How to Cross the Desert (9)
The ordinary person doesn't realize it.
War.
How much weight is contained in that short echo.
For most, it was a word to pass by, but at least for those involved, it meant the complete end of life.
A scar that will never be erased in a lifetime.
Was it a holy war to realize justice?
Or was it just a means for the greed of adults?
It was a meaningless worry.
It was ridiculous to examine the cause now.
The only important thing is that the war happened, and that countless children cried out.
The world was dyed with the light of despair.
<The war is over.>
<But to call it a victory, too many people have died...>
Even after the end of the war, the war continues.
The dead were exempted from life with death as an indulgence, but the survivors had to pay the price.
The dripping pus only imitates recovery with the word "end of war".
Even turning a blind eye to rotting wounds.
<Josh? A letter arrived for you.>
<I don't know the exact contents. I just thought it was a letter from the hometown you sang about so much.>
The boy was the same.
A letter received one day.
Cruel reality does not discriminate.
Once you carefully unfold the neatly folded paper, even the firm hope is shattered.
Unbelievable contents filled the body of the letter one after another.
[The village is annihilated.]
A coldly written sentence.
The hometown village that the boy left behind with lingering attachment was completely destroyed by the enemy's annihilation magic.
Those driven to a corner eventually resorted to forbidden magic.
Overnight, the hometown turned into a land where people could not live.
Due to the aftermath of the magic, the village turned into a desert, and monsters born with twisted mana roamed around.
People died one by one as if they were sick.
A city that has been destroyed.
This was the true identity of the desert we had wandered for days.
The old man says with a bitter smile.
"I didn't mean to deceive you."
Old wrinkles are buried in time.
The old man, who was stroking the tombstone for a moment, soon looks at us standing with a blank expression.
"It was like that from the beginning. I started this journey to meet Rosalyn."
"······."
"······."
We were silent, unable to speak easily.
[Rosalyn Meriar, sleeps here.]
A single tombstone erected in front of our eyes.
The reunion of the two, who had waited their whole lives, ended in the sorrow they might not have wanted the most.
The old man calmly continues his explanation.
"Isn't it strange? There's only one tombstone standing on a remote hill like this."
The blurry eyes are lost in recollection for a moment.
It was a memory from childhood.
<If we ever get separated, let's meet again at the brightest star in the night sky!>
<Are you talking about the blue star over there?>
<How about it? It's clearly visible, isn't it?>
<How do you get to the stars...??>
<I don't know either! But by the time we're adults, wouldn't we know how to get to the stars?>
<That sounds plausible.>
<Then shall we make a promise?>
<Yes···!>
It was a promise made on this very hill.
Lying side by side among the bushes, counting the stars that seemed to pour down one by one.
It was also the moment the boy lived without forgetting for the rest of his life.
And.
"She asked me to bury her on this hill if she died..."
The girl was no different.
She, too, lived until the end of her life, reflecting on the 15 years she spent with the boy.
The two never forgot each other.
"Like a fool."
You should have forgotten that promise.
You should have left that horrible village, seduced a handsome guy, gotten married, and lived happily ever after with blessings.
Is it okay to have never met a man until that age?
If I knew it would be like this.
"······If I knew it would be like this, I would have smiled a little when we parted."
The last scene I remember.
It was the part where we turned our backs on each other in anger.
It wasn't even that important, so why did we throw away the moment of parting with a mere emotional fight?
The old man gently strokes the tombstone.
"There is no such thing as a life without regrets."
Organizing life is just one sentence.
The old man, who had been pondering for a while, soon comes to his senses and turns his gaze towards us.
"Please don't think badly of me."
"Elder."
"I meant it when I said I'd guide you to the nearest city. If you walk for a few hours in this direction, you'll find a new village."
"Are you not going with us?"
"I have somewhere else to go."
"By somewhere else, you mean..."
"I have to go keep a promise."
He smiles with cryptic words.
If you stand there frozen like that, it won't be long before the old man coughs up blood.
Bright red blood spills onto the floor.
"Cough, cough...!"
It had happened several times already, but this time it was noticeably worse.
Legs staggering as if dizzy.
The old man soon leans against the tombstone and collapses.
It was a miserably crumbling figure.
"E-Elder!"
We reached out to help him up, but the old man firmly refused.
He just kept coughing and muttering.
"Cough! I'm, I'm fine."
"It seems like you've really reached your limit now, wh-what should we do? At least we need to get to a village to get treatment..."
"I've already been, ugh, given a terminal diagnosis... A month at most."
The old man was unwavering.
His voice echoed calmly.
It was the end he had long prepared and prepared for.
Regia, as if she had belatedly realized the meaning of his words, was blankly teary-eyed.
The old man smiles.
"Why do you all have such sad faces?"
"······."
"E-Elder..."
"Cough... I wish you would smile."
His pupils are still transparent.
It gently stretches out, carried by the gentle murmur of the dawn wind.
"I may seem dead, but I won't be."
"······."
"As you know, the stars are very far away, aren't they? It's difficult to take this body with me. It's too heavy."
The star where they promised to meet each other.
The old man... no, the boy was finally going to meet the girl.
His one and only rose that he loved so much.
"So, won't you congratulate me?"
It would be a wonderful sight.
When the old man looks at the stars, every star will look like a well with a pulley.
Every star will give him water to drink.
This was not death.
It was just preparation for a long journey.
Now, the boy from 50 years ago would gain new wings and embark on a journey to the brightest star in the night sky.
It was a page from a beautiful fairy tale just by imagining it.
"Thank you for accompanying me on this long journey."
"It was my honor."
"Elder... Sob."
We say our goodbyes.
As we listen to his coughing for a while, a faint light suddenly flickers around the old man's body.
It was a mystical color.
Fizzle-.
His sickly body gradually becomes transparent, and then slowly begins to crumble into a white light.
Like dust blowing in the wind.
The old man was scattering, becoming a remnant of the desert.
"Ah,"
A faint exclamation escapes.
Old eyes staring blankly at the sky.
He was gazing at the stars as he used to.
Whoosh-.
Twinkling specks are densely embedded on the jet-black background painted with darkness.
A cluster of stars that removes the curtain of the deep night.
Millions of embroidered stars erase loneliness with millions of lights.
Perhaps it was.
It was a single axis of time representing a lifetime.
The old man reaches out towards the sky.
His trembling hand points to none other than the brightest star in the night sky.
He murmurs faintly.
"I'll come see you, Rosalyn."
The old man closed his eyelids like that.
His body, which had then completely crumbled, soon fluttered freely and flew high into the sky.
Towards the star where the girl was waiting.
***
We stood there for a while.
The old man who had left on a long journey.
Regia was shedding tears.
They had formed quite a bond during the past ten days, so the sadness of parting was enough to make the girl cry.
Even these fragmented moments would become the fertilizer for the protagonist's growth.
"Sob, sniff..."
For some, it was the dawn of a long journey, but for others, it was the morning that ended a long journey.
We had finally brought the old man safely to his destination.
The episode's clear conditions have been met.
At the same time, a signal announcing the end fills our ears.
Creak-!
A sound like a hinge creaking rings out.
When we look up in response to the sudden noise, a small door is wide open in the sky above.
A door hanging in the clear sky.
It was a strange yet mystical sight.
It was time to leave this world.
I take the crying girl's hand and carefully lead the way.
Thump, thump-.
Stairs that seem to have been made by folding the night sky.
As we carefully step up into the void, the door opening in the sky soon welcomes us.
A white light swirls beyond the door.
"It's all over now."
Hesitating as we look back, we move towards the light.
Our vision brightens brilliantly and fades to black.
[EP???. Crossing the Desert]
-The Door that Opens in the Sky, the Boy who Gazes at the Stars-
The episode ended like that.
***
When we opened our eyes again, we were standing in an empty alley.
"Hmm."
"W-Where are we...?"
We quietly look around.
A familiar landscape comes into view.
We had returned to the Academy.
Unlike the ten days we spent in the book, it seemed that not much time had passed in reality.
Maybe two hours at most.
"······."
I quietly scan the surroundings.
We were definitely inside an old shop before we left, but somehow the building had disappeared without a trace.
Only an empty lot greeted us.
As if such a shop had never existed here in the first place.
It seemed to be following the original story after all.
Originally, when an episode ended, the shop would be cleanly erased from the field.
All that remained for the player were the reward items.
And the strange book we picked up at the beginning.
"Y-Young Master... how did this happen?"
"I wonder."
I pick up a book that's rolling on the floor.
It was a book covered in old leather.
The title [Crossing the Desert] glitters on the cover in golden letters.
I gently turn the pages.
Flip-.
An illustration appears on the last page.
It was a picture of a boy and a girl.
Only a simple title was attached below.
[Josh and Rosalyn]
The two were embracing each other with bright smiles in a beautiful world like the night sky.
They looked as if they had just reunited.
A faint smile spreads across my lips.
I was fiddling with the page when I answered the girl standing next to me.
It was a voice that warmly colored the dark background.
"It's just that a fairy tale has come to an end."
I closed the book.
At some point, a new sentence was written on the cover instead of the original title.
It had changed while I was looking away for a moment.
I mutter the words to myself.
[Thank you.]
A greeting from an unknown someone.
We stared at the letters in silence for a while.
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This is so pea- no.. Magnificent. This shi so magnificent.
ReplyDeleteThis is so heartwrenching
ReplyDeleteDamn, i was reading it with teary eyes
ReplyDelete