Chapter 98 – Memoirs (8)

One.

Dismissed!

“Now, let’s go.”

As he had said, Pastor, who returned in an instant with white sparks, stretched out his hand, saying let’s go outside.
The way he treated the S-class dungeon, where he could not find the exit, as if he were visiting his house completely shattered my common sense.

No, does this make sense?

The ability of the space movement system was a very rare ability that only a very small number of all awakened people were born with.
At first glance, the ability to move through space, where you can move anywhere without the constraints of space, may seem like the best ability, but in reality it wasn’t like that.

The required amount of mana increases exponentially as the distance to move increases.
Complex 3D formula.
If the concentration of mana in the air at the starting point and the destination is different, space movement is impossible.
Even if the concentration of mana in the two spaces is the same, if the mana waves of the moving person do not match, the calculation becomes several times more complicated.

To sum up, it means that space movement-type abilities are very limited to practical use.
Therefore, the ability to move in space was only used in a specific situation in a very narrow field, and was only a bright apricot that could hardly be used in practice.

Going back and forth between dungeons and the present world where mana literally rampages wildly with the space movement-type ability with many restrictions? Even in an S-class dungeon where the concentration of mana is high enough that a low-class Awakener could lose his life just by entering?

It’s really nonsense.

“What are you doing. Because let’s go Is it because my leg is loose? Wake me up

But the man in front of me was doing such a nonsensical thing so calmly.

Wait, did that mean that even when you showed up without a trace until now, and when you brought the cold Manalal Water, it was all because you used that teleportation ability?

In addition, there was no preparation process or aftermath after use of Paster’s space movement.
At most, a small spark that only makes a small sound.

The spark also had no mana at all, so it could not be sensed, so Paster could not sense the foreshadowing or aftermath of it, and could use the ability to move through space, transcending dimensions.

Nonsense. That’s against the laws of physics.

Considering that the wave of mana spreads several kilometers in the aftermath of moving with normal space movement ability, Pastor’s space movement was different from normal space movement.
If that wasn’t enough, even after leaving the dungeon, taking the team leader and all the members of the raid team to the Liars Trap headquarters, which is thousands of kilometers away, seeing that he has a calm face even after doing something far beyond common sense, it’s a sign of strength when using his ability. Consumption also seemed very low.

There’s no way such ability could exist in the world.

Pastor’s going back and forth between the dungeon and the outside at will happened several times in front of my eyes, but I still couldn’t accept it.
All this he was doing was completely out of common sense.
In the end, I had no choice but to look at him with my own two eyes and ask him.

“You… What the hell are you?”

The F-class Awakener, who was just an underdog until now, has become a being beyond my imagination for the first time in my life.
Pastor scratched his cheek in response to a question with a lot of meaning, which was a question about his existence itself, but also a question about whether he was an F-class even with such ability because he was a person.

“What is it, your senior. Why are you asking about such an obvious thing?”
“A senior…?”

Clearly, Pastor was my ancestor.
He was the one who greeted me when I first entered the Liar’s Trap, and he was the one who kindly informed me one by one as we walked around the head office, said that it was okay to ask if there was something I didn’t understand, and joked that he was always free and had plenty of time, and was considerate. It was he who tried to relieve my tension with overflowing words.
The fact that he is my direct senior is a fact that hasn’t changed since I joined the Liar’s Trap until now, but somehow it just felt awkward.

“Senior…?”

The fact that Pastor was my senior was awkward because I didn’t think of him as a senior until now.

Even an S-class Awakener is worse than me, but what kind of an F-class is my senior?
How should you consider a person who gave up being a human while chasing after Scar Rate’s backside to be a senior?
Pastor is, of course, below me, and I have no intention of accepting as a senior a human who is no better than me.

I definitely thought so.
I recognized Pastor as an underdog who couldn’t do anything alone, and I had denied the fact that he was a senior because I looked at him with such a narrow gaze.
I was ashamed of that fact and I lowered my head. Then, a worried voice tickled my ear.

Pastor was such a big man.

“…”
“What is it, Lapis Julie? Are you okay?”

But now, this man, who rescued the life of the team leader, who was my lifesaver, and the team members I was responsible for so simply, and reached out as if it was natural for me to ignore him, was so great that I couldn’t even compare myself to someone like me who was arrogant.
So I had to admit. No, I had to admit it.

“······Senior.”

Pastor is my senior.
Even after dealing with the problem for which there was no way to solve it at once, he showed no change in his expression as if he had just done the obvious thing.
It was so easy to save me from despair due to the crisis of the team leader’s life.
And even that was not enough, he was trying to save me once more from the responsibility I had to bear.

Two successive salvations from someone much weaker than me.
Besides, considering that his life was saved by the previous team leader, today was the third time.
I was such a poor person that I could barely stand after being saved three times.

Today was such a shocking day for me, who lived on pride and ignored even S-class Awakeners if they were weak.
For the first time I felt a sense of shame, and for the first time I felt respect for the weak.
No, it was wrong to call them the weak in the first place.
The team leader and Pastor seniors are great people who cannot even be compared to me, so how can I disparage them as underdogs?

The moment I reached that point, the thought that I shouldn’t be like this was strongly entrenched in my brain.

No. If I hold my senior’s hand and be saved as it is, I can’t move forward any more.

The team leader’s life was safe, and the burden on his heart was relieved, but the sense of shame was still eating away at me.
In the end, the fact that I failed to destroy the dungeon because I didn’t listen to the team leader is an unchanging fact.
If I hold my senior’s hand and leave in that state, breaking news that the raid team of Liar’s Trap, including Lapis Julie, failed to destroy the dungeon will spread all over the world, and people all over the world who saw the team leader with his arm cut off will be my fault. It was clear that he would point fingers.

In such a world, can I still go high?

The answer was ‘no’.
The reason why I could be the lofty flower of the Julie family, Lapis Julie, was because everyone thought of me that way.
If that perception changes and the world thinks I am an incompetent Lapis Julie, then I become an incompetent Lapis Julie.
It means that he becomes just such an Awakener, without honor or anything.

No. I’d rather die than that.

It was an honest feeling.
I was born and raised as the successor of the famous Julie family, and I had to become the successive head of the Julie family.
Because that’s the goal I’ve dedicated my whole life to.

That’s why I couldn’t hold the outstretched hand of my senpai.

Even if I survive being rescued by my seniors here, the only thing waiting for me is the life of a loser, harsher than death. I’d rather die here than survive like that.

I stood up on my own without borrowing a senior’s hand, and calmly conveyed it while shaking my soiled knees.

“… Whoa. Thank you senior But I can’t go out.”
“What? Why?”
“Because for me, it would be better for me to die than to give up and leave.”

After that, when I turned away from my senior, a question from behind caught my ankle.

“What is that… Wait, are you trying to fight the dungeon lord over there? Can you win?”
“That·····.”

I was stabbed in the middle.
The dungeon master’s attack was so fast that I almost missed it for a moment even though it was far away.
Besides, even if it was to escape, even if he released the chill and mana contained in ten snowflakes at once, he could not inflict any meaningful damage on him.

Right now he’s trapped in an iceberg I made, but he’s literally just trapped. Maybe he can break it right out if he wants to.

For a guy whose main purpose is to protect the core of the dungeon, he had no reason to chase after us, who couldn’t even run away from this dungeon where there was no way to escape.

Of course, thanks to the senpai’s absurd spatial movement ability, everyone survived, but there’s no way he would know that.

Anyway, now that he wasn’t aware of his senior’s existence was the only time he could think of how to defeat him.

His white flame whip was completely comparable to the snowflake giant I made with ten snowflakes.
That’s why it took at least thirty snowflakes to completely defeat the body of the guy who created the white flame whip at will.

However, it takes a lot of time to pluck out about 30 snowflakes, and I can’t even move my body.
And if I gather that much mana, the guy trapped in the iceberg will jump out right away and aim for me.

Even so, it was clear that the ten snowflakes that could be used while moving would not have enough chill and strength to end his life.

It was a tough opponent in many ways. Even if he risked his life, the odds of winning would be less than 10%.

The fight with the dungeon lord was a fight against me in every way, a fight that no wise man should do.
But all of this was caused by me. A karma report caused by ignoring the team leader’s words several times.

It is the truth of the world to be criticized if you do not take responsibility, and that truth will come more harshly to me, the heir of the Julie family.

So, it was better for me to take on a fight in which I was almost certain to lose than to live a life that would be harsher than death.
So, I had only one answer to the senior who asked if I could win.

“Even if I can’t win, I have to do it. Because I am the legitimate successor of the Julie family, Lapis Julie. Who would think of the honor of the Julie family if I ran away from here holding my senpai’s hand? They’ll see you as an irresponsible idiot who ran away from an irresponsible fight. So I have no choice but to fight…”

My words couldn’t go any further here. It was because the snap of the senior’s loaded finger hit my forehead precisely.

Right.

“Ouch!”
“·····Senior?”

It was the senior who hit my forehead with his finger, and the senior who grimaced while holding his finger in pain.
When I called out the senior for that incomprehensible behavior, he cleared his throat, straightened his expression, and looked at me with slightly sharp eyes.

“Why are you fighting a fight you can’t win, you idiot. If that’s the case, just go with me. I will help you.”
“Yes? Are you a senior?”
“Yes, I am your senior.”

With unwavering confidence and confidence, I had no choice but to ask my senior without realizing it.

“How?”