Chapter 82
Chapter 82
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 82
Chapter Title: The Bearer of Madness
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When she opened her eyes, all she could see was pure white snow.
Her two hands, as she raised her body and looked at them, and the strands of hair falling between her fingers were all drained of color, ghostly pale. The woman who awoke in a small basin shaped like a mound encircling a grave walked a short distance along the barren white tree devoid of even a single leaf. Then, between the mounds, she headed toward what seemed like a prepared exit.
For the first time, there was something black.
"Elis, you say?"
That black thing called itself Iveldra, the Mir of death symbolizing darkness. Her abundant garments, resembling black cloth, embraced the woman like a chest. And it gave her a name.
Having breathed life back into her, who remembered only death, and cradling her while naming her, Iveldra was now like a new mother. She clothed Elis in her own wings.
"Elis, escape the cold now."
Elis, who had been exposing skin like ice, donned wings akin to Iveldra's garments. They weren't proper clothing by any means, but the black, scale-like material clung tightly to become her pants and top. Deeming it insufficient, Iveldra wrapped more wings around her neck like a muffler.
The torn muffler flaps draped down in several strands, resembling a haphazard scarf and cloak. Iveldra then fashioned shoes and gloves.
"I'must be dead..."
"It wasn't I who saved you, Elis. Look at this."
Iveldra pointed with her alluring touch to the ice pillar behind her. It had formed when a fountain sprouting from a crevice in the ice rock froze in an instant, like a black tree growing. At the very tip of the frozen water stream, black droplets formed, fell, and refroze repeatedly.
The strange thing was that Elis felt an innate intimacy toward it. Iveldra drew close to Elis once more and continued in a whisper.
"This is the kin of sin from Gehenna on the western continent, which Neshef bore and awakened. The madness named 'Raha,' symbolizing insatiable lust. Pilgrims from Tehom's forgotten city atop this mountain carry it to the eastern continent's Helred. To awaken the secret. But they always failed."
Iveldra traced a teardrop-like droplet from Raha, the kin of sin named for the madness of insatiable lust, with her finger and offered it to Elis.
Elis hesitated for a moment. She felt unfamiliar with her own sense of closeness to it, and her eyes caught sight of the pilgrims who had frozen to death around the madness. With hands raised in prayer, heads bowed in worship, the three had all perished frozen beside Raha.
"I can't remember. Surely..."
Surely she had once seen a human bearing the mark of demons, just like them.
"It's all right, Elis. It begins with this single drop."
As if consoling her confusion, Iveldra brought the droplet to Elis's right eye.
"This is as far as I can help you. Now, you must carry this madness down to the small human city at the foot of the Hatam Mountains. Just as the pilgrims did. Cross the peak, ford the valley, descend the forest. Somewhere on your black peak, it will be. Now, go."
Elis asked nothing while Iveldra stood calmly speaking.
"I'll be waiting for you here."
Of course, she asked nothing even at those final words. No, she couldn't. Losing her memories was confusing enough, but even the kin of sin Iveldra spoke of was a term she'd never heard.
"My sword."
But one thing she remembered clearly. She had a sword.
Elis nodded and began descending the stairs behind Raha. She felt no particular cold from the falling snow. Her only desire was to escape this confusion, and it drove her steps.
"Cross the peak, ford the valley, descend the forest... and there's a human city."
But as she descended the stairs, a certain emotion welled up unmistakably within her. It burned hot like fire, sticky like lava, akin to some profound injustice.
She blazed with fierce emotions swirling toward an unknown target.
Thus, even as the snowfall ceased and blade-like winds howled, she felt no chill.
"First, I need to find my sword."
When the stairs ended, the winds died, and even her thoughts fragmented. She had finally entered the peak of the Hatam Mountains.
A sheer cliff loomed distantly, and a mountain path stretched along the ridge. Mostly flat like plains with nothing but rocks in sight, far below lay what appeared to be a frigid valley. She began walking toward it again.
"Ugh! This is..."
But with each step, her mind grew hazy. The air she breathed stung sharper, pain rising from her chest. Simultaneously, sensation faded from her fingertips and toes.
"Not snow or fog, but poison."
Realizing there was a poison in the air she didn't know, Elis pulled Iveldra's wings from her neck up over her nose to block it. But perhaps due to the poison already inhaled, her steps slowed.
"I have to escape..."
Boom!
At the moment the white fog-like poison thickened, something appeared distantly with a shadow. It resembled a Joins with wings, but the wings were rotted away, featherless with bare bones stabbing the ground like spider legs as it moved.
"A Joins? No... dead?"
The Joins that suddenly crashed before Elis was clearly dead. Flesh rotted, spilling organs frozen and clattering on impact, its face half-blown away with skull and brains mingled in ice-grotesque. Then, their eyes met. The dead Joins sprang high again on its bones.
"Huh?"
Thud!
And that was the last memory Elis had since rising from death.
The dead Joins leaped into the air and crashed atop Elis, her face exploding under the weight, killing her. The dead Joins bowed its head as if devouring her, spewing poison to melt her.
***
"This place..."
When she opened her eyes again, all she could see was pure white snow. Elis, rising from what seemed a snow-made bedchamber or tomb, realized she still wore the clothes Iveldra had given her.
"Isn't this where I first opened my eyes?"
But the circular snow mounds piled like grave guardians and the entirely white world remained unchanged. Elis passed through the exit without asking anything and stepped out.
"You've returned quickly."
And Iveldra stood in the same spot before the madness shedding black tears. Thinking herself dreaming or still dead, Elis chose her question carefully.
"What... is this?"
She no longer wondered if she was dead or alive. She merely questioned if this surrounding reality was truly real. Nothing grasped hold, like hazy snow.
"Elis, it wasn't I who awakened you. It was the kin of sin itself. Madness transcends reality. Like the pilgrims who've continued for a millennium, you'll repeat endless deaths until you deliver this tear. Come here."
Iveldra cupped another droplet from Raha and applied it to Elis's right eye.
"Then... am I dead?"
"No. You've awakened from death, Elis Hope. As you endure death after death, without pausing even a little, advancing further, returning again, more of what you wonder about will resurface. I'll answer as much as I can each time."
Elis somewhat understood Iveldra's words. She had awakened from death through the power of this kin of sin, lost all memories, yet burned with a desire to find her sword.
In other words, she had gained a second life, or chance.
She didn't know what to do after finding the sword, but the compulsion to find it overrode everything else. She dreaded guessing how many deaths and returns it would take, but for the kin of sin that granted her this chance and for Iveldra, she must descend the mountain to find her sword as desired.
"Remember one thing. Without the madness, you'll be bound to reality and meet true death. Or rather, you can return to rest."
At that moment, the death anointing with tears so sweetly tempted without hesitation.
Sweet enough to dye this scentless place pink, to deepen and blacken it further. Why she awakened was unknown, and she must keep dying, steeped in madness.
Not a second life or chance, but perhaps an eternal hell of undeath. If Iveldra offered this temptation each time she died and returned, could she endure?
Yet snow fell, and no cold bit.
"I'll go again."
She burned alone on this icy mountain. Barely suppressing something unjust rising from her itching throat, this time she first approached one of the frozen pilgrims before Raha-the one bearing what resembled a shield on its back.
"This should block the poison, so first I need to avoid the dead Joins."
She pried off his shield and held it. A familiar sensation washed over her. And with it, certainty that descending further would recall more.
"This time, I'll go much farther."
Elis pulled Iveldra's wings up like a mask again.
"I'll be waiting again."
Iveldra smiled at her. Elis began descending the stairs once more to bear the madness.