Chapter 55
Chapter 55
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 55
Chapter Title: Southern Kingdom (9)
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The sword tips ground against each other, sending waves rippling outward.
I reflexively took two steps back, steadying my breath.
It was someone familiar from the frontline.
Someone I'd met there, someone who'd died there—never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd see her here again.
Our breaths came in short gasps, overlapping.
"...Cream."
There was no special reason I called her name.
She was just... there.
What had I been hoping for?
No answer came back.
Her mouth hung open vacantly, dried blood clinging to her jaw like icicles.
Even wide open, they spat out nothing.
Her eyes, where flies had once landed and maggots had swarmed, stared emptily.
She no longer wept. She saw nothing at all.
Eyes worse than none at all.
They moved only by the muscle memory of contracting thousands, millions of times in life.
"......Hah."
With no response from her, no more words came from me either.
Emotions that refused to form words leaked out as sighs.
I parried the sword she swung in place of a reply.
A sword unchanged, exactly as it lingered in memory.
A familiar arc.
It was an attack I'd blocked hundreds of times.
Chances for a lethal counter had flashed by endlessly, but each time, I'd eased the tension in my wrist.
The clash of metal repeated, our movements syncing flawlessly despite the misalignment.
I knew her sword.
I easily deflected the blade swung with the exact habits of her living days.
No different from reading the answers and copying them stroke for stroke.
All these swordplay exchanges and counters felt, at a glance, like a scripted play.
Like a show with a fixed script and choreography.
Even though it was anything but.
Even knowing it was pointless nonsense, performed alone without an audience.
I couldn't drop my sword. Nor could I swing it at Cream.
"I'll step in."
Frostblade said as much, assuming his stance, but I reached out to stop him.
"Alone... no, I'll handle it myself."
How did he know my state?
He had every reason to protest, yet Frostblade kept silent instead.
I was grateful for his silence.
"Cream."
Was I truly believing the Great Beast before me was Cream?
After agonizing over what to say, all that came out was her name.
I parried and deflected her sword while mulling the next words.
What should I say next?
Ridiculous—it was as if Cream had come back to life.
Even as I scoffed inwardly, I couldn't stop pondering.
After long deliberation, a single phrase emerged.
"......Long time no see."
Words I hadn't even expected to say.
Words I'd thought would never get a reply.
That's why I'd agonized so much.
But there—
"...Ian."
—a response came.
Her eyes focused faintly for a moment, like old film rewinding.
A smile borrowed from frontline memories tugged at Cream's lips.
Then, as if piecing together fragmented past recollections, she stammered on.
"......Long time no see? It hasn't been that long."
For an instant, the strength nearly drained from my hand.
I didn't drop my sword only thanks to sheer experience.
"How... how are you..."
"...alive? Damn, that's harsh. You saying you'd rather I was dead?"
Cream reacted just as she had in my memories.
As if she'd never died at all, utterly nonchalant.
I felt the dissonance, but she acted like it didn't faze her one bit.
"Anyway, where's this? Doesn't feel like the frontline."
"..."
"Oh! Speaking of, what happened to Bepart? Seeing as I survived, you must've taken it down, right?"
Her question made my stomach churn.
Submerged emotions surged up violently, my gut roiling.
"Yuren. Right, Yuren? ...He must be dead too. Why aren't you answering?"
"..."
"And look, you've got a scar. Bulkier too. Doesn't look like a body thrown together in a month."
The truth—that you'd already died, and eight years had passed since.
How was I supposed to tell her that?
The word 'eight years' welled up to my throat, bitter on my tongue.
Words shouldn't have a taste, yet strangely, it felt fishy.
Because I knew the words I'd speak next would kill Cream a second time.
Still, no tears came.
From my throat leaked only sound.
I couldn't tell if it was truly my cry.
"Hey. Say something. Why are you looking at me like you saw a ghost—"
Cream halted mid-sentence.
She turned her head, gazing at the puddle of blood on the floor.
Her own wretched form reflected in it.
She retained her living appearance, but the most vital part was gone.
"Ah."
A short gasp.
That was enough for Cream to grasp the full situation.
Staring blankly at her pierced abdomen, she let out a brief laugh.
"So I was already dead."
Only then did all the memories return, and Cream looked up at the sky.
The cave ceiling blocked it from view.
Even if she could see it, the sky wouldn't have been clear.
The hour of her awakening was night.
"That's how it was. That's the situation."
Cream looked at the sword in her hand, her body, then up at me.
"I got ahead of myself. Thinking, just maybe, really just maybe, I'd survived. But no way that could've happened there."
My stomach heaved.
The contents of it clawed up my esophagus.
"So, the frontline. What happened there?"
"......It's over. Everything's ended."
"Good."
Cream smiled as she drove her sword into her own throat.
"!!"
It happened so naturally, so swiftly.
I hadn't imagined she would do such a thing.
I hurriedly caught her collapsing form.
"What... what the hell are you doing...!"
Throat impaled, Cream looked at my face.
She brushed my cheek and chuckled.
"The scar. Looks pretty good."
"Why... it's just a scar. It means nothing."
"Listen, Ian. This isn't your fault. I never blamed you, not even in the moment I died."
The hand Cream had extended toward me went limp.
"So... from now on, don't come to places like this. Live... normally. A happy life..."
Blood dripped from my fingertips.
Only then did I realize my hands were trembling.
Calling her name brought no response.
I gripped the arm holding her tighter, but got nothing in return.
A faint breath grazed my cheek, then stopped.
...No.
Had she even been breathing to begin with?
Did humans turned into Great Beasts even breathe?
The moment that doubt arose, I realized I'd unwittingly mistaken her for resurrected Cream.
Hadn't I known?
The dead don't come back.
She'd died, come back, and now suicided again.
A step behind the flow, I understood why Cream had taken her own life.
From the instant she realized she was dead, she hadn't thought of herself as revived.
Not human—a Great Beast.
The moment she accepted that identity, she chose death.
To her, monsters were beings she loathed beyond measure.
Enough to kill even her revived self.
At that moment, the scrape of metal echoed from behind, followed by something crawling out.
Black mist surged once more, and through the hole in the wall, monsters' forms emerged.
"No time."
Frostblade's voice rumbled low.
He'd seen the situation and said no more.
I carefully laid Cream's body on the floor.
My hand brushed her face.
Her voice urging a normal, happy life echoed in my ears.
My legs had gone numb from sitting so long.
I rose slowly and gripped the Rigid Body Armament.
Monsters' howls spread through the tunnel.
"......Hah."
Vermin-like bastards.
Kill them and they return, endlessly refusing to end.
I drew up Wave energy.
"Duck."
"Wha—"
Frostblade ducked on instinct at my words and gasped in shock.
In a single stroke, the heads of every charging monster and Great Beast rolled across the floor.
Leaving Frostblade behind, I kicked off the ground and leaped forward.
I tore through every oncoming monster.
I slashed anything in sight.
The moment a human shape appeared, I twisted my sword into its shoulder.
"Kr, aaaaaagh!!!"
"Don't worry. I won't let you die easy. Not you, not them, not that so-called king of the Southern Kingdoms."
I slammed the Rigid Body Armament into the prison wall, pinning its shoulder whole.
Then twisted the blade to inflict even greater agony.
That was when it happened.
"Impressive. Worthy of claiming the title Sword Lord. Astonishing skill—to slaughter all that in such short time and reach here."
A man strode out from within, clapping.
Beast ears and a tail adorned him.
"But it's not enough. Far too lacking to reach the Seven Swords..."
In that instant, the emerging man frantically clutched his throat.
Not satisfied, he gasped raggedly, hands gripping his neck—
Splurt!
His severed head tumbled across the floor.