I Thought It Was a Fairy Tale but the Genre Is Strange

Duel (2)

I sensed death and tightly closed my eyes. Mom, Dad, I’m sorry. Grandma, I said I’d be late, but now I’m coming to see you so soon, I have no face to show. Ugh, in reality, I was crushed by studies, and here, I got caught up in all sorts of bizarre incidents, and now I’m ending up being eaten by a crocodile brat!

“What, what!”

I expected the terrible pain of my flesh being torn apart, but strangely, I didn’t feel any pain. Instead, I felt a warm sensation in my body. When I opened my eyes slightly, there was a strange object floating in front of me.

A long black body with a crescent moon-like curve tinged with twilight. It wasn’t a sword, an axe, or a spear.

It was a scythe. A scythe with a huge twilight blade was floating in the air, emitting a dazzling light. Peter Pan couldn’t hide his bewilderment and stepped back. At that moment, I remembered the ring Ariel had given me.

The ring that had been on my index finger was gone. I instinctively felt that the twilight scythe was the ring.

I grinned and inwardly thanked Ariel. Yes, a scythe suits a reaper. I grabbed the scythe.

“Wow! It’s heavy!”

My arm trembled at the unexpectedly heavy weight. In comics or novels, you can usually swing it lightly, right? Except for playing during gym class, I had never exercised, and I regretted my past as I held the trembling arm in position, leaning on one shoulder, ready to swing.

“What! Where did that scythe suddenly come from! Ugh, hiding a weapon so cowardly!”

Peter Pan clattered his teeth, wary of my scythe.

“Then you pick up a weapon too. Oh, you can’t because you’re a dumb beast?”

“Shut up! Anyway, you’re destined to be eaten by me! I’ll swallow you whole!”

Peter Pan charged at me with his crocodile eyes wide open. Is he confident? I tried to scare him and attack easily, but now it’s a head-on confrontation. Focus. If you let your guard down for a moment, it leads straight to death.

Defeat him with a single attack.

That damned murderer. To the disgusting being who exploits countless children and enjoys power alone. Declare that the time has come to end that arrogant story!

“Haah!”

I swung the heavy scythe down towards Peter Pan’s gaping maw.

The first sensation I felt after swinging the scythe was pain. My thigh turned crimson. Blood dripped down, and a terrible pain, as if seared by fire, spread through my thigh. The sharp teeth of the crocodile that had dug into my thigh.

Peter Pan’s crocodile maw bit my thigh. But the wound wasn’t that severe. If it had been the crocodile’s full bite force, my flesh would have been torn off, or the knife-like teeth would have completely dug into my slender thigh, but it was only half-buried.

Because blood was flowing from Peter Pan’s left foreleg shoulder.

“Ah, aaargh!!!!”

Peter Pan screamed and lifted the teeth embedded in my thigh. The more terrible pain came, but I gritted my teeth and endured it. Even though it was only slightly embedded, the pain was considerable.

I felt the strength draining from my thigh as I stared at Peter Pan. I couldn’t understand. My attack was pathetic. The crescent moon blade, swung with slender muscles, grazed Peter Pan’s shoulder, leaving a shallow wound.

Yet, that guy was writhing in pain as if he had lost an arm, rolling on the ground. His massive body rolling around raised a cloud of dust. I let out a hollow laugh as I watched.

“It hurts! It hurts!!! You, it hurts so much! Blood, blood is coming out!!!”

Peter Pan had now completely reverted to his original, infuriatingly childish form. The shoulder wound didn’t seem that serious at a glance. It was just a slight cut, yet he was making such a fuss, and it made my blood boil.

“You’re making a fuss because that hurts?”

“aaargh! It hurts! Of course it hurts, you damned b*stard! What are you thinking, swinging something like that! Waaah! My, my shoulder! Blood, blood is coming out!”

Dragging the scythe on the ground, I limped towards Peter Pan. Just a moment ago, my thigh had been burning with pain, but seeing his exaggerated reaction, my anger consumed the pain.

“That hurts? Just a slight wound on your shoulder? Without thinking about what you’ve done? The pain you’ve given to the children who can’t even go outside and are trapped in Neverland for life, the pain of Cassandra who lost her precious sibling, the pain of the children who followed you to their deaths and never returned, compared to that, this is nothing!”

“Eek! Don’t, don’t come! Put, put that scythe away! I’m the king! The king of Neverland! Ugh! My shoulder hurts so much! Damn it, damn it!”

“No, that’s not even pain. You don’t know what real pain is.”

I mustered the remaining strength and slung the scythe over my shoulder again. At that sight, Peter Pan’s face turned pale.

“Eek! No, don’t! Don’t come!!!”

Peter Pan quickly got up, turned his back to me, and suddenly started running.

“Don’t be ridiculous! I am the king of Neverland! Do you think I’ll just take this lying down? Huuuh! It hurts so much. If only I had magic powder. With magic powder, I wouldn’t feel any pain! Just wait! I’ll teach you a lesson!!”

As Peter Pan’s words trailed off, his small frame crumbled. In front of the fallen Peter Pan, who was bleeding from his nose, stood Cassandra, wearing her brother’s ring.

“Where do you think you’re running off to, you piece of trash!”

“He, heek! No, nosebleed! You, you’re my mom! You can’t do this!”

“Shut up, I’m not your mom. Right now, at this moment, I’m here as Eris’s sister to get rid of you, who killed my brother!”

“Ugh, ugh! aaah!”

Peter Pan got up as if crawling and screamed, trying to escape from Cassandra. But as soon as he stood up, he fell flat on his face.

“aaah! What, what is this!”

Clinging to his legs were the children who had been bound by fear for so many years, now unleashing their pent-up resentment.

“What, what are you doing! Let, let go! Let go of me!”

“We’ll never let go. Not even if we die!”

“Do you know how suffocating and painful it was to live every day as a child with no progress because of someone like you!”

“It wasn’t living at all!!! Every day was hell, you damn piece of trash!!!”

The children reached out and clung to Peter Pan, making it impossible for him to move. Their resentful hands grabbed at Peter Pan’s hair and skin.

“aaah! You’re all crazy! I’m the king! I can do whatever I want! Let go!”

“This is what responsibility looks like, Peter Pan.”

I said as I limped towards Peter Pan. His fear-dilated pupils reflected my image. The image of a reaper holding a scythe.

“No, no! Heeek! Don’t, don’t come! Don’t come near me! Go away!!”

Peter Pan struggled desperately to escape, but he couldn’t break free from the karma brought on by his sins.

“Peter Pan, you said that a child’s privilege is not having to take responsibility. But that’s wrong. Let me tell you again the difference between an adult and a child. An adult is someone who takes responsibility, and a child is…”

I stood in front of him, gripping the handle of the sickle tightly.

“…someone who learns responsibility. A child can never be free from responsibility. The evil deeds you’ve committed will eventually hold you accountable, just like now.”

“Sh-shut up! No! No, that’s not true! I didn’t do anything wrong! I’m just a child! I don’t need to take responsibility! Mom! Help me! Tinkerbell! Huhuhu! Someone, please help me! I’m just a child!!!”

The children had perfectly restrained Peter Pan’s limbs, making it easy for me to attack. Cassandra placed her hand on my shoulder and nodded.

They all had the same look in their eyes. They were staring at me, pleading to end Peter Pan’s cruel story.

Peter Pan’s eyes darted around quickly.

“N-no, right? W-wait. R-really? No! D-don’t do this! Please! Please, I’m begging you! I’ll beg like this! Th-that’s right! I-I’ll b-beg…”

Peter Pan trailed off. His eyes were filled with tears, streaming down like a waterfall, tainted with the fear of death. A sticky mixture of snot and blood dripped into his mouth, and he stuttered as he spat out his words.

“S-so, I-I!”

“For someone like you, words are useless. Feel it with your body. Your responsibility. The price for making others shed tears of blood!”

“Eeeek! aaah! P-please, n-no!!!”

Whoosh! With the sound of the wind being sliced, the blade fiercely lunged towards Peter Pan. Thud. The sensation of something being pierced through the sickle. It wasn’t the terrible feeling of piercing flesh or bone. It was just the sensation of piercing the ground.

The sickle was deeply embedded in the ground right next to Peter Pan’s head. He was so shocked that he fainted with his eyes rolled back, and a warm, wet stream of urine soaked his pants.

“…You’re not going to kill him?”

Cassandra asked in a pure tone, neither angry nor questioning my decision not to finish him off.

“This guy’s story shouldn’t end with him simply dying by my hand. I think it should be ended by the hands of his victims. And there’s someone he must meet.”

As I spoke, gripping the pendant tightly, Cassandra nodded and softly murmured while looking at the sky.

“The moon is beautiful tonight. It’s truly a… beautiful full moon.”