Let’s Block the Ruined Route in Advance Chapter 116

“Mother Superior…?”

 

Gail, scarred all over, crawled toward Eileen.

 

“Eileen! Eileen! The children are all dead, they’re all dead.”

 

Behind her, Eileen could see the orphanage children lying dead. All of them were mangled, as if a giant demon had swept through.

 

“Ouch.”

 

Eileen’s mouth dropped open.

 

‘This is a hallucination. If this is Mongma, then there must be a trap…’

 

Her head was telling her that what she was seeing was a trap, but she thought she could smell blood on the tip of her nose. Eileen forced herself to look up, and this time she saw the plain in ruins.

 

Bodies lay everywhere, as if the slaughter had failed. Orgen, Rosalia, the Duke, Neumann, Cordelia, Lucian, Felix. The sight of so many familiar faces lying lifeless made Eileen shudder.

 

“This is fake. It’s fake.”

 

She knew it, but she was afraid. Intermittent screams and groans of agony could be heard. Even with her ears plugged and her head bowed, she could still hear it.

 

“Eileen, Eileen, are you okay?”

 

“Laquerta?

 

Eileen looked up at the familiar voice. In front of her was a worried-looking Laquerta.

 

“Ah.”

 

Eileen’s gaze traveled down Laquerta’s face to his chest. It was empty where his heart should be, and as soon as she realized it, Laquerta spat blood in Eileen’s face and collapsed.

 

“Aah.”

 

She couldn’t hold it in any longer. Eileen’s emotions surged, and Star began to stomp his feet unsteadily and cry. From somewhere, she thought she heard a small chuckle.

 

 

***

 

 

Felix was in the darkness.

 

He didn’t know where, but he smelled a familiar musty odor.

 

“You don’t come out of there until you’re dead. That’s the rule.”

 

The harsh words came from somewhere. The game he thought he’d forgotten came flooding back to him. Some games never end. If death was the rule, Felix couldn’t betray it.

 

“If you break the rules, you’re a bad boy. You must never go out. Let’s die here.”

 

Felix, now a tiny child again, leaned back against the wall in the pitch blackness. With his head tucked between his knees and his body rounded, he counted to himself.

 

“99, 100, 101, 102… 14032.”

 

After he’d been doing this for a while, he suddenly had a thought.

 

“When am I going to die?”

 

How many numbers could he count to end the game? He realized that he hadn’t counted to the end of the game. The rules were vague. Would he die if he stayed still?

 

He felt like he was having a vague dream, and all the thoughts in his head were like a screw loose.

 

Felix lifted his head and stared into the darkness.

 

“I think I’m forgetting something.”

 

The frustration in his mind jumped to the other side. Suddenly, all thoughts of play were forgotten and Felix began to obsess over what he had forgotten.

 

“Felix, are you ignoring me?! Don’t do anything, just stay there and die, that’s the rule!”

 

A voice from outside the darkness shouted. Cowering reflexively, Felix shook his head.

 

“I’m not scared.”

 

It was strange, the voice of his second brother had been terrifying enough to make him cry in his sleep, but now it just seemed like noise.

 

Come to think of it, the darkness was the same. The darkness he’d always been afraid of, but tonight, he didn’t hate it.

 

‘Why?’

 

“I’ll do it again, and the next time we meet, I’ll show you even more flowers!”

 

It was then that a soft but firm voice floated gently into his head like a blooming flower. Felix’s eyes widened. In the darkness, glowing white flowers were blooming.

 

“Felix! Are you ignoring me?! What the hell?!”

 

There were still people screaming outside the walls, but it didn’t matter anymore. As soon as he saw the glowing flower, Felix’s attention was drawn to it.

 

“Ah, yes, she was the reason I wasn’t afraid of the dark anymore.”

 

Eileen.

 

Felix’s body began to grow in an instant as he remembered the little girl smiling at him. As he grew, the dark space seemed cramped. The darkness began to crack as he gathered his energy.

 

“Felix!!!!!”

 

A voice that resembled his second brother called out, but Felix only snorted.

 

“You know what, he never calls me by my name when we’re alone. He calls me a bum.” he said in a sharp voice.

 

Then the shouting from beyond the wall stopped. The cracked wall collapsed and Felix was swept away in a wave of dreams.

 

“So it was Mongma’s hallucination after all.”

 

As he drifted through his dreams, he looked around and saw that his captors were quite a few, and the nightmares they were having seemed to be projected onto the screen of a video sphere. Felix recognized a familiar dream among them.

 

Eileen sat helplessly before the corpse of the Duke.

 

 

***

 

 

How many people, how many times, had died. Eileen had been forced to watch helplessly as her loved ones died in various ways for a long time.

 

Every time she tried to stop it, the scene would change, and the tragedy would repeat itself with different people.

 

Even when she closed her eyes, she could hear the screams and desperate cries for help. 

 

Eileen’s eyes half-opened as she felt her nerves prickle. She could hear Star crying for help. It was dangerous. She knew all too well the disastrous consequences of an Elementalist’s mind breaking down. But even so, it was hard to soothe her helpless heart.

 

Eileen covered her eyes with her hands as she had another vision of losing the returned duke. Her stomach churned and her fingertips felt cold.

 

“How long are you going to do this?”

 

Despair, which mimicked anger, began to tear through her mind.

 

“Eileen! Eileen, open your eyes!”

 

Felix’s voice called out. But Eileen didn’t open her eyes easily. It was most likely a hallucination, a trick of the mind, just like Laquerta’s.

 

She was about to turn away when she realized that it was just a hallucination.

 

The sensation of her body being lifted reflexively jerked her eyes open. The violet eyes of Felix, who had picked her up, looked down at her with concern. Eileen looked down at Felix’s body. He was fine.

 

“Are you- are you really Felix?”

 

“Yep. Check it out.”

 

Felix leaned down and rested his head on top of hers. He could hear her heart thumping against his chest, close enough to be heard.

 

Eileen bit her lip tightly at the sound, the same as the night of the ball.

 

It was Felix again. The one who always came when she wanted him the most, when she needed him the most.

 

Felix flinched as Eileen threw her arms around his neck, but he quickly turned to face her. When Eileen lifted her head again, Felix stared blankly, then smiled wryly.

 

Staring at that familiar smile, Eileen suddenly realized.

 

‘I can’t live without this smile anymore.’

 

“Felix.”

 

“What?”

 

“When this is over, I’m going to give you the answer I didn’t have.”

 

Felix’s eyes widened, then softened. Eileen slid out of his arms and gathered her strength. It was a high concentration of energy, enough to shatter the dream world Mongma had created.

 

 

***

 

 

“Ugh.”

 

Eileen woke up, clutching her throbbing head. Looking around, she saw that she and Felix weren’t the only ones waking up from their nightmare.

 

“Eileen, you’re awake.”

 

Lucian helped Eileen to her feet. From what he could tell, some of the people exposed to the black curtain had fallen into the vision of Mongma.

 

“Mongma is here!”

 

Someone shouted. In the aftermath of Eileen’s forced entry through the illusion, Mongma bounced out, coughing up blood and rolling on the floor.

 

“Shit! Damn it! It’s you again!”

 

A bloodied Mongma screamed bitterly.

 

“Now!”

 

Gavil, the priest who had been hiding behind him, and Rousseau and Hannah, Verotanis’s teachers of magic and thaumaturgy, hurriedly grabbed him.

 

“You will not escape this body!”

 

Gavil imprisoned him with his divine power, and Rousseau sealed him from leaving his body. It was a technique they had prepared for a long time to deal with Mongma they had missed when it had abandoned its body and fled the last time they were on the streets.

 

“Stupid humans! You think I’m going to run away again!”

 

Mongma shouted in anger. Darkness flowed from the nape of his neck as the whites and blacks of his eyes reversed.

 

The people around him tensed and stood on guard. One man moved quickly toward Mongma.

 

“You…”

 

Albert, a tired stranger, stood in front of Mongma, his body covered in electricity.