Chapter 241 – The [End]

“You don’t look very surprised.”

“…I already knew.”

When I first gripped Kartia’s sword, the memories that poured in, I had a feeling then. After going through the trial, I began to suspect. After seeing Sirin’s memories, I was certain.

‘Me.’

The ‘me’ who subjugated Tylant in Ursphere.

The ‘me’ from the previous round.

That was the [End].

“Still, isn’t it something you should be surprised by? Someone exactly like yourself is standing right in front of you. Well, except for the difference in height.”

‘Me’, no, the [End], gave a bitter smile and sat down with a thud.

“Anyway, let’s talk. I’ve had a lot I wanted to say to you for a long time. I was bored not having anyone to talk to.”

The [End]’s speech, tone, and personality were all completely different from mine.

The only thing we shared was what couldn’t be seen by my eyes, as the [End] tilted her head.

“Don’t trust me?”

“…No.”

“Right?”

Tap, tap.

The [End] patted the grass-covered ground, smiling brightly.

“Come here.”

I nodded and moved my heavy steps.

Crunch, crunch, I crossed the sand and stopped on the soft grass, sitting a bit apart from where the End had patted.

“But, hey.”

“…Yeah?”

“Um…”

The [End] folded her arms and, after a long pause, finally opened her mouth.

“Do you have any jelly?”

“J-jelly…?”

“Yeah. Jelly.”

The sudden request for jelly caught me off guard for a moment.

“Don’t have any?”

Her voice sounded dejected, and my hand automatically went for the bag at my waist.

“Hmm…”

The jelly pouch, which I thought would have fallen off, was still right there. I hesitated for a moment, then sighed and clicked open the pouch. I reached in. Soft, chewy jellies coiled around my hand.

A handful. My hand was small, so it wasn’t much, but I grabbed as much as I could and pulled them out tightly.

Some spilled out and fell, but I held back my regret and held them out to the [End].

“I-I have some…”

With a gasp, the [End] was already right in front of me.

“You’ll give them to me?”

I nodded.

Arms shot out, fast and precise, far too quick to track with [ki sense], both hands held out before mine.

I carefully placed the jellies in those hands.

“Ugh, I only got the bad flavors.”

“J- all jelly is good.”

“Ahaha. I guess that’s true.”

The [End] grinned and stuffed all the jellies into her mouth at once.

And then, 

Chomp chomp.

Her cheeks bulged as she chewed, her expression gradually brightening. She glanced between my face and the jelly bag, shaking her head.

I nodded in response to that look, grabbed a handful of jelly from my own pouch, and stuffed it into my mouth.

Chomp chomp. 

With eight jellies at once, it was hard to tell the flavors apart, but I could strongly taste the peach.

It was delicious.

Gulp, gulp. 

The [End] and I swallowed our jellies at the same time.

“…Hmph.”

She shook her head as if savoring the lingering taste, then sat up a bit straighter.

Her posture more relaxed than before.

Wearing a faint smile, the [End] spoke.

“Ask me anything. I can answer everything now. You have a right to know.”

I chewed over her words for a while.

What should I ask first? How should I ask it?

My mind swirled with confusion, but then a question flashed and slipped out.

“…What kind of, ”

“Ah, wait. Not that.”

“H-how did you know what I was going to ask…?”

“You were going to ask what kind of life I lived. I know you best, don’t I?”

“…Didn’t you just say you’d answer everything?”

She giggled and shook her head.

“Now that you’ve made it this far, you don’t need to hear my story. It wouldn’t be interesting or helpful.”

The [End] was still smiling.

But this smile was nothing like the one she had while eating jelly.

It was a bitter, dry, stinging sort of smile.

I savored the emotion held in that smile.

After a while, the [End], who had been quietly watching me, opened her mouth.

“Come to think of it… that bag, it’s made from Tylant’s hide, isn’t it?”

“T-this?”

“Yeah.”

“…Yeah.”

The [End] tilted her head.

“Sonia doesn’t say anything about it?”

I tilted my head the same way.

“…Sonia?”

“Ah…”

The [End] straightened her head and crossed her arms.

After a moment, the corners of her mouth slowly curled upward.

“The [End]’s beasts… hmm, you don’t know the true names of the former heroes, do you?”

“T-true names…”

After hearing Laila and Primavera’s true names, I was curious. Carpeng, Tylant, Valoran, Brunhilde, they must all have true names. I’d wondered about that…

But now, since I could no longer ask, I just let it go.

“I know them.”

The [End] knew their true names.

…But why say it so annoyingly?

“Curious?”

“…I-I am curious.”

“Hehe, then, ”

Once again, her hands shot out at a speed I couldn’t catch.

“You have to pay a price.”

I stared at those hands for a while… then, grabbing a bit less than before, I placed seven pieces of jelly in her hands.

It was too annoying to give her a whole handful.

Even if it was only one less.

Noticing this, the [End] furrowed her brow and stared at me, then smirked and tossed all the jelly in her hands into her mouth at once.

She chewed happily, savoring the jelly before speaking.

“Hm, I guess I should tell you in order, right? You already know about Primavera, so let’s skip her… First, ”

Swish, swish. 

With short fingers, she started drawing on the dirt exposed beneath the weeds.

The drawings were incredibly crooked and wobbly, but I could still tell what they were.

A dog’s paw print, ice, a feather, a flame.

Carpeng, Tylant, Valoran, Brunhilde.

“Carpeng. Carpeng is just Carpeng. Her name was never erased. I don’t know why, but maybe it was due to Kartia’s power. As for her appearance… hmm… her hair was bright red, her fangs stuck out, and her face looked sharp and wolf-like. The rest, well, you must have sensed it yourself with your [ki sense], so I don’t need to explain.”

Before her finger could move on, it returned to Carpeng.

“This is a secret only I know.”

The [End] grinned.

“Carpeng was afraid of blood.”

“…What?”

Carpeng… afraid of blood?

Her [Blood Aura] was made of blood in the first place. And her ability always needed blood to keep going.

“When she was little, she was so scared of blood she’d faint at the sight of it.”

“No way…”

“So she got bullied for it. It made things pretty tough for her.”

“I never saw that in Sirin’s memories…”

“Of course not. Even the Eyes of Decree can’t see every little detail. So? Don’t you want to know other secrets too?”

I slowly nodded.

At the same time, the [End] held out her hand to me.

I quietly placed jelly in her hand. Nine pieces.

Watching this, the [End] smiled in satisfaction and popped the jelly into her mouth one by one.

“Tylant, like I just said, is Sonia. Her hair is pure white, her face… not like a polar bear, just round and cute. Her personality is kind of like yours. A bit of a loser. Didn’t you ever feel a kinship?”

“…Not really.”

“Really? I did.”

“A-actually… maybe I did.”

“I was lying.”

“W-what…?”

The [End] snickered, so annoyingly, and held out her hand. I put two jelly in it this time.

Without hesitation, she threw them in her mouth, chewed, and swallowed, then slowly moved her fingers.

A feather. Valoran.

“Valoran’s real name is Luissar. He has a ridiculously long surname but I couldn’t remember it. Seventeen or eighteen letters, I think, so I just remembered Luissar. He’s so tall it’s hard to even guess. Must be over 190. His hair is dark brown. Just one look and you can tell he’s got that blunt face. Looks like you couldn’t get a drop of blood out of him. And here’s a secret…”

The [End] leaned toward me.

I leaned in a little too.

“He’s got a fear of heights.”

“…What?”

“He’s an [Angel], can fly through the sky, but he’s scared of heights.”

“How does that make sense?”

“Really dumb, right?”

“…Yeah. Wait, no. You shouldn’t call adults dumb.”

The [End] held out her hand. Since she said something bad, just one jelly.

“Next is Brunhilde. Her true name is Bhhk-h’i.”

“Pfft… Th-That’s her real name?”

“Bhhk-h’i.”

“That’s her real name…?”

The End shook her head.

“That’s not the pronunciation. The demon race has a mouth structure suited to magic, so the pronunciation’s a bit tricky. I’ll show you. For ‘Bhhk,’ lower your tongue, and for the ‘h’i’ part, make your throat a little raspy… Bhhk-h’i.”

“Bo… Bhhk-h’i…!”

“Yeah, that’s it. You’re good at this. Anyway, Bhhk-h’i looks like, do you remember when you were fifteen and got shaken down at the movies?”

Fifteen, at the movies…

‘Ugh… I remember…’

The moment I recalled that, my shoulders shrank.

“There was that woman with a bunch of piercings in her ear, right? She felt sorry for us and let us go.”

“But she still took 7,800 won…”

“Hey, she left you a thousand for bus fare. That’s fair, right?”

“Yeah… I guess so…”

“Anyway, she looked like that woman. Just a bit more Western-looking.”

“And her personality is the same?”

The [End] nodded, held out her hand. I gave her three jelly.

“She’s not really like that. She’s actually super sensitive.”

“Huh…?”

“She loves dolls, and she can’t sleep at night without hugging one. Sometimes she even talks to them. One time she squeezed her favorite doll so hard while sleeping that it tore. She cried in secret for four hours.”

“She cried over a doll?”

Crying over a torn doll…

I used to hug my greatsword to sleep when Rubia wasn’t around, but I never cried if it broke…

…Well, maybe I would…

“Can you relate?”

The [End] giggled, then tossed half a handful of jelly into her mouth.

She chewed for a while, then smacked her lips as if a bit disappointed.

“And the last secret, I guess, is about Primavera? Ahaha…! Primavera’s funny too. This elf has hay fever. She grits her teeth and tries not to sneeze in front of others, but when she’s alone, tears and snot just pour out.”

“P-pollen allergy?!”

“It’s ridiculous, right? That’s why she always speaks with [telepathy]. She’s afraid that if she speaks out loud, she’ll sneeze.”

“So there was a reason for that…”

“It really doesn’t suit her, does it?”

She laughed for a while, then let out a faint sigh and caught her breath.

Once she had completely calmed down, 

“On the surface, they all seemed fine, looked perfect, but it wasn’t like that. Everyone had their flaws and lived with secrets they couldn’t share with others. They were just ordinary beings.”

She looked up at the sky where the [Black Sun] had risen.

“The ones in the game, they weren’t just made-up characters.”

A faint sigh escaped her slightly parted lips.

And when that sigh faded away, leaving not even a trace, 

“When I found out, it was all already over.”

The [End] lowered her gaze to me.

Her face was filled with nothing but dark emotions. Sensing this herself, she shoved the remaining jelly into her mouth and forced herself to chew and swallow it.

Once her face had returned to calm, I asked the question that came to mind.

“How did you know all that… the things even Sirin’s Eyes couldn’t see?”

“My ability. The power of the one who stabbed their own heart with their own hand, it flows in along with the memories.”

The [End] smiled.

That smile was light, 

“But I know everything. Everyone you and I knew.”

But it felt desperately chilling, painfully sorrowful.

“Even Rubia.”