317. Daji's Solitude
317. Daji's Solitude
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Time remaining: 6 days ? hours.
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The bewitchingly beautiful woman, her gaze fixed on a notification that filled her vision, slowly tilted her cheek.
"...Was this truly meant to become something so great?"
How had things come to this?
Daji let out a sigh, her heart aching dully.
Her own nature. She had failed to overcome the momentary impulse born of its influence.
Because she had failed to control it, the matter had now swollen beyond all restraint.
The balance between the empires, maintained for so long.
That firmly upheld covenant had shattered, and the ripples from it were spreading on a scale vast enough to engulf the entire continent.
—The Chaldea Empire, which embraced diverse beings by refusing to discriminate among many cultures and races.
—The Randel Empire, rigidly ordered around knights and the hierarchy of high nobility.
—The Lephria Empire, where non-human races—beastkin, elves, vampires, dwarves, and many others—coexisted.
Since ancient times, the three empires, each holding its own territory, had wielded immense power and steadfastly guarded their respective domains.
Whenever one empire swelled its strength too greatly, the other two would join forces to check it, ensuring that none could stand supreme above the rest; whenever one empire's power waned due to internal strife, as if by fate, a being akin to a divinity would appear and restore the empire's strength. This cycle repeated again and again.
And so the years among the three empires had, before anyone knew it, stretched beyond several centuries.
At the end of the ceaseless wars fought throughout, the three empires had forged a single covenant.
In an age marked by endless war, ultimately, beings who had transcended humanity.
The Great Heroes who bore the great pillars of each empire's power. By ensuring that no one who inherited their power would ever appear again, each empire restrained its own strength.
Because the empires had continued to develop and accumulate power over centuries, a single war waged across history was enough to drench the continent in blood each time.
Developed cities fell and became ruins with every war, and the knowledge that had built brilliant civilizations lost its glorious light, regressing into the meager darkness of ages past.
In the end, each side had realized that they were all walking a path of mutual self-destruction.
Excessive expansion of power. The birth of immense power.
Those who held power kept adding to it, and the damage of war grew exponentially, as if in proportion.
Countless were the times when the devastation of war had grown so great that recovery was no longer possible.
A Great Hero was like a one-person army, and by their very existence they had come to symbolize each empire's military might.
Therefore, those who qualified as Great Heroes did not raise successors.
—They did not create beings who would inherit their power.
And so the peace maintained by that covenant was, in truth, not so very old.
"The ways of the world are endlessly complicated."
Daji, the last Great Hero of the present Chaldea Empire and the recipient of its immense support, murmured with a sorrowful expression and tilted her small cup.
She had confined herself, bound by the system's constraints, and striven so hard not to create anything that would violate the covenant.
And yet, in the end, she had been swept up in a moment's greed.
When she had beheld a dancer—a being she had thought she would never encounter again—and moreover, a dancer who wielded a Crescent-Moon Weight, perhaps her attention had been drawn before she even knew it.
That woman was like a storm in her very existence.
A level of mastery attained without a single teacher. A radiant presence despite being constrained by the system.
Nothing else could stir her interest anymore, and to Daji, who had long thought herself numb, that woman's existence itself was an immense shock, a force nearly irresistible.
Because she, too, had been bewitched.
"Of all people... I was bewitched by someone?"
Swish.
Refilling her cup as if pouring for herself, Daji stared blankly at the lake set at one side of the garden.
A full moon.
As the full moon cast its brilliance upon the lake's surface, her gaze was drawn to it as though entranced by the light.
"Even so, it was something that should never have been given."
The Moon Dancer should never have been passed on.
Even if she had given something, it should have been something else, like Moonlight.
As she thought this, Daji smiled faintly and brought the cup to her lips again, and the wine stained her red lips as it passed.
The sweet taste of wine, laced with a faint floral fragrance, lingered in her mouth only briefly. Daji's distinctive ruby-like eyes gleamed as she gave a small, artful smile.
'And yet I do not regret it.'
Gazing at the brilliant moonlight reflected on the lake, she rested her cheek lightly on her hand.
"...I could not have resisted."
Even if she could return to the past and be given another chance to choose.
Could she have resisted?
Would she have hesitated even a little in making that woman a Moon Dancer like herself?
Now that they were bound in a relationship no different from family—no, deeper than that.
Now that, within this solitude that was not quite solitude, someone to think about had appeared.
Would she truly have reconsidered?
"...Pfft."
Daji let out a soft laugh and shook her head, her face faintly flushed.
'What a ridiculous thought.'
Even if she could return to the past, it was plain as day that she would surely make the exact same choice.
That someone to think about had appeared within this dreadful solitude.
That a being bound by the same something as herself had appeared, and that she now found herself thinking of them.
That woman, a fellow dancer who wielded a Crescent-Moon Weight, was perhaps an inevitable existence she could not resist.
Because of her, Daji would bring chaos upon this continent.
Like a cup of wine so achingly sweet that one cannot help but drink it, even knowing it holds a lethal poison.
"Therefore, it is you who are to blame."
In a space with no one to answer.
Daji, murmuring coldly in a hollow voice, gazed steadily at the lake in the garden.
What should she say to the woman she would meet in a few days?
Even though the time felt as if it stretched on forever, countless thoughts crossed and churned through her mind.
And yet, an irrepressible, captivating smile kept spilling from Daji's lips.
"..."
Wearing an alluring smile that seemed as though it could bewitch all existence, she murmured softly.
"Would it not, rather, be enjoyable?"
The thoughts she had once deemed numb now held immense interest, as if that had been a momentary lie, and the very fact that she was lost in so many thoughts was proof of it.
How great a chaos would come, how vast the ripples would grow, how deeply the world would be stained with blood.
Though she could foresee it all, her mind was already settling.
Stained with blood, was it.
'What does it matter if it is stained with blood?'
Pouring the wine slowly, ever so slowly, Daji's ruby-red eyes gleamed bewitchingly.
Long ago, in that distant age when the empire had faced crisis.
She had devoted her body to the salvation of the nation, and in that process, she had inherited the power of the Moon Dancer.
Because of it, she had, before she knew it, transcended humanity.
And at the end of it all, she had gained the title of Great Hero and the envy of countless people.
She had risen to a position second only to the Emperor, above all others, subject to no one's interference, and at that summit she had endlessly devoted herself, always believing she walked the most righteous path.
She had never been able to hold anyone in her heart, and she had lived through ages staining countless beings with blood by her own hand.
Not a single action. Not a single word. There had never been a moment without caution.
So many people watched her, and they rejoiced and despaired over her every move.
Perhaps, within all that, she had lost herself before she knew it.
Rather, upon rising to that arrogant position of "Second Only to One, Above Ten Thousand," her freedom as an individual had vanished completely.
The fine-sounding title of Great Hero had bound her so that she could not escape herself.
And as a result, even now, she felt this solitude alone.
It had been so long that she could no longer even perceive how much time had passed.
She could not hope for understanding from anyone, nor could she voice her doubts about the eternal life she had come to live.
The self of those days, who had found relief simply in being alive, had long since vanished.
She who had devoted herself to the empire to the point of forgetting even herself.
Now, when she wished to give a small piece of her heart and allow herself some ease.
For an empire that constrained even that small thing and imprisoned her, for what more was she to devote herself?
Then, suddenly, her thoughts reached the simplest act that could quell this vast upheaval.
Pitter-patter.
A condition so simple that a hollow laugh escaped her even as she poured the wine.
If she simply reclaimed the power that had made that woman a Moon Dancer, it would be over.
She would once more be alone in the place of the Moon Dancer, and she would savor solitude as she always had.
Then all this chaos would return to its place, and the empire would enjoy peace as before.
"...How utterly loathsome."
Daji's lips trembled faintly as she spoke slowly and raised her cup.
Then, without hesitation, she granted her lips to the wine once more.
Unlike before, the taste was unbearably bitter, and she frowned slightly, drew the cup from her lips, and slowly twisted the corner of her mouth.
"..."
As her gaze shifted, the moonlight reflected on the lake twisted as well, filling her vision, but Daji rather found it immensely pleasing.
A full moon, lofty and bright, immaculate beyond measure, illuminating the world.
No matter what beautiful words one might attach to it, she no longer wished to see such a beautiful full moon.
"Rin. You shall continue to exist as a Moon Dancer."
Her heart had hardened to choose blood instead.
...
CRACKLE!
Immediately after, a brilliant burst of blood-red light erupted around Daji, and the message that those who should have seen it had not seen was erased as it was.
Ding!
[Penalty: If you do not log in on that day, the Moon Dancer Class will be permanently revoked]
The penalty disappears.