novelraw Chapter 148 : Chapter 148
Chapter 148 : Chapter 148
Chapter 148: Buried in the Black Sea, Countless Questions (5)
“……Speak.”
Nodens opened his mouth.
With eyes wide, he stared straight ahead. The man drenched in blood. Abel’s chest was pierced by a blade. It had undoubtedly aimed for the heart. Through the sensation transmitted along the edge of his sword, Nodens was certain of it. He had unquestionably pierced Abel’s vital point.
“And that thing behind you…….”
Nodens was no exception.
Abel’s beloved sword had pierced Nodens’ Core. And that was not all. The Margin-White rings that wrapped around the blade—countless interlocking loops—had torn through Nodens’ body from within. It would not have been strange for him to die instantly. Acknowledging that, Nodens directed his question.
“……What in the world is it?”
SCHLUCK.
The sound of each of them pulling out their blades.
Nodens and Abel retreated at the same time. After retrieving their swords, they staggered backward. One step, two steps, three. Nodens clutched his chest and collapsed, while Abel dropped to one knee, gasping for breath.
Both of them, fallen low, gritted their teeth and glared at one another.
“A girl……?”
Nodens muttered softly.
Behind Abel, a faint silhouette loomed.
At a glance, it looked like a girl. A girl shrouded in white radiance. And yet she was absurdly immense. Large enough to cover a portion of the sky. So vast that no matter how one gazed upward, one could not meet her eyes. She parted the thick storm clouds, dispersed the Demon King’s breath that had transformed into black mist, and was not merely a girl—
“……A god.”
My god.
Whispering so, Abel forced himself upright.
I see. With his head lowered, Nodens answered himself. Of course. It had to be a god.
The girl’s form vanished, and Abel’s body began to recover. Though his heart had been pierced, even the scar carved into it was regenerating. As though he were shouldering divine radiance itself.
“Nodens, knight of monsters.”
And so Abel stopped beside Nodens.
He extended his beloved sword. The blade came to rest against the nape of Nodens’ neck.
“……It is the end.”
Abel looked past Nodens.
The colossal monster that formed the wall of flesh. The children fused with the monster. And beyond them, the faint silhouette hanging over all of it.
At a glance, it looked like a woman. A woman wrapped in pitch-black aura. But Abel knew. The spokesperson of all malice. That impossibly enormous woman was the Demon King.
“Answer me.”
Answer me, please.
At the moment Nodens murmured so, the woman let out a laugh. The black mist surrounding them dissipated, and the hole etched into the sky slowly narrowed. The Demon King’s gaze was withdrawn. As the space that had been severed from the world began to restore itself—
“Children…….”
The woman vanished.
As though the question was not even worth hearing.
As though Nodens’ question were nothing more than a foolish one.
“If the children die…… can they go to the Underworld?”
Can they be reincarnated?
Can they be reincarnated as created beings, not monsters?
Nodens asked Abel, and—
“……Of course.”
Abel nodded.
Even if they had become one with monsters, the children still had souls. What happened to their bodies did not matter. What reached the Underworld after death was only the fragment called the soul. The only way to return those children to being created beings was to end this life, which had fallen into becoming part of a monster.
“I swear it.”
The children will go to the Underworld.
Without exception, they will live another life.
Abel murmured so.
“I promise. After preparing their graves, I will give them a proper funeral.”
“……I see.”
That is a relief.
Looking up at Abel, Nodens whispered.
Is he smiling? Abel thought as he looked down at Nodens. Through ragged skin, through torn muscles, through protruding bone, Nodens was smiling. Through a face that had replicated all of Abel’s features, he smiled as he prepared for death.
“You won, Nodens.”
Abel did not hesitate.
He tightened his grip around the hilt.
“As a knight, there is no doubt that you won.”
Beneath the Black Sea, hands reached up from the water.
They were Banshee larvae. Larvae resembling newborn infants touched Nodens’ body, then opened their mouths and began to devour him.
“……How regrettable.”
Because Nodens was going to die, they must have been trying to make him their nourishment.
“I was a knight before I was a professor…….”
Abel did not hesitate.
He tightened his grip around the hilt.
Borrowing even a moment was enough. The aura-wrapped blade swept across Nodens’ neck, and—
“……And a Hero before I was a knight.”
A moment of Margin.
All directions were dyed white, and then— fssss. Nodens’ body began to disintegrate.
His limbs, his expression, everything about Nodens was shattered and scattered like ash. A sea wind blew in, carrying away what remained of him, now thinned and dispersed.
Silence.
The Banshee larvae slipped back beneath the water.
Abel did not pursue them. He merely adjusted his grip on his beloved sword. For larvae to grow, they would need a progenitor. If the progenitor were destroyed, the Banshees’ future would soon starve away. Even so, there was no time to catch his breath.
‘I have to kill them.’
Abel raised his head.
He looked at the towering wall of flesh.
‘Those children…….’
In the beginning, it must have been a single monster.
A form like a giant tree made of flesh. The body of a monster that had survived for a very long time stretched high into the sky. Even so, it should have been nothing more than one monster. And yet now, it could only be perceived as countless children.
‘……I have to kill them all.’
Why was that?
As he stepped forward, Abel thought.
Just as created beings used the remains of monsters as weapons, monsters also strengthened their bodies by using created beings as materials. Was that why it absorbed the children? What aspect of the children had it desired? Their innocent appearance? Their pure hearts? Their desperate longing to live?
Was it that the children who longed to live, were the only ones it could not bring itself to kill? More than simply failing to kill them, had it tried, somehow, to keep them alive?
‘I cannot understand.’
Abel stood motionless, facing the wall of flesh.
‘I truly cannot understand.’
And yet it was familiar.
Even confronting incomprehensible dilemmas was something he had experienced countless times. Witnessing a grotesquely twisted facet of the world should have become familiar by now—
-We understand.
-We understand.
-We understand.
The voices of children, countless and entangled, rang out.
Abel’s hand trembled faintly. The hand gripping the hilt began to shake.
I cannot understand.
Why is this happening?
-We can understand you.
We have to disappear, right? That is obvious. Monsters are being born from our bodies. The sea being polluted, people dying—it is all our fault. That is what it has become. So please understand.
You have to kill us.
Only if we die, no one else will have to die anymore.
Am I not right?
Why?
Why did those children become the source of calamity?
That should not have happened. Gritting his teeth, Abel thought. The children offered as sacrifices had somehow become disasters, surviving beneath the sea. The most innocent had become the most harmful.
-We want to understand you.
We are monsters now. We have become one with monsters, so to save more people, we have to disappear. It cannot be helped. That is what I want to believe. I do not really want to resent you.
So why not steel your heart?
In the end, we were always going to die someday anyway.
Am I not right?
Why?
Why were the children accepting this?
That should not have happened. Tightening his grip on the hilt, Abel thought. Tragedy had continued for far too long. The children who lived in the depths of the sea had, after countless years, arrived at a conclusion. They wanted to live, and yet perhaps they deserved to die.
-I cannot understand you.
But think of it this way. It seems like you need someone who will understand you. So, um, could you answer my question?
Is my mother alive? My mother is an elf. I think she might still be alive.
If she is alive, could you tell her?
I cannot understand everything, but that I want to understand you.
Could you tell her that?
Why?
Why did such words have to be conveyed?
That should not have happened. Lowering his head, Abel thought. That child was surely Pnakotic’s daughter. After hundreds of years, should the truth conveyed to Pnakotic really be such an absurd conclusion?
-And one last thing.
-One final question.
-We want you to answer us.
Abel raised his head.
With great effort, he fixed his face into an indifferent expression.
-Nodens……,
-can he go to the Underworld?
-Can he live a new life?
No.
Abel answered softly.
“……Monsters do not have souls.”
Because they have no souls, they cannot depart for the Underworld.
Abel murmured so.
-I see.
-It cannot be helped.
-Just as much as we understand you,
we want you to understand us too.
After whispering so, the children—
-We will curse you…….
-We will curse you, curse you, curse you!
-We will curse you! We will curse all humans! We will curse them forever!
We curse, we curse, we curse.
The cries of countless children shook the Black Sea.
Yes. That was only right. Abel accepted it without wavering. The children’s curse was justified.
He then raised his head. Countless eyes, countless noses, countless mouths, countless ears. He looked up at the wall of flesh stained with innumerable limbs. He beheld countless curses.
And so Abel worked his lips.
His pale lips silently traced the air, and—
“……I am sorry.”
Slide.
The blade of the beloved sword stroked the empty air.
“Please, curse me…….”
We curse, we curse, we curse.
The voices of the children etched into the air faded away.
“……Curse me as deeply as you can.”
The towering wall of flesh scattered into ash.
Margin-White aura severed grudges that had endured for an immeasurable length of time. It cut them again and again, sending them upon the sea wind. The briny wind carried countless children toward the Underworld.
SPLASH.
Abel collapsed in a daze.
Lowering his head, he faced the blackened seawater.
Sprawled upon the Black Sea, he wondered. On the darkened surface of the water, who was that man faintly reflected there? Who was he, to wear such a sorrowful expression? Why, through ash-colored silver hair hanging limply, was he clenching his teeth as though his eyes were about to redden?
THUD.
Abel punched toward the man reflected in the water.
He had no right. No right to wear such an expression. Thinking so, he smashed the man’s face with his fist.
THUD, THUD, THUD.
Again and again, he smashed it.
Even so, it was futile.
In the middle of the Black Sea where countless children had once lived, all that spread was a ripple, no more than an inch wide.
That was all.