Ether's Quiet End and the Soulless Man
Ether wasn't suffering from any particular illness. His time as a living being had simply run its course. If there had been a disease, I would have healed it with my powers of restoration.
One day, Ether gathered all his direct descendants and Elizabeth's grandchildren. It was for my sake. Or perhaps for the Ether Empire. In any case, he wanted our connection to endure unbroken.
Gathering them together, I was surprised by how many there were. Elizabeth had borne three sons and a daughter, it seemed, and that lineage had flourished.
"Everyone is assembled, Your Majesty," the current emperor reported to Ether. The reigning emperor was Ether's grandson—a man well past sixty, his hair gray with age.
Ether, who had been lying with his eyes gently closed, opened them. "From this moment, those who have heard the voice of the Guardian Spirit—raise your hands."
At Ether's command, everyone chorused their assent and grew tense with anticipation. The Guardian Spirit had vanished long ago, now little more than a legend in history books. Anyone who claimed to have heard its oracle would skyrocket in status.
[Don't raise your hands—lift your right foot instead.]
This wasn't just my prank. Ether and I had planned it together, though a bit of mischief on our part was mixed in.
In a crowd of some fifty, two raised hands, and one lifted a right foot.
"Tch! Drag out those who raised their hands and give them a good thrashing," Ether said with a click of his tongue. The emperor, baffled but obedient, summoned knights to haul away the hand-raisers.
I approached the girl who had lifted her leg and examined her closely. She appeared to be a young woman in her early twenties. Isabel's face seemed to overlay her own.
[You resemble Isabel.]
"Wh-what an honor, Guardian Spirit!"
The flustered girl didn't know what to do until Ether called her over. "Come closer."
As she approached, Ether peered at her intently. "You are..." He wasn't inspecting her—he'd simply forgotten who she was. Fair enough; Ether was over a hundred years old.
"Yuri Telmeier, Your Majesty."
"Granddaughter of Great-Aunt Elizabeth," the emperor added by her side.
Elizabeth's great-granddaughter, all grown up—it was hard to reconcile even as I watched.
"Will this one do?" Ether asked the air, as if addressing me. Pure theater. Age had only amplified his eccentricities.
[Yes.]
There were no other options anyway. Leaving Yuri behind, we dismissed the rest and heard her story.
Yuri was already married, despite her youthful looks—to the eldest son of the Telmeier barony, who happened to work as an official in the imperial palace. Perfect.
Ether immediately appointed her as the dedicated liaison to the Guardian Spirit. It might sound like a ceremonial post, but its prestige was immense.
Tears streaming, Yuri bowed her head to the floor, vowing to do her utmost.
To ensure no one dismissed her as a figurehead, I spent a few days rooting out foreign spies and corrupt officials, handing her the list. The palace erupted in chaos—and they began to fear her a little. Not all reactions were positive, but it achieved the desired effect.
After that, various events unfolded, but Ether and I stepped back to observe. He'd lived that way even before I arrived.
Together, we quietly prepared for the end. Less than two months later, Ether went to sleep one early evening as usual—and never woke.
A painless, peaceful death. I watched over his final moments.
[Rest well, my son.]
Gazing at Ether's soul ascending to the heavens, I bid him farewell in my own way.
His funeral was grand beyond measure—perhaps the most magnificent in human history.
Afterward, with Yuri leading the way, I delved into the past eighty-six years, piecing together what had transpired. I could have done it alone, but since it involved palace records, I used her as cover.
My greatest curiosity was Emperor Eugene. The man who could have conquered the continent single-handedly had, surprisingly, made no territorial gains after ending the undead plague.
He ruled for twenty years with few reforms, then vanished one day. He had concubines but no children or designated heir, sparking a civil war. One of his close aides, Duke Emyris, ascended the throne.
Eugene never reappeared anywhere.
Beyond that, the continent had seen more upheavals in those eighty-six years than in the previous millennium combined. Nations rose and fell amid countless wars.
Spending months absorbing records to fill the gaps in my timeline, I prepared to depart once more.
A few nagging concerns remained. First, Emperor Eugene's disappearance—it was too abrupt for someone of his caliber.
Second, the whereabouts of the Beast King. Third, the cockroach Drakan had mentioned.
I still remembered that horrifying tale: all the cockroaches in the world were one entity. Yet I suspected a true body existed somewhere—likely on Drakan's level. I wanted to find that third cockroach, the one even Drakan couldn't locate.
The monkey, lizard, and cockroach that ate the fruit granting immense power had all become extraordinary: a god-dragon, humanity's progenitor, the Beast King's origin, and an immortal cockroach thriving everywhere.
One missing? Drakan had said it casually, but it was suspicious.
I would track them down. Why? Time was plentiful, and I had nothing better to do. That's who I am.
Before leaving the capital, I verified one detail from the records. Long ago, wandering the royal capital and learning various things, I'd stumbled upon the secret vault of Ashronz Merchant Company—the largest guild then.
Years after I last left the capital, the owner died mysteriously, and the company collapsed overnight. I revisited the vault I'd tailed him to. The treasures remained untouched. Eighty years abandoned—mine now, to use well.
I gave a portion to Yuri. The Telmeier family wasn't wealthy, after all.
About 100,000 gold—an enormous sum, which she tried to refuse.
[I'm the empire's Guardian Spirit. That's pocket change.]
She couldn't argue with that. And truthfully? Considering Drakan's hoard, I might be the world's richest.
I warned her I wouldn't return for a while. Hopefully not another eighty-plus years like last time, but who knows with the world?
I slipped out via the capital's sewers. Filth and stench meant nothing to me.
I sought places teeming with cockroaches. Not expecting easy success, of course.
But they were just cockroaches. I must have seen tens of thousands, yet no special ones. Still, the idea that they were all connected was chilling.
En route to the eastern continent, I kept observing cockroach hotspots. Perhaps the true body lurked in some unreachable dungeon, like Drakan or Inklonius.
Traveling leisurely, I finally reached the Eugene Empire.
Tracing Emperor Eugene proved difficult—an ancient event, and his vanishing utterly sudden.
While probing the imperial annex, I found a intriguing notebook.
I'd started out of curiosity, touring the well-guarded vault with its stringent security and wards. Nothing could bar me. Compared to Ether Empire's, the treasures here were impressive.
Amid them, incongruously, lay a worn notebook that caught my eye.
It resembled a diary by Grüne, one of Eugene's favorite concubines. It detailed his abilities.
I knew Eugene's power as a form of severance—slicing hundreds of thousands of undead into bits, even cleaving souls.
But Grüne described it differently: Eugene claimed he dominated space itself.
Not mere cutting—he severed space proper. He teleported freely and wielded vast subspaces.
Like an evolved form of the spatial magic Inklonius researched for centuries.
Most crucially: shortly before vanishing, Eugene had spoken of opening a gate to another world.
I suspected it akin to the dimensional travel Inklonius never perfected. Thus, Eugene had crossed dimensions.
He might return someday, but he was gone from this world. Given human lifespans, likely dead—though as a transcendent powerhouse, who knows.
One mystery resolved. The others wouldn't solve in a day, and I had no leads.
So, I turned to what I could: more cockroaches.
The Eugene capital's sewers crawled with more than Ether's. One wondered what they ate to thrive.
No special specimens among the hordes.
As I briefly surfaced during my survey, I noticed something odd—an utterly ordinary man. Laughing, chatting… as ordinary as they come.
Yet he had no soul.
I first thought undead, but none acted so naturally.
I tailed him. Days of watching confirmed: pure normalcy. Hans, a mid-twenties everyman. Worked, ate, slept, shat, laughed, cried, raged. Organs functioned human-perfect.
No soul. No mana or magic detectable.
Sole oddity: no family. Lived alone.
After three months without further clues, I decided to kill Hans.
He lived like a man, but wasn't one. Maybe not even alive.
I used a familiar method: burst his heart.
Splat!
Finishing work and heading home, Hans collapsed limply as his heart exploded.
Moments later, he rose. His heart had regenerated, beating steadily.
"What the...?"
Hans glanced around warily. I braced for retaliation—this entity was suspicious enough.
His face twisting feral, he stepped outside, scanned, then returned.