[Translator - Night]
[Proofreader - Gun]
Crunch! KWA-A-A-A!
Spatial Slashes flew through the air, and the opponent desperately struggled to evade them.
Oscar engraved the clash between the two into his retinas.
‘No-Mind.’
A lesson still somewhat premature for him.
He understood it in theory, but had yet to embody it.
Boom! Kwaaang!
The continuous explosions ringing in his ears threatened to draw out impatience like a sigh.
And so, Oscar shut his ears.
“......”
Silence followed.
Even in the soundless world, the two tirelessly changed positions as they clashed.
Blood and sweat streamed down their faces, and tangled mana crackled like electricity.
For now, the Thought Entity was overwhelmingly pressing the attack.
‘But that momentum won’t last long.’
No matter how powerful the Thought Entity was, he couldn’t recklessly spam Spatial Slashes forever.
Which made Oscar’s role all the more important.
Oscar closed even his eyes after his ears.
“......”
He could hear nothing and see nothing.
Oddly enough, he did not dislike the feeling of being isolated in pitch-black darkness wrapped in silence.
Oscar slowly drew up his mana.
‘The aura of extreme cold.’
The frigid chill of severe cold coiled within him through the Extreme Ice Crystal.
The moment he raised that energy, his mana circuits became so cold it felt as though they might freeze solid.
‘Use this to freeze my emotions.’
Drip, drip.
Into the vast lake called the mind, droplets of emotion fell ceaselessly.
Craaack!
The severe cold did not stop at freezing those droplets—it froze the lake itself.
His wavering emotions solidified as they were.
Anxiety, impatience, even the unease of doubting whether he could truly pull this off.
They had not disappeared.
They were all still there, exactly as they had been.
Tap.
But no matter how far he reached, he could not touch them.
All those emotions were trapped behind thick walls of ice, unable to perform their functions.
“......”
Blood flowed sluggishly through his frozen veins.
Yet he felt no warmth.
A sharp branch, swept up by the aftermath of battle, scraped across his cheek.
But even pain and agony could not be felt.
‘So this is what it feels like.’
As though he had finally faced the world after being freed from all interference.
Oscar steadied his breathing.
‘Right now.’
It was possible.
Slowly parting his eyes, Oscar gazed upon the world with eyes clearer and more transparent than ever before.
Thoughts, emotions, senses, will.
All those things, which had flowed at different speeds, finally converged into a single, uniform pace.
That unified current spread outward from within him, meshing together with the world itself—
『Absolute Stasis』
Everything stopped.
“Well done!”
Bursting into hearty laughter, the Thought Entity lowered his finger.
Still frozen in the posture of having landed on the ground, Ado Vail faced him as the Thought Entity delivered a final farewell.
“Farewell. Vessel of madness.”
A Spatial Slash descended from the sky like lightning and pierced him.
Kkagagagagak!
From the shoulder where the Spatial Slash had struck came the sound of grinding blades.
“You twisted the space over the surface of your skin...!”
He had expected the opponent to prepare something, but never imagined such a method.
Still, at best, it only bought a brief moment of time.
“Pour down.”
Two, three, four...
Spatial Slashes rained endlessly from the sky.
Ado Vail’s eyes became bloodshot as every one of those attacks pierced him.
“Hah.”
Even rotten fish are still fish—despite everything, the body of a Level 9 mage still clung to life.
Of course, all it did was cling to life.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Slash!
His arm vanished first, followed by his heart being pierced through.
Without even letting out a proper groan, Ado Vail slowly withered away.
Yet even amidst that, his eyes still gleamed murderously.
“......This ends here.”
Swaeaeaeaeak!
Along with that declaration, an inverted cross-shaped Spatial Slash fell from the heavens.
At the same time, 『Absolute Stasis』, which had been holding the flow of the world in place, came to an end.
‘Since it’s my first time, a mere few seconds is the limit, huh.’
That changed nothing.
Ado Vail was already far too late to resist anymore.
Crunch!
Indeed, he failed to dodge the falling attack, and the Spatial Slash pierced through his spine.
“......Kuheok!”
Blood poured from his mouth in a thick gush, and the vitality rapidly faded from his eyes.
“You damned... remnants... of cowards.......”
Ado Vail’s trembling body finally collapsed limply to the ground.
“......”
Without letting his guard down, the Thought Entity sharpened his senses as he stared at him.
Nowhere could he sense any trace of madness.
‘He’s definitely dead.’
Relief seeped in together with a hollow emptiness.
That thing had been created because the original body could not overcome the self-loathing of failing to protect his wife.
A monster that declared a world where he could not save even the person he loved should disappear along with him.
Calling the original body a coward for rejecting that will, it had constantly schemed to seize control of the body.
‘Now that bastard’s dead... the original body can finally close his eyes in peace.’
A powerless smile formed on the Thought Entity’s lips before he suddenly snapped back to his senses.
“Ah.”
This was no time for that.
After using 『Absolute Stasis』 through a shortcut method, there was no way Oscar could be in good condition.
“Oscar! Are you alright!”
Hurriedly rushing over, the Thought Entity shook Oscar’s collapsed body.
A moment later, Oscar opened his eyes with difficulty and asked,
“......What about him?”
“We took him down! It’s all thanks to you.”
“You shouldn’t say that carelessly. Did you confirm it?”
[Translator - Night]
[Proofreader - Gun]
“If you don’t believe me, see it with your own eyes.”
Supporting him, the Thought Entity showed him Ado Vail’s corpse.
Only then did it truly sink in that everything was over.
“More importantly, what froze this time?”
“......Pardon?”
“Your emotions. Since you forcibly froze them with severe cold, there must be side effects.”
“Even if you say that, I don’t really know.”
“Hmm.”
After pondering briefly, the Thought Entity immediately created a book and began writing something inside it.
“Even if I disappear, keeping these questions written here as a kind of manual and asking yourself them repeatedly should help you recognize your own condition.”
“Disappear? Are you going on a trip somewhere?”
“Hm? Well, I’ve finished the role entrusted to me, so shouldn’t I get going too?”
Oscar tilted his head at the Thought Entity’s words.
“Where exactly are you going?”
“......‘Going’ was just a figure of speech. I mean disappearing together with this gap.”
“Ah, disappearing... Is it because defeating the Heart Demon causes you to disappear as well?”
“That’s not it. As I said before, my role is to determine who possesses the qualifications to defeat the Heart Demon of the 44th Floor and send them upward. If I do not disappear together with this gap, then no matter how skilled a spatial mage may be, approaching the gap of the 44th Floor becomes difficult.”
What he described was essentially the orthodox strategy.
Joining forces with the Thought Entity to subjugate the Heart Demon had never been Master’s original plan.
“But the Heart Demon of the 44th Floor is already dead. The gap closed too. In the end, didn’t things work out well because the Heart Demon crossed over here first?”
The order of events had certainly become completely tangled, but the situation had actually turned out rather favorably.
He had received the Thought Entity’s help and eliminated his master’s Heart Demon absurdly easily.
Likewise, the Thought Entity had also splendidly completed the task entrusted to him by Master.
The Thought Entity spoke with an extremely conflicted expression.
“No, but still, I’ve already completed the duty I was given... there’s no reason for me to remain.......”
“A reason? Then should I make one for you?”
“Hmm, now that everything is over, wouldn’t it make for a better ending if I naturally exited the stage?”
“I don’t really see it that way.”
More than anything, he was none other than Ado Vail’s Thought Entity.
Meaning he was the being who understood the magic and concepts Ado Vail had achieved better than anyone else.
And also the person best suited to teach him whenever he got stuck while studying in the future.
“Hmm.”
After thinking for a moment, the Thought Entity nodded.
“As long as my existence won’t become a nuisance, I personally wouldn’t mind staying longer.......”
“A nuisance? Having you around would be a huge gain. If needed, how about taking charge of some newly graduated chicks from the academy and teaching a class or two?”
“T-that part, I shall consider slowly.”
Even if he could only exist within spatial gaps, they had still recruited a top-tier mage.
In a sense, it could even be called a boost in strength.
“Ah, and......”
Taking the opportunity, Oscar brought up something he had been considering.
“If you’re Master’s Thought Entity, then you can move freely inside spatial gaps, right?”
“That’s correct.”
“Then, since things turned out this way anyway, could you help me with something?”
“.......”
Had he always been the type to ask for help this shamelessly?
With a doubtful expression, the Thought Entity asked,
“What kind of help exactly do you need?”
“One of the training rooms I’m planning is called the Subspace Training Room. The problem is......”
After listening to the explanation, the Thought Entity nodded.
“I see. You want me to move between layered subspaces and regulate the flow of time.”
“Exactly.”
“......But do you realize? If I take on that role, it means I’ll have to endure all that time myself, whether a hundred years or a thousand years pass inside the subspace.”
“Uh, but since you’re a Thought Entity, isn’t that fine? You can’t die anyway.”
“......!”
At those words, spoken as though he had lost the human heart entirely, the Thought Entity trembled violently.
“Y-you. Are you seriously saying that?”
“There’s nothing wrong with what I said, is there?”
Startled out of his mind, the Thought Entity hastily opened the ‘Oscar Emotional Diagnosis Manual’ he had written earlier.
After asking dozens of questions—
He finally spoke with a rather ambiguous expression.
“I’m not sure whether I should take these results positively or negatively.......”
“What did it say?”
“For starters, you are currently in a state of severely impaired empathy.”
“Empathy.......”
Oscar frowned.
“I can’t believe that.”
“Very well, then let me ask this question again. Oscar, today I was depressed, so I bought bread.”
“If you were depressed, why would you buy bread? More importantly, there isn’t even a bakery in this gap.”
“......L-look at this! Just look at this!”
Trembling violently, the Thought Entity stared at Oscar with fearful eyes, as though he had seen a ghost.
“That is an answer utterly devoid of empathy.”
“......Then what exactly am I supposed to say to show empathy?”
“You should first ask things like why I’m depressed or whether something happened.”
“Tsk. I still don’t get it.”
“Furthermore, in my personal opinion, it also seems your sense of awareness has vanished. You’ve become astonishingly shameless.”
Lacking empathy and even losing awareness of social cues.
Wasn’t that, as a human being, absolutely terrible?
Scratching his head, Oscar asked,
“......The frozen emotions will return soon, right?”
“That, who knows. Come to think of it, can you feel the emotion of happiness again?”
“Not yet.”
“Hmm.”
Apparently, once emotions froze, it took quite a long time for them to thaw.
Pat, pat.
“Stay strong.”
The Thought Entity lightly patted Oscar on the shoulder.
[Translator - Night]
[Proofreader - Gun]

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