Chapter 270: Ten Days and Ten Nights
"Ara ara… my clothes have been torn through several times already. If I hadn't patched them with boundary magic on the spot, Admin-sama the perpetually parched single dog might have gotten quite the view. And now I've taken damage again…"
Yukari's brows came together slightly. She glanced at the bruising along her arm, applied healing magic directly, and let the tissue begin closing.
Her mind ran like a supercomputer — she knew the exact elapsed duration. From the first moment of engagement to now: two hundred and twenty hours. Twenty hours short of ten full days and nights.
In that time, wave after wave of Void Beasts, including specimens that rivaled the Chat Group's strongest members. Yukari, for all her power, had taken injuries. More than once. Without her healing magic, she'd have been carrying visible damage from day three onward.
"Admin-sama's ability decomposes matter and energy, doesn't it? Unacceptable — an ability that useful is practically on par with a natural-type fruit for ignoring physical attacks. No wonder he looks like he hasn't been scratched."
She pursed her lips at the unfairness, then redirected her attention to the twelve remaining Void Beasts.
Close to ten days and nights against a thousand of them, and they were down to twelve. Not a single Chat Group member had died. Injuries were another matter — those had been unavoidable.
Even Ryū, who externally showed no obvious damage, had been running at maximum intensity for nearly ten days. His muscles were at their limit. The ache had moved past ordinary soreness into something pervasive and bone-deep.
Kizaru, the perpetually unbothered old salted fish, had been struck by black energy bolts more times than he could count. Crimson was dried across his forehead and torso. He was breathing noticeably harder, operating at the edge of his stamina reserves — another ten hours at most, by the look of him.
Tatsumaki had pulled back to rest. Her specialty was psychokinesis, and her physical endurance simply couldn't match the group's physical-combat specialists — even after days of consciously pushing her physical conditioning.
Dragon Tohru was missing a section of tail. Bite marks from the Void Beasts were visible in the wound.
Given that Tohru's tail was something creatures could apparently eat directly and she seemed largely unbothered by this, the assessment was that she had some distant cousin relationship with the lizard family.
Whitebeard's bisento was covered in fracture lines. Even with Armament Haki protecting the blade, the sustained combat against Admiral and Yonkō-tier opponents had been too much — without that constant coating, the weapon would have been fragments days ago.
It could still be repaired. As long as it wasn't left too long, Josuke could restore it to perfect condition.
Josuke himself, stationed about fifteen kilometers from the center of the engagement, had the mixed honor of being the most valuable and the most uncomfortable person present. He spent every moment of his time aware of the shockwaves radiating his direction, constantly repositioning to avoid being caught in the splashback. If any of those peripheral impacts landed cleanly on him, death wasn't certain — but a hospital stay absolutely was.
Ryū's face showed the first visible signs of exhaustion he'd displayed in the entire fight. The whites of his eyes had gone faintly red.
This was the first time in real-world combat that he'd approached the edge of his stamina. His reserves were at thirty percent. In the Arena, running dry and getting torn apart had happened regularly — but this was the first time it had happened outside a contained training environment.
The remaining count had dropped below a hundred, though. The strong specimens had all been eliminated first. What was left were the weakest of the group — none of them comparable to an Admiral, none of them stronger than Kaguya at her current level.
Ryū coated his fists in Armament Haki again, rolled his aching neck, and said quietly to himself, "Final cleanup. Twenty hours to finish all of you."
He stepped back into Moonwalk, and this time he stopped holding anything back. Maximum-output strikes, one after another, no conservation — Void Beasts dropped in sequence around him.
Everyone still standing was in the same state. Cleanup phase meant nothing left to preserve yourself for.
Even Yukari, down to roughly twenty percent of her capacity, was throwing everything she had left. Though at this point her mana and magic reserves were running genuinely low — perhaps someone should offer to "restore her mana"—
When night fell again, the Void Beasts numbered forty-two.
When the next morning broke, eleven remained.
Eleven Void Beasts. Eleven Chat Group combat members.
One on one.
Half an hour later, at eight in the morning, the last Void Beast let out something that tried to be a roar. It came out thin and unconvincing — anyone standing more than a short distance away probably couldn't hear it.
The enormous body fell.
It landed on the pile of its dead.
Then silence. Complete, sudden silence across the entire combat zone.
Ryū looked at his own hand. His whole body let out its held tension at once. He exhaled slowly.
I had just enough left for Moonwalk. If there had been two hundred more, I don't think I'd have made it home.
He was still waiting for the task completion notifications when he felt something press against his back.
Then a voice reached him — tired, but with an unmistakably soft quality under the fatigue.
"Mm… Admin-sama, let me lean here for a moment. You body-technique types have stamina like something inhuman. Magic specialists like me can't keep up."
The corner of his mouth twitched. His own reserves were nearly empty, but Yukari was remarkably light — leaning against him was manageable.
"By the way, Admin-sama, this is a privilege I'm bestowing upon you freely. You're a perpetually single dog — has a girl ever been this close to you? Hmm… that's strange. You're not blushing. A normal sheltered single man would absolutely be red in the face from this kind of proximity."
A pause, then a shift in her voice as if something had clicked into place.
"I see. You must be — don't tell me — the other kind. Only that kind could remain this composed while a woman leans against them without a hint of a reaction. Admin-sama has that sort of particular orientation — this is suddenly very interesting!"
The light scent coming from her — shampoo, or a body wash, or simply her own — was, Ryū had to admit, pleasant.
As for blushing.
"Would you blush at a several-thousand-year-old creature? I am seriously beginning to suspect your mating season has arrived and you're making a move. One more word and I'll restore your mana."
"Restore my mana? Admin-sama, you're a body-technique system user — you can do that?"
"…Never mind. You can't receive that reference. Fake otaku."
"Mrow mrow mrow???"
"…"
She genuinely hadn't caught the meaning. This ancient youkai sage had apparently missed that particular piece of internet vocabulary. Not worth explaining.
Ryū let her stay leaning against his back, stepped into a slow, ground-level Moonwalk, and descended toward the earth. He touched down on a Void Beast carcass.
He looked around. In every direction: bodies. Some incomplete, some relatively intact.
He had no particular interest in any of them. Even if the meat was edible, he wasn't hauling it back to Konoha. One of these creatures would collapse an entire street.
Then the Chat Group notifications arrived.
[Task 1: Minimize civilian casualties in the Saekano (Doujin) world.
Task Complete! Casualties from the Void Creatures remained below 100 million. Final reward: 30,000 Points!
Click the link to the right → [Link] to claim your reward.]
[Task 2: Eliminate all 1,000 Void Creatures.
Task Complete! Admin "RawrSoFierce" personally eliminated 172 Void Beasts. Of these: 22 bodies fully intact, 100 bodies severely fragmented, 25 bodies partially fragmented, 25 reduced to dust.
Additional kill bonus: 42,000 Points. Combined with base Task 2 reward of 30,000 Points: Task 2 total reward: 72,000 Points!
Click the link to the right → [Link] to claim your reward.]
[Task 3: Protect the Spiritual Core from consumption by the Void Creatures.
Task Complete! Final reward: 30,000 Points!
Click the link to the right → [Link] to claim your reward.]
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