The Nameless Extra: I Proofread This World

Hearing that, Arlok broke into a savage grin.

The feral expression he had left little doubt that he couldn’t wait to throw a few punches... even if the targets happened to be his own teammates.

After cracking his knuckles, he glanced at Ruvian and asked. ”By the way, why is it you who gets to hold our weapons instead of Yerin?”

Ruvian froze for a short instant before forcing a calm expression, though the faint twitch at the corner of his eye betrayed him.

’Huh... I didn’t expect him to be the one who’d notice that.’

Ruvian had always assumed Arlok wasn’t exactly the sharpest tool in the shed, but perhaps he had been too quick to cling to that assumption.

”Ahem...” he fake coughed.

”...Because my mental strength is far greater than yours,” Ruvian replied matter-of-factly. ”Anyway, that’s enough idle chatter. I’ll handle Shima. You two deal with Horren.”

’I hope he didn’t bring that up again!’

Noticing Shima was already blitzing toward him, Ruvian wrapped his body with [Body Enhancement] and lunged forward.

At the same time, he coated his katana in mana just before it collided with Shima’s lightning-enchanted falchion.

Crackle!

Steel clashed against steel, sending a burst of purple lightning exploding between them.

Shima’s falchion came to a halt only inches from Ruvian’s face, held back by his katana. The two remained locked together, their weapons grinding against one another as they stood face-to-face.

Shima’s violet eyes, usually calm and composed, were now frighteningly empty. There was no recognition in them... only an overwhelming, murderous intent directed entirely at him.

Her lips slowly parted.

”...Why won’t you just let me kill you?”

Her voice was hollow, almost dreamlike.

’Erm... that’s a rather unreasonable request.’

”...I hate you.”

’And that was rather painful to hear.’

Ruvian sighed and launched another attack. Yet instead of regaining her senses, something inside Shima seemed to fracture even further.

Her expression slowly contorted, and her dimmed eyes widened as though the last restraint within her mind had finally shattered.

”I hate you! I hate you! I HATE YOU!!”

Lightning erupted wildly around her body as she shoved her falchion forward with explosive force.

’Looks like whoever she was seeing in my place... it was someone she held a deep-rooted hatred for. But she wasn’t wrong. I also hate myself sometimes!’

Ruvian slid back several steps to create distance.

Shima did the same.

The next instant, she vanished from his sight.

Relying on [Heightened Sense] for a split second, Ruvian pinpointed the direction she was charging from. Almost instinctively, he twisted his body and parried the lightning-cloaked falchion before it could reach him.

Clang!

Their blades scraped past one another, sending a shower of sparks into the mist.

Shima stumbled a step before slowly lifting her head.

Her shoulders trembled.

Her grip around the falchion tightened so hard that her knuckles turned pale, while tears quietly welled at the corners of her eyes. Rage and grief intertwined across her face, twisting her expression into something almost painful to look at.

”...Why?” she whispered.

Her voice quivered.

”Why did you... fucking kill yourself?”

’Huh?’

Ruvian wasn’t expecting that.

Shima then took an unsteady step forward, her breathing growing increasingly uneven.

”I was... I was supposed to be the one who ended your life.”

Her lips trembled as tears finally spilled down her cheeks.

”But why...?”

”Why did you do that to yourself...?”

”How...”

”...How could you?”

Ruvian said nothing.

He merely looked at her with a trace of pity and shock in his eyes.

Even so, he never lowered his guard. His [The Endseeker] remained raised in front of him, his stance steady and ready to react at a moment’s notice.

Whatever illusion the mist had forced upon Shima, it had clearly reopened a wound buried deep within her heart. The rage in her voice was real, but so was the grief.

It was just tragically directed at the wrong person.

’Damn you, Voidspawn!’

Ruvian already knew what this Voidspawn was capable of. That was precisely why he had wanted to leave the western region as quickly as possible. He wished to avoid this situation.

He had known this creature lurked somewhere within these lands.

But still...

Why had it targeted their squad out of everyone stationed in the western region?

Ruvian’s brows furrowed.

Then the answer slowly surfaced in his mind.

’Perhaps, it was the battle against the Grimwood Colossus.’

The tremendous amount of mana they had unleashed, along with the enormous commotion they had caused, had most likely attracted the creature’s attention.

’Haa... makes sense. I should’ve considered that, as well.’

Ruvian inwardly sighed.

But, in his defense, he couldn’t exactly blame himself either. That damned, Wretched Grimwood Colossus had drained every last bit of his stamina, to the point where his brain had practically shut down and the only thing it could think about was sleep.

Though, he could still help her, if only by knocking her unconscious and freeing her from this state.

’Yeah, let’s focus on that first.’

Now that he had already understood the pattern behind Shima’s frenzied, uncontrolled attacks; he simply steadied his stance, tightened his grip on his katana, and waited for her to charge at him once more.

And what he was hoping for came true.

Shima dug her feet deep into the ground, preparing to launch herself forward again. Every muscle in her body tensed, and Ruvian could tell from her posture alone that she intended to unleash the fastest attack she could muster.

Then, he heard her whisper.

It was soft, almost as though she were talking to herself.

”Because of you...”

The hatred in her eyes grew fiercer.

”...No one ever looked at me anymore, ya know?”

”...They don’t ever care about me.”

She bit her lip so hard that it bled.

”I thought... I thought that after you stupidly ended your life... my life would finally change.”

A bitter laugh escaped her trembling lips.

”But it only got worse...” Her expression twisted with both anguish and resentment as she glared at Ruvian.

”I’m sorry, Shina. But to be honest with you... I wish... I really damn wish...”

”...That you’d never been born.”

Then, she disappeared.

”No...”

Her voice echoed through the mist.

”...I wish I was.”

The lightning-enchanted falchion came crashing down toward Ruvian’s head.

With a single step, Ruvian slipped past the strike, the crackling blade grazing only a few strands of his hair.

In the same fluid motion, he redirected her falchion with the flat of his katana, guided her momentum harmlessly past him, then pivoted behind her and struck the back of her neck with a precise chop. (+300PP)

’I’m sorry for this.’

”Huk!”

Shima’s eyes widened.

Before her body could be flung forward by its own momentum, Ruvian caught her and gently supported her unconscious figure before lowering her to the ground.

”Get some rest.”

Ruvian spoke with quiet compassion, his voice carrying a faint trace of melancholy.

Honestly, he had no idea what Shima had gone through, but whatever it was, it seemed she had been carrying an unimaginably deep grudge toward one of her siblings.

From the whispers she muttered and the words she poured out, there was little room for doubt.

And honestly, there was nothing Ruvian could say about it.

But what unsettled him even more was the fact that he had learned this hidden side of Shima not from her own conscious will, but through the Voidspawn’s illusion while she herself remained completely unaware of what she had revealed.

That realization left a bitter weight in his chest.

After all, if she had buried those feelings so deeply within herself, then it must have been a truth she had desperately wanted to keep hidden.

”Now... how are they faring?”

Ruvian quietly wondered about the others.

As he turned his head toward them, he quickly realized that the situation was far worse than he had expected.

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[Chapter 242: The Treacherous Mist (2)]

Plot Points= 24,570