Chapter 156
Chapter 156
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 156
Chapter Title: Coincidence, Perhaps Inevitability (4)
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Tap, tap, tap, tap.
The sharp click of shoe heels echoed loudly through the alleyway. It sounded like fleeing from something, yet carried no real sense of urgency. The silver-haired girl at the source of those footsteps glanced back over her shoulder.
"......"
She had put some distance between herself and the shop.
Chloe slowly bent her knees. She crouched in the corner of the alley, covering her face with both palms, and screamed silently.
'I'm crazy, am I insane...!'
Her face burned with shame.
It felt so hot that steam might rise from it. Lania's whispered words kept circling in Chloe's ears.
"To think you wanted to attend my class—I'm honored."
Her face felt like it might explode. For real.
"...!"
Chloe shook her head frantically, screaming without sound. She had blabbered excitedly about herself right in front of herself. Elegant classes and all that embarrassing nonsense.
"I'm going to take her class. Not some brute professor's like you!"
Her own words haunted her ears.
How ridiculous must she have looked in that professor's eyes? Chloe swept her hands down her face and looked up at the sky. The sky was heartlessly blue.
"Haha."
Chloe let out an empty laugh.
'Goodbye, ideal school life.'
The first button was already crooked.
She had left a strong impression on the professor she wanted to impress—but in the worst way. Then again, that professor hadn't quite matched the rumors from the start...
"What am I going to do..."
Either way, her academy life was off to a tangled start.
Chloe buried her face in her knees and muttered. One person responded to her soliloquy.
"What do you mean, what are you going to do?"
Chloe looked up.
Belnoa stood leaning against the alley wall, looking down at her. Chloe glared at Belnoa for no reason.
"...Why are you late?"
Her voice was chillingly cold.
Belnoa flinched, shoulders trembling. It wasn't Chloe's usual gentle tone.
"An hour late."
"Uh... sorry."
On the way to the shop, she'd been held up by the old man for errands, it couldn't be helped... Plenty of excuses, but Belnoa stayed silent. She knew Chloe didn't want to hear them.
"I'll be on time next time."
Belnoa eyed Chloe cautiously as she replied. She still looked upset, somehow sulky.
'Something must have happened...'
With no context, that was Belnoa's best guess. She sighed inwardly and glanced back the way she'd come.
'What on earth happened at the shop?'
A narrow, twisting alleyway.
One wrong step and you'd lose your way—like a maze. Old man Cardi's shop, where Belnoa had spent her childhood, sat at the end of such a path.
'But why would the professor come to a backwater like this?'
The thought struck her as she scanned the alley.
Belnoa furrowed her brow. It was a bit odd, thinking about it. Professor Lania had visited before.
'She came last time too. Said she knew him.'
She'd brushed it off at first.
But not the second time.
Now that Belnoa realized the professor's true identity—someone beyond mere eccentric—she felt a growing unease.
'Ashen Mage.'
Raniel van Trias.
That legendary mage had called old man Cardi an acquaintance. A very old one, at that. Belnoa muttered, brow still creased.
"...What the hell is that old man, really?"
His true nature remained a mystery.
2.
"You're right, Raniel."
The rundown shop.
"That day, we killed the Demon King."
A chair that creaked at the slightest movement. Shelves thick with dust. Potion bottles scattered everywhere. No one could call it tidy, not even politely.
"There, we severed the flesh of the shadow."
In that shabby place, the most glorious history was being recounted. By a great sage who had lived that era and remembered it all.
"We succeeded up to that point..."
I listened intently to his words.
"But in the end, we failed. Because we couldn't truly kill it."
"...Couldn't kill it?"
"We lacked many things."
Cardi closed his eyes.
As if recalling the distant past, he fell silent for a moment. When he opened them again, his golden eyes were a shade deeper, more somber.
"...I once told you about the concept of shadow. Do you remember?"
"I do. A madman observed the opposite of stars, and that became shadow."
"And you know it's tied to the Demon King?"
I nodded.
'The Demon King's curse and Ganikalt's sword.'
Something no ordinary spell could touch, devouring starlight like sludge. And the Demon King I'd seen was that sludge incarnate.
"The Demon King is the shadow itself."
Cardi declared it flatly.
Having half-expected it, I wasn't shocked. He seemed to anticipate my reaction and continued calmly.
"That's why we were mistaken."
"Mistaken?"
"Yes, mistaken. Shadow is a creature born from foolish human hands. A concept shaped by humans. An intruder into the eternal providence. That's what we thought."
Cardi gazed at his teacup. Staring at the thick liquid inside, he went on.
"...It wasn't just that."
I thought I heard teeth grinding.
"That day."
Cardi looked at me.
"What we faced there wasn't an incomplete concept. It wasn't something that shouldn't exist, born from observation."
Regret gleamed in his yellowish-golden eyes.
Hundreds of years ago, yet he spoke as if it were last night.
"It wasn't incomplete."
One.
"It wasn't a mortal like us."
One.
"No, and because it wasn't... nothing we built could touch it."
As if correcting past mistakes, Cardi continued. He let out a hollow chuckle and asked me.
"Raniel, do you know what we call a perfect being?"
"...A star?"
Cardi nodded.
"In other tongues, borrowing Glerea's words, a god. Something unbound by providence. Something that transcends existence to become law itself."
King of Ten Thousand Demons.
"That's what we faced."
What the first heroes confronted.
Even as I listened, I couldn't dare picture it.
"We fought for ten days and nights."
Only those who faced it could.
"Everyone staked everything they had."
Cardi spat it out.
"We used everything at our disposal. Belial abandoned his flesh, becoming a dragon and rampaging. Ganikalt cast aside his pride, swinging not a sword to cleave but to tear. Glerea used holy spells not to save, but to kill. I employed every alchemy, even breaking taboos."
That was the battle.
Cardi muttered, then looked at me.
"Even then, victory was nowhere in sight."
"...Yet."
"Yet we had to resist."
Why resist?
"Because we were the only ones. The only ones who could stop it. It was duty, responsibility... the obligation of those who bore the hero's name."
Thud.
Cardi set down the teacup he'd been shaking in his hand.
"On the tenth night, it ended."
He raised his hand.
"It was born from humanity's ugly origins, and thus could never fully escape them. We targeted that flaw."
Cardi tapped the teacup with a fingertip.
Tick, tick. A crack formed.
"In the end, we severed the king's flesh."
Crack—the cup shattered.
"But we couldn't kill it."
Thick liquid spilled across the table.
It flowed toward me.
"I can't tell you the details. You haven't reached the second contract yet. But simply put..."
Cardi pointed at the liquid.
"It overflowed."
"......"
"Stopping an overflowing wave with mere human hands? Impossible. That's why we failed."
A bitter smile tugged at his lips.
"And the price of failure was cruel."
The cost of touching the untouchable.
Of raising a blade to a god.
I knew that price well.
"The rest is history you know."
The heroes fell, becoming calamities.
The calamities burned countless nations. They had to break the oaths they'd sworn at the start of their adventure—with their own hands.
"...So they became calamities, just like that?"
"Something like that."
"The current Demon King—you killed it once, but it's just some byproduct you couldn't finish off?"
"Byproduct isn't quite right. But it is weakened. That was the point of the contract."
Contract. That damned contract.
I sighed and said,
"...Feels like you're skipping a lot."
"Can't tell you yet. Even if I forced it, you wouldn't hear it."
Cardi wiped the spilled green tea as he spoke.
"You only know one of the three contracts. There's much more for you to learn."
I narrowed my eyes.
His attitude toward me had shifted slightly from before. I pointed it out.
"...Not hiding anymore?"
"You can hear more now. I can't give details, but I can at least give you the gist."
"You wouldn't even do that before."
"I hoped you wouldn't touch the truth."
Cardi slowly raised his head.
I frowned and shot back,
"...Hoped I wouldn't?"
"Yes."
"Why? You wanted someone to know, but not me..."
"I wanted someone to know, but I hoped it wouldn't be you."
I almost asked what that meant, then closed my mouth. Cardi's tone had softened. He looked at me with eyes different from usual.
"...The you I know."
Cardi said,
"If you heard this tale, you'd reach a contract no one else could... and once you knew the truth, you'd feel compelled to take responsibility."
"...Responsibility?"
"You'd dig deeper. Uncover every truth, then head back to the battlefield."
I fell silent.
In the silence, Cardi continued.
"You've already retired. You've achieved much, sacrificed for humanity. You can't deny that."
"...That's."
"Don't deny it. No one would."
Cardi reached out.
He pointed at my heart—the curse still gnawing my body, or perhaps my worn soul.
"Your body is broken. Your soul is frayed."
Thus, said Cardi.
"Didn't you decide to spend your remaining years in rest?"
"......"
"You deserve rest. So I thought it didn't have to be you right now. You've done enough. The rest..."
"Hey."
"It doesn't have to be you..."
"Hey, Cardi."
I cut him off.
Looking at him, I smiled bitterly. He seemed thoroughly mistaken.
"Who said that?"
"...Said what?"
"Who decided to spend their remaining years resting?"
I laughed.
"I never planned to."
3.
Cardi stared at me wordlessly.
His look asked what I meant, so I gladly answered.
"For starters."
I propped my chin and said,
"I've lived this long—I can live just as much more. 'Remaining years' feels off. How could I spend that time just resting? I'd die of boredom."
An elf who had lived over a millennium.
From Cardi's view, my life was a blink. Surely. A dozen years would pass like a blink for this ancient elf.
But not for me.
I was human. A dozen years was no short time—vastly long, full of potential. I'd already proven it with the last five years.
"In five years, I killed two calamities."
"...Two?"
"Skeval's as good as dead anyway. Point is, I took down two in under five years. And I've got a rough idea how to finish the other two."
I had the sense.
I saw the possibility.