〈 Episode 349 〉 Regret (3)
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The sacrifice must be repaid.
We must not allow death to become meaningless.
The spilled blood must not just be allowed to flow. I can’t let it all become worthless. Because meaningless and worthless death is terrible.
I must take responsibility for their sacrifice.
That is the obsession that Raniel Van Trias has. Raniel can never ignore someone’s sacrifice. Especially if it is a sacrifice for yourself. It is an obsession that was engraved on her during her childhood.
A burned down village.
A death that has become worthless and meaningless.
Raniel felt terrible at the precious things that had been reduced to ashes. What Raniel felt when he looked at his parents turned to ashes was fear.
It’s meaningless.
It’s vain.
It’s extremely empty.
I didn’t want to feel that fear again.
That’s why Raniel reacted overly sensitively to someone’s sacrifice. For her, her battlefield was nothing short of hell.
Countless, countless people are dying.
For none other than yourself.
It is up to you to decide whether their death will be meaningless or a foundation for the future. That sense of responsibility weighed heavily on Raniel’s shoulders. Raniel couldn’t rest because he couldn’t look away.
I lived like that for many years.
While living.
At the end of his path, Raniel looked back.
Looking back, it was a truly terrible life.
It was only when death came close that Raniel realized that his life had been like hell. My life was not enjoyable even to say the least. Instead of enjoying it, it was f*cking awesome. Why on earth would I do that?
You live a terrible life and then go to a terrible life.
Raniel smiled and thought that he should not leave any regrets in this terrible life. He had already regretted many things, so in his last moments, he thought that he should not cause any trouble to others.
I apologize to that guy who said something harsh.
I was trying to tell you to not worry about my death and do what you want to do. He also tried to get an apology from me, asking if he had anything to say to me.
That’s how I tried to reconcile.
That was Raniel’s last wish as death approached. It wasn’t a big wish. It was a small dream. A dream too small for a man called a wise man to harbor.
‘I want to reconcile with a friend I had an argument with.’
It’s a story that would make anyone laugh.
The last wish of the great gray wizard who defeats disaster with his bare hands is ‘I want to reconcile with my hometown friend with whom I had a fight’. It is a joke that cannot be laughed at.
Still, Raniel hoped so.
The world answered her small wish. And in the worst way. The world thrust her truth upon her. The tragedy she has to face.
“Kyle Torben is dead.”
Kyle sacrificed himself to save you.
You survived by drinking Kyle’s blood.
The weight of your life has increased.
【Disaster, Kyle Torben.】
The stars also gave her an answer.
【Subdue the born disaster.】
Kill your hometown friend who sacrificed himself for you.
Look at the burden you carry on your shoulders.
Face the life you are responsible for.
“I, I…”
Raniel, who lost the opportunity, collapsed.
“I didn’t want this.”
The chain I thought was a little loose.
The obsession she had.
Mangaji pressed down hard on Raniel’s shoulder. Unlike in the past when he could bear that weight, the current Raniel cannot bear that weight. In the end, Raniel fell to his knees and was unable to stand up again.
“I said no.”
Raniel laughed.
The laughter that came out dried up.
2.
I didn’t talk to Rossell.
I didn’t even talk to Cardi.
Without saying a word, Raniel returned to the room. There was no one to stop her as she walked.
“······.”
Raniel was sitting on the bed, looking down at his hands blankly. Hands where starlight blooms. He looked like he was going to cut his wrist, but he only recovered quickly.
Star Blessing.
It is a blessing that a warrior has.
It becomes the source of the warriors’ physical abilities that surpass humans and their monstrous resilience. At one time, this was what Raniel had hoped for.
“I’m jealous, you bastard.”
“If I had been blessed like you, I wouldn’t have gone through all this trouble. Look at your arms shaking. “I’m going to die from pain.”
I remembered grumbling to Kyle.
It was said as a joke, but now it has a completely different meaning. I had a terrible feeling that what I had said had come true.
···If you think about it, yes.
Isn’t this all what I wanted?
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“If only there was starlight, we wouldn’t have to go through this trouble.”
“Yeah well, honestly, I’m jealous.”
Starlight was given to the person who said that.
“stand up.”
“Hold the sword.”
“Stand up, you son of a bitch.”
As he had hoped, Kyle stood up.
As hoped, Kyle held the sword.
“If you don’t do it, who will?”
“You have to do it. Don’t you know that if you give up here, you’ll end up in nothing? “You probably know, you asshole.”
“So, stand up.”
“Hold your sword and do what you must.”
“Follow your duties as a hero.”
As he had hoped, Kyle fulfilled his duties as a warrior. So wonderfully. To the point where he couldn’t even say anything anymore.
“Let’s subdue the demon lord.”
“You said let’s subdue the demon lord.”
“You want to achieve a feat that no one can ignore? Let’s be recognized by everyone. Let’s take revenge on the villagers. Was that all a lie?”
Raniel looked away without saying a word.
She looked at the necklace on the shelf.
A necklace salvaged from the ashes of my hometown.
I remembered the promise Kyle had muttered in front of this necklace, and the image of myself holding Kyle by the collar while saying that promise.
“You said that and brought me here.”
“If you make a promise, you have to keep it.”
Kyle kept that promise, too.
He fulfilled his duty as a warrior by cutting down the demon king.
We have achieved a feat that everyone will praise.
“aha.”
Raniel let out a laugh.
Didn’t everything really come true as you said? Isn’t this all what you wanted? He wished to live, and even that came true.
It’s all done.
My past self is whispering, asking if I wanted it to be like this. You probably didn’t know that the end of life for those who pursued ideals was miserable. You must have felt it keenly at the end of Galahal.
“······.”
Raniel was silent.
I just look at my arms hanging down with empty eyes. There was no strength in my body. We need to look forward and move forward, but Raniel is only looking back at the past.
“You have a debt to pay.”
“I will have to apologize to you someday.”
Have you even paid off that debt?
Is this the apology you are giving me?
Did you really think I would want something like this?
There was a lot I wanted to say, but there was no one to listen to it. Raniel bit his lip. Her lips trembled.
“I’ll see you again next time.”
“I think I can apologize to you then.”
“He said he was sorry.”
Raniel muttered.
Kyle paid off his debt as he pleased.
He became a hero on his own, and achieved Raniel’s wish on his own. He ended up paying for it with his own life.
‘In a place where I am not…’
Raniel has always said this.
I will lead the way, so please follow me if you can. He always said that while looking back. But what about now? When I look back, there is no one.
Galahaldo was walking next to him.
Kyle was also stopped behind.
Now everyone has gotten ahead of themselves. But even if I turn my head and look ahead, I can’t find them. They are nowhere to be seen.
I was alone.
I was completely alone.
‘···I need to move.’
Raniel looked at his legs with empty eyes. Now he can stand with both feet on the ground. I have the strength to do so. When you were lying down, didn’t you wish you could stand up so much?
Now that I can stand up, shouldn’t I stand up and do something?
But Raniel cannot stand up.
I know there is a lot of work to be done.
There were so many things to be responsible for. He also knew what to do with that first button. Ran El opened her mouth. He continued speaking in a trembling voice.
“You must kill him.”
You must kill Kyle Torben.
“…Before he was called a disaster, when he hadn’t done anything yet. “We have to kill him now.”
But how and who?
“I.”
I received a star from this guy.
“I have to kill Kyle.”
I have to kill him.
The moment he said what he had to do, Raniel’s expression fell. Her shoulders trembled slightly. The sound of her swallowing her breath, the sound of her suppressed breathing, came out.
can not.
Raniel muttered.
I can’t do it.
3.
A few days passed.
Cardi lit up the candle with wide eyes. It was the first tobacco to be burned in hundreds of years. As I was burning the tobacco, I remembered old times.
“Just keep the door open. Anyway, are all wizards like this? The air is stuffy!”
A cheeky girl who came to visit him.
The girl from the church who was just learning the basics of sacred arts and spells came to Cardi’s Magic Tower and caused a scene.
“Stop spreading that. “I’m suffocating.”
“It’s my heart. To begin with, this is my lab. “Aren’t you the one who came here?”
“Anyway, stop unfolding.”
I remembered the face of the girl who was smiling after breaking the lit tobacco with sacred magic. She was so dumbfounded at the time that it looked like she had eaten chestnuts on her forehead.
‘···I made such a fuss that I ended up quitting.’
In the end, the girl quit smoking as she had hoped, but a few years later, as an adult, she said to Cardi:
“I liked smoking Cardio because it had a decadent flavor. Do you want to burn it again? “I want to see those sunken eyes again.”
「······.」
“What are those eyes? Why do you look at me with such disdain?”
“That’s because it’s ridiculous.”
I was so embarrassed that I didn’t smoke even though I decided to come.
When I think about it now, that too is a memory.
It was the beginning of the year I quit smoking and never burned again. Even after losing her Gleria, every time she looked at her tobacco, she remembered her muttering, ‘Don’t smoke it,’ so Cardi never touched her tobacco.
But now, hundreds of years have passed.
Cardi eventually tried his hand again at the beginning of the year. Cardi muttered, spitting out smoke with bulging eyes.
“That’s right.”
It’s really f*cking outrageous.
As Raniel from the future said, the current Raniel is broken. More seriously than Cardi thought.
She is just left hanging in her room, like a doll whose strings have been cut. As she looked down at the ground with her hollow eyes, Cardi saw a glimpse of her past.
The person who lost everything and let go of everything.
Cardi encountered her past self in Raniel. He kept sighing. His lungs ached with every breath he took. Cardi couldn’t figure out what to say to her.
Because I couldn’t completely shake it off myself.
Cardi knows because she experienced it too.
There was only one person who could raise Raniel from that state. And that’s not Cardi. It is Raniel himself. Only her own thoughts and her own conclusions will be able to raise her up.
‘Only yourself…’
Cardi, who was mumbling to herself, narrowed her eyes. I listened to her. Because someone was walking towards her dilapidated store.
“···No, it’s not like there’s only one person.”
myself.
There is one more person in this era that Raniel can call that. When I looked at the time, ten days had already passed since then.
The promised time has come.
Someone knocked on the door, and Cardi opened it.
“Are you here?”
Cardi laughed bitterly.
“Raniel.”
“I can tell what happened just by looking at your eyes.”
Raniel, who came from the future, also had a similar expression to Cardi. She faced Cardi with a more blurred look.
“But you too… seem to have changed a bit.”
But Cardi saw.
A group of pale lights in Raniel’s eyes.
“huh.”
Raniel laughed.
“Maybe there is an answer.”
She smiled like the Raniel she knew.
Raniel from the future was making an expression that cannot be found on the current Raniel.
“So please guide me.”
The Ash Goddess said.
“I think you should go grab me by the collar.”
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fantasy,
