Chapter 294 — Something I Can Accept (10)
「Stabbing and cutting someone to inflict pain inside a mental world where no one dies, or tormenting you with burning pain while you’re awake—it’s all done for the same reason. The more worn down the mind becomes, the easier it is to break… and pain is an efficient way to destroy a person’s mind.」
Originally, the boy would have stopped it as the watcher, but now that he had lost his power, that no longer meant anything. He squeezed his eyes shut.
「And that thing’s essence is flame. If the concealment of ignorance were still hiding that fact, you probably could have killed it fairly easily… but now that you’ve learned the truth, even ripping out its heart or blowing its entire body apart won’t kill it.」
Eyes older than those of a decrepit veteran and wearier than those of a homeless beggar abandoned on the street in the dead of winter vanished behind his eyelids.
「And pain means nothing to that thing. Unlike us.」
“…So what you’re saying is…”
「…Even if your entire body is crushed, even if you’re burned alive, you can’t allow yourself so much as a brief moment of drowsiness. The instant you lose consciousness for any reason, that thing will get back up without the slightest disturbance. Unlike us.」
The eyelids of someone who had endured all of that alone until now looked endlessly heavy.
「…I’m sorry. I really should have kept my mouth shut until the very end.」
Boom.
Another corner of the world was torn away.
「I really shouldn’t have told you…….」
I still couldn’t grasp the full weight of the words the boy had just spoken, yet the world collapsed without mercy.
BOOM.
The falling fragments gradually began striking my heart.
“That means… So…”
I forced my creaking brain to work.
Something that wouldn’t die even if its heart were ripped apart and its entire body blown to pieces.
Something that would steal everything from me if I failed to endure having my entire body crushed, being burned alive, or even a momentary lapse into sleep.
[It means the death of your body can no longer be an answer for you.]
The instant those two blocks of text reached toward me like a swamp, the click of dress shoes drew closer.
[Now that the restrictions are gone, ordinary forms of death won’t be able to chew through this body.]
She was approaching me.
Both hands resting behind her head as though she had no intention of fighting, her white hair swaying gently with every step.
[So, what will you do now? The boy who protected you from pain won’t be able to anymore. Are you confident you can remain conscious until the very end?]
The red light glowing between the goat bones kept drawing my eyes.
[Nine years remain until the contract ends. Nine years without sleeping, without yielding to the burning pain I can inflict whenever I please, in an environment where this entire world will try to kill you. Do you really think you can endure nine years of pain that will no longer be concealed from you, Gretchen?]
「Don’t come any closer!」
The boy gripped his sword and tried to block the demon.
「I said don’t come any closer!」
But the demon didn’t stop.
Squelch!
Instead, she reached out, seized the boy’s sword, and drove it directly into her own abdomen.
Blood, ash-water, and flames spilled down.
[I can. I can do it, Gretchen.]
And when the sword had sunk so deep that the guard touched her stomach, the demon stared straight at me with the boy between us.
The blood-red lights curved into a strange smile.
[I endured exactly that for three hundred years in that mire. I can endure it for as long as necessary. Unlike you, with the pain threshold of an ordinary human.]
Drip.
The demon stepped backward.
The movement violently tore open the wound, yet her expression never changed.
Even from the portions of her face that weren’t hidden by the mask, that much was obvious.
Clap.
Her gloved hands came together and laughed in her place.
[Right. What was it you said earlier? That it was my fault for exploiting a child and that the one who got tricked wasn’t at fault? But Gretchen, did you know? That child didn’t even last eight months before making a contract with me.]
For the first time, the black-and-white world shattered.
「…I…!」
A voice almost indistinguishable from a scream pierced the center of the empty world.
[He begged me to let him sleep. Begged me to stop tormenting him. Said he would bring me someone else who could endure it in his place.]
「I……!」
[Up to that point, fine. Let’s say I can understand. But Gretchen, at the very least, that child knows exactly how painful that environment is. He knows that the instant he tells you the truth, you’ll be thrown into the very hell he failed to overcome.]
「I…….」
The longer the demon spoke, the more the pitch-black darkness disappeared, and the lower the child’s head fell.
Was that a favorable exchange?
I still couldn’t tell.
[And despite knowing that, that child chose his family over you. Even though you were nothing but an innocent person dragged into this, even though the suffering you’ve already endured is more than enough, even though you’re someone who cries because you miss your family too! Knowing all of that, that child still pushed you into an even worse hell to protect his own family.]
「Ah…….」
[Is that really not a sin?]
The demon was clearly giving something to us.
At the same time, however, she was taking something away.
Something much greater.
[Answer me, Gretchen. Can you really say even this is okay?]
The poison spread through my entire body.
It was deadly poison.
* * *
After the demons withdrew, the Inquisitor ordered the soldiers to rest for three hours.
They needed to wait for morning, when their field of vision would widen, and they also needed to replenish the stamina required to race toward Münmund.
“Endless hunger…….”
And so, during that time, Deathbringer and Daniel decided to investigate why the village had ended up in this state.
They didn’t need to go far.
There were the people who had opened the gate for them.
“May we ask for the details?”
However, only a few of them were in good enough condition to explain.
Deathbringer and Daniel shared a little water with a man who said he was a soldier from Münmund and a woman named Ticha, gently coaxing the story out of them.
“Please.”
The two, who had hesitated at first, finally opened their mouths when they saw the emblem of the Order.
“We first noticed something was wrong at dawn yesterday. People were complaining of unusual thirst and hunger.”
“Thirst and hunger…….”
“Even so, things were fairly manageable until morning. The strange phenomena began in the afternoon. Several people who had been particularly hungry ate every scrap of food in their homes, then started ripping vegetables straight out of the fields and eating them.”
“Even the vegetables in the fields?”
“Yes.”
“…You mean they simply ate them? Without even cooking them?”
“That’s right.”
When Daniel asked again with some bewilderment, the soldier calmly nodded.
For some reason, the man had come here instead of remaining in Münmund, and one hand rested against a relatively fresh injury.
“What did you do after that?”
“Hmm. Ticha can probably explain that better than I can. She was the first one to discover it.”
The soldier, accustomed to giving reports and having led the conversation until now, passed the baton to Ticha.
The woman with the shadowed face bit her parched lips.
“…At first, I tried talking to them. But they wouldn’t listen to a word I said. Even when I grabbed them and tried to stop them physically, they kept shaking me off. So I called the soldier and decided we should lock them inside their homes. Forget finding a solution—we had to protect the fields first. But while everyone was working together to lock the mad ones inside, more and more people started pulling up vegetables and eating them.”
“…There was no distinction between the elderly, the young, or children when it came to who succumbed to the madness. It got to the point where one of my own comrades started desperately searching for food as well.”
The soldier described how the man had stuffed himself until his stomach was so full that he vomited, yet even then continued trying to put more things into his mouth.
With every word, their expressions twisted further.
“We’d lock up one person who’d lost their mind, and another would appear. We’d lock that person up, and then another. We even had people so thirsty that they threw themselves into the well… Eventually I decided we couldn’t go on like that. I suggested that only the people who were still sane should remain outside to distribute food, while everyone else stayed inside their homes.”
“…Yes.”
“It seemed fairly effective. Until after midnight.”
By the time they reached the final part of the story, both of them closed their eyes, their faces horribly distorted.
“…While patrolling the village for demons, we heard screaming from one of the houses where residents had been confined. So we opened the door to investigate… and found villagers eating their own bodies. Not one or two of them. Several.”
It was as though a soundless scream filled the air.
“Fuck… Even if there’s no food, how does eating your own fucking body make any sense……?”
At last, tears streamed down Ticha’s face.
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“Then the reason all of you were out here…….”
“…We were afraid someone might eventually try to eat another person rather than themselves.”
Humans eating themselves was hellish enough.
Attacking other people would be an even deeper hell.
The soldier explained in a trembling voice that they had made their decision in hopes of avoiding that.
“Of course, we had no idea what would happen to us either, so we agreed to keep one another gagged.”
The soldier pointed to the scarves hanging around his and Ticha’s necks.
So that was why everyone had strips of cloth tied around their mouths.
After finishing their explanation, the two fell silent for several dozen seconds.
Then the soldier cautiously spoke again, as though there was still something he needed to say.
“Priest, I…”
His voice, which had remained relatively calm throughout the explanation, began to shake, and his eyes trembled wildly.
The agony of having been forced to abandon the villagers.
The fear that, now that a Priest had heard what he had done, he might be punished for it.
The terror of the broken reality around them.
All of it could be felt in the soldier’s trembling.
“Their deaths were not your fault, Brother. Nor were they yours, Sister.”
And the low voice of the cleric cut cleanly through that trembling.
“R-really? Truly? I, I…….”
“I swear in God’s name that you made the best decision available to you at the time. I guarantee it as an Inquisitor. So please, do not burden yourselves excessively. Those people did not die because of the two of you. Rather, everyone still alive here owes their survival to you.”
Because he was a Priest in his own right, Daniel’s reassurance proved all the more effective.
With faith lending them strength, the two managed to lessen their burdens.
Deathbringer normally found the Inquisitor’s ilk insufferable, but at moments like this, they were surprisingly useful.
“Hey, old man. This really is……”
“…The curse of a Great Demon. I had heard the stories, but Erysichthon truly was in this area.”
Separately, Deathbringer quietly asked his question.
His brow furrowed when Daniel’s answer matched what he had expected.
“How could nobody notice a curse spreading this far?”
“I know it sounds like an excuse, but there truly is little anyone can do about this particular curse. Endless Hunger and Eternal Thirst are not curses placed through a sacrifice. They move with Erysichthon’s domain.”
“Fuck, that’s cheating.”
“…In exchange, they normally do not remain in one place for this long. At most, they last a day. Usually, they persist only for the half-day in which the battle takes place.”
Affecting this many living beings across such a wide radius wasn’t easy even for a Great Demon.
The fact that the north had not already been completely devastated was proof enough.
If Erysichthon could use this curse without restriction, the demon would simply settle over a city until the entire place collapsed.
“That’s a relief.”
“…Yes. It is.”
“Then why has it lasted more than two days this time?”
“I don’t know…….”
Daniel couldn’t readily come up with an answer to Deathbringer’s question.
Having never operated in the north, he knew even less about Erysichthon.
“Perhaps… it’s after something.”
In the end, he stopped at a hypothesis anyone with a reasonably functioning mind could have reached.
“Something worth going to this much trouble to obtain.”
“Hmm.”
“Of course, if Münmund alone were the objective, the costs don’t quite add up. There must be something more they’re aiming for… but I have no idea what.”
It was a hypothesis that some knights had raised before.
“Münmund is certainly a famous city, but objectively speaking, with two Great Demons already dead, it doesn’t seem valuable enough to risk yet another one just to bring it down…….”
“…Maybe they’re confident they can survive and return?”
“I’m not sure. Even if a Great Demon survives, the forces beneath it will undoubtedly be depleted. Demons can’t replenish their troops instantly either. And more importantly, the Hero is in the east, isn’t she? The territory the demons push into could easily be retaken the moment the Hero joins the fight. The demons can’t possibly be unaware of that…….”
“Then maybe they’re after the goody-two-shoes……? No, that doesn’t make sense. If they wanted the Hero, wouldn’t a surprise attack be more effective?”
“…Unless the other one secretly came south as well, just as Erysichthon came all the way here.”
“So that bastard is bait to lure the Hero in? And once the Hero arrives, the two of them attack together?”
“Yes. If they could kill the Hero, reclaiming the northern front they’ve lost would be entirely possible.”
“That isn’t completely impossible… but could they actually pull it off?”
Given the subject, the two temporarily put aside their mutual grievances.
“Probably not.”
Meister suddenly cut into their conversation.
“How would two Great Demons coordinate that when they don’t even know whether the Hero will come to Münmund?”
“…Then what do you think caused all this?”
“How the hell should I know?”
“Seriously. You don’t know either, so—”
“But one thing is certain. Drawing massive numbers of people into the east, then focusing everyone’s attention on Münmund once those forces have almost fully assembled—that itself is exactly the situation they wanted.”
A finger nudged the glasses covering Meister’s eyes.
“You call yourself an information broker and you still haven’t noticed?”
“……?”
“The timeline is wrong.”
“The timeline? What are you……”
“…Yesterday at dawn.”
At Meister’s words, Deathbringer’s pupils unconsciously widened.
His mind raced furiously for a moment and found the distortion he had missed.
“…Erysichthon arrived here yesterday at dawn.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t quite understand what you’re……”
“Damn it! Think about when we heard that a Great Demon had appeared and set out, then compare it to when Erysichthon actually showed up! You said it yourself earlier! The hunger and thirst everyone is suffering move along with Erysichthon!”
“…Ah?”
“We heard about a Great Demon appearing before Erysichthon actually appeared! Most likely because someone wanted to manipulate all that manpower into concentrating here!”
Daniel’s eyes widened.
* * *
[You should have kept your mouth shut until the end. The concealment of ignorance was the only thing that could have sent you home relatively easily. Even if he could never repay you properly for your sacrifice, he should at least have made certain you got home.]
I stared at the back of the child’s round head as poison trickled into my ears.
The back that had stood in front of me to protect me was slowly collapsing.
[Such a selfish child. He abandoned his benefactor to protect his homeland and family. Someone else was separated from their family and entire life because of him, yet he pushed that benefactor into hell because he wanted to protect his surviving blood relatives and sworn brothers. Isn’t that truly shameless?]
Did I pity him for it?
[Gretchen, when you can’t even see your own family.]
Or did I hate him?
“…Do you have some kind of disease where you die if you stop wagging your tongue for even a second? Shut up for a bit. I can’t fucking think because of you.”
Suddenly, I remembered the first day I had met Richa.
[Why? I haven’t said anything untrue. Someone else gets to reunite with their family while you can never see yours again. You were obviously jealous and angry about that.]
“I—”
[Gretchen, when it comes to anger, there is nothing you can hide from me.]
The thought I had involuntarily had back then had now been refined into sentences and recited aloud to me.
Of course I remembered it.
[This is righteous anger.]
Ah.
If I gathered together every tear and drop of blood I had shed, would they form something deeper than what the boy had shed?
“…….”
With the child’s head bowed in front of me, I opened and closed my hands.
It was a little fucking unpleasant not being able to feel my hands and feet.
White breath escaped my mouth.
“It isn’t okay.”
「……!」
Let’s admit what needed to be admitted.
This definitely wasn’t okay.
“It isn’t okay at all.”
He had remained silent despite my desperate pleas, only to finally speak when his own family’s safety was involved.
And as a result, I was being pushed into hell.
There was nothing okay about that.
“It isn’t okay, but…”
But.
But…….
“…It still isn’t his fault.”
Did I have the right to be angry simply because the boy’s choice had been selfish?
I was the one who had put the safety of his loved ones on the negotiating table.
I was clearly the one who had driven the boy this far.
Did I really have the right to get angry and ask why he had spoken?
“Loving your family isn’t a sin.”
The boy choosing his family over me had brought us to this point.
But if he had prioritized me over his family and remained silent, I wouldn’t have liked him any more for it.
[So you forgive him?]
“No.”
So this was simply a catastrophe.
“We’ve come too far for forgiveness.”
From the moment I was summoned into this place, there had probably never been any other way for us to end up.
“So, Pasha.”
「……!」
“When everything is over, apologize to me for this.”
「Ah…….」
“That’s enough.”
Like knitting whose very first stitch had gone wrong, our relationship had no choice but to be completely unraveled and made again from the beginning.
“You did well holding out for eight months.”