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Eleven hundred and seventeen years.
Time in 1117.
“These seven years are the key.”
Raniel spread out his seven fingers and let out a mischievous laugh. As Akriel blinked her eyes, Raniel mumbled her voice and opened her mouth.
“It is a heroic story that cannot be heard without tears. It is a masterpiece of the times that brings admiration, applause, tears, and shivers when you listen to it.”
“Okay, okay, let’s talk about it.”
When the queen gestured with tired eyes, Raniel smiled and closed his mouth.
“How should I begin the story? The beginning has always been important in things like this.”
“···Can’t we just start roughly?”
“You don’t know anything. You have to apply a lot of force at the beginning. Just wait a moment.”
Raniel, who had been thinking for a while while smoothing his chin, let out a short sigh. This is because a sentence to start the story came to mind.
‘As expected, there is nothing like this.’
Raniel opened his mouth, recalling the monologue he muttered one day seven years ago. He opened his mouth and pronounced. The sentence that opens the story.
“There was a party formed to take down the devil.”
The beginning of the story.
The first sentence thrown.
‘···My collar?’
The queen unconsciously groped her neck.
It was a rather bloody start for her.
Raniel began his story with an introduction.
It is the path she walked, her life, and the stories of the people who passed by her. If it was a heroic story, it was a heroic story, and if it was a military drama, it was a military drama… It was also a story about human growth.
One character.
The story continued with Raniel van Trias at the center.
The self-righteous wizard makes his way alone. I drag a lot of luggage and just want to be perfect on my own. That’s why the wizard was broken. It eventually collapsed. Damn it, the story didn’t end that way.
Even if I walked a self-righteous path, it was a path for others. Wizards always made sacrifices for others.
The path she walked had meaning. Many people gathered to prove him. Those who were helped by a wizard, or survived by a wizard…
Many people gathered to help the wizard.
Thanks to them, the wizard lives once again. In his second life, the wizard did not pursue perfection alone. He realized he couldn’t do that.
“······.”
The queen listened to the wizard’s story.
Perhaps in the story of his distant descendants.
‘···It looks similar.’
The queen laughed inadvertently.
The life story told by the wizard in front of me was, strangely enough, similar to my own life. Because he also lived a self-righteous life. For a very long time.
I thought I had to be perfect on my own.
He thought that he was the only one who could stand against the first madman. I thought that I was the only one who could reach the truth. But it wasn’t. In the end, it wasn’t him who had to face the madman at the last moment.
The reason I stood up to the madman until the end…
“Secretary Rugran.”
These are the talents that you have cultivated.
They were subjects who gathered under his name.
“Belial van Dragonic.”
“Ganikalt van Galatric.”
“Gleria Belle Armias.”
After a long time, I heard the names of people I knew from the mouth of someone who was born later. The queen listened a little more closely to the story told by the person in front of her.
It was interesting. It was fun.
It wasn’t a story he didn’t know.
The path the latter walked was full of traces of his subjects. Every path the latter walked was deeply marked by the footprints of his subjects. Because Huynh ran along the path led by Cardi van Armiel.
“aha.”
The crumpled expression suddenly cleared up.
The queen listened to the story with a smile. She didn’t stop listening and added a word or two.
“As expected, Lord Cardi had a stubborn side. To be honest, it was the same.”
“Was it like that back then?”
“Well, it was more like that. When he first swore allegiance to me, I would have guessed he was 100 or 200 years old. For an elf, he was young.”
“is it so?”
“Hearing your story, it may not seem like it now, but in the time when she lived, there were a lot of elves who lived for a thousand years.”
The queen smiled.
“And yet, he held his weight in front of me as if he had lived for thousands of years. This is a kid who has lived less than two hundred years.”
“bantling?”
“At that time, I had already lived for over nine hundred years. From my perspective, I was a child. It was so funny.”
The queen shrugged her shoulders while Raniel blinked. Nothing has changed in the past or present.
“Anyway, so…”
Raniel continued the story.
Naturally, it wasn’t an enjoyable story. The queen moaned every time she heard about the sins and mistakes of her shadowy subjects.
There was a story created by those sins.
Raniel talked about a superhuman who wanted to become a sword ghost. He spoke of a wizard who was touched by madness but never became a madman, and of countless heroes who had fallen.
The road continued for them.
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Raniel spoke about the starlight that an archmage passed down to future generations, and the warriors who inherited that starlight. A brave warrior who never gave up on himself, a brave warrior whose feats were engraved in reverse, and a warrior worthy of the most courageous warrior.
For them, the road continued.
The story passed the halfway point and reached its conclusion.
The queen heard about the disasters and the fate her subjects faced. At the end, the Queen sighed and she also breathed a sigh of relief.
“is it.”
The apostate becomes a saint.
The saint became a human again.
Gleria was reunited with Cardi and died in the arms of the lover she had longed for so much.
“this.”
The sword of death is a swordsman.
The swordsman becomes a human at the end of the decisive battle.
Ganicalt ended his life as a human in front of the swordsman who defeated him and the hero who turned him back into a human… and as a sword serving the queen.
“Is this the ending you seek?”
The queen let out a soft laugh.
She was a very suspicious woman when I first met her, but now I feel like I know the woman sitting in front of me.
Sitting on the other side of the campfire is a hero.
He is not a hero because he inherited Starlight. I am not a hero because I tried to live as a hero. He is a hero because he dedicated his life to making the dreams of others come true… and because he brought his dreams into reality and achieved his best.
The hero had the appearance of a weak human being.
‘It will have to be that way.’
A faint smile appeared on the queen’s lips.
I know this because I have seen countless heroes. If you peel back the layers, they are just wounded and weak people. The same goes for the girl in front of me.
Even though I was hurt, I just didn’t stop.
I just kept going and achieved it without stopping.
The queen smiled bitterly as she gauged the life lived by the person in front of her. She has had a rough life.
“I’m proud of you.”
Acriel stretched out his hand.
Raniel flinched and his shoulders trembled, but he soon calmly accepted the touch. The Queen stroked the head of her distant descendant.
“It must have been difficult. It must have been very difficult. Aren’t you tired? I know I tell you, but if I had taken the easy path, I would have been able to reach it a long time ago.”
Fingers glided along the gray hair. The Queen lowered her hand and looked at Raniel. Ran El smiled and shook her head.
“That makes no sense, does it?”
“It’s meaningless, la.”
“I know the people who have been fighting for you, for the best outcome, and I couldn’t turn away.”
Because those people shed their blood for me.
Because he sacrificed himself for future generations.
Raniel’s essence is ultimately an obsession engraved in him as a child. Her obsession has not changed over time. She just stopped being buried in it.
“I hope they get something in return.”
That was the best Raniel could say.
“You too.”
Raniel looked at the queen in front of him.
She is the queen who sacrificed herself to protect the continent on the day the shadow was born. Even though she has fallen into the shadows and committed many of her sins, she cannot deny the time she lived as the king of Arcadia.
“Was this a sufficient explanation?”
Why are you doing this?
Raniel answered that question. In response, Akriel let out a long sigh and laughed. She laughed lightly.
“Enough. Nothing more.”
The queen understood the wizard sitting in front of her.
I recognized the will of my subjects in the life she lived. The queen could laugh because she noticed.
“My will was carried out by my subjects, and you, who followed the will of my subjects, have arrived before me…”
Acriel looked at Raniel.
“My life was not meaningless. My sacrifice was also worth it. That is what you are trying to say. Am I right?”
Raniel nodded.
The queen burst out laughing.
I can’t believe I walked such a difficult path just to convey that one word. Isn’t this a truly life-threatening life?
‘Nevertheless.’
Just one word.
The one word I wanted to convey.
“is it···.”
Those words clearly reached me.
The queen laughed. Not every moment of life was beautiful. It was a broken and twisted life. Nevertheless, I was able to consider this moment as beautiful.
“Say hello to Sir Cardi.”
“I think so.”
“Kyle Torben, why don’t you praise him too? To be honest, I still can’t believe it when I hear it. You defeated Lord Ganichalt with a single sword.”
“I’m thinking about buying a drink once everything is finished.”
“Please raise a toast in my wife’s name.”
Raniel chuckled.
The queen smiled and slowly stood up.
“Are you going?”
“It’s about time, isn’t it?”
The queen looked at my crumbling soul.
As time passes, your soul will crumble. However, there was something to do before it crumbled.
“Can I ask one question?”
“As much as you want.”
Acriel stretched out his hand.
He stretched out his hand and pointed beyond the flames. She pointed with her finger at the vengeful spirit writhing in the darkness, unable to cross the border of her fire.
“They.”
If you made it this far, the hero in front of you would also know what that is. The fact that they are the resentment of a race that has been abandoned and suffered by the stars.
So, this was the question.
The last question to the warrior.
“What are those vengeful spirits planning to do?”
The owner of ten thousand horses.
The King of Curses asked the warrior a question.
Kyle Torben lowered his sword.
After Raniel jumped towards the old object, the grasps that were rising from all directions stopped moving. It wasn’t just the grip that stopped. The black rain that fell from the sky, the devil’s true body that was shaking… all of it stopped.
It feels as if time has stopped.
In the silence, Kyle let out a long breath with his sword hanging down. She caught her breath as she glared at the center of her demon lord that Ran El had jumped into.
‘It’s not likely, though.’
If, by any chance, something goes wrong.
If Raniel were to change into something else inside, if the shadows were to overflow…
“Whoa…”
Kyle let out a long breath.
It’s unlikely to happen, but if something like that happens, you’ll also have to be prepared. Even if my body falls apart, I have to turn the tide.
It was around this time that Kyle was catching his breath.
Floating, saying.
In the center of the Demon King, the water was shaking.
Eventually, something surged out of the boiling water. What sprang up was neither a hand nor someone’s new form. A ray of flame erupted.
A thin flame.
A flame appeared that looked as if it would go out at any moment.
However, the flames did not go out.
The unquenched flames gradually spread. The small flame that started from the center of the Demon King gently spread. It was a benevolent flame, like someone’s touch, like a mother caressing her child.
It was a different fire than Raniel’s.
fantasy,
