Chapter 226

"Are you just going to sit here and wait to die?" Ash spat the words out as he stood before Damien.

Damien realized it—these were his own memories.

"So? Planning to gracefully kick the bucket by giving up and doing nothing?"

But when... when had they had this conversation?

"I'm going to fight! I will struggle and contemplate until my last moment!"

He couldn't recall when this dialogue had occurred.

"If you want to die without a fight, then take this sword and slit your own throat right now."

His memory was, for some reason, blocked—

"Stop!"

Just then, Ban rushed over and tightly embraced Damien.

"Don't listen, Damien!"

Ban's trembling hands covered both of Damien's ears.

"You're just tired and worn out. That's why you're hearing nonsense. It's okay. I'm here."

"…"

"I will grow old and die with you. Always and forever, I'll be with you. So—"

As Damien looked into Ban's eyes, his gaze shifted back to Ash.

"My…"

Ash was saying something, his lips curling into a sly smile.

Although he couldn't hear Ash's voice due to Ban's hands covering his ears, he could clearly make out the shape of Ash's lips.

"…just be my trigger."

Trigger?

Damien blinked in confusion.

Was he talking about the mechanism that fires a gun? But he'd never held a gun in his entire life—

"Huh?"

Damien looked down at his hands. In his old, wrinkled, and dry hands, something shaped like a long-barreled gun was forming. 

It felt strangely familiar, as if he'd held it for a very long time.

Damien looked up again. Ash had already vanished. The grandchildren who had followed their father were gone as well, disappeared like a mirage.

Staggering, Damien managed to get out of bed. His aged legs, weakened by illness, suddenly gained strength. His bent back straightened, despite the pain. It had been a long time since he could move without a wheelchair.

"No, honey!"

Ban screamed, trying to stop him. But Damien brushed off Ban's hand and got up.

And the moment he stepped out of his room—

A sound like sand being swept away by the tide filled the air, and the world began to crumble.

The mansion where they'd spent their twilight years began to disintegrate, its pieces soaring into the sky like they were caught in a storm.

Standing at the entrance of the crumbling mansion, Damien looked down at the city where he'd lived his entire life.

The world was falling apart.

Pieces of it crumbled like puzzle pieces, some sinking into the ground, others rising into the sky.

Then, Damien realized.

I see. 

So this was a dream all along.

"No."

A voice came from behind him. Damien turned around.

"You can't go, Damien."

There stood Ban. 

Her face was wrinkled and marked by age, but to Damien, she still had the most beautiful face in the world. Ban was crying.

"It was you who said we shouldn't go on any more adventures, Damien!"

"…"

"Don't go back. That place is nothing but sorrow and torment."

"…"

"The hell waiting for you is real! Damien, please!"

Then, Damien gave a faint smile through his wrinkled lips.

"I'm sorry, Ban. My dream was to grow old peacefully with you... but I can't."

"Why?! It was your dream. Here, you can live as you wish, as you've always wanted. So why!"

"I remember the last thing you said to me."

The will Ban had left behind.

- Don't forget the promise we made then.

Dawn of the day they escaped the orphanage.

The promise they shared with their first kiss.

"Let's explore the entire outside world. Let's take in all this vast world with our eyes."

I remember.

I cannot forget.

"This place may be happy, but the real you didn't want to live this way."

"..."

"So, I have to go."

Staggering, Damien used his rifle to steady himself on the ground.

"Because I made a promise with you."

The aged Damien began to walk forward.

Into the crumbling world, without hesitation.

Whooosh!

As Damien walked through the city center, fragments of the shattered world turned to dust and scattered around him.

The theater where he and Ban used to hold hands.

The regular restaurant where they never got to try every item on the menu, the Merchant Guild building where they had worked all their lives.

The park they visited every weekend, the square where he proposed on his knees during the autumn festival, the semi-basement room where their honeymoon began...

Everything turned to dust and disappeared.

Each time, the old Damien grew younger.

The tall, faded stairway leading to their semi-basement home.

The cup they both used, the vase where Ban would place flowers every Monday, the lines drawn on the wall as their son grew taller, the bed where they lay hand in hand, whispering love...

Memories,

Disappeared.

Vanished without a trace.

The now-younger Damien did not cry.

Resolutely crushing the dream in which he had been happy, he managed to hold back his tears and kept walking.

***

When Damien came to his senses, it was dawn on the day they had escaped from the orphanage.

The younger Damien and Ban stood again at the peak of the mountain.

"Don't go... you can't go..."

Ban was crying, her face covered with both hands.

"Ban."

Damien spoke softly as he looked at the girl he had loved.

"After this, we become mercenaries. It's one of the few jobs we, who have nothing, can do. But it also suits our purpose of wandering and adventuring around the world."

"..."

"You quickly gain recognition as an exceptional swordsman. I was not as gifted, but I become a healer and partner with you."

"..."

"We go through every hardship imaginable. Adults look down on us for being young, we get swindled, we nearly die multiple times, get injured, feel pain, suffer and cry..."

Ban looked at Damien with tear-filled eyes. Damien gave a bitter smile.

"After about three years of near-death experiences, just when we're starting to get a foundation, at the age of eighteen."

Damien's eyes trembled as he recalled the painful memory.

"At a forward base south of Crossroad, we get surrounded by a swarm of black spiders. During the battle... you get stabbed by a spider's claw and die."

His voice choked as if he were about to vomit blood, Damien barely spat out the words.

"You died to save me."

"...So you're telling me, you want to go back to that painful reality?"

Ban cried out, sobbing.

"If you wake up from this dream, what awaits you is a nightmarish hell! A living hell crawling with monsters and death! Do you really want to go back there?"

"... The three years I spent as a mercenary with you were suffocatingly difficult."

Was it just the three years as a mercenary?

Even my time in the orphanage as a child had been tormenting.

"Like you said, this world has always been hellish."

Not even once.

Not even once had this world not been a hell.

"... But Ban, you laughed."

Damien recalled how his partner had lived.

Always, in the worst of circumstances.

Even when struggling for breath.

Ban had laughed.

"With pretense. Snickering. You laughed weirdly. Even on the most horrifying days, you laughed like that."

Instead of turning a blind eye to the terrible reality, you laughed it off with pretense.

Ban had confronted this hell without running away.

"That's why I could laugh too. Because you put on a brave face, I could also breathe."

Damien's face looked like he could cry at any moment, but,

"I liked you for that, Ban."

He didn't cry but forced a smile instead.

"... You saved me, and died. My life is a gift from you."

Ban stared blankly at Damien.

"I can't just pretend your sacrifice, your death for me, never happened. Because my life is bound by a promise to you."

Damien clenched his trembling hands into fists.

"I was happy while running away... but breaking my promise with you is more painful than that happiness."

"..."

"I'll go on an adventure to the end of this hellish world. No matter how horrifying or painful it is, I won't run away anymore."

Damien stretched out his hands and grabbed Ban's shoulders, then slowly pulled him into an embrace.

"I'll be back, Ban. To the end of the world."

"..."

"Even if I have to continue the adventure we started together alone."

Ban's body began to shine brightly.

Damien held onto the girl, as light as a feather, even more tightly.

"I really loved you."

Trying to remember the precious touch he would never feel again, he said,

"Goodbye."

Was it an illusion?

It seemed like a pure white smile flashed across Ban's face as he held him close.

'Yes...'

'You won, Damien.'

It felt like he heard Ban's unique, pretentious laugh.

'May luck be with you in your future life.'

'...Nightmare Slayer.'

And left in that place was a single, pure white magic gun.

***

Damien suddenly opened his eyes.

He was on the walls of Crossroad. He looked down at what he was holding dearly in his arms.

It was the magic gun [Black Queen].

However, its appearance had completely changed. The dark aura was gone, and the barrel had turned a dazzling white.

Holding the long gun that seemed to emit its own light, Damien murmured shakily,

"... It feels like I've slept for more than 50 years."

It felt like he had a long, long dream.

Turning to the side, he saw Lilly, drenched in sweat, directing the firing of artifacts. Beside her were the assisting alchemists and Kureha.

Boom! Bam bam bam!

Cannons roared in all directions. Soldiers screamed as they fired the cannons.

Damien, propping up his upper body, asked in a languid voice, 

"How much time has passed?"

Lilly turned back with a sly smile and responded sharply, 

"Slept well, Damien?! You've been out cold for an entire hour!"

One hour.

He had slept for just an hour, but his body felt as heavy as if it had hibernated for decades. Groaning, Damien stood up from his position.

His body was heavy, but his heart was light.

Fully standing up to look over the rampart, Jormungandr was right in front of him. 

The serpent had advanced to a point not even a few dozen meters away from the castle walls.

Grrrrrrr-!

The massive body of the snake pushed right up to the walls, and dust swirled all around.

Boom! Ba-ba-ba-boom!

Soldiers who had formed the final defensive line on top of the walls ceaselessly poured out shells, but the attacks seemed ineffective against the snake's body.

Ash and his party members were doing something atop Jormungandr's head, but they wore frustrated expressions; it appeared things weren't going as planned.

Despair clouded everyone's faces.

Both the soldiers on the walls and the heroes exerting their utmost efforts on the snake's body.

Looking down at all this, Damien spoke to Lilly, 

"I'm going out. Open the gates."

"What?"

Startled by the sudden nonsense, Lilly questioned him incredulously, 

"Don't you see the current situation? How could you ask to open the gates now?"

"I'll stop that snake."

Swish- 

Clang!

Grasping his weapon, the Black Queen, Damien smiled thinly.

"Trust me, Lilly."

It seemed as if stars were shining in the young boy's eyes.

Startled, Lilly stared back at Damien and then shouted,

"Damn it, fine! It's all or nothing!"

She yelled down below the walls,

"Open the gates! Now!"