A pitch-black river flowed.
The impossibly high sky was red, and black rain fell upon the world.
My goddess was in despair.
"……You cannot hear me."
The voice that had guided me, the protection that had granted authority to my voice, had vanished.
"So this is how it ends…."
My goddess was defeated, and I too was defeated.
The knight I had deeply trusted had betrayed me and succumbed to the enemy's whispers, so there was nothing more I could do.
"You may resent me if you wish."
A sorrowful voice reached my ears as I stood at the edge of a cliff, gazing at the world with hollow eyes.
"However, I could not lose you."
"Ah."
Exhaling a sigh, I slowly turned around. There stood my knight. As always.
Meeting his upright gaze, immeasurable despair washed over me.
All this time, I thought he looked upon the goddess's agent, but he had been looking at me from the very beginning.
Why did I realize this so late?
"How does it feel to return to being God's puppet?"
At my question, he pressed his lips together in a firm line.
Even resentment failed to rise at that sight. Rather, pity outweighed it.
It was true that he had been a faithful puppet of God, but after gaining freedom through me, he had been the man who stood at the forefront in denouncing God.
He was the one who had comforted me, saying that death would be true freedom for the countless lives forced to follow an inescapable cycle.
'One who rejoiced in existing as a single person, not as God's toy….'
What was it that turned him back into a puppet?
"Why?"
At my quiet question, his face twisted.
"Do you truly ask because you do not know?"
Was it so hurtful that I didn't recognize his feelings?
If so, did those wildfire-like emotions, unpredictable in where they might spread, blind his eyes and lead him down a foolish path?
Was this my fault for placing overwhelming freedom in the hands of a newborn child without teaching them how to use it?
As I gazed at him with pitying eyes, he stubbornly furrowed his brow.
"What I desire is you, and God has promised to grant my wish."
"My foolish first knight."
An inevitable sigh escaped at his steadfast words.
Unlike God, who could weave the threads of fate and raise puppets at any time, the goddess's agent could not be carelessly selected.
And I, as the goddess's agent, was her fragment, a part of her.
"I cannot escape God's wrath."
God, who birthed all things, desired his creations to move according to his will eternally.
Whatever God promised, the end would be a tragic manipulation.
"……."
I quietly looked down at my hands. Hands that had liberated those who followed God's will like puppets.
"Your innocence is pitiful."
At my bitter murmur, his face contorted.
"If your destruction lies at the end of this path, I cannot overlook it."
"Birth is God's will, but death is the will of life."
The method the goddess chose to sever the cycle of eternal life was to distribute her authority to all the world.
That is… gifting the freedom to die to all living things.
"It is not destruction, but the exercise of my final authority."
In return, the goddess would disappear, but at the same time, the providence of balanced life and death would be completed throughout the world.
My final duty was also this. To offer all the authority I possessed and complete the world's providence.
"In an unbalanced world, God's puppets will always appear."
Those puppets would drag others into their fate like spider webs, bind them with threads, lead them to become new toys of God, and thus be trapped forever in an inescapable life….
I wondered if he wanted that. Whether being together, even if bound tight by the threads of fate, was what mattered.
Emotions, actions, judgments… if everything was predetermined, what meaning was there in being together?
However, before I could ask, he spoke first.
"But even if all others find freedom through death, it would not be freedom for you. You… will not be reborn."
"That is my duty."
"You said you would awaken the freedom of life for all. Then why do you not care for your own life?"
Saying this, he took one step toward me. The clouds hanging in the sky cast a slanting shadow over his face.
"If your own life does not exist, how can you awaken the life of others?"
His voice, mixed with resentment and pity, pierced my heart.
Surprisingly, his words sounded somewhat persuasive.
Come to think of it, since becoming the agent, I had never once thought I could live my own life.
My soul had been dedicated to the goddess, so I had regarded this life as something borrowed and to be returned.
"My own life…."
It was difficult to imagine myself not as an agent. Perhaps this was a problem I needed to contemplate from now on.
For I had lost my authority and become a mere human. And before me stood someone who wanted to keep me by his side, even if it meant turning me into God's puppet.
I, who had been gazing blankly at his sword that shone white despite being soaked in blood, moved my lips.
"Whose blood is that?"
"Those who blocked my path."
I murmured with a bitter smile.
"They were people who once exchanged greetings with you with smiles. Rejoicing in the freedom they attained."
He fell silent. Anguish showed on his face, but an even greater stubbornness coexisted with it.
"…It is all over. There are no knights left to block my path, and you may set down the heavy burden the goddess passed to you."
"You do not even give me time to mourn."
I muttered with a bitter smile and turned my gaze. In my view, black river waters swirled beneath the sheer cliff.
Melted into those rough waters was the goddess's power that had run amok in the final moments, having lost its way.
In the past, it would have posed no threat to me, but to me now, it would be sufficiently dangerous.
"I promised them I would grant them rest, so wait. So I swore."
I murmured quietly and took one step toward the cliff's edge.
"To whom are you speaking?"
"To my knights."
To my knights who trusted me and knelt, who willingly gave their necks.
What an irresponsible and empty promise that was.
Exhaling a sigh, I slowly turned to look at Samuel.
"Sir Samuel."
The shadow cast by clouds lifted, revealing Samuel's pale, drained complexion.
"Having lost the power to end my duty, I suppose I must contemplate my life as you wish?"
I smiled faintly, pulling up my dry lips. Samuel seemed to sense something and tried to approach me, but I shook my head and created distance between us.
Now the empty air was within reach. I felt no fear.
I did not want to fall into becoming God's toy, and to avoid that, I had to endure even the goddess's wrath-filled power.
Even if it made me forget my promise.
"For now, I just want to rest."
And so, on this dark and gloomy day, I had no choice but to gladly accept the death given to me.
* * *
When I opened my eyes, it was late at night.
I stared blankly at the ceiling and slowly raised my body.
'A dream….'
Scattered scenes rummaged through my memory. I sat still with my hand on my forehead, then turned my gaze to the window.
Rain sounds came from outside.
As if hypnotized, I threw off the covers, went down, and approached the window, slightly lifting the curtain.
In the darkness, I saw the world thoroughly soaked. It looked exactly like black rain.
'…That's an absurd imagination.'
Erasing the thought that had risen unbidden, I pulled the curtain shut with force.
'A dream, of all things, at this point.'
Had this really happened in the past? Or was it an imagination constructed from the information I had gathered?
With a confused face, I stood still and clenched my teeth.
Neither possibility held much meaning.
'If it really happened, it's already a past that's over, and if it's imagination, I can just forget it.'
But even so, my mood remained low.
All the emotions the 'agent' felt in the dream still remained in my body. Especially the emotion felt just before waking from the dream.
"Ha…."
The emotion I felt at that moment… reminded me of when I faced my final moments on the execution platform.
Terrible emptiness and loneliness, a hollow void.
A faint joy at finally being freed from everything….
"I should just go back to sleep."
I shook my head and climbed onto the bed. However, after lying down, my mind became more alert instead.
Naturally, the scenes from the dream rose again in my head.
The name that had emerged at the end of the terribly gloomy conversation also came to mind.
'Come to think of it, Samuel was Samuel even in the past.'
Despite being a soul that had reincarnated repeatedly like other Durahans, he lived under the same name.
It felt somewhat frightening that his obsession was that intense.
'As if it wasn't enough that he seems to be confusing his feelings about me with past emotions.'
I didn't know if I should keep him in this mansion. Having roughly gauged how he betrayed me and what our end was like, I felt even more uneasy.
I raised my body again and sat on the edge of the bed, lost in thought. Then I unconsciously fiddled with my ring.
I hadn't intended to activate the ring. I had simply forgotten the fact that touching the ring would activate it.
"Huh?"
Only upon seeing the glowing ring did I pull my hand away, but it was already too late.
My vision shook, and instantly my head spun. Strength drained from my body and my limbs went limp, but I couldn't feel the sensation of falling onto the bed.
As if being sucked into something, my consciousness flickered. All of this happened in a flash.
And when I came to my senses again….
'Huh…?'
Surprisingly, I was sitting in a guest room of the Imperial Palace.
To be precise, on the bed of the guest room.
That is… next to the sleeping Jenon.