C739
Unfathomable actions, incomprehensible words.
And an incomprehensible weak gaze.
The young Rosa showed no trace of any chaos.
She was truly human.
[What's happening?]
"Jin, this... human is... the evil god."
"Twelfth Flagbearer, we must kill her immediately!"
Even the late-arriving allies stared at Jin and Rosa with wide eyes.
Octavia, on the verge of fainting, pointed her staff at Rosa.Hedo lowered her staff with his hand.
"Spectre Captain, I'm not sure how the situation developed, but Jin has the right to judge."
Cough...!
Jin remained focused on the empty space, saying nothing, but when Rosa coughed up blood, he flinched and fixed his eyes on her again.
Is this person really not the evil god?
If this is the evil god's plan, what can she hope to achieve by going this far?
Just to confuse me, it seems excessive.
'If all of this is a cruel joke by the evil god, she should have caused chaos and struck me and my allies directly after confusing us.'
However, Rosa, who had been freed from the chains, did not attack Jin even once.
The invincibility that young Rosa exhibited didn't even pose a threat to the group.
On the contrary, Rosa even protected them while the others fought against the ancient patriarch.
Moreover, just before being freed from the evil god's control, the ancient patriarch had stabbed Rosa instead of Jin.
That meant the evil god had tried to commit suicide.
Or it could have been her own alter ego.
...Alter ego?
Suddenly, a hypothesis crossed Jin's mind.
What if the dying Rosa now is a fragment that broke off from the evil god?
As Jin suspected, young Rosa, who did not want to be corrupted until the end, was a manifestation of the deepest essence of the evil god, which had once shone the brightest.
Now, in Jin's eyes, the dying Rosa was the true identity of that manifestation.
At first, Rosa didn't know that she originated from the evil god.
She perceived herself as a completely separate entity from the evil god.
However, Rosa was aware that she was a twisted existence.
This world was not the one she remembered.
Why had she ended up trapped in the god's chains?
Where were Cyron and the other knights of the family?
What was she doing just before being trapped?
Rosa couldn't remember anything.
As much as she appeared human, in the end, she was nothing more than an unconscious entity separated from the evil god.
It was natural that she had no memories of what happened just before she was trapped.
Young Rosa's memories froze on a certain day when she was twenty-three years old.
The most desired day by the evil god.
It seems I am an existence that shouldn't be here, twisted and distorted.
Moreover, that knight named Jin, who is probably my son, and all the others, they all refer to me as the evil god.
Then, does that mean the dark monster that bound her was her own future?
For some reason, the idea that this was just a terrible nightmare never crossed her mind. With great certainty and speed, she understood the situation she was in. 𐍂𝒶ℕОꞖЕș
"Hahaha."
Rosa let out a hollow laugh mixed with a metallic sound.
Contradictory emotions surged within her.
She had too many questions.
Why had she become a monster?
How was Cyron?
How many children did she have?
How much had the Family been endangered because of her?
From her pierced chest, chaos spread throughout her body like poison.
"Jin, come a little closer... Can you show me your face?"
Jin didn't answer and silently stared at Rosa for a few seconds.
"As you can see, I’ve suffered a mortal wound. It was inflicted on me by the evil knight controlled by that evil god. It is proof that I am not on her side. Besides, I couldn't pose any threat to you and your companions even if I were unharmed. So, lower your guard. I don't have much time left."
Rosa gathered her last strength and spoke in a firm voice.
In the end, Jin knelt and bowed his head to Rosa.
When he suppressed his desperate heart and looked up again, the appearance of young Rosa seemed both unfamiliar and familiar to him.
"You're handsome... It seems like my face and Cyron's are precisely mixed. If you are the Twelfth Flagbearer, are you the youngest?"
"There's one more."
"Then, combined, we make thirteen? It seems Cyron and I were better than I imagined. What happened to him? I hope he hasn’t harmed Cyron too."
"He's alive and well."
"In that case, Cyron must be fulfilling his mission elsewhere. You, assuming Cyron's role, have taken on the task of defeating the monster I've become and reclaiming the Family..."
Every time Jin heard the pronoun "you," his brow furrowed.
Rosa weakly smiled as she observed this expression.
"Just your expression shows how terrible a mother I was. As the hostess of the Family, I must have been the worst in history. It's not that there haven’t been villains who crossed the line and committed immorality in Runcandel's history, but among them, I’m the only one who became the evil god... or so it seems."
Young Rosa was a completely different person from the Rosa Jin remembered.
The latter was a demon who would do anything to ensure the prosperity and survival of the family.
In contrast, the Rosa before him, who smiled bitterly, had clear and deep eyes, so much so that she could be said to belong more to Hairan than to Runcandel.
"Rosa."
"Speak."
"Why did you do it?"
In response to Jin's malicious question, Rosa pondered for a few seconds.
"I lacked the qualities and qualifications to be the hostess of the family."
"No, you were the acting matriarch whom everyone revered before you became the evil god. No one considered you unfit to lead the family in place of my father, and the family members did everything they could to earn your approval."
Rosa shook her head.
She was losing strength due to the hemorrhage.
"You were the acting matriarch whom even enemies and those who despised you couldn’t help but acknowledge. I was the same. Until you made a pact with the prophet and became the evil god. Until you became a monster who said that even if the entire world were destroyed, as long as the Runcandel banner remained, nothing else mattered," said Jin.
"I said those words... and the things I’m doing now."
"Through the power of chaos."
Rosa put her hand on her wounded abdomen and spoke.
The chaos that spread like a tumor permeated her entire body.
"Yes."
"Then, the reason I became a monster is clear."
It was the result of giving up the fight.
Rosa spoke in a calm voice.
"I stopped fighting because I was tired, because I no longer saw the way, or because I felt I had done enough. Becoming the evil god must have been the easiest and most tempting path. Perhaps... among all the paths I’ve walked before becoming the evil god, it was the most seductive and the least effortful."
Transparent tears rolled down Rosa's cheeks.
The remorse for a future she couldn’t remember, the self-hatred, and the despair that the dreadful future had already occurred froze her inside.
Against the true Rosa, who had become a monster, there was nothing he could do.
Jin tightly closed his eyes.
"I’ll go as the Twelfth Flagbearer of the Family to make her pay for it. If you have any last words for the evil god, let me know."
"Please... let death not be a comforting escape. Let my miserable soul and body remain trapped somewhere, suffering endlessly, even in death. Let me... stay beside her... always, desperately. Above all, sincerely..."
The group held their breath for a moment.
Rosa's curse, pouring all her heart into it, weighed on everyone.
"I’ll convey it."
The last breath Rosa had left reached its limit.
Jin decided to stay by her side until her death.
As Rosa's consciousness faded again and again, she spoke to Jin.
"Jin, do you have... a lover?"
"No."
"In the past..."
"I don’t know."
"Someone who loves you... or someone you love?"
"Why do you ask these things in this situation?"
"Because... you're handsome... like Cyron. I... liked that handsome... Cyron."
Jin couldn't help but let out a chuckle.
Cyron and Rosa's children had never had the memory of having such ordinary and meaningless conversations with their parents.
"More than that... there's no one more handsome or stronger than him... besides Cyron, I haven’t had any relationship with anyone else."
"And father?"
"If he's still wandering the Black Sea, then maybe... Cyron, unlike me, is still continuing the fight."
Rosa exhaled a handful of warm breath.
"Jin... my son, I'm sorry."
Definitely, stop me.
With those words, Rosa exhaled her last breath.
Everything she said right up until her death were words that the Rosa Jin remembered could never say.
'All right, I’ll do it.'
Jin silently responded as he gently closed Rosa's eyelids.
Just as the late Rosa regretted an unknown future, Jin bid farewell to a mother from a past he didn’t know.
Silence fell for a while.
"...It’s likely that the late Rosa was a manifestation or a soul that separated from the evil god," said Jin, and the group nodded.
They had also speculated the same while listening to the conversation.
[Perhaps the evil god herself didn’t desire it or it was an unforeseen separation. I don’t remember experiencing anything related to the hostess when I was bound by the evil god. Besides, it was the hostess who was attacked at the last moment through this ancient patriarch.]
Alpen, who had been kneeling next to Rosa's lifeless body, lifted the unconscious ancient patriarch and spoke.
Neither Jin nor Alpen knew her true identity.
The body of young Rosa was being stained with darkness.
The chaos tumor that originated in her chest was growing rapidly.
Jin conjured a small flame in his palm.
It seemed he had to take care of the body before it deteriorated further and leave.
However, just as Jin was about to release the flame, he suddenly lifted his head, startled.
Unexpectedly, the evil god's voice reached his ears.
[I wonder what it feels like to witness the extinction of the last trace of humanity I had left, my little one. I expected to see you put an end to this personally... but this isn’t so bad either.]
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