Chapter 339
Chapter 339
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 339
Chapter Title: Given Time (8)
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The Goddess of Ashes reflected on her life.
Her fate hadn't always been this twisted from the start. There had been happy times. Days spent sharing everyday moments with precious people. Nights when she could fall asleep without worrying about tomorrow.
But those days were gone.
The Goddess of Ashes.
Raniel van Draconic.
She remembered the past.
It would be the future from this timeline's perspective, but to Raniel, it was the past. Thirteen years of hell that she had to endure. She could never forget the day that hell began.
Thirteen years ago, in this place.
The day Kyle fulfilled the contract.
Unlike Raniel in the current timeline, she had been awake that day. She faced Kyle without falling asleep.
"Raniel."
Kyle came to her as she trembled in the fear of death. He reached out his hand, smiled, and said he had come to repay his debt. Fooled by that smile, Raniel followed him out of the mansion.
...Looking back, everything had been suspicious.
There couldn't possibly be a way.
There was no basis for it at all.
She knew that full well, yet back then, she blindly trusted Kyle's words. Terrified by the approaching death, she couldn't push his hand away.
Maybe, just maybe, she thought.
Maybe this guy can pull it off somehow.
Maybe there really is an answer.
Thinking things she never would have normally, Raniel followed Kyle... and paid dearly for that delusion.
"Why are we coming here?"
"Kyle. Hey, Kyle."
"Say something, Kyle. Why here? This is where the Demon King appeared. Why bring me here? What? The church...?"
The ruins of the Celleph Kingdom.
"Hey."
The church altar.
Her body lying there.
The scales Kyle had summoned.
"You."
And then.
"What the hell are you doing right now?"
Starlight beginning to settle into her body.
In that moment, Raniel realized everything. She understood the method to save her, what Kyle was about to do from now on—everything.
"You're... wait, stop. I said stop."
Regardless of whether the plan succeeded or failed, she screamed upon realizing what would become of Kyle once it all ended. She understood it all.
"Are you insane?"
"Stop it right now. I said stop, you lunatic. You think this can actually work?"
It was an absurd plan.
She couldn't just stand by and watch such a plan unfold, so Raniel yelled at Kyle. She raised her voice.
"You'll die. You're going to die."
"Who asked for this? I don't need it. Who told you to repay any debt? Forget it all."
"I don't need this. I don't need it!"
She had no strength left to move, so all she could do was glare at Kyle and scream. But no matter how much she shouted, Kyle's resolve didn't waver.
"Kyle."
Time passed.
"Kyle, you crazy bastard, please..."
The three days dragged on slowly.
Excruciatingly slowly.
In that sluggishly passing time, Raniel screamed at Kyle to stop. She shrieked. She stretched out her barely movable arm, trying to flee the altar.
"Don't do it."
But she failed.
"Don't do it, you mad bastard."
Kyle simply closed his eyes and meditated.
When pleading with Sara failed as well, with Sara ignoring her, Raniel broke down further. Time kept flowing, and she crumbled.
"I don't need to be saved like this."
"Doesn't suit you to be the Hero? I'll be the Hero? Don't. Just let me die. You can do it yourself. Why me...?"
Why.
"Why go this far?"
She questioned him again and again.
Kyle's only answer was this:
"Just repaying my debt."
Those words drove Raniel mad.
Time kept passing, and on the final day, she finally did it. She shoved her mana-charged fingers into her own mouth.
⚡ SKILL ACTIVATED ⚡ Smite Intending to blow her head apart, she botched the aim, merely punching a hole in her throat. Even that healed under Sara's blessing. Having failed at suicide too, Raniel grabbed Kyle's wrist.
"Let me die."
"I don't need it, just let me die."
She begged Kyle.
She even pleaded for him to kill her. This wasn't necessary—just let her die. She begged him to scrap the plan in exchange for her life.
"......"
By then, Kyle said nothing.
From the moment he saw her suicide attempt, his eyes had begun to waver. He no longer stayed inside the church.
He meditated outside in the pouring rain.
And finally, that day arrived.
The sky turned black, and filthy sludge began to pour down. That day, Sara and Kyle left Raniel behind in the church. With hollow eyes, Raniel stared beyond the open door.
A flood of shadows.
A lone swordsman standing before it.
With hollow eyes, she watched his back, witnessing Kyle's end. That day, there, Kyle succeeded—and failed. Why hadn't it been complete success?
...Ah.
Raniel knew the answer.
At the very last moment, Kyle's sword tip wavered. It wasn't physical. It was mental. Someone had shaken Kyle's spirit, left him with regrets, causing his blade to falter at the crucial instant.
It was because of me.
Because of her, Kyle had failed.
If she couldn't stop it anyway, she should have kept her mouth shut. But her resistance to the end had shaken him.
I turned Kyle into a ■■.
That was the beginning.
From there, everything went wrong.
The broken Raniel began to fall. She fell and kept falling. The swamp created by those who bled for her dragged her under.
She lost and lost.
She had missed so much.
She moved for their revenge.
Killed, burned, massacred.
Nothing remained.
Even as she pressed on, she kept losing.
Looking back, no one was left. Raniel collapsed to the ground. No one reached out to help the fallen Raniel. Those who might have were gone or dead.
Still, she walked.
She lived because she couldn't die.
She walked to somehow answer the sacrifices.
"You."
She lived thirteen years.
"What do you know about me?"
She had lived, struggled.
"What do you know about me? Do you know what I've been through these past thirteen years?"
But the world was still hell.
"My master was murdered. Aphria burned to the ground. Students who hadn't even graduated were thrown into battlefields, and those immature kids all died. Some survived, but half turned traitor."
I killed them myself.
All of them, by my own hand.
"The children I raised, the ones I taught to carry the next generation—they all died. One of them even by my hand. She became a disaster. I had to kill the child who resented me."
That was the Hero's role.
"I, I..."
Raniel raised her hand.
Nothing stained her trembling fingertips, yet she saw blood there.
"I became ruin itself. Camps full of refugees—if I approached to protect them... they screamed and fled. At some point, I was no longer the Hero. They called me a madwoman."
Still, Raniel stood and walked.
Even if no one looked at her, even if they cursed and threw stones, she walked.
"It was hell."
She had to take responsibility.
The weight was crushing.
But she couldn't run.
"Hell, yet I lived because I couldn't die."
Night after night of nightmares, unable to sleep, she whipped herself and walked on.
"Walking and walking..."
Raniel looked at Kyle.
"Your words came to mind."
The broken human smiled.
"You saw me as a goddess. I heard it from Destel on his deathbed. You called me a god. An idol. You worshipped me."
That was your wish.
You wanted me to become that.
"So I became a goddess."
The price had been paid long ago.
Having lost countless things, emptied by sacrifice, the hollow Raniel already qualified to become a god.
"In a world reduced to ashes, I became a goddess. I thought as a goddess I could achieve anything... but no. There were even more constraints."
In the end, no answer.
Best, ideals—all illusions. The human turned goddess spent long years in a world of ash, in silence with no answers.
And she turned back time.
Sacrificing everything to prevent this final future, she regressed.
"Yet."
The slumped Raniel said.
"Even so, you look at me and..."
Raniel looked up at Kyle.
Kyle still gripped her arm. Not letting go, she asked him.
"Tell me to stand?"
Kyle still wouldn't release her arm.
Just as she had done for him in the past.
He wouldn't let her abandon herself.
"Yes."
Kyle said once more.
"Stand up, Raniel."
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ 2.
Raniel didn't wish for a peaceful old age or a happy future. She knew that was impossible. But if she could wish for something...
"What I wanted wasn't anything grand."
Raniel murmured, head bowed.
"A life where I could achieve something, or leave something behind before dying. That would have been enough. I wouldn't have asked for shining feats like Galahal's. Just if my death meant something..."
That would suffice, she thought.
Longing for such a death, Raniel walked and walked.
"But what am I now?"
Not expecting an answer, Kyle stayed silent. Raniel continued.
"I've achieved nothing."
"......"
"I'm just alive. Living because I can't die. A future promised that... why try to save me? Is there any point?"
Kyle swallowed slowly.
He pitied the Raniel before him. He couldn't fully empathize with her hell, but he understood her situation—how it had come to this.
Even understanding...
He couldn't slump down beside her.
Someone had to stand and look ahead. Now Kyle knew that too.
...So this is how you felt.
Someone had to take that role.
Unwelcome as it was, Kyle smiled bitterly and spoke.
"That's your story."
Raniel's shoulders flinched.
She slowly lifted her head to look up at him.
"What... did you say?"
"That's your story, not Raniel's. You're not Raniel, are you?"
Raniel's expression wavered.
Gazing at her face on the verge of collapse, Kyle exhaled shortly.
"...That's what past me would have said."
Kyle smiled bitterly.
Softening his expression, he knelt to meet her eyes at the same level.
"How could I say that?"
Not the Hero's tone.
Not the practiced speech of one risen high with status... but Kyle's original way of speaking.
"I know too. You're not some perfect being. You're just human, like me. I've realized that now."
Kyle released her wrist.
"You'll fall. You'll waver. You'll collapse. Just like I did pathetically, you might too someday. But Raniel."
Kyle smiled.
"The you I know always stands back up."
Always.
"That's who you are."
Kyle had once envied that Raniel, admired her, even worshipped her at times. In his twisted way, he had done her unspeakable wrongs.
Those countless atrocities would never be forgiven.
That's why Kyle stood here.
Even unforgiven, even if she hated him... to repay even a fraction of the debt he owed that damned woman.
"No, Kyle, I'm..."
"No what? It's true."
Kyle chuckled.
"Even in that state, you came back to the past to fix this mess, didn't you? I believe in you."
So.
"Believe in the past you here now too. She's reasonable enough. Talk it out, and you might find another way."
Raniel bit her lip hard.
She bowed her head deeply.
Kyle smiled bitterly and exhaled.
"Raniel."
He still had more to say.
Raniel slowly looked up at him. Kyle met her gaze and spoke.
"You can fall. Of course you will. You're human—how could you run forever without rest?"
Kyle said.
"If it's tough, take a break. Slump down if you need to. Look elsewhere to catch your breath. That's okay sometimes."
Words he longed to hear from her in the past, now spoken by him to future Raniel. Of course, Kyle knew they couldn't have been said then.
Resting meant death for countless others. He couldn't collapse.
Knowing that, Kyle had let everything go and slumped anyway. Feeling futility toward it all, just like the Raniel now before him. In his place, past Raniel stepped onto more battlefields. Shouldered his duties for him.
Believing he would rise someday.
She fulfilled her duty to the best of her ability.
Then, this time...
His turn to repay.
Kyle patted her shoulder and stood. He stepped forward, passing her.
"Rest. Take your time standing."
The given time had ended.
The rain outside intensified.
Kyle stepped forward, and Sara, who had listened silently, joined him. Future Raniel watched them vacantly.
"Kyle, wait..."
Kyle paused at the church door.
Opening the firmly shut door, he glanced back.
"......"
Turning only his head, about to ask something, Kyle smiled bitterly and closed his mouth. As if asking would be heartless.
...Ah.
Kyle didn't know.
But Raniel from the future did.
That expression as he opened the church door at the final moment, looking back at her. Back then, she said nothing. How much she regretted that past.
Raniel bit her lip.
She expected this, but it still happened. She knew she couldn't hold back Kyle, who had decided.
Knowing that.
Not wanting to repeat that mistake.
Raniel lifted her bowed head.
"...Really."
She laughed through tears.
"You damned bastard."
"...Pretty vicious last words."
"Shut up, you psycho. Because of you, I... I suffered so much."
Raniel raised her middle finger at Kyle.
"Fucking asshole."
She swallowed tears and said.
"You were gonna ask if you still see me as a friend, right? You've been wanting to ask that."
"...How'd you know?"
"You think I don't know how you think? Really, fucking asshole. That's all you wanna ask at the end?"
Kyle chuckled.
"So, what's the answer?"
"Gotta spell it out, you dog?"
Raniel answered in a trembling voice.
"Who else but a fucker like you would stay friends with a bitch like me?"
"So you admit your temper's shit."
"Right to the end..."
Glancing at Raniel's mess of a face, Kyle eventually laughed and turned away. Facing forward again, he began walking.
Then he spoke.
A line he always meant to say someday.
"Hey, Raniel."
"What."
"Live well and eat well without me."
"Live well and eat well without me."
"You damned bastard."
"You damned bastard."
Kyle chuckled as he walked on.
Human Kyle Toven's given time was over.
Now, it was time to become the Hero.
In place of the Hero who failed his duty from the future, Kyle Toven would become the Hero here today.
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