Savior! Redemption in Another World! - Chapter 80

As the pain continued to increase exponentially, I could feel my consciousness fading as my mental capacity slowly fell to the level of baked beans.

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— Point of View: Teresa Delarus —

“… oh trust me, that boy eats like a water bu-” In the middle of exchanging stories with Antonio’s mother and traveling companions, a violent noise echoed throughout the forest.

It could only be described as a blood-curdling scream, as every bird in the vicinity flew away from the source.

However, what came after, was even more terrifying. From the direction that Antonio had walked off towards, was an insane amount of mana, rolling out of the forest in violent waves.

Comparing this to all of the malicious mana I’ve felt after traveling with this current party, is like comparing a puddle to the ocean. This mana felt insanely dense and completely untamed. However, the scream and mana could only come from one thing in that direction, unless we somehow came across a stray dragon.

As the scream died down and the mana waves continued to get stronger, everyone exchanged glances and understood exactly what we had to do.

Picking up my staff, Flare led the movement out of the campsite, dashing towards the epicenter of the malicious and wild mana. Unfortunately, as the walls Antonio had conjured began to crumble and turn to dust, it was obvious to all of us that something horrible must have occurred.

Yet, after moving at full speed for a full minute, no one was prepared for what we would encounter.

A few hundred meters away from camp, it was as if a blizzard had begun to constantly fall in one section of the forest, blanketing the surroundings with ice and snow.

Before Flare and the rest of the party pushed on and got hurt, I stepped up and cast Mother’s Embrace, a light magic spell made for braving even the harshest cold climates. Yet, to no one’s surprise, this conjured blizzard still pricked at the skin with violent pangs of cold.

Pushing through the thick blizzard, thankfully it only seemed to last for about twenty meters, as we hit a veritable wall of wind. Contained within a perfect dome of a wind storm, was a sight that made me throw up as soon as I laid my eyes on it.

At the exact center of this twenty-meter dome of furious wind, was my bodyguard and future magic knight, Antonio Icefield. However, the happy, slightly awkward, and highly intelligent traveling was nowhere to be seen.

Instead, the being in the center of the storm had a twisted and dead expression, held suspended in the air by wings made of bone and blood, constantly flapping to a rhythmic beat.

As we tried to press into the dome of pure wind magic, it was akin to trying to run through a brick wall. Even Flare, wrapped in what I can assume is a beast’s cloak, could barely place her foot inside of the dome without being blasted backward.

“Lord’s above and below Stephanie! Just what the hell did you feed the boy as a child! Are you sure that  thing is only nine years old?!” Zerath, the oldest looking mage here, who I now know as Stephanie’s uncle, yelled at the top of his lungs at his niece in the middle of the strangely silent blizzard.

“Yes! I can guarantee that he’s my son, I’ve got marks to prove it, and the wings should be proof enough! Now for once in your life stop being stubborn and help me!” Stephanie yelled, as she pushed her palms into the dome of wind magic and began to chant in a language I had no hope of understanding.

Soon, the three Fae all had their hands pierced into the dome of wind and began to chant in an incomprehensible language.

Either luckily or unluckily, in the middle of their chanting, the dome and blizzard disappeared, leaving the dull-eyed Antonio to hover silently in the center, his head slowly turning towards us.

Then, without any warning, Antonio stuck his hand out as a spike of what appears to be pure black obsidian shot out of the ground, aimed directly at the head of Stephanie’s master and aunt,  Elandria Volta.

In the knick of time, Elandria is able to dodge, but that little action was no accident, as this situation just went from unlucky to catastrophic.

— Point of View: Vincent DeCourville —

As my eyes snapped open, I felt a pain in my legs and back that I had never experienced before.

Ah, it was a dream. A happy, warm, exciting dream. One where I had two loving families, a bright and talented future, and one where I had not just catapulted myself off a multi-story building in hopes of taking my own life.

I really wish it wasn’t a dream.

Gazing around took a ton of effort, yet I was able to move my neck and arms at least.

That’s nice, I have at least a bit of bodily autonomy. Crowded all around me were the students of UNIPD, speaking in a language I hadn’t heard in a good few years. At least, what felt like a few years.

Unsurprisingly, no one came to help me. Yep, I’m back on Earth all right.

No magic spell, no friendly people, just shitheads with IPhones recording what could be a man’s last moments.

But this won’t be my last moment. I’m not that lucky, am I? No, to put it simply, I’m not.

I’d already squandered all my luck when I was born. For the first sixteen years of life, I was able to just calmly cruise through life. Then, even when I started working, I didn’t even have to give up on my schooling or passions.

Truly a blessed life, wasting all the good luck I had built up.

And yet, I still threw it all away. All of it, in one crime of passion my entire life was gone.

Is that what that long dream was, God? Some sort of fucked up way of making me regret committing suicide? A glimpse into a different life of mine, where I have a happy family, and happy life full of friends and exciting adventures? Some kind of stupid “enjoy life while it lasts, no day is wasted, people will miss you,” experience?

Well, fuck that! Fuck you God and the stupid chariot you rode in on you bastard!

Give me back my friends, my family, and my fucking legs you bastard!

As I could hear the sirens of the ambulance slowly coming closer, a warm stream of tears began to flood down my face.

God damn it. God fucking damn it.

Why. Why did someone have to call the emergency services? Why couldn’t you fuckers just let me bleed out here and die?

Maybe then I could be free. Maybe then I’d wake up, back in the forest, freshly in the body of Antonio Icefield, my powerful mage from a different world.

Closing my eyes and focusing, I was met with only despair when I opened them only to find myself still slammed into the cold, hard ground of the earth.

I could almost hear them calling my name on the other side too. God, why did I jump?

If I knew all of that shit was just a dream, I don’t think I’d ever want to wake up.

Focusing all of my remaining mental power, which wasn’t much given the searing pain in my legs, back, and now arms, I tried will all my might to summon even a fraction of mana.

Gritting my teeth and focusing as hard as I could, I could feel just a spark of mana within my body, but it was as if it was locked behind a thick veil. Closing my eyes and taking a deep painful breath, I tried again.

Again, and again and again. Doing absolutely nothing but focusing on that small, tiny spark of mana I could still feel within myself, I must have spent over ten minutes with my eyes closed, just trying again and again, pushing and pulling on it again and again.

Yet it was hopeless. Soon, I opened my eyes as I saw the paramedics approach. Slowly but surely, they placed me onto the stretcher, and I could feel my consciousness begin to flicker.

Oh God, it’s really over.

My magical life, my magical journey, my exciting second chance, I fucking pissed it away, twiddling my thumbs.

No wonder I was able to learn and do stuff so quickly, I was literally making it all up. Of course, I would be able to feel the difference in mana and use it after only a few years of practice, I literally made up the system in my mind.

It was all fake. I dreamt it all up as a way to cope with my shitty last two years of life and shitty death.

I hate my brain. If I was gonna have a fun dream before I died, I could have at least had a system that made me overpowered from simple shit, like drinking water or doing a few pushups.

As the thick steel doors of the ambulance slammed shut, and the siren continued to blare loudly in my ear, I let my consciousness slowly slip away. Accepting my fate as a newly crippled person.

I hate my life.