"It isn't over? What do you mean by that?"
Call it a fortune within the misfortune.
Helen hadn't crossed the point of no return like the graduate we'd seen on the fourth floor.
If things went well, there was still a chance of getting her old self back.
"A bit more properly…… tch."
Just as I was about to explain that to Imeln.
Our opponent didn't allow us the luxury.
VWOOOOM—!!
With the nerve bundles connected across her body snapping loose and steam pouring off her, a colorless wave burst out of Helen.
"Get back!"
"Kuh……!"
Such was its force that Imeln, caught off guard, was pushed backward.
Recognizing that there was nothing he could do in this fight, Imeln withdrew.
And I began the standoff with Helen in earnest.
As I did, I put a question to myself.
Can I beat that monster?
How's the power?
I lose.
With Magic Arts and Magic Power Core still only at Grade D, I can't take force like that head-on.
Speed?
Helen was fast to begin with. Last time I covered for it purely with my experience, but she's past that stage now.
Stamina?
She's at full condition, and I've just broken through from the fifth basement to the eighth.
So taking all of that together, what are my odds of victory?
'Why am I even calculating? A hundred percent, obviously.'
It isn't baseless confidence.
The countless experiences I'd been through were simply telling me so.
THUUUUM……!
In that brief moment, Helen's fist came in loaded with an immense wave.
Merely a thrust of the fist, yet it bore down like a vast tidal wave.
I hurriedly raised magic power to block it.
SHATTER—!
But my shield of magic power burst like a pane of glass at even a moment's contact with the wave.
Still, that was enough.
That brief moment was time enough for me to calculate and draw a result.
[Shadow Bullet]
I brought out, as my first variable, the magic I hadn't used in the sparring match with Helen.
KRRRRRAK—!!
Of course, Shadow Bullet alone couldn't cancel out a surge like that.
As I said, the grades of my Magic Arts and Magic Power Core are still low.
Even so, there was a reason I chose Shadow Bullet as my first counter.
CRACK!
With a clear, clean sound, the wave Helen had raised split apart and burst.
That was possible because of the "eye for discerning energy" I was born with.
An ability unrelated to traits or experience, one I simply arrived in this world carrying.
Which let me find the "imbalance" in that wave.
Normally it wouldn't go so easily.
Helen was never the sort of fool who couldn't govern her own energy.
But her body had been taken by the Void, and even the magic power she handled was no longer her own.
Naturally her attacks would be far from perfect.
'And that's the second variable I prepared.'
A single exchange.
And already two variables had surfaced.
This is my fighting style.
Blocking every variable that arises mid-fight is impossible.
But creating variables of my own to tilt the board in my favor is something I can steer, to a degree.
'Ranged attacks are shut down with that.'
Which meant the thing wary of me had no choice but to allow me close.
THUM—! THUM! THUD!
It seemed to understand that well, because it began a war of attrition, controlling the distance as best it could.
It understood how worn down I'd become getting here.
But "distance" isn't much of a restriction for me.
'Only, Blink isn't the card to play right now.'
Waiting calmly for a more effective moment, I advanced one step at a time.
BOOOM! BOOM!
The cavern shook from the aftershocks of the shattered waves.
And when the distance between us had finally closed somewhat.
FWIP—!
It threw out a surprise gambit.
The thing that had only been harassing me from range arrived in front of me in an instant.
Before I could draw a single breath, Helen's fist came flying at my head.
The colorless wave in that fist was ready to burst my skull at any moment.
A wave that detonates at such close range is compressed whole in itself, so striking its weak point as before is impossible.
One way or another, its force would hammer my whole body apart.
Retreat was impossible on timing.
Checkmate.
Without the third variable, it certainly would have been.
[Blink]
Only my afterimage, blown away by the wave, remained in that spot, while I appeared behind Helen.
'Sorry about this.'
Knowing her face doesn't mean I'll go easy.
[Shadow Bullet]
[Six-Stack Cylinder Reload]
[Single Action Fanning]
I finished the incantation I'd been preparing and summoned six bullets.
The rounds rode my outstretched fist and hammered mercilessly into Helen's back.
CRRRRUNCH!
COUGH—!
Caught by the unexpected ambush, Helen vomited blood, rolled across the floor several times, and slammed into a wall.
She got up again before long, of course, but she hadn't come through that shock unharmed.
Her arms and legs bent in directions they shouldn't have proved as much.
Yet there wasn't a trace of pain on her face, which made it all the more grotesque.
And what came next was more grotesque still.
The flesh beneath Helen's feet turned to powder and vanished.
And as it did, her bent arms and legs returned to their original state.
As if to say variables weren't mine alone.
The thing took its stance again.
The signal flare for a long fight, which favored me not at all.
***
A passionate dance, calling a tango to mind.
But the fierce struggle for the lead sets off discord at every turn.
And yet the process is dazzlingly beautiful.
Probably because the two dancers match each other astonishingly well.
Even so, the end of discord is decided in advance.
And the first crush belonged to Yujin.
"Gahk—!"
Helen's fist landed in his side.
He barely managed to twist his body and shed much of the impact, but the wave that followed turned his insides to pulp.
A mouthful of bright red blood burst from his mouth.
Yet even then, the leg he spun using that impact as momentum struck Helen squarely in the waist.
Helen, her waist bent backward, flew into the wall and slammed into it as before.
On the surface it looked like they had traded one blow each, but the damage Yujin had taken was far greater.
Yujin had regeneration too, but the fatigue accumulated on the way here slowed his recovery.
Helen's body, meanwhile, absorbed the flesh on the floor and was restored to full again.
Whose defeat it would be if this went on was plain as day.
And Imeln, watching the whole of it.
CRUNCH—
Bit his lip until it bled.
His sister and a boy younger than himself were fighting a bloody battle with their lives on the line.
And the fact that he could not add the smallest bit of help to it pressed on his body more thickly than the blood running down his jawline.
"Sister……."
His half-sibling.
Helen's face had always been full of love, ever since she looked after him in childhood.
Because it was Helen who had filled the space left by the mother who died giving birth to him.
The feelings the two siblings held for each other could not help being special.
They had grown briefly distant while the retainers argued over the seat of a father long absent on outside business…….
But Imeln had never once imagined his bond with his sister breaking.
And now that the end had come in this fashion.
And above all.
He hated the reality that even in a situation like this, there was nothing he could do with his own hands.
And then.
-Pull yourself together. It isn't over yet.
Before the fight began in earnest.
The words Yujin had left him came back.
He had known him only a few days, but the Yujin Imeln had seen was not a man who spoke idly.
The way he had given him reality rather than comfort over the corpse of the graduate who came up to the fourth basement had left that strongly imprinted.
And that man said it wasn't over yet.
Merely because he was about to fight Helen?
No.
Had that been it, he would simply have pushed Imeln behind him.
Assessed coldly, Imeln had no room to intervene in this fight.
Then what was Yujin's intention in leaving those words?
"It isn't over yet……."
He rubbed his damp eyes and faced reality again.
The confident Helen, the one who had met him with a smile he sometimes couldn't quite trust, overlapped with the Helen in front of him and wrenched at his chest once more.
"The soul……."
Yet he suppressed the sentiment and began analyzing the Helen facing Yujin all over again.
Imeln's combat ability had always been lacking.
But when it came to analysis, that was another matter.
His eyes, which see a soul and confirm its capacity, told him that this fight, running against Yujin from start to finish, in fact had an entirely different shape.
"My sister's soul……."
Every time Yujin dealt her a heavy shock, the Void's energy clinging to Helen's body shuddered violently.
And every time she absorbed flesh, he could see the soul of Helen, imprisoned by the Void, thrashing.
His sister had not given up.
"Yujin—!!"
Seeing it, Imeln raised magic power.
It was neither delicate nor destructive.
But the sharply honed arrow of magic power above his hand buried itself in the body of Helen, who had just then shown an opening.
Most of it was stopped by the wave she raised and dealt no proper damage…….
But it served perfectly well as a message to Yujin.
"And there's the fourth variable at last."
The boy's smile bloomed all the rougher.
***
The Void hasn't swallowed Helen completely yet.
Which means that the more shock I deal her.
The more the prison holding Helen's soul shakes.
So even at some cost to myself during the fight, I focused on landing shocks on her body.
It was a tightrope walk.
The magic power I'd burned getting here had my body starting to strain.
The consumption from all the Blinks I'd used was adding to that burden especially.
But that tightrope walk…… turned into a solid bridge thanks to the marker Imeln had created.
"So that's where."
A crack in the soul prison the Void had made.
Only, it wasn't something my eyes could see.
So I needed Imeln's help.
Fortunately, he noticed it and told me without my having to ask.
"Let's finish this."
I drove my fist into the five marked points in turn.
In the process I took counters, and my whole body screamed…….
But as I said, this fight's odds were a hundred percent.
THWACK—!
***
Helen's body crumbles.
Confirming with his soul-seeing eyes that the Void had been subdued, Imeln ran over like lightning and checked on her.
"Ah……."
There wasn't the slightest relief in his voice.
It was closer to a wail of anguish.
"The Void is……."
"We destroyed the prison holding Helen's soul, but that doesn't mean the Void has withdrawn from her body."
[Sudden Quest: Halt the Void encroachment of the thirty-second dungeon!]
[Time remaining: 9 hours 12 minutes]
The quest hadn't been cleared.
And the Void's presence could still be felt inside Helen.
"We've only subdued it for the moment, so to speak."
"……."
If time passed like this, Helen would lose the reins again.
And even so, the reason Helen had escaped the prison of her soul.
"Did my sister…… give up?"
Was to send the signal for her life to be ended before she could be controlled again.
With the Void subdued for the moment.
She wouldn't be able to rampage or restore her body as before.
It was because he had realized that that Imeln was in such despair.
Because he faced a situation in which he had no choice but to send his own sister off with his own hands.
"In the end, my sister……."
Just as Imeln, his face as pained as if he himself had been run through, laid a hand on his sword.
"I told you."
I caught his shoulder and stopped him.
"Don't get discouraged too soon."
"……?"
"Hey, Helen. Even if you can't move, I know you're listening."
"……."
"Your brother's crying over here. And weren't we going to have a proper match later? You can't have meant this."
"Yujin……."
"Devour it."
Dropping to one knee, I gave the answer to Helen, who was fighting a brutal fight of her own.
"You're a devourer, aren't you? Swallow it. And make it yours. Your brother will help with that part."
"What do you mean by that……?"
"Being eroded by the Void doesn't mean you have to be eaten by them. It doesn't apply to Helen. This one was born with the ability to devour souls."
"……!"
"She has to swallow the Void. But Helen's ability alone won't be enough. She's already been worn down as far as she can go."
But the same goes for the Void.
It burned considerable power making Helen a host, and then fought me in that state.
And it's bearing the aftershock of the soul prison being smashed.
"Imeln. You have to relay the thing's weak points to Helen."
There was no telling how many hours of grueling work it would take, but it had to be done.
What hung on it was nothing less than the life of family.