The Fake Hero Is Too Strong-Chapter 150

After separating Mide’s soul, Adwin immediately brought a bell to his ear.
Jingle. Jingle.
He kept ringing it in the same pattern Leon had taught him.
Neril, watching carefully with her arms crossed, finally spoke.
“If your arm gets tired, say so. I will take over.”
“This much is nothing. It’s better if I do it till the end.”
“Huh? As long as the pattern’s right, it doesn’t matter who rings it, right?”
“That ‘pattern’ has to be extremely precise. Even a fraction of a second off, and it takes on a completely different meaning.”
“……”
“So please, don’t talk to me. I need to concentrate.”
Neril didn’t even answer, worried that any response would distract him.
Instead, she turned her gaze to Xenia.
Xenia had placed a hand on Mide’s chest and began a ritual.
“O Celestial God, here kneels one who begs for Your mercy.”
“Wow, suddenly so polite?”
“We can’t afford even the slightest mistake. Once this is over, I will go back to normal.”
“So now that is your ‘normal’…”
In any case, the spell was cast properly.
Normally, a body whose soul has departed would soon die.
Well, more accurately, it’s the body that dies first, and then the soul departs.
But with Xenia’s spell, the body’s death could be delayed. And Adwin’s bell would keep the soul itself from perishing.
‘There’s no problem. If there is one…’
At that moment.
Offense suddenly spoke in a chilling voice.
“An intruder. At Agril’s tail.”
“Huh? Ah.”
“I had my doubts, but you really did come.”
There stood a man none of them had seen before.
Even Offense, sharp as he was, had only just noticed his presence.
The stranger walked toward them at an unhurried pace.
Neril stretched out her hand.
“Stop. Any closer and you will regret it.”
“Neril? Who is he?”
“Adwin, Xenia, ignore this and keep focusing on Mide.”
“Y-yeah, got it.”
But though warned, the figure kept approaching without hesitation.
In the end, Neril conjured a magic arrow and fired.
Whizz!
Boom!
The man neither blocked nor dodged. He simply let it hit.
Even a simple spell, when cast by the Saint of Compulsion, was no joke.
It could punch holes clean through solid oaken trees.
Yet on this man, it didn’t leave so much as a scratch.
Offense muttered,
“Velosian?”
“So you do know my name.”
The man gave a courteous nod.
His tone was unexpectedly courteous, almost formal.
Neril felt her hair stand on end, but forced herself to stay calm.
“Who gave you permission to stand on Agril’s back?”
“My apologies. Not that I would get off even if permission were denied.”
“If you’re going to mock us, you can drop the polite speech too”
“No. I respect humans. That’s why I may speak rudely to a Demon King or its minions, but to you, I will use honorifics.”
Hadn’t he even spoken honorifically to the Celestial God, because he was in human form?
He smiled faintly.
“I respect all humans. They are truly noble beings.”
“What nonsense are you spouting?”
“Is there anything in this world as foolish as mankind? Such rarity deserves respect.”
Neril felt sick. But better to exchange practical words than get lost in an argument.
“Why are you here?”
“To kill Mide.”
“Hah. Not even hiding it. Do you think you can?”
“Why do you ask that?”
“Because you look weaker than us.”
Velosian’s smile deepened.
“Because we are not in the ‘special room,’ is that it?”
“……”
“Who told you that?”
“We didn’t say anything, you’re just entertaining yourself.”
“No, I can tell. You are all convinced I’m weaker here.”
He folded his arms, pondering something, then asked:
“Was it Impelium who told you?”
“……Who’s Impelium?”
“How pitiful, dressing up your lies like that. But as I said, I know.”
“……”
“You met Impelium, didn’t you? No… no, that makes no sense at all.”
Slowly, he unfolded his arms.
Then said gently,
“Well, no matter. If I kill you all, that solves everything.”
He raised his hand.
In that small palm, Neril felt as though her vision were being swallowed up.
“Mime!”
From the carriage came Lisel’s shout.
Fwoooosh!
The Duke Spirit, Mime.
The strongest of all spirits, except for the Spirit King, descended upon Agril’s back.
Lisel had already leapt down from the carriage.
“Mime, stop him. No….”
Her gaze hardened.
The man before her, Velosian. The one who had done this to Serein.
“Kill him, Mime.”
“As you command, my King.”
Mime’s form expanded. Taking the very form that had once summoned a typhoon upon the capital.
Velosian simply looked up at him.
“Well, what a rare sight. I haven’t seen a spirit this strong since Adin erased them.”
“……! Who are you?”
“Why do you defy Adin’s command and speak with me?”
“Hmph. Enough words. Die.”
Mime transformed his arm into a massive blade of wind.
The pressure alone threatened to shred flesh before the blade could even touch.
He brought it down upon Velosian.
Whhhhhhshhh!
But.
Mime froze.
“Wh-what is this?”
His body began to shrink.
Velosian slowly curled his hand into a fist.
And with each motion, Mime’s form began to crumple in on itself.
“Aaaargh!”
By the time Velosian clenched his fist fully.
“M-my King, run… this one is too…”
“Mime!”
“Graaahhh!”
Mime vanished completely.
Only a light breeze brushed their cheeks, the mere trace of what had been a typhoon.
Velosian had erased him… with nothing more than the gesture of closing a fist.
He turned to the horrified party.
“Anything else you would like to try, my respected humans?”
I opened my eyes.
No, my ears opened first.
Jingle. Jingle.
Adwin’s bell!
‘That sound… it’s protecting me.’
Proof that I am not a dead soul. As long as the ringing continued, I still lived.
The world still recognized me as alive.
Relief settled into me.
That relief gave me the calm to look around.
Now then. Just what does the Underworld look like?
‘Lady Lepia said that in the Underworld, you meet again with those you were tied to in life.’
May claimed that all the sins of one’s life would be laid bare there, while Grade had said the Underworld was actually quite a liveable place.
So I had imagined the Underworld would not be all that different from the world we live in now.
But.
‘W-what… what is this?’
What I saw was an enormous realm made up of countless transparent, bluish membranes, like bubbles.
Tiny foams that appear when waves crash.
A world where such bubbles were endlessly clumped together.
‘This is the Underworld? It’s nothing like what I imagined.’
At that moment.
[What you’re seeing is the form of the Underworld as a whole.]
‘Who… oh, Impelium.’
[Indeed. Congratulations on being alive and dead at the same time.]
‘Creepy way to put it. Just explain, what do you mean by the Underworld’s “form as a whole”?’
Impelium spoke lightly.
[Each of those bubbles you see is the personal world of a departed soul.]
‘Huh?’
[Leon may have told you, “let’s meet again in the Underworld,” but that’s impossible. Neither Leon nor the other heroes could pierce the boundaries of their own bubble. They can’t even begin to imagine what the Netherworld looks like in its entirety.]
‘I don’t understand a word of this…’
[Doesn’t matter. It’s the kind of thing that can’t be explained well with language anyway, so let’s move on. The urgent matter is saving Serein, isn’t it?]
He continued before I could answer.
[Look there.]
Impelium had no visible form, so under normal circumstances, I shouldn’t have been able to tell where “there” was.
Yet somehow, I knew.
My gaze settled on a particular spot among the infinite bubbles.
Two of them were stuck together, like the shape of an “8” turned sideways.
While all the other bubbles were slightly apart, these two alone clung tightly to each other.
[That is Serein’s world and Pirensha’s world.]
‘……?’
[Sever the point where they are joined.]
‘……’
[If you do that, the world itself will recognize their souls as separate. Pirensha’s half-erased soul will no longer affect Serein in the slightest.]
I forced myself to calm down despite my confusion.
There was a mountain of questions I wanted to ask, but Impelium would never answer.
Even if he did, I doubted I could understand it.
Better to focus on the urgent task at hand.
‘How do I cut it?’
[That part is beyond me now. Do it with your own strength.]
‘You’re skipping the most important part.’
[Because you already know how.]
‘.…’
That I already knew, huh.
In truth, something had already crossed my mind.
I decided to trust my instincts.
Even in this soul-state, I still wore my usual clothes and gear.
Shhhk.
I drew the Fake Hero’s Sword.
And pressed it against the surface where the two bubbles, no, the two worlds were fused.
[Do you feel it? Do you know what to do?]
‘Yeah. I have got a technique called Spatial Rend.’
[…]
‘It’s a skill that tears apart reality, creating an isolated dimension severed from all external laws. If I just expand its scale… this should work.’
[Spatial Rend, hm. Quite a fine name.]
He sounded genuinely impressed.
So he does know a thing or two.
[You have already accomplished feats without precedent in this world, but this is on an entirely different level.]
‘……’
[Even if you think of it as just an extension of Spatial Rend, perhaps this technique deserves a new name.]
At those words, the perfect name popped into my head.
I drew a deep breath.
And swung my blade through the fused worlds.
‘World Splitter!’
Meanwhile, Neril gathered every ounce of vitality stored in the Gem of Desolation, everything she had absorbed from the army of ten thousand monsters.
Even more than what she had once used to erase an entire mountain.
—Transcendent Disintegration.
She manifested a colossal spear.
A spear one hundred meters in diameter, thrusting up into the heavens.
Then it came crashing straight down on Velosian’s head.
“You are doing well…”
Velosian merely gazed up at the falling spear with indifferent eyes.
Then he raised his hand.
And with a casual flick, like a child skipping a pebble across a pond.
BOOOOOOM!
A tiny orb of light shot from his fingertip and struck the colossal spear.
So small compared to the spear that one could barely see it at all.
And yet, impossibly, it split the spear clean in two as it pierced through.
“Kh…!”
Neril bit her lip.
The spear meant to disintegrate everything had, ironically, been disintegrated itself.
Velosian turned his head slowly.
But nothing was in sight.
Only green smoke.
It was a modified version of Hyran’s “Craving” poison, remade by Offense.
Normally, it would have spread indiscriminately in all directions, but Lisel had used the wind spirits to bind it tightly around Velosian.
A lethal toxin that required no inhalation, mere contact with the skin was enough to make even an ogre go crazy and die.
But.
“Hhhhhh!”
Velosian simply took a deep breath, sucking in the entire poisonous cloud.
Only to clear his obstructed vision.
As the haze lifted, Offense unleashed every hidden weapon he had.
Little Stars rained down like a hailstorm from every direction.
Each empowered by spirits that Lisel had attached, giving them devastating force.
Thud. Thud.
Yet Velosian neither blocked nor dodged.
He only frowned faintly, as though irritated by the inconvenience of his clothes getting damp in a spring drizzle.
“Nothing more innovative than this?”
“Y-you… what are you?”
Velosian stepped forward.
Not rushing, simply strolling as he spoke.
“All right then, what’s next? Perhaps a grand purification spell? Or do you lack the time for that?”
“How… how can you be this strong?”
“It’s not that I’m strong. It’s that you’re weak. To think you struggle even against me outside the Special Room.”
“……”
“You invoke Impelium’s name and yet… seeing you flail about like this is almost funny. Let’s see now…”
Click.
He counted them off with his fingers.
“One, two, three… including the one groaning in the carriage, that makes seven, yes?”
“……”
“Killing seven may trigger stronger laws against me… but I suppose I will bear it. After all, Idria and Adin can’t kill you themselves.”
“So you really are working with them?”
“Rather than an ally, think of me as a helper. Or perhaps… a guardian?”
“……”
“In this absurdly human favoured world, such beings couldn’t possibly survive without my aid.”
Neril couldn’t understand what he meant.
Nor did she have time to.
Her hands were too busy forming seals for her next spell.
But just before she could unleash it.
“…?”
She suddenly realized Velosian’s fist was right before her face.
Even though he had been dozens of steps away a moment ago.
Her thoughts froze.
The mere wind pressure from his unthrown punch made her skin feel as though it were tearing apart.
Velosian’s fist was about to smash into her.
—WHAM!
A fist struck Velosian’s abdomen, launching him far, far away at incredible speed.
Neril blinked several times.
‘Who…?’
Before she could speak, Offense said it for her.
“Ad… Adwin?”
No. Not Adwin.
The voice answered:
“I am Trail. No. Trail, at your service.”
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