Chapter 151

The lull in the tremors lasted only a moment. A thunderous boom—unlike anything before—echoed from somewhere far away.

Mikhail kept his eyes locked on Verte, standing a dozen or so paces ahead, and pieced together what had happened.

The sheer volume of the reverberating sound. The vibrations shuddering through the floor beneath him.

By all indications, the cave entrance had collapsed.

So we're completely trapped in here.

Mikhail's brow pinched tight, then smoothed. None of this boded well, but in truth, the way out of this cave was perfectly clear.

Beat Verte, then activate the return stone.

As for Verte being stuck in here afterward… that's honestly not something I need to worry about. The reinforcement unit can retrieve him. But before any of that….

There was something he needed to confirm.

Why he'd failed to anticipate Verte making a move like this. He wanted to understand that.

"……"

Mikhail tilted his head and turned over the character settings that applied to Verte, then spoke in a flat, even voice.

"I'm surprised. Verte. I never expected you to pull something this reckless. I thought you could at least read the situation."

Verte scoffed through his nose and tugged the corner of his mouth into a smirk.

"Yeah. Maybe you're right—maybe I used to be that way."

"……"

"But I've changed my mind. Fighting you made me realize where my roots are, and what I need to do. And—"

Verte let the pause hang, hardening the edge of his unfinished sentence, while Mikhail stared straight ahead in silence. His gaze had come to rest on Verte's outstretched hand.

Blackened from pushing his body past its limits.

And in truth, it was a wound that never would have been carved if not for the confrontation with Mikhail himself.

A persistent variable… is what you were.

Mikhail lowered his eyelids by slow degrees and drew his bottom lip between his teeth. A brief silence settled over them.

Before long, Verte let a thin, drifting laugh slip through his teeth, then continued in a tone stripped bare of pretense.

"Watching your every move showed me something—the best chance I'll ever get to bring you down is right now."

"……"

"Mikhail Senit. You're the kind of person who soars higher the more time you're given. Clipping your wings early is the only smart play. If I let this chance slip, you'll just keep climbing—out of reach. Pulling you back down will only get harder."

The further his words carried, the more his simmering emotions bled through. Mikhail watched him from behind a sunken expression, eyes lifting to meet Verte's.

"Hoo…."

Verte's brows were knotted together, his breathing rough and uneven. He pressed a hand against his own skull as if physically holding back the fury clawing its way up from inside him.

"So I'm—"

Fractured syllables dropped at jagged intervals.

Over the charged silence that draped the air between them—

Griiind.

Verte ground his teeth and snapped his head up. His eyes flew wide, and mana condensed over his outstretched hand.

FZZT!

The mana blooming above Verte's palm blazed with light and crackled with static. His voice cut through like a drawn blade.

"—I'm settling this with you. Here and now!"

A detonation of sound, and fire surged upward. Verte's mana shifted into the shape of roaring flames and gathered over his clenched fist like a gauntlet.

TAP!

Mikhail watched Verte ignite and charge, seized his staff, and sparked his own mana to life.

CLANG!

Mikhail's staff, thrust forward, and Verte's fist, swung with savage force, collided head-on.

Hisssssss—

Mikhail stared at the steam rising off the frost-wrapped staff like heat haze, then shifted his eyes to the figure across from him.

Crrrk-crk.

Clashing elements tangled and ground against each other. Sparks and shards of ice splintered apart, scattering in every direction.

Blue and crimson light sprayed outward with them.

Through the shifting glow that changed from one heartbeat to the next, Mikhail watched Verte—and kept watching.

The force behind his spells. The shape of his condensed mana. The way his body frayed and his breathing broke apart with every passing second. And—

"Senit—! I will—!"

—the fighting spirit Mikhail had never bothered to see before now.

The raw desire bleeding through that cracking voice.

The hostility that burned behind Verte's eyes like something alive.

Mikhail read every ounce of hunger and emotion pouring toward him as though a dam had burst.

"Ah…"

His head throbbed. His heart hammered hard enough to split his ribs.

The instant Mikhail exhaled a scalding breath and let a trembling groan escape—

Verte twisted his lips into a crooked grin and spoke.

"Now that's a face worth looking at…. All this time—hiding behind that unreadable mask, spouting cryptic nonsense only you understood—and now you finally look like someone with his back against the wall."

Mikhail flinched, his eyes narrowing sharply. He bit down hard on his lip and swung the staff in a vicious arc, driving Verte back.

WHOOSH!

Verte gave ground without much resistance, stepping back in a smooth retreat. But he refused to give Mikhail even a moment to collect himself—he lunged forward again, words spilling out in a heated torrent.

"You must've had a great laugh watching me this whole time! Am I wrong? No matter how hard I screamed and clawed, all you ever saw was someone squirming beneath you!"

"……"

"What a filthy hobby, honestly! Was it fun? Did you enjoy it? Watching me dance in the palm of your hand? Well, that arrogance of yours ends here."

FWHOOSH!

Verte hurled the words at Mikhail like venom and whipped both flame-wreathed fists forward in rapid succession.

Piercing heat closed the distance in a heartbeat.

Mikhail's eyes went wide as the fire bore down on him. He clenched his jaw and braced the staff across his chest.

FZZT!

He expanded his mana by a razor-thin margin. The broadened field caught Verte's flames and held them at bay.

The instant the blow was blocked, Verte pulled back again and reset his stance.

"Hahh… hh…"

Mikhail, meanwhile, swayed where he stood. His breathing came in fractured, uneven gasps, and he shook his head as if trying to clear it. His lungs burned like he'd just sprinted a marathon.

What Verte had just poured out—every accusation, every barb.

[No matter how hard I screamed and clawed, all you ever saw was someone squirming beneath you!]

[Was it fun? Did you enjoy it? Watching me dance in the palm of your hand? Well, that arrogance of yours ends here.]

The words had lodged themselves behind his ears like thorns, and now everything he'd orchestrated until this point was surging up inside his mind—tangled, colliding, impossible to untangle.

[This progression follows the original storyline too. I'll make Salvator finish first no matter what.]

[Ethan, forget about efficiency or whatever else. Don't think about things like that. You… you of all people can't afford to.]

[Go back. You need to protect the place where you belong.]

The corner of Mikhail's mouth—a line that had never once wavered, no matter the moment—began to tremble.

That was all… for the best possible outcome. I had no choice. As an extra, I had to stay one step behind… just so that you… so that all of us could be happy….

"—Eyes forward!"

Verte's voice struck like a thunderbolt. The hair on Mikhail's neck stood on end as he jerked his head up.

Verte had closed to point-blank range in an instant, a triumphant grin plastered across his face as he drove his fist forward.

"!"

Mikhail braced to counter. But the mana meant to cushion the blow was still spreading through his body when Verte's fist buried itself in his stomach—one step faster.

"Gakh!"

A scream disguised as a breath ripped from his throat.

Pain exploded through his upper abdomen, and white sparks burst across his vision.

Mikhail doubled over at the waist and skidded backward across the ground.

Scrrrrrk—

His body, blindsided by the clean hit, swayed as though it might crumple at any second—but the staff clenched in his grip kept him from tumbling across the floor in a graceless heap.

"Ngh… hhk."

Mikhail was fighting to shake off the throbbing ache and steady his lurching frame when it reached him.

Thud.

Approaching footsteps, and a mocking lilt threaded through a crooked smile.

Every last irritant crawling under his skin had one and the same source—Verte.

"Senit…. You need to face what's about to happen. Unless you want your own arrogance to bite you in the ass."

Mikhail's face crumpled into a tight grimace. He dragged his creaking neck upward to face Verte closing the distance, and a hollow breath slipped through his parted lips.

Me… arrogant? Don't make me laugh.

It wasn't arrogance. What parent guiding their child down the right path would ever be called arrogant?

All of it… every single part of it was unavoidable.

The directives of the main storyline that he'd accepted and followed—they were absolute.

The definitive truth of this world, stretching outward like a road that pointed unerringly toward the perfect answer.

Salvator taking first place in this campaign, everyone pulling together to put down the basilisk's mutation at the end—all of it followed the correct progression the main storyline laid out. I just accepted it. That's all I ever did.

A blueprint for the best possible outcome had been sitting right above his head the entire time. It had been telling him to follow its lead, that it would draw a golden future—so who in their right mind would refuse to listen and obey—

—Flash!

That was when it happened. A system message materialized before his eyes without warning.

〔[Main] Complete Round 1 of the Suppression Campaign〕

A question should have leapt from his mouth the instant those golden letters appeared. But Mikhail just stood there with his eyes blown wide, frozen in place.

Huh…?

The system message hung in the air and began inscribing its words in shimmering gold script—steady, unhurried—as though giving voice to his own thoughts.

〔[Main] Subjugate the Basilisk〕

Mikhail stared blankly at the content laid out before him. Each time his dark-blue eyes traced the floating sentences, the meaning of every listed word carved itself deeper into his mind.

"……"

A moment that felt like an eternity passed.

Mikhail's lips stirred, and a quiet murmur fell from them.

"There's… nothing."

Nowhere—not in a single line of the system messages relaying the main storyline—was there an order telling him to act in accordance with its directives.

Nothing that said Salvator had to finish first. No instruction insisting that the basilisk's mutationmust be dealt with by Salvator's hand.

Mikhail let a bitter smile cross his face, then dropped his head.

The main storyline hadn't forced a single thing.

And yet the path that had led to all of this… was nothing but Mikhail's own choices.