Selina's Tale (End)
"…Wait."
"……."
At the utterly unexpected voice from behind, Selina staggered back a step from the cliff, nearly toppling over. She slowly turned her head to identify the speaker.
And froze solid.
"…Y-you, how…?"
The one barring her path to atoning death was the Hero Kail's… no, his little sister, Leysila.
Her deep purple hair whipped wildly in the Dead Sea winds blowing across the cliff as she slowly approached Selina.
"Selina, I thought… you'd definitely… make this… choice."
"Leysila…? So how did you know…? No, before that—can you talk now?"
"Yeah… That day… the day oppa lost everything… the day when I was the only one… to comfort him… I got stronger."
"Ah……."
Leysila's answer pierced Selina's heart like a sharpened dagger.
A thick wave of guilt surged back, choking her breath.
"S-sorry… I mean……."
Selina bowed her head deeply, on the verge of wretched sobs.
But even as she twisted her face in agony, no more tears would come.
As if her tear glands had dried up completely, no groans, no screams—nothing escaped her lips.
"Ugh…."
Her legs gave way, and she collapsed onto the cold cliff floor.
She just blankly touched the ground, silently waiting for Leysila's footsteps approaching through the harsh wind.
How much time passed?
Selina, spotting the shadow now right before her nose, asked in a hoarse, aged whisper.
"But… how did you get here? It must've been tough following with a normal body like yours."
Leysila halted firmly at the end of her gaze as Selina lifted her head and met her eyes directly.
Instead of replying, she silently held Selina's vacant stare for a moment, then drew a crystal staff gleaming with iridescent light from her bosom.
"Oppa made it… for my safety…."
Leysila lightly stroked the embedded crystal with her small white hand.
"Using the teleport spell engraved here… I came straight to you. Your location… from our old travels together… I remembered your mana pattern…."
"Ah…."
It made perfect sense. Even Selina, a magic illiterate back in the Hero Party days, had marveled at how sensitively Leysila read mana flows—regrettable she hadn't learned magic from childhood.
But the crucial question lingered.
"So… why'd you come? Why stop me?"
A faint resentment colored her words, at being yanked back just as she'd surrendered everything.
Leysila didn't answer right away. She merely gazed down indifferently with opaque pale-purple eyes, inscrutable.
And.
Swish.
In the sticky silence, Leysila drew a razor-sharp dagger from her bosom.
"Wait… what are you do—!"
Before Selina could react.
Slash.
Without a hint of hesitation, Leysila deeply gashed her own pale palm.
"You, what the—!"
As Selina jolted up in horror.
Drip, drop.
Red blood fell from the torn palm—and simultaneously, dark, ominous, alien demonic energy began creeping from the wound.
Utterly unlike the swelling aura rising from Selina's body. Incredibly heavy, instinctively terrifying to behold—an overwhelming demonic presence that made breathing laborious.
"Ah… huh?"
Selina gaped in perfect shock at the unbelievable sight.
As if anticipating her reaction, Leysila calmly drew a handkerchief, stanched the wound, suppressed the energy, and began explaining in earnest.
"…Looking back now… nothing but regrets… If I'd listened to oppa just that one day… none of this… would've happened."
"W-what do you…?"
Selina, barely snapping back, stammered through trembling lips.
Leysila stepped forward naturally, plopped down beside her, and gazed at the Dead Sea horizon where the sun hung half-risen.
"Before… on the way to the demon realm… when we stopped at the Magic Tower… remember?"
"Y-yeah… We met Tower Lord Verden Arsion, but what does that have to do with demonic energy…?"
"The Tower Lord told me… my talent outshone even his as a grand mage… If I'd trained properly… I could've handled one of the Seven Eclipse Lords with ease…."
"Yeah… Ah. N-no way?"
Selina's mouth fell open as realization dawned.
"Right… Right before the Demon King died… he implanted part of his power in me. My unawakened talent… got swallowed by it… and fused."
"No way… Then why didn't you tell Kail right away?"
"I only realized days later… And by then… I believed the Holy Kingdom's saintess and oppa could purge it easily…."
At Leysila's halting yet matter-of-fact final words, the chaotic puzzle pieces in Selina's mind snapped into a cruel picture.
'Ahh….'
Yes. The Holy Kingdom was already rotten; the saintess's miracles a lie—or at best, dubious.
Yet she'd sought a nonexistent savior and stabbed Kail—their sole hope—in the back.
And the fallen fake Hero Kail, plunged into the abyss.
If he'd learned, in his darkest hour, that his sister harbored the Demon King's power—what then?
He'd have lost his mind on the spot, or gnawed away his life saving her, dying miserably.
'So… that's why you couldn't tell him.'
Impossible to confess such horror to her brother.
Realizing it, Selina's eyes rolled back as she gasped for air, viscerally grasping how her "salvation" had hurled these fragile siblings deeper into hell.
"Guhhh… Uwaaa…."
Groaning, she slammed her forehead into the rough dirt.
Thud!
Hard enough to split her brow in one atonement—but she didn't stop.
Thud! Crack!
"Sorry… Really, really sorry…."
Smashing repeatedly, she muttered like a madwoman.
"What have I done to you siblings… Hic, I'll die now. Die right this instant…."
Dark red blood gushed from her head, streaming past her eyes to soak the cliff edge.
Torn flesh and cracking bone were nothing against the crushing guilt.
As she reared for another smash.
Tap.
Leysila's hand caught Selina, teetering on madness.
"I still hate you… but I didn't come to blame you now."
"…What?"
Leysila's pale-purple eyes, gazing at the bloodied face, remained deep and impassive.
"For my sake… no, for us siblings… Selina, you must live."
"Ah… ugh…?"
Selina looked up through unfocused eyes, dumbly groaning.
Her half-mad mind couldn't parse the girl's words.
Undeterred, Leysila clenched her bandaged palm and pressed on.
"The curse of the Manbu Eclipse Lord… still festers in Dersian Kingdom… Oppa must purify it… crossing yet another wall."
"Ders…ian…?"
"Yes. And Swelling Fallbirth. The Busung Eclipse Lord's power… perfectly rooted in your soul. If oppa can cure you completely…."
Leysila paused for breath, gently stroking Selina's blood- and dirt-smeared cheek.
"Then… I can live too. The Demon King's power in me… thatoppa could… fully excise."
"……."
Selina's pupils quivered uncontrollably amid despair and regret.
She couldn't grasp it all, but knew the girl's offer wasn't tormenting false hope.
Only Leysila—who'd watched Kail's potential and the essence of his White Breath purification longest and closest—could propose such a ruthless, pragmatic calculus.
Yes… a lab rat to push oppa's limits to the brink. That was Selina's sole reason to live.
"So… for that inevitable day… find a way to cling to oppa's side till the end. I'll tell him everything now."
Squeeze—!
Leysila gripped Selina's shoulder vise-like. Impossible strength from her frail frame—bones creaked.
"Spill every truth… get trampled miserably… treated like vermin… cling."
"Leysila…."
"Only then… can you truly earn our forgiveness, one last time… I've decided to stake my final hope on the Selina you just showed."
"……."
Forgiveness.
The word unleashed scalding tears from her barren glands.
"Hwaaaang…! Aaa…!"
Bloodied-faced, she hugged Leysila's slender waist.
Her resolute plunge into the Dead Sea—unmarred—shattered before the girl's vicious, selfish lifeline.
"Sorry… Hic, hukk… really sorry…."
Selina clutched Leysila's skirt hem, bawling like a child.
"No matter what it takes… as you say… I'll crawl to stay by his side. Endure everything, definitely save you…."
Tears and blood mingled in her screams.
Leysila gently stroked the flailing cat beastkin's silver hair as she clung and thrashed.
Silently gazing at the Dead Sea's edge as full dawn broke.