Chapter 121
Chapter 121
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 121
Chapter Title: The Foreseer's Promise
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“You will die.”
It was a declaration. An unchangeable truth.
When he heard those words, Ivan was glad. The moment he had been waiting for had finally arrived.
Terror was fleeting, salvation eternal. The surging ecstasy and hidden fear felt exactly like the first time he met the Foreseer.
It had been a life without a single creak or groan.
Parents who knew the joy of sharing, a healthy body, friends who shared his aspirations, a lifelong companion.
Fisherman Ivan was content with his life.
When he went out to the vast sea and hauled in the catch, all stray thoughts vanished, leaving only fulfillment.
He vowed to live out his days as a fisherman, his true calling, until his body gave out.
It wasn’t perfect, but it lacked for nothing.
That was certainly true.
Until that incident.
It was a disease whose name and cause no one knew. One in every three households lost someone.
The plague was vicious. The sturdy young fought off the high fevers and survived, but the old and frail closed their eyes before they could even react.
By lunchtime, smoke from cremating corpses rose where wails had echoed that morning.
Countless wooden memorial tablets dotted the hill behind the village where children once played.
The small village straddling the Tegus and Wirap territories became a ghost town.
The survivors couldn’t leave easily. They hadn’t even informed the outside world.
Ivan and the villagers knew full well what would happen if the territory’s administration learned of the epidemic.
“The living will be thrown into the flames alongside the dead. We must never let them know!”
Those were the dying words of the village elder, spat out with blood.
The disease was impartial. It knocked quietly on Ivan’s door and reliably claimed his parents and child. Only he and his wife survived.
He wanted to die. To throw it all away. Had his wife left him too, Ivan would surely have thrown himself into the sea. But his wife, though stricken, was holding on.
Ivan believed. She would overcome it. Even as most of the village perished, she would endure.
But her symptoms worsened by the day. The same in every house. They clung to life, but hope was nowhere in sight.
The faces of the surviving neighbors and the dead laid out before cremation looked much the same. Exhaustion had claimed them all.
Yet every morning, the survivors gathered in the village square.
They prayed that Sherry, who had left with a sack of gold coins to fetch medicine, would return safely; that the survivors would stay healthy; that the stricken families would somehow recover.
They offered prayers to whatever gods dwelled in heaven and earth.
Long ago, a pastor from the central cathedral had said: “God is merciful and watches over you.”
The prayers didn’t last long. The wails from house to house fell silent.
The last holdouts stopped breathing one by one. Caregivers collapsed from exhaustion, and the disease invaded their weakened bodies.
It was a vicious cycle. Those who could leave had gone, leaving only those who couldn’t.
Ivan was one of them. His wife still drew breath.
When dogs and cats outnumbered people, the remaining survivors gave up everything.
Sherry never returned. They cursed her name, yet understood. Who would come back to this place?
Jena, praying daily for her corpse-like husband. Den, wiping her young daughter’s brow and weeping without fail each day. Sanson, daily urging his one-year-older brother to hold on....
And Mielle, who buried her dead husband in the ground, refusing to cremate him.
The survivors could be counted on one hand. Talk turned to turning their backs on this hell and leaving at last.
That night, his wife breathed her last. It was all over.
Ivan stacked hay around the house. The approaching villagers said nothing.
“I’m tired. I’m going with them.”
The fragile thread holding his sanity snapped. The others returned to their homes, gathered their dead, and came back.
“I’ll send my child off with them.”
“It’s time to end it.”
Not a single survivor remained. No miracles occurred.
They laid the corpses inside the hay-ringed house. The living lay down beside them.
“Those who want to go, go. No need to join us.”
“Do it quick. I don’t want to wake up again.”
At the hollow voices, Ivan nodded.
He lit the fire. Flames engulfed the house in an instant. Amid the searing heat, no one groaned.
Crimson flickers danced across their faces. They all looked relieved at last.
That was when he thought death was near.
A snow-white arm parted the flames. Dazzlingly pale, it cleaved through the blaze and dragged the people inside to safety.
The moment the white hand touched his skin, Ivan burst into tears. Relief at surviving warred with despair at failing to die, shaking him to his core.
“It’s not your time yet.”
The black-robed figure spoke. The man commanding the white arm gathered the corpses in one place.
Everyone stared blankly. They didn’t ask who he was, what he intended, or why.
His actions seemed reverent, sacred. Unthinkingly, Ivan clasped his hands.
The daily prayers to God turned toward the man. If there was a miracle, please let him see his wife just once more.
“Spare me, I’ll never do it again! Please!”
It was Sherry. The woman who had left for medicine clung to the man’s hand.
“It will be brief, but say your farewells.”
The man said. A white arm extended from within the robe, wrapping around Sherry. She thrashed and screamed, then fell silent.
Blood poured from Sherry’s body, pooling on the ground. The crimson puddle spread. It was grotesque, but Ivan watched in a daze.
The corpses sank into the pool, very slowly. Moments later, a white child emerged from the puddle. He knew at once. It was his wife.
“Honey!”
“Brother!”
People rushed toward different children. Ivan did the same.
His knees soaked in the bloody water, but he didn’t care. He knelt and looked into the child’s eyes.
“It’s you, right?”
Ivan asked in a trembling voice. The child didn’t answer but touched his face instead.
In that instant, emotions beyond words flowed from the child’s hand into him.
It was but a moment, yet Ivan shed his pain. It was a communion impossible in the flesh.
More passed in that single touch than in all the conversations of their decades together.
It was overwhelming. He felt saved. Ivan gripped the child’s hand and wept.
He couldn’t let go like this. He knew better than anyone that this was the end.
But farewell came swiftly. The children were sucked back into the pool. Ivan screamed and tried to pull her out, to no avail. He slammed his head into the puddle.
He wanted to go with her. But he felt only the hard ground; he couldn’t follow her.
He came to his senses and looked around. Everyone was soaked in blood. They gazed at one another, gathered, and embraced. Tears washed their faces.
“Fate has pushed you to this. It never should have come to that.”
The man approached and pushed back his hood, revealing his face.
Sorrowful eyes. A face that understood grief. He grasped each person’s hand in turn.
“It grieves me. It pains me deeply.”
“Who are you?”
Ivan asked.
“My name is Gilliud. I am one who understands your suffering.”
“I want to see my wife again.”
“With my current power, I cannot help it. This world’s framework binds her.”
“If it binds her, then break it free.”
“That is precisely my task. Fate toys with us. The world denies us true freedom. When the Realm crumbles, the pain of loss and sorrow will vanish. Then, the natural order becomes history, fate obsolete, and humanity gains true freedom.”
“When will that time come?”
Ivan clutched the man’s hand.
“To hasten the ‘Day of Promise,’ I need your help. Will you lend me your strength?”
Ivan looked down at his hand. Moments ago, it had held his wife. He had felt an indescribable exchange of emotions.
“Will I meet the others too? My parents, my child?”
“When the Realm crumbles, space loses meaning. All that divides us will dissolve. Only pure happiness remains.”
Ivan closed his eyes briefly. He imagined it: a world of perfect understanding without words, without pain, without death.
How beautiful.
How wondrous.
“Please use me. I entrust my life to you.”
“Thank you.”
Then it came. Footsteps echoed from the pitch darkness.
Ivan looked up. Torches flickered to life, one by one. Dozens, perhaps hundreds. Strangers all, yet Ivan knew at a glance.
They shared the same pain, the same longing.
“We will join you. For the Day of Promise.”
Tears of emotion welled up. Even if this life melted away, he would never regret it. He would not fear.
When the time came, he would be reborn and meet them all again.
Twenty years passed since then. Much had happened. The Foreseer comforted his comrades with the same face as that first meeting. And at last, the time arrived.
It was time to part from his aged body. He could hardly sleep from excitement. At last, he would serve his purpose. The ‘Day of Promise’ drew near.
His comrades rose in the Holy City all at once. Unstable Realms tore open everywhere. Humans corrupted into Magical Beasts by devouring their pure selves rampaged.
Chaos engulfed the Holy City. Countless died. But it was fine.
Soon, they would meet them all. Then they would understand. In a world needing no words, they would share happiness.
While the corrupted humans rampaged, the comrades moved to the appointed place.
They entered the Unstable Realm. There, they met their pure selves.
The urge to devour it addled their minds. Resisting that temptation was impossible.
But they could buy time. With flesh strengthened by ruling the Imaginary Realm, he leaped into Sector 8. The Empire’s Think Tank came into view.
The Foreseer had seen its fall in a vision. Realizing it was his role.
He drew mana from his roots. The mana pathways obeyed without refusal. His body burned hot. No—cold. Pain drowned all thought.
Only the desire to hurl this heat and chill into that entrance filled him.
Ivan climbed atop the wall. He was ready to leap. Everything flowed as planned. Just as the Foreseer foresaw, along the Grand Flow.
What do you desire?
His pure self whispered. Mad laughter escaped as he poised to jump from the wall.
A cloaked man appeared beside him. The Unstable Realm let him glimpse the man’s inner depths, however slightly.
The sky. No, something vaster. Perhaps something smaller than sand. Something grotesque that could be one or ten.
“Foreseer, this is wrong.”
His head was severed. There was no pain. In the instant his mana-filled body exploded, Ivan saw it.
An empty darkness, nothing more.
(To be continued)