Chapter 175
Chapter Title: A Letter to Kyle
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Back in his dorm room, Leo sat down at his desk.
The sun had already set.
‘Is summer finally coming to an end?’
Feeling the cooler weather, Leo looked up at the moonlit sky.
Then, he took an old journal from his coat.
He gently stroked the leather cover.
From the moment he first met Lisinas.
He had often seen her writing in it in the evenings.
Taking a shallow breath, Leo opened the journal.
Just as he had seen in the restricted section of the library, the pages were blank.
Seeing this, Leo channeled mana into his fingertips.
A faint light emanated from the page, and Lisinas's neat handwriting appeared.
The journal began before she had met Kyle.
To be precise, it started when the Age of Calamity began.
Flip- flip-
‘These are all stories Lisinas told me long ago.’
Flip-
He recalled the stories his friend had told him.
As Leo reminisced about the stories he had shared with his friend, his hand paused.
[Today, I met the 'Surviving Hero.' Just as the rumors said, he has a completely twisted personality. His skills are undeniable, but how am I supposed to fix this pessimistic nature of his? How on earth am I going to lead this guy?]
‘This girl. She planned to drag me into the subjugation party from the very beginning, didn't she?’
Leo let out a dry laugh.
He remembered his first meeting with Lisinas in Gardsrone.
‘Our first meeting was at the mercenary guild.’
Back then, Lisinas was called the Foolish One.
To the people of that time, Lisinas, who went around boasting that she would subjugate Erebos in a world full of despair, must have seemed out of her mind.
‘That's how desperate the times were.’
It was a desperate era where people spent each day simply hoping Erebos and Tartaros wouldn't invade.
Kyle, too, was busy drinking at the mercenary guild as always.
‘You're Kyle, the Surviving Hero, right?’
‘And you must be that lizard they call the Foolish One. What do you want with me?’
‘You. Won't you become my comrade?’
He had been surprised by the sudden offer.
At the time, the 'Surviving Hero' was a symbol of misfortune.
No one wanted to team up with Kyle.
A hand extended to him, someone who was used to being alone.
But as Kyle, he hadn't welcomed Lisinas's proposal.
‘Sorry, but I refuse. I don't have a death wish.’
“Our first meeting was the worst.”
After that, Lisinas persistently sought Kyle out for several weeks.
The journal, which had been written in sporadically, was filled with daily entries during that period.
‘She's cursed me out a ton. Well, I can't blame her. I was such a jerk to her.’
Tsk- smacking his lips, Leo recalled the memories of those days.
Though she had every reason to give up, Lisinas did not.
Then one day.
Tartaros launched a massive invasion of Gardsrone.
To fend off the invasion, Kyle and Lisinas formed a party for the first time.
And on the plain piled with corpses, Lisinas spoke.
“No matter how I think about it, my choice wasn't wrong.”
Lisinas said, looking up at the gray sky.
“It really has to be you, Kyle.”
Lisinas smiled brightly.
For some reason, Kyle saw a light in that smile.
“You are the beginning.”
Her fair, white hand, extended time and again without giving up.
“Come with me, Kyle. I need you.”
A world filled only with despair.
At first, he found Lisinas, smiling so hopefully in such a world, irritating.
Back then, Kyle was no different from anyone else.
He believed the world's destruction was not far off.
It was a time when he was endlessly spiraling downwards, living a debauched life with the mindset of just enjoying today to the fullest.
Perhaps it was only natural that he found Lisinas irritating.
While Kyle was stepping toward the darkness... Lisinas was walking toward the light.
“Why me?”
“Because you're strong. You'll survive until the very end, and...”
“And?”
“Even though you've given up and despaired, the light in your eyes is still alive.”
Lisinas grinned.
“It's shining in the darkness.”
It was the first time in his life.
That someone had seemed so noble.
“What you wish for is an utterly foolish dream. It's impossible.”
But until the very end, Kyle denied Lisinas's dream.
Yet despite his denial, this foolish woman remained steadfast.
“You're right, Kyle. My dream is an utterly foolish one.”
Without any thought of withdrawing her outstretched hand, she said,
“But Kyle. We are going to save the world.”
That unyielding heart.
That steadfastly noble figure.
“Let's go together. You won't have to watch your comrades die in front of you anymore. Because I'm strong, too.”
It saved Kyle.
The moment he took her hand, Kyle had thought.
That he wanted to make this impossibly foolish dream come true for her.
[Finally, this damn disobedient bastard has joined the subjugation party. He's so incredibly stubborn. But still, we've taken the first step. This meeting will surely change the fate of the world.]
The journal continued after that.
The day Luna joined.
The day Ar-on joined.
And the day Dweno finally gathered.
The subjugation party took shape.
And just as Lisinas had boasted, the world began to reclaim its light.
[Tomorrow, the final expedition begins. All preparations are complete. We've done everything we can. All that's left is to subjugate Erebos. I pray that my ideal can be realized.]
With that, the journal ended.
Lisinas had left this journal behind before the final expedition.
Having read the entire journal, Leo rapidly flipped through the remaining blank pages.
Then, he paused at the last page.
[To Kyle]
Leo swallowed hard.
It was clearly a letter from Lisinas to Kyle.
‘So this is a letter Lisinas left for her comrades... The reason I can see the one addressed to me is because it reacted to my mana.’
He took a deep breath before reading his friend's letter and turned the page.
[If you're the one reading this letter and not me... it means the world has been saved, but I died on the final expedition.]
Leo's hand tightened.
[You have such a twisted personality. Always being sarcastic and cursing. Honestly, there were many times I wanted to punch you square in the solar plexus, but I held back each time.]
‘...No. What about all those times you drop-kicked me in the solar plexus? Does that not count because it wasn't a fist or what?’
He let out a dry laugh and continued reading the letter.
[But... my choice wasn't wrong. If you are reading this letter, it means the world was saved because you were there.]
“...I couldn't have done anything alone.”
He refuted Lisinas's words.
[Kyle. Thank you for following me on my reckless expedition.
And I'm sorry.
I hoped you wouldn't become the Surviving Hero.
But in the end, I ended up showing you a friend's death.
I promised that wouldn't happen... I'm so sorry I couldn't keep it.
So I hope your future is a happy one. That you won't be left alone anymore.
I hope you won't be the one who survives alone anymore.
It was fun being with you.
If the world becomes peaceful... I truly hope you find happiness, Kyle.]
Drip- Drip-
[May blessings be upon you as you start a new era. From Lisinas.]
The words of the letter blurred.
Tears had begun to stream down his cheeks, soaking the letter.
“You damn lizard... You said you wouldn't show me you dying...”
He had never turned away from the deaths of his comrades.
Nor had he overcome or conquered the pain.
He had just thought he'd grown numb to it.
But the tears wouldn't stop.
How could he not shed tears at a letter from a dear friend who worried about him even after death?
Remembering his cruel comrade who had left him behind, Leo tried to compose himself.
[P.S. I really wasn't going to say this, you know? But I just can't hold it in any longer.]
He read the words at the bottom of the page and turned it with a puzzled expression.
[You son of a bitch. Idiot. Moron. Imbecile. Stop breathing. Go drop dead. Go drown yourself.]
The curses and vitriol, written large enough to fill the page and shatter the touching atmosphere, left Leo momentarily dumbfounded.
Unlike her usual neat handwriting, this was extremely agitated.
“What, all of a sudden...?”
Feeling his tears stop, he turned the page with a bewildered look.
[I liked you. You never realized, did you?]
“....”
Seeing the last words Lisinas had left, Leo blinked.
He read the words over and over again.
He still didn't understand.
‘So. This is a letter written by Lisinas, so 'I' is Lisinas. And since this letter is written to be visible only to me, 'you' must be me, right? So when it says 'I liked you,' does that mean Lisinas liked me?’
“Huh?”
Leo made an uncharacteristically stupid sound and pressed his face close to the journal.
“Huuh?”
Still with a stupid look on his face, he held the journal at a distance, and finally, upon understanding its contents, Leo let out a shocked cry, his face turning red.
“WHAT THE!!!”
***
Whoooosh-
A foul-smelling wind blew.
It was the stench of corpses.
A normal living being would probably have suffocated and died from the toxic fumes and the smell the moment they inhaled it.
This was truly the most horrific place on earth.
The headquarters of Tartaros's commander-in-chief, the Necro King.
“It's been a while, Hell Kaiser.”
At the words of the Monster Queen, Silatuna, the Necro King Hell Kaiser curled his lips.
“Has it been a hundred years?”
For humans, it was a long time, enough for a generation to pass.
But for monsters who had lived for thousands of years, it wasn't such a long time.
“I've heard all about what happened in Lumerne. It seems you've lost all your minions.”
“Not just my minions. The Curse King has also been completely annihilated.”
Silatuna crossed her arms.
“We sacrificed quite a lot to 'bring him out,' you know.”
Silatuna's plan to resurrect the Curse King.
It had all come to nothing because of this incident.
Thanks to that, she had lost everything she had infiltrated into Lumerne over a long period.
“I'm in such a bad mood, I was just thinking of destroying a country or two.”
“Which country?”
“What was the name of that All-Class brat again? Leo Flove? Turns out his country is a small kingdom on the frontier.”
Silatuna said it as if she were talking about stepping on a passing ant.
“I'm thinking of crushing that country.”
“It may be on the frontier, but it's right in front of the Rodren Empire. It's not a place we can strike lightly.”
“But I'm bored.”
Legion Commander.
They were terrifying monsters who could destroy a small kingdom overnight if they so chose.
In response to Silatuna's words, the Necro King said,
“We still lack too much to run rampant as we please, Silatuna. A long time has passed since we began raising successor Legion Commanders.”
“Yes, that's right. We raised some good ones 3,000 years ago, but they were subjugated by those damn bastards.”
Annoyance crept onto Silatuna's face.
At that time, with the seven Legion Commanders subjugated, the military power of the surface races was also halved.
But in terms of the level of damage, Tartaros suffered even greater losses.
“Since then, they've been repeatedly subjugated... In the end, we're just running in place.”
To the races of the surface, the term 'Legion Commander' was a source of terrifying fear.
But from the perspective of the Necro King and the Monster Queen, they were still just fledglings.
“That's why I recently conducted an experiment.”
“What kind?”
“To 'bring out' our old comrades.”
“Isn't that impossible?”
“The power of our god is growing stronger.”
Hell Kaiser bared his teeth and smiled.
As his dark red eyes flashed, his skull was revealed.
A white skull with what looked like large rubies embedded in it.
“Then it's not impossible. Of course, it would be impossible to bring them back in a perfect state.”
“It seems worth a try. So, how far has the plan progressed?”
To Silatuna's question, Hell Kaiser let out a clattering laugh.
“Soon.”