Do You Think Someone Like You Can Defeat the Demon King? (WN) Chapter 40
Pushing the limits
tl: deepl & meepilee
040 Pushing the limits, and why
Arms torn off.
Blurred vision.
Blood spattering.
A body that was immobilized by the power of the spiral that was flowing through it.
However, a single right arm was enough to slaughter the copies of Origin in front of him.
----!
Flamm's spirit shook the air around her, though she could not speak due to being crushed to the throat.
"Guooooooooooo!"
With a silent roar, she swung Zwei Soul Eater with one hand.
The power of the sword itself, the added prana, and the shockwave generated, all piled on top of each other, causing the upper half of the dead man's body to blow up and scatter.
"...... haaaaah!"
Flamm exhaled heavily as his body finally regenerated and the pain began to ease.
The most important thing to remember was that she couldn't just go out of the room and expect to be in this state.
It was good that she came out with a bang, but where should she go from here?
Flamm's goal was not to destroy this research facility, but rather to destroy the necromancy project itself.
After all, Origin was not to be trusted.
She had to somehow persuade Dafiz to give up his research, while also trying to reduce the power of the church.
Or - as a last resort - kill him.
"Ah, but I feel that killing a person who is by no means an evil person for my own convenience would mean losing something important as a human being."
Besides, as long as Dafiz was alive, he would be able to get information on the Children, the Chimera, and even the upper echelons of the church.
After all, what she needs now is time to cool off.
Milkit is being held hostage, and even though Flamm is worried about her, there is now way that he would be a murderer.
Otherwise, he would never have thought of using the power of Origin for the gentle purpose of raising the dead.
He was a warm-hearted adult who could respect the lives of others.
That was why - it would be difficult to make him give up his life with his own family.
Flamm had to figure out a way to convince him.
While she was catching her breath, the enemy was closing in on her again.
Flamm glared at them, and once more blasts their body with a great swing, clearing the way.
Not that many people must have lived in the facility.
In other words, many of the people gathered here were from outside the church - those who had flowed in from the village.
She was worried about Gadio, Eterna, and Ink, but now was not the time to be worrying about anyone else.
She sprinted through the gap widened by the previous blow, passing between outstretched arms and moving forward, forward, forward.
As she continued forward, she came to a crossroads.
\She checked left and right, and right was the direction of the exit.
Without hesitation, Flamm turned left and headed further into the facility.
Her goal was not to escape, but to buy time.
She saw two small shadows ahead of her.
Dead - or perhaps a baby.
Both were crawling, approaching, lumps of flesh that resembled a child too young to stand on its own two feet.
Even so, they were still unpleasant opponents.
So are the dead.
Flamm seemed to be beating them mercilessly at first glance, but her heart was still worn out.
No matter how much the body was just being manipulated by Origin, the resistance caused by the flesh ]was still the same as a human being.
Besides, unlike Dane's men, the original owners of the bodies were not Flamm's enemies.
Killing and wounding innocent people - just being aware of it was enough to make her feel like she was losing her mind.
But if she didn't do it, she would be the one who would die.
She had to tell herself that many times.
With sharp eyes, she looked at the children, who were distorted as they approached, gurgling and making ghastly noises as they approached.
Looking closely, she saw that the floor they were touching was squishily contorted.
Maybe it was the same with Rukou.
They, like the dead, have the power to distort their targets, and they were sent to Flamm with malicious intent.
"Hmph!"
The raised sword---slammed into the ground with great force, caused the prana to explode.
"Uoooooo!"
The Prana Spirit Storm exploded, and the babies caught in the storm were blown to pieces.
A peculiar odor filled the corridor, and blood and body parts stuck to the floor and walls.
But the pieces of flesh were still twisting and moving, as if still alive.
The direction they were going changed.
Flamm, who had been watching them wriggling eerily - as if turning back the way they came - turned her head forward and saw two women standing there.
'The baby...... woman...... maybe those two are the mothers?'
Maybe the piece of meat is trying to return to its mother.
What would happen if they went back?
She had left Lukor's body alone, but Flamm did not know that twisted and wriggling piece of flesh went, or what happened to it afterwards.
The only thing that was clear was that it would not be a good thing.
Because... the origin plays tricks on you.
At one time, it multiplied eye balls and killed people.
And now it was playing with our hearts by imitating our love life.
It gives the power of the gods, looking down on them from above and saying, "I will make your wish come true."
It must be laughing at people who are resigned to momentary happiness, knowing that what awaits them at the end of it all is destruction.
So - telling herself that this was the salvation of the souls grieving in the afterlife - she slew the two mothers.
Flamm stopped dead in her tracks and turned around.
The pieces of flesh that had been shredding on the wall just a moment before fell to the floor, not moving a muscle.
Was this the result of the mother's body having ceased to function?
The mother's life was connected ...... to the body, or perhaps it was a part of the body. It wasn't a child, it was just a separated piece of meat. ......
In its own way, Origin must have tried to reproduce the phenomenal event of pregnancy that occurs in the human body.
The cells were multiplied abnormally in the uterus, and the lump of flesh produced was analyzed for physical information from the mother and father, inherited as features, and then given birth to a human form.
Then, they gave birth.
In other words - it was not a child, but a kind of tumor sarcoma.
If the father was dead and the mother was alive, it is thought that she would have a function similar to the bodily fluid that the father spits out.
After all, it was not a person who was born.
In order to create new life, both parents must have normal souls.
Flamm paused to think, but then she heard the sound of new footsteps.
She clicked her tongue and went further in, past the corpses.
She then reached a very suspicious looking door at the far end of the institute.
It was locked, and furthermore, there were countless chains wrapped around the doorknob.
Without hesitation, Flamm broke the chains with her soul eater, smashed through the door, and went down the dark stairs leading to the basement.
◇◇◇
The door was now open.
A knife spilled from Dafiz's hand.
It was just after the sounds of battle had ceased to be heard from outside the room.
This meant that Flamm had moved away and there was no longer any need to take hostages.
And when he released Milkit, she staggered unsteadily, one hand on the desk and her head in his hands.
He was very regretful of what he had done.
Milkit glared at him with eyes that showed through the bandages, unusually strong for her.
"Do you really think that Master's death is going to solve your current situation?"
In truth, she wanted to go out after Flamm.
But even Milkit didn't want to die in vain, so she suppressed her desire and denounced Dafiz.
"I don't ...... think so," he said. "I understand that it is only a stopgap measure."
"Then why are you doing this?"
"I have devoted more than ten years to this research! I have recovered my loved ones, I even have a family! If I give up now, I lose everything here - my wife, my children, my life, everything! I can't just accept ...... that I'm wrong and say, 'Yes, I see!'"
Even if it was a trick.
Susie came back to life and spent time with him as a lover.
He was happy to see her pregnant and spent time studying and preparing himself to be a great father.
And the time spent as a family after Rukou was born - all of these are things that Dafiz had actually experienced.
"Rukou was ...... no, that... was not a child. It was a real monster."
"You met the girl?"
"Yes. When we left the room, he came close to us, and then his body started to bend in all sorts of ways. At the end, he didn't even look human anymore."
Dafiz gritted his teeth and clenched his hands on the desk.
"I've always had a ...... hunch," he said." I always had a feeling that this was really the right thing to do, but that it was going too well, that one day it would suddenly break down."
"So why did you continue?"
"I told you before," he said. "The bait that was being dangled was too tempting. I couldn't refuse it. So I told myself that there was nothing wrong, that my work was perfect. If I didn't have more confidence in myself than I neededto have, I'm was afraid that an unfavorable image would enter my mind's eye."
And so, up until now, he had no problems.
At least until Flamm came along.
"Mr. Dafiz, do you have any other devices available to stop the core from functioning?"
"No. Even if there were, I don't intend to activate it."
"Why not? You know that, don't you? Your family is nowhere to be found!"
"Because in order for me to be me, Ms. Flamm would have to die."
Family and research were now his identity.
Even if he is confronted with an incorrect argument that he was wrong, abandoning it would be the same as his own death.
If he did not cling to them, no matter how ugly the imitation, everything that made up Dafiz's personality will be destroyed.
Milkit was enraged by his antics.
Grabbing his clothes with both hands, she glared at him at close range.
Dafiz nodded in a sulky manner, averted his gaze, and said in a languid tone, "I don't like that look, but I'm not going to change my answer."
He nodded, averted his gaze, and said somberly, "That kind of a look won't change my answer. If you were in my shoes, you would do the same."
The reverse was also true.
If Dafiz were in Milkit's shoes, he would have called her out in the same way - or even more violently.
He understood, which was why he couldn't be strong with Milkit.
"What would you do if Master defeated everyone in this village and survived?"
"Unlikely. Unfortunately, unlike Children's and Chimera, this is not a facility for creating weapons. But, we do have my wife, a grade-A adventurer. Moreover, she is now deeply influenced by Origin and can even handle its power. Flamm cannot win."
Flamm and Susie herself had not yet encountered each other.
But if Flamm continued to fight, the two will eventually collide.
"But Gadio and Eterna are there."
"They are from this side of their family・・・・, not on your side."
Milkit was frustratingly silent.
She wanted to believe in them
But they had disappeared without telling Flamm and the others and had visited Sheol Village.
They were in touch with the dead and had a gentle expression on their faces that they had never shown in the royal capital.
Such was the current Gadio and Eterna - Milkit could not fully trust them.
'Susie won't be defeated by Ms. Flamm alone. Never."
Dafiz declared again.
“You trust your wife a lot, don't you?”
“Yes, I love her”
With a tragic smile, he said.
Milkit saw the look on his face, heard the words, and understood.
She had been unable to name it for a long time, the feeling she had inside her for Flamm.
She had tried naming it many different names, but none of them seemed to fit.
She wished to devote myself to her.
She trusted her unconditionally.
Milkit finally found a name for that feeling - one that finally fit.
"If that's the case, Master will never be defeated by you. She will always defeat you and come back to me."
"What makes ...... you so sure?"
She had finally found the answer found the asnwer to that question.
"If you call your feelings of trust in Susie-san love, then--"
Milkit declared proudly and proudly.
"I love my master even more than that!"
◇◇◇
As Flamm descended the stairs, she thought about Milkit, who remained alone in Dafiz's room.
She was convinced that her life was not in danger, but she was still concerned.
She wondered if she should go back right away, but there was no way that she could talk to Dafiz so soon.
She had no choice but to run for her life, trusting that she was safe.
"What is this place ......?"
At the bottom of the stairs was a long, dark corridor.
On the left and right walls were metal doors that looked very sturdy, and light was leaking in through bay windows with iron bars.
There seemed to be another door in the back, but she started
Flamm approached and peered into the room.
She looked at the room, "It's ......."
She exclaimed.
What she saw there was a human figure, its face a whirlpool of flesh, just like the children of the church's experiments.
The room was decorated in the same way as the place where Flamm and her friends were staying, and it was sitting on the couch, incessantly spewing red bodily fluids from the whirlpool and staining the floor.
Flamm watched in amazement for a while, and then it noticed the look in her eyes and walked up to the door.
She backed away involuntarily, and her back hit the door of another room with a clang.
Boo-hoo, boo-hoo.[^1]
Flamm heard a faint sound through the wall and turned around to look directly at the whirlpool of flesh that was also staring at her through the bay window at close range.
"Eekm!"
she exclaimed in a high-pitched voice.
"What is this ......, what is this place ......?"
At the end of the corridor were a series of similar rooms.
Upon closer inspection, a writhing red face was attached to every one of the windows, staring at Flamm.
Her lungs shook and she could not breathe properly.
Flamm breathed roughly, with her mouth half-open and her shoulders moving up and down.
Then she swallowed the saliva that had collected in her mouth with a gulp and a throat movement.
"haha ...... haha ...... is it possible that the people who failed to resuscitate ...... are these ones who failed?"
Those who had been unable to turn back due to the uncontrollable influence of the Origin.
But Dafiz treated even these people as human beings.
Although they were forced to stay in the basement, they were given separate rooms to live in comfort.
◇◇◇
Beep, beep, beep - an alarm rang in Dafiz's room.
He looked at the small crystal shining on his desk and laughed.
"What's that noise?"
"Oh, it seems ...... that Ms. Flamm has set foot in that ...... place. If that's the case, she may not have to fight Susie anymore."
"Answer the question, Mr. Dafiz!"
Ignoring Milkit, whose voice was hoarse, Dafiz had put his hand on the shiny crystal.
Three times, with a pause in between, he poured magic power into the crystal.
Then the sound stopped.
It was a system to detect intruders to the basement, but it could perform different actions depending on the pattern of the magic power that was poured into the crystal.
Once to stop the alarm,
Two times, the basement is sealed off foran emergency.
Three times to--
◇ ◇◇◇
Clang!
From around Flamm, who was moving deeper into the corridor, came the sound of a lock being opened.
And then, as if the doorknobs of all the rooms were twisted violently, the failed reborn came out from inside one after another.
The further back they went, the more they lost their human form. Some of them crawled up to her at an odd speed even though they had only one hand, and others moved like spiders, dexterously using their ten or so limbs.
In addition - the dead on the ground descended from the staircase that Flamm had just descended from.
She swung her sword crosswise on the spot and ejected her prana shield.
"With this!"
The dead in front of her were supposed to be wiped out.
But in fact, only the one in front of her could be killed.
The second one had sacrificed its right hand, which had been thrust forward, to stop the full force of the blow.
The failures underground were clearly different from those above ground.
Indeed, from the standpoint of human resuscitation, they may be failures.
However, if we look at them as weapons using the power of Origin, they are by far the best.
There were at most 20 of them.
But even so, they wre
A shudder.
Flamm felt the presence of a threat approaching from behind and jumped back to the side.
Bash!
Immediately after, a high-speed spinning force grazed her left arm and scraped away the flesh.
At that speed, it was almost painless.
However, it would be quite troublesome if all the enemies used long-range attacks.
With her sword at the ready, Flamm first kicked the ground to reduce the deformities that existed in the back of the room.
Then they lined up side by side, and yet another dead man rode on top of them to become the second tier, blocking the escape route to the top as well.
And at the same time - fists drawn, legs trembling, flesh whirling - they unleashed a spiral barrage.
Not at a point, but a surface.
A wall of overwhelming destructive force rushed in from in front of her.
"Reversal!"
She held the soul-eater in front of her and poured in the magic power of reversal.
But that was not enough to cover the entire body.
"Doggagaaga!"
The spirals that hit the sword's blade made a reverse rotation due to the reversal magic, losing their energy and disappearing.
On the other hand, the others mercilessly chipped away at Flamm's body.
Her ears were blown off, her cheeks were shredded, her right finger, which gripped the hilt, was blown to pieces, and her left arm, which could not be protected by the sword, was turned into a honeycomb.
Mainly the left half of the body - both the torso and the leg, the damaged parts were gouged out in a nice circular shape, but the wounds were not fatal.
Flamm chuckled.
The stray bullets should have reduced the number of enemies behind her, or so she thought.
And when she turned around, there they were - the dead, ready to take in the power of the spiral they had received and fire their next shot.
"No way--!"
Flamm's smile faltered.
When she looked at them, they were already about to be released.
A similar barrage of bullets struck Flamm, this time from the opposite direction.
It would be too late to spread the magic throughout her body now.
However, as long as she could protect her head and heart, she would not die immediately.
At this point, she was going to throw away her limbs.
She didn't know what would happen after that, but for now, she just had to think about surviving this moment.
ZDDDDDDDDDDDDD!
Flamm's body was helplessly being overtaken.
Shot through and through, red fragments flew through the air like rags.
"Oh ...... gee, gee gee ......!"
As one would expect, Flamm's equipment did reduce the pain by some amount, yet despite that the was struggling to hang on to her conciousness
"Uuui, i......o......Mil, ki,......t......ooooooo!"
She only thought of her strongly and held on to the connection.
"I can't die, I can't die, I absolutely can't die."
However, although only the part of the body that had just been imbued with magic power was barely protected - with a thud, Flamm's body, which was covered with holes all over except for the head, was thrown to the floor.
Her heart was protected by "inversion," so her heart was unharmed.
However, her limbs were scattered and she was unable to move.
Her body was still in a state of shock, but her heart was still intact.
She tried to move by twisting her body, but a monster's hand closed in on her before she could do so.
The right half of the body was a bloated, deformed individual - he lifted Flamm and observed the slowly regenerating body.
Then it suddenly placed the severed surface of her red left shoulder, dripping with blood, against the whorl of flesh on his face.
Gulp.
Flamm felt a soft, tepid, sickening sensation against the wound.
"Ugh. ...... eggggh ......."
A feeling of vomiting rose to the top of his lungs.
The monster's mouth wriggled violently, and something sharp bit into the freshly regenerated flesh.
It was chewing.
In order to prevent Flamm's body from regenerating, they ate the healed flesh off the healed part of his body.
Another whirlpool of flesh was pressed against her right shoulder, and the other parts of her body were flooded with the monsters one after another.
"Gah, ah...... ah, ah...... ha...... hyah, ha...... gi! ......!"
They did not kill Flamm.
They would not kill her , they would keep her alive while she was unable to move, and - eventually - they would have to deliver her to the main body of Origin, or so they thought.
The pain, suffering, and physiological disgust of having one's flesh eaten away incessantly.
As she felt these things, Flamm thought to himself, "How dare they do this to me?
How could they eat meat filled with magic power and prana so deliciously?
Gopah!
As if bursting into a blossom, the bodies of the monsters that had eaten Flamm's body burst open all at once.
She was thrown to the floor by the impact.
Amidst the blood pouring down like rain, she crawled desperately moving her two arms, which had finally regenerated.
Undeterred, another monster reached for Flamm.
She twisted, rolled, and evaded.
She regenerated up to her elbows and thighs - moving even faster.
Their attacks were at the mercy of their persistence rather than their movement, and did not reach her.
When all the arms regenerated, it was now completely Flamm's pace.
It was no longer clear which of them was the monster, but the outstretched hand was swatted away with the sword, the spiral force released grazed a part of her body but missed, and finally, she reached the door at the far end of the corridor.
Clinging to it, she opened it and, inwardly relieved that it was unlocked, slid herbody through the crack.
Then she quickly closed it.
Even after all this frantic work, all she could do was stall for time until her legs regenerated.
"Another room I don't understand ......."
I entered the room without checking inside, but what I found on the other side of the door was an unusually large space.
It was a round room with a high ceiling and a deep hole in the front.
Above the hole was a wire mesh passageway, but it was cut off in the middle.
There was no sign of a door anywhere on the walls, so this room must be the deepest part of the basement.
When her legs regenerated, Flamm walked up the passage and peered into the hole below.
At the bottom of it, she could see, dimly, something moving.
Staring intently, she saw that it was a lump of flesh, barely recognizable as part of a human being, with hands, feet, and a face attached.
She was no longer surprised by most things.
"I see, so anything worse than those failed attempts gets dumped in here."
These pathetic corpses were no longer worth giving room to.
Even after creating this hell, did Dafiz still not realize that his research was a mistake?
"Yeah, but I guess I can understand a little ...... why you'd want to keep going even if you shouldnt. ......"
Even myself, in situations where I would normally give up, I can get back up again if I think of Milkit.
Sometimes the feelings for others can lead a person in the wrong direction.
But at times, it gives you strength beyond the limits of your abilities.
GAGGONG!
As Flamm peeks down forlornly, the door blew open and the monsters rushed into the room.
Flamm, cornered, jumped out of the door himself.
As she fell, she muttered to himself, "If that's the case, I can do it too."
If that's the case, there's nothing I can't do.
In order to get out of this situation.
Believing in possibilities, she exceeded her current limits.
"Haaaaaaaaaaaaah!"
Gosh--doggahgahgahgahgahgahgahgahgahgahgahgahgahgahgahgahgahgahgah!
A large crater was created on the floor where the soul eater struck.
The entrance, along with the surrounding walls, was blown away, leaving a large hole.
Furthermore, the impact extended to the passageway beyond it, with the floor and walls deeply gouged out.
Naturally, the creatures that were within the area had almost completely ceased to function.
Some of them were still moving, and their flesh was about to start twisting and hardening, but Flamm quickly cut them down and destroyed their cores.
"It depends on the ...... idea, you know. It's a bit unwieldy, but I feel like if I could get better at using it, I could still do a lot of things with it."
Looking at her own palm, she realizes the dexterity of the power of "Reversal".
In the meantime, the dead continued to descend to the underground one after another.
However, the dead above ground could not hurt Flamm.
As long as they are dealt with from a proper distance, they were not much of a threat.
As she thought this, a woman with a distinctly different atmosphere from the other dead appeared before her.
She was "Ms. Susie, ......."
She was an A-rank adventurer, not a straightforward opponent.
Even more so when she was powered by the Origin Core.
I guess that should be considered a "means of attack" for Susie.
Flamm raised her sword high and refined her prana.
When she stepped in front of her, she swung it down and released her spirit sword energy.
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[^1] I have no clue how this translates diced help
TL: "the actuality that the actuality that the actuality that the actuality that the actuality is a lot of is a lot of is a lot of"-DeepL the most accurate translator.
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