VIP Chapter 426: Iaar’s Confession (4k)
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Facing the sudden flames, facing magic outside of Will’s plan, facing a battle that could be the decisive point, Iaar’s mind flashed with countless memories.
Countless memories, all related to “Will.”
In her memories, she was always like a dog looking up from the ground, gazing at her “Master.”
For Iaar, ever since her very first memory of wandering in a cold forest, she was someone who wasn’t allowed to have “her own future.”
If she didn’t keep walking forward, if she didn’t get out of the forest, her future was only bleak death.
Even after being brought out of the forest, what awaited her was the Entak Empire’s largest conglomerate, which would enslave her for life.
In the end, Young Master Will, who was the greatest “benefactor” of her life, had actually secretly planned her future too.
She felt that it was fine like this.
Just like the “adults” she sometimes saw on the streets, whom the dogs lying by the roadside would envy.
Living according to orders, like a pet.
Completing assigned missions, like a house dog.
Then, relying on her “Master,” all she had to do was complete her mission and tasks; she found meaning in existence when she was needed.
Step by step, walking forward in the snow through the forest.
Day by day, in the Hysterm Family home, brewing a cup of tea and serving it to Will.
Time and time again, acting as Will’s most obedient “dog,” completing the missions he desired.
…
Only these memories brought her peace.
She knew that as a maid raised by the Hysterm Family, as a Half-Beastman who couldn’t escape the harsh winter without salvation, as a maid who repeatedly completed Will’s missions to become the future he wanted…
She never had the confidence to believe she deserved a “future.”
She never had the thought of being able to choose her “future.”
She didn’t deserve her own future, didn’t deserve such a good life, and even…
Was she not meant to be saved from that small forest and stand here?
“Ice Array: Eighth Form, Long Guard Shield—”
Iaar’s eyes widened. Although a myriad of thoughts flashed through her mind in the instant before the flames descended, her hand still lifted.
Her gray eyes judged the flames opposite with utmost precision. Her palm, imbued with Ice Armor Infusion, chose the most secure shield formation, and her entire magic circuit began to whir.
Will was still behind her; she had to block this attack.
—Is that right?
—If that’s truly the case, you’ve been avoiding what you truly wanted all along.
—When choices and paths lay before you, you had the opportunity, didn’t you?
—Overthinking is your weakness, taking that first step is your greatest struggle, but you understand that your intuition and your body never lie to you.
Torn between clinging to the hard-won happy past and a future that might mean parting with her Young Master again, she had to make a choice, holding the last instance of time-stopping in her hand.
*Rrrripp—*
The first wave of flames finally ended at a certain point, and the shield Iaar held blocked everything.
“Ugh… it’s burning.”
She waved her hand to the side. Although her body was unharmed, the cuff she held onto above the shield was singed and even burned a bit too much.
“But it’s okay. I can still block it, proving my state can… continue.”
Through this, Iaar discovered something.
Even though lava was coiling around her feet, preventing her from moving freely, it didn’t stop her from using any magic.
Even Al, who was cunning and extremely skilled at devising magic, hadn’t managed to completely control her magic use with this “magic-showcasing” spell.
Therefore, Iaar guessed it was truly afraid.
Iaar wasn’t sure what Al’s core represented for Al, or why it feared her direct attack on its core after stopping time.
However, the fact that it would rather restrict its attacks to keep her controlled here proved it definitely didn’t want Iaar to successfully hit that spot.
Moreover…
It must have understood “Ice Array” very well, knowing that the time-stopping aspect of Ice Array only allowed the caster to move, and even with a second person present, it would be useless.
“Hoo… what… what persistent flames…”
“Young Master, Iaar can see it… Al’s tail is deeply embedded in the ground. Could it be drawing energy from the earth to convert into flames? In other words… it’s using this terrain it personally created, along with the advantages of its Fire Dragon body, to achieve… self-preservation…”
Listening to Iaar’s words from before him, Will felt he had miscalculated.
He had simply thought that with their disadvantage in aerial combat and long-distance flight, forcing Al to the ground would lead to victory.
But Al understood this too. So, Al had left a contingency on the “ground,” a contingency completely absent from their intelligence.
A BOSS with an “Adventurer’s” mindset was indeed top-tier in terms of clearing difficulty. Just like designers who were formerly players could always create the most infuriating things for players.
“Forecast: Second round. I don’t mind a war of attrition with a powerful opponent, but if you surrender, I will stop.”
The Fire Dragon, its body nearly pressed to the ground, opened its massive maw. The depths of its throat seemed to burn with flames as it aimed at Iaar for the second time.
“I understand. In ‘Ice Array,’ no one other than the user can move. Controlling you, only defeat awaits.”
“Iaar, if you can’t hold on, it’s fine. If this time doesn’t work, we still have…”
“No—”
Iaar interrupted Will very forcefully.
Without the slightest hesitation, she once again slammed her shield into the ground, raising an unyielding monument.
“Iaar… has… has made her choice. Therefore, Iaar will not retreat.”
Will, standing nearby, was astonished.
While Iaar would interrupt him sometimes, he had never heard her speak with such a firm voice as he did today.
Clearly…
In his plan, Iaar was even expected to be in a state of “dilemma” during this battle; he expected to see a hesitant Iaar, unsure whether to persevere and win this fight.
But…
There was none of that.
Not at all.
*BOOM—*
“Ice Array: Ninth Form, Long Guard Shield—”
Amidst the explosions and the sounds of burning, Will understood. Iaar had once again blocked the fiery attack. She couldn’t move, but she was still persisting, seemingly still trying to find an opportunity to get close to the Fire Dragon and defeat it with that time-stopping move.
That “choice problem” Will had given her, she had now provided the answer.
“Young Master. Iaar actually guessed that the matter of the conversation between Liya and Iaar was a difficult problem posed by you.”
In the midst of the flames, Iaar’s voice was somewhat hoarse.
After all, Ice Array required “water” to form ice, and with prolonged casting, the water in her body had become somewhat depleted.
“You wanted to see what choice Iaar would make—whether to let you continue being taken care of, or to kill that Fire Dragon and make you as powerful as you once were.”
“Iaar originally thought she would be agonizing over this question until the very last moment, but…”
In the midst of the flames, Will took off his sunglasses.
He was now captivated by Iaar, wanting to look into her eyes, to see the expression with which she was looking at him, speaking these words.
Moreover, by now, there was perhaps no “need” to hide anything.
In the light of the intense flames, Iaar’s profile was illuminated by her own ice-blue magic.
“Iaar’s mind was filled with the future of fighting alongside you…”
“While preparing, Iaar wished that if only you could also… use magic and join in.”
“When blocking the first surprise attack, Iaar thought, ‘If only the Young Master of that time could gracefully dodge it.'”
“While running constantly, Iaar thought that… ‘If only the Young Master were by my side at this moment!'”
“And… at this moment, Iaar wants to… Iaar wants to see the Young Master powerfully stride forward in the stopped time! Strike Al’s heart! Tear out its core!”
Will saw it.
In her gray eyes, there was indeed that resilience.
And reflected was his own shadow.
She no longer avoided Will’s gaze, nor would she shy away from her choice, nor would she beg Will for an “answer” like she used to.
Those eyes were telling Iaar’s own answer.
…
The second round of flames extinguished.
Al had no intention of stopping this war of attrition. It opened its mouth once more and, aiming at Iaar, unleashed a new, relentless barrage of flames.
To exhaust Iaar’s last possibility of activating time freezing.
“Iaar’s thoughts are…”
“To walk out of here, and for you, Young Master, to get better day by day.”
“To be able to gaze at the black tea Iaar brews.”
“To become the brains of our party.”
“To be able to smile.”
“To be able to hold Iaar’s hand and walk on a grassy lawn in spring…”
The sleeve of Iaar’s left arm was already half-burned away. She waved her hand; she hadn’t stopped, staring intently at Al, as if searching for its weakness.
“Iaar, you…”
“That’s right—! Iaar can already imagine it. It was you, Young Master, who made Iaar understand that Iaar can have her own chosen future.”
Panting, she placed her entire palm on the shield.
Her brown, furry beast ears perked up.
At this moment, it usually meant she was getting serious.
Then, she smiled, turned around, and looked at Al, which had landed and appeared even more enormous up close.
Although she wasn’t looking at Will, the words she spoke afterward made Will feel that they were filled with a profound…
Love that could kill.
“That winter, Iaar walked out on her own.”
“Even if you are no longer ‘trash,’ and no longer need Iaar’s care, it’s okay.”
“Because… because Iaar…”
“…will become very, very strong.”
“I will make it so that you, Young Master, must, definitely, surely need Iaar by your side.”
“Watch. Iaar…”
She paused slightly. At the instant the flames suddenly attacked, she waved her hand, raising an ice shield that, in her current state, was impressively several meters high.
“No. ‘I’ am not Will’s dog, not Will’s servant, not Will’s slave.”
“‘I’ want to become your future wife, your future lover, the person you truly cannot do without in the future—!”
Will injected the witch’s potion into his thigh.
This was not what he had intended.
It was as if Iaar, like this, had given him the confidence to act, making him do it himself.
“I like you, Young Master, I like Will. I like the future where the two of us can drink tea in a flower field and run on long roads.”
“So I will forge it myself. I will make Will—even a healthy, perfect, flawless Will—fall in love with me—”
“It was to meet you that I…”
In Iaar’s gray eyes, a reflection of her younger self appeared.
Shaking her ears, walking half-in, half-out through the snow-covered forest, with no one needing her, everyone abandoning her, not knowing where the exit lay, yet she kept walking forward.
“—walked out of that forest.”
As if to completely overturn her memories, facing the third wave of flames that had not yet ended, Iaar uttered—
“Solstice of Pure Ice—”
Although it was a very convoluted incantation, Iaar recited it with great fluency, not a single word out of place.
When Will heard this incantation, he realized something.
Before this, he seemed to have never heard Iaar utter an incantation when activating that time-stopping move.
Although Ice Array, as a defensive magic, was inherently designed to minimize incantations.
After all, if defense required a long incantation, one could be instantly killed by a fast opponent.
But…
For such a large-scale magic, one that integrated both defense and offense – a super-magic – it was impossible to have no incantation at all.
So…
He hadn’t been able to hear it before…
Could it be because…
“Solstice of Zero Ice—”
Iaar’s words were crystal clear, every syllable.
Within her deliberate pronunciation, Will discovered…
Everything around them was “coming to a halt.”
As if being pulled, they didn’t stop instantaneously but gradually ceased moving as the intense cold emanating from Iaar slowly expanded.
“Solstice of Pure Clarity—”
In Will’s eyes, Iaar’s recitation slowed down even further.
“All is not the chill of winter; it should be as remembered in ordinary days.”
Then, the moment she finished.
Whether it was the burning flames.
Or the scattering ash.
Even the setting sun turning overhead.
Everything stopped.
“But I understand now. Stopping time isn’t just about the wish to preserve beautiful memories in that moment…”
This time, Will didn’t feel an instantaneous “chill” followed by the realization that Iaar had stopped time in the blink of an eye.
He could clearly hear every word Iaar spoke.
Before, she was the only one who could stand in the frozen world that had been put on pause.
Now…
“It should also be the hope of walking towards a happier future with someone—”
She invited Will into the stopped time.
Iaar stood there, everything around her halted for her, for them.
The swirling ash was now merely a fleeting fireworks display of her fleeting glance.
The paused battlefield time was like a grand banquet, for the two of them to dance alone.
This was something that had never been achieved in history, or even in the original work.
And the reason she had achieved this…
Will stood up, facing Al, who was petrified on the ground, preparing to sprint—aiming specifically at the “weak point” of its heart on its back.
Then, he heard.
In this completely still time, only they could hear.
“Go, my dear Will—this is my promise to you, to let you… personally finish Al!”
—She achieved this simply because she wanted to grasp the future that belonged to the two of you.
—And, the “mission” related to you, which she firmly believed she had to accomplish, that of saving you.
