30 Years After Reincarnating, It Turns Out This World Was A Rofan?! novel Chapter 281

[...Grrk.]

At some point, Ortos regained consciousness and let out a rasping chuckle as he turned his gaze toward the humans.

How utterly foolish.

They had not even finished him off and were instead busy beating each other senseless.

What a laughable, ridiculous display.

Of course—

Ssshhhhh...

For Ortos, this was nothing short of a stroke of luck.

[Sssssaaah!]

As expected of a high-tier monster, his regenerative abilities had already kicked in.

While those two idiots were too busy brawling, he was recovering at a rapid pace.

Even the head with the broken neck was slowly realigning itself, knitting together thanks to the other still-intact head.

Ortos.

A monster that could not die as long as one of its two heads or its serpentine tail survived.

A creature with three lives.

However, regeneration required nutrients, and unfortunately, Ortos had not eaten anything today.

Which meant—he had no choice but to consume his own flesh.

By sacrificing his own body mass as fuel, he could accelerate the healing process.

His size would shrink significantly, and it would take a long time to regain his former strength, but—

Survival was more important.

Strength could always be rebuilt.

Once he escaped, he would devour prey, regain his body, and return to full power.

[Grrrrk.]

Sssss...

And so—while those foolish humans were preoccupied with their own fight—

Ortos activated his invisibility once more.

He erased his presence.

He erased his form.

Now, there was no way those humans could possibly—

WHOOOSH!

[...?]

Ortos saw it.

A massive figure flying directly toward him.

And then—

CRACK!

Before his still-healing bones and flesh could fully harden—

They were shattered once again.

His body was crushed before he even had a chance to react.

And once more—

He passed out.

This time, with indescribable agony.

“Huh? What’s this soft thing I landed on?”

Ortos lay collapsed, unconscious, and coughing up blood from the sheer impact.

But the one who had crashed into him?

Felix—who had fully expected to roll across the ground in a humiliating heap—

Simply blinked.

Then, as if nothing had happened, he shrugged.

"Ah, well! I suppose this is another stroke of luck!"

He took it as a divine sign that the heavens still wished to witness his fight.

"Indeed! I must not fall so easily!!"

Felix sprang to his feet like a coiled spring.

"Come, warrior! Face me!!"

He let out a roaring battle cry, brimming with fighting spirit.

However—

"No, no—‘Come at me’ my ass. You're already injured."

Ihan simply shrugged, unimpressed.

Because—

‘This is just starting to feel like bullying.’

Felix was covered in bruises and blood, his body clearly battered—while Ihan stood there, completely fine.

To any outsider, this scene must have looked like pure, one-sided abuse.

***

Felix’s condition was beyond miserable.

His already massive body had swollen to nearly one and a half times its normal size.

Not just his arms and legs, but even his face.

There was so much swelling that his flushed face looked as if he were heavily intoxicated, and visible tremors ran through his body.

It wasn’t fear that made him tremble—it was the involuntary shuddering caused by his injuries.

‘His arms and legs must be fractured. His facial bones are intact, but the damage has built up steadily. Hmm, his ribs seem to be broken too.’

Ihan wasn’t a doctor, but diagnosing his opponent wasn’t difficult.

After all, he had extensive experience breaking people’s bones and muscles.

One could argue that, in this particular field, finding a better physician than Ihan would be a challenge.

Thus, Ihan simply said:

“That’s enough, don’t you think? If we go any further, you’re going to die.”

“A knight dies not when his body perishes, but when his spirit is broken!! Fleeing cowardly from battle—that is not the way of a knight!!”

“...Since when was this a duel?”

“NO NEED FOR WORDS!!”

“...My head hurts.”

Ihan sighed as Felix charged at him once more with sheer brute force.

It was giving him a headache, to say the least.

But regardless of how exasperating it was—

Fwsh!

“!!?”

“Don’t hold this against me.”

Ihan wasn’t arrogant enough to ignore an opponent who came at him with everything they had.

When someone charged at him with full force, it was only proper to meet them with equal sincerity.

For the first time in this fight, Ihan used a technique.

Boom!!

“Ghk—!!”

“Just a simple throw.”

It required precise timing and judgment, but Ihan processed such calculations instinctively. He effortlessly redirected Felix’s momentum and sent him flying.

Despite Felix’s tank-like charge, which was powerful enough to rival an armored vehicle, it wasn’t nearly enough to intimidate someone of Ihan’s caliber.

Which meant countering it was almost too easy.

“This is going to hurt.”

With that kind warning, Ihan grabbed Felix’s arm and his throat at the same time, locking down his entire limb in a single motion.

Crack!

“That’s a clean hold.”

“!!?”

A perfect chokehold.

It was a simple grappling technique, but once locked in, escaping was anything but simple.

And with one of Felix’s arms already restrained, well...

“Krrghh...!”

There was no way out.

Normally, when there was such a significant size difference between two fighters, executing a successful chokehold was difficult.

But Ihan’s physicality couldn’t be measured just by appearances.

At this moment, Felix must have felt like prey caught in the coils of a giant anaconda, suffocating helplessly.

That’s how perfect Ihan’s technique was.

By now, the only options left were to surrender or to pass out from lack of oxygen.

But—

“Mmmph...!!”

With a loud crunch, Felix’s muscles swelled even further, his already massive body bulging grotesquely.

Slowly... impossibly... he began to rise.

Under normal circumstances, once someone was caught in a chokehold this deep, movement should have been impossible.

But Felix defied logic.