episode_0318

I failed.

Everything culminated in a bad ending.

I came to, standing over a field of corpses. The emblems on the armor caught my eye. Ubiette’s crest and Naifrantz’s crest. Friend and foe alike had met the same death.

Severed arms, legs, hands, and feet. Heads rolled on the ground, torso fragments lay split open, intestines spilling out.

In the center was Eve’s corpse. Black tentacles, sprouting from her spine, were devouring her body.

Her fair skin was stained crimson, her limp limbs swaying weakly with each bite from the tentacles.

I turned my head.

I walked somewhere, as if hypnotized. I felt nothing. My feet moved on their own, leading my body somewhere.

The field of corpses continued. A small amount of white, and the rest filled with red.

At the end of the red carpet lay a doll. Molded exactly like a human, the doll was screaming. It was tearing its hair out, filth pouring from its crotch.

The doll, a female figure that seemed like a nightmare, had a face that was all too familiar. Black hair, a thin silk garment, and skin like white jade.

My hand, stroking the doll’s cheek, trembled. I turned my head again and started walking towards somewhere.

The wind blew. It carried the musty scent of ash and the pungent smell of blood.

Blood-soaked armor lay scattered at my feet. Crushed by explosions, pierced by magic bullets, and torn to pieces by swords and spears.

Naifrantz’s knights had all succumbed to death. It was perhaps only natural, as death comes to all men equally.

But the Knight Commander didn’t take it lightly. Her arm severed, her chest crushed, her intestines spilled from her belly, even after losing both eyes, she did not fall.

Her body pierced by dozens of swords, she died standing, raising her Wind Spirit Sword. The wind of blood and ash blew, her pale green hair fluttering faintly.

The scene changed again. I walked through the royal capital. Buildings had collapsed, and flames filled the streets. Even ordinary citizens couldn’t escape death.

Death made no distinction between men and women, young and old. Regardless of whether they were elderly or children, they were pierced by swords and spears or had their heads crushed by building debris.

My gaze fell upon something. The Aiter Temple, which served the Light Goddess Lumine. A cross stood atop its tall spire.

At the tip, the severed head of a saint dangled. Her blood-matted purple hair was tangled, hanging from the end of the cross. Her hollowed eye sockets were filled only with blood.

There wasn’t just one spire. Arms, legs, genitals, breasts, and intestines. Pieces of her naked body were impaled on the end of each spire. It was like an offering to some ritual.

My steps didn’t stop. I reached Naifrantz Castle. The upper part was completely gone, only the remnants of the fortress remained.

I walked down a path with a few railings embedded. Judging by the crushed flowers, it was where the garden used to be. In the middle was a blackened pile of ashes.

The pile of ashes was shaped like a person screaming in agony. Smaller and less developed than an ordinary adult woman. Impaled from her genitals to her mouth with a long wooden skewer.

The white magic stone embedded at the end of the wooden skewer was shattered. The magic stone still held a faint glow, indicating that the sorcerer’s ritual had not ended long ago.

I walked into the castle. A path I had always walked, half-closed eyes, weary from fatigue. My feet moved without obstruction.

I reached a room. The door was already broken, so I just walked in. The room, which should have been cozy, had its ceiling collapsed, flames soaring, and ash falling.

Something squishy was under my foot. A crushed mass of flesh stuck to it stickily.

It was an underdeveloped fetus. Completely crushed, its shape unrecognizable.

I followed the umbilical cord connected to the fetus to the bed.

On the bed, soaked in blood, lay the corpse of a maid reaching out towards the fetus. It seemed she tried to protect the baby until the very end.

The maid’s clothes were torn open. A long gash stretched from her clavicle to her genitals, revealing her insides.

It was mutilated, as if something had been pulled out. The starting point of the umbilical cord connected to the fetus was visible. It was the inside of her torn womb.

Suddenly, the exposed heart faintly throbbed. The maid reached out to me. A small hand, with only two fingers left after the others were torn off.

“I’m… sorry…”

Her hand didn’t reach my face, falling limply onto the bed.

I left my bedroom.

Walking, walking, and walking again. I didn’t feel like taking a walk. My feet were simply moving on their own.

My body reached the audience chamber. I walked along the silk path filled only with corpses.

A crown was in my hand before I knew it. I placed the blood-stained crown on my head.

Cloak billowing, I sat on the Naifrantz throne. Legs crossed slightly, chin tilted.

Feelings? Emotions? A heart? There was no way such things remained in me. The only thing I could do was describe things without a single one of my thoughts included.

I reached an ending where I gained everything and lost everything at the same time. It felt like standing on the ground and grasping the stars with my hand.

Having reached the end, I sat on the throne. Lies and nothingness were in my grasp.

I see. I see everything. And I know. That nothing exists.

I had completely comprehended the futility of this world. Nothingness and emptiness were me, and I was nothingness.

Nothingness is distinctly felt. Everything that this universe contained before it was destroyed, everything that could be perfectly described with the best eloquent phrases.

But one thing is missing. A heart.

“What does that matter?”

What matters?

“Yes. This world offers you complete nothingness. You cannot succeed, yet at the same time, you do not fail. You cannot be happy, yet at the same time, you have nothing to be sad about.”

Is failure bad? Shouldn’t I be sad?

“You once failed, you grieved, and you led yourself to ruin. Emotions are always self-destructive, and it does not help you in the slightest.”

Ten-year-old Narita was like that. She forgot to eat and breathe, just lying on the bed, waiting for death.

“Deny your past self. Deny the you who challenged. Deny the you who failed. Deny Narita Floraine Naifrantz, who embarked on an adventure seeking non-existent hope.”

Perhaps because I lived dreaming of a happy ending, I led everyone to a bad ending.

Yui, banished outside the castle walls, may have lived an ordinary life at a country inn.

Lulu, who did not receive punishment, might have continued to be a salaried employee leading the court mage corps.

Aspi, who did not undergo closed-door training, might have become an ordinary capital guard and lived quietly.

Nix, who did not undergo physical training, might have lived moderately, gathering knowledge in the sanctuary of spirits.

Tier, who did not awaken her power, may have spent a fairly prosperous latter life as a popular clumsy saint.

That day, if I hadn’t spoken to her… Eve might have avenged her parents and found a new life.

“You, who chose them, killed them.”

Perhaps I was under a great delusion. A foolish, stupid delusion that I had saved them.

“Deny your past life.”

Why did I start Akasto? Why did I accept the administrator’s offer to come into this world?

“Deny your past.”

Why was I born? Why did I live and cause everyone to die?

“Deny your future, every possibility before you.”

What do I dream of? What do I wish to become? Who do I want by my side?

“Completely deny yourself that exists in this world, and further, in all universes. Then you will become nothingness, and you will create all universes with us and enjoy complete nothingness.”

Everything was wrong from the start. My origin, and the origin of this world. From the beginning, the first button was fastened incorrectly.

Therefore, there is no hope before me. If ten options are given, they will all be bad endings.

My existence is wrong…

Chuckle-

“…What?”

It may be premature, but laughter suddenly burst out. Isn’t it? It’s just too ridiculous acting out such pitiful self-loathing.

“So, you made Eve your underling this way.”

“You… how are you moving? How did you escape the dominance of my ‘realm’ in the first place?”

“Oh, that? Actually, I wasn’t caught from the beginning.”

I swung my arms and legs around wildly. It is too frustrating to think and act as dictated.

“So, don’t feel sorry. Even if you had completely finished that ‘declaration of negation,’ a future where I obey you doesn’t exist.”

“How dare a human…”

“That’s just how the world is.”

I broke through the demon’s realm and went outside.

The real world was also as I thought. Eve had plunged a pitch-black sword into my chest.

To corrupt a human with the power of Tenebris, it’s necessary to recreate a very impressive scene. Eve’s was one scene from my memories, and in my case, it was the moment Eve stabbed my chest.

The ‘declaration of negation,’ which makes one deny their own existence, comes next. It’s about brainwashing them into self-annihilating their soul, and then filling that void to make the power, body, and causality completely their own.

One might think that a demon would go to a lot of trouble simply to subjugate one person. But my body must have also appealed to that demon’s liking.

If not, it would have been easy to simply kill me.

That avarice will bring defeat to the demon.

And defeat is death.

I grabbed Tenebris, who had taken Eve’s form.

“Wh-what is this…!!”

“Even if it’s an illusion… you killed my women inside it. Don’t think your way out will be easy.”

Far beyond the clouds, the scorching sun burned brightly.