Chapter 349
Chapter 349
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 349
Chapter Title: Regret (3)
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◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ I must answer their sacrifices.
I can't let their deaths become meaningless.
I can't just let the blood they've shed flow away in vain. I can't allow all of it to turn worthless. Meaningless, valueless deaths are utterly cruel.
I have to take responsibility for their sacrifices.
That was the obsession ingrained in Raniel van Trias. Raniel could never turn a blind eye to someone's sacrifice. Especially if it was for her own sake. It was an obsession etched into her from childhood.
The village consumed by flames.
Deaths rendered meaningless and worthless.
From the ashes of what she held dear, Raniel felt a profound cruelty. As she gazed at her parents reduced to ash, what she felt was fear.
Meaningless.
Futile.
Utterly hollow.
She never wanted to feel that fear again.
And so, Raniel reacted with excessive sensitivity to any sacrifice. To her, the battlefield was no different from hell.
Countless people dying.
All for her sake.
It was up to her to decide whether their deaths would be meaningless or a foundation for the future. That weight crushed her shoulders. Because she couldn't turn away, Raniel couldn't rest.
She had lived that way for years.
Until one day.
At the end of her path, Raniel looked back.
What a cruel life it had been.
Only when death was breathing down her neck did Raniel realize her life had been hellish. It hadn't been enjoyable in the slightest—not even remotely pleasant. It had been a fucking nightmare. Why the hell did I push myself so hard?
Living a cruel life, dying a cruel death.
With a bitter laugh like that, Raniel thought she shouldn't leave any regrets in this cruel life. She'd already regretted so much; at the very end, she couldn't burden anyone else.
Apologize to that guy I'd spoken harshly to.
Tell him not to worry about my death and to do what he wants.
And maybe even get an apology from him in return, since he'd have something to say to me.
She wanted to reconcile like that.
When death loomed so close, that was Raniel's final wish. It wasn't a grand one. Just a small dream. Far too modest for a person hailed as a sage.
'I want to make up with my friend we fought with.'
Anyone hearing it would laugh.
The great ashen mage who crushed calamities barehanded—her last wish being something as trivial as 'making up with a hometown friend she'd quarreled with.' An unfunny joke.
Still, that's what Raniel hoped for.
And the world answered her small wish. In the worst possible way. It shoved the truth in her face. The tragedy she had to confront.
⚠️ FATEFUL PROPHECY ⚠️ 【Calamity, Kyle Toben.】 "Kyle Toben is dead."
Kyle sacrificed himself to save you.
You lived by drinking Kyle's blood.
The weight of the life you must bear has grown heavier.
⚠️ STAR'S DECREE ⚠️ 【Subjugate the Born Calamity.】 Kill your hometown friend who sacrificed for you.
Behold the burden on your shoulders.
Face the lives you must take responsibility for.
"I... I..."
Raniel, who had lost her chance, crumbled.
"That's not... that's not what I wanted."
The chains she thought had loosened a bit.
The obsessions she harbored.
They crushed down on Raniel's breaking shoulders with crushing force. Unlike in the past when she could bear it, the current Raniel couldn't withstand the weight. She fell to her knees and couldn't rise again.
"It's not."
Raniel let out a laugh.
The laughter that escaped was parched.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ 2.
She didn't speak with Rosel.
Nor with Cardi.
Without a word, Raniel returned to her room. No one stopped her as she staggered along.
"......"
Sitting on the edge of the bed, Raniel blankly stared down at her hands. Hands from which starlight bloomed. She clawed at her wrist, but it healed in moments.
The Star's Blessing.
The blessing held by heroes.
The source of the superhuman physical prowess and monstrous regenerative abilities that heroes possessed. Once, it was something Raniel had coveted.
"I'm jealous, you bastard."
"If I had a blessing like yours, I wouldn't be suffering like this. Look at my arm just dangling. It hurts like hell."
She remembered grumbling to Kyle.
Words tossed out in jest, but now they took on an entirely different meaning. It felt horrifying, as if her words had come true just as she'd said.
...Come to think of it, yeah.
Isn't all of this exactly what I wanted?
"If I just had starlight, I wouldn't be suffering like this."
"Yeah, honestly, I am jealous."
Starlight had been granted to her, just as she'd said.
"Get up."
"Grab your sword."
"Get up, you bastard."
Kyle had risen, just as she'd wished.
He'd gripped his sword, just as she'd wished.
"If you don't, who will?"
"You have to. If you give up here, it all means nothing, don't you know that? You know it, you bastard."
"So get up."
"Pick up your sword and do what you have to."
"Fulfill your duty as a hero."
Kyle had fulfilled his duty as a hero, exactly as she'd wished. So flawlessly that she could say nothing more.
"We said we'd subjugate the Demon King."
"You said we'd subjugate the Demon King."
"We'd achieve something no one could ignore, right? We'd earn everyone's recognition. We'd avenge the villagers. Was all that a lie?"
Raniel silently shifted her gaze.
She looked at the necklace on the shelf.
The necklace salvaged from her village's ashes.
She remembered Kyle mumbling a promise before it, and herself grabbing his collar while invoking that promise.
"You're the one who brought me along saying that."
"If you made a promise, you have to keep it."
And Kyle had kept that promise too.
He'd slain the Demon King and fulfilled his duty as a hero.
He'd accomplished a feat worthy of universal praise.
"Ah, ha."
Raniel let out a hollow laugh.
Hadn't everything truly come to pass just as she'd said? Wasn't all of this what she'd wanted? She'd wished to live, and even that had been granted.
It had all come true.
Isn't this what you wanted? her past self whispered. She must have known that those who chased ideals often met miserable ends. She'd felt it bone-deep in Garahal's demise.
"......"
Raniel fell silent.
She merely gazed at her limp arms with hollow eyes. No strength entered her body. She should look ahead and move forward, but Raniel only looked back at the past.
"You have a debt to repay."
"Someday, I need to apologize to you."
Is this how you repaid that debt?
Is this your apology to me?
Did you really think this was what I wanted?
She had so much she wanted to say, but there was no one to hear it. Raniel bit her lip hard. Her lips trembled.
"We'll meet again someday."
"Then, I think I can apologize to you."
"You said you'd apologize."
Raniel murmured.
Kyle had repaid his debt on his own terms.
He'd become a hero on his own terms, fulfilled Raniel's wishes on his own terms. He'd achieved it all, even at the cost of his life.
'Without me there...'
Raniel had always said it.
I'll lead the way, so at least follow me. She always looked back while saying it. But now? Looking back, no one was there.
Not Garahal, who walked beside her.
Not Kyle, who lagged behind.
They'd all surged ahead of her. But even turning forward, she couldn't find them. They were nowhere to be seen.
She was alone.
Completely alone.
'...I need to move.'
Raniel looked down at her legs with empty eyes. Now she could stand on her own two feet. She had the strength for it. Hadn't she desperately wished for this when she lay bedridden?
Now that she could stand, shouldn't she get up and do something?
But Raniel couldn't stand.
She knew there was so much she had to do.
So many responsibilities to shoulder. She even knew what the first step should be. Raniel opened her mouth. She continued in a trembling voice.
"I have to kill him."
I have to kill Kyle Toben.
"...Before he's called a calamity, before he's done anything. I have to kill him now."
But how? And who?
"Me."
Me, who received the star from him.
"I have to kill Kyle."
I have to be the one to kill him.
The moment she voiced what she had to do, Raniel's expression crumbled. Her shoulders shook faintly. She swallowed hard, stifled breaths escaping her.
I can't.
Raniel murmured.
I can't. I just can't.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ 3.
A few days passed.
Cardi lit a cigarette with hollow eyes. It had been centuries since he'd last smoked. As the smoke filled the air, old memories surfaced.
"Open a window, will you? All you mages are like this? The air's so stuffy!"
The insolent girl who came to see him.
The girl from the church, just learning the basics of holy spells from him, would barge into his mage tower and cause a ruckus.
"Put that out. Can't breathe."
"It's my business. This is my lab anyway. You're the one who barged in."
"Just put it out already."
He remembered the girl's face as she smirked and snuffed his lit cigarette with holy magic. Back then, he'd been so dumbfounded he'd flicked her forehead.
'...She made such a fuss that I quit after all.'
In the end, he'd quit smoking as she wanted, but years later, when the girl had grown into an adult, she'd said this to Cardi:
"Smoking Cardi had this decadent charm, you know. Want to start again? I miss those hollow eyes."
"......"
"What's with that look? Why are you staring like I'm trash?"
"I'm just dumbfounded."
Dumbfounded, he'd stubbornly refused out of spite.
Looking back now, even that was a fond memory.
He'd quit back then and never touched them again. Even after losing Glia, every time he saw a cigarette, he'd hear her muttering 'don't smoke,' so Cardi had stayed away from them.
But now, after centuries.
Cardi had taken up smoking again. Exhaling smoke through hollow eyes, he murmured,
"What a fucking mess."
It was a total fucking disaster.
Just as the Raniel from the future had said, the current Raniel was broken. Far worse than Cardi had imagined.
Like a doll with its strings cut, she just slumped in her room. Staring blankly at the floor with hollow eyes, she reminded Cardi of his own past.
Himself, having lost everything and let it all go.
Cardi saw his past self in Raniel. Sighs kept escaping him. His lungs ached with every breath. He had no idea what to say to her.
Because he hadn't fully shaken it off himself.
Cardi knew because he'd been through it.
The only one who could lift Raniel from that state was one person. And it wasn't Cardi. It was Raniel herself. Only a conclusion she reached on her own could raise her up.
'Only she herself...'
Muttering that inwardly, Cardi narrowed his eyes. He perked up his ears. Someone was approaching the rundown shop.
"...No, it's not just one person."
Herself.
There was one more being in this era that Raniel could call herself. If time was a well, ten days had passed since then.
The promised time had come.
Someone knocked on the door, and Cardi opened it.
"You're here."
Cardi gave a wry smile.
"Raniel."
"I can tell just from your eyes what happened."
The Raniel from the future wore a similar expression to Cardi's. She faced him with an even fainter presence.
"And you... you seem a bit different too."
But Cardi saw it.
The faint cluster of light dwelling in Raniel's eyes.
"Yeah."
Raniel smiled.
"Maybe... there is an answer after all."
She smiled like the Raniel he knew.
The expression the current Raniel had lost, the future Raniel now wore.
"So show me the way."
The Goddess of Ashes said.
"I need to go grab her by the collar."
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