◈ 398. [Side Story] Bottom (2)
“Who is the real ‘you’?”
“… … .”
“If you can’t clearly define it, there’s no reason to get out of here. Your own purpose, justice, and wishes will all be scattered like a mirage.”
Salome shrugged and turned her body backwards.
《Even if you struggle to climb to the ground, there will be only suffering outside anyway.》
“… … .”
“In that case, come into my arms. At least I’ll make you have a happy dream.”
Salome laughed and walked away.
《As we fell to the bottom together, falling all the way to the end… … It might not be a bad ending, right?”
“… … .”
“I’ll be waiting. forever… … .》
Salome disappeared, leaving only a faint laugh.
I snorted as I glared at him. Salome’s proposal was bullshit that didn’t even deserve to be heard.
… … but.
It was true that he read my memories. He knew exactly what I was thinking about.
I was afraid.
A long road ahead of me. A heavy burden I must carry.
The remaining fights will be many and desperate, and I will have to bear the deaths of my colleagues and subordinates over and over again. As it always has been, or more.
“… … Ugh.”
When I was carrying a burden on the road, I was able to endure it by inertia. However, now that I have been pushed out of the way, I couldn’t bear to think of it.
can i do it again
can you go all the way
– Is it really ‘you’ wish?
What I’m trying to do at the end of this long road, is it really what I wanted?
One in a million, really one in a million.
As Salome said, if that wish is different from mine now.
If you give up that wish… … .
Is there no need to fight so hard?
– Defeating the flag is very difficult at first, but after that it gets so easy. because it’s already broken
It was then.
Suddenly, the words of the Fairy Queen, Skuld, echoed in my mind.
– Once you start compromising, you’ll bend endlessly. In the end, you’ll end up living on your stomach. like me.
“… … .”
Grieving this, I picked up a stone from the floor again and threw it back into the sewer.
f*ck!
A stone that strayed far could not even go into the sewer and bounced out. Damn, I clicked my tongue.
***
District 10, farm.
“need… … .》
Strolling through her domain, Raven, the Plague Commander, growled in a seething voice.
《A stronger poison, a more deadly plague, is needed… … .》
Only half a day ago, this place, which had been lavishly pampered by the owner, had recently turned into a living hell.
The fruit trees that bore fruit, the grains that yielded ears, and the young livestock that grew in the barn… … .
They were all dead and decaying.
The venom and plague the Raven spewed ravaged my farm like locusts. However, even as he watched the farm disappear without leaving even ruins, Raven did not know how to stop.
“It’s not enough, this much is not enough. Not enough… … !》
Raven stopped in front of the ‘field’ where she had sown the seeds of the plague.
In the meantime, the strong men of all the races he had captured were rotting alive, each becoming a breeding ground for different plagues.
Charleureuk!
Raven reached out and absorbed all of the plague.
but.
“I need more, more, more, more… … !》
lack.
No way.
Not quite like this. Stronger curses, stronger insults are needed.
Raven let out a desperate cry.
“To kill him, I need more… … !》
The Plague Legion is extremely powerful when dealing with large numbers of people.
The real pestilence emitted by Raven’s body, and the phantom pain emitted by his clones.
The pain that spreads without time to distinguish what is real and what is fake is more effective when the opponent is a large army. Death spreads, terror intensifies, and the few survivors of that hell re-spread the plague on other humans.
A chain of endless despair.
Among all the forces of hell revived in the Lake Kingdom, there is no monster as powerful against the majority as the Plague Legion.
However, its weaknesses are also clear.
Whether it’s plague or phantom pain, you can’t cut off your opponent’s breath at once. It can make an opponent suffer for a long time by making them suffer, but it cannot cause immediate death.
As such, it is vulnerable to elites who are strong enough to withstand the plague.
Even in her lifetime, Raven had always struggled with a small number of elite superhumans. Despite suffering from the plague, they continued to charge forward with potions and recovery magic. Although they eventually turned into a handful of blood, they often thrust their swords into Raven’s throat.
After repeating these things, Raven in her lifetime was finally subdued. to one human being.
——————
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Raven, who was originally a doctor from the Lake Kingdom, was banished from the kingdom at the end of corruption research, and became a plague himself and swept the world.
And they came to their homeland with great vigor. He thought to show the good wizards who were ignoring him.
And it was only one sorcerer who stood in his way.
The wizard at the time was the head of the research institute who led the research of ‘Peninsula’, the elixir of invulnerability cultivated after research in the Lake Kingdom.
And Raven collapsed in front of him.
No poison, pestilence, or curse possessed by him could pierce the blessings that enveloped him.
It was a Raven that rotted and killed countless lives on the entire continent, but it had to perish without being able to withstand just one human.
《It’s pitiful! Complaint! Complaint! How pitiful!”
Tears made of poison flowed from Raven’s eyes as she remembered that time.
And time passed – Raven was resurrected in the darkness of this Lake Kingdom.
The revived Raven first looked at the production route of the elixir and found the farm. It was already in ruins, but many precious elixirs were still asleep.
Raven restored the farm again. If you can recreate the elixir that defeated you from scratch, then you will be able to find a way to break through that immunity yourself.
So- Raven has been running the farm here, cultivating the old elixir and harvesting the new plague at the same time.
But, what were those damned hundreds of years worth?
Raven’s plague still couldn’t pierce that peach that the Lake Kingdom’s leading scholars and wizards had created after research – and that peach was taken carelessly, and once again, one human being had to become invincible.
《It can’t be in vain.》
muttered Raven, still thirsty after harvesting all life and pestilence on the farm.
《It can’t be in vain, it can’t be in vain, it can’t be in vain- There’s no way I, this Plague Master, won’t be able to overcome the research of mages who died hundreds of years ago.】
I have to show you.
That one individual’s corrupt will can crush the lofty collective intelligence.
The fire that sets the world on fire always, always – starts with just one match.
“This me, I must prove it… … !》
To cover the whole world with his plague.
So, Raven decided to gamble.
Raven jerked her hand up. and,
Fu-wook!
pinned to my chest.
He clutches his spiritual core in his hand, and—
Chaeng and… … !
With his own will, he shattered it into pieces.
Pooh-!
Raven’s body shattered in all directions.
From the time he became the Plague Lord, his body was completely rotten and rotten, and he couldn’t even leave a shape. His body was nothing more than a form processed by magic after gathering the mediators of the plague around his own spiritual core.
And since his spiritual core was broken, all kinds of crows, worms, field mice, and fog that made up his body were scattered in all directions… … .
Shortly thereafter, the mediums charged again.
They clung to Raven’s shattered spiritual core and ferociously devoured it.
It was a spiritual core scattered by one of the world’s greatest incarnations of evil. The spirit was mighty, and small creatures instinctively struggled to consume it.
《Eat.》
Raven’s thoughts murmured as his whole soul was being eaten away by countless insects.
《Eat, eat, eat – eat, then scatter even more finely.》
in a voice that gets weaker and weaker.
《… … With this, I will transcend to the next level… … .》
Eventually, Raven’s voice disappeared.
His spirit core disappeared into the belly of the worms without leaving a trace.
Waves of black, turbid monstrosity flooded what was once a farm. Crows, worms, rats, fog, began to swell, burst, multiply endlessly.
and… … .
***
It’s been a few days since I’ve been living here at the ‘bottom’.
no, how many days is it right? is it a day or three days? or a week?
Being in a place like this dulls the sense of time. I didn’t do anything, just threw a stone in front of the sewer, and it was a few days anyway to kill time meaninglessly.
I’m hungry, so I’m going to take out one of the fruits that Salome found earlier and eat it.
“… … .”
“… … .”
Here, I met the eyes of one of the residents of the bottom village.
He was a scruffy kid. Like everyone else in this town, he had messy long hair and was dressed in frayed clothes.
The kid was staring at the fruit in my hand.
“Um… … .”
I’m not such a shameless person to just ignore and eat. I peeked at the fruit.
“I want to eat?”
nod
The little boy nodded. I cut the soft fruit in half and threw the other half to the kid.
“eat.”
widely!
The kid who caught the fruit I threw and swallowed it in one bite. no… … Hey, chew on some. Chehala.
“Are there more?”
The little boy asked boldly. I laughed in amazement.
“There is, but… … You can’t give it away for free.”
“There’s nothing worth paying for in this town.”
“… … It does look like it, though.”
It is a village that is extremely impoverished and could be used for promotional purposes by an overseas Hunger Refugee Relief Foundation.
Giving up on getting paid, I just tore the fruit into small pieces and threw them one by one. The little boy ate well. It’s good to have a good time when you’re skinny.
After feeding the kid some more fruit, I decided to just ask him some questions.
“What do you eat for a living in a place like this?”
“I’m not going to eat.”
“what?”
“I can live without eating.”
I couldn’t understand the kid’s answer, so I only blinked, but the kid explained further.
“Because our villagers have also been cursed with eternal life.”
“ah… … .”
“If you don’t eat, you won’t die, if you don’t sleep, you won’t die, if you don’t breathe, you won’t die. Just, alive.”
“Then, after the Lake Kingdom became like this… … Have you ever lived here?”
“huh.”
The little boy laughed.
“Even though it looks like this, I am much older than you. You can call me brother.”
oh my god.
This kid… … No, I asked after looking blankly at the little brother.
“If you were cursed with eternal life, are you all citizens of the Lake Kingdom?”
“no. We are not people.”
Little brother shrugged.
“A slave.”
“… … .”
“The Lake Kingdom had a three-level caste system. royalty. citizen. And slaves.”
A bitter smile crept across the little brother’s lips.
“Slaves are not people. Since he is not a man, he cannot be a citizen. We were called ‘non-nationals’.”
“… … .”
“Non-citizens have no names, and since they have no names, they leave nothing behind.”
Lake Kingdom, the greatest magical nation of the time, which was said to have perished 500 years ago.
What kind of deformed structure was this country? I swallowed dry saliva.
“We lived doing odd jobs outside the civic enclave. All the dirty work that noble citizens couldn’t handle was ours.”
“… … .”
“Anyway, the inside of the Lake Kingdom was a good place to live. Our villagers also worked hard to get into it. I want to become a person. I want to get a name.”
Little brother said that and shrugged his shoulders.
“To obtain ‘citizenship’.”
“citizenship… … ?”
“It was a dream for non-citizens like us. There was a saying that if you offered a huge amount of gold coins, you would raise your status. So we all worked hard together to save money.”
Haha- little brother looked up with a dry laugh.
“I wonder what the point is in coming all the way to this yard… … .”
“… … .”
“Still, the village elders are collecting money. Even after falling to the bottom like this, I cherish the gold coins in my arms and collect them one by one in the village safe. I believe that if I become a human, I can escape this hell.”
Little brother grinned as he mumbled the last piece of fruit I handed him.
“All those ‘people’ are having nightmares up there.”
