Ch.151Alice (2)

*

“I don’t have much time left anyway…”

Alice’s quiet lament, delivered with a bitter expression tinged with sarcasm.

Sylvia wasn’t so dull that she couldn’t grasp the meaning behind those words.

Alice was talking about her own death.

Sylvia looked at Alice’s chest, covered by thick armor, and spoke.

“Earlier, when you treated Ash, you didn’t use holy power, did you? You just touched his shoulder.”

“…That’s right.”

“But Ash’s shoulder healed completely. When I use holy power, wounds heal but usually leave scars. You completely erased Ash’s wound without even using holy power.”

“…It’s overflowing. Thanks to that, the horse we rode didn’t even get tired.”

“It seems uncontrolled. Is that why? Why you say you don’t have much time?”

“You catch on quick. Well… you’re not completely ignorant about holy power, so I suppose you would notice.”

Alice slowly raised her head to look at the ceiling, arching her back dramatically.

Despite appearing languid, the movement was saturated with deep fatigue and cynicism.

“It feels like it’s getting more unstable by the day.”

“Is it broken?”

“Who knows? Maybe it’s broken, or maybe my life force, which I’ve been using like fuel, is running out.”

“How much time do you have left?”

“I don’t know that either. A year? A month? If I’m unlucky, maybe tomorrow.”

“…”

“So I need to hurry. I want to see that pathetic curse binding Ash disappear by finishing off the Demon Lord before I die. Then I might be able to close my eyes a little more peacefully.”

Sylvia nodded at Alice’s words.

Setting aside her personal feelings about her, Alice was essential for their journey to face the Demon Lord.

In the demonic energy that filled the area outside this lakeside, Ash could only endure if Alice used her holy power to remove the accumulated demonic energy from his body.

While Sylvia could also remove some demonic energy, her holy power alone wasn’t enough to handle the burden for both herself and Ash.

The incident from before, when they lost Sylvia’s cabin and wandered through the forest—when she almost lost Ash forever due to the demonic energy building up in his body—proved this.

Therefore, they needed to defeat the Demon Lord before Alice’s numbered days came to an end.

On this dangerous journey where anyone could die at any moment, they needed to take Ash, find the Demon Lord who was hiding and recovering, and kill him before Alice died.

Sylvia let out a shallow sigh.

“At this point, isn’t the world already doomed?”

“You’re not wrong.”

“What?”

“Go outside the forest. The world is already ruined. Even if we kill the Demon Lord, it’s impossible for things to go back to how they were. Even if it were possible, it wouldn’t happen in our generation.”

Sylvia fell silent at Alice’s dry tone.

Though Alice hadn’t said anything of the sort, somehow Sylvia heard it as Alice mocking her failure.

Of course, this could be because Alice had been meticulously listing and sneering at Sylvia’s failures all this time, but it was more likely due to Sylvia’s own sense of inadequacy.

Since learning that the Demon Lord still existed, Sylvia had continuously tried to ignore that fact.

At first, she pretended not to know.

When Alice made it impossible to keep pretending, she dismissed it as something unrelated to her.

When Ash’s earnest pleas made it impossible to ignore any longer, she tried her best not to think about it.

The Demon Lord—humanity’s despair and collective trauma.

That terrifying entity was also Sylvia’s despair and trauma.

No, more precisely, it wasn’t the Demon Lord’s existence but the journey toward him that was traumatic.

At the end of that precarious path, like walking on a razor’s edge, there were no heroic tales, no stories to tell, no rewards, no treasures, no welcome from people,

No proud achievements or consolations remained.

Friends, comrades, freedom, future.

There was only the painful time of loneliness, examining one by one all that she had lost and had taken from her.

“…”

Sylvia silently looked at Alice.

She had been a hero.

Just like Sylvia herself a few years ago.

Even the approaching inevitable doom overlapped with Sylvia’s own experience.

For Alice too, all that awaited at the end of the journey to catch the Demon Lord was her predetermined death.

“Alice,”

“What.”

“…”

Sylvia’s lips wouldn’t move.

In truth, she didn’t even know why she had called Alice’s name or what she wanted to say.

Sylvia closed her eyes for a moment and slowly examined a heavy question buried in her heart.

Would I,

Perhaps would I,

Would I have gone after the Demon Lord if I had known all this pain was coming?

“…”

“…”

“What the hell. Why call my name and then say nothing?”

Sylvia slowly and painfully parted her tightly closed lips and began to speak.

“You’re going to die.”

“What is this now.”

“Knowing that, why…”

“…?”

“Why are you so determined to catch the Demon Lord?”

Alice slowly lowered her raised head to look at Sylvia.

No, she glared with an expression of disbelief.

But Sylvia continued regardless.

“You’re going to die anyway, and as you said, the world is already ruined. All of this might just be meaningless struggling, and if we fail, you’ll die with regrets.”

“Huh,”

“But still, why…?”

“…”

Alice sighed.

“I thought I couldn’t dislike you more, but apparently I can sink even lower… really.”

“…”

“What do you mean ‘why,’ you crazy bitch? It’s because of Ash.”

“…Huh?”

“Because I want Ash to live happily.”

“…”

Sylvia stared at Alice as if she’d been struck from behind.

“You might be fine just living with Ash even if he’s cursed, but I don’t want Ash to live in hiding. I want him to go where he wants to go and do what he wants to do,”

“…”

“…and live happily like that.”

“…”

“What do you think is the reason I forgave you? Because you’re pretty? Because you’re the hero? Go to hell. It’s because Ash likes you. I forgave you because Ash is happy when he’s with you,”

“Alice, you…”

“That’s right.”

A strange golden light overflowed from Alice’s eyes.

In those eyes that flashed between her fiercely furrowed brows, rough and crude emotions were swirling.

Anger and irritation.

“I like Ash.”

And jealousy.

“…”

“I liked him when we were young, and I still like him now. I remember how my heart pounded when Father talked about our engagement in his letter. That’s why I hate you so much. I despise you. I don’t want to lose him, I don’t want to give Ash to you. Just imagining you smiling next to Ash makes me sick! Even now, right now, I want to take… no, take back Ash.”

“…”

“But I don’t have time. I don’t have time to make Ash happy…”

“…Alice.”

“All I can do is kill everything that stands in Ash’s way, break all the curses that torment him, and tear apart the Demon Lord who screwed with Ash and that damned Balder Staff.”

Alice spat out her words like a growling beast.

Sylvia could only stare blankly at her.

“And…”

Alice paused briefly, then slowly inhaled and exhaled.

She seemed to be forcibly suppressing her rising anger.

The rough sound of her mechanical heart turning rapidly reached Sylvia’s ears.

With each breath Alice exhaled, the boiling heat inside her hissed out, as if she were slowly extinguishing a fireball she had swallowed.

After taking several deep breaths in succession, Alice continued in a calmer voice.

“That way, I’ll have the face to meet Maria even after I die.”

“…”

The two fell silent.

Only the crackling of the flickering campfire, sending tiny ashes into the air, filled the quiet cabin.

Sylvia, realizing how pathetic she must have appeared, trembled with her fists clenched in shame.

Alice clicked her tongue and closed her eyes at the sight of Sylvia.

“If you’re going to talk nonsense, just go to sleep.”

“…When are you planning to leave?”

“Not tomorrow. We need to check how much Ash can move, there are things and news I need to deliver, and we need to adjust the armor I brought to fit him.”

“…Two days should be enough then.”

“Yes, barring any issues, we’ll depart in three days.”

Sylvia nodded and replied.

“I’ll prepare.”

.