The castle shook like there was an earthquake. While the usually fearless vampires made a fuss, the young girl who was their queen was calm and steadfast. She elegantly sat down on her throne and tipped a glass of blood between her waiting lips. She was surrounded by monster corpses. They had been underlings of that annoying liger that'd come to take her head. But they'd been unable to fulfill their mission, becoming food instead.
"…They're making me jealous."
The world shook as if to inform Ruby that her enemy was alive and well. She could feel the shockwaves of her power. Ruby had already been sure of her existence after hearing the report, but now she felt her enemy's presence directly.
At the same time, Ruby was experiencing an emotion similar to annoyance. She was experiencing one-sided jealousy.
Just who are you playing with while leaving me here alone? Joy and jealousy… It's as if I'm some little girl who's experiencing her first love…
With those thoughts running through her mind, Ruby looked out of her window. She was imagining just what kind of fight her hated but also beloved enemy was having right now.
"I can't wait."
***
In the middle of the wilderness, a single creature muttered to herself, her voice filled with joy. She was surrounded by dead vampires. The vampires should have been nearly immortal, but they had been ripped apart so thoroughly they couldn't even regenerate. The cause of all that was a giant, lion-tiger hybrid sitting in the middle of all of them.
"I might just get hard… You're really making it difficult to resist, Naru…" She was over 150m tall, taller than Fiona in her true form. The liger's eyes looked ferocious, and she had the arrogance to designate everything around her as food. Her giant body had the suppleness belonging to one of the feline family, but at the same time, her body was harder than steel. Her ebony fur was shining in blackish color.
The Fauna Queen drooled as she vulgarly lusted after what she considered the best prey, who wasn't there right now.
This shaking earth feels nice.
To her, the power she could feel behind the shaking was the best form of invitation, and her desire to fight only grew stronger and stronger. But the opponent she wanted wasn't here. Aghh, this is killing me. I might go crazy!
With no way to satisfy her animal desires and violent impulses, she—Sienna, the Fauna Queen—continued to enjoy the aftershocks of a faraway battle.
Meanwhile, Haruto shivered while being tossed around by the same aftershocks.
This isn't funny! They want me to beat these two monsters? That's just the worst kind of joke!
No, they aren't even monsters. They're natural disasters. They're just human-shaped natural disasters. Look, the sword saint's already hiding, scared beyond his wits.
***
Nearby Haruto and the others, the two fighters who'd just clashed touched down to the ground, standing there unchanged from how they had been before the fight.
The attack-enhancing skill, 'Iron Fist.'
The defense-piercing skill, 'Weak-Point Strike.'
'Revenge,' a skill that raises the power of attacks proportionately to how much HP has been lost.
'Meteor Kick,' which cancels an opponent's flight and deals damage. The absolute-accuracy skill, 'Shine Blow.'
The absolute-evasion skill, 'Flash.' The two-hit skill, 'Double Blow.' The four-hit skill, 'Force Blow.'
'Ex-Counter,' which negates physical damage and deals double damage back.
'Sonic Fist,' which boosts attack frequency proportionate to the user's class level.
'Smash,' which will always land a critical hit.
'Armor Break,' which lowers the target's defense for a set time while doing damage.
'Power Break,' which lowers the target's attack for a set time while doing damage.
'Speed Break,' which lowers the target's speed for a set time while doing damage.
'Buster Impact,' a skill which deals extremely large amounts of damage and can only be used once every 24 hours.
The high-speed movement skill, 'Flash Step,'
As well as other skills, buff and debuff heaven-arts, recovery heaven-arts, and defense shields. I hadn't held back on anything.
Just seeing this list, I don't think anyone would understand what was going on. They might wonder what was with the list. I'd think the same.
Can you believe it…? The list was only a small portion of all the skills I'd used while fighting the Grimm King.
Yeah, uhh… I already knew he was strong. He'd beaten the Seven Maidens of Midgar who'd beaten me (though Ruby didn't participate, so it's really more like the Six Maidens of Midgar), so it was obvious to anyone that he was strong.
But I'd just directly experienced how strong he was.
Honestly, I want to apologize as hard as I can for ever referring to him as "the Grimm King (lol)."…The Grimm King's too strong. It's not funny.
I'd already lost around 50,000 HP. He'd probably lost a lot of HP as well, but he was the official Last Boss. He definitely had over a million HP. This was just my estimation, but I figured he had around 3-6 million HP. I'd like to think he didn't quite have over 10 million HP.
In other words, what I wanted to say was that I was in trouble. If we were to keep fighting like this, I'd probably lose.
We were even in actual combat, but the difference in HP values meant that I couldn't win just by being even. But in this player vs. boss scenario, I was barely breaking even, even while the threat of being trampled over was always present. My healing and other abilities weren't keeping up at all. I had natural regeneration and heaven-arts, but those took time to fully heal me.
If only I'd brought a weapon…
If I had a weapon, I'd be able to bring my swordmaster skills to bear as well, and I'd be faring at least a little better. Any weapon I transmuted out of what was just lying around wouldn't be good enough to do anything, though.
At any rate, the Grimm King still wasn't someone I could beat one-on-one. "Hm, as I expected, Azrael. Even after being sealed for one thousand years, you are stronger than the hero Erza. But you seem to be holding back quite a bit, no? Or are you saying that I'm not worth getting serious against?"
"…?"
"Your strength should be greater than this, right? The strength of the Black Empress who faced off alone against Seven Maidens of Midgar, hundreds of great warriors, and multitudes of golems and monsters at the same time and still fought evenly with all of them should be more than this. The Lunaru Fenris that I feared… she should be more vividly strong, enough for me to yearn for it."
I almost reflexively responded aloud to the Grimm King's speech with dumb confusion.
Huh? What? No, no, I'm not that much stronger than Erza and the others.
In the game, I couldn't use all of the skills I'd learned in battle. I had to decide what skills to use beforehand and set them, and in battle I could only use the skills I'd set. So actually, I was a little stronger now, since I wasn't limited in that way.
It was true that my total stats had been higher than the members of the Seven Maidens of Midgar but only a little. I still lost against them in their respective specialties. It was obvious that I couldn't hope to match all seven of them at once. If I were able to do that, then I'd be the real last boss rather than a wild last boss.
"…Do you really believe that this is your limit?"
"We don't understand what you're talking about."
"No… Just what… No, wait. I see. It's like that. Damn you, Haru. So you've already played your hand."
I didn't understand what was going on, but the Grimm King got visibly angry, and he clicked his tongue.
Could it be? Naru was actually even stronger before I possessed her? No. No way. Just how much stat boosting would she have had to do? How many tens of times the playtime would she have had to log to do that?
"I see. So I was a bit too impatient. It's not yet time."
For some reason, the Grimm King was acting as if he'd come to some conclusion that only he was aware of.
Is he some sort of loner? Talking to yourself is one of the signs of being a loner.
"Just what have you been going on about all this time? Why don't you let us in on whatever it is you've figured out on your own?"
When I spoke, the Grimm King finally looked up at me, as if he'd just noticed I was still here. "No, it is nothing. I only learned that it was too early for me to fight you. Like this, we cannot surpass the Goddess's Script."
"The Goddess's Script?"
"Correct. This world moves according to the script written by the all-powerful Goddess Haru Heartfilia. The grimmfolk are no exception to that… In fact, you can say that the grimmfolk are jesters that are puppeted to liven up the story. The Goddess created them for that purpose alone."
I still haven't beaten him, but I guess he decided I passed anyway?
Even though the winner hadn't been decided, the Grimm King was talking easily, leaking all sorts of information. What happened to, "then force me to tell you?" Well, if he'll talk, then I'll listen, though. Whatever.
"Why do you think the grimmfolk attack people and kill them?"
"Isn't it to expand your territory?"
"That is a part of it, but it's also only the surface reason. The real reason is that… They have to kill people. It is like how humans cannot live without eating or stay sane without sleeping. For grimmfolk, it is the same type of instinctive need. You see, the grimmfolk… they are flawed creatures that disappear if they don't kill humans. Like that, the grimmfolk disappear and scatter throughout the world. Those scattered fragments of their bodies are what you call 'mana.'"
That was something I didn't know. It was true that game lore didn't cover why mana existed in the world at all. I never questioned it, though. I just figured that it was natural, since it was a fantasy setting.
"Their bodies are recycled and reused. That is proof that they are nothing but a magic spell. Without the grimmfolk, none of you would be able to use the convenient power of magic. But because they exist, you are forced into a fruitless war that will continue on forever. The Goddess made the grimmfolk to be this way and left their management to me."
"…Management? You mean, you are different?"
I felt that there was something out of place with what the Grimm King had said. Ever since he'd started talking about the grimmfolk, the Grimm King had always used 'they' and hadn't included himself in that group. It was as if he were implying that he wasn't one of the grimmfolk.
I was about to put that doubt into words when someone from the hero party wedged in with a raised shout of, "Wait, please!"
He's, uhh… Isn't he the elf jiji who was there when I was summoned?
"Wh-what does that mean?! It sounds like you're saying the Goddess herself wishes to plunge this world into despair! Are you saying that the Goddess… the most kind Goddess Haru Heartfilia wishes for our deaths?!" he shouted towards the Grimm King, his expression full of unease.
"That is correct, weak one. The Goddess does not wish for this world to be saved. That was why the war one thousand years ago occurred."
"?!"
"Did you not find it strange? You've realized that it was unnatural, right? True, Lunaru Fenris was frightening back then, but… there was no need to defeat her before she'd finished her fight with us.… Why not wait until after she'd made war with the grimmfolk? The best course of action would have been to have Naru defeat me before overthrowing her. Even so, the Seven Maidens of Midgar didn't wait for the best time. Instead, they incite a rebellion beforehand and sealed Naru."
"…I ask you, isn't that strange? Even Juvia, someone who's known for her great wisdom, was there. Such imprudence would be strange. It was as if none of you were thinking of the future at all. Even an infant would've been able to tell what was going to happen if you deposed Naru at that time. But you all still abandoned rational thought and deposed her anyway. Even if it made sense for Ruby, who has always been attached to Naru, to do such a foolish thing, it was extremely strange for the other six to follow suit."
I couldn't argue against the points that the Grimm King lined up. It seemed the elf jiji was the same. Nobody else spoke up, either.
It's true that it's strange.
I don't know just how severe Naru was, but she should still have been on humanity's side, at least. Even if she did rule through fear, it was written in books that her rule was not bad. Even conceding that she should've been deposed at some point, waiting until after the grimmfolk had been defeated should have been all right.
In fact, aiming for when she was still weak from that fight might have been a better choice that led to fewer casualties.
But still, the heroes persisted in attacking Naru. And in the ensuing fight, the number of great warriors humanity had was reduced, eventually leading to regret, with the heroes saying that they'd made a terrible mistake.
Now that I think about it, that was a really dumb move.
"Azrael, I expected that you had reached the truth before anyone else. That was why you attempted to completely eradicate the grimmfolk and unite the world, something no one else could ever do. It was an effort to end the Goddess's Script, although forceful."
"…"
"However—"
"Xgate! Flash Impact! "
Suddenly, a gate opened up in the space next to the Grimm King, unleashing a golden flash.
Having been completely blindsided by the attack, the Grimm King couldn't react in time and was blown away. On top of that, a golem in a maid's outfit flew out of the gate as if to follow up the attack.
"Program Selection! Zuben El Genubi!"
Penny slammed a cannon round into the Grimm King, who was flying off into the distance. A beam of light with sparks running through it carved a straight line at him. As soon as it hit the ground, the area exploded.
Penny, with her arm still transformed, came over to me and grabbed me by my clothing before deploying her Sky Jets.
"H-hey, Penny?"
"Master, I believe retreating from this battlefield would be the best choice at the moment. Fighting the Grimm King right now is not a wise decision."
"No, wait a second. He was saying something very important just now—"
"Retreat!"
"Listen to us!"
Penny ignored me and flew off.
Is this thing really loyal to me? It seems to ignore my orders a lot…
The Grimm King hurriedly emerged from the smoke, not seeming to have taken that much damage. Then he was rammed into by Honda and sent spinning away.
Honda quickly pulled a U-turn and went right back through the Xgate.
Hey, Haruka, you brought Honda over, too? Honda's low level. What if he gets one-shotted?
"Let us go, Penny. The heroes are still there."
"That is not a problem. I do not understand why you care so much, but it is clear that you are the Grimm King's target. If we retreat here, he will most likely not bother with those mice."
"…Were you listening to our conversation? It should have been far outside your range of perception."
"Haruka opened a small gate. We have been listening the entire time."
Ahh, that makes sense.
So Haruka had been eavesdropping the entire time? Once she figured I wouldn't be able to win, she stepped in to help me beat a hasty retreat. So she probably attacked with that timing because the Grimm King was preoccupied with the conversation and full of openings. If she'd tried that during our fight, I might have been hit, too, after all.
No, wait. It sounded as if he were going to say something pretty important. He was clearly going to reveal some sort of hidden background lore or past that I didn't know about. And it seems that past me's goals were pretty different from what I remember. I wanted to listen until the end, if I could…
Still. Haru Heartfilia, huh?
Now that I think about it, I don't know much about her, either. I only know that she's the creator of the world of Xgate and a loving Goddess, as well as the representation of the online game's admin. Also, she probably had something to do with me coming here.
In fact, the last memory I had before arriving in Midgar was of me saying "Yes" to Haru's proposal. There was no way she wasn't involved.
They said she was a loving Goddess. But she'd made the grimmfolk, and if what the Grimm King said was true, then she'd purposefully created them to be humanity's enemies. If this were a game, it could've been explained away by saying that enemies were needed to liven things up. But this was reality, and this was clearly strange.
Just what merit is there in doing something like that? She's more like an evil Goddess than a loving Goddess.
On top of that, if mana really were just the bodies of grimmfolk, that would mean more than half of humanity evolved thanks to the grimmfolk. Elves, beastmens, dwarves, halflings, and vampires—all five of these races should have evolved from humans through mana.
If this theory was correct, that would mean the flugels weren't humanity. After all, our race's compatibility with mana was far too awful. In other words, the flugels had nothing to do with mana and were just a separate branch of humanity that popped up from somewhere…
That gives credence to the theory that we're descendants of angels, doesn't it? And the color of our wings is affected by mana, so… Huh? Is that like monsterification or something? Wouldn't my black wings mean that I've seriously become some sort of other race?
…Now that I think about it, I felt nothing when entering Svel, a place that most flugels won't go near. In fact, it felt kind of nice…
Could it be? Could I (Naru) not even be a flugel…?
***
Dragneel got up from the ground and muttered, "…That was a mistake," sounding bored. He wasn't talking to himself. He was talking to the girl wearing a thin smile behind him… Haruka.
She was receiving the full force of the Grimm King's anger, but she didn't move a muscle.
"Speak. I have already set up a barrier surrounding us. That golem will not be able to hear us. Of course, the heroes are outside the barrier as well."
"Heh heh… As expected, Your Excellency. Nothing escapes you."
"Nonsense. What were you planning with that, Ashley? No, Haruka?"
Haruka laughed. Her eyes narrowed, and her lips drew a curve as she spoke, sounding aloof. "It was an act to gain trust, of course. The doll was watching me."
"For an act, your attack certainly seemed pretty serious."
"Oh? But an attack of that level wouldn't matter to you, would it, Your Excellency? I did it because I believe in your power."
"You certainly know how to talk." Dragneel gave a short laugh. Then, he turned around to face Haruka and spoke assertively. "Azrael… Lunaru Fenris has gotten weaker. Did you know about that?"
"Of course."
"That was not your doing, was it? It couldn't be."
"Of course not. As if I could do something like that. Only the omnipotent Goddess Haru Heartfilia could pull that off."
"You really do know just what to say."
Haruka let out another laugh. Then, she got closer to Dragneel and whispered into his ear.
"…I see. A place like that exists? Then I will prepare to make my attack."
"I will keep her occupied in Blutgang for a while. I pray for your fortune, Your Excellency."
"What a strange thing to say. Just who would you be praying to?"
Haruka had no reply for Dragneel's question. He simply passed by her silently as a gust of wind blew. Once the wind settled… neither of them were there any longer, leaving the hero and his party with no idea of what had happened.