Ch.117Chapter 117. A Calamity Born of Humanity

Tachia Pailoi.

The name that first came to mind when she broke free from the coffin that imprisoned her and awakened.

-Thud!

As she raised herself up, the first thing that caught her eye was the abundance of flowers placed on the tilted coffin.

As if someone was holding a funeral, commemorating someone’s death…..

A funeral? For whom exactly?

-Ding, ding.

While pondering this question, she heard bell sounds coming from beyond the dark forest.

No sooner had she realized someone was there than she felt her feet moving toward that place.

She couldn’t understand why. She just felt she had to move there.

She could only feel the power in that sound guiding her.

-Ding, ding.

At the end of this vague instinctual pull, what she encountered was a woman standing before countless corpses in front of a temple of a fallen kingdom.

Dressed like a priestess, she was using the bell in her hand to guide the movements of the dead.

She looked like a saint leading a congregation…

“You… are…?”

Why did such a saintly figure look at her with shock, dropping the bell that had been comforting the dead?

Why did she hurriedly move her decaying body toward her, shedding rotten blood from her eyes?

“…Annabelle Britannia. Do you remember that name?”

The reason she couldn’t respond to the woman’s words despite her confusion was that nothing about the woman’s emotions or name stirred anything within her.

The dead live for their lingering attachments, and without such prominent attachments, they become hollow beings guided only by survival instincts or the magic power of their summoner.

“…I see. Even after death, I still cannot become your mother.”

But with the word ‘mother’ that followed, she felt something stirring inside her.

Mother. A word that concerned her even more than the name she had first recalled.

“No, perhaps that’s for the best. I cannot send you back to the battlefield, now that we’ve reunited like this.”

Was it because of emotions directed at the person before her?

Were her lingering attachments connected to a mother, and was the person before her someone she would call mother?

“…Welcome back to your homeland, Annabelle.”

Although the woman seemed to desire such a relationship, somehow, even as she was embraced, she felt nothing.

The skin was cold, and the hand caressing her cheek felt unfamiliar.

Nevertheless, her sense of self gradually bloomed, and at some point, she found herself accepting the woman’s presence.

Because very faintly, she began to feel a sense of déjà vu from her.

***

Yes, surely they must have met in her previous life.

The memories gradually surfacing revealed that in the past, she had been a mercenary who roamed battlefields.

In that process, she killed every enemy she encountered, surviving while soaking her body in blood, and with each survival, she realized how dirty and cruel this world was.

She too, having survived in such a place, was equally disgusting and filthy.

She responded to a royal family’s call because she thought it might help her cleanse some of that filth.

She thought that if she carried out honorable tasks under their command, even someone as dirty as herself might be able to live like a proper human being.

‘…Annabelle, do you remember that name?’

And at the end of that, an unexpected encounter.

While observing etiquette during an audience with the nation’s leader, she heard an unfamiliar name from the person before her.

Annabelle Britannia. A name she had never heard in that life and couldn’t think of being connected to.

‘Your hair and eyes… All your other features can only be inherited through Briton’s bloodline.’

The extraordinary nature of royal bloodlines is often evident in appearance.

Seeing her appearance, the queen immediately placed expectations on her identity.

‘The subordinate who helped you escape during the usurpation on the day of His Majesty’s succession ceremony was found dead by the river. Since the cradle that held you disappeared, we had given up hope…’

‘Your Majesty, forgive my impertinence, but I am merely a mercenary.’

Of course, she had always known she was adopted.

She had a feeling that her birth mother might be alive somewhere.

It was just a bit surprising that it was the king and queen of a nation.

‘Regardless of my birth, please allow me to focus only on being a mercenary receiving your request here… on playing the role of a hero to the public.’

But what did bloodline matter?

She had already dirtied her hands.

Having become a slaughterer unworthy of a wise king and compassionate queen, she couldn’t live comfortably as their child, enjoying luxury.

If there was a place that allowed such a thing, it would soon fall. At that time, she believed such thinking was correct.

‘…Annabelle, this is a request not as a monarch, but as the mother who gave birth to you.’

Despite her firm assertion, the queen, perhaps still harboring lingering feelings, made one last earnest request to her before she departed for battle.

‘After this battle ends, could you please form a mother-daughter bond with me once more?’

‘…Your Majesty.’

‘I know it’s an unreasonable request. But… I still don’t want to give up on you. You are the only proof that he and I were connected.’

She asks to reconnect what was thought to be severed.

From such a desperate request, she felt the love the woman held.

That there existed someone in this world waiting for someone like her, who was nothing but a killer, to return.

That perhaps even someone as tainted as herself might deserve to be loved.

-Thump, thump.

As the presence of such a mother became more prominent, she felt her undead body gradually becoming more vigorous and her sense of self becoming clearer.

Very slowly over a long time, but under the protection of someone who still considered her a daughter.

Even if the direction was wrong, she gradually gave shape to her vague lingering attachment by suppressing the discomfort she felt from the genuine love emanating from the woman.

“…I will serve you. My mother.”

The hopeful expectation that appeared when faced with the oath made at the end.

Even with a face devoid of vitality, she could tell that the woman still dreamed of forming a bond with her.

“Does that mean you will form a bond with me as my daughter?”

“…”

“…Annabelle.”

“I will merely be a sword for my mother.”

But she couldn’t answer the woman’s expectations.

The self she had barely awakened stemmed from the tenuous connection between her and the woman in past memories, along with an obsession with the word “mother.”

Unless she erased all other discomfort by focusing solely on that one thing, she might lose her sense of self again.

“…Regardless of your lingering attachment?”

“My feelings are not important.”

Even if her lingering attachment was misdirected.

Because if she didn’t believe that, she would lose the meaning of her awakening.

“What matters is that you awakened me, and if you claim to be my mother, I will simply follow you.”

She hopes to find meaning in her awakening that way.

She hopes that by maintaining this false belief, she can discover why she is drawn to the word “mother.”

“Even if my purpose is to kill all those who were once alive like us?”

“Yes, if that is your wish…”

And at the end, she faced the woman’s true purpose.

The moment she heard the absurd plan of humanity’s extinction, she felt her attraction to the woman intensify.

Though it didn’t come to mind clearly, the term “humanity’s extinction” might also be related to her lingering attachment.

‘All for my mother, I will bring about humanity’s extinction with these hands.’

Defining her lingering attachment in that way, she developed the identity of the Red Knight of War and stood guard before the woman.

Though she couldn’t accept the name Annabelle Britannia, she claimed to be the daughter of Gwen Hwibar, hoping that one day she would fully understand her identity.

-Thump, thump.

And at the end, this moment arrived.

When she saw it burning everything around, overwhelming another subordinate who followed her lord, she felt an exhilaration she had never experienced before.

“Found… you……”

It’s not just because it’s a dragon.

She felt that the overwhelming power and presence before her at this moment went beyond déjà vu, guiding her entire being.

“Finally, found, you……”

A feeling that could also be defined as ecstasy.

Swayed by it, she rushed toward it, ignoring even the annoying enemy who blocked her way.

She led the army not to defeat him, but to directly confront him and understand the nature of the discomfort she felt.

-Kwaaaaa!

Even as she felt her body and mind burning away, she felt her existence, which was meant to make this land its grave, approaching her.

A will that doesn’t crumble even as the entire body turns to ashes.

Only after recognizing such a solid lingering attachment did she realize.

This being was the source of her lingering attachment, and she had prolonged this second life, even deceiving herself, to meet her.

‘Mother, my mother…’

Tashian Pailoi.

Why had she forgotten that name until this moment of confrontation?

She was the one for whom she had cried out desperately when abandoned alone on the battlefield.

She was the one she acknowledged as her mother and, therefore, the one she hated the most.

‘Why have you appeared here? Why now…’

Even if she had given up on such a relationship at the end of that life, such an end didn’t matter to her.

Because the strongest lingering attachment in that life was created by the intertwining of love and hatred for her.

The knot in her heart, cultivated over the longest time, couldn’t be buried under the petty calling and ideals that bloomed at the end of that life.

‘Ah, yes. Even then, you… wanted to destroy humanity.’

And her sense of self had been gradually building up until she met her.

Even if it was distorted and misdirected from the start, the completed form still bore similarities to the foundation of the lingering attachment she felt toward her.

‘A mother who desires humanity’s extinction, and a self that is obsessed with such a mother.’

The moment she realized that this process was not much different from what she had felt in the past.

That realization breathed life into the hand holding the sword, leading her to a calling.

****

-Stab.

She swung the sword, filled with that singular thought, countless times toward the ground.

Ash spreads as she pokes at the vital point of the powerless body lying on the ground.

Weakened by having her weak point struck, she can only accept the attack, but her innate resilience still doesn’t allow her death.

Transcending even death, she maintains her existence by enduring the pain if she doesn’t have the will to die.

-Drip, splash!

As the ash scattered in all directions turned into drops of blood, she felt her thirst subsiding just by receiving that blood from the side.

She felt her heart swelling, vitality returning to her interrupted breath, making her repeat her current actions.

“Where have you been? Mom, I…”

Is the sob that follows sadness or fever?

“How much I’ve searched for you… How much I’ve looked for you!”

No, it can’t be defined to that extent.

She never forgot her and projected all her experiences onto her existence, so how could she define the emotions she had gone through with just a few words?

“…I just wanted to be with you.”

But that wish alone was always consistent.

Love, hatred, ideals, attachments—all of these could only be achieved by being with her.

There might be other things to care about, but she thought such things didn’t matter anymore.

“I just wanted to be with you… Why did you leave me and kill humans… in places where I wasn’t?”

The reason she, a dead person, awakened was solely because of lingering attachment.

Things unrelated to that attachment were buried at this moment of confronting the source of her attachment, only serving to fuel her emotions.

“Yes, you… hated humans…”

And that medium, combined with what she had built up all along, eventually led to one answer.

If she, who had lived for her mother, learned that what her mother desired was humanity’s extinction.

Then pursuing that would be the significance of prolonging this second life.

“You wanted to exterminate humanity, didn’t you? Whatever the reason, you wanted to exterminate humanity, right?”

Yes, that was the path she had reached.

In this moment, the dead who longed for her mother came up with a new name to define herself, neither Tachia Pailoi nor Annabelle Britannia.

“I feel the same way. Humans are a race that has nothing good about being alive…”

The Red Knight of War.

A being who has encountered humanity’s nature closer than anyone else, and thus awakened to both hatred and understanding toward them.

“Even if they reconcile, it’s only temporary. If there’s no enemy threatening them, they’ll just end up tearing each other apart… Such things repeat countless times in this world, and humans, who still desperately want to live, continue to do so!”

In response to such will, magic power begins to spread, gradually interfering with all things and beginning to construct its form.

Not pure mana, but beings that could be called spirits, drawn to her existence.

“Nevertheless, if there truly is a reason why they should continue to exist, let us adapt to it. Let’s find a way for your wish and the reason for their existence to coexist.”

Those who exist everywhere in this world are overwhelmed by her presence, but in response to her memory, they begin to gradually construct what doesn’t exist here.

The foundation of this world, which she had seen before confronting the dragon that burns humanity.

The chaotic era, where her nemesis and allies stood on equal footing with her, began to unfold on this land with her as the focal point.

“…So let’s wage war.”

“Let’s wage war, everyone…!”

Yes, what has risen here is not the dead but an illusion.

But because it clearly projects concepts that existed in this world, they are entities with substance and meaning.

“As we have done until now, and will continue to do… Let’s pursue the ideals that you and I desire, and leave what we’ve been repeating on this land forever!!”

Such beings increase one by one with her as the focal point, eventually growing into an army, and beyond that, into legions of thousands and tens of thousands.

At the end, as she felt the countless presences revealed beside her, a maniacal laughter that encompassed everything she had gone through began to burst from her mouth.

“Let’s all wage war forever with me!! Hahaha!! Ahahahahahahahaha!!!”

The purpose is solely war, and more war.

To eternally leave in this world a moment that symbolizes humanity itself, where even the dead kill and are killed by each other forever.

-Kyaaaaa!

The moment the lament of the dead burst forth and echoed across the land, humanity facing it unconsciously realized.

What was born before them at this moment was an unprecedented catastrophe.

Its foundation was neither natural disasters like plague and famine, nor phenomena beyond malice and common sense.

It was rooted in humanity’s malice and madness.