Ch.168168. Ilroy (4)

“You start with the sensitive part. Just calm down a bit.”

Aryen shook his head. Did I go too far ahead? I sighed as I sat back in my chair after unconsciously leaning forward. Aryen stared at me with a cool gaze until I caught my breath. I couldn’t read the intention behind those eyes.

“Are there things I need to know?”

“No. It’s a bit different. There’s nothing you shouldn’t know. You have the right to know everything.”

Aryen let out a long sigh. He seemed to be contemplating where to begin his story.

“Let me start with the root of all these events. In that darkness, I saw too much. Especially about those things we feared as calamities.”

Calamity. Aryen began his story from the fundamental premise. But I couldn’t sense hatred in his words when referring to them. Emptiness, and… a bit of sympathy? Compassion? That’s absurd.

“What have you felt while facing the calamities, Ilroy? Did you truly believe they could destroy this world? The Kraken, the Giant, the Fog, and the Comet.”

I stared at Aryen with a blank expression. Could the calamities destroy the world? The Kraken that filled land with sea. The Winter Giant that could destroy villages in a single step, shake mountains, and cause earthquakes when it ran. The Fog that devoured perception and consciousness, using life force as fuel and souls as hostages for its puppet show. And the Comet, larger than a mountain peak, falling through the twilight while tens of thousands of monsters surged like waves beyond the capital’s walls.

“If such calamities can’t destroy this world, what exactly will destroy us?”

“The calamities alone are insufficient, Ilroy. They could never do it by themselves. It’s structurally impossible, considering their power. You’d know if you calculated it roughly.”

I couldn’t mentally accept Aryen’s words. Aryen didn’t rush me. He understood that I was struggling to accept what he was saying.

“…I’m sorry. I’m not belittling your achievements. Without you, without the hero, tens of thousands… no, countless people would have died. But could that truly have sunk all the land of this planet underwater, trampled all life, and put all humans into eternal sleep?”

No. Aryen is right. Even assuming I didn’t exist in this world, a single calamity would be insufficient to lead the world to destruction. Even without me, someone would have picked up the Holy Sword to stop the Giant’s advance, dispersed the Fog, and minimized the damage from the Comet. Even without wielding the Holy Sword, unless all the calamities struck at once…

Complete destruction would be impossible.

“If the true purpose and meaning of the calamities were the destruction of this planet and the extinction of humanity, they should have appeared all at once rather than sequentially.”

When I spoke, Aryen nodded. He seemed somewhat surprised that I agreed so quickly. I tried to appear composed as I urged Aryen on.

“So? Then what exactly are the calamities, and why do they exist?”

“The calamities are preparation. They’re merely precursors to something that will come.”

Aryen glanced at the cigarettes the bishop had left on the table. I opened the pack, took one out, placed it in Aryen’s mouth, and lit it for him. With a visibly relaxed expression, Aryen took a deep drag and slowly exhaled.

“What do you think are the conditions for a god’s existence?”

“…That’s a sudden question. What does it have to do with what you said before?”

“Of course I’m asking because it’s related.”

The cigarette with rising smoke twitched in Aryen’s mouth. Even with a cigarette in his mouth, his words didn’t mumble but struck my ears precisely.

“Conditions for a god’s existence…”

“The only way for immortal beings, those who transcend this world, to prove their own existence.”

I seemed to understand. And it’s funny. Those who have escaped the constraints of the world ultimately cling to the mortal beings of the world to find their existence. The absoluteness of absolute beings can only be evidenced relatively—by comparison. My mouth feels stiff and hard to move. I moved my lips several times to utter the word.

“Faith.”

“Yes. Faith is the way absolute beings prove their existence and confirm their absoluteness. And that applies to evil gods as well.”

Ash fell from the cigarette. Aryen spat out the cigarette butt onto the floor with annoyance and rubbed it with his foot.

“So, the calamities were ultimately sacrifices for the evil gods’ advent, is that what you’re saying?”

“If the calamities plunge the world into despair, and broken people turn to doomsday worship or wait for death without rising again… the existence of evil gods would be proven, and they would come to accomplish what they couldn’t during the mythical age.”

Bringing chaos to the world. Removing order and establishing a world of randomness.

“…The calamities were arrangements left for that purpose. But the evil gods overlooked one thing.”

Smoke rose from the cigarette ash. Aryen glanced at the smoke, then turned to me.

“The possibility that the calamities might not even instill enough fear in people.”

Then he gestured toward me with his chin.

“That possibility was precisely the Holy Sword and your existence, Ilroy. The evil gods couldn’t sufficiently imprint their existence on the world. People didn’t feel fear when they saw the calamities; they felt hope when they saw you.”

“When they… saw me.”

“The calamities were originally supposed to be active over several generations. To leave unforgettable impacts on people over a long time and accumulate fear. The calamities began to emerge centuries after the end of mythology, and the locusts appeared only long after the snake died.”

The Kraken, and then the Giant. The calamities revealed themselves one by one in less than a year.

“But the hero’s existence, which began to be engraved in people’s hearts, drove away the fear of the calamities. The calamities that remain in people’s hearts will never surpass you.”

“Well, this is something—I can’t even die out of fear.”

Aryen nodded heavily.

“Because if you die, all the hope you’ve built up will instantly collapse people with twice the despair.”

My lips stiffened. I couldn’t tell what expression I was making. As long as I’m alive, people won’t collapse, and if I die, they will.

“The evil gods realized it. All the weight of fear that the calamities could give would be obtained the moment you were eliminated.”

I let out a hollow laugh at Aryen’s words. Not because his words were funny. My situation was funny.

“So if I die, this world will ultimately collapse.”

“…Yes.”

Aryen nodded. A heavy silence descended. Sympathy. I could now somewhat understand the compassion Aryen was showing. Someone like him would hate being in such a situation more than anything. He probably thinks I’m the strange one.

“Your life ultimately isn’t yours. It never was yours, and it never will be.”

“…”

Choice. And my life. I suddenly tilted my head back to look at the ceiling. Then laughter escaped me. I’ve never once felt doubt about this kind of life.

I want to save people.

I want to save those who wouldn’t survive otherwise and protect their lives.

That’s my desire, my wish, and the reason I can continue fighting even after achieving my goal of survival. There’s no regret after that. So, I have no reason to be pitied.

“My life is mine, Aryen. Just as you chose your path to get here, so did I.”

“Even a life that’s entangled with others?”

“In the end, we all live entangled with someone, whether we embrace them or push them away. Isn’t that true for you too?”

Instead of a direct answer, Aryen gently closed his eyes in response to my question. When Aryen’s eyes reappeared, I couldn’t see any sympathy directed at me. The conversation continued through our eyes. Aryen seemed to have roughly guessed my thoughts from my smile.

“If you say so, then it must be.”

The conversation concluded for now. Aryen requested another cigarette, and I placed it in his mouth and lit it for him as before. Aryen slowly smoked the cigarette. This time, he seemed to want to fully enjoy its taste.

“So, what was the God of Light that we knew all about?”

“I couldn’t know that either. It might be a vague concept, or it might be some specific entity. Perhaps even the evil gods who waged war against it didn’t know exactly what the God of Light was.”

Aryen shrugged as he spoke.

“Well, what’s important now isn’t the God of Light… What’s important is,”

Aryen’s eyes gleamed as he looked at me.

“How you’ll use the information I’ve given you.”

“What else would I use it for…”

And then I realized I had been missing something.

“To stop the seventh calamity…”

And my words stopped. Aryen raised his eyebrows as he looked at me, and I recalled what the Holy Sword had told me.

‘Live. Happily, enjoying everything you’ve earned as a hero.’

As if saying the seventh calamity would never come.

“…Then what exactly is the seventh calamity?”

As if he had been waiting for just that question, Aryen opened his mouth.

“We have already witnessed the seventh calamity, Ilroy.”

“Witnessed it…?”

No, there’s only one thing that guy and I witnessed together. The pitch-black place where the fake Aryen trapped us. And the shadows emanating from him.

“Then what role do they play?”

“They’re a passage. A passage for evil gods to escape through and reach this world. A passage for their advent.”

“That’s a passage?”

Aryen nodded.

“If you had died there, that space would have become a door, and if news of your death had spread across the continent creating fear, the door would have opened wide for evil gods to pour through.”

“Then the writhing shadows we saw in there…”

“They’re not even… a fraction of the trace.”

I bit my lip hard against the rising anxiety and fear.

“The endlessly deep and vast darkness we were looking at. The evil gods have never even been seen by our eyes. They were just waiting in front of the passage. For some reason, the passage closed, and the world returned to normal.”

And finally, I realized what the Holy Sword had intended to do there.

It was trying to block the passage alone to prevent the evil gods from crossing over.