Chapter 326: Solari’s Treasure (1) (1/2)
Jude slowly caught his breath.
The sight of the horizon located beyond the straight road soon faded like a haze.
He just saw it.
He had not yet reached the horizon.
But just being able to stand up straight and look at the horizon was a great achievement.
‘Sword Saint.’
Jude was now on equal footing with Elune, a Grand Sword Master.
Elf Sword Valencia thought that Jude could now compete with the other Grand Sword Masters and not just Elune.
However, he was not a true Grand Sword Master.
His transcendent physical abilities, the characteristics of Sword Origin, and the overwhelming energy of the Ninth Heaven’s Nine Doors resulted in him having the combat power of a Grand Sword Master despite his lack of sword skills.
If it had not been for Valencia.
If she had not helped him become familiar with the sword.
It would have been absolutely impossible for him to be equal with Elune.
But it was different now.
Jude saw the horizon on his own.
After attaining enlightenment, he truly became someone at the same level of the Grand Sword Masters and those monsters of the sword.
And what that meant.
Even though his sword skills were lacking, his combat power explosively increased because he became a person who had the combat power of a Grand Sword Master and the skills to match a Sword Saint.
‘Memories.’
He had attained enlightenment.
But it was not attained through the normal route.
He acquired it through his memories.
He once again took possession of what was originally his.
“Memories.”
Jude repeated as he swallowed hard.
His green eyes were filled with hope instead of despair, and he could now see other things besides the sword horizon.
Memories that had already faded.
But he was able to recall it one by one.
Those were not false memories or delusions.
The war between the north and the barbarians of the wild lands.
The death of his father, Count Bayer, and his older brother, Gaël.
Those who died from the continuous fighting.
The death of Maja who was worried about him and their burnt hometown until the very end.
Scarlet whom he faced as an enemy and Kajsa whom he could not even recover her body.
Lucas was his best rival.
No, Lucas was his best friend.
But he became a demonic human.
He was captured by the enemies and forcibly turned into a demonic human, eventually dying at the hands of Jude himself.
The words of the man who recovered his humanity at the last moment because of Divine Sword Balisarda lingered in Jude’s ears.
And one more person.
The reason why Jude was able to fight.
The reason why Jude had to fight.
“Cordelia.”
A girl who cared for her weak and sickly fiancé like an older sister.
A woman like the sun who never lost her smile no matter how hard and difficult it was.
She became a demonic human.
Jude had to kill her with his own hands.
“Haa… haa…”
He felt like his head was going to split.
No, his heart was burned. He felt a sense of loss as if he had lost his whole world. The fact that he had to live in a world where she no longer existed drove him to despair and madness.
“Haa…”
His breathing became heavy. His tears flowed down endlessly.
Cordelia.
Cordelia.
Cordelia.
I have to keep fighting.
To keep her dying wish, to protect the world, to somehow protect the world that Cordelia loved-
He was a person with only a shell left.
A person whose heart was burnt black and turned into ashes.
“Cordelia.”
Jude said as he cried.
He could not contain his intense emotions.
An intense sadness that came after the bliss.
And at this moment, the fact that Cordelia was in his own arms gave him joy, relief, gratitude, and numerous other emotions.
“Jude.”
Cordelia said in a stifled voice.
She felt like her entire body was going to be crushed because of his tight hug, but there was something else that bothered her more than the pain.
The tears of Jude.
Jude who was crying like a child.
“It’s okay. It’s okay.”
Cordelia softly spoke and tightly hug Jude.
She consoled him like she used to in the past.
The past.
Like she used to in the past.
Cordelia felt that something was out of place for a moment, but she ignored it. She wanted to see Jude’s face, so she loosened her hug and faced him.
“Cordelia.”
“Yes, I’m okay. I’m not going anywhere. I’m right here. I’ll always be by your side.”
Words came out without her realizing it.
Her voice came out as if it were words she had really wanted to tell him, words that she had kept in her heart for a long time.
Cordelia caressed Jude’s cheek.
She wiped away his tears and kissed his lips, and her breathing became rough after some time had passed.
She mischievously smiled at Jude who was also panting.
“Have you calmed down?”
Jude nodded his head. He tightly hugged Cordelia again and wiped away his tears with his own hands.
“Haa…”
As Cordelia had said, it seemed like he had calmed down now.
Memories had completely dominated Jude’s own emotions in a flash.
It belonged to the other Jude.
It was clearly the memories of the Jude Bayer who used the Sword of Wind and reached the sword horizon.
But why did this happen?
He was not the Jude in the game.
In Legend of Heroes 2, Jude lost his father, Count Bayer, and his older brother, Gaël, in the war against the wild lands, but he never became Cordelia’s lover.
‘The worst route.’
He could not remember the ending of the other Jude.
But what he had gone through was already miserable.
So his ending would not have been a peaceful one either.
“Haa… haa…”
Jude relied on Cordelia’s warmth.
He continued his thoughts as he hugged her soft body.
‘Memories.’
The memories of the other Jude.
What’s going on?
If he’s not the game Jude, who is that Jude then?
A parallel world?
A Jude Bayer from another world line?
But even if that’s the case…
‘Why?’
Why did Jude himself have the man’s memories?
Several hypotheses came to his mind.
The first was the memories came from a parallel world.
For some reason, he had come to share the memories of the Jude from a parallel world.
The second was regression.
Just like in the movies and novels, Jude himself had returned to the past.
The memories of the other Jude had actually happened. It was a series of events that Jude himself had experienced in the past.
It sounded absurd, but it explained better why Jude had the memories of the other Jude than the parallel world hypothesis.