DBOFS 12

Chapter 12

The tranquilizer that used to be administered by Adrian, the only thing preventing Harris from massacring everyone in the Duke Godwin’s estate, had disappeared!

“No—stop!”

I shoved Adrian aside and ran out of the prison cell in a panic.

“Jade?!”

“Shut up, you damn brother complex!”

“What?!”

I thought I heard him calling me from behind, but I didn’t care.

I had to stop Harris—stop the massacre he was about to commit. It wasn’t just about messing with the original timeline.

If I couldn’t stop him…

‘We’re all finished!’

A hall large enough to host a grand banquet.

But the people gathered inside weren’t party guests—they were servants in a wretched state.

“That monster, that monster bastard—!”

Their bloodshot eyes glared as they gripped their weapons tightly.

“Why! Why the hell did you come out?! You think anyone wanted a freak like you?!”

“Die! Just die already!”

Bang!

A gun was fired, aimed at one person. Blades and axes followed the bullet.

But Harris, standing at the end of all that killing intent, simply stared at them silently.

“Aaaaah—!”

It was the attacker who screamed.

A black curtain surged upward in front of him. The bullet bounced back, and the blades and axes ricocheted, striking their own wielders.

“You, you monster bastard—because of you, the princess died!”

“Duke Godwin was right! Even if he was the father, if he saw that monster was his son, he probably wanted to kill him at birth!”

“Spare me… please, spare me!”

“I-I was wrong! Please, just once—have mercy!”

Some spewed curses and hatred, while others begged for their lives, pleaded for forgiveness.

But none of it reached Harris.

[Kill them.]

[It hurts—!]

[Kill, kill, kill, kill them all! Wipe them out! Kill everyone!]

[They hurt me! They wounded me! Me—ME—!!]

He had lived his entire life with his powers suppressed.

Now that he was suddenly free, the power he regained was too vast, and even Harris couldn’t maintain his sanity.

“…Ugh.”

He groaned quietly.

A wound in his abdomen.

Of all places, it was near his core. He barely managed to seal it off, but the more he moved, the worse it tore open. The pain dulled his rationality further.

When he came to his senses, he could barely make out the screaming servants and the weapons trying to kill him.

[If you don’t want to die, you have to kill.]

[They attacked you first!]

[They’re the ones who locked you up! They imprisoned you! They trampled on you, ignored you, tormented you, abused you!]

[It hurts—it hurts so much!]

“Shut up.”

Blood dripped down Harris’s pale face as he muttered blankly.

It was a graze left by a bullet that had bounced off his shield and skimmed his head. But he couldn’t even register that.

An abyss of power he couldn’t see the end of. And killing intent.

Those were the only things he could feel clearly.

Kill. All of them. Every single one…!

“—Harris!”

A voice cut through the madness.

Harris instinctively raised his head.

His blurry vision focused on something.

Wavy light-pink hair. Blue eyes.

“Harris-nim!”

Jade.

The slave girl who claimed to be a prophet from another world.

‘Why are you here?’

Harris froze for a moment.

Whoooom—!

A deafening hum rang out, threatening to knock everyone over. At the same time, a light appeared from the ceiling.

“…!”

A giant magic circle covered the ceiling. Only then did Harris recall what Duke Godwin had once said—

Even if he escaped, his father had cursed him in a way that he could be captured again at any time.

“Stop! Cease all psychic violence!”

As soon as I saw Harris, I screamed desperately.

“You lunatic, just calm down already—!”

But it was too late.

Whoooom—!

A dreadful hum that made me stagger. Then it appeared—an enormous magic circle above us.

“No… no!”

The single magic circle split into two, rotating in opposite directions and slowly drifting apart.

‘We’re screwed.’

That was a summon spell. If it detected a certain level of destruction or energy, it would automatically trigger to prepare for Harris’s escape.

‘And the one who responds to that summoning is…’

I instinctively looked at Harris.

His face had turned pale—he seemed to realize what was happening too.

“…Ha, haha!”

The servants burst into laughter, as if enjoying his despair.

“I knew it!”

“Duke Godwin knew he’d stop that monster no matter what!”

“He thought he could escape for real? What kind of monster dares—!”

“No matter how wild he gets—urk!”

One of the mocking servants was suddenly struck by a beam of light from above and collapsed.

Crack—crack!

His body, hit by the light from the ceiling, began to twist and distort—transforming into the very monster they had insulted.

“Wh-what the hell is this?!”

“M-Monster… aaaaaah!”

The servants who had been grouped together against Harris scattered in panic as the monsters turned on them.

“AAAAAH—!”

Before long, light spread in every direction.

People fleeing, people tripping, those already fallen and lifeless.

The light poured down on them all, turning them into monsters.

“Gaaaah—hurk—!”

The transformed monsters, having lost all human identity, began biting and killing indiscriminately.

“…This is insane.”

The scene was so horrific it made me dizzy.

‘What is this, some kind of R-rated zombie gore blockbuster?!’

Sure, I could watch horror movies without flinching—but those were movies. Fictional.

I missed my old world, where—even if my body was broken—at least the world around me was sane.

They say some people collapse in despair before catastrophe, and others become stronger to survive.

I guess I was the latter. Even as I rejected this reality, my rational mind quickly assessed the situation.

‘This is the result of the summoner’s mutation magic being released from the summoning circle.’

If it was this powerful even before the summoning finished, I didn’t want to imagine what would happen after the casting was complete.

‘I have to stop the summoning right now!’

But how?

This wasn’t something that ever happened in The Thousand Faces of Death. It only said Adrian calmed Harris down and prevented the disaster.

‘What am I supposed to do?’

I stared up at the ceiling blankly. And then—

Swoosh—! A blast of black energy, compressed like a blade, split a monster in half.

“GRAAAAAH—!”

The monstrous wail echoed.

What came into view was a scene straight out of hell.

The grand hall was a ruin of corpses and beasts. Crumbling pillars and debris. Even the ceiling was collapsing.

Hell had descended upon the estate.

All of it was caused by the bizarre magic circle above.

‘Are they out of their minds?’

All this chaos just to recapture one person?

Harris let out a bitter laugh.

But maybe they were right. If they hadn’t prepared this thoroughly, he might’ve already escaped by now.

“…Ugh.”

He unconsciously pressed his abdomen. Blood soaked his dirty hands.

The bleeding hadn’t stopped.

The bullet had been removed, but the psychic healing seal wasn’t working properly.

“Ghh…!”

As his reason returned, so did the pain—and it wasn’t just physical.

His head throbbed as if it would explode. His nerves were so hypersensitive, it felt unbearable.

‘Two humans hiding behind the broken pillar. One beast targeting them from behind. And…’

Three monsters approaching from behind him.

His senses were overly sharpened. Whether it was the result of too much power or mental collapse, it didn’t matter.

He moved fast.

Harris instinctively levitated the fallen weapons and drove them straight into the monsters’ heads.

“GRRAAA—!”

They collapsed at once.

“Haah… haa, haa…”

He panted heavily.

The sharp senses were preferable.

Worse was the moment when all his senses dulled—like they’d been shut off entirely.

‘Why is this happening?’

He had never pushed his power this far before.

Harris had spent his life forcibly suppressing his abilities. The backlash of using too much of it was unfamiliar.

“Help! Please save me!”

“Master Harris, please!”

What was more unfamiliar than the pain was the servants’ behavior.

The same people who had imprisoned him for years and tried to kill him—were now begging him to save them?

‘They’ve gone mad.’

To be fair, the situation could drive anyone insane.

Up to now, they had seen themselves as humans, and Harris as a monster and enemy.

But now, their fellow “humans” had suddenly turned into grotesque beasts attacking them.

And Harris, the “monster,” was the only one fighting back—he probably looked like a savior to them.

“Young master Harris, please—!”

Of course, Harris didn’t care.

“Save—!”

Thud!

A servant begging for help was killed by a beast.

Harris took the chance, using the gap in the monster’s stance to throw an axe.

Splat—!

The beast dropped without a sound.

He felt no sympathy for the servants. He had no intention of saving them.

In this life-or-death battleground, there was only one person who tugged at his heart…

“…?”

His eyes, searching subconsciously for someone, stopped at a certain point.

“What the hell is she doing?”

I found a long gun—a rifle.

Probably one the servants had fired at Harris, now useless and discarded.

‘Should I try it?’

An idea came to me, and I immediately picked it up.

‘Wait… how do you fire a gun?’

The problem: I was just a civilian who’d only ever shot in video games. I didn’t even know how to hold the thing properly—

‘…Wait. Shouldn’t I NOT know this?’

Before my brain could respond, my body moved on its own.

It instinctively took aim with perfect posture, pointed the muzzle exactly where I wanted—and my eyes narrowed in focus.

‘What the heck?’

And before I could think any more—

BANG—!!