Black Killer Whale Baby [EN]: Chapter 156

After muttering those words to myself, I realized it was a revival spell meme that was famous back on Earth.

But it didn’t act as an ominous flag. (In storytelling, an ‘ominous flag’ is a subtle hint or foreshadowing of impending doom or negative consequences.)

Such flags only work between those whose power difference isn’t that great.

Like a gunslinger blowing away smoke from a fired gun, I loosened my fist and blew away the stray hairs from my face.

‘Misa tied my hair up so nicely, and now it’s a mess?’

I should fix it a bit before going back, so the maids don’t get surprised.

I stared expressionlessly at Asel, who had fallen in a single blow.

This was something I couldn’t have even imagined in the previous timeline. To knock him down at this age.

That’s how much of a promising successor of the Black Panther family he was, and one of the most outstanding talents among the past successors.

‘So, in the original story, Lily faced the greatest opposition from him when she later got together with the Crown Prince.’

But that’s just a story at the level of children.

Even if he could wield power like an ordinary beast, he wouldn’t be a match for me.

It’s not just the difference in power.

‘It’s the difference in experience.’

It’s no different from the reason I could win against the Baiyan pack when I was young.

No one can overcome overwhelmingly accumulated years.

“Especially not those whose heads haven’t even dried with blood.”

I could almost hear a certain sound in my ear.

Like a fighting match commentary from Earth a long time ago.

Ah! Player Asel can’t get up! K.O! It’s a K.O.!

Just as I was dusting off my hands, the bushes rustled once more.

I wasn’t worried that it might be another unfamiliar knight.

Because it was a familiar presence.

“You came.”

I said without even looking.

Then, I heard a clicking of the tongue from behind.

“Why don’t you look before you speak?”

“What’s the point when I know it’s you, Second?”

“……”

Turning my head slightly, as expected, the guy who appeared behind me was Second.

His face was slightly frowned, as if he was displeased with something.

“Are they all knocked out?”

“Can’t you tell by looking?”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“I hit all their vital points.”

I didn’t intend to kill them, but I also didn’t intend to let them run away with their eyes open.

Most of them probably have a bone or two broken, and everyone else will have difficulty moving for a while.

“Those bastards, there are other people they should be picking fights with. Why pick on you?”

“Don’t get angry.”

Only after looking at Second’s face did I realize that he wasn’t angry at me, but furious at the guys who attacked me.

He’s a water animal, so he must have water affinity, but his eyes were burning so fiercely that they could be mistaken for flames.

Come to think of it, this guy couldn’t stand anyone committing an act of insubordination against me even in the previous timeline.

I chuckled, reminiscing about the old days.

“Tie them up for now.”

Atlan clicked his tongue and roughly waved his hand, causing streams of water to flow out of thin air and tightly bind the guys who had fallen to the ground.

‘Somehow, it seems like he tied Asel up extra tightly… It’s not just my imagination, is it?’

I stopped looking at Asel and paused.

Surprisingly, that guy was glaring at me with his eyes wide open.

‘Oh?’

I rested my chin on my hand, genuinely intrigued.

I beat him up properly, but he’s still awake?

“Amazing, I thought I hit you hard enough to knock you out.”

“You… cough, do you think you’ll be safe after doing something like this?”

“You’re the ones who should be thinking about whether you’ll be safe.”

Is he still putting on airs even though he’s beaten and tied up?

I chuckled and slowly walked towards him.

“You’ve just touched a Black Panther, cough, do you know what this means?”

“I know. Why wouldn’t I?”

I was going to make sure this arrogant guy, who still didn’t know his place, understood clearly.

“It’s a case of land-dwelling beasts oppressing innocent aquatic animals.”

“What? What nonsense—as expected, you inferior…”

*Thump.* My foot pressed down hard on the back of Asel’s hand.

“Ah, did you say dog? I have a habit of stepping on disobedient puppies.”

While being crushed, Asel bit his lip tightly without uttering a single scream.

‘I put some force into it, so it must hurt. He really is a tough guy. Is this what it takes to be a main character?’

Black flames of anger seemed to be burning fiercely in his eyes, which resembled his father’s.

It was amusing.

I had experienced several times more humiliation and sorrow than this, and didn’t even have the chance to glare back.

“Life is really interesting, isn’t it? To think I’d live to see the day I stepped on a Black Panther.”

Then, a nonchalant voice was heard.

“What, it’s not like it’s your first time.”

The angry look in Asel’s eyes wavered for a moment, and a question flashed across them.

It must have been an incomprehensible sound to him.

But this was only for a moment.

“If my father finds out about this, do you think he’ll let it go? Orcas and the like…!!”

What kind of face would he make if he heard that those orcas had once taken their castle and even their imperial palace, suffering a humiliating defeat?

“Is that your only method when you’re in a crisis?”

“What?”

“Looking for your parents? Wow, the Black Panther successor is just a kid after all?”

“……”

“If you can’t do it with your own strength, you’ll just use your dad—ah, the power of your family—to wipe them out? Good.”

“……”

“It’s laughable that you don’t even know the basic fact that it doesn’t work anymore, but you’re too stupid to realize it.”

It might sound funny to others, but I was secretly aware that I was a child.

I was at least maintaining a boundary in my own way so that I wouldn’t look too strange.

But at this moment, for the first time, I threw away that mask and unleashed my true nature as a regressor. (A ‘regressor’ is someone who has been reborn or sent back in time.)

A dark and gloomy self, filled with the vengefulness and obsession to destroy you all on some days from the previous timeline.

“Still can’t grasp the situation?”

The dark aura overflowing from me tightened around Asel’s neck.

“Words are for the strong.”

*Cough, cough.* Asel coughed as if he was suffocating.

“How does it feel to be someone who can’t even move his tongue without my permission?”

My face must have been expressionless.

Fragments of memories flashed through my mind.

“Live quietly, like you’re dead. You are someone who can’t even open your mouth without my permission. Understand?”

“If you’re weak, act like it.”

The fact that you were so kind to the heroine, as if you would give her your liver and gallbladder, but colder than ice to the bride who came from afar, no longer seems strange to me.

Ironically, there was a day when I, who lived as this guy’s fiancée, made a final wish.

“Just once, please let me go home… Just once, to my hometown…”

Why did I do that? Where did I have a place to return to in that cold Aquasialdel mansion at the time?

I think I thought it was better than here. At least it was comfortable enough to lie down there.

I don’t pity or sympathize with my past life.

Because it’s just the past.

Nevertheless, I’m engraving in my heart that I’ve lived a pitiful life.

“You, cough, never…”

At this moment, Asel’s eyes were burning fiercely. It was amusing.

Is this all it takes for you to harbor resentment and decide to take revenge?

“I… I won’t let it go. Never.”

“You know what?”

I put on a smile again over my expressionless face.

“There’s no such thing as ‘never’ in this world. And I am.”

“……”

“I’m someone who’s strong enough to make your ‘never’ sound ridiculous.”

With a smiling face, I turned my head.

“Atlan.”

“Uh, uh?”

Second was flustered when I called his name. His body remembers it.

From the last life, when I called his name with that face….

“Wh-what are you trying to do…? Hey, this isn’t Aquasialdel?”

That I was about to do something big, sometimes something crazy.

He knew it very well.

“Who said anything? I just came up with a good plan.”

“……N-no, when you smile with that face and call it a plan, you’ve only ever done crazy things?”

“And what was the end result of those crazy things?”

“……We won.”

“That’s right. Isn’t that what’s important?”

With a smiling face, I looked down at Asel and pressed his neck with my heel.

It didn’t take long for him to pass out.

“No one around, right?”

“Yeah. I put up a barrier.”

“Second, you’re not very smart, but I really like how quick-witted you are in these kinds of situations.”

The barrier that Atlan had set up would have blocked out the loud noises and prevented anyone from entering from the outside.

“You did ‘record’ it, right?”

Just as the land powers of the Black Panthers and Lions, the main characters in the book, have limitless applications.

The water powers of our orcas also boast various applications.

This depended on how each individual orca developed it.

In the last timeline, I taught my brothers a special application.

It was taken from the property of water that transparently reflects shapes.

It was the ability to record certain events or scenes.

However, this was a very high-level application, and in fact, it would have been absolutely impossible for Atlan’s age.

“……Yeah.”

This guy is a regressor like me, who retains the memories of the previous timeline.

‘Absolute power or physical strength must be built up from the beginning.’

Just as my experience hasn’t gone anywhere, neither has his.

“Yeah, if you had forgotten that, I wouldn’t have been able to do the plan or anything, and it would have just been a sparring match after a long time.”

“Even if I forget everything else, how could I forget this? You worked me to death!”

“Yeah, yeah, the beatings of love stay in your memory for a long time, right?”

Atlan stared at me with complicated eyes.

“So, what are you going to do?”

A blue crystal floated in front of my eyes. I grabbed it in my hand. It was made by Atlan. A crystal that recorded everything that had just happened.

“What else? I have to make a big scene.”

“……”

“They gave me a good opportunity, didn’t they?”

Well, it’s a little earlier than planned, but…

Shall we go save Tus?