Chapter 297: Demon Blade Questions the Heart (Patreon)

The power radiating from Geno, wreathed head to toe in frost-flame, came straight from Tailless in his hand.

The instant he'd broken free from inside the Calamity Beast's body, Geno had already closed his fist around Tailless's hilt.

At that moment the beast had just shaken off Geroy's grip, and just as it was about to land the killing blow, Geno's strike with Tailless inside its own body made it shudder.

A searing pain shot through its skull cavity — it had nothing resembling a real brain, but the beast still reacted with matching agony.

That pain faded fast, though, replaced by something even more intense and direct, lancing up from its jaw.

With a wet squelch, a gaping hole tore clean through its jaw — the very one Geno had carved out from the inside with Tailless moments before.

The pain wrenched a long howl out of it, and right after came the scene unfolding before its eyes.

The moment Geno caught Tailless, his body spun with the motion and came down solidly on the ground, and then, staring at the blade in his hand, he slipped into a state of total absorption.

But in Geno's own perception, an entirely different scene was playing out.

The frozen ice sheet around him was gone. In its place stretched endless darkness.

Suddenly a tongue of fire flared alive in the dark. It grew brighter and brighter, roaring toward Geno as if it meant to burn everything to ash.

Geno wasn't about to just stand there and take it. He bolted, running for all he was worth — but no matter how hard he ran, he stayed rooted to the same spot, and the flames swallowed him whole.

The burn of the fire tore a cry out of him, but right on its heels came a bone-deep, bitter cold. When he opened his eyes, the flames had somehow turned into a howling blizzard, and his whole body shook against his will.

But no matter the ordeal, Geno's hand never once let go of Tailless's hilt, holding it firm in front of him.

Fire and storm traded places again and again, and as Geno cycled between the two extremes of ice and flame, he began to catch, faintly, the sound of voices.

'Abomination!'

'Root of ruin!'

'Wellspring of calamity!'

'Chief of evils!'

A jumble of voices poured into his ears, as though a crowd of people were shouting all at once, hurling scorn and insult his way.

It left Geno with the feeling that he had no privacy left at all — that everything about him lay bare for them to pick over.

Irritation flared up in him, and that tiny spark of anger swelled in an instant, gradually smothering his reason.

"Argh! Get out! All of you — you're nothing but noise! Get out! Get OUT!"

Driven by rage, Geno swung Tailless wildly, but the blade never once connected with anything.

Burning through his strength amid the storm and flame, he began to slow down — and that gave the voices their opening.

'You're nothing but a wolf in sheep's clothing. You should just die here and now.'

'Your very existence brings nothing but disaster to everyone around you. Stop torturing yourself — give it up.'

'An outsider is an outsider, through and through. Once an outsider, always an outsider.'

Several ghostly shapes flickered into view before Geno, jabbering without end, until he couldn't help clapping his hands over his ears.

The noise grated at what little reason he had left until it drained away completely. He hacked at the shapes in a wild, aimless frenzy — it did nothing.

All he could do was bleed away his strength, his mind spiraling further and further into chaos.

Soon his strength gave out entirely. He stumbled and went down, eyes straining to stay open, stubbornly refusing to close them.

'Is that all you've got?'

'So weak — how could you ever wield a blade like this?'

'Your will's too frail. Why not just give up?'

Give up?

At the very brink of collapse, Geno heard that word — give up — and from somewhere found the strength to plant both hands against the ground and haul himself back onto his feet.

"You want me to give up?"

His voice came out cracked and parched, like a man who'd been walking the desert for days.

'Is giving up really so bad? Why put yourself through all this torment?'

'This was never your fate to begin with. Why keep stirring up trouble for nothing?'

"Bullshit!"

The voices kept trying to talk him into giving up, but Geno fired back with the bluntest words he had.

"I don't buy any of that fate crap! My life has always been mine to decide!"

This raw, unhinged fury was a side of Geno nobody had ever seen.

"Even if I woke up one morning to find my identity changed, my species changed, the whole world changed — before and after, the path I walk has always been mine to choose! So don't you lowlifes think for one second you get a say in my decisions!"

Whether it was saving Twiggy right at the very start, or founding the game company afterward, or the dream of making everyone happy — every bit of it had come from Geno's own will.

And he had never once regretted or hesitated over anything he'd decided.

Because he understood: life sells no do-overs. The instant you make a choice, you never look back.

He was the one who'd chosen to live as a human, in human society. He might feel lost about it sometimes, might feel helpless — but he would never, ever regret it.

Even if he ran headlong into a wall, he'd smash straight through it.

Just as he was doing now.

Staggering, braving both fire and frost, he kept swinging Tailless without pause, trying to cut down the phantoms in front of him.

Even though everything so far had proven it useless, he pressed on, unshaken, and struck again.

This attack wasn't him venting his rage anymore — it was a resolute, fearless charge straight at the target before him.

Even knowing it might come to nothing, he kept at it, holding fast to his resolve.

The sight was enough to still even the chattering phantoms.

'What an idiot.'

'A fool, honestly.'

'Definitely a fool.'

In the span of a few seconds, the phantoms had already reached their verdict: this guy was, beyond any doubt, a stubborn fool.

He wasn't clever, and he wasn't brave — just a fool who pressed doggedly toward his goal, swinging his sword like an idiot.

'It's not exactly by the rules...'

'...but I suppose it'll do.'

'Yeah. We'll call it a pass. Barely.'

They muttered a few more things Geno couldn't make sense of, and one by one the phantoms vanished from his sight — and with them went the storm and flame that had been tearing at him.

The sudden stillness caught Geno off guard, but before he could gather his wits, Tailless flared with light again, and his consciousness slipped back into a haze.

When he finally came to once more, the sight before him left him more than a little surprised.