Chapter 62
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 62
Chapter Title: The Warrior's Path, The Warrior's Heart (1)
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- Kaisen.
He had one particular memory.
A memory that had sprouted like a new shoot on the rare days without fighting, during the year-long siege.
In that memory, I was in the barracks, sitting across from Roveris, reading a book.
- Did I ever tell you that Camilla was once a shy, timid girl?
Was it during that time that I'd taken up reading as a hobby?
No, it wasn't.
It was just that sometimes, on days when the volcanic ash cleared and the summer sun shone on the mountain range.
- I can't imagine that.
Roveris would pause from writing in her journal to tell me stories of the past.
Those stories were the fragrance of days gone by. They were tales of a time that could not be pieced together by the crude penmanship of history books.
They were stories from the days when my mother was the Warrior. And they were stories of the era in which the girl, Camilla, had lived.
- I suppose it would be from your perspective. I won't lie. She was a very lovely person.
- If there are any special stories, could you tell me?
- Special stories, you say. Right, there was that one.
Roveris seemed lost in thought for a moment, then waved her fountain pen.
- No, I can't.
- Why not?
- As her junior, I must protect her honor.
- What on earth happened?
- It's beyond your imagination. Don't ask any more. That's an order.
That day, the two of them laughed silently.
It was the kind of laugh that was more of a faint smile spreading across their lips, like a peach blossom fading in the spring breeze.
- But were you always more skilled than others from the start, Master?
- I was behind everyone else. But I caught up quickly. It might be hard for you to imagine, but Camilla wasn't actually the prodigy everyone expected her to be.
- Then was there someone else? Senior Sharon?
- No, it was someone named Eshir.
- I don't know that name. A Dune?
- Sadly, she became neither an Alter nor a Dune. She died during the Black Summer. She was a disciple of Vinessa Alter Renaud.
Even when speaking of sorrow, Roveris maintained an intellectual tone. Her sadness sounded like a business matter.
- She was truly an object of admiration. A magnificent person. She was the one Senior Camilla looked up to most, after Lady Raminea.
- Senior Camilla did too?
- Was there any disciple who didn't? I too hoped to become a person like that as quickly as possible.
- I think you have now.
- I dislike flattery that's so transparent. Stop it and read your book.
I knew.
I knew this world was one that snatched away any affection the moment you gave it.
The bonds of the battlefield are always strange.
No matter how you try to push them away, to shove them aside, they slowly approach and place a hand on your shoulder from behind.
Is it because that strange tremor must be repaid twofold that bonds forged on the battlefield always end several times more cruelly?
“Senior…”
When he opened his eyes amidst the suffocating pain, a moon was floating before him.
If the moonlight that illuminates the night's darkness could take human form and wear a human smile, would it look like this?
The moonlight, propped against the head of the bed, gazed down quietly at the young warrior's face and smiled gently.
“Hello.”
He couldn't believe the smile, more brilliant and sorrowful than the moonlight itself, so much so that it seemed to make the moonlight wither.
That smile was just as it had always been.
For a moment, the wall of time crumbled, and he even felt the illusion of returning to that time, the time they first met.
“You look exhausted.”
It was the smile of a full moon revealing its light after being hidden behind the clouds.
Then and now, it was a smile that made one forget all the wars and tribulations of this world.
That smile, which quietly returned him to the days he spent with his mother's smile long ago—
“Rest now, Kaisen.”
That smile was unsettling.
The smile that filled his heart like moonlight whispered to him.
It whispered that he could lay down all the burdens of the deaths he had brushed past during the eons of battle, that he could come to its side and rest easy…
“I have to go to the inland front. I need to clear away the shadow of the other world that has fallen over the Empire.”
He didn't want to rest.
He had neither the right nor the time for it.
“I don't need to rest. Where would I find the leisure to rest…”
Tarsiyo rose without answering his words.
“You… you need me, don’t you…? Now that the Blue Star is gone… I, who struck down the king…”
His breathing was ragged with pain.
His body was heavy.
Could a wound that dragon's blood couldn't heal possibly exist?
“Tarsiyo…”
He roughly tried to grab her wrist, but he couldn't. Just as one born with a human body cannot touch light.
There was something different about Tarsiyo.
They both had white hair, but if the boy's hair held a worldly light, the girl's held a celestial one.
“Kaisen, I want to go with you, too.”
Her beautiful grace was as if the moon had descended upon the mortal earth. The color of her hair, glowing softly even in the dark, was moonlight itself.
“But not now.”
Tarsiyo shook her head, a sad smile on her face.
“You know the reason better than anyone, don't you?”
What reason… Only when he saw Tarsiyo's sad smile did he finally hear it.
*Crunch, crunch, crunch.* He heard the whisper of the Abyss from his core, gnawing away at his body and soul.
The very space his body occupied twisted and contorted, and the soul belonging to that body screamed.
‘The Abyss of Neigallas…?’
Only then did he understand.
He couldn't grasp Tarsiyo, not because she belonged to another world.
It was simply that he couldn't move his body as he wished. He couldn't even manage to reach out and grab something.
‘No, no, this is…’
Tarsiyo's smile shone faintly down upon his pain.
“I know everything. I know your pain isn't in your body, but in your heart. Still… I need you.”
It was a distance at which the world seemed to stop.
A distance where their skin could touch before the warmth of their breaths had even faded.
It was a distance where pain, sorrow, grief—all of it—was forgotten in a wash of white, leaving only the awareness of each other.
“Will you win that fight and come back to me?”
At that distance.
The light of hope, returned after two thousand years, the true Warrior, was smiling, her face wet with tears.
“The burden my father entrusted to me… it's too heavy to carry alone. I don't think I can bear it to the very end. So please, you stay by my side, support me until the very end…”
A Destiny with a Time Limit,
The Warrior's Path, The Warrior's Heart (1)
The Empire's summer was transparent.
The scent of azaleas lingered on the breeze that flowed from distant fields and rustled the bedroom curtains.
A young wind that had not experienced the wider world, born in the garden, was dizzying with the scent of roses.
Ah, so it's spring…
Does spring come even in the middle of summer… How long had it been since he'd felt the change of seasons…
The crest of House Page was intertwined golden roses, which was why the city was named <Goldenrose>.
In the spring within summer, the city of <Goldenrose> was planned in the shape of a rose, spreading out wide.
In the spring within summer, when the fragrance of flowers wafted through the air, the city seemed suddenly peaceful.
“Kaisen, I have to go now.”
The boy, Kaisen, who had been gasping in pain, opened his eyes on the sickbed.
The two of them were FakeWarriors.
They were survivors of the rebels who had stood against the old king, the one who tried to return this land to a world that was not a world.
Because they had tried to stop a providence that could not be stopped or severed, the deaths laid upon that defiance had to equal the magnitude of providence itself.
The two of them did not speak of the deaths that had been layered, one upon another, to send them into this spring.
Neither of them spoke of it.
Whenever the conversation drifted toward such topics, they both lowered their gazes, and silence would fall.
“Those Abyss bastards… while our forces were concentrated on the central front, they broke through the eastern front and brought down the Papal Office. The last remnants of the Yellow Dragon Corps are gone. The Dune instructors also… at that time…”
“…”
“They say Lord Haraderiman the Light Dragon has also passed away. There are no Divine Dragons left in this world. And no more FakeWarriors can be trained.”
The annihilation of the Yellow Dragon Corps, the fall of the Papal Office, the deaths of the instructors including Olier Dune Jeraye, the loss of the eastern front…
Ria’s voice, as she delivered the desperate news, was unnaturally calm.
Every time he opened his mouth, only groans of pain escaped, but Ria wiped the sweat from his forehead with a wet cloth.
“But it’s not all despair. Tarsiyo Yere Sharrilion… the true Warrior has returned.”
“…!”
“Have you spoken with her? When you’re near her, it feels like you can never lose. She’s a symbol of hope.”
*I have.*
*Though she vanished with a sad smile.*
*Just as the moonlight vanishes without a trace when the night ends.*
“Kaisen, with her here and you lending your strength, retaking <Haraldoniki> will be no problem. Reclaiming everything up to the old republic's capital, <Tervenople>, won't be just a dream.”
He barely managed to move his body, placing his trembling fingers on Ria’s hand.
“Right, so… take me… take me with you… I’ll go too…”
At her friend’s gasps, unable to even grip her wrist, Ria gave a smile that looked as if it might shatter.
“Kaisen, Her Excellency Akirea gave you orders to stand by. So just rest.”
Ria had to squeeze her eyes shut as she recalled the words of Akirea of Crimson Flame.
- Kaisen was struck by the Abyss during the battle at Neigallas. It's not a fatal wound, but he now has less than three months to live.
The King's Abyss…
The reason Haraderiman the Light Dragon had never been able to rise from his sickbed…
The reason Mirngadia of the Blue Star couldn't move his own body and had to preside over the floating castle…
That calamity had now befallen Kaisen…
“Kaisen, don't lose.”
“What…?”
“Don't lose, I'm begging you…”
That was all she could say. She couldn't say anything more.
If she stayed here any longer, smelling the stench of death from her last remaining friend in this land, she felt that her tears would burst forth.
Ria hurried out of the hospital room.
“As you ordered, the troops have been organized and boarded onto the trains.”
The officers of the Black Rose Corps were waiting. Now, the FakeWarrior had to lead them into a new hell.
“Yes, let’s go.”
***
Kaisen gasped for breath all night.
Rest? How in the world could he rest?
‘Tarsiyo said it, and Ria… that girl was crying too…’
Can I really handle this?
In a place where I am not.
Everyone I know.
This reality, where they are all leaving for a world other than this one…
…*Ting!*
How on earth had he moved his numb hands to pull the pin on the inhibitor?
In that unreal moment, hazy with pain, only the echo of transcendence sounded real.
Sensation flooded his body as his energy returned. *Crunch, crunch, crunch.* The whispers of the Abyss grew louder, but it didn't matter.
“Sir Kaisen?”
“I don’t know how you got up, but please, lie back down!”
“Move…!”
It was a dawn where the horizon was stained with purple.
He knocked down the House Page guards standing watch at his door and headed for the training grounds, where he could sense the presence of the holy swords.
On the training ground's dais, four holy swords were conversing amongst themselves, their power radiating in flames and waves.
“Let’s go, Aradamanthel… We have to go back. To the battlefield where everyone is…!”
But at that moment, Aradamanthel ignored Kaisen's words.
It ignored his hand, ignored his will.
He tried to draw the blade from its hilt, but it was like a sword embedded in rock, not budging an inch.
“You bastard, what’s wrong with you too!”
No matter how hard he tried.
No matter how many times he tried to pull it from its sheath.
“Why… what’s your problem, what is it…!”
No matter how much he strained.
No matter how much strength he put into the hilt.
The blade of pure blood, which had been with him for thousands upon thousands of draws, would not yield itself to him. As if all those moments had been an illusion.
「It is only natural. There is no sword in your heart. What sword would allow itself to be by your side?」
Then, suddenly… the illusion that the midnight darkness was being dazzlingly immolated.
Was it really an illusion?
If a being's very existence was flame, a fire that illuminated all the darkness in the world, wouldn't such a thing be possible?
He turned, and there was fire.
Her red, elegant hair shimmered mesmerizingly like flames.
Black dragon scales covered her entire body like armor, adding to her majesty.
If Setsunen of Thunderous Fragrance was radiance and Mirngadia of the Blue Star was pure white, then their eldest, Akirea of Crimson Flame, was, as her name suggested, flame itself.
「I believe I ordered you to take absolute rest.」
“A FakeWarrior needs no rest…! The enemy is everywhere, and everyone is heading there… What rest is there to be had…?”
「You don't want to go fight. You want to go die, don't you?」
Was that truly a question?
Or was it a blade of words, piercing his heart?
And for that reason, he couldn't accept it.
He didn't want to accept it.
“I’m going to fight…! I… I cut down Mauna Loa, I've cut down countless Old Nobles, and I even cut down the old king! If not me, then who will fight…!”
「You must learn to preserve that body of yours as much as possible. I will not permit you to go.」
“Can you even stop me? In that body of yours?”
At the irreverent question, Akirea silently clenched her fist.
If she stands in my way, I'll just break through…
He resolved himself and aimed the sheathed Aradamanthel at Akirea, but—
‘My breath, why am I out of breath?’
Just standing in opposition to her felt as if his entire body was being incinerated… The more he tried to resist, the more his soul was drawn into a mysterious warmth.
‘Unlike Neigallas, she doesn't possess an explosive heat that scorches and melts anything that draws near.’
It was just warm…
Just comforting…
It wasn't an explosive heat, just an enveloping warmth, and yet…
‘What is this…’
It was as if he were pointing his sword at the very concept of flame. Can one erase or eliminate a concept of the world by swinging a sword at it?
‘What is this presence…’
In the midst of his gasping breaths.
No, through the gaps between them.
A fist of flame strode forward and struck.
「If that is your will, then I, too, shall hasten.」
The fist, which struck his heart in an instant like a flame burning through paper—
Did not pierce his heart.
Did not shatter his chest.
It merely, quietly, reached the unseen image of the soul beyond the physical heart.
「Now, pull yourself together, Kaisen.」
As if tearing through a dazed delusion with a single strike.
With a warm resonance that seemed to cleave the entire world.
「You must win the battle against yourself that begins now.」
Everything in his vision burst into flames…
And in the depths of his soul, which had been burned to black ash, his consciousness awakened.
Where am I?
I was definitely in the training grounds.
But he saw familiar things.
He saw the tachi he had received from Camilla as a child. Then, he saw the figure of a young swordsman sitting on a rock, that very sword slung over his shoulder.
He doubted his eyes.
How could this be? And with good reason.
‘Me…?’
The boy glanced over, smirked, and rose to his feet.
“So, you've finally come for revenge? I was about to die of boredom waiting for you.”
“Revenge?”
“What's with the act? You're going to pretend you don't know?”
With ‘my’ old body.
With ‘my’ old voice, the boy—
With ‘my’ old finger, pointed at ‘my’ old heart and smiled coldly.
“The one who killed Mom has been here all along, right? Not out there.”