"Who are you, really?"
"..."
"If you can't define that clearly, there's no reason to bother leaving this place and going outside. Your own purpose, your definition, your wishes, they'll all crumble like a mirage."
Salome shrugged her shoulders and spun around.
"Even if you struggle to the surface, all you'll find outside is suffering."
"..."
"Instead, come to me. At least I can give you a happy dream."
Salome laughed merrily as she walked away.
"Falling to the bottom together, perhaps plummeting to the very end... might not be such a bad conclusion, don't you think?"
"..."
"I'll be waiting. Forever and always..."
Leaving behind a faint laugh, Salome disappeared.
I glared in that direction and snorted. Salome's offer was nothing but nonsense, not worth listening to.
...However.
It was true that she had read my memories. She knew exactly what I was pondering.
I was afraid.
Of the long path ahead of me. The heavy burden I had to carry.
The remaining battles would be numerous and brutal, and I would have to continue carrying the deaths of my comrades and subordinates, just like I had been doing, or perhaps even more so.
"...Ugh."
When I was on the path, burdened, I could somehow keep going out of inertia. But now, pushed off the path and fallen, I couldn't muster the courage to stand up again.
Can I do it again?
Can I make it to the end?
- Is this really 'your' wish?
Was what I was trying to accomplish at the end of this long path truly what I desired?
Just maybe, just maybe.
If Salome was right and that wish was different from what I now desire.
If I give up on that wish...
Maybe I don't need to fight so hard?
- Breaking the flag is very hard at first, but after the first time, it becomes too easy. Because it's already broken.
That's when it happened.
The words of the Fairy Queen Skuld echoed softly in my mind.
- Once you start compromising, you'll keep bending endlessly. In the end, you'll live lying down. Just like me.
"..."
Clenching my teeth, I picked up another stone from the ground and threw it again towards the sewer.
Thwack!
The wildly misaimed stone didn't even enter the sewer but bounced off outside. Damn it, I cursed under my breath.
***
Zone 10, 'The Farm'.
"I need it..."
Walking through his territory, the Plague Legion Commander Raven growled in a boiling voice.
"A stronger poison, a more lethal plague, I need it..."
Just half a day ago, this place, once lushly nurtured by its master's hands, had turned into a living hell.
Fruit trees bearing fruit, grain drooping ears, young livestock growing in the barns...
All were dying and rotting away.
The poison and plague unleashed by Raven devoured his farm like a swarm of locusts. But even as his farm disappeared without even leaving ruins, Raven did not stop.
"It's not enough, this isn't enough. This won't do...!"
Raven halted in front of the 'field' where he had sown the seeds of the plague.
The formidable warriors of various races he had captured were rotting alive, each becoming a different breeding ground for plagues.
Sssss!
Raven extended his hand and absorbed all the plagues.
But.
"I need more, more, more...!"
It wasn't enough.
Nowhere near enough.
This wasn't enough. A stronger curse, a more potent insult was needed.
Raven screamed in agony.
"To kill him, I need more...!"
The Plague Legion is incredibly powerful when facing many opponents.
The actual plague spewed by Raven's body, and the illusions created by his clones.
Without a moment to distinguish between reality and illusion, the spreading pain was most effective against large legions. Death spread, fear intensified, and the few survivors who made it out of that hell would go on to infect others with the plague.
An endless chain of despair.
Among all the hellish forces resurrected in the Lake Kingdom, none were as powerful against the masses as the Plague Legion.
But, its weakness was clear.
Whether it was plague or illusion, it couldn’t instantly end the lives of its victims. It could inflict prolonged suffering and agony, but it couldn’t immediately lead to death.
Therefore, it was vulnerable against the strong elite who could endure the plague.
Even during his lifetime, Raven struggled against a few elite superhumans. Those who were infected with the plague yet charged forward, sustaining themselves on potions or healing magic, often pushed Raven to the brink, turning into mere puddles of blood but frequently threatening his life.
After repeated incidents like this, Raven was eventually defeated in his lifetime. By a single human.
Originally a doctor from the Lake Kingdom, Raven was exiled from the kingdom at the end of his corrupt research and became a plague himself, sweeping across the world.
He arrogantly invaded his homeland, intending to show those haughty magicians who had once scorned him.
And he was stopped by a single magician.
This magician, at the time, was the head of a research institute in the Lake Kingdom, leading the development of an all-curing elixir called 'Pantao.' After consuming an experimental version of Pantao, he stood alone against Raven.
And before him, Raven crumbled.
None of his poisons, plagues, or curses could penetrate the blessing that surrounded that human.
Raven, who had decayed and killed countless lives across the continent, was unable to overcome a single human and was extinguished.
"How grievous! How grievous! How grievous! How grievous!"
Recalling that moment, tears of poison streamed down Raven's eyes.
And as time passed - Raven was resurrected in the darkness of the Lake Kingdom.
The revived Raven first scouted the production route of the elixir and found the farm. It was already in ruins, but various precious elixirs lay dormant.
Raven restored the farm. If he could re-cultivate the elixir that had defeated him from the beginning, then it might be possible to find a way to overcome that immunity.
Thus - Raven tended the old elixirs and harvested new plagues, operating this farm.
But what use were those cursed centuries?
Raven's plague still couldn't penetrate a mere peach, developed by the Lake Kingdom's finest scholars and magicians after extensive research - and absurdly, that peach was stolen, making yet another human invincible.
"It cannot be in vain."
Despite harvesting all life and plagues from the farm, Raven still felt thirst and muttered.
"It cannot be in vain, it cannot be in vain, it cannot be in vain - I, the master of this plague, can't possibly fail to overcome the research of magicians who perished centuries ago."
I will show them.
That the corrupted will of a single individual can crush the so-called noble collective intelligence.
That the flames burning the world always, always - start from a single match.
"I will prove it...!"
To cover the entire world with his plague.
So, Raven decided to gamble.
He raised his hand high and then,
Whoosh!
Plunged it into his chest.
He grasped his own core in his hand, and then -
Clang...!
Shattered it into pieces with his will.
Poof-!
Raven's body shattered into pieces in all directions.
Ever since he became the master of the plague, his body, utterly decayed and crumbled, couldn't maintain its form. His body was nothing more than a collection of plague carriers centered around his core, artificially shaped by magic.
And with the core shattered, all sorts of crows, bugs, rats, and mists that made up his body dispersed...
Immediately after, these carriers converged again.
They viciously devoured the shattered pieces of Raven's core.
It was the core of a being that was once considered one of the greatest embodiments of evil in the world. His soul was mighty, and the creatures instinctively struggled to consume it.
"Eat."
As his soul was gnawed away by countless bugs, Raven's thought murmured.
"Eat, eat, eat - consume and disperse even further."
With a voice growing ever weaker.
"...Through this, I shall transcend to the next stage..."
Eventually, Raven's voice faded away.
His core vanished without a trace into the stomachs of the bugs.
A dark, murky wave of abominations filled the area that once was the farm. Crows, bugs, rats, and mists swelled, burst, and began to multiply endlessly.
And...
***
It's been days since I've been here at 'Rock Bottom.'
A day? Three days? Or a week?
Time blurs in a place like this. I've done nothing but throw stones at the sewer, aimlessly killing time for what feels like days.
Hungry, I reached for one of the fruits Salome had previously scavenged.
"..."
"..."
I locked eyes with one of the residents of this bottom-dweller village.
A scruffy little kid. Like most people in this village, with disheveled, dirty long hair and worn-out clothes.
The kid was staring intently at the fruit in my hand.
"Umm..."
Ignoring and just eating it seemed too shameless even for me. I waved the fruit.
"Want some?"
Nod.
The kid nodded. I split the soft fruit into halves and tossed one to the kid.
"Eat."
Thump!
The kid caught the thrown fruit and swallowed it in one bite. Hey... chew it, will you? You might choke.
"Got more?"
The kid brazenly asked. I laughed, somewhat taken aback.
"I do, but... I can't just give it away for free."
"There's nothing of value to pay with in this village."
"...It does seem that way."
It looked like a village that could be used in a promotional campaign for some international famine relief organization, utterly impoverished.
Giving up on receiving anything in return, I just tore the fruit into smaller pieces and tossed them one by one. The kid skillfully caught and ate them, surprisingly agile despite being so skinny.
After feeding the kid a few more pieces of fruit, I decided to ask some questions.
"How do you survive in a place like this?"
"Don't eat."
"What?"
"Don't need to eat to live."
Baffled by the kid's response, I blinked in confusion, and the kid elaborated.
"Everyone in our village is cursed with 'eternal life.'"
"Ah..."
"Don't die if we don't eat, don't die if we don't sleep, don't die if we don't breathe. Just, exist."
"Then, you mean, you've been living here since the Lake Kingdom... became like this?"
"Yeah."
The kid smirked.
"I might look like this, but I'm much older than you. You can call me 'older brother.'"
Good grief.
Stunned by this revelation, I stared blankly at the kid... no, the 'older brother' kid, and then asked.
"If you're cursed with eternal life, are you all citizens of the Lake Kingdom?"
"No. We're not citizens."
The kid brother shrugged.
"We're slaves."
"..."
"The Lake Kingdom was structured in a three-tiered class system. Royals. Citizens. And, slaves."
A bitter smile crossed the kid brother's lips.
"Slaves aren't considered people. Since we're not people, we can't be citizens. We were called 'non-citizens.'"
"..."
"Non-citizens have no names, and without a name, you can't leave anything behind."
The Lake Kingdom, a once-great magical nation that perished 500 years ago.
What kind of distorted structure did this place have? I swallowed hard.
"We lived outside the residential areas for citizens, doing menial tasks. All the dirty work that the noble citizens couldn't handle was ours."
"..."
"Anyway, the inside of the Lake Kingdom was a nice place to live. People in our village also worked hard to get inside. To become human. To get a name."
The kid brother said this, shrugging his shoulders.
"To get 'citizenship.'"
"Citizenship...?"
"It was the dream of non-citizens like us. There was talk that if you offered a huge amount of gold, they would elevate your status. So, we all worked hard together to save up money."
With a dry laugh, the kid brother looked up.
"Now that we're here, it all seems so pointless..."
"..."
"Still, the adults in the village are collecting money. Even after falling to this bottom, they clutch their gold coins dearly, stacking them carefully in the village treasury, believing that becoming human will let us escape this hell."
Chewing on the last piece of fruit I handed him, the kid brother smirked.
"Meanwhile, those 'humans' are all above, suffering in their nightmares."
--TL Notes--
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