R4STWH - Chapter 115
Chapter 115
When I reflexively looked at Zero, our eyes met as if he had been waiting for it.
“Was it you?”
“What?”
As I was glaring at the guy who replied so shamelessly, Baeksa, who had been silently guarding his spot until then, rose from his seat.
“It’s best if we leave now. There’s no point in getting caught up in the commotion.”
Baeksa’s words were right.
Since we had sneaked in without any imperial palace pass, someone might bother us about the incident that happened to the Emperor.
If we didn’t want to harm the people who were just fulfilling their duties, it was better to leave quietly now.
Even though I knew this, I was hesitant because, just as Yumi had said, it really seemed like this might be the last time we would be sitting across from each other and having a peaceful time while eating delicious food.
“Do you want me to lend you a carriage?”
Yumi asked, looking at me.
“It’s okay. I can just go with her.”
As I answered, pointing at the saintess, Yumi nodded, then put down her glass and stood up, approaching me.
“I’ll see you soon.”
Then, she hugged me, who had awkwardly gotten up, and whispered quietly.
“No matter what happens, I will make sure that you are happy. So don’t have too much of a hard time.”
The hand that stroked my head was extremely gentle.
So gentle that it was hard to believe the reality that we had to stand on opposing sides and become enemies.
“Can I ask you just one thing?”
So, I stared straight into her eyes and asked.
“What was the thing that you regretted the most?”
I had guessed that it might be about the child, but I wanted to confirm it directly.
“Hmm…… there are too many, so it’s difficult. But if I had to pick just one……”
Yumi, who was rolling her eyes as if she was troubled, smiled with a scrunched nose.
“It would be the fact that I had entered into a Pair with someone.”
“……Huh?”
Yumi had said something I had never expected at all.
“Because nothing about it was right.”
She said with a playful smile, like a young girl.
“…….”
Then Yumi…….
Did she regret even the time she had spent with Baeksa, the many nights they had spent together, the time she had given birth to and held a child that was half like him and half like herself?
When I had first heard that the two of them were Pairs, I was actually very surprised.
It was because the two of them were such polar opposites that it made me doubt the criteria for choosing who would become Pairs.
Their titles alone were so drastically different. A Dark Mage and the Master of the Holy Sword.
How could those two have become Pairs, I had thought that it was like a miracle.
But on the other hand…….
"You bastard! Who told you to die like this!"
If I remembered Yumi’s figure, wailing while holding onto Baeksa's torn corpse, and if I thought about the moment when she had charged towards the Evil Dragon, disregarding even her own life, the two of them might have actually gotten along better than I had thought.
But was my thinking wrong?
Was it that the two of them still considered each other to be the worst?
Was it so terrible that they wanted to turn back time no matter what and erase that whole thing from ever happening?
'But why is she smiling like that? If it's genuine, then how?'
As I was looking intently into Yumi's eyes, Baeksa grabbed her arm and pulled her away from me.
“Stop saying useless things and get lost.”
“Oh my, shouldn’t you be the one who should get lost?”
After watching the guys who had started to fight again for a moment, I turned around.
“Let’s go.”
“……Yes!”
The saintess, who had been looking at our expressions all along, quickly followed me.
Crow, who had also been alternating his gaze between me and Yumi, hesitated before following behind us.
However, Elias…….
“Go ahead first.”
He stood there without moving, trying to send me ahead of him.
“Huh……? Why?”
“I have some things to say to these guys.”
As I stood there blinking, taken aback by the unexpected situation, he turned his gaze to me and smiled gently.
“I’ll be right there.”
Although I was perplexed, I nodded.
“Okay.”
Because I felt like there was some reason for it.
To be honest, I was worried about leaving him alone with Zero, Yumi, and Baeksa, but he should be able to escape safely from those guys, who would have their powers limited like I was.
I had been waiting in the carriage that the saintess had arrived in for about five minutes when the carriage door opened and Elias got inside.
As I was looking all over his body to see if anything had happened, a low chuckle landed on the top of my head.
“Were you worried? That we might have fought?”
As I looked up at him without knowing what to answer, the emotions overflowing in his blue eyes were silently conveyed to me.
The intense longing and boiling affection, which could never be concealed even if he tried to package it up and hide it, weren’t things that could be hidden.
Feeling relieved at this, I relaxed my body when the saintess’s voice reached me from the other side.
“Duke, you knew, didn’t you?”
Knew what?
As I turned my head with a puzzled mind, I saw the saintess looking at Elias with a persistent gaze.
“That there would be an attempt to assassinate His Majesty.”
“How would Elias know that? It wasn’t something that we planned.”
“Because he’s an ‘Executor’.”
Looking at the saintess's expression, it seemed like she knew what 'Executor' meant and what he could do.
That meant that when she met Ermitar, a conversation related to Elias must have taken place.
‘Why? For what reason?’
Elias seemed to have only learned today for the first time about Ermitar, who had disguised himself as the Emperor’s aide.
On the other hand, Ermitar…… Even though they didn’t seem to have any points of contact, he seemed to know Elias very well.
Then where would be the point in time where that discrepancy arose?
Perhaps, a future that only Ermitar remembered?
“What do we do now?”
Even as I was racking my brains, the saintess’s words continued.
“You’ve read them all, haven’t you? The dozens of fragments of this world, the will that the god left behind.”
There were barely any words that I could understand. But it was also difficult to interrupt and ask.
Still, as I chewed over and thought about each word, I had some vague ideas.
'If it's possible to turn back time like Ermitar, then there can't only be one process leading to the conclusion.'
If those resulting futures were called ‘fragments of the world,’ then from the perspective of the one receiving them, it was plausible that they would be referred to as ‘the god's will’.
“I know one future. In that future, you were very different from now. You were only focused on revenge.”
“Saintess…….”
Crow tried to stop the saintess with a flustered face.
It was probably because it was forbidden to reveal the future in this way.
“It’s okay, Sir Crow. The Duke would have already confirmed these futures as well. Right?”
Elias, who had been looking at the saintess with a blank face, finally opened his mouth.
“It’s not wrong.”
At Elias’s answer, I stared at him with wide eyes.
So does that mean that Elias now knows all the dozens of possibilities that could happen in the future?
“But I don’t think they have any meaning. They’re just things that failed and were discarded, and……”
He frowned as if he was disgusted at the mere thought of them, and turned his gaze to look at me.
“Because Ilesha wasn’t in any of them.”
After thinking for a moment while making eye contact with him, I nodded.
“Of course. Why would you fail when I’m here?”
I don’t fail. I was made that way.
Regardless of what was right or wrong, I was the only successful creation born from the sacrifice of countless lives.
“Tell me anything. I will resolve everything!”
I was confident that I could overcome any possibility of failure.
“It’s amazing how unchanging you are……”
The saintess mumbled, blinking her eyes.
“Then, shall we return to Tenaclad for now?”
“Right now?”
Elias nodded at my question.
“Yeah, that would be for the best. Because Tenaclad's in the middle of being attacked right now.”
“……Huh?”
“Because three A-rank dungeons spawned at the same time, and they weren’t able to stop one of them, so it burst open.”
An A-rank dungeon burst open? If a dungeon is left unattended and bursts open, the creatures that come out of it usually become stronger by at least one stage.
I didn't know if it was because the flow of mana inside and outside the dungeon was completely different, but thanks to that, the damage was always even greater.
“Our home, the place of mine and Elias's, is being… trampled on by those monsters…….”
My neck became stiff with anger at the thought of our precious place of memories, where we had shared our first moments and carefully cultivated our hearts, being trampled upon.
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