Chapter 106
Chapter 106
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 106
Chapter Title: I'm Back.
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*
A shooting star streaked across the sky. Tracing a perfect arc, it cut through the countless twinkling stars. Abel watched him beneath the bluish blaze of moonlight and the myriad sparkling colors of the stars.
The wind blew. A dry yet cool breeze that made Abel's wheat-field hair sway gently with each gust.
"You're here."
"Yes. Abel."
Abel gazed at him steadily. Her sky-blue eyes sparkled like the autumn noon sky. She didn't rush. She never rushed.
Immortal races, the undying—they never hurried beneath the flow of time.
Even if she had lost her immortality, her leisureliness was an innate trait honed over a lifetime.
"You won't regret it?"
"Regret what?"
"Leaving alone. Fernandez. Will you truly not regret it? When you wander lost, roaming those deep night shadows, will you not regret being left alone?"
Abel never asked him to take her along. That wasn't her way. She preferred to persuade quietly.
Fernandez liked her manner of speaking. Unlike Kirhas's desperate pleas or her one-sided, obsessive love. These unfamiliar affections warmed his heart.
But what he needed was not this.
"I've regretted enough already. All that's left to me now is this desperate struggle to regret no more."
"Fernandez."
"Enough."
Fernandez shook his head and took another step forward. Crunch—the rough sand of the wasteland scattered at his feet.
"We each have our tasks, Abel."
"I'm worried about you. You're a strong, steadfast man. The kind who would break before bending. That's precisely why your strength worries me."
Abel took a step forward as well. Exactly the distance Fernandez had put between them. Their separation neither widened nor narrowed.
Abel didn't rush.
"Fernandez. To endure more fiercely, more strongly, you're choosing a path that destroys you. That's what frightens me."
Not mentioning corruption was the greatest consideration she could offer. Yet Fernandez knew exactly what she meant.
She knew he could wield black magic, and that he was an extraordinarily skilled black mage. He had shattered the flagship under countless protective spells from King Gaimern in a single blow, and never lost a single magical battle since.
She knew the constraints upon Fernandez. There were easier, faster paths to power. Powers he could claim anytime if he but shifted his mindset.
Hellish mana and demonic strength.
If things went wrong. If he stumbled on this precarious tightrope the moment he set off alone.
If a moment came when he was beyond her reach, unable to grasp him.
Fernandez was the type to lash out rather than crumble. The kind who would burn body and soul without hesitation to charge toward his goal.
Just as he had said long ago, when he and Abel first met. A man like a blaze. Perfectly suited to an era of flames and endless war.
Thus, Fernandez understood her worry. He could almost hear the words unspoken behind her tightly pressed lips.
‘Don't fall.’
And Fernandez offered no reply. Abel would know what he would say anyway.
‘Like the flesh, corruption is merely a tool.’
Their eyes met. Soon, Abel stepped closer. Before Fernandez could retreat. Their distance shrank by another pace.
"What should I do after you leave?"
"Would you set off on a journey alone?"
Fernandez no longer retreated. He didn't avoid Abel, who could find no more words to persuade him.
Another step—closer still.
"Where should I go?"
"To the Eastern Kingdoms Alliance and the Crusade Knights' camps. Straight across the wasteland. It'll be a dangerous journey."
Another step.
"What journey threatens a dragon? What do you want me to do when I find those humans?"
"Tell them I'm alive. And that I'm still carrying out my 'mission.'"
They exchanged words like actors in a play, drawing another step closer. Now, nose to nose. Abel's eyes trembled faintly as she looked at him.
"...And?"
"Three conclaves remain now. Apotarz will be handled by the beastkin alliance. I'm heading for Tutan Gartep. One more must be dealt with."
"Didn't you say it yourself? Munto has lost his power anyway. Do we have reason to antagonize the pharaohs we've freed?"
The Necropolis conclaves sought only conquest and dominion, far removed from slaughter or demon worship.
Conquest-lust, dominion, vanity—these drove them. No different from the conquering lords of civilized nations.
They were rational trading partners. If one could hide their disgust for the undead. And Abel, nearly undead herself, saw them merely as ambition-driven civilizations.
There was no gain in provoking them first. Abel asked quietly.
"What do you seek in this wilderness? Fernandez, this wasteland is now engulfed in uncontrollable chaos. War isn't something a single mortal can halt."
With two nations at war, a peace treaty might form. Three forces could check each other; four might divide the wastes.
But five, six, seven? The tangled webs of grudges, diplomacy, and intrigue were beyond one man's power.
"Stopping wars or restoring peace is fine. But as you know, Abel, that's not how I work."
Rather than halting wars or sealing disputes, he preferred to uproot them at the source.
"Munto's power weakens as the conclaves leech it. Munto's will slumbers within the great seal, unable to project into the material world. Now is the chance."
"What chance?"
"Each time a conclave bearing Munto's power falls—one by one—Munto loses that power forever. The conclaves were his mightiest minions. If their strength and forces are swept into the dust..."
A shooting star slipped behind Fernandez's back. Leaving a green afterimage toward the wasteland's horizon. Beneath the Milky Way, at the foot of the [Abelthas Throne].
Fernandez's eyes gleamed darkly.
"I'll claim one archdemon's seat."
A declaration equal to slaying a god. Abel shuddered at the grim tone in his words.
"Is it possible?"
"I'll see."
"Can you return?"
That too, he'd see. In his past life, no heroes—not even the gods' champions—had slain an archdemon, even during the fiercest final war in the material world.
Fernandez remembered banishing or sealing the five archdemons back to hell was their best.
Both archdemons and the pantheon's gods inevitably consumed divinity to intervene in the material world. Incarnation even more so. It was nearly impossible from the start.
But Munto was different. The archdemon who awoke at the very end was the only 'human' in the material world's grand history to acquire divinity.
Thus, if fully unsealed, he could project archdemonic power entirely into the material world—his home.
The archdemon with the greatest influence in material struggles. One that must be eliminated.
And, belonging to the material world, one unable to revive after death.
That was Fernandez's target. The sole archdemon who could never return stood at history's weakest moment.
No better chance would come again.
"Now's the time. The perfect moment to remove the most dangerous foe. But no disagreement—he's among the mightiest here. So I can't bring you or Kirhas into that fight."
"Because we'd be a burden?"
Abel smiled sadly. A powerless mortal stripped of draconic might and a young beastkin woman would burden him. But Fernandez shook his head.
"Because your aid would be my weakness."
"...What do you mean?"
Because I cherish you, both of you. The only ones I cherish in this world. Demons exploit such gaps.
Fernandez could have said it. Instead—
-Swish.
He stepped on the sand, advancing another pace. Abel's eyes widened. A shooting star trailed down. In the deep night, moonlight illuminated their overlapping shadows.
Their quickened breaths mingled at nose-tip. At the end of a brief held breath, their lips parted.
"Explaining the meaning lacks romance."
"...You rascal."
Abel fell silent after. Fernandez lightly patted her shoulder, wrapped his cloak tight, and turned without a word. He walked toward the shimmering moonlit horizon.
"Return alive. I'll wait."
Fernandez didn't reply. Abel stood still, watching his receding back.
The moon sank toward the earth, and blue dawn began to brighten the eastern sky.
‘Melisildur. My friend. Bless him.’
*
‘It's been a while.’
A moment with no one to talk to but himself. No direction to turn for another voice.
In perfect silence, only the whispering wind and vast plain as companions—this sensation.
Since his past life, not a single day had he walked truly alone. Thus, it had been ages. This feeling. Familiar solitude.
-Indeed. It's been a while.
He recalled his past life, fleeing death across countless failures. Such solitude was his greatest companion. Moments of endless contemplation, teetering between madness and keen reason, advancing alone.
‘Take care of it. Feizashi.’
-Yes. Let's do this.
From his pack, Fernandez drew the Necropolis dagger. The curse-ridden dark-green blade gleamed in the dawn.
Fernandez pulled his hood low. If he could evade the eyes of gods and demons, hide his identity. And roam freely without heed to any gaze.
Abel and Kirhas anchored his sanity, yet they were the greatest fetters on his potential. They wanted him righteous.
Absurd. Hadn't he always been farthest from justice?
-Shing.
Fernandez sliced his left arm shallowly. Blood welled, dripping onto the blade. Amid the stinging pain, he smiled.
The blade's curse gnawed his soul. Not a deep wound, so slowly. His divinity-laced blood clashed with the curse.
One foot in the soul realm, feeling his soul shatter and reassemble. Fernandez grinned darkly.
No restraints bound him now. To hunt demons, one must act more demonic than any.
New soul essence seeped between the fragments. The soul forcibly split by divinity drew together through its gaps.
At last, dark-green glow leaked from between his black hair.
"I'm back."
The Wildcast (Wandering Mage). The filthy blood. The Hero-Slayer.
Feizashi Wildcast.
Finally.