Chapter : 20
“…Again, like that…”
“I’m fine, Serena.”
I really was fine.
Of course, this avatar of mine might have been in a serious condition.
But since I couldn’t feel a shred of pain, all I could think was, Oh, I got stabbed.
“Your injury is severe… Is it hard to move quickly?”
“Not at all.”
No game character loses agility just because their HP bar shrinks. If they did, it’d be a trash game.
My confident answer made Serena’s expression twist.
No tears fell, but she clearly wanted to say something.
Pretending not to notice, I stood up.
“We need to kill her as fast as possible. And the most important part of that is your job and mine, Serena.”
“…All right. Let’s hurry.”
I jumped back into the battle raging in Car #1. My long sword sliced the air like a whip, aiming right for Eris’s head.
“Kyagh!”
Slash.
The holy sword split the right half of her skull cleanly. Eris let out a shrill scream.
My sword was both unwieldy and powerful.
The blade was at least twice the length of a regular greatsword, able to hit enemies who shouldn’t have even been in range.
“AAAAH! HURTS! IT HURTS!”
Eris always hid behind walls of earth—but she was incredibly vulnerable to pain.
And a brain injury was a lethal weak point for a demon. Stabbing her throat earlier couldn’t even compare.
Holding her head, Eris rolled screaming across the floor. Regeneration in the head was always the slowest.
I shouted to the other two still fighting.
“Both of you, get off this train!”
KA-BOOM!
The moment the words left my mouth, Serena—who had been hiding behind me—opened fire at the wall of Car #1.
A bullet infused with massive fire mana blew apart both Eris’s barrier and the train wall.
It left a gap barely wide enough for one person.
Serena went first, then Michael and Ilya followed after understanding my order, and finally I leapt out.
“AAAAARGH!”
The forced rupture of her barrier made Eris howl. We didn’t have long before she chased us.
I glanced back at Serena.
Sssssss—
Mana so intense it burned seeped from her gun barrel.
Overwhelming—almost beautiful.
My contact lenses had fallen out during the fight, so I could clearly see the enormous fire mana gathering around her.
The Empire’s strongest combat mage. A walking airstrike.
The woman called Serena squeezed the trigger.
“Whew.”
Michael exhaled something between awe and disbelief.
The firepower was absurd. A single bullet became a giant inferno, detonating with a thunderous blast.
Car #1 was blown to pieces, and more than half of Car #2 melted into molten scrap.
“Aerial suppression!”
“Already on it!”
Ilya shot forward before she even finished speaking. The ends of his arms darkened to demon-gray.
Half-transformed into demon form, he was a terrifying magic swordsman.
His water mana wrapped violently around Car #2, blocking the blast from reaching the civilians in Car #3.
Meanwhile, Car #1 still burned fiercely.
Never relaxing, I stared at the molten wreckage.
Just as expected, something charred beyond recognition crawled out.
“Ghh… aaah…”
A demon’s super-regeneration was impressive—but useless if you kept damaging faster than it healed.
Burn damage was torture for Eris, the weakest of the Demon Lord’s four lieutenants.
I raised my sword.
Then I stabbed it straight through her barely-functioning heart, her ruined throat unable to scream properly.
Splurch. I felt flesh yield beneath my grip.
[The Earth Demon Eris has been slain.]
[The power of earth is no longer available.]
[Sealed stats partially released.]
Eris shattered into beautiful polygon fragments and scattered into the air. Michael spoke, exhausted but satisfied.
“…Finally over.”
“We killed a high-ranking demon…”
Serena stared blankly into the flames she herself had summoned.
Caught between awe and rising elation, she seemed unable to feel her wounds.
Ilya looked equally stunned.
I stole a glance at the clock hovering overhead.
Chapter 5 was finished—good time to log out.
[Would you like to log out?]
Oh—right, first…
“Serena.”
“…Asha?”
“I need to sleep.”
If I suddenly fainted, she’d panic, so a warning was best. Serena’s eyes widened at my casual words.
“What? Wait—Asha!”
[Loading…]
[Exiting ‘Raison d’Être.’]
Leaving Serena’s desperate cry behind, my vision went dark.
We’d killed a high-ranking demon.
Which meant all the demon troops under her command would die too.
We had saved thousands—maybe tens of thousands—of future victims.
Serena’s firepower was overwhelming—but without Ilya’s magic, it would scorch allies as well.
And without Asha, wielder of the holy sword, they couldn’t land the final blow.
What had happened wasn’t a miracle—it was a carefully engineered inevitability.
Serena recalled hazy memories of things the Hero once said.
“Humans are inherently weaker than demons. We can’t change that.”
“It’s fine. If we lack strength, we fight with our minds… And besides, I have you all.”
“I wish there were no unhappy people in the world.”
In her memories and reality both, Asha always lived for others before herself.
She’d likely gotten hurt protecting those two during the fight.
How could anyone leave a person that selfless and noble alone?
Anastasia was truly—absolutely—remarkable.
“Asha… You always exceed anything I imagine.”
Serena hugged Asha the moment she passed out after the battle, whispering heartfelt admiration.
“Don’t you agree, Duke?”
“…It is… undeniably true.”
Ilya nodded with zero hesitation. The nearly 190 cm man knelt before Asha.
She wasn’t short, but among her tall party she looked small.
But she shone the brightest.
Ilya tore his own shirt and pressed it against her bleeding abdomen, the black cloth quickly soaking through.
“How far to Rezenka?”
“If we sprint—about an hour.”
Michael, wielder of wind mana, had unmatched spatial awareness and detection.
His wind traveled everywhere—so of course.
On hearing the immediate answer, Ilya hefted Asha onto his back.
Half demon, strong enough to lift a one-ton boulder with one hand—Asha weighed nothing to him.
“Archmage, we’ll go ahead.”
“…I’ll follow slowly.”
“Duke! Move! RUN!”
Ilya bowed to Serena, then sprinted after Michael.
“I never knew I’d regret skipping workouts this much…”
Watching the three vanish at a speed she couldn’t hope to match, Serena let out a long sigh.
After the war, a nation called Tolka was established where the contamination was least severe—former Russia and Central Asia.
Humanity’s only remaining society—and it had strict, unfair rules.
“All citizens must fulfill the duties assigned to them!”
So, according to founding principles, fate was assigned before birth.
A letter-grade hierarchy based on district and privilege.
Within that, job status graded 1 through 3.
Ranks further split by + and –.
Everyone lived within this structure. Fleeing outside the borders meant dying by radiation poisoning—or starvation.
Born B-1+, I was fairly lucky.
Not very lucky—because the gap between B-class and the privileged elite was a canyon.
—Master, it’s time for work.
“I KNOW!”
God, I don’t want to work.
I slumped into my chair like a corpse.
—Sit up straight, please.
“Just ignore it today…”
After a brutal in-game battle, I wanted nothing more than to collapse into bed.
But I couldn’t rest until I cleared my backlog.
Still… five-hour shifts, five days a week isn’t bad.
Stretching with a sigh, I flicked up a hologram. The A-District system logs streamed past.
I scanned the chaotic numbers, hunting errors to correct.
Then erected walls so strong no foolish intruder would dare even attempt to break through.
Focused intensely so not a single tiny glitch slipped past.
Security programmer for District A—protecting the privileged.
That was my job.
And my duty—until the day I died.
If I quit, the euthanasia notice would hit my doorstep immediately.
No thanks—I’d rather live.
With my feet up on the desk, I flipped through pages of data.
There were only thirty active programmers guarding District A.
Recruited at age twenty—mandatory retirement at fifty. One new programmer a year.
Ridiculously small numbers. And when I died…
The Child Factory would “carefully discuss” making two replacements this year.
That would drop the debut age to nineteen for the next nineteen years.
Ta-da. Problem solved. Everyone gets a happy ending—except me.
If a screw breaks, you just replace the screw.
No one cares about the screw. Even special screws are ultimately replaceable parts.
“Damn it. That’s depressing.”
I grumbled.
But that was the iron law of modern society.
A rule an individual couldn’t change—and shouldn’t.
I would be swapped out like a machine component, and there was nothing I could do.
This calcified system couldn’t be rejected by just one person.
“Flan, painkillers.”
Hours later, the strain made my heart pound uncomfortably fast.
The chest pain I never felt in-game slammed me as soon as I returned to reality.
—Here, Master.
I took the narcotic painkiller. I could still endure—but if I didn’t take it now, it would be hell later.
Memories of agony I never wanted to relive crawled to the surface, sending chills down my spine.
[You have 2 private messages.]
A hologram popped up.
“…What’s this?”
