Darkness. Profound. Icy. Silent.
EeDechi found herself in a vast emptiness, gazing around to see nothing but endless darkness. She felt like she was floating in chaos, before the heavens and earth had even begun to form.
Ever since leaping into the spatial rift, she'd been stuck in this state for several hours. Her chest was crammed full of sorrow and guilt, tormented by boundless remorse.
All around her was cold and still, but her heart felt like it was being roasted over an open flame, the pain unbearable.
After what seemed like forever, EeDechi finally realized she couldn't stay in this place any longer. But she flailed her limbs uselessly, like a turtle dangling in mid-air, unable to budge an inch.
Where exactly was this? EeDechi couldn't help but start pondering the question. When she'd jumped into the spatial rift, she hadn't thought much about it—it was her only way to escape.
But what the hell was a spatial rift, anyway? EeDechi racked her brain for her skimpy knowledge of physics. She vaguely recalled from her memories before crossing over that some amateur physicists believed a "spatial rift" was an extremely unstable wormhole, a space-time gap held together by dark matter.
Yet in a fantasy world of swords and magic, mulling over high-dimensional physics problems felt downright bizarre.
Fortunately, the void wasn't pitch black everywhere; every now and then, a speck of white light flickered and vanished in the infinite distance, like stars snuffing out in the night sky, hopelessly out of reach.
EeDechi remembered that when she fell into this chaotic nothingness, the spatial rift had appeared to her as a white glow. But as she plummeted deeper and deeper, the white light grew more distant, until it finally vanished.
Maybe those white specks of light were other spatial rifts—she could crawl out through one. EeDechi thrashed her limbs toward the glow, trying to "swim" over, but it was still no use.
With no reference points around her, she couldn't tell if she wasn't actually moving, or if the light specks were just too far away.
"It hurts..."
A long, echoing sigh drifted through the void, vibrating EeDechi's eardrums.
A chill ran down EeDechi's back. She whipped her head around in panic and shouted, "Who? Who's talking?"
No one answered her; the surroundings remained silent and profoundly dark. EeDechi pulled her giant sword from the spatial ring and swung it wildly through the void.
She was on edge—could it be that people from the Great Tomb of Nazarick had chased her here? Not everyone had the guts to leap into a spatial rift.
"I... it hurts so much..."
In the endless depths, a soft sigh echoed once more, ethereal and fleeting, as if rising from the eternal ages long past.
The strangest thing was that the voice's source felt both infinitely distant and right up close. The sound enveloped everything—front, back, left, right, above her head, below her feet—all filled with sighs.
EeDechi's skin crawled with goosebumps. She gripped her sword tightly and snapped, "Show yourself! What kind of hero hides behind tricks and illusions?"
"Damn... otherworldly abominable bugs..."
The sigh carried a faint undercurrent of rage, "...get... out..."
EeDechi's spine crawled with chills; she went on full alert. But in the darkness ahead, a pinpoint of light emerged, like the tip of a silver needle piercing through black velvet.
The white glow slowly widened until it was big enough for one person to pass through, like a hole.
EeDechi warily scanned all around, spotting no signs of an attack. She stowed the giant sword back in the spatial ring, then flailed her limbs, "swimming" toward the white light with frog-like strokes.
She plunged into the vast white glow.
And tumbled into a forest.
"Ouch." EeDechi rubbed the back of her head. She'd just dropped from the sky, caught off guard, smashing into a pine tree, scraping along branches a few times before thudding heavily into the snow on the ground. The snow blanketing the branches cascaded down, dumping right in her face.
EeDechi brushed the snow off her face and stood up. All around were white drifts and deep green trunks. The thick pine woods stood like giants' spears jabbed into the snow. No doubt about it—this was a forest deep in winter.
She'd finally escaped with her life, but EeDechi felt no relief. She was the only one who'd made it out. Leaning against a tree trunk, waves of sorrow and guilt washed over her whole body.
After a long while, EeDechi finally straightened her back, pulled Barrett's body from the spatial ring, and laid it on a flat stretch of snow. She gathered some wood and managed to light a campfire.
Then, leaning on her sword with both hands, she whispered softly, like she was sobbing, all her old heroic fire gone.
"If Gods ...Deny Salvation's Hand, With Sacred Blade... I'll Reprimand!"
...
Barrett slowly opened his eyes.
Before him were lush green pine branches, blanketed in pure white snow. Bright sunlight filtered through the overlapping layers of branches, making the snow glisten like jade.
Am I in heaven? Barrett sat up straight. No way—I killed so many people and monsters; I should be headed straight to hell.
The air had that special winter bite, breathing it in felt like chugging a shot of crisp, ice-cold booze. Under him was a thick layer of snow, soft and comfy to sit on. The nearby pine bark was ancient, etched with crisscrossing lines, rough against his fingers.
Every tiny speck of snow on the ground stood out in sharp detail. A crude campfire crackled at his feet, flames leaping gently like dancers.
The sensation of being alive had never hit him this hard!
Barrett stretched out with a yawn, got to his feet, brushed the snow off his ass, and spotted the black-haired girl squatting by the tree roots, looking down in the dumps.
"Did we make it out? Captain." Barrett glanced around, "Hey, where are Sean and Stella?"
"I got them killed." EeDechi's voice was heavy with grief, "If I hadn't dragged them into staying..."
But life doesn't come with do-overs; you can't turn back the clock.
Barrett watched the girl huddled up under the tree roots, at a loss for words. He'd never been any good at cheering people up.
"Don't call me captain anymore." EeDechi traced circles in the snow with her finger, "No teammates left—what's a captain for?"
She pulled a chest from the spatial ring and dumped out half a chest of gold coins with a clatter. The bright golden coins smacked into the white snow, bouncing and rolling with a tinkling sound. These were treasures gifted to her by the emperor of Baharuth; a lot had been spent, but there were still nearly two thousand gold coins left.
EeDechi haphazardly scooped the coins into a bag, along with Barrett's spatial ring, and handed them both to Barrett, saying, "Severance pay, take it. The Last Defender of the Way adventuring party is disbanded. Go on, you don't have to travel with me."
Barrett took the spatial ring and stowed the bulging bag of coins inside the ring. He stared at EeDechi, and inadvertently noticed a ripple of crimson in her dark eyes.
Barrett was silent for a moment, then let out a soft sigh, turned, and walked away, his footsteps crunching in the snow fading into the distance.
EeDechi squatted on the ground, back against the tree roots. She stared blankly at the campfire's glow, her body curled up tight.
The campfire hadn't been fed wood in a long time; the flames no longer danced, the flickering light growing faint.
Gradually, the surrounding temperature dropped, becoming even colder, just like EeDechi's heart, slowly sinking into an icy pit...
...
A piece of pine wood rich in resin was tossed into the campfire; the nearly extinguished flames whooshed back to life, burning strong.
"The sap in pine trunks makes great kindling." Barrett's gentle voice sounded.
EeDechi looked up in surprise.
He walked over to EeDechi's side and said, "I've got nowhere else to go. Ainz Ooal Gown must have memorized my face; I can only stick with you to the bitter end."
"Thanks." EeDechi said softly. The bright firelight reflected a string of joyful dances in her pupils.
"Am I a really awful person, a totally useless captain?" she asked Barrett.
"Yes."
"I thought you'd say 'no' to comfort me." EeDechi wrapped her arms around her knees, chin resting on them, squatting by the tree roots huddled into a ball.
"Why would I lie about that?"
EeDechi curled up even smaller.
Barrett was both annoyed and amused. Looking at EeDechi's downcast appearance, he suddenly felt a twinge in his heart and reached out to ruffle her black hair.
EeDechi swatted his arm away, tilted her head up, seeming like she wanted to glare at him fiercely, but in the end, her gaze softened.
"Right!" She suddenly stood up as if remembering something, "Do you remember how Ainz Ooal Gown revived Arche?"
"A small copper can with gold plating." Barrett recalled the magic item Ainz used to revive Arche, "Don't tell me you're planning to go to the Great Tomb of Nazarick to steal a copper can and then revive Sean and Stella."
"No! I'm going to the Eight Greed Kings' desert!" EeDechi seemed to have found her purpose again, "Ainz Ooal Gown and the Eight Greed Kings crossed over from the same world; there must be revival items in the Eight Greed Kings' desert."
"Alright." Barrett nodded, "How did you escape from the siege at the Great Tomb of Nazarick?"
EeDechi recounted the entire battle process from start to finish.
"The Great Banishment?" Barrett latched onto a key term, "Power on par with Super-Tier Magic, area damage, no mana cost, and no cooldown! Such a powerful skill—why didn't you use it sooner?"
"The Great Banishment has strong negative effects; using it once drops the Favorability Level by 33%, and it takes a long time to recover." EeDechi explained.
She'd used The Great Banishment twice in total; the last time she shouted out The Great Banishment was to throw Ainz and the others off, so they wouldn't mess with her breaking open the spatial rift. That meant her Favorability Level had dropped by 66%.
"What the hell is Favorability Level?" Barrett asked, totally confused, "Is it like that 'Justice Value' you can see, something that puts a number on a certain quality?"
"Yeah, Justice Value measures a person's sense of right and wrong, and Favorability Level measures how much the people around you like you."
She murmured, "Favorability Level drops by 33%, they turn into strangers; drops by 66%, friends turn into enemies; drops by 99%, the whole world becomes my enemy!"
EeDechi went on explaining, "Suppose I lead a crew to take down Ainz Ooal Gown—use The Great Banishment once, and my teammates give me the cold shoulder; use it twice, and they shoot me dirty looks; use it three times, and I hit the 'whole world as enemy' achievement, where my teammates draw blades on me, team up with the bad guys to attack, and go all out to put me in the ground."
"Damn, that's one hell of a nasty debuff!" Barrett said, blown away, "But your Favorability Level dropped by 66%—why don't I feel any hate toward you right now?"
"Because you died before I used The Great Banishment, then got revived—like a fresh-born kid—so you didn't get hit by the negative effects."
Barrett mulled it over, finally getting why EeDechi had yanked out the bronze seal a bunch of times before but always shoved it back.
"Let's get back on the trail." Barrett said, forcing a light tone. He stared off at the sky; in the forest's distance, smoke billowed up, flames roaring...