「 ✦ Hajime Nagumo ✦ 」
The snow broke apart as we stepped through the last veil of snow and white.
For a while, all we could see was the horizon beyond the barrier—endless blue sky after what felt like a week trapped inside the perpetual blizzard of the Frost Caverns.
Yue leaned lightly against me, while Shea bounced at my side, practically radiating relief from every pore.
"Finally! I thought I was going to freeze my tail off in there!" she huffed, stretching her arms above her head.
The others followed behind us. Tio came through next, and Yaegashi and Kaori followed not long after. Sakagami dragged his feet like he hadn't slept in a week, and finally, Taniguchi and Amanogawa came last, with the latter still wearing that brooding expression that had become his permanent default setting recently.
"That makes all seven labyrinths. We can finally go home."
"Mm," Yue nodded. "You did it, Hajime."
I gave her a tired smile. "We did it."
Kaori looked at me with traces of tears gathering in her eyes. "Hajime-kun... we really can go back, can we? This is finally it, right?"
"That's right, Kaori. We're all goin home."
The others were talking among themselves now, laughing, sharing relief. Even Sakagami cracked a grin at something Taniguchi said. It almost felt... peaceful.
The first thing I noticed was the change in atmospheric pressure. Like the moment before a thunderstorm, when the air gets a little heavy. My instincts, honed by countless battles, started screaming warnings.
Yue tensed beside me. Shea went completely silent, which was never a good sign. So I looked up.
A tide of white filled the sky above us. There were hundreds of them, of Apostles. They had their wings spread in formation and everything, blocking out sections of the sun, and at the front, descending slowly, were two people I knew a little too well but never expected to see again.
Two people who should've been rotting in the afterlife.
One was Freid Bagwa. He had white hair this time, with feathered wings spread wide. He definitely felt stronger than I remembered. A lot stronger, in fact.
And beside him... was Eri Nakamura.
Still ugly in that twisted way. Still oozing the kind of insanity that made smart people cross the street. Her hair was as pale as fresh snow, and she settled herself beside Freid like she belonged there.
But both of them—both of them should have been dead. They'd already died by Rimuru's hands.
"Are we really seeing this?" Ryutarou muttered.
"...No way," Yaegashi added behind me, genuinely surprised.
How can they not be shocked, when they saw these freaks get reduced to nothing? Nakamura exploded during the demon invasion, while Freid was beheaded and burned to ash when Rimuru evolved.
My gun was already in my hand before I realized I'd moved.
Freid raised a palm at my gesture. "Peace, Irregular. I come not to fight... not yet."
Everyone stiffened behind me.
I stepped forward. "You're supposed to be dead," I said flatly. "I saw you die, Freid. I watched it happen as you and your army were reduced to ashes."
Freid landed gracefully about twenty meters away, a smirk playing across his lips. "So many things I was supposed to be, Irregular. Dead, defeated, forgotten. And yet, here I stand. In front of you, again."
He wore a mockery of his old face—that religious fervor still burned in his eyes, brighter than ever, but now it was accompanied by something colder. The confidence of a zealot who believed his path had been divinely ordained and proven correct.
"The demon lord sends his regards, and by his grace's order," Freid said, flapping dramatically with one wing, "we cordially invite you to the Demon Lord's castle in Garland. He wishes to speak with you. All of you."
My eyes narrowed. Garland? That was Rimuru's destination, wasn't it? The place he'd been aiming for when we split up. He was supposed to go there and wipe the floor with the remnants of the freaks, but if Garland was still standing, then either Rimuru never made it...
...or something went very wrong.
"Cheh. You're a ghost, and you've got the nerve to show up here after what you pulled, and offer me hospitality?"
Freid's smile widened. "It's not hospitality. It's a summons."
"Then you can take your summons, roll it up, and shove it straight up your holy ass."
Did they beat him there? Did they actually manage to—
No. That didn't sound right. Rimuru wouldn't lose to these fanatics. I refused to believe that. No fucking way.
The idea of Rimuru losing just didn't compute. If Rimuru had wanted to reach Garland first, he would have and nothing could've stopped him. Which meant either he was already there, or this was all part of some larger game he was playing.
Yue chuckled under her breath beside me, while Shea didn't even smile. Her hand gripped the handle of her hammer tightly and she was reading the room—we all were.
"You always were charming, Irregular," Freid said, his smile widening. "Still thinking like a gunman instead of a prophet. Still refusing to see the bigger picture."
"And you're still as full of shit as ever. Death didn't fix your personality, it seems."
Our banter continued, but I kept my eyes moving, cataloging threats. Five hundred apostles, minimum. An army of gray dragons circling in the distance like vultures. And how Freid seemed completely unafraid.
Nakamura was standing slightly to the side, her attention focused elsewhere. I followed her gaze, and I found her staring at Amanogawa. Only he, like the rest of us didn't even exist.
"Eri..." Taniguchi stepped forward, hope and confusion warring in her voice. "Eri, is that really you? We thought—we thought you were gone. I... I mourned you."
Nakamura didn't even acknowledge her. Didn't so much as glance in her direction. Her entire world had narrowed to one person. Taniguchi's face crumpled with hurt, and it seemed Sakagami felt a flash of anger on her behalf. Whatever Nakamura had become, it seemed treating her best friend like empty air was just cruel to everybody else.
Amanogawa, for his part, couldn't meet anyone's eyes.
"You're all remarkably poor at making decisions," Freid said with that same infuriating smile. "So I took the liberty of preparing something to help clarify your priorities."
A portal tore open in the air beside him. Inside it, visible through the rift, were the students who had stayed behind in Heiligh. The ones who'd chosen safety over adventure. They were locked in what looked like a massive cage, looking weak and terrified and very much like hostages.
The group behind me gasped collectively. I heard Yaegashi's fist clench with an audible crack. Sakagami cursed under his breath in what sounded like three different languages.
Freid raised an eyebrow, looking genuinely curious. "Still refuse the invitation, Irregular?"
I didn't even blink. "Of course. You really think this'll stop me?"
"You care for them, do you not?"
"Perchance. And that's more than enough reason for me to kill every last one of you before I let you use them against me."
The casual dismissal seemed to genuinely surprise him. "You would let them suffer for your pride... how insufferable are you?"
"As long as they're breathing, I can rescue them later." I shrugged, keeping my voice even. "Captives are only leverage if I care more about their comfort than their lives."
That seemed to throw him off balance.
"You... really are as heartless as ever. Annoyingly stubborn beyond measure as well."
I aimed my gun directly at his face. "Keep running your mouth and I'll be worse than stubborn. Besides, I don't negotiate with lunatics."
Freid's smile returned, but this time it was darker. Another portal opened beside the first one, and my blood turned to molten lava.
There was Myu. My daughter in everything that mattered. Caged like an animal, with bruises on her small arms. Remia, her mother, looked weak and afraid and hurt as she cuddled her daughter protectively. Both of them were trapped behind bars that looked designed to contain far more than normal people.
The air around me seemed to drop twenty degrees as my killing intent exploded outward like a shockwave. It hit the assembled apostles like a physical force—even the ones flying overhead wavered in their formations.
Everyone except Yue, Shea, and Tio staggered backward. Even Nakamura took an involuntary step away from the raw hatred radiating off me. Freid stood perfectly still, weathering my murderous aura like it was a gentle breeze. That told me everything I needed to know about how much stronger he'd become.
"What will it be, then?" he asked quietly.
Yue stepped forward. "You seem very confident, Freid. As if you think you can actually defeat Hajime."
Freid chuckled. "It's confidence born of experience, I'm afraid. I faced Rimuru Tempest, who was devastation incarnate. Do you truly believe any of you can match up to that?"
"Hah! You think that was a fight?"
"...You're right. Fight is perhaps too generous a term. I was humbled."
"...So? What happened to him?" I demanded.
"He proved... troublesome. More troublesome than initial projections suggested. But even that thing has limits. And our Lord is patient and thorough. He plans for every contingency."
"That's not an answer," I snarled.
"It's the only answer you'll get," Freid replied. "Unless you accept our invitation."
The portal with Myu and Remia remained open, my daughter's terrified eyes looking directly at me, so I holstered my guns.
"Fine. We'll do this your way."
He extended his hand. "Lay down your weapons. Hand over your treasure troves. Come willingly. Or don't come at all."
"Excuse you?"
"Then how do you propose—"
"Fuck off, bitch. I am not surrendering my weapons. I'm not walking into your trap defenseless and hoping for the best."
Freid nodded, as if he already expected this. "I expected as much, Irregular."
"Whatever," I said, checking my weapons one final time. "Just lead the fucking way."
The portal remained open, showing me everything I had to lose and everyone I had to save. Without another word, I stepped forward. And together, we stepped through the portal into whatever hell they'd prepared for us.
···—–—⚜—–—···
「 ✦ Rimuru Tempest ✦ 」
I wasn't supposed to wake up from artificial sleep. At least, not until later. The whole point was to let time pass without the boredom of consciousness. But something yanked me back to awareness anyway—a horrible feeling that settled in my chest.
It was a feeling that told me something was badly wrong.
The sensation wasn't physical—couldn't be—but it felt like someone had grabbed my heart and squeezed. Every instinct I had was screaming at me to get back to Tortus. Now.
Raphael, status report.
<
"Good work, Raphael," I muttered, but my mind was racing. "Any update on our way out?"
<
"That's a problem—I don't have thirty-six hours." I sat up in the void, anxiety making my body feel heavier than it should. "Something's happening back on Tortus."
The bad feeling was getting worse by the second. Something had happened, or was about to happen, and I was stuck floating in nowhere like an idiot. Then suddenly, I felt a disturbance in the background radiation of this accursed universe—something massive approaching from the deeper parts of space. I turned toward the disturbance, and from a distance, I saw an army.
Thousands upon thousands of Phantoms moving in formation. But it wasn't just their numbers that concerned me—it was what was leading them. A presence powerful enough to make my head turn.
Well, shit.
"Raphael, they're coming for us, aren't they?"
<
"Might as well say hello."
I floated there, a single speck of glowing blue-gold light against the cosmic darkness, facing down an army. The sheer scale of it would have been intimidating if I weren't already having a streak of terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days.
"Actually, Raphael, I just remembered something. Why don't we use that to speed things up?"
<
"You know, Covenant. From Uriel. It's supposed to give me something in exchange of something, right?"
There was a pause that felt longer than it probably was.
<
Well, that was annoying. But I was feeling desperate enough to try something stupid.
"Then we make new parameters. I'll sacrifice access to both Belzebuth and Uriel for... let's say a week. That should provide enough computational boost to get us out of here faster, right?"
<
"Fine, three days then. But I'm adding some compensation. Delay the analysis of Unlimited Imprisonment by a month, and..." I paused, knowing Veldora was going to be offended by this. "And siphon off a chunk of Veldora's reserves."
<
"Significant enough to matter, but not enough to hurt him permanently. He's got ridiculous reserves anyway."
I couldn't help but chuckle internally. Veldora was definitely going to chew me up, but I trusted that my sworn brother of all people would understand.
<
"I know the risks, but I reallyyyy need to get back, like, now."
<
"Yes," I said without hesitation.
The moment the covenant took effect, I felt my Ultimate Skills fade into inaccessibility. It was like losing two additional senses, but the boost to Raphael's processing power was immediately noticeable.
When the army finally closed to within a few thousand kilometers—close enough for a standoff by outer space standards—I decided to take the initiative.
"You know," I called out, my voice carrying well through the void, "I was having such a nice nap before you showed up. This better be important."
The leader of the army stepped forward—or whatever passed for stepping in a place without ground. He was massive, easily three times my height, with three pairs of wings that were an unsettling mix of white and black. Despite the angelic wings, his body was incredibly bulky and intimidating, and aside from the sheer presence of power radiating from him and those otherworldly wings, he looked human enough.
"I am Cornu," he announced. "And you, interloper, have been identified as the unwelcome guardian of a potential gate route to a world. You will be eliminated."
I blinked. "I'm sorry, what now?"
What the fuck is he talking about?
"A gate route?" I continued aloud. "Listen, buddy, I've been floating around this cosmic armpit completely lost for the better part of a day. If there's a gate anywhere, I'd love to know about it because I've been trying to find a way out of here since I arrived."
Also, how the hell were we even having this conversation? There was no air here, no medium for sound to travel through. This was practically an outer void.
<
Right. Got it. I totally understand.
Cornu's expression darkened with frustration. "My subordinates have been reporting for cycles that a single being has been gatekeeping a specific coordinate in space—the exact location where our dimensional breach is meant to manifest! You dare claim ignorance of your own actions?"
Oh. OH.
I was apparently camping the spawn point for their invasion portal. Completely by accident.
That's... actually hilarious.
"Right, yeah, totally knew about that," I said with the most nonchalant tone I could manage. "Super obvious gate route. Very strategic positioning on my part, eh?"
Cornu's eyes narrowed. "You mock me?"
"Just a little bit, yeah." I waved my hand dismissively. "Look, I appreciate the whole dramatic introduction thing you've got going on, but I'm kind of in a hurry. So how about we skip the talking and get straight to the part where I kick your ass?"
"You face the might of a Phantom army, led by a Seraphim," Cornu said, spreading his wings wide. "And you think of victory?"
"Stop talking. I don't like you." I cracked my knuckles, done purely for psychological effect since I didn't have bones. "Raphael, remind me—how long do we need to hold out?"
<
Perfect. "Half an hour should be more than enough."
I had been floating there calmly, but now I made sure to let them know I was going to fight seriously.
Cornu seemed to sense the change in my energy signature. "What are you up—"
"Doesn't matter," I cut him off. "What matters is that you picked the absolute worst possible time to pick a fight with me."
He snarled and launched himself forward, six wings beating in perfect synchronization. The Phantom army surged like a living wave of darkness behind him.
I met them halfway.
The battle was spectacularly sci-fi, and I used concentrated aura blasts to carve through the Phantom ranks, each one disintegrating hundreds of enemies at once. Those who survived tried to swarm me, but in the weightless void, superior maneuverability meant everything.
Cornu himself proved to be a worthy opponent. His combat style was a brutal combination of overwhelming physical strength and precise energy manipulation. We traded blows that would have shattered moons, our fight leaving trails of distorted space in its wake.
"You fight well for a gatekeeper!" he called out, parrying a strike that would have removed his head.
"You're holding back," I muttered.
He grinned. "You are worthy of effort."
I raised a brow. "How sweet, but I'm not into dudes."
We were fairly evenly matched—at least, while I was under restrictions and he was still trying to accurately measure me. Cornu had raw power and experience, but I had flexibility and speed. The longer the fight went on, the more I could see him starting to enjoy himself, and the stronger he let himself be.
"This is fun—" a genuine smile spread across his face.
Then suddenly, there was a perfectly circular void where his torso used to be, separating his head from his legs.
"What—how—" his head drifted away from his lower body, confusion replacing bloodlust in his eyes.
"True Sphere. Kinda forgot I had it," I explained casually, manifesting another one—much larger this time. I swung the invisible construct around through the remaining Phantom army like a wrecking ball. "Physics is funny like that, I know."
The army that had seemed so intimidating moments before was reduced to scattered particles in seconds.
<
"Finally!" I breathed, relief flooding through me.
A tear in space opened beside me. Without a moment's hesitation, I stepped through.
Then I immediately got fucked over it.
Pain—pure, conceptual agony that existed on levels I didn't have names for—tore through me as I traveled through the void between states of existence. Something was actively trying to unmake me at the fundamental level.
I screamed—but only inwardly.
<
"What kind of pretentious bullshit—!"
Infinite Regeneration kicked in automatically, but while that was more than enough to keep me alive, it wasn't even close to being able to dull the pain of whatever force was trying to erase me from existence.
<
The pain lasted subjective hours but probably only a second in real time. When it finally faded, I was gasping—an automatic response that my body still had despite not technically needing to breathe.
"What the hell was that?!" I managed to ask.
<
"Those philosophical piece of shit fake gods," I snarled, anger replacing exhaustion. "They tried to erase me for having the audacity to come back?"
But we were through. We were finally at Tortus. I materialized somewhere dark and hot and uncomfortable. A quick scan confirmed my nasty feeling—I was at Tortus's literal core. As far from the surface as it was possible to be while still technically being on the same world.
"Of course," I muttered. "Because why would anything be simple today?"
I didn't waste time complaining or being annoyed. I shot upward at maximum speed, tearing through rock and magma and eventually ice as I burned a straight line from the planet's core to its surface. When I finally burst through into open air, I left behind a perfectly cylindrical tunnel and a lot of very confused geology.
The atmosphere burned past me as I accelerated, leaving a blazing streak of blue and gold across the sky. I expanded my senses to its maximum range, and I could feel large concentrations of energy in several locations, but one stood out.
Please don't let me be too late, I thought, pushing myself even faster.