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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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“Didn’t you hear anything from your brother?”
“Of course not! You cut his head off before he could tell me anything…!”
“This too is my burden, I suppose. Very well. I shall tell you the truth of that day.”
Rex, his entire body wrapped in bandages, collapsed before Transylvania, his voice filled with resentment.
Transylvania began their story with a melancholic expression.
To them, all past events were but fleeting memories, and all humans were merely blood bags.
Yet when they spoke of Dakia, their eyes were filled with sorrow.
As if reminiscing, their demeanor didn’t match the fearsome image of a blood ghoul known as a murderer.
“Dakia’s swordsmanship was beautiful. Despite being a mortal, facing imminent death, he continued to push forward without a shred of fear. It was so dazzling that even I, for a moment, wished to experience the tranquil embrace of death that comes with mastering the ultimate technique. But your brother destroyed it all.”
“!”
“Rumors spread about the places the murderer frequented, I suppose. It seems your brother’s subjugation squad, instead of looking for me, chose to attack those places first. Countless villages were ravaged, and Dakia was caught in the massacre and killed. Even if he was on the verge of mastering the ultimate technique, his aged body couldn’t stand against those vigorous elf warriors. I eventually wiped out the subjugation squad, but your brother, their captain, managed to escape and return to Elvenguard. Shamelessly, at that. So I chased after him and killed him. That’s the whole story. I have no regrets about my actions. I killed someone who deserved to die, and if I could go back, I’d kill him again. If you still insist on revenge, there’s nothing more I can do.”
“…”
Rex shook his head with a hollow expression.
He denied it.
He already knew it wasn’t a lie.
His mind understood, but his heart couldn’t accept it.
“You wicked blood ghoul! Do you think I’d fall for such lies?! Why fabricate a story that could be so easily exposed! Priestess! Please tell me, they’re lying, isn’t that right?”
“…”
Mia responded to Rex’s cries with silence.
The events of that day and the truth of the matter were classified information.
She couldn’t answer carelessly.
“Are you saying everything they said is true?”
“…”
She couldn’t answer directly, nor could she explain the events of that day as the priestess.
But she could subtly shake or nod her head to indicate right or wrong.
“Ah…!”
Mia slowly nodded her head.
There was nothing false in Transylvania’s words.
Rex groaned and collapsed to the ground.
“My brother… My brother committed such atrocities…? His death was a just consequence of his actions? Then what have I been fighting for…?”
His rage had lost its target.
Rex had honed his skills and trained relentlessly, believing he was fighting for justice on the side of the weak.
But he had learned that the person he was defending was a cruel villain, and his rage had lost its direction.
His brother’s crimes were too great to justify continued revenge simply because they were brothers.
Rex was too conscientious to be consumed by blind rage.
“The former priestess stopped personal revenge from escalating into a major conflict? She wasn’t a traitor to our people?”
Transylvania wasn’t the only target of his resentment.
The former priestess, the Witch of Petenburg, his supposed enemy.
He had firmly believed that she had betrayed their people and colluded with the murderer… But the truth painted a completely different picture.
She had stood up to the murderer who had beheaded an elf and held their head aloft.
She was the brave one who had tried to stop him.
She was the hero who had saved young Rex, who had foolishly tried to attack the murderer with a measly dagger.
Realizing this, Rex shuddered.
“Aaah!!!”
He had been a fool.
The past him seemed so foolish that he couldn’t bear it.
He had almost killed an innocent person based on a trivial misunderstanding.
Filled with regret and self-loathing, Rex lay face down on the ground, sobbing uncontrollably.
Finally, he raised his head and looked at the human.
He had a duty to fulfill.
“I swear. I admit my mistake and acknowledge that the witch is innocent. I renounce my grudge and swear before the World Tree that I will never harm her.”
“Confirmed.”
Rex bowed his head, sobbing as he swore.
As promised, he made an unbreakable oath before the World Tree, an oath that wouldn’t be broken until the day the forest guardian died.
It was an oath he would have taken even without a promise.
“Sob, sob…”
His sobs wouldn’t stop.
He had wasted 50 years consumed by meaningless rage.
He had burned 800 years of his lifespan.
He only had about 100 years left.
What was the point of living for such a fleeting moment?
Rex wanted to die.
“Priestess… Please grant me death, grant me the right to take my own life. I have brought shame upon Elvenguard. I have tarnished the name of a high warrior. Dismiss me from my position, and order me to commit suicide.”
“Please raise your head.”
“Yes…”
Rex slowly raised his head.
Through the excruciating pain that coursed through his body, he looked at the Priestess of the World Tree.
She looked down at him with pity in her eyes and spoke.
“I order you, High Warrior Rex, to recover quickly from your injuries and return to duty as a training instructor.”
“Y- Yes…?”
“Though I am not skilled in swordsmanship, I recognize that you, High Warrior Rex, briefly stepped into the realm of a superhuman. Currently, there is no one in Elvenguard who has mastered the Merida Style’s ultimate technique. It has been lost. But you, having witnessed a glimpse of the ultimate technique, are more likely than anyone to master it. Focus on recovering for now, for I intend for you to master the ultimate technique and teach it to other warriors, strengthening our forces.”
“B- But… I have less than 100 years left to live.”
“Short-lived races achieve much more in their even shorter lifespans. And the crucial battle will likely occur in the near future, within five years. We need you. We cannot afford to lose someone who is so close to mastering the ultimate technique over such a trivial offense.”
The spider monster that appeared in the World Tree’s roots.
The massive perfect barrier that appeared over Basel and the series of ominous prophecies…
They all pointed to one thing.
The world was about to plunge into chaos.
I was undoubtedly fighting to prevent that future.
To help me, she had to at least prevent Elvenguard from becoming a liability, from being trampled by the enemy’s forces and to do that, she had to strengthen Elvenguard’s military, which had been complacent for far too long.
Both in quantity and quality.
“I will obey your command, Priestess. I was short-sighted. I will devote the rest of my life to serving Elvenguard.”
Rex bowed his head and swore his allegiance.
Mia secretly smiled at me, who stood before the repentant Rex.
I let out a wry chuckle.
‘It’s actually within two years, not five… but she’s close.’
She had read me well, she knew that the enemy’s invasion was imminent.
She knew that I was fighting to prevent it and she knew that the decisive battle would occur in the near future.
Knowing all this, Mia was taking action.
To help me, in the short term.
To help humanity win, in the long term.
This was a first for me.
It hadn’t been long since the existence of the other world was revealed.
The final boss hadn’t even made a proper appearance yet.
Yet Mia was already anticipating the decisive battle that would occur in the future and was trying to help me.
As the representative of Elvenguard, she had essentially pledged their full support.
“May I speak with you privately for a moment, Priestess?”
“Please follow me, Heavenly Michael Jackson-nim.”
Leaving our companions behind, Mia and I climbed the stairs and headed towards a small room.
A place where no one could enter, where no one could eavesdrop or peek.
It was the World Tree’s Eye.
I, the only human allowed entry, carefully stepped inside, feeling the World Tree’s warmth.
“I was surprised. I knew you were skilled with a sword, but I never thought I’d witness such mastery with my own eyes. It was a rare sight.”
“It was a close call. I only just awakened to it.”
“Ah, no wonder… I was worried watching you. I was afraid you might be severely injured if you lost…”
Mia sat me down and gently touched the cuts on my body, applying herbs and potions, her voice filled with concern.
Moments ago, she had been the impartial judge of the duel… but she was now subtly revealing that she had been rooting for me.
“Is it… a common belief in Elvenguard that Yulia is a wicked witch who colluded with the murderer?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“…”
I felt my breath catch in my throat at Mia’s answer.
I knew Yulia wasn’t welcome in Elvenguard.
She was an exceptional priestess who had expanded the authority of the World Tree Priestess, which had been a mere puppet, and had advocated for reforming outdated doctrines.
She had naturally become a thorn in the side of the Elder Council, who held all the power at the time.
I knew there must have been countless smear campaigns and acts of sabotage to drive her out… But I had never known the specifics of how she had been framed as a wicked witch who colluded with a murderer and was driven out.
Yulia had never told me, even when we were intimate, even when we were deeply in love.
‘How unfortunate.’
Ironically, after the Elder Council was largely replaced by relatively young high elves, reforms proceeded exactly as Yulia had advocated.
The reforms normalized the elves’ faith, which had bordered on fanaticism.
If it hadn’t been for the reforms, the elves would have clung to their old doctrines during the Great Fire of Elvenguard, choosing to perish with the World Tree instead of evacuating.
“Are you… pitying her?”
“I suppose I am.”
I couldn’t deny Mia’s words.
Yulia had lived a long life, far longer than any short-lived race, being a long-lived being.
I had thought I knew everything about Yulia after 12 loops of regression, but even just going back 50 years, I was discovering a completely new side to her.
The reason she had become a recluse.
The reason she couldn’t face other people.
I had dismissed those things as mere character traits, but for the first time, I was thinking about them deeply.
“Then… Are you going to reconcile with her?”
“Reconcile? No. That will never happen.”
“Is that so? That’s a relief.”
There was no way I would reconcile with Yulia.
There was only one way to reconcile with her.
We both carried the emotions from the previous loop.
To reconcile, we would have to align those emotions once more.
But for me, that meant the end.
The moment I faced Yulia and accepted her love, my main heroine conquest rate would hit 100%, triggering the ending and trapping me in this game.
It wouldn’t be so bad if I gave up everything and stopped, but I couldn’t give up.
I couldn’t let the past 12 years, the years I had poured my heart and soul into, be denied.
I had to go home, no matter what.
I couldn’t stop.
‘Is it right… to keep running away like this?’
I suddenly wondered.
Wasn’t this just another way of running away from my relationship with Yulia?
It wasn’t my fault that the system had malfunctioned, but I was ultimately responsible for creating this twisted relationship.
I needed to find some kind of resolution.
Running away, refusing to face her, and then suddenly leaving was irresponsible.
‘I have to take responsibility.’
I had to clean up the mess I had created by relying on my regression ability.
It was my duty as a human being.
It was the common sense of an ordinary person who couldn’t regress.
I had forgotten that for so long, only realizing it after losing my regression ability.
“You seem… relieved.”
“I’ve organized my thoughts. The burden I’ve been carrying feels much lighter now. Thank you.”
“What did I do… You need to leave soon. Yulia, that woman… She’ll be here soon after hearing about the duel.”
“You seem to be well-informed.”
“Of course.”
I left the World Tree’s Eye, my face now relaxed.
Mia walked beside me, looking up at my face.
Before, to her I had seemed like a detached, heartless ascetic, severing past ties and embarking on a long journey.
But now, I seemed like a boy desperately trying to mend those severed ties.
You could say I was now more human, more like a short-lived being.
But paradoxically, Mia now felt a sense of otherworldliness from me, as if I was looking at a world completely different from even long-lived beings.
The strangeness she felt from a fundamentally different being.
If tainted by negativity, that strangeness would turn into fear… But within Mia, it was being shaped into admiration born from a sense of the sublime.
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I really felt it when the translator said ‘[]’ on the notes.