Heroine-Saving System: Reborn In A Third-Rate Manga As The Protagonist-Chapter 113: Papa?

’So that’s the cat that can use void, huh?’ Koya thought and slowly lifted his head to see the Familiar in question.

It was much bigger than the average cat back on Earth... that was for sure. The body was long and lean and built low to the ground.

The fur was deep slate grey with darker irregular stripes running through it and four legs that looked deceptively thin until you noticed the muscle definition beneath the coat as well as a thick tail that swished slowly.

It was honestly crazy to imagine that such a relatively small creature had just forced a sixteen-legged ancient monster to its knees.

"CREEEEEE!"

The annoying cry came out of the Spider and it opened its mandibles showing what was its mouth, doing it slowly, and a purple aura gathered around it. Immediately the monster shot out a spike in their direction.

It closed the distance between them easily... however the further it got toward them, the slower it became with the velocity bleeding out of it in stages, until it stopped right in front of Riftclaw and completely paused.

It was suspended in the air like the domain had simply decided this spike was done traveling and the Familiar chirped.

A chill ran down Koya’s spine immediately because this was a cat and not a bird and cats did not chirp.

The whole spike flipped over in place and shot back through the air at the Spider, covering the same distance in reverse in a fraction of the time, and impacted Ysterion’s head with an explosion that blasted brain matter and purple blood outward in every direction as the monster collapsed in a heap.

"It’s dead already?" Koya blinked.

Given how much trouble that thing had caused him over the last few minutes, it was genuinely difficult to process that it had just died to a redirected spike. "Just like that?"

"Meow." Riftclaw walked behind him and bit the collar of his shirt before hopping backward... one clean hop that covered the distance to the edge of the domain like gravity did not apply to the Familiar.

Koya was carried along with it and Riftclaw let go of the collar at the exact edge of the domain leaving him crumpling to the ground.

"Th... thanks." Koya said with a deep breath, turning to look at Riftclaw. The Familiar was elegantly licking its paw, completely unbothered.

"Meow~"

Riftclaw withdrew its domain and gradually the pressure lifted from Koya’s body, the crushing weight receding in stages until the air felt normal again.

He took a full breath and then he realized something else.

"I don’t think I can stand up." He rolled onto his back and looked at the dark cloudy sky above him.

Riftclaw looked at him and patted him on the forehead with its paw... it was clearly meant as some kind of gesture but what kind exactly?

Koya couldn’t determine what the cat was thinking at all. "So why did you decide to show yourself no—"

"CREEEEEEEE!"

"Fuck no." He tilted his head upward.

The dead Ysterion had begun regenerating... The face that had been completely destroyed was rapidly rebuilding itself with flesh and bone knitting back together in real time.

The destroyed sections pulling in material from somewhere and reforming and the already broken legs were discarded entirely as new ones grew in their place. The monster was regaining its full size when it was supposed to be dead.

’I never really stood a chance in the first place...’ Koya thought and then sighed. "Now would be a good time for another gravity attack."

Riftclaw continued licking its paw, glancing at the regenerating monster with absolute indifference. It seemed this cat had its own timeline for things.

"CREEEEEE!" Ysterion let out as it completed its healing and stomped its two front legs onto the ground, blowing wind outward in every direction.

Riftclaw finally raised its paw but... nothing happened.

There was no mini-domain activation nor was there any visible gathering of power... Unlike the mini-domain where the air had changed color and the gravity had announced itself clearly, this was nothing at all.

However, in a split second something appeared above the claw right at the tip... it was a tiny implosion, a point of compressed void that collapsed inward on itself and was gone in less time than it took to blink and then the cat flicked its paw forward casually with the energy of someone brushing dust off a surface.

Ysterion stopped mid-charge.

The large Spider monster split apart at three points simultaneously with clean separations appearing across the torso, the midsection, and just above where the legs joined the body, without any visible connecting force between Riftclaw’s paw and the monster.

The cuts were simply there and then Ysterion was in pieces, collapsing onto the destroyed ground in sections of blood and flesh.

Riftclaw glanced back at Koya, checking to see if he had seen it.

’What has the world come to...’ Koya’s eyes darkened.

An ordinary cat... relatively speaking was stronger than him.

A Familiar he hadn’t even properly talked with yet had just split an ancient regenerating monster in three places with a casual paw flick while simultaneously making him feel personally inadequate.

...Where did the horrors end?

Just then, the dark grey skies parted and the familiar shape of a Dolderbird came down from above, hitting the ground between the corpse of Ysterion and the area where Koya was lying flat on his back.

The wingbeat hit the air once before it landed and the impact sent a small shockwave of displaced air across the destroyed ground.

Haruki was on the head of the bird and he glanced back at Riftclaw immediately with a scowl.

"It has been quite a while since you’ve shown yourself." He raised an eyebrow. "Have you decided that a human was interesting enough for you...?"

Riftclaw didn’t reply. It kept licking its paw lazily and even the Dean of Familiars exhaled audibly before turning his attention to Koya on the ground.

"Student Amagi Koya, are you okay?" He asked with a raised eyebrow. From what his perception was showing him, the answer to that question was not particularly reassuring.

"I am, Mister Dean." Koya managed to lift one hand and extend a thumbs-up though his arm was shaking slightly. "You have more important fish to fry."

"I guess..." Haruki clicked his tongue.

He had left for one day to check the front lines and in that time: the Furious Four was dead, Ysterion had been released from its seal, and the entire event was currently on a livestream that was almost certainly still running. ’These nobles will try to sue me over every part of this... It’s online... Everything is online.’

He massaged his head slowly with the headache already forming behind his eyes.

The Dean of Familiars was responsible for everything on this Isle... The lawsuits alone were going to be a nightmare.

"CREEEEE!"

Ysterion’s collapsed body began rotting from the impact points outward... the flesh dissolved and even the limbs turned to mush and then immediately reversed.

The rot pulled back and the dissolved sections reconstituted. The destroyed legs were discarded and grew back fresh, one by one, leaving the mass rebuilding again in real time until the monster was standing at its full domineering height.

"Now, Amagi." Haruki said, still watching the regenerating monster in his peripheral vision like it was a mild inconvenience he was choosing to address later. "I’m aware that you’ve been collecting several Familiars beyond the ones you paid Individual Points for. I have to say I’m very surprised at your audacity."

Koya’s right eye twitched.

’Is this the right time for this conversation?’

Ysterion was quite literally defying death for the second time today in the background.

"I will show you a lesson on how to use your Familiar’s abilities without physically summoning them. Watch carefully..." He said while facing forward. Koya let out a defeated sigh, he was flat on his back and the Dolderbird was blocking the view.

Riftclaw seemed to understand the problem... It took hold of his collar again without being asked, hovered upward with him in its grip, and adjusted his position until he could see clearly past the Dolderbird’s body.

"To use your Familiar’s power without summoning them, you must chant the following." Haruki said. "It can be used to channel the abilities of multiple Familiars simultaneously but for someone at your level that is a fast route to Mana Exhaustion... Start with one."

Ysterion screeched, It was fully formed again and had begun charging however Haruki raised one hand.

"Arise from the bond and lend me your strength... I call upon you, faithful one." The Dean said, and his voice was a lot more energetic than usual.

Several markings spread across his skin from the wrist upward in clean lines, branching as they reached his forearm... To Koya, they looked like really cool tattoos even though they weren’t permanent.

’Should I get a tattoo... I wonder what Victoria would think.’

He produced a small bottle from his coat, uncorked it with one hand, and directed two fingers toward the monster. "Seal!"

Ysterion’s body began dissolving.

It didn’t explode neither was it’s body being destroyed but instead the monster was dissolving... the solid mass of it breaking down into a dark liquid from the outside in.

The enormous regenerating spider had been reduced to fluid without resistance.

The liquid didn’t fall to the ground though, instead it snaked upward and through the air in thin streams, flowing in every direction toward the open bottle in Haruki’s hand.

The bottle was nowhere near large enough for the volume of material entering it and yet the streams kept going in and the liquid compressed into the vessel, until there was nothing left of Ysterion on the destroyed ground outside the barrier.

Haruki corked it, held it up briefly, and pocketed it.

"This is a temporary seal from the ability of my Familiar, Inkwell." He turned back to Koya. "It reduces living targets to liquid and contains them in a vessel... The seal holds as long as the cork does so use the chant, apply it to your own Familiar, and get to work." He looked at Koya who had been dropped back to the ground by Riftclaw and was managing to stand on shaky legs.

"W... Why are you telling me this?"

"Let’s say I see something of myself in you." Haruki said. "When I was at the Black crest stage I also tried to collect as many Familiars as possible... any I could get my hands on with any method available. So you could say I have a personal interest in what you become."

’Just for trying to collect multiple Familiars... I’ve attracted the personal interest of one of the Silver crest users in the world.’ Koya thought.

He genuinely wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or deeply concerned but both felt appropriate. It was classic third-rate manga energy at work regardless.

"How are you feeling? Ysterion isn’t an ordinary opponent and it’s genuinely impressive that you survived this long without being poisoned." The Dean said, looking at Riftclaw had sat down beside Koya on the ground and the Dean’s eyes moved between them twice.

He still couldn’t fully process it... This overpowered, undetectable mountain cat that even Haruki had never been able to locate, it had apparently decided to come out of hiding and help him. Did that mean that Rift was finally choosing a human in so many years of being here?

Haruki honestly felt so proud.

"Well, I don’t feel that..."

In front of Haruki’s eyes, the skin and then the entire body of the young man opened up like a burst seam with every cut... every internal bruise... every bone stress and every wound that Numb had been quietly collecting and storing since the Takeru fight through the entire Ysterion chase.

All of it arrived simultaneously the moment the skill finally gave out and he collapsed straight down onto the ground and spread a pool of blood around him in a widening circle.

Riftclaw looked at the collapsed human beside it, then looked at Haruki and after that, it went back to licking its paw without apparent concern.

...

Koya winced... His head hurt.

’I’ve only been knocked out two complete times in this life.’ He thought as he gradually opened his eyes and found himself staring at an unfamiliar ceiling. ’And both times I’ve been close to dying...’

Though right now, his face was currently buried in something very familiar. He looked at the pale hands wrapped around his head and the silver hair trailing down across his face.

"Victoria?"

The Vampire jolted awake from her sleep and looked down at his face. For a moment she just stared and then tears came, tracking down her cheeks in thin lines without any buildup.

"H-hubby..." She said and buried her face and most of her chest directly into his face, succeeding in choking him almost immediately.

He patted her back twice then she pulled away and looked at him properly. "Hubby... you... you... you dummy."

"Dummy?" Koya raised an eyebrow.

He tried to sit up and immediately noticed a different weight across the lower half of his body.

Akemi and Yuna were both sprawled across his legs, deeply asleep and showing no signs of waking up for anything short of a natural disaster. "Where did you even come from?"

Victoria placed a hand on her chin thoughtfully with her tears still wet on her face.

"I think they called this the Isle of..."

"They said it was the Isle of Familiars, Mistress." Yuna, who had just woken up, said with a sleepy nod while rubbing her eyes with her fist.

Victoria nodded and immediately hugged Koya again.

"How did you get here?" Koya asked from inside the hug. "And where’s everyone else?"

"Well... it’s been... one... two... three... four... five!" She brought out all five fingers directly in his face, fully extended. "Did you know the numbers from my time and this one are very different? I’ve been learning from Hakai."

"You mean it’s been five days." Koya said flatly, sitting up and waking Akemi in the process.

"Your Familiars... the ones linked to your soul, that kind gentleman who called himself Hiruki helped return them once you were stable." Victoria said. "As for the ones that were outside when you collapsed, a girl named Misora had been protecting them the whole time so they came with us. We came to the Isle to collect you and bring you home to the mansion."

Koya felt a headache forming behind his eyes.

"Okay... thank you." He said, giving her a head pat.

She closed her eyes and leaned into it like a cat then he looked past her and noticed Disguise Master standing near the door with her arms crossed as she leaned against the frame, looking more tired than he had ever seen her look in the time he had known her.

There were shadows under her eyes. "Why do all of you look like you haven’t slept?"

Akemi yawned and her jaw cracked.

"We’ve been babysitting." She said flatly.

"Baby..."

The door slammed open.

"Hyah, Horsie!"

A small girl with blond hair that looked exactly like his... it was exactly the same shade and texture was riding Riftclaw?!

She had it on a full leash, even sitting upright on the Familiar’s back with both hands gripping the improvised reins, directing an unstoppable familiar around the room like a pony though Koya had to give it to her, she was really pretty.

She looked up at him, made eye contact, got off Riftclaw, crossed the room with speed and launched herself directly onto his stomach with both feet, knocking the remaining air out of his body with a giggle.

"Haha! Papa’s finally awake!" She grabbed his cheeks with both hands and pulled in opposite directions. "Imagine Papa not being there to witness the birth of his own daughter... what a bad Papa."

"What are you talking about?" Koya asked. He was completely helpless. She was extremely strong for her size and he felt really weak.

"Hmph!" She released his cheeks and crossed her arms with a firm expression. "I’m your daughter. Amagi Mable."

She turned slightly and a pair of wings extended from her back which were dragon wings that were dark and fully formed spreading wide before folding back neatly against her frame like they had always been there.

She looked at him expectantly. "And I can turn into a dragon."

...Fuck.