Spoils of Battle
As my entire body continued to creak in pain, I jumped up awake.
The movement of waking up like this only increased the pain however making me scream and I almost instinctively activated [Pain Inhibition].
As the pain settled down, I continued looking up towards the rocky ceiling as I tried to recall my current situation.
If I recall………I was struggling against Bahamut, and decided to use [Suicidal Strike] as my last resort, right?
And I think I activated [Mad Warrior] before that as well——I remember till there.
But everything after I activated [Mad Warrior] was all vague, and I just barely have the recollection of slamming my sword into Bahamut, like it was someone else that did it.
Last time I used it, I didn’t completely lose my awareness but this time I barely remember anything.
I suppose its dependant on the state of the body when using it but, since I rarely used it, there were still a lot I didn’t know about [Mad Warrior].
Well, there’s no point trying to recall these things so, I moved my sight away from the ceiling and to the side to check my surroundings………….
And like I vaguely recalled, the gruesome corpse of Bahamut was lying right beside me still.
And I was soaked in the blood flowing out of it.
I was lucky that it had half dried already but, the putrid stench coming off the corpse was so strong that it was hard to tell anything else.
Regardless, while I barely recall it, I did succeed in killing Bahamut it seems.
It was a battle that really brought me to the edge of death, although the brutal death scene may not make it seem like it was that hard but…………….anyway, it seems like I’ll be able to safely return back to Ralf, Esta and Snow.
That fact, gave me a huge sense of relief.
I had nothing but vengeance on my mind. My wholehearted drive towards that goal was what had brought me to this point so I wondered if such an emotion was a good thing for me but, right now, I just wanted to see their faces again.
While still lying on the ground, I poured the healing potions on me to also clean the blood away, and drank the rest to wet my parched throat.
Furthermore, I activated [Self Regen] to begin healing my wounds as well, and I waited until my body was fit enough to move around again——–and after some time, I had finally healed enough to do so.
Well, although I say I was recovering, there were various parts that simply weren’t going to heal so soon and I was most definitely not in a condition where I could fight again anytime soon.
Considering that I’ll have to face monster’s on the way back as well, I knew I should probably remain here inside this area where there was no presence of any other monster to recover some more but, I was also worried because I had no idea how much time had passed.
Knowing Ralf’s personality, there was a good chance he might rush in to try and find me, so I really wanted to return back as quickly as possible.
And above all……….the purple miasma that had been spread across the area when I was fighting Bahamut had all but disappeared.
This was proof that Bahamut was in fact the source of that Purple miasma so there’s a good chance that the miasma across all of Bahamut mountain must have dissipated as well.
I’m sure Esta was smart enough to put two and two together to realize what had happened from that but, then again, I had no idea if the outside had been affected at all or not.
At the very least, the monsters within the cave must have decreased so it should certainly be safer.
Using the steel sword as my crutch, I walked right towards the stone coffin.
Before returning, I do need to claim the item for which I had come all this way for after all. Vendettatein.
Considering the battle I had here, it wouldn’t have surprised me if the coffin had been completely destroyed in the process but, somehow, it looked exactly as it was when I first saw it.
The stone coffin was placed in a upright position leaning against the wall, and then there was longsword and the armour that was leaning against said coffin.
There must be some sort of magic applied to it as it had not even a scratch on it.
Before I took the armour and the longsword, I gave a curt bow in front of the coffin.
Normally, it would be courtesy to join both hands and give respects but, unfortunately both my hands were unusable right now so forgive my insolence.
After the bow, I looked at the letters inscribed on the stone coffin———“Here lies the great Hero, Chris.”
Seeing my own name made my heartbeat jump from surprise but, all it meant was that the first hero happened to have the same name as me.
Now that I think about it, even in the records and stories they only ever used the nickname [First Hero] when talking about him, so I never actually knew his name.
Well, Chris was a pretty common name honestly, so this was no more than a coincidence, yet…………
I suddenly felt a strange affinity towards him just because of a shared name, and it made me strangely happy for whatever reason.
I gave another proper bow in front of the coffin and then carefully worked to put the sword and armour on my back to carry it.
Part of me would love to carefully inspect the newly acquired equipment but, with the state both my hands were in, one broken, other being used as a crutch; I didn’t have the leeway to slowly inspect it right now.
While giving a side glance to the corpse of Bahamut, I resisted my desire to try and carve materials out of it———and decided to escape this cave having already gained my main objective here, the sword Vendettatein.