In the center of the sky, black storm clouds spun around like a top, swirling in a spiral motion.
Crackle!
Purple lightning struck, scattering sparks into the forest.
Gradually, the swirling mass grew larger, threatening to engulf the entire world.
[system: Run as administrator]
[system: trig/0xf29a31 has been added. (Command: RECOVER)]
[Notification: Skill – ‘Pantomime’ has been added.]
[Notification: Trait – ‘Curse of Immortality’ has been added.]
I checked everything promised by the administrator. All items, aside from administrator permissions, could be obtained in-game, but they were essential for saving time.
Without a moment to spare, I rolled down the stairs of the Vatican City.
[Adella: 18km]
I could instantly know Adella’s location within the game system.
Thank goodness I didn’t need to use magic for something like this.
The tall buildings rising high above the sky slowly disappeared from the background.
At the mountain ridge at the edge of my field of view, a black curtain loomed. The dense forest was being devoured by fog.
It was apt to say that the world was colliding with another realm and was being consumed.
I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with the cold air, and exhaled toward the front.
[Cast: Reinforcement Interference]
“Whew… Adellaaaaaa!”
The sound expanded in all directions, and in response, crows squawked and flapped their wings.
[Adella: 395m]
[Adella: 390m]
She moved.
Fortunately, it seemed she heard my voice.
Suddenly, a silver cat appeared from the dark forest, pricking its ears as it ran toward me.
“Uuuu… Sister… Sister! Waaaah!”
The girl, sobbing bitterly, jumped into me without the slightest hesitation.
Upon closer inspection, her arms and legs were covered in cuts and bruises, hardly a sight to behold.
“Adella.”
“Of course you wouldn’t leave me behind… Right… Hehe… Ugh… I’m so scared… So, so scared. I don’t know what to do anymore. I… I just watched you disappear suddenly… The world turned completely black and white… Sniff… The ground is collapsing far away…”
Adella trembled violently as she began to cry intensely. Her mournful cries mixed with painful groans.
It felt as if she was tightening her grip around my waist, blaming me for disappearing so suddenly.
“It’s just a dream… It has to be a dream… Ugh… Please don’t abandon me, I’m so scared…”
Tears streamed down her face as Adella confessed to me.
Unconsciously, I reached out to her head.
Gently smoothing her hair as if I were handling a fragile baby, I brushed away the twigs and leaves tangled in her hair.
For someone, this might just be a game, but for her, it must have been her entire world.
I could feel the fear, terror, and anxiety she was experiencing enveloping me.
Yes, just like how any human feels when witnessing erosion for the first time, anyone would experience such feelings.
Whether it’s erosion, earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, or typhoons, everything is equal in the face of overwhelming violence that can’t be dealt with.
I interlaced my fingers with her delicate hands and gently raised her chin to make her face me, her tear-stained eyes gazing into mine.
I stared into her vertically split cat pupils.
“Adella.”
“I’m going to die… It’s a dream… Ugh…”
“Adella!”
“Whaat!”
“Have you ever made a mistake by listening to me until now?”
“N-no…”
“I’ll save you and this world. But promise me one thing. No matter what happens, you must believe me without question. Even if you think differently, you must think that I’m right and that I’m always correct. Do you understand?”
“Okay! I understand…”
“We don’t have time. Don’t get left behind, follow me.”
[Higher Heal lv.2: Restores 3000 health over 10 seconds.]
[MP Cost: 1200, Cooldown: 45 seconds]
The power of four laurels surpassed the reality of magic.
In an instant, Adella, having regained all her energy, dusted herself off and chased after me.
As we retraced our steps through the map, I quickly recalled the conditions necessary for the ending.
First, find the ‘Laurel of Death,’ where Mephistopheles’s cornerstone is sealed.
The moment the Laurel of Death seizes Adella’s body would be the trigger for the final boss to appear.
But who currently possesses that laurel?
“Sis, ahead! There’s a wall in front!”
“Just ignore it and run! Now, we can just pass through!”
Typically, you can’t return to the previous map when transitioning from Part 1 to Part 2, or from Part 2 to Part 3.
It’s for the smooth progression of the story but also due to the limitations of the open world.
However, such distinctions were meaningless at this moment when the open worlds were colliding.
Like the Jin Chronicle passing through the crowd, at the crossing beyond the black fog, we were almost like a ghost.
Clang!
“Waaaah! What’s this? A turkey…?!”
“My dinner…!”
“Ah…! I’m sorry, Baldy Uncle! I’ll pay you back later… Just enjoy the leftover food!”
In the midst of all this, a Baldy Uncle, who had lost his dinner overnight, stomped his feet in agitation.
Having traversed the hyperloop devices of each area at the speed of light, we soon reached the imperial capital.
“Where is this…?”
Slowing down, I checked the mini-map, but there was no response, like a dead GPS.
The only option was to restore my memory and recall the full map I had seen on Tree Wiki to find our way.
“This is the headquarters of the Abyss.”
“Headquarters of the Abyss? Wait a minute, wasn’t this the imperial palace?”
A baroque-style palace could be seen from the back gate of the Remnant Academy, and since we had just crossed that garden, her question was valid.
“To be precise, it’s the imperial palace’s underground. The head of the Abyss is none other than the princess.”
The Abyss was set up as a personal organization of the princess to stop the Demon Worshipper prince.
Having trusted neither the Empire nor the Kingdom, she gathered her own talent, sabotaged each other, and sought to eradicate all laurel trees from this world.
However, the Gestalt that returned to headquarters couldn’t contain the sadness of losing Adella and aimed to resurrect the demon using the last remaining laurel at headquarters, which was originally the storyline of Part 4.
The demon, having found a perfect body, could then manifest in Adella, and that was Mephistopheles.
The operators would say that they ‘layered a generation code’ here, and even if not everyone understood it, they could guess the meaning.
The Laurel of Death held the role of a key, while Adella was assigned the role of a lock.
So if even one of them was missing, we couldn’t meet Mephistopheles, and the world would collapse.
It was absurd that to save the world, we had to summon a demon aiming to destroy it, but that was our only option.
As I reached into the triple-locked vault, the Laurel easily came out, feeling almost nihilistically easy.
[Error]
[Laurel of Death]
[Synchronization complete.]
[Wh-what the hell is this?]
[You can now use 5th Circle magic.]
[Level: 30 → 31]
[HP: 39250 → 43750]
[system: error 0xff021a43]
Despite a minor error occurring, it didn’t hinder the progression of the story.
So far, we had passed the first step.
“Adella, do you remember the demon that possessed your body in the first run?”
“Do you mean Asmodeus?”
“Yeah. We’re going to summon Asmodeus right here.”
“What? No… You must be crazy! Are you serious? I must have misheard that!”
Since the normal difficulty had multiple routes, there were many potential final bosses, and Asmodeus was one of them.
In the Nightmare story, Adella had ended up committing suicide without showing her face, leaving behind a tragic demon.
Asmodeus’s unique skill is ‘Soul Exchange.’
By mixing all souls within a designated range, players would fight alongside random party members in-game.
It seemed like the boss battle with Asmodeus reflected the players’ desires to fight as illegal mage Giselle or ice mage Luna.
Such a setting had been recycled in the Nightmare story leading to this situation.
Naturally, Adella was horrified and jumped.
“Technically, we’ll be borrowing only Asmodeus’s skill.”
“Skill? Hah… I just freaked out…! But what’s the point of that?”
“That’s obvious. Is there anyone else here besides you and me?”
[Pantomime: Steal and use one skill from the opponent.]
[MP Cost: 2000, Cooldown: 80 seconds]
Since I was a priest class, I couldn’t use it in multiplayer, but in the story, there were no restrictions on learning skills regardless of my job.
If it weren’t for that, I’d never beat this hellish difficulty as a pure healer.
Normally, Pantomime could only be used against enemies, but right now, I had received administrator permissions.
In other words, I could use it on the ‘object’ known as the Laurel of Life and copy the code directly.
“Adella, for a moment, I’ll be trusting you with my body.”
[‘Soul Exchange’ has been stolen.]
[Instantly Cast]
[A random ally within a designated range will undergo ‘Soul Exchange.’]
[Adella ⥨ NoName]
[NoName ⥨ Adella]
I was trying to get used to elf ears, and now it’s cat ears.
I hope they don’t implement the tail with it too!
