“Seih! Ahhh!!”
“Guaaaah!? Aguh, ah, dammit, dambit…!!”
Isaac groaned with pain after being hit with Yuugo’s fist, and glared at his opponent.
He staggered to his feet, feeling the sense of pain dulled by the magic swords coming back, and shook his head while mumbling to himself, as if trying to deny the reality around him.
“This can’t be… I’m the main character, the strongest solo player, the invincible hero. How did it turn out like this? The main character’s new powers awakened. What better victory flag could there be? And I’m the one being cornered!?”
He ran while yelling, going around Yuugo at an incredible speed and looking for an opening.
Isaac displayed such speed that it left afterimages, but even a sudden attack from the back was read by Yuugo, who grabbed the arm that was swinging a blade.
“Guh!? How!? Why!?”
“Stop it Isaac! Your body is reaching its breaking point! If you keep using that sword…!!”
“Shut uuup! I’m not losing! I’m the strongest! I’m not losing to you or a curse! I’m the main gafuh!!”
“Isaac!!”
Isaac yelled like a madman, but a lot of blood came out of his mouth.
Yuugo realized the magic swords were eating away at his body faster than he thought, and the moment he stopped, an intense shock wave of magic energy was released from his body, blowing away his sword-wielding opponent.
“Guh…! Isaac…!!”
“Uaaaaaah! Aaaaaah!!”
At this point, he was yelling like a beast without sense of reasoning, as he swung the twin swords and released slashes of dark red magic energy.
When Yuugo saw the magic swords were trying to squeeze the last remaining drops of magic energy and vitality from Isaac’s body, he made up his mind.
“I have to do it…!”
It had gone over the line where he could talk him down. The only way to save Isaac would be to destroy the magic swords and render him unable to move.
Yuugo was reluctant to beat him too hard, since he was already at his limit anyway, but he reached the conclusion that unless he did something, the magic swords would suck the life out of Isaac, and readied to end this.
“Aaaaaaaah…!”
He focused his magic energy on the magic crystal in his chest, and into his arms.
The rush of magic energy turned into flames that covered his arms, and after clenching his fists with a roaring fire, Yuugo ignored the strain being put on his body and yelled straight at Isaac.
“I’m gonna make you feel the heat!!”
Yuugo dodged the incoming attack with a jump, and used that momentum to approach Isaac.
He saw Isaac ready himself to counter the incoming attack, as he unleashed a flaming chop.
“Blaster Grenade!!”
“Wha!? Aaaah!!”
Yuugo hit the blade being swung at him with a flaming chop, and this full-powered attack smashed the sword cleanly in half, leaving Isaac shocked.
“Not yet! I can still…!!”
Yuugo smashed the other magic sword with a chop from his right hand, but… Isaac was still not done.
In fact, he infused more magic energy into the magic swords to make up for the broken blades, and swung them to take Yuugo down.
But Yuugo was ahead of him. He clenched his left fist, infusing it with magic energy again, and with crimson flames, rotated as he unleashed a corkscrew blow to his stomach, as Isaac was about to swing the magic swords down.
“This is the end! Blaster Maximum Break!!”
“Agah! Ga, ha…!?”
It was a blow that pierced even the defense reinforced by the magic swords. From the fist all the way to the shoulder, his arm rotated with an impact that reached all the way inside Isaac’s body. Isaac could only let out a final groan as his consciousness was taken from him.
He dropped the magic swords, and the dark red magic energy dissipated, while Yuugo grabbed the falling body of Isaac.
He undid the transformation and turned to his friends in the audience, and yelled with urgency.
“Melt, cast healing magic on him! And someone call the guards and get Jinba to come here!”
“Y-yes!”
“I can use healing magic too! Let me help!”
“I-I’ll go call the guards! I should call Jinba, right!?”
“Then I’ll go talk to someone in the infirmary! There’s only so much we can do with healing magic here!”
Yuugo’s friends responded to his call, and all did what they could.
He left the unconscious Isaac to Melt and Claire, and asked them how he was.
“Can he be saved?”
“I don’t know, but I know he really is in bad shape… I think if he kept that up a little longer, he would not be alive. There is no doubt that his life was saved by you when you destroyed the magic swords.”
“I see… Don’t die, Isaac. I owe you one because of Skull, and there’s a lot I want to hear from you… Guu!?”
“Yuugo!?”
Yuugo was worried about Isaac and spoke to him, but he fell to his knees while grimacing.
He groaned because of the damage the flaming armor did to his body, and Angel ran to him and supported his body.
“…Sorry Yuugo. It’s because I installed an unfinished feature…!”
“Why are you apologizing? It was your flaming armor that let me save Isaac. Be proud.”
“You idiot! And look at what happened to you in return! We can’t make magic items that don’t take the user into consideration! As a technician, it’s not just your magic items that are entrusted to me, your life is too. And I…!!”
Angel was normally aloof and strong, but the frustration brought tears to her eyes.
It was true that the new feature she made allowed Yuugo to save Isaac, but the fact that the magic item she made hurt the user in return made her a failure as a technician in her eyes. But Yuugo silently pat her head to comfort her, and then apologized.
“…Sorry, I overdid it a little. I didn’t mean to make you make that face.”
Saving someone meant little if he hurt someone in the process, or someone else died.
Even if he triumphed over evil, he failed as a hero if people that cared about him were sad. He felt that deeply when his life as Yuugo Kurei ended.
He lamented the fact that this was happening again, as Melt left Isaac to Claire and turned to Yuugo.
“Yuugo, you need treatment too. When Hercus gets back, let’s go to the infirmary.”
“Ah, yes…”
He won, but not everything was solved.
It was not just the flaming armor that was unfinished, he was the same, he thought as Melt healed him.
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