Chapter 156: Ending. Connection, Not Regret (Part 2)

“AAAAAAGHHHHhhh!!”

A horrifying scream caught our attention.

The black sword Amy had thrown. Black slime was crawling out from it. Screaming desperately, it gradually takes the form of a woman.

“Goddess…”

“Don’t make me laaaugh!! Mere parasites!! Mere parasites!!”

The goddess tries to stand up, trying to push herself up with her arms. But her slime-like arms simply fall apart.

Eventually, her hand reached not toward the ground but toward the sky.

“I!! Beyond that sky!! Freedom!! The freedom I longed for…”

*Crunch-!*

Burning teeth devoured the goddess. They chewed for a long time with a horrifying sound. And then…

*Gulp-*

The sound signaling the end of a meal.

That was the end of it.

The goddess who tried to devour the world ironically met her death by being devoured by someone else.

…And by her most faithful servant, no less.

I forcefully raise my body. I gently push away the hands trying to stop me and stand before her.

“Irene.”

“O…ppa…”

Irene-wolf was burning brightly.

Tentacles, fur, eyeballs, legs, teeth. Not a single part of her body wasn’t engulfed in flames.

Of course, her body regenerated as much as it burned… but the fire consuming her body was Shafiq’s fire. An unquenchable flame.

___!

With the sound of falling ashes, half of Irene’s face crumbled away.

It was proof that she was dying.

…And proof that she had regained her sanity.

Irene slowly lowers her body to the ground.

“The… plague… will subside soon… The broken world too… will repair itself… Because the world… is like… that…”

“…”

“The… Goddess’s… last ego… too… will also… turn to… ash with me…”

Her two front paws also crumbles. It was hard to read her expression, now that she had become a beast. Her voice had also become too faint.

“This… is the ending… finally…”

But even so, I feel her sorrow.

“I… also…. wanted… a happy… ending… I tried my best… But… for that… too many people… my siblings… ah… I’m scared…”

Her legs, back, tail, crumble one after the other. Finally, only her left eye remains. The disfigured, squashed original head of Irene.

It spoke one last time.

“I’m… sorry…”

And then, only a handful of ashes remained.

Something so pitiful, it’s hard to believe it was once human.

I quietly looked down at it.

I still couldn’t forgive her. Because the people she killed, and tried to kill, were far too precious to me. Also, her methods were something I could never accept.

But,

[I was just trying to save the world!]

[It was an unavoidable choice.]

[I… I did it for Oppa…!]

Now I see.

That she was the same as me.

If only she had shared her pain even once,

If only she had told us about her obsession with saving the world,

If only she had shared her grief over losing her family.

Maybe she could have met a different ending.

But she didn’t.

Alone, she shouldered everything and acted alone.

Without anyone to stop her, she walked down the wrong path, step by step.

Because she was afraid to say that one phrase, ‘Help me.’

Because there was no one who would listen to her.

Because she believed that in the end, humans are alone.

She truly was my sibling.

I scoop up a handful of ash. Gently scattering it into the air, I said.

“Goodbye, 여동생 (little sister).”

And so, I ended my brief mourning.

It was the end of the story.

***

Life is a journey of accumulating regrets.

That’s because life doesn’t have a save and load feature.

Because we can’t go back to the moment we made a choice,

Because we can’t undo the decisions we’ve made,

Because we don’t know what kind of scenery would have unfolded on the path we didn’t choose,

We’ll never know which choice was right.

…No, maybe regret is inevitable, no matter what choice we make.

The tightly bound boy looked at the crying girl.

“I’m sorry…! Because I stupidly fell…!”

The boy wanted to tell her it was okay, but he couldn’t. The slave trader had cut out his tongue. As punishment for the audacity of almost succeeding in escaping.

…Yes, the boy had been on the verge of escape.

Just one more step,

If he had just taken one more step into the bushes.

The boy would be removing his shackles by a stream right now. The others who escaped with him were probably already doing so.

But at that moment, the girl who was escaping with him tripped and fell. A girl who had spent three years as a slave with him, a girl who always smiled a little foolishly.

The boy, without thinking, truly without realizing it, went back to help the girl.

And because of that, they were both captured.

…And the boy had his tongue cut out as a bonus.

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry…!”

So, does the boy regret helping the girl?

Actually, that was the problem.

More precisely, the boy couldn’t help but ask himself this question.

Would he have regretted it if he had abandoned the girl and escaped alone.

The girl often chattered about flowers.

Despite being greedy for food, she sometimes shared her bread.

Sometimes when he brought her flowers from the roadside, she smiled more brightly than anyone.

And sometimes, very rarely, she looked pretty.

So, the boy would have regretted it if he had abandoned the girl. Probably quite a lot.

Maybe regret is something that inevitably follows any choice.

“Phew… So let’s say we dump the girl at a brothel. What are you going to do with the boy?”

“Just send him to the ‘End of the World’ or whatever. They’re always short on people there. He’ll probably burn to death working or something.”

“Tsk… They pay too little there, though.”

Ominous prophecies about his future drifted from beyond the wall. The boy unconsciously clenched his molars.

*Drip-*

Maybe because of that, blood suddenly flowed from his severed tongue, dripping between his lips. It was the moment the crying girl’s face turned pale.

“H-hey! He, he’s dying…! H-his mouth, blood is…!”

The boy didn’t even want to correct the girl anymore. He just watched with pity as the girl pound the wooden wall.

“H-help!! Please, someone!! Help!!”

There’s no way anyone would come to help.

In the end, humans are ultimately lonely beings.

One must bear their own life alone.

There might be people who sympathize, but there’s no one who will help.

Eventually, the girl will be sold to a brothel. The boy will work in the land devoured by the goddess and die for some reason.

This world is made to function that way.

“Ugh, damn bitch, so fucking noisy.”

“I’ll go quiet her down. She’s a bit too young for fun, but…”

“Just don’t take her virginity. Without her virginity, brothels will pay a pittance for her… Huh? Who are you people? What the… Gah…!”

“W-wait! S-spare me. Money or anything… Gurgh…!”

Yes, it should have been made to function that way.

The boy lifted his head and looked at the man tearing down the wooden wall.

He was a man with white hair and a slightly irritable impression. He had strange gauntlets on his hands, and judging from the situation, he must have used them to beat the slave traders to death.

“Hii, hiik…!”

The girl jumps back upon seeing the blood dripping from the gauntlets. She hurriedly turned her back and ran.

“D-Don’t come near…!”

…No, she stood in front of the man who was approaching the boy.

At that moment, the boy couldn’t help but doubt the girl’s intelligence. What could this girl, who couldn’t even subdue one slave trader, hope to accomplish by standing in front of this man.

…Especially with her legs trembling like that.

“Ah, sorry… Were you scared?”

The man, seemingly flustered, detached the gauntlets from his arms. He showed his normal hand, giving an awkward smile.

“I, I came to rescue you. So don’t be too…”

“Y-you came to rescue us?”

Look at how her expression softens, see. So naive, how is she going to survive in a brothel.

In the end, it’s unavoidable again.

The boy untied the ropes that were already loosened and pulled the girl behind him. Hiding the confused-looking girl behind his back, he glared at the man.

“Well, I get that you’re suspicious. But I really came to save you… please say something…”

“Ah, this boy! His tongue, his tongue has been cut out… Oh, sorry…”

At the boy’s glare, the girl shrinks back. But it wasn’t for long.

“Pfft…”

A hollow laugh escapes the man, and the confused eyes of the girl and boy turned toward him. The boy, in particular, raised his eyebrows to express his displeasure.

“Ah, sorry, it’s just that I got reminded of something from the past.”

The boy raised his eyebrows even higher to express his confusion. But the man shook his head and suddenly tossed something to the boy.

“Try this on, I don’t need it anymore.”

Bewildered, the boy caught the thrown object. It was a strangely shaped necklace that resembled shackles.

“What, telling someone to wear this kind of thing… huh?”

“Y-your voice…!!”

The confused boy looked at the necklace where he felt the vibration.

“My voice is coming from here…”

The boy’s eyes turn to the man again. But this time, instead of wariness, they were filled with questions and wonder.

“Who… are you?”

Only then did the man grin and squat down. Matching his eye level with the boy, he said.

“My name is Rem, the director of the Essier Municipal Orphanage.”

And then, in a tone without a hint of ill intent, he said.

“I came to make a recruitment offer. Wanna hear it?”

Life is a process of accumulating regrets.

Because choices are originally made that way.

As we live, the length and weight of regrets only increase. Sometimes, because of a mistake too costly, there are times when guilt suffocates us. There are even times when we hate ourselves so much that we want to give up on life.

That’s why we often try to reverse our mistakes.

We try to reverse what cannot be reversed,

And restore what cannot be restored.

But in the end, the past is immutable.

Sin does not disappear.

That attempt inevitably meets failure.

Rather, that attempt even gives birth to new regrets.

With time, the total amount of regret only increases.

And the sins already committed can never be erased in any way.

That’s why, quite often, life seems like a tragedy.

Sometimes, living itself feels meaningless.

However, humans are ultimately not alone,

And pain is the connection that binds people together.

Through the experience of falling, we can look to others who’ve fallen too. We can connect our hearts to theirs.

We can grab the hand of the fallen and help them up.

And naturally, we can grasp the hand offered to us too.

Because life is ultimately a process of connecting hearts with others.

Because we are hurt, we hold onto someone’s kindness.

Because we had been hurt, we soothe someone’s sorrow.

A path where connections are built as much as regrets.

Life is probably,

No, definitely.

Quite a wonderful thing.