The Fall of the Spirit Tower
Isabella suddenly found herself recalling the days she had lived as the Snake Princess in the desert city.
Back then she had possessed no room for ease, only hostility toward every living soul. In those days, not a single scrap of hope had existed for her.
Yet now, Isabella’s heart felt endlessly abundant.
She turned her head and offered a bright, open smile.
“Sonora. Listen. I have so many stories I want to tell you.”
She clasped Sonora’s hand tightly as she spoke.
From this moment on they would have all the time in the world together. There was no need to rush; she would tell every last tale, slowly and carefully.
…Just as she herself had changed.
Sonora, you can change too.
“Serengeti. You know you’ve been acting strange lately, right?”
In the training yard prepared within the Papal Halls, Hudson addressed Serengeti, who had been drilling alone.
“…Hup! What about me?”
Serengeti lowered her sword and asked. Hudson’s brow furrowed slightly.
“It feels like you’re avoiding me.”
“Me, avoiding Hudson? There’s no reason for that.”
“There is. Your first love.”
“……What are you talking about?”
“Vice Commander Abeloff. The moment he appears you can’t take your eyes off him.”
His expression was thoroughly worked up, his tone deadly serious.
Serengeti opened her mouth in flustered haste.
“I-It’s a misunderstanding.”
“If it’s a misunderstanding, why are you panicking?”
“That’s a misunderstanding too! I was never panicking!”
“You think I don’t know you? I can read everything just from your eyes.”
In front of Hudson, Serengeti had never been able to hide her face. The instant Abeloff’s name left his lips her pupils had blown wide open, and Hudson caught it at once.
Serengeti let out a long sigh.
“I… just……”
“Just what?”
“……Then why is Hudson just standing there doing nothing?”
“What am I standing around for?”
“Aren’t we going to get married?”
“……”
Hudson fell silent, as if he had swallowed honey whole.
Their wedding had already collapsed once. After that disaster they had never found a proper chance to talk the matter through again.
Serengeti’s voice grew heavy.
“If you’re that anxious, then just do it.”
“……You know. I……”
“It doesn’t matter. Hudson is Hudson. Even if you become someone else entirely, the Hudson I fell in love with—his true self—won’t disappear.”
Player.
In this world they were called sinners.
That was what Hudson was.
Ever since he had confessed the truth, he had no longer known how to treat Serengeti. Yet here she was, telling him it made no difference even if he was actually another person.
The part of him she had fallen for had never been the outer shell.
“……”
When Hudson’s eyes grew faintly wet, Serengeti smiled softly.
“Hudson. I’m scared too. I’m always terrified that one day you’ll simply vanish. But at the same time… I’m curious. What kind of person is the Hudson of that other world?”
Just as Hudson feared, Serengeti feared as well—feared that one day he might casually cast aside every lingering attachment to this world. He could meet someone else on Earth, after all.
Even so, she chose to embrace it. No—she chose to know him more deeply.
If they remained frozen like this, their relationship would never move forward.
Serengeti tightly took the hand of the anxious Hudson.
“Let’s talk properly this time. About the past we’ve shared and the future we’ll share together.”
“Ah……”
Tears gathered in Hudson’s eyes.
He had never once imagined Serengeti would think of him this deeply.
……I have to change.
And to change, he first had to face her honestly.
Hudson nodded.
“…Yeah. Let’s do that.”
For the first time, Hudson and Serengeti truly looked at each other.
“Youth, isn’t it?”
Watching Hudson and Serengeti from afar, Abeloff spoke.
Youth—meaning the sight of them was that pleasant to behold.
Then Abeloff turned to me and spoke again.
“Have you ever known love, Commander?”
“…That’s sudden.”
It was a rare stretch of rest before the Goddess Festival began. Wearing the helmet that had once belonged to a nameless eagle, I was strolling the grounds of the Papal Halls with Abeloff when he asked a question I had never once been asked.
“There are so many outstanding people around you, are there not?”
“Outstanding? In what sense?”
“All of them. Saintess Seia, Isabella, Lilith—every one of them.”
“……”
Well.
Love, is it?
Certainly every person Abeloff had named possessed exceptional qualities. Of course I regarded them as members of the opposite sex, yet if asked whether I had ever truly loved, the answer grew murky.
Love is something two people do together, is it not?
I do not believe I have ever known a proper love.
Suddenly an old remark floated up in my mind.
If that’s how it is, just marry the game…
Hmm.
In any case, Abeloff knew everything about me—that I was a being from another dimension who had once lived as Wilhelm.
“Abeloff. Have you ever known love?”
Perhaps because I had just watched Hudson and Serengeti, the question rose unbidden.
Abeloff shook his head.
“How could I, who was once a sacrifice to an evil god, ever meet someone?”
“Meeting someone is no crime. Why not try it this time?”
“…Pardon?”
Abeloff blinked.
Once a sacrifice to an evil god, then the vice commander of the Knights of the Round Table who had lived entire years without even revealing his name—those days were over. Now everything had to change.
I did not want them to live out their lives forgotten.
“Is this not a perfect opportunity?”
“W-What do you mean by that? Surely you don’t—”
“Mm. With the Goddess Festival and the papal election ceremony approaching, people will pour in from every corner of the continent. It would not be so bad to meet someone this time—you and every other knight of the Round Table.”
“That may be the most difficult task in the world……”
Abeloff shook his head vigorously.
First-rate with a blade, yet third-rate or worse when dealing with other people—that was precisely what the Knights of the Round Table were.
“…Yet if it is an order, I shall attempt the challenge once.”
Abeloff nodded with a resolute face.
He had already leapt across time and transcended even death. There was nothing left he could not do.
In the past he would never even have considered such a thing; the very word “challenge” would never have left his lips.
But he had to change.
He could not remain a ghost forever chained to the past.
Abeloff gazed at the master of the Round Table and thought,
As ever, you are a truly astonishing man.
……Still magnificent.
In the World Tree dungeon, Abeloff and the Knights of the Round Table had watched him. Against the forgotten gods themselves he had never taken a single step back, drawing pure thrills from every clash. Afterward he had raised the Tower of Ruin and then torn it down with his own hands, reaching the absolute peak.
He had accomplished the most difficult feats in the world one after another.
How many more incredible things would unfold from now on? Abeloff could not even begin to guess.
Naturally he himself could not simply stand still.
And deep in his heart Abeloff felt genuine gratitude—that the journey he had believed ended with the Great Expedition could continue at this man’s side.
Thank you, Commander. For never forgetting us.
To the one who had sought them out without forgetting.
Even if the outer form was different, there was no wavering. The man who remembered them could be no one but Wilhelm.
Abeloff swore silently.
No matter what happens, I will protect you.
He would protect him without fail.
……Even if a moment arrived once more when he must offer up his own life, he would never hesitate.
It lasted only an instant.
Every person on Earth lifted their heads and stared up at the sky.
The progress speed of the ‘World’s Erosion Rate’ is rapidly accelerating.
Erosion Rate has reached 28%.
A message declaring that the erosion rate had surged. Yet what truly seized every gaze was not the message itself.
“…What is that?”
“Something’s pouring out of the sky?”
“Black…? Is that oil or what?”
People stared in bewilderment.
From the heavens, something like black liquid had begun to rain down without warning.
Soon they understood exactly where the liquid was falling from.
“A t-tower!”
“A tower is falling from the sky……!”
A heartbeat later, the colossal wreckage of a tower came crashing down from above.
But that was not all that fell.
Haaaaaaaa!
“Sp-spirits?”
“Why are spirits suddenly—!”
“Don’t tell me the thing that just fell was the Spirit Tower?”
……Spirits.
Fully materialized spirits poured out in chaotic torrents.
Yet even that did not last long.
“The spirits are……”
“They’re merging!”
“W-what the hell is going on?!”
One incomprehensible event after another. Things no one could possibly understand unfolded in rapid succession.
The bizarre phenomenon was reported simultaneously across the entire globe.
But once the spirits began to fuse, no one could discern what was happening any longer. The surrounding area had been swallowed by something like a black sphere, and nothing inside could be seen.
Several nations urgently dispatched Awakeners to investigate. The total number of explorers reached a full five hundred.
Of the five hundred Awakeners who entered those black spheres, not a single one returned alive.