Eldacrad's Will
The memories of Eldacrad flowed into me. So Berna really was Bernoa. She just shortened her name. What a piece of trash.
Bernoa had wanted the lord who showed her affection. When that love wasn't returned, she convinced herself it wasn't the lord's fault at all. It was just self-justification. And after falling and becoming a demon, those twisted thoughts only grew stronger. Because if she became a demon, Eldacrad would reject her even more.
In the middle of all that, the Ashtar family had somehow managed to recover Eldacrad's corpse. Eldacrad, hardened by countless wars, had ordered a swift retreat. The fact that only a few dozen survived suggested they must have been wiped out while trying to retrieve his body.
The reason Bernoa had come to this place was obvious. With the Demon King dead, she had come to the mausoleum to use Eldacrad in his place. But that wasn't the real problem.
What Eldacrad had seen in his memories was unmistakably the Demon King. Yet the being I had encountered was completely different. That led me to one possible conclusion.
Perhaps everyone who looked upon the Demon King saw something different.
What Eldacrad had seen outside was a deep, endless abyss. In his memories, Bernoa had seen the Demon King as Eldacrad himself. That version would have loved her. So the real Eldacrad became the fake in her eyes.
The Demon King I had met was far too ordinary. It had taken a human form. And it had looked exactly like me.
What was certain was that the Demon King appeared differently to everyone. So what determined its appearance? Could it be that it showed itself as whatever the viewer desperately longed for?
Eldacrad wouldn't have wished for darkness. Or perhaps that abyss was the Demon King's true form, and since Eldacrad had been outside, he hadn't been directly influenced by it. Bernoa, in the midst of her corruption, might have been dragged before Seto and thrown in front of the Demon King, seeing it as her beloved lord.
Maybe I, too, had been hoping for a Demon King that could at least speak.
If that was the case, what had Pector and Clanice seen?
For now, let's assume it shows what one desperately desires. It's too late to change anything, but there's one last thing I'm curious about.
If only the Holy Sword could cut down that abyss, then how should my defeat of the Demon King be interpreted? Did the Demon King actually die?
No matter how many times I turned it over in my mind, the questions wouldn't go away. In the end, I shoved the tangled threads of doubt into a corner of my chest and opened my eyes.
Eldacrad was still staring at me. His face had already turned to white bone, hidden beneath his helm, but the blue flames visible in his eyes pierced straight through me, locking onto my gaze.
“Are you okay, brother?”
I brushed off Noel's worried question and simply stared at Eldacrad.
“Eldacrad. Are you asking me to take revenge for you?”
Eldacrad said nothing. But the upright light burning within his helm clearly reflected affirmation.
“I'm different. I'm not of Ashtar blood. Besides, I'm not exactly a good person. I even possess the power of the demons who killed you. You want revenge from someone like me?”
The Four Heavenly Kings were indeed my enemies. But that didn't mean I was doing this for revenge. When you thought about it, my situation was complicated. I was simply the mage Noah from the Land of Destruction wearing Olivia's shell. How much of Olivia's soul, the one who inherited Ashtar blood, still remained inside me? I had no idea.
Yet he said nothing more to me. With a hand that seemed almost completely rigid, he pointed somewhere, then collapsed into a pile of white bones.
“Brother? Are you alright?”
“It's over.”
“Haa. Finally, it's done.”
Noel sank to the ground as if all strength had left her. What bothered me was where Eldacrad had pointed with his final gesture. I looked in that direction and saw a small chest.
“This is...”
When I opened it, I found items that appeared to have belonged to Eldacrad during his lifetime. A grimoire, a diary, and various other things.
“Is it really okay to rummage through a dead person's belongings like this?”
That was the purpose of coming here anyway.
“This was the goal. And it seems like Eldacrad wanted me to read them.”
The grudges of the dead were terrifying things. When Eldacrad had passed his memories to me, he should have been properly dead. In other words, he had used nothing but pure resentment to briefly raise his corpse as a revenant, all to protect his descendants and pass on his will. It was probably something that could only be called a miracle.
And because it left a bad taste in my mouth, I couldn't just let this go.
“Wait, these books?”
There were two books. One was written in the Empire's common tongue, the other in the script of the minority tribe from the Land of Destruction. It was a genealogy.
It contained the Ashtar family tree from Eldacrad's era, along with the lineage of the people living in the Land of the Godslayers—that is, the Land of Destruction.
After confirming its contents, I felt utterly drained.
“So that's how it is. In other words, whether it's Noah or Olivia, it didn't matter at all.”
The population of the Land of Destruction hadn't been that large. Naturally, there were families connected by bloodlines. But one name listed in the minority tribe's genealogy also appeared in the Ashtar family tree.
“Noel. What was our great-grandmother's name again?”
“It was Hilda.”
“Eldacrad's mother. Olivia's great-grandmother was also Hilda.”
That's right. Eldacrad's mother had been both the great-grandmother of Noah and Noel and, at the same time, the great-grandmother of Olivia.
I handed the genealogy to Noel.
“What the hell... It's real?”
“Sword Magic can only be used by those with the bloodline. I thought I had manifested Swordmagic using the power of the soul that belonged to the person called Noah, but...”
It wasn't that simple. In the end, everything was strangely connected.
“So what are you going to do now?”
“The family relationships are a bit pitiful. Does that make Eldacrad our relative?”
This complicated things quite a bit.
“Are you going to take revenge?”
“I have to crush the Four Heavenly Kings anyway.”
Setting everything else aside, I was the one who had killed the Demon King. And because of that, the Four Heavenly Kings had gone completely insane. In a way, I felt responsible. The Hero would never be able to defeat the Demon King in his lifetime, but at the very least, I had to deal with the Four Heavenly Kings. Even if I couldn't kill them, I needed to beat them so badly they couldn't use their power anymore.
“You're not exactly the honest type, brother. You always use the world however it benefits you.”
“For now, I'm also Olivia.”
“That doesn't mean the Noah part of you disappears.”
“Yeah. That's true. But right now, the me who was Noah and the current Olivia are in slightly different situations.”
I told Noel about what had happened that day. About my first meeting with Olivia and the reason Noah's soul had been inside her. To put it clearly, I had spent years together with Olivia in this body. Olivia had become me, and I had become Noah. The one who had fought the Demon King was Noah's original self. I told her everything. Especially the details of the battle against the Demon King.
“I see. So you're Olivia now. Haa, yeah. Well, you were never the type to care about things like that anyway.”
“Now it's your turn to talk. Do you really not like the Hero?”
Surely she wasn't that thick-headed.
“Haa. Listen, Olivia sis. It's not a matter of whether I like the Hero or not.”
“Then what?”
Or what, did she just want the best-looking man like the Hero who chased after women?
“How many people from the tribe in the Land of Destruction are left?”
“Well...”
How many were left? At most, only Noel remained, right? Yeah. Right now, only Noel was left. But why bring that up now?
“You killed them all when you were my brother, didn't you?”
“That was the best option at the time.”
There had been no choice. The minority tribe that had been isolated for so long had been planning the foolish act of resurrecting a god. There was no other way. I had to kill them all. Resurrecting a god? I'd rather face the Demon King. Still, I had hoped at least a few might have survived.
“Yes. The best choice. It was the best. And right now, this is also the best choice for me. Our tribe only has me left now.”
“Huh?”
“Or what, are you suggesting we should go for complete extinction? Are you going to give birth to children even though you're a woman who lived decades as a man?”
“Uh, that's...”
No. That was impossible. Biologically impossible.
“Even if that were possible, the blood of the tribe descended from Eldacrad isn't that much. If the blood has to be mixed anyway, then the Hero would be better.”
“Is that your true intention?”
“Yes.”
No matter how I looked at it, something felt off.
“Still, what can't be done can't be done. No matter how good the Hero's bloodline is as the chosen one. Above all...”
“What? There's another reason?”
Of course there was. From the beginning, this wasn't a problem between just the two of us.
“The Hero doesn't like women with bodies like yours.”
“What!?”
Noel looked shocked. It wasn't surprising. Because, surprisingly, it was the truth. The Hero liked women with big breasts. Even if they were ugly, as long as their chest was large, he gave them points. After that came body lines and hips, then legs.
“I'm not teasing you. It's true. The Hero is far more depraved than you know in many ways. There's no way a flat-chested girl like you would ever catch his eye.”
I looked Noel up and down and let out a small laugh. Surprisingly, my little sister had a slender figure. It wasn't bad. But with such small breasts, the Hero would never consider her as a marriage partner.
“Wow, now that you're a woman you're saying things like that? Did getting those lumps of fat give you some kind of female pride?”
It wasn't exactly pride, but I could understand why she felt inferior.
“It's not like I like the Hero, and I have no reason to brag to you about this. Anyway, you've always had a bad case of paranoia. Fine, let's do this.”
Noel had an unnecessarily high sense of pride. That was why she had run away from home. I decided to use that against her.
“What?”
“You should confess to him. If the Hero rejects you, then give up.”
“No, that's...”
From her reaction, it seemed she hadn't even tried seducing the Hero yet. That made it even better. I wondered how that idiot Hero would react if Noel confessed to him.
“Why? Don't you have the confidence?”
As I spoke, I gave her a dirty, scheming smile that was completely unbecoming of a noble lady.
“Fine. I'll show you. I'll show you how the womanizing Hero falls for me. At least if I can treat him like my slave, it won't matter, right?”
“Well, that...”
Treat the Hero like a slave? Huh, wait. That actually sounded pretty good?
“Just using him as a seed dispenser is fine, isn't it?”
Before worrying about that, the real question was whether the Hero would even have such thoughts about her.
-Hey. Noah. If she doesn't have breasts, she's not a woman.
-What are you talking about?
-Women need big breasts to breastfeed their children. But what about flat-chested women? It's impossible. In other words, they lack the ability to fulfill their role as women. That's why I like women with big breasts.
-What the hell is wrong with this crazy bastard.
I had just brushed it off at the time, thinking he simply liked groping breasts more than thinking about babies. But now that I thought about it, it did seem that way.
Suddenly looking at my sister like this... I wondered how Noel would raise a child if she gave birth.
“Let's head back for now.”
I found myself looking at her with sympathetic eyes.
“What’s with those eyes?”
“It's nothing. I'm tired.”
“Hey!”
Giving her sympathy wasn't good this time either. Anyway, good luck, Noel!
After bickering for quite a while, Noel and I finally managed to exit the mausoleum. My body was so exhausted I felt like I would collapse at any moment. Outside the mausoleum, knights and the magic division were waiting. Among them were Seria and Kise.
“Are you alright, Lady Olivia?”
“Are you okay, Miss Olivia?”
Seria and Kise supported me. Behind them stood the head of the Ashtar family—Olivia's father. He had even brought siege weapons. It looked like he had been planning to destroy the mausoleum if necessary.
“A powerful demonic energy erupted from the mausoleum. What happened inside?”
Yes. I had to tell him. This was something the family head, Eldacrad's son, needed to know more than I did.
“Father. We encountered one of the Four Heavenly Kings, Berna. No, the corrupted Saint Berna who betrayed Grandfather.”
At my words, Father's eyes flashed sharply.