Chapter 164
Chapter 164
Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 164
Chapter Title: A Mirror at the Edge of Hell
Let's sort out the situation.
I was killed by the Demon King just a moment ago.
And when I opened my eyes, I was alone here, in this darkness where the scenery refracts like standing on a water's surface.
"...Am I dreaming?"
"No. Everything you're experiencing now is reality. Your comrades, including Victoria, are all dead, and so are you."
Moreover, a version of me from another route is right in front of me.
Except for the hair and robe color, it looks exactly like me, as if looking in a mirror, but...
A foreboding sense that this guy and I are not the same was crawling up my entire body.
"Then... were you the Demon King? Was all of this just a test to see my potential...?"
"Ah, did you really think that? That all this madness was some kind of test? Hahaha...!"
The red-haired Astal—the one who introduced himself as Thanatos, the god of the underworld—looked at me and chuckled.
What was so funny?
He laughed, clutching his stomach, then rolled on the floor once, and even wiped his tears.
"Did your brain fry from casting magic at the last moment? How could Astal Kaisaros be the one who killed our parents and burned down our village?"
Tap. Tap.
Thanatos tapped his own temple twice with his finger and spoke.
"The latter is correct, but the former is wrong."
"Then who exactly is the Demon King...?"
I couldn't help but be even more puzzled by Thanatos's words.
If that's the case, why did he speak as if testing me until the moment of my death, mentioning the existence of other routes and trying to draw out a different outcome?
The body heat and fever that had been raging during the battle had vanished somewhere, and now my reason was on edge, as if I had fallen into a cold river.
Yes, as if I had truly fallen into hell.
"That guy isn't us from another worldline. He's just a nameless god worshipped as a local folk religion in some remote village."
Thanatos spoke as if it were nothing, even in response to my question.
How could a mere nameless god worshipped as a local folk religion in a remote village become the Demon King?
"Then why destroy the world, or specifically burn my hometown?"
"Well, didn't you hear it endlessly from the Demon King? That you can't even have a conversation unless you kill him. If you didn't like it, you should have been strong enough to kill him, like me."
Or perhaps everything this guy is saying is a lie?
No matter how many questions I piled on, the fog thickly clouding my mind wouldn't clear.
"Hey, you must not realize it since you haven't been dead long... I'm not a fairy who answers your questions. I have no obligation or duty to answer your curiosities immediately. Got it?"
"......"
Thanatos let out a deep sigh, patted my shoulder, and spoke.
It was clearly a demeaning gesture. The attitude of someone confident they are standing above me.
Disgust stirred from deep within my heart at seeing someone with my exact appearance act this way.
"...Then why did you invite me here? If you're a god of the underworld, you could just erase my existence without needing to have a conversation."
I spoke while grinding my teeth.
My beloved lover and my cherished comrades were all killed by the Demon King.
If you're going to invite me to this empty underworld, there must be a reason.
"Ah, that?"
Grin.
Thanatos showed me a twisted smile. His slightly distorted and contorted face was confusing, making it hard to tell if he was laughing or crying.
Because from his red eyes, the exact opposite of mine, I could glimpse burning ecstasy and rage.
"It's just... I personally wanted to take out my frustration on you."
"......!!!"
A shiver ran down my spine.
Feeling an instantly ominous aura, I had no choice but to leap far back, maintaining distance from Thanatos.
Why?
I felt a more primal fear than when I faced the Demon King.
As if pushing my neck onto the sharp blade of a guillotine—.
"Good intuition. Is it because you almost took down the Demon King right before dying?"
The true nature of the discomfort I'd been feeling.
Even though he looked exactly like Astal Kaisaros, the reason I felt no familiarity from him.
"Ah, this is why I didn't even want to talk to those Blue Tower bastards."
It was because he and I had lived completely opposite lives.
Unlike me, he entered the Red Magic Tower and honed his magic. Not being connected to Victoria, I could see he was deeply twisted somewhere.
"...Now, please revive my comrades. If you're a god of the underworld, you can do it."
Holding onto a sliver of hope, I asked Thanatos about reviving Victoria and the others.
A sudden question striking my mind.
He didn't seem like someone who would revive me and my comrades to give us a second chance.
If that were his intention, he wouldn't have acted so suspiciously.
"Why should I? Your comrades are strangers who have nothing to do with me."
"......"
The response was a sneer.
Sentences I would absolutely never utter, Thanatos spat out without a care.
"Right? In the end, different routes only influence each other; they don't change predetermined fate, nor are they the same people."
The third hypothesis I had recently discovered.
Logically, it was a valid statement, but emotionally, it was a cold, nauseating rationality.
"You're Astal Kaisaros too. How can you so easily...!!"
"Hey, unlike someone, I couldn't trust my comrades even if I wanted to, you know?"
Thanatos narrowed his brows as if finding my words ridiculous.
"In my worldline, all my comrades died before even a month passed."
"......"
The reason Thanatos was skeptical about reviving my comrades or Victoria.
"Yeah, from the start, that comradery, love, friendship—all that crap you feel—I have none of it."
It was because he was an Astal from a route where all his comrades died, unlike me, so he had no need for such things.
"Ah, though I did feel a bit of guilt towards Victoria. She got eaten by a monster trying to protect me."
With those words, Thanatos conjured a spherical three-dimensional magic circle in his palm.
An Idea tinged with red, unlike mine.
It looked similar to what my other-route self created using transformation, but its density and realm were on a different dimension.
Unlike me, who needed to borrow my comrades' power to manifest a perfect Idea,
"Her death, with her lower half severed, scattering blood and entrails... Honestly, I felt somewhat responsible for it."
This guy was drawing even heterogenous powers like the Holy Sword and Divine Power entirely from himself.
As if he had ripped open the corpses of his dead comrades himself and plundered the power within.
"I did as I learned in the Red Tower and burned the problematic flower with Pama's flames the moment I saw Victoria, and she truly hated me for it..."
"......"
"That foolish woman, acting all saintly, apparently wanted to protect me."
Thanatos recounted the situation at the time in detail, as if it had happened just yesterday.
When he first met Victoria, unlike me, he burned the flower, and she called him insane and condemned him.
Their relationship deteriorated to the worst, and because he was labeled a murderer who tried to kill the Saint, his party's coordination fell apart further.
A monster exploited that opening with a surprise attack.
He said the teachings of the Red Tower, focused solely on firepower and performance, left him defenseless against such an enemy's assault.
That's how Victoria had her lower half torn off and died,
Taryon had his head ripped off alive and died,
Anima had her flesh slowly carved out by a demon and died,
And finally, the Hero Kyle took his own life out of guilt for failing to protect his comrades.
"...Now do you see the difference between you and me? You lucky bastard."
What I experienced against the Demon King Ergothum, Thanatos had experienced at the very beginning of his journey.
"Then all the more reason to give me a chance. If you cooperate and revive me, that's all."
Even after hearing Thanatos's unfortunate past, I couldn't give up hope and pleaded with him.
Seeing he had risen to the position of an underworld god, it seemed certain Thanatos could bring the dead back to life.
"Hey, sorry, but I already gave you a chance."
However, Thanatos ignored my plea and continued enlarging the red Idea.
"I gave you my Eidōs, didn't I? I did that to try and protect at least the Victoria of your worldline."
"...Ah."
The other Idea that became the key to killing the Demon King. I thought I had connected with another route through transformation, but was that his arrangement?
"Then you could have told me this earlier. At least the Demon King's weakness or danger..."
I tried to point out that Thanatos, appearing as another-route Astal, didn't give me any prior hints or information.
"This is why you're hopeless. To help you while avoiding 'that guy' hiding behind the Demon King, this was the best way."
But Thanatos shook his head and grimaced. An expression of rising anger at the other's lack of understanding.
"Wait, 'that guy'? You mean there's truly someone else besides the Demon King?"
Instantly recalling the mural I saw in the forbidden archive, I asked Thanatos again, just in case.
"No more questions."
Clenching his fist tightly, Thanatos prepared to thrust the red Idea towards my solar plexus.
"What's happening here is just my personal venting."
"......"
"It'll hurt so much you'll wish you could die, but you won't be able to. Just grit your teeth and endure for a few hundred years."