Chapter 56 - Regeneration

Sanctuary fell away.

Bera drew a deep breath and looked at Gilli, more than half of whose body had been blown apart. Sprawled on the ground, Gilli writhed as their body regenerated. From appearances alone, one might have thought they would rise again, but Bera was certain.

'I won.'

The sensation at his fingertips and the dissolution of Sanctuary told him as much. Gilli would not rise again. Indeed, their body was disintegrating faster than it could regenerate.

Bera staggered. Gritting his teeth, he steadied himself, approached Gilli, and seized them by the hair.

"That dagger. Where did you get it?"

He had to question them about the Demon King's power.

Floundering in pain that tore their thoughts to shreds, Gilli shifted their eyes toward the voice. The apostle was glaring down at them.

None of it felt real. One question kept rising in their mind: Why?

This could not be happening. They could not be lying here like this. They should have torn that apostle apart, seized the Saintess, and fulfilled their long-cherished wish.

Utterly confused thoughts. Pain tearing through their entire body.

As Gilli opened and closed their mouth under the onslaught—

CRACK!

Bera slammed their head into the ground.

"Gah!"

"I asked where you got it."

His voice had grown still lower.

Gilli stared at Bera, their face contorting, then suddenly gave a snort of laughter.

"Who knows?"

Bera slammed their head into the ground again.

CRACK!

Gilli felt their right eye burst as it scraped against the ground. They should have screamed, but—

"Heehee...!"

What escaped was laughter.

Yes, Gilli found it truly ridiculous. This situation, that apostle, their own sorry state. All of it was so ridiculous.

"What's with that face? Like a fucking dog that needs to shit."

CRACK!

Once again, Gilli's head struck the ground. Bera's face twisted into a scowl as he glared at Gilli's show of composure.

He had to find out why someone bearing the Demon King's light had already appeared, and how they had obtained it. For the sake of what lay ahead, he had to know, but—

'... Damn it.'

He had no other way.

If Gilli kept their mouth shut and died here, he would be back at square one. He would have to wait for events to unfold with nothing but more unanswered questions.

This might be a chance to uncover the Demon King's origins, which had never been revealed in his previous life. Yet with Gilli, who held the key, in this state, a way to learn the truth seemed far out of reach.

"Heeheehee...!"

Gilli laughed wildly. Bera ground his teeth.

Just as he was about to drive Gilli's head into the ground once more—

RUSTLE.

Someone approached from behind. Bera turned his head.

The approaching figure spoke.

"... Gilli."

It was Friede.

* * *

Friede gazed at Gilli with a troubled expression. The sight of Gilli cackling, their body blown apart until scarcely anything below the upper chest remained, and of Bera gripping their hair, clouded her face.

The emotion that had churned inside her all day, which she had only now come to recognize, took the shape of a heavy, conflicted feeling before this scene.

"My sibling..." Gilli said.

Friede looked at them. Meeting her gaze, Gilli continued through a face crushed by repeated blows against the ground.

"Help me."

The words escaped with a breathy hiss.

Friede's face creased sharply as she answered.

"How can you say..."

"It is for our siblings. Think about it. Is this right?"

Friede stopped short.

"Why must we die? Why must it end like this? Can you accept that all our siblings must die for the sake of that one Aedrin? I cannot. I cannot accept the history of the elves ending for such a reason."

Even as Gilli lay dying, the stream of words trembled with resolve and longing.

Watching them, Friede thought that Gilli remained unchanged even at the moment of death. They were no different from when they had been united through Mother, sharing their feelings.

She knelt and stroked the cheek of Gilli's prostrate form, recalling the past. The sibling who had spent the longest years beside her. The sibling who had cherished a longing that had not faded in all those thousands of years.

She had thought she understood that longing. She had thought she understood their fervor.

'... I was wrong.'

Only now did she realize it. She had not understood her sibling. No, she had not even tried.

She had been analyzing, not understanding.

The sibling with whom she could no longer become one continued speaking even then.

"There are siblings who are still young. Those siblings...!"

Their voice rose and fell more sharply. In that hideous state, coughing up blood, they continued.

"... What have they done to deserve this!"

Their voice was clothed in resolve.

Facing all of it, Friede spoke.

"You are wrong."

"... What?"

Friede looked around. Their siblings were withering and turning to ash. Those who had followed Gilli lay scattered as corpses.

"Look at this. Look at what your convictions have done to our siblings."

"For the greater cause...!"

"No."

Friede looked into Gilli's eye. Glossy and bloodshot, streaming bloody tears, it held a look of fury.

Now she understood. This was no greater cause. The longing that had always burned in Gilli's heart had never been for their siblings.

"It was for yourself."

Gilli flinched, the tremor traveling into Friede's hand.

"Did you not use our siblings to secure your own eternal life?"

Now she could understand that irrational longing. And she could understand that a true cause pursued for others was nothing like this.

Sensing Bera's presence, and Renée slowly approaching from afar, Friede spoke again.

"Do not use a greater cause as your excuse."

A greater cause was never for oneself.

"Wha—"

SLICE.

Friede's wind swept across Gilli's neck. Their head rolled along the ground, the anger that had surfaced at the moment of death frozen on their face.

Bera watched the rolling head with a stunned, empty expression, then turned toward Friede.

"What..."

"I am sorry. I could not bear to see my sibling in that wretched state any longer."

Her tone was steeped in bitterness.

Holding the ache within her, Friede continued to think. What would have happened if she had not stood idly by? If she had stopped Gilli, if she had not turned away from that longing?

The thoughts that came too late were taking the shape of regret. This emotion, bitterness and sorrow tangled together and constricting her heart, could only be called regret.

She had thought herself the most rational. She had thought she always saw through to the heart of things.

Yet when she finally faced them, all she realized was that she was a fool who had seen with her own eyes and understood nothing.

Friede's eyes reddened. Rising heat burned in them, and moisture spilled out.

They were tears of sorrow.

* * *

The Noir invasion was over. It had ended naturally, for there were no Noir left to invade.

Sitting on Aedrin's root, Renée continued to think over the developments she had been told about.

'In the end...'

One problem had been resolved, but the truly important problem—Aedrin's condition—remained unchanged. The elves still stood on the brink of extinction.

That reality made Renée feel as though her insides were being squeezed tight.

'Something I can do...'

She kept thinking. Her hand moved without her realizing it, stroking Aedrin's root.

As her worries continued and she began to feel all her thoughts twisting into knots—

"Ah!"

She exclaimed at the idea that came to her.

"Bera!"

"Yes, Saintess."

Bera, who had remained at her side, answered her sudden call and waited for her to continue.

"Where is the dagger Gilli was holding?"

"I have it in my keeping."

Puzzled by her sudden request for the dagger, Bera answered cautiously.

"But why do you want it...?"

"Could you lend it to me for a moment?"

Renée held out her hand.

"It is dangerous."

"It's all right."

Pure white divine energy rose over her hand.

"I can protect myself like this, can't I?"

She spoke with a bright smile. Bera gave a reluctant groan, then placed the dagger he had kept inside his clothing onto her palm.

"What are you planning to do?"

"I think I can do it with this."

Gripping the dagger, Renée focused on the savage energy she felt within it. From what she had heard, this dagger had drained the Noir's life force.

Yes, life force.

What this dagger absorbed was life force. And what Aedrin needed was also life force.

Renée explained her idea to Bera.

"If what's inside the dagger is life force, couldn't we give that life force to Lady Aedrin? It holds the life force of hundreds of elves who live for over a thousand years, doesn't it?"

"That..."

Bera's eyes widened slightly.

'So that was what she had been thinking about.'

It was admiration at realizing her intentions, followed by doubt, that prompted his reaction.

"... It will not be as easy as it sounds. The dagger certainly absorbs life, but making it release that life is another matter."

"I can do it."

Renée answered him, her tone brimming with excitement. She felt joy.

"That's exactly what my divine powers do, isn't it?"

It was the joy of finally finding a use for these useless divine powers.

* * *

Before Aedrin's thickest root, all the elves—only fifty or so now remaining—gathered and watched Renée.

Holding the dagger tightly, she continued praying as she emitted divine energy. Mari stood beside her, assisting.

Friede gazed blankly at the scene, her face haggard, and asked Bera a question.

"Is it possible?"

The question was directed at him.

"It is."

His words held certainty. He had answered not because he knew it was possible, but because he believed in Renée.

At that certainty, that unwavering trust, Friede gave a feeble laugh and looked ahead again.

"Well, it does not matter if she fails. We would die either way. It is much better to have something worth staking our hopes on."

"There will be no failure."

His tone was just as certain.

"... Of course."

Friede offered a perfunctory reply and looked at Renée again.

Kneeling on Aedrin's root, Renée prayed to her divine powers. She wished that this life would save Aedrin, that the savage divine energy within the dagger would be warm to her.

In response to that wish, the pure white divine energy began purifying the dagger's energy. This was the work of the Supreme God's divine powers, which could bring a possibility to fruition so long as the odds were not zero, so long as even a millet seed's worth of possibility existed.

Renée's judgment had been correct indeed. Purifying the dagger's energy and passing it to Aedrin was far more likely to succeed than intervening directly in Aedrin herself. It was well within what Renée's divine energy could manage.

The savage energy subsided. The light of her divine powers was inscribed within it.

Realizing the preparations were complete, Renée spoke to Mari.

"Lady Mari, shall I start now?"

"Aye, I'm ready too."

Verdant divine energy rose from Mari. In preparation for any unforeseen mishap, she infused Aedrin's essence with vitality.

Feeling Mari's divine energy right beside her, Renée delayed no further and plunged the dagger into the root.

THUNK!

What followed was a marvel.

CRRACK!

Aedrin stretched. The immense tree began growing in an instant, gaining vigor as she absorbed the life being passed to her.

Exclamations escaped the elves, filled with a fervor that could only be called elation.

There was something they could sense because they were elves: a soft laugh from Mother, who had been silent all this time.

Standing among the elves, Friede opened her eyes wide, her expression dazed by the sight and the laughter she heard.

Renée before her, Mother restored to vitality, and the fruit beginning to form on Mother's thickest branch—all of it came together into a single scene, and awe rose within Friede.

Bera, who stood with her, felt that same awe. Only now did he feel himself beginning to understand what had happened in the Great Forest in his previous life.

'So this...'

Was this how the elves had survived?

In his previous life, she must have stayed until the end, stopped Gilli, taken that dagger, and breathed life into Aedrin. That must have been how she had saved the elves.

Bera's gaze followed Renée's figure, settling on her small back enveloped in pure white divine energy.

This was a miracle wrought by Renée's heart, which had never doubted, never abandoned its faith to the very end. It was a miracle she had achieved because, unlike him, she had held trust and compassion within her.

Renée's light, that faith, had brought forth a miracle.

On what grounds had he judged her immature? How had he dared judge that light as one that had yet to grow?

She was still young and there was much she did not know, but the Renée before him was unmistakably a Saintess.

A lamp that lit the world.

Suddenly, a smile formed on Bera's lips. His heart began to pound.

Thinking that this must be the awe she so rightly inspired, he gazed at Renée without end.