Ch.116Chapter 116. Karma

A hole in the contract that emerged because there was no way back.

A result that even she herself couldn’t predict until the prophecy was fulfilled.

Irie, realizing that moment had finally arrived, began to look down at the scene with a more troubled expression than ever before.

‘Tashian, once it’s started, the future cannot be changed.’

For a dragon, contracts are absolute, and therefore would not permit any more capriciousness.

Even if she believed she couldn’t exterminate humanity with her current power, she would lead her body to the end for the sake of the promise binding her, reigning as humanity’s enemy.

“…Just a little more.”

Despite knowing such a future would unfold, Irie ultimately couldn’t accept this situation dispassionately.

Even knowing the current future, innocent people would die by her hands because she couldn’t stop it midway.

Her companion, who awakened his power to prevent those sacrifices, would first target her as an enemy as she attacked humanity’s army.

“Just a little more, wasn’t there a better future?”

Perhaps there was a possibility that would reduce sacrifices and prevent her companion from grieving.

Despite attempts to find such possibilities, all the crystal ball showed was distortion without clarity.

This was natural. No matter how much she wielded divine power, the body wielding that power was merely human.

Since that power was limited, those who could benefit from prophecy had to be restricted, and the future she pursued had to be built around them.

‘…Because I’m so powerless, I must choose the best option possible at every moment.’

Without being able to perfectly understand everything, making assumptions was something a prophet should never do.

So Irie, enduring the sorrow he would feel, tried to envision an ideal future that would follow.

A flow where he would fully accept his power, beginning by blocking Tashian, becoming a hero protecting humanity, and being reborn as a true savior…

“…Huh?”

A change occurred in the crystal ball while envisioning such a future.

The moment she saw the previously opaque future gradually becoming clearer, Irie stopped thinking and quickly turned her gaze toward it.

Could her desperate wish have presented a new path?

Or was it the Transcendent’s capriciousness… Had Tashian shown unexpected capriciousness now?

‘No, this isn’t that. This is…’

For whatever reason, the most likely future in the current situation was being observed.

-Crackle, crackle.

Irie’s face began to turn pale as she faced it.

****

“Everyone, take up your weapons.”

And at the scene where a heavy shower was pouring down.

Marcus, the commander who stepped forward to the sage whose heat was gradually cooling, drew his sword and spoke in a heavy voice toward the soldiers.

Unlike the soldiers frozen by the sudden situation, he seemed to have understood the current situation and hardened his resolve.

“Commander, but there’s a person there…”

“That’s not a person! After seeing that just now, how can you say such a thing!?”

What had happened just minutes ago?

Humanity’s army was ravaged by the undead, and at the end, the White Knight who couldn’t be stopped accepted the dragon’s power and grew into a massive calamity.

And all of it burned and perished at her breath.

Including his brother who had risen as one of the undead, and the Red Knight’s army that had belatedly noticed the situation and rushed in.

“That is a dragon. The same dragon that rampaged half a century ago trying to exterminate humanity!!”

“Commander, please calm down, I don’t quite understand…”

“What did we do when the White Knight accepted the dragon’s heart?”

And Marcus was an old warrior, the only one among those here who had lived for over half a century.

He knew the history they didn’t, and had seen with his own eyes the reality of the calamity that had raged back then.

“We could only helplessly watch him step forward. Even though we had reinforced the army to protect humanity, we could only watch against such an enemy!”

That being had torn through forgotten history and appeared.

Moreover, when it was facing them at eye level, having abandoned even the dragon’s body, how could they remain still?

“That woman is the one who overwhelmed even the one who made us feel such powerlessness! No, she’s a monster wearing the disguise of a woman!!!”

Jean Cleo.

Although his actions couldn’t be seen as being for humanity, at this moment he could understand exactly what kind of feelings had made him obsess over the idol of the past.

“So we must kill her now! If not now when she’s weakened to the point of abandoning her physical form, there will be no opportunity to kill that woman!”

Because their idol’s destroyer was still alive and breathing.

Because they believed they must prevent the being who had easily burned even the calamity that had driven them to despair from threatening humanity again.

“Will you just watch as that monster recovers her strength and approaches as a threat to humanity again!?”

A madness not felt even when he saw his brother’s corruption.

But because of that, his sincerity was conveyed.

The soldiers who had consistently believed and followed their leader began to draw their weapons, finally realizing the weight of this situation.

“Everyone, regroup!!”

“Follow the commander’s orders!”

Yes, though their judgment was delayed, there were sufficient reasons to be hostile regardless of his will.

Whoever the opponent was, whatever reason they had for standing before them, if they had the potential to deal with calamities they couldn’t handle…

And if such a being had come to them in a weakened state after expending all their power, it would be right to eliminate them while possible.

“Everyone prepare for battle!!”

Thus, the army of humanity gathered haphazardly and began to regroup.

Though they wouldn’t rush in immediately, it would be soon.

Feeling the gaze of the crowd directed at her from behind shields and hastily constructed barricades, Tashian smiled faintly in the rain and looked down at her hand.

‘I’ve lived to see strange things. I thought there was nowhere lower to fall, but now even the vermin I’ve trampled look down on me…’

She no longer had the strength to maintain her main body.

Even if she exhaled, it would be at most a debris flow made of body fragments, not the karmic fire.

So the upcoming battle would be desperate without the overwhelming advantage of before, and if she survived that battle, the last opponent would be him.

The successor chosen by the incarnation of the child she had chosen, who had created the beginning of this entire story.

‘To meet my end as an evil dragon appearing in a heroic tale… Well, this is the end that suits me.’

A carefree smile, unlike any she had ever shown before, began to form on Tashian’s lips as she sensed such a flow.

Yes, this is the end.

After this moment passes, she can be freed from the pain that has tormented her all this time.

‘…You too.’

Despite that sense of liberation, at this moment Tashian felt her eyes burning hot.

She felt something that couldn’t be cooled even by the shower soaking her body, stimulating the dying embers in her emotions.

‘If I had given my dragon scale that day… you could have become such a being too.’

The image of the child who had drawn the beginning of this entire story.

She felt that being, whom she wanted to remember clearly in her life despite not being able to properly distinguish even the humans before her, tearing through her heart.

‘I resented you.’

She regretted picking up and raising a human.

She believed that all the confusion she felt, trampling humans at the end of it, and forcibly extending her lifespan due to a sudden capriciousness, all originated from that child.

If she hadn’t become entangled with humans, she too would have left this world comfortably like other dragons.

She wouldn’t have had to think so complicatedly, nor would she have had to suffer regretting that day’s choice.

‘Because you were human, because humans made me like this…’

But she actually knew.

That all of that was merely an evasion to avoid the truth.

She had already realized that she had developed affection for the child who would share the end of her life, and she had run away because she didn’t want to show her crumbling self to such a child.

‘So I thought that what I should feel for you, a human, must be resentment.’

But how could the flow of time felt by humans who live just over 100 years be the same as that of dragons who live ten thousand years?

By the time she realized those feelings, it was already too late, and the life as a living corpse that she had prolonged because she couldn’t rectify it felt even more painful.

More than a human lifetime, more than the ten thousand years she had spent emptily in this world.

She felt the half-century of time recalling the sins she had committed being deeply engraved in her heart.

‘I don’t acknowledge it.’

Because it felt so long, there was enough time to think.

What name should be attached to her heart.

That the sentiment she had at the end of her life was, in fact, the same as what humans have.

‘I must not acknowledge it. If I do, I…’

Yet the reason she had consistently avoided that answer was because the past that had already occurred couldn’t be changed.

She was also realizing at every moment that the fact that she had killed the child she had given her heart to due to her late realization wouldn’t change.

‘Because the moment I acknowledge it, I’ll become comfortable.’

To drive that point home, before sending the child’s corpse down the river, she extracted what could be called a soul and forged it into a weapon.

She was certain that if the grudge and mission continued even after death, it would surely reach her.

If she passed on the lingering attachment that child had to his successor.

If that successor succeeded in reaching her without being broken by the harshness of this world, she thought she could somewhat clear her karma.

‘Is it delicious?’

‘Yes, yes. It’s delicious.’

The moment she recalled the existence of such a successor, memories of a meal they had shared one day began to gradually form in her mind.

To the extent that she, who considered humans insignificant, couldn’t ignore it.

The image that appeared more clearly than that child whom she could no longer see.

‘You don’t have to pretend to like it. I just made it roughly with what was available.’

‘No, it’s not flattery. It reminds me of the meals my mother prepared, so I like it.’

What would he think of her now?

Knowing her identity, with what heart she had given him the weapon.

And seeing her now trying to exterminate humans like herself, could he continue the same conversation they had that day?

‘…Mother?’

‘Yes, my mother in my original world. Somehow, thinking I might never see her again makes Tachia’s meals resonate more.’

‘…’

‘…Ahaha, was that kind of talk a bit rude?’

‘No, not really.’

At least there would be no more conversations like that day.

Though it was just something to be brushed aside, why was a corner of her heart stinging so much?

Even though he was just someone she intended to use as a tool for her purpose.

Why did she prepare meals for him every time they met?

“…Just a little.”

She felt such questions leading to another question at this moment.

What was the difference between the emotion she felt for him, which didn’t fade with time, and what she felt for that child who had created the beginning of all this?

“If only a little more time had been granted to me, could I have known what I felt for you…?”

With no time or leisure left now to know the difference.

Though her heart denied it, her body, entangled in the contract, was still trying to move forward at this moment.

Resentment for past events, regret for belated realizations.

She moved forward, realizing that accepting this fate despite knowing all that was the path she had chosen and the “result of karma” she had wanted to accept.

-Thud!!!

Before that will could take a single step.

Without knowing it might be cruelly broken by someone’s malice.

“…Cough.”

Yes, the dragon who had now lost her status didn’t notice.

That in this cruel world, the certainty that individual wishes would be fulfilled would always be futilely broken.

-Patter, patter.

Tashian, who didn’t realize this even after being hit by an attack from behind, turned her trembling head toward her back.

At the scene where even the cooling shower was gradually stopping.

Something that had surged up from the ground where lava formed by melting soil was cooling and solidifying had stabbed a sword into her back.

What was being stabbed was her dragon scale.

The place known as the only weakness for dragons.

-Squelch!!

As the sword that had precisely penetrated that dragon scale was pulled out, the body that was about to advance toward humanity’s army futilely collapsed.

Humanity was equally unprepared for that sight.

Despite their barely regrouped formation, their bodies stiffened, and astonishment began to bloom in their eyes as they gazed at the scene.

“What, what is that? A survivor?”

“No, that’s… The Undead!”

As those words indicated, what was there was one of the Undead.

Among the Undead legion that had rushed in all at once when the dragons were battling, one from the legion they thought had been annihilated had barely maintained its form and succeeded in stabbing the dragon’s scale.

By enduring with enough magical power to withstand heat that would turn the entire body to ashes, and by advancing toward its goal with a level of obsession beyond comprehension.

“Mo, ther…”

White hair visible through the gaps of the broken armor, and rotten blood so congealed that it made even that color appear dim.

But even that was gradually changing to fresh blood in response to her innate magical power, dyeing that head red.

“Everything… is for my mother.”

The power is being revived.

The lingering attachment, the source of power for the undead, is growing uncontrollably the moment it encounters the being that serves as its medium.

“That’s right, I… rose for… mother… For mother…”

The Red Knight of War – Annabelle Britannia.

A woman who disappeared in the struggle for succession rights to the royal family right after birth, and returned to her homeland after traversing the era of war.

She who defined herself as such began to smile as she met the being that stimulated her lingering attachment at this moment.

“Hehe, hahaha.”

Yes, at this moment Annabelle recalled her other name.

The name she had used when she roamed the battlefield after being abandoned by her mother, before returning to her homeland as an adult.

“Fi, na…”

“Fi, na. I found, you. Mommy…♡”

Tachia Pailoi.

The last hero born in this world, and the avatar of war who killed the most people during the era of conflict.