Chapter 293
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 293
Chapter Title: The Rat and the Cheese
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Death comes silently and vanishes in an instant.
Once it fulfills its duty, that's the end of it.
However, the place it visits shreds the hearts of those around it like a typhoon before disappearing.
The God of Death, Lanerius, was no different.
“Ah...”
Eleanor snapped out of her daze and gazed at the people bustling about.
They were all heroes who had barely survived the battle.
People who had staked everything on purifying Merdaine for decades.
Of course, it wasn't purely out of saintly purity of will.
Even so, a sense of pride emanated from their faces.
“...”
She tore her eyes away from them and looked up at the sky.
Murmurs rose from the crowd around her.
She understood why soon enough.
“Eleanor.”
The Saintess had appeared behind her without a sound.
She called out to Eleanor.
“Yes, Saintess.”
“Could we talk for a moment?”
“...Of course.”
Following the Saintess into the tent erected by the Order of the Sun, she sank into a chair as if surrendering her body to it.
Her face was still etched with fatigue she couldn't hide.
“It was beautiful, wasn't it?”
“Pardon?”
“The sky. Beautiful, right?”
“Ah, yes...”
Beautiful.
Gazing at that sky, tears pricked strangely at Eleanor's eyes.
The people who had brought her here could never see such a sky.
A dying world was all they ever knew.
“That's not a refreshed look on your face.”
“Yeah... But you don't look much different, Saintess.”
“...You're right. So many died, after all.”
“...”
Indeed.
The death toll from the God of Death, Lanerius, defied counting.
He had simply strived to reclaim his lost world, but the path was paved with countless sacrifices.
It's hard.
She knew that full well, yet that sky had made her think of her parents.
A mere instant, but the ten months she witnessed through them clung to her life like a part of it.
Was feeling nostalgia for them now a mockery to those who perished entangled with Merdaine?
“...”
She had never pondered such things before.
She had always been the victim.
She wasn't the perpetrator here, but the emotions felt perilously similar.
“Guilt's written all over your face.”
“Ah, sorry.”
She hadn't meant to show these feelings to anyone. After all, she felt like the perpetrator.
“No need to apologize to me. I'm feeling the exact same, Eleanor.”
The Saintess turned her gaze to the people outside the entrance.
“Everyone's celebrating the victory, drunk on reclaiming Merdaine's freedom... but far more can't.”
Dead comrades.
Betrayed convictions.
Guilt for fleeing and abandoning sacrificed souls.
Regret for failing to protect them.
Countless souls crushed under myriad emotions.
All of it... might never have happened if the Saintess, if the old Order of the Sun, hadn't taken on Merdaine.
“I'm not saying what you're feeling is nothing.”
“...”
“But everyone faces those emotions in life. They clutch them in a corner of their heart, living as if untouched. Every night, they whisper excuses in their minds for choices made back then.”
-What should I have done?
-I was just too young.
-I had no choice; I had nothing.
-I didn't know.
Endless excuses to get through each day.
“I won't affirm or deny the lives they've led. But those were their lives. The paths they walked became history. That's undeniable.”
“Life's pretty tormenting, huh.”
“Yes. Humans are built that way. That's why they lean on something.”
“...”
“Surely you have someone to lean on, Eleanor?”
Did the Saintess mean a god?
Unlikely.
Thick envy colored her eyes.
A comrade.
Different from the Holy Knights at her side.
The Holy Knights didn't see her as a comrade. Even if she did, to them she was god's sacred apostle.
“Th-thank you. I never expected comfort like this.”
“No need. I want something out of it too.”
“You want something...”
“The White Whale Mercenary Corps captain. Has he woken?”
“No, not yet.”
Indeed, that was why Eleanor harbored such guilt.
Jun still hadn't awakened from Lanerius's illusion.
Even after Lanerius vanished.
He slumbered deeply.
“That's troubling. Tell me right away if something comes up. I'll help if I can. I've got a request for him.”
“Understood.”
With that, Eleanor stepped out of the tent.
Toward the White Whale Mercenary Corps, where her comrades waited.
“The Saintess just called it troubling...”
Until dawn that day, Jun had shown no sign of stirring.
“Ugh, these damn foods—can't get used to how greasy they are.”
“Haha... Take it slow, Captain.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
“More of this?”
“Yep. Gotta eat something. Damn, we left all the supplies behind then; nothing left for us.”
“Hahaha! Pigging out right after waking isn't great for you, but sheer momentum should carry you through!”
“Urp, don't pat my back if you want me to eat more, Bern.”
“As the captain commands!”
Jun, awake before she knew it, shoveled food down like a man starved for days.
Well, he had gone days without eating.
Three days had passed since the crisis ended.
“Ahh, feeling alive now. Oh, Eleanor. You made it?”
“'Made it'? You had us all worried sick...”
“Ah, sorry. Circumstances.”
“What circumstances?”
“The God of Death. Bastard tried dragging me with him in his final spasms before dying.”
“The captain?”
“Yeah.”
Good thing they hadn't taken that lunatic's offer.
Trapped in his world, she'd been forcibly ensnared by his ideology.
Her soul's core had resonated with him against her will.
But Jun's gift—the diary.
Reading her parents' journal, she realized they sought not world restoration, but her happiness. Sanity returned.
Without Jun, she'd have yielded her body to him.
Yet the captain had nearly died for it.
As guilt crept up once more...
“But we're lucky. Eleanor, your rejection saved me.”
“...Huh?”
“Your face says it all. You blame yourself for the mess?”
“What?! Eleanor, nonsense! You're the victim here!”
Bern barked first at Jun's words—not accusing her, just declaring it wrong.
“But killing that guy? You were an absurd cheat key, Eleanor.”
“Cheat key? What's that?”
“Ah, tongue slipped. Lingering effects? Anyway, the one sure way through.”
“The one sure way?”
“Yeah. He packed level 9 power. Decayed god or not, in a human shell, still a god.”
Bern blocked one strike, but as Lanerius said, he was near death.
From a single block.
“If he'd dragged us down like a drowning ghost right before Duke Melen's body crumbled... we'd be goners.”
Only one reason he didn't.
Eleanor.
“No you, no killing him.”
As a god, he chose unlike humans. Not vengeful payback, but persuasion for the future.
“Stubbornly tried snagging me too... but failed.”
Thus, the God of Death faded.
Price: briefly nesting in Eleanor's soul.
“Everyone pulled weight, but yours was biggest, Eleanor.”
“Ah...”
What to say?
Everything felt futile.
Not lost hope in life.
Idiot.
Just... the self-directed rage seemed pointless.
She loathed being possessed by Lanerius even briefly.
Yet it let her see her parents' full ten-month journey.
Grateful, but self-loathing for it.
Stuck, those dregs clogging her heart, paralyzing her.
Jun's smile made it all seem pointless.
Just lived that way.
As if he said so.
As if the man bearing two souls in one body affirmed it.
So...
“Ha.”
She laughed.
That was it.
“Ugh, overdid it. Stomach's churning.”
Standing, Jun caught up on events during his sleep.
Lanerius... right.
He learned of the now-gone God of Death from Eleanor.
Like a game, he'd invaded her inner vessel, made for the true god.
Forcibly swayed her, revealed his world.
Thanks to Jun's prior diary handoff, she held her mind till the end, rejected him.
And this is the aftermath...
Merdaine's first blue sky in over fifty years.
The stark cityscape shifted hue.
Once pure agony and screams, now resistance scars emerged amid the ruins.
“Strange feeling.”
Jun didn't claim sole credit for it all.
But his presence hastened this view a bit, maybe.
Anyway.
Post-Lanerius, folk escaped his illusory realm.
As if by pact, they converged on Gurtaren Castle, the Order of the Sun's stronghold.
Now sorting chaos, signaling the outside world.
Saintess summons me amid this...
Praise, partly. But...
If just that, no calling via Eleanor while downed.
He'd been deep in Lanerius-induced slumber.
Another motive?
Obvious.
“Yellow cheese sheds moldy rind, emerges into the world.”
Won't every rat sniff that ripe allure and swarm?
Ah.
Rat-cheese love? Media myth, some say.
But rats devour cheese.
Why?
Hunger.
Easy pickings in dank, damp, hideaway havens.
So rats gnaw cheese.
“Word from the Imperial Family's central nobles. Demand 'explanation' for the incident.”
Same here.
Rats crave cheese still.