The sorrow that feels like it’s tearing you apart doesn’t mean nearly as much to others.
When people see a sad story about a child on TV, most of them just think, “That’s sad,” and move on.
A few might offer support, like through donations, and an even smaller number might try to help directly.
But most will forget within seconds once they change the channel.
Because no matter how painful something is to you, it usually doesn’t mean that much to someone else.
That’s why half-hearted understanding is worse than none at all.
Clumsy sympathy only becomes a form of false hope. It was torture in disguise.
I learned that through experience.
“…This is…”
In the brief moment I looked away,
The image of my father smiling with an envelope in his hand disappeared,
And instead, an awkward scene filled my view.
An awkward, yet unforgettable scene.
“…….”
I stood frozen in the middle of my father’s empty funeral.
Only then did I realize this illusion wasn’t as simple as I had thought.
“…This is…”
This was the meaning of death.
Death, as Faust saw it.
And everything that it drags to the surface.
“…….”
I lit incense at the funeral.
That day, not a single person came. Not even our relatives.
All I got from friends were cold messages saying, “Sorry for your loss.”
It was then I truly understood:
No matter how deep my grief runs, to others, it’s never quite the same.
I knew that was the wise way to live. So I, Johan Damus, tried to live that way too.
I turned my eyes away from the countless tragedies happening around me, brushing them off as someone else’s problem.
Because it was easier that way.
“That’s why death is sad, isn’t it?”
I turned around to see who had spoken to me.
It was a familiar voice.
“Humans are creatures capable of expressing emotions, but unfortunately, we can’t ever express them fully.”
Snow-white hair.
A gentle smile that put people at ease just by looking at it.
“Kult Hereticus.”
“It’s been a while, Mr. Johan.”
“…This is driving me crazy.”
The moment I saw my father’s face, I realized this illusion was showing me the images of the dead.
It wasn’t even a difficult deduction.
Still, no matter how I looked at it, thrusting this guy in front of me felt like crossing a line.
“Well, thanks to that, I’ve at least learned one thing for sure.”
“That I’m just an illusion created by your perception?”
“The Kult Hereticus in my illusion is smart enough to make me sick.”
A bitter remedy that jolted me awake.
I knew all of this was an illusion, but I’d never felt the disconnect from reality this sharply before.
My father’s illusion was clearly born from my memories.
There was no way his soul still lingered in this world.
And Alice’s soul wouldn’t be trapped here either.
She had melted into the world and disappeared because of the influence of transcendent syndrome.
And Kult Hereticus…
He passed on his mission as a prophet to Helena and vanished.
Whether his soul returned to the embrace of God or was consumed by divinity and erased, I couldn’t say….but at the very least, he wouldn’t be bound to this world.
Still, seeing him insist with his own mouth that he’s just an illusion leaves a bitter taste.
“If I’m just your illusion, then may I say something? In the end, all of this is just a self-dialogue. You’re talking to a projection of me that exists only in your mind.”
“Seriously, you’re creeping me out.”
This guy really had a talent for cutting remarks.
Words so sharp they could slice away even the slightest hesitation.
Thanks to him, I didn’t even get a moment to dwell on sentiment.
“So, what do you think? Do you understand the meaning of death, as he describes it?”
“Who knows?”
“Hmm. Personally, I see this very scene as the concrete cause behind that madman’s dreams.”
“……”
“Oh, right. Not my thought; it’s yours. The one you’ve been avoiding.”
He’s annoying, even in death.
“Death leaves behind a feeling of loss. Isn’t that ironic?”
“Don’t go telling jokes like that anywhere.”
“I’m just the image you created.”
If that’s true, then I’m really sorry, Kult Hereticus.
“Maybe the other illusions say what you wanted to hear or appear how you wanted to see them, but not me.”
“I know.”
This was the Kult Hereticus I knew.
He was never someone who looked at me positively to begin with, so it’s only natural he appears this way now.
And strangely enough, that very demeanor is what’s snapping me back to my senses.
“‘My grief isn’t that big of a deal to others’. That line showed exactly where your self-preserving tendencies come from.”
“……”
“Then the same must apply to Faust. That wanderer harbors a goal of uniting all souls into one. Doesn’t that make it easy to guess what he’s aiming for?”
“……”
“Shared emotion. Understanding born from it. And if you go even further… if you transcend life and death, then maybe the pain of loss could disappear as well.”
Kult lit some incense as if mimicking what I had done earlier and spoke.
“When someone dies, we can never truly know what they were thinking. The deeper the bond, the more those questions multiply, one after another.”
“……”
“So how much despair must someone once called a great sage have felt in the face of a question with no answer? How much sorrow must he have borne?”
At least in this world, there was a way to find out.
Even if it was immoral, black magic existed, didn’t it?
It’s no wonder Faust saw it as a possible answer.
While Kult Hereticus wanted to change the world itself, Faust wanted to change people.
This mess of a world was what you get when fools who didn’t know how to compromise were the ones shaping it.
“Mr. Johan. Do you know what he lost?”
“I don’t.”
I don’t know who Faust lost.
And I don’t know how much Faust himself knows.
Black magic didn’t guarantee resurrection for whoever it targeted.
When a person dies, their soul departs.
Slowly, like water evaporating, the soul left the body. Once it departed, the body returned to the cycle of reincarnation.
But not all souls followed that path. Just like when Loki was brought back, if black magic was used immediately after death, the dead could be raised again.
And some souls, those still clinging to regrets in this world, lingered far longer in their bodies than normal souls did.
Charybdis belonged to the latter.
It must have been because of something left unsaid to Yuna, something he couldn’t let go of.
Yuna herself had suffered for a long time after not hearing those final words, so I could understand just how heavy that burden must have been.
“Faust must’ve lost someone precious.”
“Yeah, probably.”
“But he probably didn’t know that person had any lingering regrets.”
“……”
“That ignorance is likely what led him to fall into black magic.”
It was a natural cause-and-effect.
If he had found an answer, would he have come this far?
He hadn’t found one. And he probably never would.
Back when that precious person passed, Faust hadn’t yet been a black mage.
He wouldn’t have had the chance to check for lingering regrets. And by the time he finally turned to black magic, it would’ve been far too late.
“Now, do you see?”
“See what?”
“What this illusion really means.”
Kult pointed at me. Following his finger, I looked down and saw chains wrapped around my wrist.
My clenched fist had gone pale, completely drained of color.
I followed the chain with my eyes.
At the end of it was a pitiful old man.
The old man who was entangled in countless chains couldn’t move an inch. He was bound completely, shackled by the past.
The Great Sage Faust had willingly accepted that bondage. That was what Under Chain meant to him.
He was someone who was never meant to move forward. Someone forever anchored in place.
He was a man who shared even the sorrow and pain etched into others’ souls, dying for the sake of his ideals.
The connection of souls.
An illusion that clearly embodied the ideals one person held.
“So, what is it that you must sever?”
The illusory Kult Hereticus kept pressing me.
But was it really just an illusion?
This didn’t feel like talking to myself. No matter how I looked at it, something felt off. Kult was clearly pointing me toward an answer.
Still, that didn’t matter now. Not when I was face-to-face with the ideal of Under Chain and with my own problem.
What I needed now was a choice.
“I believe in your decision.”
I raised my sword.
And I looked at the chain wrapped around my wrist.
Was the thing I needed to cut off the lingering regret that chain represented?
I shook my head.
Another name for lingering regret is longing. And another name for longing is memory.
If a person erased even their memories, how could they ever look forward?
Lose your footing, and all that’s left is to fall forever.
I turned my head and looked straight ahead.
There, at the end of the chain wrapped around my wrist, stood a frail old man.
Head bowed like a sinner.
The Great Sage Faust.
I took a step forward, staring at the figure so utterly broken beyond repair.
I walked toward the man trapped in the past, unable to free himself from lingering regrets.
I raised my sword.
“…Hoo.”
And with a deep breath—
Thunk!
—I drove it into myself.
There was only a strange sensation, but no pain.
At that, Kult Hereticus….no, the thing borrowing his shape clapped its hands and laughed.
“When the problem lies in the heart, the answer shouldn’t be sought outside. It must be found within. I’m glad you reached that answer.”
“Yeah, thanks for the advice. You bastard.”
“My pleasure.”
I showed him a hand sign meaning “mountain”. It was the last gesture I made toward him.
It was blasphemy.
***
When the twisted world finally returned to its proper form—
“Guh?!”
—I saw Loki, coughing up black blood.
His position hadn’t changed from the beginning.
The sword that should’ve pierced me was still just in my hand.
No, more precisely, my sword had pierced something.
“That’s right, didn’t you say your true body wasn’t bound by flesh?”
I smirked at the red ring hanging from the tip of my sword.
It was thanks to that ring Ouroboros that he was able to drag everyone here into an illusion.
But there must’ve been a price for wielding such power.
Loki had practically laid down his own heart.
“How… how could someone like you—!”
“Yeah, fair enough. ‘Someone like me’. That’s a good way to put it.”
I flicked my sword, tossing the ring hanging from the tip into the air.
I watched for a moment as Loki who was coughing up blood writhed in pain and stared at me in disbelief. Then I swung my sword wide.
Crack!
It was a bit embarrassing to admit, but I couldn’t actually cut through the ring.
My swordsmanship just isn’t that refined yet. I’ll admit that.
Still, it was enough to break it.
The ring that was struck more than half-heartedly by my blade slammed into the ground and shattered with its fragments scattering far and wide.
“But honestly, I think it was fair. You never even deserved to wield that power in the first place.”
Faust may have been a notorious madman and terrorist, but he was also someone who held to a certain ideal.
Of course, I don’t agree with or even understand that ideal.
Because I don’t believe that knowing everything automatically gives something value.
Even so…
“You didn’t have to respect it or understand it, but you could’ve at least tried to figure out where that power came from.”
I tried, at least once, to understand why he made the choices he did.
So seeing someone use that power without even trying to understand it? Honestly, it was laughable.
And since Loki seemed clueless, I might as well tell him.
“I’m sick and tired of fighting with you, Loki. So let’s end it here.”
One thing about me is that I never let my guard down until I’m absolutely sure.
“Oh, and one last thing.”
Crunch!
I crushed a remaining shard of the ring underfoot.
Loki’s true form which was now unable to regenerate collapsed completely.
“You should’ve lived a decent life. Who knows…maybe then a merciful god would’ve shown you the way.”
With this, I’ve taken down a named enemy. It was my first real kill.
Not that I can brag about it. Do that, and I’d be headed straight to a cell underground.
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