The continent is collapsing.
The meteorite that had broken through the magnetic field and atmosphere split into one enormous mass and countless, minuscule fragments, colliding with the land and unleashing catastrophic destruction.
The mana of the outer world surged brutally like a tsunami.
——A disaster beyond magic.
Now, it would bring an ice age to the continent, or melt the entire crust, or worse, pierce through the inner core and grind it into cosmic dust……
“We’re going to stop it from doing that now.”
Epherene gave a small smile. Sophien looked around at the scenery and nodded.
“It is certainly rare to appreciate the moment of destruction.”
“Yes.”
Now, they were in the lighthouse. At the summit of the lighthouse Deculein had rebuilt, they were watching the continent as it perished.
A world where the magnetic field had been damaged in proportion to the size of the fallen meteorite, turning even sunlight into rays of death, and all verdure had withered and twisted like a blighted wasteland.
“The four of us decided to manifest the Professor’s miracle together.”
Epherene said.
Those four were Murkan, Idnik, Epherene, and Sophien. Adrienne was not much good at anything besides destructive magic.
“The formula engraved into the lighthouse—Murkan and Idnik will take charge from the very bottom, I’ll take the middle, and the most important final part……”
She looked back at Sophien. Sophien nodded as she gazed at the destruction.
“We shall take charge of it.”
“……Yes.”
Epherene glanced behind her. She sent a signal to the mages waiting there.
“We’ll begin.”
Gooooo……
At that moment, Murkan and Idnik activated their magic. They unfolded the spell formations they had “memorized” in advance.
First, Murkan’s mana firmly supported the base of the lighthouse, and Idnik’s mana was layered atop it.
“Let us…… fall asleep for a while, and meet again.”
Sophien said. Epherene laughed softly and drew up the mana in her heart.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
Shaaaaa——
Epherene’s mana rose like seawater. That mana, containing “time,” filled one of the four sections of the lighthouse, then waited for Sophien, who would guide the magic at the end.
“……”
Sophien slowly closed her eyes.
Suddenly, red mana bloomed from her fingers and soaked the summit of the lighthouse.
Neither lacking nor overflowing.
Simply, exactly as Deculein had calculated……
She manifested the miracle he had prepared.
As the Emperor of the Empire, she guided the path of the continent.
* * *
……Somewhere in the not-so-distant wasteland.
At a corner of the land scorched by the meteor’s mana, upon a horizon that would soon vanish and collapse.
Creto was with Quay.
He was watching the perishing continent together with him.
“There isn’t much time. My barrier isn’t exactly high-performance.”
With Creto’s magic, there was not long he could endure in the midst of this destruction. One minute, perhaps, or two.
For one born without anything exceptional, that was the limit.
“So take it in. It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”
Quay, his arms and legs already blackened, looked up at Creto with the body of a broken doll.
Quay could not understand Creto at all.
Whether he was trying to protect him, or trying to be with him at the end.
“Humans are truly……”
After watching him for a long while, he murmured softly.
“Foolish, I think.”
Each time his lips moved, the texture of his skin peeled away. The doll’s flesh crumbled.
Yet Quay paid it no mind and continued speaking.
“You will only become unhappy in the end. You cannot live forever, and in the end, you will die. Why……”
Suddenly, a palm came down upon his forehead. It was a gentle gesture, as though checking the fever of a sick child.
“……Don’t try to understand. There’s a saying like that, you know. You may know the depths of ten fathoms of water, but not the depths of one fathom of the human heart.”
His tone was as if coaxing him. Quay sighed and closed his eyes.
At that sight, Creto smiled.
“Quay. Then, what were you like in the Age of Divinity? Were you happy?”
Quay twisted the corner of his mouth with a snort.
“……Such a thing didn’t even exist.”
He answered coldly, lifting his eyes.
“Because we lived only for God. We had no need for the petty happiness of individuals.”
“……”
Creto nodded without a word. Suddenly, an emptiness spread across Quay’s face.
“And yet God left me here…… and gave no answer at all. Me, who revered only Him, believed in Him, longed only for Him……”
“Hmm? You said God was dead, didn’t you? Then how could He answer?”
“……”
“Pick one or the other.”
Quay glared at Creto. But Creto’s gaze was fixed far away.
“Quay. This is a little sudden, but.”
With eyes as though appreciating a work of art, he looked upon the collapsing crust and the warped sky, upon the continent mingling with the universe……
“If I were God, I think I would feel sorry to you.”
Creto said.
“To you, who held the greatest will and faith, and who became the greatest trial, adversity, and suffering for humankind.”
“……”
Quay’s pupils, looking at him, trembled for a moment.
The image of him reflected in the doll’s retina, his figure holding the starlight of the universe, felt somehow—
Like something he had once felt before.
“I think I would be sorry. Leaving without saying anything to you would make me regretful, at least a little.”
A very small smile formed on Creto’s lips.
“But in the end, that would be proof that even God was imperfect. No matter how you look at it.”
Quay’s existence, created by God, ironically proved God’s imperfection.
“So perhaps, in this flow of fate, the only being without sin may be you.”
A being created in the “Age of Divinity,” of which humans now had no memory, and one no different from the origin of humanity.
A being closer to God than anyone.
Therefore, if he had sin, then before him, it might have been God’s fault.
“So……”
Creto lowered his eyes to look at Quay.
Quay also looked at him.
Without saying anything, simply gazing into Creto’s eyes.
“……”
Why was that?
Right now, Quay felt a little puzzled.
Because from Creto’s face, a memory from some time long ago surfaced.
A memory of that time, forgotten and lost, in a world too distant, in years too far away.
Those days when he woke each morning to the chirping of birds, gave thanks for the sunlight that wet his sleepy face, and smiled foolishly at the songs of grass insects……
“Rest in peace.”
Because it came to mind from Creto.
“……Mm.”
Quay answered blankly. Creto scratched at his own temple for no reason.
——Then.
All of a sudden.
Raindrops scattered from the sky.
Shaaaaa……
At the moment of destruction, in this instant when the atmosphere burned with immeasurable heat, a drizzle that defied the laws of nature fell upon Creto’s 「Barrier」.
“I think…… I understand a little.”
Watching that, Quay was certain.
“Why you were born as Sophien’s younger brother.”
Of course, he might be wrong.
There might be something wrong with the doll, causing him to suffer some absurd delusion all on his own.
“I doubt there’s any particular reason I was born as the Emperor’s younger brother.”
“……”
Quay shook his head. He smiled. He said to Creto.
“……Go back. To the lighthouse.”
The destruction of the continent.
Here, where annihilation was taking place, Creto could not survive.
He could not leave him, the incarnation, to die so futilely.
At this final moment, he could not leave the child who had conveyed “God’s will” to him here.
“Why?”
“Because you’re in danger.”
Even if this was a delusion, it did not matter.
God’s will was always vague, and its content changed according to the heart of the believer who received it.
“Go back and relay my words to Sophien.”
Creto was an incarnation, and God had sent him down here, at the end, to let him hear those words, to apologize to him……
Such was Quay’s interpretation.
“What words?”
Creto asked.
Quay looked up at the sky.
Kwaaaaaa——
The firmament crumpling because of the comet, the magnetic field damaged, the continent being sucked into space.
Within it, red mana spread.
Sophien.
My creation.
“……Tell her that I am proud of her.”
Taking that scene as his final memory, Quay quietly closed his eyes.
Rainwater flowed between his closed eyelids.
The darkened world, his fading consciousness—yet Quay was no longer lonely.
He felt more relieved and happy than ever before.
“Tell her…… that I think I finally understand His will a little now.”
“……All right.”
Creto answered. He gently wiped away the tears gathered at the corners of his eyes.
“……Tell her thank you.”
Quay smiled.
……Chirp, chirp.
From somewhere, from far away, came the song of birds.
Quay, still young, looked up toward it and laughed. He ran, swinging his short legs, waving his tiny hands.
……Chirp, chirp.
Following the two birds that chirped happily, he smiled brightly, pushed through the forest, crossed the river, until at last he lost his way.
……Chirp, chirp.
Until he realized that even if he lost his way, even if he was trapped in a dark mountain where the sunlight had vanished, he could begin again there.
……Chirp, chirp.
Because now he knew that this birdsong, the song of the birds that would guide him forever, ultimately came from within his own heart.
* * *
……At the center of the bitter cold, the frozen knight.
Yulie.
Keiron and Yeriel reached her. They faced the woman who had frozen this lighthouse.
—……Yeriel.
Keiron called Yeriel.
Yeriel, who had been staring blankly at Yulie, flinched.
—What are you thinking about?
“……”
Yeriel looked back at Keiron.
“I’m thinking about what will happen.”
—What will happen, and how?
“After this.”
Yeriel placed Deculein down behind Yulie.
As though Yulie, still holding her sword upright, were protecting Deculein.
With this, Deculein would be safe. After everything ended, he would be able to await a more peaceful death.
“What will you do, Sir Keiron?”
Suddenly, Yeriel became worried for Keiron.
There were those who were frozen here, those who could be frozen, and those who could not be frozen.
Keiron was the third.
—I will place His Majesty into hibernation. She is still at the summit of the lighthouse.
For Sophien, and for Epherene, a hibernation no different from briefly falling asleep.
An eternity of years that would vanish once they slept and woke.
“……And after that? What about you, Sir?”
But not for Keiron.
For Keiron, that time would be a definite span of time, and it would pass for him all the same.
—Someone is needed to manage the continent as it slowly recovers. A knight is also needed to protect those who must enter hibernation.
Even so, Keiron recited it very calmly.
As if it had been his duty from the beginning.
“……Does that make any sense? It might be more than ten thousand years.”
The lifespan of the 「Outside of Time」, calculated by Deculein himself, was 10,935 years. They would hibernate for exactly that length of time, but to Keiron, eleven thousand years would remain eleven thousand years.
—I shall consider the years I spent with the giants a rehearsal.
Keiron smiled faintly.
—Sister of Deculein. Each of us has taken on a role.
Yeriel stared blankly at Keiron.
—And so, I will protect His Majesty here.
Crackle……
Suddenly, a sound came from somewhere, cold and brittle. Yeriel turned toward it and froze in shock.
Her fingers were freezing from the tips.
“Th-this—”
—Sleep in peace.
Keiron said. Watching Yeriel freeze, he nodded.
—When you close your eyes for a moment and open them again, the continent will have recovered.
“No, wait——”
Before she could even shout that, crrrkkk……
Yeriel’s entire body was frozen.
By Yulie, into a hibernation of “ten thousand years.”
For only a very brief while, it began.
Everyone’s End
——The blue sky and the clear sun.
The burbling stream and the cries of grass insects.
Flocks of birds that had flown from the continent, and deer, squirrels, rabbits frolicking in the green mountains······.
This place, where countless lives still frolicked peacefully and warmly, was the 「Outside of the World」.
“There’s no time.”
Before the large-scale hibernation began, Sylvia spoke to Yulie.
“······Yes. I know.”
Yulie answered so, but her face was still hesitant. She seemed lost in thought as she looked at the old diary in her hand.
“……Yuli.”
Sylvia, who had been watching Yuli, asked in a low voice.
“How was it?”
How was it?
Yuli lifted her head and thought of the future self she had just witnessed—no, of the woman who was nothing less than her own “ideal.”
With her eyes closed, she murmured quietly.
“……She looked well.”
A knight who had become a hero.
A true person who had fulfilled her dearest wish, her hope, her desire, completely and with her own hands, without anyone’s help.
“She protected the continent.”
Not only Deculein, but every life on this continent—she had safeguarded them all.
“……So much so that I could hardly believe she was me.”
Yuli clutched the diary tightly to her chest.
“Only……”
And yet, for some reason, Yuli’s heart felt dim.
The more she compared herself to that woman, the more pitiful her present self seemed.
As though “she,” who had already achieved everything Yuli had ever wanted, was making Yuli feel hollow.
“Yes. She isn’t you.”
Suddenly, Sylvia spoke.
But Yuli could not understand what she meant for a moment, and she blinked.
“Pardon?”
“That person isn’t you.”
Sylvia pointed at Yuli’s diary.
“That Yuli.”
Yuli’s diary, held against Yuli’s chest.
An object that held the memories and scent of the hero who had made the continent “freeze forever.”
“She isn’t you.”
And yet, Sylvia was saying that hero was not her.
“……”
Yuli looked at Sylvia in silence. Sylvia curled the corner of her mouth slightly, as if Yuli were adorable.
“So…… live freely.”
Freedom.
That unremarkable word somehow pierced Yuli’s heart. Poke—though it was not all that painful. Nor was it shocking.
It felt only as if the tip of a pencil had pressed lightly against her skin.
A word that was merely unfamiliar.
“Yuli died for you.”
And now, that pencil was writing a certain sentence upon Yuli’s heart.
“So that you could find yourself.”
It made a certain thought surface in Yuli’s mind.
“You still have ‘you’ left.”
“……‘Me,’ you mean?”
“Me.”
The “me” called Yuli.
I, who was born at the cost of my mother’s life, who blamed myself and believed this life was nothing but filth stained with original sin, who sharpened my sword with the single-minded wish to become a “knight who protects someone,” solely for Puhairden and this continent, who ran on without end……
At last, I reached it.
I arrived at that final point.
I achieved my “everything.”
It was atonement, it was a great aspiration, and it was the life of the old human called Yuli.
“Yuli is over there. Yuli’s dream has already come true.”
Her dream was on the continent.
The knight who saved every life and froze herself.
“Yuli became not a person named Yuli, but the ‘season’ called winter, and even that, she accepted as herself and was satisfied.”
Sylvia spoke. Yuli quietly looked down at the diary.
“But you don’t need to chase that dream all over again.”
The dream that the old Yuli had already achieved.
The atonement she had accomplished in her place.
“You fly for your own sake.”
“……”
Yuli raised her eyes. Sylvia looked into her pupils.
Clear, deep, and like solid ice.
At that face filled with resolve, Sylvia smiled.
Then she gave her one last sentence.
“The ‘life as Yuli’ that the Professor wished for most……”
This was the dream Deculein, who had loved Yuli, prayed for.
That Yuli, freed from the fate called Deculein, would go on living a life wholly her own.
“Live it proudly, as if to show them all.”
Whoooooosh——
Just then, a wind blew in from the far horizon. The chill woven into it resembled Yuli.
Now, she was the one speaking.
——That time was up.
* * *
At the top of the lighthouse, the knight Keiron stared downward. At the ruined continent, at the magic of restoration that caressed its destruction. At the spectacle of harmony and reversal realized by Deculein’s miracle.
—……
Keiron’s silence was long.
Now, this continent would soon be restored to its original state.
It would recover to what it had been before its destruction.
Until then, Keiron would remain silent.
—Your Majesty.
Of course.
After the one person still left behind had returned.
……Step. Step.