After placing flowers on her younger brother's grave, Plimene moved her steps. The place where she stopped was another section of the cemetery. It was where officers among the war veterans were buried.
[Julius]
Plimene gazed at the name written on the tombstone with complicated eyes. When she stroked the marble tombstone with her palm, a cold chill was transmitted. The coldness of death. The warmth she had felt when meeting him no longer existed.
"You know. I became the civil servant I so desperately wanted to be. I also moved to a larger house, and I'm no longer troubled by money like before."
She knows these words won't be conveyed. But if she didn't speak like this, she couldn't bear to visit this cold cemetery.
"Even now, I think about the time I spent with you. I know it's a belated regret, but I still think this way. If Phillis died but you had at least returned alive instead...I might have been able to endure it."
Even now would be good. Even if it's late, she wishes you would please return. But this cold reality cruelly reminds her that such wishes are useless.
Plimene raised her bowed head. Though her eyes reddened, she did not shed tears.
That day. The day she heard the news of her younger brother's and Julius' deaths. She had poured out all the tears she would shed in her lifetime.
Julius walked aimlessly through the alleyways. Like duckweed that had lost its purpose, he simply entrusted his body to the flow of unconsciousness. Sounds that seemed to whisper from all directions appeared to reproach him and eat away at his mind.
He had come to see the woman he loved, but he couldn't muster the courage to face her directly. All he could do was watch her from a distance. He wanted to tell her immediately, but his fear was greater. The moment she asked why he had returned now, why he couldn't save Phillis, he would collapse, unable to endure it.
'I... don't have the right to face her.'
As much as the close distance had grown distant, the emptiness and pain when distant grew proportionally larger.
'What should I do now?'
Julius suddenly thought of his master. To think he had forgotten his master, distracted by the woman he loved.
'I really am... truly hopeless.'
Julius' steps became clearer than before after setting his goal. Julius went to the school where his master stayed like that. Hoping this time there would be meaningful results.
And there, Julius faced a shocking truth.
"Master has... passed away?"
The news that his master, who seemed like he wouldn't die even if killed, had passed away delivered no small shock to Julius.
His master was the master of a school that researched life sciences. Having mastered the body, he knew better than anyone how to take care of his health. So despite his age, his master had been surprisingly healthy.
Such a master had passed away. The cause was that he had been suffering from depression for a year after the war.
'Because of...me.'
He must have been wounded in heart by the death of his beloved disciple, and his health deteriorated because of that.
That day. He recalled his master's smile as he pushed his back, telling him to live for love.
Though he smiled as if proud, in truth he had been more troubled and anguished than anyone about sending away his only disciple.
Julius looked up at the sky. The gloomy sky was continuously dropping drizzling rain. Though his body was getting wet, he had long since stopped feeling such sensations.
'What did I come all the way here for?'
He couldn't keep his promise to the woman he loved, and even caused his master to pass away from grief.
Was there a reason for such a person as himself to be alive in this world like this?
As Julius sat down pitifully in the empty alleyway, those who had been secretly watching him began to appear one by one from the darkness.
The vagrants of Tirna. Though they were simply beggars, they were broken humans lacking morals and conscience who didn't hesitate to commit robbery, killing people and plundering anything.
They were staring intently at the clothes Julius was wearing. They must have quite liked the uniform worn by officers.
The gazes of vagrants glittering with greed. Happy that tasty prey had finally appeared, they smiled showing their yellow teeth.
"Get lost. I'm in a very bad mood right now."
Though Julius warned while quietly staring into space, the vagrants whose eyes had already been blinded by greed didn't even listen to those words.
Seeing how they naturally approached while surrounding him as if blocking escape routes, this wasn't their first or second time doing such things.
Well, of course. Killing someone and extorting money like this was more common than expected in this city.
They were just biting because he looked weak. Right. Just like how he had helplessly collapsed before those giant eyes.
Unable even to resist, weakly trampled by external violence. Unable to complain to anyone, just miserably rolling on the ground. That was the life of the weak.
And now those beggar bastards also saw him as weak.
"...Did I look that easy?"
Julius felt hatred rise to the point where he couldn't stand his disgust. Brutally trampled, he had lost all purpose and pride in life.
He had lost so much that it felt like a giant black hole had been pierced in his chest. It endlessly presented some giant and deep hunger that couldn't be filled no matter what he did.
Julius glared at the vagrants with flashing eyes. From the eye sockets of the plaster-like mask worn to hide his terrible appearance, a blood-red light exploded.
"Hiiik! Wh-what is that!"
"It's a monster!"
The vagrants who belatedly realized they had touched a dangerous person tried to run away, but it was already too late.
When Julius reached out his hand, the body of the vagrant who tried to escape first floated in the air. Julius dragged the guy over like that. The sight of the terrified vagrant trembling and looking at him pitifully was quite amusing.
"Why are you doing that? Weren't you laughing so confidently just a moment ago? Laugh. Try mocking me like before."
When Julius applied force to his hand, the vagrant's body began to slowly twist.
"Grgrgr. Pl-please. Save me..."
If Julius applied more force to his hand like that, he could turn this dirty beggar bastard into a handful of blood. The reason he, who had died once, could survive like this was because of the cursed power of Red Eternity dwelling in this body.
While handling that power, he had gained some knowledge that could interfere with human life. Right, he could kill all these weak bastards with just a point of his finger.
"..."
But Julius didn't do that. When he released the force from his hand, the vagrant's body fell to the ground with a thud.
The other vagrants who had been frozen and unable to even run away just held their breath and watched Julius.
"Get lost."
Thanks to Julius's whim, those who survived ran away as fast as they could. Left alone, Julius recalled the sensation he had just felt.
Some omnipotent feeling of holding the power of life and death over the other person. Even knowing it came from Red Eternity rather than his own power, he had almost been swayed by that omnipotence for a moment. He couldn't stand how disgusting it was.
Though he was no longer human didn't mean he had lost the heart he possessed as a human.
"Right. If I can't throw it away, I'll use it as it is."
Julius decided what he should do at this moment.
The followers of the outer god who had been secretly preparing rituals on the battlefield couldn't be all there was. Surely somewhere in this world, other bastards were conducting similar rituals to create other victims.
He would find and kill all such bastards. Without leaving a single one, drying up their seed completely, making them regret being born into this world.
Julius vowed revenge like that. The youth who had once been a promising mage became a vengeful spirit wandering the darkness of the world.
If there were any bastards even slightly related to heretics, Julius crushed them without regard for means and methods. He had no mercy. The endlessly burning desire for revenge became intense fuel that made him move.
But most were just fakes. Finding hidden heretics was not an easy task. Even so, it didn't matter. These were just villains who wouldn't matter if they disappeared anyway.
Like that, he repeated the work of finding, fighting, and killing in places where people's eyes didn't reach.
Years pass.
Julius also went outside the city. He repeated finding and killing enemies by fully utilizing his brilliant mind as a mage.
Time runs.
When he went out briefly for about 1-2 years and returned to Tirna, Tirna had changed beyond recognition. Buildings he hadn't seen before lined up, streets changed, and new technologies were developed.
Civilization advanced further.
Within that, Julius repeated the work of finding and killing the Eternal Church. The world changed and civilization progressed, but the path he pursued was primitive barbarism.
As if this was all he could do. As if performing a mission sent by heaven, Julius wandered searching for things related to Red Eternity.
How much time had passed like that?
20 years? 30 years?
Julius gained notoriety in the underworld as an unknown existence. This was because he traveled alone and killed without discrimination if the opponent was related to religious crimes.
Of course, since such information only spread in the underworld, very few people outside knew such facts.
Having attacked and returned from the stronghold of bastards related to heretics today as well, Julius was gradually getting tired of the endless ordeal.
'Another wild goose chase today?'
He had immediately come after hearing news that among illegal immigrants, those who believed in strange gods came and used bizarre sorcery.
But they were just an oppressed minority religious group. They weren't heretics nor did they have forbidden power. The sorcery they used was just one branch of magic. It was a complete wild goose chase. And this wasn't the only time such things happened.
'How many times has this happened already?'
Meaninglessly wasting time was increasing. As time passed, catching their tails became more difficult.
There were realistic limits to solving something by acting alone. Feeling the need for new methods and contemplating solutions while walking, it was then.
Julius encountered a boy in an alley. He was a blonde boy with fair and soft-looking skin as if raised in a good family, but the peculiar thing was that his eyes were so narrow that you couldn't see his pupils.
And that boy was roaming this alleyway in somewhat worn clothes.
‘Perfect prey to be devoured by vagrants.’
It was when Julius thought so inwardly.
"It's you, isn't it? The person wandering in search of something."
It was then that the boy spoke to him.
Normally he should have just lightly ignored and passed by such a boy, but strangely, the moment he heard those words, he found himself forgetting everything else and focusing on the boy's words.
"I'm Ronan Roland. Shall we try joining hands once?"
Join hands?
It was the first time Julius had heard such words. Because most of those who faced him were either terrified or treated him as a madman. There were those who wanted to shake hands, but most were just those who coveted his force to use him. Julius wasn't naive enough not to see through their black intentions.
But this boy was different.
Julius, who was about to say to cut the nonsense, fell into thought for a moment.
'He said I'm searching for something. Did he see me? No, judging by his appearance, he's just a kid who just entered the city's alleyways.'
Yet he spoke as if certain that he was searching for something. And also that he could help. It could simply be said that only his mouth was alive, but there are plenty of guys who can't even keep their mouths alive in front of him. That alone made the boy brave beyond his age.
'Join hands? What an audacious fellow. He seems to have some sense, but that's probably just a child's whim at best.'
Of course, the fact that the boy reminded him of Phillis from the past caught his interest a little, but that was all. He could just ignore and pass by, pretending not to have heard what was just said.
However,
"Don't you want to stop running away and properly grasp it with your hands?"
Seeing him speak while looking straight at him, when even those with considerable courage feared and hesitated to make eye contact with him. Julius found himself laughing without knowing it.
"Hahaha. Try grasping it with your hands? You say interesting things. Did I look like I was running away?"
"You're the same as me. I can feel it when I see you. You think so too, don't you? Am I wrong?"
Julius couldn't answer hastily. Because he had seen the same light as himself, like facing a mirror, in the boy's eyes he felt for an instant, he couldn't say no.
To think such an audacious kid would say what no one else dared to say to him.
"Fine. It's a whim. If you satisfy my standards, I'll consider being with you."
Julius shook hands with Ronan, grasping the hand he extended.
"You won't be disappointed."
"Right. Whether you remain a kid or get called by name by me depends entirely on you. If you don't meet expectations, I'll mercilessly kick you out."
"What should I call you?"
Come to think of it, the fellow had introduced himself. This would be a rare connection, he felt some necessity to tell his name as well.
But he had already abandoned the name Julius in the distant past. So let's use a different name now.
"Basilio."
Right. This name would be appropriate.
"Call me Basilio."