*
Chapter 339: Given Time (8)
The Goddess of Ashes reflected on her life.
It wasn’t always like this from the beginning. There were joyful times. Times when she spent her days with precious people. Times when she could sleep without worrying about tomorrow.
But that was then, and now it’s gone.
The Goddess of Ashes.
Raniel van Dragonik.
She recalled the past.
Based on the current timeline, it would be considered the future, but for Raniel, it was the past. The 13 years of hell she had to endure. She could never forget the day that hell began.
This place, 13 years ago.
The day Kyle completed the contract.
Unlike the Raniel of now, she was awake that day. She faced Kyle without falling asleep.
“Raniel.”
Kyle came to her, trembling with the Fear of Death. He reached out his hand, claiming he had come to repay a debt, and smiled at Raniel. She was deceived by that smile. She followed Kyle outside the mansion.
…Thinking back, there were so many suspicious things.
There couldn’t possibly be a way out.
There must have been no grounds for it.
Surely that was the case, yet back then, she blindly trusted Kyle’s words. Paralyzed with fear before the approaching death, she couldn’t push away his touch.
Maybe, she thought.
Maybe this guy could do something about it.
Maybe there really was an answer.
She thought things she normally wouldn’t, and followed Kyle… and she would pay a heavy price for that delusion.
“Why are you coming here?”
“Kyle, hey. Kyle.”
“Say something, Kyle. Why are you coming here? This is the place where the Demon Lord appeared. Why are we here? What? The church…?”
The old ruins of the Kingdom of Selef.
“Hey.”
The altar of the church.
There she lay.
The Balance called forth by Kyle.
“You.”
And.
“What are you doing right now?”
Starlight began to settle into her body.
In that moment, Raniel realized everything. She understood what the way to save herself was and what Kyle was about to do.
“Wait. Stop. Stop it.”
Leaving aside the success or failure of the plan, she grasped everything—how Kyle would end up when it was all over. Because she understood it all, Raniel shouted.
“Are you crazy?”
“Stop it right now. I told you to stop. You lunatic, do you think this is possible?”
It was a nonsensical plan.
Raniel couldn’t just stand by and watch this plan unfold, so she yelled at Kyle, raising her voice.
“You’re going to die. You will die.”
“Who wanted this? It’s unnecessary. Who told you to repay the debt? Just stop it all.”
“This isn’t necessary. I said it’s not needed!”
Without the strength to move her body, Raniel could only scream at Kyle, glaring at him. But no matter how loud she got, Kyle’s decision was unchanged.
“Kyle.”
Time passed.
“Kyle, you crazy bastard, please…”
Three days dragged on.
Excruciatingly slow.
Amid the slowly passing time, Raniel shouted to try and stop Kyle. She screamed. With the arms she could barely move, she tried to escape from the altar.
“Don’t!”
But she failed.
“Don’t do it, you crazy bastard.”
Kyle simply closed his eyes and meditated.
Raniel even tried to persuade Sara, but Sara turned away from her as well. Time continued to pass, and Raniel was falling apart.
“There’s no need to save me.”
“Does being a hero not suit me? Am I going to be a hero? Don’t do it. Just let me die. You can do it, right? Why me…”
Why.
“Why are you going this far?”
She kept asking questions.
To her questions, Kyle would only respond:
“I’m just repaying a debt.”
That single line drove Raniel mad.
Time continued to drag on, and on the day of the last stretch, Raniel finally did something reckless. Holding the mana she could barely gather in her fingertips, she put her fingers in her mouth.
Smite.
She intended to blow her own head off; however, she missed the mark and only punctured her throat. Even that was healed in the face of Sara’s blessing. Unable even to succeed in suicide, Raniel grabbed Kyle’s wrist.
“Let me die.”
“I don’t need you to. Just let me die.”
She pleaded with Kyle.
She begged him to just kill her. This wasn’t what she wanted, so please, let her die. She wished for her life to erase the whole plan.
“……”
From the moment he saw her attempt to take her own life, Kyle’s eyes began to shake. He no longer stayed inside the church.
Outside, it began to pour.
And then, the day inevitably arrived.
The sky turned black, and sludge began to pour down. That day, Sara and Kyle left Raniel behind at the church. With empty eyes, Raniel looked beyond the open door.
A flooding shadow.
Before it stood a lone knight.
With vacant eyes, Raniel watched his back and witnessed Kyle’s end. On that day, there, Kyle succeeded but simultaneously failed. Why was he unable to achieve complete success?
‘…Ah.’
Raniel knew the answer.
In the final moment, Kyle’s sword tip wavered. It wasn’t a physical issue; it was a psychological one. Someone had shaken Kyle’s mind, leaving him with regrets, and so the sword tip faltered at the critical moment.
‘It’s because of me.’
Kyle failed because of her.
If she couldn’t stop it anyway, she should have just kept her mouth shut, but her resistance until the end caused Kyle to waver.
‘I made Kyle into a ■■.’
From that point on, everything went wrong.
Broken down, Raniel began to plunge. She fell and fell again. The swamp created by those who bled for her drowned Raniel.
Lost and lost again.
Too many things slipped away.
She moved for their revenge.
She killed, burned, and slaughtered.
Nothing remained.
Even as she moved forward, she kept losing.
When she looked back, no one was left. Raniel collapsed onto the ground. No one reached out to the fallen Raniel. Those who would have reached out were long gone or dead.
Still, she walked.
Unable to die, she lived.
Somehow, she walked in response to the sacrifices.
“You.”
She lived for 13 years.
“You, what do you know about me?”
Despite living, despite struggling.
“What do you know about me? Do you know what I… what I did over the past 13 years?”
The world was still hell.
“My Master was murdered. Apuria burned away. Students pushed to the battlefield without graduating, and the untrained kids all died. Surviving ones turned out to be traitors.”
I killed them all.
All of them, with my own hands.
“The kids I raised, the ones I taught to take responsibility for the next generation, they all died. I even killed one of them myself. They became a calamity. I had to kill that child who resented me.”
Because that was the role of a hero.
“I, I…”
Raniel raised her hand.
Her trembling fingertips bore nothing, yet she saw blood there.
“My nation perished, there’s a flood of refugees, and when I approach to protect them… they scream and run away. At some point, I was no longer a hero. I was called a Braver.”
Still, Raniel stood and walked.
Even if no one looked at her, even as she was cursed and pelted with stones, Raniel walked.
“It was hell.”
She had to take responsibility.
That responsibility was weightier than anything.
But she couldn’t run away.
“It’s hell; I lived because I couldn’t die.”
Every night she had nightmares, unable to sleep, and she whipped herself as she walked.
“Walking and walking like that…”
Raniel looked at Kyle.
“I remembered what you said.”
The broken human smiled.
“You saw me as a god. I heard it from Destel just before he died. You saw me as a god. An idol. You had faith in me.”
That was your wish.
You wanted me to be that kind of existence.
“So I became a god.”
The price had already been paid long ago.
Having lost so much, Raniel had lost too much and became empty. The vacant human already held the qualifications to become a god.
“In this world turned to ashes, I became a god. I thought that being a god would allow me to achieve anything… but it wasn’t like that? Instead, there were even more constraints.”
In the end, there was no answer.
The best and the ideal were all just illusions. A human who had become a god spent long hours in silence, in a world turned to ashes, where no one answered.
And she reversed time.
To prevent a future that would lead to this last resort, she returned.
“But…”
Seated, Raniel spoke.
“Even so, you look at me…”
Raniel looked up at Kyle.
Kyle still held onto her arm. Not letting her go, Raniel asked.
“Are you telling me to stand up?”
Kyle still didn’t let her go.
Just like before, he wouldn’t allow her to give up on herself.
“Yeah.”
Kyle said once more.
“Stand up, Raniel.”
2.
Raniel didn’t expect a comfortable life or a happy future. She knew that was impossible. But if there was anything she wished for…
“What I wanted wasn’t something grand.”
With her head down, Raniel mumbled.
“A life where I could achieve something, or leave something behind before I died. That would have been enough. I didn’t even desire a glorious achievement like Galahal’s. Just that my death held some meaning…”
She thought that would suffice.
Wishing for that kind of death, Raniel walked and walked.
“But what am I now?”
It seemed her question wasn’t meant to invite an answer, so Kyle remained silent. Raniel continued speaking.
“I haven’t achieved anything.”
“……”
“I’m merely alive. A life living because I couldn’t die. Why do you want to save someone like me, one guaranteed to have such a future? Is there even a need?”
Kyle slowly took a breath.
He felt pity for Raniel before him. While he might not fully empathize with the hell she endured, he understood why Raniel had to become this way.
Even understanding that…
He couldn’t sit down beside her.
It was neither possible nor acceptable to fall with her. Someone had to stand and look forward and walk. Kyle now knew that fact.
‘…So this is how you felt.’
Someone had to take on this role.
Though he didn’t relish the notion of having to say such things, Kyle bitterly smiled and opened his mouth.
“That’s your story.”
Raniel flinched.
Her shoulders shook slightly as she slowly raised her face to look at Kyle.
“What… do you mean?”
“I said it’s your story; it’s not just Raniel’s story. You are no longer just Raniel.”
Raniel’s expression wavered.
Seeing her expression, which looked about to crumble at any moment, Kyle let out a short breath.
“…In the past, I would’ve said that.”
Kyle bitterly laughed.
With a softened expression, he knelt to meet Raniel at her eye level.
“How could I say otherwise?”
It wasn’t the tone of a hero.
It wasn’t the tone he practiced as he rose to a higher position; it was the original tone of Kyle.
“I know too. That you’re not this perfect being. You’re just human, just like me. I understand that now.”
Kyle released his grip on Raniel’s wrist.
“You’ll stumble. You’ll falter. You’ll fold. Just like I did, you might also end up that way someday. But listen, Raniel.”
Kyle smiled.
“I know you to be someone who will stand up.”
It had always been this way.
“You are that kind of person.”
Kyle once felt jealousy, admiration, and sometimes even reverence for Raniel. Having twisted feelings, he had done unspeakable things to her.
Those countless sins would never be forgiven.
That’s why Kyle stood here.
Even if he could never be forgiven, even if Raniel would resent him… he would pay back even a little of the debt he owed this damned person.
“No, Kyle, I…”
“What do you mean, no?”
Kyle chuckled softly.
“Despite everything, you returned to the past to try to fix this situation. I believe in you.”
So.
“Trust the past version of you that’s here now. He should be someone you can talk to. If you communicate with him, you might find a different answer.”
Raniel bit her lip tightly.
She dropped her head low.
Kyle bitterly smiled and exhaled lightly.
“Raniel.”
He still had things left to say to her.
As Raniel slowly raised her face to meet Kyle’s gaze. He looked at her and began to speak.
“You can fall. You’ll definitely fall.”
Kyle said.
“There’s no way you can keep running without stopping, since you’re human.”
Kyle continued.
“But if it’s hard, then take a break. It’s okay to sit down and rest. It’s also alright to look away and catch your breath. Sometimes that’s fine.”
Words Kyle once wanted to hear from past Raniel, he now voiced through his lips to future Raniel. Of course, Kyle knew well that there had been no opportunity to say those words then.
Taking a break meant the deaths of many others. He couldn’t afford to collapse and rest.
Even so, Kyle understood, letting everything go, he collapsed. Feeling empty, he slumped down just like the Raniel in front of him. In that way, past Raniel trudged into more battlefields, taking up the duty that Kyle had left behind.
Believing that someday he would rise again.
That kid did his utmost to fulfill his duty.
‘Then, this time…’
It was time to repay that debt.
Kyle patted Raniel’s shoulder and stood up. He took a step forward, brushing past her.
“The time given is over.”
Outside, the rain poured heavily.
Kyle stepped forward, and Sara, who had been listening to their conversation, approached him. The future Raniel gazed vacantly at the two.
“Kyle, wait a moment…”
Kyle paused at the door of the church.
He turned back to look over his shoulder as he opened the firmly shut door.
“……”
With only a slight turn of his head, Kyle seemed about to ask something, but he sealed his lips with a bitter smile. As if to say that asking that question would be unprincipled.
‘…Ah.’
Kyle didn’t know.
But the Raniel from the future recognized that expression.
The expression Kyle wore as he opened the church door on the last moment, looking back at her. At that time, she couldn’t say anything. How much had she regretted that past?
With a firm grip.
Raniel bit her lip.
She expected this outcome, but still, it had come to this. Raniel understood she couldn’t stop Kyle, who had already made his decision.
Knowing this.
Not wanting to make the same mistake as before.
Raniel lifted her bowed head.
“…For real.”
She laughed through tears.
“Truly, you damned bastard.”
“…That’s quite a dangerous last statement.”
“Shut up, you madman. Just how much have I suffered because of you?”
Raniel raised her finger towards Kyle.
“You bastard.”
She swallowed her tears.
“Did you plan to ask me if I still consider you a friend? You were going to keep asking that, weren’t you?”
“…How did you know?”
“Do you think I wouldn’t know your thoughts? Really, you damned bastard. Is that all you wanted to ask at the end?”
Kyle chuckled softly.
“So what’s the answer?”
“Isn’t it enough to say it out loud, you bastard?”
Raniel replied with a trembling voice.
“Who else would remain a friend to someone with a personality as messed up as mine, other than you, a damned bastard?”
“I know your personality’s messed up.”
“You still…”
Kyle, looking at Raniel’s disheveled face, broke into a smile. He turned back to face forward and started walking.
And then he spoke the line he had been meaning to say someday.
“Hey, Raniel.”
“What?”
“Live well without me.”
“Live well without me.”
“You damned child.”
“Damned child.”
Kyle chuckled as he walked on.
Time given to Kyle Toven ended.
Now, it was time to become a hero.
In place of the hero who failed to fulfill his duty from the future, here today, Kyle Toven would become the hero.
*
