Book 17 Chapter 10

Episode 107

She, who died as a human, beyond faint love and separation (5)

“You’re not trying to betray me, are you…?”

How could it be, even the movement of her hair fluttering after shooting the arrow and the deep tremor in her eyes are so exactly like they were when she was alive…?

How on earth…?

Kies gasped for breath. What on earth do they want me to do? This situation right now is…

“Come here, Kies… Lord Zernix is right… Why are you drawing your bow from ‘that side’… There’s no reason for that, is there…?”

Kies’s entire body was already covered in blood.

The fresh blood flowing from the stab wounds, incurred while simultaneously fighting Aena and the other four revived by the [King's Flesh], was enough to form puddles.

The ‘boy’ sat on the main hall floor, resting his chin arrogantly on his fist, watching the fight, then clapped and laughed.

[This is truly astonishing. Excluding Aena, all four are savage swordsmen and spearmen, yet you’ve killed two of them, far from being pushed back in close combat?]

If Kies had been able to exert his full power, the situation might already have been over.

But he couldn’t.

He couldn’t weave his magic into arrows against Aena, nor could he shoot the killing intent he had forged into Aena’s heart.

‘She has the same voice, the same gaze, the same actions as Aena, what am I supposed to do…?’

In return, he was fully exposed to Aena’s attacks, and arrows stuck all over Kies’s body made him resemble a hedgehog.

[I intended to bury you here, but seeing your skill, I’ve changed my mind. You, join me. If you embed arrows in the hearts of the hero party members who will soon arrive here, I will keep the promise I made last time.]

“……?”

[What on earth are you hesitating about? I truly can’t understand. Ah, I’ll even fix your tongue! So you can speak again. The Dragonkin don’t do such things. Do you know why? They’re only interested in the whole, not in parts.]

At that moment, the ‘boy’s’ eyes twitched. The miasma barrier spread throughout <Simila>… was detected being pierced at a single, powerfully concentrated point.

‘What is this power?’

It’s a barrier designed to consume a considerable amount of time if that little magician tries to break this magic or that shaman girl tries to decipher it.

‘One-point breakthrough… So that brat has instantly discerned the weakness of my magic again?’

At that moment, a presence was felt in the sky.

Friede flailed in the air with her 16-cylinder broom, which had lost power, then cast a barrier before plummeting to the ground.

“Pipi, where’s Rin? And the shepherd?”

“Don’t know, don’t know, they fell.”

The place Friede landed was in front of the dormitory building where Kies was fighting Aena.

[Well, well, who do we have here. Isn’t it the beautiful shamaness.]

Friede immediately grasped the rough truth of the current situation from the scene unfolding before her eyes.

That familiar and eerie magic, Kies covered in blood… and the presence of the dead moving by the [King’s Flesh].

As Friede cast a healing spell on Kies, her eyes trembled with rage.

“You damned bastard, using the bones of the dead again, just like in <Ikegrad>…!”

[Yes! I breathed life into those poor souls who wished to live again. So wouldn’t I, Lord Zernix, be called a devout person who practices true love?]

“Cut the crap! You’ve merely created puppets that are loyal to your words and move without any emotions!”

[Is that so? Aena, a great wound opens in my heart. Please defend me a little. Of course, your wound must be greater. Seeing your reunited lover getting involved with a woman he just met.]

Perhaps because she saw Kies and Friede together, Aena’s fingers, gripping the bow, trembled.

“Traitor… You betrayed… my heart…”

“Traitor?”

“How could you betray me, Kies…!”

The arrows Aena forged with magic and shot forth possessed the properties of the abyss… but their fundamental nature of power was so similar to Kies's that it bewildered Friede.

“Traitor… Kies, who exactly is that woman?”

Friede cried out urgently.

While casting a barrier to block Aena’s arrows.

[She is that mute archer’s former lover. Ah, that is, until a cruel world tore the two lovers apart.]

“Stop talking nonsense!”

[Nonsense? It seems you knew nothing! Why your companion became mute, what happened in that process!]

Unlike Aena, the dead, who were not permitted ego or emotions, rushed in.

Those two were also masters!

It wasn’t a situation that could be handled with casual banter. As Friede spread her barrier wide, its density naturally decreased.

“Kies, why are you listening to that woman? Why are you by her side, instead of mine!”

The density of magic or spell barriers is not uniform.

There are always parts with weak cohesion, and master archers could accurately target these to penetrate the barrier and deal with the opponent.

Aena was also quite skilled in this matter, so the next moment, an arrow pierced Friede’s barrier and surged into its interior.

“……!”

The arrow that nearly pierced Friede’s head was shattered in mid-air by an arrow Kies instantly shot forth.

“What, what are you doing…!”

It was truly a hair-raising distance, with particles of abyss and magic scattering upon impact raining down on Friede’s head.

“Kies, you said… that you would only love me, that you would love only me…!”

“Kies, don’t listen! I know that woman was important to you, but that’s just a vengeful spirit being manipulated!”

“Shut up! Don’t you dare butt in while Kies and I are talking!”

Aena could also perform simultaneous impact firing.

The number was far fewer than Kies’s, with three being the maximum, but this was natural, as this technique was a new interpretation of the [Fractal Archery] archery created by the two of them.

While Pipi dealt with one of the dead, Friede, who blocked another’s attack with her barrier, cried out.

“Kies! There’s no soul in her! Only a vengeful spirit! When the deceased died, her soul ascended, and that bastard merely controlled the lingering vengeful spirit as he pleased! Because the soul of your precious person has already gone to heaven!”

Aena wove another arrow onto the bowstring.

“Being manipulated? Yes, a vengeful spirit that couldn’t ascend even after death, one that deserved to be left behind, so that’s a natural thing to say!”

And, spewing out her resentment, she aimed it at Friede and shot.

“We were about to get married! We had even proposed to each other! If only this world hadn’t betrayed us on the day we received our last mission!”

“What?”

“We were in a situation where we could never meet again… but here we are, reunited. Now, for the sake of just the two of us, we can turn our backs on the world, can’t we!”

The ‘boy’, Zernix, who was watching the brawl, couldn’t suppress a burst of laughter.

‘Ah, I really never get tired of this.’

Reviving the dead and watching the proper conclusion of a love triangle was one of the things Zernix found quite amusing after he was revived.

‘If I interfered directly, I’d get caught by that old hag and die, so even if I can’t use magic, there are always other ways, you see.’

Kies’s arrows also seemed like a desperate gesture to block Aena’s rage directed at Friede and at this world.

‘Stop, Aena…’

Was it called ‘telepathy’ (understanding without words)?

They were a couple who could exchange emotions with just their eyes.

“Stop it, I said stop! Now fight for yourself, and for me, Kies! Get out of the way! I’ll free you from that bondage!”

‘Aena!’

“We were betrayed by this world and suffered such a fate! You’re being deceived by that woman, aren’t you?”

Perhaps, instead of with their eyes, they were exchanging emotions through the arrows repeatedly clashing in the air.

“Get out of the way, now! Kies! You swore eternal vows with me! And now, after I died, you’re enchanted by another woman and plan to deny me?”

“…….”

“Back then, we… were betrayed! Betrayed by this world! We were betrayed at the moment we should have been happiest, more than anyone else!”

Tears flowed from Aena’s eyes as she shot arrows again and again, madly, violently, fiercely.

“You said we would form a bond as husband and wife and become a family…”

Her fingers, gripping the bow, trembled helplessly and painfully.

“I wanted to have a child… a child just like us…”

At those words, Aena’s sincerity unchanged from before, the fighting spirit vanished from Kies’s entire body. Zernix knew this was a golden opportunity.

[What do duty or righteousness matter? Isn’t it enough to be with the woman you love?]

“Kies, no!”

[It doesn’t matter if she’s a ghost or a phantom. You can simply share love again! This body has the warmth of a living being. Come on, Kies. Just one arrow is all it takes. One shot, an arrow that pierces that shaman’s heart.]

Though he didn’t know the exact reason, Zernix enjoyed watching others fall into the abyss just like him.

Just as that shamaness said.

It’s no fun to manipulate a vengeful spirit and then toy with the being it revives. A vengeful spirit is, after all, a product of evil that corrupted in the abyss and could not ascend to heaven.

‘Watching someone with free will corrupt themselves willingly is the true joy of this life!’

Kies gasped violently for breath, then knelt.

Hyperventilation to the point where his mind was completely blank.

A momentary confusion, lacking the will or energy to even uncork a gourd… no, agony.

‘One step…’

If he were to take a step towards the evil that the world calls the abyss, would this pain come to an end…?

‘Just one step…’

He was looking for a place to die in the first place, so who could blame him for dipping his feet into evil before death…?

“Shut your damn mouth────!”

A single beam of light, dazzlingly dispelling all that agony, all that pain, all that confusion.

“──The dead can never, ever be revived!”

The boy’s cry, untainted by the world, struck down into this darkness like a bolt of lightning…

“Because a person lives as a person and dies as a person───!”

Amplified by the True Dragon’s Shard, the Golden Staff, it was like the brilliance of a dragon.

“───How dare you, a mere wretch like you, defile it!”

That light and cry…

When was it…?

It took Kies back to the time he talked alone with Aena, the day before his execution…

- “If I become that noble’s concubine, I might keep my life. But I have no intention of doing that. I’d rather die as a ‘person’ than live as a ‘doll’.”

- “Why you…? He was after me.”

- “You fool. He targeted me because he targeted you. He thought I’d do anything to save you.”

- “Bastard… I’ll kill him once I get out of here.”

- “Don’t. Anyway, Kies, you’re making me wait again this time.”

Aena said this with a playful smile, completely unchanged from her usual self.

- “You say it first. Say we should break up now.”

- “What?”

- “Say that I was really no good, and you’re going to find a better woman.”

- “I can’t say that…”

- “You have to. If you don’t, there’ll be no meaning in me dying in your place.”

- “I absolutely can’t…!”

- “Kies.”

- “The one I truly loved… No one could ever love so passionately… My life was one where I didn’t know happiness, but you made me know it! So how… how on earth could I say such a thing…?”

Aena’s playful smile, which she had deliberately held, slowly began to crumble as tears welled from her eyes.

- “You are truly cruel…”

Certainly, she died unjustly that day, but Aena was not a woman to leave resentment in the world. She didn’t have such a personality.

Rin had told him.

Rin had awakened him to it.

That Aena was not someone who would become a demon or an evil spirit. That she lived as a ‘person’ and died as a ‘person’… once again, to Kies.