“What happened?”
Asks Ignis with a suspicious tone, as he sees Elizabeth weakly crouching on the floor. I’m sure everyone has similar questions in mind.
And Elizabeth reacts to his words by laughing, almost as if provoking him.
Ignis immediately raises his sword, but Ou stops him.
“Ou!
“…This is already…”
He stops, then turns to the transparent box, and looks surprised.
“Fufu, how unfortunate. I was supposed to kill, and actually ended up being killed.
Does Elizabeth understand her situation? She’s saying that like she’s happy, and pleased from the bottom of her heart.
She has wounds on her body like it was shot. They look like remains of bullet wounds.
There’s blood flowing from them, and even though her wounds were regenerating before, they aren’t now.
Is it because of the god killing effect the bullets had?
“Hm, you seem calm. Do you understand that you are already dying?
Asks Ou, and he receives a simple ‘I guess’ as a response.
This doesn’t feel right to me. And why was she protecting that box?
Elizabeth’s body does look to be falling apart. Her extremities are turning to dust, like the demons that were killed earlier.
Something crosses my mind, and I turn to the transparent box.
Can she recover as many times as she needs as long as she has that? Is that why she was protecting it? If this was a videogame, this is the part where she’d be revived and come back stronger, right?
I can’t really put strength into it, but I raise my arm and point my gun at the transparent box, but I still can’t use Replication or Creation. I’m barely even standing up.
“Don’t worry. She should not be able to recover.”
Says Ou as he gently touches my arm.
I follow what he says, and lower the gun. For some reason, I couldn’t help but do it.
Elizabeth’s face looks nervous, completely different from the expression she had before, but she breathes a small sigh of relief when she sees me lowering the gun.
I think she knows I noticed that, because she quickly changes her expression.
“Do you have any last words?”
Even hearing Ou say that feels off to me.
His tone is calm, like they weren’t trying to kill each other until a moment ago.
“Yes… I guess I’m surprised to meet an old acquaintance again like this?”
That response doesn’t seem to make any sense, but then I notice that she’s looking behind us. I turn around, and see the dragon king Alzahak.
He slowly approaches her and looks down at her. His eyes are squinted, like he’s observing her closely.
“Are you here to kill me?”
“…That is prohibited. Besides…”
Alzahak peeks at the transparent box, and looks up.
I see him mumbling something, but I can’t hear it. What I do know is that his face is twisted with sadness.
And in the meantime, Elizabeth’s body is slowly crumbling.
Everyone here is just looking on.
It feels like this would be over immediately if someone gave the killing blow, but no one is moving. And that includes me.
For some reason, no one can move. Even though there was so much hatred before.
Is it because they want her to suffer for as long as possible?
But then, I’m surprised when I realize that now I think she’s really dying. I doubted it before, but strangely enough, now I think she really is just going to disappear.
Does Ou realize this too? Is that why Ignis and the other demons aren’t moving either?
It feels like someone used some weird technique, but I have perfect resistance to status conditions, so that can’t be it.
“Fufu. How awful of you to not kill me instantly.”
Elizabeth laughs, as everyone’s eyes are on her.
That smile on her face looks more genuine. It’s like the expression full of affection that you really would expect from a goddess.
“Well, it was fun. A lot of fun. And…”
Elizabeth’s body has disappeared all the way to the chest. All that’s left is the neck and above.
And yet, she speaks without a hint of suffering.
“…Now…”
Her last words are cut off, as her face turns to dust.
That dust is sucked into the transparent box, like the remnants of magic energy. It shines brightly, but then goes back to normal like nothing happened.
The battle against Elizabeth is over, and it leaves many questions.
I feel like I’m not fully satisfied with this ending, but if it means the others will be freed, that’s all that matters.
Now we have to see if we can even return to that world…
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Thanks for the treat.
Thanks!
But that’s a suspicious box…..
Yeah it totally reminds me of the spider box in Buffy