At the End of Hell (7)
Snowfields and snow-capped mountains were probably the most common sights in the North. Wherever snow piled across open ground, you had a snowfield; wherever it fell on a slope, you had a snow mountain.
Put another way, the North was a place where snow always accumulated. A true land of snow—where drifts only as high as a grown man's waist were considered a light fall.
An ordinary person would sink with every step and exhaust themselves before getting far. Someone who knew the North would strap on snowshoes and move that way.
But what if you could use holy power?
Taat!
Holy power burst from his feet and launched his body into the air. Just before he sank into the snow, he pushed off again with the barest foothold and another pulse of holy power, and he repeated the motion over and over.
Leon was racing across the deep-piled snow like an arrow. Only the tiniest footprints remained to mark his passage.
Not much farther.
Running atop the snow like this was wildly inefficient. Under normal circumstances Leon would never have done it—but urgency cracked the whip at his back.
His white hair streamed in the wind as he tore across the snow, spending holy power without restraint.
Kihieeeek!!
The closer he drew to the nest, the more spiders appeared around him. Separate from the brood mother's recall order, they bristled with hostility, unwilling to tolerate an enemy approaching their home.
One spider opened its maw toward Leon.
Chwahat!
Something transparent came flying with a sound like wind being split.
"Useless tricks!"
Chwajak!
His halberd carved through the air. Something light settled around him.
Transparent, sticky spider silk. Without holy power coating the blade, the threads would never have been cut—they would have clung and fouled the edge instead.
Leon clicked his tongue at the thoroughly irritating attack.
"Tsk. From one to ten, not a single thing I like about these things."
Tu-kwaaang!
From the direction of the nest, a pillar of holy power surged skyward once more. Waves of light punched through the clouds and spread across the heavens, rippling outward like a stone cast into a pond.
The pillar was a little smaller than before. That meant time was running out.
His strides lengthened. He had no time to waste on small fry.
Kihieeeek!
"You vermin!"
His halberd bared its teeth at the spiders charging in. Even holy power felt wasted on the likes of them.
Chajajak! Chwaak!
The path Leon left behind was lined only with spider corpses trailing in his wake.
Taat!
The nest was right ahead now.
...Exactly as I remember.
A classic spider-fiend nest. A festival of cocoons rising alone in the middle of the snowfield.
From a distance it was large enough to be mistaken for a small hill.
That little hill of cocoons, wrapped tight in silk, looked like some madman's sculpture. It gave anyone who saw it an unnameable revulsion and made them want to turn around.
If the purpose was to warn off intruders, it had succeeded.
Bulge. Bulge!
The older cocoons had faded nearly to gray, but among the freshly made white ones, some still writhed.
The cocoons hanging in midair on threads came in every size—from things no bigger than a rabbit to others larger than an ox. The whole place was nothing but cocoons and sticky webbing.
Leon kept advancing, cutting through the obstructing silk with his halberd.
——————!!
Kwa-kwang! Chaaeng!
"Master!"
The fiend's roar, the clash of steel, and the lingering resonance of holy power.
A pressure so fierce it made his skin prickle washed over him.
At full strength it might have been different—but his master was burdened with Leon's own unconscious younger self. It was as good as fighting in chains. He would be at a severe disadvantage.
Taat!
He kicked off the ground toward the sound. His halberd trembled. Or perhaps it was his hands that shook.
Huu—
He drew a light breath and shook off the tension, anxiety, and restlessness clinging to him. He was no greenhorn. He had long since outgrown the age of being tripped up by things like that.
Kwaang! Kagagak!
The noise of fierce combat was right in front of him. Leon gripped his halberd and leapt hard.
——————!!
"Hwaaaat!"
Chajajak! Chwaak!
The brood mother of the nest had raised two enormous forelegs high, poised to drive them into the earth. Its bulk was so vast that even Leon, a large man himself, had to crane his neck a long way to look up at it.
Before that colossal monster, his master stood firm with nothing but a single halberd—truly unyielding.
Sswaeaeek!
A foreleg thick as a pillar came slamming down. Some unknown liquid glistened on the pointed tip. That would be the venom that interfered with holy power.
Taat!
That poison is dangerous.
He threw himself in, carrying the speed already built into his body, and raised his halberd to catch the foreleg.
Kaaang—!
Steel met flesh, yet the sound rang out clear as steel on steel. The massive foreleg pressed down as if to crush the halberd outright.
"Ghhk! A-are you... hurt anywhere...!"
"No, lad—I'm fine! That sorry fool over there is the one who fainted."
"Khh. I... see!!"
Leon's thick arms shook. Sheer mass was a weapon in its own right.
"Hold on just a little longer!"
Saaa—
Bright light gathered on his master's halberd, condensing and compressing. Holy power forced to its absolute limit coated the blade in a paper-thin film.
"Chaah!"
Sswaeaeek!
——————!!
A crescent of holy power sliced through the air and sheared off both of the brood mother's forelegs.
Leon seized the moment of the brood mother's frenzy and sprang well back. Its enraged roar shook the entire nest.
——————!!
Shuk! Sswaeaeek!
The remaining six legs stabbed in from every direction.
Angles he could not dodge.
Then he would simply meet them.
Chae-chae-chaeng! Chaeng!
He wrapped holy power around his halberd and knocked all six legs aside.
Rebound force sharp enough to make his hands go numb raced up his arms.
Venom from the tips of the legs spattered his clothes with a hissing sound.
A lethal poison. Even a graze would reduce a man to a handful of bloody water.
"Leon! Get underneath!"
Kagagak!
A halberd identical to Leon's came flying in.
A strike swung from the brood mother's blind spot. It was stopped by the thick carapace of the back, but it drew the creature's gaze.
Leon dove into that opening and slipped beneath the brood mother.
Unlike the armored back, the belly was soft.
Holy power gathered on the halberd and shimmered.
"Huuu—"
He drew a short, sharp breath.
He put power into his legs and dragged the blade from top to bottom.
Seogeok.
——————!!
Chwahaaak!
The brood mother's belly split wide open, releasing a foul stench.
With a heavy thud that shook the ground, the enormous body collapsed. Left alone, it would die on its own.
Leon shook off his halberd and caught his breath. It was still too early to relax completely, but the worst of the crisis had passed.
"Huu..."
Pasaseuk.
The surrounding webs trembled. Spiders summoned by the brood mother were surrounding the area.
"Leon. Has my disciple not woken yet?"
"No, sir..."
Looking at his younger self, sprawled out so disgracefully unconscious, he could only sigh.
With the mother down, there's no great danger left. I just need to gather Master and myself and get out of here.
"Leon! Still got some strength left in you?"
"I'm still fine!"
"Then I'll leave that sorry fool to you! At my age, hauling him out myself is a bit much!"
His master's halberd radiated a soft glow of holy power. He still looked thoroughly combat-ready. Leon heaved his collapsed younger self onto his back and lashed him firmly in place with cut spider silk.
Kwaak.
His younger self was as heavy as he was large. Old joints screamed, but he reinforced them with holy power and endured.
"Heup!"
With a shout of effort, Leon rose. For a fleeting moment the thought crossed his mind—wasn't he older now than his master had been?
"...Escape first."
Getting out safely came before everything else. His master's halberd hummed, softly radiating holy power. The energy was gathering once more.
"Heup!"
Uuung.
——————!!
Holy power collected at his master's fingertips, then scattered toward the ground. It spread in ripples clear enough to see with the naked eye. The expanding circle of power reacted violently the moment it met a spider.
Pajijijik!
Kihieeeek!!
"Now!"
"Heup!"
They kicked off the ground through the gap left as the spiders recoiled from the holy power, racing outward while dodging the webs and cocoons in their path.
Kiheeeeeek!!
Kwaang! Kwa-kwang!
Spiders that finally grasped the situation came charging in a frenzy. They smashed cocoons and webs indiscriminately as they moved, but the spiders, eyes rolled back with rage, paid it no mind.
Taat!
How long did they run, weaving past silk and cocoons and spiders?
Ahead—the white snowfield came into view. They were almost there.
"Leon! Lord Lionheart! This way!"
Elemier's voice rang out from ahead. He had told her to stay far away—yet she had come all the way to the nest after all.
Kihiik... Kihik! Kihiik!
The spiders saw the paladins ringing the nest and faltered to a stop. Perhaps they judged that fighting after losing their mother put them at a disadvantage.
They turned and began fleeing back toward the nest.
Watching the spiders scramble away with their tails between their legs, Leon finally understood.
"Ah..."
Elemier. The people. His comrades and his master. He had protected them all.
Even if it was nothing more than a handful of illusion—he had finally saved every last one of them.
At last. After so long.
He could finally tell them.
Jureuk.
Leon dropped to his knees in the cold snow. His mouth opened and closed, words that never quite formed rising and sinking again.
What could he say? How could he dare speak?
Tears wet his face. He buried it in the snowfield to hide the wretched expression.
He bowed his head deep.
Across long years, across long time, he spoke the words he had never managed to deliver.
He dared to put an undeserved apology on his lips.
"I—I'm sorry... I'm sorry..."
I'm sorry.
"I... because of me... all of it was because of me...!"
It had all been his fault. He was the one who should have paid the price—yet the innocent had lost their lives.
Tuk. Tuduk.
Thick tears fell onto the snow.
How was he supposed to atone?
This was nothing but a hollow cry into emptiness.
"Leon. Raise your head."
His master's voice reached him. Rough hands pulled him to his feet.
"Have you fulfilled your duty?"
Not for a single moment had he forgotten it.
From that day on he had been a living man who was not truly alive. He had to carry out the share of those who had left as well.
So he had left the Holy Land, wandering and drifting, helping the poor and the persecuted.
Lionheart set a hand lightly on Leon's head.
"Yes. That is enough."
A gentle voice. Leon suddenly felt the forms of those surrounding him begin to shimmer. Was it only the tears blurring his sight? Somehow Lionheart's expression looked unburdened.
"Leon. My disciple."
Saaa—
His master's body—and the people around Leon—gradually scattered into light. The snowfield vanished and became a pitch-black sea. The dispersing motes of light returned to the water.
"M-Master!"
Leon's hands passed uselessly through his master's form. He flailed, trying to catch what was scattering, but it slipped between his fingers and drained away.
Lionheart grinned.
"You sorry fool. Don't do that. We're only going back where we belong."
"But..."
"You no longer need to bind yourself. Keep moving forward—don't stay chained to the past."
"But—but I—!"
"A lifetime of atonement, duty, and penance. That is enough."
No more.
"Do not keep yourself chained in the hell of regret."
Lionheart's form slowly faded. Like stardust vanishing into the dawn, he dissolved faintly into the air.
"We have already forgiven you."
So.
"You must forgive yourself as well."
The snowfield was gone. Black sea filled every direction. Everything had vanished—the nest, the people, his comrades.
Leon understood. That had been no mere illusion.
From long ago, he had simply been unable to forgive himself.
After turning through long, long time, the moment had finally come to face himself.
Leon asked himself.
Can I be forgiven?
Not yet.
His master and the others had forgiven him—but it still felt insufficient to him.
Not yet.
Twinkle.
Above the black sea, an especially large star seemed to shout at him.
Stop being so stubborn, it said—just as his master would have.
A bitter smile touched Leon's lips. Even so, the time was not yet right. He still had a duty remaining. That duty would not stop for as long as he drew breath.
Kwaak.
He gazed at the star shining over the black sea—then turned his back.
He walked forward in silence.
When these steps finally stopped, he would forgive himself.
His steps were heavy, and the halberd heavier still.
Even so, his heart felt a little lighter.
Because the only one buried in his heart had always been Leon alone.