ALL NOVEL Chapter 3
Chapter 3
—–CROW—–
My first impression after throwing myself out the window was that the night view was quite decent.
Seeing the mystical purple sky of the Demon King’s Kingdom, which I had only seen in the game, with my own eyes, I thought it was beautiful.
And my second impression was relief.
The game I played,
But I didn’t see any broken parts in the sky. Fortunately, the game hadn’t even started its tutorial yet.
And my last impression was that this was doable.
Two seconds after throwing myself out the window and beginning my freefall.
“She’s following, as expected.”
As the ground receded, I saw the red-haired woman jump out the window after me.
Her hair, wildly disheveled, and her emotionless face looked eerie, and the weapon she held in her right hand was quite surprising.
“Scary.”
It was a battle-axe, the kind Vikings in media might use.
I had expected a heavy weapon, but this was beyond my imagination. It made my knees weak even in midair.
[Master of Mana Lv. 1]
[★First-Time Limited Commemorative 100% SSR-rank Magic Appearance!!]
I had only one, absolute chance left.
If I missed this, I would be killed instantly by her.
I could hit her.
Both she and I were falling through the air.
If she had a skill to move freely in the air, she would have aimed for my neck first.
But it wouldn’t work.
The distance to the ground was now noticeably close.
Even if I checked with the slowed perception from [Contemplation], there were only about two seconds left.
Even if I killed her, I would die from the impact of the fall immediately afterward.
Then…
[Spatial Barrier Lv. 1]
It was time to use Oz’s second active skill, [Spatial Barrier].
It took less than a second to deploy the skill.
And then, the impact.
Crash!
The spherical barrier deployed around me shattered with a loud noise as soon as it hit the ground.
“As expected…”
It was as I predicted. The skill [Spatial Barrier], as I knew it, had the characteristic of ‘unconditionally’ blocking damage exceeding a certain threshold once.
This applied to kinetic energy as well.
If it were a simple defensive magic, it might have blocked the impact of the fall, but it wouldn’t have stopped the inertia of my falling body.
I probably would have crashed into the deployed barrier and turned into a mangled mess.
It was thanks to [Spatial Barrier], which blocked all forms of potential ‘damage,’ that I survived.
“What?!”
The moment I heard the assassin’s surprised voice, I rolled away.
The assassin landed where I had been with a loud crash.
She probably wasn’t dead.
However, she hadn’t expected me to crash into the ground like that, so there was no follow-up attack.
Well, if I were Oz, she would have expected me to use levitation magic at the last second.
“Amazing…”
“…”
I hadn’t thought she would be incapacitated by the impact, but I certainly hadn’t expected her to talk so casually as if nothing had happened.
“You’re so different from usual today. Were you deceiving me?”
“We were both deceiving each other, so let’s not argue about that now.”
I conversed with the assassin through the dust cloud created by the impact.
However, with [Contemplation] activated, I could see her.
She was in a throwing stance, as if waiting for the right moment.
“Oz.”
What she knew was information about Oz, but not about me. I was very different from the original Oz.
“Please die.”
As I watched, she threw the axe.
She probably thought it was a surprise attack. Moreover, the distance between me and the assassin was short.
“Hah!”
“…You dodged? At that distance?!”
But if I anticipated it, I could dodge. Even though it was at tremendous speed, I believed I could react.
An SSR-rank character, even a mage, had higher stats than most R-rank warriors.
An insurmountable wall of rank.
More accurately, a wall of money.
It seemed I was closer to a playable character than my portrayal in the game’s story.
“I’m sorry, but…”
Immediately after dodging the axe, I activated [Master of Mana].
She couldn’t move immediately after the forceful throw.
Her miscalculation was assuming I, as a mage, wouldn’t be able to dodge.
Her expression, visible through the dust, was filled with shock.
“You underestimated me.”
“…Underestimated?”
[Erosion Rate 20%]
Her expression, seen through the dust, was tinged with frustration.
Perhaps she had spent considerable time trying to understand me.
But I was different now.
I wasn’t Oz, but someone else inhabiting Oz’s body.
[Master of Mana Lv. 1]
I felt the mana flowing within my body gather at my fingertips.
As I felt a sense of loss as the chunk of mana was being consumed, the icy blue magic formula was completed.
The completed magic was the one used by the SSR-rank character, [Ice Castle Witch].
According to the in-game skill description, it was the only magic among all characters that had the maximum attack range──
[Curse of Perpetual Snow]
──An unavoidable, wide-area freezing magic.
“Farewell.”
“I still didn’t understand you, Oz. I thought I knew everything by now…”
The red-haired woman stopped resisting with a devastated expression.
Was she giving up?
As I wondered, the magic, with its beautiful formula like a work of art, was unleashed.
And the world was painted white.
* * *
In an instant, the surrounding scenery, including the tall building I was in, transformed into a snowy field.
Amidst the fiercely swirling blizzard that still hadn’t ceased…
I didn’t know if the assassin caught in the magic was dead or alive.
I couldn’t confirm because she was buried under ice and snow. I didn’t check either.
[Erosion Rate 14%]
She probably wasn’t dead.
It was better for my fragile mental state to think that way, so I decided to.
I should learn magic in preparation for our next encounter.
I couldn’t bear the anxiety of betting everything on a single gamble like this in the future.
[Erosion Rate 10%]
Looking up at the sky, the blizzard seemed to be subsiding, and I could see the purple sky and twinkling stars between the white snowflakes.
It was a beautiful starry sky, the kind I had only seen in books or videos.
It was an unreal sensation. I was reminded once again that this was a world inside a game.
“…Is it about to begin?”
I looked beyond the purple sky and twinkling stars.
Far away, where the purple faded and indigo began to mix in.
I saw a small ‘crack.’
It was a crack so small I might not have noticed it if it weren’t for [Contemplation].
The evidence that the game was about to begin, the invasion of the ‘outer beings,’ the main villains of the story, the prelude to the protagonist’s life drastically changing, was right before my eyes.
Directly below that cracked sky lay a small kingdom called Chrysos. A country that would be destroyed and disappear by the time the game began.
And the only survivor who escaped from the fallen Chrysos was the protagonist character of
[KP Princess of the Fallen Kingdom]
Eleanor von Chrysos
Everything would begin with her from now on. The game, filled with her efforts to rebuild her kingdom, her connections with countless people, and the conspiracies of monsters and those in power, was about to start.
Then what should I do?
What should I, who had become Oz, do?
If I were an extra character, I wouldn’t have to worry so much.
But I had become Oz, a regular character with considerable weight in the story.
And Oz’s role was to get beaten up and roll around like an armadillo.
But……
I couldn’t follow that storyline.
It was impossible to act out such a potentially fatal role in a life-or-death situation.
So, I had to actively shatter the main story.
In that case, most of the story I knew would be greatly distorted.
Therefore, the focus should be on the people, not the events.
Looking at the cracked sky, I reached out my hand to the falling snowflakes.
The snow that landed on my fingertips melted away from my body heat.
“…”
It wasn’t cold, even with all this snow. A strange sensation.
It truly felt unreal.
[Erosion Rate 8%]
The destruction of the Chrysos Kingdom was inevitable and something that would definitely happen. There was nothing I could do about it now.
I couldn’t be held responsible for everything just because I knew, so there was no reason for me to feel guilty in the first place.
[Erosion Rate 6%]
This was just a world inside a game, after all. I decided to think that way.
* * *
Although I didn’t feel very cold, it wouldn’t be good to continue losing body heat like this, so I returned to the building I had been in.
And what greeted me as I entered was…
“What…?”
An empty space.
Having anticipated another assassin popping out in the worst-case scenario, I couldn’t help but let out a hollow laugh.
Was it relief? No, the situation had become even more complicated.
The building where Oz was staying was quite large. There was no way there wouldn’t be any staff in such a place.
The same applied to the outside of the building.
Despite such a commotion, it was surprisingly silent.
It was more accurate to assume that everyone in the entire block, not just the building, had been cleared out.
Restricting movement on such a large scale wasn’t something that could be hidden.
Even if it was possible now, it would definitely be discovered. Then perhaps they didn’t care if it was discovered.
No, they might even be anticipating the ripple effects of it being discovered.
Then this was a declaration of war. A declaration of their intent to attack me.
Then who were they?
“Someone more powerful than Oz…?”
As far as I knew, there was no other successor in
The right of succession in
That meant he held a unique position.
With such a high status, even if he was indifferent, he would have guards and various factions supporting him.
And above all, the king who appointed Oz as successor would back him up.
Yet, if there was someone with the power and authority to dismantle and suppress all of that…
Someone who could openly attack in such a conspicuous manner, declaring their hostility towards me…
There was only one person.
“…What did this crazy bastard do to be abandoned by the king?”
[Demon King]
Salem Sudra
The king who had acknowledged Oz as his successor.
The king of the Demon King’s Kingdom,
[Demon King] Salem was the strongest mage and the absolute ruler of
He wasn’t lacking in power or authority, so how could he not have the power to protect his successor?
“There’s… no other possibility.”
In the first place, if their relationship hadn’t soured, this kind of attack wouldn’t have happened. It was a declaration of war against the king who had appointed me as successor.
Unless it was a lunatic who intended to fight the entire country, it was impossible.
“I wondered why someone with Oz’s power was at the academy…”
The game primarily focused on growth at the academy.
I had intended to head to the academy eventually anyway.
If the protagonist failed, this world would head straight towards destruction.
Even if I couldn’t assist directly, I intended to watch over things. But I had never considered the circumstances.
An independent institution, said to have been established by dragons to impart their teachings to humans.
It was a prestigious academy.
Then what reason would Oz have to go there? Oz, the central figure of the country, called the [Successor of the Demon King]?
Unless the dragons themselves were teaching, there would be no need for him to go there for educational purposes.
Then there must have been another reason for him to go there…
Historically, in what cases did royalty study abroad in another country?
Of course, there were cases for learning.
But wouldn’t there be more cases of those who lost power struggles, were in mortal danger, and fled, or those taken hostage?
“He couldn’t have been a hostage… Spellergy was a powerful nation in the game.”
I was doomed.
The more I thought about it, the more it seemed there was only one possibility.
Of course, this was still just speculation. Above all, I didn’t even know why Salem had abandoned Oz.
Perhaps I was mistaken.
But the mere fact that Oz was at
“The conclusion hasn’t changed. It hasn’t changed, but…”
I intended to go to
Because Eleanor von Chrysos, the protagonist character of the game, [Princess of the Fallen Kingdom], would also head to
Since dragons reigned there,
If anyone interfered, they would face unprecedented terror that could easily incinerate an entire nation.
The sudden collapse of the sky wasn’t something any country could take lightly.
Therefore, all eyes would inevitably be on the fallen Chrysos.
Then, what if there was a sole survivor from that fallen kingdom?
Naturally, many would believe Chrysos was responsible for the sky’s collapse.
For her, revealing her existence itself was dangerous.
Therefore, she needed supporters to help her, as well as a safe haven.
Ideally, it would be best for her to completely disappear into the shadows, but she had a reason why she couldn’t.
“…It wasn’t just the protagonist who needed a safe haven.”
If the issue was my qualification as successor, it would have been a simple matter of recalling me.
But instead, making a declaration like this meant they intended to use the entire country to kill me.
In
Naturally, it was faster to kill and eliminate someone than to suppress them with skill.
With such a clear method available, Salem had made the first move.
Now, the other powerful figures in the Demon King’s Kingdom, who had been watching until now, would try to tear me apart like wolves.
“Ha…”
A hollow laugh escaped me. My heart trembled, my breath hitched.
The moment I grasped the situation, everything in the world began to feel like daggers pointed at me.
I couldn’t stay here.
From now until I reached
“Damn it.”
If I wanted to live, I had to escape
—–CROW—–