Chapter 175
“Elise!”
Heros shouted, his voice more pitiful than anyone had ever heard it, rushing toward Elise’s spirit.
Daphne, caught between the two situations, hesitated for a moment over what to do, but ultimately decided that hero business aside, dealing with Lani’s group had to come first.
“Elise. Wait for me. I’ll deal with all of them and come right back.”
Elise gave no answer, but Daphne didn’t wait for one, rushing straight into the massive white smoke enveloping Lani’s group.
And Heros.
“…Elise. It really, truly is you.”
He wondered whether he was dreaming.
But it felt far too vivid to be a dream. Elise’s appearance as she had been in life—her shining hair, her beautiful eyes, that endlessly gentle expression she’d always worn… all of it, vivid.
Not a dream. It truly was her. Elise, whom he had loved with his entire life.
Heros discovered, for the first time, that he was even capable of such overwhelming bewilderment. He spoke haltingly.
“Why are you here, no, how, how can you possibly be here?”
At that, Elise smiled softly and answered.
[Look behind you.]
But Heros didn’t want to turn around. He felt certain that if he did, Elise would vanish.
[Go on.]
But at her gentle urging once more, he found himself unable to help but turn his head, and there, astonishingly, lay the corpse of the Calamity, the very one he himself had sealed away.
Thick white smoke enveloped that corpse, and before it, Daphne and Shio were locked in fierce combat against a strange group of masked figures.
Magic bursting, blades of sword energy flying, shouts ringing out through the chaos.
The only ones standing utterly still amid it all were Heros and Elise’s spirit, and nothing else. Unable to grasp her true meaning, Heros looked at her again and asked.
“Are you telling me to look at the Calamity’s corpse, or to watch their fight? No, Elise. Tell me. Why are you still lingering here?”
[Because I wanted to tell Daphne.]
Elise answered with a bright smile.
[That she has a rightful mother and father, that she is a soul who truly exists, and that she is, and always will be, our daughter.]
“What do you mean by that… Daphne is our daughter, that much is already true. Why would you need to say something we already know,”
[I held on, and held on, just to tell her that.]
“Elise.”
[And, of course, I wanted to see you too.]
Elise said, breaking into her characteristic playful laugh, and hearing it, Heros felt as though he might truly burst into tears.
Ah, to have the one he loved standing right before him, and yet be unable to touch her, unable to hold her! He felt a wave of despair and deep sorrow wash over him, wondering when exactly he had lost the ability to feel emotion at all.
[Dear.]
At that moment, Elise’s translucent hand passed straight through Heros’s cheek.
[Protecting the ones you love takes a great deal of strength.]
“…”
[But sometimes, it’s alright to accept help from those around you. Just as you did for me, once.]
Heros recalled it. The moment he had first met Elise… the moment she had given him boundless love and strength.
[Trust the children.]
The moment he heard the word “children,” he realized he shouldn’t remain so lost in this daze.
Whatever had brought this about, he was now facing Elise’s spirit once more, here, in this moment.
He resolved to say what he had long wanted to say.
“I missed you.”
[I know.]
“I wanted so badly to just follow after you.”
[I know.]
“So I’m sorry.”
Heros lowered his head.
“I abandoned the children because I claimed it was too hard for me.”
[I know.]
“I’m recovering now. …I don’t know if it’s going well, but I’ll keep trying.”
[You’re someone who’s good at trying.]
“That’s right… I learned that from you.”
He smiled with an expression on the verge of tears, and Elise looked back at him with a similar expression.
[Dear.]
Heros blinked.
[You must trust Daphne… to the very end.]
Elise’s form began to fade slowly. Already translucent to begin with, it was now growing even fainter. Heros’s breath quickened. He reached out toward the spirit he could not hold, shouting.
“No, no. Don’t. Don’t go. Please, just a little longer with me…!”
[This isn’t the end.]
But thankfully, truly, Elise did not turn away from Heros. Just before she vanished entirely, she whispered into his ear.
[Come to the temple. Along with whatever Daphne chooses.]
Daphne’s choice?
Before he could even say, I understand, but I want to talk with you more,
“…”
Elise was gone. As though nothing had ever been there at all.
“…Ha.”
Heros squeezed his eyes shut, breathing in and out in long, repeated breaths. He felt dizzy. His head ached. His vision blurred. Truly, truly… nothing came to mind for how to make sense of any of it. His chest felt tight.
“Well now.”
It was then that the Emperor’s boots came into view.
“Seems there was a wandering spirit here.”
Slowly lifting his head, he saw the Emperor wearing a faintly sneering smile. A wandering spirit, a wandering spirit, he’d called her. Heros stared at the Emperor with unfocused eyes, and the Emperor smirked.
“Heros.”
Then he raised his hand with a flick. At that, the Emperor’s sword, the one Heros had dropped earlier, flew back toward him.
“Can’t go carelessly dropping a sword like that.”
The Emperor held the sword out to Heros. Taking it almost without thinking, Heros still hadn’t fully recovered his senses.
Elise, Daphne, the Emperor, and the battle continuing behind them.
Everything felt overwhelming, everything felt like words too hard to make sense of. His headache worsened.
“Now, with this sword.”
The Emperor said, sliding a finger along the blade’s edge.
“You simply need to decide what to do about your daughter.”
Daughter… Daphne?
Heros snapped back to his senses as though struck by lightning.
“Your Majesty! Such words are—!”
“Oh, back to your senses now, are you?”
The Emperor burst into loud laughter. Humans who regained their composure the instant a child was mentioned were, without fail, endlessly amusing to watch. The Emperor patted Heros’s shoulder.
“I’m not saying this without reason. Go on, take a good look.”
He pointed behind them, and Heros turned instinctively. He felt, somehow, that he needed to look.
“Take a good look. What exactly your daughter is protecting right now.”
There, a group in strange masks was locked in battle with Daphne and Shio… and both Daphne’s sword and Shio’s magic were fighting to protect one single thing, and one thing only.
“…the Calamity’s corpse.”
As though it must never be taken from them. As though it must never be harmed. Exactly like that.
Why?
…Why?
To Heros, still gripped by the same lingering question, the Emperor spoke as though whispering.
“I began to think something was strange, at some point.”
That was true.
He had thought, from some point on, that Daphne seemed different somehow.
“As though she’d become an entirely different person.”
That was true.
Overnight, she’d begun using a different manner of speech, different behaviors, different expressions.
“Different from before, saying things that made no sense, showing suspicious signs.”
That was, indeed, true.
“The thought you’re having right now is the correct one.”
Heros turned slowly, very slowly, to face the Emperor. The Emperor smiled bitterly and shook his head.
“Yes. You earned a dragon’s wrath. And that enraged dragon, in the end, seized that body for its own.”
The hand gripping Heros’s sword began to tremble. Sword energy flickered around the blade, appearing and vanishing in turn. The wavering tip of his sword mirrored the state of his own heart.
“So I ask you this.”
The Emperor watched Heros’s eyes intently as he asked.
“Where did your real daughter go, I wonder?”
Fragmented thoughts began pulling themselves together, one by one. And the adhesive binding those thoughts together was doubt.
