Chapter 212 - Damn Reincarnation

Darkroom

Gion and Gilead also answered that they had seen nothing resembling a past life in the Darkroom. There was no way to know about ancestors who had died long ago, but one thing was certain: seeing a “past life” was not something that ordinarily happened.

“Could you have become so absorbed in the visions that your memories got muddled? I don't know exactly what you saw, of course, but in my experience... er... the projection is a little different from my present self, isn't it?”

No, that wasn't it.

After Hamel's life had played backward from his death, what appeared next was another man, not Hamel. Eugene did not know why that man had been projected in the Darkroom.

'I don't have any memories like that.'

He had thought it over again and again, but no matter how often he did, the conclusion remained the same. Neither Eugene nor Hamel had any such memories. It wasn't as though he had never walked through battlefields strewn with corpses or piled bodies into mountains...

But he had never wandered a battlefield with his shoulders slumped in despair. As a mercenary, Hamel had always been full of venomous determination, and he had never felt despair on a battlefield where Vermouth stood beside him.

Nor had he ever sat alone atop a mountain of corpses he had piled up. A few mercenaries around him had possessed that sort of morbid taste, but Hamel preferred to slaughter everything and move on rather than go to the trouble of building a mountain. And during his travels with Vermouth? If he had pulled something like that, Senya would have sworn at him, Anise would have slapped him, and even Moron would have scolded him...

'A life before my past life?'

The absurdity of the thought made Eugene laugh. Well, if past lives existed, there could surely be lives before those lives... but why would the Darkroom show him even that?

“Kristina.”

After returning to his room, Eugene called to her.

“I'd like to talk to Anise for a moment.”

“Yes, of course.”

Kristina relinquished control without any reluctance. If anything, Anise was the reluctant one. As soon as she took control of the body, she marched up to Eugene and slapped his arm.

“Why are you calling me out when I was enjoying my rest?”

“Because I had a reason. You think I called you because I was bored?”

SMACK!

Anise slapped his arm again.

“And that is why you deserve another damn smack. If you're going to call me out like this, you could do it once or twice without any particular reason, too. Why must you have a reason? How cold of you.”

“But... didn't you dislike being called out...?”

“Yes, I do. I don't want to take Kristina's place.”

With that sharp reply, Anise plopped down on Eugene's bed. Then, as though something had suddenly occurred to her, her eyes lit up. She surveyed his neatly kept room with a mischievous smile.

“Luring a grown woman into your bedroom. Aren't you putting rather too much faith in Kristina's chastity? A wolf in sheep's clothing lurks inside that girl, you know.”

“You mean you?”

“Hmm, who can say? What do you think, Hamel? Do I look like a wolf to you?”

Anise crossed her legs with an alluring smile. Eugene gave her an uncomfortable look, then heaved a sigh and waved his hand.

“Would you like me to treat you as one?”

“Are you saying you want this wolf to devour you? What a shameless, lecherous man. Playing the innocent, clueless idiot to lure women in must be your specialty.”

“Who am I supposed to have lured in...?”

“Be honest, Hamel. How many women have you brought into this room?”

“Stop saying weird things. What women? The only women who've come to my room are Ciel and Nina.”

Ciel. Nina. Anise remembered both names very clearly. Nina was the head servant in charge of this separate floor. Normally, such a position went to a servant with considerable age and experience, but Nina was twenty-three, the same age as Kristina.

That was because she had been Eugene's personal attendant from the very beginning. For that reason, Anise had been keeping a close eye on Nina from within Kristina.

“... Hmm. That servant should pose no problem.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“She draws a firm line between her professional and personal lives. Whatever personal feelings she has for you, Hamel, are probably no more than an older sister's affection. Unlike that impertinent young lady, Ciel.”

Within Anise, Kristina silently agreed. The sight of Ciel fawning over Gerhard as they left together earlier lingered in her mind. Fa-ther. Kristina didn't think she could ever bring herself to act like Ciel.

'I could do it for you.'

[“Sister... please...!”]

Anise smiled impishly, enjoying Kristina's cry.

“Hamel. Calling me out instead of Kristina, here in your bedroom... You must have a reason worthy of the occasion. I'm looking forward to it.”

“What do you think about past lives?”

Eugene went straight to the question on his mind.

Anise glared at him for a moment. Though she had claimed to be looking forward to it, she hadn't actually harbored the slightest expectation. She remembered Hamel from their previous lives all too well. Rough in word and deed, but never, ever crossing the line. An idiot and a dumbass.

“... Coming from anyone else, perhaps, but isn't it ridiculous for you to ask about past lives? You've already reincarnated.”

“I'm a special case. I'm asking about other people.”

“I'm a special case myself. I am... a manufactured being, after all. But your question presumably isn't about me, so I'll speak in general terms.”

Anise's expression changed. Stroking the rosary around her neck, she continued in a calm voice.

“According to the doctrine of Light, the dead go to heaven or hell according to their deeds in life. Only those who have paid for their sins in hell are reincarnated and born upon the earth again. In other words, the cycle of life in the doctrine of Light is a journey toward heaven, where there is no suffering. Past lives, the present life, future lives... All are lives spent struggling because one has yet to enter heaven.”

“You're not saying that's necessarily true, are you?”

“How could I? That is merely the doctrine of Light. From my own experience, heaven does exist, but one need not go there. I remained upon the earth, after all.”

“Then what about hell?”

“Hell... I wonder. I have felt heaven, but I have never felt hell. Hamel, I won't claim that the doctrine of Light is absolutely correct, but not everything taught in the ancient scriptures is fiction.”

Had any other cleric said that, Eugene would have snorted. But these words came from Anise, who had been born within the faith of Light, witnessed and endured all manner of things, and become an angel after death.

“I don't know whether hell exists, but heaven is real. Souls that do not ascend to heaven, or do not qualify to enter it, are reincarnated upon the earth.”

Kristina's voice lowered. Her lips twisted into a smile.

“In that case, Hamel, perhaps hell is not a separate place at all. Perhaps this world itself is hell, and being reincarnated here instead of finding peace in death is its punishment. Could that not be so?”

It didn't sound remotely like a joke. Eugene stood silently, turning Anise's words over in his mind.

Lives spent struggling to enter heaven. Eugene was a special case; other people did not remember their past lives. They would have had past lives, of course... but their memories vanished in the process of dying and being reborn.

“... Then Vermouth dragged me back down into hell.”

Eugene sat down with a bitter smile. Hamel's soul should originally have been obliterated by the lich's curse. But Vermouth had made a promise with the Demon King of Incarceration and recovered his soul. Rather than departing this world, it had then been placed, through Senya's magic, inside the necklace Hamel had left behind.

“... All of us dragged you down into hell,” Anise murmured.

Placing his soul in the necklace had not been Senya's decision alone. They had all agreed to it. Back then, Anise had doubted heaven's existence, but she had longed to kill all the remaining Demon Kings and ascend to heaven with her companions.

“And Lord Vermouth chose hell for himself as well.”

“...”

“The same goes for Senya and me. I don't know about Moron, but we could certainly have ascended to heaven. Instead, we remained in this world, which is little different from hell.”

“For the world's sake?”

“For yours.”

Anise smiled.

“And for our own. In the end, it would have been for the world's sake as well, but we wanted to kill every last Demon King. Though even I don't really know why Lord Vermouth... faked his death rather than enter heaven.”

“You saw Vermouth's corpse, didn't you?”

“Yes.”

Two hundred years ago, Vermouth the Great, founder of Lionheart and the Hero who had saved the world, had died. The Kiel Empire had held a state funeral for the hero, and processions mourning his death had filled every corner of the continent.

Vermouth had cut off all contact with his companions after returning from Helmuth, but Anise, Senya, and Moron had attended his funeral.

Even the heavens had sought to pour down rain in grief at the Great Hero's death, but Senya's magic had stayed the sky's tears, dispersing the dark clouds and clearing the heavens. Moron, king of Ruhar, had removed his crown and carried Vermouth's coffin himself.

And Anise, as the saint of the Holy Empire, had delivered the eulogy.

“Yes, I saw him.”

Eugene had heard that account firsthand. There had unquestionably been a corpse in Vermouth's coffin. If it had been a fake, Moron might have missed it, idiot that he was, but there was no way Senya and Anise would have failed to notice.

“At the time, Lord Vermouth truly was a dead body, and his soul was no longer within it. Naturally, I thought he had ascended to heaven.”

But Vermouth's soul had not ascended to heaven. That was why, in this era, Anise had delivered a revelation to Kristina and sought to inspect Vermouth's coffin in Black Lion Castle herself.

“Maybe the Demon King of Incarceration is holding Vermouth's soul captive.”

“The Demon King of Incarceration promised peace in exchange for Lord Vermouth's soul...”

“It's only speculation. But if that's what happened, I'll have to agree with you that this world itself is hell.”

Eugene might not have liked his methods, but Vermouth had saved the world. More than anyone else in it, he deserved to ascend to heaven. Yet he had not been able to. Eugene had tried to trace Vermouth's whereabouts through Akasha's Word magic, only to be stopped by blood-red eyes and the sound of dragging chains.

Demons and Demon Kings accepted souls as payment.

Helmuth encouraged humans to enter soul contracts, and countless people had their souls bound to its demons and Demon King. They could neither ascend to heaven nor reincarnate. Bound to the earth by the terms of their contracts, they merely labored for demons and the Demon King.

An empire of specters deprived of reincarnation.

That was Helmuth. If this world itself was a hell of repeated reincarnation for those who could not ascend to heaven, then Helmuth truly deserved to be called hell.

“Hamel. I don't know how the Darkroom projected a past life you know nothing about. Ordinary people don't even remember their past lives. But you remember being Hamel.”

Had that peculiar quality affected the Darkroom? Eugene clutched his necklace.

“... I didn't get to see it to the end.”

The life of Eugene projected by the Darkroom had begun in childhood and disappeared at the present-day Eugene Lionheart.

Hamel's life had begun at the moment of his death in the Demon King of Incarceration's castle.

The man's life had appeared afterward. Eugene hadn't seen how that man died. Had he wandered that corpse-filled battlefield in despair, then collapsed and died? Was he the same person as the man sitting atop the mountain of corpses? Nothing was certain. The man's appearance had been projected for far too brief a time.

“Hamel. A past life you know nothing about isn't necessarily important, is it?”

Anise reached toward him with a worried expression. Stroking his tightly clenched fist, she continued.

“I know nothing of how someone living in the present might recall a past life. Nor do I want to know. It isn't important. You are both Hamel and Eugene, but you wouldn't distinguish between them.”

“Because I'm just me.”

“Yes. The same is true of me. Just as Kristina is Kristina, I am Anise. ... Isn't that enough?”

“It just bothers me, that's all.”

Eugene shook his head with a grumble.

“Vermouth made that Darkroom. I don't know when he started planning my reincarnation, but that bastard went to great lengths to have me reborn as his descendant. He even left the necklace in the Treasury, assuming I'd naturally come to the main family and go inside.”

“That isn't terribly difficult to predict, is it? Knowing your personality, Hamel, you were bound to storm into the main estate and try to loot the Treasury.”

“... I didn't loot it. But once I was old and strong enough to do it, I probably would have.”

Even Eugene couldn't bring himself to deny that.

“For all I know, he might have created this White Flame Formula for me to learn—”

“You certainly would have learned it. Even in your past life, you had quite an inferiority complex toward Lord Vermouth, not to mention your admiration for him.”

“Inferiority compleeex? Admiraaation?”

“Don't pretend otherwise. No matter how much you deny it, everyone knows. Fortunately, Lionheart's current family head is a generous, good-hearted man who readily adopted you. But what if you hadn't been adopted? Could you have given up on Lord Vermouth's White Flame Formula?”

Instead of answering, Eugene sulked. If he hadn't been adopted and hadn't been able to learn the White Flame Formula... At first, he would have accepted that he had no choice and learned either the Red Flame Formula of Gerhard's family or the mana-training method he had practiced in his past life.

But would he have stuck to those forever? Once he had enough strength, wouldn't he have attacked the main estate and seized the White Flame Formula, using curiosity as an excuse...? No, even to him, that sounded far too crude.

'I might have learned it by insisting I was their founder's friend.'

Anise chuckled and took Eugene by the wrist.

“I see what you're thinking. The Darkroom was made by Lord Vermouth. You're wondering whether he might have left some sort of message for you there?”

“... I did see something strange in there.”

“Do you think your past life is Lord Vermouth's message?”

“I don't know about that. But I can tell the Darkroom is a gift for me.”

With that, Eugene rose.

The level he had reached in his past life still existed in his mind. The projection created by the Darkroom fell short of his prime. But it came close, and it fought as Eugene envisioned fighting.

Gion had said that overcoming the Darkroom's projection would transform the flames of the White Flame Formula. Eugene didn't know exactly how they would change, but he was more focused on the fight itself than on that transformation.

The projection was a little stronger and a little faster than Eugene. The conventional way to overcome the Darkroom would be to add something new that he currently lacked and that the projection could not do. If he concentrated purely on that, he was confident he could clear the trial within three or four days at most.

That wasn't enough.

“... To kill Raizakia, I need to reach at least the level I was at in my past life.”

Somewhere in the dimensional rift, Raizakia was wandering.

Eugene couldn't count on Anise's help to kill him. Though she resided within Kristina, Kristina could not yet perform miracles on the same scale as Anise three hundred years ago. Besides, if they entered the dimensional rift, outside this world, there was a possibility that, in the worst case, Anise's soul would be expelled from Kristina's body.

Thus, Eugene had no intention of taking Anise along to hunt Raizakia. The same went for Kristina. Neither of them would accept it, but he had no intention of reversing his decision.

'Just catching up to Hamel won't be enough.'

Hamel had been strong three hundred years ago.

But could he have killed a Demon King alone? Of course not. Even the lowest-ranked Demon King of Carnage had taken all five of them several days of fighting to kill.

There was no need to go as far as the Demon Kings. Kamash, chieftain of the giants and son of the Demon King of Fury, had been defeated by Hamel and Vermouth together. And even when Hamel and Senya had both risked their lives against Gavid Lindman, Incarceration's Sword, forcing him to retreat had been the best they could manage.

Even Hamel, for all his strength, had been unable to defeat high-ranking demons or Demon Kings alone. Eugene coolly assessed the level Hamel had reached three hundred years ago. He could have slaughtered someone like Iris by himself, but demons above her were beyond him.

It was difficult to gauge just how strong Raizakia was. Mortally wounded, Senya had banished him to another dimension. Though she had failed to send him all the way and left him stranded in the dimensional rift, she had unquestionably unleashed a great spell that even Raizakia, the Black Dragon, could not resist.

That would have been impossible for Senya three hundred years ago. Was it because she had perfected the Eternal Hole? No. According to what Anise had shown him then, banishing Raizakia had not been accomplished through Senya's strength alone.

The hundreds of elves there had supported Senya's body. The World Tree's roots had protected her and the elves, channeling power into her.

'At any rate, I can't do what Senya did.'

The Hamel of three hundred years ago could not kill Raizakia alone.

So Eugene had to surpass Hamel in every respect.

* * *

Two days later, Eugene descended to the Darkroom again. Gilead, Gion, and Carmen accompanied him.

[“Excellent timing. The knights' injuries have been so minor that healing them has been unsatisfying. Let's use these people's bodies to practice miracles.”]

Kristina had come down with them as well. Naturally, she couldn't enter the Darkroom itself, but she could go as far as the entrance. If Eugene rampaged as he had last time, and Carmen, Gilead, and Gion stepped in to stop him, Kristina would support and heal the three of them.

'Sister... are you serious?'

[“Of course, Kristina. The battlefield is actually the ideal place to improve one's divine magic quickly, but there are no wars in this age, are there? We mustn't miss one of these rare opportunities to heal.”]

'But... I'm still not confident in miracles that reattach severed body parts or regenerate them.'

[“Don't worry. Even if you fail to grow their limbs back, who would blame you? Hamel will bear their resentment for cutting those limbs off.”]

Of course, Eugene had no intention of cutting off their limbs.

“Well, I'll be back.”

Eugene spoke cheerfully as he headed toward the Darkroom's door. Gion watched his back in wonder. Even if the battle took place in the mind, being tormented one-sidedly by the projection and then killed felt as vivid as reality. How could he smile and enjoy himself like that?

“With Auxiliary Bishop Kristina's divine magic available, I think we should try fighting him one at a time.”

“Then I'll go first.”

Though they weren't smiling in delight, Carmen and Gilead were eager as well.

“... Wouldn't it be better if I went first? I'm the youngest—”

“Are you saying you'll make allowances for me because I'm older than you?”

“Aunt, that's not what I—”

“I believe I told you not to call me that.”

Carmen's eyes flashed.

[“How adorable.”]

'Pardon?'

[“They're distant descendants of my companion, aren't they? It's tiresome to trace every generation between them, so I simply think of them as Lord Vermouth's grandchildren... They're absolutely adorable.”]

Kristina covered her mouth, wary that those words might accidentally escape her lips.

Eugene walked through the pure-white Darkroom. Before long, he saw the magic circle drawn on the floor. He stepped onto it, hoping he might see his past life again, but this time no past life appeared.

Instead, the projection appeared immediately. Nothing had changed from two days ago. Eugene looked from the motionless projection to the weapons planted all around him, then to the sword in his hand.

“... Hmm.”

He tilted his head and smiled. Casually tossing the sword behind him, he clenched both fists and raised them.

“Shall we go barehanded today?”