Saving My Favorite in a Doomed World Chapter 125

Verite ran. She didn’t even look back. While Samela faced the soldiers with her scabbard and the remaining dancers fought back with daggers, she alone ran.

 

A vivid plot window appeared before Hwashin and his group. Sentences being written in real-time.

 

「 ‘Huff, puff.’

 

The sound of blood splattering. Terrible screams. Was that scream Kobato? Everyone, because of me.

 

Wouldn’t it be better if I turned back right now and helped? 

 

No, no. As she ran, Verite bit her lip hard again. If she turned back now, if she stopped now and failed to achieve her goal, everyone would die anyway. The King is dead, and Samela has achieved her objective. I am the only one left. Everything will be fine as long as I do my part.

 

Just then, a massive man blocked her path.

 

“Caught you—!” 」

 

“Kyaaaak!”

 

The girl outside the plot window let out a scream. However, she did not close her eyes. Even as she screamed, she thought of what to do next. Think, Verite. Think about what you must do to move forward.

 

‘The dagger.’ 

 

She grabbed the dagger she wore at her waist. It was a decorative dagger encrusted only with jewels, but the blade inside was sharp. Surely, she could stop this man for just a moment. She only had a few seconds. If this man looked away even for a brief second during that time.

 

“Hup-cha.” 

 

….?

 

Wh-what?

 

Flutter. A breeze like a spring wind momentarily wavered. She felt as though she caught a faint, pleasant scent. Surely the air had been thick with nothing but the stench of sweat, but as soon as he arrived, a sweet fragrance surrounded her. The silver-haired man was certainly one of the men who had been watching them from the far end. Landing lightly on a corner of the stairs, he instantly kicked the man’s chin.

 

“Ku—ugh!” 

 

“Beautiful!!”

 

Wang Hao, who witnessed the scene, raised his red sleeves high at the bottom of the stairs and spun around in place.

 

“Yes! That is exactly what I saw!!”

 

Wang Hao was someone who had sought out every renowned martial artist in China. He had naturally visited the Shaolin Temple and searched for all sorts of martial artists living deep in the mountains, as well as those called masters, but only a tiny fraction of them had actually mastered martial arts properly. Even they were at a low level. He could judge them so because they were weaker than him, who had learned martial arts only through ancient books.

 

But that man. Look at that man. From his landing tiptoes, spring seemed to bloom, and his extending footwork was elegant. Every single movement exuded the inner strength of someone who looked as though he had fought alone for hundreds of years. Surely, it was impossible that he had actually lived for hundreds of years.

 

The corners of Wang Hao’s mouth rose as if they would tear, and his chest heaved up and down, unable to hide his excitement.

 

“I couldn’t even follow him with my eyes. To be able to move so quickly even in a situation where one cannot use mana. Ah! Ahh! As expected, the man I chose! The man I found! I must even have him naturalize to China. I cannot leave such a figure in a small country like this.” 

 

….?

 

….Small country?

 

What did he just say? Right now, to us… what? Small country? Blood vessels stood out in Yoo Jian’s eyes. Grinding her teeth, she spoke. 

 

“…Can I kill him?” 

 

“No.”

 

At Mueum, who answered flatly, Yoo Jian scowled deeply. 

 

“Typical Jeong Mueum: says it’s absolutely not allowed.” 

 

“Typical Yoo Jian: tries to step forward first.” 

 

“Urgh, you bunch of traitors!”

 

“…Ah!!! Seriously!! We aren’t traitors!!”

 

Yoo Jian slammed a soldier, who had run up and aimed a sword at her head, directly into the floor as she kindly answered his shout.

 

“I said we’re not!!”

 

The soldiers, seeing Hwashin run forward, seemed to judge that Hwashin’s group was also in league with the dancers. Immediately, the magic corps from afar rushed over, and even ordinary soldiers surrounded them.

 

Despite being in a state where they couldn’t use their abilities, the difference in strength between them and the heroes was clear.

 

Even if they couldn’t use mana, they possessed basic physical abilities due to being S-class. Yoo Jian also possessed enough strength to instantly subdue several sturdy soldiers, though not enough to punch through the floor.

 

The problem was Jeong Mueum and Lee Suho, but fighting while protecting the two of them was well within Cha Jaeha’s power alone.

 

“Hyung, I’m sorry.” 

 

“I’m sorry!”

 

Cha Jaeha, who replied shortly with ‘It’s fine,’ swung a spear he had snatched from the magic troop in a large arc. Five soldiers hit by the spear shaft were swept away in that wave in an instant. Soldiers rushed in endlessly. 

 

“They are rebels!” 

 

“Apprehend them at once!!” 

 

“Uwoooo—!” 

 

“Uwo—, w-wait a minute! My leg! My leg!!” 

 

“Arm!! My arm is gone!!”

 

Lurch. The center of the soldiers, who were pushing in like a rising tide, suddenly tilted. In the midst of the chaos caused by arms and legs severed without them even realizing it, Cha Jaeha and Yoo Jian had no choice but to briefly turn their gaze in that direction.

 

Unlike them, whose goal was not killing, Wang Hao’s actions were clearly intended to ‘kill.’

 

“Please do not interfere.” 

 

….Crazy b*stard. 

 

Cha Jaeha murmured lowly as he kicked the chest of a colonial soldier.

 

Just as Cha Jaeha said, Wang Hao was indeed a madman.

 

If one were to tell Yoo Hwashin he was a madman, he would surely like it.

 

“Because my hero is encountering hell over there.”

 

Wang Hao, who had severed all the limbs of the fallen soldiers, stared up at the stairs. Standing there was Yoo Hwashin, who had obtained the necklace from the fallen King’s throat.

 

Wang Hao’s eyes, dyed in madness, gleamed brightly. 

 

“It is the birth of a new king.”

 

***

 

“Here. This is what you wanted, right?” 

 

“Ah. Yes….. thank you.”

 

A stranger’s kindness. Verite’s fingers hesitated before the necklace. Is it really okay to take it?

 

Hwashin caught the hesitating small hand. Then, he gently placed the retrieved necklace onto her palm.

 

Smiling with a virtuous expression, Hwashin looked Verite in the eye.

 

“Don’t worry. We’re on your side, just like Samela.”

 

“….Do you know Samela?” 

 

“Of course. I know you too, Verite.” 

 

“Y-you know me too?”

 

Verite’s eyes widened in surprise, but she soon shook her head. This was because she realized this wasn’t the time for this.

 

Now that the King was dead, it was only a matter of time before even the soldiers outside the hall swarmed in. Furthermore, to escape with the remaining dancers, they had to run right now. The situation unfolding before Verite as she turned back was a tragedy beyond her expectations. Some of the dancers had already fled, but some were still there. Samela was being dragged away, her thick curly hair gripped tightly in a soldier’s hand.

 

“Let go of me—!!”

 

Hwashin grabbed Verite’s wrist as she tried to rush toward the struggling woman.

 

“What are you going to do if you go?” 

 

“I have to go, I have to go save her! Samela is my savior!”

 

Hwashin tilted his head. Before long, he sighed and dropped his shoulders as if he understood.

 

“….This is why kids are troublesome.” 

 

They are weak and die easily. The reason they die easily was also simple.

 

The young ones rush in without weighing the consequences. They don’t weigh whether that decision will be a gain or a loss.

 

“You’re a protagonist, too, but you’re quite short-sighted.” 

 

“Pardon?” 

 

“Still, you mustn’t die. That… crazy guy over there decided to save you.”

 

Crazy guy…?

 

When Verite looked back at Samela with a bewildered expression, Samela had already severed the soldier’s wrist with a sword handed to her by a man.

 

The man who gave the sword… is he the one who’s crazy? O-or is it that person over there laughing like a real madman?

 

If not that… then is it that nuna who is grabbing a person’s head and spinning them around?

 

“Ah, the crazy guy I mentioned is that one.”

 

Hwashin kindly pointed his finger at Cha Jaeha.

 

Certainly. If all those kids were together, it was enough to be confusing.

 

“My kids will save your benefactor, Samela. They’ll take care of the remaining dancers too. We just need to get out of here, right?” 

 

“Pardon? Yes, yes! That’s right.” 

 

“Then let’s go.” 

 

“Yes? H-how— kyaaaak!”

 

Hwashin scooped Verite up.

 

‘P-princess carry.’

 

Verite’s face turned bright red at being princess-carried for the first time in her life. Th-this isn’t the time for this.

 

Unlike the fluttering girl, Hwashin ran forward, thinking he was absolutely going to die.

 

‘I picked her up because I thought just running would be too slow.’

 

— It feels like death, doesn’t it? It must feel like death. You can’t use a single drop of mana, and you’re moving by forcefully plastering Karma all over your body.

 

Don’t talk to me.

 

— If I talk to you, at least answer me. My friend. If you were going to ignore everything a person… no, a Dragon says, why did you make such a deal with The Origin? Look at this, look at this. The narrative of your body is a total wreck. I knew it from the moment you started using it so recklessly.

 

Did you only learn how to nag from the old man while you were trapped in there? Surely your way of speaking wasn’t like this when you lived in the cave.

 

“Y-your face is turning pale.” 

 

“Ah… th-that, huff, yeah, huff, does it show?” 

 

“….No, it’s beyond just showing.”

 

Shouldn’t I be the one carrying you?

 

Such a thought crossed Verite’s mind, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it. This was because the speed at which this pale-looking man was running was a speed she could never catch up to. What was surprising was that ahead of him, there was a man running lightly while carrying Samela on his back, and other people running while holding the dancers who hadn’t been able to flee.

 

Wang Hao, carrying Samela on his back, grumbled with a pout.

 

“Do I really have to carry her on my back too?” 

 

As soon as he opened his mouth, Yoo Jian spat out a nagging remark as if she had been waiting.

 

“Because Wang Hao-ssi has to do his job too. …And think of it as a relief that I didn’t kill you over there. As expected, your size is big and your heart is petty, so middle—.” 

 

“Noona.” 

 

“…Tsk.”

 

Behind them as they fled, soldiers rushed in. What was fortunate was whether Samela’s necklace was still working, the magic troop couldn’t use magic, so they couldn’t catch up to them at all. Having easily arrived at the walls of the royal castle, they headed toward the side path Samela, carried on a back, had told them about. 

 

There was a large hole in the castle wall hidden by bushes, which was a trace of Samela secretly digging while entering and exiting the castle several times.

 

They ran for a long time. They headed for the forest so that the pursuing soldiers wouldn’t easily notice them, and only moved where there were no paths.

 

“..W-wait a minute.”

 

The first one to call a stop was Hwashin, with his pale face.

 

“Shall we rest for just a bit?”

 

I’m so tired I could die.

 

Hwashin, putting Verite down as if tossing her, sprawled out on the floor just like that. He took such large breaths that his chest swelled high. Cha Jaeha, checking the distance, judged that this much would be fine and slowly decelerated.

 

“Certainly, this much should be enough.”

 

Samela’s necklace had also reached the end of its life, as its center was cracked. Lee Suho, checking his returned abilities, first created a bed for Hwashin with shadows. Mueum used gravity to stop the bleeding of the wounds on Samela and the other dancers.

 

“…Now, do we just have to leave this dome?”

 

Cha Jaeha murmured lowly.

 

The starting point where they had entered was the back alley of the village. It was their first time in a dome, but surely that would be the end of this hell summoned to Korea.

 

In theory, they just had to take the protagonist named Verite out through that place.

 

“No, that alone won’t be enough.”

 

Hwashin, who had just caught his breath, said as he lay on his side on the bed Suho had made.

 

“Because that’s not how Suho came out. The person themselves must sincerely want to leave this place.”

 

When the protagonist sincerely wants to leave the world, only then does that dimension open. If the Red Gate was like that, the probability was high that the hell’s dome would be similar. Even if it were different, if the essence was the same, the fact that they came out because the dimension was distorted would be the same.

 

“But that kid doesn’t seem to have any intention of doing that yet?”

 

Hwashin glanced sideways at Verite behind him.

 

Verite was sitting right next to Samela. Although Samela’s bleeding had been stopped, she had not, of course, been healed. Among those gathered, the only person who could treat her was Hwashin, but Hwashin’s stamina hadn’t fully returned yet either.

 

“…Samela.”

 

Verite, who had been huddled next to her, soon took a necklace out of her pocket as if she had remembered something.

 

Chwarak—. 

 

The necklace she held in her hand was not just one.

 

The necklace with the bottle containing the ‘Sap of the World Tree’ that she had stolen first. And the black gem she had stolen from the fallen King’s throat.

 

Verite broke open the top of the black gem without hesitation. Inside the easily shattered gem was a mysterious liquid. She poured that liquid into the bottle she was holding.

 

‘If… if I become a mage, I might be able to save Samela.’

 

And Verite immediately swallowed the mysterious liquid inside the bottle.

 

The liquid was bitter, sweet, and at the same time, tasteless. Before long, something overwhelmed her. She couldn’t answer what that ‘something’ was.

 

Inside her mind as she lost consciousness, someone spoke to her.

 

[ What is this? Is it you…. who spoke to me? ]