episode_0067

After Alice lost the duel with the president.

I was forced to swear the Mana Oath, which made me unable to leave the Academy.

At first, Aris was furious because she couldn’t accept this, but she had no choice but to comply with the president’s words that he would shorten the term if she didn’t cause any major trouble.

Now, several months later,

I was having a hellish time, cursing myself over the loss of Arthur’s departure.

“422.. 423.. 424…”

All I can do is take revenge, which has now lost its meaning.

Although the person who was supposed to be apologizing was gone, Alice simply looked for things to do and took action, believing that Arthur would return later.

“Found.”

Among the women who raped Arthur.

All the women whose faces were exposed were arrested and thrown in prison.

It wasn’t difficult because I submitted the video as evidence.

But there was one woman whose face I couldn’t see.

The only clue to identify the person was his voice.

Of course, if the voices in the video had been submitted to the Academy as evidence, they could have been caught by comparing them one by one, but Alice did not do that.

The reason was simple.

Because I wanted to kill that woman with my own hands.

“424. 3rd year student in the College of Journalism, name is Eora.”

“What the hell is this crazy bitch?”

When Alice blocked her way, Eora pretended not to know Alice and expressed her displeasure.

Considering that this was their first meeting, it wasn’t a normal response, but even excluding Eora’s violent personality, Alice’s current appearance was difficult for anyone to react positively to.

Gray hair that has become scattered.

Dark circles under the eyes.

Even the clothes are very tattered.

Because Aris’ condition, which was obviously not normal to anyone, made everyone frown.

“Why did you do that?”

A question that flowed from the corner of a twisted mouth.

It was a word that contained many meanings.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about?”

But Eora pretended not to know.

I believed that if Lucia, the daughter of a duke, had the power to get away with it, then at best, a commoner like Aris would be unable to do anything.

“I see..”

Contrary to Eora’s expectations, who had even thought of a physical fight, Alice seemed to have answered briefly and turned away, as if her poor excuse had been a sufficient answer.

Eora looked at Alice, who had completely disappeared from sight, and laughed.

“That fucking bitch. When you run around like that, that guy runs away too. Hehe.”

Because I never dreamed that that day would be the last day of my life where I would be alive and breathing normally.

If I had heard the president say that he would bury even one commoner even if he killed them, I would have gotten down on my knees and begged for forgiveness.

Although the fact that he would die slowly and painfully without being forgiven remained the same.

… … …

When Arthur learned of Hilda’s secret, he decided to go to the capital.

I packed all the gold coins in my subspace pocket and started moving early in the cold morning to head to the capital without telling Elin and Jade, Aris’ parents. I got on the carriage of the village chief who was leaving for business and headed to the city.

After arriving in the city, everything went smoothly.

Since he was not short of money, arriving at the capital was quicker than expected, and as time passed, a large church soon came into Arthur’s sight.

“do, arrived..”

I stepped into the building with two conflicting emotions: fear and excitement.

What caught my eye were gorgeous works of art that I had never seen before and architectural styles that gave me a sense of the times.

Arthur entered the center and grabbed a priest he saw nearby and asked him a question.

“I want to draw a holy sword.. Where should I go?”

At the time Hilda obtained the information, the fact that the Holy Sword had been recovered was a top secret, but now that much time has passed, the information has spread widely among the public.

This is because the Goddess Church directly announced that the Holy Sword had been recovered, and spread the word that they were looking for a new warrior by holding a test called the Holy Sword Drawing Test while the Holy Sword was still sealed, just like in the past.

“Ah! I see you’ve come to experience the Holy Sword. I’ll show you around.”

Perhaps because of his thin body and male gender, the priest could not imagine Arthur’s true identity and guided him, thinking he was just a tourist who wanted to touch the holy sword.

Arthur followed the priest deeper and deeper into the building, eventually reaching the interior of a dome-shaped building with holes in the ceiling that allowed sunlight and moonlight to enter.

“When it’s your turn, grab the handle with your hand and pull out the sword embedded in the rock.”

The priest briefly explained the method of drawing the Holy Sword, then bowed his head to Arthur and disappeared.

“Is that a holy sword..?”

Arthur, who had forgotten to thank the priest who had guided him, quickly stood in line, his eyes stolen by the Holy Sword, waiting for his turn.

“Please, please.”

“I have to become a warrior..!”

“I am the master of the sword!”

As countless people dreamed of turning their lives around by drawing the Holy Sword and failed, the distance between Arthur and the Holy Sword gradually grew closer.

When there were only ten steps left, he could feel the Holy Sword resonating with him.

“Bar, the sword just moved slightly.”

Unfortunately, there was an incident where the person who was ahead of Arthur boasted about being a warrior, but of course, the holy sword was not drawn, so now Arthur also had the opportunity to touch the holy sword.

A handle made of platinum, with religious designs engraved on top.

Arthur reached out for the handle, his heart pounding madly behind him as he gazed at the white blade illuminating his own face.

Tub.

The moment Arthur completely grasps the hilt of the holy sword.

A powerful light emanated from the holy sword, and at the same time, Arthur’s mind was sucked somewhere.

… … …

“It was a happy time.”

Arthur opened his eyes inside a building he had never seen before, accompanied by the voice of an unfamiliar man.

It was a place that seemed to be the inside of a hospital room, and there was a man and a woman I had never seen before.

“Who, who..?”

“Shh. Right now, it’s faster to see it than to hear about it.”

From the voices in his head, Arthur could tell that his own voice was not reaching the people in front of him.

When I lowered my head, I saw a blurry body that looked like a ghost. I reached out to grab something nearby to check, but all I could see was a hand passing through.

“The current scene is just a scene from the past, so we cannot interfere.”

Arthur’s eyes moved busily to observe his surroundings as the voice added certainty to his guess.

The first thing I saw was the faces of a man and a woman I was seeing for the first time.

In particular, the man was a handsome man with black hair and black eyes, and Arthur couldn’t help but be surprised because it was his first time seeing someone with black hair and black eyes like himself.

“… ”

Feeling strangely nostalgic, I approached them and listened in to hear their conversation, but all I could see was their mouths opening and closing, and I couldn’t hear a single sound.

All I could tell was that the mood was going well through the woman’s face, which seemed to be smiling happily at the man’s words.

As the two continued their conversation, the man approached the woman and she handed him something she was holding in her arms.

“Baby?”

It was a baby.

When I was in the woman’s arms, I was wrapped in something like a soft blanket, so I couldn’t see what it was, so I didn’t know.

It looked clearer now.

The face of a baby with black hair and black eyes like her own.

“Dad…Mom…?”

Only then did Arthur realize.

That the past you are looking at now is the point in time when you were born.

“Is it because all the journeys are over and my senses have become dull?”

I heard some unintelligible words in my head, and I saw the door to the hospital room opening.

“A box decorated with gorgeous jewels. A gift from the Emperor.”

Outside the door stood a woman who appeared to be a noblewoman in fancy attire.

Man. No, the father motioned for the woman to come in, and the woman quickly entered the hospital room.

After chatting with the woman for a while, the father approached her to check what the box she was holding was, that is, a gift from the emperor. At that moment, the woman was about to open the box to check its contents.

Chook-

The father, with his face distorted with ferocity, swung his sword and cut off the woman’s wrist, preventing her from opening the box.

In an instant, the woman’s hands disappeared and she was seen falling backwards, screaming, while the unlocked box fell to the ground and rolled around.

The mother covered her mouth at the sudden tragedy, and the father was seen handing the baby back to the mother and covering her with something like a shield.

The commotion was so loud that many people gathered in the sickroom, and Arthur began to see familiar faces.

“Hilda..”

Hilda appeared with a much younger face than he had known.

Hilda went straight to the mother and checked on the baby’s condition. Fortunately, she looked relieved and said that there were no major problems.

On the other hand, my father’s face was still stiff.

A tense situation.

Father made a gesture telling Mother and Hilda to get out quickly, but the royal emblem engraved on the black box suddenly shone and the box, which had not been touched by anyone, suddenly split open.

The box, split in half, contained a black bead that gave off an ominous aura at first glance.

It shattered in an instant as if it had been triggered by the contact with the outside air, and the ominous energy that had been condensed inside began to escape and engulf everything around it.

“There were 666 curses that were too great to ignore, and I had to make a choice.”

Arthur, who had been an observer, noticed that his viewpoint had become identical to his father’s.

“Using the curse’s characteristic of hating all living things, I was able to cause most of the curses to come to me as a warrior…but a few curses that I failed to pay attention to avoided me.”

Arthur naturally turned his head back, and he saw his mother and Hilda taking the curse he couldn’t stop on his behalf.

“Even Elin, who was a saint, was cursed so severely that her flesh rotted away. At the point when she received hundreds of curses, the best she could do was barely hold on to her senses, and fortunately, luck was on her side, so she was able to escape with Hilda and her only hope.”

The scene quickly changes, showing Hilda’s back as she escapes with her baby thanks to her father’s sacrifice, single-handedly stopping the knights who came on the emperor’s orders.

“This is where my life ended, but I have no regrets. If I could go back in time, I would have made the same choice.”

A mother who continues to scold her father even though her own hands and feet are rotting away.

My father, who had already lost his eyesight and whose entire body was being cut apart by the knights’ swords, swung his sword until the end to protect my mother.

It would have been nice if a miracle had happened, like in the stories of heroes for children.

Crunch-

Bam-

By the knight’s sword, a man’s neck is severed.

The mother, who saw this, resisted with tears in her eyes.

Crunch-

Bam-

Their journey ended here.

It’s hard to believe that this is a story about heroes who saved the world.

Such a sad ending.

The end of heroes that the world does not know.

match!

The sound of applause from behind turned my vision into a white space.

The gaze naturally turned to the halo of light in the center.

“I’m sorry.”

Why are you saying sorry?

Tears falling down.

Arthur stood there quietly and cried.

Even though the approaching halo of light silently shared its warmth.

“I wanted to stay with you longer, but I don’t have time anymore.”

Is it already time to break up?

I had expected it to some extent. It would have been nearly impossible to leave behind such thoughts in such an urgent situation.

Of course, contrary to rational thought, the words “please don’t leave me behind” rose to the tip of Arthur’s tongue, but having seen his father’s death, Arthur was unable to say anything.

“I’m sorry I don’t have much to give you.”

“It’s okay. Just stay like this..”

“It’s a poor gift, but I hope it helps even a little.”

“… ”

“And if you really need help urgently, find a man named Muyeon somewhere in the northern snowy mountains.”

He was a strong father.

Because he never showed any sign of weakness until the moment of his death.

It was the same now. I’m sure he had a lot to say, but he was only saying things that would help me.

It must have been difficult.

It must have been sad and painful.

Maybe I killed my parents.

If I hadn’t been born, my parents would have fallen into that trap-

“I have never regretted being born for even a moment. Rather, it was a blessing.”

At his father’s words, he raised his head and looked at the halo of light.

Although it was just a formless light, I had the illusion that I could see my father’s face.

Kugu Palace-

The space began to collapse rapidly.

I can’t see my father anymore.

So then what should I say?

All sorts of words came to mind, but I couldn’t open my mouth.

Because I had so many things I wanted to ask.

Please stay with me a little longer.

I don’t like being alone anymore.

Was your father happy?

What kind of person was your mother?

Do you still love me?

Have you ever really had even the slightest regret?

I, I… my father…

“I love you, son.”

A warm voice penetrated Arthur’s complicated thoughts, and Arthur realized what he had wanted to say.

Yeah, so this is what family is like.

I can be honest about my feelings.

Because that’s family.

“I love you too, Dad.”

As soon as the words ended, the halo of light that had approached flowed into my body.

Arthur looked at the collapsing background in the space left alone and recalled the situation just before.

Because when I said I loved you, it felt like my father was smiling at me.

It certainly isn’t an illusion.

The warm feeling that still remains in my heart is proof of that.