Translator: Alpha0210
Pitch black.
He could tell from the movement of the air.
Right now the interior of the cave had become a completely sealed space. A place with no way in and no way out.
In the midst of it, only the spot where the Blue Knight stood held a faint, dim light. She looked almost like an actor standing alone on a dark theater stage, caught in a single spotlight.
The Blue Knight, an actor? Then was Residue the audience?
Residue shook his head. Enough of that. He liked letting stray thoughts run on, but now wasn't the time.
Instead he called back to mind, once more, the words the Blue Knight had spoken.
...A talk. A conversation.
Was that woman really proposing they have a conversation right now?
"Ha."
A dry laugh slipped out. Calling it a sneer would have been just as fair.
Whatever it was, "conversation" was not a word that suited the present situation, nor the Blue Knight.
Residue made one final check of the time remaining, then spoke again.
"A conversation only happens when both sides want something from the other. And this one doesn't particularly want anything from you."
"Really, nothing? Surely you've got one or two things at least!"
"Such as?"
"Such as, stay quiet while you're away out in 'the Outside'?"
"......"
That was unexpected.
Was she a woman capable of that kind of level-headed reasoning?
Residue narrowed his eyes. Come to think of it, the Blue Knight was... a woman who knew how to conceal herself, to a degree. Hadn't she thoroughly deceived Lukas back when he first arrived in the World of Void?
He held her in his gaze for a moment, then gave a nod.
"True. I do always, sincerely, wish you'd throw yourself around a little less. But it's not as though you'd go along with it just because this one wants it."
"Who knows."
The Blue Knight curled her lips into a slow smile, then laughed under her breath.
Hee, hee, hee. A grating voice rang unpleasantly through the whole cave.
While the madwoman had her fit of laughter, Residue turned to look behind him once more.
Nothing but the same pitch-black darkness stretched out there. What had she sealed the cave mouth with? He'd felt no sense of a wall rising up, or a ceiling caving in. It wasn't a simple physical barricade. Some special power had been brought into play.
"Don't drag this out."
Residue turned back around and spoke.
"If you want something, you'd best spit it out fast. This one's patience isn't deep, and the time left is short."
He put to his lips the same line he'd once said to Sedi Trowman, but the response that came back was different.
The Blue Knight's expression shifted, ever so slightly. The smile remained, yet within it Residue sensed an indescribable pretense.
"...Lately I've had a lot on my mind. Never used to. You might not know this, but I've always lived exactly as I pleased. When I was hungry I ate, when I wanted to kill I killed, when I wanted to spare I spared. If it looked like something fun was about to happen, I shoved my face in first and thought about it later──."
"And what am I supposed to do with that."
"Residue. It's about the choice you made. I thought it through deeply, which isn't like me at all."
"......"
"Felt like I owed you that much respect. Say what you will, but it's a fact that Lukas chose you, isn't it? I figured there had to be a reason."
Now the Blue Knight was even talking about respect.
Residue watched her in silence. She could spout nonsense, or drip with sarcasm for all he cared, but for now he wanted to hear more of what she'd say.
"I fully expected you wouldn't pick me. But no matter how, however hard I think about it, I can't understand why you picked that reject. So my conclusion is, you made the wrong choice."
At this point Residue quietly let his body tense.
So that, whenever the opponent made some sudden move, he could react without delay, and so that at any moment he could use One Step Through Time and Space and return to the King's Castle.
As those thoughts crossed his mind, he saw the Blue Knight's lips slowly part.
"But it turns out I'm not the only one who thinks that way."
What came next happened in the blink of an eye.
Residue felt projectiles laden with formidable force flying in from left and right. Because he'd kept his body tensed, his reaction wasn't late.
But until the attack came he'd sensed no presence at all, and since most of his focus had been poured onto the Blue Knight, he couldn't block it perfectly.
He dodged the attack on the left but took the one on the right.
Thunk!
The instant something sharp lodged in his shoulder, the pain was the least of it; his consciousness suddenly blurred. For a moment his legs wobbled and he nearly collapsed in an unsightly heap. Residue snapped his eyes open, forcibly jolting himself awake, then tried to seize whatever had pierced his shoulder.
Sliiide......
An instant before he could, the sharp thing dissolved into the darkness and vanished. Even so his hazy consciousness didn't return, and his body grew heavy on top of it. Had they coated it in poison? Hardly anything should work on this body.
And on top of that, perhaps because of the darkness surrounding him on all sides, he couldn't make out the face of whoever had attacked him, let alone the exact shape of the projectile that had stabbed his shoulder.
Letting out a sigh, he drew his weapon.
Tzz-tzzt!
The moment the flash of Lightning subsided, the Thunder Staff was in Residue's right hand. He swung the bolt-forged rod a few times, then looked to the front again.
The Blue Knight stood there just as she had before, wearing much the same face. The blade in her hand, the chain wound about her arm, all unchanged. She looked so defenseless it made him want to hurl the Thunder Staff in his hand at her, and that very look seemed to insist the attack just now had nothing to do with her.
"You know what? A negotiator showed up for me too."
"What?"
There was no room to press her on it.
Residue felt another attack come crashing down. Damn it. Was she deliberately doling them out one at a time, like throws?
Clang!
This time he didn't take it; he knocked it away. But the instant he deflected it with the Thunder Staff, a strange feeling came over him.
This attack. There's something familiar about it.
Clang, clang!
He caught the attacks one after another. The more he swung the Thunder Staff, the more heat rose in his body and the smoother his chained movements became, but honestly he couldn't see the situation in an optimistic light.
'My condition's more of a wreck than I thought.'
The fatigue of both body and mind was considerable.
Before coming here he'd kept company with the Red Knight, and after that he'd even drunk strong liquor with Retip. The liquor especially was the problem; his head was still somewhat foggy and half-drunk.
His opponent was the Blue Knight, and at least one more enemy of unknown identity. The enemy looked to be at least Twelve Void Lord class, so fighting in this state would drag things out far too long.
In that case there was no reason to indulge them.
Crackle.
Judgment made, Residue gathered energy into his feet. A fearsome Thunder coiled around his entire body. His vision darkened as though storm clouds had rolled in, and thunderclaps came crashing down endlessly beside his ears.
──The casting speed of One Step Through Time and Space had grown faster. His brief bout with the Red Knight had, through its positive influence, evolved the technique.
Behind Residue there was still nothing but darkness, but it didn't matter. Not being able to see didn't mean he'd lost all sense of direction. Ironically, the one thing on display, the Blue Knight, her very presence was serving as Residue's signpost.
The place to head was the direction opposite the Blue Knight.
Cutting across the pitch-black darkness, shaking off not only the Blue Knight but the reach of the enemy hidden in the dark.
Residue burst out of the cave in a single stroke.
──Clang!
That was how it should have gone.
Residue's body was flung back. Leaving a long trail across the ground, he returned once more to where he'd started.
Facing the Blue Knight.
The very spot where he'd launched One Step Through Time and Space.
"...Hm."
It occurred to him then that the situation might be even more serious than he'd thought.
"Wow. Still stunning, even seeing it again. That technique. I don't think I could stop it."
The Blue Knight jeered in a laughter-laced voice, but it barely reached his ears.
Brow furrowed, he analyzed the situation, and soon had to admit it.
One Step Through Time and Space had been blocked.
It felt like he'd rammed his face into something unimaginably hard, though in truth it made no sense.
Blocked?
Whatever lay in his path of movement, it was impossible even if the hardest metal in the world were standing in the way. Even if Anti Metal, the strongest metal in the universe that had made the place called the "Top Universe" possible, were piled up like a mountain, the Residue of now could crush it like a biscuit.
Then the thing that had just blocked Residue was......
"...A talk, huh."
Residue let out something like a sigh and walked toward Pale. He stopped at a gap of about two paces.
Close enough that a blade, let alone an outstretched arm, could easily reach her.
"......"
At his sudden approach, Pale abruptly dropped her gaze a touch. She looked slightly flustered, even.
Residue unconsciously ran a hand over his own face once, then spoke.
"I thought things were going a little too smoothly. Right. You lot aren't the sort to go home so quietly, aren't the sort to change so easily."
"......"
"I thought the situation had wrapped up nicely. With the Half King before my eyes, I expected you'd change. Just as this one did. In the end it was an interpretation loaded with my own bias."
"Kwahahaha......."
A booming, mad laughter erupted from somewhere in the cave.
Personally, this grated on him more than Pale's stifled laughter. And not simply because it was louder.
Rumble.
Lightning struck down here and there across the dark cave, and out from between the bolts a being of enormous frame came striding. With every unhesitating stamp of its feet the whole cave shook, thud, thud.
Residue muttered as he looked at the being.
"Can't say I'm glad to see you, Lightning God."
"No? This one's quite glad. Feels like a reunion after some tens of thousands of years."
The Lightning God grinned.
Residue let that face slide past him and scanned his surroundings once more.
There would be one more. He knew the full extent of the Lightning God's authority, and the darkness blanketing the cave and the projectile that had pierced his shoulder earlier were not that being's power.
He looked around pretending not to know, but in truth, if it was someone who'd conspire together with the Lightning God, it was obvious.
"Why don't you show yourself too, about now?"
"...Hm."
Slide.
The darkness on the floor rose up, gathered, and then formed the shape of a man.
The Black Thorn Demon King, of course.
Residue looked at the two Rulers who'd revealed themselves and couldn't help letting out a snort of laughter.
"You're showing me a precious sight. Right. So you did meet change after all. The you of old would never have skulked in a cave like rats and colluded."
"Residue, insulting us like that will have little effect."
"Is that so?"
So even scraping at their nerves would be a waste of time, then.
Residue took in every one of those surrounding him and spoke.
"Right. My lord Rulers. First I'd like to ask whether this one understands the situation correctly. Two Rulers and one of the Four Knights have joined hands to kill this one... may I read it that way?"
"You've got two things wrong."
"Two whole things?"
At Residue's mild surprise, the Lightning God grinned crookedly.
"First, we've no particular intention of killing you, Residue. If we have a purpose, it'd be the thing you've kept so carefully hidden away in your breast."
"...The ticket to 'the Outside', is it. I never dreamed you'd cling this stubbornly."
Residue grumbled as he looked at the Lightning God, then, as if something had just struck him, said,
"So that's it. Retip too, you sent him, Lightning God."
"What are you talking about."
"Don't play dumb. The timing of his appearance, the way he hinted at the Blue Knight, the liquor he brought along. No matter how I think about it, that liquor was far too strong. Strong enough to lower this body's physical abilities."
"Heh, heh, heh. Your mind does turn quickly, I'll grant you that."
Residue heaved a deep sigh.
The truth was he was in no position to sneer at them. Somewhere along the way he'd let his own guard go slack. Had things gone so well that he'd grown careless? Perhaps so. The right amount of tension, the right amount of ease. In all things the middle is best.
"You said two things. So what's the other one?"
"You said two Rulers and one of the Four Knights had joined hands, didn't you?"
Pale gave a faint smile.
"Sadly, you're wrong! Because we've got one more business partner."
Clank.
The instant he heard the sound of metal meshing, Residue knew who the last figure was without looking. And he nearly let out a sigh far deeper than the one before.
The Black Thorn Demon King and the Lightning God.
Both were strong, but even those two couldn't perfectly deflect Residue's One Step Through Time and Space.
Only two beings in the entire Unified World could display that level of defense.
One was the Half King, with her overwhelming physical ability.
And the other, if he committed to battle purely in a defensive stance, was a knight who could hold out like an impregnable fortress even against multiple of the Four Knights and Rulers.
...It seemed that the content of what Retip had told him over their cups had held no lie in it after all.
That the Blue Knight had headed north.
"──Your Majesty."
And that she'd moved together with Agolet, all of it.
Emerging from the darkness, Agolet gazed this way with a faint smile.
"I thought long over the words Your Majesty gave me, and before long I reached my conclusion. Your Majesty will respect this Agolet's choice, won't you?"
"I'll respect it, but setting that aside, the situation's damned wretched."
The Blue Knight ahead. The White Knight behind.
And a Ruler on either side.
Residue lifted his head without thinking. He felt like looking up at the sky, but what he saw wasn't even the cave ceiling, only pitch-black darkness.
At a situation this far past the line, a mutter escaped him before he knew it.
"...This means I'm completely done for."
*****
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