317

Chapter 317: If Only I Could (3)

“…You. You really….”

Looking at Gunter’s indescribable expression, Faust faintly lowered his eyelids. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I was the only one who survived. The sincerity that could never be conveyed enough, however many times he repeated it, was swallowed again before the lifespan flowing away like sand through an hourglass.

“There are many things I want to say, but there isn’t much time.”

That was not entirely bad. Had the time granted to him been eternal, Faust might have spent this dreamlike interval repeating the same words over and over.

“Wh-what do you mean? What do you mean, there isn’t much time…? No, before that, are you really…?”

But he could not do that.

The boy thought of the person who was so tolerant and so kind that he had given even someone like him an opportunity. After making that person suffer this much, he could not disappoint him any further. The almost obsessive thought gave the boy strength.

Swallowing the blood rising in his throat, Faust chose what he had to say.

“Hyung, I know there are many things you want to ask, but listen to me first.”

Of course, the story that followed would leave many wounds upon Gunter. But that could not be avoided. It had become an inescapable fate the moment the boy’s family caught a demon’s eye and were attacked, all of them either killed or made into sacrifices.

“You can ask every question later. First, listen. Please listen, Hyung.”

And so, smiling as though crying, the boy gripped Gunter’s arm and poured out his circumstances. He hung upon the tip of his tongue the nightmare that would never be erased and the sin he had committed because that nightmare tormented him.

“We—we were murdered by a demon that day.”

Ah. It was a confession far too late.

“Dad?”

It began with his younger sister running out because she thought their father had come home.

“I think Dad’s here!”

The skirt of the dress he had bought her by combining the allowance she received for the New Year with the money she had been given to celebrate starting school fluttered behind her. “Dad!” She was so dazzlingly white, like sunlight entering through an open door.

“Irina!”

But the radiance did not last long. The moment the child realized that the figure visible through the open door looked nothing like their father, she made a thin sound.

“Huh?”

Seven years old. A rose blossomed at the center of that tiny body. The sight did not suit Irina.

Such a vivid color truly, truly did not suit a little girl with long gray hair and a white dress.

“No!”

But it had already blossomed. The blade had already stabbed her. A black blade that reflected not even light—no, a blade thickly wrapped in Demonic Energy—had made the flower bloom.

Thud. The child’s tiny body fell, and the brother closest to her rushed forward.

[Not you.]

But her brother failed to swing his sword even once. Was the difference in their skill too great? Or had the sight of their youngest sibling falling stripped every last shred of reason from him?

All of those might have been correct, yet none was the true answer. Skill or no skill, the opponent’s blade was simply too fast. Nothing else could answer it.

“Khk.”

A line of blood appeared across her brother’s throat, and he collapsed. The sight of him sliding down the wall and crumpling forward remained terribly vivid.

“Arthur!”

Clang. The sound of her brother’s sword striking the floor, their mother’s voice, and the metallic crash of the dropped muffin tray overlapped and echoed. It was an echo as sharp as a blade.

“You bastard!”

Then their older sister charged from within it. He swore, it was the first time he learned that his Noona could raise her voice with such passion. The same was true of seeing tears flow from her eyes.

[Not you either.]

Had he not seen it with his own eyes, he would never have believed it. In truth, the same was probably true of his Noona or Hyung dying.

Inside his heart, the two had always been invincible.

“Run! Hurry!”

But reality was different.

Even as he heard his mother’s voice pulling him backward, he could not tear his eyes from his falling Noona. The blade buried in her chest and stretching all the way to the floor seemed like a dream. He could not believe it.

“Pasha, go!”

But when his mother seized the kitchen knife beside the dining table and stood before him, he had no choice but to accept it. Something was going wrong. Though he could not comprehend his siblings’ deaths, he had to draw a weapon and fight at once.

“I’m a knight too!”

Never let your weapon leave your body, no matter the moment. His father’s words had always been right. He drew the sword at his waist.

“No! At least you have to run!”

[Not this one either.]

But the action had already come too late.

He reflexively pulled his mother toward him. Yet the sword that curved at a strange angle finally pierced her stomach. “Aagh!” His arm along with it.

[Ah.]

“What’s happening?!”

[I found it.]

So being stabbed hurt this much. He screamed, clutching the arm left with a puncture wound after the blade was torn free in an instant.

His father’s voice reached him through his screams, but the pain he had never experienced before was too intense. He could not properly focus on his father’s presence. For a moment, he did not even think of his mother, who had been stabbed. It only hurt. It hurt so much.

“Run, Johanna! Take Faust and go!”

[What are you?]

“It’s—it’s too late for me. So go, Faust. At least you must flee.”

[Do not interfere.]

Yet even then, you cared for me until the end.

“My beloved child, go!”

Pressing one hand to her pierced abdomen, his mother continued pushing his back. How could she do that? His arm alone had been stabbed, and he was in such agony. How could you, whose stomach had been pierced…?

“Run, Faust!”

He obeyed blankly. “I love you.” If only he had remained there, he could at least have died with all of you. “Live.” But he could not disobey the desperate command. “Survive.” He could not ignore the words engraved as vividly as blood.

“No. No….”

Sobbing loudly, he ran through the back door. He could not run toward the village. The front entrance from which the enemy had invaded happened to connect to it.

If he tried to go to the village, he might instead encounter the enemy, and even if he did not, he could draw harm toward innocent residents.

No, in the first place, whether the villagers were still alive was uncertain. If the blade that killed his Hyung and Noona in an instant had been directed at the residents, they had almost no means to resist.

He could not choose that direction. Instead of gambling on an uncertain possibility, he slid down the hill.

I have to reach the city wall. I have to find the mages there and contact the main castle. It was his sole hope.

BOOOOM!

But when an immense force blossomed like a flower in full bloom, he turned his head as though intuiting something. He simply witnessed the spherical flames spreading outward and the land burning away so completely that nothing remained.

[Damn it. Needlessly strong for a human…]

Suddenly, a realization struck his head.

[Damn it, my body is collapsing. Fuck. This is why I should have conserved my Demonic Energy…]

That had been the last time.

He would never see any of you again.

[Ratel.]

Despair flowed like tears, and frustration sprouted like shoots and wrapped around him. The same was true of a white liquid. It surrounded his body like slime and bound his hands and feet. Resistance was unimaginable. It was stronger and more tenacious than his immature body.

[I need to escape before the humans arrive…]

When the white liquid finally covered even his vision, he half lost consciousness.

Sssssss. Through his half-obscured sight, he saw the liquid that had swallowed both him and a human creeping across the ground. So quickly, so stealthily, like wind passing between stalks of wheat.

[…This should be far enough.]

His memories immediately afterward were unclear. But he undoubtedly saw the city wall dyed red by sunset, something white silently climbing over it, and eventually the dark forest that unfolded ahead.

Moonlight filtered faintly through the nighttime trees.

[I wondered why a god was watching you, but there was a reason after all. You truly are an excellent vessel.]

Around then, he began to think again. Not properly. A human melting like ice in summer was visible at one corner of his vision, and there was no way anything about that could be normal.

[Though the reason the god took notice of you was not your vessel, but the immensity of your soul…]

Yet the mirage-like human drew a sword from their own chest without caring that they were melting. The human’s collapse accelerated further. It looked as though the sword were taking everything away from them.

[But what matters to me is that your body can fully withstand a soul so immense. Is it not?]

No… was that really a sword? He stared blankly at the thing that looked like one. His mind was hazy as though drunk with sleep, making judgment difficult, but he still tried.

[Tell me your name, child.]

Ah. It was not a sword, but a person. After a long period of concentration, the truth reached his eyes.

[You possess an excellent vessel, and your soul is fully qualified to be used as a sacrifice. You will surely become my greatest card.]

The thing that looked like a sword was really a slender arm. An arm wrapped in pitch-black clothing. But because its essence was pointed like thorns, it would cut and pierce whatever it seized.

[So give me your name. Then I can possess everything you are.]

An evil that knew how to speak sweetly, but not how to hide.

[Hmm?]

And so he wondered: what should he say to a being like this?

“…You.”

What would Gunya Hyung, Atya Hyung, or Elya Noona have said?

“Act your damned age before I rearrange your ribs, you bastard no bigger than a grain of rice for a rat….”

[……]

He barely recalled the sort of thing they would say before leaving on patrol, then fell unconscious again. His head hurt and spun too badly for him to do anything else.

[Ah… taking over the body without stealing the name is dangerous…]

Ah, please. When I wake again, let this nightmare be over.

[I don’t know. He’s just a child, so it should be fine.]

Of course, that never happened.

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“I tried to endure. I tried, but I couldn’t.”

Before the pouring confession, Gunter thought blankly, I see. So that was what happened.

“It hurt too much. The pain was unbearable, and in the end, I made a contract with the demon. Selfishly, I decided to sacrifice other people instead of myself.”

So those were the circumstances entangled in the disappearance of the people who had been like family to him.

“I shouldn’t have done that….”

Of course, someone would ask: Do you truly believe this being’s words? There is no proof of his identity and no evidence you can trust. Moreover, when the Temple speaks of him, its people say they sense the Demonic Energy of a Great Demon.

“Please help that person. Hyung, please.”

But even knowing that, Gunter—the Gunya who had once had a younger brother named Pasha—decided to believe. There was no reason. He simply believed. Even without proof or empirical evidence, he knew this was his younger brother and therefore trusted him.

“I know all my words, and even this appearance, might seem like a demon’s deception. But they aren’t. Please believe me.”

After all, if an older brother did not believe his younger brother, who would? If his younger brother said this and he, the Hyung, did not believe him, who would?

“That person is not someone who should suffer something like this here. He must never suffer in a nightmarish place like this.”

But what would his knights and residents say if they learned of this decision? At the very least, it would not be praise. The position of Young Lord—the place of the man who would become Lord—was one in which he could never act emotionally.

“I’m truly sorry to appear so suddenly and ask only this. But you are the only person I can ask, Hyung. You have influence with the Temple….”

“…Pasha.”

Yet he did not fear their condemnation. Had he not said it again and again from the very beginning?

He was not suited to be the Young Lord, nor was he someone who wanted to become the Young Lord. He merely wanted to be part of one person’s family, had dreamed of becoming a knight because of it, yet had failed to do so. He had cried that out all along.

“That person promised to endure nine years for me. So please, at least allow him to spend those nine years in comfort… It doesn’t matter what happens afterward, so please take his side for only those nine years. Help him so he no longer has to suffer. Please. Please.”

“Pasha.”

“Please, Hyung….”

“Faust.”

Therefore. Because of that.

“I will.”

Casting aside his title, Gunter embraced the younger brother who could no longer be called a boy.

“I will make sure of it.”

He took into his arms the child who shared not one drop of his blood, yet whom he would forever call family.

“I believe you. Everything you say, everything you ask. So, Pasha… I’ll do anything for you. I’ll do everything.”

“……!”

“I’m happy simply because you’re alive.”

It was warmth he must never lose again.

“…Hyung.”

“I’ll do anything. I can do everything….”

He pressed his forehead to the crying child’s. The warmth that touched him was lukewarm and made sorrow rise in him, but none of it mattered now. If his little brother was alive, that alone was enough.

“So please, Pasha. Please never disappear again.”

If this did not disappear again, that alone would truly be enough….

“The time without all of you hurt too much… It hurt so much….”

“…Gunya Hyung.”

Ah. I hope this moment is not a dream. I hope your being alive is not a lie.

“Don’t go. Never leave again. You don’t have to do anything, so please, just stay beside me….”

Embracing the boy who had only grown larger in body, yet remained frozen in that past, Gunter begged.

Please, let this not be his empty delusion. Please, let his little brother returning and speaking to him not be a fantasy he had created.

If only that could be true, he could offer this one life without regret.

“…I can’t do that. I don’t have the right.”

“Why don’t you have the right?!”

But despite his desperate wish, the answer he wanted did not return.

“Why don’t you have the right?!”

Clutching the ash that had never become a jewel, he cried out desperately. It was a form of struggle. The thrashing of someone who did not want to die, the desperate resistance of someone who did not want to lose the meaning of his life. Things of that kind.

“None of this happened because you wanted it, so why…?”

“Hyung. Hyung….”

But the boy smiled as though crying at that desperation. It was a smile that had changed somehow, yet still remained the same.

“Until the demon leaves, I cannot take control of the body whenever I please.”

“Why? Why…?!”

“There are many reasons… but this is probably the only one you can accept.”

A clear and beautiful smile, almost light enough to seem weightless.

“If I remain outside like this, I will die before long. Look. My nose is already bleeding. It is proof that my lifespan is being consumed.”

Yet the quietly continuing words and the blood streaming from his nose were so terribly heavy.

“Why? Why…?”

“…So since I have no choice but to entrust the body to that person anyway, I want to follow his wishes. I’m already nothing but shameless. I cannot arbitrarily decide even where he will go from here.”

“I—I want you to….”

“…I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Hyung.”

Faced with the boy’s apology, Gunter fully understood. I will have no choice but to watch you leave. You will leave me yet again. I will be alone again….

“…It’s all right.”

But then he recognized another truth.

“It’s all right. As long as you’re alive, everything is all right….”

Compared to not even knowing whether the boy was alive or dead, he could endure this much as often as necessary.

“Just live. Please live, Pasha….”

Yes. Compared to that, this was truly nothing….

Gunter simply bowed his head.