Chapter 297
"What happened? Weren't you and His Highness the 3rd Prince supposed to go to the royal castle?"
"Hmm."
At Cellinne's question, Yesung briefly touched his neck. Then he removed the winter cloak he was still wearing and dropped it on the ground.
The thick cloak that looked quite valuable began to be stained by the dirty, murky beast fluids scattered on the floor.
Yesung answered gently in a plain voice.
"There were circumstances, so I returned first. What about the other humans? What happened?"
"Well, actually I don't really know either."
Cellinne didn't know how to explain the chaos still jumbled in her head.
She had simply co to the market with Eva when suddenly a black goat appeared, and even a trendously huge monster showed up.
After that, all sorts of pouring black beasts had plunged everything into confusion.
Cows, horses, wild boars, deer - huge, terrible-slling, crazed beings.
Cellinne had tried to run away with Eva, but Eva hadn't moved from that spot and was looking up at it.
When Cellinne forcibly grabbed Eva's shoulder and turned her around,
She had no focus in her eyes and was chanting sothing into her mouth.
-All of this land, all, all,
-Eva? Get a grip, Eva!
-All broken things, collapsed things, ugly things, rotting things, decaying things are in the great cycle.
-Eva?
-I saw a woman riding a black beast.
-Eva! What are you saying, can you hear ? Are you listening?
-That beast's body is full of nas that will never be born, and ten horns open on one head, and that woman wears crimson clothes and holds a horn pipe in one hand and a bell that calls disgusting and filthy things in the other...
Eva had definitely been strange. And right after she shook off Cellinne's hand, she walked straight toward that beast-
"...Eva."
"Yes?"
"Eva was... eaten... by the beasts. Th-those black beasts sward everywhere. I tried to go back to the inn, but Eva suddenly pushed away and went that way..."
Ah. Oh no. What to do.
She suddenly rembered. The sight of a black bird putting Eva's head in its beak and snatching her away.
The legs and shoes sliding into its throat.
The mont she rushed in to save her,
She too had been attacked by sothing unknown.
Her mory had cut off there.
Cellinne suddenly looked around at the pitch-black things surrounding her and Yesung.
Black forms torn to pieces and full of holes by sharply protruding ice.
But the already dead monsters were slowly lting and forming small streams.
She instinctively realized this was the monster that had devoured her and gasped.
As Cellinne flinched and avoided the sticky liquid flowing around her feet, she suddenly felt sothing was strange.
What was it? This situation? Or sothing else? She beca conscious of the young man standing before her.
Yesung was waiting for Cellinne without saying anything.
But that appearance, that atmosphere wasn't the young man she knew.
It was as if this was soone wearing his shell...
"...How did you get here?"
"How? I hurried the schedule as much as possible for your sake. Why do you ask such a thing?"
"What about His Highness the 3rd Prince?"
"Didn't I say earlier? That I arrived first. More importantly, don't you know where the other humans went?"
Subtle word choices.
A tone that was affectionate and friendly but contained no emotion at all.
Without ti to think about what she felt, Cellinne looked at the bright gray eyes that should definitely be brown and spoke.
"Yesung doesn't call us that way."
"Hmm."
'Yesung' lifted his chin slightly.
The sight of near-white gray eyes rolling this way and that was sowhat eerie.
Both hands were slightly drooping with fingertips touching each other. Occasionally only the index fingers separated and touched again.
Such aningless motions repeated. anwhile, his face contained no emotion whatsoever.
Cellinne unconsciously stepped her left foot backward.
'Yesung,' who had been looking down and keeping silent, asked again.
"Did you notice sothing other than the eyes first? That's interesting in its own way. Human intuition can't be completely dismissed."
"You're not Yesung?"
"That's right. Pitiful human. Lowly creature who couldn't even dare look up at this body with naked eyes. Know that eting this body when it borrowed the believer's shell is the fortune of your lifeti."
'Yesung' walked lightly toward Cellinne.
With only one step's distance remaining, 'Yesung' smiled freshly.
"But do not fear, do not be wary. This body ca here according to the believer's wish to save you. Frightened human. What made you think such things?"
"Th-then Yesung is..."
"He will return when the ti cos. He hasn't completely disappeared, so be at ease."
"Who are you?"
Her whole body was trembling. At the question she finally managed to spit out, 'Yesung' smiled brightly.
It was a smile she had never seen from the real Yesung until now.
"This body is the Lord of the Extre Realm, the eternal fla of ice. The sole god of the vanished ice fields, Theem'dra."
* * *
The giant beast slowly continued its march.
There were no more obstacles to chase the beast moving away.
The one riding atop the beast's horn had called kin to remove the obstacles,
And the kin that descended in the forms of hawk and woman drove the obstacles like a nightmare.
The only one who could stand against the monster here was Valter.
However, the wounds he had suffered hadn't even healed yet. Moreover, the axe stained with the giant beast's fluid was slowly corroding and giving off a foul sll.
There was no way they could win in this situation.
At most, they could only slightly delay certain death.
Dardin looked at Valter, who was holding a half-lted axe in front of him, and thought.
The giant hawk towering above Valter's head and Eva's dangling head were reflected in his glasses.
Was this the end?
Where had things gone wrong?
Of course, even if he thought about it, there was no answer.
Starting with not noticing the assassin when they first entered the Leng Plateau,
Other minor errors might have eventually led them here.
"Sir."
"Young man, wait just a mont. Even if the physician miss has beco like this, the dancer miss might be coming here."
"Sir..."
"Think of sothing. Aren't you the one with the best mind among us!"
"Sir. I have no more thods."
"What?"
Dardin himself hadn't expected to say such words. But this was reality.
Right here, right now, how could they defeat monsters and stop a giant beast with mostly broken weapons and two injured people?
Dardin couldn't guarantee he could improve this situation even if he died and ca back to life three tis.
No, at a mont like this, it might be better to just die.
When his thoughts reached that point, he let out a hollow laugh.
It wasn't because he was amused. It was due to the emptiness and futility of everything he had built up to this point,
All the things he had accomplished believing only in Yurik's promise after running away from his family, ending in such a place.
This was his limit. A boundary where he couldn't even think of doing anything as long as he was born human.
If this was an era where such monsters road the earth destroying the common sense humans had solidly built up,
There was no reason for people to try to exist as people.
To have even a little hope in this situation required an even greater 'absurdity.'
For instance, a miracle. Yes, sothing like a miracle.
The one slim possibility that humans could call a miracle.
But even thinking such thoughts now, such things wouldn't happen anyway.
-Thump. Thump. Thump.
"You beast! You creature!"
The hawk approached, pressing the ground with the curved parts of its wings.
Valter swung his lted axe threateningly, but no beast feared prey that already showed clear signs of defeat.
-Screeeeech!
"Aaaahhh!"
The hawk that snatched Valter with its beak like pulling out an earthworm from the ground raised its head to the sky.
He struck the beak with his fist, but only a terrifying sound like from a shield rang out, causing no damage to the hawk.
Instead, he felt the pain of flesh being cut where the upper and lower beaks t.
Dardin shouted toward Valter, who was hanging high up, pale with terror.
"Sir!"
"Run away, young man! At least you run away!"
Valter's legs and hands were reflected as dangling shadows.
Dardin found himself desperately wishing. Please, please. Think of any way to stop that thing. Even the smallest opportunity would be good.
In a situation where Eva and Cellinne's life and death were uncertain, he couldn't lose Valter too.
But all he could do was cry out in despair.
"Anyone, please help!"
Please, just once. Just once!
However, he had no idea.
Even on this planet where gods had been exterminated, there were believers, and prayers and wishes still existed.
Emotions that any human would have. Because they were weak, because they couldn't achieve things with their own power.
And this world was.
"-Well spoken, human."
As the one who created this world had wished,
A world that always answered the prayers of the weak.
Lightning flashed from beyond the sky.
Before Dardin could even judge what it was, it pierced through both wings that the giant hawk had raised.
Blood and feathers scattered. Valter scread, but the hawk's heavy body was fixed to the ground, only fluttering.
Behind the fallen hawk, a familiar silhouette was running over.
"Dardin! Grandfather!"
"Cellinne!"
Had she been safe? Her clothes were dirty but she didn't seem to have any injuries.
"What is this? Did you do this?"
"No. It wasn't ."
"Then?"
Instead of answering, she looked back. Following her gaze, Dardin's eyes widened.
A person walking with leisurely steps that didn't match the situation from beyond.
Blood-red hair was scattering vivid light,
And the light brown eyes had changed to piercingly white.
He approached and looked at the giant beast, the hawk, and the surviving people in order, then asked.
"Which should I do first? Let's hurry up and clean this up."
"...Yesung?"
"Yes. Did you call ? What's the matter?"
Yesung tilted his head. Dardin felt a faint sense of incongruity from his words and actions.
This appearance was definitely Yesung, but sohow the way he moved and spoke felt a bit more arrogant.
Or was it not? Was he thinking strange thoughts because he had seen too many shocking scenes?
"Wh-what happened to your eyes?"
"This? It's nothing much. My eyeballs didn't fall out, just the eye color changed."
"What?"
"More importantly, do we have ti to worry about such things? Is it okay to just leave that big guy alone?"
That's right!
The giant beast was still making the ground rumble as it moved away. At this rate, Aquilonia would be gone in just a few hours.
Dardin shouted.
"No, it's not okay at all! Please do sothing about that thing, if you can!"
Looking at the human clinging to him without even knowing exactly what Yesung had done, 'Yesung' smiled slyly with a cold face.
"Yes. I can do it. That's why this body ca here."
When he finished speaking and moved forward again, a chilly wind suddenly blew.
It wasn't the flow of air coming up the mountain range.
Rather, it was an unnatural wind that forcibly stole the warmth of life and lowered the temperature.
Dardin instinctively shrank back. Cellinne and Valter did the sa.
Beyond Yesung's shoulder, the giant beast marching.
The black, red, unholy being that would bring destruction to Aquilonia while blowing horn trumpets.
'Yesung' raised his hand. As if gathering invisible power, his hand with prominent joints slowly clenched.
A roar rang out above the beast of destruction's head. The sky was tearing and wailing.
At this disturbance, flying creatures all took to the air at once. Even when the sky was filled with fluttering sounds, the earthbound things held their breath and watched the wondrous spectacle.
Beyond the sky that they had only known to be blue, red, or gray,
The shadow of the universe that humans of this era couldn't see was cast.
There was the immutable truth that killed everything, created, shaped, destroyed, and in the end would leave no being remaining, becoming a handful of dust.
This was just a fragnt.
An extrely small part of truth with countless forms.
However, just seeing one of them made Cellinne and Dardin feel as if their brains were bubbling and boiling.
Soone let out a sound filled with pain and distant reverence.
Beyond the sky thus opened, a star twinkled eerily.
'Yesung' spoke.
[Co. To this insignificant stage.]
A strange sound like 'grgrgrgextre' echoed throughout heaven and earth.
At the sa ti, the sky darkened and snow began falling softly out of season.
Before the humans could grasp the true nature of this phenonon,
Suddenly, the world broke apart into white.
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