novelraw Chapter 108 : Chapter 108
Chapter 108 : Chapter 108
Chapter 108: The Lost Library (4)
The boy extended his two hands.
He gripped Abel's beloved sword and smiled.
“This boy's name is Jeffrey Dahmer.”
A soft whisper was etched into Abel's ear.
Abel gazed silently at the boy. The eyes of the boy who gripped the blade were clear. Drip, drip, it went. Drops of blood flowed down his hand, but the boy paid it no mind. He only whispered in a tone mixed with a smile.
“An ordinary shoeshine boy. He lives alone with his mother who suffers from an incurable disease. Will his mother's illness be cured? I don't know. That's not part of the story written in this book.”
Though he wore the guise of a boy, he was a guard.
The guards lived within the books of the Lost Library. In the time that was omitted because everyone had forgotten, they lived by mimicking the beings that composed each paragraph of history. As a boy, or as an old man. As a vagrant, or as an emperor.
Like worms that gnaw at time.
“Are you going to kill this child?”
The boy asked with an innocent expression.
Abel did not answer.
“Murderer.”
──Chwareuk!
The boy's body was thrown to the ground. Slashed by the blade.
How unpleasant. Abel thought, wiping his beloved sword. The once-leisurely plaza was stained red. The corpses of men and women, of adults and children, were tangled together in a mess. They were all frail and unremarkable beings. In a play, they would be nothing more than supporting actors.
“This old man's name is Ed Gein.”
The old man stood beside the boy's corpse.
He faced Abel and smiled.
“A writer recuperating. Still, he's a writer of no consequence. He'll pass away from old age soon enough. How about it, intruder? This time, try cutting down this old man.”
“Why.”
The guards were all around Abel.
Even though he had cut down so many, there were still more.
They revealed themselves to be ordinary citizens. They had been living as part of the masses that make up history, and as guards of the Lost Library, they held no fighting spirit. They only demanded to be killed.
“Why are you not stopping me?”
Abel asked the old man.
It was strange. The guards were not supposed to tolerate intruders.
The books were the guards' nests. Endlessly repeating the content written in the books, repeating the play that begins at the prologue and ends at the epilogue countless times. That was the life of the guards, and the moment Abel took possession of the book, they would lose their world.
And yet, why,
was there not even a hint of resistance.
“This woman's name is Aileen Wuornos.”
“This woman's name is Lucy Letby.”
“This woman's name is Sophia Zhukova.”
The women who had gathered around Abel opened their mouths.
“We are stopping you. With all our might. But it's a shame. All the characters in the book you need are weak.”
“It would be nice if we could possess the body of a main character, but we are just guards. Should we grab onto your trouser legs? While wailing that you shouldn't recall forgotten history.”
“Please don't think of us as hindrances. Some histories are meant to remain forgotten. You would want that too, wouldn't you? If you recall the contents of this book, you will surely……”
Abel cut down the women.
The women who had been neatly dressed collapsed.
At Abel's feet, spilling thick blood.
“To state my position……”
Meanwhile, the old man opened his mouth.
He extended his two hands and gripped Abel's beloved sword.
He then aimed it at his own neck.
“I have no intention of stopping you.”
Have you never felt this way, he asked.
The old man asked, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards.
“That you're sick and tired of the world. That you wish it would just die already. Is it because I've taken the body of an old man? As for me, I wanted to die as soon as possible. Would you be any different?”
We can see it. We can see it.
You are old. No, you are decayed.
You should have rotted away in the first place. What difference is there between you and us?
I have just put on the guise of an old man. You are just insisting on the appearance of a young man. But there is no difference. Haven't you and I both repeated it to the point of being sick and tired?
“Tell me, intruder. How many lives have you repeated? How long have you lived? It seems I've been at it for a little over a thousand years.”
The old man's words were, in a way, correct.
Abel was no different. A play-like life that was born around the prologue, witnessed the epilogue, and then ended. The life of Abel, which he had repeated countless times, was like a mere script.
To be born before the Demon King's advent, to lay the foundation and then teach the young hero, and to die after defeating the Demon King. And so, a story that had been repeated endlessly.
Was he sick and tired of it?
Abel tried hard to question himself.
It seemed there had been such a time. But it had become colorless. Even boredom had worn away along with his soul.
Thus, he put strength into the hilt.
“……It's been well over a thousand years.”
──Chwareuk!
The old man's body was thrown to the ground. Slashed by the blade.
He cut them down again and again. He killed Doug Clark, Dorothy Puente, Dean Corll, Richard Ramirez, and Harold Shipman. Just before killing them, he heard. The lives of each being that made up the distant past.
Even so, it was futile. The beings who had truly lived in the past were all dead. The lives of the dead were too ordinary. To the point where he hesitated to cut them down.
“This girl's name is Mary Flora Bell.”
Abel sat on the edge of the fountain.
He let out a tired breath and extended his hand.
He wiped the blade of his beloved sword with his hand, wet from the water.
As a clean stream of water gushed forth, all sides except for the round fountain were red. The last guard stood amidst the corpses.
“A child who is tired of her mother's nagging.”
She was a small girl.
The guard had taken the body of a girl.
“She's smart for her age, but in the end, she just has a child's heart. I've never seen this child's mother. Around the time the story in the book begins, Mary had just run away from home after fighting with her mother.”
I don't resent you, she said.
The girl said, standing and facing Abel.
“But I want to stop you. Can't you just go back as you are?”
“I'm sorry.”
Abel extended his hand.
He was about to pat the girl's head, but realizing his hand was wet, he wiped it on his clothes.
“I must read the contents of this book. Even if it means taking your world.”
“I don't mind you taking it.”
The girl smiled.
She extended her two hands and gripped Abel's beloved sword.
“I think you're misunderstanding.”
The girl pressed the blade against her chest.
The blunt tip of the sword touched her clothes.
“This book has no meaning to us. It will only have meaning to you. The guards, including myself, have stayed in this book for too long. We've grown tired of both life and death.”
I would be grateful if you would kill me.
The girl whispered so.
“The reason I want to stop you is……”
Not for myself, but for you.
This story is familiar to me, but it might not be to you.
Because it's cruel. It's tragic and absurd.
This book you're trying to read is…….
“Will you be okay? You might come to hate the world.”
Abel did not answer.
He was just putting in strength. Into the hand that held the hilt.
Ah, the girl breathed out. She could understand. You've already hated the world before. After whispering so, the girl pulled on the blade. The old blade pierced through the girl's chest.
“Then thank you.”
Cheolseok, it went.
As the girl collapsed,
“Now I can finally be freed from this story.”
The scenery changed abruptly.
The story in the book had begun to unfold.
The plaza that had been filled with corpses became clean, and the crowd that Abel had killed began to walk around again.
Jeffrey Dahmer began to shine the old man's shoes. Ed Gein paid Jeffrey Dahmer. Aileen Wuornos, Lucy Letby, and Sophia Zhukova were walking through the plaza, and Mary Flora Bell sat beside Abel, her eyes sparkling.
Not as guards, but as the figures who made up history.
That was why no one noticed Abel. Abel was, in a sense, watching a play. What was happening before his eyes was nothing more than a completed script. It was a paragraph of history that could not be changed no matter what he did.
“Waha!”
Thus, Abel saw.
A group of clerics arriving in the middle of the plaza.
“Look, Grandpa! The clerics are coming!”
“Yes, I see them. It seems it has begun.”
Thus, Abel saw.
A wooden pillar being erected in the center of the plaza.
“Oh my, it looks like a purification is taking place.”
“Those wicked witches.”
“Shall we stop and watch for a bit?”
Thus, Abel saw.
Firewood being scattered around the wooden pillar.
“Kill them.”
The group of clerics surrounded the wooden pillar.
Soon, a man and a woman dressed in the attire of cardinals arrived.
Their identities were clear. The leaders of the Parousia Denomination. They were Gorgias, Paracelsus, Kierkegaard, Mumford, and Heraclitus. The five apostates, in their days as cardinals, before they had turned their backs on their faith, before they had abandoned their names, took steps with reverent gestures.
“Kill them, kill them, kill them.”
So that was it.
Abel thought, narrowing his eyes.
They were cardinals from the era when witch hunts were rampant.
An era of barbarism where the innocent were punished under the guise of religious justification. Most of the records from that time were lost. It was probably because they themselves were reluctant to leave them behind. Even if the subjects didn't know, the powerful would have known.
‘Witches did not exist.’
Famine, epidemics, natural disasters. And only war existed.
In the midst of continuous disasters, the subjects questioned. Why were such things happening? The answer to this was the responsibility of the Platinum Round Table Orthodoxy.
Since they had taken power in the name of the main gods, they had to answer in the name of the main gods.
‘That was the witch.’
A servant of the Demon King.
That witches were rampant in the world,
And they chanted to kill them and regain peace.
‘Unacceptable.’
Abel's expression hardened.
The cardinals who had led the madness of faith,
Now turned their backs on faith and dreamed of becoming gods?
──Kill them!
Kill them, kill them, kill them!
Before long, the plaza was stained with a crowd.
It was like a joke. The subjects who had been peacefully spending their days were shouting. The cheerful expression of Jeffrey Dahmer was contorted, and the leisurely face of Ed Gein turned red. Aileen Wuornos, Lucy Letby, and Sophia Zhukova were enraged, and Doug Clark, Dorothy Puente, Dean Corll, Richard Ramirez, and Harold Shipman. The subjects who had been leading ordinary lives shouted, steeped in madness, and,
“──Kill her!”
Mary Flora Bell also shouted.
Beside Abel, full of excitement.
She was just a woman.
The witch among the cardinals was an ordinary woman.
An innocent woman was bound. She was just being pushed along with her hands and feet shackled. The woman walked, surrounded by the five cardinals. Towards the wooden pillar erected among the firewood.
‘……Ion.’
Abel moved his body as if possessed.
No matter what he did, he could not change history.
He knew. And yet he approached the woman. With the hilt of his beloved sword in his grasp, recalling the owner of the beloved sword who had died, nailed to a post in the plaza.
There would be nothing similar.
The appearance of Ion Blanche and the woman's appearance were different.
The woman just walked on with a firm expression, her white, sunken hair fluttering.
It should be different, everything should be different,
Abel stood beside the woman and gripped the hilt.
“You've finally arrived.”
No, it was different.
There was one point of similarity.
“Welcome, hero from another world.”
The woman passing by Abel muttered softly.
“I was waiting for you.”
A few steps, the woman who had been walking looked back at Abel.
“I am the saintess of the distant past.”
I foresaw it.
That you would arrive here.