The Bleak Reality Tightens Its Grip (2)
"Why is it that I've never crawled back to life, groveling and desperate for existence like those pathetic Demon Kings from hundreds, even a thousand years ago? You're clever, little one—I expect you're beginning to piece it together."
Exactly as he'd said.
Cariel forced the words out between ragged breaths.
"So humanity's victory was nothing but an illusion? You were never truly defeated, and everything you wanted, you achieved in your lifetime… and that's why you harbor no regrets, no lingering attachments—is that what you're telling me?"
"Correct, little runt."
The Demon King tossed the iron sword in her hand carelessly into the empty air, crossed her arms, and laughed.
"Just as you say, I have never known defeat. And the moment I invaded the Middle Realm, my success was already a settled matter."
"But humanity held you back, didn't it? You died as well—wait. Don't tell me. The demonkin who betrayed you… were they a gambit you had planted all along?"
"That was simply me securing a way out for their survival, in my own fashion. Besides, what kind of king would I be if I didn't look after obedient subordinates—guarantee my people a future, shelter and embrace them?"
Could it be? Even the faction of demonkin traitors had been the fruit of her design, ripening exactly as she intended?
"Their nature is rough by species, but every flock has its odd ones out. The more peaceful, communal sorts among them would find this Middle Realm far more livable. Good air, clean water—these children here have no idea what a blessing that really is."
"……"
"You look confused. My, my~ showing off at the expense of a poor little child! How shameless of me~"
The Demon King lorded it over him without the slightest pretense of modesty.
Such petty conduct befitted her appearance entirely, and yet, strangely, it raised no sense of incongruity at all.
More than that—
Even that garish, vulgar boasting was no mere bluff, and that fact carried a certain unsettling weight.
"Back to the point. If you go on squandering your precious time the way they want you to—the way things are now—your future will grow very uncertain indeed. How uncertain? Think the color of ink, and you won't be far off."
"You've orchestrated the circumstances beautifully… so that I have no choice but to trust and lean on you."
"No, no~ I'm just showing off, that's all~! Goodness! Did it really come across that way? As I said, I have no intention of teaching you anything. Offer me your soul? A contract? Not happening. Didn't I tell you? That ship has sailed."
"Then an opportunity…"
"Right. In the end, it comes down to whether you seize it or not. That is all that remains to you."
And that was why he needed to grasp the three things she had spoken of moments ago.
"Precision. Efficiency. And… sincerity. Is that it?"
"Everything I've said until now, all that bragging I used to beat you down with words—that was to make you understand two of those three."
Precision, and efficiency.
Their meaning, and why they were necessary.
"Then what is sincerity… what on earth does it refer to? Desperation? Earnest longing?"
"That's certainly part of it. When you exert sincerity—when you give your whole heart—what does that expression actually mean? Have you ever truly felt it, in your flesh?"
"I…"
"Staking your life. Burning your soul. Pouring out every last drop of strength you nursed at your mother's breast. All of them are the same kind of meaning. Gritting your teeth and running? That's mere child's play, I'd say—though to some, even that would be more than they deserve."
In other words—
"Pouring everything you have into achieving your purpose, into reaching the ending you desire. Laying bare your entire self without concealing so much as a speck of dust. The forms of expression vary, but you can roughly guess the point, can't you?"
"…With my head, at least."
"That's enough."
If the head could not understand it, how could the heart hope to?
There were those who claimed to grasp such things instinctively—with the heart, with the body.
But even that was nothing more than a fleeting, impulsive, sudden stroke of luck.
"Whether or not you can wield this deliberately, at will, will utterly determine the nature of your training from here on—and the ceiling of what you may yet become."
"Then how am I supposed to—ah."
"Good, you're quick on the uptake."
She said it with a bright, guileless smile.
"I won't be telling you. So figure it out with your own body."
And for that, first of all—
Die. Just a hundred times, lightly, and with sincerity.
Smiling that sunny smile, the Demon King wearing a young girl's face delivered a cruel sentence.
"Oh! Don't worry too much! You'll never actually die in reality! You know that, don't you? You're well aware this place is a dream."
He had expected the same deluge of arrows as before.
He was wrong.
There was only a vast, bleached-white space, and—
A small sword laid upon the ground.
…And himself, cast away and abandoned in that hollow emptiness.
"……"
Cariel was quick on the uptake.
Had his wits been slower, he would have rolled in pain and humiliation far worse than this.
It would not have ended with bearing false accusations and suffering slander. He would have been buried ceaselessly, maliciously, under an avalanche of calumny and abuse—despairing more deeply, surrendering more utterly, writhing in self-loathing far beyond what he knew now.
Like a fawn fallen into a bog, drained of even the strength to struggle.
But a quick mind and swift thought do not always breed good outcomes.
The despair approaching him grew larger in proportion.
The injustices to be handed him, the disadvantages laid upon him—
And above all, the suffering those would spawn—
He could imagine it all with a clarity sharper than ever before.
Some call it prediction; some call it expectation.
It is the greatest weapon of intelligent humanity, and at the same time the double-edged blade that both compels and obstructs the drive and action of humankind.
Die.
Just a hundred times, and with sincerity.
"You want me… to kill myself?"
The sword lay there.
In a space that contained nothing else.
The hint was so bluntly direct that his hands trembled at the sight of it alone.
In that bleached blankness of a world, without even the smallest noise, Cariel understood that he had been flung down here rootless and unexplained.
"A hundred times?"
Easy to say.
Far too easy.
Written as a number, it wasn't even a large one.
Call it a hundred pieces of fruit, and while that was a considerable quantity, a few crates of the bulk variety would hold it easily.
Counted in gold, silver, or copper coins, the volume would shrink smaller still.
"……"
With a hollow, emptied face, Cariel picked up the sword where it had been left sprawled.
No matter how he turned the problem over in his mind, this was not a question that yielded an answer in that direction.
The one who had set the problem was the Demon King.
And the answer she expected was a compromise-free, head-on breakthrough—straight down the middle.
Which meant…
"Sincerity. Earnestness. Desperation."
Am I desperate?
Or rather—am I earnest?
Did he possess the will to grow stronger?
Yes. It seemed he once had.
At some point, it had simply vanished.
Everything had come to feel meaningless.
He had done as he was told to do.
And he had gained nothing from it—not a scrap of fulfillment.
With every passing hour, the truth pressed in on him, and pressed in again.
"It's…"
It's meaningless.
Did effort carve out a way through?
It had not.
Up to this very moment—because everyone had told him otherwise, until the Demon King pointed it out to his face.
Because they had roared it at him in fury.
And so—
Because he had accepted it blindly, like an article of faith, only to despair; because he had lamented his lot again and again, and sulked in defeat all the way to this day.
Therefore, he knew no method.
He had, quite literally, lost his way.
From childhood, his father had sporadically instructed him in the sword, but the whole of it amounted to one refrain: build your foundations.
And the world—while he lived under that very father's roof—had berated him, cornered him, demanded to know why he couldn't manage even that much.
At the very least—
By the measure of Rueld, his own father, Cariel—despite long, repeated labor—remained a being who had not yet laid down even his foundations, his bedrock.
Worst of all, he had been born unable to circulate mana smoothly.
Naturally, his capacity to hold mana was glaringly limited, and so even his gift for magic had been discounted wholesale, dismissed before it was ever weighed.
"Hah…"
But then, was he clever? A prodigious memory? Gifted at calculation, at weaving formulas together?
No, none of that either.
His written scores, his theoretical marks—those existed only because he had memorized things desperately, challenged them again and again, and hammered them in until understanding came.
But practice was another matter entirely.
Even though he had poured even more time into that side of things—
In magic, in swordsmanship—
And indeed, in any other direction besides—he had achieved nothing of note.
If the sword failed, then another weapon, another tool.
If he was unfit to wield arms, then surely some path that used the body itself.
…But his roots were rotten, his foundation hollow, and so no matter how he toiled—twice, thrice as hard as anyone else—he was guaranteed nothing but results and grades that fell short of expectation.
Sitting at a desk, wrestling with books, was the easier of the two by far.
Because there, at least, his effort was rewarded in proportion.
"……"
And yet.
…Even so, there was always someone who achieved more than he did, in a fifth of his time. A tenth of it.
Why is the world so unreasonable?
Why am I—
Why am I this inept?
This powerless?
Am I truly the child of the hero who saved the world?
"……"
He drew in a great, deep breath.
Until his lungs reached their limit.
Do not run away.
Do not cast yourself as the hero of a tragedy, grow drunk on the role, and turn your eyes from reality.
The task before him was simple.
Die.
A hundred times.
If no one else would deal him death—
"Then I…"
I will simply kill the self I despise, with my own hands.
The heavy blade held fast in both hands.
The sensation of it—an edge tearing through skin and muscle from the very first moment, carving a path straight through the center of his throat.
An unbearable, indescribable wrongness flooded through his whole body, and bile rose of its own accord. But what loomed over that disgust was an even deeper despair: the realization that he would not, in fact, be allowed to die.
It hurt.
Not even a proper scream made it out of his mouth.
He could hear the rush of escaping air, blood welling and spurting, a sound like foam bursting—but that was all.
Ah…
And in the midst of that pain and that bone-deep regret—
What he thought, in that moment, was this:
Next time, I have to die cleanly.
A regret as sordid as regret could be.
A flailing, directionless struggle against the agony.
And an inexpressible crushing despair that bore down beneath even all of that.
What churned within him was nothing but those things.
……
And yet, why?
"……"
It was strange—but—
Just a little, he felt lighter.
"Being content with that is just another name for giving up, you know…"
"Wha—?!"
The Demon King sidled up close before him the instant he revived.
"Don't lose sight of your purpose. Who told you to accept death, shoulder it, and resign yourself to it? Keep this up and you won't die a hundred times—you'll die hundreds. A thousand or more, if we're counting long."
Don't lose your center.
Why you were made to do this filthy, wretched thing here—that is the question.
"Dig into it. Carve it in. Think. Turn your mind over. Search for the answer as though burning your heart to ash. Crave it!"
"…You don't have to tell me!"
This time he drove the reversed grip of the sword toward his own heart.
Naturally, no blessing came of it—no swift death, no merciful blackout. No reward was waiting for him there.
"Ghhk!"
I know.
I know better than you do!
Then, all at once—
A wave of doubt welled up without warning. Does it have to be this far?
Was it only by going this far—by suffering this much—
…that he could hope to be treated, at minimum, like a human being?
For a moment, the weight of it—the hardship, the bitterness—pressed down on him.
Yes.
He was—
In this very moment—
…so terribly, unbearably weary.