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Let’s change my approach, after all. I won’t seal Mephistophales together with Samaeyl, I’ll do this differently. Since some time, he feels like someone from the same town, so I want to hear his story in detail first.

…For the time being, I should move the bodies, including Mika’s, to a safe place. I’m quite sure Mephistophales’ sickle has the ability to turn anything it touches into smoke. It would be unpleasant, if anyone was hit by that.

While in the Zone state, I moved all the human corpses from the north gate to the west- or east gate, depending on what was closer.

At the east gate, Parasuna had died. At the west gate, Bacchus, Lahand, and Gabaina lay dead. Only… the eyes of those bodies had been closed and there were traces of some liquid being poured into their mouths. Moreover, they had their arms folded over their chests. Especially Parasuna; apart from her hands being folded, she had been politely placed on top some kind of cloth, making it look as if she was sleeping.

Uruto’s body, on the other hand, was nowhere to be found. There was only a strange pile of ash in the base where he’d been standing by.
I wonder, where did he go? I’m curious.

…Still, that can’t be helped. Let’s put off searching for Uruto and deal with Mephistophales quickly.

I positioned myself in front of him and dissolved the Zone.

Oh, I probably should’ve attacked him during that time. I messed up.

“Well, I told you to die, but I need your power, so I can’t kill you, you see?”

The winged clown held Droprot and his sickle in one hand each and slowly stood up.

“Kah-ha-ha, come to think of it, many of my plans until now succeeded thanks to you and your friends, right~? Like me absorbing Samaeyl,” he started chattering away, without me even asking him anything.

I wonder, didn’t he see how easily I beat Samaeyl?

“In fact, I knew what was going to happen, you see. There was an excellent prophet among my companions and… Huh?”

Once he got that far, he suddenly started surveying our surroundings, maybe because he noticed something felt off.

“The corpses around us have disappeared, haven’t they~… Did you move them without me noticing? Miss Alim, from what I saw when you fought Samaeyl… Do you possess a skill that allows you to teleport or stop time? …What a bother.”

Oh, is there an ability to stop time? I guess he’s not far off the mark. Moving quickly enough for your surroundings to look like they are standing still seems pretty close to time-stop. Additionally, thanks to B (defense) being almost as high as S (speed), there’s no harmful backlash for my body like when I’m overusing MP.

“If that’s the case… what will you do?” I asked him.
“Well, it’ll be difficult to capture you, but… I’ll do whatever is needed, you see… For the time being, let’s assume it’s time-stop… Armageddon!” Mephistophales exclaimed, raising his hands to the sky.

I instantly tried to move, but, unnoticed, my surroundings had been permeated by a black haze… the same as when Samaeyl had tried to rush at me, surrounding me.

“If you touch Armageddon, you will die, you know. You won’t be able to get out of there. Neither up, down, left right, nor diagonal… nowhere.”

I see, does this black haze… Armageddon have the instant death ability? When Samayel rushed at me, I noticed it fly off somewhere, but I didn’t expect it to have an instant death effect on touch when I first saw it, you know. Moreover, because I’ve been negligent, the haze completely surrounded me. Since I can’t move in this situation, Mephistophales will probably use his cheat ability, forced contract, without limits and make me create something again, won’t he?

Damn, if he’d assumed I have a teleportation skill, he probably wouldn’t have encircled me like this.

“Yes, my prediction hit the mark! It looks like you don’t have teleportation, do you? Finally… finally~… Yes, if you move, you die, right? You no longer can do anything but listen to my words.”

Well… being encircled to this extend, if I hold an Amrita in my mouth, I should be able to break through instantly.

It happened when I was about to execute that plan. Suddenly, a man appeared behind Mephistophales.
Wait, I’ve seen that good-looking youth many times. It’s Mr. Uruto! Huh, he’s alive? If he’s standing, he must be alive, right? Still, I don’t feel any magic power… How strange.

As a result of no magic power being emitted, Mephistophales didn’t notice him.

“Then, once again… Forc-…”

Uruto grabbed the careless Mephistophales on his wings and hurled him backwards. I immediately noticed that Uruto’s face looked as if he was dead on the inside. Then, he approached me.

“Alim… good, you’re alive, aren’t you?” he said, while he was crying.

Still… How in the world did he avoid dying?

“Erm… Mr. Uruto?”
“Alim… everyone… has died. I made them drink Legend Potions, but… for some reason, they didn’t come back to life.”

A feeling of “frustration” could strongly be sensed from Uruto.

“This… this haze fell from the sky… spread out and… everyone died. I was alright… due to my skills.”

A skill so he won’t die…? Come to think of it, his second name is the “Immortal Hero”, isn’t it? So, he’s actually immortal?

When I came back to my senses, Uruto was about to touch the haze surrounding me.

TL notes:
Mephistophales continues to outwit Alim, but this time it’s really 99% Alim being an overconfident idiot (Mika probably would’ve yelled at him to stop playing around and get serious several times by now if she wasn’t dead). It’s not even that he has no ways to attack without sealing or killing his opponent…

At least Uruto shows up to save the day, proving himself, once more, to be more monster than human as he survives what should’ve killed everything.