In a Female-Dominant World with a 5:1 Gender Ratio, I Saved a Girl as a Kid, and She Said She Wanted to Be My Bride—Who Would’ve Thought She Was a Princess… - 45

Chapter 45: A False Victory, the Administrator’s True Nature

ーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーー

(Alto’s POV)

“Let’s go, Gideon-san! Match my timing!”

“Yeah! Leave the computational support to me! Coordinate data transfer, error correction complete!”

I jumped off from the rear seat of Sleipnir. I sprinted as if sliding across the frozen metal floor, circling around the Demon King from the left flank. From the right flank, Sleipnir—piloted by Gideon—charged in, spewing pale blue afterburner flames.

Simple and clear: a pincer attack. But the speed was already in the realm of supersonic.

“Useless. You really never learn.”

The Demon King moved his fingers gracefully, like a conductor waving a baton. The coordinates of space warped. In the empty void, countless geometric magic circles—or rather, targeting cursors—appeared, and from them crimson beams poured down like a torrential rain.

Jzz—BOBOBOBOB!!

The floor vaporized, and the air turned into plasma. An unavoidable density of fire. But I did not stop.

“I’ve read your attack!”

I charged straight into the rain of light. Against the oncoming lethal heat, I simply swung my fist. Not a physical strike. It was a neutralization by “abyss” itself. The instant my jet-black magic power touched it, the very “attack judgment” defined by the system was devoured, scattering away as noise.

“Hoh… So you dismantled my descriptive code.”

The Demon King’s inorganic eyes tracked me, just slightly. That momentary opening… That was the once-in-a-lifetime chance we had been aiming for.

“I’m here too, you smug bastard!”

Gideon’s roar echoed from the blind spot. Missile pods mounted on Sleipnir’s sides deployed, and every round was fired. A storm of magic-guided warheads assaulted the Demon King. The Demon King raised one hand to deploy a barrier, just for a fraction of a second.

“Now! That’s his weak point!”

I burst through the blast wave and smoke screen, sliding straight into the Demon King’s guard. The distance between us was zero. We were close enough for our breaths to touch. I wrenched out Gungnir from my back and jammed its muzzle hard against his unguarded chest. I had conserved all my magic power for this single strike.

For this single instant, Gideon had become the decoy.

“Checkmate.”

I sneered and pulled the trigger with all my strength.

DOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!

A point-blank railgun discharge. The mass projectile, fired at seven times the speed of sound—Mach 7—blew away the Demon King’s torso along with the half-formed barrier. A thunderous roar that threatened to rupture my eardrums. A shockwave that rattled my internal organs.

The Demon King’s body bent into a “く” shape, flew away like a falling leaf, and slammed into the center of the gigantic server looming behind him.

DOOOOGAaaaaaAN!!

The server collapsed, and a pillar of explosions erupted. The cooling water vaporized, and white steam completely filled my vision.

“Hah… hah… hah…!”

Rubbing my numb arm from the recoil, I stared into the smoke without lowering my guard. We should have done it. From that distance, it was a direct hit. I felt the impact. Not just the core, but his entire upper body had been erased.

“D-did we… Did we do it…!?”

Gideon shouted as he brought Sleipnir to a halt and pushed up his goggles. Before our eyes, the smoke cleared. There lay the wreckage of the destroyed server and a motionless human silhouette.

We won.

Just as I became certain of that…

“…Good grief. This is why the thought processes of old humanity are such a pain.”

An absurdly calm, completely uninjured voice echoed from within the smoke. My heart felt like it froze solid. Gideon and I both held our breath.

Crunch—stepping on rubble, he emerged. The white coat was charred black, and a massive hole gaped in his abdomen, large enough to see straight through to the other side. Yet there was no blood flowing from it.

What peeked out beneath the torn flesh were silver cables, a pale blue glowing fluid, and intricately moving mechanical parts.

“…A robot?”

Before my stunned eyes, an unbelievable phenomenon occurred. The wound distorted like footage wracked with visual noise and in the next instant, it repaired itself as if a video were playing in reverse. Scattered parts floated back into place, torn armor sealed itself, and even the burned clothing returned to normal. This was not regeneration.

Time itself was rewinding to the state before the injury.

“…Rollback… A system restore!?”

Gideon screamed, his voice almost a shriek. His face had gone deathly pale, and the hands operating his terminal were trembling.

“No way…! He overwrote the data of his own body’s ‘timeline’ from a backup! This makes it pointless! No matter how many times we kill him, he will keep overwriting the data!”

“I told you physical destruction was meaningless.”

The fully restored Demon King brushed his shoulder as if dusting it off.

“In this space, I am the absolute Administrator. …It is impossible for my property, like this this body, to be damaged without my permission.”

The Demon King slowly raised his right hand. His eyes transformed from reptilian gold to a warning-color crimson devoid of all emotion.

“I thought you might at least be entertaining, but you’ve disappointed me. …I’m bored.”

He snapped his fingers.

“From here on, I will proceed with ‘processing.’”

In that instant, the world changed. Gravity, temperature, even the composition of the atmosphere were rewritten at his whim. The air filling the entire dome pressed down with a crushing weight, as if it had turned into lead.

“Guh—gaah…!?”

My body froze as though bound by invisible chains. My knees slammed into the floor, my bones screaming in protest.

BAKIIIIIN!!

A hard, destructive sound echoed behind me. When I turned, Sleipnir—that bike with its incredibly tough magic armor—had been crushed flat like an empty can.

“Sleipnir!! Guh… ugh…!”

Gideon collapsed onto the floor, coughing up blood as he groaned.

“System privileges, level fully released. …Freezing the physical laws of the target area.”

The Demon King made a motion as if grasping empty space. In sync with it, my entire body was assaulted by agonizing pain, as if crushed in a vise. I couldn’t breathe. My lungs were being squeezed flat.

“D-damn it…!”

Right. Magic power! With my “abyss,” I’ll tear through this absurd restraint—!

I focused my consciousness on the magic power reactor inside my body, but there was no response. My magic power wasn’t depleted. The circuit just wouldn’t connect. As if the switch that should exist inside me had been tagged with “Access Denied,” I couldn’t draw out my power.

“W-what is this… I can’t… I can’t use my power…!”

I couldn’t move a single finger. This was the Demon King’s true power. This wasn’t even a battle of magic. This was a one-sided act of “editing” by a god.

 “You are extremely unpleasant. Your very existence is an eyesore beyond measure.”

The Demon King walked right up to me and mercilessly raised his hand like a blade. Pure white light poured from that hand. It wasn’t a heat ray. It was a “Complete Erasure” command, meant to delete the very components of this world from the root.

“No pain, no suffering, not even a trace of having lived. …Disappear without a shred left.”

“Alto!! Run awaaaay!!”

Gideon’s desperate scream echoed, but there was no escaping it. I was swallowed head-on by the approaching white light.

Jzz…

There was no pain. No heat. No cold. Only the sensation of loss, as my body crumbled from the fingertips like sand, decomposing into data. My right hand vanished. I lost all sensation in my left leg. My vision was painted over in white, my thoughts fragmenting.

Damn it… Is this as far as I go…?

I couldn’t do anything. After talking such a big game, I couldn’t even reach Liliana in the end. Her smile surfaced and faded, like a revolving lantern of memories.

『—Alto.』

At the very end, I felt like someone called my name. But my consciousness couldn’t even recognize it, severed and cast down into the cold depths of nothingness.

ーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーー