Reincarnated as Just a Human?!
Chapter 36: Our Savior
CHAPTER 36: OUR SAVIOR
Leon was hopeless.
No eyes to see.
No strength to move.
No hope left to hold.
Why can’t I stand?
Why can’t I move?
And... why can’t I just die?
Tears—if he still had them—would have fallen.
Why did it have to be him?
Why Ren?
Why not me...?
He heard footsteps.
Minus 1, drawing closer.
So this is it...? Is dying here... the right choice?
But what about her? My sister... What happens to her if I die here like this?
A horrific thought tore through his mind—
What if she ends up like Mom...?
SNAP.
No.
No, no, no!
What the hell am I thinking?!
She won’t! Not while I still breathe. Not while I still live.
STAND.
STAND!
STAND!!!
Stand up.
Stand up and protect.
The dead can’t return... not yet.
Not until I become strong enough... strong enough to surpass even the Gods themselves.
Minus one grabbed Leon’s limp body.
"He’s useless now," Minus one muttered, lifting him like a broken toy. "Pathetic."
Leon felt nothing. His body was dead weight. But inside... something was burning.
---
Meanwhile, outside PA-4, in a hospital room...
Alexia and Lucas lay unconscious in beds, hooked to mana drips, their breathing shallow.
Members of the Student Council surrounded them. Tension filled the air.
Saera, eyes burning with rage, clenched the telephone in her hand.
She dialed.
Room 304.
"Hello? Who’s this? A sexy nurse?" came a teasing voice.
"This is Saera. Commander."
---
Back in PA-4...
Minus one’s face split open, jagged teeth stretching out, ready to devour Leon.
"He’s already dead," he said.
But Plus one raised a hand. "No, not yet. He’s alive, he can hear and think. Let’s make him suffer more."
A cruel grin spread across his faceless head.
"Kill the others. Let him feel it. Uhuhahaha!"
Minus one turned toward Hiroshi and Kami, limp on the ground, unconscious from mana drain.
Leon heard everything.
Their words, their laughter.
He knew what was coming.
Hiroshi? Kami?
No! No! Not them too! Please—please don’t...
But... begging won’t stop them.
Only power will.
I need to fight.
Even with this shattered body—
Even if I have nothing left—
I will fight.
And if I lose...?
No. I won’t.
I will win.
Minus one gripped Hiroshi by the skull, then began punching him—once, twice, over and over. Blood splattered across the ground with each brutal hit.
He turned his attention to Kami, then looked over at Plus one.
"Give her to me," he said casually. "I want to play with her." He laughed maniacally. "Uhuhahaha!"
Leon heard those words. Even in his state—blind, broken, half-dead—his mind lit up in pure fury.
You motherfucker. Don’t even think about it.
I swear, if you do anything to her, I’ll destroy you. I don’t care what’s left of me—I’ll drag you to hell.
He couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. His body was nothing but a useless shell now. And yet, even with nothing left, Leon was still throwing threats like a mad dog.
He realized the irony.
A man who couldn’t even stand, who couldn’t even beg properly, now threatening monsters who had already crushed him.
Like a dog that barked but had no bite.
And yet... he didn’t care.
Because no matter what, he had to do something.
Even if it killed him.
Minus one hands Kami to plus one. He holds her body and opens his face and licks her face with a strange red tongue-like thing. "Hmm... delicious."
Then he placed her on the control panel and held her neck, slowly tightening his grip to satisfy himself. He then pushed his tongue-like appendage into her cheek.
"I thought you were going to have fun with her. So why are you extracting her life force?" Minus one asked, still holding Hiroshi, who was beaten by him.
"I’m having fun—sucking out her life force and giving her a slow, painful death. Uhuhahaha!"
A pause,
"Anyway, I designed these bodies for only combat.
We can’t reproduce, nor do we feel any romantic emotions."
"Then you’re practically a sadist," Minus one said, continuing to beat Hiroshi.
Meanwhile, Plus one continued draining her life force.
---
What the hell is wrong with this body?!
Leon screamed internally. Your friend is dying, and here you are—doing nothing!! Stand up, MOTHERFUCKER!!
His mind boiled over. Give it all to your rage. Kill those bastards. Save your comrades.
Go! Go! Go! LEON!!
His body twitched—just a flicker, barely noticeable. Then slowly, painfully, his hand groped for the sword lying beside him. His fingers curled around the hilt, shaking. With trembling effort, he used it to prop himself up.
He couldn’t see—his eyes were gone. He had lost too much blood. His body teetered on the edge of death. Each movement sent waves of agony coursing through his broken frame, but he endured it. He had to.
Plus one’s eyes narrowed as he noticed the stir of movement. A frown replaced his usual sinister grin.
"You still want to fight?" he muttered, studying Leon’s mangled body.
From what he could see, Leon’s condition was beyond critical: his body below the neck had turned a sickly shade of purple. Both eyes were destroyed. Bones were shattered, his skull cracked. One arm and one leg had been torn off completely. His blood loss was catastrophic... and on top of it all, he was infected with a Stage B Entity Curse.
Plus one stared, genuinely shocked.
How the hell is he still alive...?
No... this isn’t the real question.
How the hell had he been alive this whole time—
—ever since he took that first punch from the entity?
Leon charged straight at Minus One. Determined. Reckless.
But just as he gained momentum—his temporary leg vanished into thin air.
He stumbled, and with nothing to support him, crashed face-first onto the floor. There was a sickening crack as his already damaged teeth shattered on impact.
A moment of silence passed.
Then—
"UHUHAHAHA!!"
"KUAKUAKUA!!"
Both Plus One and Minus One burst into uncontrollable laughter.
"That guy seriously just broke his teeth like that!" Plus One wheezed, tears in his eyes.
Minus One approached the fallen Leon, grabbed him by the neck like a discarded ragdoll, and hurled him into a pile of broken test tubes. Shards of glass sliced into his body.
"Bye-bye... forever." Minus One sneered, picking up a long, sharp shard of glass, aiming to cleave Leon in two.
But just before he could strike, a sudden gust of air—scalding, like molten flame—rushed past him. His expression faltered.
Then—
BOOM!!
A devastating kick smashed into his face, launching his entire body across the room like a meteor.
Plus One’s smirk dropped. His body stiffened. His eyes widened in dread.
"C-Co-Commander Akash...? Why are you here?! You were supposed to be in the hospital!"
Then he noticed it—the limp forms of Squad 35 dangling from Akash’s grasp.
"Th-they’re... my men!"
Akash threw them carelessly to the ground like garbage. Then, without a word, he released a terrifying burst of mana pressure. Plus One collapsed, crushed into the floor, choking under the weight.
Calmly, Akash walked past him and lifted Kami’s barely breathing body from the control panel. With Hiroshi and the others from Squad 4 in tow, he exited the room.
But Akash wasn’t done.
He turned back and saw Leon—barely alive.
Jaw dislocated. Eyes torn out. Body riddled with glass. Bones shattered. Skull cracked. Blood everywhere.
His fury erupted.
The room trembled as the air grew heavy with overwhelming mana. Akash raised his hand toward the mana-extracting weapons mounted in the chamber. A glowing orb of concentrated mana formed in his palm.
He released it.
The blast tore through the facility, passed through stone, steel, and sky. It traveled ripping through distant planets and meteors like paper. One beam sliced cleanly through a moon orbiting another planet, splitting it in two.
Akash stood in front of the collapsed Plus One, the atmosphere suffocating under the sheer weight of his mana.
"Can I ask..." Akash’s voice was calm, yet laced with fury. "Why did you beat my friend this brutally?"
But Plus One couldn’t answer. His mouth opened, but not a sound came out. Akash’s mana pressure wasn’t just crushing his body—it was choking his very voice. A clear message:
I don’t want to hear your excuses.
In the blink of an eye, Akash vanished.
Then—BOOM!—he reappeared right in front of Plus One, grabbed his massive eight-foot frame like it was weightless, and hurled him across the room. The walls cracked from the impact.
Before Plus One could recover, Akash was on him again—gripping his head with one hand and slamming it into the shattered remains of the test tubes.
Once.
Twice.
Over and over again.
The sound of breaking glass mixed with the sickening crunch of artificial bone. A thick, dark fluid—something between blood and oil—oozed from Plus One’s body, staining the floor with every impact.
Akash’s silence was more terrifying than any scream.
Akash stood over the mangled body of Plus One, his palm raised. A swirling mass of deep blue mana gathered in his hand—unstable, wild, ready to annihilate.
"Die," he muttered coldly, the air around him distorting from the sheer energy.
But then—
"WAIT!"
A voice—deep, commanding, ancient—echoed through the laboratory.