Just End It Well
If only the ending goes smoothly.
The world is full of pitiful stories, and even fuller of tragic ones.
In that place, where the war between the two races raged at its height, everyone was a victim.
Nations. Status. Property. Acquaintances. Family. And in the end, countless lives lost even themselves.
The only difference was how much or how little each of them lost — every single one of them became the protagonist of a tragedy.
"How laughable."
And sometimes.
"Freed after three hundred years, and I'm supposed to just sit still and do nothing?"
the victim becomes the perpetrator.
I was wronged, so I will take revenge.
To vent an unbearable rage in whatever way possible. To replace what was stolen from them by stealing from someone else.
The victim dons the mask of the perpetrator and commits the very same crimes.
The classic examples are the ancient monsters.
Beasts that had lived for hundreds, even thousands of years were struck down one day — as if by some natural disaster — suffering senseless loss and tumbling into the abyss.
Unable to accept it, they took their revenge.
On weak races that had nothing whatsoever to do with it.
Having lived so long, the ancient monsters were wrapped tight in self-belief and pride, but they were never stupid.
Even in the moment they slaughtered the innocent, they knew.
That they could never do it to the celestial race or the demon race.
To them, the two races were no different from a natural disaster, and the target of their revenge was perfectly clear — and yet they turned their eyes elsewhere, as if this much, at least, they had to do.
And so.
"Yes. Please stay still."
"...I owe you a debt I can never repay. Every human and every spirit deserves to be torn apart — but for your sake, I will spare your acquaintances as well."
Kwajijik...
The dark violet magic within the sword surged. The aftermath of magic burning itself out like wildfire.
"But it ends there. Do not shake my resolve any further."
"......"
"If you obstruct me again, then even you—"
"Tragic stories. Tragic tales. Tragic..."
Haha.
I laughed.
A quiet laugh, but one that carried its meaning clearly enough.
Sepid flinched and stumbled back a step.
From the darkness, two blue eyes — shining brighter than anything else in that void — were fixed on him.
"I am willing to believe this is still the residue of the brainwashing. Spirits are pure creations of nature. You are not like the ancient monsters."
Even corroded by magic, even having dealt a mortal wound to a fellow Spirit King — there was still, just barely, room left for him to turn back.
"You were brainwashed, yes — but some part of you must have thought it too. 'This really is the fault of the humans and the spirits.'"
"......"
"But you already know, don't you? That it isn't true."
Spirits are life born from inanimate matter.
A low-grade spirit, its ego only just beginning to form, has no idea who the Spirit Kings even are. Only at the rank of high-grade spirit does a proper sense of self take shape.
And even then, nothing changes.
"Karia Machelpid, the Grand Duke of Extreme Magic, is a mage with knowledge on the level of a low-grade demon. If she truly set her mind to hiding you, no spirit could ever find you."
Spirits confirm one another's existence through the same pure element they share. But corroded by magic the way he was, he would never be found.
"...Then Naphras—"
"She is no different. Six Spirit Kings besides you have already died or scattered back into nature — how would any of them track you down?"
Even a Spirit King shares no element with the earth, and above all, the Grand Duke's domain was a place where wind could not reach.
If wind could not reach it, Naphras could not perceive it.
"......"
"Shall we try the humans next? That one's simple."
It went without saying.
"They have even less affinity for sensing spirits than we do — how would they ever find you? And your story is thousands of years old. Humans simply do not live that long."
It was painfully obvious.
And yet Sepid looked away.
Toward the ones who had made him this way.
The brainwashing played its part, but perhaps Sepid, too, had always harbored that thought somewhere deep down.
The demons cannot be opposed, and the humans who tormented me are already beyond redemption.
In that case.
Who am I supposed to take my revenge on?
"I don't... understand tragic stories. Even claiming to understand means nothing unless you've lived through them yourself."
Just as I once did.
Cheong!
The spear became a hammer.
At some point Naphras's body had drifted upward and vanished with the wind, and divinity flowed down through the great hammer now resting in my hand.
"But if you intend to bring harm to me, or to this place, on those grounds... then I will have to do something about you."
Even if it meant killing you, freed after three hundred years.
The standoff continued.
The black pillar of light churned, unstable enough to erupt at any moment, and the hammer in my hand waited for nothing but its descent.
"...What a farce."
Sreuk. Sepid's hand slowly lowered.
The black pillar of light dissolved, and Sepid — having absorbed every trace of the magic — crashed down to the ground with a heavy thud.
"I lost everything to the demons, and now it's the celestials, is it?"
"I am not a celestial."
I furrowed my brow, and Sepid let out a dry chuckle, baring his black claws.
"I still want to kill every human and spirit. That hasn't changed."
"I know."
"But right now... I don't think I should fight you. Yes. You are still here, after all."
He trudged past me without another word.
Since he made no move to do anything in particular, I let him go for now.
Meanwhile, having focused so hard for so long, I finally checked the chat window I'd been dutifully ignoring.
...No wonder that felt embarrassing.
"...Ahem! Ahem. Ah — can you all hear me?"
"...Well, either way, it's almost over."
Karia, the one marked for execution, was nearly dealt with, and the Empire's full-scale invasion had been more or less repelled.
Sepid — no, Nord, the fallen Earth Spirit King — had been stopped without any real damage done.
All of it was only possible because the Grand Duke's ego had all but eroded away, leaving the brainwashing incomplete.
Now all that remained was to finish things cleanly.
Jeobeok.
"Uuaaaaagh..."
"...I was made to suffer like this... by a mere human?"
Just as long as that ended well.
Nord looked down at the Grand Duke of Extreme Magic, whose ego had all but vanished.
A pillar of the Empire, one of the Great Three Dukes whose magic had reached its absolute zenith. And now that magnificent being was crawling on the ground, trembling like a leaf.
It was almost impossible to believe this was the creature that had ravaged a Spirit King for three hundred years.
Nord raised his black claws.
"Yes. You, at least, I will grant a miserable death."
The black claws shot toward the Grand Duke's heart.
Teo-eong!!
"...!"
A pure white buff of light coiled around Karia's body and deflected the strike.
The monstrous rebound sent Nord's black claws hurtling backward.
Peolreok.
A white radiance descended through the darkness.
And in the very heart of that warm, falling light stood someone, the skirts of a pure white saintess's habit billowing around them.
Glasses that gleamed so brilliantly they were impossible to miss, even amid that searing light.
"N-no... this person is u-useful... no, necessary... to the Empire..."
Nea.
Nea, the Saintess of the Empire, alighted softly at Karia's side.
Still stuttering, I see.
"Hnnngh... yes... ugh..."
"Oh, oh dear... you've become a broken wretch... how pitiful..."
"Uuuugh..."
Sreuk. Karia's body collapsed as if a string had been cut, and Nea gathered her into her arms and stepped back.
Pajijik!!
Nord's magic attack swept through the spot where Nea had been standing.
"Hand over that woman. I can forgive much, but her — never."
"Haah... h-heretics really do come in droves these days..."
Adjusting her glasses, Nea held Karia in one hand and aimed a buff at Nord with the other.
It was, quite literally, a buff — a technique meant to strengthen its target.
"Kkeuheuk?!"
But Nord's current body was made of magic itself, and light forged from divinity was, to him, nothing short of concentrated poison.
His flesh and soul gnawed away, an agonizing torrent of pain followed.
Watching Nord writhe in agony, Nea tilted her glasses up with one finger.
"A heretic... should be killed... but I'll let this one s-slide... Ah. You as well."
Nea's gaze turned toward me.
But I simply looked at her, doing nothing at all.
At my attitude, she cocked her head with a flicker of puzzlement — and still I only watched.
She is not someone to take lightly.
Her opponent was a Spirit King. In raw terms, roughly equivalent to a low-grade celestial who had never bloomed their power — a being who could even defeat the demon race.
And on top of that, the Nord of now had been forcibly strengthened, infused with magic through experimentation.
There's no way someone at that level could lose to this.
"Kraaaaaah!!"
Shrugging off the agony, Nord lunged at Nea.
The divinity devouring the magic in his body inflicted dreadful torment, but pain was an old acquaintance to Nord.
In an instant he was upon her, hand outstretched once more. Nea hastily, almost frantically, layered on buffs and threw up a barrier of light.
Kwajajak!!
The barrier shattered.
At last his attack grazed the bridge of her nose — the very instant it would have touched her glasses—
Puhwaaaaak!!!
"...!"
Golden divinity came down upon the earth.
"The war is over."