Ruler Vol 5 Chapter 33
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Author: Anit666
Editor: Weasalopes
【Sam’s POV】
Forgive me, Michael.
I did say that I would make a grave for you, but since there is nothing left of you, I don’t think I can do that. Truly a shame.
You were a good man- hmm. You were a man who…………
I don’t know what else to say. Ah, fuck it. Weaklings die, big deal.
Now, Lantz was still unconscious, while Michael was gone, reduced to atoms. Phiria closed her eyes and took some deep breaths. After she had calmed herself enough, she trotted towards me with renewed vigour.
“Samuel!”
With a wide beaming smile, she jumped into my arms. I caught her in a gentle embrace and she wrapped her arms around my neck.
“Praise me!”
What is she, a kid?
“You haven’t really done anything praiseworthy though.”
“Eeeeh.” She groaned. “You should know what I’m about to do, right?”
“Well, yes.” I flicked my finger on her forehead. “But your actions still weren’t commendable. You need to have more control.”
“Eh? You’re blaming me?” Her eyes became teary and she pouted.
Well…… it’s not like Michael wasn’t in the wrong. Questioning someone’s love is one of the greatest insults you can shove in their face; it’s like you’re denying everything they are. Not to mention that the one Michael did this to was none other than Phiria, the Goddess of Life and the Princess of God’s Realm.
Under normal circumstances, this act alone would have been enough to start a war with both God’s Realm and Heaven.
Considering that and taking into account what Phiria plans to do now, I must admit that Phiria was really lenient in her punishment.
“Alright, alright.” I sighed lightly and patted her head. “There. Happy.”
She snuggled her face into my chest and embraced me even tighter, while I continued to pat her head.
In essence, Phiria is a Samuel Hayden exclusive head-pat slut; anyone else who dares to even approach her head would have his arms ripped off.
“Whew, now I’m full.”
There it is. Her Sam-energy battery. While she’s amicable and really sweet when the battery is full, she’s more prone to snap and go berserk when that battery is low. Of course, this isn’t an inherent biological function (most probably), but I still haven’t been able to understand the mechanics behind it.
Phiria separated herself from me, and with flushed cheeks and a passionate gaze locked on me, gently patted her chest.
Now, enough fooling around. Time to move to the next stage.
As if she had sensed my thoughts, Phiria turned and started walking towards the place she was previously standing at. On her way, she snapped her fingers, and invoked a spell that had the power to change the very world itself.
The world around me started to change; to be more precise, the places where Michael and Lantz were standing earlier were going through some radical changes.
Phiria had invoked a perfect time rewinding spell, one which could rewind even death.
With each of her steps, Michael’s body started to rebuild itself. ‘Dust’, which were actually his cells, started appearing out of thin air and joined together to form the parts of his body.
Halfway through, Lantz’s body convulsed and with a jolt, he stood up. Backtracking through the steps he had taken previously, his mouth moved in an incomprehensible way. Before long, he too had returned to the place he was previously standing at.
Before it was too late, I went and positioned myself at my original location; in front of Michael whose body had nearly finished rebuilding itself. The reason I had to do it manually was because, as a Ruler, I had long since transcended the realm of mortals. Unless she was on the same level as Einstein, her spell wouldn’t affect me.
Of course, this was the actual reason I had allowed Phiria to continue with her actions.
On one hand, she was enraged by Michael’s transgressions, while one the other hand, she didn’t want to relinquish this mysterious reward I would have given her for being a good girl. The answer she arrived at was really simple, yet really scary.
She determined that as long as she could return everything to the way it originally was, she would technically be able to uphold her promise with me and get that reward. How cunning.
While I was thinking that, time had finished rewinding, and we were returned to the scene a bit before Michael had made that fatal mistake.
“Don’t you dare utter the name of that bastard in front of me!”
Now, should I avoid hitting him, or do it anyway and then prevent him from saying anything to Phiria? The first is much better, of course.
“Oh, and why shouldn’t I? After all, that man is the source of all your delusions.”
“Delusions?” He flared up.
“Correct. Like the one where you said I’ll betray you guys at the crucial moment. What exactly did you base that on?”
Unless he wasn’t affected by his emotions for Samuel Hayden, he wouldn’t have considered me to be that kind of person.
But I don’t understand? Why does he hate ‘Samuel’ so much? Technically, I had sacrificed myself to let these guys live, so he should actually be thankful towards me.
Of course, I’ll admit that wasn’t my only objective when I ‘sacrificed’ myself.
“Shut up!” Michael roared. “You can’t manipulate me with your words anymore!”
Huh. Challenge accepted.
“And exactly when did I do that?”
I haven’t even started; I was planning to do so after leaving this dungeon. A few words here and there are far from manipulation.
“Have you forgotten about the tournament?”
Aight, that’s on me. I set the bar too low.
“I never actually lied though. My dear friend Mary is a barrier specialist, so in the worst-case scenario, she would have protected everyone.” When Michael looked at her, she nodded to affirm my words. “Aside from that, when have I manipulated you?”
“Then what about while training us?!”
Oh?
“Care to elaborate?”
“You….!” Michael was clearly getting impatient. “Back then during our first session, you mercilessly brought us on the verge of death! That was a clear portrayal of your cruelty and sadism!”
Cruelty? Sadism?
“That’s called being a good, charismatic teacher. I have the results to prove my point; did you not get stronger in just two weeks?”
“That was because of our own efforts! You had no hand in it!”
“That was because I directed your efforts in the right direction, just like a teacher would. Now, Michael. It is to my understanding that you and Samuel Hayden were good friends.”
“What?” His eyebrows perked up. “Where did you hear that from?”
“From your classmates, of course.”
That was true, actually. I had already asked my former classmates for some rudimentary information on ‘Samuel’ and ‘his’ relationships with them.
The results were more heart-breaking than I’d expected them to be. To most of them, I was the quiet gloomy kid who didn’t interact much with people other than his friends. Sherry’s recount was the only saving grace; according to her, I was a really good friend of her, Susan, Chloe, Arthur and Michael. It’s another story that she left out the intricate details of my relationship with her.
“Ha! So you’ve already brainwashed them? I should’ve expected that. No, maybe I was also under your spell? Yeah, that has to be it.”
How the fuck did he even reach that conclusion?
“No. I asked them normally. Anyway, as I was saying, according to your classmates, you, Susan, Arthur and Samuel were good friends and spent most of your time together. You also held him in high regard, to the point you felt that he would have been a better choice as a Hero. They even told me that Samuel sacrificed himself-”
“Sacrifice?” Michael suddenly interfered. “Samuel sacrificed himself for us? Hahahahhahahahahahahahahaha! No!” He swung his right hand in a wide arc. “That fucking cunt abandoned us! He left us here to die!”
Well, well, well, this is interesting. Seems like I was right; it was the sense of entitlement.
“Abandon?” I eked out in a confused tone. “But your classmates said-”
“That he took on a job from that God so that we could live? Yeah, right.” He scoffed.
“You mean to say that wasn’t the case? Wouldn’t that God have killed you guys if Samuel didn’t take on that job?”
“Maybe he would have, maybe he wouldn’t have.” Michael agreed more easily and passionately that I thought. “But that’s not the point here. Samuel didn’t accept that job because he wanted to protect us; he did so because he thought that the job was interesting.”
……….
Wat?
“I saw it, you know.” Michael continued in a hate filled tone. “Moments before he left us, he was smiling.”
Well, yes, I was.
“And yet, that smile was one born from amusement. He wasn’t smiling because he was happy to be able to save us, he was smiling because he was looking forward to that job.” There was a hint of sadness in his voice. “Can you imagine it? All this time- tch. All of us cried and mourned for him. Susan was broken to the point that she became suicidal. Till this day, I rued not being able to save Samuel. I regretted not being able to live up to his expectations and protect Arthur and Susan.” His choking voice suddenly turned hoarse with fury. “But that fucking piece of shit never thought of us! To him, we were nothing more than pebbles in the face of something more interesting! That is why, he didn’t sacrifice himself for us, but actually abandoned us!”
……Weeeeelllllllllllll, this is a bit embarrassing. Who knew that he had such an impression of me? I never would have thought that I was that important to Michael.
I was smiling on that day, yes. But that was a smile born from happiness, derision, and excitement.
Happiness because I had actually been able to put my life on the line for those I considered to be precious to me. Self-derision because I never thought I would do something as valiant and cheeky as sacrificing myself for others.
And excitement because a tiny part of me was looking forward to what was about to come.
That excitement part was actually for the crying Sherry and Susan; I was trying to reassure them that I would be fine. But damn, Michael saw that and formed the wrong opinion. That was a miscalculation on my part.
“But didn’t he end up saving you anyway?”
Lemme get this part straight.
“Even you don’t get it, huh?” He sighed. “Saved us? Don’t joke with me. With his actions, he might as well have killed us with his own hands.”
Ah, now I see.
Basically, this entire situation is just a child throwing a tantrum. Michael believes that I chose Meteron’s job over them because the former was more interesting to me. Thinking that the love(?) and devotion of him, Susan and Arthur had been trampled upon, he feels wronged. Now, he is out for revenge. But since Samuel Hayden is no longer here, he wants to extract that revenge on someone who reminds him of Samuel, who, once again, is me.
Truly a fucked-up situation.
Now then, what to do? Words won’t affect him in his current state, so I’ll have to whoop his ass a bit. But how far should I go with that? Would it be alright for me to take responsibility and initiate protocol Gamma one? That would create such an overwhelming gap between us that he’ll instantly be brought back to his senses.
Yeah, nope, I ain’t doing that. First of all, there’s nothing I have to take responsibility for. Second, it’s too soon to show my true power (it isn’t even my true power actually), especially in front of Lantz. He is currently humanity’s strongest, and he must remain that way. If I stole that position from him, they’ll put me on the frontlines and charge straight into the demon’s territory to end this war once and for all.
It would be like becoming a designer for the frontend part of a website when I wanted to be the backend programmer.
…..Hmm, that was a weird comparison. I should have just gone along with ‘putting the cart in front of the horse’.
Wait, before that, where the hell is Lantz?
Anyway, just beating Michael up won’t be enough. So-
｢You listening to me?｣
｢Of course.｣ Sam II replied to my ‘Message’.
｢First of all, tell me what the fuck is Lantz doing?｣
｢Well, he seems to be enjoying this situation.｣
What the hell dude? If you have time to enjoy this, then you should step forward and help me. Useless fucking piece of shit.
｢Tell him that he owes me big time for this. Anyway, I suppose you already know what I want to do?｣
He’s me, after all.
｢Let me confirm; you don’t plan to get Michass back to his senses on your own, right?｣
｢Precisely.｣
｢Aight then. I’ll handle it.｣
Good. Now, I just have to act my part.
“That’s quite a heart wrenching story you got there.” Michael furrowed his brows at my words. “Truly, my heart ached when I listened to something so……… childish.”
“What?” Michael grinded his teeth as his gaze sharpened by several degrees.
“And someone like you is supposed to lead humanity? Damn, we’re fucked, boy, fucked.” I let out a huge sigh. “Anyway, you said you wanted to kill me, right?”
As I said this, a huge amount of mana started to flow out from the back of my hands. Unlike usual, this mana had a deep violet colour to it. The mana was so intense that a torrent of wind started flowing around me and swept my hair up.
Michael gulped as beads of sweat started to form on his forehead.
“Then I’m sure that you are prepared for the same.”
With fists clad in that violent mana, I took the stance of a boxer and beckoned him.
“Now come, kill me, Hero.”
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