Frieren: I Reject My Humanity!

Chapter 312 312: Miss Eggplant and Mr. Tomato (Part 2)

Why… why did his enemy have to be a monster like this.

There was simply no way to win. No way at all.

But that wasn't his fault, was it? He'd given everything he had.

Fine. So be it. He had just enough left for one more charge — and then that man would cut him down.

That way, even if he was weak… at least he wouldn't die a coward who clung to life.

Revenge was impossible. That man existed on a completely different level.

Of course he did. He was a monster who had lived for untold centuries, while Stark had only trained for a little over a decade. Losing wasn't shameful — it was just the math, wasn't it?

All those tangled emotions churned inside Stark and finally dissolved into a quiet, bitter smile.

He had already foreseen his own death. And he had accepted it.

"Heaven's… Strike…"

He forced the name of his technique to his lips — but he never swung.

Because the question he had been deliberately avoiding finally surfaced, refusing to be ignored any longer.

"Fern… what about Fern? Could she be facing something like this too? Could she be in danger?"

"Can I really… just die here? Just like that?"

"No… I have to kill this man. And then… go to wherever Fern is and help her."

Just as that thought crystallized in Stark's mind, Rivale finally opened his eyes.

"Oh? You still have the will to fight? Then, boy — allow me to offer my respects to your death."

Rivale rose from the rock, summoned his long-handled axe back into existence, closed his hand around it, and began to walk slowly toward Stark.

He genuinely intended to take this young human's head. After all, the Demon King had never told him he couldn't kill.

The teaching phase was long over. This was real slaughter now, and he would no longer hold back.

The only thing he found regrettable was that the boy in front of him was still not a worthy opponent — not truly.

"You know, boy… I'm not actually very skilled with an axe. I only chose it out of habit — to match my opponent's weapon."

"So what you're saying is… I'm not worth seeing your real abilities."

"That's simply the truth. Regrettable as it is. If you and Miss Fern had been able to work together, perhaps you could have posed a genuine threat to me… but it seems the Demon King had other plans for that girl."

"Is there anything you'd like me to pass on to her? She might cry very hard, you know."

"Fern… would cry for me?"

Stark murmured those words in a daze, as though the question had slipped out of him without permission.

"Naturally. That's not a guess based on experience, nor am I saying it to comfort you. That girl is very fond of you. If you died, she would certainly grieve deeply."

Stark said nothing.

In an instant, his mind flooded with memories again.

He remembered exchanging gifts with Fern — or perhaps they could be called tokens of affection. But… could they really be called that?

He had always sensed something, somewhere in the quiet corners of his heart. But Stark had never once dared to ask her directly.

Whether Fern truly liked him.

And Fern had never come to ask him, either.

He had assumed he would die without ever knowing the answer. He never imagined… it would be his sworn enemy who told him.

Then didn't that mean he had even less right to die here?

Whatever it cost him… he had to keep fighting.

"Watch yourself."

Stark murmured it quietly — this was his declaration of intent before an attack.

Rivale had clearly let his guard slip just now. Whether that small lapse would make a difference, Stark didn't know.

But since this was meant to be a fair duel to the death, Stark felt he owed his opponent the chance to notice before he struck.

"Hm?"

True enough — Rivale hadn't fully believed it.

The boy's fighting spirit really hadn't crumbled. And yet even he had to admit it: in this state of utter exhaustion, the boy had swung the fastest strike he had produced so far — perhaps the fastest he'd ever managed.

Rivale snapped backward, widening the distance between them in an instant, then reflexively raised a hand to touch his right eye.

He had moved fast. But a thin line of blood had been drawn across his right eye all the same.

It made him think of the one called the greatest human warrior — the Dwarf.

His left eye had once been wounded by the Dwarf warrior Eisen. And now, today, it was that Dwarf warrior's disciple who had scored a cut across his other eye.

Remarkable. There was a strange kind of fate in that.

For the first time, a faint smile touched the corner of Rivale's mouth.

"How strange… just moments ago you looked like a candle guttering in the wind, and yet your strength seems to have surged back all at once. Your whole body burns like a leaping flame. Is this what the Demon King meant by human potential? Tell me — what are you spending to sustain a state like this?"

Watching the boy transform in an instant — standing now with a fierce, commanding presence — Rivale's eyes lit up with something like the hunger of a predator catching a scent.

"I don't know. I don't care. Take whatever it wants."

Stark felt extraordinary. Every sense had sharpened to a razor's edge. The exhaustion had been swept away entirely, and all his strength had returned.

He could feel it clearly — his heartbeat had fallen into something wrong. His body was pumping blood at a rate that defied reason.

Heat. An overwhelming, almost unbearable heat. He felt like his very clothes might catch fire.

So what was there to do about that burning, surging urge?

Nothing but press forward — without hesitation, without retreat.

And so he moved. Like a blazing meteor, he closed the gap to Rivale in an instant, and then, with his body fully committed, sent the two of them crashing through hundreds of meters of stone and earth together.

A sound like hammers on an anvil — a massive, ringing crash of metal — filled the space, utterly unlike anything from their earlier exchanges. Now both combatants were pouring out their finest techniques, holding nothing back.

Brilliant streaks of light exploded across the battlefield, proclaiming that this fight had entered its final stage.

...

How much time passed, no one could say. At last, that dazzling, furious clash began to slow.

"I didn't expect… it would end like this."

Rivale murmured to himself. The entire space around them had been devastated beyond recognition. Even the towering cliffs had been shaved down by nearly a hundred meters.

He looked at the young human before him — coughing blood, collapsing — and felt a quiet, genuine sorrow settle over him.

How long had they been fighting? There was no sun or moon here to mark the time, and his sense of duration had been thrown off entirely.

Rivale's best estimate was at least two or three days.

The boy could no longer sustain the toll on his body — that much was clear from the streaks of white that had appeared in Stark's hair at some point during the fight.

Hair turning white was a sign that a human's life force was burning out.

So this boy had been spending his very life to keep fighting.

And yet — even so — Rivale had won.

He let out a slow breath.

If he could have chosen, he would have kept going against Stark as he had been in those moments. He could have fought much longer.

But his opponent's body had given out before his spirit did.

Disappointing? Not quite. But there was regret in it, undeniably.

"It seems I was wrong. Boy — you are a worthy warrior after all. That willingness to stake everything without reservation is, without question, something magnificent. But this is where it ends."

Stark stared toward Rivale with unfocused eyes, his lips parting as if he had something to say — but instantly, blood welling up from his throat stopped the words before they could form.

The sensation of suffocating pressed in, wave after wave. Even if Rivale never raised his weapon, Stark would soon choke to death on his own blood.

So this really was… as far as he could go.

Slowly, Stark closed his eyes.

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