Chapter 112

All of Name’s attacks were executed within a brief span of 10 seconds.

This time, she snatched the great sword.

The sword wielded by the swordsmanship instructor barely grazed Name’s side by the width of a piece of paper.

By stabbing her sword into the waist of the man, who showed a half-collapsed posture, she delivered a proper punishment.

As if not allowing even the slightest resistance, she swung her fist at his chin and kicked the hilt of the falling sword, sending it back into the air.

A single stroke left a deep scar on the neck of the shield wielder, who was trying to close the distance despite having tasted one calamity.

As soon as she snatched the sword out of the air, the precision of the blade was almost unbelievable.

The shield proved to be a good weapon to break out of isolation.

By channeling the exploding mana at the center of the shield, she created a gap even amidst the chaotic battlefield.

She didn’t forget to counter the incoming magic and arrows either.

Since the aura barrier wasn’t infinite, she avoided what she could.

Nevertheless, for those that she couldn’t evade, she had to devise counter-forms for each individual case.

The information she found on TreeWiki was helpful in preparation for this moment.

“Insane…! None of the magic works!”

For her opponent, it would surely feel as though all magic had become nullified.

Not only did she negate all magic aimed at her, but she also interfered with the caster’s mana circuits, causing them to backfire, leaving the mages in fear, forcing them to sheath their staffs.

[Level: 9]

[Hp: 1832/4050(2400+1650)]

Thanks to the laurel of life, her gradually diminishing health was manageable.

By consuming mana, she could restore her health.

On the other hand, mana could also be replenished by neutralizing the spells cast by her opponents.

The relentless back-and-forth between Name, who wouldn’t fall due to her infinite resources, and the Academy side, who wouldn’t give up, persisted without rest for a full hour.

The ground soaked with blood glowed red under the moonlight.

And the elf’s golden eyes filled with magic glittered ominously.

“Demon…”

Someone in the crowd muttered.

Name turned her head toward the source of the voice, but she couldn’t identify the owner.

The regiment, regrouped, readied their weapons again.

‘Is there no way left with this method?’

Looking down at the cold Alphalion, Name let out a deep sigh.

Despite verifying every possible route, she saw no means to save Adella at all.

By now, Adella’s abilities should be enough, but the accumulated experiences had collided mentally and structurally, rendering her psychologically unstable.

She had thought that rescuing the reliable Alphalion and Sisiella would serve as a trigger, but ultimately, as the viewers said, it was nothing more than a trap.

“Why… Why is this happening! There was no need for this!”

A red-haired girl with a wand much larger than her height shouted.

“I came to retrieve the laurel.”

“You demon!”

“I’m an elf. Can’t you tell? I’m pretty, aren’t I?”

“What nonsense! Logically, elves can’t exist!”

The fire magician Giselle’s cries prompted questions from several viewers.

– What kind of nonsense is this out of the blue?

– What’s in front of you is an elf.

– There are animals with 2m long necks and others with beaver bodies and duck bills, so why not a horned horse?

– This is common sense…?

– Whoa, there’s a plot twist!

– This is a spoiler if I say it.

– But how did Giselle know?

Giselle’s shocking statement that elves didn’t exist stirred the chat.

Name, squinting her eyes, demanded an explanation.

“Then who am ‘I’?”

“I’m more inclined to ask…! What the hell are you!”

Identity, existence, various words that define an individual.

Name had always struggled with them.

Viewing the situation in a complicated manner did not solve the problem.

She declared in front of the girl venting her frustrations while fixing her laurel properly.

“I don’t really know, but for now, I’m your enemy.”

“…!”

“I hope we meet as allies next time.”

“I can’t forgive you!”

-Giselle shouldn’t poke the bear, that won’t end well.

-We’re doomed!

-She’s going to go berserk!

-Look at those eyes!

-Of all times, Luna’s not here;;

-Could it be that one?

-What’s that?

Born under the curse of the phoenix, first-year student Giselle Phoenix of Rement Academy.

If she didn’t obtain the flower of heat, she was destined to become one of the many backup bodies for the phoenix, boasting the greatest mana reserve among first-years.

While Luna Pavilis showcased formidable firepower as an extreme dealer, Giselle was a polymath capable of tanking and healing despite being a mage.

However, there was one instance when Giselle Phoenix boasted power greater than Luna Pavilis.

[Desperate Technique: Manifestation of the Avatar]

It was when she used a desperate technique that burns everything, including both the demon’s body and soul, without leaving anything behind.

This was why the choice to save Alphalion was a trap.

Even if she repeatedly employed hit-and-run tactics to annihilate hundreds of knights at the lowest difficulty, what awaited at the end was the judgment from Giselle Phoenix in an ultimate infernal technique.

Name swallowed a bitter laugh upon seeing the magic circle emanating from Giselle’s wand.

While its complexity rivaled that of a 7th circle spell, it was nothing but meaningless scribbles with no actual content to interpret.

It was akin to a scientist in a movie overwhelmed by studying complex celestial movements and the theory of relativity while looking at basic arithmetic, the quadratic formula, and Pythagoras’s theorem.

In other words, complete nonsense. It even broke her immersion.

An artificial magic that shouldn’t and could never exist, a forced reset trigger possible only in the game world.

Without a moment to feel the flash bursting forth, the world turned into a sea of flames, engulfing Name.

Faced with absolute power that she couldn’t resist, a formula that was impossible to counter due to its nonexistence, Name left a brief impression.

“What a terribly failing game.”

* * *

[An unrecoverable resource error has been detected.]

[Syncing with backup servers… 1%]

Tap-

Tap-tap-

“Please…!”

Adella bit her lip and ran full speed toward the clock tower.

Boom-!

A blinding light awakened the people of the quiet city, where dawn had not yet arrived.

Despite the considerable distance, the shockwave that shook the ground made Adella’s heart skip a beat.

“No…! Haah…”

Her fists clenched so tightly that her sharp nails pierced her skin.

Unaware that blood was trickling down, Adella’s gaze was fixated straight at the castle in the city’s heart.

“Again… again… it’s because of me… Aaaah!”

Letting out a scream close to a wail, Adella soared over the wall that divided the academy area and rushed into the chaotic scene.

The flames rose higher than even the buildings, refusing to subside.

Normally, finding No Name among them would be nearly impossible.

However,

[YOU DIED]

“Ah… Aaaah… No… it can’t be…”

As mana flowed into the laurel, she could finally see the incomprehensible strings of characters floating in the air.

If she went below, she might meet the one she was desperately searching for.

[Syncing with backup servers… 13%]

The silver tail felt singed and painful, but it was not the time to worry about that.

It no longer mattered that her favored combat outfit was torn to shreds.

“Ah…”

Adella found the burnt corpse of the Forest Guardian, and in an instant, her legs gave way, unable to maintain balance.

“I was wrong…”

Her voice trembled faintly.

“It’s… all my fault. I… because of me…”

From the stone wall marked with countless names, a memory that should never be came to mind.

[How could you compare me to those illiterates? Hehehe, look how well I write!]

[You misspelled the name here.]

[That was a mistake!]

[It’s ‘your’, not ‘my’.]

[I told you it was a mistake!]

Just moments before, in the last attempt to avoid No Name and exchange words,

[You were cooler than anyone I’ve met.]

In an uncertain number of rounds, the praise No Name had given her,

[Let’s make sure we survive together next time.]

4th round’s

[Trust your instincts.]

6th round’s

[Thank you.]

10th round’s

[We’ll meet again here.]

16th round’s

[I’m sorry for leaving you alone each time.]

And now, all the words No Name spoke in the last moments of the 17th round flashed through Adella’s mind like a panorama.

“Why… why can’t I remember! Why!”

It was as if God was playing tricks, the world had been reset multiple times.

However, each time Adella regained her memories, it was always after No Name had died.

“Recall! Remember! Don’t forget! Adella, you really… you’re such a fool…”

There had been times she felt a déjà vu.

She had always felt a tightness in her gut before meeting Balrum Benounces when he struck her in the abdomen, and her heart raced when No Name told her to hit her back.

Even though it was the first time tasting something sweet, the saltiness felt all too familiar.

Adella should have died in the first round.

Behind Professor Cronicle were demon worshipers, who had laid the foundation for the demon to be resurrected by embedding it within the laurel of life, possessing him.

An unwanted death, yet it was a death without regret.

That’s why in the second round, she undoubtedly made the same decision.

But starting from the third round, everything went wrong.

In the cycle of endless reincarnation, it was No Name, not Adella, who died.

“You must have known… you knew everything…! Why someone like me… sob…!”

No Name’s memory of every round had remained intact while Adella had been erased.

At that moment, all of No Name’s odd behaviors made sense, piecing together the scattered puzzle pieces across the ground.

No Name was fighting a solitary battle in an everlasting hell from which she could never escape.

Until she grew strong enough to defeat Professor Cronicle.

“Please… just… stop dying. Just let me die there… I… I don’t want to be needed…”

Adella collapsed on the muddy ground, dry heaving. If she didn’t do this, she couldn’t contain the surging emotions.

[Syncing with backup servers… 36%]

Had she ever been this sad over the death of a single person?

At least it was not in Adella’s memories.

Life was treated as less valuable than worms on the street in this world.

Because so many ended their lives due to weakness, poverty, or even the lack of clothes to wear in winter, showing condolences had only invited ridicule.

Adella and No Name had just met for the first time today.

They were not lovers, family, or friends; it was incomprehensible what meaning she found in this threadbare connection as teammates of a hopeless organization.

[Syncing with backup servers… 39%]

What frightened Adella the most was the fact that in the next round, she would once again lose all memories.

No Name would willingly sacrifice herself for her, just as always, and Adella would have to spend what felt like eternity in a moment.

Everything was unfolding as preordained.

She bit her lip again, her fangs protruding, causing her mouth to become raw and ragged.

She retraced the path she had taken with No Name.

Soon, unbeknownst to her, her consciousness would gradually fade and the world would return to the beginning once again.

Just as she couldn’t pinpoint when she had fallen asleep, it was impossible to recognize when the world began to disappear.

‘This was where I had sulked right in front of No Name…’

Even when she repeatedly berated herself for being worthless, No Name acknowledged her beyond her capabilities.

The places she had managed to escape to with each round varied.

In front of an aristocratic neighborhood, at the entrance of a slum, Trephiss Plaza, and so on.

Her consciousness was growing increasingly hazy.

Leaving her footsteps to wander aimlessly, the last destination she reached was a stone wall by the roadside.

The name scribbles common among slum children.

[단내힏] [Adella]

[단내임] [Adella]

[No Name] [Adella]

[No Name] [Adella]

[No Name] [Adella]

After failing twice, she managed to finally write the correct name on the third try.

Out of sheer defiance, she ended up writing it two more times, resulting in the wall being filled with their names.

“Wait a minute… why is the stone wall still intact?”

Irregular breaths escaped her.

If the world had turned, there would be no way it could remain in its original form.

Something felt like it was beginning to unravel.

In this world reverted to the past, the only thing that remained intact was the stone wall that Adella had carved with her sword.

Evidence from the previous rounds undoubtedly remained.

With this, she could send a message to the next ‘me.’

“The cat burglar hid well.”

“…!”

Zing—

A red beam pierced through Adella’s torso.

Adella, who coughed out blood, fell lifelessly onto the cold stone floor.

“Cough…!”

“How fortunate, I happened to have two laurels. Not that I wanted to, but I’ll compliment you at least once before you die.”

With the laurel He had stashed away, Professor Cronicle cast a spell to release its invisibility, smirking.

“It’s only right as a father.”

Her whole body felt hot.

A sharp pain surged in her abdomen.

She tried to block it with her hands, but droplets of blood fell between her fingers, plopping to the ground.

“Ahhh… ugh… ahhh…”

“Thanks to you, it’s less trouble for me to find you.”

Professor Cronicle left without sparing a glance at the moaning girl.

Adella retrieved a precious dagger from her possession.

Using the proper grip method No Name had taught her countless times, she swiftly thrust the dagger into the stone wall.

Squeak— screech—

Every movement of her arms twisted her expression in pain. It was hard to believe all this blood pooling on the floor came from her body.

But Adella couldn’t stop.

On the very bottom of the stone wall, filled with cherished memories, she poured all her strength into her final message.

[Go back]

“Haah… haah… Hehe. He…”

Wishing that her next round self would find this phrase.

[Syncing with backup servers… 99%]

[Critical error occurred due to !$%!@!]

[No Name (No Name)]

[World of Arcelia – Priest Nightmare 10/10/10]

[Broadcast Time – 6:47:30]

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