Selina's Story
I stared blankly at the fallen newspaper for a long while. Wondering if I'd misread it, I rolled my eyes diligently and reread the entire article from the start once more.
But.
Almost all high-ranking archbishops and above, cardinals, and even past Holy Kings are presumed to have known this fact. The most shocking part of Archbishop Rainer's exposé is that the kingdom, rotted to its very existence by Manbu Eclipse Lord, one of the Demon King's elite Seven Eclipse Lords, was actually orchestrated under the meticulous direction of the Harennes Holy Kingdom.
"This is... what the hell..."
No matter how many times I rubbed my eyes and looked again, the newspaper relentlessly proclaimed that the Holy Kingdom was an evil no less than the Demon King itself.
But what plunged me even deeper into shock was the Empire's actions on the very last page.
The emperor of the Failer Empire, who had provided the most support to Hero Kail and defended him even when the Holy Kingdom branded him a fake, was utterly enraged by this revelation.
⋯ Emperor Harndea Isis Failer issued a single command to the entire continent: Join us in crushing this arrogant kingdom built by insolent humans who mocked the gods and offer atonement to the divine—or turn the Empire into your enemy. Choose one, decisively...
"So it comes to this after all..."
The Failer Empire. A nation that had ruled and reigned over nearly half the continent's land for a very long time. The original proxy of the Creation God, whom every human on the continent—even emperors—must trust and revere. A tragic country stripped of nearly all authority by the Harennes Holy Kingdom founded by Harennes, reduced to a puppet.
The title of continent's mediator and ruler had originally belonged to the Failer Empire. But hundreds of years ago, the Harennes Holy Kingdom began cunningly eroding the Empire's power by monopolizing the will of the Creation God. The Empire turned a blind eye to their overreach for the sake of the greater good, only to receive subtle disdain and humiliation from other nations in return.
Now, the Empire—treated like an old man relegated to the back room under the pretext of sacred authority—had finally drawn its sword.
If this keeps up, the Empire will reclaim its place as the continent's master and guardian for the first time in nearly 300 years.
A faint smile crept onto my lips unbidden. It was a good thing. I'd wanted to help the old emperor somehow anyway. Before I set out to subjugate the Demon King, he was the only one who patted my shoulder without regard for my origins.
My status as a fake Hero won't change, but please—at least use me as an excuse to normalize this rotten continent.
Not that they needed the fake Hero pretext; the Holy Kingdom's collusion with demons alone gave the Empire perfect justification for war.
I rolled up the newspaper, sparked a small flame at my fingertip, and held it to the paper.
Whoosh—!
I tossed the blazing scraps onto the snowy ground and watched them scatter as ashes. Any lingering regrets from the past seemed to fly away with them.
With light steps, I turned my back on the ice plain's blizzard and returned to the cabin.
Nearly a month passed since that day. The Tarnass Ice Plains remained as silent as ever, and our daily life proceeded without issue. Whether the outside world was swept in a storm of blood or not, this barren exile land was a thoroughly isolated island, cut off from the world.
But days of leisure and mild boredom never lasted to the end, as always.
Bam!
A rough voices shattered the peaceful afternoon silence, coming from the village square.
I set down the axe I'd been using to chop firewood and turned my head. Villagers, who would normally be quiet, were rushing out and murmuring.
Wondering what was going on, I brushed the wood chips from my hands and headed to the square.
"Make way! Get some cloth for stopping the bleeding right now!"
The one-armed hunter—who handled a sword second-best only to me in the village—and two warriors were panting heavily as they carried someone on their shoulders. Their leather armor was soaked dark red with blood.
It was horrific enough on its own, but what caught my eye wasn't their gruesome wounds.
It was the black haze rising from the body of the outsider they carefully laid on the ground.
Demonic energy. Not the ordinary kind from regular demons, but a thick, intensely foul aura.
The moment I confirmed the demonic energy, I stepped forward without hesitation.
"Step back. The soil of Tarnass could get contaminated."
"Kail?"
"D-Demonic energy? What does that...?"
I pushed the people back and hurried to the fallen outsider's side. If left like this, the demonic energy would devour his heart and even leech the life force from those around him.
I glanced down at my palm for a moment.
Could I use my power again?
...No, I had to make it work.
About two years since that day.
I took a deep breath and slowly drew up the energy slumbering below my dantian. The purification power I'd forcibly inscribed and awakened in my body over years of facing all sorts of demons and Seven Eclipse Lords to become a Hero—a force with a texture slightly different from holy power.
The White Breath enveloped both my hands softly.
"This might hurt a bit."
I placed both hands on the outsider's chest and infused the energy.
Sizzle.
With a sound like flesh burning, the black demonic energy touched the white aura and began dissipating like smoke.
After a long while, when sweat beaded on my forehead, the outsider's wildly erratic pulse finally stabilized.
"Haa... The immediate danger is averted for now."
"As expected of the Hero, sir. We owe you his life. Here, take this."
I accepted the towel from the hunter crouched beside me and wiped the sweat trickling down my forehead. Then, with the other side, I carefully cleaned the blood crust and dirt from the outsider's face.
As the bloodstains cleared, the first thing that caught my eye was the beast ears. Pointed cat ears perked up atop the head.
A beastkin—one who retained over eighty percent human form while keeping all the beast traits, rare to see on the continent.
And finally, once the blood was fully wiped away, the woman's face was revealed.
"......"
The moment I saw it, my hand holding the towel froze.
Silver-tinged short hair and a faint scar near the eyes.
No way...?
It was unmistakable. The being collapsed before me was the thief from the Hero party who journeyed with me to defeat the Demon King. The one who first turned away from me on the day the Holy King branded me a fake Hero and I lost everything. The woman who left without a farewell word for the beastkin land of Talian.
"Selina......"
Her name slipped from my cracked, dry throat unbidden.
"Why are you here...?"
"......"
Even to my strained voice, Selina only breathed faintly, facing the blizzard sweeping the Tarnass Ice Plains.
It probably means nothing now... but everything was for Talian.
Over a hundred years ago, the Lord of Busung came to Talian. Proclaiming he would turn all beastkin—born with physical abilities at least twice, up to ten times stronger than humans—into his minions, the lord embedded the curse of Swelling Fallbirth into Talian.
The moment even a single wound is inflicted, the curse's bud sprouts from that wound, eventually stripping away ego and will, turning one into a zombie obeying only the lord's commands.
To fend it off, Talian had avoided the very concept of battle for decades.
Even after, the beastkin of Talian struggled to survive and resist corruption, suppressing their primal instincts. But the curse was far more vicious and tenacious than our wills.
As time passed, the curse thickened, and we had to watch kin who smiled and greeted us yesterday sprout the buds one by one, losing themselves and turning into horrific monsters.
Every night, screams and sobs filled Talian's forests.
"Talian is finished."
"Why would the Creation God inflict such trials on us beastkin..."
As utter despair crushed the entire race, a rumor arrived like a single ray of hope.
A self-proclaimed Hero was marching to slay the Demon King.
I didn't believe it at first, but when word spread that this Hero had felled one of the Seven Eclipse Lords, I was convinced. He was our one hope.
At the tribal council's end, Selina stepped forward—the fastest legs, sharpest instincts, and beauty that dismantled others' guards in Talian.
Pretending coincidence, she made contact with Kail and threw herself into life-or-death battles to earn his absolute trust.
At last, after a year. When Kail's sword pierced the Busung Lord's heart, she believed salvation had come to Talian.
But the Swelling Fallbirth curse clung stubbornly to Talian's soil even after the lord's death.
Talian—and Selina—despaired once more.
Yet as she crumbled under the horrific reality, ready to abandon the journey, a cardinal from the Harennes Holy Kingdom secretly approached her.
"After subjugating the Demon King, help topple that arrogant fake Hero."
The cardinal flicked his tongue like a snake, offering sweet poison.
"In return, the Holy Kingdom will support Talian without reservation. We'll even dispatch a noble saintess to surely lift that vile curse."
"......"
The deliberation was brief. She accepted. Of course. From the moment she joined the Hero party, her sole goal had been Talian's salvation.
Guilt toward Kail, who trusted her as a true comrade and bared his back, was dismissed as a luxurious emotion compared to her rotting kin's lives.
Yet even after slaying the Demon King and ousting the fake Hero as promised, the Holy Kingdom fulfilled not a single vow. No saintess set foot in Talian.
Instead, their filthy collusion with demons was exposed to the world, and Selina could only watch powerlessly as the entire Holy Kingdom crumbled into ruin.
She lacked even the energy for betrayal-fueled rage. Only hollow laughter escaped.
But when she realized it was truly over, paradoxically, the one who came to mind in her desperate grasp for a straw was the foolishly kind man she'd betrayed without hesitation and driven to ruin.
She knew it was shameless. Thinking of what she'd done made her want to bite her tongue and die on the spot. She knew piercing the Tarnass Ice Plains alone as a thief was suicide.
But if she couldn't meet him, she'd rot into a monster on the roadside anyway. The Swelling Fallbirth had already begun devouring even her heart.
Each breath brought excruciating pain as her lungs froze, and her frostbitten toes had long lost sensation.
Even swept by blizzards, rolling, chased by the ice plain's beasts, flesh tearing away in agony—she crawled through the snow.
Solely with the conviction to meet him.
⋯
"Ugh..."
She barely lifted her heavy eyelids. Through blurry vision, an old wooden ceiling came into view, and crisp, cold air seeped into her nostrils.
Above all, the horrific demonic energy gnawing her veins had been pushed back by a familiar, warm aura, lying dormant.
Panting, she lowered her gaze to see rough hands frozen mid-wipe of sweat from her face.
She focused slowly.
There was Kail's hardened face looking down at her, sharpening into clarity.
The moment their eyes met—his pupils shaken with shock and confusion—her chest tightened.
Still, Selina struggled to move her parched lips.
"Long... time no see."