〈 Episode 351 〉 Me to myself (2)
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Raniel raised his head and looked ahead.
There was a woman standing there. She is a woman with pale white hair and blue eyes.
“Nice to meet you, Raniel van Trias.”
She said.
“I am you. “You are from 13 years in the future.”
It came from the future.
Raniel’s gaze as he looked at her wavered. What do you mean, you came from the future? She clearly resembled the woman in front of her. Although it feels like looking in a mirror…
There’s no way that would be possible, right?
As he was about to mumble, Raniel saw a figure standing behind a woman who claimed to be from the future. Cardi stands there with wide eyes.
“Nod,” Cardi nodded.
“Shall we sit down first?”
Raniel, who came from the future, took a step forward.
She smiled vaguely as she looked around the room, as if she had visited her old hometown. She dragged the chair that had been placed in her corner and sat down in front of Raniel.
“You look like you have a lot to ask.”
Of course there were a lot.
Why did she, who is said to have come from 13 years in the future, appear in front of me at this time? What are you trying to tell me? How in the first place?
···one of them.
So, it seemed like he knew the answer to why he came to him at this time… but Raniel didn’t think about it too deeply any longer. He didn’t want to face the truth, so he stayed silent.
“Okay, where should I start?”
In front of the silent Raniel, the Goddess of Ash let out a short breath. After a moment of contemplation, she opened her mouth. To tell her what she hates to hear the most. For her to thrust in front of her the truth she may have been ignoring.
“The Sword of Reverse Heaven, Kyle Torben.”
Raniel’s shoulders trembled briefly.
The Goddess of Ash spoke calmly.
“I killed Kyle.”
and.
“It took 10 years and 178 days to kill Kyle. And, my world was destroyed. “No one is alive except me.”
destroyed.
Raniel gasped at those words. When she wanted to ask what that meant, the Ash Goddess plainly pressed her truth.
“I told you. “It took 10 years and 178 days.”
“···that.”
“The disaster was caught too late, so all that was left in the world was a land of death. Land where no crops grow. A land where life has become uninhabitable. “Okay, would it be easier to understand if I told you this?”
The Ash Goddess muttered.
“80% of the world has become demonic because of Kyle Torben. “The remaining 20% were reduced to ashes during the subjugation of Kyle Torben.”
therefore.
“The world was destroyed by Kyle Torben.”
Raniel’s expression fell.
The Goddess of Ash smiled bitterly as she faced him.
“That’s the future you have to live through.”
And then he added a word.
“The future you will face if you don’t kill Kyle right away.”
2.
If we don’t kill Kyle, the world will perish.
The person from the future says so. Ran El bit his lip and lowered his head.
“···I know.”
Raniel muttered.
I already knew that much.
He knew that he had to kill Kyle before he became a disaster, and that if there was anyone who could do that, it was only him.
“Even if you don’t say it, I know I have to kill you. “I know that only I can do it.”
but.
“I know. “I know, but…”
“How can I kill you? “How could I kill Kyle, who gave his life to save me, with my own hands?”
The Goddess of Ash cut off Raniel’s words.
She scraped out all the words that Raniel had kept inside her and spit them out.
“···you.”
Raniel slowly raised his head.
I saw my future self looking at me.
My future self had a pained expression on her face. The Goddess of Ash smiled bitterly and said.
“You think so, right?”
“······.”
“I know. I told you. You are from 13 years in the future. I thought the same as you… and hesitated the same way. To be honest, it was worse than you.”
“···It was bad?”
“Because Kyle failed in my world.”
The Ash Goddess said.
“I was the one who made you sleep that day. “It was me, not Kyle, who collaborated with Cardi.”
Raniel opened his eyes wide.
He stretched out his hand and grabbed the collar in front of him.
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The anger that burned for a moment moved Raniel’s helpless body. Raniel said as if he was holding on to the collar and widening his eyes.
“Was it your doing?”
“Because I had to.”
“Don’t you know that I wouldn’t want this? “I know, I’ve experienced it so I know…”
“know. “I know, I did that.”
The Ash Goddess said expressionlessly.
“It will go wild. They’ll be screaming at me to solve this. I’m going to raise my voice to get rid of it right away, and if that doesn’t work, I’m going to end up crying and begging Kyle later. And then in the end, he will even attempt suicide.”
Although he speaks expressionlessly and calmly, it is all about experience. Raniel couldn’t even guess how much time it would have taken to be able to say that calmly.
Poison leaked from her mouth.
Words filled with strong poison, extreme poison, poured out plainly.
“Nothing can stop Kyle. Rather, everything you say will only disturb Kyle. “It makes him shake.”
“Well, what…”
“Kyle was rocked in my world. “The current Kyle succeeded in inflicting a blow to the Demon King… but in my world, even that was mediocre.”
Moderate success.
Completion of a half-baked contract.
“I became a half-baby, and Kyle became a worse disaster than the one you faced right now.”
“that.”
“That’s the worst. “This is the worst.”
worst case.
“I thought Kyle failed because of me. “Kyle became a disaster because of me, and I feel like all these tragedies are happening because of me.”
If you end up feeling that way.
If you end up thinking that way.
“Even breathing becomes painful. Being alive itself feels like hell. Everything you see is hell. Every word and news I hear is absolutely terrible. Everyone calls Kyle a disaster. “Actually, it’s because of me, but Kyle achieved a great feat, and without knowing it, they try to criticize Kyle.”
Because hearing and seeing all that is like hell.
“So I dug out my eyes and plucked my ears.”
The Ash Goddess lifted her hair.
Her short hair was flowing. She smiled, showing the nape of her neck and ears to Raniel. There remained a scar from multiple self-harms.
A scar that does not disappear no matter how many times it is regenerated.
“It will stick together quickly. “You experienced it too, right?”
That’s what a warrior’s blessing is.
Mumbling that, the Ash Goddess pointed to the nape of Raniel’s neck. Her still unscarred neck.
“So I put you to sleep.”
“···still.”
“Sorry. But I thought there was no other way. “I put you to bed and tried to persuade Kyle, but…”
“…I guess I wasn’t convinced.”
“Yeah, it didn’t work. “You’re so stubborn.”
The Ash Goddess exhaled.
The breath I let out was hot. To her, it happened a little while ago. She muttered, tracing her all-too-vivid memories of her.
“I thought it was because I failed to persuade. As expected, it happens like this. “It flows the same way.”
So I thought like this.
“Then I guess we’ll have to come up with a second plan.”
Cardi was silent.
The Ash Goddess continued speaking.
“I guess I should leap ten days into the future and say to my past self, ‘I have to kill Kyle Torben.’ “I have to explain everything about my past and what will be your future, and force you to kill Kyle, who has become a disaster.”
The Goddess of Ash looked at Raniel.
“Don’t hesitate and kill Kyle. “Don’t hesitate like I did and make sure it gets to the end.”
Before he knew it, Raniel had let go of the collar he was holding. He was looking at the floor with his arms hanging limply. Looking at her like that, the Ash Goddess continued her words.
“I meant to say that.”
As if there was still more to talk about.
“I changed my mind. “The future has changed.”
The possibilities he saw.
She opened her mouth to say it.
3.
Raniel van Dragonig.
After walking through hell for so long that she was worn out, she was confident that the future would not change. She thought it was impossible to make a choice without regret. Because the 13 years she endured made her that way.
When he returned to the past 13 years ago, Raniel was predicting the future perfectly.
The future is unhappy.
All that awaits you is hell.
So he must die here. If you don’t die… you will end up walking through another hell. That’s what Raniel was sure of.
“I will resist until the end.”
but.
“Live, Kyle.”
The future she knew has changed.
The future that I thought I could predict perfectly was shaken. Now there is no future in her eyes. I didn’t know what would happen next.
Incomplete future.
The future is distorted due to variables.
Although he could no longer see the future, Raniel paradoxically saw possibility. He took another path, not the two paths he had thought of. An ending he could never reach in his own story.
In the end, Raniel gave it the name Choi Seon.
Those were words that Raniel had never uttered in the past 13 years. I’ve never said it out loud, but I’ve muttered it hundreds of times inside. I muttered this under the assumption that maybe.
Best ending.
But as she pondered the words she could now say out loud, the Goddess of Ash opened her mouth. She told her past self about the possibilities she saw now.
“Kyle resisted even while being swallowed up by the shadow, before it was completed as a disaster. I raised my sword and stabbed myself in the heart. He carved a scar.”
The Ash Goddess pointed to her chest.
“And Sarah planted a seed in Kyle’s scar in exchange for her qualifications as a saint.”
A wound that cannot be erased, a seed about to bloom.
“Because of that, Kyle is a disaster and cannot be perfected. Unlike my past, where I became a perfect vessel and became the new Demon King… Kyle cannot become perfect. “He embraces imperfection.”
“This is it,” the Ash Goddess exhaled briefly.
“It’s a development that never happened in my time. These are things that didn’t happen. So, these are things that happened because of my intervention.”
She said as if she was a little happy about that fact.
“The big picture hasn’t changed, but small variables have emerged. Variables and variables come together to create possibilities.”
The Goddess of Ash moved her lips. She dared to say the words that she had never said in her mouth for the past 13 years. I said it out loud.
“…the possibility of heading towards the best.”
Raniel’s shoulders trembled.
The Goddess of Ash asked Raniel a question.
“Do you know what I mean?”
An incomplete disaster.
The seed of light planted in that heart.
Raniel does not immediately understand the best outcome that can be reached through it.
“for a moment···.”
However, Cardi, who had been waiting for that ending for hundreds of years, realized it right away. The Ash Goddess said, looking back at Cardi who was catching her breath.
“I think Cardi knows?”
“Raniel, that is…”
“Yes, this is the answer you’ve been searching for for hundreds of years.”
The Ash Goddess affirmed.
“The ending that brings disaster back to humans.”
Raniel opened his eyes wide.
Only then did she raise her head. She looked at herself from the future with her trembling eyes.
“that is···.”
Raniel asked back with a trembling voice.
“Is that really true?”
Raniel’s eyes, which had lost their light, and the eyes of the Ash Goddess, who contained light, faced each other. The Goddess of Ash smiled as she looked at the shaking Raniel.
I couldn’t help but laugh.
Because there was light in Raniel’s empty eyes. As if a group of lights in my eyes were reflected in a mirror. The Goddess of Ash spoke to Ran El, who was looking for her original eyes.
“It’s a slim possibility. To be honest, it’s close to impossible. “Because I have to do something ridiculous.”
“···but.”
“But it’s not impossible.”
A possibility that is infinitely close to 0, but is not 0.
Although it is very difficult.
A difficult but worth walking path.
The guide, who had already become a god, opened his mouth to lead her once again to the path that Raniel had always chosen.
“Listen carefully.”
Because these will be my last words.
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fantasy,
