42. Cherish Your Bonds
42. Cherish Your Bonds
The Demon King.
An absolute being who had flaunted his power and existence across countless dimensions even before breaching into this world.
The Demon Lord Army, true to its name, was the force that served the Demon King, and among its ranks, the Four Heavenly Kings were the core executives who had led that army since its very inception.
"The only time you ever revealed yourself publicly was once... when the Demon Lord Army first crossed the dimensional wall."
Realizing that one of those Four Heavenly Kings now stood before her, Phobia took this moment to recall a story she had once heard.
"That battle ended in an overwhelming victory for the Demon Lord Army, yet I heard there were considerable casualties on the demon side as well. Because from the moment someone's performance began to echo across the battlefield, humans and demons alike lost all reason and began slaughtering everything in sight."
A performance that made no distinction between friend and foe, staining all who heard it with madness and driving them to kill one another.
The tragedy left in its wake alone was enough to make clear just how dangerous an entity she was.
"...Driving not just the enemy but even her own allies insane. That's not something a sane person would do."
Indeed, she was on a different level from the other Four Heavenly Kings.
The others might be described simply as 'powerful and cruel,' but she, who could drive every sentient being within the reach of her sound to madness, was an existence that could be called a 'calamity' in itself.
"Puh-hehe."
Yet, despite having her wariness honed to a razor's edge, the woman herself merely let out a quiet laugh before her.
"What's so funny?"
"Well, how could I not laugh? To think you'd be so wary of a lowly Clown like me, all because of a mere rumor you've heard..."
"...You can say that even after what you've just done here?"
Even after she had driven her fellow demons to mutual annihilation.
"Yes, you may not believe me, but I am merely the weakest of the Four Heavenly Kings. My rank as second-in-command is simply a title I received for having served the Demon King since before the army was even founded..."
Even so, she spoke on, unaffected and smiling.
There was no hint of any intent to deceive in her words.
"In the first place, isn't it absurd for a Clown to stand on a battlefield?"
Demons, from their very birth, are beings true to their own desires.
Thus, Mephisto held little attachment to her title or status.
Her sole purpose was to make her lord smile as a Clown. Her own strength or achievements were always outside her interest.
"...You've got some nerve prattling on after causing all this."
"A non-demon like you wouldn't understand. The state of my heart as I travel..."
-Tiri-ring~♬
The lute strings in her hand were plucked, echoing quietly over the scene of the massacre.
In a place where a moment of passion had passed, and everything now lay heavy and still.
"I merely travel, collecting stories."
-Tiri-ring~♪
"Whenever my travels bring me to a scene seething with desire, I simply turn my attention to it. For I know that desire is the source of the most entertaining stories..."
-Tiri-ring~♬
"...Wishing only that the final stories those about to depart will write are more passionate and beautiful."
A poem played lightly, as if in passing.
So much so that she expressed her intentions that way, betraying not an ounce of guilt for her actions.
All she ever did was incite the opportunities she encountered, overheating the situation.
"And did you get what you wanted by doing so?"
-Fwooosh.
A cold wind began to blow through the dark forest.
"...No, regrettably not. I can't imagine this much would amuse my lord."
"So you intend to keep repeating this until you are satisfied?"
-Crackle!!
The cold wind gradually transformed into a blizzard, beginning to accentuate the presence of the one wielding that power.
It was the protection of the Spirit King.
A symbol of the contract between one who shoulders the duty of protecting nature and the being that constitutes the order of this world.
"If I said yes, would you stop me?"
"Of course I would."
Even knowing it might not be enough to face this monster, Phobia was ready to risk her life nonetheless.
Even if the woman wasn't of the same race that burned her homeland, she was still a being who felt no guilt about committing massacres for her own purposes.
If she wasn't stopped here, she might one day return as an even greater calamity.
"Regardless of your intentions, if you attempt anything further, I will not stand idle. For my pride, and for my brethren...!"
"...How valiant of you."
The Frenzied Clown, facing such an existence, soon cast the lute in her hand to the ground and spread her arms wide.
"Allow me to bestow a humble reward in honor of that courage."
"What...."
"Here. Kill me."
The moment her will to kill faltered at such an utterly unabashed attitude.
But she was unabashed.
She exerted no magical power, merely walking close enough to be within arm's reach, exposing her neck for the taking.
"Are you trying to deceive me?"
"Do I look like I'm playing tricks? To someone who can react the instant she senses anything?"
Indeed, there was no will to fight within her.
Truly.
As if she had resolved to offer up her neck right then and there.
"...Miss Phobia. As you know, I have traversed many worlds alongside the Demon King, and destroyed those worlds. The prouder my lord was of that, the happier I was to devote my loyalty to him."
Even so, toward the one doubting her, she nonchalantly explained her intent.
The hand that had lifted a mere street beggar. The days when a street punk rose to reign as a tyrant on the battlefield.
Reminiscing on the glorious days at the end of it all, when he became the ruler of a world, and then, unsatisfied even with that, advanced into a new world.
"But the joy was only at the beginning. Drunk on the glory of victory, he even crossed dimensions in search of greater prizes... but as that too repeated, at some point, all he felt was boredom."
No matter how intense the desire, it inevitably fades with time.
Even the Demon King was no exception to that law, and at some point, his desires unfulfilled, he felt only ennui.
Thus, to entertain her lord who had lost his laughter, she focused solely on collecting stories across the worlds she set foot in, even when the Demon Lord Army was gripped by the throes of war.
"Can you even imagine it? What it means for a Clown who has lived only for her lord's laughter to live consumed by the mission of making that same lord—who has lost his laughter—smile again?"
But the Demon King did not smile.
No matter what performance she put on, he would not smile. Be it a delicate gesture or a musical performance, it was all the same.
"They say demons don't hesitate at loyalty, plunder, or subjugation for the sake of desire... but if I conclude I can't realize my desire, I simply lose the will to live."
Still longing for the days she had spent with him, she continued to repeat her meaningless travels.
Dragging along a heart already worn down, worn to nothing...
Preparing, deep in the corner of her heart, for a 'time of rest' that might someday visit.
"...Would you believe me if I said that moment has finally become now?"
She didn't care how that time of rest would come, or by whose hand it would be achieved.
If her breath was to cease, she wished it would be now.
For she had realized that even the stimulating stages of the past could no longer be enjoyed, not even with a feigned laugh.
"......Mephisto Rage."
Phobia could sense that it wasn't a lie.
Demons are beings who are faithful to their desires, living for their desires.
If these words were a lie, she would have been able to notice the signs born from the squirming of desire.
"If you've truly lost the will to fight, then I will kill you here."
Yet now, having given up even hiding her true feelings,
the face of the woman facing her end seemed, in a way, even peaceful.
"I too am a body stained with much blood, so I won't condemn you for what you've done. It's just that your very existence could endanger the faction I belong to, so I simply wish to eliminate that possibility in advance..."
Toward such a Clown, Phobia merely delivered her sentence impassively.
Without resentment or pity.
With only the single-minded resolve to erase the one obstructing the duty she carried.
"This choice, do you truly not regret it?"
Still, at the demand for confirmation voiced out of concern she might yet change her mind, the woman closed her eyes, arms still spread wide.
"Not anymore. I don't know about just a moment ago, but..."
A single sparkling leaf, the only thing to catch her eye on a long journey.
Though it remained in her memory even to this moment, she now regretted her foolishness in dismissing it as trivial and passing it by.
"...Then there's no reason to drag this out."
Whatever it was, this was the moment a demon who felt no guilt or love for others offered up her own neck.
The judge, having finally quelled even the cold wind, turned her guillotine-like claws toward her and delivered the sentence.
"Farewell, Mephisto Rage."
Eyes closing in time with the sound tearing through the air.
In the darkness that followed, with the last of her fading consciousness, she tried to recall the one remaining in her memories.
'...Mr. Hyosung.'
Ironically enough, putting the long eons spent with the Demon King to shame, what surfaced in this moment was a man's face.
The time spent with him was incredibly short and insignificant, yet she thought the smile she had worn before him was sincere, not a pretense.
Because he was a presence who put her so at ease.
Because she had felt her so hollow heart gradually stir with excitement.
'Why do I keep wanting to see you like this?'
So if an afterlife truly exists.
If she could at least be allowed to hope to meet him there, this man she would never see again on this land—even for someone like her.
-Thud!!
At the end, a body thrown to the ground by the impact of a roar crashing over it.
But she felt no pain of being torn apart alive.
The front paw had passed through empty air and struck a nearby tree, and her body, which had escaped its range, was lying collapsed in the arms of someone who had suddenly intruded...
"Wha, t...."
Who on earth.
Just one step forward, and she could have ended this hollow journey she had finally resigned herself to, right then and there.
"...Meril."
Her resentment against him.
She felt it subside at the voice that tickled her ears in this moment.
"Miss Marilyn...."
Familiar.......
More than him, it was a voice she hadn't been able to forget.
Even though they might have parted only for a brief while, that brief while had been enough time to make her forget what she had faced.
"Hyo, sung-ssi?"
"Thank goodness."
A body drenched in blood, breathing raggedly.
Though a wreck of a form, battered all over with no healthy spot left, the face that greeted her was filled with relief.
As if to show it wasn't only her who had been consumed by the fear of never seeing the other again.
"Yeah, really, so glad, you're safe...."
At the end, only after confirming her survival did the man, his strength spent, let his head fall limp.
Feeling that weight, Mephisto realized that her own two hands had, before she knew it, wrapped around his back.
"Mr. Hyosung."
Alive.
The sensation felt by this hand.
The pulse and warmth felt from him proved it.
"Mr. Hyosung. You're, you were al, alive...."
Not forgotten even in the moment she faced her end.
The encounter she had brushed off as trivial had come to her miraculously in this moment.
-Kwoong!!
But the situation was too precarious to be drunk on such relief.
The judge's gaze, realizing her previous attack had missed, was now shifting toward the demon holding the uninvited guest.
"......Human."
The commander of the Anti-Human Alliance.
The being who, true to the faction's name, defined humans as absolute enemies.
"That man, did he save you?"
She was gradually aiming the killing intent she had held toward the demon toward him instead, sharpening the blade of her heavy claws.
'No.'
The moment she faced it, she felt a surge of urgency.
She didn't know why.
But the one she had carelessly let slip away had come back to her.
'Not this person. Not him....'
A murderous spirit.
The moment Phobia's body flinched at a hostility she herself hadn't even recognized,
she tried to unleash her cold energy again in response, but even that subsided the instant she met the Clown's face.
What on earth. Just earlier, those eyes had been resigned, holding no lingering attachment to her life.
What meaning did that man hold to a demon who considered even the madness emitted by armies to be trivial, for her eyes to hold such a look?
"...Let's stop this."
Phobia, having soon understood that meaning, came to her own conclusion and withdrew her power.
And then she turned her back on the spot.
To one who might kill her, she revealed her back without hesitation.
"Stop? What on earth do you...."
"I said it doesn't add up to risk an all-out war with a Heavenly King. I don't know about before, but the current you wouldn't be an easy opponent."
A sudden shift in attitude.
To the Clown's words, spoken with bated breath, Phobia quietly replied.
"If I attacked, you'd pour everything into protecting that man. Am I wrong?"
Flinch.
The hands folded around his body spasmed.
A reaction perhaps not even recognized by herself.
Whatever the circumstances, realizing that an 'impossible thing' had indeed occurred, Phobia soon withdrew her attention from the woman without lingering regret.
"Consider yourself lucky you're heterosexual. If the one you fancied was a female like yourself, I would have also risked death to strike you down."
"Fa-fancied? What are you saying? What on earth do you mean by...!"
"I mean you should cherish that connection that brought out the current you."
Yes, in his voice fading into the darkness at this moment,
there faintly existed something that could be called 'expectation.'
"And if that's sincere, prove it."
"Prove that you demons, who live mad with desire, are also a race capable of loving someone, just like us beasts."
-Fwooosh.
Phobia Homer disappeared beyond the forest with the frost-laden wind.
Once even her shadow vanished from sight, the heavy pressure that had weighed down the space soon evaporated as if a lie.
"What, are you saying."
But what had happened here had already happened.
Now, with only the cold wind sweeping across her skin, Mephisto looked down at the man in her arms and placed a hand on his chest.
"What on earth are you saying. You."
Feeling the quietly beating pulse that proved he was alive.
-Thump, thump!
Growing stronger just from feeling that pulse.
Feeling her emotions, which she had thought long asleep, swell up with indignation.