Death's Arrival
“So we’ve joined hands for now… but how are we supposed to find the master? It’s not like we’ll be sending people to overlapping locations. In the end, it won’t be much different from what we’ve been doing.”
“Put out a bounty.”
“……Are you insane? This is someone who’s been hiding from us all this time. If they see a wanted poster, they’ll burrow even deeper. We might never find them.”
“We don’t have to spread it everywhere. Just quietly circulate notices at inns and restaurants. Like you said, they’ve been avoiding our eyes until now. Isn’t it time we borrowed other people’s eyes as well? We can’t do everything with our own strength.”
“……”
“Then we’re in agreement?”
Caw. Caw-caw.
Flutter.
Black birds blanketed the sky. They blotted out the sun like a harbinger of the end, shrieking ominous cries as they beat their wings.
Amid that unnatural, ill-omened sight, a lone man stood in silence and slowly raised his head. His narrowed eyes searched for the source of the sound, yet his murky gray irises drifted unfocused, trembling.
After a brief silence, a dry voice cut through the beating of wings and echoed in the air.
“……Stop playing around and come out.”
“……”
“I know you’re there.”
After coming all this way, you’re not going to pretend you’re not, are you?
As if answering the muttered words, the sound of wings gradually faded.
Before the man who could see nothing, the black birds gathered in one place with deliberate display. From their midst, a man stepped forward. A low, chilling voice followed.
“I wondered who was looking for me—”
The ominous birds circled the man who walked out with perfect composure or perched on his shoulders. He took one more step, closing the distance, and scrutinized the other’s face before narrowing his eyes.
“So it was you.”
It almost looked like a smile.
“The one who brought chaos to the world and increased my workload. And yet you shamelessly seek me out. How amusing.”
“……”
“Well, you’ve piqued my interest, so I’ll let it slide for now. The fact that you found me like this means you’re connected to ‘her’ in some way. I’m curious about that too, but it’s not the most pressing matter, so I’ll set it aside.”
Before he knew it, the figure had transformed into a woman. She smiled, the corners of her eyes crinkling as both corners of her mouth lifted. Laughter bloomed across her face.
Her dreamy, decadent aura could have ensnared anyone regardless of gender, yet the man’s gray eyes, fixed on “her,” remained empty and clouded.
Unconcerned, the woman reached out.
“……!”
The man flinched at the cool touch against his eye. Instinctive revulsion surged, yet he did not step back. Seemingly satisfied by that resolve, “she” let out a low laugh and spoke like reciting poetry.
“Those who have given up on life call for me. Those who crave life seek me out. Yet you, with eyes that have abandoned life, still managed to find me.”
The figure shifted again—into an old woman, then a young boy, and finally back to the adult man who had first appeared.
Throughout the speech, the voice changed with each transformation. The one who had been playfully shifting forms drew closer with undisguised interest and whispered low into the other’s ear.
“What do you desire?”
The voice was sweet and soft, as if dipped in honey.
Yet the chill that brushed against the ear stirred primal instincts, evoking strong revulsion and fear.
The man slowly closed his eyes, as if trying to steady his emotions. His trembling eyelids betrayed fear and hesitation, but he no longer had the presence of mind to control even that.
After several moments of wavering, he finally forced the words from the tip of his tongue.
“An extension of my lifespan.”
Once, there had been an existence that stirred the world. Or rather, it might be more accurate to call it a “rumor.”
There were rumors about the “Messenger of Death.”
Because the subject was intriguing, all sorts of wild tales had circulated. That he was not human. That he was the same person as the great sinner of mankind who had caused the Gate Incident. There had even been rumors that he was an Awakener or a shaman who had broken taboos.
If one sifted through all those rumors and extracted only the common points, it would be that he possessed long black hair and green eyes that emitted an eerie light unlike that of an ordinary human.
He would appear with a flash of green light and collect souls that Death had yet to claim.
Though he was occasionally seen closing Gates, wherever he appeared, someone inevitably died. And despite the many eyewitness accounts, no one could properly remember him. To anyone, that alone was deeply ominous.
People called him the ill-omened crow—Raven.
But rumors require constant fuel to survive.
After nearly ten years without fresh sightings, the once-ubiquitous rumors about “Raven” had been cleanly forgotten. Humanity, which had even forgotten the existence of the rumor itself, now treated any records they found of him as nothing more than local folklore from some rural backwater.
Now, only records from ten years ago remained—an existence no one remembered.
The person in question was currently—
“……I had a bad dream.”
—closing a Gate that had formed in a place untouched by human footsteps.
[Guardian Spirit ??? asks what the dream was about.]
“The dream I had when I first made a contract with Death.”
[……]
“A competent shaman’s dream wouldn’t be meaningless. And today, for some reason, my spine keeps tingling and I feel uneasy… Maybe a guest is coming? A pitch-black guest, that is.”
[Guardian Spirit ??? tells you not to say such ominous things.]
“Well, what does it matter?”
Raven chuckled lowly and drove his dagger into the center of the final monster’s forehead.
“I didn’t name anyone directly.”
With the monsters in the vicinity wiped out, it would take some time before new ones arrived. Now all that remained was to find the Gate’s core inside this massive corpse and destroy it.
This Gate was the type where the monster swallowed the core.
That was fortunate, at least.
Having to hunt down monsters one by one across such a vast area was a bit tedious, but it was still better than having to hold out against waves of monsters while touching the core. That was why people didn’t recklessly swarm into a Gate just to close it.
More importantly, where was the core hiding? Raven spun his dagger once with practiced ease, then settled in and began the disassembly.
“……But I really do feel uneasy. Like some tail I don’t know about is following me.”
[Guardian Spirit ??? says no one was following you.]
“Not that. How should I put it… It feels like my past is right on my heels.”
Did someone remember me?
No, remembering him after more than ten years was impossible. They must have found some record related to him and were investigating out of curiosity.
He had felt this faint sensation from time to time before, but it had been too weak to pay attention to.
It suddenly got much stronger.
Raven frowned briefly at the inexplicable situation, then easily located the Gate’s core and pulled it out.
He rolled the stone radiating an unpleasant aura in his palm, about to crush it, when a message arrived.
[Guardian Spirit ??? cautiously asks, now that it’s come up, whether you really intend never to meet anyone again.]
Raven’s shoulders twitched. His vivid green eyes darted about like a child caught doing something wrong before slowly lowering.
If it had been anyone else, he could have silenced them in countless ways. But the one speaking was the Guardian Spirit who had been with him since before he obtained immortality. The descendant who could not treat that spirit carelessly chose silence and avoidance.
The Guardian Spirit would not let it pass.
[Guardian Spirit ??? says it has already been ten years since you severed all ties and disappeared.]
“……I know.”
[It adds cautiously that your already lacking social skills seem to be hitting rock bottom.]
“No, what’s wrong with my social skills……?”
After saying everything they wanted, they claimed to have added it “cautiously.” How shameless.
“And stop calling me ‘child.’”
Of course, in the eyes of the Guardian Spirit, his ancestor, he might still look like one. But to someone who had long surpassed a hundred and was approaching two hundred, the title was mortifying.
[Guardian Spirit ??? asks if that is really the point and tells you not to change the subject.]
“……”
Raven fell silent.
The truth he had been forcibly ignoring struck him all the more sharply. There were no further messages, yet somehow the silence felt like urging. After a long pause, he slowly blinked his lowered eyes and muttered.
“……They’ll just forget again anyway.”
[……]
His green eyes, strangely ablaze yet devoid of any vitality, stared at the blood-soaked dirt.
“And even if I stubbornly stay in their sight, if something like that happens again……”
I don’t think I can endure it a second time.
Rather than being betrayed again, it’s better not to form any bonds at all.
[……]
As if unable to find the words, the Guardian Spirit sent no further messages.
Just as Raven, having ended the conversation, rubbed his eyes and was about to focus on closing the Gate again—
Another voice cut in.
“Even so, continuing to live like this will be problematic.”
“……!”
“For both me and you.”
……It was not something he had said. Nor was it the Guardian Spirit’s voice he sometimes heard.
It was a chilling voice he could never forget.
Raven sprang to his feet as if propelled.
Clutching the dagger in one hand, he turned his gaze toward the source of the sound. The eerie, heavy presence that suddenly filled the air made his green eyes flicker like a candle in the wind, repeatedly shifting to a murky gray before returning. His vision darkened and cleared in turn, but identifying the other party posed no difficulty.
“No wonder I suddenly dreamed of the past……”
Caw!
The chilling, stagnant air sharpened every sense. The previously tolerable atmosphere had vanished somewhere, and the eerie cawing of crows dragged the mood to its lowest point.
A cold laugh slipped from between his lips.
“Really… a guest has arrived.”
“……”
“It’s been a while.”
Raven plastered a smile across his face and spat out the other’s name like a curse.
“Death.”
What business does someone as busy as you have all the way out here in this damned Abyss?
“You should have come after I left the Gate, at least. I already knew, but you really have no sense.”
“Is there any reason I should care about that?”
“What if monsters show up because of this?”
“Then kill them again.”
“……Who will?”
“You will.”
……Hah.
He certainly had a way with words.
Thud. As if venting his frustration, Raven drove his dagger into the corpse of another nearby monster. With an expressionless face, he slowly moved the blade, slicing through its hide, and thought.
……I can’t afford to drag this out.
Was it because they were inside the Gate? Even he could feel his nerves growing taut.
The backdrop of the Abyss, Death’s unique oppressive aura that stiffened the body, and this situation itself were all grating on his nerves. If he let his guard down even slightly, he would make a mistake.
Since he could not afford the absurdity of making a mistake in front of Death, he kept his hands busy extracting mana stones from the corpse he had stabbed, maintaining a deliberately calm expression as he changed the subject.
“Did you come for a ‘job’? If so, you could have just contacted me through the crows like usual.”
“You know better than anyone that this isn’t about that.”
“……”
“Ten years.”
Death spoke with an emotionless face.
“You extended your lifespan indefinitely, yet the time you’ve wasted amounts to a full ten years. Haven’t I been patient enough?”
“……Wasted time? That’s a bit harsh. I’ve been fulfilling the contract properly.”
His voice was calm, pushing back against the cold, decisive tone.
“Have I ever done anything that went against the ‘contract’?”
—Why?
Raven tilted his head with an obvious sneer. He ran a blood-stained fingertip along the black collar that now felt so familiar around his neck and mocked.
A trace of blood remained where his finger passed.
“You’ve even put a dog collar on me. Are you still uneasy?”