Chapter 452
Chapter 452
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 452
Chapter Title: The Heroes' Sacrifice
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0.
Ganikalt's sword cleaved the Demon King.
A human blade reached a god.
With a serene slicing sound—shunk—a storm raged. Space itself split at an angle. The sword swung by a man with feet planted on the earth reached even the heavens. The howling gale swept away the thunderheads blanketing the sky and the foul sludge shrouding it.
When the storm finally subsided...
Light poured down from the sky, now cleared of shadows and dark clouds.
Sunlight flooded into the half-ruined Temple of Shadows. Under the encroaching rays, Cardi lifted his head. Glerea, who had been reciting prayers with eyes closed, opened hers. Belial, rampaging in the form of a black dragon, came to a halt for the first time.
"......"
And Ganikalt...
Ganikalt van Galatrick released his grip on his sword. With a clang, the holy sword he had let fall hit the ground. He exhaled slowly, ever so slowly.
One-armed. One-eyed. A broken demigod.
Yet when he turned around, showing his face to his comrades... Ganikalt wore the lightest smile he had ever shown. Basking in the sunlight filtering through the temple's cracks, he steadied his breath.
After a brief silence, he spoke.
"Finally..."
But those words never reached their end.
With a boom, the temple shook. Ganikalt looked behind him. Cardi, catching his breath; Glerea; Belial—they all stared at the same spot.
At the temple's center, the shadows that had scattered without a vessel...
They began to converge into a single point. The gathered shadows pulsed like a living heart. It throbbed with thump, boom sounds. Everyone there realized it. They couldn't let that be.
They squeezed out every last drop of strength.
They poured forth everything they had.
But they had fought without rest for ten days and nights. Ganikalt had lost half his body. They had no means left to stop that shadow heart.
...There's no way.
The story that should have ended here...
The heroes' tale that should have concluded with slaying the Demon King and returning home... refused to end. The world demanded more of them. To fill the next page. Their story could not end yet.
And Cardi suddenly realized what must be written on that next page. He understood the role demanded of them right here, right now.
Because he understood...
"We have to withdraw."
Cardi shouted.
"We have to pull out now. We'll get swept away. Retreat first, prepare for the next..."
He reached out toward Glerea as he cried out.
Toward Ganikalt, gasping for breath; toward the black dragon trying to chew and swallow the shadows with its worn claws and fangs.
"We have to make a promise for the next..."
He reached out, but...
Cardi couldn't grab them. He had realized it himself. He who always spoke with unwavering conviction and faith. But now?
His voice was shaking.
He lacked confidence in his own words.
Of course. It went against his beliefs. Even knowing that, he hoped for it. Why? Because...
...he had realized it.
Cardi now understood the role demanded of them here: sacrifice. But not a noble one. What would be written alongside that sacrifice in the next chapter of their story... was a phrase no hero who gave everything for the world should ever receive.
"Run... away... prepare for the next..."
That was why he tried to say they should flee from this place.
"......You know, Armiel."
Cardi knew.
"We can't do that."
His comrades would never run.
Cardi looked ahead. Glerea was smiling bitterly before him. She gently pushed away his outstretched hand with that bitter smile.
"There's a way, right?"
"......No."
"Saying no means there is one."
Cardi bit his lip hard.
Miserably, a method to stop it had come to his mind. Glerea placed a hand on Cardi's shoulder as he couldn't voice it. She looked him straight in the eye.
"Armiel."
A soft voice. A gentle smile.
Cardi gazed at her with trembling eyes. Beyond her, he saw Ganikalt watching him, and Belial, whose eyes remained the same despite becoming a dragon.
They said nothing, but...
Their gazes forced Cardi to speak.
"......It's what the last queen of Arcadia did."
Becoming the vessel to contain the shadows.
Sacrificing her body to bind the vessel.
Having heard Cardi's explanation, Glerea replied briefly.
"Good. At least there's a way to save them."
Cardi's gaze wavered.
He stared at Glerea standing before him. Her eyes showed she had already decided. Cardi gripped her shoulders tightly.
"Don't talk nonsense, Glerea."
Cardi shouted.
"Didn't you hear me? You'll become a calamity. Have you forgotten what happened to our wise, saintly queen? The shadows devour the human mind. They twist forms and crush convictions. The moment you take it in..."
Cardi said in a trembling voice.
"You'll become the calamity. Not heroes, but the enemy of humanity. You'll no longer be you."
They would slaughter countless humans with their own hands.
Commit countless sins.
Be remembered not as heroes, but as disasters.
"Even so."
Glerea simply smiled at Cardi's outburst. Beautifully. And cruelly.
"We can still save them."
Cardi fell silent.
Glerea continued.
"The moment those shadows overflow, half the continent will be engulfed again. The whole world will turn into a demon realm. We all know what happens then."
They had crossed demon realm landscapes.
They had seen countless lands and people ruined by it. They had come this far to save the powerless.
"Countless people will die. Humanity might even go extinct. We can't let that happen."
"But..."
"We have to stop that, no matter what."
And then she said,
"Turning away when there's a way to save them... that's unforgivable. That's what I was taught, at least."
Glerea smiled bitterly.
"I'll take it."
"I'll share it with you."
Ganikalt, who had picked up his dropped sword, spoke.
He exhaled deeply and smiled.
"You can't hold it all alone. So let's divide it. Bearing it together might make it a little lighter."
As he said that, the black dragon slowly, very slowly, lowered its head beside Ganikalt. With no mana left even for telepathy, it spoke with its eyes. That it would join them too.
They turned their heads toward the shadows.
They walked toward it, turning their backs to Cardi.
"Wait..."
Cardi took a step toward them. He meant to say he would bear it too, not to leave him behind.
"Armiel."
Glerea looked back.
"Can't you... stay behind?"
"What do you..."
"We're about to make a contract from now on. Not just holding the shadows, but imposing restrictions on ourselves too. We'll probably have to give up a lot."
A lot? No, everything.
Cardi, well-versed in contracts, realized what they would offer without being told.
"We might be forgotten by everyone."
"That's..."
"No one might remember us, our journey might as well never have happened. But if we can save them, it's fine... but..."
Glerea gave a wry smile.
"Still, it would be nice if someone remembered. Our story... our contract. It would be nice if someone knew."
So, she said,
"Will you take charge of the contract?"
A cruel request.
So cruel, but Cardi couldn't refuse. Someone had to maintain and uphold the contract. And he realized he, the mage, was the one suited for it.
"I'm sorry, Armiel."
Glerea smiled painfully.
With a poignant smile, she turned away. Leaving her back to Cardi, she stepped toward the shadows. Her steps trembled slightly.
Trembling in fear, yet she still walked toward the shadows.
"To the last, I wish for salvation."
She cried out.
"A miracle."
She severed her own arm as the medium for the contract.
Amid the overflowing starlight, they began forging the contract. Cardi watched them, unable to approach or flee.
"This is my choice."
"My choice."
[Even as beasts, this is my choice.]
The stars questioned them.
And they wished for the contract of their own will.
"Humans live but a fleeting moment, so we vow the next. With short lives burning bright, much is left undone, so we vow the next. We are the same."
Next.
"Until the moment a hero of the future age appears, we offer everything to bind the shadows."
Again, next.
"But we can't just dump it on posterity blindly."
Ganikalt smiled bitterly.
"I offer my soul. My life. My flesh. Every path I have walked."
All spoke the same words.
"We shall never exterminate humanity. When they build their final sanctuary, we shall never go there. We must not be where starlight reaches."
They declared.
"Fulfill the contract."
Starlight enveloped them.
The shadows devoured them. Amid the mix of light and shadow, Glerea turned to Cardi. She opened her mouth, but her voice didn't reach him.
Only her gaze connected.
That gaze wavered.
Glerea trembled in fear. Fear that she might no longer be herself. Cardi had seen such eyes in her before.
"I'm scared sometimes."
"Of taking the wrong path. Of straying. Of believing the wrong one is right. Am I on the true path?"
Glerea, who had seen much in the demon realms, endured much, agonized much. He recalled her huddled by the campfire, murmuring those words. What had he said then?
Clench.
Cardi ground his teeth.
His clenched fingers dug into his palm, drawing blood. In this moment, he felt utter helplessness. From that helplessness, he barely squeezed out his voice.
"I promise."
Gazing at Glerea being swallowed.
Gazing at his comrades there, Cardi shouted.
"I promise. I swear. I will save you. No matter if it takes ten years, a hundred, a thousand..."
No matter how long.
"I will save you. I will hold you."
I will stand against you.
I won't let your sacrifice be in vain.
"To an elf, that's but a fleeting moment."
Recalling his habitual mutter, the bravado he spat with it, Cardi forced the corners of his mouth up.
"I'm an elf."
Said the elf who wished to be human.
"An elf who lives eternally."
Cardi smiled at Glerea.
At that clumsy smile, that bravado, Glerea unwittingly let out a laugh. With that final laugh, Glerea was fully consumed by the shadows.
Her vision turned black.
The seeping shadows were cold and dark.
1.
Her vision turned pure white.
The seeping light was warm.
Enveloped gently by the light around her body, Glerea let slip a faint smile. Peaceful. Such a comfortable death. Surely, the praise from posterity was this—a serene end.
Truly...
Posterity was endlessly kind.
Despite all her sins, despite taking so much from posterity, they called her a hero to the end. They said her life and sacrifice had value.
Those few words.
Words anyone could say, spoken from a place no one else could reach—Glerea was saved by posterity.
Aa...
She looked back on her life.
The shining path had twisted and broken the moment it was swallowed by shadows. A road stained with blood and corpses, reeking of decay, stretched long.
But not even where she stood now. The path she was on was bright. The right one.
The saintess who lived to save the weak became a calamity. The heretic who trusted only her own convictions and sought to ruin all became a saintess again. At the end of the road, returning to her true self, Glerea Bell Armias closed her eyes. Thus she met her death.
Or so she tried.
"......"
She closed her eyes, but life did not end.
The heretic slowly opened her eyes.
What she saw upon opening them was neither heaven nor hell. A gentle hill entered her view. A hill with warm winds blowing. A familiar landscape.
...The hill she often visited with that person.
On days with good winds, warm sun, rain, crumbling autumn leaves, heavy snow—every day, with whatever excuse, she dragged that person there.
"Work is piling up. No."
"Again? Don't you get tired of it? Packed lunch? You're such a pain..."
Grumbling but rising helplessly all the same—that was the place she brought him. Glerea slowly rose. Too weak to stand, she leaned against a tree on the hill.
Why here?
This place burned away that day...
As she pondered that, tap, footsteps approached from somewhere. Glerea slowly turned toward the sound.
"Ah..."
Glerea sighed.
She opened and closed her mouth repeatedly. A hallucination? Was she dreaming? If a dream, she didn't want to wake. Countless thoughts flashed through her mind in an instant.
Tap.
The footsteps stopped.
Glerea looked up at the one who had halted before her. There stood the person she had longed to reunite with more than anyone.
"Glerea."
Cardi van Armiel said.
"I'm sorry. It took too long."