Chapter 17 – D – 0

The world has lost its light. No, not just the light, everything was lost. The feeling of the warm wind blowing in spring, the pure white petals blooming between the leaves, and the refreshing scent of mint that brushed the tip of your nose. The world, once lost, quickly collapsed. As the last remaining hearing disappeared after the sound of their footsteps leaving, I was enveloped in complete darkness.

Why am I still alive why am I still thinking

At first, I was confused because I didn’t know why. I have nothing left now. Except for the insignificant life, it is just an empty mass of stone.

In the midst of thinking, I suddenly realized that there was one more thing left for me. Thought. Think think think The only property and ability left to me. I started thinking about the things I lost once I used that ability.

Warrior.

Future. Resolution. Mint scent and female leaves.

Nadia.

Honor. Land tax. Belief. Dream. Article.

Sera.

Friendship. Joke. Smile. Self-esteem. Christmas tree.

Hometown.

Apple Chocolate. Hawthorn.

Ellie.

Every time I chew on it, a mixture of pain, regret, and anger permeates through the scarred lips, but I can’t stop. Warrior, Nadia, Sera, hometown, Ellie. Like someone addicted to unhappiness, I think about things I lost long ago.

Okay. Lang syne. It was probably a long time ago.

They left long ago After losing her, I couldn’t think of a reason to hold on to her, so I closed my eyes instead of just looking at her. The waves of the years, which I dare not dare to count, rushed heavily and soon became foam and shattered. No matter how much time has passed, it means nothing to me. Because I have nothing left. So you don’t have to feel anything, you don’t even have to think.

At this point, I’m curious about your thoughts. Beautiful, ugly, omnipotent, incompetent, you must have seen, heard, and quite possibly felt what I went through. Do you still think I deserve to be alive?

Ellie said so. The things I can love are enough that I can count them on my fingers. The reason is simple. If you try to love too many things, the things you haven’t been able to contain will run down through your fingers, but if you love enough to count on your fingers, you can protect it just by clenching your fist.

But I couldn’t even keep it. Warrior. Hometown. Nadia. Sera. Ellie. The things I tried to love were things I could only count on one hand, but I couldn’t clench my fist. Even though those bitches, those disgusting flies, forcibly opened their hands and took off each finger one by one, there was no resistance.

How did he claim to be a warrior saying he would protect everyone when he was an idiot who couldn’t even protect what he had. Thinking about it now makes me laugh. Maybe, maybe Ellie was right.

I didn’t have the ability to become a hero from the beginning.

Okay.

Being a hero wasn’t my destiny from the beginning.

So, the story should end here. Today too, time passed in vain.

…

…

…

But, all of a sudden, a thought crossed my mind. Is it possible to lose something you didn’t have in the first place? Thinking about it, it doesn’t seem to make sense. I wasn’t a warrior in the first place. Losing the title of a hero is nonsensical nonsense.

The question that started to rise awakened the senses that had been asleep with their tails biting. I opened my eyes for the first time in a very long time and looked at my ugly hand outstretched forward.
On the verge of petrification, the outstretched hand with futile hope had all its fingers spread out. I counted the contents of those fingers one by one and lost myself in thought.

Warrior first. The hero is not something I lost. Like I just realized, I wasn’t a hero in the first place. You can’t lose what you don’t have.

I slowly folded one of my extended fingers. Then the outstretched fingers shrunk to four.

Then it was home. A village where mint flowers and poppies bloom throughout the year, from which you can no longer return. However, since Ellie is gone, the place is just a boring village.

Again, one finger shrunk. Each of the three remaining fingers had a person’s name on it.

One is Nadia. A blonde knight who once led my life and shed light on a dark future. But not anymore. Now that I know the whole truth about her, I know that she is a false shepherd who seduces her lambs and pushes them into her wolf’s jaws. The woman who betrayed me in the ugliest way was one of the culprits of losing what I had rather than what I had lost.

And one more person. Sera. She, too, thrust a dagger into Ellie’s heart when all her secrets were revealed. She betrayed her friend, who might have given her whole life for her, all too easily.

After folding all the fingers like that, all that was left was a single index finger that was stretched out in front of my eyes. The finger stretched out alone in the hot sunlight was the same finger that Ellie put the ring on that day.

But strangely, the ring that was supposed to be there was nowhere to be seen. Did you drop it As I moved my eyes and scanned the floor, I suddenly remembered a person’s face.

Rick.

Yes that’s right Rick.

As I looked at the strangely clear face, the hand on the other side suddenly began to wriggle. A trembling finger slowly opened from her clenched clenched fist.

Rick.

Everything he had done flashed before his eyes like a kaleidoscope. No, to be precise, it’s not a kaleidoscope. A kaleidoscope is a pain reliever used to give rest to the dying. However, those memories made my heart beat faster.

At the same time as the beating of the heart that had been stopped for a long time, the nightmares that had been buried began to revive. But there was a pig who was next to Rick when he took the ring.

A finger that had been folded again slowly lifted its head. The name Bobby came to mind clearly on those blunt yet long fingers.

After I spread my two fingers like that, the other two fingers that were connected by joints naturally went up. Even without asking, I could easily guess the name on that finger. Under the name of friends and mentors, those who had breath in the things they had lost were finally raising their heads in search of a place where they should be.

“…Guck…”

Suddenly, a lump of stone rolled down. The stone mass that fell at my feet caused a slight vibration, and heat spread from the tips of my toes. The heat that started to heat up once rushed toward the heart and toward the brain at a mad speed without knowing how to stop.

“Keep… Uh… Uh…”

Once again, a few stones fell, and at the same time sand poured down like the long-awaited rain. A whooping sound swept through my head, and as my heart pounded and the accumulated dust floated around, a single finger that hadn’t spread yet came into my field of vision. I gnashed my teeth and chewed out the name that was stuck in my head, slowly opening my fingers.

Leo.

The name that took everything from me. The name of the devil who took away the only hope I had.

When I remembered the name, all my fingers were finally stretched out, and my dead life regained meaning. Pebbles fell through the rain of falling sand, and when the pebbles fell away, large rocks popped out and shot in all directions.

I thought I would no longer be of any use to the world. I couldn’t become a hero because I had nothing to give, and I thought that death was the only option for me, who had been robbed of everything and was no better than a corpse.

But it was the other way around.

The world still had so many things to offer to me.

At that moment, heat spread throughout his body, and at the same time, his heart, which had barely begun to move, began to scream like crazy. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Just as I was about to grab hold of my beating heart that made my heart ache, I suddenly noticed a finger that was still stretched out in front of my eyes.

A muddy girl with flowing black hair.

She always smells like peppermint and is my very own.

My only lover I’ve been taken away from.

No, no modifier needed. She.

I called the person’s name with my mouth, tearing out my heart that had been hardened for such a long time.

“Ellie.”

With a bang, the last stone that was restraining my body erupted like an explosion. The stone that fell off my body instantly turned into sand and soared like steam. The moment I regained my senses, I knelt on the ground and put my head down.

“Cheuk! Cool! Cool!”

When I hit my face on the ground without any resistance, my brain shook with a tingling pain. Sand still came out of his mouth.

“Haaaaah…

The cold air that had accumulated in the stone for a long time rushed into his lungs in an instant, suffocating him. Does breathing have to be painful? Senses that had been forgotten for a long time came rushing in and pounding the whole body.

“Haa…Hak…Ah…”

Writhing in pain, I scratched the floor with my fingers, and the snow that had been piled up was gone, and only coarse sand got stuck between my fingernails. I realized anew when I felt the bitter sensation as the tiny grains dug into my delicate skin.

That the curse of petrification that had been terribly entangling me for so long had finally been lifted.

“Ha… Ha…”

Is this really real? I couldn’t believe it myself, so I bit my finger and tasted the blood of the murderer who killed my wife. Why the hell has the curse been lifted now? Even if I asked a question, there was nothing to answer. I scanned the floor with shaky eyes, then slowly raised my head.

The cloudless sky scattered a terribly deep blue light and stretched far beyond the sight. Whether you look here or there, the world was just an empty wilderness.

“Ellie…”

Abandoned alone in a cruelly empty world, I instinctively found one person. Even though she already knew she was gone, her foolish tongue sought her.

“Ellie… Eli… Eli…”

I looked up at the sky with cold eyes and suddenly turned my gaze toward the ground. There were countless grains of sand piled up there.

“Ellie…”

She was no longer there. No, it’s nowhere in this world anymore.

That simple fact was now lodged in the center of her heart.

“…”

At first she thought she might cry. Strangely, no tears came out. Rather, only the sand that I couldn’t pour out was crumbled on my skin, and there was no evidence of sadness in my body.

I slowly raised my head and cast my gaze toward the horizon. There was no sign of life in the land of demons, which was vast and empty.

No, maybe you can find it.

I turned my head to the ominous energy that suddenly blended into the air. Then, the demon castle he had seen a long time ago came into sight.

It was still just a shabby fort that was falling down, but somehow it felt like it had a very different impression than when I first saw it. Where the hell did it change? I looked at the castle with unfocused eyes and lowered my head with a smile.

Perhaps what has changed is my mindset. It’s been a long time since the things like will, conviction, and determination that were in my heart when we first met have already been crumbled together with the sand.

I was also curious at times. What is inside me? Was there a demon king? What was he doing to just watch all this devastation? Maybe what’s inside is a rotten corpse that took its own life long ago.

But well, it doesn’t matter that much now.

Without inspiration, I turned my head and looked at the horizon again. Having given up on becoming a hero, what was behind me meant nothing. Now all I could get was in front of me.

Rick.

Nadia.

Bobby.

Sera.

Leo.

The people who could be tied to the name of hatred as well as love were enough to be counted on one hand.

I quietly looked up at the sky. The blue sky was still brutally dry. Since they didn’t spill a drop of water, the earth had to drink something else in the meantime. Semen. Tear. And all the essences of corruption. Even after drinking so much, the parched earth still asks with its mouth open. What to give next

There is only one answer I can give to me who can’t even shed tears anymore.

It’s time to drink blood.

I got up. The sound of my footsteps, which I hadn’t heard in a long time, echoed with the sound of my heartbeat. Never in a hurry, never too slow. The beating heart spurted thick blood as if foretelling the future.