148 – Soldier (14)
“hahahahaha! Okay, well thought out! Now I’m starting to like it!”
The old man’s expression, which had been like wood and stone, was completely relaxed.
“You idiot! Well thought out…!”
He chuckled and squeezed the muscles in his dry, rag-like face to his heart’s content.
“Yes! Let’s burn the World Tree right now.”
“I like children!”
Eva also joined him with a broad smile. She clapped and clapped, raising her voice innocently like a child preparing for a prank.
“This Shibural tree for firewood… Wait.”
Eva, who was shouting excitedly, shut her mouth. In her excitement, she almost overlooked something important.
“How?”
The old man was sure that Iva could burn the World Tree. But Iba still had no idea what to do so she could burn the World Tree.
Even if I turn my gaze, all I can see is empty space. It was a space infinitely close to infinity. What should I do to burn this place? It was a question. I didn’t even know how to get out of this place in the first place. I just came with the mindset that a prophet would take me out when the time came.
“You bastard, of course I know that. Don’t worry.”
The old man grinned and shook his hand and told me not to worry.
Eva smiled again. Although her enthusiasm, which had been burning at best, had cooled down a little, she did not erase her great mission of feeding taffy to others, and she still ignited the fire in his heart.
“You have to leave first.”
“You don’t know how to get out?”
“I know that too.”
As the same conversation as before seemed likely to be repeated, the old man spoke once more.
“Idiot, if you only have the power of Reverse Heaven, you can definitely destroy it. The World Tree can definitely be burned. Even if it’s an eternal demon, it won’t last forever. Trust me.”
The old man laughed. She cried at the same time.
Even if it is an eternal demon, it is not eternal.
In order to prove that proposition, I jingly increased my life.
The old man recalled the past. He even forgot his name, but he couldn’t forget his experience.
An elf was a long-lived species who was reincarnated here and lived as a prophet.
It was a luxurious life.
Manipulating the giants who don’t fit my subject behind, and staying behind safely. He lived in luxurious darkness.
There was a lot of hard work, but the sense of accomplishment after the work was over gave me more happiness.
Above all, a sense of superiority.
The thrill of controlling people from behind the scenes…
I want to be a good person.
I forgot such a goal and lived a long life with low happiness. The elves around him were so stupid that that sense of superiority was added. At one point, I really felt like a god.
This world is a really nice place.
It is a good place because it gives me happiness.
But a few decades ago, all illusions were shattered when a child was sacrificed to the world tree. It happened because they had not been able to predict the runaway of the world tree.
Even in this world, children die for no apparent reason. He still wasn’t a good person to others. Her words, spoken by the prostitute who had been taking the night, echoed in her mind.
By the time the old man realizes that his body will simply die as a result of the prophecy, he finally realizes his original goal.
And the prophecy he made that day was right in front of his eyes.
Demon king candidate. Another person comes from the previous world.
The old man was ashamed. Is it right that he shows this as the one who came first? He must have come with a promise to listen to his teacher, but as a senior, should he show himself walking in place like this?
It can’t be like this right now. The wind, not knowing where it was coming from, brushed the old man nervously.
These stupid elves celebrate the horrific act of killing a child as a sacred ritual.
You are the only one in this elven forest with a normal sense of ethics.
So only I can do it.
If you burn that ominous tree, you will do good to the world with your own will.
That’s how I fulfill my original desire.
The old man chose good deeds as his last thing to do before he died. Thoroughly self-satisfying good deeds.
“…You idiot. You asked. If you can change the world, change yourself first. But that’s an overestimation of me.”
“What are you talking about all of a sudden?”
Before making a disciple, he gathered the desired information by repeating the prophecy countless times.
I handed over this role to a girl with the gift of prophecy and told many truths.
“I can’t even change myself…”
“So what are you talking about all of a sudden?”
She borrowed her right and put her body inside the world tree. A long time ago, her body, which was supposed to die, borrowed the power of the demon to be killed and enjoyed her longevity.
Here and now by extending his life like that.
The chance to fulfill her primal desire lies before her eyes.
“Finally… You can change me.”
A red line crossed the floor from under the old man. In the white nothingness, lines passed without a single break and drew stars.
The pentagram.
One of the representative patterns drawn on the magic circle. Satan is an eternal symbol often used to symbolize the devil. A circle is drawn along its vertex. Again, another circle was drawn at regular intervals.
In this way, the circles began to fill the empty floor, drawing parallel lines.
“Listen carefully. What I have drawn now is the fuse. The fuse that will burn the World Tree. Infuse it with the power of the reverse river.”
“Is this all?”
“Can’t you?”
Eva smiled.
“No, it was because it was too small.”
“Pretentiousness.”
The old man continued drawing her circle. The empty space was filled with meaningful patterns one after another.
Come to think of it, why did the world in her own dream resemble the inside of this world tree? Does the inside of the devil all have this structure? Eva didn’t know.
However, there is one thing that can be known when you see the fuse line being drawn endlessly like this. For each line drawn without sound, another sound dies.
The old man’s heartbeat slowly diminished. Looking back on the conversation, he said that being in the World Tree is the way to increase life.
“…”
Iva turned her gaze to the old man again. Sweat began to form on the forehead of the strangely far-sighted old man. The flowers before the arrival of winter seemed to absorb the dew for the last time.
If this fuse is the lifeline of the World Tree,
This line was like the old man’s lifeline.
Eva carved every last look of the old man into his eyes. The line was drawn once again.
**
Under the sky overshadowed by the World Tree, a huge pillar began to be erected. The elves climbed on top of it and started playing with flutes. The melodies they drew became a chain that entangled the field with outsiders.
Lyla was afraid.
She is not subject to mental interference due to her superpowers. Therefore, the current heart meant that it was sincerity deep in the heart, not someone’s interference or a phenomenon caused by the world tree.
Why is my sister here?
What are you talking about that Iba is inside the World Tree?
Why did the world tree suddenly start running wild?
What are the elves doing now?
Ignorance evokes imagination. But there is an ignorance that dares not even imagine. That’s more frightening than plain ignorance. Laila was afraid that she didn’t know anything about what was going on.
I was afraid because I couldn’t keep up with the changes in the world. Because there is a certain mystery in that huge tree, because of what one’s blood and relatives have hidden, and because of what the senior he respects has kept secret, a chain of unknown origin spreads like a wave and throws a lila.
‘I am a dignified person, a great person…’
I tried to come to my senses, remembering the cheering Iba told me, but to no avail. Negative thoughts persisted, thinking that I was weak and useless and that I had been shunned by this kind of information.
‘Why…’
It was a relapse. Diseases that have been gnawing at people for a long time do not go away easily. It always hides to reappear and puts its face in. For Lila, that moment was now.
‘Am I useless…? Wasn’t her older sister or senior not trusting me…? I’m not a kid…’
Negative thinking bit her tail and drove Layla down. She knows this is not the time to be like this, but it was her head, not her heart. Emotions are not rationally controlled.
“You want me to go there right now?!”
“Didn’t I tell you it’s impossible!”
The Prophet was continuing a war of words with Stella.
“Then take out the Iva!”
“That’s…”
This was something even the Prophet had been thinking about. Now, twisted as the situation twists. The Prophet couldn’t abandon the thought of breaking his promise and taking out Iva.
‘No. Breaking the promise means that the world tree will no longer be burned.’
She never considered the possibility that even if she broke her promise, she would carry out what Eva had guaranteed.
It was a distrust of humans acquired after a long life in the Great Forest. Elves stood in front of her and praised her for her excellence, then stood behind her and cursed at her. It was a habit made by listening to it often.
“Why? Why didn’t it work! Why did you come all the way here!”
“That’s… That’s…”
The Prophet wanted to ask his master who had already died. What should I do? She hadn’t the slightest idea that she would be alive and well in the world tree. Because he described the inside of the world tree as a ‘place to die’ before going there.
Her teacher was one of the only people she trusted.
Confused by Stella’s urging, she looked away and saw a pillar being erected around her.
“Uh…?”
Why is that now? Already? These slow elves already?
A chilly feeling welled up.
“Ivar…”
“Let’s run away!”
I instinctively shouted. The people around her looked at her with her sullen gaze.
“That’s a ritual offering sacrifices to the World Tree! They sacrifice us to calm the World Tree’s rampage… Kuh!”
The Prophet’s body was pressed heavily. So heavy that she couldn’t lift her finger.
This was also a superpower.
However, unlike before, it was an ability that I had in my memory.
It is the village chief’s ability.
The Prophet immediately realized.
‘I was thinking of offering it as a sacrifice as soon as I returned from the beginning…!’
He couldn’t touch her because the person accompanying him was a big man who was a candidate for the Demon King, and he must have intended to kill her priestess as soon as she returned to create a new priestess. The Prophet gnashed his teeth.
It wasn’t just the Prophet. She was the same with Stella, who was arguing with her, and Lillia, Wiz, and Innis, who encouraged it without stopping it.
I was upset.
If I had slept properly, if I had developed my stamina properly, if I had prepared a little more thoroughly.
The person I’ve been wanting for days and nights is in there.
I can’t even touch it.
**
Was it boring to wait for the lines to be drawn, or was it a will?
The old man spoke.
“Idiot.”
“Why?”
In the end, we didn’t reveal a single name to each other until the end. It must be the first trend that I met over a few hundred years, but is there anything regrettable?
“I have a question.”
The old man asked.
“Do I look like a nice person now?”
I had no way of knowing whether he was asking because he was really curious or because he wanted me to know.
“Does he look like a great man who dedicated his life to eliminating the calamity of the world?”
The answer was fixed.
“That’s what you think it is.”
“Ha…”
The old man laughed bitterly.
“That’s what the answer is.”
“Human beings are often defined after death. There is always room for evaluation of a life that is still in progress. No one can intervene in a completed life, so I can make my own judgment.”
I said to the old man who was still not sure.
“But that’s why you can’t judge your own death. It’s your old friend’s life, including death. You name it.”
The old man held his breath for a moment and closed his eyes. He seemed to count my life once again.
“I… Lived thinking only of my own feelings. The reason I saved people through the prophecy was because of a sense of superiority, and there were more lives I ignored than saved. Even playing as a hero under the guise of self-sacrifice now, I ended up caring about others’ evaluations. It’s just a trace.”
I stopped talking and let out a long breath.
“But, but… Even so, I did a good deed. I didn’t do nothing.”
The old man smiled weakly.
“Now I understand what the prostitute meant on that day. Studying was not to improve the stares she would receive from others. It was to obtain an ethical standard that she could satisfy herself. Yes, that’s it.” It was…”
The corner of his mouth went up brightly. Did he invest a lot of life into that smile? The old man’s face turned pale in an instant. It looked like a corpse. It was a skin color that could be compared with this empty paleness.
“After all, she was no different from me.”
The story of a prostitute once upon a time. The old man had been chasing her shadow all his life. He coveted her nobility and tried to follow her or forget her. It may be a hasty guess, but I was so sure.
But now, the old man’s expression was relieved as he realized that there was no difference between him and her.
It was only then that the old man was able to break up with the illness he had been fighting for a long time. It is none other than the disease called ‘inferiority’.
Can I do that? Can I feel so relieved in the end?
I don’t know.
To me, inferiority is not something to be separated from, but something to live with. It’s a piece that makes up a part of me along with cursing.
I thought about it. No answer was given.
“…Enough. Do it now.”
The old man gave her a signal that her line was crossed.
I spread my wings and touched the first line that bloomed around the old man.
Starting with the pentagram, the red lines disappeared and bloody sparks rose instead.
The World Tree began to burn.
Looking at it blankly, I thought.
My first thought after coming here was my wish.
I want to make love last once.
Why did I wish for that wish?