Visions Beyond the Hazy Veil
Those figures visible beyond the blurry world of past and future were clearly the events I had gone through after falling into the game. Spitting curses, shouting at the top of my lungs, and condemning this impossible situation. Then eventually giving up on everything, accepting it, and scrambling for a way to survive. Seeking out my master, throwing tantrums, making endless requests, and doing every ridiculous thing imaginable. In the end I was accepted as a disciple and received every last teaching from the Heavenly Demon. After that came the part where I tracked down the heroes one by one, took them as disciples, and began preparing for what lay ahead. All of my past was unfolding beyond that fog.
“...Fuck.”
In the middle of it all, there were several scenes I couldn’t watch without swearing. Starting with the time I kept muttering “This is a dream” while smashing my head against a rock until it bled. Then the time I tried to run away because I didn’t want to get hit by my master, only to be caught and beaten even worse. The climax was, of course, the moment I walked in on my master while she was bathing.
‘M-Master?!’
‘Y-you you you!! You bastard!!’
‘Kyaaak! W-why are you acting like this?!’
‘You wicked boy! Is this how you show respect to your master?!’
‘Gack! No! I was just coming back after chopping firewood like you told me to!’
‘Shut up, shut up! You insolent little— Just how much did you see?!’
‘See what?! Urk! No, what the hell do you want me to do about it?!’
It was an utterly miserable memory. A dark history that could be called embarrassing for both me and my master. …Even though I hadn’t done it on purpose, she really laid into me with gusto. Surviving that was nothing short of a miracle. Any ordinary person would have been beaten into a bloody pulp and died. Still, it seemed the training I received from my master had been effective after all.
After that my past continued to play out. With every step I took, new stories that hadn’t appeared before came leaping out. They weren’t limited to the clearly remembered ones. From the hazy and indistinct to things I had completely forgotten. Everything flowed before my eyes as if I were reviewing my entire life.
At first it was surprising and bewildering, but as time passed I strangely found myself watching with a detached mind. So that’s how I had looked back then. That’s how I had acted. I hadn’t realized it at the time, but seeing it now, it was unbearably ugly. All sorts of thoughts rose up, and in the end one sudden idea occurred to me.
What if I take one more step from here—couldn’t I change that past?
Reason screamed that it was absurd nonsense, that such a thing could never be possible. Yet for some reason the thought kept creeping in like smoke. Like the fog growing thicker and thicker, I couldn’t break free of it. Even while telling myself I had to escape quickly, I couldn’t tear myself away from the past that kept painting itself in front of me.
“Master.”
If a certain voice hadn’t called out, I would never have overcome that temptation. I would have taken that fatal step.
“Iris.”
“I finally found you. We almost missed each other.”
“Did you find the others? What about Master? Where is everyone?”
“They’re probably… all wandering around just like us.”
“How did you find me?”
“...By chance.”
She said “by chance,” but her expression made it obvious she knew exactly what she was doing. She must have located me using her experiences from the future as a guide.
“How was it for you, Master?”
“What do you mean?”
“Being inside this fog feels like going back to the past, doesn’t it? You even get to see it for real.”
“...Actually, that’s exactly what I was doing until a moment ago.”
“I see.”
Iris gazed at me, then slowly drew closer. After a brief moment of hesitation, she suddenly grabbed my hand. Just as I opened my mouth to ask what she was doing, the image of “me” from the past in front of me blurred and merged with something else, twisting into a grotesque mass.
At first I couldn’t tell what it was. The distortion was so severe that nothing was recognizable. But as time passed, though still blurry, something began to take proper shape.
‘I’m sorry.’
Iris’s voice echoed. A figure covered head to toe in blood, cradling someone in her arms. It was too indistinct to see clearly, yet the aura felt strangely familiar. The moment I narrowed my eyes to look closer, the scene changed again. It was still unclear, heavily warped. But in the distance I could make out people fighting something. Screams and shouts rang out from every direction. Countless lives crumbled away, and the place overflowed with despair. The lights of those who fought against that despair began to wink out one by one. And at the very end, Iris’s face flashed briefly before vanishing.
“Iris, this is…”
Instead of answering, Iris gripped my hand even tighter. Once more the fog seemed to thicken before showing another vision.
‘This time for sure. I will definitely save everyone.’
That was Iris’s voice as well. Yet the Iris standing beside me remained silent. Which meant what I was hearing now came from the past Iris. No—from the “future” Iris.
Sssss…
Suddenly an impenetrable darkness swallowed everything, so deep that even the fog disappeared. Everything that had been faintly visible was devoured by the void. I had no idea what was happening and reached for my sword—then everything vanished again, replaced by the sight of my past self.
“...This is as far as I can manage.”
“Iris. What I just saw… was that your past?”
I deliberately paused after the word past. To the current Iris it was the past, but at the same time it was the future she herself had lived through.
“Just like you did, Master, I saw my own past. I was curious about yours, so I grabbed your hand. I’m sorry. Please don’t scold me.”
“....”
It was a lie. That wasn’t the truth. She hadn’t done it to see my past—she had done it to show me hers. Although everything had been so horribly blurred that it was fair to say I hadn’t seen anything clearly, there was still one fact I could grasp without a doubt.
“...It must have been really hard.”
“I was alone. Until the very end.”
“What about the others?”
“There was no one. It was only me.”
The last hero of a ruined world. The final survivor of a collapsed world. That last remaining being, after countless turns and twists, had returned to the present. And right in front of me she was saying that we would lose. That everyone would fall before the world’s malice.
“There’s something here!”
Recalling her own experience, Iris had located the entrance. Airis had already gone inside, and now it was the place where she and her master would enter. The true identity of the ancient kingdom in the west was the Mirror Kingdom. The capital of the Mirror Kingdom, slumbering underground, had from ancient times to the present been protected by a most peculiar and powerful defense.
It reflected a mirror at anyone who sought it. What the mirror showed was none other than that person’s own past. Humans have always been pathetically weak to lingering attachments. Simply by displaying their past, the mirror could rob intruders of their senses. Unable to shake off those regrets, desperate to change them, longing to return, they would wander forever—neither fully alive nor dead.
‘The Mirror Kingdom’s trap. Senior Airis got caught in it and wandered for nearly a month.’
Nor was she the only one. Everyone who came looking for Airis ended up lost as well. They were warriors trained to the highest level in combat against monsters and demons, yet even they found it nearly impossible to overcome a situation like this. Not even her own master or her grandmaster could remain completely free before their pasts.
There was only one way to escape this trap, this sea of fog: to refuse to be bound by the past, to not spare it even a glance, and to push straight through. Then, at the end, to erase the past version of oneself waiting there and open the exit.
‘Aaaah!…’
‘Maknae! Take Master and run! Hurry!’
‘Aaaaack!!’
Her hands trembled. Her heart pounded so violently it felt like it would explode. The moment the scene she had tried so hard to forget rose before her eyes, the composure she had barely maintained shattered. Every time one of her precious people fell, terror, fear, and rage flooded in.
“...”
Snap out of it, Iris. Snap out of it. Was she really going to fall for the same trap twice? Thinking that, Iris bit her lip hard. This was a trap, yes—but at the same time it was an opportunity. Sharing one’s past with another person was incredibly difficult. Even if shown, the memories would collide and appear only as a blur. Still, if she could reveal even a portion of it—if she could let him see how their final moments had played out—at least that might erase any lingering suspicions her master still held.
So Iris shook off the pasts that tormented her and tried to hold her back. It’s a trap. I have to escape. With that thought she walked, and walked. She didn’t know how long she had been walking. She didn’t know how much time had passed. She only knew that there was an end, and that she had to leave this place as quickly as possible.
“Master.”
In the end, Iris finally found her master. There was no time to waste. She took his hand and shared her past with him. At first their memories collided and everything warped beyond recognition. Then, faintly, Iris’s past—or rather her future—began to unfold.
“....”
Her master watched in silence. Anyone who knew nothing would have asked what they were seeing, but because he already had a clear sense of the truth, he seemed to understand without much difficulty.
“...It must have been really hard.”
At her master’s words, Iris barely held back the tears that threatened to burst forth. This was only the beginning. No, it hadn’t even properly begun. She could shed tears of joy and relief later with no problem at all.
“Let’s go, Master. Let’s break through this fog together.”
“What about the others?”
“Once anyone reaches the end of this path, won’t they be able to find the rest?”
Originally, she and her master would have wandered inside this trap for more than a month. A place where one could go without eating, drinking, or even sleeping and suffer no ill effects—that was the true terror of the Mirror Kingdom’s grand trap. Taking advantage of that opening, the demonic humans and Demon God worshippers had made their move. They had summoned monsters on a massive scale inside the royal capital of all places.
At the time, the Sword Hero Garam had been heavily delayed by the traitor within their ranks. The Guardian Hero Gerard and the Fighter Hero Iris had been trapped inside the Mirror Kingdom. Her master and grandmaster had been there as well. With their forces nearly halved, the remaining heroes had been forced to give everything they had. They had barely managed to stop the monsters from spreading, but many had died and many more had been wounded. Not only the followers but the heroes themselves had suffered minor injuries.
Yet the greatest problem was that the people of the world had come to know fear.
The Enemy’s Will, amusingly enough, grows by feeding on the fear of the beings in this world. It exists to destroy the world, yet ironically it cannot exist without the world itself.
Her master had known this truth from the very beginning. That was why he had tried to plant courage rather than fear in people’s hearts through the heroes. But the interference had been too severe, and there had been too many unforeseen events. In the end, it had not produced the results he had hoped for.
Master. I truly hope that I am the Last Hero.
That after her, a world would come where no more heroes were needed. That someday everyone would forget the very existence of heroes and remember only peace. The Last Hero, Iris Futurewalker, prayed for it with all her heart.