Chapter 292
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 292
Chapter Title: The Forsaken Being
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The moment he had been waiting for had finally arrived.
The God of Death.
From the start, the bastard had been pushing himself to the brink, over and over.
He had manifested in this world while starved of souls.
Forced into a human body that didn't suit him at all.
And in that state, he had overexerted his power beyond limits, until even the body he had barely managed to hold onto crumbled away.
Now, only one path remained for him.
A desperate struggle.
But just how much substance would that struggle have?
That much, even Jun couldn't predict.
In the game, Elahim sacrificed herself to separate Eleanor from the God of Death.
Then the God of Death, mustering every last ounce of strength, burrowed into Eleanor's inner self, desperately trying to convince her.
Yes, convince.
Like a god wooing a human, begging her.
Pleading with Eleanor not to abandon him.
And from there, the ending branched depending on whether the player had completed all the linked quests up to that point without missing any.
If even one was lacking, Eleanor would lose her body back to the God of Death.
Conversely, clearing every quest led to Eleanor rejecting him outright.
And the key item that turned the tide in that scenario... was the diary Jun had handed over to Eleanor.
So surely, it would be the same this time.
The long, twisted bond between Eleanor and the God of Death would finally meet its end.
Jun was convinced of it.
Cold.
That was Eleanor's first impression.
A space of utter darkness, like peering into an endless abyss.
A place where even twitching a finger felt impossible amid the biting chill that whipped through.
But Eleanor quickly realized it wasn't the domain of mere temperature.
Someone's emotions crashed over her, startlingly vivid and raw.
The God of Death.
His sensations were constricting her entire body.
Utter loneliness and emptiness.
The sole emotions left to a being who had lost his world.
All he could do was gaze back at the glory of the past.
The God of Death.
Lanerius.
His true name surfaced in her mind, and with it, visions of the world he had once lived in flooded her sight.
Whoooosh—
A lush, verdant forest. Countless living creatures teeming through it.
The Black Forest...?
No, it was too vibrant to call it that.
There was none of the Black Forest's signature rot in the air.
Monsters weren't just goblins—plenty of other animals roamed free, and the woods brimmed with life overall.
Fairies giggled as they watched goblins tumble while chasing rabbits.
Not far off, beastkin who walked upright like humans but were covered in fur sparred with swords, spears, and armor.
Clang—!
Birds scattered skyward at the sharp clash, drifting away leisurely.
And there, Eleanor felt an inexplicable, profound longing.
What was the word for it?
It feels just like back then.
Like the first time she held Ariclothos's divine power within her, feeling truly anchored to this world.
For some reason, this place felt like home to Eleanor.
Was it because it resembled the Black Forest?
No.
The Black Forest held many memories for her, but it wasn't where she'd spent her whole life.
So why did it stir tears of nostalgia here?
"So it really was true."
Home.
Yes. Eleanor's soul had begun here.
She wasn't from this world, where Aiden and Maya lived.
To be precise... her soul's origin lay in another dimension.
Reincarnation across dimensions.
This world once ruled by the God of Death, Lanerius, was where her soul had first sparked to life.
That's why Lanerius obsessed over her.
Because she was the last resident of the world where he had reigned as a god—a world now gone.
"Is that why you searched so desperately for me?"
Eleanor's golden eyes turned straight ahead.
There sat the God of Death, gazing at her as if it were the most natural thing.
Not in someone else's body... but in his original form. Just as it had always been.
"Yes."
He affirmed her words.
The God of Death, Lanerius.
He was the god of this world—the origin and end of all births.
Why would the God of Death oversee birth, the very opposite?
The reason was simple.
Endings pave the way for what comes next; that's the natural cycle here.
New life begins because death exists. Every being yearns to leave its mark on the world.
Thus, Lanerius was both birth and death.
Yet ironically, gods had origins and ends shrouded in ambiguity.
Immortality.
Undeath.
So they believed the worlds they ruled would endure eternally, just like them.
They were wrong.
Their worlds had endings too—and his came when he fell to the outer gods.
"Our world saw black meteors fall as well."
"Black meteors...?"
"That's what the humans of this world called them: 'Blackout'."
"...!"
"Blackout isn't some ancient relic. It's trauma from other dimensions, other worlds."
When worlds from other dimensions perished, the horrific traumas left by their vanishing souls were hurled into outer space just before oblivion.
Outer space—a realm awaiting new worlds' births.
There, the traumas of fallen worlds carved out domains of their own.
Even if those domains festered and rotted.
"Trauma domains drift aimlessly through outer space until, by pure chance and no reason at all, they settle into another world."
"And this time... it was our world?"
"Exactly. And within those traumas slumber gods from the destroyed worlds. Wanderers like me, stripped of our native realms."
"...So I'm just some scrap born from a dead world's refuse."
"Not entirely wrong. But not entirely right either. You're the one descendant I was permitted to let exist in this world."
"..."
"I want only one thing: a place to rebuild my world. There, as before, I'll shepherd deaths and guide new beginnings."
The God of Death sought nothing grandiose.
Just a corner of this world under his sway, where he could manage all deaths and births as in the old days, living out his existence.
That was it.
"And you were born from that very wish."
"Wish..."
The view flipped in an instant.
The vibrant, crystalline forest filled with life began to change.
Colors faded, a toxic rot slowly permeating the space.
In that scene, Eleanor felt an indescribable terror.
Not her own feeling.
The God of Death's—Lanerius's—emotion.
In this moment, she was merging with him.
"The outer gods' rotten traumas corrupted my world. The eternal cycle ground to a halt, and death alone claimed every corner."
And so, Lanerius's world raced toward ruin.
And then.
"Huff, huff!"
"Hurry, hurry!"
"I-I...!"
A man and woman fled through the dying forest, hands clenched tight lest they lose each other. Were they beastkin? But the monsters pursuing from behind only multiplied.
"N-not much farther...!"
Even in this decaying woods, a sanctuary existed?
They barely escaped the horde, reaching the base of a massive tree.
The giant had rotted dead, but in death, it cradled the lovers in a hut formed from its husk.
"Haa..."
"H-how's your body?"
At the man's question, the woman looked down at her belly.
"It's fine... doesn't hurt."
Her stomach showed no swell, but life undoubtedly slept within.
"Sniff. Thank goodness, thank goodness."
"Yeah... not much longer now. We'll make it soon."
The woman stroked his shoulder comfortingly as he sobbed.
One of his arms was withered to the bone—a scar from taking a curse meant for her, fired by a corrupted spirit.
"..."
"..."
Silence settled between them for a moment.
Not from lack of words.
They were simply grateful not to meet death that very day in this stalled cycle.
The man, finishing his prayer, spoke.
"We'll reach Lord Lanerius's temple soon."
"Yeah..."
"Then our child can live in a safe world."
"Yes..."
Unlike their doomed realm, in another world, this child's soul alone would survive, carrying their legacy.
"Almost there..."
"Lord Lanerius..."
Time accelerated like a fast-forward, the scenery around them whipping by.
Seasons shifted.
But the forest remained dead, so only their clothes and the cautious nightly fires changed.
The man grew gaunt day by day.
The curse-rotted arm crept toward his shoulder.
Yet their faces stayed bright.
They could finally see it.
The temple worshiping Lanerius, far in the distance.
"We... we finally made it..."
"Yeah..."
Her belly was now full-term.
Birth was imminent.
Thankfully, not a moment too late.
This child hadn't yet bound itself to the crumbling world.
In the end, they reached the temple, and time flowed on.
"..."
On the altar.
Two shriveled skeletons lay, hands intertwined, weathering the temple's lonely winds.
Eleanor witnessed it all.
It felt swift, but her mind didn't register it that way.
She had spent a full ten months with them.
They spoke of brushes with death, present trials, future hopes.
Every topic converged on one thing.
May the child in her womb carry their trace deep into another dimension's world.
May it tell that distant realm of this perished world's existence.
May their futile struggle prove not in vain, but noble.
"In those prayers, they brought you to this world."
Hidden within the trauma, they infused the unborn child with Lanerius's essence, concealing it.
The infant, who never saw the world or drew a single breath, bound itself to a staff forged of Lanerius's power.
Trapped for eons in the trauma of the fallen world, it endured.
Time passed, and trauma from another perished dimension arrived.
There, the child drew its first breath in this world.
Felt mana.
Was acknowledged as one of its own.
—Waaah!
And let out its first mighty cry.
In a forgotten dungeon's depths, Lanerius's temple, discovered by some adventurers.
"Don't abandon me. Become our great legacy, as your parents wished."
The wish returned incarnate.
A god beseeches: provide a nest in place of our lost world.
And having seen it all, Eleanor said,
"You're truly desperate. Human, even."
"..."
"But you hid the most important part from me."
Eleanor tossed an old diary from her bosom.
A couple's survival log.
—May this child live a happy life.
The final words from parents too afraid to name her, lest she bind to this world.
Eleanor stared Lanerius down and declared,
"My parents didn't want me to be your vessel."
"..."
"They just wanted me to be happy."
"Then, are you? Has the life you've lived here been happy?"
"Honestly, more shit than not."
Orphaned young, then treated as a vessel for divine will against her own, once her mind had hardened.
Wandering the world oblivious to it all.
Any happiness in between? Nothing memorable.
"But that doesn't mean it'll stay shitty forever."
She met a weird blond mage dragging around a golden-eyed guy.
Heard her forgotten past in the city of undead.
Even forgave those who scarred her indelibly.
Their journey continued amid incidents, mishaps, crises—all survived.
"Not all bliss. But yeah, there were moments I truly felt happy."
She glanced again at the diary's final line, etched deeper than the rest.
—May this child live a happy life.
"So I'll be straight with you."
Eleanor turned her gaze back to the God of Death.
And.
"No."
She rejected the forsaken world's wish.