Chapter 87
Chapter 87
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter Title: Yeriel, For Humanity
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html, body { margin:0; padding:0; } 86화
Yeriel, for the sake of humanity.
Love them, and live for them.
That is the duty of an angel.
Those were the words spoken to her long ago by an angel created before Yeriel.
Yeriel was the youngest among the angels, created latest of all. To the still-young Yeriel, the other angels—her brothers and sisters—showered her with affection and many words of wisdom.
Serve humanity, love humanity.
Most angels told Yeriel the same thing. There were occasional dissenters, but they were few and far between.
Yeriel lived by those words. She loved humanity and always placed them first. It was also the will of the god who had created her.
She poured her efforts into not abandoning even a single lonely human, and she embraced even the most wretched of them. Yeriel loved humanity itself.
And then, god departed. Once god left, disillusioned with humanity, many angels turned their backs on humans and fell to become demons.
Yet Yeriel remained steadfast. She still loved humanity and aided them against the demons.
And time passed. In that long, endless span, angels began dying one by one. More and more fell after bearing children with humans, their powers waning until death claimed them.
They who should have loved humanity as a whole fell into love with individuals and perished. Each one cried out two words in their final moments.
Freedom and happiness.
Yeriel burned with rage at this.
Freedom? Did that mean all the years you'd lived for humanity were nothing but shackles imposed by god's command?
Happiness? Was protecting humans, living for them—saving the despairing, extending a hand to the struggling—so unhappy for you?
Yeriel was different. She believed she differed from those deserters who had abandoned their duty and fled.
She had never once felt living and sacrificing for humanity to be stifling obligation. She found joy in aiding those in need.
But that...
Was that so unhappy for you? Nothing but suffocating chains around your ankles?
Hypocrites. No different from the demons devoured by their ugly instincts. What crime had the children committed? All they inspired was pity—children doomed to lose a parent mere moments after birth.
And these thoughts were not Yeriel's alone. Most of the remaining angels shared her view.
Children born between angels and humans inherited angelic powers. Strangely—whether related or not—the other parent often died as well, leaving them orphans.
The angels built orphanages for such children. At first, mere shelters to care for the bereaved, but as the children grew, angels helped them awaken their powers and taught them proper use.
Even with half-angel blood, they were human—beings the angels must protect and serve.
The children were innocent. Angels could not burden them with their parents' abandonment. They gave awakened children the choice to live ordinarily, never forcing them to protect humanity.
They simply taught right use of power. How to live.
Time passed, and some grown children chose not to leave the orphanage. The children the angels had taught grew tall and began taking in ordinary orphans, teaching them in turn.
By the time those orphans reached adulthood, even children with parents came seeking instruction.
The numbers swelled, and the modest orphanage evolved into a grand school.
Angels found joy in teaching. Watching a tiny child with tiny hands scrawl letters grow into a proud adult living their own life brought quiet happiness.
The humans raised under angelic tutelage at the school showed respect, naming the building after the angels' initials.
That was Acamedy.
Acamedy Academy.
Yeriel chuckled at the pun. She felt a twinge of regret that her own initial came last.
Perhaps because she was so rigid and stoic, never having taught children herself. Or maybe because she was always busy fighting magic beasts or demons, rarely showing her face. By now, many students didn't even know what she looked like.
Even so, Yeriel found small joys there. Fulfillment in serving and aiding humanity.
Yeriel was a guardian. Devoted to humanity, a clockwork sentinel fulfilling her calling. She lived within a tight triangle: battlefields beyond the barrier, the academy, a spartan room devoid of ornament.
A mechanical, regimented life. Some might call it joyless torment devoid of freedom or happiness, but Yeriel didn't care. To her, this was freedom and happiness.
Even after god's departure. Even amid daily wounds from demon battles.
As long as she could feel this, she was content.
But that happiness didn't last.
Demons raided the academy while angels were away, beheading the sole guardian angel there. Slaughtering the students was mere bonus.
The angels raged. Fury at the angel's death was natural, but perhaps greater was their grief for the cherished children lost.
"War."
Menakuel, leader of the angels, spoke quietly, and Yeriel and all angels charged out of the city.
In the end, only Yeriel and Auriel survived. Yeriel felt emptiness.
Comrades who had shared her purpose died. The humans she cherished perished. Victory in war, but pyrrhic, scarred.
Yet not all was lost. Kill Kahartel here—the last surviving demon—and true peace would come.
The peace so longed for. Humanity's salvation. No more tormented by magic beasts.
Yeriel ran with Auriel. To eradicate all demons and bring peace to humanity.
Dragging their wounded bodies, they pursued the fleeing Kahartel.
But Kahartel escaped in the end.
"...Menakuel is dead."
On the way back to the city, Auriel murmured hollowly.
Menakuel was the eldest angel, the leader. He always guided them—kind toward humanity, yet coolly analytical.
Yeriel and Auriel grieved, thinking of him reduced to formless remains.
"...What do we do? With Menakuel dead, humanity..."
Menakuel's power granted humans their abilities from birth. All innate powers stemmed from him.
Now he was gone. Future humans would be born powerless.
"...I'll sustain it. Somehow."
Intervening in another's power would bring penalties, naturally.
It didn't matter. Yeriel believed it served humanity, protected them.
Thus, Yeriel intervened in Menakuel's power, sustaining it.
The cost was her sanity.
Each new human birth, each ability granted, chipped away at her mind.
Sometimes madness shook her will; sometimes whispers urged surrender. Her days became dotted lines of hellish repetition within her tiny triangle.
If she quit, humans would lose power against magic beasts. Chaos, then crisis.
So Yeriel endured the grinding torment. Holed up in her barren room, piecing together her fraying mind.
She hadn't overcome it. Hadn't collapsed, but hadn't triumphed. Yeriel grew gaunt day by day.
After the war, as angels vanished, changes came to humanity.
The city's outskirts deteriorated, lawlessness spreading; the central elite corrupted.
Auriel, fighting magic beasts near the barrier, occasionally returned to the center to mend things—but failed. The rot had set too deep.
150 years. All for humanity, to protect them. Yeriel endured over a century locked in her room, sustaining the power.
To cling to her crumbling mind, she slept constantly. When meeting association leaders or Fergus, she feigned normalcy to hide her state.
Sleep, pretense. Occasional self-harm. Endless dotted lines formed her triangle. Yeriel lived within it.
One day, suddenly, Yeriel realized.
The same triangle.
Within it, she was no longer free. No longer happy.
When had it started? She often forgot last week's deeds, yesterday's words. She recognized her own decay.
Yet Yeriel didn't give up.
Because she loved humanity.
Because she'd always lived for them.
I am the guardian upholding god's will to protect you, the saving hand for humans tormented by magic beasts.
For your peace, I endure and bear it; I vanquish the worms devouring my mind and fight anew.
Today too, upon this triangle, breathlessly.
Precariously.
Enduring without collapse.
…………….
I would gladly sacrifice my freedom and forgo happiness for him, become a lone lantern in pitch darkness; I have always loved humanity, lived for humanity, sacrificed willingly for humanity.
……………. Ah.
For peace alone.
For humanity's rest and peace.
…………….
And then Auriel vanished.
Fled in love with a human.
Seeking freedom and happiness.
……………….
………Ah.
Auriel.
Why only you.
After Auriel's death, Yeriel took on Auriel's power alongside Menakuel's. To maintain the city's barrier.
The cost was unknown. Only intermittent chest pains and vomiting blood.
Daily life was torment. Forced sleep to hold her fraying mind; awakening to spit blood.
Sometimes she cursed god. The god who created her to love humanity.
She wanted to quit, even tried once.
But quitting meant humanity's end. Losing barrier and abilities left only slow extinction.
So Yeriel couldn't quit. She loved humanity.
She wanted to save all, sacrifice none. Thus, she burned herself in sacrifice.
But reality was cruel. Sacrificing her worthless body saved nothing.
Sometimes she regretted not forcing the orphanage children to fight.
If she'd imposed duty and taught battle...
It wouldn't have come to this.
In her shabby room, on her shabby bed, her shabby body laid out. Yeriel was sucked back into her hellish triangle.
If time passed like this, madness or flight would doom humanity.
So, ultimately, Yeriel abandoned herself. The ideal cherished for millennia: save all suffering humans equally.
She opened the coffin sealed over a century. Faced the girl's flesh, neglected nearly 150 years.
And summoned the soul. One she never would have, from another dimension, unconnected to this world, innocent and ignorant.
But Yeriel summoned without hesitation, binding it to the flesh. That day, for the first time in her long life, she sacrificed another.
Success dispersed the power hovering over the girl's body. Soul and flesh mismatched.
To reclaim power, demonic energy was needed. Demonic energy strengthened magic beasts—and the girl was one, despite human flesh.
To obtain it, she sacrificed a human. That day, Yeriel killed a human for the first time.
Then wept. Endlessly in the small, empty room. With those tears, Yeriel escaped her triangle.
It felt like everything she'd built crumbled. Flailing between guilt and void, she marveled at her personality's wild swings.
I won't beg forgiveness. All is my failing, my responsibility.
All for humanity as a whole. For the greater good.
Ah, my sin.
Sublime greater good.
Unforgivable original sin.
For my freedom and happiness.
All sins are mine.
No, god's.
Had she finally broken? Or breaking? Aware of her madness, Yeriel pressed on.
Just then, she spotted Han U-sol in the academy entrance exam. She injected Anis Harper with demonic energy, imprinting a faint seal.
This time, no failure. She would save humanity from evil.
Liberate humans from suffering,
and herself from suffering.
For that, she would...
I would gladly sacrifice my freedom and forgo happiness for him, become a lone lantern in pitch darkness; I have always loved humanity, will live for humanity, sacrifice willingly for humanity.
……Ah.
What nonsense is this?
Why was I doing this? How did it come to...
Yeriel clutched her throbbing head and hazy mind, refocusing her blurred eyes. Before her stood Han U-sol, face stern.
...Ah. Right.
She'd been resting due to poor condition when Han U-sol arrived.
He demanded explanation about Anis; she affirmed it.
Hearing her answer, he naturally raged...
And she...
"Do you think you've committed a sin?"
Yeriel breathed raggedly, eyes bloodshot.
"Yes. All my fault, my sin."
"………."
"Will you resent me?"
Han U-sol remained rigid. His eyes twitched.
"That child's death grieves me too. All related is my fault, my original sin."
"………."
"...But I had no choice. I had to make that choice."
Words rose from her chest. Stained with pain, speckled with blood.
"Originally, I never intended to summon that child here. I didn't want to sacrifice an innocent. ...However."
Those words morphed and flew.
"Your mother's flight forced it."
A sharp dagger piercing Han U-sol's heart.
"...I resent you. For being born into this world."
Han U-sol gasped at the cruel words.
"...If you hadn't been born."
If Auriel hadn't fled.
If Menakuel hadn't died.
If she'd forced duty on the orphanage children.
If here she'd done that, there this...
Vortices of what-ifs engulfed Yeriel.
She poured out for a long while, then shifted like a changed person.
"………Sorry. I'm rambling... It's not your fault. All mine."
Her vain ideal of saving all without sacrifice. Not Han U-sol's fault before her.
Born children were innocent. Even if parents shirked duty, burdening the child was cruel.
But.
"But bear the responsibility. At least the duty and burden your mother should have."
The duty Auriel bore—for humanity. Bear that much, Yeriel said.
Han U-sol stood dazed, absorbing the words.
A black bruise formed where the dagger struck his heart.
"Hey, Han."
"Yes?"
"What do you think was the reason Yeriel didn't torture Anis? If she'd just tied her up and tortured her to death, the negative emotions would've reacted with the demonic energy faster, corrupting her quickly."
"...Now that you mention it."
"Right. If she'd tortured from the start to erase the soul fast, it'd have been a hassle for us. So why didn't she?"
At Kahartel's question, Han paused dragging a corpse, lost in thought.
"……Who knows. Maybe someone who'd only sacrificed herself her whole life didn't know how to sacrifice others."
"Hahaha. Wrong."
"Pardon? Then what reason..."
Crack!
Kahartel stomped lightly; a skull burst. He'd crushed the corpse's head.
"Pathetic pity."
Kahartel continued.
"She resolved herself but couldn't break old habits—ended up pitying without realizing. So hypocritical."
"Hypocritical...?"
"To Anis Harper herself, at least."
Kahartel stomped again.
"If she was going to pity, she shouldn't have brought her at all."
Crack!
The head exploded.
"Always such a stubborn fool. That pity tangled everything, leaving her just a hypocritical mess in Anis Harper's eyes."
"But if we're assigning blame, aren't you the worst, Kahartel? Ultimately, magic beasts and demons are the root cause."
This time, Camilla, dragging another corpse, retorted to Kahartel.
"Well, true."
Crack!
Kahartel replied, then crushed another skull.