Episode 380 With Those Two Eyes (6)
“…What do you mean?”
I was dumbfounded by Gestas’ words.
Please kill Satan. You want me to kill a guy who can’t even deal with God himself and is so anxious to maintain the status quo? Is this what you mean?
“Why would I do such a difficult thing—”
[Because even in the worst case scenario, you will be able to return.]
Gestas calmly pondered, as if he had anticipated my reaction. Worst case. Even though it was said in a different way, it was a word that conveyed its meaning steadily.
[Even if you fail to kill Satan and die, you can return. On the other hand, if he succeeds in killing Satan… God, who is devoting most of his power to stopping Satan, can regain all his power.]
“…What happens when I get it back?”
[I will kill the demon that is tying you up and send you back. You may be able to compensate for some of the damage you suffered in the process. And finally… I will give the boy, the original owner of your body, a chance for salvation.]
Also, the words that followed were enough to quell my anger and awaken my reason.
The possibility that everyone but one person gets what they want. It was a truly fascinating sound.
“exactly.”
[The boy’s sins lie in making a contract with the devil, offering tribute to the devil, and even attracting souls from another dimension.]
Well, is that really the child’s fault? I resisted the urge to argue and listened to him. Because unless you’re an idiot, you wouldn’t blame the boy in front of me.
[Of course, just because the child is guilty of these crimes does not mean that the child is the culprit of all sins. No matter how much we have lost our humanity, we are not at a level where we cannot even understand causal relationships.]
In fact, he did not hold the boy responsible for all his sins. I just acted like a person who was sorting out the most obvious sins, putting aside the tangled circumstances for a moment.
The subtle antipathy I felt toward that mechanical and dry classification disappeared.
[But you know that, right? There are sins in the world that cannot be taken into account even by saying, “I couldn’t help it.”
Or perhaps the reason was that I sympathized with his words. The person who felt what he said most keenly was me, and no one else.
[Originally, the child cannot pay for that crime even if he dies. Whatever the cause of that child’s sin, the number of souls sacrificed is over five thousand. The same applies even if the target is the soul of a criminal.]
However.
[Regardless of whether they committed a crime or not, it is the greatest murder. And murder… may end life, but it doesn’t destroy the soul. Unlike the actions of the boy who sacrificed his soul to completely eliminate it from this world.]
But…
[I know it may not feel much different to humans. However, from ‘us’ or the world’s perspective, the weight of the two actions is completely different. The more serious sin is clearly the boy’s.]
I wanted to say something. Even though I had nothing to say, my throat was strangely tight and the tip of my tongue was tingling.
[The boy even dragged you in… a being from another dimension. It’s a shame because you were a person who knew morality. If you were an unfriendly being to our world, another Satan would have appeared.]
No matter how serious the crime was, that was the only way for him, and there was nothing else he could do. It would be so unfair to ask all of that from her.
These were words I should never have shouted.
[So, if we had followed the rules, we would have prevented this by burning the soul as we have been doing up to now, but… thanks to you, we decided to change our minds.]
Still, it was something I wanted to shout out.
[If you wish for the future of that child, we will respect your wishes and save that child. So that I can re-capture the heavenly water that has flowed out so that demonic energy can no longer reside in that body.]
I strongly grasped Gestas’s hand, which was still intertwined with my hand.
[I know it will be difficult. Because Satan is truly a powerful being. With the dimensional wall in charge of the noble dragon being repaired, we have more room to intervene… but still, killing that being will be a very arduous and difficult task.]
But. Gestas’ eyes, which were looking directly at me as he spit out a reversal, became sorrowfully clouded.
[I swear. If you are willing, ‘we’ will all do our best to support your will.]
The wind that did not blow shook the tree of souls. Shoot ahhh. Maybe shapeless waves are like that. It came like a tidal wave, but a calm, layered transparency supported the world.
“…This is a threat.”
[Sorry. Then should I send it back now?]
“Are you protesting now that you have lost your humanity? “Be careful.”
[Oh well. okay. Sorry.]
And I made a decision while standing on that transparent sea. Actually, there was nothing to worry about.
I was prepared to spend 9 years here anyway, so why couldn’t I participate in killing Satan? No matter which way I go or what I choose, there is no loss in that I can go back.
On the contrary, it may be better because it only takes one fight to go back where you had to wait 9 years.
It’s a pity that we have to fight until the very end, but at the same time, we’ve been getting tired of it, so it’s okay to do it one last time.
“…All you have to do is kill Satan.”
[huh. That’s enough.]
“No matter what the ending is, I will definitely be able to go back, right?”
[Promise. Even if we have to lose money, we will put it back where it belongs.]
“…If I do well, I will buy Faust too, right?”
[Yes.]
So therefore.
This was enough. I wiped away all the tears that were still on my face.
“…If it takes more than 9 years to kill Satan like this, you will be ruined.”
[Haha, you won’t do that, right? I don’t have time for that either. Thanks to the things you did.]
“…What did I do?”
[…Not only is it the problem of the dimension wall that was resolved this time, but isn’t it clear just by looking at the number of archdemons you’ve killed?]
“Ah… that.”
But honestly, it’s not that I did a good job. Isn’t it just that the people here and God are incompetent? To be honest, they weren’t that hard to kill.
It’s not something you would say after going through a hard time killing someone, but whatever.
[I think I can tell what you’re thinking just by looking at your eyes… but that’s a misunderstanding. It may seem like an excuse, but we were wasting a lot of energy protecting the dimensional wall while keeping Satan in check due to the fall of the noble dragon.]
“…If it was that dangerous, wouldn’t we have given an oracle in advance?”
[If I tell you that I didn’t even have the power to make a trust, will you forgive me…? But it’s true. Choosing a hero itself is a huge burden for us. The new oracle this time was possible because you killed two great demons…]
“Then, when you first gave the oracle, I think it would have been okay to have told you to go north. After saying, “Gather your colleagues together.”
[Oh, isn’t that a revelation from us?]
“…?”
[An oracle came down to me in a dream and told me that I would become the Great Hero by carving a pattern on the back of my hand, but it was not a revelation. That’s what the Pope made up. If we had said it directly in the first place, we would have described it as an oracle.]
“…What is the characteristic of fabrications in temples?”
The hero was born through fabrication, and revelation was also made up. So what is the truth?
[Haha… But the Pope didn’t make up a huge lie, did he? Slaying Satan is just a mission automatically given to you when you are selected as a hero, and the need to gather friends… The Pope just made this up out of pity for the great hero and to show him around the world.] “How do
you know that? ”
[I heard you pray to us and apologize for breaking the Buddhist scriptures.]
“…Ah.”
I’m hearing this again. My expression turned cold. I felt like I had learned something truly useless.
“…Did you carve the emblem on the back of your hand?”
Also, for no reason, my eyes were drawn to the words that passed by. Engraved on the back of the Inquisitor’s hand is a god’s emblem that even I have never seen before. A token that turned a hero who started out as a lie into truth. That’s why it was stepped on again.
[huh. I am the one who became a hero by lying, but that cannot continue to repeat itself. From the second time onwards, they pick and choose and engrave the pattern on the back of their hand.]
“…It’s a bit strange to say it this way, but you can’t make more than one hero at once, right?”
They say the reason they don’t make trusts is because of the burden, so I’ll pass on it for now.
However, even if the oracle itself is a burden… considering the power that the hero exerts, wouldn’t it be more beneficial to make several at once? Just one hero could be killed by the Great Devil, right? In that case, couldn’t you have used the tactic of pushing back with numbers?
[That’s difficult.]
“Is it because engraving a sentence is a burden?”
[That’s another reason, but it’s really rare for someone with the qualities of a hero to appear in the first place. Can you get a rough idea if this great hero was one of the best in history?]
…Was the Inquisitor that great? Of course, when I saw him do it, I thought, ‘If a hero can do something like that, why is the world still like this?’
“That… quality can’t be created by intervention?”
[of course. We don’t create souls. [It’s just a coincidence.]
I always think about it, but even God is not omnipotent. I suddenly realized that fact, and then my thoughts turned to something else.
“Then, in addition to being an Inquisitor, the birth of Faust, who was born with the qualities to embrace the Great Evil, coincided with…”
[It was truly the greatest coincidence and opportunity in this world.]
Ah. If that kid hadn’t been a devil, he would have lived a life that everyone admired.
[If only it weren’t for the devil… And if you thought you wouldn’t have a connection with the hero even after becoming an adult. That child probably received an oracle. We have seen that it is possible to catch Satan with the current warrior and that child.]
You could have lived a truly dazzling life.
[Well, this is what happened in the end.]
It wasn’t my job, but I felt a sense of regret at the possibility I was deprived of. It was a sad feeling no different from the time I saw a scholar repeating his studies.
[Do you have any more questions? If I don’t have it, I’m thinking of sending it to
you soon.] “…A place like this will never be created again, right?”
[Honestly, right? This current position was created by a combination of great coincidences and conditions.]
But I shouldn’t reveal that anymore. In the face of an incident that has already occurred, ‘If only the accident had not happened.’ Because assumptions like that can never be comforting.
[Or… have you changed your mind? Do you want to go back now?]
“No. That’s not it. “It’s just…”
So I erased any unnecessary sentiments and straightened my posture.
“I don’t know if it’s okay to say this, but have a peaceful day.”
Even if he doesn’t have a good relationship with me, objectively he is a person who wants to sacrifice himself and others for the sake of everyone. We want to show a minimum of respect to such people.
My head bowed politely.
[…huh. Thank you.]
Ah, but I think it would have been better if I had met that person when he was alive. I am also curious about what kind of person a lying warrior whose humanity has not been diminished would be.
[Goodbye.]
The sea that supported me disappeared, and my floating body slowly began to be captured by gravity. The hair and the hem of clothes rise first, and the force that pulls the center of the body enters the first force.
[And…]
3 2 1.
[The magic circle of arrogance has been completed. Be careful.]
The universe passed me by.
.
.
.
[What are you going to do if ‘that’ happened again after saving the boy’s soul?]
[He won’t do that.]
Gestas sat down on the branch, looking at the ocean star that had safely returned. After completing work that required thinking, my body slowly began to stiffen. I was ready to return to fruit.
[That’s just your judgment, number 1.]
[But it’s a judgment that some kids agree with, right?]
However, in his mind, there is one soul who came back as a vengeful ghost after being banished instead of being burned at the stake.
[…I still think we need to be prepared just in case.]
[I agree. but… [That child will be fine.]
That spirit, that devil, who came back angry with the enemy for trying to sell the world.
[I’m rather worried that she might decide to follow me to the afterlife.]
Mistakes like that won’t happen in the future.
[You agree with this, right? Wolfgang the Pumpkin Knight.]
Because it was a posthumous sacrifice dedicated to that purpose.