Chapter 242 - Damn Reincarnation

Moron the Brave

Eugene and Anise stood motionless before the Nur's corpse for a while. Why had it ended up like this? Both imagined the same answer, but neither bothered to voice it.

They simply took a moment to compose themselves. Intermittent thuds continued to reach them.

Afraid to poke her head outside, Mer curled up inside the cloak. Ordinarily, Eugene would have stroked her head or held her hand to reassure her, but the thought did not occur to him now.

He was too anxious himself, with no composure to spare. After standing there blankly, he clicked his tongue softly and shook his head.

"Idiot."

It was the only thought that came to him. Eugene stepped over the Nur's corpse. Anise followed with a quiet sigh.

The ground was uneven, like lava that had hardened midflow, and difficult to walk on. Some patches were solid; others gave way, letting their feet sink deep. This was the reverse side of the snowy Leheinyar mountains, yet no snow fell here, nor did any lie on the ground.

It resembled a child's drawing, scribbled wherever their hand happened to move. Grotesque formations with no consistency whatsoever made up the landscape.

Eugene and Anise knew this sort of world well. These days, Helmuth was called an empire and welcomed immigrants from across the continent, leaving nothing of its appearance three hundred years ago. But the Helmuth of old had fully deserved to be called hell.

"Brings back memories," Eugene muttered as he climbed an undulating slope.

"Do you actually miss those days?"

"Honestly, I'd be lying if I said I didn't. That was before I died, when I was still alive. You were alive then, too."

Anise nodded with a wistful smile. She glanced down at a lump of flesh by her feet. A fragment of a corpse so mangled that its original shape was impossible to imagine. Such scraps lay scattered everywhere she looked.

Dragging a corpse along, smashing it down indiscriminately, tearing it apart with nothing but one's grip, hurling it away. They could not imagine what the corpses had originally looked like, but they could imagine how they had ended up this way.

Eugene looked at the entrails hanging from a crooked tree.

Were they rotten?

He couldn't tell. They smelled foul and their color was bizarre, but he had no way of knowing whether decay had made them that way... or whether Nur entrails had always looked like that.

He wondered whether it mattered at all. This place was less a graveyard than a dump. Rather than saying the corpses and their remains strewn everywhere had been "laid to rest," it was more accurate to say they had been "discarded" like garbage.

There were plenty of traces besides flesh, entrails, blood, and bone. Clear fingernail gouges marked walls and rocks. Some surfaces were densely covered in things he could not identify as either drawings or writing.

But the most common traces were those of violence, of things smashed indiscriminately to pieces. Eugene and Anise moved past them, onward and upward. The farther they went, the rougher, more blatant, and more numerous those traces became. As though someone wanted to prevent anyone from climbing up. Or perhaps did not want to descend from above.

"Idiot."

This time, it was Anise who muttered the word, not Eugene. She stepped forward herself and swung her flail, knocking down a pile of rubble. The thuds were no longer distant. Eugene put the Moonlight Sword, which he had still been holding, inside his cloak.

He hesitated briefly. Should he take something else out to hold? The thought flashed through his mind. Was there any need? He did not dwell on it. He took nothing from his cloak. He did not clench his fists, either. Following him, Anise hung her flail back at her waist.

Instead, she clasped the rosary around her neck in both hands and quietly recited a prayer. The thuds were coming from directly ahead now.

Moron came into view.

He looked exactly as they had imagined when they first heard those thuds upon entering the reverse side.

He was kneeling, both hands planted on the ground, smashing his head into it. With each impact, the earth shook as though struck by an earthquake.

Mer caught her breath inside the cloak. Eugene and Anise showed no immediate reaction. On their way up here—no, ever since Moron had been reluctant to show them this place—they had imagined that they might find him like this.

Eugene and Anise knew Moron all too well. Even three hundred years ago, he had been brave, unwilling to look back, a true warrior. They could conceive of someone else collapsing into despair, but they could not imagine Moron doing so.

Moron had always stood at the forefront of battle. He volunteered for it, and everyone entrusted him with the vanguard as a matter of course.

Yes, in those days, it had been only natural. Because Moron was brave, never looked back, was a true warrior, was strong, and never fell.

"Hey."

Eugene called to Moron quietly.

He had not personally lived through those three hundred years. Neither had Anise. She had died and become an angel, but she had spent most of the time since her death asleep. Neither of them could truly grasp how long and terrible three hundred years could be for a human being.

But Moron was different. He had lived those three hundred years. He had endured alone as all his companions died or disappeared. He could have chosen an opportunity to die peacefully and happily, with everyone's blessings.

He had not chosen it. Moron had wanted to die like a warrior. A warrior's death as he envisioned it, as everyone believed it should be.

Vermouth had entrusted the troubled Moron with a mission.

Moron had gladly accepted it.

For a full century, he had stood alone against ominous monsters whose very nature was unknown. He had issued a royal decree forbidding anyone from crossing Great Hammer Canyon and roamed the snowy mountaintops alone. He had kept watch for Nur that could appear anywhere, at any time. He had stared at the end of the world, where nothing was said to exist. Moron was strong. He was brave. He did not look back. He did not despair. He did not fall.

He had merely been worn down. Centuries of hardship had eroded his mental fortitude. His body was still robust, but the hundreds, thousands of corpses piled in this space, the miasma they emitted, and the reality of being left alone after outliving the companions he loved and relied upon, and his descendants, had eaten away at him.

His dead companions had appeared before him. Though they looked different from centuries ago, Moron had recognized them.

There was no knowing whether Moron himself believed he was still the same "Moron the Brave" he had been three hundred years ago. But if he had reunited with his dead companions, if they had called him exactly as they had three hundred years ago, he would have thought he had to show them the man everyone remembered from those days, rather than his broken self.

The Moron Eugene remembered was that sort of idiot. An idiot who knew no shortcuts, whose thinking was ignorant and simple.

"You idiot."

And so Eugene called Moron an idiot once again.

The thudding abruptly stopped. Moron, who had been mechanically driving his head into the ground, froze in place.

He lifted his head from the deep crater. He did not turn around immediately. He stayed that way for a while, then slowly shook his head.

"I don't want you to see me like this."

Moron rose, his back still turned. Eugene looked at that heavily muscled back. A back without a single scar. Broad and large. Yet, strangely, it looked small.

"So what? It was only a matter of sooner or later. We'd have seen it eventually. Have you already forgotten? You said you'd show us this place after the Knight March."

"I promised to show you this place, not this ugly side of myself."

"Have you forgotten what I said?"

Anise's voice trembled slightly at first. But she quickly mastered her emotions and forced her usual smile onto her face.

"Moron. I told you that if there was something you didn't want to show us, I wanted to see it by any means necessary. From birth to death, I rarely had my wishes granted. Thanks to you, I've had that precious experience."

It was not that Anise had been unable to imagine Moron like this, either. She had been a saint, healing and saving countless people. In the process, she had watched countless others die whom she ultimately could not save. And at the very end, she had failed even to save herself.

That was why Anise knew well how people broke and fell apart. She could have given up on everything and run away. But in the end, she had not. Conviction, duty—at the final moment, such things became a curse.

Anise did not regret dying as she had. After all, she had been able to choose death.

But Moron was different. He had been unable to choose death. Nor could he receive help or salvation from anyone else.

"If you'd at least... cracked your skull, I could have healed you. But your head is as sturdy as ever, Moron. Not a single drop of blood, I imagine. Well, I suppose it's nice not to have any work to do."

Anise pitied Moron. Her heart ached, and she felt close to tears. But she could not possibly let those feelings show. She felt Moron would not want that, and she did not want to do so herself.

"... You two."

Moron gave a rough chuckle. He gazed vacantly up at the sky before slowly turning around, revealing his face.

It was just as Anise had said. Despite smashing his head into the ground hard enough to shake the earth and the mountain, Moron's forehead bore not even a tiny scratch, let alone blood.

His face, however, was quite different. Just a few days ago, he had looked like the Moron they had always known. Now he looked as he had when they reunited in Great Hammer Canyon. Cold, emotionless eyes. Eyes weathered by the years. Like Vermouth's in the Darkroom—exhausted and dull.

"You two... haven't changed. You're just as you were."

With those eyes, Moron murmured to Eugene and Anise. Eugene let out a hollow laugh and shook his head.

"We both died once. I died first of all, too. Of course I haven't changed."

"The same goes for me. My life was quite tragic, but I still did what I wanted and drank as much as I pleased before killing myself."

"I..."

Moron smiled.

"Tried not to change. I believed I couldn't allow it. But against my will, I couldn't help changing, little by little."

"It's a long time for a human."

"I know that, too. Three hundred years is a long time. But I didn't want to change. I believed I had to stay the same, that I could fulfill my mission only if I remained firmly myself."

A few days earlier, Eugene had asked him:

["Are you unable to die because of Vermouth's request?"]

Moron had smiled as he answered.

["I remain alive because I wish to."]

["I am living a worthwhile life as a warrior. By honoring an old friend's request, I protect the snowy mountains and snowfields I love, the country I built with my own hands, and the world."]

["I did not want to grow old and ugly and die. I wanted to die as a warrior, as a hero should. Death is far from me now, but if I should die because my strength fails me..."]

"I must not fall."

["The Nur corpses I have piled up by then will bear witness to my life as a warrior and a hero."]

"This is the mission Vermouth entrusted to me. A request he entrusted to the only one left alive."

Vermouth had asked, and Moron had chosen. Because Moron had wanted it.

Moron did not resent Vermouth. Vermouth had explained nothing. He had not told him what the Nur were or why they appeared. Nor had he explained why he was making such a request.

But Moron did not resent Vermouth. Because he knew full well that only "Moron the Brave" could do this.

"... I'm all right."

Moron shook his head fiercely.

"I'm just a little dizzy. You've felt it yourselves—the Nur's miasma is terrible. You never grow used to it. And I've killed far too many of them, for far too long. Sometimes, I can't control the various things inside me."

"So, because you can't control them, this is how you're letting them out?"

"It's shameful and ugly. I know it's unbecoming of a warrior, so I didn't want you to see it. The more I think that, the angrier I become with myself. That's why I was banging my head."

"Idiot. Does banging your head make you less angry?"

Eugene muttered as he clenched and unclenched his hand. Moron merely smiled.

"Hamel, Anise."

Moron spoke. His voice sounded as weary as his eyes looked.

"Isn't this enough now?"

"What's enough?"

"Hamel, you said you wanted to see this place. Anise, you said you wanted to see what I didn't want to show you. In the end, you've seen everything you wanted to see."

Eugene saw Moron's fingertips trembling faintly.

"I don't know how you got in here. Even if you leave, you may be able to enter again. Don't. I still... haven't properly calmed down. I don't want to show you any more of myself like this."

Moron noticed Eugene's gaze. He curled his trembling hand into a fist to hide it and turned away.

"Go back to Lehein Fortress. Another Nur might appear. I... I'll return in two days."

"And if no Nur appear during those two days? Are you going to keep smashing your head into the ground like before?"

"It doesn't even hurt me."

"I'm sure it doesn't. That body of yours is needlessly tough. And if you happened to go too far hurting yourself and damaged it, you wouldn't be able to fulfill Vermouth's request."

"Vermouth's request isn't the only reason I'm doing this, Hamel. As I said before, any of us would have done the same."

"I know. We couldn't just leave these Nur or whatever they're called alone, so I'd have stayed here killing them, too. Then somewhere along the way, I'd have decided I couldn't take it anymore and killed myself."

"No, Hamel. You weren't that weak a warrior. None of us would have tried to kill ourselves before fulfilling our mission."

"Then I'd have gone mad and broken down."

Eugene muttered the words, looking at Moron.

"Just like you."

"... I haven't gone mad. Nor am I broken. I'm simply having trouble calming down."

"I can see how that might be. It might feel like ages ago to you, but the battlefields we fought on..."

Eugene gave a short laugh and kicked the thing at his feet.

THWACK!

The crushed Nur head flew far away.

"Were full of things far more terrible than these monsters that are just ominous. After more than a century of hunting nothing but these things, I can see why a muscle-brained brute like you wouldn't be satisfied. I can see how, once your blood starts boiling, you might not be able to calm down."

"Hamel, Moron is..."

"Stay out of this, Anise."

Eugene did not let her finish. At the flash in his eyes, Anise sighed and stepped back a few paces.

"Idiots," Anise muttered.

"Leave me out of that," Eugene answered with a smile.

He thrust his right hand into his cloak and raised his gaze. There was still farther to climb.

"Hey, Moron. I want to visit this mountain's summit."

"There's nothing there. It's not worth seeing."

"I'll decide that after I've seen it."

"Hamel."

"Come to think of it, your descendant told me something interesting."

Hamelon, the capital of Ruhar.

Aman Ruhar, who had barged in on him before the statues of Hamel and Moron, had grinned at Eugene and said it.

"Apparently, you said it yourself. That three hundred years ago, you were the strongest after Vermouth. In other words, you were stronger than me."

"Hamel."

"Thinking about it, I got really curious myself. I challenged Vermouth a few times while we traveled together, but you and I never properly fought."

Moron turned his head to look at Eugene again.

"And Anise showed me something good."

The dream he had seen through the Holy Sword in the Great Forest of Samar.

"You said it while bawling at my grave. That you'd wanted to settle things with me someday. Which of us was the greater warrior."

"... I don't need to fight you, Hamel. I know you. I acknowledge you. You are greater than me, braver, stronger..."

"Do you really think so?"

Eugene tilted his head as he asked. Moron stared at him without answering. At that look, Eugene grinned and nodded.

"Your eyes don't look like you do."

The hand inside his cloak gripped Akasha.

"Don't do anything pointless, Hamel."

"Never thought I'd hear that coming from you."

Eugene's White Flame Formula kindled purple flames. Watching him, Moron clenched his fists tight.

Eugene saw a light enter Moron's eyes, dim though it was.

"I won't use a weapon. You're my friend, after all."

"Hamel!"

"But I will use magic. I'm not at the same level as in my past life, so surely I can at least use the magic I couldn't back then."

Akasha prepared Eugene's signature.

"Idiots."

Anise, who had already retreated a good distance, shook her head and grumbled.