Vestige (28)
When I kill demons, I tend to just take off the head.
Especially if the opponent looks strong.
They say demons drink the blood of powerful humans they kill, or roast and eat the body.
I don't know why, but apparently it makes them stronger.
Maybe I'm the one who should be more terrified of getting devoured.
"B-back! I'll hold them off!"
A demon who looked reasonably strong shouted a battle cry and drew his sword.
He barely managed to deflect a spell flying at the back of one of his subordinates.
He parried three or four attacks before a bolt of mana struck him square in the head and his head simply burst apart.
I glared at the fleeing demons, then pulled a small knife from my coat.
I walked over to the headless corpse, slit open its belly, and checked inside.
It must have been starving for days — there was nothing in there.
I hadn't found Ravin this time either.
Demons and monsters eat people now and then, so it's possible one of them ate Ravin.
If that were the case, I figured I could take out whatever was inside and check, and if he had been eaten, the Saintess could probably do something about it.
She's supposed to have received divine power, so surely reviving one person would be easy enough.
That corpse back then couldn't have been Ravin.
Because there's no way I would have attacked Ravin.
After repeating this process — cutting and checking — hundreds of times, one day no demons appeared before me anymore.
Nowadays, demons run away the moment they see a blonde woman.
Even to the eyes of a demon, a human who blows off heads, then slits open the belly and rummages around inside for a long time must look... unhinged.
I do know. At least that you're dead.
Even so, I'll keep thinking you're not.
Otherwise, I have no reason to be alive.
Why did I ever try to break up with you?
Why did I ever want to annul our engagement?
Was I exhausted? Because you never seemed to change?
Or had my love for you simply cooled?
Maybe I'd gotten too comfortable — because I only clung to you after realizing I might lose you.
I'm sorry. I shouldn't have been so ambiguous.
If I hadn't been, we could have gotten married before the demons invaded and been living a happy life.
We could have fled somewhere far away, the safest place possible, away from any war, just the two of us, happily.
Because I grew negligent toward you for a moment, someone like the Saintess got tangled up at your side.
Because I seemed to be letting you slip, even your own sister grew possessive of you.
If I were your family, I would have wanted to possess you too.
I should never have let go of you for a single moment. I should have kept you in my arms forever.
I was blankly pursuing the fleeing demons, blasting them apart, when... the surroundings suddenly grew quiet.
A gorge. There were plenty of good hiding spots around.
I felt a clear killing intent aimed at me.
"Kill the demon!!"
With that shout, a horde of demons began leaping out from the nearby cliffs.
Every last one looked like a high-ranking demon.
The weapons they carried and the armor they wore weren't just good quality — they were exquisite.
Countless spears and arrows flew toward me.
One came hurtling at me, especially threatening.
"Serepina!!"
Jenna screamed and came rushing over.
She threw herself forward, trying to deflect it with her shield, but the spear pierced straight through — shield and all.
Shortly after, she went limp.
I looked back. Kyle, the knights, and the priests were still quite far, and demons had started surging toward them too.
I was managing to parry the projectiles somehow, but at this rate, if I stayed put I'd end up dying a dog's death.
I laid the now-limp Jenna down on the ground, then instead of retreating, I stepped forward.
Behind me was bound to be crawling with demons, blocking any escape.
Countless magic spells blossomed in the empty air like bamboo shoots.
At least I didn't have to worry about missing, no matter which direction I fired.
Everywhere I looked, demons.
Each time I swept away dozens of them, a few arrows I couldn't block would embed themselves in my body.
I could manage the ones flying at my head, but there was no way to deal with the ones coming from the sides or behind.
If Ravin could see me now, I wonder if he'd call me a porcupine.
Whenever I approached you after you'd pushed me away, trying to say something, you'd bristle your quills at me because you didn't like it and stab me.
Then you'd spit harsh words back at me.
It must have hurt.
Though not enough to make you hate and despise me.
I shouldn't have even thought about finding some safe distance where we wouldn't get hurt — no matter how much we wounded each other, I should have stayed with you until we were okay.
Even if you were in pain from the barbs I'd stuck in you, even if I felt like dying, I should never have let us separate.
I shouldn't have left you behind, telling myself it was dangerous.
I shouldn't have blindly trusted that the Saintess would never let you die.
You don't have to kiss me.
It's fine if we never rub our naked bodies together, never intertwine.
I just want to hold you tight.
Even just holding hands is okay.
I want to be with you, warm.
"Crazy bitch... are all humans like this?"
A voice came. I looked down. The demon had no lower body.
"With a body like that, for days...."
He tried to go on, so I blew his head off.
I glanced around. There was nothing.
Chunks of flesh rolling about, steep mountains with cliffs painted red.
No demons, no people in sight.
My vision swam.
Afraid that if I died like this I'd meet Ravin as a porcupine, I started pulling out the arrows stuck in my body one by one.
Even like this, I'm not unsightly, but if I'm going to see him anyway, I should go looking a little prettier.
Every time I pulled out an arrow, flesh tore and blood leaked from the wound.
So much of my blood had spilled.
"Ravin, I'm cold. Hold me tight."
* * *
That insane mage is dead, they say.
She'd been searching for Ravin until the very end, pushed too hard fighting the demons, got ambushed, and died without a trace.
Well, I'd thought as much back when she dragged in demon corpses, slit open their bellies, pulled out foul, rotting clumps of meat, and demanded we try to revive them just in case he'd been eaten. It does seem like a good death, in a way.
It might look like she died a dog's death, but at the same time, her death wasn't meaningless.
After all, she crawled right into the middle of the demons, all alone, and swept away hundreds of high-ranking ones and tens of thousands of lesser ones.
Thanks to that, the demons weren't even thinking about threatening the walls — instead, to avoid being pushed back, they'd retreated a little from the capital and were building earthworks in a city by the river.
Something resembling peace had arrived.
They said the ones that swarmed this time were just the vanguard, so it was only a reprieve, but still.
Above all, I liked that I no longer had to see the tents set up around the church overflowing with wounded soldiers, hear their groans.
"You're at it again today."
Levina, who had been carving words into her wrist with a blade, turned around.
"If I do this, I feel like he might look at me."
She held her wrist out to me.
"Restore it. Keepsakes should be handled with care."
I took hold of the wrist — you couldn't even tell what she'd written anymore — and channeled divine power into it. Slowly, the wounds began to heal.
"In ancient times, they practiced something called burial of the living with the dead. You know of it?"
"I didn't think there'd be anyone who wanted to be buried with me."
"You're the last thing Ravin left behind."
"What, do you want to give up on everything and die, Saintess?"
"Yes."
I nodded.
"How irresponsible."
"Look who's talking. It should have been Ravin who came here, not you."
Levina didn't answer.
"There might not be any such thing as a god."
"Is that something a Saintess is allowed to say?"
"If they don't like it, let them strike me down with lightning from the sky."
A faint smile crossed Levina's face at that.
"I've prayed thousands, tens of thousands of times. Not once has there been an answer. Not once has what I wanted been granted. Just handed me this useless position of Saintess."
"......."
"Do you think that's a good enough excuse to die?"
"Not at all. It's too cowardly. Hell-worthy, even."
"Ravin's definitely going to be in hell, so that's fine. Though I dislike that you'll be there beside him."
After saying that, I walked over to Levina.
I wrapped my hand around her carotid artery and squeezed.
Crunch.
Her neck collapsed. The room began to fill with blood.
Slumped down, Levina couldn't say a word. She just made a gurgling sound, bleeding, and then went limp.
Her eyes had always been rotten, but now they simply stared at the ceiling, devoid of any life.
I walked to Levina, stroked her hair for a long while, and then took a sword from the wall — one with a holy-looking ornament — and drew it.
I pressed it to my own throat.
With the blade in place, I tried to slash my neck with all my strength. The cut was shallow, just a trickle of blood leaking out.
I looked up at the sky beyond the window.
"You made living this agonizing, and now you make dying this agonizing too."
Then I drove the blade into my neck with all my might.
The tip of the sword glanced off bone and barely pierced through the skin.
I twisted my whole body and began sawing at my neck for a long time, as if cutting wood with a saw.
The blade caught on bone and would go no further.
After I'd cut about halfway through, I had no strength left to push.
My mouth filled with blood, but I didn't feel like I was suffocating.
I sagged against the wall, limp.
The floor was already soaked with my blood and Levina's.
My vision slowly turned red, then black.
They say when you die, your life flashes before your eyes.
I don't know which worthless piece of shit started that story.
I saw no such thing.
I wanted to.