The Artificial Dimension - Sector 1.Simulation Sub-Level: Transition Zone (Floors 1 to 3).11:30 AM.
The artificial sun that had bathed the first floor in a warm, comforting glow was entirely gone, replaced by the oppressive, flickering luminescence of bioluminescent moss clinging to the damp stone walls of the subterranean labyrinth.
After aggressively securing the primary mana beacons on the first floor, and methodically carving a path of absolute destruction through the labyrinthine corridors of the second floor, Rudeus and Princess Veronica finally breached the heavy iron threshold of the third floor.
"Finally!" Veronica gasped, her voice echoing sharply against the cold stone architecture.
She leaned heavily against a massive, ruined stone pillar, her chest heaving violently. Her pristine, silver-blue combat uniform was now lightly dusted with pulverized stone and the residual ash of incinerated monsters. They had been moving at a frantic, breakneck pace. Because they had drastically altered their original tactical plan, opting for an aggressive speed-run, the physical toll was beginning to mount. They desperately needed to finish this exam immediately—or, at the very least, Veronica desperately needed to formally complete one of her mandatory System objectives before the timer ran out.
Rudeus, conversely, looked entirely unbothered. He wasn't even breathing heavily.
Because of Veronica's relentless, area-of-effect magical barrage, Rudeus still had an absolute kill score of zero. He hadn't swung his mace once in anger.
He looked at the panting Princess, letting out a long, quiet sigh. He reached his large, armored hand into the enchanted leather satchel slung across his chest, rummaging past his emergency rations and tactical gear. He pulled out a small, glowing crystalline vial filled with swirling, azure liquid.
"Here..." Rudeus offered, holding the high-grade mana potion out to her.
Veronica, currently bent over with her hands resting on her knees, snapped her head up. Her oceanic blue eyes locked onto the glowing blue vial. Without a shred of aristocratic grace, she practically lunged forward, snatching the vial from his armored fingers.
"Thanks!" Veronica gasped, immediately popping the cork with her thumb.
"You're entirely welcome," Rudeus replied dryly, crossing his arms over his broad chest as he watched her.
While Veronica was busy frantically gulping down the bitter, highly concentrated azure liquid to replenish her depleted magical core, Rudeus turned his attention away from her. His crimson eyes narrowed, his veteran Vanguard instincts taking over as he meticulously scanned the dark, foreboding architecture of the third floor.
The environment here was completely different from the upper levels. It wasn't a forest or a simple stone maze. It looked like the ruined, sunken catacombs of an ancient, forgotten civilization.
'If I remember the geographical layout of this specific dungeon correctly from the game's lore...' Rudeus thought inwardly, his mind rapidly constructing a 3D tactical map based on his past-life knowledge.
'There should be a hidden, collapsed pathway somewhere in this specific sector. A localized spatial tear that acts as a direct, unmapped shortcut plunging straight down to the fourth floor. But... if we continue to aggressively rush our descent and take that shortcut, we are going to arrive at the epicenter of the disaster far too early.'
He tapped a heavy, iron-clad finger against his bicep, his brow furrowing in deep concentration.
'If we arrive too early, we will undoubtedly intercept Adelina and Professor Vane before the canonical battle reaches its climax. We will arrive before Adelina forcibly pushes her body past its absolute limits and collapses into that catastrophic, magically induced coma... a coma that is destined to last for exactly five agonizing years.'
Rudeus let out a slow, silent breath.
'Yeah. And after that specific, tragic event occurs... that is exactly when the overarching, primary plot of the entire visual novel officially, canonically begins.'
As Rudeus was busy analyzing the timeline of the universe, a sudden, microscopic shift in the ambient air pressure occurred behind him.
The temperature in the stone corridor didn't drop. There was no sound of a snapping twig or a scraping boot.
But Rudeus felt it.
Every single hair on the back of his neck stood on end. A cold, incredibly sharp sensation, exactly like the edge of a frozen scalpel resting gently against his spinal cord, flared to life in his brain.
He didn't turn his head. He subtly shifted his crimson eyes, glancing at Veronica.
The Princess was currently wiping a stray drop of blue potion from her delicate chin, looking entirely, blissfully oblivious. It was clear that she was either too physically exhausted to expand her royal mana-senses, or the specific intent currently targeting them was simply too refined for an amateur to detect.
'This is pure, unadulterated killing intent!' Rudeus realized inwardly, his heart rate remaining terrifyingly calm despite the lethal threat.
'It's exactly the same specialized frequency as mine. This specific aura of murder is so flawlessly, meticulously hidden that it seems even High-Tier Imperial Knights or Senior Arcanists would completely fail to feel it. And precisely because I utilize that exact same, dark-art method to mask my own killing intent... I can feel the microscopic ripples of his.'
Rudeus didn't panic. He smoothly, imperceptibly shifted his center of gravity to his left foot, freeing his dominant right arm.
He didn't move his head, but he rapidly rolled his crimson eyes, tracking the invisible ripple in the air.
Sideways. Above. Below. And—
'BEHIND!'
Rudeus exploded into motion.
-CLANG!
Sparks violently showered the dark stone corridor as Rudeus flawlessly, effortlessly spun on his heel, bringing the heavy iron haft of his Six-Flanged War Mace up in a perfect, rigid block.
He intercepted the strike a mere inch from his unprotected neck.
Because Rudeus had spent the last three months actively, brutally training to anticipate the element of surprise against Amanda the Deathstalker—the absolute apex predator of stealth combat—this current ambush felt laughably slow and amateurish by comparison. The physical power behind this monster's sneak attack was not even in the same atmospheric stratosphere as the sheer, overwhelming, lethal pressure of the Head Maid.
Veronica's oceanic blue eyes blew wide open in absolute shock as the deafening sound of metal clashing against razor-sharp claws echoed through the cavern. She hadn't sensed a thing.
She immediately dropped the empty potion vial and leaped gracefully backward, putting ten feet of distance between herself and the combatants, her hands already glowing with radiant white light.
The monster, realizing its perfect ambush had been thwarted, melted out of the shadows and fully materialized in the dim light of the corridor.
It was a towering, emaciated humanoid figure entirely composed of shifting, localized black smoke and hardened, obsidian-like bone plating. Its eyes burned with a sickly, violet luminescence, and its fingers ended in massive, foot-long scythes of dark energy.
It was none other than a Shadow Assassin.
A highly lethal, notoriously elusive being originating from the Barren Wastelands—the desolate, nightmarish western continent of the game's world, where only the most vicious, apex-predator monsters and giant behemoths dared to make their habitat.
"To think a genuine Shadow Assassin managed to infiltrate a designated first-year simulation!" Veronica gasped, her voice trembling slightly with a mixture of fear and adrenaline. She gripped her glowing hands tightly together, preparing to cast her most devastating offensive art. "And worse... I didn't feel a single drop of his killing intent! He was completely invisible to my mana-radar!"
Before Veronica could even begin the incantation for her light magic, Rudeus moved.
He didn't attack the monster. He raised his free left hand, holding his palm out flat toward Veronica in a sharp, undeniable military gesture to stand down.
"There is absolutely no need for you to expend your restored mana or use that art right now, Princess," Rudeus ordered, his voice echoing with cold, absolute authority. He didn't take his crimson eyes off the shifting form of the assassin.
"Go have a seat. Take a rest. I will face him off."
Veronica stared at his broad, black-iron-clad back. She remembered the distinct, incredibly annoyed conversation they had shared on the dirt path just an hour ago. She remembered the promise she had made to let him fight when the monsters got stronger.
She let out a short, tense breath, slowly lowering her glowing hands. The white light faded from her palms. She nodded her head, stepping further back into the shadows of the pillar. She would keep her promise. She would let the 'Defect' claim his kill.
The Shadow Assassin let out a low, guttural, vibrating growl that sounded like grinding stones. It crouched low to the ground, its violet eyes locking onto Rudeus.
But it did not attack immediately. It began to slowly, methodically circle him, its smoky form blending seamlessly with the shadows of the ruined pillars, looking for an opening.
Rudeus didn't attack either. He remained perfectly still, the heavy head of his mace resting lightly against the stone floor. He needed to physically and magically assess exactly how powerful this specific variant of the monster was before committing to a strike.
'It seems he actively wants to assess my capabilities too, huh?' Rudeus thought inwardly, a dark, genuinely amused smirk curling the corner of his lips. 'What a smartass, highly intelligent monster. It thinks it's hunting me.'
Suddenly, the monster's violet eyes flared.
It completely disappeared from the physical plane. It didn't just turn invisible; it actively dove into the localized shadow dimension.
Rudeus's crimson eyes did not widen in panic. His heart rate did not spike. He was in a state of absolute, hyper-focused tactical flow. He was not in shock because he explicitly, fundamentally knew the monster would attempt to disappear. In fact, he had deliberately lowered his left shoulder a fraction of an inch, creating a subtle, incredibly inviting micro-opening in his guard to give the monster the false confidence to try and catch him off guard.
Rudeus closed his eyes, relying entirely on his spatial awareness.
The air pressure shifted. The monster materialized directly behind his head, raising its scythe-like claws for a decapitating strike.
It was exactly the trajectory Rudeus had mathematically anticipated. The beast had swallowed the bait hook, line, and sinker.
'You just bit the bait, you absolute fool!' Rudeus sneered inwardly. 'You have fallen directly into my trap!'
-CLANG!
Rudeus didn't even turn around. He simply snapped the heavy iron mace backward over his own shoulder with a violent, explosive twist of his wrist.
He parried the monster's dual-claw attack effortlessly, the sheer kinetic force of the iron flanges shattering two of the beast's obsidian claws into dark, dissipating dust.
The Shadow Assassin's violet eyes widened in sheer, unadulterated shock. It realized, entirely too late, that it had fallen into a perfectly laid, fatal trap.
Panicking, the monster attempted to execute an emergency tactical retreat. It tried to hurriedly dive straight down into the stone floor, attempting to use the shadow cast by Rudeus's own bulky iron boots as an escape portal to the shadow dimension.
But Rudeus was infinitely faster.
-GRIP!
Before the monster could even fully submerge its physical form into the darkness, Rudeus dropped his mace. He spun around with lightning speed and plunged his armored left hand directly into the swirling black smoke of the monster's throat.
His iron-clad fingers locked around the creature's physical esophagus with the crushing, inescapable pressure of an industrial vice.
The monster violently thrashed, its smoky body convulsing as it desperately struggled to fight back. It swung its remaining claws, scoring deep, sparking gouges across the black iron of Rudeus's breastplate.
Rudeus didn't flinch. He simply tightened his grip.
The monster stopped thrashing for a fraction of a second, looking up directly into the boy's eyes.
What it saw staring back through the slit of the black iron visor was not the frightened gaze of a first-year student. It was a pair of crimson eyes glaring with a bottomless, ancient, and terrifyingly cold malice.
The Shadow Assassin's rudimentary, predatory instincts finally kicked in. It belatedly, horrifyingly realized that it was doomed. From the very absolute beginning of this encounter, it had never been the apex predator. It had been the prey all along. And the heavily armored human holding it by the throat was a monster far, far worse than anything bred in the Barren Wastelands. It had been incredibly foolish to think it could ambush this entity.
"!!!" The monster let out a choked, desperate growl as it renewed its frenzied, pathetic struggles to pry Rudeus's armored fingers off its throat.
"It's entirely useless," Rudeus stated, his voice a cold, dead monotone that carried absolutely no mercy.
The monster froze as it heard the human speak. It looked up at him again.
And then, Rudeus released it.
He unleashed a massive, suffocating, localized surge of pure, concentrated [Killing Intent] directly, exclusively at the Shadow Assassin. He condensed the psychological pressure into a pinpoint laser, blasting it straight into the creature's fragile, monstrous psyche.
The monster physically shuddered. It frantically looked past Rudeus's shoulder toward the Princess standing by the pillar. It noted, with mounting terror, that the human female seemed entirely unaffected; she didn't feel the paralyzing wave of death radiating from the boy. He was controlling the aura with godlike precision.
Slowly... agonizingly slowly... the terrifying, A-rank monster from the Barren Wastelands stopped resisting entirely.
The fight completely drained from its smoky form. Its knees buckled.
The towering Shadow Assassin slowly knelt onto the cold stone floor. It bowed its horrific, bone-plated head, pressing its forehead directly into the dirt and pulverized rock at Rudeus's boots, completely submitting as the crushing weight of the killing intent physically commanded it to bow before a superior predator.
Rudeus looked down at the kneeling monstrosity.
A slow, incredibly dark, deeply satisfied smile stretched across his face beneath the iron helmet. It was profoundly, beautifully ridiculous to see an A-rank, nightmare-inducing monster kneeling in absolute subjugation in front of him.
A wave of deep, nostalgic joy washed over him. He was feeling the exact same, intoxicating rush of absolute power that he used to feel in his past life on Earth, back when he was still Vanguard Captain Damien. He remembered the thrill of forcing massive, terrifying A-rank dungeon bosses to kneel before him using nothing but the sheer, overwhelming pressure of his killing intent during his solo training raids.
He was back. He was finally regaining his true strength.
"What's wrong?" Rudeus taunted the trembling monster, his voice dripping with sadistic amusement. "Are you scared?"
Rudeus slowly knelt down on one knee, bringing his face level with the monster's bowed head. He reached out and forcefully, brutally grabbed the creature by the thick, smoky tendrils that served as its hair, yanking its head back to expose its vulnerable neck.
"You know, the absolute only, fatal mistake you made today is..." Rudeus whispered directly into the creature's non-existent ear.
"...Attempting to attack us without my explicit permission. So."
Rudeus's smile widened, a terrifying, feral grin that seemed to stretch from ear to ear behind his mask.
"Will you formally accept your ultimate demise?" Rudeus asked, though it wasn't a question.
"Alright then!"
Rudeus didn't use his mace. He didn't use a spell.
He simply engaged the full, explosive power of his shoulder and core. He forcefully, violently slammed the monster's face downward.
-SLAM!
-CRUSH!
Rudeus drove the monster's skull directly into the solid, enchanted stone floor of the labyrinth with such devastating, astronomical kinetic force that the stone itself cratered.
The monster's obsidian bone-plating shattered instantly.
A massive, viscous pool of thick, jet-black blood violently erupted from the point of impact, splashing across the dirt and coating the toe of Rudeus's iron boot. The smoky body of the assassin violently convulsed once, twice, and then dissolved completely into black ash, leaving behind only the crushed, bleeding remnants of its skull and a glowing, violet mana core.
Princess Veronica, who had been holding her breath, finally stood up straight from her position behind the pillar.
She walked slowly toward him, her eyes fixed on the puddle of black blood and the crushed skull.
"You know, what you just did to that creature was incredibly, unnecessarily cruel..." Veronica stated, her voice echoing in the quiet corridor.
She stopped a few feet away. She looked down at him kneeling in the gore, and then, a small, completely unabashed smile broke across her face.
"...Ehh. Not that I am actually complaining, of course."
Rudeus slowly stood up, wiping a smear of black ash from his iron gauntlet. He looked at the Princess, noting the genuine amusement in her eyes.
He stepped back and executed an incredibly exaggerated, deeply mocking, theatrical bow, sweeping his arm wide.
"I am profoundly glad, then, that I managed to make you enjoy watching such a fascinating, brutal scene unfold..." Rudeus drawled, his tone dripping with heavy sarcasm.
"...Princess."
He raised his head, a genuine, challenging smile mirroring her own.
Veronica completely ignored the blatant disrespect of his mocking bow. She just laughed, a bright, clear sound that felt entirely out of place in the dark, blood-stained dungeon. She knew it was a joke. She understood the underlying dynamic. And more importantly, she was incredibly, profoundly glad that he was actively making sarcastic jokes right now to ease the suffocating, terrifying tension building inside of her brain and her heart regarding the impending, life-or-death System Quest.
"Alright, that's enough playing around. Let's go now. Hurry, before the other squads of our first-year classmates somehow manage to bypass us and finish the objectives of this exam first," Veronica ordered, her competitive royal spirit returning. She spun around and began to run at a brisk jog down the corridor, heading toward the spatial tear that led to the lower levels.
"Hey! Wait a damn minute!" Rudeus shouted after her, watching her sprinting form disappear into the gloom.
He violently clicked his tongue against his teeth, shaking his head in absolute, profound exasperation.
"Haah! Why the hell is this woman constantly, perpetually in a goddamn rush?!" Rudeus complained loudly to the empty hallway.
He quickly bent down, grabbing the strap of his satchel and hefting his heavy iron mace from the floor. He didn't forget the spoils. With a swift, practiced motion, he dug the glowing, violet A-rank monster core out of the crushed skull, wiping the black blood on his trousers. He pocketed the core as undeniable, physical evidence and a highly valuable trophy of proof that he had single-handedly executed an A-rank anomaly on the third floor.
He broke into a heavy sprint, his iron armor clanking loudly, rushing to catch up with the Princess before she managed to get herself killed.
***
The Artificial Dimension - Sector 4.Simulation Sub-Level: The Abyssal Chasm.12:45 PM.
After successfully navigating the spatial tear and activating the final mandatory mana beacon on the third floor, Rudeus and Veronica finally descended into the true, unmitigated nightmare of the fourth floor.
The environment here was no longer a simulation of nature or ancient ruins. It was a massive, sprawling, cavernous expanse of jagged, obsidian rock, illuminated only by the angry, pulsing red glow of magma flowing through deep fissures in the earth. The air was thick, suffocatingly hot, and smelled of sulfur and death.
As they stepped out of the heavy iron gate and onto the elevated plateau overlooking the central cavern, Veronica's oceanic eyes widened to their absolute, horrifying limit.
She stumbled backward, bringing both of her trembling hands up to cover her mouth, a gagging sound escaping her throat.
"Wha-what... what in the Goddess's name happened here?!" Veronica gasped, her voice barely a terrified whisper.
The massive, sunken floor of the cavern below them was completely, entirely covered in a literal, horrifying mountain of butchered monster corpses.
There were hundreds, perhaps thousands of them. Hobgoblins, armored minotaurs, giant arachnids, and twisted chimera variants—all of the high-tier, highly lethal monsters that were supposed to populate the lower levels of the exam were piled on top of each other in a grotesque monument to slaughter. The stone floor was completely invisible, buried beneath a lake of mixed, viscous monster blood.
Rudeus stepped up to the edge of the plateau, looking down at the carnage. He didn't gag. He just violently clicked his tongue, a cold dread finally settling into his stomach.
'Tsk! So... it's finally happening, huh...' Rudeus thought inwardly, his crimson eyes scanning the peak of the corpse mountain.
'This is the exact event. The catastrophic epicenter. The primary cause of Adelina's five-year coma.'
His eyes tracked upward, following a trail of fresh blood leading to the very top of the highest pile of slaughtered minotaurs.
Then, Veronica saw it too.
Standing atop the mountain of monster corpses was a massive, towering, impossibly muscular humanoid figure. The entity possessed huge, spiraling obsidian horns protruding from its skull, and its skin was a terrifying, pulsing crimson red.
The massive, horned demon was currently gripping a small, struggling human girl tightly by the throat, holding her suspended high in the air with a single hand.
Even from this distance, they could clearly see that the girl was not surrendering. Despite being choked to death, her legs kicking weakly in the air, she was fiercely, desperately punching the demon's armored face with her bare, bloody knuckles, refusing to yield.
Rudeus realized the identity of the figures instantly, his tactical mind slotting the visual data into the game's canonical lore.
'Those two are...!' Rudeus yelled internally.
'...Adelina Van Hestianna and Professor Vane! No—wait!'
Rudeus's eyes narrowed, recognizing the specific, terrifying demonic aura radiating from the monster.
'That's not just a corrupted professor. That is the Greater Demon General himself. Dratkthar! The Architect of Agony!'
Beside him, Veronica didn't hesitate for a microsecond.
The moment her oceanic eyes locked onto the massive, horned demon, a profound, world-shattering wave of pure, unadulterated trauma and burning rage exploded within her soul.
She recognized the silhouette. She recognized the aura.
She didn't cast her magic to save Adelina, the commoner. She didn't cast her magic to protect herself or Rudeus.
She cast her magic because her mind was violently transported back to the dark void of the System's vision. She realized with terrifying, absolute certainty that the demon currently gripping Adelina was the exact, identical monster who had brutally, sadistically murdered her guardian, her second mother, Amanda, in the 'Bad Ending' timeline.
Her hands instantly flared with blinding, furious white light. She began the incantation.
"Wait, Princess! Stop!" Rudeus shouted, panic bleeding into his voice. He lunged forward, trying to grab her arm to physically interrupt the spell.
But he was too slow. Veronica was already channeling the absolute maximum output of her royal core, fueled by pure, unbridled hatred.
"Illumination Art: Gaze of the Stars!" Veronica screamed, her voice tearing through the cavern, echoing off the obsidian walls with the force of a divine command.
Her eyes erupted into a blinding, cosmic starlight. A massive, invisible pulse of overwhelming mental-interference magic shot across the vast cavern, crossing the distance in a millisecond, striking the Greater Demon General directly in the mind.
Standing atop the corpse mountain, Dratkthar suddenly froze.
The terrifying demon's glowing amber eyes widened in profound, sudden confusion. His massive, clawed hand went completely slack, his grip failing.
He slowly, drunkenly stumbled backward, dropping to one knee on top of the dead minotaurs, completely, heavily stunned by the overwhelming psychic assault.
Back on the plateau, Veronica gasped sharply, the cosmic light instantly vanishing from her eyes. The catastrophic mana drain of the spell hit her nervous system like a physical blow. She staggered backward, her legs giving out, gasping for air as the world spun around her.
"Princess!" Rudeus shouted, abandoning his attempt to stop her and instead rushing forward to catch her before she hit the stone floor.
He grabbed her by the shoulders, stabilizing her. Without missing a beat, he reached into his satchel with his free hand, pulled out his final, highest-grade azure mana potion, and practically forced it into her trembling hands.
"Here! Drink this immediately! Do not stop until it is empty!" Rudeus ordered, his voice tight with urgency.
Veronica didn't argue. She popped the cork with her teeth and hurriedly, desperately gulped down the restorative liquid, wiping a mixture of blue potion and a thin trickle of blood from her pale lips.
Down in the cavern, the stun effect of the Gaze of the Stars on a Greater Demon was incredibly short-lived.
"RAAAAAHHHHHH!!!" Dratkthar let out a deafening, furious roar that physically shook the cavern walls. He violently shook his horned head, shattering the lingering mental interference, furious that a mere mortal had dared to invade his mind.
But dropping Adelina was a fatal, canonical mistake.
Adelina hit the pile of corpses below him, landing heavily on her feet. She didn't run. She didn't retreat.
She drew the legendary, golden Blade of the Dawn from its scabbard. Her golden eyes burned with an impossible, divine light.
She raised the blade high above her head, preparing to unleash her absolute ultimate, self-destructive sword art. The exact, catastrophic technique that would shatter her own mana core, burn out her nervous system, and plunge her into a comatose state that would last for five years—all to buy the time necessary to seal the demon away.
Up on the plateau, Rudeus didn't shout for her to stop. He didn't try to intervene.
He didn't want to stop her. It wasn't because it was "part of the plot" and he was afraid of breaking the narrative. It was because he was entirely, frantically busy executing his own survival plan.
He grabbed Veronica firmly by the bicep, hauling her to her feet.
"Princess, let's go! Right now!" Rudeus demanded, his voice dropping into a harsh, commanding bark. He tightened his grip on her arm, preparing to physically drag her back toward the heavy iron gate they had just entered through.
"We absolutely do not need to save her! She is handling it! Let's get the hell out of here before that massive demon recovers and decides to come after us next!"
Veronica looked at him, her chest heaving. She saw the absolute, cold pragmatism burning in his crimson eyes. She knew, fundamentally, that Rudeus was a survivor. He was deeply, unapologetically selfish. He wouldn't risk his own life to save a commoner he didn't know or care about. He wanted to escape, and tactically, he was completely right. Running was the only logical choice.
And, truth be told, a large, terrified part of her own heart desperately wanted to run away with him. She didn't want to save Adelina. She hated the commoner girl for the attention she drew.
But... if she didn't save her...
The terrifying blue text of the System window flashed in her mind's eye.
If she failed Objective 4, the System would inevitably, definitively assign her the "Bad Ending." The gruesome death of Amanda, the cold isolation of exile, the heavy flintlock pistol in the dusty room. All of it would become her inescapable, guaranteed reality.
"I'm sorry, Rudeus..." Veronica whispered, her oceanic eyes filling with a sudden, tragic resolve.
With a sudden, violent twist of her arm, Veronica forcefully, aggressively broke free from Rudeus's iron grip.
She took a step toward the edge of the plateau, looking down at the titanic clash beginning to unfold on the corpse mountain. She lied to him, trying to mask the selfish terror of the System behind the noble facade of her birthright.
"Because, after all..." Veronica declared, her voice trembling but ringing with a desperate, aristocratic pride.
"It is my absolute, sworn duty as a Princess of this Empire to save the weak."
Without looking back, she threw herself forward, running desperately down the steep, jagged stone incline toward the center of the cavern, charging directly into the apocalypse to assist Adelina.
Rudeus stood on the plateau, his hand still extended in the empty air where he had been gripping her arm.
His crimson eyes widened to their absolute limit in sheer, unadulterated disbelief.
'You absolute, foolish, suicidal brat!' Rudeus screamed inwardly, his heart hammering against his ribs in pure panic. 'You are going to get us both killed over a misplaced sense of royal duty!'
Down below, Adelina had begun to glow with a blinding, golden radiance, her sword art reaching its critical, unstable mass.
Veronica, running across the lake of blood at the base of the corpse mountain, realized the demon was preparing a massive counter-attack of hellfire to incinerate the commoner girl before the sword art could trigger.
Veronica didn't hesitate. She threw her hands forward, ignoring the agonizing, burning pain of her overtaxed mana core. She cast the exact same, devastating spell for the second time in two minutes.
"Illumination Art: Gaze of the Stars!" Veronica screamed, pouring her very life force into the magic.
The immense physical and magical strain was too much for her mortal body.
"AAAAAHHHHHH!!!!" Veronica shrieked in genuine agony, blood beginning to violently pour from her nose and the corners of her eyes as the spell discharged.
Simultaneously, atop the mountain, Adelina unleashed the divine strike, her own body tearing itself apart under the sheer power of the Goddess's blessing.
"AAAAAHHHHHH!!!" Adelina screamed, bringing the golden blade down.
Then, the world literally held its breath.
All sound vanished. Time seemed to freeze.
-BOOOM!!!
A massive, apocalyptic explosion of pure, intermingling golden and white light erupted precisely at the location where Dratkthar and Adelina collided.
It was a localized supernova. The sheer, kinetic force of the blast wave shattered the obsidian stalactites hanging from the cavern roof and vaporized the lake of blood in a millisecond.
Up on the plateau, Rudeus didn't run. He immediately dropped to one knee, throwing both of his heavily armored arms up over his face to protect his retinas from being permanently burned out by the blinding, divine light, bracing his body against the concussive shockwave.
"TCH!" Rudeus violently clicked his tongue, gritting his teeth in profound frustration as the scorching heat washed over his black iron armor.
The blinding light and the deafening roar of the explosion sustained for an agonizing, terrifying full minute before slowly, gradually beginning to fade into a dense, swirling cloud of white dust and vaporized rock.
Rudeus slowly lowered his arms, blinking rapidly to clear the afterimages from his vision.
He looked down into the cratered, devastated center of the cavern.
The mountain of monster corpses had been entirely leveled, blown away by the shockwave.
Through the settling dust, he saw a solitary figure kneeling in the rubble.
It was Veronica. Her silver-blue uniform was heavily scorched and torn. Her face was pale, streaked with dirt and dried blood from her eyes and nose. She was sitting on the ground, gently, carefully cradling the limp, completely unconscious body of Adelina Van Hestianna in her lap.
Rudeus didn't hesitate. He immediately drew his heavy mace and sprinted down the jagged incline, his boots slipping on the loose rock as he rushed toward her.
He reached the bottom and stopped a few feet away from the two girls. He gritted his teeth, his jaw clenched so tightly the muscles fluttered.
This exact, tragic tableau—Veronica holding the broken body of Adelina amidst the ruins—was exactly what had happened in the canonical backstory. But in the original timeline, Veronica was alone. This time, they were officially partners. And despite their combined efforts, despite the massive deviations in the plot... their shared backstory had still significantly, violently aligned with the tragic destiny.
Rudeus looked down at her. He let out a long, heavy sigh. He didn't offer a harsh scolding. He didn't yell at her for being foolish or disobeying his order to run. He simply accepted what she had done, realizing that the wheels of fate were already turning, and it was entirely too late to change the outcome of this specific battle.
He slowly turned his head, shifting his gaze toward the smoking crater a few yards away.
Lying at the bottom of the crater was the massive, ruined body of Dratkthar. However, the demon was no longer moving. He was completely paralyzed, bound tightly to the earth by thick, glowing, ethereal chains of golden light—the divine chains of the Goddess Zeonhoniah.
'That must be the resulting, physical manifestation of the combined, overloaded attack from Adelina's divine sword art and Veronica's mental interference,' Rudeus analyzed inwardly, his grip loosening slightly on his mace.
As Rudeus watched, the massive, horned demonic form of Dratkthar began to violently shudder and shrink. The red skin melted away, the horns retracted into the skull, and the obsidian armor crumbled to ash.
Within seconds, the terrifying Greater Demon General reverted entirely back into his mundane, human disguise.
Lying unconscious in the crater, bound by the golden chains, was the frail, skeletal form of the Senior Arcanist, Professor Vane.
Rudeus was absolutely not in shock as he watched the body revert. He had known the professor's true identity from his past-life knowledge of the game.
But Veronica, who had just managed to look up from Adelina's pale face, widened her oceanic eyes in profound, absolute horror.
Veronica stared at the unconscious man in the crater. She was in a state of deep, paralyzing shock. One of her most respected, feared instructors... the esteemed Professor of Arcane Theory who had lectured them just yesterday... was none other than the sadistic, monstrous demon Dratkthar.
Suddenly, as the dust settled over the silent cavern, the air directly in front of Veronica's face shimmered with familiar, arcane light.
The translucent blue System Window popped up, hovering over Adelina's comatose form.
[ System Notification: ]
[ Congratulations on successfully completing Objective Number 2 and Objective Number 4. ]
[ Status Update: 1 out of 4 mandatory objectives remaining to avert your Ultimate Demise. ]
[ WARNING! CRITICAL ALERT! ]
[ Explicit Revelation of the hidden prerequisite requirement to complete Objective Number 1 (Sincere Apology to Target): ]
[ Prerequisite: 50 Accumulated Relationship Points. ]
[ Current Accumulated Relationship Points with the Target (Rudeus Blackfyre): 25 Relationship Points. ]
[ Objective Failure Imminent upon extraction. ]
Veronica stared at the glowing blue text. The blood drained entirely from her face, leaving her as pale as a ghost. She was only halfway there.
Then, she heard them.
The dark, mocking, mechanical whispers from the void returned, echoing relentlessly inside the darkest corners of her exhausted mind.
PATHETIC.YOU ARE STILL TOO WEAK.HE WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU IN TIME.
Veronica violently squeezed her eyes shut, gritting her teeth. She absolutely ignored the maddening whispers. She refused to break now.
She forced her eyes open, ignoring the glowing blue screen, and slowly, agonizingly stood up, struggling under the dead weight of Adelina's comatose body. She adjusted her grip, holding the black-haired girl securely in her arms.
Rudeus watched her struggle to stand. He let out another long, incredibly tired sigh, resting the heavy iron head of his Six-Flanged War Mace against the scorched earth.
"Let's get the hell out of the open, Princess," Rudeus stated, his voice flat, exhausted, and completely devoid of emotion. "Let's find a secure, defensible hiding spot in the caves before the faculty breach the dimension and find us standing over an unconscious professor."
Veronica looked at his shadowed, incredibly disappointed face. She saw the heavy burden of consequence resting on his broad shoulders.
She offered a small, single nod of her head, following him into the dark.
'I am so, incredibly sorry, Rudeus,' Veronica whispered inwardly, a single tear cutting a clean path through the dirt and blood on her cheek.