I Can’t Run Away From the Girl Who Saved Me

178 – Sister (2)

＊

Even though I was trapped in the forest after the carriage accident and couldn’t get out, I didn’t really care.

It was partly because I liked living in the quiet forest more than I had expected, and partly because I was so happy living with the beautiful Sylvia, but the biggest reason was that my heart no longer had any room to be sad.

I was so sad about losing my parents and Layla that I didn’t pay much attention to my own misfortune.

This worthless man, who could not protect his sister and even killed five innocent people, may have had a self-deprecating feeling in his heart that he should willingly accept the hell that was coming to him.

The reason I was the most active in my journey toward the Demon King, who even my older sister Alice was afraid of and even Sylvia was reluctant to meet, may have been due to that self-torture.

Sylvia was terribly afraid of my death, but honestly, I wasn’t that afraid of my own death.

It was not courage, but a strange readiness to be sacrificed.

If I, who couldn’t save Layla, can sacrifice my life to save the world, then of course I should do so.

I have to atone for it somehow.

It is not a matter of being willing to sacrifice, but of being sacrificed as a matter of course.

It is a feeling similar to that of offering up food for a ritual.

Sisters Sylvia and Alice are warriors, and I am the living sacrifice.

At least that’s how it was in my head.

“…”

I can die at any time.

Although I am worried about Sylvia, and it breaks my heart to think of her sadness, I still have no hesitation in making my sacrifice.

In the heart of a man who thought like that, a loneliness that was full of all kinds of self-torture naturally took root.

Sylvia’s love scratched at the empty plains and filled them with beautiful pictures, but when the waves of self-torture and loneliness came crashing down, Sylvia’s love that remained in my heart was washed away without a trace with the ebb tide.

I love Sylvia.

I love her with all my heart and soul, the most precious person in my life, the beautiful woman who warms my heart and makes my breathing quicken.

But I miss my parents.

I miss Layla.

In the mansion of the Goldfield Estate, hidden between the pages of a book, the smell of rising dust and a dried pen covered in stinking cheap ink.

I want to see my room, where parchment papers covered with scribbled magic formulas were strewn about.

As I copy the magic formula on old parchment, I want to see Layla bursting through the door without knocking.

When cautioned about manners, Layla’s red cheeks made excuses, saying she could only do this to her brother.

In the sunlight streaming through the opaque window, I picked up Layla, who was jumping around trying to catch the dust floating like angel wings, and walked down the red carpeted stairs toward the table where my parents were waiting.

I was lonely because I missed everything, because I missed that time so much.

Unfortunately, this was a loneliness that Sylvia could not fill.

Her presence was like the light I relied on that night as I wandered through the darkness, giving me hope, stability, courage, and love, but it couldn’t give me back what I had lost.

I was lonely.

This was especially true after I broke up with Sylvia, and even more so recently when I had less time with her.

However, surprisingly, that name was not there in those fond memories that I so desperately longed for.

“Maria…?”

It took me a while to come up with a name.

I parted ways with that name when I was a little older than Leila.

“… Sister Maria?”

Of course, it only took a little while.

But in that short time, Sister Alice had already started running away.

“… Sister, wait a minute!”

Sister Alice already had a sword in her hand.

A sacred sword that shines like silver.

Sister Alice screamed.

“Well done, that face…!”

For a moment.

There was a moment when it almost seemed like Sister Alice had been fired.

In that short time, before I could even raise my body, Sister Alice swung her sword.

“How dare you impersonate Maria in front of me!”

Sister Alice’s scream made the sand between the cracks in the walls tremble.

The trees were shaking and cracking with fearsome anger and spirit.

However, Alice’s sword, which was swung with all of her anger and power, stopped powerlessly.

“…Phalan Aksa, Tideradios…”

“…!”

Stop the muscles, break the will.

Advanced magic that controls both body and mind.

The words of magic flowed out from the figure, which were of a different level of difficulty than Sylvia’s motion-stopping spell, which was only good at knocking down the opponent.

Sister Alice spoke in a weak voice.

“… really?”

And at that moment, Sister Alice’s body flew backwards greatly.

“Pia…!”

“huh!”

I reached out to Sister Alice and called Pia’s name.

Pia mixed wind into the soil to make the ground soft at Alice’s landing point, and soon Alice fell to the ground with a soft sound as if she was being wrapped.

I ran to Sister Alice and supported her body, saying:

“Are you okay, sister?”

“… That’s ridiculous.”

“Sister, Sister Alice. Come to your senses!”

“You… why, you definitely…”

Sister Alice seemed to be in shock and was talking nonsense like a crazy person.

It wasn’t due to trauma.

Thanks to Pia’s spirit magic, she didn’t suffer much of a shock when she fell to the ground, and even if she hadn’t helped, she would have been virtually immune to trauma thanks to her divine power.

I said, forcing Sister Alice to wake up.

“Sister, get up and get ready…!”

“Ash… Maria… Maria…”

“I know, I heard, but Sister Maria is already dead. That’s the enemy. That’s the enemy!”

“But… that magic is definitely…”

That was when.

“That’s too much, Alice.”

“…!”

A low woman’s voice was heard.

To my horror, the voice seemed to come from all around, not just behind me.

It felt as if the sound was being directly embedded in my body.

I gritted my teeth.

This is also magic.

Chlorine magic to communicate with distant opponents.

Sister Alice’s face hardened with even more confusion.

“What would happen if you swung your sword at a friend you haven’t seen in a long time? That’s too heartless.”

“…Maria.”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“… lie.”

“It’s not a lie,”

“You are dead…”

“Me? No, Alice. Did you see me die?”

Certainly Sister Alice did not see Sister Maria die.

She had simply heard the news that Maria had died.

“I’m alive. I’m fine like this.”

“…”

“Thanks to the Demon King.”

＊

Sylvia and the peddler boy stood still near the castle.

There was a deep, wide pit dug around the castle, and from inside the pit was a foul stench so bad that it wouldn’t be strange to vomit at any time.

Sylvia said, frowning.

“This is a secret passage? In that hole?”

“okay,”

“It stinks.”

“That makes sense. Until a few years ago, this was the castle’s moat. The water was filled with sewage from the castle, which was effective in keeping out invaders. In other words, there is a passage in this moat that connects to the hole where the castle’s sewage was dumped, and if you go through that passage, you can enter the castle.”

“Ah, that’s where the shit water was. Somehow.”

“… It sounds like you’ve been to the Demon King’s castle before.”

“I’ve been there before.”

“… As expected… you…”

Sylvia said, covering her nose with the back of her hand.

“Well, what you’re thinking is right.”

“… warrior.”

The boy said with a hollow smile.

“Ha, Lord, I never thought I would help a warrior in my lifetime.”

The boy closed his eyes tightly, sighed, and then very slowly lifted his eyelids.

Her deep and thoughtful eyes, not befitting her age, were quietly shining from under her eyelids.

Sylvia looked at the boy for a moment and then quietly opened her mouth.

“Who are you? The route of infiltration you have chosen is not simply an inconspicuous back door, but a path that requires a thorough understanding of the castle’s interior and lifestyle.”

“… I told you… I’m just a peddler…”

“Even if a peddler were to wander around here and there, he would never have visited the Demon King’s castle.”

“…I already told you that. My father worked in this castle…”

“To the Demon King?”

The boy remained silent and did not respond to Sylvia’s question.

After standing still for a while, he suddenly burst into laughter and slowly turned his head towards Sylvia.

“…Call me Your Majesty. That is rude.”

A completely different tone and atmosphere from just a moment ago, when he had been grumbling a little.

The boy spoke in a tone that was full of authority and status, but at the same time, arrogant enough to be unpleasant.

But Sylvia opened her mouth with an indifferent expression.

“I do not serve your king.”

“It is the law of the demon tribe to bow your head when you know someone’s status. Humans are probably no different.”

The boy slowly raised his head and spoke.

“Bow down! I am the rightful master of this castle and the rightful successor to His Majesty, the ruler of the demon race!”

“I’m not curious.”

“… what?”

“My colleague is a guy who captured and tortured a human prince, and I was going to turn him into a piece of meat to use as food for my husband. If you’re confident, then keep trying.”

“You crazy guys… Okay. Let’s stop this.”

Sylvia asked quietly to the boy who shook his head with a tired expression.

“So you’re helping us? To avenge your father who was unjustly killed while being usurped?”

“Yes… It is extremely humiliating to borrow human hands… But I am powerless right now.”

“If the traitor had not been caught, then the dynasty would have ended. How foolish.”

The boy said angrily.

“A king does not simply take the place of the previous king! A king must win the hearts of his subjects and the people…”

“Were these people you were looking for your servants?”

“… Yes, that’s right.”

“Then you, who were abandoned by your subjects, are unqualified anyway?”

“They didn’t abandon me! There must be some reason behind it…!”

“Oh, I get it, so come down quickly. I don’t want to keep standing in this smelly, unpleasant castle.”

“… Ugh, this humiliation… someday…”

“Stop whining and get down quickly!”

The boy gritted his teeth, sat down on the edge of the pit, and slid down.

In fact, she could have been a little more lenient and even pretended to listen to what he had to say, but Sylvia’s patience was reaching its limit as the unpleasant stench was grating on her nerves.

There was also some annoyance mixed in that the peddler… no, the prince had chosen such a smelly road.

When you return to Ash, shouldn’t you at least wash yourself briefly in the river?

With that thought in mind, Sylvia slowly approached the pit.

Not wanting to sit down in this smelly dirt, Sylvia jumped down the hole in one go.

A more unpleasant stench than before began to fill the air, making my nose hurt.

It felt like a hot wind filled with a foul odor was blowing in.

Sylvia landed on the floor and cursed without realizing it.

“Ugh, shit. No matter how I choose my path, it’s always this fucking path…”

“It’s really bad… It smells like a rotting corpse.”

Certainly the prince was so disgusted by the stench that he decided to tolerate her swearing.

At that moment, Sylvia called the prince in a soft voice.

“… Hey, Prince.”

“…Why are you calling me?”

“Are those the servants you were looking for over there?”

The prince turned his head in the direction Sylvia pointed.

There, countless corpses of demons were piled up so high that they were taller than Sylvia.

“… no.”

“…”

“No! No!”

The prince ran towards the corpse.

Then he knelt on the sloppy, muddy floor and reached out towards the corpses.

“Ah… ah, how come you are here? Who, who brought you here like this…!”

“…”

It was a stupid question.

The demon race is no different from humans.

The corpse cannot answer.

Moreover, all of these corpses were thrown into the castle’s moat.

If you think about who currently resides in this castle, it was a question that could be answered without even needing to be said.

Moreover, the skin of the corpses was engraved with unidentifiable magic spells.

They were magic spells carved into flesh, torn and cut with sharp blades.

“… Ah, ugh,”

The prince slowly reached out and felt the magic etched into the skin of the corpses.

Sylvia asked slowly.

“…Can you tell what the order is?”

“The language is that of the Demons. I can read it. But… I have never seen or heard of this kind of magic.”

“What does it say?”

“…”

The prince slowly opened his mouth, feeling the skin of the corpses with his hands.

“…sacrifice.”

“shit,”

“A sacrifice that imprisons the soul and raises the corpse…”

The prince, who was reading the spell with his fingers while touching the piled up corpses of the demons one by one, soon lowered his head.

He clenched his fists tightly and trembled, slowly grabbing the hands that were sticking out from among the piled up corpses.

And then he spoke in a voice that was soon cracking.

“And after doing this… you still call yourself a king…”

“…”

“How dare you… do something like this…”

Sylvia opened her mouth decisively.

“Where is the passage?”

“…”

“Hey, Prince. Where is the passage?”

The prince woke up.

Then he slowly turned around and said as he passed Sylvia.

“I will guide you…”

“…”

The two walked along the moat, and soon discovered a pit leading to the basement of the castle.

The closer we got to the castle, the worse the stench became.

Sylvia caught the boy trying to enter a dark hole where not a single light entered.

“From here on out, I’ll go alone.”

“… the path will split from the inside.”

“Then tell me where to go.”

“Ha, you still don’t believe me?”

Sylvia nodded and answered.

“Yeah. I don’t believe it. And even if I did, you’d only be a nuisance.”

“I see…”

The boy backed away obediently.

The boy, sighing slowly, spoke softly to Sylvia.

“Promise me.”

“…”

“Promise me you’ll kill that damn lizard.”

Sylvia said with a hollow laugh.

“I don’t make promises to demons.”

“…”

“But kill the Demon King. It has nothing to do with you. This is revenge for my comrades, atonement for myself, and a task that I must fulfill as a warrior.”

“Yeah… I see,”

“And more than anything… it’s what Ash wants. That’s why I crawl through this fucking hole.”

“Ash… you mean that guy?”

“Yes, the reward and the merit are all Ash’s, so if you want to repay him, do it.”

“… i get it.”

The boy sighed again and slowly opened his mouth.

“Listen carefully. As you go inside, you will come across a fork in the road. Ignore it and go straight. When you come across another fork in the road, go left. As you go, you will come across a narrow passage leading upwards. If you climb up it, you will come to a place that used to be a kitchen. That’s because it was a passage where food waste was thrown away.”

“No, why do you always give directions to places like that?”

“The rest leads to the bathroom.”

“… Ah, shit.”

Sylvia spat out a curse.

After briefly reciting the path the boy had described in her head, she slowly entered the hole.

.