Chapter 69

Author Note: Seraphim, the angels closest to God, whose Hebrew root means 'shining ones', are sometimes interpreted as 'serpents'.

Serpents of venom and flying flames... ─ <Isaiah 30:6 中< p>

*

"It's up to you to decide what answer to give."

There, Rain Gray said that

"But if there is any unintentional misunderstanding, I hope this clears it up."

And those were his last words.

A shot rang out, and the "real" Rain Gray collapsed before my eyes. He falls over the faded remains of the hero at his feet.

With him, the entire landscape returns to life.

"Master!"

"Master!"

I lower my head once more in the revitalized landscape. At the same time, the voices of the troupe members calling for their leader, for some reason, seemed to be directed not at me, but at Rain Gray, who had fallen before my eyes.

"─"

But it wasn't.

The only thing that existed there was the faded remains of a dead hero.

The body of the real Rain Gray, the one who had pointed his magic muzzle at him in the Garden of Original Sin, was nowhere to be found.

That was the end of it....

No answers, no clues, only questions, throwing me back into the labyrinth I had tried so hard to turn my head away from.

"Do you know the biggest difference between a human being and a tool?"

I don't. If I didn't know, that was it. There was no easy answer.

And then, in the midst of my wandering, anguish, and confusion, I heard a familiar voice.

It was the snort of a cocky, manly man.

"It's the boss!"

It was the voice of Chulang Sandalfon. It was an insufferable laugh.

That wasn't the end of it.

"You're amazing...!"

Alice shouted next.

"It's amazing, it's amazing, it's amazing, it's amazing, it's amazing!"

Her eyes lit up like a child's, and she shouted louder and more innocently than ever.

"You're a master!"

"This is why you can't even call it a fight."

Aria chimed in with a bitter laugh, her eyes once again bandaged in black.

"It's just devastation."

She was right.

"-You're a master, after all."

"I agree."

None of the members of the Black Snake there were exempt.

Without question, as if it were a matter of course, as if it were nothing more than what it had always been, blind trust, loyalty, and obedience.

"...."

I, for one, could say nothing. I simply remained silent, as I always had.

In a sense, he wasn't wrong.

The hero now lying before me died at the hands of a troupe whose leader was praised by the members in front of me.

He had fallen at the feet of the real Rain Gray, in the Garden of Original Sin.

But it wasn't me.

I, here, am merely an impersonator playing the real Rain Gray.

A lie that can only remain as a stand-in for the real Rain Gray.

The truth I thought I had accepted and resigned myself to, once again, stabbed me in the heart like a thorn.

"...."

At the same time, I stared at the remains of the fallen hero before me.

It was over.

This was it.

What had I done, to summon a hero to fall so fleetingly?

Just to see the results of my efforts?

At the same time, did the humans crave a hero so much that they would fall in the face of such trials and evil?

This is what they believed in, what they hoped for, what they longed for?

It was futile.

It was the ultimate emptiness, the ultimate nothingness.

Literally, it meant nothing.

I laughed in vain.

So I turned my head without speaking.

I still looked beyond, over the ridge, at my opponents.

The ragtag army of the Holy Kingdom, which had just cheered the arrival of a hero, was meeting a fate no different than any other.

An immortal army of the dead, all of them, had swung their swords, only to fall in a heap.

The hero they so miraculously craved, the hero they so desperately craved, fell at the hands of Rain Gray without even putting up a fight.

I turn my head again.

The faded hero still lay at my feet, unquestionably dead.

Will he rise again? Will he rise and fight again?

Like an apostle of justice, unbowed in the face of evil, rising to fight to the end.

That's what I thought for a moment.

It was a fleeting, meaningless thought, like a delusion.

There was no such thing as a fallen hero rising.

At the same time, there was no longer even a reason to shed rivers of blood through the sacrifices of the innocents there.

I am not a bloodthirsty killer. I don't want blood spilled for nothing, for no reason.

At the same time, I realized that I was an evil who didn't care how many people died as long as I had a reason to shed blood.

That fact made me smile even more bitterly.

Now, once again, I must stop the senseless slaughter of the Duchy's army and save the innocent victims of the Holy Kingdom?

What sense is there in that action?

What had I expected and allowed myself to be blindsided by all of this?

What was the point of the deaths of those who had piled up a sea of blood until it reached my chin, just to summon a hero who would be slaughtered in front of the real Rain Gray?

In seeing the hero appear there, in seeing his death, had I gained something I had hoped for?

There was nothing.

No meaning.

There was only a world full of chaos that cried out for a hero, and a hell where even the hero it called out to would die a meaningless dog's death.

An ending that offered no redemption, no salvation, no relief in the face of irresistible evil.

"Is ...enough?"

I muttered.

"That's about it."

Silan laughed in disbelief at that.

"─Compared to the master."

Once again, the words coming out of his mouth were referring to Rain Gray, not me.

What should I say?

"...is meaningless."

That was my answer.

The literal answer.

"Right!"

Silan laughed when he heard that because it was indeed literal.

"Nothing in the world means anything in front of him."

Nothing means anything in front of Rain Gray. I fell silent after hearing those words.

He was right.

For nothing that appeared before me had meaning in the presence of Rain Gray.

Not the hero, not the question, not the wanderings, not even all the things I believed to be enlightenment.

"...Jeanne."

So I bravely opened my mouth.

"Alas, you have finally called for me."

As if she had been waiting for those words, the Black Saint smiled and replied. With a voice that said that she couldn't stand the sound of me calling her because it was so lovely.

"Stand by the side of the...Holy Kingdom, and repel the Duchy's army as it is."

And so, without hesitation, I gave the order.

And my puppet, who would carry out any order.

"As my master wishes-"

That was the name Jeanne called me.

It wasn't because of the slave's imprint or the gilding on her body.

She chose to kneel at my feet of her own free will, from the deepest depths of her being.

At the same time, her loyalty is no different than that of any other member of the group who has ever given their all, blinded by the sight of Rain Gray.

I felt obligated to return that blind loyalty and devotion the man did not.

To him, the loyalty of the troupe, the submission of the blind, was no more or less than to be used and discarded as needed.

─He only wished for the destruction of this world.

Even that desire has now lost its meaning, and he has vanished from my sight.

Somehow, I could intuit it.

No matter how many times I recited the Garden of Original Sin, the words no longer held any meaning.

Was he really gone forever?

The unknowable questions ebb and flow again.

In the midst of these questions, I turned my head away wordlessly.

The next thing I knew, the holy maiden Jeanne had become the new 'hero' of the kingdom's army, leaving behind the remains of a hero born and called by human longing.

I stared down at the remains of the fallen hero without speaking.

Just for a hero to fall in vain like this...did humans crave and cry out for <heroes > so much?

Did I wish for blood and death to such an absurd degree all these years, just for a hero who would fall in vain like this?

Everything has become unknowable.

Even the word evil, the evil I have been playing myself, has no meaning.

─I wish I had a clear purpose to fulfill.

Like a quest in a game, a goal that was clearer than anything else I had to do in this world.

Unfortunately, there is no such thing.

I'm just thrown into this world with no questions, no answers, and no purpose.

I was here without any reason or purpose to exist-

'...purpose.'

I don't think about it, I realize it.

"Do you know the biggest difference between a human and a tool?"

That's the answer to Rain Gray's question.