episode_0069

The seraphim, angels closest to God, whose Hebrew origin is ‘the burning ones,’ are sometimes interpreted as ‘serpents.’

“Vipers and flying fiery serpents…” – 30:6

*

“What answer you arrive at is your choice.”

There, Rain Grey said so.

“But if there are any unintended misunderstandings, I hope this resolves them.”

And those were his last words.

With a gunshot, the ‘real’ Rain Grey before his eyes collapsed. As if overlaying the faded hero’s remains lying at his feet.

With that, the surrounding landscape regained its light.

“Captain!”

“Captain!”

He lowered his head again in the restored landscape. At the same time, the voices of the squad members calling out to the Captain felt, for some reason, as if they were directed not at him, but at Rain Grey who had fallen before them.

“—.”

But it wasn’t.

What existed there was only the faded corpse of the dead hero.

The corpse of the real Rain Grey, who had pointed a magical gun at him within the Garden of Original Sin, was nowhere to be found.

It was just… over.

Without any answers or clues to his questions, with only questions remaining, he was once again thrown into a labyrinth he had tried so hard to turn away from and ignore.

“Do you know the biggest difference between humans and tools?”

He didn’t know. If he didn’t know, that was the end of it. There were no easy answers.

“Hah!”

As he once again wandered, agonized, and strayed, a familiar voice was heard before him.

It was the hearty, manly snort of a man.

“As expected of the Captain!”

It was Sandalphon’s voice. A hollow laugh, as if there was simply nothing he could do.

It wasn’t over yet.

“Amazing…!”

Then Alice raised her voice.

“Amazing, amazing, amazing!! Truly amazing!!”

She shouted innocently, her eyes shining like a child’s, louder than ever.

“As expected of the Captain!”

“At this rate, you can’t even call it a fight.”

Aria, tying the black blindfold over her eyes once more, continued with a bitter smile.

“It’s merely a massacre.”

It was true.

“—As expected of the Captain.”

“Hah, I agree.”

None of the Snake squad members there were an exception.

Without a shred of doubt, as if it were only natural, they displayed the same blind trust, loyalty, and obedience as they always had.

“…”

He couldn’t say anything. He merely remained silent, as he always had.

In a way, it wasn’t wrong.

—The hero lying collapsed before his eyes had died at the hands of the Captain whom the squad members before him were praising.

Because in the Garden of Original Sin, he had fallen at the feet of the real Rain Grey.

But that Captain wasn’t him.

He, who was here, was merely a fake acting as the real Rain Grey.

A lie that could only remain as a substitute for the ‘real Rain Grey.’

That truth, which he thought he had accepted and braced himself for, once again pierced and twisted in his chest like a thorn.

“…”

At the same time, he looked at the hero’s remains lying before him.

It was over.

This was it—it was over.

This was all.

To summon a hero who would fall so fleetingly like this, what exactly had he done?

Just to see a result like this?

And at the same time, had humans so yearned for a hero who would fall before such a minor trial and evil?

Was this the faith of the they believed in, hoped for, and yearned for?

It was futile.

It was an ultimate futility, incomparable to anything else.

Literally, it held no meaning.

A hollow laugh escaped him.

So he silently turned his head.

He looked at those still confronting beyond the ridge, in the distance.

The ragtag army of the Holy Kingdom, which had been cheering endlessly just moments before at the appearance of a hero, was meeting an unchanging end.

The immortal army, composed entirely of the undead, swung their swords, and they simply fell mercilessly.

Because the hero they had craved and yearned for like a miracle had been defeated by ‘Rain Grey’ without even having a proper fight.

He turned his head again.

The faded hero still lay collapsed at his feet.

An undeniable death.

Would he revive again? Would he rise again and fight back?

Like an apostle of justice who never yields to any evil and eventually rises to fight back.

For a moment, he thought such a thought.

It was a fleeting and meaningless wish, like a delusion.

The fallen hero did not rise.

At the same time, there was no longer any reason to spill rivers of blood through the sacrifice of the innocent people there.

He was not a blood-crazed murderer. He refused to shed blood senselessly or uselessly.

At the same time, he was also an evil who didn’t care how many people died, as long as there was a reason to shed blood.

He smiled even more bitterly at that fact.

Now, should he once again stop the meaningless slaughter by the duchy’s army and save the innocent victims of the Holy Kingdom?

What meaning would that action have?

What exactly had he expected when he instigated all of this?

What meaning was there in the deaths of those who had built a sea of blood up to his chin, all to summon a hero who would die a dog’s death without even a single resistance before the real Rain Grey?

After seeing the hero appear there, and seeing the hero’s death, had he obtained anything he desired?

—Nothing.

No meaning. No fruit.

There was only a hell where, in a world full of chaos to the point of screaming for a hero, even the summoned hero suffered a meaningless dog’s death.

A conclusion with no reward, no salvation, and no redemption before an irresistible evil.

“…Is this all it is?”

So he murmured.

“Hah, of course it is.”

In front of such a murmur, Saan’s Silan laughed incredulously.

“—Compared to the Captain, that is.”

The Captain. Once again, the words from his mouth referred to ‘Rain Grey,’ not him.

What should he answer?

“…It’s meaningless.”

That was his answer.

A literal answer.

“Hah, is that so!”

Hearing that, Silan also laughed. Because it was truly literal.

“What in the world would have meaning before the Captain?”

Nothing had meaning before Rain Grey. He remained silent upon hearing those words.

It was true.

Because nothing that appeared before him had meaning before Rain Grey.

Not even heroes, questions, wanderings, or even everything he believed to be enlightenment.

“…Jeanne.”

So he calmly opened his mouth.

“Ah, you finally called for me.”

At his words, the Black Saintess responded with a smile, as if she had been waiting. Her voice indicated that she couldn’t bear how lovely the voice calling her was.

“…Stand with the Holy Kingdom and repel the duchy’s army.”

Therefore, he too gave the order without hesitation.

As his puppet, who would carry out any command.

“As Master wishes—.”

That was the name Jeanne called him.

It wasn’t because of the slave mark or binding etched into her body.

She chose to kneel at his feet of her own free will, from the deepest part of her being.

At the same time, her loyalty was no different from that of the squad members who had become blindly devoted to Rain Grey, offering their everything.

He thought he had a duty to repay such blind loyalty and devotion sent his way.

That man did not.

For him, the loyalty and blind obedience given by the squad members were nothing more or less than pawns to be used and discarded as needed.

—He merely wished for the destruction of this world.

Even that wish had now lost its meaning and disappeared before him.

He could somehow instinctively sense it.

That no matter how much he muttered and spoke of the Garden of Original Sin, those words no longer held any meaning.

Had he truly vanished forever like that?

Once again, an unknown question surged in like the tide receding.

Amidst such doubts, he silently turned his head.

Only when he realized it, Saintess Jeanne had already become the new ‘hero’ of the kingdom’s army there.

Leaving behind the remains of the hero born and summoned by human yearning there.

He silently looked down at the hero’s remains lying there.

Just for one hero who would fall so fleetingly like this… did humans so yearn for and cry out for a ?

Similarly, for one hero who would fall so fleetingly like this, had he desired such an absurd amount of blood and death until now?

Everything became unknown.

To the point where even the word ‘evil,’ which he had acted as until now, had lost its meaning.

—He wished he had at least a clear purpose to fulfill.

A goal as easy and clear as a game quest, more than anything else he should do in this world.

Unfortunately, there was nothing so easy to understand.

He was merely thrown into this world without questions or answers, without any purpose.

He simply, merely, existed here.

Without any reason or purpose for his existence—.

‘…Purpose.’

While thinking, he inadvertently realized.

“Do you know the biggest difference between humans and tools?”

That was the answer to the question Rain Grey had thrown at him.