Bonus chapter thanks to @andrewaustin and @Skelx762 from Ko-fi!
Before Elodie could respond to my words,
“Ugh!”
My body involuntarily lifted and flew backward.
Clank!
The door of the cabin behind me swung open, and as soon as I was pulled inside, it slammed shut with force.
“Elodie! Elodie!!”
I tried with all my might to open the cabin door, but it wouldn’t budge.
But as a child now, it was impossible for me to open it with force.
“Elodie!”
I moved to the window. Through the glass, I saw Elodie confronting a gigantic monster.
Elodie slowly rose into the air and, as she had shown me earlier, summoned two spells in each hand. It was certainly a high level of skill, but compared to the monster she was facing, she looked so small.
Swoosh!!
The monster’s tentacles moved first. Honestly, there were too many tentacles to count, each one hardened like a sharp spear, aiming for Elodie.
Boom! Boom!
They collided with the magical barrier Elodie had erected at a distance, and the remaining ones surged forward again.
“Hmph!”
The tentacles burned in Elodie’s left hand and froze in her right. Elodie’s magic seemed effective, but compared to the ones she was taking down one by one, there were far more remaining tentacles, and they were even faster.
Whizz!
Elodie flew around, dodging the tentacles. She created distance and simultaneously eliminated the attacking tentacles one by one. It was a rather familiar movement.
‘…Certainly, her skills are better than they were back then.’
This is Elodie’s dream. No matter how young Elodie has become, her power now is considerable.
It must be the result of magic and imagination combined. Elodie is using the best power she can imagine, the best power she believes she can achieve.
But at that moment.
“……Ha.”
I let out a hollow laugh that resembled a sigh of disbelief.
The hundreds of eyes on the monster’s body suddenly opened wide, and the pupils slowly began to glow.
Kwaa—aa—aa—!
As I feared, the glowing pupils shot beams in all directions, closing the distance towards Elodie like a snare.
No matter how quickly Elodie moved, there was no way to escape the places where there was no room to move.
“Ugh!”
Elodie wrapped her arms around herself. She surrounded herself with the magical barrier she had created at a distance, layering it two and three times.
And that,
Crackle!!
The monster’s beams tore through it like paper, delivering a merciless blow to her young body.
Kwaaak! Kwaaaak!
Elodie crashed to the ground, struck by the beams, and as if that wasn’t enough, the monster continued to pour the beams from its eyes onto Elodie, who was lying flat on the ground.
“Elodie! Elodie!!!”
… I am watching this, quite peacefully, from inside the cabin.
Because I’m a child, because I can’t get out of here, because Elodie pushed me in here and locked the door.
I am enjoying the perfectly set alibi.
Grab!
One of the monster’s tentacles spread out like a hand and grabbed Elodie’s leg. And then it lifted her up.
Elodie, seemingly having lost the strength to resist, hung limply in the air.
Swish, swish
The monster tossed Elodie around. It wasn’t attacking, nor was it trying to kill her. It wasn’t even checking to see if she was unconscious.
It was just playing with her. With Elodie.
Thud.
Then, as if it had lost interest, it dropped her to the ground, and Elodie rolled over, her face turned towards me.
Elodie looked up at the cabin window, met my gaze, and
As if relieved to see me safe and sound there, she smiled faintly and then dropped her head.
Crunch
And at that moment, my reason snapped.
Boom!
The Obsidian, which hadn’t been there before, took hold of my body. With almost the same speed as it returned to me, the Obsidian blew the cabin door away.
I stepped out of the cabin and walked towards the monster without hesitation.
“Menosorpo!!”
Menosorpo
Void Weaving, simultaneous replication
Imperial Armory
Full open
I shouted without thinking, and the rune spread to its maximum size.
Weapons engraved their existence in the void, shimmering in the light of the sun, moon and Milky Way stretching far into the sky.
Zing—
The monster’s eyes turned towards me. Hundreds of eyes focused on me. Numerous tentacles turned their heads towards me and trembled.
“This mongrel dares to……!”
My weapons aimed at the monster, matching my anger.
I’ll take this opportunity to count how many tentacles you have plastered all over your body—
“……Eh? Fr, Frondier!”
At that moment, Elodie, who seemed to have lost consciousness for a moment, raised her head and looked at me.
And then.
“Ha……?”
All the weapons I had created vanished. Menosorpo, Obsidian, all gone.
At the same time, the gigantic monster that was glaring at me as if it were about to kill me also disappeared.
“Ugh.”
I collapsed, my strength drained.
I thought my mana had returned, but suddenly I was back in the body of a powerless boy. My head was dizzy with the vertigo of mana suddenly disappearing.
“Fr, Fron! Are you okay?”
Elodie approached me. Despite her own injuries, she was diligently walking towards me.
‘…They’re healing.’
That thought was fleeting as the wounds on Elodie’s body gradually disappeared. Rather than healing, they vanished as if erased with an eraser. It seemed like there were no serious injuries to begin with.
‘I see. Even the wounds are only as injured as young Elodie can imagine.’
In fact, come to think of it, it’s surprising that she only lost consciousness for a moment after being hit by such an absurd attack. I saw with my own eyes the magical barrier being shattered.
‘So, the reason I regained my mana.’
Was it because Elodie lost consciousness for a moment? It doesn’t make much sense to lose consciousness in a dream, but at that time, Elodie was momentarily outside my awareness.
In other words, the role assigned to me disappeared.
And perhaps, within Elodie’s mind, it wasn’t intended for me and that monster to fight. That’s why the monster that confronted me also vanished.
It was a monster solely for her to fight and for her to lose to.
She resists with all her might, but still loses due to the overwhelming difference in power, and even after that, she experiences more pain, and in the end, she is tossed around like a plaything and discarded on the ground.
That whole process.
‘Is it really impossible to win?’
She can’t win against a monster she imagined. I couldn’t understand it. But it actually happened.
In other words, that monster is not Elodie’s ‘imagination.’ It’s something slightly different. Something that Elodie cannot resist or avoid, something that burrows into her.
‘…Trauma.’
I bit my lip.
‘That monster is Elodie’s trauma.’
Even though Elodie herself created it.
Now, she can neither eliminate it, nor cope with it, nor stop imagining it.
It is the natural enemy of the young Elodie.
And perhaps, defeating that monster is the way out of this dream.