Side story episode 13
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“I am not in pain.”
“Yes, I would be happy. There is nothing sweeter and more enjoyable than sacrificing oneself for everyone.”
“… … .”
“To sustain this world, how frozen is your heart? How cold, chilling, and frigid is the chill that seeps into your bones? Perhaps it is impossible to describe.”
Dale spoke before the Queen of Winter, as if he were calming down a child who was being unreasonable.
“While my brother was sleeping in the world of ice, I built this winter empire over the course of eons.”
Lize answered.
“In this world, Miss Charlotte and the two children, Lady Sepia, Father and Mother, none of it is fake. For my brother, and for all those whom I and my brother love, I have built the Winter Empire. The things that my brother searched for in the world he was left alone in are in this world.”
Lize cried out sobbing.
“In this world, no one gets hurt, and everyone can be happy until the end of the world with their loved ones. That’s the only way everyone can be happy.”
“… …I know.”
“Then why do you reject this world?”
“Because you’re not here.”
“I am here too!”
Lize shouted. The wind that had been blowing through the area suddenly froze, and a cold air that turned everything into nothing swept in.
“Yes, Lize. Now look around where you are standing.”
Dale said.
“Outside the dream world where everyone is asleep, I will act as a sentinel of solitude for eternity.”
“For the sake of my happiness, my brother, and those we love, I can endure this cold. Until the end of this universe.”
“Your sacrifice is not a sacrifice for us. It is a sacrifice I make for you alone.”
“… … That’s not true.”
“I know what you’re afraid of, Lize.”
Dale said. As always, he was the kind and gentle brother that Lize remembered.
“When you accept the truth that your sacrifice is meaningless, you will be afraid of yourself for having already become irreversible. The future where you will suffer in the cold and bitterness of the apocalypse for eternity without any meaning will be so terrifying.”
“… … !”
Dale said with a bitter smile. At the same time, as a Shadow Lord who was counting Lize’s shadow.
If Dale were to just fall asleep in the Winter Empire, Lize would find some meaning in her sacrifice. But even so, she couldn’t do that.
What awaits at the end of false happiness is ultimately a lie.
“There is no such thing as a dream you don’t wake up from, Lize.”
“… … .”
“It’s time to wake up from the dream.”
Dale said. At those words, Lize’s slender shoulders began to tremble faintly.
“Look straight at my shadow, Lize.”
At those words, the Queen of Winter and Shadows turned her head. In Dale’s shadow, in the shadow of her brother, was the truth of Dale. The truth hidden in the shadow.
Ironically, it was his determination to be willing to give his all for his beloved sister.
“… … What’s different?”
So the Empress of Winter asked back.
“Are you willing to sacrifice yourself again to correct my mistakes and shoulder my foolishness?!”
As if I couldn’t understand.
“Then how is that different from your actions up until now? You denied your sacrifice in front of me as if you were so great, and now you are unilaterally trying to sacrifice yourself!”
In the end, it won’t be any different. That’s why Lize once again gathered her resolve and shouted. Still, Dale didn’t care.
“Lize, I promise you. I can turn everything back.”
It can be reversed. At those words, Lize’s expression became agitated for a moment.
“We can bring you back to this winter empire, and those we love.”
“It’s already too late.”
Lize shook her head and said.
“Unless one of us sacrifices, I can’t right my wrongs. That’s why I don’t want my brother to bear this pain anymore. Even the coldness that feels like my heart is freezing is better than the pain of having to watch my brother sacrifice himself!”
“It’s not too late. Look at my shadow, Lize. Do you still think I’m lying?”
“Because the truth can’t necessarily be the truth.”
Lize said.
“No matter how sincerely you appeal, the contract with her cannot be reversed.”
“It must have been very painful.”
At the same time, the eight circles and shadow circles surrounding Dale began to accelerate. Dale spoke in the cold and darkness.
“But none of it is your fault.”
I understood the pain that Lize must have suffered in the midst of one-sided self-sacrifice and one-sided narcissism that did not consider others.
“Because from the beginning, this was my fault, and it was my fault that I had to take responsibility for.”
And now, Dale’s sacrifice to correct Lize’s mistake was causing her pain again.
─ Let’s play a game with me. A game to protect the things that my brother loves.
─ I’m just curious. Which ‘truth’ is more truthful, that child’s or that brother’s?
There were two Shadow Lords there, both revealing their truths to each other from within their shadows.
Despite that, nothing changed.
“The bet is off, Shub.”
Dale opened his mouth coldly.
─ What’s over?
Just then, the girl next to Dale asked back. The girl with the black goat horns tilted her head as if she couldn’t understand.
Countless tentacles writhed beneath her dress.
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“Because here lies the truest truth in the world.”
─ I can’t believe it until I see it.
Shub giggled happily.
─ Come and show me the ‘shape of truth’.
“Then take it.”
Dale said. For a moment, Lize swallowed her breath, unable to fathom what it meant, and at the same time, tentacles sprouted from under the hem of Shub’s dress.
Phew!
The tentacles sank. Towards Dale. And towards Lize.
It was not a sacrifice of any kind. Because no sacrifice of any kind can give the answer that the old dark mother desires.
“… … !”
The eyes that fathom the truth held by the two Shadow Lords. The eyes that face the most truthful truth in the world like a mirror.
─ That’s right, children of truth.
The old dark mother raised her voice in joy and glee.
Countless pitch-black tentacles writhed, and the winter empire began to crumble.
─ In the countless eons of life, how foolish and lovely you humans are!
Unfortunately, Dale couldn’t see the view. Neither could Lize.
“Ahead… … ”
Just then, a voice was heard.
“It’s… dark ahead, Brother. Where, where are you?”
It was Lize’s voice, sobbing like a child. That’s why Dale reached out.
“Lize, stay here.”
Likewise, I struggle with my arms outstretched in the darkness.
My senses were strangely dark. Even though I could barely see in front of me, it felt like all my five senses were engulfed in darkness and lost.
The loneliness of being left alone in the darkness.
A crying sound was heard. It was Lize’s crying sound.
In the shadows, Dale reached out toward the sound. He felt it. It was so cold and chilling, it felt like his heart was freezing.
Lize was sobbing silently beside Dale.
The Empire of Winter fell, and within it Dale embraced Lize.
Beyond the skin that was as cold as ice, I felt a faint, beating warmth.
* * *
“Are you awake?”
I came to consciousness in the darkness and light poured down.
‘light……?’
Dale sat up in a hurry at the sensation he couldn’t feel.
“Uncle Dale!”
He heard Yuffie’s voice calling him urgently. He turned his head and light seeped through his eyelids. For a moment, the light blurred his vision, and only then did an image begin to form on his retina.
Upi, and the leader of the revolutionary army and the Golden Lord… … Ray Yuris appeared.
“Why.”
Dale muttered softly. In the world beyond the gate, he remembered what Dale had offered.
─ It’s just a brief respite.
Just then, a voice was heard from nearby. Dale quickly turned his head.
There was a girl with goat horns there.
─ Until I take what I have to take, go and explore the world to your heart’s content, child of truth.
It was scary to think that she was a girl, but the old dark mother whispered affectionately.
“… … .”
As soon as he heard those words, Dale got up without hesitation.
“Have you found the answer?”
Ray Yuris asked back.
“How much did you know?”
“I do not know the truth. I only know lies. And that world… … .”
Ray Yuris said.
“It was overflowing with countless lies. I just knew it.”
“… … .”
Dale was silent.
“Was the technology of the old empire being unearthed something you obtained by peeking into that world of lies?”
“Yes, but now it all means nothing. The revolution, the gold and shadows, even the Ninth Reich.”
“Why is that?”
“Because the empire of black gold has risen from the bottom of the sea of history.”
Ray Uris said. Dale held his breath for a moment at those words, then asked back blandly.
“So what are you going to do from now on?”
“Although I am leading the revolution, I am not the one who moves the wheels of this revolution.”
Ray Yuris said.
“Just as my father once rolled the bloody wheel and recorded history, I too will simply record it with my blood by standing beside history.”
“… … My history is over. The same goes for the Empire of Black Gold.”
Dale answered.
“So at least, there won’t be anything more to record about us in your book.”
“I hope so.”
Ray Uris smiled, and Dale turned away.
“But will that really happen?”
The Golden Lord asked back to Dale, who was turning his back.
“Let’s go, Miss Upi.”
“Oh, where to?”
At Dale’s words, Upi quickly got up and asked.
“Home.”
Dale answered.
* * *
Revolution or Emperor? Dale and Yuffie set out on a journey, leaving behind the endlessly rolling wheel of history.
Towards the end of the world, to the ruins of an ancient empire that has disappeared into history.
As we approached the northern part of the continent, the absurd tales of the rich and famous began to resonate endlessly.
When I first woke up alone in this world, I remembered the empty, rippling sea of the North Sea. The night sea that held endless darkness beyond the horizon.
But there was no longer anything like the empty, rippling sea there.
There was a land.
A remote northern land, a land of the other world that once waited silently for its time for revenge.
The domain of the Duke of Saxony and the former seat of the empire ruled by the Emperor of Black Gold.
As Dale had once done, the winter of that land began to melt and time, which had stood still, began to move.
A man and a girl stepped onto the ground, and the spring sunlight poured down on the cold ground.
