I Can’t Run Away From the Girl Who Saved Me

200 – The End (2)

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I feel like I have no strength left in my body.

I felt a slight tingling sensation and also felt like all the blood was draining from my body.

The moment I held onto my trembling body, a dry cough burst out from my chest.

I was momentarily flustered by the sudden situation, but at some point I noticed blood mixed in with the cough that kept coming out without any sign of stopping.

“uh…?”

At the same time, my vision fell towards the floor.

My head hit the floor with a thud, and the eerie cold texture of the marble hit me before the pain.

I collapsed on the floor, coughing up blood and coughing up gasps.

“Ash!”

Sisters Pia and Maria came running to me at the same time, calling my name.

It was a voice that sounded extremely embarrassed.

I can’t help but be very embarrassed.

What the hell is going on right now?

“Ash, are you okay? What’s wrong?”

“…Cool,”

Once again, drops of blood spurted out from his throat and soaked the floor.

“Sylvia! Ash!”

Sister Maria supported my body and called out to Sylvia.

But there was no answer from Sylvia.

I was worried that Sylvia might have been attacked by the Demon King, so I lifted my trembling face with difficulty.

“… That is,”

There were countless mayflies flying around Sylvia.

It was the bugs that were flying around the cocoon when the Demon King was still asleep inside it.

“Hey, Sylvia!”

“It’s no use, the spirits are covering Sylvia’s eyes and ears.”

Pia shook her head and said to her older sister Maria who was shouting at Sylvia.

Sister Maria was naturally wiser and more knowledgeable than Pia, but Pia had lived as a spirit for far longer.

“Spiritualism… Is it possible that Ash’s physical condition is due to that?”

Sister Maria looked down at me with a nervous expression.

Even though she had become a spirit, she actually knew very little about spirits.

That’s why, when fighting the Demon King, I only used magic that assisted Sylvia, just like when she was alive.

Maria held my body with trembling hands and chanted a protective spell.

I slowly shook my head and opened my bloodless lips.

“… Sister, don’t do it.”

“Ash, are you okay?”

“That’s pointless… It’s just a waste of magic power.”

Only when the pain from my head hitting the floor subsided did I finally begin to grasp the situation.

The sudden deterioration of my physical condition was certainly disconcerting, but when I thought about it carefully, it felt somewhat familiar.

Sister Maria shouted at me as if urging me on.

“What are you talking about, you have to try it to find out!”

“Magiya…”

“what…?”

“I’m addicted to magic…”

“How do you know that!”

“Because I have experienced it…”

That’s right.

I’ve already been on the verge of death from magic addiction.

Of course, there was a difference in that back then, his condition had slowly deteriorated over the course of almost a week, whereas now it had suddenly deteriorated, but that was probably because the demonic energy that the Demon King was spewing out was so toxic.

“Hey, haircut…”

“… Ash.”

I swore with trembling lips, and Sister Maria looked at me in surprise.

Well, she’s probably never seen me swear.

I had never sworn before I came into this forest.

I guess I was influenced by Sylvia without even realizing it.

“…”

I had no more energy to speak, so I turned my head with difficulty and looked at Pia.

When I was addicted to magic before, Pia saved me by taking me to the green lady.

Of course, I don’t expect the green lady to help me now, but I guess Pia, who saved my life once, could help me.

I looked at Pia with eyes filled with faint anticipation.

However, Pia looked at me with sad eyes, closed her eyes tightly, and shook her head.

“Ha… Cool!”

Oh, I see.

It’s not working.

“Magi…”

Sister Maria, who had been mumbling, grabbed my hand tightly and shouted at Sylvia again.

“Sylvia! Ash is dying! I need divine power, divine power, quickly!”

Sylvia still hasn’t heard.

As soon as Pia heard the word divine power, she picked up Alice’s heart, which I had dropped earlier, and placed it on my chest.

“ha…”

I felt a little better, but it wasn’t enough to cure my body, which had already deteriorated due to its addiction to magic.

Thinking back to the time when Sylvia had just stamped her feet while watching me die, it was clear that even Sylvia’s divine power would not be able to heal my body now.

However, I no longer had the energy to explain that fact to Sister Maria.

“Sylvia!”

Sister Maria’s shrill scream tore through the air.

At that moment, Sylvia turned to look at us.

“…Ash?”

The Demon King’s spirits all stopped flapping their wings and flew away from Sylvia.

It was as if he was deliberately trying to show me his current appearance by leaving space between her and me.

And then, behind her, the creepy, reptilian eyes of the Demon King gleamed.

Her eyes were smiling, curved like crescent moons.

“ah…”

At that moment, I realized.

I was wrong,

Until now, the Demon King I had thought of was either a huge monster or a being that wielded great power.

Just like the Demon Kings in history books and fairy tales, the overwhelming majesty that arouses fear in humans and the terrible malice that cannot be surpassed by human ethics are what I judge to be the fearsome aspects of the Demon King, even though I have never seen him.

But it wasn’t.

That wasn’t what the Demon King feared most.

“… kekekeke,”

The Demon King’s greatest weapon was cunning.

＊

At the moment when I realized that my physical condition was caused by magic, a question occurred to me at the same time.

It is clear that I was imbued with the divine power that Sister Alice left behind.

Of course, the magic was so toxic that all of its divine power was consumed, but there was still time until the time limit that Sister Alice had mentioned.

But why did my body’s divine power run out so quickly?

At first, I thought maybe Sister Alice had made a mistake.

If the divine power she gave me was based on the amount of magic that spread throughout the forest before entering the Demon King’s castle, then it would naturally be consumed even faster in a place several times thicker than the forest.

Moreover, I could not feel the divine power leaving my body.

As I was unable to detect magic, I had no way of knowing how thick the magic was here or how quickly the divine power was being consumed within my body.

Until just a moment ago, I thought I had made a huge mistake in a place I could never have imagined.

However, the moment I saw the Demon King stabbing Sylvia, who had turned to me, in one breath, I realized.

This was not Nana Alice’s mistake, but the Demon King’s trick.

‘The Demon King… can see divine power…’

If you think about it, it was an obvious statement.

The reason Sister Alice and Sylvia could sense magic was because they could control divine power.

Magi and divine power are forces with exactly opposite properties.

Magi consumes divine power, and divine power destroys magic.

If so, then it is only natural that the Demon King who controls magic will also be able to feel the divine power.

That is, the Demon King must have immediately realized that the divine power within my body was limited and was being consumed at a rapid rate.

He was seeing clearly what I couldn’t see.

Information asymmetry.

The Demon King cunningly took advantage of that.

“… You got hit, huh?”

I used spirits to block Sylvia’s eyes and ears so she wouldn’t notice that the divine power in me was running out.

And I endured silently, being torn apart by Sylvia’s sword, until all the magic energy in my body was consumed.

Even though he was being brutally torn apart by Sylvia’s sword, he only counterattacked to the extent that she could respond, in order to create the illusion in Sylvia that she could win if she pushed the Demon King away.

Sylvia was clearly so focused on attacking the Demon King that she didn’t notice the spirits surrounding her.

Well, to begin with, the spirit was barely visible to her eyes as a vague outline, so it was natural that Sylvia, who was concentrating all her attention on the Demon King, couldn’t see it.

In other words, from the beginning, the Demon King was targeting me.

The weakest being here was targeted first.

My thinking was too short.

Of course I should have noticed that he was going after me.

If you kill me, my spirits Pia and Maria will disappear immediately.

Sylvia’s divine power is not enough to kill the Demon King.

I should have realized sooner that it was a very natural strategy for the Demon King to target me.

“… Sylvia…”

As I watched Sylvia being lifted up with her chest pierced by the Demon King’s tentacles, I keenly felt this fact.

Coming all the way here,

I just made it this far.

Like this, it ends.

Dying like this…

Me too, Sylvia too…

Pia, Maria, Alice…

Dying like this,

Again, because of me… someone dies…

“… Layla.”

I pictured Leila’s face.

My lovely little sister’s face, still clear, but more blurred than before.

also.

I failed to protect it again.

Once again I killed someone.

I no longer have the strength to even lift my head from the floor.

Lost.

We lost.

We will die defeated.

“Sylvia…”

I wanted to tell her to run away, but seeing her limp and pierced by the tentacles left me speechless.

Sylvia dies.

Something I never dared to imagine was happening right before my eyes.

Perhaps, like Sister Maria’s corpse, Sylvia’s corpse could become the Demon King’s puppet and be used to kill humanity.

As the worst possible ending, which would be nothing less than insulting her for locking herself in this forest to protect humanity, approached, dried saliva mixed with blood flowed out.

I felt like all the blood in my body was flowing backwards.

Unlike the dying body, the head is burning hot.

“no,”

My vision slowly fades away as I listen to Sister Maria’s words, her voice empty as she looks at Sylvia.

Pia was shedding tears next to me.

Pia…

Pia,

Yeah, Pia!

“Ugh,”

I grabbed Sister Alice’s heart.

A faint divine power flows into my body.

Of course, the amount was so small that it was like pouring a small glass of water into pouring lava.

But, I embraced even that little bit of divinity with my whole body.

Like a beggar licking every last drop of sauce off a plate, he greedily absorbed the divine power flowing from his heart.

Blood gushed out from my clenched teeth.

It didn’t matter.

vestige,

If I can just recover enough to be able to speak… that’s all I need.

After a few moments of silence, I opened my mouth with great difficulty to speak.

“Blood… Ah,”

“Hey, Ash… No, don’t say it.”

Are you worried about me?

Or maybe, as always, he had already figured out what I was thinking.

Pia shook her head repeatedly and held my hand tightly.

“Wake me up.”

“No… I don’t like it,”

“You said you could give me what I want,”

“…”

Pia shook her head silently.

Then I held my sister Maria’s hand tightly.

Sister Maria slowly turned her head towards me.

“Who… Me.”

“… Ash.”

Sister Maria’s face was filled with complexity as she called my name and carefully stroked my head.

It might be obvious.

Sylvia is Maria’s friend who risked her life to protect her.

This time, I was resurrected as a spirit to finally end the Demon King, but now I have to watch my friend die.

Could anything be more terrible for her?

“It was so nice to see you again. Ash has grown up so well…”

“no.”

“…Ash?”

“It’s not… over yet, Sister.”

“What are you talking about?”

I spoke in a gurgling voice, blood gushing from my throat.

“I don’t have time to explain…”

“…Ash?”

“Drink my blood.”

Sister Maria is my spirit.

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