Ch.446The Selected NPC. (2)

During the eight years since I sent Ira to the Holy Nation due to my weakness, my heart felt like it was being torn apart every day.

“Hahaha!! What? Forest keeper?! Do you know who I am? I’m a mountain ban—?!!”

-Crack.

“There are no kings in these mountains. Just a half-witted beast.”

I was still working as the keeper of Poria Mountain, training my body every single day without exception. To keep my promise that I would someday go to bring Ira back. Killing monsters, and bandits and thieves with less intelligence than the monsters. And…

“Hey! Jack. Letter for you.”

“Ah, thank y—”

“Shut up, criminal scum.”

“……”

I lived each day enduring the contempt of the villagers. Those bastards had canceled my criminal status as promised when they took Ira away, but they left with her without explaining anything or revealing the truth about what happened. The truth I eventually heard was accompanied by incomprehensible excuses about how they couldn’t publicly reveal anything from their perspective. Still, I could endure it. Because…

“…Hah. Looks like she’s doing well.”

Ira sent me letters every month from the Holy Nation. From her letters, I learned that she was now healing many people as a saint and killing lesser demons. And I would reply that I was “waiting for her” here and write about my daily life. Of course, she didn’t know how I was being treated here, but that didn’t matter. From the beginning, only Uncle and Ira existed in my life, and they were the only ones who mattered to me.

“…Sigh, I wish I could go get her right now.”

I wonder how it would be now. Unlike my weak self from six years ago, now at over 20 years old, I can easily kill notorious bandits and even the monsters and beasts that Uncle warned me to stay away from.

Perhaps I could rush to the Holy Nation, destroy everything holding Ira captive, and bring her back. But…

-Jack, I’m helping many people here. And someday, I’ll travel to help even more people. I think that’s what I can do right now. But honestly, the Holy Nation… doesn’t feel as good as the cabin where we lived together. I believe that someday I’ll be able to tell you this in person. And, if possible, when I travel… I want you to be the man by my side.

Rather than becoming a criminal again and being hunted by the nation and the Holy Nation, I think it’s better to wait until she can leave that country on her own and begin her journey. Then we could leave this village and country that abandoned us and live truly free. So I read her monthly letters, replied to them, and continued training and enduring for years. Then one day, the letters that had been my hope for life suddenly brought despair.

“What…? What did you just say…”

“She’s dead, you idiot. They said they won’t send support money anymore. Damn, it was good money. Tch!”

Ira was dead. Ignoring the insults spat along with saliva by the villager who always delivered her letters, I frantically opened the envelope, but the writing and content weren’t from Ira, and the handwriting belonged to someone else. It briefly stated that they were cutting off support money I had no memory of receiving, and that Ira’s body had been completely burned to ashes.

“No, that’s impossible!! She!! Ira can’t be dead!!!”

“Wh-what?! Why is this crazy bastard suddenly yelling…”

I think it felt like falling alone into a world where nothing was visible or audible. At least, from that afternoon, I was howling at that spot, crying out something that might have been screams or sobs, having lost human language—or so I heard someone from the village say days later when my thoughts finally began to move slowly again. And that was no consolation to me. The letter I received that day, the reality, was not a dream.

“…I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Because I was weak… because I couldn’t take good care of you. I’m sorry.”

Creating a grave without her body, living in a cabin with no trace of her left—this is my punishment. When I open my eyes in the morning, I feel like I might hear her bell-like voice in my ear, but she’s not by my side.

It feels like she might grab my arm and pull me to have lunch together when it’s time to eat. But Ira is gone.

I spend each day creaking like a broken tool, not knowing whether I’m alive or dead, having forgotten how to stop. I pray not to open my eyes the next day and find peace, but I force myself awake, shuddering with fear that there will be no one left to remember her. And so, I…

“…It’s okay. Today is peaceful too, just like every day. So, you can come back anytime. I’ll only wait for you, Ira.”

Waiting only for her who would never return, I completely broke down.

*

I don’t know. How many days have passed, how many years. I don’t care or think about what’s happened to the mountain. I just hunt and cook meat to eat, and although I’ve been poisoned several times by toxic meat, my uselessly strong body still hasn’t sent me to Ira’s side. And so, while living meaninglessly day by day…

“Are you Jack, the keeper of this mountain?”

“…Who are you?”

“I am a saint who has come to eliminate the demons disturbing the continent—my name is ———.”

-Thump.

My heart pounded as if it might burst. I couldn’t hear the blonde woman’s name clearly, but she said she had the profession I most hated to hear and most wanted to hear, and that she had come to eliminate demons.

Ah, I see. I don’t know since when, but I had been feeling that the mountain landscape had changed strangely. Perhaps there were demons on the mountain.

“…You, you didn’t know?”

“No, I didn’t.”

She looked at me with wide eyes as if she truly couldn’t understand my answer, but all that interested me was that she claimed to be a saint. And…

“Then, do you not know where the demons are on this mountain…”

“…I’ll guide you. Follow me.”

“What? Wait!! Ah, you didn’t know demons had appeared…!!”

“No, I didn’t. But I know where the strangest place on the mountain is. That’s probably where you’ll find what you’re looking for. In exchange, I want something as payment.”

“Oh? What kind of payment would that be?”

“Information. About a person. Someone you might know about.”

If she was a saint, she might know about Ira—about her body, or at least how she died. With that thought, I named my price, and though her eyes trembled, she accepted and began to follow me.

Only then did I notice there were others behind her, but I paid them no mind and led them deep into the mountain. As we walked, I overheard them saying something about villages or countries being destroyed, and I vaguely realized that the world must have changed a lot while I was stuck on this mountain. Then…

“Such incredible demonic energy!!”

“How could that mountain keeper possibly live in a place with such energy?!”

Demonic energy? Can they actually feel something? I blankly stared at the large cave and then back at them as they suddenly made a fuss, but they just looked at me as if I were strange. Well, whatever.

“This seems to be the right place. Now, about the payment I asked for earlier…”

“What? Now?!”

“Yes, now. You’re going to fight something, and I don’t know if you’ll return alive, so there’s no reason to wait.”

“Are you insane?! We’re people who came to catch demons—!”

“What does that have to do with me? The payment I want isn’t money or objects, just information about a person. Just tell me if you know or don’t know, and that’s the end of it.”

After glaring at the weak-looking humans who were suddenly shouting and making them shut up, I asked the woman who called herself a saint about Ira. And she…

“Oh, Saint Ira? Wait, are you the one Ira always sent letters to?!”

“…You know her?”

“Of course I know her! Aha! So that’s why Ira insisted on catching the demon in this country herself, making such a fuss…”

“Wait, what are you saying? Is Ira alive?!”

As the blonde woman spoke cheerfully as if discussing recent events, I felt my eyes widen. And as she tilted her head at my words, as if wondering what I was talking about…

-SQUELCH!!

“Guhk?!”

“…Huh?”

“What the hell?!!”

“This demonic energy is above superior rank…!! It’s one of the Seven Deadly Sins…!”

[Kyaaa~ Hahahahaha…!!]

Wait, wait a moment. What was she about to say?

More than the burning pain piercing my abdomen, more than the blood welling up in my throat, I’m curious about what that woman was about to say. I want to hear it…!!

The sound of my heart about to stop and the terribly loud noise that might be screams or animal cries are distracting. Forgetting even the pain of my body floating up into the air, I reach out to the blonde woman who’s moving away.

‘Tell me. It’s the payment. You promised to tell me. Is Ira still alive? Is she alive?! She didn’t die, right?! Tell m…!!’

-RIIIP!! SWOOSH!!!

The moment I realize this tearing sound is coming from my body, I see my lower half falling at an angle that shouldn’t be possible. Ah, it hurts. But there’s something that hurts so much more that I can’t focus. I twist my immobile head, grab the falling golden woman’s figure, and move my lips.

‘Tell me.’

Please. That she, that Ira didn’t die. That I was mistaken. That the Holy Nation reported it wrong. That’s all I want to know. I want to know before I die. Please.

“She’s… alive… I’ll t—”

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“Jack, did you die again? It’s okay. ‘I’ll keep trying until I succeed.'”

The voices of two people who desperately longed for each other have yet to cross paths.