The Courage to Take One More Step for This Calling.

-A useless act…

At that moment, a voice is heard from the cracks underground.

As I turn my gaze downwards, I see a faint light flickering in the deep underground where hands are stretching out.

From the underground so deep that I can’t even gauge its depth, something is staring at this place.

-No, perhaps this is better. Taking you, who inherited the blood of Sion and Celia Bertayu, would be better for bringing despair to this era.

“Just because I gave you an inch… You’re making quite a fuss over it, you damn old man…”

-Thud.

Hey, wait a minute, time out.

My bones are broken, stop it.

-Kuhahaha!!! Wasn’t it you who said I’m an imperfect human too!? Then I should struggle uglily to the very end like a weak and insufficient human!!

What comes back to my provocation is only tighter constriction.

I tried to struggle, ignoring the breaking bones, but even that only slightly delayed the time being dragged underground.

-But it’s not bad. Taking someone like you as a companion…!!!

“Seine!!!!!”

At that moment, the bitch belatedly rushes in to try to save me.

The hand holding the sword trembled violently, but I couldn’t let her come to rescue me.

“Look behind you, idiot!”

Because the fight wasn’t over yet.

At my shout, her gaze, nerves on edge, soon raised towards the one appearing behind her.

“Kyahaha!!! Where do you think you’re going, Princess!!!”

A monstrosity suddenly popping out of the filth.

Its outer part looks like it’s about to melt just the same, but the snake-like shape was properly formed.

What’s in the place where the head should be is a human body. With ribs grotesquely protruding, the sight of the heart pulsating inside looked even more hideous because it felt somewhat alive.

But the face half-attached on top of it was something I remembered too.

Ergen Bilstein.

The leader of the Elder Fanatics who inevitably appears in the Empire’s destruction route. Nero Astra’s closest aide created by imitating a human made from the faith of fanatics.

“It’s certainly surprising that you pushed His Majesty this far, but as long as believers remain, a god doesn’t completely die. How could you think everything is over when I’m still here!?”

His body also looks unstable, seeming to be on the verge of disappearing, but his body hasn’t completely collapsed yet.

A being with absolute loyalty to none other than Nero Astra remains.

As long as he’s alive, Nero Astra won’t disappear, and furthermore, he’ll try to fulfill the believers’ expectations to maintain his existence even a little.

Of course, Ergen Bilstein is also a Halo, so it’ll be soon, but one person…

Before that time comes, there’s enough leeway to drag along just one person as a companion.

“You damn old man!!”

The bitch raises her sword, belatedly realizing that point.

One arm is broken, but she showed no hesitation in raising the damaged sword with her remaining arm.

That’s how desperate she was.

And how absurd she found this situation.

“The one you serve has already been defeated! So just give up and get lost!! What’s the reason for still serving such a loser…!”

“Losing faith means death!!”

Ergen Bilstein shouts back at such a wail.

Despite his hideous appearance, there were clearly emotions on his face.

“So believers, never forget!! It’s not that the god takes care of us. We!! It’s because we humans need an idol that god exists!!”

A faith purer than anything else.

Madness prepared to accept and endure even what one sees with their own eyes, beyond believing in falsehoods.

“Don’t lose faith over one defeat!! This is just a trial! If we believe, the one we serve won’t die. Don’t forget!! If we inherit that will, we too will show ourselves in this world again and achieve the aspirations we desire!!!”

“Shut that mouth…”

“Nero Astra, my god, my idol!! Great savior who saved me from the abyss!! You will never disappear. You’re just sleeping for a very short while… If those who deny this era appear, you will rise again!!”

“Shut up and move!!!”

“I swear I will be with you at that promised moment that will come, so please sleep peacefully using this land of false peace as your grave!! Oh great ancient being!!!!!”

-Slash!!

The bitch destroys Ergen’s body as he pushes forward with a maniacal laugh.

It seems she barely broke free and rushed out, but by then my view had already distanced to the point where her face looked like a dot.

“Seine!!!! Seineeeee!!!!!”

Only such a pitiful scream echoes in the bottomless pit.

Judging by her momentum, it seemed like she would jump in here, but in the end, that didn’t happen.

Well, it’s already too late to catch me, and above all, I’m not the only one in this world who’d die for that woman.

Ah, I’m jealous.

In a place without me, that woman will be lovey-dovey with Dad… Why am I throwing my body away and going through this trouble for that woman.

-How does it feel.

A mocking voice is heard from the passage as if sensing my shitty feelings.

The strength of the hands dragging my body deep underground was growing stronger even at this moment.

-Yes, you must be in despair. Having carried out the righteousness you believe in, but being dragged into hell without receiving any reward… It must be seen as the most miserable thing for a human.

“…What are you blabbering about as if you’re proud, you damn old man.”

Let alone despair.

To empathize with such an embarrassing sound, this side was a person who lived through a generation that forced pain to be youth.

When I was a child who didn’t know anything, I just listened to those words and endured.

Even after enduring and enduring like that, even though nothing was grasped in this hand, they made such despair trivial by saying it was because of lack of effort, but I came from such a place.

What other reaction could I show to those words besides a snort?

-Kyaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!

But what’s actually heard from down here is an endlessly terrible scream…

I’ve heard countless screams of the dead before, but what’s heard from down here was far from such madness.

It was a wail, and at the same time, anger.

The moment my spine chilled at the sensation making my skin tremble.

Only then did I look down, and I realized what my body was being pulled out of.

-You said this. That attempts to make heaven on earth always turn the world into hell.

A huge pit of fire. Or something like magma.

What’s wrapped around my body was connected to that place and pulling me in.

The Halo that disappeared as if melting up here was driven down to that underground by ‘something’ forming that pit of fire.

-Yes, that’s not wrong. Humans feel limitations because they’re imperfect, and therefore feel hatred towards beings other than themselves. Like those boiling in what we’re heading towards now…

-Kyaaaaaaaaaaa!!

The moment the terrible screams become clearer as the distance gets closer.

It was being let out by the beings buried in that pit of fire.

The sight of endlessly pushing in targets trying to escape from the fire, reviving again even as their whole bodies melt from the intense heat while alive…

The sight of pressing down the target without sparing their own bodies looked like the embodiment of hatred itself.

Faith as light.

Just as lingering attachments raised corpses.

The hatred of the dead who betrayed their expectations despite becoming a monarch has now remained in this world in the form of endless hostility towards those who disgraced them.

-From birth, everyone lives in different worlds, so it’s inevitable that they can’t understand each other. The hatred stemming from that shatters what someone believes to be paradise into nothing, so the chain of hatred doesn’t disappear!

Only at this moment, caught up in the screams of the dead, did I realize.

Nero Astra.

That he too was influenced by someone’s hatred, and burned by hatred he awakened himself, he was one who destroyed the paradise someone else tried to create.

Furthermore, intoxicated by the power he grasped, he was one whose paradise was destroyed by someone else’s hatred.

-Being born as such beings and living in such a world is what it means to be human, so even if you pretend to be noble and disguise peace, in the end it’s nothing more than hypocrisy to hide ugliness.

Even he, who I thought was the root of all evil, ultimately only swayed one era.

In the end, he too was merely a ‘process’ continuing the chain of hatred that has existed so far.

-But because it’s such a hypocritical world, I who will receive hatred from them for generations will be remembered in this world forever.

Is it just a desire for dictatorship that he doesn’t give up despite such a miserable situation?

-Because I’ll be remembered forever through hatred, someone will awaken aspiration towards me again. Those who oppose the system of the era will try to find salvation from the opposite being, so as long as this world is still imperfect, there will be no possibility of me disappearing from this world.

No, he was someone who made a last-ditch effort for even one dying believer.

Living up to expectations.

This tyrant made such a desperate struggle because he also considered that a virtue of monarchs.

-So I won’t die. I may have been defeated, but I won’t die! Someday I’ll descend to this land again and scold the foolishness of the era you live in…!!

Even while being dragged into that pit of hatred, by denying the glory that those who stopped him will enjoy.

To make his presence, which would be erased by that halo, clear, in order to hasten his revival even a little.

-Even though you’re about to join me… You still haven’t given up.

The time left until my body falls into that pit is at most a few dozen seconds.

Despite such a critical moment, as he said, for some reason there was something called composure in my heart.

Even though my whole body was crumbling as if turning to powder from the force restraining me as if not wanting to let go of my body even at this moment.

Because even from that body, something that could be called light was still faintly leaking out.

-Don’t tell me you’re also expecting something from a god? From that weak and small being?

Yes, that light teaches that I too am a being with faith.

From such light, the being called a god can gauge its power and total amount.

“…As if.”

I had no intention of getting upset at such an evaluation itself.

A god with only 20 years of history to begin with.

Even setting aside right and wrong, if we only consider status and influence, it would be far inferior to this guy worshipped by fanatics.

“The god I serve doesn’t have many believers yet, and can’t do things like you do. The most it can do is help a little with surgery.”

-Kuhahaha! What a pathetic god! How can you call it a god when it can’t even save one of its believers…

“It doesn’t have to do anything particularly.”

Yet I believe.

Even if it’s a being that can only do that much…

No, rather because of that, I believe.

“No matter who I serve under or who I sincerely serve, in the end it’s my role to live in the world… What is a being called god that it tries to interfere even in my life?”

-You, despite being a believer, what are you saying…

“Don’t look down on humans, you who are just a god.”

That heart was becoming light and illuminating my body even at this moment.

A very faint light, but clearly existing light.

At this moment, as my body is being sucked into the pit of hatred, it was instilling the will to resist in me.

“The god I serve is actually more helpful to humans than things like you precisely because it’s incompetent.”

Yes, there’s no need to expect much.

Just one thing.

Because I sincerely wish for only that one thing, I, who had no faith, was able to awaken true faith in this world.

“…So, oh God.”

Then was what I wished for salvation?

Did I truly wish for a being called god to liberate me from everything that makes my life painful?

“Weak being, but therefore more noble than any other. If you hear the voice of this pitiful believer, please grant me strength.”

No, a god isn’t such a being to begin with.

It can’t even be such a being.

If they were truly omnipotent, they wouldn’t have forced me to endure to the point where I couldn’t even call pain pain in my life.

“To me…”

It probably feels so harsh because I was born into a world so lacking in kindness, but even so…

Even so, if one could gain even ‘a small comfort’ from them.

“To me who follows you…!!”

Like a roadside tree on which to lean a body tired from a long journey.

Cooling the heat like the shade created by the foliage spread above it.

And wishing it would become a crutch replacing a broken leg, made by breaking off its branch.

“For this calling! Please give me the courage to take one more step!!!”

Just one step.

Erasing the anxiety felt from the vagueness of life and just once.

If it gives the courage to take even one more step.

-Thud.

As if responding to that faith, the broken bones in my body straighten, and mana forged again begins to surround my whole body, pushing away the force restraining me.

At best, a recovery power allowing for action.

Although sensation has returned, I felt my reason going numb from the pain of trying to move the still damaged body.

But even if it’s painful, I feel that I’m alive because of it.

That what’s moving this body is none other than my own.

At this moment, I realize that it’s my own will, not anyone else’s.

-Slash!!!

A gesture violently swung with that will. Along with that, the grasping hands are torn to shreds by the spread mana.

Having lost its restraining power, it left only my body in midair and began to be sucked into the pit of hatred.

Unable to resist the incarnations of hatred pressing down the main body buried in the lava.

Just preparing to calmly accept his own situation of leaving alone.

-Yes, back then too, it was like this.

As the body of the one falling like that scatters, what’s seen are flesh and bone fragments burning in the heat, and a mass of light…

No, it was white feathers

Feathers emitting a very clear light.

At this moment, they were falling one by one at the scene of his fall, illuminating my vision.

-Back then, what truly stopped me wasn’t Ganian or Sion… but you…

Leaving only such incomprehensible mutterings, he’s finally sucked into the pit of fire.

As soon as that sight completely disappears from view, strength begins to drain from my body too.

Yes, whatever it was, I guess it’s over for now.

Now that it’s all over…

“Now, I can finally rest a bit.”

Now that it’s all over, let’s just ignore everything else and sleep first.

It’s a bit unfortunate I couldn’t wash up, but let’s do that after waking up.

For now, let’s lie down in bed and sleep, and then…

-Flutter.

…Ah.

This blanket is comfortable.

---

“…Sei, ne?”

Muttering spilled from her mouth.

The moment a streak of light shone from the deep, deep hole, Celia could only stare blankly at that light.

-Flutter.

As the presence of that light gradually became clearer, and finally rose above the hole.

The woman who had resolved to cut down even a god couldn’t take any action when faced with that being.

“…An angel?”

Yes, because a being emitting a noble light like an angel.

At this moment descended to this deep underground place while embracing her daughter.