Ch.219The Boss and His Loyal Follower (Complete)

The destiny set by the Demon Lord had now vanished into countless chaos.

Ortes affirmed all possible futures with his divine chaos. Somewhere in those futures, there surely existed the possibility of the Demon Lord’s return.

But at least, not right now.

The explosion of the artificial Ten Commandments had entangled all the fates controlled by the Demon Lord. Even for someone like the Demon Lord, it would take considerable time to escape that pure white destruction.

Ortes lay down. The night sky drawn by Astrape was beautiful.

Carisia sat beside him. Slowly, she stroked his hair. The gentle touch caressing his hair. Ortes closed his eyes.

“It’s over.”

“Indeed it is.”

It was truly a strange ending.

Neither Ortes nor Carisia could achieve what they initially wanted.

Ortes ultimately couldn’t return to his homeland. The Demon Lord’s final spell was his chance, but Ortes chose something else instead of returning.

Carisia failed to destroy the White Light until the end. She considered detonating it even now, but that would collapse the dimensional wall that had barely regained its form.

Both had failed to achieve their desires.

Yet, there were no regrets.

This was likely the reason for the Demon Lord’s final misjudgment. Based on Ortes’s actions, he had expected Ortes to be an altruistic person and threw out the phrase “dedication to the world,” which was immediately denied.

The Demon Lord had inferred Ortes’s character from that answer. A truly human person who could abandon anything for his desires. A kindred spirit to the Demon Lord himself in having endless desires.

The goal of becoming a god by using the destiny designed by the Demon Lord also had its own plausibility. The Demon Lord never doubted that Ortes sought the power of an absolute being.

Wasn’t it a natural conclusion to desire the most powerful force in this world? Moreover, Ortes already possessed divinity. Just one step remained to become absolute.

Who would give up such infinite power unless they were someone who could set aside what they had for an unnamed other?

But the Demon Lord didn’t know that Ortes’s desire was aimed not at power, but at returning home.

And one more thing.

His feelings for Carisia ran deeper than his obsession with returning home. This was a fact that even Ortes himself only acknowledged at the very end.

Ortes was an ordinary human who feared sacrificing himself for unnamed others.

But at the same time, he was someone who could risk his last hope for the sake of the one person he knew.

“Boss.”

“You still call me that?”

“What else would I call the boss but boss?”

Carisia’s hands gently pressed against Ortes’s cheeks.

“Fine. I’m quitting anyway.”

“Pardon?”

“The Ten Towers remnants mistook Mr. Lampades for the real head of the Hydra Company Alliance, right? Let’s just dump everything on him and retire!”

The Ten Towers remnants no longer had the remaining Commandments. But their experience and abilities as Tower Lords remained intact. With four Commandments left to the Hydra Company Alliance, it would be impossible to overwhelm them in a direct confrontation, but what about other methods like guerrilla warfare?

They couldn’t simply purge them either. The Tower Lords’ magical abilities were essential for rebuilding the damaged extra-dimensional purification magic needed after the battle with the Demon Lord.

Even if the Neo-Myeong Cult, which would return to the forefront of history, supported them in place of the missing Commandments, the only personnel immediately available for maintaining the magical formulas were from the Ten Towers.

Carisia had no intention of getting entangled in such complicated aftermath. Abandoning everything and disappearing seemed wise.

Somewhere deep in her heart, the impulse for destruction that still hadn’t fallen asleep whispered. That just one step further would be the end of the world.

That she could erase with her own hands the real world she had repeatedly deleted mechanically, calling it a “fake world.”

She buried her last lingering attachment in her heart. She couldn’t destroy the Ten Commandments’ White Light, but hadn’t she defeated the Magician White Light?

There would be a time when it would resurface again, but for now, there wasn’t enough time to fully enjoy being with the person beside her.

If this world disappeared, where could she stay together with Ortes?

“Still, please be the boss for just one more day.”

“Why? You’ve been singing about how much you hate working all this time.”

“We need to process the severance pay before leaving. I’ll leave first, so please give me plenty of money.”

It was a frivolous joke. Carisia smiled and brought her lips to his forehead.

It was a quiet kiss with no other sound. Since Ortes had his eyes closed, he couldn’t be certain what had brushed against his forehead.

But certainty and conjecture were different matters.

“Boss…?”

“Consider that your severance pay, and shall we just run away somewhere from now on?”

Ortes raised his hand and touched his forehead.

“No. I’ll take my severance pay in cash.”

Then he smiled.

“This is something I can receive plenty of even after retirement. Severance pay comes only once.”

***

My last schedule as the Director of Divine Investigation was a memorial service. For those who fell on the Ten Commandments front. And for those who disappeared, caught up in the Demon Lord’s advent.

And for Hector.

His sword was planted in front of Hector’s tombstone. A blade that hadn’t broken even before the Demon Lord, either because of how it was forged or because it resembled its owner’s stubbornness.

The knights unanimously said that I, who had carried on the Sword Master’s will and defeated the Demon Lord, was the rightful owner of the sword.

But I didn’t think so. This was Hector’s sword. At least for the time being.

“I’ve organized what I remember of the sword techniques I learned from you and passed them to the knights. I told them whoever wields it best can take it, so don’t feel bad when the juniors take your sword.”

He was always reciting that a sword only has meaning when it’s wielded, so he’d probably approve.

With this, I had completed my final farewell. Carisia was waiting a short distance away.

“I left a note in the president’s office saying ‘I resign to take responsibility.’ Lampades will probably become the external representative of the alliance, but internally, it will likely be a triumvirate of Lampades, Niobe, and Core.”

“That doesn’t sound good. I remember most triumvirates in my world ended in failure.”

“The alliance was going to dissolve after the post-war cleanup anyway.”

Carisia added playfully that if the original plan was to destroy the world, ending with just the dissolution of an alliance was a better outcome.

I nodded. Indeed, just the fact that she didn’t detonate the White Light when she got it, saying “it’s time to return to nothingness,” made this a much better ending than the original one.

“Wait, so Lampades will also be the president of Hydra Company? He’ll collapse from stress.”

“Ah, I handed that over to Arabelle. I had designated her as acting president in case of vacancy. She’s worked hard, so she should enjoy the pinnacle of power for at least a few days.”

I was appalled by Carisia’s pure malice. Most of what the Hydra Company president would do now would be the tremendous paperwork that comes with post-war cleanup.

To throw such a crown-shaped weight to Arabelle, who had already suffered so much.

“I think I might need to go back and be a secretary for a few more days.”

“Not allowed. I processed your resignation letter, and the severance pay budget execution is complete. We are now complete strangers with no connection to Hydra Company.”

Trivial jokes were exchanged. At the quiet gravesite. In a place where only the two of them were present.

Carisia and I had retired.

***

“Where will you go now?”

Carisia asked, looking at Ortes. Even if they wanted to spend money, the current situation was busy with the aftermath of the extra-dimensional being’s advent—officially announced as an extra-dimensional being impersonating the Demon Lord who had bewitched Arguirion.

It was questionable whether accounts linked to the Ether Network would function properly.

Ortes shrugged.

“I have a house I bought in the extra-dimensional border area where I used to work as a troubleshooter. For the time being, I’m planning to just hole up there and relax.”

“I see. You already had retirement plans?”

“Originally, a more luxurious lifestyle was planned. But until the social system recovers, I’ll have to live frugally with what I have. What about you?”

“I told you I’m not the boss anymore.”

Ortes started to redirect the conversation with an “Hmm…” but then gathered his resolve and said:

“Carisia.”

“Yes. You know that well but still say it.”

“What do you plan to do now?”

“I’m planning to follow the person beside me.”

Ortes’s expression showed a mix of bewilderment and relief. Carisia asked playfully:

“Why, don’t you like that?”

A slowly shaking head. Carisia hesitated slightly, then reached out her hand.

It was a bare hand without a gauntlet.

Ortes gently took that hand.

No longer as boss and subordinate, but as life companions walking the same path, the two held hands and walked on.