The Last Place Hero’s Return - Chapter 301

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 301. Offering (1)
“You….”
Morris trailed off, his expression twisted.
He glared at the smoldering embers with fierce eyes.
Thud, thud.
Footsteps echoed softly through the air.
“…Dale.”
A branch pierced through Yurina’s abdomen.
Blood streamed down in rivulets.
Suddenly, a faded memory flashed through my mind.
-I’m sorry… Dale. That I have to leave you alone….
The words Yuren—no, Yurina—had left behind in her previous life as she died.
“….”
I placed my hand on Yurina’s shoulder.
I channeled the power of ‘Blessing of Resurrection’ into Yurina.
Whoosh.
The flickering embers wrapped around Yurina’s wound.
It was my first attempt in thousands of years of life, including my previous existence, yet I felt an inexplicable certainty that I could do this.
“Ah.”
A soft gasp escaped Yurina’s lips.
The branch that had pierced her abdomen slid out smoothly, and the wound healed at remarkable speed.
It resembled the regeneration of the ancient legends’ wounds when they received Morris’s power.
“This is…?”
Yurina brushed away the gray ash dust flowing around her perfectly healed wound.
The ash dust that hadn’t appeared when the ancient legends’ wounds regenerated.
The ash dust visible when I was resurrected from death.
“Dale… you could do this too?”
“I’m trying it for the first time myself.”
I smiled faintly and examined her perfectly healed wound.
‘Even though it’s healing, the sensation feels different from Morris’s blessing.’
The end result of treating the wound is the same, but there’s a difference in the process.
I’m not sure if this is an apt comparison.
If Morris’s approach is like joining torn clay back together to heal the wound, mine feels like removing the torn clay entirely and applying fresh clay to heal it.
‘Is this the difference between regeneration and resurrection?’
In any case.
The end result of healing the wound was no different between us.
“Good! The wound is healed, so let’s go back….”
“No, Yurina stays here.”
“Stay here…?”
“I’ll handle that one.”
I turned to face Morris and summoned forth an inferno.
Unlike the gentle warmth I had conjured to tend Yurina’s wounds, this was a savage heat that seemed to devour the world itself, filling the space around us.
“…Hah.”
Morris shook his head with an expression of utter disdain.
“So you really intend to obstruct us until the very end?”
A deep sigh.
A weary exhale.
“Well, I suppose there’s no helping it.”
Morris’s lips curled into a smirk.
“I told you before, didn’t I? That I would help you reach the point where you’d want to end this world.”
Morris turned to regard the Apostles of Eternity, his voice dropping to a whisper.
“Kill them. All of them.”
The Apostles of Eternity nodded mechanically—
Whoosh!
And launched their assault toward the fallen Iris.
“…!”
I raised my hands urgently, preparing to unleash my flames upon the Apostles of Eternity.
“It’s alright, Dale.”
Yurina stepped forward, gripping a sword hilt from which the blade had been shattered.
A silvery aura flowed from her stigma, weaving itself into a beautiful silver blade that seemed forged from moonlight itself upon the remaining hilt.
“I will protect Iris. I swear it.”
“…Yurina.”
“Didn’t you say that to me before, Dale? That because you existed, I could exist.”
Yurina offered a faint smile as she cut down the Apostle of Eternity rushing toward her.
Slash!
She continued speaking as she carved through the Apostles of Eternity converging on Iris.
“It’s the same for me. Because you existed, I could become who I am now—no, we could all become who we are.”
Yurina glanced back at Elisha and Lanez, who were rapidly approaching, offering them a gentle smile.
“So please—trust me, Dale.”
“….”
I stood speechless, staring at Yurina in a daze.
“Huzzah! Brother! I’ve finally arrived!”
“Quiet, Berald. I told you to keep your voice down.”
“Oh, Iris! Are, are you alright?!”
Berald, Sophia, and Camilla Bediche arrived belatedly to join our ranks.
“…Hah.”
I let out a quiet chuckle and nodded.
“Then, I’m counting on you, Yurina.”
“Got it!”
I turned away from Yurina and advanced toward Morris.
Morris twisted his lips into a grin, gripping the sword forged from branches.
“You’ve got quite reliable Party members backing you up, don’t you?”
“Why? Jealous?”
“Not particularly? I have reliable comrades of my own. And….”
Whoooosh!
White petals scattered through the air.
“The more precious something is, the greater the despair when you lose it.”
Boom!
Morris stomped the ground with brutal force.
As the wooden sword wrapped in petals swung at terrifying speed, tree roots erupted from all directions, surging forward to engulf me.
Boom! Crackle!
Cinders and petals collided.
A violent shockwave rippled outward in all directions, splitting the Grand Hall floor with a sharp crack.
“Hah.”
I exhaled a breath mixed with ash and swung my sword.
Gray flames wrapped around my body, burning fiercely and wild.
A dizzying sense of omnipotence spread through my spine.
Boom boom boom boom boom!
Tree roots erupted from the fractured floor.
Tens of meters in length, so thick that an adult man couldn’t wrap his arms around them.
The tree roots infused with the power of the Tree of Creation possessed a strength capable of felling even a hero who had reached Master rank with a single blow.
“Burn.”
Crackle!
The fierce flames wrapped around the tree roots, reducing them to ash in an instant.
“Ugh…!”
I stepped forward lightly toward Morris, who was hastily retreating.
The distance closed in the blink of an eye.
I drove my fist forward, wrapped in cinders and flame.
No special technique was needed, no flashy skill.
A fist infused with an unfathomable amount of mana possessed the raw power to pulverize a Mountain.
Boom boom boom boom boom boom boom!!!
The earth warped.
Morris’s body, struck by my fist, crashed through the Grand Hall wall and was sent flying hundreds of meters away.
“Cough, hack!”
Morris, with a hole the size of a head torn through his solar plexus.
Blood and organs spilled from the torn flesh.
“Impressive, though…?”
Squelch.
The flesh around the wound writhed and trembled, then stuck back together, regenerating.
“Good, then let’s try killing each other with everything we’ve got!”
Morris’s lips twisted into a grin as he charged forward.
Boom! Crash! Crackle!
The collision continued relentlessly.
The entire Hero Academy grounds—vast enough to rival a medium-sized city—lay in ruins from the aftermath of battle.
Squelch!
A body pierced through by dozens of tree roots regenerated in an instant.
Whoosh!
Flesh charred by ash flames restored itself in the blink of an eye.
“Hahaha! I can’t remember the last time I experienced ‘death’ like this!”
Morris let out a maniacal laugh as he swung his wooden sword.
Swish, swish, swish!
Countless pure white petals scattered through the air.
The surroundings became blanketed in white petals as if standing in the heart of a blizzard across the Snowy Wasteland.
“How about you? Can you endure this?”
“Easily.”
I nodded quietly and incinerated the falling petals with ash flames.
“Hmm. I wonder how far this momentum can carry?”
Morris smirked and glanced toward the Grand Hall, now quite distant.
“I don’t think there’s any room to ‘distribute’ power in that direction right now.”
As he extended his hand toward the Grand Hall, the emerald light pouring from within was absorbed into his body.
Hummmmm!
The emerald light flowing from Morris’s body grew even more intense.
“Did you withdraw the power you gave to the Apostles?”
“Yeah. It won’t be much help in this situation anyway.”
“Then the Apostles won’t last long either before they die.”
Without the blessing of regeneration, the Apostles of Eternity would be no match for Yurina, Elisha, and Lanez.
“Why would I care if those things live or die?”
Morris shook his head with an indifferent expression.
“….”
That unsettling feeling washed over me again.
A discomforting sensation spread down my spine, like watching misaligned gears grinding against each other.
“Well then, shall we finally go all out?”
Morris grasped a branch, radiating intense emerald light.
Swish, swish, swish, swish!
Pure white petals bloomed from the branch.
“…Before that.”
“Hm?”
“There’s something I want to ask.”
“Haha. What, are you trying to buy time until your party members arrive?”
Morris let out a soft chuckle and twirled the branch in his hand.
“Ask me.”
“You.”
I turned back to Morris and finished my thought.
“Why have you been saying ‘we’ this whole time?”
At first, I thought “we” referred to the Apostles of Eternity.
But even now, without the Apostles of Eternity present, he continued using the word “we.”
That’s right.
As if someone were standing beside him right now.
“What do you mean….”
Thud.
Morris’s movements froze.
“There’s no one there but you.”
“…Ha.”
A hollow laugh escaped Morris.
“Hey, did you hear that?”
He turned toward the empty air, his shoulders shaking with a giggle.
“There’s only me here, they say?”
“Haha! That’s what I’m saying. We’ve been fighting together this whole time—I don’t know what they’re talking about.”
“Ah damn, didn’t I tell you guys to train harder? You’re always just loafing around, so that bastard treats them like they don’t even exist.”
“Ah, okay, okay. Don’t get mad. I can’t even joke around—it’s scary.”
Ah.
“…You.”
The vague sense of wrongness I’d felt earlier grew sharper and clearer.
When I heard Morris say he wanted to return home.
A question had crossed my mind.
Why did Morris want to return home?
Logically, it made sense—thrown into a strange other world five hundred years ago, of course he’d want to go back.
‘But so much time has passed.’
Five hundred years.
Yes, a full five hundred years had elapsed.
I didn’t know how many attachments he’d left behind in his homeland, but even if he returned to the world he once knew, it wouldn’t be ‘the world he wanted to return to.’
‘He couldn’t possibly not know that.’
Yet Morris said he wanted to go back.
He said he had to return, even if it meant turning this world to ash.
Whoosh.
A single snow-white petal drifted across my vision on the scattering wind.
‘Chrysanthemums.’
I’d heard about them when I was young.
The people of the Old Republic used chrysanthemums to honor the dead.
“Yeah, I know.”
Morris grasped the branch where chrysanthemums bloomed.
“Young-hun, Jae-young, Jin-ho, Yeon-ju.”
Reciting names I could not comprehend.
“Let’s… come back together, no matter what.”
Scattered petals swirled like a blizzard.
“…Ah.”
Now I could understand.
Now I could grasp it.
“Yes… that’s how it was.”
Just as I had been, you too.
You were living there.
In an endless.
An unbroken.
Garden so bitterly cold, so piercingly frozen.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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