episode_0042

“I’ve been waiting, Captain!”

As the empty air behind me tore open, a familiar girl’s voice came from beyond. It was Alice’s young and clear voice echoing.

“This Alice has come to help! Ahem!”

Along with that, the heroes in front of us also stopped.

As if wary of the waves of dark shadows rushing in like a receding tide up to their feet.

“Serpent…!”

Nike’s expression, who claimed to be the Goddess of Victory, froze coldly.

A short standoff.

There, the utterly wicked villain group aiming for world destruction, the Black Serpent, stood.

And in front of them were the heroes who had dedicated their all to protect this world.

“Ah, you were here.”

Right before those heroes, Saan’s Silan smiled bitterly.

“…You used to sing about wanting to become a hero so much.”

Revealing eyes where the whites were visible on three sides, beyond his two snake-like slits of eyes.

“Are you happy, achieving the hero’s dream you so desperately wanted? My younger brother.”

Pushing back unforgettable memories, as if remembering the hero who stood there.

With an uncharacteristic expression caught in memories, captivated by the irreversible obsession of the past.

There was no reply.

Silence fell once more.

“…This is no time for trivial sentimentality, Silan.”

Dark Moon Selena, standing by his side, added coldly. Her voice seemed uncharacteristically bitter.

“Don’t we all know that fact to our bones?”

“Haha. That’s true, Nuna-nim.”

After adding that, he stealthily approached my side and whispered.

“Give your command, Captain.”

After that, as usual, he was asking for my will.

“Uh, either way… I’ll follow what the Captain says…”

The witch Gretel said.

“I, I… don’t know anything else…”

The man smiling beside her was no exception. He was just smiling.

Everyone was waiting for my answer.

To me, who didn’t know a single truth about this world, and until recently, didn’t even know the purpose of the organization I belonged to.

As if they couldn’t decide anything for themselves and would only be loyal and blindly obey my will.

A brief silence descended.

“Huh?! What do you mean?! These are opponents worth fighting for a change!! Isn’t that right? You, big bro who’s been taxidermied into a hero!!”

At the end of the silence, a wolf-like figure burning with fighting spirit appeared before them. He didn’t hide his hostility toward one of the heroes there. It was a werewolf with a wolf’s head.

I remained silent.

“…We will withdraw.”

At the end of the silence, I replied.

“For now.”

With an utterly villainous line.

After replying, I turned my back. I silently walked towards the swaying passage behind me.

The heroes also didn’t stop our movements.

Therefore, the rest of the Black Serpent members also quietly left the place, following my words.

Leaving behind the goddess and heroes who remained there.

I believed I would obtain some kind of answer I sought at the Mausoleum, the heroes’ tomb. No, in fact, it wasn’t without harvest.

However, the answer I obtained pushed me deeper into an incomprehensible labyrinth.

When I realized it, we had already vanished beyond the mausoleum’s passage. Even the last one following me safely exited the place, and the goddess and heroes remaining there didn’t bother to pursue us.

They probably let us go on purpose. I could tell that much.

Because the real fight with them would begin now.

─This is the end.

At least today’s story has ended.

When we left the scenery behind and returned, it was the interior of the abandoned factory where we had been staying until just before.

The Black Serpent’s subordinates who followed me had all returned safely to their positions.

They, who never doubted me, only obeyed my commands and followed.

Even after experiencing twists and turns there, nothing had changed.

“…You, you have returned, Rain-nim!”

Furthermore, Daji and the others from the Shang Dynasty who were present bowed their heads in a hurry, and I calmly asked back.

“Is there anything left to say?”

“S-surely not. You faced the heroes of the Mausoleum and returned alive safely?!”

“…As you can see.”

I replied as if it were someone else’s business.

“Do you still have something to say?”

“Th-that is…”

Before her, kneeling on the floor and bowing her head, I felt no further meaning in continuing the conversation.

“Get lost.”

I said.

“Y-yes, yes…?”

“To you, who don’t know what to do in front of the Mausoleum’s traps and can only think of joining hands with us─ I have no further interest.”

“B-but!”

“Do you still have something to say?”

I asked in a cold voice. And the chill residing in that voice did not stop with just me.

“If you wish to propose something to the Black Serpent and share equally, bring something worthy of it.”

I said.

“Not trivial antics like making a fuss as you are now.”

“…”

Daji merely bowed her head and couldn’t say anything. I didn’t mind.

After a brief silence, she hesitated and rose to her feet.

At the same time, with a face smeared with humiliation and shame, she silently withdrew.

“Ah, as expected, Rain-nim…”

What resided within Daji’s face, which should have been contorted by submission and humiliation, was an incomprehensible ecstasy.

“Truly the one I must serve, the caliber of the husband I must attend.”

Daji said with a smile.

“This Socheop, will gladly strive to fulfill my Lord’s will.”

I didn’t care. I merely watched her retreating figure, as she silently got up and withdrew, as if it were someone else’s business.

Daji disappeared. Fading away as if she had never existed from the start.

In the abandoned factory, only we remained once more.

Villains, almost madmen who couldn’t be described as having ‘conviction,’ aiming for world destruction in harmony, gathered amicably.

I silently looked around at the members of the villain group, the Black Serpent.

“I have something to say to all of you.”

After looking around, I said. To everyone present, without exception.

“Huh? Tell us, Captain!”

“What?! A new order?!”

Then Alice and Sandalphon eagerly raised their voices, vying with each other. I didn’t answer immediately.

“…Thank you.”

I just paused briefly before answering.

Thank you.

It wasn’t anyone else, not someone’s role or pretense, but words that came from my true feelings for the first time.

“─Huh?”

At those words, a wolf-headed man blinked his eyes.

Perhaps he was bewildered by a line uncharacteristic of ‘Rain Grey’ in some sense. I didn’t care.

“I want to express my gratitude to all of you who have followed me.”

I merely stated it as it was.

“Hmph, Captain! What’s with the sudden words now?!”

Alice followed up on that. The rest of the members were no exception.

Before my words, they didn’t even try to gauge my true intentions; they simply affirmed and nodded.

And before them, as they steeled their resolve, I didn’t answer immediately.

I headed there, to the place where the Mausoleum was, to find an answer.

In a sense, it could be said that I obtained an answer. The truth of the world and heroes, the purpose of Rain Grey and the Black Serpent.

The answer I obtained pushed me even deeper into the labyrinth.

Then as now, I am a foolish puppet who knows nothing and can only be swayed.

Before the unchanging truth, I silently looked at those behind me.

Those who, even in the face of the absurd goal of , willingly sympathized with that cause and shared Rain Grey’s will.

For what reason do they volunteer to become the Black Serpent under Rain Grey?

At the same time, I remember how they looked when they encountered the heroes in the Mausoleum.

‘…You used to sing about wanting to become a hero so much.’

‘Are you happy, achieving the hero’s dream you so desperately wanted? My younger brother.’

Without even needing to hear Silan’s words, the others were no exception.

‘You, big bro who’s been taxidermied into a hero!!’

As if they had known those people there from the very beginning.

Is that why they follow the absurd cause of alongside Rain Grey?

I don’t know.

Because then as now, I am nothing more than a fake, imitating the role of ‘Rain Grey’ in this place, knowing nothing.

Therefore, for this fake to consider their truths or the world’s reality as their own business, would be absurd.

I couldn’t understand it.

Nevertheless.

For me, then as now, that name was everything.

─Because that name was all I had in this unfamiliar world.

Without that name, I am nothing.

Thus, the name of the Black Serpent always had to be absolute to me. Therefore, I did not tolerate those who insulted the serpent’s name, and those who stood in our way were no exception.

Placing the name of the Black Serpent, which I had cherished to survive, before me, I truly realized.

That now, that name was my everything.

It was the same phrase. But the meaning of those same words was slightly different, then and now.

At the end of my thoughts, I silently raised my head.

After raising it, I spoke to them as usual.

“Can you make me one promise?”

A promise.

“Hmph, what do you mean, Captain!”

“A promise, that’s a sudden topic.”

“Yeah, a promise now of all times! Aren’t you confusing it with an order?!”

“Mm-hmm, the Captain’s promise! I’ll do anything!”

I remained silent for a moment before them as they spoke, vying with each other. I listened to the chatter of my subordinates, who raised their voices regardless of my silence.

After listening, I deliberately opened my mouth.

“Don’t die recklessly.”

With those words, the sounds vanished. In the freezing silence, Silan laughed.

“Haha. ‘Don’t die recklessly,’ what an absurd order from the Captain.”

“I agree.”

“Mm-hmm, it’s an order! It’s the Captain’s order, so no dying recklessly!”

Selena also shrugged her shoulders as if dumbfounded, and Alice shouted like a child.

“If you die recklessly, you’ll be fined a hundredfold!!”