186 – Advent (4)
The day is hard. I always thought so.
I hold my breath thinking only about holding on. Somehow, I crouch down, promising the next one.
But I never really thought about what happened after that.
All along…
Because I’ve been crouching all the time.
“Isn’t it fun?”
“…….”
I looked down at the screen as if possessed. Small gaming machine.
One button is broken and does not work. The arrow keys are also messed up.
But it was moving. The small ‘I’ beyond the screen.
“I’ll give it to you.”
“…Why?”
“Because I have already woken up over a hundred times! It can be said that he is a deceased person who enjoyed all the contents!”
Han Seo Ah proudly sticks out her chest. I focused on myself in the road screen.
I am still here. But there I am too.
Completely different from me here…
A strong and wonderful myself.
“Games are like life!”
“…Where are you going?”
“If you put in enough effort, you will be rewarded. If you do the impossible, you level up. Awesome isn’t it? It gets stronger and stronger.”
“Is that the end?”
“Eh…? When you become stronger… When you become stronger…”
Han Seo-ah smiled as she blinked her eyes.
“You will be able to see a great ending! A good ending is a gamer’s dream!”
“Good…Ending?”
“Is it fun? Huh? Fun?”
I couldn’t concentrate on the game because I shook my shoulders. But that wasn’t too bad in its own way.
Apart from fun, the driving force that made me dream of tomorrow for the first time.
“…Fun.”
It was the first gift she gave me.
. . .
You subdued all the Guardians. It took quite a while, but unexpectedly, it ended without anyone getting hurt.
“…You.”
Duran scratched her head shyly.
“Did you just pretend to fight?”
“Choi, did you do your best?”
The wind guardian, who was caught with absurd ease, shook his head. The water fox also quietly closed its eyes.
Only the dragon groaned.
“I feel sick… I feel like dying…”
“I won’t die. Cub It’s tough.”
“Huh.”
The situation has been sorted out. It seems that the guardians also did not sincerely wish for the death of the forest queen.
I bowed down. I met the gaze of the smaller wind guardian.
“Where is the Queen?”
“…Before that, a paladin. I have a question for you. What’s your goal What is your purpose?”
“Originally, it was just to interact with the elves…”
I glanced at the red sky.
“Things have changed a bit. We must stop the World Tree from descending. If it comes down, everything will be messed up.”
“……”
The Wind Guardian sighed.
“I hope you have a handful of mercy.”
“This is not a story for you guys who killed people in droves and feasted on their corpses.”
“…It’s a difference of position. The forest queen is innocent. All the ancient forest spirits are his children. They just follow The message of her that flowed through the mouth of her majesty.”
“Just because you are a puppet does not mean that your sins will go away.”
“Then you seem indifferent to this kind of thing?”
“Since I have no intention of sharing nonsensical Zen dialogues, I spit out the location of the queen.”
I growled.
“If you wait any longer, everything will be ruined. Didn’t you lose on purpose because you felt that way too? In the first place, that thing… Can you call something made of human blood and ghosts a world tree?”
“…….”
The Wind Guardian was silent. He raised his hand and pointed elsewhere.
“…Central Plaza. There is an altar we made there.”
I immediately turned around. The Guardian of Wind took Duran’s hand.
“Duran. I’m no longer a damn forest knight… Anyway, it’s still for Your Majesty, right?”
“Yes.”
“I made the situation such a mess, so please. Damn knight somehow…”
The Wind Guardian whispered.
“Please stop His Majesty somehow. Please.”
Duran brushed off his grip.
He took off his foot.
“Leave it to me.”
. . .
The surroundings are quiet. The distant sounds also stopped.
No more noise was heard from the tree spirits. A time when everything seems to have stopped.
The forest queen raised her head. The offerings were sufficient and the ritual was perfect.
There were no variables.
Now the end was near.
“…I am.”
The forest queen leaned her body against her pillar. She felt a movement in her body.
On the contrary, she felt the aura of her bony and twisted body. Her spirit’s energy is at the bottom, and her physical strength is only a handful left.
Even her memory was fading away in her clouding mind.
Eradication of Existence.
The advent of the World Tree, which sucks even the root, sucked everything from the Queen of the Forest.
“A good… Child… Is…”
She asks him who has never called her by her first name. But he doesn’t answer.
It just throbs a little. That was always the case with questions that were not important.
I turned away and ignored it. The voices that came from time to time were infinitely alien and cold.
It was different from the voice in my memory. But even so, the forest queen persevered and persevered.
A person who is capricious and impatient.
It’s not strange at all that the tone of voice has also changed. A long time, well over a thousand years apart.
There is nothing that hasn’t changed in a lot of time. That amount of time was enough to even change her spirit.
…But.
There are some things that haven’t changed.
「Your Majesty.」
A calm voice.
An upright posture.
The person who is the article itself.
I made it in the same shape as the incarnation of the World Tree, but…
A strange knight who was born with the complete opposite.
“…Hey.”
The Queen of the Forest gave a small smile. I laughed when I thought of him. It wasn’t like this just a few months ago, and it was strange, like what had happened to her hair.
He is different from when he thought of the world tree. Unlike having to just embrace her blind love, warmth surges up from the bottom of her chest.
…But.
I shouldn’t have that.
The queen staggered to her feet. A whisper was heard.
-Get started.
In a rather cold tone, the queen moved. She stumbled over and sat down at her altar.
The whole body is torn apart. Something trying to crawl out of the stomach.
The body of the queen of the forest, which became a vessel itself, began to be covered with tree trunks. The roots extending from her body embraced the entire altar.
The consciousness of getting away. Her memories roll down the dark side.
The forest queen gasped. She had never once imagined her death. Even if her spirit dies, she comes back to life, and she comes back to her world with her memories of the past.
But…
This is real death.
-Don’t stop.
Yes.
I won’t stop.
I will become a child loved by you.
The forest queen raised her hand. She raised the ceremonial sword she had laid beside her in her tearing roots.
I wrapped my hands around her hilt. She slowly pulled her back and pointed the tip of her blade against her own chest.
As it is…
All you have to do is stab it like this.
The forest queen stabbed her rattling hand slowly. She felt the eerie movement of her sword as it pierced her clothes and reached her chest.
Clear blood dripped from the slight cut.
– Stab.
A voice whispered.
-Sacrifice for me.
The voice demanded.
-Don’t you want to be loved by me?
The voice commanded.
-Now… It’s over. Entire.
“…Ah…Ah…!”
The forest queen bit her lip. She gave power to the sword that felt on her flesh.
The piercing creepiness. The end of the road you’ve been walking on.
Remembered the Queen of the Forest.
The end of a long, long journey.
It’s not the face of the World Tree, which was the beginning…
「I yearn for Your Majesty.」
The face of the forest knight.
“Your Majesty aaa!!!!”
The sword stopped digging into her chest. The forest queen opened her eyes wide.
The end of the darkening vision. She was seen there She is the existence the Guardians told them to stop.
Her steps were straight.
The gaze was looking at himself as always.
“Your Majesty! Really…!”
He stopped. She whispered, looking up at the altar.
“Do you really… Want that?”
The forest queen opened her mouth. But her voice didn’t come out.
The missing organs have long ceased to act. As the ritual progressed, the body became like a living corpse.
At the peak of consciousness now, I can’t even say the words properly.
But I managed to tear off the root. She dropped her sword and the clinging leaves landed on the floor.
Uncontrollable emotions.
The feeling I kept trying to ignore.
“Your Majesty…! I am…!”
A confession on the battlefield that continues once again.
“I want Your Majesty to be by my side!”
His tone of voice is straightforward and clear, so you can understand it at once.
”Even though I was rejected, I still love you…!”
-Move.
“No matter how much time passes, only you…!”
-Sacrifice your life for me.
“Only you…!”
There is just a heart in the cry.
A pure feeling that you don’t even think about hiding anymore.
Hundreds of years of consistency that even bury whispers and prevent other voices from reaching.
“I love you… Your majesty.”
The forest knight laughed.
“I love you as me, not as an incarnation of the World Tree. Your majesty.”
…Fake.
From noble mtl dot com
The moment when fake becomes real.
The forest queen tried to stand up. She lifted her now unmuscled arm.
A skinny body. Her own reality of having to love someone even at the cost of herself.
But even so…
A feeling that I still miss.
“Duran…I…!”
Pu-wook.
I was speechless.
The queen staggered to her feet and looked down at her.
An old, broken sword protruding from his back through his chest. A symbol of Garnet’s calamity that has been repaired and raised again and again.
“To make everything happen as never happened…”
The lord of the castle of Garnet who was sacrificed after defeating the enemy leader.
Basmov whispered.
“It is too late. Queen.”