Chapter 221 |
I tilted my head.
“You are leaving now?”
“I originally planned to leave right after giving my thanks. I only stayed because I said with my own mouth that I would wait.”
“No, but…… you don’t have to watch me add the law?”
“If the law is added and that aura of negative energy settles on me, I will notice it even if I’m not standing here. Isn’t it uncomfortable for you all to have us hanging around anyway?”
“That’s true.”
“Very honest.”
Chijik.
She opened a space.
Telling them to go first.
Before leaving, Sobius said,
“Hey, if you connect through that necromancer over there, you can meet the party members who were with me, right? The 4 main party members.”
“We already met them.”
“What? When.”
Come to think of it, I never told Idria how I managed to kill Velosian.
So of course Sobius wouldn’t know.
I scratched my ear and said,
“No need to know. Oh right, they did leave a message. They told me to tell you to hurry up and shove your face into a plate and die.”
“Huhu. I suppose it must have been a huge betrayal and wound for them.”
“…….”
“Back then and now, I carried out Mother’s orders, and I don’t regret that. But aside from that, I do feel sorry toward them. If I get the chance, I would like to offer my apolo…”
He was about to say nonsense, so I cut him off.
“Spare me the empty apology. They won’t accept it anyway.”
“……You’re right. Just like Ophelia didn’t accept Mother’s apology.”
“You heard that from Idria.”
“Anyway, I will go. Let’s never meet again.”
Sobius threw himself into the space.
Next, Sabach spoke.
“Offense. I know what you did to my daughter.”
“And I know what your daughter did to me?”
“…….”
“Be grateful to Mide. You and your daughter are stains on my life, memories I would rather erase. If it weren’t for Mide’s plan, at the very least you would have died by my hand.”
Sabach gave a bitter smile and nodded.
“I suppose so. My disciple.”
“Stop talking nonsense and get lost.”
“Since it’s the last time, let me say one thing, next time, I hope you meet a good woman. Even though she was my daughter, she wasn’t right for you. In many, many ways.”
Hwiik.
Sabach vanished through the space.
Serein tilted her head and asked Offense,
“What was that about? Mr. Offense, weren’t you single your whole life?”
“What gives you the confidence to assert that.”
“N-No way. I thought we were comrades!”
“Don’t feel camaraderie over something like this.”
Then Pirensha spoke.
“Hey. Stop being noisy. I’m leaving now?”
“What the… You are still here?”
“Who do you take after to be this rude, seriously.”
“You. We were one soul.”
“You said earlier that was ages ago!”
Pirensha huffed, then let out a small sigh.
“My parents are doing well, right? My parents from when I was human.”
“No clue. Mr. Offense should have handed the them to the capital’s assassin guild, and I didn’t check after that.”
“When everything is over, go see them once.”
“Of course I will. I will go and……”
“Yeah. Pay them back for all the mistreatment, right?”
Normally that’s when you say “Go and take good care of them,” no?
The two of them were grinning with wicked smiles.
Looking at them, they are undeniably sisters.
Serein asked,
“But did you have any reason to hold a grudge against our parents?”
“Maybe not as much as you, but I was still pretty suppressed. All the faith in the celestial god, and the expectations to behave so maturely.”
“Hmph. First time we have ever agreed on something.”
“I’m not happy about it.”
“Same here. Now get lost.”
They sharply turned their heads away from each other.
Pirensha gave me her final words.
“I will be going, Hero.”
She walked into the space.
The only one left was the Demon King.
Idria lightly smiled and spoke.
“Mide. I want to ask you one last thing. It’s purely personal curiosity, not important. If you don’t want to answer, you don’t have to.”
“I will listen first.”
“Are you really on your first time?”
“What?”
“From the moment you first faced me, you showed many things that put you ahead of me.”
She continued slowly.
“Of course, there’s Bion’s help, and that power from the so-called eye of omniscience, so it’s not incomprehensible. But even with that, there were things that couldn’t be explained.”
“…….”
“For example, how you already understood the personalities and tendencies of Kaeld and your party members, and built your strategy around that. Can the eye of omniscience read someone’s nature? I doubt it.”
I think I know what she wants to ask.
I told my party members about my regression, but I never bothered telling Idria.
“That’s why I started wondering. Whether this is maybe your ‘second time.’ Whether you turned back time.”
“And if I did?”
“I’m not saying that I would do anything about it. Like I said, it’s just curiosity. But…… if that really were true, it would be fascinating.”
Neril cut in.
“What’s so fascinating? He just used the power stored in the eye of omniscience.”
“I’m not surprised by the idea of turning time back. Mide used to be the master of the world, right? What’s surprising about someone like that handling time. What I’m curious about is something else.”
“……?”
“If you really could regress, why that point in time?”
Even I perked up a bit at that.
Idria continued.
“At that time, Kaeld had already taken Offense, Lisel, and Serein. If you had the ability to rewind time anyway, wouldn’t it have been better to return to a point where he didn’t have any of the party members yet?”
“……!”
“If you had gone back to when Kaeld’s fame was at rock bottom, you could have killed him early without any burden.”
“True……”
“Or even further, why not go back to when I was first born into this world? Or further still, back to the age of the Impelium, and kill Velosian then? There were many options.”
As expected, a Demon King is still a Demon King.
Idria was pointing out something I had never considered.
I asked Trail,
“She has a point. You rewound time about seven years, right?”
“Mm.”
“Why exactly seven years? Not criticizing, just curious.”
“Uh, well.”
He scratched his head.
“I showed up to you during your final battle, right?”
“Yeah. And you said you didn’t know why.”
“Thinking about it now, I’m not sure why I so confidently said, ‘I will rewind time for you.’ back then.”
“Huh?”
“It just felt like I had naturally assumed it was possible. All those years before, I had never once tried to turn back time, and I don’t think I ever believed it was possible either.”
Trail was someone who had been tracking down and killing Idria long before the Empire even began.
And in all those countless years, he had never once turned back time.
No, he had never even considered that it might be possible.
I thought for a moment, then opened my mouth.
“Well, we will figure that out together in a bit.”
“In a bit?”
“My fame passed thirty million this time, and the screen said it would stop hiding things and tell me everything. You guys should hear it too.”
Tak.
At that moment, the screen window rose.
<That meant it would be shown only to Mide.>
Apparently, the so-called special exception or whatever it was applied again, letting the other party members see the screen too.
Xenia chimed in.
“Ah, come on. Tell us too.”
<…….>
“We are directly involved in all this, you know.”
<Kkeung.>
It even bothered to write out ‘Kkeung’ as a sentence.
Strangely diligent in weird ways.
Idria spoke.
“I want to hear it too.”
“You can’t. Go on.”
“Mide.”
“Whatever secret it is you are curious about, that belongs to the humans.”
“Hehe. So the Demon King isn’t allowed.”
She accepted it more easily than I expected.
“Fine, I should withdraw. This world draws a strict line between Demon Kings and humans, after all.”
“Yeah. Don’t go too far.”
Idria approached the rift.
Right before she threw herself in, she spoke.
“Mide, and the other heroes. This is our eternal farewell.”
“……?”
“Bion can visit from time to time though.”
“Get lost.”
“Kuk-kuk.”
Idria vanished beyond the rift.
And just before the space closed and disappeared, she said:
“I mean it. Bion.”
And so the Demon King’s faction vanished, leaving only us.
I called the screen again.
“Alright. Again, share this secret with the whole party.”
<…….>
“If you don’t share it, I will just tell them separately anyway. Might as well reduce the work from twice to once.”
<Haaa.>
Bion wrote out a sigh in text.
<Understood. But I don’t think there’s any need to show the screen window.>
“Huh?”
<I was planning to change the location anyway. I can just invite your companions there.>
“……?”
<Just a moment.>
Suddenly, our vision turned pure white.
I knew this feeling.
No, every party member knew it.
It was the feeling from when Impelium had invited us into his room.
‘Which means…’
When I opened my eyes again…
We were surrounded by clear skies, a hill overflowing with green, and a cool mountain breeze all at once.
Neril spoke.
“The scenery is gorgeous. Quiet and peaceful.”
Xenia cut in, sounding exasperated.
“Shouldn’t we be saying something else before admiring the scenery?”
“Like what.”
“Like ‘Where are we?’ ‘How did we get here in the blink of an eye?’ Things like that.”
“You are not freaking out either. You already have a guess.”
“Well, adapting too well to nonsense isn’t great either. I kind of want someone to pretend to be shocked for me.”
“Then Offense can pretend.”
Offense twitched his eyebrow.
“Me again.”
“Yep, you again, mister.”
“Sorry, but I’m not surprised either. It feels exactly the same as when we were invited to Impelium’s room. Which means this is…”
“Yeah. This must be the Embrace of the World.”
Lisel added softly:
“Mr. Mide’s world.”
At her words, everyone quietly looked at me.
As if asking whether something was coming back to me.
But unfortunately, I could only shake my head.
Then it happened.
“Hello, everyone.”
A voice that belonged to none of my party members.
We all jerked in surprise and turned.
A woman wearing a wide-brimmed hat, as though shielding herself from the sun, and dressed in fluttering clothing, was walking toward us.
Her black hair, longer than Neril’s, swayed like curtains.
She carried a small bundle under one arm.
“That person is…”
My party members were sharp as always.
Sharp enough to guess immediately that this was the Embrace of the World of “Mide’s world.”
Naturally, that meant everyone had some idea who this woman was.
Of course, so did I.
Turbuk-turbuk.
She stopped a few steps before us and unpacked her bundle.
Inside were sandwiches and drinks prepared for our group.
Neril frowned slightly.
“Feels exactly like a picnic, doesn’t it?”
“This used to be Mr. Mide’s hobby.”
“Mide’s?”
“Yes. Just like Impelium enjoyed watching the world outside his window, Mr. Mide enjoyed sitting here, feeling the cool breeze, and looking up at the clear sky.”
Neril gave me a sidelong glance.
“You had a hobby like that?”
“No. It’s not like I lived a lifestyle where I could enjoy relaxed picnics. I was busy doing mercenary work and traveling all the time.”
“But she…”
“Probably a hobby I developed when I was the master of the world.”
I looked at the woman.
“Isn’t that right? Screen window… no, Bion.”
We had already decided to reveal everything today.
So I didn’t hesitate to speak her name.
Bion smiled lightly.
The ones surprised were my party members… and of course, Trail.
He said:
“Why is my name coming up here.”
“This woman is the screen window we knew. The one that showed us the Eye of Omniscience.”
“…….”
“And the screen window’s name is Bion.”
“Ahaha.”
He let out a bright laugh.
“A namesake then. No, since I changed my name, that might not even be right.”
“…….”
“Anyway, it’s a pleasure. Ms. Bion. I’m the former Bion.”
“Stop the denial.”
Trail’s smile faltered.
Eventually the laughter faded entirely from his face.
From Impelium’s gathering onward, Trail had been curious about his identity.
Now that the moment was finally here, it was natural he would be tense.
Bion spoke.
“Alright, everyone take a sandwich.”
“When Impelium invited us to the party, even then I focused on hearing the world’s secrets from him before enjoying anything.”
“…….”
“Same now. The fun picnic can come after we learn everything.”
“…….”
“Hey, Bion.”
Ahem.
I cleared my throat for no reason.
“No matter what I say to you, I’m very grateful.”
“Mr. Mide.”
“The Eye of Omniscience… all the help you have given me was immense. But most of all, I’m grateful that you gave me another chance. Through regression.”
“…….”
“Because of you, I learned the stories of the companions I overlooked before the regression, and I was able to build bonds with them. I am who I am now thanks to you.”
I continued in a serious voice.
“So please help me just once more.”
“…….”
“Let me… let us know everything.”
Bion smiled gently and nodded.
“That’s why I brought you all here in the first place.”