I felt myself come back to the world of the living.
Itâs cold. I can feel the wind blowing from somewhere.
Where is this place?
-What do you mean, where is this place. Itâs the top of a flagpole. And right now, youâre a flag that canât even flap in the wind.
Ahh. Thatâs right.
I bullshat that Lady Aris had fallen for Nerkia and I got caught by a very angry Lady Aris, got beaten up and fainted, right?
But still, Lady Aris.
Did you have to tie me to a flagpole!
âFirst sin. Betraying the academy.â
Just then, I heard Reedanâs voice nearby.
âHmâŠâ
When I turned my head around, what I saw was were countless red, blue green and brown lights, and even some yellow and white lights added in the mix as well.
âElementals.â
That meant that the summoners that used Elemental Roar had all come inside the castle.
âAnd the sinner theyâre talking about.â
There could only be one person. Nerkia.
âHeh heh, serves you right, Nerkia.â
You dare have a whopping five girlfriends?
There is no way this Risen de Roa would ever allow that, now is there?
Just for you, I only picked out the names of some very important people as your so-called lovers?
Even though the idea that they would be is absolutely ludicrous, but thereâs no way theyâd believe you even if you denied it here?
And the trial that beganâŠ
Ended completely outside my expectations.
âIf those are my sins⊠if being the lover of those girls is a sin! Then the price for that sin, I will pay it, and gladly!â
-Kahh. Hey, contractor. Do you have the gift of prophecy or something? I donât have an ability like that. By any chance, you havenât contracted some other god without telling me, have you?
I heard Lokiâs amazed comments.
I heard him, but I did not understand.
Nerkia, what manner of bullshit was he spouting now.
All I did was name the most famous beauties of the Four Academies that I knew.
Moreover I even pulled in the daughter of a margrave, that wasnât even attending any of the academies yet.
But all of them were from good families, all of them were talented in their own right⊠and they were all beautiful as well?
You⊠are you some legendary hero or something?
Are you a harem novel protagonist!
-Loki.
-Wiing? Whatâs up, contractor?
âCome.â
I watched Nerkia brazenly declare war against a swordsmaster and a hundred elementalists.
âŠHow unsightly.
-You said you made that bamboo spear to kill that god that wouldnât die or whatever, right?
-Hm? Itâs not a bamboo spear because itâs not made out of bamboo⊠but yeah, more or less.
-I can totally understand your feelings as to why you did it⊠so I want to kill that disgusting asshole too.
-Ahaa~ but wouldnât it be a touch too impossible? I know for a fact because we had heroes in our world as well, and right now if you stuck him next to one of the folk we called heroes, heâd fit right in?
Really, now?
-I heard that a lot of heroes died because they angered the gods?
-They did. There were a lot of them that were children of gods themselves, and there were also those that were worshipped like a god. We had a lot of them mistake themselves as gods themselves.
-Well, then⊠doesnât that asshole deserve divine punishment as well, then?
-Haa? But youâre human, arenât you? Youâre not asking me for help by any chance, right?
Indeed, this is my anger.
Not Lokiâs anger, but the anger of myself who had never had a lover in my entire life.
-In that case⊠I reject my humanity, Loki!
-Urk? My power?!
I drew upon Lokiâs power under my own will.
Descension, a technique of accepting a god into yourself to borrow their strength.
This anger would not sate itself with just that.
In that case, I simply need to become a god myself to unleash divine wrath.
A way for humans to become gods.
Although she wasnât exactly human, we had an elven teacher show us how, didnât we?
As a student of Yugrasia.
I simply had to use the technique we learned from the teachers, Ascension. (ćç„)
-A, are you mad?
-I am mad! Do I look like Iâm sane to you?
-I confess. In all my divine life, I have never, ever seen a madman to surpass you! Kahahahahaha!
Loki had moved on from snickering to outright hysterical laughter, and he said to me happily.
-Alright then, do it! Use my power as much as you desire, and unleash your wrath!
A dominating power began to flow into me.
Not just Lokiâs power, but ones even beyond him!
-What is this?
-Iâm not all that strong among the gods. But⊠my children are strong enough to defeat the strongest gods of them all. This is the power of my children. Contractor. Can you withstand it?
I remembered hearing Professor Nicerwinâs tales.
Lokiâs children,
Vanargand Fenrir.
The World Snake Jörmungandr.
And the Goddess of the Underworld, Hel(1).
Each one of them were all monsters on the same level as an archdevil.
Did Lokiâs Ascension mean I had to be able to take on their power as well?
In that case.
-Of course I can!
I will take in that power. The aftermath?
I felt like if I could execute that motherfucker Nerkia then I could even make a contract with the silver devil.
And so, after a moment that felt like an eternity.
-You madlad, you actually accepted it.
I, became a god.
âShadows.â
I cut the ropes that bound me with shadows.
Even after the ropes that stopped me from plummeting through the air was cut, I did not fall to the ground.
I could use the shadows as a medium to draw on the power of Lokiâs children.
âVery well, I will kill you.â
âRisenâŠâ
My eyes met Nerkiaâs.
âNerkia!â
The moment they did, my thread of reason snapped.
âIâll kill you, you little bastard!â
âShow me your anger that youâve held in for so long!â
I transformed my shadow into Fenrir and swallowed the Spirit Kingâs lightning bolts.
âDie. Die. Die. Die!â
And as Fenrirâs shadow was destroyed by lightning, numerous small wolves that were Fenrirâs clones were summoned around it.
As over ten wolves suddenly jumped onto Nerkia, he easily defended against them with his elementals.
âDeath Godâs Scythe.â
A higher rank scythe than Lokiâs.
I drew on Helâs(2) power to borrow Helâs(3) scythe that reaped away souls with every swing.
âKghh.â
Nerkia, too, realised that the power imbued in the scythe was much greater than what he normally had to deal with, so he chose not to block, but dodged instead.
âHis intuitionâs still as sharp as ever.â
The person that was even harder to fool than Karen, with whom Iâd spent a long time together even before our Yugrasia days, was Nerkia.
His intuition which let him avoid anything that could be to his detriment made him like a ghost with how slippery he was.
And that intuition had saved him yet again.
âBut⊠if it is unavoidable, now thatâs another story!â
Suddenly, the world was dyed in darkness.
âAre you going to kill us all?!â
A giant shadow that even blotted out the setting sun.
I unleashed the power of Jörmungandr, who could wrap itself around the world.
âHup!â
âHang on?!â
The giant snakeâs tail struck Nerkia, and even sent Lady Aris flying through the air.
âYou attacked your allies!â
Lady Aris did a half-flip in the air and landed on her feet as she glared at me, but it couldnât be helped.
Sometimes you needed to make small sacrifices for the greater good!
âDie, Nerkia!â
I tried to grab Nerkia by Jörmungandrâs tail, but Nerkia was avoiding it by a sliver every time.
But, Jörmungandrâs abilities didnât lie solely in its size.
âWait hold up, are you really trying to kill me? Why are you using poison! This is against the rules!â
A lethal toxin that even once killed Thor, the god of thunder, the god that Hirto, one of the first years had contracted.
This was Jörmungandrâs true power!
âO power of water, purify me!â
âDid you think you could detoxify that with just an elemental?â
He tried to cleanse the toxic smog that was spat out near the tail with a water elemental, but there was no way he would be able to purify it perfectly.
It was a poison that even killed gods.
And he was trying to purify it with an elemental?
-If thatâs possible, he deserves the title of hero. Actually, no. Do you call them Braves in this world?
And Nerkia.
âHaaaaaaaa!â
âAre you actually a hero, you little shit?!â
He went and purified a god-killing poison with the power of an elemental!
âEverythingâs possible for an elemental!â
âPiss off! Maybe if it was a Spirit King of Water, but how the hell did you purify that poison with a highest-rank elemental!â
Damn it, what the hell. This totally felt like Iâd become a villain fighting against a hero.
How admirable, villains!
Had you been fighting against these embodiments of injustice against the world the entire time?
âThen, I will chew you up physically!â
I switched my shadow from Jörmungandr to Fenrir.
Its size was only slightly smaller than Jörmungandrâs.
âSwallow him up, Fenrir!â
A power that swallowed heaven and earth, and even the king of the gods!
âKgh!â
âYes!â
Perhaps he had used too much strength into purifying Jörmungandrâs poison, or he had been unable to adjust to the sudden switch to Fenrir.
Nerkia could not respond to the giant wolfâs fangs and was swallowed up.
âFinally, I finally killed Nerkia with my own hands!â
-Not yet. With heroes, itâs never over until itâs over!
Was what Loki said, but I didnât think Nerkia would ever be able to get out of that place where not even the king of the gods was able to break out of.
Was what I had thought.
âHe came out?â
A giant light almost erased the shadows entirely as a giant hole opened up in Fenrirâs upper and lower jaws, and Nerkia jumped out of the hole.
-Ah dammit, my eldest⊠youâve opened up another hole in your mouth again⊠Why the heck does everyone keep opening up holes in my boyâs jaws?(4)
âŠIt seemed that heâd had holes punched through him previously.
âCome, owner of the god-killing branch.â
But there was no doubt that Nerkiaâs stamina had bottomed out.
The number of elementals he had wielded, which wouldnât have lost to a hundred elementalists, had dwindled to just ten.
Most notable was the fact that there were no highest-rank elementals left, his strongest units aside from the Spirit King, as if they had run out of mana.
All that was left was the Spirit King, two high-rank elementals, and the rest were all mid- and low-rank elementals.
âPierce, Mystletainn.â
âRoar, lightning spear!â
As if he had no strength to either block or dodge Mystletainn, Nerkia poured everything he had left into one final attack.
âHeâs going to block me.â
Letâs think rationally.
I had to go with the assumption that nothing would go as I wanted it to.
Nerkia had managed to purify a god-killing poison, and survived the jaws of the wolf that swallowed the king of the gods.
In that case, he could certainly defend against the spear Mystletainn that could even kill immortals.
âIt was my fault for trying to kill him with powers that killed gods.â
Nerkia was human.
I made the incorrect decision because I had become a god that had obtained Lokiâs power.
Nerkia was human. I just had to kill him as a human would.
âLokiâs shoes, Scythe of the Fool.â
I took out my weapons that I was familiar with.
The moment the smoke created by the collision of Mystletainn and the lightning spear dissipated, that was my moment.
I simply had to slit Nerkiaâs throat at a speed not even he could react to.
Even if he had the abilities of a hero, he would still die if his head was cut off!
âNow⊠then⊠kughh?â
The smoke created by the explosion between Mystletainn and the lightning spear began to clear away.
But even so, I could not run forward to kill Nerkia.
All I could do was clutch my chest, and stand firm with my knees that threatened to fall to the ground at any moment.
âKghâŠâ
âDamn it allâŠâ
Groans burst out from the lips of one hundred elementalists that had been watching my fight with Nerkia.
Some of them had fallen onto their knees, and there were many others whose hands were only barely keeping them off the ground, too.
Because Nerkia wasâŠ
Using a devastatingly cruel attack on us!
âYour wounds are awful! Are you really alright, oppa?â
We saw Nerkia being supported up by a beautiful girl whose eyes were moist with tears.
âKghhâŠâ
âO, oppa?â
I could hear the sounds of people collapsing around me.
I, too, wanted to cough up blood and fall.
âYou donât need to fight for us anymore. Because itâs our problem.â
Because I could also see Aruciaâs vice-president bite down on her lower lip as she glared at me.
The very image of a filthy couple.
âUghâŠâ
But I was not confident I could continue watching the radiant light they were emitting.
âOppa, since oppa fought for us⊠I will fight too.â
âDonât, donât do itâŠâ
They were saying lines that had me cringing, but for some reason, I felt like I was getting weaker.
âMe too⊠for you⊠I will fight.â
âDonât say itâŠâ
I even came close to dropping my weapon, my hand was shaking so hard.
âNow, oppaâŠâ
âNerkiaâŠâ
âN, noâŠâ
But very mercilessly, those two went and said it.
ââI- no, we will protect you!ââ
The words to sink a hundred summoners, no, a hundred solos.