I Tried To Be Her Loyal Sword

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188th Episode. Side Story 9

Thud.

The tip of the sword pierced her heart perfectly. Karasho coughed up blood.

Swish.

As I pulled out the sword, the red liquid stained the pure white snowfield. I planted the sword into the ground and used it as a cane to support myself.

If I didn’t do this, I felt like I would collapse immediately.

The once vibrant black eyes now stared at me blankly. A horrific sensation of bugs crawling all over my body consumed me, but I did not look away from those eyes. I had to follow the last lesson.

She didn’t say a word at the end.

With that gentle gaze, she screamed “I love you” and slowly closed her eyes.

The pure white snowfield. A river of red blood. A forgotten sword. Four monsters barely clinging to life and six that had become corpses. One first-class star fallen.

Everyone was dead.

Only I was alive.

“Ahhhhh!”

I screamed at the sky, but there was no response. Blood surged from my entire body, and all my energy exploded out like a burst.

And blackout.

The mana enveloping me spun wildly, creating a black whirlwind.

Boom!

The mana darker than pitch shook the surroundings. I lifted my disheveled face and looked up at the sky with unfocused eyes.

On the day I killed my master, I unleashed my aura for the first time. In anguish, desperately wanting to become strong enough to lose nothing again, I forced it out. I wanted to deny that people grow through trials, but ultimately, it became the evidence of that.

My answer was ‘despair.’

After that, I couldn’t remember how I killed all four Deveras or how I crawled to the capital; it was as if the film had cut off. I could only faintly recall how shocked the guild receptionist, Howl, was when he saw my state and immediately sent me to the hospital.

I couldn’t guess how many hours had passed. I couldn’t even discern if this was reality. I lay in the hospital bed, staring blankly at the ceiling like a crazy person.

Sleep wouldn’t come. It couldn’t. I held my breath in silence without a thought. Like someone waiting for death.

“Damn it, Mir!”

How long had passed? The familiar voice burst into the hospital room.

With untamed black hair and a rapidly moving torso, the violet eyes were shaking aimlessly. He looked like he had rushed over.

“Are you okay? Howl said you came in half-dead from the guild, do you know how shocked I was! What the hell happened? Where’s the Master?”

Zigmund poured out words like a waterfall. Listening with one ear and letting it flow from the other, I stared blankly at him and asked.

“Why didn’t you come?”

“What…?”

He furrowed his brow as if he couldn’t understand. My breathing grew increasingly erratic.

“Why didn’t you come to hunt? We agreed to go together.”

“What… are you saying…? Are you saying it’s because I didn’t go that this happened? That means… ha… I guess it could be. That part is…”

“Why didn’t you come, you bastard!”

I threw off the blanket and stood up, my eyes blazing. The IV needle in my wrist was ripped out, and the wound on my abdomen that had been bandaged burst open again, but maybe my senses were messed up; I didn’t feel any pain.

Zigmund, making eye contact with me, flinched. I must have looked profoundly unhinged. Feeling my mind, which had been frozen solid, overheat strangely, I grabbed him by the collar and slammed him against the wall.

Bang!

“Ugh!”

“If you had come, would anything have changed? Answer me. No, there’s nothing to say, is there? Something would have changed! Maybe I would have been lucky enough for it to be me that died instead of the Master if their attack patterns had been tangled!”

“……What?”

Zigmund, his back against the wall and groaning, widened his eyes and looked at me as if asking for an explanation. It would have been pitiful to see his face turn pale in disbelief, but unfortunately, I wasn’t in a state to care about his feelings.

Drip.

Like a broken faucet, tears streamed down my face. I shook him by the collar.

“Was that something more important than the Master? It was supposed to be handled by three of us, so why were only two left? It’s because of you! Because of you, why do I have to suffer? Why, why me…!”

Zigmund just looked at me without any resistance. His once vibrant violet eyes lost their life and became dull and vacant.

I gritted my teeth. I swung madly at him, someone who looked like they couldn’t digest the sharpness I was forcing down. Someone who would end up as wounded as me.

Even though Karasho had taught me so well, I truly was a hopeless case. Just blaming someone else in situations like this.

Karasho should never have taken someone like me as her student.

“Why did you leave me alone in that hell…?

The weak one who only brings misfortune.”

Thud.

I weakly released Zigmund’s collar and banged my head against the wall beside him. All my strength drained away.

Tears flowed incessantly. I wished I could wash away the bloody guilt with these tears, but bloodstains wouldn’t wash away with water. A hallucination made me feel like red lights were flickering in my vision.

“Ah, ugh…”

I let out a moan mixed with my sobs. Zigmund hadn’t moved a single finger until then. He was quick-witted, so he probably understood the situation right away.

Those pitch-black and lifeless violet eyes told me he had also lost someone dear.

“……I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to do this to you…”

I stammered an apology, my voice coming out closer to a metallic sound as I suppressed my sobs. After killing Karasho, I had completely lost my sanity, and what I was saying was not my true intention. Who in that tragedy could be blamed? Everyone was a victim.

Though my heart was pierced with thorns making it hard to breathe, there was no one who had done wrong enough to deserve being pricked by them.

These thorns were something I couldn’t dispose of; I had to carry them with me for the rest of my life.

“It hurts so much, just sitting here feels like I’m going to suffocate and die, so I just babbled something. It’s not my true feelings.”

Even speaking was difficult, and I gasped as I tried to properly apologize. All we had left was each other. I didn’t want to lose Zigmund too. I didn’t want him to suffer from the thorns like me.

“I killed him.”

“He was poisoned by Devera, and he asked me to kill him, so I pierced his heart with my sword.”

“……Mir.”

“Honestly, it’s all my fault. If it weren’t for me, the Master would have lived. But I clumsily and meanly blamed it all on you.”

“Shush.”

Suddenly, strong arms wrapped around me. He pulled me close, not allowing even a little space between us.

It felt as if that embrace was a button, and I couldn’t say another word, bursting into tears like a child.

“……I’m sorry.”

A low voice, shattered and trembling, whispered in my ear.

For the first time, he apologized to me. I wanted to tell him it wasn’t his fault, but I couldn’t speak because of the endless tears. I buried my face in Zigmund’s chest and cried like I was dying.

“It’s not your fault.”

Though not as warm as Karasho, the heavy whisper comforted me. It was the only thing he could say. His comfort, as someone who was also Karasho’s student and perhaps loved her even more than I did, was not a deception to me.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be with you. You were right. It’s all my fault.”

“Ugh, ah, you…”

“Shhh.”

Zigmund gently embraced me, patting my back as he tried to stop my rebuttal. His voice and touch were overly gentle, making it feel as if he wasn’t himself. Only the faint scent of winter wafted from his chest remained the same.

“It’s okay.”

‘It’s okay, Shush.’

I heard Zigmund’s voice merge with Karasho’s fading voice.

I sobbed, gasping for breath. Sitting on the bed, Zigmund held me tighter on his lap. Even when my nails dug into his skin, he didn’t flinch and gently patted my back as if comforting a child.

Once I calmed down a bit in his embrace, I looked up at him with puffy, swollen eyes.

Zigmund couldn’t have been unaffected by Karasho’s death either. He had been her student longer than I had, and he might have been in more pain.

“You, why…”

“Why aren’t you crying?”

Zigmund instantly caught onto my intent. When I nodded, he exhaled a short sigh.

His eyes showed no sign of shedding tears. Though his face was rigorously stiff and his eyes deadened, no matter how you looked at it, he didn’t look like a disciple who had lost a long-time master.

“My tears dried up a long time ago. I became used to losing things.”

Zigmund’s answer felt overly nonchalant. I wondered what kind of life he had lived. How many farewells must one endure to become so accustomed to them?

If I were just a bit more unaware, I might have gotten angry, asking if he wasn’t sad about the Master’s death, but I held back.

His pitch-black, lifeless eyes hinted at a heart that had completely rotted away. So much that he couldn’t express his sorrow.

“……Come here.”

I opened my arms. He definitely needed an embrace too.

Zigmund continued to look down at my open arms for a long while. Though he had embraced me without hesitation, he hesitated to come to me.

“Fool.”

I muttered in a dull voice and pulled Zigmund into my embrace without hesitation. Sitting atop his lap, it seemed like I couldn’t avoid hugging him anyway.

His shoulders twitched slightly, but soon afterward, he rested his head gently on my shoulder.

“……The Master told me to tell you.”

After a while, I opened my lips. His quiet violet eyes gazed at me.

“Spring will surely come for you too.”

At my muttering, Zigmund let out a weak chuckle. It wasn’t words fitting for the current situation.

“Tomorrow, we’ll build a gravestone for the Master. Come to the request site. I’ll place it on the snowy plains.”

I intended to solemnly commemorate her death. There was nothing okay about it, but I spoke under the assumption that Zigmund would come. I thought he would definitely come.

Looking back later, he hadn’t answered at that time.

Without Zigmund, I might have been unable to endure Karasho’s last wish and might have ended my own life. He was the one who held me when I was at my most vulnerable. gazing at his faintly rippling violet eyes, I smiled weakly.

“I’m glad you’re here.”

Though it still hurt, and it would undoubtedly be a mark I couldn’t wash away forever, I thought I might be able to overcome it with him by my side.

The next day, Zigmund didn’t come.

And for six years, he never once showed his face to me.