Chapter 176 – Chapter 176. Who Are You?
“… Celica, are you okay?”
“…”
“Serica?”
“Oh, sorry. For a moment, I was resting my mind.”
While climbing the hill, Verdia repeatedly called to Celica, who stopped at her seat.
Celica, who had come to her senses belatedly at her worried voice, faced her right away and smiled at her.
The meddling in my head until now.
Immediately erases her memories of her cruel future, and at this time of her life, she perfectly plays the neat and friendly exterior she has shown herself.
“If it’s because you’re tired, you don’t have to overdo it. If you tell me, I will take a break.”
“It’s okay if you don’t. Did you get enough rest up until now thanks to Yumir?”
“Um, yes. Is it because of Ymir?”
Verdia immediately agrees with Celica’s words.
After that, her uneasy gaze began to turn to Yumir, who was lying with her head in the center of her hill.
To the mass of her party’s burden that was stretched out without even having the energy to do so, despite the possibility of swearing at the current conversation.
“Ymir, are you okay?”
“I don’t know, don’t tell me.”
Even in such a pitiful way, Ymir loudly answers Heira’s concerns.
Seeing that, Verdia let out a small sigh and shook her head.
“Anyway, if you fall down like this, it will take a year to attack the demon lord from now on.”
The same petty lament as usual.
But to Celica, it sounded different.
Having faced the demon lord directly from her future, she knew that her physical strength to reach that point was meaningless.
“… There’s nothing we can do. I’ll pick you up.”
Is that why?
The present that has returned to the past, the ability to show composure even though such a bleak future awaits.
“What, what? Hey wait…”
“Wow~”
“Hey wait. Won’t you put it down?”
Even in the future, when she had much stronger power than now, she wandered around the collapsed world, neglecting him who could defeat him as much as he wanted.
In the yard where you can’t come to a conclusion that the mission can be solved even by returning to the past, shouldn’t you have no choice but to think that any efforts you make to catch the devil now are meaningless?
“Hey, how are you? I’m with her older sister and younger sister, so I can do this much.”
“What about my sister and brother? Because you call it that on purpose.”
“Yes? Didn’t she say you can call her sister when she first woke up?”
“That, that was then, and now… Well, whatever…”
Yes, if she stays like this, it’s obvious that the future she saw will unfold.
So until that time comes, it might not be a bad thing to regard your current daily life as a happy dream.
If even a wicked person who has abandoned his mission as a hero is allowed to dream.
“No, is it?”
Ymir puts on a troubled expression in response to such an anxious question.
“I want to get along with Yumir and her older sister.”
“No, not like that…”
“Hey, from Yumir unnie’s point of view, you probably don’t like me. In fact, it’s because of me that you’re going through all this hardship…”
“… Hey, do as you like.”
Ymir, unable to see the self-torture, finally gives up.
With Yumir on her back, Celica began to climb the hill with her smile on her back.
‘As expected, it’s easy, Yumir-sister.’
It is natural.
Even his unique stubbornness and temper came from past wounds.
Celica, who had been traveling with her for years, experiencing her future, knew all too well that she would never be her pure villain.
The fact that she persecutes herself on this trip is also the result of her clumsy kindness to turn the confusion and hatred towards the person she loves to herself.
“If it’s heavy, you can put it down.”
“Are you okay. Because I’m strong Rather, it’s soft and feels good…”
“Oh yeah. Fluffy.”
“Yes, rather, I guess I have some feelings of wanting to stay like this… Perhaps because Yumir-unnie is drooping from exhaustion, the soft texture is getting bigger, is this strangely addictive? Lol.”
“Ah, this guy looked after me and climbed up!”
“Evil! Sick! It hurts!”
“… Ymir, don’t be too harsh with Celica.”
A violent reaction to a trivial prank.
Verdia’s nagging intervened in the sparring.
All that insignificant thing was approaching him as nostalgia.
No matter how much you return to the past, memories accumulate.
Because she knew very well that time once passed would not come back, and that what had happened was what had happened.
‘Should I hope all of this is a dream? Should I hope it’s not a dream?’
False happiness.
Or the torture of hope with a bleak reality predestined…
Neither of them was good for her, so Celica just decided to go with her flow.
She just wants to play a woman who has lost her memory, hanging out with her party, organizing her thoughts, and moving on to her destination.
“Heira, why is that?”
However, even in a situation where I had to accept that much, there was one person who couldn’t bear to treat me the same as in the past.
A girl who should be looking at the side of daily life like now, a man looking back was like that.
“… Place.”
Dave.
The immature elf girl who tried to put her name in her mouth closed terribly consciously.
“My older brother, the porter, fell behind…”
After correcting the words, with the following words, everyone’s eyes began to focus on him.
A man wearing a mask and hood. The bag that was half my height on his back contained all the items used on this journey.
‘To think that the demon king who will destroy the world is acting as a porter.’
Celica, who was looking at her with her eyes wide open, gave Yumir’s body to Verdia, who was waiting on the hill.
“Sister Verdia. Please support Yumir-sister.”
“What kind of burden am I? Give or take?”
“If you look at your stamina, it’s no different from luggage.”
“No, why is this lady fighting again?”
“I was talking about the obvious. And she must have told me not to call her Auntie?”
“Yes? Did I just say the obvious?”
Ymir and Verdia start bickering again.
Turning her back on them, Celica passed Heira, then reached out to Dave, who was lagging behind at the bottom of the hill.
“Mr. Porter. Please hold my hand.”
Not as a hero and a demon king.
While playing the relationship between a party member who has lost his memory and a porter who has not been able to melt into the party.
“…”
“Isn’t it hard to climb the hill with your luggage? I’ll hold your hand. Ruler.”
Dave stares at his hand.
He was wearing a mask, so his face couldn’t be seen closely, but his hand gripping the strap of his bag was shaking.
Are you resentful?
The helplessness of being unable to do anything even though you know your identity?
“Aren’t you going to hold my hand?”
Whatever it is, he won’t have a choice.
Even if he had to keep his distance in front of his party members, irreversible things would happen the moment he ignored his thoughtless approach to acting innocence.
“… Thank you.”
Seeing Dave reluctantly holding her own hand, Celica pulled her body with a faint smile on her lips.
“Thank you for accepting the favor. Mr. Porter.”
Speak loud enough to be heard by the three people watching the situation.
She pulled her body into my arms and whispered quietly as she brought her mouth to his ear.
“I’m glad you heard me well.”
If she hadn’t listened to me here, she would have blown someone’s head off with her own hand, not his then.
“You…”
Dave, who trembled at the whisper, stopped what he was about to say and started to follow the group up the hill.
Powerless, emotional.
That’s why it’s very human-like.
‘Yes Dave. That’s what I felt.’
The moment he saw it, he felt the thump he felt grow stronger.
Even though he knows he has to kill him, he is unable to kill him and his heart is in conflict.
Maybe he could get back to the original state of hope that he was suffering from such torture, it was something he could sympathize with more deeply than anyone else.
‘To feel the same way I felt, and to continue to engrave that feeling into your soul.’
The more that kind of humanity is engraved in the heart.
While taking comfort in the fact that he is moving away from the demon king who only destroys.
***
Devil.
It was inevitable for that existence to descend into this world, and even if it was defeated, it was a fact proved by the history of this world that it would reappear someday.
As if the future to which this world should advance is mortal, and even if he defeats him, the time of destruction will be delayed, mockingly reappearing in this world.
Even though so many demon lords appeared and disappeared in this world, there was not a single person in this world who knew in detail about the existence of the demon lord.
Not only humans who had fought against him, but even the demons, and even the warriors who had experienced the future, knew nothing about him.
One thing to know.
Everything that exists in the place where the demon king passed is twisted by his power, and once the movement begins, it does not stop until everything in this world collapses.
‘Dave, I have no idea why you became like that, even now thinking about it.’
There was no way I could know.
No matter how much he experienced the future, when he came to his senses, every way to find out about it had collapsed.
In a world where even the process was thoroughly collapsed, only the result remained.
Dave became the demon king, and the demon king destroyed the world, and even though he could kill such a demon king, the only result was that he couldn’t kill him.
‘Have you been possessed by something at that time?’
On that day, after he said goodbye to himself, did he have an accident while carrying out his responsibilities?
‘Or are you currently deceiving the world through your acting?’
Is the love she shows for them and the resentment she shows for herself just acting?
‘Or am I wandering around the world deceiving even myself?’
Maybe he erases his memory and wanders the world.
Since it has the power to manipulate the mind, it cannot be said that the possibility is very unlikely. I don’t know why, but I can’t rule out the possibility that he did it for whatever reason.
Even if the love, anger, and hatred he feels all come from the heart.
In the end, when the appointed time comes, everything will return to what never existed, and he may change into the demon king he saw that day.
‘… I don’t know.’
Yes, even if you return to the past, all you can do is speculate.
But even in the midst of that, there was one thing I could be sure of.
Demon kings are beings that exert enormous influence just by existing, and that such a being does not suddenly appear without a warning.
As long as there was already a group of demon kings, united by the demon king, it was impossible to consider the possibility that Dave became the new demon king through some kind of opportunity after leaving that day.
At this point, he has already become a demon king, or the seed of becoming a demon king may have already been planted in him.
‘Even though I don’t know anything, I can’t kill you, so I have no choice but to do this.’
Whether you realize it or not.
Whether he intended it or not, he had to treat him as the demon king.
Even though he couldn’t kill him with his own hands, he tried to prevent him from awakening as the Demon King in a way that was allowed to him.
‘Because I love you.’
Because I really love him that much.
Because I chose him as my life partner who is trying to change false love into truth.
‘Because I love you, I want to feel that even you who did such a thing can love someone.’
So little by little.
If you prove the love he has, even in the form of hatred, and make him work hard for it, if you engrave his humanity deep in his heart.
Surely, if he killed himself with his own hands to prevent the birth of Ma Wa, wouldn’t he be able to fulfill his unfulfilled love and revenge as well as fulfill his destiny as a warrior?
“Sister Selica. I have something to say.”
By the time I got out of the forest with such hope, I was lost in thought at the campsite built on the plateau.
Heira cautiously approached Celica, who was about to light her bonfire, and began talking about her business.
“I’m going to scout the area, can I go with you?”
“… Reconnaissance?”
“Huh. Reconnaissance.”
Heira nods her head.
However, the bitter feelings she felt were clearly visible on her face.
As if there was something in her that was bothering her.
“What are you, why are you so bummed out? Are you sick?”
“If it’s okay, I can look over the situation…”
The other two are showing interest in Dave, who just happened to be disappointed. Even if he left the seat with Heira like this, there would be no one who would follow behind him.
“Yea, I got it. If it’s okay with your sister.”
So, after telling her party about her situation, Celica left her seat.
As they entered the valley where the rocks of the plateau were dense, the moonlight shining through the cracks began to shine between the two.
The surroundings are covered, so you need to be prepared for danger. But I’m sure it will be fine.
Heira, as well as herself, is a body that can easily sense the level of danger occurring around her.
“Huhu, it’s nice to walk together like this~ Isn’t it like Hei?”
“… Sister Celica.”
Yes, if there is something to be wary of, it is not the monsters that will come from this demonic realm.
“Sister, no.”
This girl in front of me is herself.
“… Isn’t she your sister?”
“Who are you?”
This is a somewhat expected question.
This girl who has developed her senses in the forest over 100 years.
Because she will be able to easily notice the change in others as much as she will be compared to herself who walked through the ruined world.
“Why, she’s not Celica’s sister, so she’s playing Celica’s sister?”
Yeah, no matter how good she is at acting, she can’t hide everything.
A monster that has given up being human, no matter how much it wears human skin, is bound to be a monster.
‘Anyway, that’s why I said I’d kill this kid first.’
Isn’t that a bitter reality?
The first criterion for choosing a colleague to deal with is not someone you love, but yourself who wants to hide your identity.
