Should the Loser Just Shut Up?

‘The being that has descended again receiving our faith will surely achieve what it aims to as a hegemon.’

If a god created in response to such aspirations were to be pushed into a disadvantage by just two humans.

The believers who directly witnessed that miserable state would realize that the one they followed ‘is not an absolute being’.

And faith is a concept that doesn’t allow even a single blemish in the heart.

-Thud, boom.

As if proving that, the movements of the undead who had been fighting fiercely until now stop, and the moment their bodies crumble and collapse.

Only after ash-like particles scatter in all directions did my legs, relieved of tension, plop down on the ground.

Damn, did I overdo it?

Certainly, the bitch opened the way, but it still consumed quite a bit of stamina to get here, and since I pushed myself in the previous fight, it’s natural to end up like this.

“Seine!!”

Just as I was about to remove the cigarette making my breath labored from my mouth.

I saw the bitch hurriedly running from far away.

The arm that was somehow attached with emergency treatment is also in tatters. Nevertheless, I even thought it was impressive that she’s approaching me without looking back and forth, but…

“It’s fine… Cough, cough!”

The bitch stops in her tracks, coughing as soon as she approaches.

I thought she might be quite tired like me, but soon realized it was because of the cigarette in my mouth.

Come to think of it, this person’s innate condition was asthma.

I forgot for a moment because she’s been living on medicine made by Dad.

“Why, why are you looking at me like that?”

“It’s nothing.”

I just briefly thought I had more reason to keep smoking.

-Foolish ones…

Nero Astra’s voice is faintly heard while I continue to smoke the cigarette.

His body collapsed on the ground was crumbling rapidly from the moment his neck was cut, in contrast to the fierce battle until now.

Rather than the wound I made on his neck, it’s probably because the undead’s faith is being lost at the mere extent of that wound, causing his power to evaporate quickly.

-Do you think… that by doing such a thing… you can achieve what you desire?

The one who knows that best is none other than Nero Astra himself.

But even though his eyes are growing dim, there’s still something that could be called fighting spirit in the light that remains.

-Foolish and beautiful humans. If you chose to band together to survive in a chaotic world, you should aim to completely accomplish that…

“Haha, no matter how frustrated you are about losing, isn’t it a bit much for someone who was an emperor to make such pitiful excuses?”

-The Empire, it was possible!!! It was a country capable of uniting everything on this continent!!

A voice ringing out loudly.

Although no physical blows were coming since there’s not even anything left to call hands, sincerity was felt in that voice.

-Yes, the Empire… The country that ruled half of this continent had the power to bring everything else under its control. It was a country capable of uniting everything into one.

As if sincerely regretting the current defeat and lamenting the fact that he couldn’t achieve what he aimed for.

-If the world is chaotic because everyone pursues different things, then truly a world where everything becomes one would be ideal, wouldn’t it? In pursuing that ideal… The Empire would be the most suitable world for that ideal.

“Cut the sophistry. No matter what you say, the one who started the war was…”

-Then let me ask you one thing. Can you confidently say that this era you tried to protect is perfectly peaceful?

Flinch.

The moment my mouth, which had burst open with heated emotions, closed.

As if guessing many things from that brief silence, his voice began to be tinged with mockery.

-Yes, in the end you must have forcibly ended it. Without resolving anything, you merely turned a blind eye to the problems because you didn’t want to be harmed yourself.

No, is it pity rather than mockery?

Is that gaze looking down at me shown because he sees the desperate struggle to protect this era as pitiful and miserable?

-I too am one who felt what you have felt after sitting on the throne. I am one who thought that if we are to solve all those problems, it would be ideal for everyone to follow something common and live under common rules. Truly, if such a world were realized, there would be no need to hide or ignore problems that arise before us.

“That’s…”

-…Do you think I was wrong?

Nero Astra quietly asks me.

It didn’t take long to come up with an answer to that question.

-No, I’m not wrong.

He spoke ahead before that answer could be uttered.

-That’s a fact I can know just by the fact that I, who should have disappeared into the back alleys of history, have descended into this world again.

That the peace claimed by the leaders who ended the war is half-baked.

That it’s nothing more than postponing the problems that were scattered during the war.

-You couldn’t answer right away because you know that too, don’t you?

Because things that shouldn’t happen in a truly peaceful era are still occurring.

That even forces advocating for the old era have emerged, saying that perhaps the past might be better than now.

“…You talk a lot for a loser.”

Of course, the one next to me is someone who has turned their back on worldly affairs.

Having already thrown away even lingering attachments to the past, the one before her won’t even be seen as a perpetrator.

Just a replica created from clumped lingering attachments of the past.

She’ll only regard it as a reminder of how hideous Nero Astra was as a human.

“What’s with your tongue wagging so much when you don’t even have the strength to lift a finger anymore? Instead of spouting nonsense to my daughter, why don’t you just quickly disappear…”

“I certainly feel that kind of thing a lot too.”

But coincidentally, I couldn’t just let these words slide.

“…Seine?”

“As you say, looking at how the world is going, it’s hard to say it’s properly done even with nice words.”

Although there’s no conflict by force alone, even in an era transcending borders and races, humans are still trying to divide each other’s superiority and inferiority.

As a result of excluding force while being obsessed with peace, they try to handle what they can’t handle, and those who still hold grudges from wartime fall into anti-state organizations or illegal arms dealers, fueling the seeds of conflict.

Although religious madness has decreased, they’re obsessed with cohesion within groups as their power has shrunk, and as a result, they engage in oppression by making forced claims against those who violate the rules.

“When I see such things, it’s not once or twice that I’ve felt the urge to smash everything.”

Such wrong things show signs of being passed down to ‘children’ without ending with our generation.

“No one… has been able to present an ideal solution that can solve all of that. So I often think it might be easier to just give up judging for myself.”

If mental suffering comes from having a self, perhaps we could be liberated from that suffering by entering under someone more great than myself…

This thought that everyone has probably had at least once while living is a concept that could be called an ‘instinct’ ingrained in organisms that form group societies even before humans.

Finding the leader of the group one belongs to, and forming a society by building a group under them…

Because human beings are existences that can only live obsessed with such expectations, as this person says, humans are bound to long for an absolute being from birth.

The existence of kings, and the existence of gods, were created based on such instincts.

If someone who can truly fulfill such expectations exists, as this person says, a society where everyone is together under a common monarch would be the most ideal.

-Yes, you’re a wench who understands well. Now I’m starting to regret…

“But do you think a loser like you is fit for that position?”

But that’s just an area of ‘theoretical correctness’.

At least in my life so far, I’ve never encountered a leader fitting such an ideal theory.

Not in this life or my past life.

Because no monarch without flaws has ever existed in any history.

“When you became emperor, you probably thought like this. Because there’s a world you think is right, you’d achieve it even if you had to crush everyone who gets in the way.”

Even if regarded as a tyrant in the present, you would achieve it in the ‘future’ that would come someday.

Drawing such a big picture, you must have crushed all those who rebelled by force, and seen them all kneel before you without being able to resist.

As that process repeated, you must have come to think that none other than yourself was the leader fitting the ideal you pursued.

“But because it didn’t reach an absolute level, limitations eventually came, right?”

Yes, no matter how much of a hegemon you were, you couldn’t continue it forever.

“Whatever your ideal was, you ultimately lost. The very fact that you’ve already lost proves that you yourself are an imperfect being, doesn’t it?”

It’s probably because you’re such an imperfect being that you long for heaven even more, but as long as the method is unstable, trying to see it through to the end is nothing but turning the world into hell.

That’s a fact proven by history that has existed so far.

Although I can understand the meaning of what the person before me is saying.

Now that he has fallen to be one of history’s negative examples, his descending into this world again can only be accepted as a calamity.

-…Are you saying a loser should just shut up?

“You summarized it well.”

You lost not only in the past but also after being resurrected.

What right does someone who lost to humans even as a god have to carry out justice?

-…Kuh.

As I refuted by poking at the facts like that, laughter began to leak from the mouth of the monarch who had been speaking arrogantly all along.

-Huha, hahahahahahaha.

To the point of becoming a burst of laughter beyond a chuckle.

For a moment I thought he’d gone mad, but soon realized it was the opposite.

-Yes, certainly… A monarch can only be established by being absolute.

He’s accepting it.

Because he had such a firm philosophy in life, he’s painfully realizing that his current self doesn’t fit that.

-No matter how lofty my ideals were, I ultimately failed. No matter how much I tried or how lofty the intentions were, it’s a foregone conclusion that no one will understand because I failed… No matter what I say, having already been defeated, in the eyes of those who couldn’t join that ideal, it will only look like an ugly struggle.

Along with words continuing as if resigned, the collapse accelerates.

Now with only the head barely remaining, the lowered head straightens as if rolling, and his gaze turns towards me.

From eye level just slightly higher, melting and sinking down to meet my eyes.

-So I’ll acknowledge it.

He says so decisively.

As if putting a period to the fierce battle so far himself.

-I, Nero Astra, acknowledge my defeat in this era here and now. I also acknowledge that all the glory gained through this victory will be given to all who live in this era…

Is what’s glimpsed in his gradually closing eyes resignation, or regret for the life he’s gone through?

Whatever it is, the moment he calmly accepted his own defeat.

The moment I saw such a transcendent appearance, just a little.

A little, but I felt like I understood why there were people who served him.

-Creak.

…Wait a moment.

What’s this sense of discomfort?

-But, coincidentally, there are those who serve even an immature me.

No, it’s not just a feeling.

From the ground we’re standing on.

Something is writhing under the filth where the undead melted.

-To live up to those expectations, I can’t just quietly disappear like this!

As if that prediction is hitting the mark, the ground collapses with a rumbling sound.

Filth is sucked into those cracks, and as that influence gradually spreads, something surges up from there.

Stems made of countless hands clumped together, rising from deep underground.

-At the very least, Celia Bertayu, you…!!!

Damn it.

I thought he was withdrawing obediently, but now he’s throwing a fit.

“Cough!!”

But the one who became the target happens to be in a state of poor breathing.

Is she tired from the fight so far?

For a moment she staggers, unable to endure the rising breath, and taking advantage of that gap, something surging up from underground begins to fly in as if to restrain her.

-Bang!

The moment I saw that sight, my body reflexively flew in.

Her body, unable to cope with that unconsciously made action, is pushed away, and something surging up from underground begins to grasp my body.

-Thud!

Countless grasping hands. The moment all the force loaded in them grasps my body and mercilessly tightens.

Although I belatedly drew mana to prevent additional injury, because my response was late, both arms were broken to the point where recovery is impossible.

“Seine…?”

The bitch’s eyes widen as she belatedly notices my presence.

What’s drawn on that face must be an emotion called despair. The face I’ve been dying to see all this time is only drawn on her face at this moment when I’m caught.

“Seine, why…”

“Shut up, I didn’t push you away because I wanted to.”

Didn’t he make a last-ditch effort when we thought he was already dead?

It’s not uncommon even in games for a hidden boss to appear when you think it’s the ending, and I can’t let that woman die yet when we don’t know what might be coming after this.

Yes, it must be that.

“No, Seine…”

So don’t make that kind of expression.

I didn’t save you because I like you.