The End of the Recorded Bible
The end of the recorded Bible. 24. The end of the recorded Bible. The only ones left by my side now were Curtis, Cartman, and Edra. Chief had been sacrificed in an ambush the moment we reached this place, so in the end we had become four heroes who could no longer stop and had to keep pressing forward. After passing through the swarming monsters at the entrance to the Demon Realm, a rather pleasant wasteland unfolded before us. We never let our guard down completely, yet we were able to advance with relative ease. And just as that disgustingly enormous black castle began to loom into view—
Crack—
“Curtis———!”
A monster burst from the ground and launched another ambush. Curtis, who had been watching elsewhere, was left completely exposed, but—
Bang—
“E-Edra····”
“Good job, Edra.”
Fortunately, Edra reacted quickly and shot the creature dead just before it could reach Curtis. Still, Curtis looked dazed. I knew why, yet there was nothing I could do about it.
“···Chief died an honorable death, Curtis.”
Even I felt as though I might break under the pressure radiating from the Demon King’s castle itself. It was enough to drive anyone mad.
“Pull yourself together and keep your muzzle moving.”
Any half-hearted resolve had long since been discarded on the day I fell into hell alongside those who had loved me. I am a hero. The hero Yuda—the only human who returned alive from hell. The other heroes who survived hell stopped behind me and could move no further, but the human Yuda will never stop. I came here to rescue Belberman, the one who saved me and everyone else. Even if that were not the case, if I could at least put a single bullet into that bastard’s head for revenge—into the Demon King, the root of all evil—then so be it. Because I was the one who could do nothing but despair when they were defeated. Because I was the human Yuda who had crumbled. I returned to this place to aim the bullet of vengeance that would atone for that failure. So I cannot give up. I cannot let half-hearted resolve drag me down and break me. The moment I break is the moment my survival that day finally ends.
Death does not frighten me. Just as Belberman did not fear it, just as everyone who fought valiantly there did not fear it. Death is not terrifying. What truly terrifies me is—
“·····”
Whether she will be all right in a world without me. That is the only thing.
But the moment the human Yuda, still carrying her in his heart, took another step forward, a sinister presence stirred from somewhere. I stopped abruptly, scanned the surroundings, and realized the presence was not ahead but behind me. The instant I turned—
Thud—
A long black demonic spear pierced straight through Curtis’s back.
“Curtis———!”
Clack—
I immediately aimed my gun at the female demon who had appeared behind him. But—
Slash—
The creature yanked the spear from Curtis’s heart and vanished from sight again, leaving only a faint trace. My teeth ground together until they felt ready to shatter.
“You leave many openings, human.”
At the sound of that voice, memories of that unforgettable day surged back.
“Executive—Executive Cartoria——!!”
The same executive we had encountered when Selma, Yuz, and I were briefly separated from the main force where Belberman was. The one who had introduced herself as Cartoria. Back then she had simply disappeared, saying there was no need to fight. This time was different. She was genuinely intent on killing us, squeezing the life from our throats. An executive’s true killing intent was terrifying. Just as we had felt during the subjugation of Gematria, an executive was on an entirely different level from ordinary monsters or demons—
“Truly imperfect····”
Strong.
BOOOOOOM—
It happened in an instant. Cartoria revealed herself for only a single moment. I tried to aim in that split second, but she scraped the ground with her long spear and shattered the very earth beneath our feet, sending everything crumbling.
“Kgh·····!”
“Yuda, Cartman!!”
The wasteland sand exploded, and the same fog as that day rose thickly. Visibility dropped until nothing ahead could be seen. Recalling the final battle in the corridor that day, a fear welled up from my heart—
Thud—
From not far away came the sound of another comrade being impaled.
“This fucking····!!”
I could only glare toward the sound, unable to do anything, my brow furrowed. Yet I was the human Yuda. Alone I could do nothing; before an overwhelmingly powerful existence, I felt so insignificant that kneeling would not have been enough. But this time—this time was different. No matter how much of an executive she was, no matter how much she was the Demon King’s direct subordinate, she was not the Demon King. Therefore, openings naturally existed. Even if I was far stupider than Belberman, I had rolled through hunting grounds and battlefields hundreds of times and broken through such openings before.
Whoosh—
I closed my eyes and listened to the sound of her moving swiftly through the fog. The moment I sensed her approaching from my left, I also felt something else rushing toward me from below at tremendous speed.
Whoosh—
The instant it reached me and tried to swallow me whole, I kicked off the ground and leapt high into the sky. When I opened my eyes to see what had ambushed me from below, dozens of black thorns filled my vision. I turned my head again to locate the executive and saw her charging at me alongside the thorns. The moment she realized I had dodged, she vanished once more.
“····”
Suspended in midair, I realized that if I fell now I would be completely defenseless. The thorns below would turn my landing spot into a bed of spikes. Yet for some reason, a strange sensation began to rise within me. Why? What was this feeling? I still did not fully understand it, but in that fleeting moment the strange sensation traveled from my fingertips gripping the gun through my entire body. Even if I could not logically accept it, somehow—right now, in this moment—I felt as though I could snipe the executive hidden in the fog.
Clack—
As I fell, I aimed the gun into empty space, closed my eyes, and concentrated every sense into my ears.
“···Her speed···· is fast··”
With a small mutter, my muzzle pointed somewhere.
“Then where should I aim?”
I began aiming at the same moment I had shared with Jeren that day.
“If a deer is running fast, you have to calculate the angle several times farther than usual.”
Back then, she had patiently taught the clumsy me how to snipe a fast-moving deer.
“And never trust your eyes. The moment you check the wind’s speed and direction, what you must trust is your heart.”
I had repeated those words every single day so I would never forget the lesson I received from the woman I loved.
“In the end, it is your fingertips that loose the arrow.”
“In the end, it is my fingertips that loose the arrow.”
I snapped my eyes open, squeezed the trigger with all my strength—
Bang—
The recoil from the shot pushed my falling body toward safety. The bullet fired from the heart spun rapidly as it left the muzzle, tore through the fog, and streaked in a pure white trajectory toward the empty space—
Thud—
“Kgh····!”
It pierced straight through her abdomen.
“What the····!?”
Perfectly sniped for the first time, she looked bewildered by the unfamiliar human weapon and even more shocked that the bullet had penetrated her moving body. But—
Clack—
I dropped to the ground, immediately worked the bolt, chambered another round, and aimed at the now-still figure.
“Haa······”
Through the hazy vision between the black thorns, I saw her. Calming my trembling right hand with steady breaths, I never once took my eyes off the bewildered executive who still did not understand how she had been sniped.
“Not with your eyes···· but with your heart.”
I closed my eyes once more, raised the gun, and pulled the trigger—
Bang—
This time I aimed directly between her brows. If this hit, humanity would achieve its second executive subjugation. Feeling a strange sense of triumph, I slowly rose from my firing position. However—
Clang—
How had she done it? With her demonic spear she had blocked the bullet that flew at near-sonic speed. Her eyes found me.
“···”
I was startled, but I did not hesitate. I worked the bolt again, ejected the spent casing, chambered a fresh round, and aimed at her once more. Yet—
“···She disappeared—”
Clutching her heavily bleeding abdomen, she glared at me, then vanished in that instant. The bleeding creature appeared right behind me and thrust her spear toward my heart, just as she had done to Curtis.
I—
“···· Uwaaaaa——!!”
Bang—
In that moment I displayed reflexes beyond human limits, swung the gun like a club, and somehow deflected her spear. The recoil sent me stumbling back several steps, but—
Thud—
I did not stop. Having witnessed a miracle, I decided to keep going. She had not expected me to block her spear and was momentarily dazed. I did not miss that opening. The most basic method of hunting: read the prey’s eyes, then dash straight toward the Demon King’s castle. Far in the distance, on the highest floor of the castle, I thought I glimpsed the Demon King’s silhouette through a massive window. But I was not afraid. I was not running to shoot the Demon King—I was moving to finish off the executive who stood dumbfounded before me.
“·····”
As expected, she immediately prepared to throw her spear at me. After all, I was charging into enemy territory; even if she did not chase me, simply throwing the spear would block my escape route if it missed. For her, that was the best and only choice. However—
She had no way of knowing how many bullets remained in my chamber.
Clack—
The moment I heard her swing the spear to throw it, I spun my body and extended my arm, aiming at her hand—
Bang—
Sliding as I ran, I fired. I was not certain it would hit, but an arrow is loosed from the fingertips.
Ting—
“What····!?”
The bullet struck her spear and successfully knocked it from her hand. Yet that was not her only means of attack; she immediately created black thorns in every direction and prepared to launch them at me. But before that—
Click—
My bullet had already settled into the chamber. And the time it took to pull the trigger was shorter than the time it took for those thorns to reach me.
Checkmate. Your king—your life—was already in my hands.
Whoosh—
But at that decisive moment—
“·····”
Something appeared in front of my sights and blocked my aim at the executive.
“·····”
The instant I saw it—
“Demon Kiiiiiiing———!!”
I had tried so hard to control my emotions. Yet in that moment I felt as though I had returned to my childhood self. With a burning sensation, I let out a roar. I immediately shifted my aim to her head, lined up the sights, and was about to pull the trigger when—
Thud—
Something flew at me, shattering the front and rear sights I had been aiming with and piercing straight through my right eye as well.
“Yudaaaaa———!!”
At the same time, an unfamiliar woman’s voice rang out. It was truly the first time I had heard that voice. Why? Why did it—
“·····Bel····ber····”
To me, that cry—that scream—felt far too familiar. Far too familiar. Far too missed. And I had respected it so deeply.
***
Tia Belberman—the Demon King—had known that human was Yuda. From the moment news arrived that he had set foot in the Demon Realm, she had known he was the man who had been with her that day. The reason Kibotos had used Clairvoyance first and reported to the Demon King was because the Demon King had summoned her to cross-verify with Kibotos’s Clairvoyance. She had already known Yuda was her former comrade. Yet she had tried to quietly finish Yuda without telling me anything. Why? Why would she do that? She knew better than anyone that I carried an indelible guilt toward my old comrades, that I desperately wanted to know whether they were alive, that I wanted to return to them, that I wanted to see them even one more time. So why—why had she tried to handle it alone without telling me?
The moment I saw Yuda, I tried to rush at the Demon King who had pierced his eye. I tried to rush at her and somehow beat her. Somehow, somehow, I wanted to grab that hand and stop her. I wanted to tear off that hand, rip out every horn, cut off her ankles—anything to make her unable to do anything. But, but—
“Let go, Cartoria!! Let gooooo———!”
Cartoria held me tightly and would not release me. She absolutely would not let go. Yuda—Yuda had fallen, and I—I had to save him. Please, please save Yuda····!! Don’t touch him, Tiaaaaa———!!
I could do nothing. With a body so pathetically weak, I was held by the bleeding Cartoria and could do nothing. In the end—
“Please, pleeeease———!!”
After an outburst of desperate, frantic sobbing—
Thud—
Tia approached the fallen Yuda and made me look at her. When I momentarily stopped struggling and looked at Tia’s face—
“····”
Tia, gazing at me with a dark expression, looked down at Yuda again and spoke in a calm, rational voice.
“Human. Do you believe that peace between demons and humans can be achieved?”
For some reason the question was sharp, and I could not relax. Why? Faced with the Demon King who looked as though she might kill Yuda at any moment, I felt anxiety surging endlessly. In my heart I kept begging—please don’t kill him, please don’t do it. At the same time, I expected Yuda’s answer—that of course it could be achieved. A brief silence. The momentary stillness caused by the Demon King’s question settled over the area. Not long after, a voice finally leaked from Yuda’s lips as his consciousness grew hazy.
“We·····”
I naturally expected the answer that of course it could be achieved. I looked at Yuda with that hope.
“We will····· never surrender·····!”
But Yuda shattered my belief in an instant.
“If you want something like that, then you bastards should be the ones begging us first———!”
With his staggering body, he barely managed to raise the strange weapon he still held and aimed it at the Demon King’s head. Without a single moment of hesitation—
Bang—
He attacked. Yet—
“·····”
It meant nothing. The crude human lead bullet struck the Demon King’s horn and bounced off, merely crumpling and rolling across the floor.
“····”
In the end, Yuda dropped the weapon he had been holding. He had given up. Then, with his one remaining eye, he looked at me.
“····You····”
I—watching quietly—felt a maddening sense of foreboding surge from within. I reached out violently toward Yuda.
“Yudaaaaaa———!!”
“Bel····ber—”
He tried to call out the name, but—
Thud—
Not even a single sound rang out.
“····”
Not even the sound of him dying rang out properly. The moment I met his eyes and then closed and opened mine, his form had already become unrecognizable.
“···”
As I reached out with trembling fingertips—
“Did you see?”
Tia spoke to me.
“Your ideals have no possibility.”
I could not accept those words normally. Right in front of my eyes—right in front of me—a comrade I thought was dead had returned alive. He had come back here again. Right in front of my eyes—right in front of me—he had truly died. I—I could do nothing. I could do nothing.
“Why········ Why the hell······”
The emotion I began to feel was betrayal. Betrayal toward the Demon King. Betrayal toward Yuda. Why? What on earth had happened? Why—why had Yuda, who seemed as though he would sincerely affirm it if the Demon King asked, done this? Why?
“Not everyone can possess a personality like yours.”
Then the Demon King slowly approached me and began to speak.
I could only reach toward Yuda’s corpse with my arm trembling.
The Demon King who had approached slowly took my wrist and made me lower it to the floor.
“You heard him. That one is nothing more than an insect that does not even attempt to achieve peace or freedom by its own will···· Just as you did, I merely made a decision.”
She was explaining the reason she had killed him. But I no longer had the luxury to care about such things. From now on, ideals, beliefs—none of it mattered. Because she had—right in front of my eyes, in the moment I watched with wide-open eyes—killed the one comrade I might have left. My precious family.
“That person is my···· my·····! My———!!”
Unable to contain my fury any longer, I broke free from Cartoria and shouted. I tried to shout. But—
Grab—
Just as I had done, the Demon King, who would no longer tolerate it either, grabbed my throat and squeezed, cutting off my voice.
“So what are you going to do about it?”
She looked down at me with eyes filled with killing intent.
“To be especially honest, that kind of insect has nothing to do with me.”
She mercilessly disparaged Yuda—my precious comrade.
“If he was trying to kill me, then that was all he was. A few humans dying like that is none of your business or mine.”
Therefore, I could not endure it. Even though her killing intent was so vast and powerful that it could swallow everyone here, making it difficult for an ordinary human like me to even breathe, that was not my business at all. What the hell was Yuda to her?
“Why the hell do you get to decide that!!!!”
Even with my throat being squeezed, I roared.
“Yuda—Yuda was my precious friend!! If you had left him to me, I could have stopped him from trying to kill you!! Yuda was always the kind of person who grew the more he faced difficulties!! He was a good person who always wished only for peace!! Why—why do you———!!”
I unleashed a roar of uncontrollable rage.
“Why does someone I’m meeting for the first time get to decide that!!!!”
Then, in that fleeting moment when the Demon King’s grip loosened, I broke free.
“You trash bastard!!”
Smack—
I slammed my fist into her face with all my strength.
“You trash bastard——you goddamn trash bastard———!!”
Cartoria slowly approached me, but the Demon King gestured for her to return to the castle.
“·····”
Quietly—quietly, with chilling eyes—she looked down at me and wore an expression of deep, deep disappointment.
“Even you, after not seeing that human for so long, are still declaring him a good person.”
A cold, emotionless tone I had not heard in a long time seeped from the Demon King’s voice, sending a chill through my ears.
“What is the good person you speak of?”
She asked me.
“One who protects everyone? One who kills no one?”
She snatched my wrist as I tried to swing my fist again and asked.
“If that is the case, then what about the hundreds of my kin who died by that human’s weapon?”
She stared at me as though trying to bore through my eyes with her pitch-black ones.
“Why was that human’s weapon aimed at my brow?”
She stared at me as though trying to suck me in with those pitch-black eyes.
“Why did that human not try to end the battle with me through dialogue, like you did?”
But when those words ended, she looked at me—still unable to breathe properly, drawn into the Demon King’s voice—closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again with a slightly softened expression.
“There is no world that changes with such a trivial trigger.”
She concluded.
“Now····· give up your ideals, Karia.”
In the end, I could do nothing while held in the Demon King’s hand. I could only stare at the place where Yuda had been. I—I—
“I have persuaded you enough until now for you to understand.”
I····· Ah, please. Aaaah, please.
“····· Kgh····!”
It was too powerless. Too, too powerless. I could do nothing.
“No, please······!”
I tried to shake off the Demon King’s hand as she tried to leave, but I could not even do that. I was simply dragged along. With one hand I clutched my face, which was twisting madly.
“Pleeeease·······!!”
In this insane reality where my ideals meant nothing at all—
“Save Yudaaaaaa·······!”
Like a child—like a helpless child—I could only wail pathetically. I—I had failed to protect again. Again. Again. Again. Once more, I had failed again.
***
Beneath the window of a dark inn. The bright ashen short hair tinged with a faint green light had grown a little longer without her realizing. Sitting by the window, she stared blankly up at the sky. Both of her arms were already gone, so she could no longer eat or even drink water by herself. What on earth was that person doing somewhere? Was he safe now? The man who had promised to spend the rest of his life with her. The man who had said he would stay with her no matter what. The man who had loved her so much he did not know what to do with himself—what was he doing now? Was he still alive? What the woman left alone needed now was not a savior whose life or death was unknown, nor a hero who might reappear. It was only that one man.
“·····Yuda··”
Why? Hot tears began to fall from the corners of her eyes. Why? From the sky, little by little, pure white snowflakes began to bloom and fall. The first snow of the year was beginning to show. She had wanted to see this sight together with that man. Had it been a mistake to leave even a little later? At this moment, the fact that that man might be dead—Jeren knew it all too well. The moment the first snow fell, her heart froze solid. Because the one who could melt it was gone. Because everyone who could melt this heart had left for a place she could never reach. Even if there were places she could reach now, she no longer had a single hand left to grasp with.
“····”
Already starving for several days, she carefully closed her eyes and leaned her head against the inn wall. Perhaps she had already sensed that she too would follow him. It did not feel that sad.
“Yuda···.”
After all, it was a life that should have died; it was heavenly luck that had kept her alive. She was simply—simply going to meet the ones she missed. However—
Creak—
“·····”