Chapter. 22. Last Parade (1)
****
‘It’s cold.’
It was a strange thing, even to myself.
Although the sea breeze at dawn was quite chilly, the walls of the castle were reddened by the fire burning the city.
The average person’s skin would melt just by being nearby, so perhaps this cold is not in the realm of the senses.
So where does it come from?
“Were you looking at the sea again?”
“….world.”
his lieutenant. World shook the blood from her long white hair and carelessly threw what he had brought at his feet.
“I think I used to be quite polite.”
“Because you prefer this way. “I understand that you dislike unnecessary processes such as unnecessary etiquette and pretense.”
“…I know you well.”
The male warlord smiled helplessly and picked up the fallen items as he saw his adjutant shaking off the blood and shaking off his white hair, answering like a sword.
Seongju’s Su-Wum, who couldn’t even close his eyes as he stuck out his tongue, touched his hand and pieces of various colors mixed together like mud fell into his eye sockets.
“He was a terrible guy.”
“The study of House Brastol’s fragmented slaves appears to have been more widely distributed than previously thought. The lump of fragments you see now appears to have been forcibly combined into me all the fragments that Seongju had planted in the beasts for his last resistance. Thanks to this, we saved the trouble of collecting them one by one.”
“…Blastol.”
A sharp word appears in my foggy mind like a dream.
At that moment, a cool wind blows into my empty chest.
Brastol.
Tarigden Archipelago.
Voltaeus.
Naelda.
Katrea.
The driver who was brutally murdered, and Voltaeus, who apologized and asked me for a favor even though he was even more miserable than them.
Katrea showed the fragments rooted in her chest and told me to stay alive. Her neck, which she cut off herself and rolled to my feet.
An exploding magic train.
Burning city.
One resolution.
….Resolution?
what.
I?
.
.
.
.
[Yes, I am.]
Hwaaaah!
The broken and torn spirit falls.
A dark and damp space.
‘Is it here again?’
This place is always waiting at the end of painful memories. A large, dark, and gloomy place like a ruin.
Someone engulfed in a black shadow is sitting across from me.
[You can’t win.]
Are you talking to me or to yourself?
In front of him, who was sitting on the dark water, was a small chessboard created by the rising water.
Snap!
[No matter how hard a horse on the board tries, it cannot overcome the hand that holds it.]
I am afraid.
Who are you?
[Well?]
Boom!
The bishop falls and sinks, widening the playing field.
thud! thud! thud!
The Rook Queen Knight falls one after another, turning the dark space into a giant chessboard.
Before you know it, the world is complete with streets made of water and castle walls.
I am also placed on a square box.
[….]
White teeth are revealed in the darkness.
At that moment, ten white pillar-like fingers broke through the curtain of darkness and entered the sky.
The man’s voice fades away and only his clear eyes meet me.
Why do you look at me like that?
What do you want?
say.
tell me! please!
Kwachaang!
Fingers wrap around me and the man in the shadow becomes blurred.
The man opens his mouth silently.
[……]
And open your eyes.
Light, cool, hot, pain.
“Uuuuu!”
World is holding me in her arms, with her hand overlapping my hand holding my head.
It’s painful.
It’s like someone grabbed the top of my head and split my head in half.
“World World!!”
“Here it is.”
World held out a potion in a finger-sized glass bottle as if he had been waiting for the painful voice.
My fingers were shaking so much that I couldn’t even hold the bottle, so World poured the medicine directly into my mouth.
Her white, slender fingers brush the corner of my mouth.
Gulp
….it fades away.
I also remember it with a black honey-like liquid. Pain too. They all become dull like gold dust flies with worn edges.
“Are you feeling a little better?”
“To some extent. “Maybe something came to mind from ‘Brastall’.”
“Don’t you remember?”
“….okay.”
“Blastol. Warlord is your castle. “The third son of the Brastol family.”
“….”
factory. track. A roof resembling a wide-brimmed hat and a rain gutter vaguely emerged and then faded away.
Brastall. Warlord Brastol. Brastol Warlord. Is it my name?
No, it seemed a little different.
“…There’s no need to remember.”
Most of my memories are like this. Most of it has disappeared, and the only things that come to mind occasionally are sharp and painful things, as if a blade was inserted into the head and shaken.
Maybe that’s why he forgot. I don’t know what kind of life you lived, but if all you remember is those things, it would be much better not to remember.
Didn’t I order World to always carry that black, sticky potion with him?
“I made you worry.”
“it’s okay. That’s why I’m by your side.”
“….okay. Every time-”
…
…
….
Why. Why do I feel so resistant to saying thank you to my perfect and dedicated lieutenant, who seemed like he was born into this world just for me?
Was I that bleak person in my lost memories?
“….Thanks for your hard work every time.”
“It was nothing.”
It was only for a moment, but while I was hesitating to speak, I think World’s eyes looked at me sharply.
Because she is human too. It would be a lie if I didn’t have any negative feelings towards my boss who never said thank you no matter how many times he took care of me.
Clap!
“Are you awake already? “You probably still have a headache.”
“That’s why I want to finish my work as quickly as possible.”
This much my whole body and mind were truly saying.
Get the job done.
Putting an end to endless slaughter.
‘Did I say you can make a wish?’
World told me about our goals that I had forgotten.
Fragments are human decisions, and humans are the fragmented decisions of this world.
It was said that if all the fragments were gathered together, it would give the world the power to make any wish.
So you should forget it.
Leaving behind everything that makes me weak and heading towards duty.
Even for the people who killed and died for me, every single one of them in my remaining memories.
‘To the past.’
To the past, before something happened that ruined my own memory.
When that time comes, I will probably be able to express all the apologies and gratitude that have been stuck in my head for a while.
Thank you for taking care of me when I was so broken. Thank you for leading me this far. Thank you for your patience and help.
…..world.
Shit. Why on earth is it so disgusting and unpleasant just thinking about it?
‘It will be resolved naturally when everything is over anyway.’
As my headache got better, I decided not to think about it anymore.
“After seeing it.”
“The port city of Karamaed has been captured. Any life that could have had any impact on the world was collected as fragments. “There are a few survivors, but missing a few people is not enough to cause a problem with authority.”
“It can be said that the Teldrat area has now been cleared out.”
“All the ports have been burned to the ground and most of the railway lines connecting cities have been destroyed, so all that is left is to take our time and strangle ourselves. Most of the fortified cities have already been occupied, and only a few large cities, including Wiggen in the central inland area, remain and are currently on strike. “I think I can ‘collect’ all of them just by mobilizing my people.”
A sense of accomplishment was one of the few pleasures he could feel.
As the number of continents burned increases, his duty approaches its end.
“Now there is only one territory of the Western Empire left.”
“yes.”
I turn my head across the sea once again.
A direction where he feels an inexplicable attraction, as if someone is calling him.
“…I will leave as soon as the work here is completed.”
Finally, there is one last continent left.
his task. The end of what I had brought this far, relying on my hazy memories and World’s assistance.
[….Last….]
At that moment, the shape of the mouth of a disappearing shadow appeared in his mind as he turned his back and headed toward the burning city.
A shadow of someone disappearing, covering their mouth with their index finger as if it were a secret.
[….remember. It’s the last…]
He couldn’t understand what the shadow was saying.
****
‘It’s so cold.’
The first thing I felt was the feel of the cool stone altar against my back.
Shoulder blade, lower back, pelvis, calf.
I was surprised that I couldn’t feel my shoulders, arms, and ankles touching each other, but it wasn’t what I expected.
It’s just that the body has become too large to fit into an average-sized altar.
‘What happened to me…?’
In a state where I couldn’t see clearly due to shock, I remembered crawling up to the altar, tracing the light of the curse, and the sensation of my body disintegrating into pieces.
And then-
…wince!
Thing! Whick!
….Everything became so clear in an instant.
‘My senses are so sensitive that I can’t come to my senses.’
The next thing I felt after the chill in my spine was the shape of everything that touched my body.
The blood flowing down my spine felt as clear as a lobster on a large map.
The dust and stone pieces on the altar were listed with number tags, so I could picture in my mind what shape each piece was in and where it was attached to my back.
Hu-ha-
I could feel how many particles of dust came in as I inhaled and how much of it disappeared when I exhaled, sticking to my body and making my throat stuffy.
Seup-
Breath. Yes, you were breathing.
The moment I became aware of my breathing, my sense of smell, revived one beat later, began to run wild.
What I felt was a terrible smell of blood until now is that even among the mixed blood, I can tell which species of blood the smell is from.
What was perceived as simply a sickening, sweet smell turned into the pollen hidden in that scent and the power of the curse contained in each pollen.
“Hyde.”
What was thought to be a unique scent of the Mutt race was the scent of a wet dog. With a friendly fishy smell. With the scent of blood-soaked compatriots.
As I began to distinguish between the stale air of an old building and the thick dust of a construction site, I felt the touch of sharp claws grazing my eyelids.
Took-duk-too-
duk- “Excuse me. “It looks like something like a root is holding my eyelids.”
And finally I opened my eyes.
“Wow…”
It’s not a pretty sight. Monsters covered in blood, suspicious altars and research facilities, vibrations that wouldn’t be surprising even if the research facility collapsed, and dust pouring down.
However, the perspective of taking in all that information three-dimensionally made even the bleak and terrible sights utter exclamations of admiration.
“Are you coming to your senses now?”
“I still don’t know what it is…”
“I guess so. Even from the perspective of our species, which is born through conception, fission, cloning, and other methods, your birth was very unique and exceptional.”
Wow!
The sound of the altar I reached for to get up being dented in the shape of my finger.
“ah.”
All subsequent actions occurred simultaneously. At that moment
, as I looked at the finger-shaped stone altar, my body reacted to
the slight hostility I felt in the direction where Cowld was located, and
leapt toward the other side of Cowld at a speed that my thoughts could not keep up with.
Coo!
‘enemy? why? who? From whom?’
Pop, pop, pop!
In response to the hostility, the body was pulled like a spring, and the claws that had grown before I knew it left deep marks on the hard stone floor. His legs were pressing hard against the floor, as if he was about to lunge at any moment.
blood? hormone? I don’t know which one, but my stomach was hotter and more sensitive than the red mute’s that I had experienced in the professor’s body, even more than that of a human.
‘I guess that means this is the real Mute’s body.’
I drew the shape I wanted, but the body was made of a material I did not know, the true power of mute and curse.
“Huu huu huu”
I let out a quick breath as if getting all the heat out of my body.
Little by little, I calmed down my newborn body, which was running wild, with a calm mind.
Kauld blocks Nigmi, who looks like he’s about to attack at any moment. The affection and slight wariness of his compatriots can be felt in his eyes. Behind him is the long-armed Quadurbu, who is more openly wary. wariness? Why me?
ah. curse.
“….but. Even the emperor who died along with the giant tree probably didn’t intend to end up like that from the beginning.”
“Hyde. I’ll ask again. “Are you coming to your senses?”
Kauld’s question did not simply mean whether he had come to his senses now.
He asked whether I, who had absorbed all the curse power that filled this underground laboratory before my eyes, maintained the same spirit as before.
He was blocking Nigmi’s path just in case something went wrong.
“There will be nothing to worry about.”
maybe.
“You don’t seem sure.”
“I’m a person with quite a bit of experience in reviving, but this is my first time in Mute’s body, so it feels a bit unfamiliar.”
“…In that case, until we are sure, we will refrain from approaching Her Majesty.”
Even though he said that, he seemed quite relieved to see him joking around.
Bussssuk-
sud!
“this.”
When I lifted my body up from the wall, my hands were full of crushed stone pieces.
It’s not like we live in a world made of cookies. Professor Park, how did that guy control his strength? Oh, he didn’t become like this all at once, but he grew gradually as he destroyed his body, right?
“If you want to break down more walls, let’s go outside first. “It looks like this place will be destroyed soon.”
“Uh um.”
“Keep your claws in. Tunnel bugs have a weak stomach.”
“Hmm….”
Unlike when I was briefly muted in the professor’s body at the Tower of Tobruun a long time ago, everything was awkward. At that time, I think I was used to attaching dozens of eyeballs to my arms and legs, stretching them, and doing all kinds of tricks. Does this mean that I have become accustomed to the human body?
‘I guess so. At that time, he was around 2 weeks old, and now he is well over 200 years old. It can be said that it has assimilated into 99.9% human senses.’
After struggling with a body that moved suddenly without my knowledge and a claw that never returned to its body, I was able to head to the ground on another tunnel bug that was separated from Nigmi.
Kurrrrrrr –
As if you were doing yoga, you ended up raising your extremities without your fingernails and toenails high, without touching the wall or the ground, with only your buttocks touching the ground.
“To keep the balance right. If you drop your hand or foot, your claws will dig into the inner wall of the worm. If that happens, I will spit you out somewhere in the dark underground.”
“Then why don’t you hold me back? But Cowld, why did you ride with me? “I’m not guarding next to Nigmi.”
“This is because when the number of enemies is limited and they are in a space separate from the main character, it is easier to protect them by suppressing them than by guarding them next to the main character.”
“You’re making grandiose remarks about staying next to me so you can beat me up if I have to.”
“…I have something else to talk about.”
It’s something to talk about.
When I bobbed my head to indicate that I should give it a try, Kauld opened his mouth with uncharacteristic hesitation.
“You are our people.”
“yes. “It started like that about 10 minutes ago.”
“No, it was like that from the beginning. The fact that I accepted you so easily, protecting Her Majesty in the darkness of the canyon, was laughable. The sharp edge of the border was so easily dulled that it seemed pointless. What you said just felt right without any reason. “Looking back, my behavior was completely different from my usual behavior.”
“what. “Didn’t you just have thin ears?”
“At least the tendons in my hands and feet would have been severed when I went before Her Majesty the Queen. “If it were normal.”
“The Queen noticed it sooner than anyone else. “I guess that’s why I tried to approach you so warmly.”
surely. From the second time I saw him, I was obsessed with Nigmi. Thanks to his opinion, he took great care of my convenience.
But why would our Mute King say something like this?
“Over the past three years, I have seen countless of my compatriots leap to their deaths. I sent it directly to you. “Because it’s for the queen.”
“At some point, I felt the same look in your eyes as theirs.”
“….aha.”
“You taught me the happiness and desire to enjoy in life, but you yourself do the exact opposite of that.”
For a moment the King of Mute paused. I don’t know if I’m choosing what to say or if I’m just pausing because I don’t know what to say.
“…It means that His Majesty will be very disappointed if you die.”
I think he probably wants to break the promise he made in that dark canyon.
I said that if you trusted me and mobilized Mute’s full power to shake up the emperor’s army, I would somehow obtain the emperor’s sword and destroy the warlord with it.
Well, since we’ve taken over the empire, let’s wait a little bit, restore our forces, build a defense line, prepare hard, and when he comes, let’s go and deal with him then. Isn’t this what you were trying to say?
Of course, that’s not a bad thing. Actually, that’s what I was originally going to do when I tempted Cowld.
“…I guess I’ll figure it out on my own.”
“is it.”
Now that my memories have returned, I refuse because there is no need to do so.
Kwagak!
As soon as I reached the surface, I felt light seeping through the wide-open leaves of the tunnel beetle.
“oh. “The sun has risen.”
“It’s been three years.”
As the thick purple fog disappeared, the rising sun illuminated the capital as if it were revenge.
The light illuminated my image through the broken window.
Height approaching 3 meters.
Red skin and bursting muscles.
What is a little different from the red mute that I am more familiar with than anyone else?
“This is…”
“It’s the root. “It was also present in the things that had been cut down.”
Unlike the red Mute, who recovered with Mute’s blood, this Mute’s body recovers with the power of the curse it absorbed when it was reborn.
When I briefly cut my forearm with my fingernail, the fine roots that were closely spaced together instantly knitted together and restored the cut area.
“…I guess it’s a consumable item.”
So to speak, a body that moves based on a massive battery. If you do not replenish your vitality through curse-related rituals like here in the imperial capital, you will cease to function the moment you use up all your power.
‘It doesn’t really matter, though.’
Anyway, it’s all here now. One last step. Just one more step and you’re at the end.
Crack-dud-
dud!
Looks like Nygmi’s tunnel worm has also arrived.
“Oh right. Cowled. “Have you seen my cloak?”
“You mean this?”
He is also a considerate king. Bring all of this with you.
It was too late to wear a cloak right now. As my body has grown, if I wear a cape now, it looks like a woman’s cape, and more than anything… I don’t want to walk around as a monster wearing only a cape and naked body.
‘Actually, it’s all covered up, but it feels a bit like that!’
In the end, I had no choice but to wear it by tying it tightly around my arm so that the pockets were exposed.
What I took out of the cloak roughly tied to my arm was a crown studded with eye-sized jewels.
“Hi-duh!”
Wow!
Nigmi suddenly rose from the ground and rushed at him, and this time Kauld did not stop him.
Sniff Sniff-
“Uhm…. Ugh. “Hyde Dannae.”
“As if you were a talking brat. “You smell like a reptile too, you guy.”
I thought that if I tried to give Nigmi a blow, I would end up in an unprecedented situation where Nigmi’s scalp would fly off right in front of Kauld’s eyes, so I just gave him a crown.
“ruler.”
“Uh huh?”
“Empire. “It’s yours now.”
I got Lionel, so you should get the empire as promised.
Nygmi, who had been unable to understand what was going on for a moment, lifted the crown on top of his head, held it in front of his eyes, smelled it, and licked it with his forked tongue before seeming to realize what it was.
“Empire!”
Nigmi smiles brightly and raises his useless crown in the air as if he has won the whole world.
Kauld and Nygmi’s Mutes, who, just by looking at Nigmi like that, have faces that make them look like they own the world.
Could there be such a simple and naive race in the world? A race where the queen’s innocence has spread to the entire race.
‘After all, we can’t see them as the mutes of the past.’
They have no hatred or greed towards humans.
The only goal of the race is to serve Nigmi, who has inherited the queen’s family love, and
Nigmi’s goal is only for the race to be with them for a long time.
Like snakes biting their own tail, they are like eternal organs that just keep producing happiness together in one place.
A race that could be happy like this forever if there were no outside intervention.
‘We don’t need these idiots.’
The few remaining people in the empire are all living along the coast, so there will be no work in the capital for the time being.
What about my work? There is no need. When I still didn’t really know what to do, I tried to think about what to do after suppressing the forces of the Warlord and the system by force. Things are different now.
‘It’s not something that can be solved by pressing down with force in the first place.’
As Nigmi began to dance brightly while holding the crown, the mutes who were swept away by her emotions began to approach her with relaxed faces.
I left the capital, leaving behind the dancing moves of the new owners of the empire made up of fools.
Kauld seemed to have noticed, but pretended not to notice.
Nigmi will be very angry if he finds out I’m gone. Kauld will take care of it, right?
“….Please chase after me and catch me.”
A lion-headed monster soothing a white snake that was lashing out like a child. I couldn’t help but laugh, but my steps were getting faster.
If you really send a pursuer to get me, that would be a bit troublesome.
If you’re going to die anyway, there’s no need to take other people as your companions, right?
****
