Final Day

Amelia had said she would remain behind on Skull Island to watch the group. Then why was she here?

I had no way to know for certain, but I could make a reasonable guess.

Amelia had stayed to monitor the Golden Tree Clan. If she had come here, then that probably meant…

There was a strong chance they had come here too. Amelia would not have moved without a reason.

[Did you happen to see anyone else besides my companion?] I asked, following that line of thought.

But Arta’s answer was not what I had expected.

[No one in particular. I have only confirmed that one woman.]

I stopped for a moment.

[Only her?]

[Is that a problem?]

[I do not know whether she has lost her way, but that woman has already entered the beast’s territory. It wouldn’t be strange for her to encounter it at any moment.]

The Memories of the End, where we currently were, was a hidden field much like the Labyrinth of Larcaz I had once entered. In other words, this ‘beast’ was basically the boss of this place.

And Arta was saying Amelia had entered its territory?

Damn it.

We had no time.

Not even a second to spare.

[Arta, is there anything else I need to know?]

[As I told you before, if you wish to defeat the beast, you must remember my words—]

[So there’s nothing else. Got it. I’ll see you later.]

I had no need to listen to Arta explain the strategy in detail, so I ended the conversation there. Then I quickly gathered my companions and left the Arta Secret Base.

“You understand without me spelling it out, right?”

“Yes. We will make haste, Captain.”

With Auyen’s dependable reply, the boat cut across the waves.

Splash!

We were moving much faster than when we had first come here. Part of that was because we were feeding mana stones into the propulsion system without holding anything back, but that was not the only reason for our speed.

[Auyen Rockrobe has cast Fair Winds.]

[Auyen Rockrobe has cast Trade Route.]

[Auyen Rockrobe has cast Ghost Ship.]

As Auyen used every ability he had, the others began to stir uneasily.

“Um… Navigator Lad? Are you sure this is all right? I understand that we are in a hurry, but rushing too much can backfire…”

“You might collapse if you go all out from the very start.”

They were not saying this simply out of concern for how much strain he was putting on himself. We were all practical adventurers. If he exhausted his mana halfway through the trip and his skills deactivated, we might end up reaching our destination later instead.

So, speaking on behalf of the others, I asked, “Auyen, will you be okay?”

“When we came here, I had to think about the return trip as well. But that is no longer the case, is it?”

Just as we were experts at fighting monsters, Auyen was an expert at navigation.

All I had to do was trust him.

“Understood,” I said.

Splash!

And so, we sailed toward an island that was not even visible from the helm yet.

Some time later, the ten-hour timer I had set when we entered Arta’s secret base rang out.

I had thought I had given myself more than enough time to account for unexpected variables. I had even thought I might be able to relax a little on the way back.

But no one could predict the future.

Even the Snictura raid had ended in a completely different way from what I had first planned.

Now, there was nothing left for me to do but wait for the boat to reach its destination.

As I stared out at the horizon, my mind kept drifting toward every possible outcome.

“Don’t worry too much… She’ll be fine…”

“Yes, Mister. Everything will be okay.”

My companions glanced at my clenched fists and tightened jaw. They must have thought I was worried about Amelia. And I was. But Amelia was not the only reason I felt this uneasy.

What had happened not long ago was still weighing on me.

“We were in serious danger this time, but everyone made it out alive in the end, right? So don’t let it trouble you too much,” Erwin said, trying to comfort me.

But despite her good intentions, her words stabbed into my chest like needles.

Just a few hours ago, we had nearly been annihilated.

No, in truth, we had practically already been wiped out once.

I had failed to find a way out of that situation. After accepting death, I had even prepared my final words for the first time since becoming a barbarian.

Yes, we had somehow managed to defeat the Level 1 monster and obtain its essence.

But that was not because I had done anything right.

We survived because we were lucky.

To be honest, I had not even been thinking about Agent of the Stars.

All of this had happened because of my poor decisions.

Looking back on the battle, I knew there had been a way to avoid a total wipeout. If I had simply abandoned Beleg, the raid would have continued according to plan.

But I could not do that.

I let optimism take over. I believed that if I just sacrificed a little more of myself, everything would somehow work out.

The result of that arrogance and stubbornness was the ending we got.

Of course, things had worked out in the end.

But how many more times could I depend on luck like that?

Did someone like me even have the right to rely on luck and feel relieved afterward?

No.

This was the only lucky break I would get.

There would not be a second one.

If the same kind of situation ever happened again, it would end in my death.

The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became.

Bang!

Something was wrong with my head. And it was a very serious problem.

Silence settled over the deck.

Probably because I had suddenly slammed my head against the railing at the bow of the ship.

Only after noticing how quiet everyone had become did I look around. The moment my eyes met theirs, the clan members all awkwardly turned their heads away.

“Ahem…”

“I-I should check the equipment. Where did I put it again…?”

I let out a sigh.

I had messed up again.

Whether there was something wrong with my head or not, a leader had no right to make his personal problems the clan’s burden.

Besides, I was not the only one struggling.

Being an explorer did not mean someone was free from stress. Walking the line between life and death was simply part of the job, but that did not make the pressure any lighter. Explorers were bound to accumulate an enormous amount of mental strain, which was probably one of the reasons so many of them ended up with twisted personalities.

In any case, everyone here had only just survived a near-death experience. They had every reason to be exhausted and on edge.

And yet, I had made them even more tense with my outburst.

“Phew. Everyone, I’m sorry! I just felt like smashing my head into something for a moment!”

Still, when I shouted honestly, with a slightly joking tone, the atmosphere loosened a little.

“Haha, is that so?”

“Y-yeah! Of course! Sometimes you can feel like smashing your head into something… right?”

“Ahaha, true…”

Their reactions were a little awkward, but it was still better than silence.

Besides, my attempt seemed to have worked somewhat. Even Raven, who had been keeping her distance because of my foul mood, came over to me.

“It looks like you’re finally ready to talk.”

I glanced at her. “…Do you have something to say?”

“Snictura’s essence.”

Ah, that…

Since she had rushed over, I thought she had come to comfort me.

Well, maybe it was better for her to treat me normally like this.

“So what ability does it have? I’ve been dying of curiosity since earlier. Was it the color you wanted?”

“Half”

“So one of the colors was what you wanted?”

“That’s right.”

“Okay…? Then why are you answering like that? You know exactly what I’m asking. Can’t you just tell me?”

“We can talk about that later…”

“What do you mean, later? That’s the worst habit an explorer can have. What if you die before then? If that happens, I’ll be so angry I won’t even be able to undergo mana decomposition.”

“Mana what?” I could not help tilting my head at the strange term.

Raven averted her gaze and explained, “Right, uh… It’s a mage thing. They believe that when people die, they don’t enter the goddess’s embrace. Instead, they dissolve into particles of mana…”

Oh, so it was similar to what atheists believed back in my world?

In some ways, I agreed with them. There was no afterlife, and when we died, we simply returned to nature as particles and molecules.

Of course, I hoped I was wrong.

If an afterlife really did exist, and it was a place where I could finally rest in peace after death, then perhaps I could meet people again and talk about the past one last time.

“Hello?”

Oh, right.

I was in the middle of a conversation.

“Seriously?! Are you really not going to tell me?” Raven complained.

“No, I was just about to. What were you asking again?”

“Snictura’s essence!”

Right, right…

Maybe this was that same problem with my head again, my mind was not working properly.

So I simply pulled out the information I had organized in my head and repeated it as it was.

“Snictura’s essence basically contains two passive abilities. One is [Body of Ten Thousand Poisons], and the other is [Flash Before Death], but…”

I continued explaining the effects of the passive and active skills. Raven, who had looked intensely interested at first, gradually began to frown.

“No, so which color did you want?”

So that was what she had been asking.

“I wasn’t aiming for a specific color.”

“What?”

“The most important part of this essence is the passive ability, Flash Before Death.”

“What? Not Body of Ten Thousand Poisons?”

Well, that was excellent too, but it was not better than Flash Before Death when considering the core of Amelia’s build: Self-Replication.

That was exactly why I had her consume the Twin Hydra’s essence for Dual Control, to improve her control over her clone, and the Cyclops’s Wave Connection, to make the clone’s effectiveness comparable to her main body.

“Flash Before Death… That’s the skill it used at the very end, right? The one that activated just before it died…” Raven muttered to herself.

Then something seemed to click.

Her eyes lit up as she exclaimed, “Oh, so that’s why! If you use it on the clone, it removes the drawback of not being able to deactivate it at will after it activates!”

“Yeah, exactly.”

Of course, the clone would be unable to move for one minute after the skill activated.

But once that minute passed, it would become a powerful weapon that surpassed even the main body.

If I fed her this essence and adjusted the rest of her setup a little, she would become the first one qualified to challenge the tenth floor.

“So, what is the active ability of the essence?”

Oh, that?

Well, one of them was Shapeshift.

“Oh, isn’t that really good?”

“When Snictura used it, it could freely transform into other monsters and use their unique skills. But the essence version is different.”

“How different?”

“You can only transform into the last monster you defeated. And even after transforming, your physical abilities do not change.”

“Oh… I see.”

Her voice sounded somewhat disappointed, but that was not all there was to it. After all, there was no way it would be a Level 1 essence for nothing. However, those detailed know-hows only needed to be taught to Amelia, who would be the one using it.

Naturally, there were many more ways to use it.

“So what’s the other one?”

“It’s Final Day.”

“What? There’s an ability like that?”

“There is…”

Raven narrowed her eyes, studying my expression. “Why did you make that face?”

“It’s a little awkward to explain.”

I had said any ability would be fine, but this was the one exception. Even Seed of Destruction would have been better than this.

“What’s so awkward about it? Is it bad?”

Hmm…

I couldn’t exactly call it bad either.

“Objectively speaking, it’s good,” I said carefully. “But there are a lot of conditions that have to be met before it can be used.”

“Oh, now that I think about it, I don’t think it used that skill even once during the whole battle. What kind of ability is it?”

I then spent quite some time explaining the skill’s effects and activation conditions. That seemed to satisfy Raven’s curiosity, and she eventually left.

At last, I had some time to myself.

Only then did I remember something.

“Oh, wait.”

This was not the time to be worrying about someone else’s essence.

“Omens of Corruption…”

I got hit by that, didn’t I?

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