I gasped, my eyes widening as I felt the air entering my lungs. My entire body felt sore. I seemed to have been brought back to life. That was the first thought in my mind. That only would have happened if I had managed to destroy the artifact. I had banked everything that Meteor would be sufficient enough to do the job. The Tibult brothers had been saying it clearly themselves. If you died in enemy territory, you needed to remove all traces of yourself. I’m sure they couldn’t attempt to resurrect me after being vaporized by a meteor and assuming the meteor vaporized the artifact, then my soul was free to be called too.

Souls of humans weren’t exactly the strongest, and thus we couldn’t decide who resurrected us. You could resist a Slave enchantment. It had to be performed on someone while they were willing. However, once you were dead, you couldn’t dictate who resurrected you. Thus, in theory, an enemy could kill you, and then resurrect you before another could do so. Since they were presumably there when you died, they’d have the time advantage too.

Well, that’s if the body was intact. Once the body and flesh were destroyed, things got tricky. It was still possible to resurrect someone, but you’d have to have something they were connected to. A slave bond was one such connection. A piece of my body would be another. Thus, if you wanted to make sure you revived where you wanted to while in enemy territory, you needed to die in a way that incinerated your body and left nothing for them to use. I liked to think I succeeded in that respect.

However, until the very end, I didn’t know how strong Meteor truly was. I could only remember the burning heat on my back. As for whether it was enough to incinerate me and destroy the artifact, it had been a gamble where I had bet my life. At the very least, it should have been a distraction that allowed my girls to escape with their lives. The artifact would have been buried under mountains of dust, and even if she survived, Alysia would have been knocked out.

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As I tried to will my brain to work and figure out what happened, I passed out. Exhaustion, pain, and an incessant aching accompanied me into troubled dreams. I dreamed of my mother. She was in pain, but I was literally a world away from her. Up until now, I had never really thought much about returning home, but at least in the dream, going home was what I wanted more than anything.

I woke up again. I still ached, but it had diminished a bit. My head was pounding, and no matter what I did, I couldn’t seem to get up. I needed more strength and vitality. I needed to snap out of it. There was a job good for such a thing. Eh… should I use it? I decided that it was more important to snap out of this state and wake up. Only then could I take care of the world around me. I equipped the job, Pervert.

Instantly, I felt my blood rushing to all kinds of places, and my heart sped up. It actually felt a bit like taking adrenaline, not that I knew what that felt like. Let’s just say drinking a lot of caffeine all at once. As my body moved from unconsciousness to vaguely awake, I began to hear the sound of a woman sobbing. I could feel hair on my face and realized there was a head on my chest. I was lying down in some kind of bed, and there was a woman holding me. If this was an echo of how I’d go out of this world, It wasn’t so bad to die with a woman lamenting on my body.

I gently lifted a hand and touched the back of her head. I could feel her hair in my fingers, but I was still completely out of it.

“I love you…” the words came out of my mouth.

I didn’t even know which girl it was. Lydia, Miki, Celeste, Terra, Shao? Surely it was one of them. It didn’t matter which, I loved them all. I brought her head to mine and kissed her. Her lips were a bit wet and salty, but they also had a sweetness that ignited the desire inside me.

Having not even woken up yet, I began to rip off the clothing of the girl on top of me.