A Kiss and an Unbreakable Promise
“……!”
Before I could even begin to grasp what was happening, her face slowly drew away from mine. She was smiling brightly, with just a hint of shyness lingering behind it.
Only then did I register the soft sensation still lingering on my lips. The moment had come and gone so suddenly that a pang of regret flickered through me, but the sheer bewilderment kept my thoughts from moving any further.
“I already told you, didn’t I? I’ll wait as long as you need.”
“But……!”
Heat flooded my mind, leaving no room for coherent thought. I had only reacted on reflex. A tangled mix of wanting to hear her reason, habitual denial, and confusion was probably to blame, but my head certainly wasn’t working properly.
“Quiet. No matter what you say, I’m staying by your side. Whether you want me here or not, whether it’s good or bad for me—it doesn’t matter. I’m doing what I want. And what exactly are you going to do about it? Do you really think you could drive me away by force?”
Of course it was impossible. Whether I wanted it or not.
“That would be impossible.”
Unless I brought Rowell or the others, there was simply no way to force her out of here.
“…So you’re saying you’ll remain here, just as you have until now?”
“Yes. At least for the time being.”
She perched on the edge of the place that had once confined her. For the past few years she had always stood above it, but sitting like this was probably a first for her as well.
“Don’t think everything will stay exactly the same, though. I can reach you whenever I want now.”
“Yes. How could I forget?”
I reflexively raised a hand to touch my lips. At the sight, she glanced away.
“So from now on, come see me more often and stay longer. Otherwise……”
She playfully opened her palm, revealing a crimson flame.
“You know what happens, right?”
I had seen that sight countless times during the great war. Back then it had been filled with killing intent, so it hadn’t felt cute like this, but the fact that those flames could reduce me to ash without leaving even a trace remained unchanged.
“Please restrain the flames. You know full well this is a library.”
Most of the books here were written in demonic or ancient languages I couldn’t read, but that didn’t mean they could be burned.
Apparently that had been a mistake. A meaningful smile spread across her face as the flame in her palm grew fiercer.
“That works too. One book for every day you don’t come.”
“Please, even as a joke, don’t say such things.”
And especially not with eyes that didn’t look like she was joking.
“If you’re worried, just come check every day.”
“……I’ll do my best.”
At my answer the flame vanished, and she smiled in satisfaction.
“Good. I’m a woman who follows through when I say I will, you know?”
The back of my neck felt cold. It didn’t sound like an empty threat.
“……But are you really all right with this?”
If I said her choice didn’t make me happy, that would be a lie. It was also undeniably the best outcome I could have hoped for. Yet not all of my guilt had disappeared. No matter how much it was her decision, I knew I wasn’t the best partner for her, and what I could give her was limited.
In fact, I might end up taking more than I could ever give. At least she was no longer trapped behind the barrier, so she could change her mind whenever she wished—but I also knew it wouldn’t be as easy as it sounded.
“It’s fine.”
She answered without a shred of hesitation, her gaze steady.
“……And if Urshus is targeting you, it’s better for me to be here anyway.”
“……!”
She was right. As I had experienced firsthand, a demon god’s control over demons was absolute. The vessel of Urshus in El Nergavil had been destroyed, so the chance of her directly encountering him in this world was low, but it was no longer zero like it had been here.
I slowly approached her as she sat. She looked puzzled at my sudden movement, and when I drew closer than expected, a trace of embarrassment crossed her face—yet she remained seated without moving away.
I simply pulled her into an embrace. Because she was sitting, it was far easier for her to fit into my arms.
“A-Anak……?”
She seemed startled, but she didn’t pull away. If she hadn’t allowed it, I wouldn’t have been able to hold her in the first place.
“Thank you. Truly, thank you.”
My voice came out heavier than intended. I spoke while feeling the weight of it.
“I don’t know what’s truly right, or whether this is what’s best for you. I can’t even be sure if your feelings are something I’m allowed to accept.”
My voice trembled slightly. Expressing sincerity—especially emotions like these—wasn’t something I was used to.
“But what I do know is that I’m glad you’re here. Your feelings make me happy. Thank you. And I’m sorry.”
She listened in silence, then wordlessly wrapped her arms around my waist. A warmth entirely unlike flame spread through my body. Nothing could be heard or felt except the sound of a heartbeat—whether it was mine or hers, I couldn’t tell.
“…….”
I only regained a measure of composure when my arms began to ache. Embarrassment warmed my face, but the real problem was that the arms holding me showed no sign of loosening. If anything, they seemed to tighten as my own grip weakened.
Even when I tried to look down at her, she kept her face buried against my chest, unmoving.
“Rofena……?”
In the end, I had no choice but to wait. Only after a considerable amount of time passed was I able to carefully call her name.
“Um, could you let go now……?”
“……Just a little……more……”
I could feel her mumbling something, but her voice was too soft to make out.
“Pardon?”
“……just like this……”
“I’m sorry, I couldn’t catch that.”
Right after I spoke, the scattered words I’d heard clicked into place, and I realized what a tactless question I’d asked—but it was already too late.
“……No, it’s nothing.”
Her face bright red, she slowly pulled away. Then she drew her legs up onto the pedestal again, wrapped her arms around her knees, and turned her back to me. She was clearly embarrassed as well.
“……So what happened after that?”
The sudden question caught me off guard until I realized she was asking about the story at El Nergavil that we’d left unfinished earlier. Bringing it up so abruptly made it obvious she was trying to change the subject out of embarrassment.
“Ah, well……”
Half-mumbling, I continued the tale—how we escaped with Kainaknus and Alsh Unak, and how Alsh Unak had turned out to be the Sage of the Forest, Neiku.
“Foolish.”
She summed up Neiku’s actions in a single word, but that was because she was a high-ranking demon. She understood instinctively, not just intellectually, what demon gods truly were and what it meant for mid-tier deities to refrain from interfering with the lower realms.
“There’s no way they would respond to something so trivial.”
“He was that desperate. We all were.”
“Well, I know that much. You’ve seen what my flames can do.”
She felt no guilt. And I didn’t think she needed to. It had been war, and feeling pity for the lives lost was fundamentally different from feeling guilt.
In the first place, the weight of life for those of the heavenly and demonic realms was bound to differ from how we in the middle realm perceived it. They understood and directly felt the great cycle far better than we did.
The flow of the world, the value of souls, and their journeys were all things that constantly changed and continued for them. Every tragedy had a reason, and cause and effect, reward and punishment, would eventually come to pass in time—whether in this life or the next.
That was why the greatest gods and mid-tier deities remained in the highest realms without interfering below. It wasn’t mere belief that all souls would one day mature enough to reach the highest realm; they knew it for certain.
Even so, for us mortals who lived only a single moment, such talk didn’t truly resonate. The lower deities understood this as well, and because they themselves retained the same habits, they interfered with, aided, punished, and guided the lower realms.
The beings closest to those lower deities—and most similar to them—were demons and celestials. Though not to the same degree as the lower deities, they experienced and instinctively understood these truths far more deeply than we ever could.
“But even so, something like that could never reach them.”
Her gaze flicked reflexively toward one corner of the library before returning. She tried to appear nonchalant, but I knew exactly where she had looked—the place where those forbidden books were kept.
“And even if it did reach them, it would never be what you think.”
She added the words as if warning a child.
“I understand. Divine knowledge can never be fully captured or conveyed through mortal words. That is precisely why souls continue their endless journeys through the great cycle—because in the end, they must realize it for themselves.”
That was why those books had become forbidden texts and been burned to ash. Knowledge expressed incompletely and distortedly didn’t guide readers down the proper path; it only led them astray and brought them to ruin.
“……Sometimes you all speak as if you know everything. Yet at the same time, you act as though you know nothing. Many in the heavenly and demonic realms have always found that strange. Some even laughed and called you foolish.”
“That is probably our limitation. We can hear and learn knowledge, but neither the knowledge itself nor our understanding of it can ever be truly complete.”
Of course, there were those—like high-ranking demons, celestials, my companions, and other truly exceptional individuals—who could at least partially sense that completeness.
After that, we talked about various things, including the clones of Ryban. Time passed far too quickly, and before I knew it, there wasn’t nearly enough left for sleep, yet I still couldn’t bring myself to leave the library. By the time I finally returned to my room and prepared for bed, dawn was nearly breaking. Hoping Bagloros wouldn’t come to wake me directly, I set up barriers on the door and bed before finally lying down.