Chapter 31 : So, You Fell for It

After an endless sprint, Usher’s face broke into a radiant smile.

“It’s the exit!!!”

Far in the distance, beyond the stairs, the starlit sky shimmered faintly.

At his words, expressions of joy appeared on the faces of the missing persons.

And so, they ran further.

“A-Ahh!!!”

The dawn air enveloped them.

Soil, grass, trees, the sky, stars, and the wind.

The open nature, not the dark cliff walls, brought tears to their eyes.

Sobs, whether of relief or exhaustion, echoed all around.

Some prayed to the gods.

Others clung to one another, sobbing uncontrollably.

Despite their near-death appearances, the joy of escape lit their faces, stirring a sense of fulfillment within Usher.

Usher smiled softly.

Rubena, utterly spent, collapsed to the ground, releasing only heavy breaths of relief.

At some point, Bersia emerged after finishing her final check.

She exhaled deeply, gazing at the open sky.

Usher approached her and whispered.

“You’ve done so much! If it weren’t for you, who knows what would have happened…!”

He couldn’t help but grin broadly.

This was such a blessed moment.

It was also a moment of justice fulfilled together.

Usher wanted Bersia to feel proud of this accomplishment.

Thus, he didn’t hold back in praising her, chattering on and on.

And then, at some point, Usher suddenly stopped talking and looked up at Bersia.

Her expression still showed unease, not fading in the least.

Usher’s face mirrored her discomfort.

“…Is something wrong?”

Bersia scanned the surroundings.

She also studied the hole they had emerged from.

With a grave expression, she finally spoke.

“This feels strange.”

“Pardon?”

“Why was it so easy?”

Usher tilted his head.

Her words carried no hint of arrogance.

Bersia had taken the rearguard position.

Ever since Usher’s escape plan began in earnest, she had been in constant combat.

The task itself wasn’t particularly challenging.

Such was the extent of Usher’s remarkable physical capabilities.

The moment combat began, the world seemed to slow endlessly.

The attacks of the heretics, swarming like locusts, were so clearly perceived that finding ways to counter them was not too difficult.

Though Bersia’s experience was limited, her body was so optimized for battle that it compensated for any shortcomings.

Slashing, stabbing, firing.

The only inconvenience was the prayer’s power output, weaker than her original body.

Even so, her combat was smooth enough for her to notice something peculiar.

‘Isn’t this too easy?’

For a nest hiding hundreds of heretics, the quality of their forces was surprisingly low.

Additionally, they lacked discipline.

This was strange for a reason.

The cult, restructured around the witch, should have been organized.

The heretics should have been part of a clear hierarchy and system.

They should have possessed strategies to operate their forces systematically.

Yet, their approach was completely haphazard.

They just rushed in like moths to a flame, only to die.

It was too optimistic to think they hadn’t prepared for such a situation, and Bersia was not the type to cling to such wishful thinking.

Quite the opposite.

She always assumed the worst.

This was where she differed from Usher.

Having always been the strongest and resolving crises through his sheer strength, Usher found nothing odd about an “easy solution.”

‘…This doesn’t add up.’

The small sense of unease spread, growing into a chain of questions.

Before long, Bersia was retracing everything from the moment they discovered the cave.

The unease enveloped her entire being, pushing her awareness past its limits.

Then, all of a sudden—

Rumble―!

The ground shook violently.

“…Miss!”

A booming voice echoed from below the cave.

And soon, the source of the voice became clear.

“Sainteeeeess—!!!”

It was Saturn.

He was rushing down the passage, breaking through with a sense of urgency.

That urgency pierced through the unease that had enveloped Bersia’s entire being.

‘Urgent?’

In this situation where they had already escaped, why would Saturn, who had gone to secure the depths, now appear with such urgency?

‘Why? For what reason?’

…The answer to the question was obvious.

Because it wasn’t over yet.

As the thought crossed her mind, the pieces of the puzzle began to align one by one.

From the beginning.

It had been strange from the very beginning.

‘The cave was said to abduct people with tentacles if they crossed a certain boundary.’

And yet, to Bersia’s memory, their group hadn’t encountered tentacles until they reached the prison.

‘And what about the previous rescue teams?’

Among the missing persons they had found, there were no members of any rescue teams.

According to the story, there should have been rescue teams among them, but up until their escape, none of the missing persons they saw belonged to such a team.

‘Where did the information go wrong?’

The answer was clear.

The person who provided the information must have hidden or distorted something.

When the pieces fell into place, Bersia’s head turned sharply.

And then, she saw it.

At the edge of the group of missing persons was Bourbon, the first one to go missing.

He was someone who should not have been there.

‘Your survival itself is suspicious, isn’t it?’

If the limited resources of this underground space had to be shared, he should have been one of the first to succumb to the deterioration of health.

Wasn’t that strange?

His companions had all perished, yet he alone had survived—wasn’t that contradictory?

Exceptionally healthy?

Incredible stamina?

Unusually strong survival instincts?

None of those reasons could explain how an ordinary man, who appeared well over fifty, had survived here for more than half a year.

‘…That doesn’t make sense.’

Thought and action happened simultaneously.

Bersia drew her sword.

Just as she was about to charge at Bourbon—

A smirk.

He smiled.

His sclera turned pitch black.

Bersia’s eyes widened as if they might tear apart.

Bourbon’s mouth opened wide.

From his throat, where his tongue should have been, a red tentacle emerged, sharpened like a blade and pulsing menacingly.

It launched.

That thing was the enemy.

Usher’s body recognized it instinctively.

He had to stop it.

But even with the speed of his body, reaching it before it struck was impossible.

Dodging was also not an option.

It wasn’t a matter of his physical limits.

The reason was simple—because that tentacle’s target—

“…Ah.”

Was Usher himself.

He had seen Bourbon too.

His face contorted with shock, his complexion pale as he looked straight at Bersia.

Was it because of that gaze?

…No, that wasn’t the reason.

The moment Bersia grasped the situation, her body moved before her mind could.

Thud—

She pushed Usher aside.

Stepping into the path of the attack, the tentacle was released.

Thwip!

In her heightened state of focus, her body experienced a moment stretched into eternity.

It was only then, in this endlessly slowed-down world, that Bersia realized she was sacrificing herself for Usher.

She realized her body had acted before her mind could process it.

‘Why?’

She saw Usher looking at her with a horrified expression.

And finally, she arrived at her answer.

Relief washed over her.

‘Because I wanted to.’

That foolish face, unaware of the situation, and the way he worried about her first even in such a dire moment—those qualities had somehow burrowed deep into her heart.

When she weighed her life against Usher’s, his tipped the scale slightly heavier.

A life without him seemed less meaningful than disappearing for his sake.

It had taken barely a month for her to feel this way.

She knew she couldn’t endure much more than that alone.

‘Ah…’

Finally, everything became clear.

It felt as though the fog clouding her mind had lifted.

Yes, wasn’t it strange?

Why had she become so emotional over Usher when she never cared about others?

Why had she felt the need to avoid his disdain, and why had she harbored the desire to claim him for herself?

The answer was so painfully simple.

‘I fell for him.’

It was his unclouded purity, something she had never encountered in her life, that captivated her.

At some point, Bersia had completely fallen for Usher.

The only regret was that she realized it too late.

But perhaps this was enough.

Surely, it was better for someone like Usher to survive than someone as sinister as herself.

If this was why the gods had favored her, if the transfer of her physical strength was her purpose, she could accept that much.

And so, Bersia closed her eyes, prepared for the end.

But—

As always, her life unfolded differently from her intentions.

Just as every moment of her misfortune had done, the favor shown toward her now protected her in the form of a covenant.

—If harm should come, let it strike me first…

A knight’s sincere prayer, unfortunately, brought about the thing Bersia feared the most.

A sharp pain coursed through her as if her soul was being ripped from her body.

Then came a sudden impact.

Thunk!

Bersia found herself falling to the ground, landing hard on her back.

At that moment, Saturn appeared and struck Bourbon with a powerful blow.

Boom!

A loud explosion echoed from the distance.

Bersia felt dizzy.

She furrowed her brow momentarily before slowly lifting her head.

And then, her blood ran cold.

“Ah…”

A soft gasp escaped her lips.

In front of her was Usher, standing in the body she had just been using.

He looked down at her, his face frozen in shock, a tentacle piercing through his chest.

That was it.

Of all moments, his body had returned to him at this very instant.

“Cough…!”

Blood spilled from Usher’s lips.

A metallic taste spread through his mouth, and searing pain radiated from his chest.

He felt heat surging through his body.

Poison.

Not just any poison—an extremely potent one.

Could it be neutralized in time?

He didn’t know.

His consciousness wavered, his thoughts becoming jumbled.

He couldn’t fall here.

Amid the chaos of his thoughts, one thing comforted him.

‘It’s me.’

He was the one who had taken the blow.

His body had returned to him, and the saintess, who had been willing to die first, had survived.

That realization allowed Usher to smile faintly.

As he had hoped, the harm meant for Bersia had struck him instead.

Their eyes met, and in that moment, Usher lost consciousness.

Thud.

He collapsed into Bersia’s arms.

His blood began to soak into her clothes.

Rubena covered her mouth with trembling hands.

The shaking that started from her fingertips spread throughout her body, refusing to stop.

In the distance, Bersia and Usher were there.

Bersia, drenched in Usher’s blood, stared blankly at the figure in her arms.

The focus in her eyes began to fade.

Her lips parted slightly.

Rubena felt her heart stop.

Her thoughts froze, consumed by a single question: why?

“Ah…”

And then, it happened.

The ground began to tremble violently.

Rumble…

The earth shook as if it might collapse.

Then came the sound of the wind, screaming.

The foliage around them thrashed wildly as though possessed.

At the center of it all, above Bersia’s head—

Keeeeee!

A crimson halo, as red as blood, began to form.

Crack! Boom!

Rubena looked up.

Her breath caught in her throat.

The dark night sky was being painted in shades of blood.