Chapter 337
Chapter 337
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Translator: Ryuma
> Chapter: 337
> Chapter Title: Given Time (6)
> ----------------------------------------------------------------- Four years ago, in the ruins of the Seleph Kingdom. There, Kyle Toben confronted the Demon King. As he crossed that black wasteland, the sky suddenly darkened. At first, he thought it was just storm clouds gathering, but that illusion didn't last long. Something fell from the darkened sky. Plip, plop. It was raindrops. Black raindrops fell. They soaked the ruins of the crumbled kingdom, flowing along the cracks in the split earth. Flowing and flowing, they formed a single stream. Shoooo... The rain poured relentlessly. It wasn't the body of a hero to feel cold from a little rain. Even in a raging blizzard, a hero's body remained unscathed. But that day, as the rain fell on him, Kyle shivered with cold. A chill that seeped into his bones. Kyle instinctively took a step back, gripped by primal fear. Sara and Remia did the same. But they couldn't even take a second step. There was no escaping now. Screeech, creeeak. Creaaak. A twisting sound echoed through the air. The twisting grew massive, followed by a tearing noise that reverberated like a scream, or like nails clawing at something. An eerie tone. Screee■■. ■■■■eeak. And then it appeared. ■■. ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■. Hands rose from the sewage flowing across the ground, more hands from the black sludge blanketing the sky, countless hands surging up to form a single shape. It all happened in an instant. A being that emerged in a flash. The moment they faced it, Kyle—and everyone standing there—instinctively knew. That was the lord of all demons. The being at the opposite end of the stars. In other words... 【■■■■, ■■■■■■.】 The Demon King. ◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ Rumble...!
Waves of black sludge surged forward.
Every time a hand slammed down, the earth shook and sludge splattered. Before the black waves that devoured everything they touched, Kyle gripped his holy sword. He clutched it to do something, but...
"...Huh?"
The holy sword gave no response.
The starlight-forged blade was now just a sharp sword, nothing more. It wasn't just the holy sword that had lost its light. The starlight that once enveloped his body, the voice of the stars that offered guidance—all of it was gone.
The elements that made him a hero.
Everything to Kyle.
The stars had abandoned him.
In that spot, Kyle was reduced to a mere human. The hero, fallen to humanity, lost his uniqueness. He lost his courage. His pride, his self-respect—all gone. Alone in that moment, Kyle was seized by terror.
Clack, clatter.
His upper and lower teeth chattered wildly.
His mind reeled in fear. The hero who symbolized victory was no longer there. In his place was a coward who could do nothing without the stars.
Kyle fled in disgrace.
He dropped the holy sword, turned his back, screamed as he ran. With the ugliest sprint of his life, he escaped the advancing sludge.
He ran and ran.
As he fled, Kyle finally glanced back at the flash surging from behind him. There stood Raniel, stepping forward in place of the unconscious Sara and Remia.
"I offer it."
Raniel's voice echoed.
"Half my lifespan."
Kyle heard that voice clearly.
He clearly saw the starlight overflowing against the encroaching shadows. Hearing and seeing it, Kyle realized.
'I ran away.'
But Raniel...
'That guy...'
The sage who always sought answers...
'Is still, still not running...'
He was seeking answers there once more.
Stepping forward one pace before the monster that evoked mythic terror, refusing to retreat. Unlike Kyle, who had turned and fled.
Light overflowed.
A shadow fell over Kyle's feet amid the flooding light. In that moment, he felt no misery. No jealousy, no longing, no envy. What he felt there was emptiness and futility.
Chaaaaain!
A massive chain infused with starlight surged up.
The rising chains bound the sludge. They restrained the Demon King's movements. Raniel had succeeded in pinning a god-like being in place.
"I see."
Kyle let out a hollow laugh.
Something inside him snapped with a faint crack. With a dry chuckle, he lowered his head.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ And so, they fled from the Demon King.
Right after escaping the Demon King, Raniel collapsed, the price of sacrificing half his lifespan. Sara, bereft of her god, broke down. Remia, gripped by terror, clawed at her own skin. And Kyle... he alone stepped out of the tent.
Deep into the night.
The stars shone down on Kyle.
Beneath the stars, Kyle blankly stared at his palm. The hand that had swung the sword countless times. Memories surfaced of the past, when he believed that one day he could become an irreplaceable being like Raniel.
The past led to the present.
Despite endless training, in the most crucial moment, Kyle had fled. In abject humiliation.
"......"
Kyle looked down at his feet.
Though he stood on dry earth, in his eyes, it appeared as a sticky swamp. The blood of countless people who had trusted him and staked their lives had formed that mire.
He had thought he walked atop the swamp.
But before he knew it, he was sinking beneath it.
Responsibility crushed Kyle's shoulders. In that instant, accumulated doubts swallowed him whole.
Demon King.
Could he defeat what he had seen? Was it even something that could be defeated?
Was it possible for him?
Could he do it with decades of training?
Even with decades upon decades more—could he recreate that sword strike from his dreams? No, was that realm even real?
Was it all just his delusion?
Was everything a dream, and had he merely been chasing an unattainable height?
Countless doubts gnawed at him.
As the questions chained endlessly, threatening to consume him entirely—a dry cough echoed from inside the tent. Cough, splat—the sound of blood spilling followed.
—...It's impossible.
—Physical wounds can be healed, but this is something else entirely. The soul itself...
The priests' murmurs.
Raniel vomiting blood, dying.
—Too much power at once.
—Something he wasn't meant to have.
—He probably won't make it through the night.
—The power of the stars was never...
Kyle closed his eyes.
The sounds grew distant. The priests' hurried footsteps, Raniel retching blood, Sara's terrified prayers, Remia's clawing at her flesh... all of it faded.
It all felt like events happening far away. Detached from reality, Kyle thought with eyes closed.
The place where I fled.
The battlefield abandoned, duty cast aside.
There, Raniel had done what Kyle himself should have. Because Raniel risked his life, everyone—including Kyle—survived. It was a debt to Raniel he could never repay.
'That guy...'
He was a perfect being.
'A perfect being I can never reach.'
Kyle could never become like Raniel.
That was what he concluded.
"...Ha."
Kyle no longer envied Raniel.
No jealousy.
No desire to become like him.
No admiration or longing.
He simply regarded Raniel as a perfect existence.
It bordered on worship, an idol. And now, as his idol raced toward death... Kyle made his choice.
Kyle opened his closed eyes.
"......"
He gazed vacantly at the sky. Stars twinkled above. Staring at them, Kyle dredged up hazy memories.
"A contract. Receive your price."
A memory buried deep in his subconscious.
In forgotten, erased recollections, someone had demanded a deal from the stars. The stars had answered. Tracing that hazy memory, Kyle spoke.
"...I."
2.
"I don't deserve the name of hero."
Kyle said.
Before the sleeping Lania, before the rising scales, Kyle continued with a bitter smile.
"I'm not a hero. I can't be the kind who resists to the bitter end, never gives up, and ultimately achieves greatness."
The heroes of fairy tales.
"I'm just a novice who received power beyond my station."
He had aspired to it, but he hadn't become that.
"A human who can do nothing without the stars. Someone who mistakenly thought the excessive power granted to him was his own achievement, just swinging it around... a novice."
Looking back on his path, that's what it was.
Before the divine presence, Kyle confessed like a sinner.
"This power is too much for someone like me."
He uttered the same words from the day he made that contract.
"This power belongs to someone more worthy. Not a coward like me... but a hero who has always staked his life and built everything with his own strength."
On that day, the stars had answered Kyle's wish: To grant your desire, you must pay a fitting price.
【Souls worthy of blessing are predetermined.】
The common soul cannot accept a blessing.
Only one chosen by the stars from birth can embrace starlight. Thus, transferring starlight to the one you desire is impossible.
But Kyle knew a way.
He knew of the contract made by a great sage of old. There was a method to corrupt an ordinary human soul into one that could accept the stars.
'The ordeal.'
Undergoing the ordeal.
Paying a price that disrupts the world's order as the ordeal... and gaining the right to twist providence. Kyle recalled the ordeal given to him that day.
【Overcome death.】
The first: repelling the blade of death.
Resisting the death that would one day come.
'And the second...'
【Achieve the feat you turned from.】
Accomplishing the great deed he had fled from. In other words, confronting the Demon King. That was Kyle's ordeal.
To overcome that ordeal, Kyle had desperately sought means. There were countless trials and errors. He offered emotions, borrowed the stars' power to recreate a hero's strike.
After all those errors, Kyle had arrived here.
"...The one who should gain this power."
The one who should become the hero.
"Isn't me. It's you, Raniel."
Kyle murmured and smiled.
He placed his starlight on the rising scales. All the starlight accumulated over years, save a handful, went onto the scales. This deviated from the original plan.
Originally, Kyle had intended to borrow the stars' power to recreate a hero's strike. But now, he knew this power was no longer needed.
'That strike...'
Wasn't something recreated with borrowed starlight.
It had to be achieved with his own power alone.
The scales tipped.
Starlight entered Raniel's body, which had been nearing death. She couldn't fully accept it yet, but Raniel began to pull away from death.
"......"
Kyle felt strength draining from his body.
Now, only a handful of starlight remained in him.
Just enough starlight to wield the holy sword.
'...Light.'
His body felt light, Kyle thought.
In that lightness, he tipped the scales further. To fulfill the final contract remaining.
"I will undergo the ordeal."
Kyle declared.
The stars answered his wish.
The seed dormant in Raniel's heart pulsed strongly, shaking the surroundings. It was like bait. Bait to draw the Demon King.
Tick.
A second hand ticked in Kyle's ear.
Unconsciously, Kyle realized the time left to him.
"...Three days."
In three days, the Demon King would appear.
That was the time given to him. Kyle slowly exhaled and sat in a corner of the church. Sara said nothing to him.
She merely prayed.
As prayers echoed through the church, Kyle unbuckled his holy sword and set it on the floor. Staring at it, he steadied his breath.
A human, not a hero.
A mere human.
The human Kyle Toben prepared to face his final ordeal. As the long-awaited moment approached, Kyle couldn't help but smile.
"...With this."
Kyle murmured.
"I can finally repay my debt."
Shoooo...
Rain poured.
Listening to the falling rain, Kyle closed his eyes.
To sharpen himself more keenly than ever.
3.
Step.
Someone walked through the pouring rain.
Her figure was hazy.
The grass didn't bend under her steps. The wind blew through her. She existed there, yet she did not.
A being detached from this era.
A god (？) who shouldn't descend to this land.
The goddess arrived at the dilapidated church after walking and walking. The goddess of a perished world, who had become its last existence, stood before the church door and caught her breath. A bitter smile touched her lips.
Raniel from 13 years in the future.
No longer Raniel van Trias, but the woman who would be called Raniel van Draconic, knocked on the church door.
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