Ch.169169. Ilroy (5)

“…How foolish.”

I muttered. I was gritting my teeth hard. The seventh calamity would not come. Then I wouldn’t have to fight as a hero anymore. So, don’t worry about me, don’t look for me, just live your life. Enjoy everything you’ve achieved as a hero, and live like a human being. That was the request Holy Sword made to me.

“Is there a problem?”

Aryen asked while examining my expression, but I didn’t answer. After staring at my face for a while, Aryen turned his head toward the restraint on his left arm. A restraint that wouldn’t easily come off even with Aryen’s strength. I could see his arm fidgeting, as if uncomfortable.

“Well, anyway. Currently, the evil god won’t be crossing over. I’m not sure if it’s a situation where we can feel at ease, but it seems the evil god’s hand won’t reach this world for now. It doesn’t seem like another calamity will strike either. If you’re going to report, I think you can conclude as such.”

I hardened my expression and raised my face. Aryen raised an eyebrow as he saw the change in my eyes.

“I’m not telling you to feel relieved. We don’t know when that door will open again, and we don’t know why it suddenly closed in the first place. We don’t know what might happen. If the door suddenly bursts open one day and those things pour out, there would be nothing we could do.”

Aryen added, as if making an excuse. When my expression didn’t soften, Aryen clicked his tongue.

“Don’t think strange thoughts. Those things aren’t something you can prevent just by knowing about them. If you truly want to prevent that situation from happening, stay by people’s side. Give them faith and show them what hope is. If you remain as their pillar, people won’t be afraid. You can push back the coming end, far into the future.”

“Are you satisfied with that?”

When I abruptly asked, Aryen frowned. Then, with a deep sigh, he nodded toward the cigarette pack. I wondered when he had become such a heavy smoker; his eyes looked desperate as they searched for a cigarette. I irritably pulled out a cigarette and flicked it into Aryen’s mouth.

“I have to be satisfied. And I will be satisfied. Because I thought that was the best thing for me to do.”

Aryen started smoking again with his characteristic answer. I quietly tapped my fingers on the desk. As if the sound was somewhat irritating, Aryen looked down at my hand.

“You’re not going to tell me about the other you?”

“…No, I’ll tell you now. Why do you want to hear that story so badly?”

Aryen, no, everyone in this world except me, doesn’t know that Holy Sword is a sentient being. They don’t know how big a role she played in saving this world, nor how much she supported me. If the people of this world are surviving because of me, then I am surviving because of Holy Sword’s words. How could I make them understand this fact?

“…I think that space is like a mental world, another universe not connected to this world.”

A world where concept, notion, and substance are not distinguished. Aryen defined it that way. I vaguely agreed and nodded, and Aryen continued.

“The other me there was neither living nor dead. Literally, it was a concept. Me in a world without you. It seemed like that possibility was fully manifested.”

It’s a world without something like a physical body. Transcendence proceeds without being bound by the body.

“Yes, if I had to explain, it felt like facing a vengeful spirit. You must have felt it too.”

Vengeful spirit. That was right. The other Aryen was literally like a ghost, rushing at us to kill us with a manic obsession.

“I only spoke with the other me for a very brief moment, but I could tell he was as good as dead. I felt a… curse-like obsession that only a ghost could possess.”

Aryen exhaled a bitter sigh along with smoke.

“That guy had an obsession with his failures and mistakes. That obsession was visible. Well, it would be stranger to exist in the mental world without such will. He should have died along with the world he was in long ago.”

I frantically organized Aryen’s words in my head. Something, something seemed to show a possibility. Death, transcendence, and where the Aryen from the “original” had reached.

“I don’t know if the other me truly disappeared, or if he’s continuing his tenacious life.”

“…No, that’s enough. Thank you for telling me.”

Aryen looked at me with just one corner of his mouth raised.

“So, what are you going to do now? Are you going to report what I said to the queen?”

“Of course I’ll report to Her Majesty.”

“Then my treatment has already been decided. Execution, right?”

Aryen calmly spoke those words. I looked at Aryen and let out a small sigh.

“Don’t rush. Why are you trying to hasten your death?”

“Because it’s going to happen anyway. You know it, I know it, anyone who’s heard about those atrocities knows it, so there’s no need to hide it and talk about it in secret.”

I changed my small, thin sigh into a big one. Aryen’s words were stirring and stabbing at my guilt. And at the same time, they were bringing confusion to me.

“I’m not trying to instill guilt in you. I’m just trying to find my own way to accept the fact that I can’t avoid the death that’s coming soon.”

“You really are vicious till the end. How much do you want to torment me?”

Aryen just smiled silently. That smile, somehow made me uncomfortable. Who should I save, who should I keep alive? How far should I think? The more that piled on my shoulders, the bigger the questions became.

“Are you done talking?”

“Yeah, I’m done, you bastard. Keep rotting in prison until the next interrogation.”

I spat out a curse with all the bitterness on the tip of my tongue. Aryen shrugged his shoulders and stood up. I grabbed Aryen and escorted him out of the room. Thanks to this guy irritating me so well, I felt like I could properly perform my role as a guard.

As we stepped out of the room, the prison warden and bishop who had been waiting quietly greeted us. The warden sniffed the air, then shook his head with a bitter smile. He seemed to have smelled the cigarette. I thought he might give a warning, but the warden locked the interrogation room without saying anything.

“Did it go well, Hero?”

“Yes. I think I’ve obtained most of the information I needed.”

The guards approached and grabbed Aryen, putting the blindfold back on him. The warden watched him quietly and said:

“So, are you returning to the palace now?”

“…Yes. I think I will.”

The warden smiled faintly, murmured “I see,” and approached Aryen. Despite everything, he was an impressive person who exuded a strange charisma without being overbearing. I thought he might throw his weight around and be petty about unnecessary things.

“Then, one of the guards here will guide you to the surface. Please take care.”

The warden slightly lifted the brim of his hat. I nodded slightly and turned away from Aryen. The sense of Aryen’s presence growing distant somehow made me feel like he was still watching me.

==

“Go. Let’s depart.”

The warden’s cold voice was heard. In the darkness, Aryen turned his head toward the direction of Ilroy’s footsteps. The hero’s steps were, as always, orderly and faint. As if he would never stay anywhere, as if he was always ready to leave. Those steps used to seem precarious, but now they didn’t seem to lack confidence.

“Opening the gate.”

After walking a few steps, Aryen turned his perception back toward those pitch-black pupils. In this place, one can’t even properly perceive time. He could only think, and remain lost in thought until Ilroy came to find him again.

“Get in. I understand your excitement at meeting the hero, but don’t do anything foolish.”

The warden’s voice came through the iron bars. Aryen sat down on the prison floor with a bitter smile. The moisture deeply held by the ground rose up, awakening Aryen’s senses. The warden seemed to exchange some words with the guards, then left the underground prison, leaving Aryen behind.

“…Even so.”

Heart. He slightly extended his perception to observe Ilroy’s body. He had thought it wasn’t normal for a while, but the hero’s body that he directly looked into was much more serious than he thought. It was much closer to death than life, and much closer to something else than a human. If Ilroy could reach that space again based on what he heard from Aryen, and if he could remove this world’s time-limited fate.

“I don’t know if you can do it, but.”

Aryen placed his hand on his heart. The hand sensing the heartbeat gradually gathered and turned into a fist. After being lost in thought for a moment, there was a faint smile on Aryen’s lips when he awoke.

“I think you will definitely try.”

==

“So, it’s not a situation to worry about to that extent.”

Agnes nodded. Her expression could not be described as bright, even as a platitude. With each unfolding of the stories heard from Aryen, the silence added weight. A silence unstable and heavy like glass. In it, the sound of lifting and lowering teacups pierced the senses particularly sharply, like a blanket touching skin with a cold.

“Yes. It’s obvious and presumptuous to say, but I think it’s good to be prepared in some form.”

“That’s a difficult thing to say. To prepare for someone we cannot face.”

I agreed with Agnes’s words with a bitter smile. Cannot face. It doesn’t come in a form, but appears before us in a form that controls emotions and thoughts.

“Since we can’t prepare militarily, I’ll do my best in other ways. I’ll widely spread the news of your victory throughout the continent, and rewrite history as myth. So that the evil god cannot penetrate people’s hearts. So that the existence of the hero remains forever as a shield in people’s hearts.”

Agnes spoke with emphasis. I smiled bitterly at her words.

“You’re going to be busier from now on.”

“It will be tiring. You’ll have to give speeches in front of many people often, like at departure ceremonies or victory celebrations. Other than that, I don’t think you’ll have much to do.”

“That’s fine. I’m already quite used to it.”

I shrugged, and Agnes filled the cup with the teapot, wearing a faint smile. As we discussed solutions, the weight of the silence lightened. I chatted with Agnes about matters unrelated to the current state of affairs. New ore veins had been discovered in the north, and adventurers were having trouble due to the significant decrease in monster numbers, such stories.

Agnes occasionally laughed as if amused, and sometimes wore an expression as if she had put down the dignity of a queen for a moment. And now, she was absentmindedly looking into my eyes while fiddling with her teacup.

“What’s wrong?”

“…Nothing. I just suddenly had a good idea.”

A good idea? I tilted my head.

“A way to give people confidence. A way for you to remain more clearly as a guardian.”

“What is it?”

It’s not common to see Agnes with such confidence. Agnes, who began speaking with a strangely heated voice, was even showing a very subtle blush on her face.

“Ilroy, do you have a fiancé?”

“…What? No, I don’t yet…”

Fiancé? Why is she suddenly bringing this up? As I tilted my head again and looked into Agnes’s eyes, her red eyes sparkled like stars. Agnes’s lips curled up slightly, and her pale pink lips moved to produce quiet but certain words.

“Then, how about marrying me?”

What did you say?

A bomb dropped from Agnes’s mouth.