The Villain’s Ending

Chapter 108

Afterimage (19)

Soon after graduation, Levina became the family head.

She whined here and there about how everything was messed up because of me, but at least it seemed much better than me becoming the family head.

Power definitely seemed to suit her better.

Even a cursory glance showed things running several times more smoothly than when I was the family head.

And the talk of marriage with Seraphina and Estelle was postponed day after day with various excuses.

Fortunately, convenient excuses abounded.

Just then, Demons invaded the borders, wiping out entire territories, and some kingdom fell, causing refugees to pour into the Edelgard family's domain; it was absolute chaos.

Though I didn't expect one out of every four refugees to be a heretic.

Anyway, it wasn't a situation to utter words like marriage or having children.It was a suitable excuse.

Both of them seemed to know it was just an excuse.

But neither of them brought it up first.

Because the two of them were keeping each other in check every single day.

Still, I was somewhat satisfied.

Because I didn't have to say, "After marrying Estelle, I have no intention of having children with you."

I didn't have the confidence to face that expression twice.

As problems were roughly swept under the rug and time passed, it somehow became natural to spend time meeting Estelle and Seraphina alternately.

When Estelle voiced complaints, merely increasing the intimacy of our physical contact sufficed, and for Seraphina, spending time together, going around places and socializing as we used to, was enough.

Even that became impossible once the Demons invaded.

The situation was more serious than expected.

Like a small hole in a dam causing the entire dam to collapse, the world was irreversibly falling apart.

The Demons were pushing in their own way, and from behind, even after hunting and burning heretics like lice, they still swarmed out, causing chaos.

So, during all this, I was holed up in the mansion playing at being the family head.

Diligently playing with magic stones.

Because I hadn't even known such things were happening.

Thanks to this, I could at least use magic, but I somehow felt I understood the feelings of the farmers who had gathered masses, vowing to kill me.

It's a bit of an out-of-place thing to say, but the sky was incredibly blue.

Rather than being cloudless, there were maybe two specks of clouds, of a moderately pretty shape, and the sunlight was warm on the ground, so lying there felt truly like being in heaven.

The soft touch of grass enveloping my whole body.

The somewhat moist yet warm sensation made me feel sleepy.

My eyelids grew heavy as lead.

I wondered if I would soon return to that stale, smelly hell, littered with cigarette ashes and envelopes.

Lying down, I gazed at the sky.

It was chillingly blue.

Above it, like black paint splattered, countless arrows arced upwards.

Following the arrows, colorful fire, lightning, and other spells designed to tear people apart embroidered the sky.

Red, blue, and green beams of light tore across the blue canvas.

Sounds were faint.

I thought perhaps I had gone deaf.

Dull screams, death throes, the sound of something exploding somewhere.

Though unheard by my ears, one's body naturally trembles at loud noises.

The sound of blood and flesh bursting, bones crushing, someone begging for their life.

The mumbling wasn't particularly pleasant to hear.

"Lavin! Snap out of it! Don't close your eyes!

If you sleep now, you'll just sleep forever with your mom!

Open your eyes, goddammit, open your eyeeees!"

Levina shrieked, grabbing my collar and slapping my cheek.

Smack!

With a shock strong enough to snap my head, my blurry vision momentarily sharpened.

Levina, her face covered in scratches, was clinging to my body.

Her eyes were bloodshot, and her lips were parched.

Struggling to breathe, I fumbled at my chest with my slightly moving right hand and found rough bandages tightly wrapped around my chest and abdomen.

A pressure that felt like my ribs would shatter.

"Estelle will be here soon, I even shot a spell into the sky for her to come right away, so she'll see it and come quickly.

Don't close your eyes, goddammit, don't close your eyes, you dog-like bastard, if you die and leave me alone... I'll kill you!

Without you, I'll..."

But somehow, her words buzzed, barely audible.

As if hearing sounds underwater, everything felt distant.

Levina's face blurred.

Soon after, with the sound of something bursting, a shadow enveloped us.

Estelle, dressed in black clothes covered in blood and gore, arrived with a desperate expression.

She shouted something and began to bathe me in warm light.

Holy light enveloped my body.

However, she seemed quite flustered.

Seeing Estelle's flustered face, I too, curious, laboriously lifted my head.

Even moving my neck was difficult.

When I slightly lifted my head to look down, the wound had stopped healing midway.

The torn flesh was slowly mending, but then it just stopped.

Overwhelmed by sleepiness, I rested my head and closed my eyes.

****

Fortunately, when I opened my eyes, I hadn't returned to that damned room.

After barely crawling out to the battlefield, if I were to be cast out from the family again, squabbling over engagement annulment and such, it wouldn't end just with a headache.

I opened my eyes in a place where many injured people were gathered.

Seeing that there were beds, it seemed we hadn't lost the battle.

The air was a mix of blood, medicinal herbs, and a faint smell of death.

My upper garment had been changed, but my lower garment was still the same one I'd worn in the field.

It was still stained with dirt and blood.

To be honest, it was hardly a bed, more like a makeshift wooden plank with a blanket on it.

They even put up curtains around me, probably because I was a noble.

They were dirty rags, but better than nothing.

Peeking through the curtain, I saw it was filled with people missing limbs or parts of their bodies.

Unpleasant groans emanated from all directions.

And next to me... Seraphina was watching me.

She sat on a chair, motionless, looking at me.

Seeing me open my eyes, she gritted her teeth.

Crunch.

She seemed extremely angry.

"La-Lavin. I clearly told you not to go to the front, but to stay behind."

"And I said I didn't want to."

My voice came out hoarse.

My throat was dry.

"Fr-from now on, no matter what you say, I'm going to stu-stickwith you in the back."

Her eyes somehow resembled the ones I'd seen when she used to wear an eyepatch.

It was an unfamiliar gaze.

"W-why, why do you always, always! go to the front without considering your body, even though you can't even fight well!

Even though you could be b-behind, why do you fi-fight at the front!?"

Seraphina shrieked.

Her voice was trembling.

"Where are Levina and Estelle?"

"......."

Seraphina sighed and opened her mouth.

"Th-the Duke has g-gone to pick a ri-ridiculous fight, saying K-Kyle's people can't even f-follow a single order, and the Saintess is... bu-burying the dead."

Wanting to talk while looking at her face, I tried to sit up.

As I sat up and leaned my back against the wall, a slight stinging sensation arose, and the pure white bandages began to turn red again.

Seraphina sighed again and unraveled the bandages wrapped around my body.

She called over someone nearby, personally received new bandages, and began to tie them tighter.

"Yo-you, you seem to c-care too little about yourself.

Like you're a person who c-can die, you just foolishly go forward without ev-even thinking."

"Still, I caught two Demons this time."

"Th-that, that was a guy even an uneducated, st-street beggar could catch if you j-just gave him a spear."

I was about to reply, but Seraphina tightened the bandages even harder to prevent me from speaking.

I was suffocating.

"F-for our sakes, not just mine, but Estelle too.

Th-the Saintess also lo-loves you. Both of them. You said both of them love you. Huh?

You said both of them love you. That you don't know who you love more, or who you like more.

After saying you don't even know who to marry, you suddenly come to the battlefield, and when the Duke offers to follow you, you accept it happily instead of refusing, and instead of just shooting from behind or staying in a safe place, you go to the front to fight with your pathetic magic skills, casting useless spells, and if you were going to do that, you might as well have just shot spells into the sky as if to kill someone, and when told to do that, you couldn't even use proper ones and only shot them when fighting Demons, and then you complain about side dishes pointlessly, smoke cigarettes all day, don't answer properly when asked anything, and when you're with the Saintess, you make expressions you don't even make with me... W-why are you doing this, exactly?"

Seraphina grabbed my shoulders and pushed me against the wall.

And looking into my eyes, she said,

"Actually, you don't love anyone, do you? You don't even care about us, do you? Is 'I love you' also a lie?"

I grabbed Seraphina's wrist and pulled her towards me.

She stumbled and fell into my arms.

"Right now, I'm doing this because I love you, Seraphina.

I'm doing this because I love you.

Because I love you all more than anyone, I'm doing these absurd things, things beyond my station."

Seraphina was pressing on my wound, which somehow hurt maddeningly, but I didn't want to show any signs of twisting my body in pain.

Moving now would be too pathetic.

Since Seraphina was staring at me with dazed eyes, I simply brought my lips to hers and lightly kissed her.

After the kiss, and after our lips parted, she touched her lips for a long time before saying,

"You're just going to gloss over it again like this, aren't you?"

I said with a smile on my lips.

"I'm not glossing over it. If we keep fighting like this, all the heretics and Demons will die."

"......"

"Once things are more or less settled, let's get married."

"......Are you going to say these exact words to the Saintess too?"

Even as she grumbled, her face was slightly flushed.

I just gave a faint smile.

What kind of feeling is it to like someone who is okay with dying?

This time, I wanted to die first.

Because watching the backs of people I knew, urging me to live a little longer as they moved forward, wasn't a particularly pleasant feeling.