Vol 2 Epilogue (1/2)

Epilogue

I told him.

It is not my intention to leave this scar upon your heart.

However, that I am someone so dear to you makes me incredibly happy. It is a point of pride for me. Perhaps it was too much of me to have said this.

——You are already a tool no longer.

From now on, you must live on as a “person.”

And then… the ebony knife pierced through my chest.

Yuuki interrupted his reminiscing, gazing outward through an open window.

The weather was fantastic.

The warm rays of the sun felt wonderful. Yuuki stretched and returned to work… only to notice a young girl’s head, sticking halfway out of the entranceway, watching him.

“…What are you doing, Tina?”

“Um, um… Tina’s done cleaning the store, and we’re ready to open. I was going to report to you, Master, but you were lost in thought. ——M-Master, can I ask what you were thinking about?”

“Ah, well…”

My most bitter memory – such an answer would be pretty meaningless, wouldn’t it?

“I pulled back the bandage to see how the wound was doing.”

“Y-You’re hurt? Let me see!”

Tina’s frantic expression made Yuuki burst into laughter.

“It’s okay. It’s already fine… though it’s left a scar.”

It still was anything but a happy memory, but he found the pain thereof had left him. It didn’t matter how grievous the wound, as long as you survived, time would heal all wounds.

“T-That’s good to hear. ——But um, if anything does happen, be sure to let Tina know, alright? I’ll definitely be of use to you. I know I don’t really have any divine energy, b-but I’ll definitely find a way… to help you…”

She seemed a bit awkward.

“…Are you okay? You’ve sure seemed a bit off recently.”

She’d been full of enthusiasm just a bit earlier, only to sink into a depression in an instant. Her emotional ups and downs were quite drastic.

“It’s nothing!” Tina denied.

At the meeting a few days ago, Tina had formed an alliance along with the “s.h.i.+nki who Supports the Sky,” Lea, the “s.h.i.+nki who Scatters the Stars,” Elfriede, and the “s.h.i.+nki Crowned with the Moon,” Kaya. That said, their “alliance” wasn’t anything complicated; they’d simply called a truce. A violation of the truce would inevitably create suspicion that the party in question was the Serpent of Demise, and thus even Elfriede would temporarily cease hostilities.

Arrangements to meet the remaining s.h.i.+nki had been left in Lea’s hands and was something they’d left for the future.

“You sure don’t look like there’s nothing wrong. There’s no need to hide it, whatever it is; just go ahead and tell me.”

“…That’s the problem.”

“Huh?”

“Hiding… Master, even if you say that, you’re always worrying about things by yourself, thinking of how you’re going to handle everything alone. Even the truce we formed, that was something you did. Not that I’m not grateful – I am – but… am I really not someone you can trust?”

The small s.h.i.+nki looked up at Yuuki.

“That’s not how it is at all. You’ve been a great help.”

He wasn’t just saying it. He thought for a moment and then continued.

“Whatever it is that worries you, feel free to share it with me. I’ll answer as best and truthfully as I can.”

“Um, then…”

Tina looked slightly embarra.s.sed.

“What concerns me is the thing with your former master. ——Did you really kill those adventurers?”

“…It’s true.”

This time it was Yuuki’s turn to not know what to say. However, he’d just sworn not to hide anything from her.

“After Muriel became the Serpent, we thought up many ways to control her impulse to kill.”

The simplest way, of course, was simply to allow her to kill, but she’d rejected that out-of-hand.

Their second plan had involved allowing her to indirectly experience another’s death.

Yuuki had discarded the name of the “Snow Blade King” and had set himself to ending disputes between adventurers. It was about this time that the name of the “Black Demon” began to spread.

Unfortunately, before long, this ceased to be enough, and so the two had taken to hunting Void Beasts.

Although it wasn’t people that were dying, the fact that she was personally able to kill proved incredibly effective. Her mind and the impulse to destroy were constantly at war with one another, but he pushed her to kill those Void Beasts. If she were ever to kill a person, she would undoubtedly take her own life. That outcome had to be avoided at any cost.

That she had changed did not matter. All that mattered to Yuuki was that he be allowed to spend even one second more by her side.

“Alas, not long pa.s.sed before something happened. ——Once, we were deep within the labyrinth when we caught sight of a Void Beast. Muriel planned to unleash her powers upon it.”

It had been a huge one. Killing it would calm her impulse for quite some time. Just as that thought had entered Yuuki’s mind… a party had appeared and killed the beast.

That had been Elfriede’s party. On the off-chance something terrible would happen, she’d brought not just her Duelist with her, but all of her finest subordinates from her Oath Legion. They had been plumbing the labyrinth’s depths looking for the finest Reliquia – the Dragon Fang Gems – as well as dispatching any Void Beasts in their way. They declared their claim over any and all Dragon Fang Gems.

Yuuki couldn’t care less. The problem was that Muriel’s pa.s.sions had been denied an outlet.

“And so I killed the noisiest of their number. I figured if Muriel saw someone die then perhaps it’d ease things a bit.”

He couldn’t have been more wrong.

The thought that “I made Yuuki kill” became the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Her powers had rampaged out of control, killing every human present. Elfriede had only just managed to escape with her life by teleporting back to her temple.

Once Muriel had regained control of herself, she had determined to end her own life.

Yuuki had taken up his black blade and killed his master.