Ch.123Chapter 123. A Long Funeral

-Pitter-patter, plop.

Consciousness gradually surfacing above the water.

With it came the sound of her own body crumbling, which Tashian immediately recognized.

She had always imagined that after everything ended, her physical form would collapse, leaving only an insignificant kernel buried within—but the irony was that she wasn’t the one who initiated this process.

‘Is it all over now?’

Having regained at least this much awareness of her existence, she took time to survey the surroundings of the ash heap to assess the situation.

She had lost consciousness from an ambush from behind and was manipulated against her will.

And the man she had chosen had put a stop to it all.

The specter of that child who had taken on the dragon’s wrath had finally been broken by the hands of the man who inherited that child’s will.

‘Everything is over, so why…’

Yet why was she still remaining in this world?

Though she was bound to this world until her contract ended, the condition of the contract was to clearly determine victory or defeat against her target.

Since she had set the standard based on traces left by her nemesis, the Undead should not be an exception to this criterion.

If her lingering attachment was firmly rooted in that child, then she, who had resolved to accept it, should have acknowledged defeat and disappeared the moment she was stabbed from behind.

“Ah, aaaaaaaah!!”

As she pondered this question, a voice came from far away.

Tashian, unable to ignore the voice, quickly directed her gaze toward its source.

Though ash swirling in the wind blurred her vision, she did not hesitate to move forward.

Because she had always tried not to forget.

For that purpose, she had used that child’s name and continuously forged it with her own hands over half a century.

“It hurts, it huuuurts!!!”

What she encountered after following that familiar sound was the figure of a spirit buried in the ash heap, wailing.

But most of its body, including the upper part of the head, had disappeared, leaving only the upper part of the chest and one arm that had partially regenerated.

In such a state, it should be impossible to be alive, let alone feel pain.

The voice heard now was merely an expression of lingering regrets from when it was alive, responding to the remaining magical energy.

“Mom, mommyyy. Where are you… I’m hurting, it hurts so much!!!”

But how could she ignore that voice?

If what was being uttered from those lips was the most vivid regret from its lifetime, then it meant this had actually happened in the past.

“I’m so, so scared. Everyone is trying to kill me. Mom, save me…”

She knew.

No matter how noble the end of that life had been, if the most vivid memory was of being abandoned in childhood.

Then all these words being uttered now must have been repeated back then too.

“Please, tell me. Why do I have to suffer like this… Just one word, just one word, please. Mom…”

Despite such terrible screams tearing at her heart, Tashian pushed through the ash heap, heading toward it.

Even though she knew it was merely a replica.

Even though she knew it was nothing more than the lament of a spirit that wasn’t even a proper soul.

‘Is this a human child who was abandoned? Well, I’m just a wandering soul anyway, so this might be fine.’

Just seeing that figure.

The image of that child buried in her memories was surfacing.

‘Ma.’

‘What are you saying?’

‘Mau, ma~ Ma, ma!’

‘Haha, look at this, do you think I’m your mother?’

‘Mama!’

At that time, she didn’t know.

That such a trivial beginning would create the root of what she feels now.

‘Come on, try to say it. Tashian Pailoi.’

‘…Ta?’

‘Not “ta,” but Tashian.’

‘Ta… Tasha.’

‘No…’

‘Tashya Pinyo! Tashya!’

‘…Come to think of it, I never gave you a name, did I?’

Everything was awkward because it was all new, and many things were glossed over carelessly.

But looking back, even that could be called a memory.

Perhaps because it was a relationship that didn’t need to be perfect, she felt more comfortable in her relationship with that child.

‘Mom, look at this!’

That day, that was why she gave the child a gift.

Because the sight of her being engrossed in a fairy tale she happened to hear during her wandering life seemed so pleasant to watch.

‘Does it suit me well?’

‘Yes, it suits you well.’

‘Do I really look like a hero!?’

Hero.

The word used by the human who told the story to describe a champion who defeats evil beings.

The child was particularly interested in that word and would recite her admiration for heroes every day.

‘Well, let’s say so for now?’

‘Why do you answer like that? Do you think I can’t become a hero, Mom?’

‘Of course not. Rather, I think you can become anything, that’s why.’

‘…Anything?’

‘You’re still young, so you can do anything, which means you have the possibility to become everything you wish for.’

She meant it sincerely.

At that time, she genuinely harbored the desire to spend the rest of her life with the child and watch over her.

So no matter which path the child took, she would help…

‘Mom, when I grow up, I want to become a hero!’

No matter which path she took, she who had become this child’s mother.

The resolution to protect that path still vividly comes to mind.

“Is it because I’m a bad child?”

How is it that those remains have now become the evil dragon itself?

Receiving judgment from the hero she had always admired, lying there miserably.

“Did I thoughtlessly reveal something that Mom wanted to hide…”

She knows.

Regardless of the process or intention, the current outcome stemmed from the battle she initiated.

“Tachia.”

To avoid forgetting such awareness with the passage of time, she had constantly tried to remember by adopting another name to refer to herself.

The appearance of that child when she was alive, which perhaps only she in this world might remember.

To never forget and to endlessly recall, she used that name.

“…Do you remember my voice?”

“Mo, ther…”

The moment she uttered that name filled with such meaning, the wailing stopped.

Soon, the spirit’s remaining half-arm began to reach out toward her.

“…Mom, Mom.”

Most of the body was damaged, with only a mouth and one arm capable of crawling remaining.

The mother had already accepted that even such a rotting piece of flesh was once her daughter.

Whatever came from those lips.

She had to accept the price of her sin that she had been avoiding all this time, at this moment.

“Ehe, hehe.”

Ironically, what reached the ears of the mother as she embraced her daughter with such determination was not the same screams or resentment as before, but a faint laughter.

Not something uttered in insanity, but laughter that felt innocent, like the memory of that day.

“Mom, look at me…”

The spirit, immersed in such emotions, having lost even the awareness that it had risen as a calamity.

Whispered to her, projecting memories from when she was a girl.

“I became a hero…”

Connecting the achievement at the end of her life with her memories.

As if trying to resolve her lingering attachment through the presence of her mother who now embraced her body, even with such tattered memories.

“I also got comrades. Besides Mom, people I could depend on… People who needed me, I got lots of them.”

Why does the sight of her daughter being so happy feel so painful?

“Now, am I… a proper adult?”

This much is enough.

She knew that just embracing her like this was enough.

“When I become an adult, can I come see Mom?”

“…Tachia.”

“I wanted to ask… Just one thing, I wanted to ask Mom…”

She couldn’t give any answer to the weakly continuing question.

She just held her in her arms, patting what was once her back but now just a piece of meat, listening to the words coming from beside her ear.

“…Mom.”

Toward such a heartless and foolish mother, the daughter whispered.

Perhaps in the past.

A single phrase that she might have said the same way if she had approached the little girl who was abandoned alone.

“Do you love me?”

-Pitter-patter.

It’s raining.

The moisture still remaining in the clouds evaporated by the heat.

A temporary shower formed by them clumping together.

“…Yes.”

In the midst of that shower washing away the dust swirling in the wind.

Tashian quietly conveyed the words that had been buried deep inside her to her daughter’s remains.

Probably the one word needed now.

“I love you. Always…”

Thinking that this was what this child of the past needed to hear.

As if confirming her thought, the arm that had been flailing lost its strength and soon went limp on the ground.

It’s not that the magical energy ran out. Rather, if there had been any remaining magical energy, this child would have instinctively released it to choose her own end.

Spirits live on lingering attachments, and when those attachments are resolved, it’s natural for them to find peace.

“…Tashian.”

Yet, as she couldn’t leave the vicinity, someone began to make their presence known behind Tashian.

A semi-deity who, though inexperienced, was far higher in rank than herself.

After everything had ended, she could immediately guess why this person had come here.

“Don’t worry. I can’t do anything now anyway.”

She had used up all her remaining power, and the vessel that could contain that power had completely shattered due to previous overexertion.

Now she was a body that could disappear anytime once the contract conditions were met.

Realizing that she was just one step away from meeting those conditions, Tashian, still looking down at her daughter’s corpse, quietly asked:

“What about him?”

“The surviving clergy are watching over him.”

“…That’s good.”

The evil dragon fell by the hero’s hand, and humans emerged victorious in the war against the spirits.

In such an outcome, what the survivors need to do is tend to the injured and collect the bodies. It wouldn’t be difficult to distinguish the dead among them.

Until now, they had been actively moving even in a corpse-like state, so those who had fallen from exhaustion would naturally gather around them.

“…To humans.”

Soon, funerals would be held.

No matter how fierce and sorrowful the battle was, it’s one of human habits to honor the end with dignity.

“I can’t entrust this child’s funeral to the current humanity.”

But could they really include her daughter in that?

The kingdom that should spread the story of the hero who confronted the dragon was destroyed by plague, and the comrades who had journeyed with her and survived were all dead, pushed by the harshness of the world.

Even the humans who had encountered her life were all dead, so to the current humanity, Tachia Pailoi would be remembered not as a hero but as a great calamity.

“…No, it’s fine. At this point, a funeral…”

“That’s not true, Tashian. You know as well as I do that her end was…”

“Death ends everything.”

And the one who made that end dishonorable was none other than herself.

If, by any chance, she had offered her neck in that battle that day.

If she hadn’t made a contract and hadn’t maintained her life until now… If she had cremated that body to erase its existence, the child’s remains wouldn’t have met her and awakened as a great calamity.

“No matter how grandly a funeral is conducted, it’s ultimately just consolation for the living. Regardless of how a person lived or how they ended, it’s just something processed and interpreted as the survivors see fit.”

Even the soul is ultimately just an elaborate extraction of records left in the corpse, modified to have a sense of self without a physical body.

Yet she had given meaning even to such an existence and dragged out that child’s death.

After hearing the words of a being that reflected the most harsh period of that child’s life, how could she interpret it as she pleased?

“It’s already too late. To undo what I’ve done.”

One must acknowledge what needs to be acknowledged.

That child was abandoned due to her foolish impulse, and all the pain shown by the corpse that appeared before her was real.

Despite feeling such pain, she made her forgive herself in the final moment.

“…Yet, you’ve accepted it?”

The tragedy born from different lifespans, and the era when humanity was most consumed by madness.

And the distortion created by consecutive calamities that even they couldn’t handle…

Even if nothing went according to their wishes, what happened, happened.

The fact that she, an immature and foolish mother, killed the child she had given her heart to, is the very fact that she herself must acknowledge the most.

“Yes, because I can’t hold on any longer.”

But now she’s in no position to set things right.

The best she can do is to fully accept that child’s death without prolonging her lingering attachment.

“Now I must end it. This long funeral too.”

So that her lingering attachment no longer taints that child’s death.

As she prepares to carry the sin she committed in her heart to the grave that will soon appear before her.

****

At the same time, in the plains at the center of the continent.

Amid the fierce battle between the Demon Lord’s army and the Undead Legion over territorial expansion, the Azure Knight, who was fighting the enemy commander at the forefront, stopped swinging his sword.

He had detected an anomaly in the signal sent by his master, the Lord of Corpses, who was commanding the army from the main force.

“…Why do you stop in the middle of the fight?”

His opponent, who seemed concerned by this behavior, stood still and remained vigilant.

Though they had been engaged in a fierce battle until now, even he felt the killing intent directed at him gradually dulling from the moment he noticed the anomaly.

A remarkably cool-headed demeanor for a senior officer of the Demon Lord’s army known for their belligerence.

This assessment applied without fail to the one standing before him as well.

“You’re looking toward where the ruler of your faction is… Has something happened?”

There’s no sign of the Demon Lord’s army directly invading.

Rather, the army on the opposite side of where he’s fighting is in disarray because the officer leading them was defeated by another of the 4 Knights.

“…No, let’s continue.”

So, thinking coolly, the right thing to do would be to hold this position and secure the opportunity to solidify the advantage gained on the other front.

It’s just that she herself has experienced something emotionally disturbing.

Though there’s an anomaly, there was no request for retreat, so the priority now should be to drive away the enemies.

“Is serving your lord more honorable than a duel to the death?”

As the Azure Knight raised his weapon with that judgment, his opponent gradually relaxed his stance and asked coolly:

“…What do you mean by that?”

“If serving your lord is more honorable, I won’t stop you if you leave this place.”

No sooner had the reply come than the Demon Lord’s army officer put down his blunt weapon on the ground.

The Azure Knight, finding this resolute attitude unexpected, stared blankly, but there was no hostility directed at him in that demeanor.

“…Are you serious?”

“Unlike the others, you didn’t mock me and engaged in the duel seriously.”

It’s not a lie.

The demons belonging to the Demon Lord’s army are all arrogant, but what they value even more is the desire they pursue.

The clearer the desire, the stronger the power one possesses, and the higher the position one attains—that’s natural.

“If you respected my honor, it’s only natural that I provide you with an opportunity to pursue your honor as well.”

For someone who pursues the desire for honor, there can never be falsehood in words accompanied by honor.

The Azure Knight, having felt the sincerity of this during their battle so far, hesitated briefly before retrieving his sword and preparing to turn away.

No matter how important it is to gain the upper hand in war, the Lord of Corpses is the core of the legion.

If something happens to her, even if they win this battle, it might greatly hinder their future objectives.

“…What is your name?”

As they reached this lull, the Azure Knight momentarily paused his steps toward his lord and looked back at his opponent.

To this question, the Demon Lord’s army officer, who had already turned his back, quietly answered:

“Hellcry.”

Born not as a demon but as an orc.

The strongest warrior of the Demon Lord’s army who had newly ascended to the position of one of the Four Heavenly Kings.