EP.99 The Lost Inheritance
"It's dangerous."
My right hand is hot. The blood flowing from my hand ran down my sleeve.
Callis couldn't even breathe properly. The sharply edged blade had pierced through her hand and dug halfway into her neck. If her hand trembled even slightly, the blade digging into her neck would carve out that much more flesh.
It was fortunate that Callis had been in the magic division. Thanks to having trained her senses for magical power, she detected the mana surging ominously through the bio-terminal, and though she couldn't cancel it, she succeeded in blocking it in time.
Somehow, it seemed like it was thanks to someone urgently warning her, but anyway.
If she had failed, this blade would have pierced her throat.
Her palm and the blade faced off. Callis forced strength into her right hand, which was trembling from pain, and pushed the blade away. Blood flowed from the hole in her neck. After pushing it out to some extent, with a snap, the blade broke.
The blade, created to pierce through the neck in a single strike, had paid durability as the price for its sharpness. It was disqualified as a weapon, but a suicide tool didn't need to be reusable.
Callis pulled out the blade embedded in her right hand. Her blood flowed and dripped along the thin, glass-like blade. The blood flowing from the wound on her neck ran down and soaked her front.
She barely saved her life. But this wasn't even a reprieve from death.
Rather, she might have voluntarily rejected the chance to die without pain.
'From the beginning... as a discard...'
Callis had received a packet. The existence of the escape packet was a major reason she could volunteer for this mission with peace of mind. Even if something dangerous happened, she could escape with this.
However... the packet she thought was her only escape route was actually despair waiting to swallow her at the end of hope.
Her thoughts stop.
The despair of being betrayed, the loneliness of being left alone, and the fear of approaching death.
Before her body breaks, her heart collapses first.
'Where did things go wrong? What did I do wrong...'
Only that question lingered in Callis's mind.
Driven to her limits, as her consciousness grew blurry, a whisper reached her ears...
"Lieutenant Commander Callis Kritz. This is serious. The nation suspects you and the organization has abandoned you. You're even in danger of losing your life now."
That voice was filled with affection, and at the same time, joy leaked out. It was like a pure child asking out of curiosity.
"Were you satisfied with Level 3? How does Level 4 look? Was it worth pursuing even while throwing all of this away?"
"Ah...."
In her blurry vision, Lieutenant Commander Callis recalled an old memory.
The story of her childhood when she was the protagonist. The countless memories that made her sparkle. Until her mother passed away from illness, until cold reality ate away at the fairy tale, she was the center of the world.
After reality came to her home, she was pushed to the outskirts of the world, but at the very least, she was the center of her father's world.
When she returned home after finishing middle school on weekends, her father would always stand in front of the gate waiting for her. Occasionally when her father was nowhere to be seen, she would familiarly check the tin mailbox. Then, a letter written in round handwriting on stiff paper would be waiting for her instead of her father.
Then one day. Unusually, that day there was neither her father nor a letter. Instead, only two officers in full uniform stood properly at the door waiting for her.
It was a notification of death in action.
A house with a yard, an old but luxurious automobile, a gold-foiled sword and special military equipment.
Everything containing memories became an inheritance. She heard that if she couldn't obtain the inheritance rights, all that property would be confiscated by the military nation.
Even in her sadness and confusion, she understood only one fact.
To reclaim this, she needed to become Level 3. That was all.
What is lost becomes obsession. To her, who had lost everything one by one and become alone, the inheritance was the last remaining rope.
Fortunately, she had talent, and she graduated from middle school with excellent grades and entered the senior military academy. Having somehow survived in that crucible, she became a Level 3 citizen and inherited her father's estate.
The joy and relief she felt then would be incomparable to anything else.
However, human greed has no end, and people tend to fear losing more than they desire gaining.
The inheritance was Callis's, but she couldn't fully own it. Because she didn't have the right to inherit those things. To obtain even all the rights, she had no choice but to reach Level 4.
Greed and obsession. Because of that, Callis made a dangerous choice. A secret society she had only heard rumors of... She joined hands with the Lord of All Things.
Pretending loyalty to the military nation, immersing herself in the Lord of All Things while feigning hatred for beasts and beastmen, Callis gradually advanced her career, but.
All her actions were due to her obsession with what remained.
Callis was an ordinary person.
Without grand causes or remarkable loyalty.
"...I don't... want to die..."
From the beginning, she had no intention of dying.
She had no goal she wanted to achieve even at the cost of her life.
Just, she thought she could do it. Since even a Level 0 laborer could survive, she thought a Level 3 like her could too.
Perhaps, survival itself might not have been a difficult problem... but not anymore.
"Do you want to live?"
Callis nodded. She had to live. Because she was ordinary.
Then the voice laughed abundantly and faded away. It was like an echo ringing in the darkness.
"If it's that precious, protect it even if you have to pour everything into it. Utilize everything you have, be prepared to throw away everything except your life, and somehow manage to keep just one life. But it won't be easy. Others don't know what your desperate circumstances are, and they don't care either."
Before leaving, the voice added one more thing.
"Except for ordinary people like me who are moved by trivial circumstances."
Callis raised her head. She urgently looked around, but the owner of the voice was nowhere to be seen.
Was she possessed by a ghost? Callis wore a confused expression, but the question hid itself as always.
Callis also forgot about the voice. That wasn't what was important right now.
To survive, she had to put everything down.
Everything.
Even if it was pathetic and miserable.
Death didn't allow even a moment of respite. The regressor who had walked up the stairs approached Callis definitely. Callis faced her death with her bleeding right hand hanging down.
A chilling killing intent pierced her body.
"Any last words?"
Going back. How had Callis lived until now?
The answer was simple. Because she hadn't done anything.
Especially, before touching the Beast King or the laborers, the residents here were uncomfortable but showed no hostility.
That meant.
"...The Lord of All Things abandoned me."
They know the Lord of All Things.
She didn't know how a mere prisoner could know about the military nation's most secretive organization, but that wasn't important.
What's important is surviving, and for that, she had to sell out the Lord of All Things too.
"What they gave me telling me to escape, was a suicide packet."
She shouldn't appeal to emotions. Because that wouldn't help at all. The other party probably wouldn't have any particular interest either.
Instead. Calmly stating the facts,
Callis deactivated her clothing packet.
When the clothing packet was unsummoned, the medal attached to her chest fell to the floor. The medal she had once proudly worn rolled away like a pebble kicked by feet.
Like that, left in just her shirt, she immediately knelt.
"Please... save me."
She bowed her head.
This definitely caught the regressor's interest. Otherwise, they wouldn't have spoken to her.
"The Lord of All Things begging for her life? You'd be better off keeping your mouth shut and dying proudly. Isn't that what you humans call nobility?"
She was merely a puppet, and to save her life, she was willing to reveal everything....
She was about to say that, but suddenly became certain that the other party wouldn't be curious.
Instead, Callis brought up a different topic.
"I received an order from my 'sponsor' to bring the King of Dogs. They said there would be no interfering presence, so it would be no different from just dragging along a well-behaved dog."
Information about the Lord of All Things was her only weapon.
With her head bowed, Callis clearly laid out the information she knew.
"However, contrary to expectations, there was an interferer. So another method was necessary. The reason I put the chain on the King of Dogs was because there was a message that it would be a way to control the King of Dogs."
It was rather fortunate that she had bowed her head. Just a moment ago, a massive slash grazed over her head.
In that precarious moment, the trajectory of Cheonang twisted. The regressor who had intended to kill instantly changed her mind for a moment upon hearing unexpected information.
"Funny. There's no way something like a mere chain can control the King of Dogs. It would only increase their disappointment in humans... without even knowing what happens when a dog is disappointed in humans."
"Even for the Beast Kings, there are different ways to control each one. Among them, I was told the way to control the King of Dogs."
"That's nonsense."
Scratching her head in annoyance, the regressor soon let out a voice full of complaint.
"Tsk. Why does it seem real? If they're crazy bastards who put nose rings on the King of Bison... they might have come up with another method..."
Interest was piqued. A brief reprieve was created.
The hope of surviving made Callis excited. Now it was time to drive in the wedge.
There was one hypothesis she had obtained by desperately racking her brain in a short time. A secret that might be the most fatal to the Lord of All Things.
She would sell that.
"I am a discard. Even to someone like me, the Lord of All Things readily handed over a leaf of the World Tree. Besides that, there's no way the flow of funds wouldn't be caught while secretly operating an organization within the military nation. The Lord of All Things has another source of income, and that's probably..."
"Ah. I know that. Those guys are secretly cultivating the World Tree."
Callis, who was about to say at most that they were connected to the guardians of the World Tree, fell silent in shock.
Privately cultivating the World Tree. That was a massive event that could turn the world upside down.
More than that. This existence that casually spits out shocking information that could throw the entire world into shock, who on earth.
That existence casually swept back her hair and asked.
"Well, whatever. More importantly. Who is that sponsor?"
"...All communications are delivered anonymously through metaphors, so even I don't know."
"In other words, you don't know?"
"That's... right. To guess, they would be at least two ranks higher than me. Because I came to Lithmus in the role of confirming safety beforehand, before that 'sponsor' took office as an instructor at Tantalus..."
"An instructor. A real instructor."
A voice turning cold in an instant. Callis instinctively shrank back. Fortunately, this killing intent wasn't directed at her.
The regressor spoke as if sick of it.
"Puppet, puppet, puppet... Don't these things ever get tiresome."
And then silence came. To kill, or to spare. The scales sway within the regressor's calculations.
Anxious time flows. While waiting for the verdict, the air gains weight. Now Callis couldn't even dare to think of raising her head,
when a right arm broke through this veil of silence and intruded.
"Haah! Right arm!"
The right arm that flew through the air gripped the window frame tightly. The tin window frame crumpled with a strange sound. Following that, the Immortal's voice rang out.
"Pull me up!!"
Toward the right arm that had been clinging on beforehand, the Immortal's massive body flew in. The Immortal, who broke through the window and intruded, rolled on the ground and shouted.
"I have arrived!"
The Immortal raised his head and looked left and right. On the right, Callis was kneeling, and on the opposite side, the regressor was fiddling with an invisible sword, lost in thought. The signs of deliberation were evident.
"Haha! I thought I was a bit late, but it seems you've changed your mind! Well done, boy!"
The Immortal laughed heartily and pushed his body between them.
"Yes! The deaths of those who die easily should not be easy. A flower that blooms briefly is beautiful. Even if it blooms for only one season, its value is not short! Watching over it until it's time to wither is the virtue of an evergreen tree!"
A slight annoyance was added to the swaying scales.
The calculation was done. The regressor, who found it annoying to continue fighting the Immortal who wouldn't die even if killed, withdrew Cheonang and crossed her arms.
"...Unnecessary meddling. Who's going to appreciate keeping this kind of thing alive? Even God probably doesn't care about one person dying."
"I will appreciate it! I admire the boy's noble decision, and I won't ask about the fact that you cut my body into seventeen pieces instead! It's exactly that there's no way to hold you accountable, though! Hahaha!"
Instead of answering those shameless words, the regressor left a stern warning directed at Callis.
"Keep an eye on that one yourself. If you do anything unnecessary... no, if I even see you walking alone, I'll kill you without question."
"Of course! I'll make sure to stick close."
Like that, Callis's death turned its steps and walked away. Even after the footsteps became inaudible, Callis couldn't raise her body.
Her body lost all strength. Cold sweat soaked her shirt. Along with the relief of having survived, a sense of depletion from knowing she could never go back enveloped her entire body.
"Did she go? Is she gone? She's gone, right?"
The Immortal, who kept glancing toward the direction the regressor had disappeared, let out a big sigh and spoke.
"Whew. What a violent brat! With just foolishly strong power, she calmly butchered my body! If I weren't the Immortal, she would have killed me fifteen times!"
"I..."
"Thanks is enough! What are friends for. If you really feel indebted, let's just count it as saving each other once!"
He was definitely a good person. Without him, Callis wouldn't have saved her life.
She should be grateful, but Callis had lost far too much to have that luxury.
Callis murmured weakly.
"...I threw away everything to survive."
She received a suspension order. Callis would stand before a harsh investigation team and have her track record dug up one by one. Flaws she herself didn't even remember might be revealed.
That much would be fortunate. If the Lord of All Things noticed her betrayal, being made to commit suicide wouldn't be the end.
She might die miserably and painfully in a place no one could see.
"Face, status, mission, father's inheritance, all of it. What's left to me is... nothing..."
In other words, Callis had now lost everything.
Everything she had desperately built up over the years.
"But you saved your life!"
The Immortal patted Callis's shoulder as if to encourage her. Then, with a grin, he firmly grabbed her trembling body.
"Surviving now is enough! Even if you've lost everything, you can fill in the rest in your own way. Lieutenant Commander is young! There's plenty of time, so you can fill it with something much more valuable than the wealth you've built up until now!"
"But..."
Callis's weak voice was drowned out by the Immortal's powerful voice.
"Most of all, the most important inheritance remains for the Lieutenant Commander! The most beautiful inheritance your father left behind is none other than you, Lieutenant Commander!"
Callis couldn't make any response. Instead, tears poured from her eyes. Callis, who shed tears without even realizing it,
The military nation without blood or tears. It's said that the officers of that harsh country, resembling the country itself, dry up without leaving a single drop of tears.
If so, Callis was no longer an officer. Because she still had pulsing blood and hot tears.
A book had not ended.
Because it hadn't prepared an ending, it left blank space to continue, and utilized everything it had reserved to finish writing the story.
Now, if only an unexpected accident didn't strike, a story several times more beautiful than this would emerge.
If nothing happens.
The regressor suddenly raised her head. Looking up from the Abyss, at that distant darkness, the regressor's navy eyes flashed.
'An intruder?'