At my unexpected words, I stood speechless as I watched the sky turning crimson before my eyes.
The color of the sky was becoming similar to that moment in my memories. If there was any difference, it would be the positions of Samuel and myself.
"It is dangerous."
Xenon tried to stop me, but I reassured him instead before approaching Samuel.
Samuel still held the sword's hilt out toward me. After hesitating briefly, I accepted it and gripped it carefully.
I thought it would surely be heavy, yet somehow I could lift it with one hand without any difficulty.
Samuel, having yielded the hilt to me, knelt like a criminal awaiting judgment.
"If I strike you with this sword, your divine power will disappear?"
I asked, looking down at the sword with a measure of curiosity. Samuel nodded and answered.
"If your authority is added, it becomes possible. The divine power wrapping the sword will enhance the blade's killing intent, and your authority contained within will consume my divine power."
They said the betrayer made a covenant of repentance. They also said to find rest at the journey's end.
"I have carried this power through every life, waiting for you. And now I can finally fulfill the covenant with the goddess."
At that moment, the fact that Samuel possessed divine power powerful enough to rank among the highest in the temple suddenly crossed my mind.
If that innate divine power was actually proof of the covenant, it was not difficult to infer the following.
"Obtain what you desire."
The reason Samuel had to reach this place together with me.
He intended to cooperate in completing the final authority, while praying that at its conclusion, even the captain's rest would be achieved.
"After that, grant rest to myself."
"Originally, after the final authority, you who were revived would also have breathed your last. To obtain rest in 'the form you desire' now, the power of birth is necessary."
Samuel explained in an even voice.
"And the high-purity divine power I possess originated from the authority of birth."
I recalled Samuel explaining about the authorities after granting rest to Mori, saying that death comes only after birth. That the two authorities must interlock for a complete life to be formed.
I told Samuel I wanted him to live.
So that I could live...
I raised the sword and pointed it at Samuel's neck. Though I understood fully what sacrifice he intended to make, my head only grew coldly numb.
"Are you saying you'll give me even your neck?"
"If that is what you desire."
He intended to sacrifice himself for the captain. Devoting all his power. Offering even his life if necessary.
Perhaps that was the greatest atonement he could make. If the authority of birth was needed for the wish to live peacefully, Samuel's choice was a great kindness to me.
"Sir Samuel."
But how strange.
I did not find the resolutely kneeling Samuel noble in the slightest.
"I believe I said this before, but there is no one here whom you betrayed. So you cannot be forgiven either. Don't ask such things of me."
At my words, Samuel's shoulders, which had been hanging weakly, stiffened.
I gazed at him while harboring cynicism.
The captain's memories and emotions from standing in this place crept in subtly, but rather than being assimilated, I accepted them with detached emotions as if watching someone else's story.
If it had been the captain of the past, perhaps she would have been moved by Samuel's sacrifice at this very moment and shed tears.
The captain of the past, the captain who faced his betrayal...
If it was the captain who prayed to the goddess, asking her to forgive Samuel in her final moment of throwing herself into the river, she surely would have.
She thought of Samuel specially. If Samuel learned of this, if I were to tell him now, he would undoubtedly close his eyes feeling as if he had gained the whole world.
...Just imagining it made me furious enough to flip my insides.
"If you wanted forgiveness, you already had several chances. While coming here, multiple times. When my Durahans regained their heads, you should have begged them."
Strength entered the hand gripping the hilt. The knights to whom I had personally granted rest passed through my mind in turn.
Dasha who reached the death she desired after enduring waiting, Ganik who wistfully cared for the baby lizardman until the end, Palides who held me warmly, Tristan who didn't even remember his own death, Bark who stepped forward first to protect Minte, and Minte who witnessed Bark's death, Soana who prayed for the knights in the chapel, Nadev who bid me farewell with a reliable face until the end, Jigor who showed pure loyalty, Mori who firmly voiced the wish to stay with me even while checking my reaction.
My Durahans.
"From the start, the target of your apology was completely wrong."
Meeting my Durahans had been as bewildering and embarrassing as an accident encountered unexpectedly.
How could I have known? That I would come to cherish these headless, fierce Durahans so dearly.
I didn't know, yet here I was. So I could not help but feel anger toward Samuel, who would not apologize to my Durahans.
Not telling him how the captain of the past had viewed Samuel was also a choice born from anger.
"I will not take your neck."
As I muttered coldly, I channeled authority into the sword I held. From the hilt of the white-glowing blade, a green aura began to wind upward.
The two forces did not mix, like water and oil. Thanks to this, the pristine blade became mottled like the skin of a patient afflicted with disease.
Having confirmed that the divine power, white and transparent enough to feel sacred, was becoming stained, I indifferently raised the sword.
I said I wouldn't take his neck, but I never said I wouldn't draw blood.
Sweek!
"Kgh!"
Along the cleanly drawn straight line, red blood spurted. Samuel, caught defenseless and suddenly attacked, let out a painful groan.
Blood streamed from his arm.
Not knowing how to handle a sword, I failed to sever his arm in a single blow as intended. My clumsy skill likely added unnecessary pain to Samuel.
Yet I did not feel sorry.
"From the beginning, I intended to obtain the rest I desire. Whatever that rest may be, it is not for you to give me."
The captain of the past might have needed it. But I did not. Because the captain of the past gave up, but I did not give up.
No matter how much he tried to save me, if I refused, that was the end of it. So if I had to credit anyone, I should mention the Durahans or Xenon.
They were the ones who awakened in me the desire to live longer.
"I'm saying your contribution has no place in my rest."
Glancing at the blood pooling thickly on the ground, I gripped the sword again. This time properly.
"But I won't send you off whole, bearing my personal grudge."
The mottled blade turned pitch black in an instant. I gritted my teeth and raised the sword high.
Authority this, war of gods that, rest this and that!
I would finally shake off these wretched things. I poured all the authority within me into the sword.
I felt my vision grow dizzy and blur, but I had no intention of stopping.
"Repent for your entire life, regretting the chances you turned away from."
Along the trajectory of the strongly struck sword, intense light burst forth. My vision was dyed white.
《May you find rest at the journey's end.》
I will obtain rest.
Just as I desire.
* * *
As the day waned, the divine power shining brightly made it instead bright as midday. The divine power swirled around while emitting light blinding enough to steal one's sight.
Within it, Samuel knelt, bleeding steadily. On the ground, bright red blood pooled thickly.
Yet despite being in such a wretched state, Samuel would not die. From the start, Aneli had no intention of killing him.
Then what of Aneli?
"Lord Aneli!"
Xenon, who until then had been unable to intercede and could only watch the situation, urgently reached out his arm.
At that moment, Aneli, who had been standing blankly looking down at Samuel clutching his arm as he collapsed, raised her head to look back at Xenon.
Her body was wrapped in green light.
Just like the knights she had sent off until now.
"Xenon..."
The sword that had lost its light grazed her fingertips and fell to the ground. Rolling with a heavy sound, the sword looked like an object corroded over a long time, no longer usable.
Aneli looked down at her own hand that had been holding the sword until moments ago.
She had not let go of the sword.
"Lord Aneli, this is...!"
Seeing Aneli's translucent hand, Xenon grabbed her arm with a face pale white.
The sensation that seemed to be caught in his hand crumbled away and vanished.
"It's all right."
"This, so suddenly..."
"It's all right, Xenon."
Aneli's hand touched Xenon.
He felt no sensation of contact. She was disappearing.
Perhaps she felt it too, as she looked down at her own body with eyes full of wonder. Then soon, with a face grown calm and settled, she looked at Xenon's face.
"It won't take long."
Her face seemed to sense something.
"What do you mean?"
"I think most people in the world are scammers and bad ones, but I know you are not. Because you always trusted and waited for me."
A playful tone mixed into her composed voice. Xenon recognized her words as what she had said when she first recruited him.
Right when she handed him the appearance-altering magic tool in front of Gelbun.
「Don't carelessly grant requests from strangers like this. You'll get hit in the back of the head.」
「I don't know what kind of life you've lived, but not only scammers exist in the world.」
「Not only scammers exist, but the majority are scammers.」
It was a conversation that passed very ordinarily, and at that time, Xenon had thought she was a merciless person with no trace of humanitarian love to be found.
He had even felt absurd at the words she tossed out carelessly, intending to make use of him.
Now that it had come to this, the same words sounded different. Neither absurd nor merciless.
"...I will believe you."
What else could he say? Toward Aneli who was vanishing before his eyes, that was all he could say.
At those words, Aneli smiled brightly. The light wrapped around her shone even brighter, then gradually scattered apart.
"Yes."
The divine power illuminating the surroundings, and Aneli's authority too, gradually subsided.
Xenon stared blankly at the empty air and thought.
The green light scattering against the darkened background looked like a butterfly just taking wing.
* * *
A pillar of light shot high into the sky.
It was such an enormous and intense light that people across the continent witnessed the sight. Some said it was a god's descent, while others said divine punishment had descended.
Some claimed an ancient magic tool had been discovered, and somewhere else, people trembled saying a fearsome monster had been born.
No one discovered the truth. Because the place where the pillar of light shot up was the notorious Trebi Mountain Range.
At this very moment, no one had the audacity to rush into the mountain range where monsters were still swarming to assess the situation.
For a while, the whole world was in an uproar as if the end would soon arrive, but as peaceful days continued, interest faded away vague and unresolved.
Without anything particularly changing, the world flowed on as usual.
It was everyday life where appropriate peace and appropriate chaos coexisted, as always had been the case.