WeTried Translations

Translator: Botanica

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Academy's Pure Love Dark Knight ◈

Chapter 98

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Episode 98. Seek Life, Find Love.

As far as I knew, Head Ache had two phases total. The first phase went like this,

"..Like a gnat. Boy."

A bullet-firing pattern. I used Giyu to turn into water droplets and dodge it.

"Named Jeokmok, for the red blood it draws."

A grim red bloodlust settled over the blade in my hand. It split the wind, scattering raindrops.

"Magnolia Sword Art, Second Form, Jeokmok."

"How does a boy know that technique..?!"

Aiming for a vital point to kill him, I managed to graze a small wound into Head's neck.

"Don't tell me, Baek-Mokryeon's..!!"

"Finally remember, do you?"

Bang, bang. He kept squeezing the trigger at my face, one shot after another, so I had no choice but to vanish again and put some distance between us.

"This can't be. I sealed her away in the depths of the Endless Forest of Monsters, at its very core, and used Erasure of knowledge so no one could ever find her!!"

Faint smoke rose from the red revolver that had fired the shot, and the iron smell of gunpowder mixed with the coppery scent of blood filled the air around us.

"During Magic Hat's attack, I ended up drawn there, as if pulled. Call it your own karma, Head."

"I was never wrong..!!"

The Demon King glared at me with resentful eyes, one arm pressed against his bleeding neck as he tried to stanch the flow.

"..Let's see if you can dodge this one too."

With his other arm, he pressed the muzzle of the gun to his own temple. That was a different pattern, one where he used his own Omniscience as a medium to calculate his opponent's spatial coordinates,

'A guaranteed-hit technique that never misses..!!'

Bang.

"Too late already, boy!"

The moment he pulled the trigger, a massive bullet appeared instantly at my side, right as I was charging forward across the ground to stop him.

He'd clearly fired it at himself, yet Head showed not the slightest sign of injury. A pattern that completely ignored the laws of physics.

The bullet, which had been small just a moment ago, had turned into a massive weapon roughly two meters long, spinning as it tried to tear my body to shreds.

'Damn it, Giyu won't work on this one.'

I'd already tried turning into water droplets to shake it off, but it kept 'existing' right beside me, as though it could see exactly where I moved.

In the game, I'd just tanked it, trusting my gear's defense to carry me through, is there really no other way?

"Magnolia Sword Art, Fourth Form, Cheongryu!!"

I raised a wave, using the current to absorb the impact. Even blocking with Baeksan, there was no way to get through this without taking the hit.

"Gahk..!"

My clothes tore, and my whole body was covered in wounds. It was probably about like getting hit by a car spinning at high speed.

I hadn't managed to fully soften the blow's force, if I took several more hits like this, my body would be reduced to rags. Was there really no way out of this?

"Hoh, absorbing the impact with water, seems my technique's been read through completely."

"Finally having fun, are you.."

"Of course, because it just proves my omniscience was never wrong!"

Head sneered at me. He only looked cold and composed on the surface, underneath, he was an utterly ugly boss.

"..So the bleeding's stopped too, I take it."

When Head pulled his hand away from the neck wound I'd just given him, no blood was flowing anymore. Had he already healed?

"I'll wear you down and kill you slowly."

With a twisted smile, he aimed the gun at his own temple once again. I couldn't keep taking hits like this...

"..Huh, why won't it fire."

That was when it happened. Chains made of water burst up like a fountain from beneath the old gentleman's feet, winding tightly around his arms and legs.

"Dennis!! You damned bastard..!!"

They bound him down, keeping him from firing. Unmistakably the protagonist of <Knight Heart>.

'Dennis, of course.'

It was Drunkard Dennis's magic. So he really had meant it when he said he'd help in an emergency.

I steadied my breathing. Using the Corrupted Route glitch would be far too reckless an attempt, and I didn't even have Kainel's holy sword.

'More than anything, I don't even know the corruption incantation for the fake holy sword.'

I'd need to know the incantation opposite to the sword I was currently holding, and I didn't even meet the basic conditions.

To begin with, I'd need to lose Phine to even use it. And I'd already gotten her evacuated to safety.

"..As expected, 'I don't believe in love' isn't enough to trigger it."

Maybe the reason it triggered last time was that, during Magic Hat's attack, I'd completely given up on the 'Nameless Saintess.'

Honestly, anyone else might have just fled the scene. There was no real reason to go so far as to split the space apart to keep Magic Hat away.

I hadn't even met the Saintess yet, back then. I could've flailed and clawed uglier to hold onto my life a little longer.

'Guess I really am out of my mind.'

As it turned out, because Phine wasn't kidnapped, maybe she never ended up buried under lies, her identity and name erased.

The loss of someone I loved. To save others, to keep them alive, I gave up my own personal desire.

"They say a blessing can come disguised as misfortune, don't they."

So maybe, in the truest sense, the condition really had been met. A hollow laugh escaped me.

"Old Thought, Reminiscence."

Thud. Something heavy dropped from the sky. A pitch-black sword shaped like a lever.

It looked something like being unable to pull a sword free from a boulder, and lifting the whole boulder instead.

Honestly, ever since I first saw this Heart Sword, I'd had a feeling it would come in useful somewhere.

"Y-you, what are you trying to..?!"

"This sword, you know, it also carries the meaning of a 'circular notice.'"[1]

Holding Reminiscence, I stood before Head as he struggled to break free of the chains. I drove the sword's sharp tip into the Demon King's heart,

"Let's see if you can survive this too. Fake or not, it's still a holy sword."

I pulled the lever. Used on the ground, its ability only changed the surrounding terrain, like selecting a different map.

"Gyaaaaah!!"

Used on a person's body, though, it would twist their internal organs inside out. This time, in contrast, the surroundings went so still they carried an air of desolation,

"Guh, guhck.. you, why do you have two holy swords..!! A Hero should only be able to carry one..!"

"Well, I've been telling you since earlier, I'm not a Hero, Head."

Blood ran from Head's eyes and mouth. The Demon King writhed in agony. The sins he'd piled up ran deep.

"I.. I am... the Demon King of Omniscience. There's no way I couldn't have known something like this..!"

"Then don't you even know the price of the sins you've committed?"

You erased the Heavenly Demon from people's memories, schemed to kidnap innocent Chartiness, and now you've even attacked the academy trying to hurt our Phine.

"You've killed far too many people."

Every single one of the Heroic Cult members he'd brought along was vicious. Just now, the moment the Apostle of Gluttony cast its ability, hadn't they tried to attack students who'd been left helpless?

Just looking at the white-clad figures sprawled all around was proof enough.

Some of them had held weapons to throats, threatening lives. No matter how good the goal was supposed to be,

"The end doesn't justify the means, Head."

If I hadn't been here, if Dennis hadn't been here, there might have been casualties among the academy's students.

"Do you think I.. never explained myself to anyone around me..?!"

Down at the base, where it read 「Stage Select」, the hammer had fully rotated back. It must have hurt terribly, yet the Demon King somehow kept his mouth running.

"Fine. If you're that desperate to die, I'll give you my very best!!"

The line that signaled the start of Phase Two.

The instant he shouted it, the bindings holding Head down broke apart. Normally, after that, once his health dropped low enough, he'd attempt to shoot himself.

"..Guess I'll have to use the Ledger of Life and Death."

A sense hit me instinctively that this time wouldn't go so easily. The Ledger of Life and Death, was he trying to tamper with my save file?

"Black Knight Licht."

Even the damage I'd dealt earlier had fully healed. A chill of unease ran through me, and I dodged back.

"He was betrayed by his own companions on the party that went to slay the Demon King, and died caught in a trap."

What? That wasn't supposed to be an item like that.

I suddenly sensed a presence and turned around. Head's Ledger of Life and Death was originally supposed to just record a person's lifespan and cause of death, as seen through his omniscience.

'It never had a power like this..!'

Behind me, red phantoms that looked like Kainel and Ariel came into view. The two of them unleashed sword energy and magic at my back. A bottomless pit opened right beneath my feet.

'Falling...'

I tried to kick off the ground and escape, but failed. How was something like that even possible? Was it because this was a prequel?

My body plummeted downward. I thrashed, trying to shift form with Giyu, but it failed to activate.

"It's over. How does it feel, being betrayed by others as a Hero?"

Head muttered it toward me as I fell. At the very bottom, enormous spikes jutted up, if I plunged onto those, my life wouldn't be guaranteed.

'Is this it? Even summoning Old Thought isn't working.'

I was on the verge of hitting the razor-sharp spike trap. I tried driving my sword into the wall to stop the fall, but that failed too.

Was all that was left a crunch as I was skewered through, bleeding out in agony?

That was when it happened. Something transparent formed behind my back. Two pairs of glass wings, glittering as they caught the light.

'..Phine.'

Mardol, no, Phine Gransia, however she'd seen and judged this situation, had cast glass magic on my back and just barely spared me from injury.

Wings of white silver fluttered. Using them for thrust, my body began to rise into the air. I hadn't even used Decision of Icarus, yet here I was flying.

"What a broken character."

A faint pang of envy stirred in me. If she never became the Nameless Saintess, she was really this strong.

"Thanks, Phine."

Thinking about it, Phine Gransia had always been the one who saved my life whenever I was at my most desperate.

Even as the Nameless Saintess, she'd comforted and saved me, and just a while ago she'd dived into my trauma and come to pull me out of a fire.

None of it had anything to do with her, yet she was that kind a person.

Someone might say I was just overlaying an old unrequited love onto her, but she'd always been the same. Even if I, a mere Black Knight, distorted how I saw her,

"A mirror shows things exactly as they are, after all."

How could her bright light ever be dimmed? She was always gentle, warm, kind.

"..Looking back, I really was hopeless at reading the room."

Even when I mistook her for Lupus, even after I learned she was a woman, she'd stayed exactly the same. She loved cute things and sweets,

"Phine was always just Phine, wasn't she."

Besides, I'd already resolved from the start never to let her become the Nameless Saintess. Some stranger showing up out of nowhere and falling for her at first sight,

"saying 'I'm someone who loved you in the future,' that isn't pure love."

It would be fine even if she and I never ended up together. Even if she was no longer the Saintess I remembered.

Someday, I wanted to clear away every shadow covering her and see her smile brightly.

Just an ordinary wish like that, nothing more. Not that I'd done much besides tanking her affection meter, anyway.

"The Phine Gransia of right now is lovable enough that I'd fall for her all over again.. that's reason enough."

A strong, kind girl who never hesitated to reach out a hand whenever someone around her needed help.

"The complete opposite. Totally."

The exact opposite of weak me, who'd pushed people away out of fear when they got close, who'd grown scared and fled before anything even happened.

"..You saved my life. Thank you, Phine Gransia."

Once I'd safely escaped Head's trap, I raised a thumbs-up toward the sky.

Because somewhere out there, Phine might just be watching.

Footnotes

[1] In the original Korean, 회상 is a homophone: "reminiscence" (回想, the sword's name) and "circular notice" (回狀) share the same pronunciation but have different Hanja meanings.

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