The End of the ‘Failure’

That shout, from who knows where, rings out all around with a gwan gwan echo!

“Wh, what is this voice!?”

Of course, Nare heard it too.

At the sudden, mysterious shout, Nare shows a flustered look for the first time.

Even for Nare, who has repeated the loop so many times, this is apparently something that has never happened before.

<<<Lower that fist, cursed child. You are being insolent.>>>

Once again, the mysterious voice rings out.

It's a vague, muffled voice.

Its pitch is low, and apparently it's a man's voice.

“YOU!! WHO ARE YOU!!”

I raise my voice, calling out to the unknown being.

I don't let my guard down.

I don't lower my fist either.

I circulate magic power not just through my right fist, but through my entire body to use 【Body Strengthening】.

In an instant, I shift into a fighting stance.

If it's an enemy, I kill it.

Kill.

<<<Withdraw your killing intent. Insolent. A fool who can perceive only what the eye can see.>>>

The instant the vague voice said that, the scenery before my eyes changed.

The Luclees mansion, which I'd been about to smash with my fist, twists and deforms as if into a whirlpool, with a bakibaki cracking!

The red roof, the yellow walls, though it's a wooden house, stretch out like spun candy, forming a marble pattern!

<<<I am, by nature, unseen by the eye. And yet I am ever with you all.>>>

Before the dumbfounded Nare and me, the mansion's transformation came to an end.

What had been the mansion had changed, in a few dozen seconds, into a single giant face floating in midair.

It's a bit hard to tell because of the red and yellow marble pattern, but it's a full-bearded, solemn man's face.

<<<I am Time. I am the Time God, Totaireregist. You hold your head too high before a god. Lower your face.>>>

In the next instant!

A fierce ‘pressure’ assailed Nare and me from the giant face!

This is 【Intimidation】!

Releasing a god's power, magic power, the face tries to pin Nare and me down with the pressure!

“Ngh......!”

Shielding Nare, who staggers helplessly, I move in front of her.

I spread my arms and take the 【Intimidation】 emitted from the face all on myself!

<<<Insolence! Insolence!! Insolence!!! Wretch, why do you not kneel! Before a god, you are insolent! Kneel!! Bow your head!!!>>>

The 【Intimidation】 from the face grows even stronger!

But I don't give in.

I straighten my back and send 【Intimidation】 back!

I glare at the face!!

“God, my foot!! Acting so high and mighty, with 【Intimidation】 this weak!! Compared to this, any old black lizard was way stronger!!!”

<<<What!? Me, you would mock! Filthy cursed child! Fool! Fool!!>>>

The face rants, continuing to release 【Intimidation】.

But, still...... anything more than that, it doesn't do.

It just keeps on reviling me, calling me insolent, a fool.

This god...... most likely, this god is the very one that kept this mansion looping.

It must be that its power is nearly run dry from abusing loop after loop.

Probably...... it isn't capable of anything beyond 【Intimidation】 anymore.

<Ah, now I remember. Time God Totaireregist. I had heard that name.>

Omake-sama whispered, letting the unbearable abuse wash past.

<A former god, said to have suddenly disappeared three hundred years ago. Its mysterious disappearance was apparently the talk even among the gods at the time...... I see, so it too was trapped in this, loop world. Which one is the fool, I wonder?>

Omake-sama continues explaining in a mocking tone.

<Now, its divine authority as a god has been passed to its younger brother, the then Space God Phybaleghiro. In other words, it is no longer a god. Something that was once a god. A remnant of a god. A miserable being that appeared merely to beg for its life, in hopes of prolonging its existence a little. Though, it seems its pride from when it was a god is getting in the way, and it can't even beg for its life properly. Truly the height, of foolishness.>

Whoa...... Omake-sama, you're unusually harsh, aren't you?

<......Ufufu, am I?>

“A god...... did you say, a god!”

Just then, a voice came from behind me.

It's Nare.

Though I'm taking most of it on in her place, Nare doesn't give in to the god's onrushing 【Intimidation】; she stands firmly on the snowfield on her own two feet, gritting her teeth, facing Totaireregist.

She was trembling.

That trembling isn't from fear, I think.

“WAS IT YOU...... WAS IT YOU WHO CAST ME INTO HELL!? WAS IT YOU WHO KEPT REPEATING MY TIME!!?”

The breezy air she had until a moment ago is gone.

Nare puts all her inner fury into her voice and screams!

<<<Ah! Nare Luclees! What foolish talk!>>>

Totaireregist, in turn, puts its anger into its voice without hiding it and answers back.

<<<Foolish protagonist, Nare Luclees! ‘Cast you into hell,’ you say!? Do not jest! I gave you chances! Again, and again, and again, and again, and again!! The one who threw them all away was you, you ‘failure’ of a protagonist!!>>>

“Shut up!!”

<<<It is you who will be silent, ‘failure’! Your life is what your choices made it! And yet when it goes badly, you shift the blame to a god! Foolish! Insolent, and truly foolish!!>>>

“Shut up! Shut up!!”

<<<Why did you not become happy! I wrote a story for you to become happy! Why, why do you not walk your life as I intended! Why did you not seek the help of Kotakka Keyrestone!!>>>

“............Hm?”

Kotakka Keyrestone?

“............Who?”

Me, baffled by the name of a new person who's suddenly appeared.

I turn to look at Nare, standing behind me.

“............Huh, Kotakka? Keyrestone?...... Who?”

Nare was also confused.

Apparently she doesn't know this person either.

<<<............Huh? No, ‘Who?’...... huh?>>>

Seeing Nare's reaction, Totaireregist is baffled too.

<<<““........................””>>>

An indescribable, strange silence rules the scene.

<<<No, not ‘Who?’! Kotakka! Kotakka is a wise and brave traveler! Nare, when you shut yourself in the head's study room, he was staying at an inn nearby! If only you had sought Kotakka's help, Kotakka would have lent you his strength, and together the two of you would have repelled the hardships besetting you and moved time forward! That was the plan!!>>>

Pulling itself together, Totaireregist releases 【Intimidation】 in anger again and rants at Nare!

“Wait, wait now, O god! First of all, I don't know this Kotakka person! And he's a traveler, isn't he!? Why would I ask a traveler I don't even know for help? That's strange, isn't it!?”

But Nare's confusion goes on.

And her argument is perfectly reasonable.

I nod in agreement.

<<<It is not strange! In truth, as a small child, you once played with that Kotakka in secret! As you spend time with Kotakka you remember it, and the bond between you grows ever deeper!!>>>

“If I only remember it after we meet, then how could I remember it now!? Then I'd never go asking such a man for help, and the chance to remember that memory would never come in the first place, would it!?”

<<<............Ah.>>>

<<<““........................””>>>

Once again, an indescribable, strange silence rules the scene.

<It seems Totaireregist got so absorbed in each person's settings that it never thought about whether the plot held together...... it truly was a novice broadcaster, I suppose.>

Omake-sama sighed in my head.

“......Now then, okay? It's about time.”

My voice rings out over the snowfield before the quiet mansion, where the air has turned strange.

I step forward, one step, two steps, and ready my fist again.

【Body Strengthening】, 【Body Strengthening】, 【Body Strengthening】......

I raise and raise my attack power, preparing to launch a single blow.

Mishi...... bakibaki...... bakibakibaki......

Once again, space starts creaking!

<<<Hih!?...... Ah, no...... desist, cursed child! You would raise your fist at me even knowing I am a god!?>>>

The giant face gets flustered and haughtily starts what Omake-sama calls ‘begging for its life’, but I ignore it.

I turn to Nare.

“I'm doing it, okay?”

Nare let out a single sigh and spoke with a tired smile.

“......Hahaha...... haah, go ahead and do it, Emi. Somehow it's all fallen flat, hasn't it. Hahaha.”

<<<Stop! Stop! Stop! I am a god! And you raise your fist at me! What insolence! Stop! Stop!>>>

“You might be a god, but, I can't feel any respect. Just a big face.”

I stamp my feet, ton ton.

To step in with all my might, I use 【Solidification】 to strengthen my footing.

“Stop! Stop doing that!”

“......!?”

At that moment, a woman's voice, not Totaireregist's, rang out.

When I looked closely at the giant face before me, a woman's face had surfaced around its cheek.

That face, it's Keranko.

No, not just Keranko.

Karashia, Fateu, Doj, Sarelka, the servants......

The faces of the people who were trapped in the mansion's loop surface one after another, all shouting at once!

“Stop it! Why are you obeying that ‘failure’!?”

“If this world is destroyed, we'll disappear too! Don't do something so cruel! Stop! Stop!”

“To begin with, the one to blame for unjustly repeating time is that ‘failure’, isn't it! We were only dragged into it!”

“That's right! Are you going to kill us, when we were only dragged into it!?”

“““““Stop! Stop! Stop!”””””

Ah, it's a desperate...... a desperate plea.

“Cheap tricks!!!”

That, I cut down with those words!

To begin with, the moment they call Nare a ‘failure’, it's just Totaireregist making them say it.

Besides.

“Face!! You, have it wrong!!”

<<<What!!?>>>

“I'm not, following Nare's orders!!”

<<<Haah!!?>>>

“I WILL KILL YOU, FOR MY OWN SAKE! TO GET OUT, I WILL KILL YOU! FOR MYSELF, YOU! KARASHIA, KERANKO, FATEU, DOJ, SARELKA, THE SERVANTS...... AND NARE!! I AM GOING TO KILL YOU ALL!!!”

I scream.

Ah, geez, it really pisses me off.

It's irritating.

Why is it me, who has to do this.

Why is it me, who has to carry this.

<<<S, so that is it! Then I understand! Then I shall let you escape to the outside world! I am a god! Something like that......>>>

“If you can, then do it! You're so weakened you can't even do that! Because you can't, I'm here, right now!!”

<<<Gu, gu, guuu! Damn, damn, damn, damn! How dare you, how dare you! Aah, aah! How dare you! Phybaleghiro! HOW DARE YOU HOW DARE YOU HOW DARE YOUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!>>>

“Take this, YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!”

I crouched just a little, planted my feet firmly on the ground, and then, with all my might...... leapt!

And riding that momentum, I slam my right fist, reinforced again and again, into the forehead of the giant face!!

<<<GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!>>>

Along with a death scream that seems to shake the world, cracks spread across the face, starting from my fist.

No, not just the face.

Those cracks, reaching the edges of the face, go right on to carve scars like black roots even into the space where there should be nothing.

And then, the world.

This small world that had endlessly repeated a hopeless loop.

Shatters to pieces with a great noise, and then......

◇ ◇ ◇

Before I knew it, I was in the darkness.

This is the Void.

It clicked for me immediately.

It's that pitch-black darkness I had been to once, before I reincarnated.

But very close by, I feel a warmth I couldn't perceive before.

This warmth is a world.

It's Ardyst.

I'm naturally drawn toward that giant mass, drifting along toward it.

On the way, I saw the remains of the Luclees mansion floating in the darkness.

From the edges, bit by bit, it's crumbling apart and starting to vanish.

Apparently, lingering in this darkness is not a very good thing.

“............”

Also, the mansion isn't the only thing that caught my eye.

Around the remains of the mansion, many-colored balls of light were floating.

After twinkling a few times, they were blotted out by the eternal darkness and vanished.

“............?”

But, just one.

A pale purple ball of light, without being blotted out by the darkness, approached me.

The ball of light twinkled......

“I'm sorry.”

it said.

“I won't forgive you. I'll never forget.”

“Hahaha, thank you......”

The pale purple ball of light laughed gently, and then......

“!?”

It suddenly flew right at my chest!

Without bouncing off, the pale purple sinks into my body...... into my murky-black soul.

<As a final gift, this is my apology. Hahaha, I swiped it at the last moment. I could sense it, so I thought maybe...... turns out you can do it if you try!>

A cheerful laugh rings out in my head.

<Hmm, it seems it's still not enough to fill your hungry soul, but even so, weakened as it probably was, it's the power of a god. It should, help a little.>

But the cheerful voice grows smaller and smaller.

<Now then, I shall melt away and disappear. Emi, thank you. Truly, thank you......>

With those last words, the pale purple became a mere gathering of magic power and, together with the god's power she brought as a parting gift...... a great deal of magic power, melted into me.

◇ ◇ ◇

Before I knew it, I was standing alone in the snowfield.

The strange mansion is nowhere to be seen anymore.

All around, as far as the eye can see, is a vast snowfield.

And the white mist that covered the surroundings is gone, and a cloudless blue sky spreads overhead.

Byuooo!!

As if to drive me on, a strong wind blows against me now and then, shaking my body.

But I remained still, without moving.

For a while, I closed my eyes, put my hands together, and stayed still.

My tactless stomach didn't let out a single growl.

Now then, actually, there are about 2 more chapters' worth of epilogue (effectively almost 1 chapter's volume), but these are more or less a bonus.

With this, Arc 10 is mostly over, so I'd like to give my usual end-of-arc greeting.

This arc was quite hard to write.

I think there were more rough spots than usual.

But I worked hard on it!

I would be happy if you enjoyed it.

Ah, come to think of it, it has been 1 year since I started posting this work, ‘The Omake Reincarnator’.

The fact that I've been able to continue this far is entirely due to everyone's support.

Thank you always for the bookmarks, the rating stars, and the reviews.

There are still many stories I want to write, so I'd be happy if you'd keep me company from here on.

I humbly ask for your continued support.