347. Then What Does That Make Me?
347. Then What Does That Make Me?
***
A knight who held ideals.
Who spoke of justice and voiced his opinions in a heated tone,
Who said that people must be considered first.
Who even asked whether there was any way to reduce the bloodshed, even a little.
Throughout the exchange of blows with Zernati, something kept surfacing in Serin's mind.
Like a vast cloth slowly soaking into water. Like fabric gradually darkening in color...
Memories of the past kept flickering before Serin's eyes like vivid images.
...
The traces of moonlight bursting from the Crescent-Moon Weight began to carve themselves across the knight's body, and in that process, Serin could not maintain a perfect state either.
Serin, using the Awakening Skill True Moon Princess, clashed with Zernati, who wielded Return of Radiance, and his sword was vicious in every instant.
The bursts of light flaring again and again brilliantly illuminated the space, but only for a moment.
A silence so vast it felt immense closed in and swallowed the space.
As the great silence settled, Serin and Zernati slowly came to a stop.
When they lowered their weapons.
The two exchanged glances.
"..."
"..."
Serin in her True Moon Princess state. Her distinctive silver hair had grown long enough to reach her legs and covered her entire body, and as gold thread was embroidered into her light armor dyed in pure white moonlight, it cast her figure in an elegant, lofty light. There were tears and wounds here and there, but they could not hide the beauty she possessed.
And the knight in silver armor who gazed at her was, even described in the most generous terms, in poor condition.
The helm he had adorned was gone, and the brilliant armor tinged with silver was badly dented all over, its state wretched.
But even so, beneath his blood-soaked blond hair, Zernati's brilliantly shining eyes held Serin in their gaze.
They exchanged looks long enough for silence to linger. The first to speak was Zernati.
"...In the end."
He slowly uttered the words, then hesitated over his lips as if they would not fall. And soon he looked at Serin with a complicated expression mingling resignation and relief.
To Serin, his appearance seemed to hold a faint smile, or perhaps looked like a man forcibly suppressing an extremely deep sorrow.
Since he no longer carried that thick killing intent, Serin too let a little of the emotion in her coldly hardened eyes ease as she returned his gaze. Even so, her hand fidgeted slightly around the Crescent-Moon Weight, and in the end she let out a small sigh she could not hold back.
'I don't know.'
It wasn't that I was dissatisfied with the current result.
Zernati had clearly shown strength beyond what I had expected, and I had not been certain of victory either.
In that process, we'd exchanged blows easily hundreds of times, and now we stood facing each other at the end of it.
As memories from Black Ark surfaced during the fight, they kept unsettling me.
Unlike the beginning, when only unpleasant memories of Zernati had filled my chest.
Now it was complicated.
'Why...'
I couldn't understand why I was thinking about those things again only now.
I had never held even a small doubt or denial about my actions in Black Ark. I had held no lingering attachment whatsoever, and had considered my actions right and natural.
—Continental Unification.
I had advanced the story by making Cecilia, the First Imperial Princess of the Grandelia Empire, the Emperor and unifying the continent, and in that process, I had bloodied my hands with hundreds—no, thousands—of lives.
I had considered it a world inside a game, so I hadn't remembered those beings as particularly significant.
So I had not treated beings without significance as people, and my actions had mercilessly slaughtered them.
Why was that...
Why on earth... did it bother me like this only now?
As I was giving him a complicated look, I saw Zernati's lips part.
"In the end... I cannot reach you."
Unlike his first voice, thick with killing intent, Zernati's voice sounded light, and I heard a subtle emotion in it.
'Why did I hate him so much?'
Only now did I wonder why I had held such thick loathing, but in the end, it was all already over.
The rift of emotion was already far too deep, and it was too late to turn it back now. There was nothing I could change at this point.
Though my past actions weighed on my mind, there was nothing I could change now.
"You are always ahead of me. Truly... whether then or now, in the end I cannot reach you."
At Zernati's calm tone as he continued speaking, I did not bother to answer.
My mind was complicated at the moment, and since I was streaming, I was cautious even about opening my mouth, afraid I might make some slip of the tongue.
Then Zernati very slowly set down his white sword with its ornate decorations. With that, I felt that the situation had completely ended.
Step, step...
With that, I slowly began to move my feet toward Zernati.
A knight who had laid down his sword. The end of a knight.
The sight of a knight who had lost his will to fight stirred a strangely eerie feeling just from looking at it.
And I realized I could feel this way only because of who I was now.
In Black Ark, I had felt threatened for survival every single day, had thoroughly and coldly killed my emotions, and had chosen to isolate myself alone at the end.
Compared to then, I was so different in this world now.
In this world too, more than a month had already passed before I knew it, and I had changed a great deal.
In that period, I had felt so many emotions, and I no longer hesitated to burst into laughter at small things and express it outwardly.
There had been times when I hunted monsters alone for days or weeks at a stretch, but in this world, I met someone or exchanged messages with someone almost every day.
So back then, if there had been something that made me feel truly alive in Black Ark,
Now I often felt alive in a different sense.
Step.
As the distance gradually closed, I took in the knight who had exposed himself defenselessly.
He had once been the commander of the Imperial Knight Order, and with his noble convictions, he had put people first and earned the trust of so many.
And the Imperial Princess had been no different.
Thinking back now, how long had it taken because of Zernati before Cecilia joined my cause?
Only after Zernati and I had clashed again and again, our opinions opposing each other dozens of times, had the rift between us deepened beyond repair.
And at the end of it, the Imperial Princess had ultimately chosen me, and the main story of Continental Unification had proceeded.
"..."
Once I felt the distance had closed enough, I raised the Crescent-Moon Weight.
Even at his final moment, the knight facing his end could not abandon his nature.
The sight of him acknowledging defeat and accepting death. Looking at him, I did not want to use any particular skill.
Swish.
I raised my right hand and swung the Crescent-Moon Weight, now suffused with pure white moonlight, in a wide arc.
To draw the knight's end.
Then the flash of pure white moonlight cut across the space, and the trail it embroidered seemed to move so very slowly.
At the end of it, Zernati slowly closed his eyes and calmly accepted defeat.
Even the blood beading and gathering on the man's blood-soaked blond hair, then a single drop falling lightly, seemed to move slowly—at that moment.
ZZZZZZT...!!
An anomaly no one had expected occurred.
The trail of moonlight was blocked by something, flared violently in resistance, and then faded, unable to inflict any harm on Zernati.
Rustle!
Serin urgently kicked off the ground, widening the distance and opening her eyes wide—at that moment.
Crash!
With a chilling sound like a vast pane of glass shattering, the space directly in front of Zernati split wide open, and something began to reveal itself.
"..."
Even Zernati stared blankly at the unexpected situation.
Between the space where thick darkness surged violently, a single presence flaunted its existence.
With dark red hair and an aura steeped in deep darkness surging savagely, a woman revealed herself.
"...Zernati. We must escape."
The woman with hair dyed red as if soaked in blood pressed Zernati in a flat, toneless voice.
Her entire body was opaque, as if veiled by a curtain.
But through that veil, only dark red hair and a cold expression were visible. Moreover, from the blade of the dagger in her hand, a menacing red aura surged savagely.
"...Roselia."
Zernati murmured the woman's name quietly, and for an instant glanced at Serin, but only for a moment.
He looked at Roselia, bit his lip hard, and nodded.
And so, even as they vanished through the rift in the distorted space,
Serin did not attack or act rashly.
Ding!
*
————
[Phase 3: Hall of the Great Purge Cleared!!]
Hall of the Great Purge clear rewards have been generated!
【Victory in 1:1 Duel Against Zernati!】
You have won the duel against 'Zernati', so bonus rewards will be applied!
Continue to the next phase?
[Y / N]
————
*
The Phase 3 clear message was already sitting in her vision, and the hologram was heavily obscuring her view.
But Serin was not motionless because of the hologram.
She did not act rashly because she did not understand what had just happened.
'How on earth...?'
This was not a normal situation in the first place.
I was still in the middle of a 'duel' with Zernati, and I had not yet finished it.
Zernati was clearly alive, as I could see, and even as I watched him cast something like a dimensional rift over his body, I ultimately did not act.
—Roselia.
Zernati had clearly called her that, and I too, looking at her, had instinctively thought of her.
A being who should have died because of me, and a being who should not have appeared.
She had intervened despite the duel allowing no outside interference, and the quest itself was different.
The sight of me calmly acting while distorting the system's rules, which no being should have been able to intervene in.
Because it had happened in the middle of a duel, the shock was even greater.
I knew that in Another World, other beings—the special beings called heroes—could intervene in the rules.
'But that's clearly something only heroes can do...'
I had thought it was possible only for beings set by Another World—that is, only for 'heroes'.
The appearances of past heroes.
Daji manifesting enormous power and erasing various advantages, handing me the Mythic Crescent-Moon Weight.
Aizen offering my additional information and changing the rewards.
Those things came to mind at once. But clearly, only beings belonging to the category of 'hero' had been able to do such things.
—!
As they vanished, the isolated space distorted and began to show the original battlefield, but my mind remained complicated.
When I had faced Zernati and Roselia and the Status Window had appeared, I remembered that the category had not been revealed.
【Category: ???】
The space filled with question marks still came to mind vividly.
So, so if—if they could also be called heroes...? If I thought of them as heroes?
If they could intervene in the rules, then I had to see it that way.
Yes, so if beings like Zernati could be called heroes...
I felt an enormous sense of dissonance.
And it was... so chilling, as if space itself was distorting.
An emotion I could not understand.
The isolated space had already returned to the original battlefield... but even that did not properly register in my vision.
'Then what does that make me?'
If they were beings like heroes,
Then I, who had personally killed them in Black Ark...
I... what on earth does that make me?
As endless questions bound me—at that moment.
"Serin!"
"Rin!"
I heard voices calling me.
My head turned reflexively and I took in their figures...
But the strength gradually drained from my hand gripping the Crescent-Moon Weight.