Copy Skills with Affinity! Chapter 144

Chapter 144

The Completed One (2)

When I thought about it carefully, my first mory always began in front of the incubator.

Abigail III, when she had just ascended to the position of Pontiff.

Whenever I looked back on her, she had always been a cold-hearted human being.

There was nothing more important than protecting the Holy Crown Kingdom, the collective that sustained the entirety of its people. It had been propaganda instilled in since childhood.

The strong had to bear responsibility, and they also had the duty to enjoy the privileges that ca from that responsibility, while always maintaining the ability to stand above all others. Those were the virtues demanded of soone in the position of Pontiff.

Abigail III had been no different from soone born for that very purpose.

For that sake, she had killed without hesitation during the succession ceremony, had never knelt before anyone, and had never once been pushed back no matter who stood against her.

Even when compared among the Pontiffs of past generations, there were few who had guarded such a dangerous seat as flawlessly as she had.

So, if it was for her own sake, disregarding basic human morality to so extent was permissible.

Cruel, heartless, yet realistic. That was what she had believed.

Unless soone appeared who could fulfill the duty given to her better than she herself could, that was both her rightful authority and obligation.

That was likely why she had agreed without much resistance to the insane plan of creating a spare body.

“This is a spare body created in preparation for the unlikely event that sothing may happen to Your Holiness in the future.”

The mont she heard the researcher say that in front of the incubator, the Pontiff tilted her head slightly and asked,

“What is its na?”

“……A na for a spare body?”

Seeing him tilt his head as if he truly could not understand, I found myself unconsciously agreeing.

It was a life that would later be replaced by her as it was. What kind of absurdity was there in giving it a na? Perhaps it would have made more sense to call it a product with a serial number attached.

Abigail III lowered her head and t the eyes of the baby inside the incubator.

‘……I’m not sure.’

They had said that, as a spare body, it resembled her from head to toe, but seeing it in person, it simply felt like a wriggling lump of flesh. At the very least, I had thought there would be no reason for to feel sothing like maternal affection.

I had no such thoughts—at least until the baby slowly lifted its eyelids and t my gaze.

“…….”

The mont our eyes t, the baby broke into a wide smile.

Seeing it react that way even toward a creature far larger than itself—the first being it had ever seen since birth—made it hard to call that anything but pure.

They called it the imprinting instinct, didn’t they? That living beings felt goodwill toward the first thing they saw.

……To be honest, I had thought it was foolish.

Though it could not even speak properly and had no ans to protect itself, in a situation where it had no idea what the being before it might do to it, it displayed such a harmless appearance.

It was pointlessly innocent and brimming with goodwill.

To the Pontiff, who upheld the belief that innocence was rely a decorated word for incompetence and sin, there was not a single thing worthy of a favorable evaluation.

“Open it.”

“Pardon?”

“I need to check its condition. There must not be any flaws.”

The researcher tried to dissuade her, saying there was no need to go that far, but the one before him was the Pontiff herself. Receiving her icy gaze, he flinched and hurriedly opened the incubator.

And Abigail approached and imdiately examined the baby from head to toe.

“…….”

Even upon seeing it again, it was truly a strange lifeform.

There was not a single redeeming quality to speak of.

In what way did it resemble her?

The Pontiff quietly extended her hand to touch the baby.

And at the sa ti—

“Aba.”

The creature that had been making foolish sounds suddenly grabbed her hand tightly.

Startled, Abigail III tried to pull her hand away, but before she could, the baby had already climbed onto her hand.

Pressing its entire body against her, it rubbed its face against her skin.

It was a gesture as though it believed that the being before it would never harm it.

A movent that seed to express, with its whole body, that it trusted her.

Abigail III unconsciously tried to step back.

Her hand stiffened as strength filled it.

“Y-Your Holiness!”

The researcher was about to warn her that if she made any larger movent, the baby might get hurt—but it seed that warning was unnecessary.

Abigail III

was staring down at the baby, her entire body frozen stiff as though she had been struck by lightning.

“Your Holiness.”

“…….”

Sothing.

As though sothing inside her body had changed.

“Your Holiness?”

“Researcher.”

“……Y-Yes?”

“You said this doesn’t have a na.”

“…….”

“I can give it one, can’t I?”

The researcher stared at Abigail in disbelief.

Arrogant. Tyrant. More a conqueror than a Pontiff.

It was certainly an unbelievable sight—that a woman burdened with such epithets was showing more interest than necessary in her own spare body.

“There is… no issue with that.”

Sensing that sothing had begun to move in an unexpected direction, the researcher stamred as he answered.

Beside him, the Pontiff stared down for a long ti at the baby rubbing its body against her hand.

That

had been her first eting with Katya.

“-”

My consciousness surfaced back to reality.

Pulling away the veil of mories that had been drifting far in the distance, the Pontiff’s awareness was drawn straight into the present.

It was dark. But there was at least enough light beneath it to open my eyes and examine my surroundings.

The First Altar.

A torch touched by the breath of the God of Purification. Even subrged beneath water, it defied the laws and burned endlessly.

Gazing at it, the Pontiff looked down at the enormous magic circle drawn across the floor.

“O God of Purification—”

With a voice that was tearing apart, she continued as though coughing up blood.

No—there was actually so blood mixed in.

The life-support device embedded within her body—the one she had even shown to Aiden Kellermain—was writhing, burrowing more viciously into her flesh.

It seed that this thing understood as well. That the fla of life within this body was nearly extinguished. That in order to maintain the level of divine power she desired, this much was necessary.

All of it had been paid as a ‘price.’

For the one and only goal she sought.

“—Your faithful servant humbly makes one final request.”

So I only needed to endure a little longer.

The Pontiff spoke as she stared at the faintly glowing circle on the floor.

“……There isn’t much ti left.”

Whether it was my body.

Or until everything ca to an end.

Either way, the words applied.

▣

When I thought about the original ga, it was a world filled with all sorts of madly powerful individuals, fitting for a setting where threats capable of shaking the world itself constantly appeared.

There was no need to look far—right now, even Katya and Noel around Aiden were monsters who, if they so wished, could single-handedly overturn the tides of a battlefield where thousands or tens of thousands clashed.

And if we were to speak of the Pontiff, that was not rely a matter of changing the battlefield’s flow—it was closer to calling her a strategic weapon.

Monsters who wielded destructive power great enough to casually topple an entire minor nation with a single human body.

And to add an absurd fact to that—

Even among such humans, there was one whom they could never defeat in close combat.

As befitted a ga, I rembered having seen a settings collection that expressed the characters’ stats and overall combat abilities in paraters.

You know—the kind drawn as a pentagon, labeling one as A-rank, another as S-rank, allowing you to gauge ability by the size of the shape.

And ‘The Completed One,’ Magnus,

in close combat, was a human whose paraters pierced through the graph alone and extended beyond the page itself.

Of course, the developers had likely inserted those stats half as a joke, and I rembered laughing in disbelief when I saw them in my previous life.

But that episode suggested only one fact.

From the very beginning.

From the start,

this was not a character created to be defeated in battle.

“---!!”

Noel’s body was flung away like lightning.

From her mouth, bright red blood mixed with the impact of her organs being struck burst out in a long spray. She had been trading blows with Magnus at the front line, but her current state was so ruined that even the word battered failed to describe it.

It would be more accurate to say it was a miracle she was still alive and moving.

Of course, Magnus—the one who had reduced her to that state—could hardly be called unhard either.

His limbs were tattered. His body was covered in slashes and burn wounds.

But.

The light in his eyes had not dimd in the slightest.

If anything, it seed to burn even brighter than when the fight had first begun.

‘……You monstrous bastard……!’

The words I had muttered in disbelief earlier now echoed through my head as sheer shock.

The supernatural power pouring from Magnus’s body made heaven and earth rumble. Divine power so overwhelming that the faint-hearted would faint rely by facing it scorched the surroundings.

Even Noel, called a walking power plant of supernatural ability.

Even Katya, who wielded such vast divine power that she could forcibly cling to her own life no matter how desperately she wished to die.

An absolute quantity of divine power that none could approach suffocated everything around us.

It was not as though his divine power possessed any special trait. It was not particularly specialized in efficiency like Noel’s, nor did it grant abnormal abilities like Katya’s pseudo-immortality.

But the output. The mastery with which he controlled it. The combat skill to apply that supernatural power precisely where it was needed in battle.

All of that combined in this man—

“-Ha, hahahahahahaha!!-”

This walking calamity, bursting into mad laughter as though even such grievous wounds were nothing but delight,

……was undoubtedly a ‘final boss’ that did not even seem defeatable.

“…….”

Noel, who always asked whether there was a way, remained silent this ti as she looked at .

Which ant she understood as well. That even I—who had sliced apart dragons and even a Kraken without hesitation—would struggle against sothing like this.

“What are you staring at for.”

I let out a faint chuckle as I answered.

“Of course there’s a way to deal with him.”

“…….”

“…….”

Noel and Katya shot piercing looks at the sa ti.

“……May I ask why you did not use it sooner……?”

“It’s not exactly a thod I want to use either.”

……More precisely,

I was reluctant because even I could not calculate what kind of backlash this would bring.

A thod to face Magnus was sothing that even these superhumans standing at the pinnacle of humanity would find difficult.

There was no way, on a human level, to confront such a calamity.

Right.

On a ‘human’ level.

“…….”

I opened my skill window.

“Shall we try summoning a god?”

“……Pardon?”