A Brief Rest - 11
To me, the elf named Rayna Forest had always been an elf of grit.
Left alone, limbs shattered, she would use anything at her disposal to bring a monster down. That tenacity was something I had respected. And so, compared to Alex or Velita, I had felt a certain closeness toward her.
But that closeness had been nothing more than a feeling I had decided on by myself. Rayna had never opened her heart to me — not even a little. I hadn't even held a proper conversation with her. I had simply gone and felt close to her on my own.
I had never taken any interest in her pain, or in the things that hurt her. If we had truly been close, I might have sensed something was wrong the moment the Geas was placed on her. Behavior that was different from before the Geas. Different words. Different everything. I might have caught that something was off. I didn't.
Because I hadn't truly opened my heart either. The word comrade had been nothing but a hollow shell.
"I never expected you, of all people, to come, Hero Olivia Reinhardt."
"Death is a sentence delivered equally upon all. She has already been laid within that sentence, and she is burning in hell."
"How surprising. Did you believe in such a thing as an afterlife?"
"I merely think it would be better if there were one, so I choose to believe there is. In any case... I cannot affirm her life. But I can affirm her death."
"..."
"As someone who was once her comrade, I cannot affirm what she did in her final moment."
"I suppose you would not."
It was a foolish act. It was an act of running away. It was a stupid act.
No matter how I wrung my mind and tried to shift my thinking, as someone who had been her comrade, I could not affirm that final choice.
"Does this world truly possess an afterlife? Does a next life exist in any certain sense? No one can know without dying, I imagine."
People will look at someone who seems, by any objective measure, to be happy, and joke that they must have saved a country in a past life. That is how readily they believe in previous lives and the next. Without quite realizing it, they believe a next life exists — that their own lives continue forever. That they simply cannot remember it.
I used to laugh at that way of thinking. I thought it was foolish. But religion, it seems, is not necessarily that kind of story.
Good deeds, of course — but even evil ones often go without proper judgment in this world. The rewards and punishments they deserve are never carried out. Take me. As the Hero, I slew the Demon King and saved countless people, and for that I was betrayed and nearly killed. Without me, they would have died. Ironically, without me, I never would have been betrayed like this in the first place.
I never dreamed my journey as a Hero would end in death, on the grounds that my power was too strong — an obstacle.
"But as a Hero, I believe her final action, at least, had meaning."
However many sins she had committed, the fact remained that she had saved people, and that this had been her end. I was the Hero, whose purpose was to save people. I could not refuse to acknowledge that.
If a sinner saves a life, is even that an evil? No. I don't believe so. Even if others would call it so, I, at least, had to acknowledge it. Separate from punishment and the responsibility she bore, saving people could not have been wrong. Giving her life for that — even if it looked like she was throwing everything away and running — could still be called a sacrifice.
In truth, because Rayna had done what she did, a great many people had been able to live. And yet the sins she had committed remained forever, and even the chance to be recorded as a hero had been stripped from her. That, more than anything, was what I found pitiful.
We had had choices. If we had chosen well, it would not have ended like this. I could only hope that when it came to Alex and Velita, the ending would be a little better.
"I don't know."
"..."
"I believe forgiveness can only exist where there is anger and hatred toward the one being forgiven. I've heard as much from Lois, too... but I find I don't have enough of either."
When it comes to things done to me, I tend to let them go. Even when anger flares for a moment, I end up feeling guilty for it. The chains that had been trying to strangle me to death for so many years — chains no different from a curse — did not come undone so easily.
"Rather than coming at me shamelessly and stoking my anger, I had hoped she would prostrate herself and beg. That wouldn't have let her escape her sins, and she would still have had to bear the responsibility she deserved — but I had believed we would surely meet again."
How could I turn away someone who shed tears and repented for the sins they had committed? If it had happened that way — if she had been made to answer for it in prison or wherever else — I would have said nothing. And if, after growing old, after wrinkles had formed, when she thought there was nothing left but to die, she happened to be released... I could have at least been there to greet her. You're finally out, I would have said.
But Rayna's apology came too late, and the moment she apologized, her life ended.
Well. Rayna was an elf to begin with, so even if I had grown old, she would still have been a young elf.
"Do you intend to do the same with Alex and Velita?"
"Honestly, I feel like asking. But with Alex... I truly don't know. What Velita and Rayna did, in the end, was something that could have ended as a crime against me alone."
In Rayna's case, she had indirectly provided the cause of this attack on Elvenheim, but she herself had never imagined an attack would come. If you asked whether that was a crime, it was — but I didn't think it rose to the level of assassinating the Hero. And more than anything, that was something to apologize to Elvenheim for. It wasn't particularly something she owed me an apology for.
Velita was the same. Her betrayal of me was the entirety of her crime. At least, that was all I knew for now.
But Alex?
"He has instigated far too much. It isn't a crime against me alone — he has committed far too many. In the worst case, he is a traitor to humanity. And if that is so, the only option that comes to mind is to cut him down without a word."
"I see."
"If I can suppress him in the first ambush by cleanly cutting off his limbs, then I suppose I could hear him out."
"Drastic."
"But justified."
"Indeed. Whatever this Alex is after, if he is a traitor to humanity, that is a sufficiently just and reasonable stance."
"But if the ambush fails."
"If it fails."
"I'll simply kill him."
Nothing else came to mind. It wasn't a level of thing that would change by hearing him talk. Unraveling the knot in my chest wouldn't change a thing. The wisest course was to kill him before he could do anything.
The only thing that troubled me was that Alex knew a great deal, and that information might prove important to the peace that lay ahead.
No. Forget it.
Alex would never open his mouth anyway. He was a villain. A bad man — but not the kind who would talk under torture. If he had been third-rate enough to break under torture, things would have been simpler. If he had done it for his own convenience, or out of some inexplicable fear of me, the story would have been a little more straightforward. Then I wouldn't have had to agonize over it like this.
"What was Rayna like, as a comrade?"
"She had grit. At the very least, she never spared her own life out of fear of anything."
I never thought someone like that would do what she did just to save her own life, because of a Geas. Maybe her heart had grown weak. When a person's heart weakens, they become easy prey to every temptation of malice — and once they fall, climbing back out is no easy thing.
"I see."
I carefully set down the liquor I had brought beside the urn that held Rayna's ashes.
We used to drink this often, back in our adventuring days. At some point, she had stopped. Lois had guessed that Rayna had likely been dead drunk when the Geas was placed on her — perhaps that was why she had come to avoid alcohol. I could only hope that, somewhere she no longer needed to worry, she might have a sip of it before the pain of her sins set in.
"Olivia."
"Yes."
"Thank you..."
"..."
The truth was, Sylphy had wanted to come as well. But I had come alone, thinking it would be wrong if there were too many people. Being seen off by a crowd praying for your rest is one of the blessings the dying can receive — and it was a blessing the Rayna of now could not have.
"Truly, a gratitude that words cannot achieve. I must give it to you and to Lois."
"Please. Don't mention it."
"I'll receive it gratefully."
"When will you depart? If you would not mind, shall I accompany you?"
"We had originally planned to leave at once, but Lois said he wanted to go to the Spirit Forest."
"The Spirit Forest? An unusual destination. Is there something he must do there as a Spiritist?"
"I don't know. From what I heard, he received a suggestion from the Spirit of the World Tree to go there."
"Directly from the Spirit of the World Tree, is it... I wonder if that man understands how great a blessing that is... No. Somehow, I suspect he does."
Titania seemed to feel a dissonance with her own words, and immediately corrected herself. Indeed — if it was Lois, I had the feeling he would somehow know exactly how extraordinary it was.
"We'll be leaving soon, but we'll meet again in Erchia."
"Yes. I shall not forget everything you have done for Elvenheim this time. ...Let us meet again."
Titania held out her hand. I stood there awkwardly for a moment, then took it with the one hand I had left.
"Even after this journey is over, you may visit Elvenheim whenever you wish. You and Lois are welcome at any time. I will receive you."
"..."
The words even gave me the feeling of having returned as the Hero. I smiled.
"Yes. I'll visit with Lois."
"In that vein."
"Yes?"
"You are acquainted with a princess named Lilith, are you not?"
"Ah... yes."
"A half-elf is, in a certain sense, a danger. A princess of the kingdom could surely eliminate that danger. And she has been pushed from the line of succession, besides being a friend of the Hero."
"Titania?"
The sly look that had flickered across her face for an instant vanished, and Titania returned to the benevolent expression she had worn when she said Lois and I were welcome to visit.
"Could you tell me a little about this Princess Lilith?"
"..."
I had the sense it would be all right to tell her something. She didn't seem to have any particular malice.
And yet.
Why was it? Why did I so hate the thought of simply telling her?