ALL NOVEL Chapter 261
“Suu― Kaaaah!!”
The chieftain of the Rock Tribe, who had lost one arm, let out a roar filled with rage.
The underground space trembled and began to collapse. It wasn’t just a simple roar. It was the curse itself mixed with debuff effects.
“Missed the mark. It’s tough. I’m not really a melee type.”
Lars sheathed his spear and reached for the gear at his waist. He drew a dagger from among three weapons, a legendary artifact aimed at taking down the Rock Tribe. The Reverse Curse Blade. A weapon that could bypass sorcery protections of level 5 or below and strike. He acquired it while exploring the swampy maze with Tanya.
“Hahp!”
Lars leaped and drew a trajectory towards the chieftain’s neck, who was in a disheveled stance. With a sharp thunk, an amulet fell from his neck.
At the same time, the black sorcery enveloping them began to disperse. Lars’s calculation that the sorcery couldn’t be controlled properly without the amulet hit right on the mark.
“Krgh!”
The chieftain noticed the problem as well. Both Lars and the chieftain jumped towards the fallen amulet on the ground.
They arrived simultaneously. Kuwung! Unfortunately, Lars was knocked down by the chieftain’s massive frame.
“Oof, brute strength won’t do it.”
He performed a roll and popped another candy into his mouth. His strength-doping was running low.
The chieftain of the Rock Tribe glared at Lars. A tension he had never felt even when facing the Empire’s First Royal Princess settled over him. Facing this adversary could mean losing everything.
The chieftain had to fight with all his might.
“Graaah!”
Puff!
He pierced the amulet into his own heart in an instant. When he opened his eyes again, they shone, and a massive shockwave erupted.
Someone caught Lars’s body, pushed back against the wall.
It was Gishta, the chieftain of the Thunder Tribe.
“Hey! Are you an outsider? You want to die that badly!”
“Hey, don’t get ahead of yourself; it’s you that looks like you’re about to die. First, let’s take care of that.”
“This is my fight. I’ll protect my mother!”
Bang, Gishta slammed her fist onto the ground and stood up. Drops of thick black sorcery flowed from her body.
Lars checked her condition with a diagnosis and clicked his tongue.
“You’ll die if you keep moving. A virulent curse has penetrated right to your heart. The more you move, the more it eats at your magical circuit. Stay still.”
“They’re targeting my mother. I can’t just stand by… Wait, you. Aren’t you that boy from this land?”
Gishta recognized Lars and couldn’t help but be surprised. The idea that he would come to her land and even fight as an ally was something she had never imagined.
“The Gothberg Marquisate, it’s my land. Do you recognize me?”
Gishta fell silent at Lars’s question. The two locked eyes, and in that moment, time seemed to freeze.
“…I can’t just let you die here.”
Gishta gripped her axe. She forced herself to stop her hand from trembling.
Thump, thump. As she began to run, the altar crumbled, and lightning began to strike down.
“Hey, Gishta!”
“Hah, you know me too! Man, what’s your name?!”
“Lars!”
“You said Lars! I’ve been curious about that for a while!”
The barbarian woman jumped high into the air. With all her strength, she swung her axe, carving a path.
“Ah― Larrat!”
Kwaang!
The explosive strike summoned lightning, forcing Lars to shut his eyes.
In the next instant.
“Geez, so ignorant. Honestly, I can’t communicate with you. Gishta!”
The chieftain of the Rock Tribe was split in two, meeting his death. And Gishta lay collapsed, her head buried before him.
Lars quickly ran to support her.
“This isn’t good.”
Emergency treatment was required immediately. He wasn’t even sure if the high-grade potion he had would be enough to save her given her injuries.
“What about the Heavenly Dragon?”
Just when he was feeling desperate, a black shape rose from the chieftain’s corpse.
“Geez, necromancy? Stop it already. I literally don’t have the time.”
—A human.
As the dark form began to move, the curse flowed down, turning into a human shape, a tall woman with a captivating physique.
However, two large horns adorned her face.
She was a demon.
—Hah, just a human managed to disrupt my descent. I was just a step away.
“Ugh, this is nuts.”
It was a familiar voice. One of the Four Heavenly Kings, the Great Demon.
—It’s fine. I have plenty of time and resources; I can always postpone for a year or two. You said your name was Lars.
“Who, me? I think you heard wrong. It’s Lac. Please don’t give any orders to kill someone named Lars. I wouldn’t want to cause trouble for him.”
—A human who deceives even the goddess. Interesting. When I descend, you’ll be the first I find.
Kurulung!
As the shadow of the Great Demon gestured, the massive body of the Heavenly Dragon began to rise into the air. It broke through the altar’s ceiling and flew off in a cyclone.
Of course, while demons are skilled in black magic, Lars hadn’t expected this level. Even without a physical form, it had been meddling with souls from the Void Dimension and wielding such immense black magic. Lars clicked his tongue.
The target was indeed the Heavenly Dragon, aiming to conduct a summoning ceremony using its vast mana. If Lars hadn’t intervened, the ceremony would have proceeded as planned.
The shadow of the Great Demon became engulfed in the cyclone and quickly vanished towards the west. The barbarian from the Rock Tribe instinctively chased after it.
“Damn.”
In the distance, the cheers of celebration from the academic faction echoed. It seemed the Rock Tribe had retreated, as one would expect.
But Lars had no time to be joyful. He had to escape from the collapsing altar immediately, especially while supporting the heavier Gishta.
“Hoo.”
He barely managed to get Gishta outside and laid her on the snow, but he couldn’t wake her up. Even using high-grade recovery potions or healing spells didn’t stop her declining strength.
“I have to diagnose her thoroughly.”
Lars used MRI from the medical branch, a skill he hadn’t often needed, to check Gishta’s insides with a status window.
“The curse has traveled through her veins and invaded her heart.”
It was just before her heart would stop. Lars’s potions would lose effectiveness if the magical circuit didn’t operate.
“Gishta can’t die.”
The status window still displayed numerous bad endings fluctuating in red.
To resolve these, he would need her help, but more than anything.
“I only got help from her in the previous loop, it wouldn’t be right otherwise.”
In the loop where they had become somewhat friendly, they referred to each other as friends. Lars owed her a debt.
Also, he was curious.
He was sure he hadn’t met her in the current timeline.
But for some reason, Gishta recognized him. She was curious about his name.
He needed to hear the answer—what connection they had and why she acted as if she knew him from the future.
“Methods, methods. Think! Lars Gothberg.”
A method briefly flashed through his mind.
“If the curse solidifies, it’ll harden the heart.”
Eliminating the affliction would be simple, of course.
How? By cutting it out.
“Damn it.”
It sounded absurd. He was an alchemist with some medical knowledge, not a doctor.
Yet suddenly, he thought about performing the notoriously difficult heart surgery in surgery.
Of course, there was a surgery skill in [Medicine].
There was, but…
“The environment is insane.”
Sure, it was possible.
No viruses or bacteria could survive in this extreme environment. The snow was sterile. There was a legendary artifact to serve as a scalpel.
“Lack of blood can be replaced with potions, and the breathing… has to be directly provided.”
Geez, it couldn’t get any worse than this.
It wasn’t like he could explain this act of cutting open someone’s heart as treatment, nor could he seek help from others. Above all, if he didn’t make a decision in the next five minutes, Gishta might die.
“I’ll do it! I’m gonna do it!”
It was better than not trying at all, right?
Lars kneeled before Gishta, took a deep breath, and washed his hands, purifying them without a single impurity, repeatedly casting purification spells to complete the sterilization.
With pinpoint precision, he tore Gishta’s clothes to mark the location of her heart with a pen. Alternating between checking the status window, he ensured the location wasn’t wrong.
“Please don’t die.”
He inserted a needle into Gishta’s arm, connecting it to allow the [Top-Grade Vitality Potion] to enter via osmosis.
As he cut open her chest with the scalpel made from [Ironclad Dragon’s Tooth], splash! tiny droplets of blood shot out of the capillaries, splattering Lars’s face.
“Purify, purify, purify.”
Using a divine spell, he managed to remove the impurities just enough to gain visibility and confirm the heart.
The left ventricle was blackened. It reached its limit. The heartbeat was noticeably slower.
“Haeju.”
Even through the tiny gap with nearly no visibility, Lars’s fingertips precisely separated the necessary area.
As the black curse sprang forth, the Haeju spell met it and vanished. Potions filled the void.
“Advanced Healing.”
He quickly sealed the incision before more blood could flow into the interior. There was no way to suture, so he could only hope that the heart could withstand the pressure.
Lars tightened the healing spell with that much more effort.
But then.
“What the hell.”
The heartbeat wasn’t returning.
Could it really be impossible given a quack’s surgery? Was the thought of fixing it medically simply wrong?
“Damn it!”
Lars grabbed Gishta’s hair and tilted her head back. He crossed their mouths and tried to blow air into her.
“AED? No, wait.”
In search of an AED, Lars picked up Gishta’s axe and a flint. He brought it close to her heart and smashed it together, Boom! Lightning struck as shocking electricity burst over Lars.
His hair became a mess, but there was no time to care. He checked for possible internal bleeding from the impact.
“Come on, wake up, please.”
Lars prepared to give mouth-to-mouth again and breathed into Gishta’s mouth. But when he lifted his head, there was still no response.
He looked down at Gishta’s face and, with a weary voice, breathed out.
“Seriously, are you really gonna do this? That was my first kiss.”
“So was mine.”
Just then, a response came back, surprising Lars as he gaped.
Gishta was taking slow breaths again.
“Gishta, are you awake?”
Slowly opening her eyes, Gishta turned her head slightly, her voice sluggish.
“Lars.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I want to do the royal treatment for you.”
“What does that even mean?”