117. A Disaster Born of Humanity
117. A Disaster Born of Humanity
Tasian Failoy.
That was the first name she remembered the day she broke free of the coffin that held her and opened her eyes.
-Thud!
The moment she rose, she saw it—an overturned coffin brimming with flowers.
Honoring someone's death, like a funeral...
A funeral... for whom?
-Ting, ting.
While she stood wondering, a bell rang out from somewhere deep in the dark forest. The instant she sensed a presence, her feet were already moving toward it.
She didn't know why. She only knew she had to go. All she felt was that the power carried on that sound was drawing her in.
-Ting, ting.
At the end of that vague, instinctive pull, she came face-to-face with a woman standing before a mountain of corpses in front of a ruined kingdom's temple.
Dressed like a shrine maiden, she was using the bell in her hand to direct the movements of the dead.
She looked like some saint leading the Order...
"You, are...?"
Why did that saintly figure recoil in shock the instant their eyes met, dropping even the bell she had used to calm the dead?
Why did she rush toward her with that decayed body, and why did her eyes weep only putrid blood?
"...Enabel, Britannia. Does that name mean anything to you?"
Even as confusion washed over her, she gave no answer. Neither the woman's emotions nor that name stirred anything inside her.
The dead exist solely for their lingering regrets. And when those regrets aren't what stand out, they are hollow beings driven only by survival instinct or the necromancer's magic.
"......I see. So even after dying, I still can't be your mother."
But after that—at the word 'mother'—something flickered deep within her.
Mother. A word that unsettled her even more than the first name she had remembered.
"No... perhaps this is for the best. I cannot drive you back onto the battlefield, not after this reunion."
Was it because of some feeling she held toward the one before her?
Because her lingering regret was tied to a mother, and the one before her was the being she could call by that name?
"...Welcome home, Enabel."
At the very least, the woman seemed to want that kind of bond. But even wrapped in her arms, she felt nothing.
The woman's skin was cold, and the hand stroking her cheek held only strangeness.
Yet, little by little, her sense of self began to bloom, and somewhere along the way, she found herself accepting that woman's presence—because she felt something, faint and distant. Déjà vu.
***
Yes, she must have met her in a previous life.
The memories that surfaced piece by piece told her she had once been a mercenary roaming battlefields.
She had survived by killing every enemy she faced, her body steeped in blood. And with every survival, she saw more clearly just how vile and cruel this world was.
She, who had survived such a world, could only be just as disgusting, just as foul.
She answered a royal house's call because she believed she might be able to wash some of that filth away.
If she carried out their orders—if she performed deeds worthy of honor—then maybe even a stained wretch like her could live as a human being.
'...Enabel. Do you remember that name?'
And at the end of it all, an unexpected meeting.
While paying her respects at an audience with the nation's ruler, that woman spoke a name she didn't recognize.
Annabel Britannia. A name she had never heard in that life—a name she couldn't possibly be tied to.
'Your hair and eyes... all of your features are traits that can only descend from the bloodline of Britton.'
It's in one's appearance that the extraordinary nature of royal blood reveals itself.
The moment the queen saw her, she latched onto that hope—the hope of her identity.
'The subordinate who fled with you during the coup that broke out at His Majesty's succession ceremony was found dead by the river. We had given up hope, since the cradle that held you had vanished entirely, but...'
'Your Majesty, forgive my impertinence, but I am only a common mercenary.'
Of course, she had known for a long time that she was adopted.
She'd had a premonition that somewhere out there, her birth mother was alive. The only thing that mildly surprised her was that that mother turned out to be a king and queen of a nation.
'Regardless of my birth, please let me remain here as a mercenary under your commission... and let me focus solely on playing the role of a hero before the world.'
But what did blood matter?
Her hands were already stained.
She had become a butcher, unfit for a wise king and a benevolent queen. She could not become their child and live in comfort and peace.
A place that permitted such a thing would soon fall. At the time, she believed that was right.
'...Enabel. This is a request—not from your sovereign, but from the mother who gave birth to you.'
Even after a firm refusal, perhaps her lingering hope still held. Before departing for battle, the queen made one last plea from the heart.
'Please. Once this battle is over... would you form a mother-daughter bond with me once more?'
'...Your Majesty.'
'I know it is an unreasonable thing to ask. But... I still don't want to give up on you. You are the only proof that he and I were ever truly connected.'
She wished to restore the bond she'd thought severed. In that desperate plea, she felt the queen's love.
That in this world, there was someone waiting for a mere killer like her to return.
That maybe, even someone as tainted as she was could deserve to be loved.
-Badump, badump.
The more that mother's presence stood out, the more she felt vitality gradually rising in her dead body, and her sense of self growing clearer.
Slowly, over a very long time, safe under the protection of that woman who still saw her as a daughter.
Even if her path had gone askew, she suppressed the dissonance she felt from that earnest love and gave shape to her hazy, lingering regret.
"...I will serve you. My mother."
When she swore that oath at last, there was a hopeful anticipation in the air.
Even with a face utterly devoid of life, she could tell the woman still dreamed of a real bond with her.
"Does that mean you'll bond with me as my daughter?"
"......."
"...Enabel."
"I will simply be a sword for you, Mother."
But she could not bring herself to answer that hope directly.
The self she had barely awakened was born from a tenuous connection in her past memories with that woman, and from an obsession with the word 'mother.'
She had awakened her sense of self by focusing solely on that one thing. If she didn't suppress all other dissonance, she risked losing herself again.
"......Regardless of your own lingering regret?"
"My heart doesn't matter."
Even if it meant directing her lingering regret down the wrong path. Because if she didn't believe that, then her awakening would lose all meaning.
"What matters is that you awakened me. And if you claim to be my mother, I will simply follow you."
That way, she could find meaning in her resurgence.
By clinging to this false belief, she could discover why the word 'mother' had pulled at her so fiercely.
"Even if my goal is to kill all those like us who are still alive?"
"Yes. If that is what you wish..."
And at the end, she came face-to-face with that woman's true purpose.
The moment she heard the monstrous plan for humanity's extinction, she felt her pull toward the woman sharpen even more.
Though the details never surfaced, she could feel that the phrase 'humanity's extinction' might somehow be linked to her own lingering regret as well.
'All for my mother—with these hands, I will bring about humanity's extinction.'
Thus she defined her lingering regret, and bloomed into the identity of War's Red Knight to protect her.
Though she could not accept the name Annabel Britannia, she claimed—insisted—she was the daughter of Gwen Hwibar... hoping that one day she would finally grasp her own identity.
-Badump, badump.
And then, at last, this moment came.
The instant she witnessed it burning everything around it—overwhelming yet another servant who followed her lord—she was swept up in an exhilaration unlike anything she'd ever known.
"Found... you..."
It wasn't simply because it was a dragon.
Because the overwhelming power and presence that had appeared before her in this moment drew out everything inside her—far beyond mere déjà vu.
"Finally... I've found you..."
This was an emotion that could also be defined as rapture.
Utterly swept away, she ignored even the troublesome foe blocking her path and ran straight for it.
She had brought the army not to defeat him, but to stop him herself—and to discover the true nature of the dissonance she'd been feeling all along.
-Kwaaaaaah!
Even as she felt her body and spirit burn away, she could feel that being—meant to turn this land into a grave—advancing toward her.
Even as her body crumbled to ash, the will driving it refused to collapse. Only after recognizing that unbreakable, weighty lingering regret did she finally understand.
This being was the source of her lingering regret. And to meet her, she had deceived herself all this time and prolonged this second life.
'Mother, my mother...'
Tasian Paleoi.
Why had she forgotten that name until the very moment she faced her?
This was the one she had screamed for so desperately when she was abandoned alone on the battlefield.
She was the one she had acknowledged as mother. And she was precisely the one she had hated most.
'Why did you appear here? Why now, of all times, did you...'
Even if, at the end of that life, she had given up on that bond, such an ending meant nothing to her now.
Because the fiercest lingering regret of that life was woven from love and hatred twisted together around that one person.
There was no way the resentment cultivated over so long could be buried by the feeble calling and ideals she'd bloomed into at the end of that life.
'Ah, that's right. Back then too... you wanted to destroy humanity.'
And even before meeting her, her ego had been steadily building.
Though it had been twisted and misdirected from the very beginning, its completed form still bore a resemblance to the foundation of the lingering regret she felt toward her.
'A mother who wishes for humanity's extinction... and myself, obsessing over such a mother.'
The moment she realized that this process wasn't so different from what she had felt in the past.
That awareness poured vigor into the hand gripping her sword, and from her, a single summons was born.
****
-Squelch.
Countless times, she drove the blade—infused with that single-minded thought—into the ground.
Ash spread as she prodded the reverse scale of the helpless body sprawled on the ground.
Though the strike to her weak point had rendered her helpless, still her innate power would not permit her death.
Transcending even death itself: as long as she lacked the will to die, she would endure the pain and uphold her existence.
-Splat, splatter!
When the ash scattered all around turned into droplets of blood, just by receiving that blood nearby, she felt her thirst subside.
Her heart swelled, and the breath that had stopped now surged with vitality, making her repeat the action again and again.
"Where have you been? Mother, I..."
The sob that finally escaped—was it sorrow, or joy?
"I searched for you endlessly, Mother! I searched for you so much!"
No. Words like that couldn't define it.
Having never once forgotten her, having projected everything she had endured onto her existence—how could what she felt now be defined by a handful of words?
"...I just wanted to be with you."
That wish alone had always been constant.
Love, hatred, ideals, lingering regret—all of it could only be fulfilled by being with her.
There might have been other things to care about once, but now she considered them irrelevant.
"I just wanted to be with you... Why did you leave me? And in places without me, why do you keep killing humans...?"
The reason she—the dead—had awakened was purely because of lingering regret. And everything unrelated to that regret was buried the instant she faced its source, feeding only her emotions.
"Right... you hated humanity..."
And that medium intertwined with everything she had built up, leading her at last to a single answer.
If she, who had lived for her mother, had discovered that her mother wished for humanity's extinction... then pursuing it herself would be the meaning of having prolonged this second life.
"You wanted to destroy humanity, didn't you? Whatever the reason... you wanted humanity annihilated, right?"
Yes. That was the path she had reached.
In this moment, the dead who yearned for her mother remembered a new name to define herself—neither Tasian Failoy nor Annabel Britannia—
"I feel the same. Humans are a worthless race—good for nothing alive..."
War's Red Knight.
A being who had come to understand the essence of humanity more intimately than anyone—and through that understanding had awakened both loathing and recognition of them.
"Reconciliation never lasts. The moment they lose a common enemy, they tear each other apart... Those creatures who endlessly repeat that cycle, even now desperately clinging to life—that's what humans are!"
As her will resonated, magical power began to spread, gradually interfering with all things and building form.
Not pure mana, but beings one might call spirits drawn to her existence.
"Still... if there truly is a reason humanity must survive, then let us accommodate it. Your wish—and the reason they must exist—let us find a way for both to coexist."
Those beings, existing everywhere in the world and now overwhelmed by her presence, began to gradually construct what did not exist here—answering her memories.
The foundation of this world as she had seen it, even before facing the dragon that would burn humanity away.
The Age of Chaos—when her equals, foe and ally alike, had intermingled—began to unfold upon this land, with her as its origin point.
"...So let us wage war."
"Let us wage war, everyone...!"
Yes. What rose now were not dead men but phantoms. Yet because they projected concepts that had surely once existed in this world, they were beings of undeniable substance and meaning.
"As we have done until now, and shall continue to do... To pursue the ideal you and I desire, let us engrave upon this land what history has repeated, forever!!"
Those beings multiplied one by one around her, eventually forming an army, then surpassing that into legions numbering thousands, tens of thousands.
At the end of it all, feeling the countless presences that had revealed themselves at her side, a mad laughter erupted from her—blending everything she had ever experienced.
"Everyone, wage eternal war with me!! Hahaha!! Ahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!"
The purpose was only war. And more war.
To leave upon this world for all eternity the very moment that encapsulated humanity itself—the dead forever killing and being killed.
-Kyaaaaaah!
The moment that lament of the dead erupted and echoed across the land, the humans facing it realized it instinctively.
What had been born before them in this moment was an unprecedented Great Calamity.
Its root was neither a natural disaster like plague or famine, nor a phenomenon beyond malice and common sense.
It was rooted in humanity's own malice and madness.