Ch.255255. Idol

I wouldn’t normally find such an uninteresting story so captivating.

“…”

After hearing the goblin’s entire story, I let out a heavy sigh and slowly stand up from atop his head where I had been sitting.

He seemed relieved as if the knife at his throat had been withdrawn and tried to slowly get up.

But when I glanced at him, he naturally dropped to his knees from his half-risen position.

He sensed this wasn’t over yet.

“That’s possible.”

Monsters who sustained their lives by consuming souls. Honestly, I thought it might be a bit unreasonable to criticize them outright.

To be frank.

We slaughter and eat pigs, cows, and chickens too. To monsters, we’re simply included in their category of beasts.

But that’s their perspective.

I’m human, so I think from a human perspective.

“If I kill all of you right now, you’d have no complaints, right?”

“…!”

At my words, the goblin desperately bowed his head and cried out.

“I-it was to survive! We too had to live! We had no choice!”

“…”

“Humans aren’t the only ones with lives! Monsters too! We also get hungry and starve, so we had to eat!”

Hearing this, I hesitated for a moment. It wasn’t because I felt any weight to their lives or pitied them.

Rather.

“Really?”

I ask again.

“Were you really hungry?”

Did you truly feel hunger?

The goblin quickly raised his head. He wanted to see what expression I had while asking.

But I was still looking at her with an expressionless face.

Not in Deus Verdi’s form, but as Shinwoo Kim, with an even more lifeless expression than before.

If I had to be specific, while Deus had a cold expressionlessness, my current self gave off the impression that emotions themselves had died.

It was because the artificial body made by Professor Per couldn’t express emotions as vividly as I’d like.

Which meant there were still improvements to be made to her artificial body.

“…Y-yes. I f-felt hunger. We did too.”

“I see, so that’s how it was.”

Sensing something unsettling in my response, the goblin kept looking around nervously, trying to escape.

“I’m back!”

The delivery person I met earlier, Soho, burst through the door. She entered quite urgently but when she saw the situation inside, she gasped.

“M-manager?!”

Realizing this wasn’t a normal situation with the manager kneeling in broad daylight in his true form, she immediately turned to flee.

Judging by how fast she ran earlier, it would be troublesome if I let her escape.

Like with Findenai before, I was somewhat weak at pursuing fleeing enemies.

You could say I lacked pursuit methods.

But Soho, who was about to run, paused and slowly turned back to look this way.

“Y-you’re the one the great dragon spoke of?”

“Great dragon? The guardian of this land?”

So it sensed my arrival.

It must be either nearby or quite extraordinary.

“The great dragon said that based on the heaviness of the land, someone who shouldn’t be here has arrived… and told us to let you pass.”

Hearing the guardian’s description, the goblin’s face filled with despair, and Soho also realized things had gone wrong.

But I was rather surprised that this land’s guardian was wary of me.

Well, that works out.

I asked the child called Soho as well.

“Are you hungry?”

“…Pardon?”

“I heard monsters ate human souls because they were hungry. So I’m asking if you’re hungry too.”

“Ah, that… I can’t eat souls.”

“…”

“I just eat food. I-I like fried rice the best.”

“I see, understood.”

After carefully examining Soho with this curious response, I grabbed a chair that had been pushed aside during the goblin’s commotion and sat down.

“I’ll impose on you here just for today. I won’t stay long.”

The journey back is long.

Even if this is fallout from souls entering the land of rest, I couldn’t waste too much time for them.

“I have people waiting for me too, you know.”

Various faces come to mind.

A small smile spreads across my lips without me realizing.

And warmth fills my heart.

Just like forgetting the importance of someone who’s too close.

I wondered if I had become more accustomed to their affection and distance than I thought.

Being apart made me realize again how precious they were to me.

When I return, I’m sure I’ll be able to meet them.

Unfortunately.

There were people I wouldn’t be able to see.

‘Dark Spiritmaster, Stella.’

Before entering the curio shop door in the final battle, they were nowhere to be seen.

When I defeated Raizer inside the shop, when I used Deus’s body to recreate the land of rest.

The two of them were nowhere to be seen.

‘I’m sorry.’

Perhaps in the battle against the god.

Or in the fight with Heralazard.

They must have perished.

I thought I was fully prepared for farewells. But now I understood.

In the face of parting.

There can be no adequate preparation.

I miss them.

Yet everyone moves forward, overcoming it.

Even I, with my shallow emotions, needed to adapt to this somewhat awkward feeling of farewell.

“Um, excuse me.”

“Hmm?”

Soho wakes me from my thoughts.

I know I’ve been lost in contemplation like this more often lately, but I can’t stop it.

Travel is about finding new things, encountering the unknown, and relieving the fatigue of daily life.

But at some point, it’s also about longing for the home where you originally stayed.

The increase in contemplation was evidence of that longing.

“A-are we all going to die?”

“…”

“But even though we ate human souls! Monsters had reasons too! We just wanted to live!”

“You can’t eat souls, can you?”

“Well, that’s true, but…”

To Soho, who was repeating the same excuse the goblin had made earlier, I asked meaningfully again.

“Did you really eat because you were hungry?”

“…Pardon?”

To Soho, who hesitated and asked why I was asking such a question, I shook my head and gave an answer in a different direction.

“The alley where six people died earlier on the street. You saw it, right?”

“Ah, y-yes.”

Her voice became small.

It meant she realized it wasn’t human doing but monster’s work.

This makes the conversation easier.

“Tonight. Let’s go there together. You’ll find the answer.”

“…”

With an expression like she was solving a riddle, she finally just nodded with her mouth tightly shut.

The store became quiet again.

What is this? Why do only you two know? Explain it to me too!

Hehe, wouldn’t it be okay to tell your senior a little?

Perhaps because I had just been thinking of Dark Spiritmaster and Stella.

It felt like I could hear the voices of the two.

I calmly closed my eyes and savored it, painful though it was.

* * *

[Woohoo! I won!]

Dark Spiritmaster jumps up and down with joy, raising her hands high. Heralazard’s staff rattles and shakes along with her emotions.

[…]

Looking down at her hand that showed scissors, Stella pouts and glances at Dark Spiritmaster with a suggestion.

[How about best two out of three, senior?]

An uncharacteristic suggestion from Stella.

Normally she would have agreed, but Dark Spiritmaster snorts and folds her arms.

[Why should I? I won, didn’t I?]

[…Last time when you asked for best two out of three, I agreed.]

[That was then, this is now. And I still lost back then anyway.]

On the rooftop of the Griffin Palace.

The two souls were chatting and bickering at the site where the fierce battle had taken place.

Dark Spiritmaster gloating over winning rock-paper-scissors and Stella quite disappointed.

Owen, playing the piano behind the two, asks with an awkward expression.

“What did you bet on this time?”

Deia, Findenai, Erika.

Everyone had left Greyford, but surprisingly, only Owen remained.

The boy simply plays the piano every day, remembering the day of the fierce battle.

‘After me comes you.’

To become the next Spiritmaster, as his teacher Deus Verdi had said.

Owen was staying alone in Greyford, working hard for that purpose.

To Owen’s question, Dark Spiritmaster answers proudly.

[The right to meet Deus first when he returns!]

“…Last time it was the right to hug him first, wasn’t it?”

Stella won that time, but this time Dark Spiritmaster won.

But wouldn’t Dark Spiritmaster naturally hug him first when they reunite?

For some reason, Owen thought so.

[I’ll meet him first, then Stella gets to meet him! This is final!]

[…]

Though disappointed, Stella had to accept it as a bet is a bet. She nods in agreement.

Owen, watching the two, expresses the fear he’s been harboring.

“Is the Spiritmaster… really alive?”

Both women turn their gaze to Owen simultaneously. For a moment, Owen thought he had misspoken, but.

[We don’t know.]

[It would be nice if he were alive.]

Owen was quite taken aback by the unexpectedly straightforward answers from both Dark Spiritmaster and Stella.

Though smiles graced their lips, they somehow felt dark.

[All we can do is wait.]

“…”

It was true, but not something easily accepted.

Stella slowly approaches Owen and gently strokes the boy’s head.

After obtaining the divine position, Stella was in a somewhat ambiguous state, neither dead nor alive.

[Why do you think Findenai returned to Norsweden?]

“Pardon?”

[Why do you think Miss Erika returned to the academy?]

He couldn’t answer.

Was it because waiting was difficult?

Was it painful to see the place where Deus disappeared?

He could only offer such speculations.

[Why do you think the senior and I remain here?]

“…”

He couldn’t answer.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t something Owen could understand or a sensation he could share.

While Deus Verdi was a benefactor and lifelong teacher and role model to the boy.

This.

This was something only women with feelings of love could share.

[We are becoming the place for him to return to.]

“…”

[We don’t know where he’ll come from. But if he’s alive, he’ll surely return.]

So the women, without saying anything to each other, scattered in different directions.

To become the place for him to return to.

“I see.”

Nodding as if he finally understood, Owen receives Stella’s continued words with a bright smile.

[That’s all we can do. Then, Owen, what can you do?]

“While the Spiritmaster is gone… I must take his place.”

Because Owen is the next Spiritmaster.

Because that’s what he decided.

[That’s right, because there will always be humans who die unjustly, and evil spirits will inevitably appear.]

Stella nods but offers one piece of advice.

[Remember carefully what you saw, what he did. Learn a lot from that.]

“Ah…”

But could he really do as Deus Verdi did?

Could he follow in the footsteps of the one who brought salvation to the continent?

The one who bestowed a great gift?

Owen couldn’t help but feel afraid.

Afraid that his incompetence might tarnish the achievements he had built.

Seeing this, Dark Spiritmaster leaned against the piano and spoke.

[He made you his successor, didn’t he?]

“Yes…”

An undeserved honor.

Owen berated himself, thinking he could only play the piano and couldn’t even properly satisfy the monsters of Claren.

Dark Spiritmaster sighed and answered.

[Then why didn’t he teach you necromancy?]

“…”

That question pierced through the knot Owen had been carrying.

She was right.

Come to think of it, that’s true.

He only played the piano, gathered souls, and watched over the spirits.

He received no other teachings.

Deus Verdi had always been speaking through his actions.

It was only himself who didn’t understand.

[Think about it carefully. Why would he, a necromancer, not teach any necromancy to you, his successor?]

“…I understand.”

At Dark Spiritmaster’s advice, Owen looks down at his small fingers resting on the piano keys.

In these two hands.

What did his idol wish for?