Chapter 270
Chapter 270
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 270
Chapter Title: Reality and Ideal (7)
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***
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ Three years.
A span of time long enough for the four seasons to cycle three times.
It was by no means a short period. Yet, it was woefully insufficient to bring a single life to a proper close.
"It's short."
"Is it?"
"You really scraped the bottom of the barrel, didn't you?"
Raniel gave a wry smile.
She was someone who had lived by burning through her own lifespan. Guessing what three years truly meant to her wasn't hard.
"I never heard that Heroes could bargain with the stars, either."
"I thought the same."
"So that means..."
"Yes, I did make a deal."
Gallahal began to spill the secret he'd kept hidden.
Though it was a tale he'd concealed and buried deep, voicing it brought him a sense of relief.
"It was the day I lost all my comrades. The day despair hit me because there was nothing I could do. That night, I looked up at the sky, and one star was shining brighter than the rest."
A star gleaming with an unusually brilliant platinum light.
The star worshipped as a god by the Delorhim Church.
"That was the first time I heard the star's voice."
Heroes were supposed to hear the voice of the stars.
But Gallahal, blessed with scant starlight, had never heard it before. That day marked the first time he did.
"The star asked me..."
Gallahal held out his palm.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ Do you desire the light? Do you wish to grasp what cannot be grasped? No matter the price, are you prepared to pay it? Gallahal's answer was predetermined.
He answered, and the star replied in kind.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ [The deal has been established.] "If I could do it, I'd offer anything, I said. Then a set of scales appeared before me."
What to place upon it.
What price would yield what reward.
"It was a scale that valued my time as currency."
Gallahal had no talent for magic, but the moment he faced the scales, he instinctively understood. How to use them. And what they demanded as payment.
When he realized this, fear wasn't what he felt. Quite the opposite.
"I felt relieved."
Gallahal gave a wry smile.
"With this, I wouldn't have to let go anymore. I could do more. Even someone like me, in a state like this... I could do something."
That's what he thought.
That's how he acted.
"Whenever I lacked strength, whenever it felt like something would slip away, I used the scales."
He used them again and again.
Shortening his own time to extend someone else's. Over the past few years, Gallahal had offered up most of his lifespan to those scales.
"Until I could use them no longer."
Gallahal snapped his fingers.
Starlight gathered in the air, taking the form of scales. He placed his hand on them... but they didn't budge. As if no more trades were possible.
"The star warned me that any more would mean death."
"...So that's why you're retiring?"
"Yes. Knight Commander Heinkel saw through my unnatural methods and urged me to retire."
Gallahal waved his hand.
The scales dissolved into the air. He stared at the empty space they left for a moment before slowly speaking.
"Raniel."
"Yeah."
"I have something to ask."
"Go ahead."
"..."
Gallahal opened his mouth, then closed it again.
His tightly pressed lips wouldn't part easily. He wanted to speak, but stringing the swirling words in his mind into sentences wasn't simple.
A little time passed.
Finally, Gallahal forced the words out.
"...Raniel, I know you've also sacrificed your lifespan. I know the time granted to you isn't much, either."
"That's right."
Gallahal slowly pieced together his sentence.
"You."
"Aren't you... afraid?"
Raniel flinched, her body jerking.
She slowly turned her head to look at Gallahal. He was staring down at the floor beside her.
"I'm terrified."
His profile was different from the Gallahal she always knew.
"Of course, I don't regret sacrificing my lifespan. If that moment came again, I'd do the same. But... but..."
He wasn't the Hero standing before everyone.
He wasn't the most Hero-like of Heroes.
"Knowing I have so little time left, that I can no longer live as a Hero, that I'll die without finding answers..."
A human fearing death.
A human trembling in fear.
"That's what scares me so much."
Right here, now, was just one human.
"Aren't you afraid?"
The human asks the sage.
To the sage who always seems perfect, unafraid even of death... the human poses the question.
And the sage groans in response.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ 2.
"Aren't you afraid of the approaching death?" Gallahal asked.
He posed the question to the sage.
To the sage who seemed perfect, transcending even the fear of death through sheer perfection. And through this, Gallahal seeks an answer to his anguish.
The sage, Raniel van Trias.
She knows the answer Gallahal craves.
Answering his torment as a sage is simple. She could spin an idealistic tale. Recite a picture-perfect philosophy, and that would be it.
Anyone can speak of ideals.
Thus, an ideal's value is determined by the speaker who voices it. How does the sage Raniel van Trias fare as that speaker?
Perfectly suited.
A sage who has lived by doctrine, embodying a hero's life as if painted in a picture—her proclaimed ideals undoubtedly hold worth.
But.
Raniel doesn't want to do that.
"Afraid, huh, Raniel?"
She, who always pursued perfection, looks at Gallahal. He too chased perfection. But now, he's asking as one mere human.
Then.
She too must answer as one mere human.
"As if."
Raniel let out a short breath as she spoke.
It wasn't just breath she exhaled. The tension in her shoulders eased. The muscles in her ever-stoic face relaxed.
"No way I'm not scared."
Her voice came out lighter than ever before.
"Sorry, Gallahal."
Raniel gave him a wry smile.
Gallahal stared back at her, eyes wide.
"I'm not that different from you."
"...Pardon?"
"You, Kyle, Destel... seems like everyone's got the wrong idea, so I'll just say it now."
Something she'd never confessed to anyone.
Something she never planned to tell a soul.
Now, Raniel began to lay it bare.
"You think I'm just perfect like you imagine, fearless, inhumanly great or whatever, and that's why I am the way I am? Nah."
She'd only ever shown that side, so the misunderstanding was natural. With that thought, Raniel continued.
"I'm the same."
Her voice weakened as she went on.
"Watching people drop dead on the battlefield is horrific no matter how many times I see it. When knights I shared drinks with come back as corpses that night, I can't sleep. The fact that death happening right there could be my story too terrifies me. How could I not be scared?"
This wasn't Sage Raniel van Trias.
"When I face a calamity and everything I've built gets denied, I feel like I'm going insane. Skeval? Fine, I found a way around that bastard somehow. But you ever faced an apostate? Seen the hordes they command?"
Just a plain human named Raniel burst into laughter.
"Does that make any fucking sense?"
"..."
"Even burning out my circuits to unleash spells, stopping one armored dragon is a struggle. And they come charging in groups of five or six—not even the end of it. Hordes of beasts follow in their wake. Endless, truly endless."
That thing.
That monstrous impossibility.
"Every time I face that insane bullshit, you know what I do?"
Raniel stretched out her hand.
Perfectly fine now, but recalling her mangled fingers from back then, she kept laughing.
"I chop off fingers. Twist arms. If that fails, I offer my lifespan. That's how I block them. Blocking is all I can do. Can't even kill them."
And moreover, Raniel added.
"What about the Sword of Death, Ganikalt?"
No answer.
"You haven't faced the Demon King, right? When you see that, you just laugh for real."
No answer in sight.
"Dealing with shit like that... you think I'm not scared? I am. Terrified to the point of madness. So what do I do?"
Raniel knows.
"I search for an answer even if there isn't one."
Countless knights sacrificed their lives for this version of herself. She stands atop their corpses.
"Someone has to do it. Someone has to find the answer."
They gladly gave their lives for her as a sage. Many walked into the jaws of death believing she'd achieve something. Far too many.
"Even if I'm scared, even if I don't want to, even if I want to run. I can't. It's on me. It's my job—the one who can do more than others."
She'd done it because she had to.
Lived perfectly because she had to be perfect.
"It's not that I'm not scared. Hell, I want to pull a Kyle and just maintain the status quo. Settle for the present, think 'this is good enough.'"
But, Raniel said.
"Anyone else could do that. They didn't die for me over something so trivial. I have a duty to honor their sacrifice."
Obsession, mental illness—whatever.
Raniel can't look away from her duty. Can't rationalize it away with "this is enough."
"So I do it. I have to be perfect. Act like I feel no fear, nothing... just perfect."
That's all there is to it.
That's the entirety of the sage whom even Heroes revere.
The sage everyone thinks is perfect, but inside, she's already broken. Like any human who's lingered too long on the battlefield, Raniel's inner self is rotten to the core.
"Hoo..."
A secret she'd never shown anyone.
Having poured it all out, Raniel let out a long breath.
"You said you're afraid of the coming death, Gallahal."
"...Yes."
"You can't help but be. You can't escape fear. It'll follow you until that final moment three years from now. Your anguish too."
A cruel truth.
Gallahal bit his lip hard.
"Then I..."
"That's what gives it meaning."
Gallahal swallowed dryly. Raniel gazed at him with a faint smile.
"Torment yourself endlessly over what you can do in the time left. What can you achieve? What can you leave behind?"
A dilemma Raniel herself had wrestled with nonstop.
"I don't know what answer you'll find, but... in my case."
Raniel thought of the students at Aphria Academy, and Chloe now on the battlefield.
"It's raising disciples."
"Disciples... you mean?"
"Yeah, disciples. The kids I teach. The ones growing because of me."
Mages taking disciples is commonplace.
Humans live at most a century. So mages pass on their lifelong path of magic to successors.
Thus, the history of magecraft has continued for centuries. Onward to the next, and the next.
"Those kids will rise high someday. Maybe higher than me. And some might accomplish what I couldn't."
Her life echoes in the path they tread.
"My hopes, the dreams I couldn't grasp—they live on through those kids."
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ "Onward to the next, and the next."
Like the first band of Heroes in the past, Raniel had chosen the same answer. She wasn't alone. All humans choose similarly.
Because they fear death.
Because they fear leaving nothing behind.
Yet, they strive to leave meaning.
Humans pass the torch endlessly: to the next, and the next.
"Well, I haven't given up on slaying the Demon King yet... but who knows the future."
"...I see."
Gallahal bowed his head deeply.
A smile played at his lips. He let out a short breath and lifted his gaze.
"Fear gives it meaning. Anguish gives it meaning. Didn't I say that?"
"You did."
"You're already putting it to good use."
Raniel chuckled.
"What now?"
"Like you said, I'll start agonizing over it from here on. Three years isn't that short, after all."
Gallahal exhaled briefly.
His expression lighter, he murmured.
"If I search, I'll find at least one."
"Find what?"
"Something only I can do."
"I hear that a lot lately."
"It's my signature quote."
Raniel snorted with laughter.
Gallahal brushed back his tousled hair and laughed freely too.
Bound by similar plights, the two who understood each other smiled at one another.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ 3.
"There's one thing hanging over me before I retire."
Just as he was about to leave, Gallahal said to me in a much lighter tone. I tilted my head and looked at him.
"What?"
"It's actually the first thing I should worry about. If I step away... it'll affect the front lines, after all."
"Yeah... it will."
One Hero gone.
The repercussions on the battlefield wouldn't be small. Even a simple calculation showed a slew of problems arising.
"Even if Chloe takes my place... there'll be a gap in between, right?"
Gallahal sighed.
"That's why I want to stay on the field longer, but Knight Commander Heinkel was firm. He said to spend my remaining time in peace."
"Uncle Heinkel's always like that."
Those who served humanity deserve proper recompense. That's how Uncle Heinkel operates. He doesn't want to see Gallahal collapse from exhaustion on the battlefield.
'And...'
If he stayed, Gallahal would undoubtedly offer his remaining three years to the scales. This wasn't a guess—it was near certainty.
Gallahal would die on the battlefield.
If the knights witnessed that, the fallout would dwarf his retirement. Uncle Heinkel had probably thought that far ahead.
"How to fill the vacancy I leave..."
"About that."
I stopped walking.
"I have something in mind."
"Pardon?"
"It got delayed because of sudden cracks forcing me to investigate everything, but it should be fine now."
I slipped my hand into my robe.
My fingers grasped something round.
"It's notoriously hard to qualify for, and hardly anyone could even use it, but..."
I pulled it out.
"Maybe one person could."
The moment he saw what I held, Gallahal's eyes widened.
"That's...?"
"The Holy Grail."
I dangled the cup in front of him.
"The miraculous holy relic."
***
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