Me, wearing a ridiculous clown mask.
I felt omnipotent.
My mood shot all the way up.
I’d realized just how flimsy the human species was, and a swelling sense of superiority rose in me as I looked down on everyone beneath the heavens.
“Ah~ I didn’t want to use it in a place like this!”
“……Adrian, you.”
“Watch closely, and don’t tell anyone!”
“…….”
“Ma—! Guhk!”
Silver Wolf kicked me.
Then she stomped on me with a light little kick.
“Y-you little… I saved you! You could’ve just run away!!”
“Don’t interrupt me when I’m delivering a cool line!”
“Is that the important part right now!? Don’t you know my cartridge is in you? That power… you, your lifespan….”
She could tell even that?
Silver Wolf’s abilities were more impressive than I thought.
She looked down at me while tapping and stepping on my back.
If I had time, I would’ve played along with the joke.
But right now, while the effects of Good Fortune and the Temporal Prism were still active.
I had to settle things with that woman.
I was standing at the very edge of the Path of Pleasure. It was a power that would soon evaporate and disappear, but for this moment, I was at the Path’s peak.
I could use authority and strength that would normally have been completely impossible for me.
And once time passed, even the memory and sensation of using this power would likely vanish.
“Aha, you bastard of a director.”
How was the end of a Path something like this?
Wasn’t there anything even more insane?
Instinctively, I checked the hand of cards in my grasp.
If I’d only had this hand, I might not have been able to beat that woman.
But…
There was one more thing.
Good Fortune. It was still holding.
“Silver Wolf, let’s go.”
“……Where.”
“Where else? We’re going to screw over that crazy bitch.”
I pulled Silver Wolf into my arms.
Her body, as I held her carefully, was cold.
“Tsk tsk. You lost the nice warmth that was your only good point.”
“……Die!”
After getting smacked on the head, I handed her a card marked with the heart ace.
As soon as Silver Wolf took it, warmth began returning to her body.
“Sky Leap… huh? I was about to leave, and you came to me yourself?”
“……What did you do?”
The woman with a face distorted like a mosaic stared at me quietly.
That creepy gaze—if this had been before, I would’ve been too terrified to do anything.
“I burned through every last bit of my lifespan because I wanted to beat the crap out of one insane psycho bitch!”
“Nonsense. Power and lifespan are irreversible. Merely throwing away your lifespan wouldn’t let you obtain such power.”
Silver Wolf looked back and forth between me and that woman without saying a word.
I briefly let Silver Wolf slip from my arms, then looked at her.
“Why are you targeting me?”
“…….”
“Not answering? Then I guess we have no choice but to fight.”
“…….”
“Hmm-hmm. I had no idea old-maid hysteria had spread this far on a cosmic scale. Silver Wolf, you should be careful too. If you get old and never marry, you end up like—”
A scalpel flashed.
My body was cut clean in half.
At the same time, my split body exploded, and a fierce blaze erupted.
“Who attacks in the middle of someone’s speech!?”
“……!”
“Hahaha, seeing you flustered is a real treat. You crazy slut!”
Another scalpel flashed, aiming to cut out my tongue.
Whether my tongue was cut off or not, a severed tongue sprouted arms and charged at that bitch.
At this point, I knew it.
I knew that woman’s name.
The reason I couldn’t say it was because I absolutely, under no circumstances, was allowed to know her name right now.
Thanks to Good Fortune, one of that monster’s abilities had been sealed.
Only now could I “definitely” win.
“How can a tiny scalpel like that chop everything to pieces? I’m almost impressed.”
“……You’re unbelievably vulgar.”
“It’s because of that Aeon of Pleasure bastard. I only learned bad things from him.”
As time passed, the number of corpses kept increasing.
It was bizarre. Grotesque.
The same face.
The same body.
The same clothes.
With every swing of the scalpel, those corpses piled up like a mountain.
My head rolled along the ground and I shouted to Silver Wolf.
“Silver Wolf! Get a little farther away! It might be dangerous!”
“……Is it really okay to say that with only your head left?”
“My mind’s still fine, so it doesn’t matter— Aaaagh!!!”
No, damn it.
Wasn’t this basically a sword saint?
She was just standing there with a tiny scalpel, one of her main abilities sealed, and still slicing everything apart.
“Aha, you fucking bitch!!! If you burned through my lifespan and took the Temporal Prism too, at least give me a proper ability!!!”
I should’ve believed in a different Aeon.
What the hell was this after choosing the wrong god?
Illusions, hallucinations, mirages, acrobatics, stage, blackout.
Right now, all sorts of nonsense was twisting the space around that woman.
That was why she still couldn’t find Silver Wolf.
My body bent and stretched in grotesque ways.
I flew into the air, stepped on the sky, and lunged back in; from my severed arms, my torso regenerated and grew back.
I was throwing everything at her in a sheer numbers assault.
And yet that crazy bitch was still there with a scalpel, carving everything up.
The very definition of absurdity.
I was starting to get anxious.
I dumped everything into this, didn’t I?
If this failed, I’d be heading into my sixth liquidation run, wouldn’t I?
Future me, is that all you’ve got?
Anything else? Pull something out, anything!!!
And then, a single truth pierced my mind.
All of these abilities were missing the most important thing.
Luck. Gambling.
The thrill of betting your life and crossing the line.
Now was the time.
I revealed myself atop the mountain of corpses.
The crazy bitch staring at me immediately charged, her scalpel gleaming sharply.
“Ryoiki Tenkai.”
A massive roulette wheel appeared.
The dice began to spin.
Back in the day, it would’ve been called a personal barrier.
These days, it’s the manga-famous technique called domain expansion.
“So… your last resort is something as flimsy as luck?”
“Suddenly polite? You’re making me tear up.”
“I’ve been using polite speech from the beginning. I only responded to you as you appeared.”
Huh?
Really?
What was that? I could’ve sworn she was speaking casually.
Did something get stuck in my ear and I wasn’t hearing it properly?
“That doesn’t matter, you crazy bitch.”
“…….”
“I’ve got no intention of going easy on a woman trying to kill me.”
The scalpel plunged into my chest.
As if she had nothing more to say, the woman simply stared at me.
- Chrrrrrrrk!!!
The roulette spun.
The dice rolled.
The cards shuffled.
All kinds of chaotic sounds mixed together in a dissonant racket.
The woman was still slashing away inside me, turning everything to mush.
All the while, she had forgotten the most important thing.
“Hahaha!!! Even if you turn me into a donut, I’ve already won.”
“……What?”
Only then did she look up at the sky.
Above the sky she looked at, dice and roulette wheels and the numbers of all kinds of gambling games were visible.
In a normal game or gamble, there should be a variety of numbers.
But since she had always kept her distance from gambling and games, there was one thing she had clearly forgotten.
Not the numbers [1] through [7].
Every single one of them was fixed at [7].
Welcome.
First time seeing a rigged gamble?
Let me show you the long-standing tradition of K-gambling.
■■ quickly pulled her hand out of my body and moved away.
The distance was definitely widening, but it didn’t matter.
She was already one of the designated targets of my ability.
The randomness of the ability had been fixed to a single point by Good Fortune.
“With such a pathetic cheat…!”
“You should’ve run the moment one of your abilities became completely unusable.”
“…….”
“This is the defeat your arrogance created.”
Brilliant golden light wrapped around me.
The roulette and dice slowed down.
Time froze.
The sky cracked.
And as the world began to freeze, as if worried about what would happen next—
“And this luck is the result of me personally taking your hand.”
With that, my head exploded.
Fireworks burst across the sky, painting the world in a riot of color.
- Paaaarrrng!!!Bang!!KWAANG!!!
Every corpse turned into a handful of blood.
Red paint spread everywhere.
That paint looked uncannily like Aha.
“……You’re mimicking an Aeon’s authority?”
A realm no ■■ could ever reach.
Not layering illusion over reality, but a miracle that turned reality into illusion.
The ■■ domain changed into an in■ impossible domain.
Without Good Fortune, it could never have been made.
Even if I had used the Temporal Prism and Good Fortune together, I still wouldn’t have reached it.
The result of foolishly using Good Fortune first, just to escape this one instant.
It neutralized that woman’s domain, and the luck that had been building little by little overflowed at last.
And the moment the dice stopped, Good Fortune’s duration ended.
“……Mm.”
“Adrian Servet.”
“U-um… hey, why don’t we just call this a draw?”
The psychopathic sword saint who had been fleeing launched a countercharge.
That was within the range of expected behavior.
What that woman didn’t know was this:
The result of the jackpot still hadn’t appeared.
[7] [7] [7] [7] [7] [7] [7] [7] [7] [7]
[……!!!]
[J A C K P O T]
[LUCKY!!!]
[CONGRATULATION!!!]
[★ ★ ★ ★ ★]
The number [7] began to overlap and swirl.
My vision twisted and inverted.
The entire outskirts were being dyed with my fate.
The scenery I imagined.
My dream.
Toward the place where utopia and paradise existed.
A giant Ferris wheel spun and turned.
A house-sized die fell, crushing people beneath it, then rolled slowly with a heavy thud.
Hundreds of trump cards fluttered down like snow.
Chips rained from the sky like a shower from a golden land.
Golden slot machines stood all over the streets.
In the sky, thousands upon thousands of paints were scattered, drawing the light of fireworks.
Abnormal and incomprehensible.
Chaos and amusement, comedy and tragedy, theater and stage.
The pinnacle of indulgence and pleasure.
The dream of Pleasure appeared, layering itself over the world.
“……Adrian Servet!!!”
For the first time, that woman’s face twisted.
I bowed toward her in a ridiculous gesture, like seeing a lady off, and said,
“Have a good time in the eternal dream of pleasure.”
Blackout.
The stage that had begun could not be entered by anyone.
And only I, the mastermind controlling everything from beneath the stage, could come out.
Hoo. That was really rough.
If not for Good Fortune, it would’ve ended in some awkward state where I neither won nor lost.
At least now, I had earned the right to see the ending.
I approached Silver Wolf, who was staring at the situation with a dazed expression.
My strength drained away.
I ran my hand through her now-white hair.
A faint metallic taste of blood seeped from my mouth.
How much time had passed?
I hadn’t even been able to count it properly.
The trump card I’d given Silver Wolf still held warmth, but it was on the verge of going out.
I held out my hand to Silver Wolf.
“Let’s go, Silver Wolf. To the top of Neon City.”
Now it was time to make your dream come true.
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