“What do you think? Was my friend’s past worth hearing?”
Vitalianus spoke from beyond the monitor screen, and I indifferently tapped out a chat message.
It was a story from Ventair’s world, where Abyss Monsters came pouring forth, back when the symbol of hope was still alive.
“Hard to say.”
Looking back, it was strange how an NPC in a game could understand such chat messages and carry on a conversation, but at the time, no one found it odd.
“It’s just the story of an ordinary villain. I pity him, but that doesn’t erase what he did.”
That was my first impression after hearing of Ataolf’s past. I understood that he had his circumstances, but that did not justify his actions.
At those words, Vitalianus burst into laughter.
“You’re right. That is why I hated him so very much as well. To stop those evil deeds, that directionless hatred, I would rush out at once whenever I heard Black Fang had appeared somewhere.”
Vitalianus chasing Ataolf, and Ataolf committing atrocities while evading him.
A hero chasing a villain, and a villain fleeing a hero.
And so, decades passed.
“Many things happened over those years.”
The knight who dreamed of being the greatest finally earned the title of Star with his sword and became the greatest.
He became the guardian knight of the emperor and the empire, respected by all. He became someone’s goal, someone’s dream, and someone’s hope.
“But then, a thought suddenly came to me.”
Since so much time had passed, many things had naturally changed.
His companions from those days had long since retired, and it was hard to see them anymore. He felt a sense of dissonance between himself and them, who now had white hair streaking their heads.
The emperor to whom he had devoted his heartfelt loyalty was no longer there either.
Even the passion with which he had swung his sword, driven by the single-minded desire to become the greatest, had faded away.
“I am lonely.”
When he suddenly looked around, there was no one by his side.
“Only then did I realize it. How much worse must it have been for my friend?”
A boy from a kingdom that had rotted to the core and collapsed of its own accord.
A boy who had wanted to become a hero himself and wash away the stigma borne by all Luxen people.
And yet, my pitiful friend was branded a traitor, deemed ominous, and received comfort from no one even before the cold corpses of his family.
“At the end of a long expedition, he arrived before the bodies of his family. If I had been by his side at that moment, when he must have been suffering more than anyone, would the story have been different?”
Perhaps you might have been standing shoulder to shoulder beside me even now.
That day, when a child was startled by your voice and began to cry.
If I had gone up to the child and explained the glorious secret contained in your voice, perhaps the child would have smiled brightly and placed a white wildflower in your hand.
Perhaps that would have brought a smile to your face as well.
But he could not do that, and so he was always alone.
“How lonely and desolate he must have been.”
Before it was absorbed into the empire, Luxen’s situation was at its worst. Wars broke out almost every day, and children starved to death without protection.
The nobles treated the people like livestock and were consumed with fattening their own bellies, fighting endlessly to claim that tiny piece of land.
Those who cried out for the kingdom’s restoration were men like that. The nobles of Luxen. Men who knew they could never survive if they were merged with the empire. Thus, using the revival of the kingdom as an excuse, they flailed about like mere criminals.
Ataolf did not want all those born of Luxen to be persecuted because of scum like them.
That was why he tried to become a hero himself and change their image. He had struggled with all his might.
Yet no one understood that Ataolf. They did not even try to understand.
To Luxen, he was branded a traitor, and to the citizens of the empire, he was viewed with suspicion as a Luxenite.
In the city he protected at the cost of his voice, they doubted him. Why had he not come to save them sooner?
As your emotions were worn away little by little like that, how lonely must you have been?
And so, on that day when even your family was finally murdered, how sorrowful must you have been?
“If I could, I would at least like to speak with him properly. Though he likely would not accept it.”
Too many years had already passed. Upon the trust and friendship the two had built together, all manner of things had been deposited and buried by time.
“Even so, I want to speak with him. Even if this useless life of mine should be cut short.”
The air around Vitalianus as he said that was so grave that I had no choice but to speak.
“…Don’t get any foolish ideas.”
Now, with the world heading toward ruin, the empire’s Golden Lion was a symbol of hope.
The golden aura that everyone in the empire looked to and relied upon. The great Sword Saint.
If he were to lose his life in vain, the situation would become uncontrollable.
At that, Vitalianus grinned as though nothing had happened.
“Do not worry. I know at least the weight I bear.”
His expression was so vivid that it hardly seemed different from reality. Of course, I had not realized that at the time.
“Unless a new hope appears, I will not make a foolish choice.”
His expression and tone seemed to be subtly wishing for just that, but unfortunately, no such thing happened.
Vitalianus, the empire’s great Sword Saint, remained a symbol of hope until the very end, and he was the only one.
“If, someday, you could convey my words to my friend in my stead…”
Perhaps he had foreseen that, in the end, he would never be able to meet his friend.
“Tell him I am sorry I could not be by his side. Ask him if he cannot forgive his unworthy friend.”
In the end, that was exactly what happened.
Not long after we had that conversation, the Sword Saint died.
Before an aberration that ignored the laws of the world, the hero’s aura could not reach; his sword shattered to pieces, and the great Star of the Sword set just like that.
And so, after the Sword Saint died, I went to find Ataolf.
I told him the Sword Saint’s story.
I conveyed his final moments and his thoughts.
At that, Ataolf burst into laughter.
Or perhaps he was crying.
After that, well, it was as I said.
Holding the old sword he had used upside down, aiming it at his own heart.
—The truth is, I wanted to become a hero.
And so, the story of Ataolf within Ventair came to an end.
That was as far as the villain’s scenario went.
Of course, reality was not all that different.
* * *
It was not that there were no differences at all.
First, Vitalianus told Ataolf himself, without going through Hio.
That he was sorry he could not be by his side. That he asked if he could not forgive him.
And then.
“……”
Vitalianus, having delivered those words, collapsed to the floor, endlessly shedding bright red blood.
For the sake of conveying his true feelings to an old friend, he had offered up his left breast without the slightest hesitation.
Ataolf stared blankly down at Vitalianus, who had fallen to the floor.
Once their swords had crossed, there had been no chance he could defeat the great Sword Saint.
At the very moment before the golden sword and the black sword collided, Vitalianus had extinguished his own aura. If he had not, the one whose heart was pierced would undoubtedly have been Ataolf.
No, what was even more absurd than that was—
“…Sorry you could not be by my side, you say. How arrogant those words are.”
As though things would have been different if he had been there.
Was that not him assuming with certainty that his presence meant that much to Ataolf?
How wildly arrogant.
“And to say we should try to change even now, that we can change. How much of a flower garden must one have in his head to say such a thing? Naive and pathetic Vitalianus.”
He murmured blankly. His gaze remained fixed on the fallen Vitalianus.
“But perhaps that is precisely why it is so very like you.”
That must be why you can become a hero.
“Is it not?”
Ataolf’s head slowly turned.
Where his gaze landed, Hio stood. To be precise, he was looking at the old sword held in Hio’s hand.
Ataolf approached Hio.
No, he approached the sword that had once been his.
“To try becoming a hero now, after all this time. I nearly burst out laughing.”
There was no focus in his eyes as he spoke.
The highest spire of the Gray Castle.
As expected, the view was good. The forest, now cleared of fog, could be seen at a glance.
Silver armor advancing toward the castle from every direction. Flashing blades.
Among all those people, not a single one was there for him.
As always.
“There was a time when I, too, wanted to become a hero.”
He reached toward the old sword in Hio’s hand.
Hio handed it over without resistance. He knew what Ataolf wanted.
With vacant eyes, Ataolf held it upside down and aimed it at his own heart.
The black fog that had always been with him was not by his side in his final moment.
“Though now, it means nothing at all.”
Without the slightest hesitation, the sword thrust toward himself. The old blade pierced through his heart and protruded from his back.
Red blood spurted out. His body collapsed.
Though the process was a little different, the conclusion did not change.
Just as he had in the game, he chose to take his own life.
With his heart destroyed, even Ataolf, who had reigned as a symbol of terror, died instantly.
There was no need to confirm it; it could be felt clearly enough.
The vast aura of death. The sensation of a high-ranking soul leaving its flesh behind.
Thus, Ataolf was certainly dead.
…Then why?
Why did the black fog that symbolized him still remain?
Why was the black fog that should have protected Ataolf not by his side, but clinging to Vitalianus?
Why was it wrapped around Vitalianus’s upper body, pressing down on his left breast like a bandage?
How tremendous was the will within it, to remain even after the fog’s master had died and carry out its final order?
If one’s heart was destroyed, whether one was an eighth-rank knight or the continent’s worst criminal, one could not help but die.
In other words, as long as the heart was not destroyed, the body of a superhuman could withstand most wounds.
At the moment when Ataolf exchanged that final blow.
The instant Vitalianus extinguished his own aura and offered up his heart, Ataolf had instinctively twisted his sword and made it miss that heart.
「Trait — ‘Ghost’s Eye’ activates.」
Hio raised his head and looked up at the enormous soul.
A sinful soul, stained blacker than any soul he had ever seen.
Ataolf’s enormous soul, befitting one of high rank, had escaped the confusion of memory that occurred immediately after death and was looking straight down.
Hio met its eyes.
—So you are a mage after all. I had vaguely sensed the existence of souls, but I never imagined there was such a world.
Ataolf’s voice as he spoke calmly to Hio was not unpleasant. Rather, it was so ordinary that it felt unfamiliar.
—Mage. Does a place called hell exist?
Hio shook his head slightly.
“Hard to say. I wouldn’t know that much. I’ve never died.”
—I see.
He did not seem to have asked because he was particularly curious. His attitude was as though it did not matter either way.
He simply remained there, silently looking down, without leaving.
“You may not have become a hero in life, but there is no reason you cannot in death.”
Hio spoke to Ataolf’s soul.
“If you agree, I can even make you return from death.”
The dense aura of death permeating the entire forest.
His soul’s rank was higher than Theordo’s, so if he only agreed, it was not impossible. Not if Hio used the Reaper to drive all that deathly energy into him.
If he had no lingering attachments, would he not have left at once instead of remaining here?
But at Hio’s words, Ataolf’s black soul shook its head.
—You say something truly cruel to me, mage.
And at that moment.
“Cough!”
The sound of airways opening.
The sound of a heart beginning to beat again alongside red blood.
Vitalianus’s heart, which had stopped for a brief moment, had begun beating once more.
—For me, hell was this world.
The body of a superhuman who had transcended human limits contained tremendous vitality, and so he had failed to die and was now breathing once more.
—Say, mage. Would you convey a message to my foolish friend?
And the moment Ataolf confirmed that, his soul turned away without any lingering regret.
The black fog wrapped around Vitalianus also began slowly dissipating.
—I am curious what the life of a hero was like.
The soul stained with all manner of sins now seemed to have no lingering attachment left and rapidly receded.
—Tell him to enjoy it to his heart’s content, for my share as well, and come tell me the tale.
I had thought that, whether in the game or in reality, a villain’s end was the same.
—I am sorry I could not keep our promise, my friend.
But perhaps it was a little different after all.