Why was this person here?
Could that person possibly be just another illusion she had created?
That thought didn’t linger long.
“What am I afraid of? I’m afraid of everything; this whole messed-up situation terrifies me. I hate how utterly powerless I am.”
“……”
At first, she had thought it was enough just to look out for herself.
In a harsh world like this, where even finding family was a struggle, who had the time to care about anyone else?
Only two years ago, Dilaila herself had barely been able to keep her head above water.
But now, why was it so difficult to stick to that?
“Do you know what it feels like to be overwhelmed by someone else’s emotions? To feel like a stranger is ripping through your mind and body? It’s a sickening feeling. And yet, I have no choice but to get dragged into it. I can’t organize it, and I can’t erase it.”
“Is the weight of others’ feelings truly that burdensome?”
“Yes. Because they’re not mine, I have no control over them. And yet somehow, that bastard has the power to pull at my emotions whenever he wants.”
And yet, she couldn’t discard them; she couldn’t make them disappear.
It was as if she were sinking deeper and deeper into a thick, inescapable mire.
This had plagued Dilaila endlessly.
Shane who was watching her spoke calmly.
“Well, you know this, don’t you? It’s not that these memories are controlling you, but rather that you’re the one allowing them to go unchecked.”
“…What are you talking about?”
In response to Dilaila’s question, Shane averted his gaze.
“Is that what you’re afraid of?”
“What?”
Standing there was the non-human Emma looking at her with an unreadable expression.
“……”
Dilaila averted her gaze from Emma.
Was it fear, or was it guilt?
“Are you afraid?”
When the question came again, Dilaila answered in a subdued voice.
“…Yes.”
There was a strong note of self-loathing in her voice.
“Then why cling to it? To that monster.”
“Monster…?”
At this, hostility flared in Dilaila’s eyes.
“It sounds like you’re speaking so freely because you don’t know how those non-humans died. That thing you call a monster. If you hadn’t helped me, that’s the fate I would have suffered!”
Even if this man was her savior, she couldn’t let this comment go just like that.
If they were monsters, then what did it make her, who felt a kinship with them?
No, the real monsters were elsewhere.
“You’re saying those who died, helpless to stop anything, are the monsters? And the ones who made them suffer like this are left alone? That’s… that’s…”
“…..”
“It’s too cruel…”
As if drained, Dilaila lowered her head. She seemed to lack even the strength to lift it.
Watching her, Shane spoke.
“All you’re doing is avoiding it. But whatever, it doesn’t matter. That monster is beyond your power to kill as you are now.”
“Kill it…!”
The moment Dilaila who had been enraged by those words raised her head again,
In that instant, she realized the scene before her had changed.
The dark, dank basement had vanished, and a vast sky stretched before her.
Just gazing at that red sky made her feel as if her heart were being squeezed.
“Wh-What is this…?”
And under that sky, on a throne inside the castle, sat someone who looked exactly like the person she’d just talked to as if he were dead.
“H-Hey… are you… okay?”
Dilaila slowly approached the masked figure on the throne.
All traces of hostility had vanished from her.
How could she feel otherwise when a brilliant sword was pierced through the chest of the man in the mask?
“H-hello…?”
“There once was a fool.”
“Ah!”
Suddenly, a voice echoed in her mind, and Dilaila instinctively took a step back.
“The jealousy that fool carried soon turned to hatred until he began to hate everything in the world.”
“W-What are you suddenly talking about…?”
“In the end, I will show you the fate that befell the fool who, after surpassing all else, began to hate even himself.”
“Wh-What…?!”
Once again, the scenery shifted.
Buildings stained in blood.
Inside, people were visible.
Strangely, Dilaila couldn’t make out their faces.
It was as if she was caught in some kind of cognitive dissonance.
In one corner, two children were trembling with their eyes fixed on the scene ahead.
The parents who had always shown them boundless love were now lying in pools of blood.
The marks scattered across their bodies were signs of an attack by the undead.
The siblings watched their parents’ bodies as they trembled in horror.
But before long, their mother and father began to rise.
The siblings instinctively realized, at that moment, that these were no longer their parents.
Amid the despair and overwhelming fear, the older sister snapped out of it first and frantically smashed the window behind her with her bare hands.
Blood began to flow from her wounded hand, and the scent of it awakened the primal instincts of the undead who had once been their parents.
As the sister hurriedly pushed her younger sibling out, the younger sibling who was flung through the window caught a glimpse of the undead moving in on his sister from behind with bared teeth.
Once again, the scene shifted.
The children had ultimately escaped the undead’s clutches. They fled from the city into the forest, deeper and deeper still.
The forest was a dangerous place at night, but it was still less dangerous than the city overrun by the undead.
Was it misfortune or luck?
Perhaps because they sensed the presence of the dead, not a single beast, monster, or even insect appeared in the forest.
Only when they discovered a cave where they could finally rest did the siblings crawl inside and take a moment to catch their breath.
Neither of them could say a word.
Could those children really survive?
No.
This story held not a trace of hope.
During their escape, the sister had been bitten by an undead.
A vicious poison seeped from her wound, and soon the sister was coughing up blood and collapsed.
The younger brother stared at his sister with empty eyes.
He clung to her unmoving body as she lay there on the ground.
In the boy’s gaze, nothing remained. Not despair, not fear.
Only emptiness.
In those empty eyes, he saw only his sister, baring her teeth as she turned toward him.
With that final scene, the world froze as it was.
In this still world.
A young man appeared and approached what had once been a pair of young siblings.
The scene before him was the result of his own actions.
The young man’s face, like those in the scene around him, was indistinguishable, yet Dilaila could sense the emotions he was experiencing.
“…Ah…”
Instinctively, she took a step back.
She could feel the emotion, yet could not truly comprehend it.
It was as if her very instincts were rejecting it.
The moment you try to understand that feeling, you will surely be destroyed.
It felt as if a warning was reaching out to her.
The young man knelt on both knees before what had once been siblings.
And with that, the scene shifted once more.
Countless lives succumbing to the undead drifted past Dilaila.
Each time a life was extinguished, the young man appeared.
He fixed his gaze on the scene as if determined never to forget it.
“What… what are you trying to show me…? Please…? Say something, anything, I’m begging you—!”
Countless deaths flashed by her.
Unable to bear the sight any longer, Dilaila’s trembling voice spoke out, and the scene shifted back to the red sky and the chamber where the throne stood.
“When that fool, so filled with hatred, had nothing left in him but emptiness, the scene laid out before him was merely the result of his own choices.”
“……”
Dilaila seemed to understand his words and gave a slight nod.
“So… this is what happened to you…?”
“……”
“I’ve… never heard of something like this happening before…”
Even during the great purge of the black mages decades ago, things had never come to this.
In the man’s memories that Dilaila had seen, beyond the tragic death of the siblings, countless other deaths drifted by as well.
How could this man have experienced something like this?
“For that fool who had lost everything, only one choice remained. To never forget the countless results brought about by his own decisions. That was all he could do.”
“How is that… even possible?”
With desperation, Dilaila pleaded for an answer from the masked man.
Of course, what the man had endured and what Dilaila was going through were fundamentally different.
The man had accepted the consequences of his own choices.
Dilaila, however, was only enduring something she had no control over.
And yet she knew.
The situation she was facing now was the consequence of the choices she herself had made. Just like he said.
So she asked.
If she could learn how he bore the weight of his own consequences, perhaps she could find a measure of freedom as well.
“There is no answer. But that fool kept three things in mind and never strayed from them.”
“Three things…?”
“Not looking away. Not turning back. Not stopping.”
“….”
“So, don’t look away, don’t turn back, and don’t stop. If you do this, one day, you’ll find yourself still moving forward.”
“….”
“So now, let it end—kill the monster.”
With that, the scene shifted once again.
***
The basement came back into view.
Dilaila looked at the non-human young girl standing in front of her.
“The monster.”
“Huh…? What are you talking about, big sister?”
“In truth, I knew from the beginning.”
“……?”
At Dilaila’s murmured words, Emma wrapped her arms around her shoulders, a stance born of a child’s instinct for self-protection in the face of fear.
“I might be a bit emotional and rough around the edges, but I’m still a mage. And not just any mage. I graduated top of my class at the coalition’s Academy. I’m not so foolish as to be oblivious to my own circumstances.”
“Huh…? I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“I guess… I was just tired. Yeah, maybe it was just because I was so exhausted. I’ve come so far, and I just wanted a break. Isn’t that right? Really, I haven’t done anything wrong. There isn’t a single reason I should have to carry this heavy burden, no matter how hard I look.”
“Sister… I’m scared….”
“But it was an excuse, wasn’t it? If I fell apart like this, I could just blame it all on you. Isn’t that so? If I said I was consumed by a dark spirit, who could say otherwise?”
“…….”
A dark spirit.
When she mentioned that being who feeds on the tainted emotions of other life forms, silence fell all around.
Even the non-humans who had breathed sighs of relief without knowing their own fate.
Her comrades who had been discussing the next phase of their mission off to the side.
And even Emma who had just moments ago been voicing her fears.
Everyone turned to Dilaila and held their breath.
“But somehow, I don’t think I can rest even if I try. It just feels so heavy on my shoulders….”
“……”
“So, it’s time for you to go.”
As Dilaila raised one hand and clenched it into a fist, the underground cell that had imprisoned her all this time began to crumble in an instant.
It was finally time to wake up from the “dream”.
***
“Um… thank you. For saving me, again.”
Late at night.
As she strolled through the quiet square, Dilaila spoke to Shane who was hidden in the shadows.
“What I did was only a precaution. You’re the one who actually handled things.”
“Well, still… I don’t know, you know. Until now, the only person who cared for me this much was my father. And lately, ever since that terrorist incident, people’s attitudes around me have really taken a turn for the worse.”
“……”
“Ahh… the night air feels nice…”
Feeling a bit awkward after speaking, Dilaila glanced around, as if to change the subject and take in the surroundings.
Since that incident, she had been reluctant to go outside, so she decided to take a walk during a quiet time when no one would be around.
It was perhaps the first step toward overcoming her trauma.
“Why do you think that?”
“What do you mean? That people’s attitudes have changed?”
“Yes.”
“Well… I mean, don’t you think so? I never really had good memories with these fangs of mine, but ever since that incident, it feels like people are openly avoiding us non-humans….”
“Those kinds of stares have increased, that’s true.”
“Right?”
“But like I’ve told you before, you need to look around a bit more. You’re still too narrow-minded.”
“What…? Before…?”
Had he ever said something like that to her before?
Before she could answer her own question, Dilaila found herself standing in front of the fountain.
“Huh. What’s this? I don’t remember seeing this stone tablet before.”
It was in the central square, in front of the fountain that she used to pass by frequently.
Now, alongside a large stone tablet that hadn’t been there before, there were flowers, letters, and food offerings piled around it.
“To remember the innocent lives lost…What… is this…”
“It’s a stone tablet made by your fellow mage. She petitioned the city council herself, and with funds gathered from citizens, they built it.”
“Artia…”
The tablet listed the names of non-humans who had been sacrificed in the recent tragedy.
Even where names were unknown, details about their appearances had been recorded with care.
“Heh, ha… Ah, damn it. You miserable idiot… What on earth were you even doing…”
With that, Dilaila struck her head hard with her fist.
“Acting all sentimental, as if I was the only one going through it, not even knowing something like this existed. God… honestly…”
“……”
“Haah…”
After a moment of self-reproach, Dilaila looked up and headed toward the nearby bushes.
Under the roadside trees, clusters of amber wildflowers bloomed. They were holding onto their beauty even in the now chilly weather.
“They look just like her…”
Dilaila used her magic to shape the earth into a vase, then carefully placed the flowers in it and set it in front of the tablet.
“…I may not be as remarkable as you thought I was, but I’ll try. I’ll try to be a bit more like the person you believed I could be.”
Finally, she permanently reinforced the earthen vase with her magic, then rose and looked at Shane.
“So… what should I do next?”
Leave a Reply