Episode 77
“ha…”
A girl is walking down a street filled with snow.
The breath coming out of her mouth meets the cold air and spreads in all directions.
The girl who was silently watching the scene suddenly raises her head and looks up at the night sky.
“…It’s dark.”
Until a few months ago, the night sky was one where the moon and stars shined brightly every day, but the recent night sky is not like that at all.
Instead of the twinkling stars and soft moon, there is only deep darkness.
“How did this happen?”
The girl, who was muttering coldly while looking at that scene, soon begins to take heavy steps again.
-Shoo…
“…Ugh.”
But this time, the cold winter wind blocks that girl.
Thanks to this, the girl who stopped in her seat and sighed, entered the store next to her to avoid the harsh wind.
“Welcome…”
Normally, the store owner would have immediately kicked out the person with the shabby appearance of a girl, but he just mumbled a greeting with an expression of complete loss of motivation.
– flutter
Thanks to that, the girl, who was taking a moment to warm up and rest, picked up the newspaper fluttering next to her and began to read its contents.
-Empire suffered one defeat after another. Will the once brilliant sun set like this?
“Ugh…”
But as soon as she read the newspaper’s headline, the girl quietly closed her eyes and muttered.
“I, too… I’m doing my best…”
Of course, there was no one in the empty store to answer the girl’s words, and that included the drunken owner.
“Hey, kid.”
“…yes?”
As the girl, who was keenly aware of this fact, gritted her teeth and walked out of the store, the owner, who was drunk, began muttering in a hoarse voice.
“I don’t know why you’re wandering around a place like this in the middle of the night… but you’d better get out of here quickly.”
“Yes, that’s why I’m leaving now.”
“This city… no, this country.”
At the owner’s serious voice, the girl let down her shoulders and muttered.
“The imperial family is still holding out. So, maybe…”
“Fuck it. If they’re holding on well… why isn’t there a single customer in my store?”
“that…”
“Just a few years ago, it was bustling with people.”
When the girl quietly lowered her gaze at those words, the man fell back on the desk and muttered.
“It’s okay… what’s the point of complaining about my situation to a little kid like you? I’ll just drink.”
“…Aren’t you running away?”
“escape?”
Then, after hearing what the girl said just before leaving the store, the owner smiled and muttered.
“A person like me will meet the same end no matter where he goes.”
After saying that, the owner immediately closed his eyes and started snoring.
“…Ugh.”
After hearing those words, the girl gritted her teeth for a moment and then went outside into the cold winter wind.
-Shoo…
“…ha.”
The girl, who had been walking in the winter wind for a while, soon began to look at her frozen hands.
“I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I…!”
Then, the girl suddenly began to exert strength in her hands.
“Come out… come out…!”
Then a faint light began to glow from her hand, but that was all.
The brilliant light that once melted everything that stood in its way was unable to melt the snow falling from the sky. All I could do was shine brightly.
“Please… come back…”
The girl who saw that dark light began to cry and mutter.
It was a word with many meanings, but none of those meanings could actually happen.
Because the person she wanted was long dead, and the light she wanted had long since faded.
“…..ah.”
The girl, who had been crying for a long time, came to her senses only after the warm tears that rolled down her cheeks fell onto her hands.
“I… don’t even have the right to be sad.”
The girl muttered in a cold voice and forced her frozen body to walk and walk.
The cold went beyond the limit and turned into pain, and the girl continued to move forward through the cold so strong that even the pain disappeared.
“Everyone, I’m here.”
We arrived at a place that was quite familiar.
The place where she had been visiting every weekend to do penance for several years ago, has now become less frequent.
[Birthplace of Fray Raon Starlight]
“…I’m sorry for coming here on my own.”
This is the apology she keeps making every time she comes here.
I was afraid that if I showed my face carelessly, he might get angry while he was still asleep. She has never once missed this apple.
“…ha.”
——————
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——————
However, the guilt that increases every time you apologize often exceeds your sense of security.
Even if you apologize every day to those who died due to your own fault, there is no way the dead person will come back to life.
– Creak…
“Oh my… I need to fix it…”
The girl opened the door leading to the yard where the old-fashioned and stylish mansion once stood, mumbling and stopping as the door creaked and rattled.
“…That’s right, today was the last day?”
The girl sighed as she said that and then entered the yard with her head down as if she had committed a crime.
– Where Fray Raon Starlight’s birthplace was located.
As she always did when she came here, she headed toward her birthplace where the events of that day took place, bowed her head for a moment and began muttering a prayer.
This was done because he wondered if Frey’s soul, who was sleeping in the basement of the mansion, might be suffering.
“…hello.”
The girl, who was taken out of the mansion where only traces remained, approached the gray tombstone in the distance and bowed.
– A warrior no one knew, sleeps here.
“I’m really sorry I haven’t been able to stop by lately. I’ve been having some trouble.”
Eventually, the girl who spoke while stroking Frey’s grave took off the robe she was covering and revealed herself.
She, who had her long, lush golden hair cut short and had numerous scars carved into her previously unscathed body, was Klarna Solar Sunrise, who would probably be called the last emperor of the empire.
“…I’m sorry, it wasn’t actually a bit of a problem.”
The emperor of the empire is kneeling at the tombstone, wearing dirty robes, and crying.
It’s something that will be quite an issue, but it’s not that surprising for the Sunrise Empire.
It was already a foregone conclusion that the Sunrise Empire would fall.
“At first, I won a few times… I thought there was hope… but now that the sun’s mana has disappeared and only the harsh winter continues… I just can’t hold on anymore.”
I don’t know how many years had passed since that incident, but Klarna, who was quite tired, began to mumble unconsciously.
“If you were here… this wouldn’t have happened.”
While saying that, where Klarna turned her gaze, there was Serena’s grave.
“…….”
Klana stared at the two tombs with her mouth shut for a long time, then began to speak in a trembling voice.
“The Demon King’s army has invaded the capital. Thanks to that, it seems like the only person in the capital now, other than the imperial army, is the bar owner I met earlier.”
Clanna was muttering while remembering the drunk bar owner she had met earlier, and then muttered in a trembling voice.
“When the sun rises, I will lead the entire imperial army in a desperate battle against the Demon King. Of course, I cannot even use the mana of the sun… The imperial army is all sick or exhausted… Still, I am evacuating from the port to another continent. “It will be enough to buy time for the people and Mr. Aria.”
Klana, who said that, immediately began to speak with tears in her eyes.
“So, today is the last time I see you… Tomorrow I will…”
-Shoo…!
“…Hmph!”
As if in response to those words, the cold winter wind blows through Klana.
Thanks to this, Klarna, who felt needle-like pain from wounds all over her body, closed her eyes tightly and said.
“…I’m sorry, I only felt pain in front of you because of something like this. The pain you felt… must have been a hundred or a thousand times greater than this…”
Clanna, who was gritting her teeth and enduring the hurt she felt in every corner of her body while saying that, took something out of her arms.
“…It’s a stargazer. The one you gave me a long time ago.”
Clanna put down the evening primrose at Frey’s tombstone, moving her frozen hands with difficulty. She wiped the tears from her eyes and took something out of her pocket again.
“Serena. It’s an evening primrose. I just… thought I should give it to you too.”
Eventually, Klarna put down the evening primrose at Serena’s tombstone and stood up, saying with a sad expression.
“Well, bye, everyone.”
-Shoo…!
“…Ah!”
But just then, a particularly bitter winter wind began to bite into her.
“……Ugh.”
Klarna screamed and fell to the ground due to the wind, but soon gritted her teeth and quickly got up from her seat.
Because they couldn’t show shame to the two people who died because of them.
“…uh?”
Klarna, who was trembling and trying to bow down, noticed something shining under Frey’s tombstone.
“……ring?”
It was a ring that had an unusually shiny exterior.
“I don’t know who it was, but it must have been left behind by someone who once received favor from Frey, right?”
Clanna looked at the ring that was shiny on the outside but had scratches on the inside, and then muttered with an expression full of guilt.
After Frey died, it was already a long time ago that the good deeds he had done in secret were revealed to the world.
What broke Klarna’s heart the most was that the founder of what was once the largest orphanage in the empire was Frey.
When I found out the news, I was so sad.
When I visited the orphanage, I felt nauseous from self-loathing when the children greeted me cheerfully.
“Ah… it’s like this again.”
Klana was lost in such thoughts for a moment, but soon realized that her hands were shaking.
“Ugh…”
When I hold my right hand with my left hand, I feel a tingling pain. It looks like he’s got frostbite or something.
– plod trudge
But Klana doesn’t care and leaves the graveyard. In an empire where eternal winter has come, frostbite is no big deal.
“Cough, Cough!”
Also, colds are not a big deal. Although it is highly contagious, the fatality rate is not that high.
The truly scary thing is the Demon Lord’s army, which has a 100% fatality rate.
– plod trudge
Klarna, who had been coughing and covering her mouth with her trembling hands, muttered in a sad voice as she left Frey’s mansion, which had become a graveyard.
“Somehow I feel the same way as back then.”
The day Frey and Serena lost their lives, the moment I left the yard after receiving the important mission of being crowned emperor and dealing with the demon lord’s army.
Klarna still can’t forget how she felt at that time.
“…I need to warm up for a bit before joining the army.”
Klarna, who had been standing there for a long time, began to mutter and move her body only after being blown by the wind until all feeling in her body disappeared.
“What, are you here again?”
“…I need a place to warm up.”
Of course, the only place to warm up was the store she had stopped by earlier, so Klarna entered the store while observing the owner’s notice.
“Puh…what a strange kid.”
Then the owner, who glared at her for a moment, smiled and asked a question.
“Do you… have any money?”
“no.”
“Then why are you in the bar?”
“I have money to buy drinks.”
Hearing those words, the owner chuckled, then took out a bottle of liquor from behind him and handed it to Clanna.
“…Is it okay to give the kid a drink?”
“Seeing him remain in a place like this, he looks like he wants to die… How dare I give him a bottle of alcohol?”
The store owner, who answered Klarna’s question with a grin, quickly took a swig of his drink and said,
“…Then I’ll just go to bed, so you can decide whether you want to stay here or not.”
“What are you going to do if I steal your money?”
“I wonder if I have money. Well, I have a lot of alcohol.”
The store owner who said that soon started humming and going up to the upper floor of the store.
– Sigh…
“…under?”
But at that moment, the door to the store opened and a person wearing a black robe appeared.
“Um, are you there? We have a guest…”
A panicked Klarna shouted upstairs, but there was no reply.
“hmm…”
Klana frowned for a moment and then began to quietly look at the person who came in.
“…Are you by any chance the devil’s servant?”
“No, I’m just a traveler passing by.”
Klarna, who eventually asked a question in a tired voice, nodded and said soullessly as the man in front of her answered quietly.
“okay.”
And then, there was silence for a moment.
– Gulp.
Clanna, who had been staring blankly at the bottle in front of her for a while, suddenly picked it up and started gulping it down.
“…Huh.”
Klarna didn’t usually enjoy drinking, but it was a choice she made to forget her fear of tomorrow’s decisive battle, her guilt about Frey and Serena who had just visited her, and various other emotions.
“It’s all… It’s all my fault…”
However, that was just one of her many misjudgments.
The strong, bitter drink only helped her bring out the dark emotions she had tried so hard to bury.
“If it weren’t for me… if it weren’t for me, everything would have gone right…”
As Klarna said that, she started slamming her hands down on the desk.
“Oh, no… I don’t want to remember it again… I don’t want it…!”
Even though it’s been a long time since I stopped using the mana of the sun, I can still vividly feel the feeling of tearing Frey’s body apart that day.
The moment the rays of sunlight shooting from his fingers pierce Frey’s head, the vibration created by the dagger he summoned plunges into Frey’s heart seems to be constantly felt in his hand.
“…Please stop.”
Clanna had been screaming and throwing her hands down for a while, but when the man sitting at the table next to her muttered quietly, she came to her senses and looked at her hands.
“Huh… Ugh…”
Her hands were completely ruined.
“Frey… I was wrong… I’m sorry…”
Nevertheless, as the terrible feeling that had tormented her for years did not go away, Klarna ended up falling down on her desk and crying.
“If only I hadn’t done that back then…”
As she said that, what she took out from her pocket was a letter that had been worn out from being opened so many times.
– I’m sorry for not being able to keep the promise I made when I was young, princess. I wanted to make you emperor with my own hands.
He never once forgot the promise he made to him when he was young and kept it in his heart. Even though he went through such endless hardships.
– Do you remember the day you and I first met? A tea party held for you on the first day of your social debut.
The tea party held at her debut prom still remains an unforgettable memory for Klarna. Of course, the meaning has changed several times.
– The sight of you drinking tea at a table where no one was sitting except you and me, trying to pretend you weren’t hurt… Oh, I’m sorry. Are you upset?
That tea party was a trap set by the Empress.
It was a kind of show to ruin Klana’s debut by not allowing any of the ladies and Yeongsik to participate in the Third Princess’ tea party, while at the same time informing key people of my political position.
– At that time, you told me to get out of my way if I was going to show off my sympathy.
It actually did. I have been sick of seeing people who put on a good face on the outside but have evil thoughts on the inside while living in the imperial family.
I also thought that young Frey, who attended the tea party alone and smiled at himself, to which no one else could come because of the Empress’s attention, was just showing him a favor by thoroughly calculating the profits and losses.
– You know what? Actually, I was quite hungry at that time. So you went to a place where there was a lot of food, and it happened to be your tea party. Of course, it was also my first debut in the social world, so it was an incident that happened.
As Clanna read the letter, the conversation between her and Frey at that time began to vaguely appear in her mind.
“Do you want to be friends with me?”
“If you’re going to show some pity, get out of there.”
“Yes?”
“I hate pretentious people so much… so get the hell out of here.”
“Well, it’s not like that… I want to be friends with you…”
– Then, there was a young lady in front of me that I had never seen before, so I tried to talk to her, wanting to become friends, but I got a lot of insults from her.
“If you want to be friends with me, just get some evening primroses.”
“…Primrose?”
“Yes, it’s a precious flower that grows on the mountain over there. Unless you give it to me…”
“I will be back!!”
At that time, Klarna was grumpy to make Frey go away.
The 1st and 2nd princesses had received it as a gift from the empress and had bragged about it to themselves, asking them to retrieve the evening primrose that was said to twinkle like a star.
Of course, Klarna thought there was no way Frey, with his calculated approach, could save it.
Perhaps, after searching the forest for a while, he would grumble and give up.
This was natural for the unfortunate princess who had always been used by others except her mother since she was born, and eventually lost her mother and closed her heart.
– I never thought it would take three days to find it.
But because of that incident, her social debut ball had a different meaning than the Empress had wanted.
– Anyway, my conclusion is…
“Look, I can’t open my eyes and see.”
“Huh?”
As I was slowly reading Frey’s letter, which I looked at whenever I was in a state of trauma, the person next to me shook his head and said,
“Can you please stop putting that hand down?”
“Ah… sorry…”
Only then did Klarna realize that she had been slamming her hand on the desk while reading the letter.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize…”
Klarna, who was looking down at her hand, which had become even more serious than before, soon lowered her head and began to apologize to the man sitting next to her.
“Then there’s no point in writing a will.”
“…yes?”
However, the man sitting next to me started saying strange things.
“Damn, I didn’t know his condition would be this serious… Is this why the system allowed us to see him for the last time?”
“All of you…!”
Klarna, who had been staring at him blankly for a moment, stood up with wide eyes when he lowered his voice modulation and spoke.
“Hello, princess.”
“P-frey!!!!!!!!”
Eventually, the man wearing a black robe took off his robe, revealing his silver hair and eyes, and Klarna shouted with an expression of astonishment and shock.
“…This is that pattern again.”
“Fray! You were alive? You were alive!! Right!!!”
Then, Klarna’s expression was filled with joy and she rushed towards Frey.
“You!! It’s not the time to be like this! The Demon King is right in front of you!! Hurry up and get out of here with me…ugh.”
“…ha.”
However, she ran towards Frey, shedding tears of joy for the first time in a long time, and ended up crashing into the wall next to him, passing right through Frey, who had a dark expression on his face.
“Huh? How did this happen? Frey is definitely here… why…”
Thanks to this, Klarna, who was confused for a moment, soon began to scribble Frey’s body with trembling hands.
“……Then that’s right.”
Klarna, who had been groping Frey’s body for a long time without being able to catch him, began to ask Frey questions with a despairing expression.
“So, what is it? My fantasy? Or a ghost coming for revenge? Personally, I think the latter is better. I can make you pay…”
“At first, I wondered why this was an ordeal…”
And Frey, who was looking at Klarna with pity, muttered in a low voice.
“…I don’t think there is anything that fits the word ordeal more than this.”
In front of him, a system window appeared with only the number 1 floating around.
fantasy,
