Chapter: 623
Tap-!
The smell of burning wafts into my nostrils.
It was once a place of unimaginable scenery.
Having been burned, and burned again, it long ago lost its original appearance.
You can’t even begin to picture what it used to be like.
Now, it’s a world of nothing but blackened ash and sparking embers.
‘What a mess it’s in.’
I couldn’t help but chuckle at that.
Nowhere else but deep inside my heart.
The fact that the world has turned out this way means that my insides are rotting and burning as well.
‘Idiot.’
You tried so shamelessly to live your life properly.
Yet this is what your insides look like.
I lowered my gaze.
Beneath this burning world, a space struggling to maintain its existence.
I see a child, shivering with fear, barely able to fend off the flaming barrier surrounding them.
He looked very frightened with his small stature.
[Huhgug… huhgug…]
Damn it.
What a damnable memory.
“Hey.”
[…Huh…?]
At the sound of my call, the child lifts his head.
Those slitted eyes and fierce expression weren’t typical for a child.
“Look at you.”
With a face like that, it’s no surprise he’ll hear that he looks fierce for the rest of his life.
“Ha….”
I sighed as I looked at the child.
“What’s with that pathetic appearance?”
[Please save me… Save me…!]
The child’s hand reached out toward me.
Grip.
I could feel the little fingers clutching at my pants leg.
[Please, please, save me…!]
“…”
[I miss my mom… please…]
His voice was earnest.
A tiny, clear voice wanting to live, at any cost.
When was it?
‘When did I sound like that?’
I tried to recall but came up empty.
‘Doesn’t exist.’
Never.
Not even once.
I had never cried out like that after my mother disappeared.
So…
“Are you just going to sit here and cry?”
[Hehehe… Hehe…]
“Shut up.”
[…!]
At my words, the child immediately stopped crying.
“Don’t cry. Just be quiet. It’s noisy.”
[Ugh… Ugh…]
“If you cry now, you’ll lose out. Your life is going to be messed up from here on.”
There are countless days to cry.
You have to endure this and that, but what are you trying to achieve by crying here?
[Oh, mommy…]
The kid finally burst into tears, unable to hold it anymore.
Seeing that made me sigh deeper than before.
“You don’t have a mother, you brat.”
[…!]
Uh-oh. That felt like a slip of the tongue.
Not that there isn’t one.
But…
“I guess you won’t see her for another… roughly… thirty years or so?”
Including my previous life, it’s about that long.
I was trying to search for her. To be honest, it’s practically…
“It’s almost as if she doesn’t exist at all.”
[Whoaaaaang!]
“It’s too loud. Should I just smack you?”
[Huhhhh…]
I bent down and locked eyes with the child.
“Did you want to live?”
[Ugh… Ugh…]
“I didn’t think so. Did you?”
I thought life held no meaning.
That’s how I lived, without a care in the world.
“I figured you didn’t feel that way.”
Why is this child screaming like that?
“Why do you want to live so badly?”
I couldn’t figure it out.
“Your life is hell.”
Even if that remains true.
I tried to avoid living that kind of life, but here we are, going around in circles.
“Probably even more so in the future.”
Thud-! I felt something dripping from my hand.
“Hmm?”
Before I knew it, my palms were stained red.
It was all blood. Drops of it were falling from my fingertips.
That’s regret.
Regrets I tried so hard to forget.
It was oddly funny. Who knew I could express something like this?
I raised my hand to show it to the child.
“This is the life you will lead.”
[Ugh…]
“I don’t even remember how many people I’ve killed.”
And.
I probably won’t remember in the future.
Countless numbers were killed.
I won’t recall because it’s too many to remember.
“Should it have been this way?”
This was a question for me.
“Did it really have to go down like this?”
Because the child in front of me is terrified. Because here my world is burning to the ground.
It felt like a question directed at me.
‘You.’
Did you really have to live like this?
Of course, I can’t expect an answer.
I won’t provide one, either.
[Please save me…]
The child still wanted to live.
[I want to live…]
“…”
Watching this brought a question to my mind.
Did I ever want to live?
Maybe I did.
It came to me.
That time, when I first stood in the market after returning.
I couldn’t even grasp the situation properly.
I thought to myself as I felt the crowd and noise swirling around.
‘So, this is what I longed to see.’
That’s what I said.
A time of peace.
Even if I might call it the worst time of my life.
I wanted it back then.
So surely, I must have felt relieved.
‘The sights seen at the moment of death. Because it was that day.’
[Want some potatoes?]
That’s because it was the moment I met that child.
Even if life ahead turns out to be hell.
In that moment, it seemed to carry many meanings for me.
“But here’s the thing.”
Thud.
I brushed the child’s cheek with my bloodstained hand.
“This needs to stop now.”
[Heehee… Heeeeek…]
“How long are you going to hesitate?”
Feeling my touch, the child trembled in fear.
[Um… Ummmmmm…]
He started crying like a baby.
Ah, well, he is just a baby after all.
‘Who would have thought you’d see me cry?’
This is a unique experience, indeed.
Even if it’s just a figment of my imagination.
I continued speaking as I looked at the trembling child.
“Someone kept saying that you shouldn’t be here.”
[Huhhhh…]
Swipe.
The hand that had rubbed his cheek moved.
The blood left traces on my hand.
I moved it directly to the child’s throat.
Creak-!
I gripped tightly.
[Ugh-!]
The child whimpered.
Hesitation.
And stubbornness.
That’s this child’s name.
The hesitation that keeps me from making my move.
Some emotions I had kept without ever wanting to ignore them.
Among those…
“My most useless one.”
That’s how I labeled him.
This I had known for ages.
“… and yet.”
The one that I never wanted to part with.
That child is like this for me.
But.
“I think it’s becoming too much to handle now.”
I can’t be stubborn any longer.
And so, I gripped the child’s neck.
Shiver shiver shiver shiver.
I could feel the tremors in my hand holding him.
It was an almost sickeningly vivid sensation.
“Truth be told…”
I said while looking at that child.
“I didn’t want to abandon you.”
That was my true feeling, one I hadn’t divulged to anyone.
“Even now, I feel the same way.”
At the moment I abandoned you.
“I have to face it.”
Leaving behind a life that might have held a glimmer of hope.
A human must leave behind their core and become a dragon.
One must accept their destiny.
I thought I had made up my mind to do so long ago.
But there were times when I could not do just that.
The truth I had known all along.
“I’m not human.”
This was a truth I had been aware of for a long time.
“And I won’t be in the future either.”
I know I can’t go back.
I wonder if this was truly my choice.
“… But you know.”
Putting that aside.
“Even knowing that, it wasn’t simple.”
It’s that stubbornness.
I was well aware of what’s commonly called stubbornness.
But even then, I couldn’t help but resist.
Why was that?
Why couldn’t I carry out this simple task?
Did the world truly have to rot to reach such darkness?
I can’t for the life of me comprehend.
Perhaps it’s simply because I don’t want to be a dragon?
Not acknowledging that I’ve become a dragon won’t make me human.
I knew that well.
‘From the moment I decided to become a demon…’
From the moment I’d let myself go to keep myself safe.
That was a realization I grasped long ago.
It’s too late to go back.
‘Even though I knew that.’
I definitely knew, yet I could not do it.
Why?
I still don’t understand.
Was being human really that crucial?
Why was it so significant that it caused me to struggle endlessly?
I don’t know.
But now isn’t the time to ponder such matters.
Unless I let go of this stubbornness.
‘I can’t move forward any longer because of it.’
I can’t protect what I need to protect.
My life has always been held on scales.
It has always been an ongoing series of choices.
Balancing choices on a scale, I choose the heavier one.
I have lived like that all along.
This time may be a tad late, but, after all, I still did the same.
“You were lighter than the rest. That’s all there is to it.”
Yes, that’s it.
[Save me, save me…!! I don’t want to die!]
I slowly tightened my grip on the hand holding his throat.
[I miss my mom…! Ah… Daddy!!]
I can hear the child’s desperate cries.
I had to ignore it.
From within, I kill one more.
What will change with this action?
Will so much change through that?
I didn’t know.
But I still proceeded.
Creak-!
[Ugh…]
As I applied more pressure, despair began to fill the child’s eyes.
Tap-! Tap-!
The flames that had been consuming everything around us began to stir once more.
They seemed intent on swallowing up even the barely vacant space.
“I’m sorry.”
That was all I could say as I looked at the child.
“I can’t say if there will be another time.”
This is my last goodbye to the child.
“Thank you. For everything until now.”
With that.
As I concluded my words, I prepared to break the child’s neck.
It was nothing but a necessity to bring this to completion.
But.
Smash-!
In the midst of the burning flames.
Knock! Knock!
I sensed something unusual.
The crackling of embers that had continued to burn.
Knock… knock… knock.
It began to slow down gradually.
…crack.
At some point.
The slightest sound had vanquished into silence.
“…?”
A strange sensation caused me to pause the pressure of my grip.
I looked around.
And then I understood.
The flames, which had been dancing and consuming everything, had all ceased moving.
“What’s going on?”
It had been so noisy until just now.
What kind of phenomenon is this?
Though taken aback, I had no plans to stop.
Erasing my confusion and about to return to my previous action, I saw.
“Wait, what?”
I shifted my gaze back to its original position, my eyes widening.
The child I held in both arms had vanished.
I froze momentarily due to the sudden occurrence.
Swish.
“…!”
I recognized that there was something else before me instead of the child.
It was a leg.
Hurriedly, I looked up.
Someone stood before me.
[Oof…]
That someone, cradling my childhood self, no less.
What the…?
I found myself frowning at the unexpected sight.
I couldn’t see it clearly because the figure was hazy.
What’s going on here…?
Oh, perhaps.
“Is it the Blood Spirit again?”
Since it had appeared before, perhaps the Blood Spirit had manifested again in a bizarre form.
I voice this thought out of curiosity, but.
“Mmm.”
The voice that reached me caused me to pause.
Because it belonged to a woman.
Moreover, it sounded somewhat familiar.
‘But.’
The name eludes me.
Whose voice was it?
I couldn’t recall.
Is this another trick by the Blood Spirit?
“What do you want by appearing like this again—”
“I am…”
As I began to speak, my mouth suddenly snapped shut at the woman’s words.
Normally, I’d disregard such a thing and keep talking.
Yet, for some reason, it didn’t feel right this time.
“I wished that you wouldn’t make this choice. That’s why I fought so hard against it.”
Her calming voice somehow ached in the corner of my heart.
“In truth, I knew all along. I had set up this mechanism for that purpose.”
The woman gently hugs the child, worried that he may begin to cry.
“I kept delaying it out of my greed. I guess that ended up hurting you.”
I felt a tremor.
The words I couldn’t comprehend made me feel uneasy.
“…Who are you?”
She isn’t the Blood Spirit. My instincts tell me that.
That woman is not the Blood Spirit.
Then who could she be?
No way.
“Is it the Divine Sword…?”
When I first encountered the Heavenly Demon at the Divine Dragon Pavilion.
I listened to my mother’s words and absorbed her energy.
This was something I had anticipated resolving the first time I met my mother.
Given what had transpired, I wondered if the person before me could be the Divine Sword.
“…haha.”
The woman simply chuckled softly at my words.
That voice, for some reason, felt unbearably sad.
“Similar. But it’s not the case. I am not the child you seek.”
The woman took a step back, turning away.
As she did.
Whaaaah—!!
“…What!?”
From her feet, the world filled with ashes began its transformation.
Fwaaaaaah!
Green grass sprouted above the darkened world, enveloping the area.
The trees that had rotted away and lost their shape revived, coloring the world once more.
The once barren space shifted and transformed.
A small dwelling emerged beneath the world, now adorned with autumn foliage.
This all transpired in mere seconds.
Rumble-! Crash!
The sound of a waterwheel turning echoed nearby the dwelling.
Chirp! Chirp!
In the forest behind us, the sound of birdsong began to fill the air.
My insides have already rotted and decayed.
This world here is the result of that.
But what is this place now?
In this suddenly altered world.
[Huh…]
“Exactly.”
The woman calmly approached, soothing the child until she reached the dwelling.
Gently, she settled on the floor, elegantly poised, before looking back at me.
Her gaze remained unclear.
Given the hazy lines and features of her body, I couldn’t see her distinctly.
Yet I could somehow tell that she was indeed watching me.
“…You, what are you? What is your true identity?”
I asked while facing the woman.
The woman replied.
“I once was your heart.”
My heart skipped a beat.
Those words made my heart race with intensity.
“I have been your eyes and ears, as well as your legs. I was a sword, and also…”
The woman gently caresses the child’s hair.
“I was everything to one man and the mother of another.”
Rustle.
A maple leaf fell gently onto the woman’s lap.
Without realizing it, my gaze fell there.
“Because you no longer remember me. For now…”
I felt the woman’s voice quiver slightly as she spoke.
“Anonymous.”
It felt like a name she was frightened to utter.
“I think that should be how you call me.”
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