Chapter 20
Chapter 20
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 2
Chapter Title: Garden, Love, Sorrow
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The boss fight ended surprisingly without much fanfare.
It wasn't that strong of an opponent. If anything, the battle with Thorn Rose Belmont had been a bit trickier.
But it left a longer-lasting impression than any boss I'd killed so far. I couldn't quite put my finger on why.
Maybe it was just because it had lived so long.
Even after I landed the finishing blow, Langbie twitched, as if flaunting his life force.
No message about executing a mighty foe appeared. Even if he came back to life three times bigger, my greatsword would just repeat the fight all the same.
So I quietly let my battle-heated body cool while watching his end. It didn't seem like there'd be a phase three, or that Langbie was a fake boss with a stronger one waiting in the wings...
"Ah... damn it..."
Langbie clutched the rose he'd placed at the top of the castle spire. His touch was delicate, full of care.
As if he were worried his filthy palm might bruise the petals. Whether his appearance was inherently dirty, or stained by the grudges of all those he'd killed and tormented, I couldn't easily decide.
"Ahh—"
Langbie spoke through his split lips. My greatsword had cleaved down nearly through his skull, and his consciousness was fading, but to the end, he savored the rose's scent and color.
"Miss..."
He seemed to have a lot of regrets.
Everyone did. I was gnashing my teeth and fighting just to avoid dying as much as possible, so in truth, I wasn't all that different from this gardener.
"La, Langbie!"
From afar, Doren came running in a panic. His skinny fingers groped at his old friend, who was slowly dying.
"S-sorry... sob... I'm sorryyy... B-but... I-it was... sc-scary..."
Doren had feared the gardener, but before Langbie, who was now scattering blessings and fading away, he cried out with eyes full of tears.
"I didn't want to die! I didn't want to die, Langbie! I can't die! I don't want to die like this...! Lord Magius was scary, but you were even scarier!"
His clasped hands rose above his head. Just like when the gardener had slammed the ground to kill me.
But this time, the meaning was entirely different. Doren pleaded toward the sky in his frail voice, like a prayer.
"M-Miss... please forgive me, I beg you... Please... Langbie, forgive me too... I-I didn't want to die... I'd live like this wretchedly forever, just please, no dying..."
Doren bowed his head even as he prayed. Did the tears welling in his eyes and slowly falling hold pains and stories I didn't know?
"The miss is already dead! Langbie, she already sacrificed herself for all of us! It's too late now! You know that...! Even if everyone here turns into flowers, she won't come back! It's all over!"
The gardener Langbie extended the rose in his massive hand toward Doren.
A noble, proud blossom that didn't suit two ugly, lowly, unattractive men at all.
"Doren..."
The gardener showed it to his friend and spoke.
"We have to protect the miss..."
It wasn't that the gardener regained his sanity just before death. Alive or dying now, he only cared for the miss who had become a flower.
"W-we protect... the miss... from those guys..."
He was still wary of me. No, afraid.
I couldn't tell exactly what he feared. Whether it was Mortals like me harming that rose, or the people from the monastery who sent me here...
"Langbie!"
But Doren spoke for me.
"This isn't the miss, it's just the blessing she left behind! The miss is already... d-dead!"
Doren kept shouting at his friend, who wasn't in his right mind, desperately hoping his voice would reach those huge ears.
"No..."
Yet Langbie slowly tried to rise again.
"The miss... protect..."
What terrifying tenacity. Now I had no choice but to prepare for phase three.
The absence of an execution message alone made this feel like an ominous calm before the storm. I wanted to give these two men their tearful reunion, but if there really was a phase three...
It'd be a real problem.
"Doren, that's enough. Step back. We have to fight again—"
"E-Execuutioneeer!"
Whether he sensed my thoughts or not, Doren desperately tried to stop me.
He trembled...
His shaking hand blocked my path. Whether he was too afraid even to speak to me, Doren practically groveled, chin to the ground, begging.
"Please, p-please... I'll... I'll handle it..."
The hands that had been raised to the sky now rested on my greatsword. Those pathetic, quivering hands were soon covered in blood. Probably from his friend's thick blood smeared on the blade.
"Langbie. Listen to me. Got it?"
But despite Doren's frantic cries and desperate pleas, Langbie slowly rose. One hand clutched the rose to his chest, the other gripped a broken stone pillar.
He meant to fight me again. And changes were starting in his form once more.
Just like when Rotten Knight Veronine had transformed into a wolf...
"Langbie!"
So Doren pounded his friend's leg with his bloodied fists. Pitiful power compared to my greatsword swings.
"Langbieeee!"
But those cotton-soft punches never stopped.
Thud thud thud!
Like desperately knocking on a door, his arms hammered, trying to pry open the gardener's heart.
Maybe those feeble fists really stopped him. Langbie had been about to rise on one knee, but he froze in place, looking down at his friend.
"It's all over now. Ngh...?"
Whenever I spared an NPC or traveled with them, these unexpected events always popped up.
"E-Execuutioner... p-please show mercy... s-sorry for interrupting the fight... B-but, he's my friend... At least let him die like this... not cursed..."
Doren must have thought I was a battle maniac; he sincerely apologized for interfering, trembling violently...
"Langbie... please rest now... stop... You can't win anyway! Don't change more. Don't scatter the curse..."
I had no intention of interrupting their talk. Maybe from the moment I met Doren, this ending was set.
"Give it to the Executioner now... You can't protect it. Give the blessing the miss left to him! W-we can't do it. We're not enough... J-just... give it to him..."
My choices had led here, after all.
Of course, the two men's negotiation didn't conclude easily. Langbie had no intention of entrusting his miss to a wandering Mortal like me.
He seemed ready to abandon his own form to kill me and become something entirely different. Maybe, like Rotten Knight Veronine twisting into his own warped shape, entering phase three was the proper route.
"Please listen to me... Give the flower, what the miss left, to him... Th-the Executioner is kind. As kind as the miss. He spared a wretch like me..."
But Doren alternated glances between me and Langbie, pleading to the end. He didn't want to see his friend fight anymore. Or maybe he wanted to give him a brief rest before death.
"All right. Entrust it to me."
So I extended my empty palm toward Langbie, not my greatsword, and spoke.
"...Just tell me how to water it. First time handling a flower."
I said it without much thought.
No need for my words to turn cruel just because the world was. I spoke as usual.
"..."
But Langbie's eyes widened at my words.
"Water...?"
His face twisted into something between a smile and a sob.
Did he like that I saw the miss as a single flower? Or did he think I'd properly take on the gardener's duty?
I wasn't sure. But the hatred on his face slowly faded.
"Ah..."
Langbie looked down at the rose in his arms. Tears flowed from both sides of his split face.
"Ahh."
His massive hand trembled. Langbie seemed to have already decided his next action.
Clunk—
The stone pillar slipped from his hand to the ground. The gardener Langbie finally abandoned the fight.
As he forsook battle and life, his body began to scatter like smoke. All the blessings within him slowly transferred to me.
"Executioner..."
Amid it all, Langbie left his final words.
"Once in the morning... water... don't let the soil dry..."
A man who had tortured dozens, hundreds into agony, but his last words were profoundly simple.
"Not too little... plenty... but not too much..."
"Got it."
The being who had terrorized the entire Screaming Forest looked like a child handing over a precious treasure, tearfully giving me the rose.
Even as I took it and tucked it away...
"Ahh..."
Langbie's huge hand lingered in the air, trembling for a long time.
"...Miss."
Finally, the victory message appeared.
Our battle came to a close. The long yet short journey through the Screaming Forest reached its end.
"Langbie, sob... La, Langbie..."
The chain of battles that began with screams ended dotted with the men's tears and sorrow.
"Every... every... one... sorry... I'm sorry..."
Doren mourned his completely departed friend and atoned to all who had become flowers, wracked with grief.
Listening to his wails, I read the description of the red rose I'd just acquired.
It had been a grotesque, violent journey, but the important item I'd ultimately gained here was described in surprisingly sentimental terms.
Bloodstained Red Rose
The blessing of a new era created by Lord Magius sacrificing his daughter. The twisted mercy he left behind warped grotesquely over time, so they sought to right the divine order once more. Please grant us mercy once again. Glorious blessings.
...Sentimental wording, but the content is anything but.
Lord Magius sacrificed his own daughter, and Knight Captain Belmont and Gardener Langbie rebelled, trying somehow to revive the miss.
"Executioner."
Doren called to me from the desolate center of the ruined garden, kneeling in despair.
"Heh, heh... I-I honestly don't kn-know anymore."
I walked closer and offered my hand, but even grabbing it, he hesitated...
"I don't even know what's a blessing and what's a curse anymore. It would've been better if I'd just died sooner..."
He covered his face with his palms and sobbed.
"But... I-I still want to live... I don't want to die... Even if it makes me no different from Lord Magius... I still want to live..."
Comforting others wasn't my specialty. In the end, I just rested my hand on Doren's shoulder and stayed silently by his side.
Now even the gardener's blessings had all transferred to me without remainder. I could get even stronger with this.
But this time, it wasn't just the blessing count rising.
Gardener's Lingering Will
The remnants of Langbie left in Lord Magius's garden. The lady became the sacrifice, the master silent to it, but the lowly slave stayed by her side to the end. His flowers were both rage and atonement. Together with those who humbly accepted their pain, the gardener filled the blood garden with screams. Give back the miss. I'll make as many flowers as you want, so please, just give back the miss.
"..."
I read its description while sitting beside Doren, waiting.
For his sorrow to settle calmly, like dust from the soil.