I Saved Too Many Girls and Caused the Apocalypse: Volume 7

by Namekojirushi

  “I didn’t want you to know who I really was... and be afraid of me,” Corona said heavily, as if she were confessing a grave sin.

  I remembered what she’d told me the night before: “You saved me when you rescued me from that lonely labyrinth.” I finally realized the fragility hidden behind the arrogant words and attitude of the former Demon King.

  “I guess I should’ve just disappeared when you said you were going to the capital. I didn’t want to say goodbye, and this is what came of it. It’s my fault...”

  “It’s not your fault, Corona.” I cut her off. “Whether you were a Demon King or a hero, what’s happening in this world isn’t your fault, is it?”

  “That’s... true... But who would believe me? I’m the Demon King!”

  “That doesn’t matter. I believe you.”

  “!”

  Corona looked up at me once more.

  “If you don’t have anything to do with Ghostdemon sickness or the mana spring, then it’s not your fault we were captured. They’re the ones who are in the wrong.”

  There was no reason to blame herself for everything. I couldn’t say what had happened in the past, but at least she was innocent when it came to this.

  “...Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why are you defending me? You know I’m the Demon King, right? You fought a Demon King once... Aren’t you scared of me?”

  “Well, I guess Demon Kings in general are pretty scary...”

  The one I’d fought in Aburaamu was incredibly scary. I’d managed to win by cheating, but I never wanted to do anything like that again.

  “But I’m not scared of you. You’re just, well... you.”

  “But... if you escape with me, the Spirit King’s men will work harder to find you. If I stay here, he’ll need to keep more guards here to hold me, so he won’t be able to send them after you. So you need to leave me here regardless...”

  “I won’t.”

  Don’t be stupid, Corona.

  “I told you about my bloodline, right? If I abandon you here, your story will meet a bad end. And I can’t let that happen.”

  “And remember what I told you? I was saved when you let me out of that dungeon. So my story is already over—”

  “Even if that’s true...”

  I used my power to pass through the bars of her cell and reached my hand out towards Corona.

  “I can’t just leave you to loneliness in yet another prison.”

  “...!”

  ▽

  “The guards are unconscious!”

  “Are the prisoners in the cells?!”

  “Did they do this? How did they get out of the mana handcuffs?!”

  “The Demon King and her servants have escaped!”

  I could hear the solders shouting below. We’d hidden the unconscious guards in the shadows, but they must have been found by now.

  “Lea!”

  “Right! Leave it to me!”

  Lea nodded firmly and blew out an outer palace wall in a flash with her water magic. We all looked at the hole in the wall and then at each other.

  “Go!”

  Right on cue, we all jumped out. Of course, there was a significant drop on the other side. We began to freefall from hundreds of meters up, but...

  “GYAAAOH!”

  A few dozen meters down, Lea transformed into her Leviathan form and caught us all on her back.

  “Let’s head to the inn where Mio and Lyun are staying before the guards catch up!” Lea spoke directly into our brains via telepathy.

  “Do it!”

  It was a race against time. We would have to escape the Spirit King’s men, get Mio and Lyun, and then escape through the gate to Corona’s home world.

  “The things from Aburaamu are in my castle in the demon world... If it’s still there. Either way, as long as we’re in the spirit world, we’ll be followed wherever we go. If we want to escape, we have to get to my world instead.”

  I didn’t have any other ideas. If the one way we had to get to Aburaamu was in the Demon World, then it was our only real option.

  I could see the spirits on the ground panicking at the sight of the massive white snake that had appeared out of nowhere in the sky. Some of the braver ones attacked us with magic, but Lea merely twisted her long body to dodge their attacks. We sped forward to our destination: the inn in the sylpheed district.

  “I’m going in for a landing.”

  “Right.”

  I took a moment to check behind us. I could see little silhouettes swarming out of the palace. They were probably spirit soldiers, but they didn’t seem to be organized yet. We had the Demon King with us. They wouldn’t try to charge us in small groups. When they came, it would be with the whole army.

  But that would only take a few minutes. If they managed to surround the capital with soldiers, we’d also be trapped. I wouldn’t have much time to persuade Mio and Lyun. I kept that in mind as I hopped off of Lea’s back in front of the inn and walked right through the wall to the second floor.

  “Mio should be in here, right...?!”

  “Yeah, I think they were on the second room on the other side of the hall.”

  “Right! Thanks, R!”

  “...You didn’t remember? Ah, crap, I accidentally gave you useful advice. I underestimated how stupid you were.”

  “I thank you for once, and this is what I get?”

  In this case, I really didn’t care if this girl from the future had screwed up. I didn’t have a moment to lose. Compared to losing precious seconds, being insulted to my face was nothing. I wasn’t even wasting time opening doors; I walked straight through one into the girls’ room.

  “Mio! Lyun!”

  “Rekka!”

  “Kyah! H-How did you get here?”

  Mio ran over to me when she saw me, but Lyun just screamed. I put my arms around Mio and looked at Lyun.

  “Lyun! Please come with me!”

  “...Why? There’s no reason for me to go with you, is there?”

  “I know that so much has happened you might not believe me, but think about it! What did Corona do to you? Even when she was attacked by the infected sylpheeds, she didn’t kill them, right?”

  “...”

  “I don’t have time to explain, but... I think I’m the only one who can save Windsong Valley! Please give me another chance!”

  “...Is that because of all that stuff you said about your ‘bloodline’ and ‘stories’?”

  Oh, that’s right. She’d been listening outside Corona’s door last night. I’d told Corona about my lineage then.

  “You may not believe it, but consider that just the fact that you met me is proof of who I say I am. That’s how the bloodline of the Namidare works. I want to help you! So, please... come with me...”

  I was going to say more, but...

  “What could you possibly save?” Lyun’s icy voice cut me off.

  “Huh...?”

  Suddenly an invisible wall shot up between us. A wall called rejection that even Ellicia’s earring would let me pass through. Lyun looked at me with a mix of rage and despair.

  “Save my story...? Do you really think you can?”

  “Yes! There’s still a lot we don’t know about the Ghostdemon sickness and the mana spring, but we can find out...”

  “It won’t make a difference,” she said bluntly.

  Sure, I didn’t have a lot to go off of right now. Maybe I just sounded like a lunatic to her. As I tried to think of another way to convince her...

  “My little sister is gone.”

  “What...?”

  I felt the words being choked out of my throat. Lyun’s little sister was... gone?

  “I lived in that valley with my sister.”

  When we’d met her, Lyun was alone. Did that mean...

  “D-Did she get bitten? Then there’s still...”

  “No. When we were running, she slipped on a slope and hit her head on a tree stump.”

&
nbsp; Then... there was nothing we could do? Wasn’t my bloodline only supposed to get me caught up in stories before they reached bad endings?

  “Wh-When did your lit... When did this happen?”

  “The day before you came. It was dark, and we couldn’t see, and my sister...”

  That would’ve been July 20th, the day before we reached Windsong Valley. We’d escaped the Ruler’s Dungeon and were camping that night...

  But that didn’t make sense! If I had to save her sister to save her story, then shouldn’t I have met her before that happened? I mean, there wasn’t a hundred percent chance I would have made it in time, but the bloodline of the Namidare was supposed to only work if there was some chance of the story being saved, right?!

  “...What’s going on here? Isn’t Lyun one of my heroines?”

  I was so shocked that I yelled at R—the girl who knew more about my bloodline than I did—even though Mio and Lyun were right there. R’s voice, however, was as calm and even as ever.

  “It’s simple,” she began. “Life is a series of stories. The curtain doesn’t fall just because you solve one problem. You’ve been caught up in so many stories that you should know that better than anyone, right? Well, in Lyun’s case, the scale of the story is much smaller than yours, but...”

  R fell silent for a moment.

  “In this case, a happy ending for Lyun’s first story would have been escaping the valley with her sister unharmed. That first story ended with her little sister’s death. But that doesn’t mean her life is over. She was still alive, and still being chased by the zombie fairies. That’s where her next story began. A story where the happy ending was escaping from that valley alive. That’s the story you were caught up in.”

  So I had helped Lyun get a happy ending... But not for the story she wanted? That story, the one where she could have a happy ending with her sister, was already written and done by the time I’d arrived.

  “Even you, even the Namidare, can’t save a story that’s already ended. That should be so obvious it goes without saying.”

  “I can’t save her...”

  I’d been in bad spots before. Plenty of times. But... I thought that if I didn’t give up, if I kept thinking, that things would work out. And with the help of my friends... that I could save them... And now...

  A finished story. One that’s already been written. One that couldn’t be saved.

  I didn’t know that that could happen. No, maybe R was right and that should have been obvious, but...

  “If you really do have that bloodline, then why...? Why didn’t you make it in time? Why didn’t you save my sister...? Why didn’t you save Sophie?!” Lyun screamed. Her voice threatened to blast away my soul.

  This was something I probably could have foreseen if I’d thought about it, but I never did. And faced with the weight of it now, my legs froze and my hands started to shake. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t even think about how to persuade Lyun to come with us.

  “Rekka! They’re here! Hurry!” Lea’s telepathic voice echoed in my head.

  If they were here, I had to run, but...

  I looked at Lyun. She was glaring at me.

  “I...”

  I went to say something, but couldn’t. Her story had already ended in a tragedy, and there was nothing I could do for her.

  “Rekka! Hurry up!”

  I ran. I ran from Lyun, using Lea’s warning as an excuse.

  ▽

  I took Mio back to everyone else and got back on Lea.

  “Where’s Lyun?”

  “...”

  “I see....”

  Tsumiki didn’t ask anything else.

  “The soldiers are surrounding us, but they’re keeping their distance.”

  “They’re probably scared of my power,” Corona said as she looked out at them.

  “...”

  “...Young man?”

  “Rekka, what’s wrong?”

  “Sir Rekka, are you okay?”

  “...Huh? Oh, no. Sorry.”

  Everyone was worried when they saw how much trouble I was having focusing. I was shocked by what Lyun had told me, but for now, I needed to get my head together.

  “Corona, what do you think they’re after?” I hadn’t totally switched gears yet, but I decided to start with that. “They’re afraid, but they’re not going to let us get away, right? They wouldn’t be following us otherwise. That must mean they have some plan to capture or neutralize us.”

  “I don’t know what they think this Demon King is capable of, but... Yeah. If they’re not going to just charge in with no regard for casualties, they’ll probably go straight to using their greatest weapon—the Spirit King’s magic. And we don’t have the Hero’s Sword now.”

  “But we have some powerful water magic of our own,” Lea said. “Tsumiki gave me some more dark matter, so I won’t be shot down so easily this time.”

  “No, that’s not what I meant.”

  Corona started to say something else when a huge light flared up behind us.

  “W-What is that?”

  “That can’t be... light magic?!” Harissa screamed when she saw the torrents of light gathering at the palace.

  Wasn’t light magic something created to defeat the Demon King in Aburaamu? Why did the Spirit King have that?!

  “Tch...! It’ll take more than that...!”

  “It’s useless. Don’t even try.”

  Lea created several spears of water, but Corona stopped her.

  “A massive spell that concentrates the four elements of water, earth, wind, and fire... It’s the ultimate magic that only the Spirit King can use. Its force isn’t the only thing to be reckoned with. What makes it unique...” Corona stood up on Lea’s back to face the spell. “Since it contains all four elements, it absorbs any magic that’s used against it. It doesn’t matter how strong the spell is. Even if it’s a simple destructive spell, as long as it belongs to one of the four elements, the light magic will absorb its power and grow stronger.”

  “Seriously...?”

  So, no matter how powerful Lea’s water magic was, it would be used against us if she fired it at the Spirit King? That meant that he could neutralize our magic, but still attack... This ultimate spell of his really was something. There was probably no running from that huge ball of light, either. And our one way to stop it for sure, the Hero’s Sword, had been taken from us. This was definitely a dire situation, but for some reason Corona chuckled like she was remembering something fondly.

  “Only the Spirit King should be able to wield that spell... but that sorcerer was a human, and she did it anyway. She just kept spouting off some nonsense about being a genius...” she whispered, and then her expression changed. “Young man, you said you don’t care if I’m the Demon King, right?”

  “Y-Yeah.”

  “Then I shall show you my true form.”

  The air around her changed. It was like a hidden power being unleashed. An invisible pressure rose up around her, and her body was instantly wreathed in black flame.

  “Ah... Aaah!”

  I could hear her voice from within the darkness. And just a few seconds later... The darkness was gone, and there stood Corona in the form of the Demon King.

  She now had two twisted horns growing from either side of her head. The prisoner’s uniform she’d been wearing was nowhere to be seen. Instead, she was decked out in clothes truly befitting, well... a demon queen. Then there was the pointed tail sprouting from her lower back, twisting in the air like a whip. She was a fearsome sight to behold. This was the visage of the real Demon King.

  “This is my true form.”

  “...What? You’re still you.”

  Nothing on the inside had changed.

  “Heh...” Corona laughed for a moment, then turned towards the palace.

  The Spirit King’s ultimate magic—the spell to slay the Demon King—was almost ready to cast.

  “There are only two ways to stop that spell. One is
the Demon Blade. The other is...”

  Before Corona could even finish...

  ROAR!

  The air around us shook as the Spirit King fired his magic.

  “...the darkness magic of the Demon King!”

  Just as the light had nearly enveloped us all, pure darkness sprung forth from Corona’s arms. It was like day and night colliding.

  Corona had said that no elemental magic could stop his spell. It would only be absorbed and make the spell stronger. That probably meant her darkness magic was special. This looked like it would come down to a contest of sheer power.

  “Graaah...!”

  Her feet began to slide on Lea’s scales as she was pushed back. She’d been recovering ever since she left the labyrinth, but she still wasn’t in good shape. It was probably incredibly dangerous to have her fighting like this. Yet there she was... What in the world was I doing?!

  “...”

  “...Young man?”

  The next thing I knew, I was supporting her body from behind. I pressed my back up against hers to help her stand and dug my heels in.

  “Sorry, this is all I can do. I don’t think I was being arrogant, but I really did think that if I tried my best, things would work out. But now I know how wrong I was.”

  “...”

  When I’d reached Windsong Valley, Lyun’s sister was already dead. In the end, I only had two arms and legs. There was only one of me. My two eyes couldn’t watch over the whole world. I couldn’t save every story. But...

  “I’m still not giving up, though. If you give up, that’s when it’s really all over. Even if I can’t save them all, I can’t give up on saving what’s right in front of me, can I? No matter how pathetic I might be, I won’t stop going until things work out.”

  I’d decided I wouldn’t stop even when confronted with despair. As long as my hands could reach out, as long as my legs could move, I would save all the stories I could!

  “I couldn’t save Lyun’s sister! But she’s still my heroine, and her story isn’t over! I’m the only one who can save her! I’m not saving her because I want to be thanked! Mio, Corona, Ellicia... their stories aren’t over yet! So, please! Give me another chance, Corona!”

  “...Leave it to me!”

  Corona answered me, and her magic grew more powerful. The two spells were equally matched now, light against darkness. We were so close! If only there was something else we could do...