“Are you crazy!!!”
Loxy screamed in a sharp tone and loud voice she had never used before.
…Though it was somewhat muffled by the sound of the wind rushing past their ears as they fell, it was still clear enough to pierce through to U-jin's ears.
“……”
From Loxy's perspective, the situation was nothing short of bewildering.
It wasn't just a deep canyon; she had literally never imagined he would jump off a cliff into a chasm so deep its bottom was invisible.
She did have an uneasy feeling when she saw him staring down the cliff with that characteristic blank expression, a premonition that he was cooking up another absurd plan in his head.
But still, who could have imagined he would throw his body off the cliff without any warning?
Loxy's mind went blank, her thoughts a tangled mess.
She barely managed to regain her senses and began to assess the situation.
‘…Unless this man is completely insane, there's no way he'd throw away his own life just to kill me.’
…It was a miserable thought, even to herself.
From U-jin's point of view, Loxy's role was, at best, that of a pawn.
A pawn that could be used and discarded at any time.
For a man who claimed to have so much to do to throw away his life just to dispose of one such pawn made no sense, no matter how she looked at it.
Besides.
“……”
Loxy wasn't the only one U-jin had grabbed before jumping.
This man named J. J, with his dark and strange aura, who hadn't even changed his expression amidst this urgent situation, was in the same predicament as her.
If Loxy's guess was correct, he too seemed to have been caught off guard by this unexpected event.
‘…Then that means he has another plan…’
Another suspicious thing was that the answer, which should have come by now, still hadn't.
Of course, one could argue that not much time had passed, as Loxy's stream of consciousness was flowing in tenths of a second inside her head.
But for there to still be no answer in this urgent situation of a vertical drop from a cliff of unfathomable depth had its own meaning.
Her thoughts reaching that point, Loxy finally came to one conclusion.
‘…Satellite Magic.’
It was to touch the medals that she and U-jin had and activate the ‘Demon's Singularity’.
Tuk-
…If there was one snag, it was that with the failure of the 'Train Protection' request, the only Constellations who could intervene in U-jin's channel were those of the 'jurisdictional area'.
And while they were within the territory of the Murim Empire, the 'Kunlun Zone', known as the Unexplored Lands, had no such jurisdictional Constellation.
But the situation was too urgent to dwell on such detailed questions.
Zzt- Zzzzt-
And so, a purple rift began to form on the geometric magic circle drawn upon the medal.
[Warning! An unknown error has occurred.]
[Satellite Magic, Starlink has been temporarily disabled.]
Only then did U-jin reply with a smile.
Grin-
“You're certainly quick on the uptake.”
“How can you be smiling right now…?!”
Shrug-
“Can't exactly cry, can I?”
“But…”
She immediately shot back sharply, a sincere anger boiling up from deep within her chest for the first time in a while.
U-jin didn't wipe the leisurely expression from his face.
“…So. What's the plan?”
Jerry, too, threw the question as if he had been waiting for U-jin to speak.
“The plan is simple.”
“……”
…And although there was the change of U-jin finally speaking.
Loxy was still.
“She's going to fly and take us down there safely.”
“…What?”
She couldn't escape her bewilderment, nor the fact that she was still falling.
* * *
Black Wings.
An authoritative symbol permitted only to the Demonic Species, the Demon King's direct bloodline among the Magical Beasts belonging to the Demon King's Allied Forces.
And a special organ that serves as another criterion for distinguishing between other Magical Beast species and the Demonic Species.
Loxy, belonging to the Demonic Species, was also supposed to have Black Wings.
“…So. You were a Succubus.”
“Did I not mention it?”
“…You did not.”
“A shame. Well, anyway. She's going to fly us down.”
Therefore, Loxy too had immediately thought of Black Wings at U-jin's mention of 'flying', but she could only quickly shake her head and declare it impossible.
“That's ridiculous! I've never flown before in my life. Besides-!”
“…I know. That you've never flown before.”
In the process of the Demon King's Army's formation and the solidification of the alliance, the flaunting of Black Wings was officially forbidden.
The Demon King had outlawed 'flight using Black Wings' in the skies of the Demon King's Territory to prevent unnecessary conflict and division between the Demonic Species and other species of Magical Beasts.
Furthermore, the flight function of Black Wings was far inferior in performance compared to the wings of flight-specialized Magical Beasts.
A single pair was hardly efficient.
Therefore, it was common for most of the Demonic Species, especially the lower-ranking ones, to have no reason to ever bring out their Black Wings.
U-jin knew this well.
However, the reason he had jumped off the cliff, trusting in Loxy's Black Wings despite all this, was because U-jin had his own way to compensate for it.
What U-jin needed to pass this cliff safely was only Loxy's wings; whether Loxy knew how to use them or not was not an important factor at all.
After all, U-jin himself could just control the Black Wings.
“Whether you know how to fly or not isn't that important.”
“……?”
“Just bring out the wings, and I'll take care of the rest.”
“No, that's not the problem…”
“If you really don't get it, then just stay still.”
As if he could wait no longer, U-jin placed his hand behind Loxy's right ear.
Pzzzt-
At the same time, a system message appeared before Loxy's eyes.
[The inflicted skill, ‘Seal of the Ancient Miko,’ is being affected by external magic.]
[An unknown magic is acting on your body.]
Along with a strange foreign sensation from her back, Loxy's eyes turned purple.
[Warning! Forced physical transformation is occurring due to an unknown magic!]
Crrrack-
Soon, with the gruesome sound of her shoulder blades twisting, a single black wing unfurled from behind Loxy's back.
And at the same time.
U-jin realized something was wrong.
Tilt-
The pair of wings that should have extended from Loxy's back in response to the magic should have generated lift, slowing their fall.
But what he felt as the magic took effect was not a balanced sense of flotation, but a drastic imbalance, tilting them sideways.
Their falling speed did decrease, but in exchange, Loxy and U-jin's bodies lost all direction, spinning round and round in an unstable trajectory.
The reason was simple.
‘…A single wing?’
Loxy's Black Wings, which should have spread out on both sides and started beating, had only extended a left wing, which was now flapping.
It wasn't a problem with the magic U-jin had wielded.
No matter how rushed and brief it was.
There was no way he would fail at such a basic level of magic control.
By the same token, there was no way the 'Seal of the Ancient Miko' he had planted beforehand would have had an abnormal reaction.
This was simply Loxy's problem.
‘…Just when I thought things were going too smoothly.’
Whether it had been torn off or if it was a congenital problem, he couldn't guess the reason in this situation, but in any case, Loxy's right wing was missing.
‘…Should I have checked beforehand?’
That was why it hadn't reacted to the magic U-jin sent.
Naturally, this was outside of U-jin's expectations.
He had seen Demonic Species with both wings torn off for one reason or another, and he had even torn them off with his own hands before.
But this was the first time even for him to see a single remaining wing.
This was worse than having no wings at all.
Disaster struck immediately.
Cruunch-
“Keuk……!”
At the intersection of their unstable trajectory and the narrowing canyon, one of U-jin's arms hit the wall. The arm twisted at a bizarre angle, and their bodies ricocheted off the cliff to the other side.
And again.
THUD-
This time, it was his back.
Cough-!
As if he'd suffered internal injuries from the impact to his back, a mouthful of blood burst from U-jin's mouth.
Their speed had decreased significantly from the moment the wing opened, but that was only a reduction from the speed of a freefall.
The impacts U-jin took as they repeatedly hit the cliff walls were each at a fatal level.
And so, after several impacts back and forth between the two walls.
Amidst the continuous shaking and dizzying impacts, Loxy gradually lost consciousness.
* * *
Cough-
Coughing up a mouthful of blood mixed with torn pieces of his internal organs, U-jin let out a hollow laugh and looked up at the sky.
“…Still, I guess we avoided the worst-case scenario.”
…Contrary to his words, the state of U-jin's body was the worst it could be.
His right arm, which had taken the first impact during the fall, was bent in a grotesque direction, with white bone protruding from his torn forearm.
His right ankle was also twisted more than 90 degrees from its normal position.
And his limbs were the least of his worries.
Though not visible on the outside, U-jin's insides were broken and ruptured, literally a mangled mess.
He had only gotten away with this much damage because, just before impact, Jerry had twisted his body underneath to cushion the fall.
If he had taken the full impact of the vertical fall with his body, even U-jin would not have been able to escape instant death.
Pat, pat-
As Jerry lightly dusted himself off and straightened his clothes, U-jin gave him a thumbs-up and said.
“…Thanks, partner.”
“…I'll collect the cost for the torn clothes from you later.”
Pfft-
“You sure are thorough with your accounting.”
Unlike U-jin, who had reached a level of mental immunity to pain and shock, Loxy had lost consciousness despite not taking any direct impact.
She had scrapes and bruises here and there, but they were just that—scratches.
Looking at her external injuries alone, they were so minor that one could never imagine she had just fallen from a thousand-foot cliff.
“Ughn……”
As if to prove she was fine.
Loxy, who had been unconscious for a short while, opened her eyes with a low groan, without any external stimulus.
Slowly opening her eyes, Loxy naturally checked her own condition before turning her gaze to U-jin.
And then.
“You……!”
Her eyes widened as she murmured, aghast.
…Though she couldn't manage to say anything more.
“…This time, it was clearly my mistake. I didn't consider the possibility that you might have a single wing.”
Shrug-
“……”
“I don't know the circumstances… but with a single wing, you certainly must not have lived a very smooth life.”
“…Is that what's important right now?”
Loxy stepped forward angrily at U-jin's shrug and his apology-slash-situation analysis (?).
Rummage, rummage-
“Hold on. Let me just use this Memorize Paper I brought as a temporary measure…”
And she tried to pull a Memorize Paper engraved with a healing magic circle from her pocket.
Smack-
But at that moment, Jerry's left hand snatched Loxy's wrist, stopping her.
“…That won't be necessary.”
“…What?”
“There's no need to go that far.”
Even with his added words, Loxy furrowed her brow as if she still didn't understand, but U-jin's voice also stopped her.
“He's right. No need. It's probably just a low-grade item anyway, which won't do much for wounds like these.”
“…But we can't just leave you like this. No matter how I look at it, you're on the verge of death…”
“Don't worry, just put it away for now. You'll find out later anyway.”
“……”
Loxy, looking back and forth between the two men with a thoroughly disgusted expression, as if she couldn't understand at all.
Finally muttered, 'It's always just me who doesn't know-,' and let out a sigh.
“Haaah… Then.”
“……”
“What are you going to do? In this worst-case scenario.”
On the verge of death from the fall.
An isolated area with no hope of support.
And the thick stench of Oni from not too far away.
- Krrwak!
- Kraaak!
Plus, their approaching sounds.
In Loxy's eyes, it was, without a doubt, the worst possible situation.
However.
Surprisingly, from U-jin's perspective, this situation wasn't a bad turn of events at all.
“There's a way.”
“……”
“I have a mountain of things to do, so I can't just stay sprawled out like this.”
Because he had avoided both the worst-case scenario (instant death from the fall) and the second-worst (landing defenselessly in an Oni colony).
Moreover.
“…What do we have to do first?”
“Well.”
Shrug-
“First, I suppose we should grab those living potions coming from over there.”
“…Potions?”
…There was plenty of room for the situation to improve.