The Way to Change a Predetermined Future
"Can I... really stand by your side again...?"
The princess Adelin Aynis, who had always looked down on everyone with arrogant disdain, wielding her overwhelming talent like a badge of confidence.
Now, her face and voice were those of a woman reduced to nothing, fidgeting in fear of rejection, awaiting my answer.
And at that sight, I should have just told her to cut the bullshit and get out of my sight. Never show her face to me again. Of course, my demeanor back in the audience chamber couldn't have been the real me—swear it right now and stop blocking my path...
But my mouth refused to move.
Damn it.
I genuinely couldn't understand it. Why was I acting like this?
No matter how I rationalized it, this moment wasn't much different from my final day in Talias. I could just do to her what I'd done to Selina. Unlike Selina, Adelin truly had no need to stay by my side anymore—so I could end it decisively right here.
So why couldn't I?
"……."
"……."
A heavy silence still lingered in the room.
And my lips remained firmly shut, not twitching even slightly.
My reason was crystal clear: draw the line now and cast her out. But my tongue clung to the roof of my mouth like it had fused there.
In the end, as I stood there saying nothing, Adelin, who had been behind me, reacted first.
She slowly stepped back.
"I'm sorry... I suppose I really failed to read the mood and barged in like a fool."
Her voice was far lower than before. She couldn't even bring herself to look straight at me, muttering toward the floor, laced with bitter self-loathing.
"Truly, forgive me. I got ahead of myself alone. Pretend you never heard what I just said."
Adelin shuffled past me with feeble steps toward the door.
The shadow she cast in the moonlight trembled as if it might collapse at any moment.
Click.
Without a word, she slowly approached, gripped the doorknob—and just as she opened the door to step out completely.
"On one hand, I actually pity you all."
In the end, against my will, the thoughts in my heart spilled out.
In a voice so cold and dry it bordered on parched.
At my words, Adelin froze with her hand on the knob but didn't turn around.
I slowly walked up behind her.
"We fought sometimes, clashed plenty... but even so, we relied on each other to the end as comrades. And what you all got in return? New wounds of your own—or the punishment of yet another betrayal that still chains you."
Adelin, rotting away underground in the Einiss royal family, treated as a living gem mine.
And Selina, who abandoned me to save Talias but ended up thoroughly deceived by the Holy Kingdom, nearly losing everything.
Not as much as me, perhaps, but while I'd barely endured over two years in the Tarnas Ice Plains,
those two had been dying.
Yes, that was an undeniable fact.
I stepped up beside Adelin and placed my hand over hers on the doorknob.
I could feel her fingers trembling faintly.
Creeeak—!
I gripped our overlapped hands and flung the half-open door wide.
A cool, slightly chilly late-night breeze swept into the room.
Looking up at me with startled eyes, her iridescent gaze met my impassive stare.
"The day Raysilla is freed from that damned Demon King's fragment... I still don't know how things will end between you all and me."
"…."
"No, actually, it's pretty much decided."
A bitter smile flickered across my lips.
"So just try."
"……."
Toward her, holding her breath and staring only at my lips, I continued flatly.
"Thrash around, do whatever. Lick my boots if you have to. Show me everything you can, beg for forgiveness with all your regrets."
"Kail……."
Adelin's iridescent eyes began to waver.
Tears slowly welled in the corners.
Whether from relief or fresh despair, I couldn't tell.
But I knew what I had to say last.
"Then, when this final journey ends, I'll give you my answer."
I withdrew the hand covering hers.
Adelin stared blankly down at her pale hand.
I left her alone at the doorway and stepped into the corridor first.
"……Tell the others yourself. I need some time alone."
I said it without looking back, then walked down the dark hall.
No footsteps followed.
Just a faint sigh lingered faintly behind my retreating back.
The top floor of the magic tower within Einiss Magic Kingdom's royal castle.
With the king's permission, I'd secured an hour alone there. Clutching a glass of whiskey they'd handed me—"You'll need this"—I stared blankly at Einiss's capital beyond the castle, its lights all extinguished, my mind utterly empty.
"……."
Now I truly had no idea what to think.
In truth, ever since Selina told me about our former comrades—the barbarian descendant Daren and cardinal candidate Ferne—I'd vaguely suspected as much.
Perhaps all this was just a grand scheme woven by the gods to punish me, the self-proclaimed hero who never received divine selection, and my comrades burdened with talents beyond their station.
I pulled out the paper from my innermost chest pocket—the one with Daren's news that I hadn't burned yet—and read it once more.
Daren, the great warrior who proved himself a descendant of the legendary barbarian tribe by holding off the Lord of Bottomless Hunger for an astonishing two hours as a member of the former hero party—turns out he'd long known the truth of the Harennes Holy Kingdom and even aided them in letting demons massacre humans?
With the truths of Harennes recently coming to light, it's confirmed that the eleven minority tribes that suddenly vanished from the northern continent were personally slaughtered by Daren and his kin...
"What the hell happened, Daren?"
As I scanned the printed words on the paper—specifically the news about Daren—memories from long ago began surfacing one by one.
Daren was the type who wore silence like a trait. He never opened his mouth unless necessary, and his gruff nature kept him from mingling warmly with others.
But when battle began, he was always at the party's vanguard.
Wielding a house-sized greatshield, he'd charge silently into the enemy lines, taking every ounce of demonic killing intent and magic-tainted spells on his body.
He'd even endured the jade flames that made magic beasts flee in terror—bare-handed.
Flesh torn, bones broken, drenched in blood, he never once retreated or cried out.
That massive back, always staunchly guarding us in our direst moments.
That was the Daren I remembered—the last descendant of the legendary barbarian tribe, the great warrior.
So why the hell did you join hands with those vermin?
I slowly crumpled the paper in my fist.
Not content with siding with the Holy Kingdom's trash, he'd massacred innocents and offered them to demons.
It was too malicious, too grotesque to dismiss as mere divine prankery.
What reason drove him to such horrors? Did he have circumstances like Selina or Adelin Aynis?
Or had he simply been deceiving us perfectly all along...?
Of course, no amount of head-scratching now would reveal his true heart.
"…Haa."
With a light sigh, I tossed the crumpled paper onto the table and swirled the whiskey in my glass.
My black eyes, troubled and flickering, reflected in the amber liquid.
...Fine. Things have gone this far.
It was way past the point where I could turn a blind eye.
I'd thought my ties to the hero party were severed the day I was exiled to Tarnas's ice plains—but fate had dragged me back into this muck.
Daren, barbarian descendant. Ferne, cardinal candidate and our party's healer.
The stubborn chains binding us as "former comrades"—it was time to sever them completely, one way or another.
Like with Selina and Adelin.
Not for some grand cause or revenge, though.
Just to cleanly end this twisted bond.
To wrap up the remaining story, face their sins or hidden truths head-on.
So...
I slowly turned my gaze out the open window.
Beyond the pitch-black night sky stretched the northern continent, where Daren lived.
Wait for me.
I downed the last of the harsh whiskey in one gulp.
The burning heat sliding down my throat wasn't half bad.