Chapter 100 – The Sky Fell Down (2)  

A sound could be heard.

“At the beginning, let there be light.”

Then comes darkness.

After that, 

“Let there be only fire and water.”

Kaang!

Kaang!

Metal being struck.

The world seen with open eyes was colder and paler than anything.

The gold flickering before his eyes was intensely irritating and unsettling.

But even that was now fading.

“Now, there’s only one step left.”

One step.

For whom is that step meant?

Who is even speaking?

Before he knew it, the pale world in front of him vanished.

All he could see was darkness.

Pitch-black darkness.

And yet, somehow, 

Even in that vast darkness, there was light.

A faint light soon formed a point, then a line.

It spread, beautifully, in all directions.

He had seen this before, dimly.

Yes. It was a familiar sight.

The night sky.

It was like the night sky, stretched endlessly, up and down, without end.

For some reason, in that place, 

Something huge existed.

Far away.

That immense darkness shone with an oddly vivid light.

No, that wasn’t quite right.

There was no separate light in darkness.

‘Ah.’

Vast darkness.

A sphere.

No, a ball, perfectly round.

But only the area around it shone brightly.

As if light was wrapping around a globe of darkness.

But the darkness there didn’t allow even a single small point or strand of light.

It firmly, stubbornly held its own territory.

‘What is this?’

What am I even seeing?

Could this be death?

And is that the place you go after dying, hell? Heaven?

The heaven my mother told me about wasn’t like this.

Nor was the demon world described by the demons.

And the hell where devils dwell wasn’t like this either.

He didn’t know why, but he was sure.

It was a sight you could never see in the world above.

But the darkness before his eyes was brilliant beyond words.

Its vastness was truly endless.

…He even forgot himself.

Me?

Who am I?

What am I?

From the beginning,

Am I needed?

There are things I can do, as myself, because I am me.

Yes.

In the end, I exist for that.

Existence.

Life and death.

Life.

And now,

If there’s something I must do, 

…It’s clear.

Live selfishly.

In old memories, Ases would nearly resent herself for expending her strength for others.

Why live like that?

Why not use her strength for something greater?

“…….”

What is greatness?

Leaving your name in history?

Being praised by everyone?

Being recognized?

What meaning is there in that?

Then, was my own life, looked down on and ignored by everyone, the opposite of greatness?

How would history describe me?

Born the child of a great hero, remarkable as a child but eventually despised and abandoned by my own country, 

In the end, collaborating with the Demon King and being forsaken by the world, or rather, choosing to be abandoned…

Maybe I wouldn’t even be mentioned at all.

Maybe I’d be treated as someone who never existed, a taboo, a disgrace.

“…….”

Does it matter?

None of it means anything.

That’s not where I am.

I’m here.

Isn’t that enough?

Suddenly, I realized, 

When it comes to life,

The biggest obstacle is always myself.

If only my heart changes,

Everything in the world changes, almost absurdly easily.

“…….”

Someone was looking at me.

He was always there.

I just realized it late.

– “You’ve already done enough. And yet here, you want to take one more step? Why? For whom?”

“…….”

She asked.

So I answered.

“For myself.”

And, 

“If there are no coincidences in this world, then everything must be inevitable.”

If that’s the case, 

“Then there’s a reason I learned about her.”

Even if all my life I was manipulated and abused by others,

If the freedom I finally gained was actually a false cage someone built for me,

– “Whether she wins or loses, she will never be saved.”

Maybe she can never be forgiven for what she’s done.

But while seeing her memories, I realized, 

She didn’t kill the villagers.

She just put them to sleep.

But because she’s still clumsy at handling her own power, her own authority,

She doesn’t even know how to undo it yet.

Maybe she even wanted, at least a little, to protect them.

If she hadn’t intervened,

Maybe someone else would have killed them.

She’d thought that far ahead.

So clumsy.

So unreliable as a person.

…I can’t even pity her.

But her heart is worthy of compassion.

If there’s any way for her to truly atone and be forgiven,

It would be giving her a chance to fix what she’s done with her own hands.

“…….”

But she’s bound by a contract.

She must kill Leo, who drew the sword.

No one knows the structure of the Absolute Compliance Contract better than someone who’s dealt with the Demon King.

Even I am bound by it.

Therefore, 

For her to not kill Leo, even when she could, would mean she has no intent to keep the contract.

Which is no different from breaking it.

– “So you want to create a situation where she can’t help it, where she can’t act, so she’ll be unable to fulfill the contract. That’s your plan? Your intention?”

“…….”

– “But to do that, you need the strength to stand in her way. Do you have that kind of strength now?”

“…….”

I am not a champion.

Not someone with indomitable will,

Or someone who always wins in the end.

Not that kind of hero.

But, 

“Just because I can’t, does that mean I shouldn’t try?”

– “Even if you’ll die?”

“I’m already dead. Whether I die now or a little earlier, it’s all the same.”

– “Still, things could end up even worse than this, you know?”

“Then I’ll just have to do my best to keep that from happening.”

– “How?”

“…….”

I’m not in a situation where I can afford to think that far ahead.

– “Even if you throw your life away like this, are you sure you won’t regret it?”

“…….”

Regret?

I’ve had plenty.

I think I’ve heard a similar question from someone before.

“As long as I never forget, as long as I can remember the past that’s already engraved, there’s no way I could say I don’t regret anything.”

Unless I forget.

Unless I’m desperately trying not to remember, 

As long as I remember, I’ll always regret it.

And carrying that regret, by moving forward, 

That’s how I made it here.

That’s why…

“I’ll do what I want with my own life.”

There’s no need to care about what anyone else thinks.

No calculations or self-interest.

If I want to, I do it.

If my heart leads me, I’ll do it.

If I feel I must, 

…I don’t hesitate.

Isn’t that what freedom is?

Weighing whether I can or can’t, judging and deciding, 

What freedom is there in that?

– “I see.”

“…….”

Once more,

I look up at the sky.

A pure white sky.

Right now, as if something is covering it, turned white, 

The blue sky is nowhere to be seen.

My body is still cold and numb.

My mind is hazy, my senses dulled.

No matter how much I strengthen my resolve,

Can I really get up from here?

For a moment, I was troubled.

……

….

Maybe I lost consciousness for a bit.

For some reason,

I saw something familiar.

A little baby angel.

Last time I saw, it was crying above a pit.

But now, 

It’s smiling.

Strangely,

My shoulders feel lifted.

……?

When I turn my head slightly,

Someone’s hand is holding my shoulder.

Not just one, on the other side, too, another hand touches me.

My body feels endlessly heavy, but somehow, my upper body is lifted with surprising ease.

And just like that,

My whole body is lifted.

From the edge of my vision, someone reaches out.

The child, with a smiling face, stretches out a tiny hand and grabs mine tightly.

Then, with all their might, pulls me up.

With those tiny hands, that small body, it looked impossible to support me.

Yet somehow, my body was lifted with ease.

Before I knew it, the hands supporting my shoulders and waist let go.

Those who raised me up brushed past my blurry vision.

There were men, women,

Children, even four-legged beasts, even a fluffy animal.

I couldn’t make out their faces, clothes, or expressions.

But every one of them looked at me, murmuring in a language I couldn’t understand.

“…….”

Suddenly,

When I looked down,

The child pulling my hand, 

A child who seemed oddly familiar, suddenly held out a small sword.

Supporting the blade with both hands,

Kneeling on one knee, offering it up as if to a king or a noble, 

Without thinking, I took it.

Only after accepting it did I realize.

…It was the very sword I’d been using.

Strangely,

Even though I’d just picked it up from the forge,

And gone through so much in this short time,

The sword was perfectly intact.

[…….]

A voice is heard.

The child then slowly retreats,

And, together with the baby angel, disappears from sight.

‘Saint Cariel.’

Why are you here now?

Unless I’m mistaken, just now, that child… I’ve seen once before…

‘I don’t know.’

My mind is foggy.

Even so, I somehow managed to stand up.

It was as if someone was holding me up and forcing me to stand.

Even so,

My legs were standing.

Then I just have to move forward.

There’s no path in sight.

But trusting my instinct, I move.

Step after step.

At last, I arrived.

I don’t know why, but

I just felt like this is where I needed to be.

“…….”

Looking to the left and right, I realized, this place is both the end and the beginning.

On one side, light.

On the other, a wild storm, a disaster brought by nature itself.

And yet, everything feels faint.

It all seems unreal.

But it’s not.

It’s all reality.

‘Is this really…’

The end?

Only now do I realize, 

All the encouragement and comfort I received on the way here.

[Ancestor.]

[I pay my respects to your life.]

[How were you able to live that way?]

[My teacher envied you. And now, even I have become your disciple.]

[No matter how many hundreds or thousands of words are spoken, what use are they? That life itself is the clearest answer.]

[Why do you save others instead of yourself?]

[I doubt I’ll ever understand you, even in death. Why do those called heroes and saints always go to such extremes? Why does your very existence make us feel so ashamed, so wretched?]

…….

Who is it?

Who are they to say these things to me?

I don’t know.

Maybe they’re just voices in my head.

No.

They’re all real.

But at least for now, not in this moment.

Not in the near future.

…How do I know this?

Kaang!

Suddenly,

A period is set.

What lies before me is a massive chain.

No, a pillar, formed by thousands of bundled chains.

A massive tower.

Or maybe a tree.

Countless weapons hanging from it.

Beneath the barren sky, it grew from the desolate earth

Like a pillar holding up the sky.

What am I seeing?

[Someday, there will be someone who comes holding the sword you made.]

A blacksmith hammers out a blade.

The gaunt blacksmith, the one-eyed blacksmith, let someone’s words go in one ear and out the other as he hammered the glowing steel.

Kaang!

[This is the last!]

He drove the holy sword into the heart of a gigantic fox.

The golden fox howled in agony, letting out every kind of monstrous shriek.

But it wasn’t the end.

The white-haired champion drew another sword from his waist and, with a single stroke, beheaded the gigantic fox.

Golden blood spurted forth, as if it would fill and drench the world.

Thus,

That sword, held in the champion’s hand,

Cut off the head of the Demon King, once the golden beast that had encompassed the world.

That monster’s neck was severed.

With that alone, the sword had more than enough meaning.

Even after all that, the sword did not bend, did not crack, did not break.

A true masterpiece.

At last, the sword was handed to a young girl.

The champion  glimpsed his future in that girl.

But, 

[Sir Luelde. I don’t think I can handle this.]

So, 

[I’d like to entrust this to Cariel.]

With joy tinged with a little regret, the champion accepted her request.

And then, 

To the child who, though she had dark hair like his wife, also bore his golden eyes, 

The champion presented the sword.

Someday, when she became a knight, it would protect her, too.

He couldn’t quite bring himself to say it was the very sword that had beheaded the Demon King.

But if the chance came, when they could stand side by side,

Whether at camp, or during a meal, or any time he could boast of his great deeds,

He would tell her.

That in his youth, with the holy sword, he had cut down the Demon King’s neck with that very blade.

And that sword, 

…was the sword entrusted to him with deep respect by the loyal knight who had brought him both his only despair and his only hope.

Even though that knight had once been a corps commander of the Demon King’s army, he had led chivalry, protected the weak, and was more courageous than any in the face of his enemies, 

That man, called Grandeus.

Maybe, someday, the day would come when he would confess all of this.

With such complicated feelings, the champion handed the sword to his child.

It seemed far too heavy to lift now, 

But someday, she’d wield it with ease.

That day…

* * *

And then.

[If a child comes to you someday and asks to have that sword repaired, you may use this.]

The jet-black knight cut off his own arm.

In an instant, what had been a mass of iron in the shape of an arm dissolved, like mud, into an unrecognizable lump.

Like scooping up sandy, damp earth.

He gathered it into a leather pouch.

And, for years to come, he made his son remember all he had seen and heard.

[After I die, that one will come to you. Completing that will be the wish of us all.]

Never forget.

[If you manage only that, from then on, you will be free.]

And so,

The man, 

At last, he met him.

When a boy with a dark expression handed him a bent sword,

Though he didn’t show it, his heart trembled as if it were being gripped.

The prophecy had come true.

Not even the Relief Knights knew, the wish that Grandeus himself had passed on to his father.

No one knows why.

But if he watched, he would see.

Grandeus, the great one, had said he could see the future.

So if, one day, this sword is completed, 

…will he return? Will he be reborn?

Or, 

……

Come to think of it,

Why had I never tried to read the memories or the lingering will from this sword?

No, only recently did I even become capable of sensing and handling such things.

So maybe it’s not strange I never thought of it before.

It makes no sense to laugh when I have no strength left to smile, but somehow, laughter slips out.

And now,

I think I finally understand something.

‘Ancestor.’

So those voices just now were, 

From people of the future?

Then, what power did I have to see them?

Why did they help me?

Not long ago, I wouldn’t have known.

Now, I do.

“I…”

Light poured in.

On one side, a great storm, like a collapsing tower, tilted this way.

――

――――

Thus,

Light met light.

Storm met storm.

All those forces,

In a single moment, soared into the sky.

The earth shook as if it would split, as all those mixed lights and frost and storm shot skyward.

And,

At that moment,

A shaft of black light

Rose up vertically.

The storm of mingled light and frost

Was sucked in, as if drawn through a tiny rift,

Into the midst of that black column of light.

– ?

The vast calamity, so immense it shook the very world,

Was, little by little, shrunk by a slender line of black light.

When it seemed as though all of it had been drawn in,

The only thing left was

A black pillar that pierced even the sky.

Something that cleaved both space and sky, leaving them wounded, 

Utterly

Swallowed up every disaster in the land.

– Could it be.

Did you see even this coming?

Comrade,

How far, do you plan to mock life itself?

Even in a moment that should have been triumphant,

For some reason,

The Demon King lamented.

She sighed.

And once more,

…she raged.

Truly, that is

The unfaithful Black Star.

The wayward Star of Black Light.