221st Chapter. Protagonist’s Adjustment (1)

As the shocking scene flickered across the screen, the village fell silent once again.

In an instant, the Demon King’s punch had severed Princess Meloin’s head from her body.

Some onlookers swiftly turned away, while many parents hurried to shield their children’s eyes.

This was equally true for those engaged in battle outside the village.

Armies of Beastmen and Dragons, marching in from without, halted in their tracks, as did the forces led by high-ranking officials attempting to confront them, sensing the eerie stillness.

“W-What the…!”

The Dark Spirit forces approaching the Academy from the coast felt the same shock.

The Dark Spirit King Crogiri gaped in disbelief, his tongue nearly falling out as he struggled to speak.

“The future… how can this be…?”

He had indeed witnessed a future where everything was destroyed by humans, leading to the continent’s demise.

The steps leading to that outcome were also evident in his vision. But the sight in the sky above the village had not appeared at all.

Furthermore, the scene showing now was utterly unbelievable.

“Your Majesty! There are no signs of a conclusion!”

“If this continues, we will both be annihilated!”

Although Raycia and Dracma spoke desperately, he remained fixated on the screen.

Even as Princess Mirona, empowered by the Holy Sword, and Mary Ryudshiel, awakened as a Demon King, unleashed a simultaneous barrage.

“Prepare yourselves!”

“Let me show you the strength of our ninja combo!”

Every single aspect of this situation made no sense at all.

Just looking at the fact that the Demon King and Princess were fighting side by side was sufficient evidence of that.

Crogiri began to lose his fighting spirit as he beheld this unprecedented spectacle.

The moment he realized the true identity of Emperor Kamain, he lost all desire to demonstrate power.

If the future continues to deviate like this, what were they even doing here?

Wasn’t he merely stacking grains of sand into an utterly meaningless sandcastle?

Overwhelmed by the growing anguish, Crogiri stood frozen, unable to find his footing on the bridge of hesitation.

“Stop it. Raycia. Dracma.”

“What?”

“What do you mean…!”

His two loyal subordinates were utterly astonished at his sudden command.

With a single word from the Dark Spirit King, all the dark spirits lost their fighting spirit.

Though taking the shapes of animals, if they were human, they would begin to raise their hands above their heads, one by one.

“What on earth are you doing?”

“To flee in the middle of a decisive battle… are you really a ninja?”

Princess Mirona and Mary paused their fight, puzzled by their sudden retreat.

If it was a straightforward surrender, it would be most welcome, but expecting a resolution to be that simple was a far-fetched idea.

Mirona, still enveloped in a powerful aura from the Holy Sword, kept a watchful eye on them.

The enhanced mana, strengthened by the Holy Sword, detected each of their movements.

And then, Crogiri opened his mouth.

“We’re just… going to watch until the end.”

Where is the truth, and where is the lie?

Crogiri gazed up at the screen floating in the sky.

What kind of conclusion awaited this future, which seemed as if someone had deliberately twisted it?

*

“What on earth is that?”

A gargantuan dragon perched upon a hill muttered to itself.

With scales dark as the abyss and horned protrusions that looked devilishly crafted, it boasted a menacing appearance.

This black dragon, leading the army of the Black Dragon, was Izaak.

Three hundred years ago, their great ancestor, the Black Dragon King Barbatos, met his untimely demise at the hands of the Great Sage.

The dragons that followed Barbatos were driven out beyond the borders, harboring animosity towards her.

At long last, the time for revenge had come after so many years.

As they clashed with the human army guarding Aligieri Town… a massive screen had appeared in the sky.

“Do you understand what that means? Lucasio.”

“Why are you asking me? What can I do about it?”

A wolf-human leading the Beastman army gazed at the screen, lamenting.

He too was a descendant of the beastfolk who had fallen to the Great Sage.

Their goals were no different from Izaak’s.

Aiming to invade Aligieri for revenge and pleasure, they found themselves stymied by the defending forces.

“And it’s fortunate that such a thing appeared. Taking advantage of their diverted attention, we could retreat.”

Though the enemy’s attention had shifted, Lucasio commanded a retreat without hesitation.

They could have turned the tide while the opposing forces were distracted, but that was not an option anymore.

The moment he sensed something was off with the Beastman soldiers, he knew it was too dangerous to continue fighting.

“These guys are suddenly complaining of stomach pains and losing their will to fight. What the hell did they eat?!”

“Did you ever doubt the supplies we received?”

“The supply was ample! That princely brat Karis had given us enhancement drugs; we should be stronger than ever!”

Lucasio grumbled in frustration, wondering why they were behaving this way, yet he knew nothing of the truth.

That the so-called Prince Karis was a fraud and that the supplies were, in fact, laxatives.

Since the Beastmen moved to advance first, they showed their strength, prompting other demon armies, including the Black Dragon Army, to join in.

And when the Beastmen showed signs of retreat, the other leaders deemed it disadvantageous and ordered a retreat as well.

Thus, they found themselves in this standoff.

“Damn those humans! If only my soldiers recovered, I’d sweep them all away!”

Though their state was peculiar now, their combined forces were comparable to the human forces opposing them.

They were all beings who had lived their lives seething over the legacy of their ancestors.

If even a butterfly effect could emerge to bring about their downfall, they would not hesitate to lay down their lives.

Now was the time, and they were grateful to Emperor Kamain for providing it.

“By the way, this is an unexpected turn of events. I never imagined the true identity of the Emperor would be such a monster.”

His motives for sneaking behind them and helping remained a mystery.

From the onset, when he first visited the Black Dragon’s nest with his outlandish proposal, doubts had persisted.

Maybe a darkness flowed from him that hinted at hidden agendas.

“But it doesn’t matter. Whether he’s the Emperor or the Demon King, as long as he helps us achieve our goal, he’s a firm ally.”

Lucasio insisted they could not overlook that point.

Though the truth came as a shock, it didn’t disrupt their plans.

Both sides sharing a common goal of destroying Aligieri meant their identities could be discussed later.

The enemy forces were now monitoring the situation, unwilling to act recklessly because of potential traps.

Thus, all they could do was watch the screen until their soldiers’ symptoms were healed.

[Khukh… Hahaha!!]

The laughter of the Emperor-turned-Demon King echoed from the screen.

Having just taken Princess Meloin’s head, he drew a dagger from his chest and threw it to the ground.

Perhaps it was because his identity had been revealed, the Demon King continued to laugh.

Until now, they had crossed between the solitary wilderness and lawless regions beyond the borders, but they had never seen such a deranged expression.

It was as if he might spring in any direction, amusing Lucasio and Izaak who watched on.

[Khuhuh… It’s all gone. If I had only managed a bit more, the plan would have been perfect… the traces of that woman could have been obliterated from this world…!]

With his eyes wild, the Demon King resembled an ancient devil that had descended from a true demonic realm.

The overwhelming malice seemed poised to crush everything in its path, combined with madness that had ruined it all, creating massive chaos.

[Who has interfered!!]

Everything about the situation felt unnatural.

Even during the assassination of the Yellow Tower’s Grisha, there had unmistakably not been a hint of awareness.

Yet suddenly, Duke Gerard drew his sword and thwarted the assassination, as if it had been predicted.

Furthermore, Mary Ryudshiel had also lost all evidence proving her status as a Demon King here.

How could Saint Nebia have known the location in advance and seized the evidence?

It was a truth they had anticipated not only from Duke Gerard but also from Saint Nebia.

The Elder Enviel, who was now inciting him, was just the same.

Surely, someone was orchestrating these events behind the scenes.

[Who… could it be…]

But by the time he began to realize it, it was already too late.

With his identity completely exposed, ruling as Emperor had fallen to a tale from beyond the galaxy.

[Hehe… Hahaha! But it doesn’t matter!]

A hunting party was soon to storm in to take him down.

He might escape through the sky by breaking through walls, but he had no intention of fleeing.

No matter how much he flaunted the power of a Demon King, it wasn’t what he had possessed three hundred years prior.

The only futures that lay ahead were one of being killed or bound and interrogated.

But he bore no fear now.

At the moment everything fell apart, he had relinquished all attachments to life.

[Then…]

He withdrew a small magical device from his chest… and raised it triumphantly toward the sky.

[I will obliterate everything! The entirety of this continent!]

Simultaneously, a light surged from the magical device, piercing through the ceiling and ground, shooting skyward.

The violet light, cutting through the clouds, reached the boundless darkness beyond the atmosphere.

In fact, similar occurrences were transpiring in other regions as well.

In the central areas of the various empire defenses, where the towers had once been planned to protect the empire, identical beams of light erupted, piercing the heavens.

But the truth behind those towers wasn’t to protect the empire; it was merely a ritual to summon a colossal beast that would bring about the continent’s ruin.

[Let us all die together!]

Those words plunged everyone into shock once more.

The Dark Spirit King Crogiri opened his eyes wide in surprise, while Lucasio and Izaak could barely contain their horror.

If the continent were to perish… it meant they would perish too.

“Could it be he’s serious…?”

The black dragon Izaak, a symbol of fear, and Lucasio, the leader of bloodthirsty Beastmen.

Even their faces turned as pale as ghosts at this unprecedented crisis.

[This is the Plan B I have laid out!]

Inevitably proving the truth of his ominous words… a massive boulder was plummeting from the sky, leaving a blazing trail behind it.

*

`Now, is he really going to summon meteorite strikes?`

Transformed into Enviel, I gaped, tongue-tied in astonishment.

But that was to be expected; my reaction was one of sheer absurdity.

Having cleared the entirety of the Devil Arcana’s main story, this plan B had never been executed by him.

It was all predicated on plan A succeeding to open up the paths to the bad ending and true ending.

Even in the main story, there were murmurs regarding plan B, yet it had never been elucidated.

Instead, the information was buried in a world-building book penned directly by the game developer.

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The last resort left by Makia as a contingency plan in case all else failed.

He, a man from three hundred years ago, was the only one who knew of the perilous rituals destroyed by past magical scholars.

Technically, those rituals, now destroyed, had long been hidden from the world, but Makia had resolved to utilize them.

The ritual entailed dropping the head of an Evil God suspended in the sky down to the earth.

By fixing the corpse of the ancient Evil God at specific locations and awakening the triggering magical device, the light of mana would connect with the heavens.

That light would act with immense gravitational force, falling to the ground… and incinerating everything.

Its exact size remained unknown, but once that thing hit the ground, the continent would be completely obliterated.

If there would ever arise a chosen hero, might they stop Makia…

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It was to pull the ancient demon’s corpse floating in space with gravitational force.

At the very least, it would ensure the continent’s annihilation, akin to the crisis Ryman had sparked during the bad ending route.

-Look over there! Something’s really falling!

-Someone stop that!

-Call a wizard! Let’s pour mana on it and block it!

-How can we reach that far?

A gargantuan sphere, resembling the head of a living creature, fell like a meteorite.

The atmosphere glowed a fiery red from immense frictional heat.

Just from this location, it appeared to be at least several kilometers in size, turning the sky crimson with its heat.

The sight was akin to the sun rising at midnight when the moon hung in the sky.

As the heat intensified, people’s panic escalated.

“Everyone, stay calm!”

I shouted in Enviel’s voice.

My words echoed through the village thanks to the magic, drawing everyone’s attention to me.

“We will not be annihilated! You must not yield or cower in the face of this Demon King’s atrocities!”

But how could they possibly inhibit that?

No matter how great a wizard Enviel was said to be, it was hard to believe he could halt the flames of that demon, capable of plunging the continent into hell in a single blow.

While such worries gnawed at me, I continued to lament.

“Do not mistake! We have hope! And that hope has been kindled by your determination, the heart that revived this Aligieri!”

There once existed a being who turned his back on humanity in disappointment.

He had grown tired of humans who showed no gratitude and had thrust his own mother to death, yet there was a moment when his heart changed.

The humans who had once owed a debt to his mother… steadily established an academy named after her, continuing her legacy.

-A being that, without gratitude, hunts witches.

-A being that does not yield to evil, continuing to shine their spirit and passing their history to future generations.

He had weighed both of these for three hundred years.

That agony remains an ongoing saga; if the continent were to perish, that suffering would end.

To let it come to that was not satisfying.

Fwoosh!-

A great rumble resonated from somewhere.

In that direction, something shot skyward with tremendous force.

It could have been a bird, dragon, or the flight of a wizard; many speculated thus, but ultimately it was something far from that.

-A demon?

That creature, equipped with two legs and arms, surged upward into the sky.

The shockwave from its flight, covering a distance of 10,000 meters, reached even here.

“Look at that!”

I pointed at the shimmering figure like a star and shouted.

“That being is the very hope you have created!”

The protagonist, who would decide the fate of this world, met the colossal meteor halfway.

Surviving as the Academy Scammer.

 

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