A little earlier.
The night was dark as could be, dying Roland pitch black.
“……”
It wasn’t just any darkness.
It was the ugly darkness of Roland itself, impossible to ignore.
Sion Astal could feel it.
He had noble silver hair and willful golden eyes that he used to look through the darkness. He couldn’t see past the road, but he could feel it. He could sense a monster that’d transcended its humanity all together. It was one of his siblings who had gone mad, unable to bear the power of the Fallen Dark Hero.
Apparently they were called Goddesses now, and that supposedly meant that they were gods who’d thrown away reason.
And the thing he felt was one of those reasonless monsters.
He could feel its bloodlust. He could feel its appetite. Its jealousy towards Sion, who had been chosen by Aslude Roland.
That was why the Goddesses were coming for him. They wanted to eat him. They were going to try to kill him, and he’d do the same in return.
He and Lucile were already prepared to fight in the pits of Roland’s darkness.
“Sion,” Lucile said. Though he wasn’t showing himself, Sion was sure that he was right by his side. That was the sort of contract they had. That was the sort of curse he had. So Sion didn’t bother looking for him.
Instead, he stared in the direction of the Goddess. “What?”
“The Goddess will be here any moment now.”
“I can feel it,” Sion said with a nod.
“There’s a Goddess approaching you head on.”
“I can feel it.”
“But that isn’t all…”
“Huh?”
“Someone else shot the magic that sent that redhead flying.”
“Hah?”
“They’re another enemy who’s approaching from behind,” Lucile said.
“Haaaaah!? Another enemy?”
“Yeah.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know,” Lucile said. “But they’re likely not human.”
“Haaaaaaaah!? Then what should I do?” Sion yelled.
Then he suddenly heard a voice from behind. “You idiots.”
It was high-pitched, and he couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. But he recalled hearing it before. A teacher had sounded like that back in the Roland Empire’s Royal Special Military Academy that he’d gone to with Ryner.
It had to be magic. Changing one’s voice with magic was pretty simple. They were probably doing it to keep Sion from seeing who they were.
“…Hey, Lucile.”
“Mm?”
“The one coming from behind me isn’t human, right?”
“Probably.”
“Then why are they hiding their identity?”
“Even monsters have their own reasons for doing things.”
“Haha. Even you?”
“Even me.”
“Such as?”
“That’s a secret.”
“Iiisss it now.” Sion laughed, then alternated in looking between where the Goddess was coming from and where the voice had come from. “So which should we fight? Or rather, which can we fight?”
A hand suddenly reached out from the dark behind him.
Sion’s eyes widened. He needed to dodge. But he wouldn’t make it in time.
“…I won’t let you touch my master,” Lucile said.
He appeared to stop the arm. He had blond hair and beauty so extreme that it was inhuman. That horribly beautiful man caught the arm with ease.
Sion took a step back to look at his assailant. It was a lone human, tall, wearing a chic dark suit. Likely male. But he had a strange mask on his face. A mask that Sion had seen before. Not in the normal course of his life. It wasn’t a mask that someone might wear at an event or anything.
It was the mask that the Fallen Mad Hero Aslude Roland had worn in the Eris basement. Half of the mask depicted a smile, while the other half depicted tears. “Oooh,” he said. “Not a bad reaction, Lucile!”
“…Who are you?” Lucile asked.
“Your savior.”
“…Savior?” Sion repeated.
“Yeah.”
“So basically—”
“Enough small talk,” Lucile interrupted. “You’re our enemy either way. I’ll just kill—”
“You aren’t capable of doing that yet,” the masked man said. He raised his hand up. It began to gather light.
Lucile made to cut the light apart with his hand, but…
“Gotcha,” the man said.
The light exploded the instant Lucile’s hand touched it, turning to flames that easily spread to Lucile’s upper body.
The flames even tried to jump to Sion.
“Shit,” Lucile whimpered, then moved Sion back away from the flames.
Lucile’s body was severely burnt. But he regenerated just as quickly as the flame burnt into him.
“…Are you okay, Lucile?” Sion asked.
Lucile nodded. “Yeah, this is nothing. I was just… careless. But the same trick won’t fool me twice.”
“…Well, that’s fine if true,” Sion said. “He seems pretty strong though?”
The masked man was the one who replied. “Yep! I’m super strong~!” Despite his efforts, his tone came off as oddly apathetic. “If you can’t even beat me, the Goddesses will kill you in nothing flat. I’m giving you a chance to call it quits now. I don’t know what’s making Lucile so impatient, but… I’d better remind you guys where you stand. You’ve only just stepped foot into this world, right? And you’re trying to fight me—”
Then, suddenly…
“—You’re a thousand years too early.”
The second voice came from Sion’s side. The man was still in front of him. How did his voice get beside him?
Sion turned.
The masked man was there, close by his side.
“Huh!?”
Sion reacted too late. The man had already grasped Lucile’s head in his hand.
Of course Lucile didn’t intend on letting that get him. He reached his arm out to try to cut into the masked man’s body, but smoke or something of the sort came from the man’s body, and he slipped right through Lucile’s attack. Then he pulled Lucile to the ground by his head.
Sion balled his hand into a fist, aiming to help Lucile.
But the masked man clicked his tongue, and Sion’s body lost its ability to move. He was stuck in the same position he’d frozen in, readying a punch that’d never reach.
“……”
He couldn’t even speak.
That man stole his ability to freely use his body.
The man looked at him to confirm it before looking back down at Lucile. “Now then. Since you guys can’t lay a hand on me…”
“…I’ll kill you,” Lucile said, then moved his hands and mumbled an incantation.
“Don’t be silly. There’s no way you can beat me with magic. Also, I made that spell. I taught you that spell.”
Then the man whispered something, and the magic that Lucile just started faded away like it was nothing.
“It’s useless, Lucile. You’re still playing in the shallows. You can’t reach me, no matter what you do now… You need to go deeper, deeper, so deep that no one can hear you screaming in the dark…
“…Bastard,” Lucile said. “Who are you?”
“The fact that you don’t know is proof of how weak you are.”
“……”
“That’s why I came to save you. You… no, the two of you could be of use to me… so I came to save you.”
“……”
“Now it’d be nice if you’d run. I’ll pacify this Goddess somehow. You guys need to go find more power while I do. Just enough power to shoulder this country’s darkness. You need to have just enough power to devour Ryner before one of you becomes king of this country…”
With that, the man released Lucile and stood.
Lucile immediately jumped up and tried to attack him again. Lucile’s hand went straight through him, but the masked man turned to hundreds of sheets of paper, each dancing through the wind, before stacking themselves up in a briefcase nearby. Then the briefcase rattled around and flew away.
“…Whoa.” The power binding Sion in place began to fade. He looked to Lucile. “What was all that about?”
Lucile stared in the direction that the briefcase had disappeared in. “Something I’ve seen before…”
Sion recalled something the masked man said: ‘Also, I made that spell. I taught you that spell.’
“…So you know him?”
Lucile tilted his head. “I wonder… My memories are lacking. I…” Lucile pressed his hand to his head, his nails grazing his temple… then digging in hard enough to draw blood. “…It seems like my memories have been tampered with. I had thought that I obtained my current power myself…”
Lucile’s words trailed off. Then he turned to look at Sion.
“But it’s fine,” Lucile said. “A Goddess is coming. We have to deal with it…”
His words trailed off again. Sion understood why. He tore his eyes from Lucile and looked back. Roland’s dark night was there, just as it had been for the past few hours. But it was a quiet, normal night. The pressure of something coming to attack them was gone.
Someone had stopped the Goddess. It had to have been that masked man.
“He said that we aren’t strong enough yet,” Sion said. “Is that true?”
Lucile shrugged. “…Even if it is, we have no choice but to survive this killing game. We were lucky this time. That Goddess was a bit too strong for us.”
“Whoa, whoa, you’ve got to be kidding,” Sion said. “I didn’t accept your power just to be lead straight to my death, you know.”
“I do know that.”
“Really?”
“Yeah… it seems like that man was telling us that our power is still incomplete.”
“Incomplete? So there’s more?”
Lucile smiled. “We need to release enough of the power of Aslude Roland within you for you to be acknowledged by the Human Alpha, curse of this country. But the people of this country have already surrendered everything to the royal family. Hardly anyone has pledged loyalty to you. Which means…”
“…I’ll become stronger if I make the people of this country think of me as their king?”
“Yeah.”
“So that’s the kind of power that this is?”
Lucile shook his head. “That’s the kind of curse this is. It’s a curse cast by Goddesses who feared the Heroes. It’s your job to break the curse little by little.”
Sion still didn’t really understand much of anything that Lucile said. But he was past the point of wanting an explanation. He’d have to work with Lucile for a long time either way, so why piss him off and make it painful? That’d make it feel even longer.
So there was no need to rush Lucile.
It was exactly as the masked man said: they should take it slow. They’d never be able to leave the darkness once they entered, after all.
“……”
“In any case, it looks like tonight’s event ends here,” Lucile said. “I think I’ll go elsewhere.”
“Will you, now.”
“So where’s little Lucile, who suffered an astounding defeat in our first battle planning to run off to?” Sion asked mischievously.
“…To retrieve my stolen memories,” Lucile said and disappeared without a trace. It was like he’d never even been there to begin with.
Sion sighed lightly.
Lately monsters were all he saw. Never human, never able to be human. Just monsters, one after another.
That included Sion himself.
“……”
Even now there was a curse whirling around in his insides, strong enough to make him feel like he was going to throw his viscera up. If he relaxed and let it eat him from the inside, he’d become a Goddess just like his siblings.
Sion smiled. Sharp as it was, it was entirely made of false confidence.
The truth was that he wanted to run away.
His weak heart was screaming at him to find someone, anyone else who could do this instead and leave all the pain for them to deal with instead.
But…
“Oh, you lived.”
That voice didn’t surprise him. Because it was human. A normal person, not something that lurked in the dark.
So he turned to face it. When he did, he saw Luke who he’d met earlier. He had white hair despite being in his early twenties. He was likely one of Rahel Miller’s right-hand men along with Claugh Klom.
“You came back?” Sion asked.
Luke nodded. “Yes. Miller told me to come help you.”
“Miller did?”
“Yes.”
“So he’s decided to write me into his scenario?”
Luke shrugged. “Or Miller will enter your scenario. Isn’t it best if the gears running this country work together?”
What a thing to say after all this time. Sion smiled, tired.
So Miller, who had constructed such a careful, inflexible plan, ended up changing his mind rather easily in the end, despite Miller being unlikely to understand what had happened. Apparently what he got from it was a desire to be Sion’s ally, though.
“…Miller’s amazing. To the point that it’s frightening,” Sion said.
“You think so?”
Sion nodded. “I do.”
“Then… then explain the details of all this in a way that a dim guy like me can understand, will you? Explain what happened here, what’s happened with you, and…”
Luke paused, considering his words as he looked up at the sky. He stared at the dark sky, free of both moon and stars.
“…Why does this strange country called Roland even exist?” Luke asked. Then he looked back at Sion. His expression had hardened. He looked ready to threaten Sion.
“……”
Sion didn’t give him an answer. He just smiled. “Do you really think I’ll tell you all the details when you’re making that kind of threatening face at me?”
“I don’t believe that you won’t tell me.”
“Torture me and see.”
“Hahaha. Do you really not know?”
Sion nodded. “Yeah. I don’t understand what destiny has in store for us. Honestly, it’s pretty annoying. But what can you do…” Sion’s voice trailed off for a moment. He sighed before continuing. “Anyway, I’m really tired. How about we call it a day, get some sleep, and have a meeting about this tomorrow?”
“What kind of meeting?” Luke asked, tilting his head.
Sion smiled. “A meeting to bring me into your group,” he said and turned his back to Luke to face the direction of his lodgings, and set out in a walk.
“You’ve gotten preeetty interesting lately, haven’t you?” Luke asked from behind.
“I’m not ‘interesting.’”
“Hahaha. Well, I’ll look forward to seeing you tomorrow.”
Sion raised his hand to wave him off. “Yeah. See you then.”
---
Dreaming. Conscious. Dreaming. Conscious. Dreaming. Conscious.
He drifted between sleep and wake many, many times, so many that he lost the ability to make a distinction between the two.
Lucile Eris whispered. “It’s pretty… it’s pretty dull.”
Then he raised his head.
He was currently standing in front of the Eris gate. It was made of metal on wood and had a decidedly different atmosphere when compared to the gates of other nobles.
“……”
He turned around.
His little sister was there.
She was very like him in some ways, and not like him at all in others.
He smiled. “Hey, Ferris. You’re back.”
She looked at him with her pretty face and unsociable expression. “Yeah. You’re just coming back too?”
Lucile laughed. “I was worried that my precious sister hadn’t returned yet, so I was waiting for you here.”
“Liar.”
“No, that was the truth.”
“Really?”
Lucile nodded. “It’s true.”
“Really.”
“Mm.”
“Then… well, I’m back now,” Ferris said. “So you don’t need to worry.”
“Really?”
“Mm.”
“So I don’t need to worry even though a powerful soldier made you faint and took you with him?”
Ferris’ expression clouded over as she looked at him.
She was making a pretty dark face now, but no one could touch her. Because he’d vowed to protect her. He’d protect her because she was too pretty.
“So where’s my lecture?” Ferris asked.
“You don’t need one. I’m just happy that you’re safe. I’m in a good mood because it’s such a pretty night, so I’ve decided not to lecture anyone.”
Ferris looked up, confused. “A pretty night? But there’s no moon or stars?”
Lucile looked up, too.
But his eyes could see the stars. They could see the moon. They could see countless bad things, too.
She existed in a different world from him, so they ended up seeing different things. Because he lived in the deepest corner of hell, dirty enough to make him sick. So he couldn’t see the same world as someone beautiful.
Even so, he smiled.
He was truly happy that his fate didn’t befall his sister, too.
“…You’re right,” he said. “There’s no moon and there are no stars. But it’s fun when we get along enough to look at the sky together, don’t you think?”
“I don’t understand that emotion.”
He looked at her. At her emotionlessness. He recalled her asking him questions about emotions with that same expression when they were younger, when she’d found a poetry anthology in the bookcase in his room to read.
That anthology had a poem in it that went like this—
“I love you.”
Her body became unable to move from those words.
“I love you from the bottom of my heart.”
Her body couldn’t move from those words.
“I love every little bit of you.”
Her body… couldn’t move. From fear.
That was ‘love.’ Even though she was scared… she knew that this was ‘love.’
‘Love’ meant that everything had turned to despair.
She’d whispered the word love as she read it, questioning it, her head tilted in confusion.
She’d been pretty then. Like she wasn’t real.
He didn’t mean how she looked or how she was on the inside. There was just something about her that was very different from him. He understood that since the moment she was born.
Even though they had the same hair and the same skin, he knew she was different from the moment she was born.
She’d asked him about it then. “What’s this ‘love’ they speak of? Brother.”
It was a cute question that only a kid could come up with.
How was he even supposed to respond to that?
He felt like it was a pretty important question. He’d like to choose his words carefully and answer it well.
“……”
How had even responded back then? He’d still been a kid, too. He just couldn’t remember.
It was indistinct, fuzzy, just like things were now. Yes, they were memories, and they weren’t meant to be clear. But it felt like there was an additional fog on them that shouldn’t be there. He just couldn’t remember.
It was probably…
“……”
The work of magic.
There was a unique spell placed on his mind.
That masked man he met earlier had apparently met him before, too. He must have placed that spell on him.
“…How unpleasant,” Lucile mumbled.
“Mm?”
Lucile smiled. “It has nothing to do with you.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“I see. I’m heading in, then.”
“Mm. It’s late, after all. Go to your room and sleep.”
Ferris nodded. “I’m tired. I’d sleep even if you didn’t tell me to.” She took a few steps up to the enormous Eris gate. “Open.”
It opened on command. She made to enter, but stopped for a moment. “You’re staying here?”
Lucile nodded. “I want to feel the night breeze a little longer.”
“Really.”
“Mm.”
“Brother.”
“Hm?”
“…I’ll lend you an ear if there’s something you want to talk about.”
She said it completely emotionlessly. But he smiled. “Thanks. But I don’t have anything to talk to you about now. So you can sleep worry-free.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Then… then that’s fine,” she said, a little sad. Then she turned back to their property and entered through the gate.
The gate closed behind her, and his beloved sister disappeared into the other side.
“……”
He watched the other side for some time.
“…Now, then. I had better go retrieve my memories.”
Even though he said that, he didn’t really want to do it. Because they were memories from the toughest time of his life. Memories from the time where Ferris, still just a kid, had lost her expressions altogether.
He’d been willing to do anything back then. Anything to recover her smile. They were memories of him screaming that. Memories of a weak little kid screaming while crying.
“……”
He thought back to when he stopped being human.
It was a dark night with no moon.
It was a dark world with no one who’d save him.
“……”
Lucile Eris slowly began to recall those dark memories.
A little earlier.
The night was dark as could be, dying Roland pitch black.
“……”
It wasn’t just any darkness.
It was the ugly darkness of Roland itself, impossible to ignore.
Sion Astal could feel it.
He had noble silver hair and willful golden eyes that he used to look through the darkness. He couldn’t see past the road, but he could feel it. He could sense a monster that’d transcended its humanity all together. It was one of his siblings who had gone mad, unable to bear the power of the Fallen Dark Hero.
Apparently they were called Goddesses now, and that supposedly meant that they were gods who’d thrown away reason.
And the thing he felt was one of those reasonless monsters.
He could feel its bloodlust. He could feel its appetite. Its jealousy towards Sion, who had been chosen by Aslude Roland.
That was why the Goddesses were coming for him. They wanted to eat him. They were going to try to kill him, and he’d do the same in return.
He and Lucile were already prepared to fight in the pits of Roland’s darkness.
“Sion,” Lucile said. Though he wasn’t showing himself, Sion was sure that he was right by his side. That was the sort of contract they had. That was the sort of curse he had. So Sion didn’t bother looking for him.
Instead, he stared in the direction of the Goddess. “What?”
“The Goddess will be here any moment now.”
“I can feel it,” Sion said with a nod.
“There’s a Goddess approaching you head on.”
“I can feel it.”
“But that isn’t all…”
“Huh?”
“Someone else shot the magic that sent that redhead flying.”
“Hah?”
“They’re another enemy who’s approaching from behind,” Lucile said.
“Haaaaah!? Another enemy?”
“Yeah.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know,” Lucile said. “But they’re likely not human.”
“Haaaaaaaah!? Then what should I do?” Sion yelled.
Then he suddenly heard a voice from behind. “You idiots.”
It was high-pitched, and he couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. But he recalled hearing it before. A teacher had sounded like that back in the Roland Empire’s Royal Special Military Academy that he’d gone to with Ryner.
It had to be magic. Changing one’s voice with magic was pretty simple. They were probably doing it to keep Sion from seeing who they were.
“…Hey, Lucile.”
“Mm?”
“The one coming from behind me isn’t human, right?”
“Probably.”
“Then why are they hiding their identity?”
“Even monsters have their own reasons for doing things.”
“Haha. Even you?”
“Even me.”
“Such as?”
“That’s a secret.”
“Iiisss it now.” Sion laughed, then alternated in looking between where the Goddess was coming from and where the voice had come from. “So which should we fight? Or rather, which can we fight?”
A hand suddenly reached out from the dark behind him.
Sion’s eyes widened. He needed to dodge. But he wouldn’t make it in time.
“…I won’t let you touch my master,” Lucile said.
He appeared to stop the arm. He had blond hair and beauty so extreme that it was inhuman. That horribly beautiful man caught the arm with ease.
Sion took a step back to look at his assailant. It was a lone human, tall, wearing a chic dark suit. Likely male. But he had a strange mask on his face. A mask that Sion had seen before. Not in the normal course of his life. It wasn’t a mask that someone might wear at an event or anything.
It was the mask that the Fallen Mad Hero Aslude Roland had worn in the Eris basement. Half of the mask depicted a smile, while the other half depicted tears. “Oooh,” he said. “Not a bad reaction, Lucile!”
“…Who are you?” Lucile asked.
“Your savior.”
“…Savior?” Sion repeated.
“Yeah.”
“So basically—”
“Enough small talk,” Lucile interrupted. “You’re our enemy either way. I’ll just kill—”
“You aren’t capable of doing that yet,” the masked man said. He raised his hand up. It began to gather light.
Lucile made to cut the light apart with his hand, but…
“Gotcha,” the man said.
The light exploded the instant Lucile’s hand touched it, turning to flames that easily spread to Lucile’s upper body.
The flames even tried to jump to Sion.
“Shit,” Lucile whimpered, then moved Sion back away from the flames.
Lucile’s body was severely burnt. But he regenerated just as quickly as the flame burnt into him.
“…Are you okay, Lucile?” Sion asked.
Lucile nodded. “Yeah, this is nothing. I was just… careless. But the same trick won’t fool me twice.”
“…Well, that’s fine if true,” Sion said. “He seems pretty strong though?”
The masked man was the one who replied. “Yep! I’m super strong~!” Despite his efforts, his tone came off as oddly apathetic. “If you can’t even beat me, the Goddesses will kill you in nothing flat. I’m giving you a chance to call it quits now. I don’t know what’s making Lucile so impatient, but… I’d better remind you guys where you stand. You’ve only just stepped foot into this world, right? And you’re trying to fight me—”
Then, suddenly…
“—You’re a thousand years too early.”
The second voice came from Sion’s side. The man was still in front of him. How did his voice get beside him?
Sion turned.
The masked man was there, close by his side.
“Huh!?”
Sion reacted too late. The man had already grasped Lucile’s head in his hand.
Of course Lucile didn’t intend on letting that get him. He reached his arm out to try to cut into the masked man’s body, but smoke or something of the sort came from the man’s body, and he slipped right through Lucile’s attack. Then he pulled Lucile to the ground by his head.
Sion balled his hand into a fist, aiming to help Lucile.
But the masked man clicked his tongue, and Sion’s body lost its ability to move. He was stuck in the same position he’d frozen in, readying a punch that’d never reach.
“……”
He couldn’t even speak.
That man stole his ability to freely use his body.
The man looked at him to confirm it before looking back down at Lucile. “Now then. Since you guys can’t lay a hand on me…”
“…I’ll kill you,” Lucile said, then moved his hands and mumbled an incantation.
“Don’t be silly. There’s no way you can beat me with magic. Also, I made that spell. I taught you that spell.”
Then the man whispered something, and the magic that Lucile just started faded away like it was nothing.
“It’s useless, Lucile. You’re still playing in the shallows. You can’t reach me, no matter what you do now… You need to go deeper, deeper, so deep that no one can hear you screaming in the dark…
“…Bastard,” Lucile said. “Who are you?”
“The fact that you don’t know is proof of how weak you are.”
“……”
“That’s why I came to save you. You… no, the two of you could be of use to me… so I came to save you.”
“……”
“Now it’d be nice if you’d run. I’ll pacify this Goddess somehow. You guys need to go find more power while I do. Just enough power to shoulder this country’s darkness. You need to have just enough power to devour Ryner before one of you becomes king of this country…”
With that, the man released Lucile and stood.
Lucile immediately jumped up and tried to attack him again. Lucile’s hand went straight through him, but the masked man turned to hundreds of sheets of paper, each dancing through the wind, before stacking themselves up in a briefcase nearby. Then the briefcase rattled around and flew away.
“…Whoa.” The power binding Sion in place began to fade. He looked to Lucile. “What was all that about?”
Lucile stared in the direction that the briefcase had disappeared in. “Something I’ve seen before…”
Sion recalled something the masked man said: ‘Also, I made that spell. I taught you that spell.’
“…So you know him?”
Lucile tilted his head. “I wonder… My memories are lacking. I…” Lucile pressed his hand to his head, his nails grazing his temple… then digging in hard enough to draw blood. “…It seems like my memories have been tampered with. I had thought that I obtained my current power myself…”
Lucile’s words trailed off. Then he turned to look at Sion.
“But it’s fine,” Lucile said. “A Goddess is coming. We have to deal with it…”
His words trailed off again. Sion understood why. He tore his eyes from Lucile and looked back. Roland’s dark night was there, just as it had been for the past few hours. But it was a quiet, normal night. The pressure of something coming to attack them was gone.
Someone had stopped the Goddess. It had to have been that masked man.
“He said that we aren’t strong enough yet,” Sion said. “Is that true?”
Lucile shrugged. “…Even if it is, we have no choice but to survive this killing game. We were lucky this time. That Goddess was a bit too strong for us.”
“Whoa, whoa, you’ve got to be kidding,” Sion said. “I didn’t accept your power just to be lead straight to my death, you know.”
“I do know that.”
“Really?”
“Yeah… it seems like that man was telling us that our power is still incomplete.”
“Incomplete? So there’s more?”
Lucile smiled. “We need to release enough of the power of Aslude Roland within you for you to be acknowledged by the Human Alpha, curse of this country. But the people of this country have already surrendered everything to the royal family. Hardly anyone has pledged loyalty to you. Which means…”
“…I’ll become stronger if I make the people of this country think of me as their king?”
“Yeah.”
“So that’s the kind of power that this is?”
Lucile shook his head. “That’s the kind of curse this is. It’s a curse cast by Goddesses who feared the Heroes. It’s your job to break the curse little by little.”
Sion still didn’t really understand much of anything that Lucile said. But he was past the point of wanting an explanation. He’d have to work with Lucile for a long time either way, so why piss him off and make it painful? That’d make it feel even longer.
So there was no need to rush Lucile.
It was exactly as the masked man said: they should take it slow. They’d never be able to leave the darkness once they entered, after all.
“……”
“In any case, it looks like tonight’s event ends here,” Lucile said. “I think I’ll go elsewhere.”
“Will you, now.”
“So where’s little Lucile, who suffered an astounding defeat in our first battle planning to run off to?” Sion asked mischievously.
“…To retrieve my stolen memories,” Lucile said and disappeared without a trace. It was like he’d never even been there to begin with.
Sion sighed lightly.
Lately monsters were all he saw. Never human, never able to be human. Just monsters, one after another.
That included Sion himself.
“……”
Even now there was a curse whirling around in his insides, strong enough to make him feel like he was going to throw his viscera up. If he relaxed and let it eat him from the inside, he’d become a Goddess just like his siblings.
Sion smiled. Sharp as it was, it was entirely made of false confidence.
The truth was that he wanted to run away.
His weak heart was screaming at him to find someone, anyone else who could do this instead and leave all the pain for them to deal with instead.
But…
“Oh, you lived.”
That voice didn’t surprise him. Because it was human. A normal person, not something that lurked in the dark.
So he turned to face it. When he did, he saw Luke who he’d met earlier. He had white hair despite being in his early twenties. He was likely one of Rahel Miller’s right-hand men along with Claugh Klom.
“You came back?” Sion asked.
Luke nodded. “Yes. Miller told me to come help you.”
“Miller did?”
“Yes.”
“So he’s decided to write me into his scenario?”
Luke shrugged. “Or Miller will enter your scenario. Isn’t it best if the gears running this country work together?”
What a thing to say after all this time. Sion smiled, tired.
So Miller, who had constructed such a careful, inflexible plan, ended up changing his mind rather easily in the end, despite Miller being unlikely to understand what had happened. Apparently what he got from it was a desire to be Sion’s ally, though.
“…Miller’s amazing. To the point that it’s frightening,” Sion said.
“You think so?”
Sion nodded. “I do.”
“Then… then explain the details of all this in a way that a dim guy like me can understand, will you? Explain what happened here, what’s happened with you, and…”
Luke paused, considering his words as he looked up at the sky. He stared at the dark sky, free of both moon and stars.
“…Why does this strange country called Roland even exist?” Luke asked. Then he looked back at Sion. His expression had hardened. He looked ready to threaten Sion.
“……”
Sion didn’t give him an answer. He just smiled. “Do you really think I’ll tell you all the details when you’re making that kind of threatening face at me?”
“I don’t believe that you won’t tell me.”
“Torture me and see.”
“Hahaha. Do you really not know?”
Sion nodded. “Yeah. I don’t understand what destiny has in store for us. Honestly, it’s pretty annoying. But what can you do…” Sion’s voice trailed off for a moment. He sighed before continuing. “Anyway, I’m really tired. How about we call it a day, get some sleep, and have a meeting about this tomorrow?”
“What kind of meeting?” Luke asked, tilting his head.
Sion smiled. “A meeting to bring me into your group,” he said and turned his back to Luke to face the direction of his lodgings, and set out in a walk.
“You’ve gotten preeetty interesting lately, haven’t you?” Luke asked from behind.
“I’m not ‘interesting.’”
“Hahaha. Well, I’ll look forward to seeing you tomorrow.”
Sion raised his hand to wave him off. “Yeah. See you then.”
---
Dreaming. Conscious. Dreaming. Conscious. Dreaming. Conscious.
He drifted between sleep and wake many, many times, so many that he lost the ability to make a distinction between the two.
Lucile Eris whispered. “It’s pretty… it’s pretty dull.”
Then he raised his head.
He was currently standing in front of the Eris gate. It was made of metal on wood and had a decidedly different atmosphere when compared to the gates of other nobles.
“……”
He turned around.
His little sister was there.
She was very like him in some ways, and not like him at all in others.
He smiled. “Hey, Ferris. You’re back.”
She looked at him with her pretty face and unsociable expression. “Yeah. You’re just coming back too?”
Lucile laughed. “I was worried that my precious sister hadn’t returned yet, so I was waiting for you here.”
“Liar.”
“No, that was the truth.”
“Really?”
Lucile nodded. “It’s true.”
“Really.”
“Mm.”
“Then… well, I’m back now,” Ferris said. “So you don’t need to worry.”
“Really?”
“Mm.”
“So I don’t need to worry even though a powerful soldier made you faint and took you with him?”
Ferris’ expression clouded over as she looked at him.
She was making a pretty dark face now, but no one could touch her. Because he’d vowed to protect her. He’d protect her because she was too pretty.
“So where’s my lecture?” Ferris asked.
“You don’t need one. I’m just happy that you’re safe. I’m in a good mood because it’s such a pretty night, so I’ve decided not to lecture anyone.”
Ferris looked up, confused. “A pretty night? But there’s no moon or stars?”
Lucile looked up, too.
But his eyes could see the stars. They could see the moon. They could see countless bad things, too.
She existed in a different world from him, so they ended up seeing different things. Because he lived in the deepest corner of hell, dirty enough to make him sick. So he couldn’t see the same world as someone beautiful.
Even so, he smiled.
He was truly happy that his fate didn’t befall his sister, too.
“…You’re right,” he said. “There’s no moon and there are no stars. But it’s fun when we get along enough to look at the sky together, don’t you think?”
“I don’t understand that emotion.”
He looked at her. At her emotionlessness. He recalled her asking him questions about emotions with that same expression when they were younger, when she’d found a poetry anthology in the bookcase in his room to read.
That anthology had a poem in it that went like this—
“I love you.”
Her body became unable to move from those words.
“I love you from the bottom of my heart.”
Her body couldn’t move from those words.
“I love every little bit of you.”
Her body… couldn’t move. From fear.
That was ‘love.’ Even though she was scared… she knew that this was ‘love.’
‘Love’ meant that everything had turned to despair.
She’d whispered the word love as she read it, questioning it, her head tilted in confusion.
She’d been pretty then. Like she wasn’t real.
He didn’t mean how she looked or how she was on the inside. There was just something about her that was very different from him. He understood that since the moment she was born.
Even though they had the same hair and the same skin, he knew she was different from the moment she was born.
She’d asked him about it then. “What’s this ‘love’ they speak of? Brother.”
It was a cute question that only a kid could come up with.
How was he even supposed to respond to that?
He felt like it was a pretty important question. He’d like to choose his words carefully and answer it well.
“……”
How had even responded back then? He’d still been a kid, too. He just couldn’t remember.
It was indistinct, fuzzy, just like things were now. Yes, they were memories, and they weren’t meant to be clear. But it felt like there was an additional fog on them that shouldn’t be there. He just couldn’t remember.
It was probably…
“……”
The work of magic.
There was a unique spell placed on his mind.
That masked man he met earlier had apparently met him before, too. He must have placed that spell on him.
“…How unpleasant,” Lucile mumbled.
“Mm?”
Lucile smiled. “It has nothing to do with you.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“I see. I’m heading in, then.”
“Mm. It’s late, after all. Go to your room and sleep.”
Ferris nodded. “I’m tired. I’d sleep even if you didn’t tell me to.” She took a few steps up to the enormous Eris gate. “Open.”
It opened on command. She made to enter, but stopped for a moment. “You’re staying here?”
Lucile nodded. “I want to feel the night breeze a little longer.”
“Really.”
“Mm.”
“Brother.”
“Hm?”
“…I’ll lend you an ear if there’s something you want to talk about.”
She said it completely emotionlessly. But he smiled. “Thanks. But I don’t have anything to talk to you about now. So you can sleep worry-free.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Then… then that’s fine,” she said, a little sad. Then she turned back to their property and entered through the gate.
The gate closed behind her, and his beloved sister disappeared into the other side.
“……”
He watched the other side for some time.
“…Now, then. I had better go retrieve my memories.”
Even though he said that, he didn’t really want to do it. Because they were memories from the toughest time of his life. Memories from the time where Ferris, still just a kid, had lost her expressions altogether.
He’d been willing to do anything back then. Anything to recover her smile. They were memories of him screaming that. Memories of a weak little kid screaming while crying.
“……”
He thought back to when he stopped being human.
It was a dark night with no moon.
It was a dark world with no one who’d save him.
“……”
Lucile Eris slowly began to recall those dark memories.
