at him. Then he burst out laughing, sneering openly.
“Pff—hahahahaha! …What the hell are you talking about? The fun killing time is finally about to start! Don’t worry, I’ll make sure to kill you and your friends properly.”
Of course, Gerd didn’t think Jin had come here alone. After Jin jumped down, the carriage had stopped some distance away, and Gerd understood that Jin’s companions were approaching while keeping themselves hidden.
“I’ll kill Zack, Merry, Ashley, Higgins, Gaston—every single one of them! I’ll kill you too, and I’ll kill your friends! And after that I’ll keep killing, and killing, and killing!”
With those words, Gerd began to laugh like a madman.
“Merry” was the name of the female mage; Ashley was the priestess, and Higgins and Gaston were the two warriors who had been taken down first. Even while recognizing them as juniors he had once doted on, members of the group known as The Giant’s Twins Arms, Gerd was still intent on killing them.
The dependable big brother Zack and the others once knew no longer existed. In his place stood only a solitary murderer.
Jin watched Gerd’s rant in silence. The slight hesitation that had remained within him vanished, leaving only a clear light of resolve in his eyes.
“A coward sure knows how to roar.”
Jin muttered it quietly, yet his voice carried clearly.
The polite speech he usually used was gone, replaced by a cold tone.
“What did you say?”
Gerd’s raucous laughter stopped dead. He glared at Jin; madness lay bare in his eyes.
“I said you’re a coward. Just a weak little coward lashing out because you’re scared—that’s all you are.”
Jin understood why Gerd had become this way, and precisely because of that, he deliberately provoked him.
He could understand how losing both his beloved partner and his comrades at once, combined with rage and the terror of being left alone, had broken Gerd. If Jin put himself in that position, he couldn’t honestly say he would never end up the same way. The very thought was horrifying—something that must never be allowed to happen.
And that was exactly why Jin provoked him.
Part of it was a plan to draw Gerd’s attention entirely onto himself. At present, Jin was the only one who could function as a frontline fighter. If Gerd’s target shifted to anyone else, it would mean that person’s death.
At the same time, Jin was also saying it deliberately to steel his own resolve—to swear that he would never become like Gerd.
And there was one more thing. Gerd had said he would kill Jin’s companions. In truth, if things continued as they were, he absolutely would. But that would mean Jin being placed in the same position Gerd had been in.
That was something Jin could never accept.
The thought filled him with a fierce anger—a conviction that he could not allow Gerd to continue as he was.
And that anger, more than anything else, was exactly what Jin needed right now.
“Then try killing me first—if you can!”
Saying that, Jin readied his glaive, and almost simultaneously, Gerd let out a shrill cry and charged at him.
“Gaaaah!”
“Kahh!!”
Jin countered Gerd’s Intimidation with his own Intimidation. Jin’s was inferior in skill level and was nullified, but Gerd’s Intimidation was likewise negated by Jin’s simultaneously activated Fighting Spirit.
The black greatsword swept in, aiming to cleave Jin diagonally from shoulder to hip, but Jin met it head-on with his glaive, sending sparks flying.
Driven back by the sheer pressure of Gerd’s blade, Jin staggered. Without giving him a moment to recover, a second strike followed immediately, but Jin somehow managed to knock that one aside as well.
Still, Gerd’s relentless chain of attacks did not stop, crashing down on Jin one after another. Gerd swung his greatsword like a raging black storm, and Jin desperately matched it with his glaive, barely holding on.
However, his opponent was a man said to be on the verge of reaching A-rank. The attacks Jin couldn’t fully fend off dealt damage to his body, steadily shaving away his stamina.
The murderous Gerd was level 45. Jin, having gained one level after the battle with the Vine Beast, was currently level 20. The gap between them was 25 levels—more than double.
On top of that, Gerd had over fifteen years of experience as an adventurer. His accumulated combat experience and polished skill levels naturally far surpassed Jin’s.
Considering all that, it wouldn’t be wrong to say Jin was putting up an impressive fight. Even allowing for carelessness, Zack and the others, B-rank adventurers, had been brought down in just a few exchanges. Jin, on the other hand, had already traded dozens of blows. And while he was taking small amounts of damage, he still hadn’t suffered a single decisive, fatal strike.
Normally, that would be impossible, but there were reasons it was happening.
As mentioned earlier, the level gap between Gerd and Jin was more than twofold, but in terms of raw stats, the difference wasn’t quite that extreme.
As the fact that Gerd had climbed this high showed, his stats were by no means low. Being a beastman, Gerd naturally had stats well-suited for a warrior, and viewed purely as a fighter, his parameters were more than sufficient for A-rank.
However, Jin’s growth rate was abnormal.
Thanks to the game-style level-up bonuses he possessed, even at level 19, his stats had already exceeded the general B-rank range. For example, looking only at STR, he surpassed that of a freshly promoted, average A-rank adventurer.
Of course, that comparison was only against the “average.” With his warrior-oriented growth as a beastman and the sheer level difference, Gerd’s overall abilities were still fundamentally higher than Jin’s. Even so, the fact that Jin could barely recover his footing despite being overpowered was partly due to this.
“Gaaaah!”
“Uoooooh!”
Irritated by Jin’s refusal to fall, Gerd roared, and Jin answered with a roar of his own, forcing spirit into himself. Letting his guard slip here would mean Jin’s death, and that would also mean the deaths of The Giant’s Twin Arms and Jin's party.
Jin’s will to protect shook every ounce of his latent potential, and that potential was rapidly being honed.
Skill levels reflected a person’s technical ability, and the most effective way to raise them was, after all, real combat.
For example, with something like Swordsmanship, daily practice swings were of course important. But as one grew more proficient, mock battles and training closer to real combat became far more effective. Whether it was instruction or an actual match didn’t matter—the higher the opponent’s skill, the more advanced the experience gained.
And if it was a life-or-death battle, that effect was even greater. Ironically, this desperate fight against the high-level, high-skill Gerd became an unparalleled learning opportunity for Jin.
On top of that, an even greater factor came into play: Jin’s talent skill, Martial Talent. This skill, which included Body Control Boost, increased the acquisition rate of martial arts and all body-related skills, and further boosted the speed at which those skills leveled up.
In the game, it had been a convenient, beginner-friendly skill, but the changes caused by reincarnation in this world took it far beyond mere convenience. The “MAX” that once signified a skill’s limit was converted, for several skills including this one, into “maximum level” at the time of reincarnation, multiplying its effects severalfold compared to the original settings.
With its almost absurdly powerful effects, Martial Talent granted Jin massive amounts of experience during this life-or-death battle with the highly skilled Gerd. It not only caused existing skills to level up, but also allowed Jin to acquire new skills one after another.
That said, it wasn’t as if Jin could suddenly surpass Gerd’s skill levels in a single leap. Even so, his skills were growing at a speed that would normally be unthinkable.
And this, more than anything else, was the second reason Jin was managing to hold his ground against Gerd.
Gakin! Gatsu! Gan! Gaki! Kikin!
The sharp clang of clashing blades echoed across the wasteland.
At first, provoked by anger, Gerd’s attacks had been wild and heavy swings. But after seeing Jin endure them, he stopped underestimating him. Now fully focused on the fight, Gerd began mixing in precise, refined attacks as well.
“Gaaaah!”
“Kahh!”
With a roar, Gerd unleashed Intimidation again, and Jin resisted it with Fighting Spirit. However, Gerd had never expected it to land in the first place and had no intention of dwelling on it. As if layering attacks atop one another, he followed immediately with a greatsword strike aimed at Jin.
“Damn!”
Jin barely managed to react, raising his glaive, but it was only a feint.
Exploiting the opening it created, Gerd drove a heavy kick, delivered from greave-clad legs, straight into Jin’s right side.
“Guh!”
Blown backward and thrown off balance, Jin narrowly avoided Gerd’s follow-up attack by using the momentum of his fall to roll away.
A small distance opened between them as Gerd and Jin faced each other once more. Even Gerd, who had been pressing the attack nonstop, was breathing roughly now—but Jin’s fatigue was even more apparent.
“Tch. You’re stubborn, aren’t you? Normally, you should’ve died one or two times over by now.”
Gerd spat the words in irritation, but in truth, they weren’t wrong.
No matter the reasons described earlier, the fact remained that Jin had taken repeated damage of all kinds, large and small. Just as Zack had been unable to rise immediately after taking a single blow through his spear, Jin too had endured attacks that should have left him in the same state. And yet, he had continued to endure. Why was that?
It was thanks to Jin’s Uninjured Body and his chugging of recovery potions using Infinite Storage.
As in Zack’s case, even if armor prevented the “cutting” aspect of a greatsword strike, the impact still transferred through the armor and damaged the body inside. Weapons like warhammers, used by people such as Rachel, specialized in exploiting that principle, but even a heavy greatsword swung with Gerd’s tremendous strength could deal devastating impact damage.
That impact was more than enough to cause broken bones or ruptured organs. However, because of Uninjured Body, a trait Jin had carried over from his days in a VR game, he never suffered such status ailments.
Though his HP still decreased from the damage, the fact that he wasn’t crippled by broken bones or slowed by severe internal injuries was a tremendous advantage.
All that remained was to restore his lost HP using potions.
Normally, restoring HP required an action such as drinking a potion or directly applying it to the wounded area. In real combat, however, that action could easily become a fatal opening, and especially in battles against other people, it demanded extremely precise timing.
For Jin, though, an action that would normally be difficult was simple. By merely imagining its use, he could consume potions directly from Infinite Storage.
With this utterly game-like method of potion use, Jin had been able to recover the HP he lost even while enduring Gerd’s ferocious assault.
In fact, among all the reasons listed for why Jin had been holding out, the only ones Jin himself had considered as grounds for facing Gerd were Uninjured Body and this HP recovery method using Infinite Storage.
He had assumed his stats were a little higher than average, but he had never imagined they were on par with a B-rank adventurer’s. Nor had he expected Martial Talent to demonstrate effects on this level.
When considering that all of these factors were working together to keep Jin alive, it went without saying just how reckless it had been for him to challenge Gerd in the first place.
Even though Jin had originally intended to fight alongside Zack and the other members of The Giant’s Twins Arms, by the time Jin’s group arrived, they were already close to total annihilation. Upon recognizing their condition, the correct decision for Jin as a party leader would have been to never leave the carriage and to withdraw immediately.
Even if that decision had been heartless, it would have been the right one for someone entrusted with the lives of their party members.
But Jin couldn’t do it.
As an old man, Jin had experienced many partings through death over the course of a long life. New lives were born, and lives were lost—both were entirely natural. And just as naturally, the loss of life was something sad.
For the elderly Jin, death had been close at hand and not something to be feared outright. For old people, death could be a form of peace—perhaps even liberation. At least, that was how Jin himself had felt in his old age.
But when it was a life being taken, the matter was different.
Faced with young lives on the verge of being lost, Jin could not restrain himself.
Even if his mind understood that it was not the choice a leader should make, his heart and body reacted on their own.
Whenever other people’s lives were on the line, especially young ones, Jin would act without regard for his own life. One could call this Jin’s weakness.
Yet, this was also the fundamental reason Jin had chosen the profession of adventurer in this world, and perhaps the very purpose he had imposed upon himself after being granted a second life.
In any case, Jin was now wholly consumed with simply surviving and had no room to reflect on his actions. That said, it wasn’t as though he had forgotten about his companions—not at all.
“What’s wrong? Weren’t you going to kill me right away? You’re taking an awfully long time.”
Jin provoked Gerd again after regaining his footing, though in reality, he was in tatters.
In this world, HP recovery potions had a limit on how many times they could be consumed. After exceeding ten uses, their effectiveness began to decline, and now, even when used, they restored only a negligible amount.
The potions Jin had brought over from the game didn’t have such restrictions, but he had left all of them behind for the children of Lientz City, leaving him with none on hand. The five potions whose duplication had been completed during this journey were also not in Jin’s possession at the moment, for other reasons.
Despite being in such a precarious situation, Jin continued his provocation.
Gerd flew into a rage again and was about to charge, but suddenly reacted to something. Leaping away, he swung his sword at the same time.
Of the two flaming spears that attacked Gerd, one was blocked by his sweeping blade—but the other scorched Gerd’s left leg as he sprang aside.
“Tch!”
Gerd clicked his tongue loudly, his eyes locking onto the two who had fired the Flame Spears: Aria and Merry—the female mage from The Giant’s Twin Arms.
But of course, they weren’t the only ones.
Following the magic, two arrows fired by Erza and Zack flew in. Gerd dodged them, but they bought precious time. During that moment, Higgins and Gaston took their positions beside Jin, each gripping their weapons. Just behind them stood the healers, Rachel and Ashley, at the ready.
Jin wasn’t alone.
While Jin held Gerd’s attention, his dependable companions had finished preparing their counterattack.
It had been a gamble.
Before arriving at the scene, Jin had handed over all of his duplicated potions to Aria and the others.
These potions, born of game-like convenience, only restored 20 HP—hardly a large amount. However, unlike the potions of this world, they instantly restored 20 HP regardless of the target’s condition, as long as they weren’t dead. Even severe injuries like ruptured organs or broken bones were no exception.
The five potions had originally been distributed for Aria and the others’ safety, but they ended up saving the lives of Higgins and Gaston, who had been in critical condition, and also reviving Zack and Ashley, who had been incapacitated as well.
Jin’s order—given just before he leapt from the carriage—to “heal everyone while I hold him back” was full of risks, yet Aria and the others had carried it out.
Could Jin really withstand Gerd’s attacks on his own?
Were the fallen adventurers even still alive to begin with?
Would Gerd notice what they were doing?
There were countless problems with the plan, and yet it was executed anyway. That was proof of Aria and the others’ trust that Jin would pull through, and at the same time, a calm judgment that victory required not just the four of them, but the strength of every adventurer present.
Everything hinged on whether Jin could keep Gerd’s attention.
This time, the gamble had paid off.
“Heh heh heh. What’s this? Everyone’s here now, huh?”
Even at this stage, Gerd’s attitude remained relaxed.
In truth, although the members of The Giant’s Twins Arms were standing, their injuries were severe. The healers, Rachel and Ashley, were still continuously casting recovery magic on Higgins and Gaston.
Still, if Jin and the other two frontliners, whose stamina was far from secure, failed to hold Gerd back, the rear line would be helpless before that greatsword. That was even more true for Jin’s party, who were inferior in level.
“You don’t seriously think you can win, do you? The likes of you—”
“We won’t lose!!”
Jin cut Gerd off with a shout.
“Gerd! Do you really think your companions would be happy seeing you commit these atrocities?! You’ve betrayed the feelings of the comrades who died, and you’ve betrayed the feelings of Zack-san and the others who are still alive! The Gerd everyone respected and loved is already gone!”
As he shouted, a single tear of sorrow ran down Jin’s cheek.
The Gerd left behind was surely grieving too—that much Jin understood when he imagined himself in his place.
But if Gerd’s fallen comrades could see him now, what would they think? The companions who once followed the reliable big brother Gerd would never be happy with the man he had become.
Thinking of Gerd’s dead comrades.
Thinking of the many lives stolen by Gerd’s hand.
And thinking of the sorrow that drove Gerd to commit these atrocities—
Jin shed his first tears since coming to this world.
“Isn’t it about time you woke up already?! You damn fool!!”
It was Jin’s first true scolding in a long time—and his final warning.
“…Shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up! Shut the hell up!! I’ll kill you!!”
For a brief moment, Gerd stood frozen—but then he snapped back, screaming as he charged straight at Jin.
“Die! Die! Die! Die already!!”
Howling madly, Gerd slammed his greatsword down on Jin again and again. The ferocity far exceeded his earlier attacks—there was no doubt Jin’s words had struck Gerd’s rawest nerve.
Jin, having once been an old man, was keenly sensitive to young lives lost to daily accidents and tragedies. Every time he saw such news on television or in the papers, he’d feel sorrow and regret.
Though he’d never been caught up in such incidents in his old life, now that Jin had leapt directly into their midst, he simply couldn’t stay silent.
“Uooooooh!!”
Roaring back, Jin clashed head-on with Gerd.
Higgins and Gaston immediately moved in to cover him—without that support, Jin might not have held out.
Jin’s HP dropped at an alarming rate, but Rachel and Ashley restored it, while Jin and the other two frontliners prevented any attacks from reaching the healers. Zack’s and Erza’s arrows harassed Gerd and limited his movement, and whenever an opening appeared, Aria’s and Merry’s magic steadily chipped away at his HP.
Magical damage couldn’t be reduced much by armor, and it reliably ate away at Gerd’s stamina. As the coordination among the three frontliners improved, Jin and the others’ attacks began landing more consistently.
With the front line holding firm, healing and rear-line attacks worked effectively, and the damage to Gerd continued to pile up.
Cuts began to appear on Gerd’s exposed arms and face—places not covered by armor—and as they increased, his body was gradually drenched in blood.
Even so, Gerd was far from an opponent who could be overwhelmed so easily.
“Gaaaaaaaahhh!!”
As Gerd let out a thunderous roar, the already thick muscles covering his body swelled grotesquely. Veins bulged across his skin, and the expansion of his muscles made his entire frame look a size larger.
This was a rare skill called Berserk. It came with conditions—such as only activating when HP dropped below thirty percent—but in exchange, it dramatically increased STR and sent attack power skyrocketing.
A single blow from those swollen muscles was devastating. Gaston, who had blocked with his shield, was blown away bodily. Taking advantage of the opening created by Gerd’s reckless motion, Higgins landed a strike of his own. Yet even as blood spilled, Gerd showed no sign of faltering and casually countered with a brutal slash that sent Higgins flying.
“Watch out!”
Jin barely managed to thrust out his glaive to blunt the force, but Higgins was blown away along with it. In that instant, the only one standing before Gerd as the front line was Jin, empty-handed.
To save Jin from danger, Erza and Zack loosed their arrows, and Aria and Merry unleashed their magic. The arrows were cut down and failed to deal damage, but a Flame Spear scorched Gerd’s left arm.
However, Berserk didn’t just increase strength—it also dulled the sense of pain. On the other hand, it carried the drawback of increasing damage taken. As a result, Gerd’s left arm was effectively ruined. Even so, in his current state, wielding a greatsword with one hand posed no problem at all.
Though he hadn’t completely lost his reason, the side effects dulled Gerd’s thinking somewhat. Even with that dulled mind, seeing Jin standing there barehanded must have convinced him of victory. Without concern for the damage he’d taken, Gerd curled his lips into a grin.
“Uooooooh!!”
Without drawing a new weapon, Jin clenched his fists and charged straight at the greatsword-wielding Gerd. To Gerd, it must have looked like a desperate, reckless act.
Jin’s movements were sharp, far too sharp to be the product of mere improvisation, but compared to a glaive, his striking power was negligible. Confident, Gerd met him head-on and swung his greatsword with certainty of victory.
“Die.”
With that word, the greatsword came down in a diagonal slash toward Jin.
But Jin slammed the gauntlet on his left arm into the blade. Crafted by Gantz, the gauntlet, made generously from Mad Ant Queen materials, could be called a crude shield.
Though pushed back by the momentum of the greatsword, it stopped the attack from becoming a fatal blow. Still, even if he endured this strike, Jin had no decisive means of attack. In this state, he would soon be cut down.
In fact, Gerd was thinking the same thing. An unarmed Jin posed no threat.
But Jin was not just a warrior.
Up to now, he had consistently used only his glaive, never switching weapons to match the situation. Even after losing it, he hadn’t drawn a new weapon and instead challenged Gerd barehanded. This wasn’t to avoid drawing attention from Zack and the others—every step had been calculated for this moment, all to make Gerd believe Jin was nothing more than a simple fighter.
Yes, Jin hadn’t used magic at all.
Blocking the greatsword with his left gauntlet, Jin thrust out his remaining right arm toward Gerd’s jaw and shouted:
“Mana Rifle!!”
At that keyword, a rifle round formed from pure mana fired from Jin’s right palm.
Since the face was easy to evade by turning one’s head, he aimed for the harder-to-avoid area from the neck to the jaw.
Gerd had never imagined that Jin could use magic, much less cast it without an incantation. Still, he was a man once called an adventurer close to A-rank.
Perhaps by instinct, he sensed the danger and tried to evade even at point-blank range.
But the delay caused by his carelessness was fatal. Though the shot was slightly deflected by his movement, Jin’s magic tore through the right side of Gerd’s neck, ripping out the carotid artery.
“…”
For a brief moment, time seemed to stop—then an enormous amount of blood poured out.
The greatsword slipped from Gerd’s hand and stabbed into the ground. He pressed his now-free right hand to his neck, feeling the blood spill out. Bringing that hand before his eyes, he stared at his palm, slick with his own blood—and then, inexplicably, he smiled.
It wasn’t the twisted grin he’d shown before, but a gentle smile—one that made it seem like this might have been how he smiled long ago.
“Take it.”
Saying that, Gerd nudged the greatsword embedded in the ground. It slowly tilted, then fell to the earth.
Still smiling, Gerd himself fell backward.
He hit the ground flat on his back, staring up at the sky. His lips moved slightly, as if speaking to someone unseen, and then, still smiling, he went still.
As if unable to believe Gerd had fallen, silence reigned over the area for a while.
Jin approached Gerd’s lifeless body and gently closed his eyes, which were still open.
He brought his hands together and closed his own eyes.
“Namu Amida Butsu.”
He recited the prayer.
Jin didn’t know whether this world had a concept of hell. But he prayed that after countless tens of thousands of years of punishment—after Gerd had finished purifying the sins he’d committed—he might someday be reunited with the comrades he had lost.
Though once an old man, Jin had never been particularly devout. His beliefs were a muddled blend of several religions—very much a modern Japanese way of thinking.
Even so, the prayer he offered was sincere.
Some might call it hypocrisy, an act that ignored the lives Gerd had taken. But even so, Jin would not stop pressing his hands together.
And taking Gerd’s death as a warning, while remaining aware of his own sins, Jin resolved to continue living from this point on.
Previous Chapter - TOC - Next Chapter
Comments
Post a Comment