Chapter 60
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 60
Chapter Title: At Least You—
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—.
The Commander's face twisted in utter despair.
He moved his lips. As if no voice would come out, he swallowed dryly several times.
"......I'm sorry."
Looking as precarious as if he'd scatter in the wind any moment, he swallowed dryly again and again. At last, he squeezed out his voice.
"You're right. I had no business claiming to understand your pain."
It was a face of the Commander I'd never seen before.
As if the thread holding his reason had snapped, the dam of his pent-up heart burst open.
"I only thought that if you used the Abyss, you'd shatter. That's why I tried so desperately to stop you. I believed without a doubt it was the way to protect you."
His fists trembled violently.
"In the end, the one who drove you to the edge of the cliff wasn't the Abyss... it was me."
"......"
"I know I don't even have the right to beg you to live. But......"
In truth, my mind had been a tangled mess since earlier.
From the moment I'd faced the Commander—no, much longer before that.
I could never see Mom again.
I could never feel warmth again.
"Please come back."
I knew it was misplaced anger.
It didn't matter.
In a world where I was left all alone, what did any of it matter? It meant nothing. I was simply too exhausted, even to push them away.
"Failing to protect Asrania is on me. That's my burden to carry for the rest of my life. So please......"
The voice reaching my ears scattered like tinnitus ringing in my head.
A single question mark lingered alone in my mind.
I couldn't even comprehend why I was standing there, why I was hearing those words.
I felt like a fool.
"Don't make me atone for my incompetence with your life."
It was strange.
The person I'd cursed and resented so bitterly while Mom was alive.
I knew nothing of the past between them, what kind of story it was. No way to know.
What mattered was this moment—watching him crumble didn't bring me any joy.
My insides felt coldly dead.
It was just like watching a thoroughly boring play.
"Commander."
My tongue moved on its own. Words spilled out before I could think.
"Don't get the wrong idea. This isn't because of you."
Don't think of it as comfort. I just wanted to set the facts straight.
"I'm going because I miss Mom. Not to ease your conscience or absolve your guilt."
"Esira, please... please don't do this."
Reina's voice was already drenched in tears. It was a fragile tone that seemed ready to shatter at the slightest touch, clutching at my ankles.
"Don't end it like this. Please....... We still have so much left to do. An ending like this... I hate it. I hate it......"
Her legs seemed to give out as she staggered, yet she desperately stretched her hand toward me. As if forcing the impossible distance to shrink, her fingertips trembled pitifully in the empty air.
It didn't reach my heart. It felt distant, like the sound of rain falling far away.
That was the moment.
"Esira!"
This time, Marigold looked ready to charge right in. Her hands shook, but her mouth kept shouting without pause.
"Get the hell out of there right now! Why die? Why you? You idiot—not enough losing your mom, you gonna throw your life away too?!"
Her eyes already brimmed with thick teardrops, veins bulging as she screamed.
"Come out now!? Before I go grab you by the hair and drag you out! Can't you hear me!? Come out—I said come out, please!"
A scream that could tear her throat apart. Between her gritted teeth lurked unmistakable terror.
"Jeez, so damn noisy."
Really, even on my way out, these rowdy bunch.
At that moment, a strange energy utterly unlike the wind brushed along my spine.
My spine prickled.
As I teetered on the brink of falling, I turned my head as if entranced.
"......!"
There they stood.
Stella, and beside her, her mother.
Mom had saved that mother and daughter pair once before.
They must have stopped by briefly while passing through the area.
"I heard there've been frequent disappearances around here lately. We were passing nearby, so we came to investigate......"
Stella spoke calmly.
Then, as she slowly scanned the surroundings and shifted her gaze, her eyes met mine.
Me, standing at the cliff's edge. The others, frozen in horror.
"......What."
Her words cut off abruptly.
Her clear eyes shook as if struck by an earthquake.
Her reason struggling to comprehend clashed head-on with the reality before her.
'What perfect timing.'
I thought blankly.
Of all moments, right now.
Of all people to run into.
It was a cruel coincidence, truly.
'Even back then, Mom saving Stella was just a coincidence.'
Fate was tenacious.
The child Mom had saved standing there like a witness at my final moment.
"A coincidence again now. Really......"
A hollow, deflating laugh escaped my lips.
It was a comedy that wasn't even funny.
The woman standing protectively by Stella's side.
Stella's mother furrowed her brow.
"Explain yourself, Commander. What's going on here?"
The Commander couldn't even lift his head, squeezing out his voice like a guilty man.
"......My failure. Esira is trying to follow in her mother's footsteps right now."
In that instant, a deep shadow flitted across the woman's eyes.
Her expression pierced straight to the truth of it all.
"......Ah."
The eyes she opened again held no Commander, no Reina.
Only me.
She stared straight at me, teetering on the cliff's edge.
The gaze, frozen cold, slowly thawed. Like ice melting into water, something rigid crumbled away.
'Why's she looking at me like that?'
The emotion that remained was hard to pin down with a single name.
It resembled sorrow, or perhaps pity.
The kind of feeling a mother with her own child extends even to a stranger's.
"Child."
It rode the wind and rang in my ears.
Unfamiliar, yet strangely familiar.
As if hearing a voice long forgotten from ages ago.
"I don't know your mother. What life she lived, what heart she raised you with. I don't know. I probably have no right to offer empty comfort."
She took a moment to steady her breath and offered a gentle smile. She wrapped an arm around the shoulder of trembling Stella at her side.
"But one thing I do know."
The woman's gaze turned back to me.
"I'm a mom too."
She continued slowly, just like a mother gently admonishing her child.
"If after I die, my daughter says she'll follow me......"
The arm around Stella's shoulder tightened just a little more.
In that instant, I heard Stella swallow her breath.
"I'd push that child away, even at the gates of the afterlife. I'd cry bloody tears, but I'd chase her off to the very end."
The woman's voice didn't waver.
A tone bordering on certainty.
A sincerity etched into the bones, one only a mother with a child could possess.
"Because that's not love."
"......"
"It's the cruelest punishment a parent can receive. A child throwing their own life away. No parent can bear it."
She paused for a moment.
She looked straight at my face—at my eyes, as if determined not to let them slip away.
"If you understand the weight of a life, you must never dare to think of dying."
"B-but......"
"The moment you go like this, your mother's sacrifice loses all meaning."
From Stella's direction came a sharp gasp as she swallowed her breath.
She was someone's daughter too, it seemed. It must have struck her deeply.
Stella's mother deliberately looked away from her, speaking only to me until the end.
"If you die here, it won't be that your mother saved you. It'll be that she tried to save you... and ended up killing you."
She steadied her breath, then spoke carefully.
"Child."
It pierced my chest.
"Don't turn your mother into that kind of person."
Mom didn't wish for you to follow her.
Live on.
That's how you save Mom.
"Every mother's wish in the world is just one thing. That their child lives happily. Nothing more."
Somewhere in my mind, a voice from long ago softly revived.
The final moment I'd thought forgotten.
"......At least you, please survive."
Last words.
The words Mom left me.
Back then, Mom had tried to say more.
Her lips trembled, her eyes grew dim, even as the Abyss devoured her.
"Just......"
It had cut off there.
Perhaps that's what she wanted to say.
At least you be happy.
At least you smile.
At least you—.
"Ah."
My legs gave out. My body lurched forward and collapsed.
The moment my knees hit the ground, a chill sank into my bones.
I braced myself with both hands and bowed my head.
I miss Mom.
Longing surged like pain.
Even breathing felt overwhelming.
Mom would surely have said the same.
It felt like someone had pushed my back.
What are you doing? Aren't you coming over here?
From somewhere, an unknown voice seemed to echo again.
Like Mom's voice, or like another me split from within.
'No, I can't go yet.'
Me.
I answered myself.
'I've got something I have to do.'
I slowly raised my head.
The cliff no longer called to me.
I clenched my fist tight. Nails dug into my palm, bringing a sharp sting.
"Mom......"
For Mom.
This time, I won't waver.
This time, for real.