Love Letter From The Future

Fragments of the man’s memories were still wandering through my mind.

I had roughly grasped the way of using the technique of Shackle and Liberation but that was all.

I couldn't understand the detailed principles beyond that.

It was because, until the end, the decisive scene never appeared.

The final demonstration of the Shackle and Liberation that the Great Witch showed.

I had to see it.

My body, bouncing like a rubber ball, was about to be thrown to the ground.

If it weren’t for the unexpected person who caught me, I might have had to once again face the man with those exhausted eyes while coughing up blood.

Thump, the posture with which the person caught me was quite stable.

The weight of an adult man was no joke. Especially since my body was muscular and, with the added acceleration, handling the momentum must have been even harder..

Even so, the girl merely took a few steps back, absorbing all the impact.

A flash of gray hair briefly crossed my vision.

Pfft, I let out an inexplicable laugh.

"...Seria."

“Senior Ian, are you alright?!”

Seria wore an expression of concern that matched Celine's. Leaning against Seria's chest for a moment, I then staggered to my feet.

I had suspected it from seeing Yurdina’s private soldiers, but seeing her with my own eyes made me even more relieved.

With this, the vanguard was all assembled.

It was far better than fighting alone.

When the startled Celine also ran up to me, I made a request to the two women.

"Seria, you take its right leg. Celine, you take the left… It's difficult to handle it in midair since it's standing on the ground.”

“A-A-Are you crazy?!”

Celine, of course, wasn’t one to follow such orders easily.

She immediately snapped at me in frustration.

“D-Do you even realise the state you're in right now, Ian Oppa? It wouldn’t be surprising if you collapsed and died on the spot! Instead, it'd be better if the two of us took charge of this place…”

“You two alone won’t be enough.”

It was a plain truth.

While their assistance would help, I was needed to deal a decisive blow that could surpass the Corpse Giant’s regenerative abilities.

The only technique that could shatter the Corpse Giant’s arm in one blow was 'Liberation.'

If 'Shackle' was a technique to withstand the flow, Liberation was a technique to disperse it.

In essence, it was like creating more channels within a flowing stream.

By applying this, I could also disperse the components that made up the Corpse Giant’s body.

After all, cohesion was also a force at work.

And among us, I was the only one who could use ‘Liberation’.

In the end, there were no objections to my instructions.

Seria merely asked me one question.

"...What's the signal?"

“As soon as I leap.”

That was our final conversation.

Celine tried to say something to me, but ended up deeply sighing and shaking her head.

She realised it was futile to try and convince me otherwise.

That was so typical of her.

She knew me too well.

My eyes turned back to the enemy.

In that short span of time, the Corpse Giant had already regenerated its missing arm.

The monster’s grotesque howl shook my eardrums violently.

WOOOOOOOOOOOO-!

I had heard it so many times that it became tiresome.

Suddenly, a thought struck me and I asked Seria.

“Seria, do you happen to have an analgesic?”

"Ah... Ye-Yes! I-I have one for emergency treatment..."

As Seria rummaged and pulled out a potion, presumably an analgesic, I downed it all in one go.

Seria just tilted her head in confusion.

Of course, I had my reasons.

As the pain subsided, my mind grew increasingly dazed.

The more it did, the better I could glimpse the man's memories.

My body was already at its limit anyway.

Pushing any further would only lead to death. In that case, it was better to rely on the drug’s power.

Once again, the thunderstorm roared and lightning struck down.

It was the spell maintained by the Mage Corps of the Rinella family.

Though I found it strange that Senior Elsie wasn’t making any moves, I was grateful that they were keeping the Corpse Giant in check.

It had been a long time.

The Saintess had weakened the Corpse Giant.

Celine and Seria were standing beside me now and Senior Elsie was likely preparing something in the rear.

Senior Delphine’s absence felt particularly poignant.

With my body nearing its limit, I only had a few chances left.

In this critical moment, the presence of my comrades felt incredibly reassuring.

With a sense that this would be the last time, I bit my lip.

The Corpse Giant, perhaps sensing a strange tension, was watching me closely.

Amid my ragged breaths, unfamiliar scenes began to once more seep in.

Yes, now.

I ran like mad, kicking off the ground and leaping.

Though it was a sudden takeoff, the Corpse Giant reacted quickly.

It swung its right fist forward.

In response, the silver aura blazing from my sword cleaved through the world.

The sword, etching a silver trajectory, pierced through the Corpse Giant’s fist and soon the corpses scattered, bursting with blood.

Amid the falling bodies, another fist swept through the air.

It was the same consecutive attack that already knocked me down once before. At this rate, my second defeat seemed inevitable.

However, there was one difference this time.

I had allies now.

A dark blue flash streaked fiercely across the Corpse Giant’s right leg.

Seria’s barrage of sword strikes was like a torrential downpour.

She slashed its ankle and leapt, then lightly stepping on the falling corpses, she carved slashes from the enemy's calf to its knee.

Each of her precise strikes severed the key joints of the Corpse Giant.

It could no longer bear its own weight.

As its right knee buckled, it instantly lost its balance.

KIEEEEEEEEEEEK!

The fist that had been aimed at me could only swipe through empty air.

Instead, I landed on that fist and started sprinting up the Giant’s arm.

Flames burned through my vision.

The man’s unfamiliar memories invaded my sight once again.

My master raised her index finger and spoke.

"Shackle is to establish yourself against the flow. If you can uphold your state of mind without wavering, you too can be free from the flow."

Right, it's like that.

Isn’t that why I’m standing against this absurd enemy?

Shaking off the hallucinations and auditory illusions, I continued to charge forward.

Before I knew it, I was past the forearm and onto the shoulder.

In the meantime, the Corpse Giant tried to target me with its half-regenerated arm.

Of course, such a trick would never work on me.

I struck my sword forward in a straight line.

As soon as the tip of my sword touched it, its  palm could advance no further.

It tried to grasp me with its fingers but it was already too late.

The corpses that made up the Giant’s hand scattered and fell to the ground.

Now, it was left with only one arm.

The monster tried to swat me away with it.

But Celine had already reached its left knee by then.

Bang, the sound of a small explosion reached my ears.

Celine’s specialty was unleashing a massive amount of mana in one go.

While she might lack in skill compared to Seria, the power of her all-out strike was comparable to Seria’s.

No, after consuming the “Dragon’s Blood” from the hunting festival, it was even greater.

The Corpse Giant’s left ankle was shattered in an instant.

With another support lost, its body rapidly plummeted with a thud. As the Corpse Giant's balance wavered again, I steadied my stance and thrust my sword forward.

The Giant's palm met my blade.

In terms of both volume and mass, the Giant’s palm had an overwhelming advantage.

However, the outcome was the exact opposite.

The Giant’s palm split open with a crack and a silver light burst forth.

What happened next was predictable.

With an explosive bang, its remaining hand exploded.

Flesh and bone fragments scattered in all directions.

Time seemed to slow down.

At that moment, I delved deeper into the memories.

Once again, an unfamiliar scene unfolded.

"...And Liberation is"

My master spoke, slowly lowering her index finger.

“...to blow it up.”

There was no need to ask, "Blow up what?"

Because the mana my master was condensing all this time was flaunting its immense presence.

At the moment her index finger pointed to the ground with a soft thud.

Everything was torn apart.

Time and space were no exception.

Nothing remained in the rift of the void.

It was pure emptiness.

For a fleeting moment, I witnessed the void of the world.

Then, a woman's voice echoed in my ears like a reverberation.

"Yourself."

That too is a state of mind, was what my master said.

The world shifted once more.

Hugh, gasping for breath, I came back to my senses.

Time began to flow again. The sound of dripping blood was proof of that.

There was no time to catch my breath.

I immediately climbed up the Corpse Giant’s head.

KIEEEEEEEEKKKK!

Several of its faces let out unpleasant screams, but a few swings of my hatchet silenced them.

More accurately, I smashed their mouths to make them shut up.

As I somehow managed to reach the Corpse Giant's forehead, it suddenly let out a horrifying scream and slammed its head into the ground.

With a loud thud, the massive impact penetrated to my very core.

I vomited up blood that surged in my throat.

Though I had tried to use the Shackle at the last moment, the lack of time rendered it imperfect.

The horrifying sound of my crushed internal organs bursting resounded.

I wasn’t the only one affected by the sudden counterattack.

Seria and Celine, who were supporting me from the sides, were also thrown to the ground by the impact.

The pain was so overwhelming that my eyes instinctively widened.