Chapter 58
‘Why on earth?’
After an explosion loud enough to burst her eardrums, an unimaginable blast of wind swept through the area. As Prea stared at the sight of the snow-white field stripped bare, exposing the brown earth beneath, she asked herself that question.
R-r-r-rumble……
As Prea took a trembling step toward it, memories of her long-buried past came back to her.
How had she ended up here?
It had all begun when she felt jealous of Yubel, her fellow member of the Hero’s party.
As a child, Prea had lost her hometown to the Black Knight overnight and wound up an orphan. After that, there had been no room for dreams or hope.
An ordinary orphan’s life, with no family, relatives, or friends to guide her.
That was Prea in the past, and it was Prea now, too.
And there had been countless other Preas in that orphanage.
Children whose spirits had died.
The orphanage was full of people, but it was just as full of a hollow loneliness.
It was hard to breathe.
But once she’d grown used to life in the orphanage, the kingdom’s support brought her something called a ‘novel.’
It was filled with stories of love, friendship, and freedom.
Prea’s eyes had sparkled. Thanks to those stories, she’d begun to yearn for something again, just like any girl in the prime of her youth. She wanted to become the heroine of a story like those.
At last, she had something she wanted.
She had something she wanted to become.
But reality was cruel.
As she grew up, more and more people approached her because of her looks. After she became a Saint, countless others coveted her status.
And so, Prea could have neither love nor friendship nor freedom.
She couldn’t achieve a single one of them.
Once again, the light began to fade from her eyes.
That was when she met the Hero.
Unlike other men, the Hero didn’t approach Prea because of her looks, nor did he send her greedy glances because she was a Saint.
He looked at her for who she was inside.
He didn’t see her as a pretty-faced trophy or a golden ticket to a secure future through marriage. He faced Prea herself, just as she was.
It was only natural that she fell in love with him.
And it was only natural that she clung to him, following that dependable back without hesitation as she set out in search of freedom and love……
That was why.
That was why she’d come to harbor such a wicked feeling.
She hated how Yubel treated people like fools.
It hadn’t always been that way.
It began when Yubel confessed that she and the Hero were lovers. Then she openly flaunted her affection, as if to mock Prea for not being chosen. And then there was the time she threatened Prea not to talk to the Hero.
And finally, the moment Yubel said rabbits died when they were lonely and made that ridiculous pass at her.
Those moments had piled up, until one day she found herself feeling anger and jealousy toward Yubel herself.
Yubel was freer than anyone, and more loved than anyone, yet she mocked Prea as she longed for freedom and love. Prea had wanted to get back at her.
So she decided to play a ‘little prank.’
A little prank.
It was a phrase that made the whole thing seem harmless.
A magical phrase that meant something even a Saint could do once in a while—something that could easily happen between companions.
Clinging to those words, she lured her companion away, withdrew her blessing, and prayed to the goddess to forgive her.
At last, Prea
came face to face with the result.
In a form she hadn’t wished for.
Whoooooosh—!!
“L-Lady Yubel…… Where, where are you……?”
A crater gouged deep into the earth, as if a meteor had fallen.
Down in the crater, she dug at the dirt, unaware that her fingernails were breaking.
Dig, dig……
Pebbles and splinters of wood lodged beneath her fingernails.
But she felt no pain.
The pain inside her drowned it out.
And the divine power overflowing within her healed her wounds.
Prea was healthier than ever, yet, paradoxically, she was also in more pain than ever.
She hadn’t known this would happen. This wasn’t what she wanted. The more excuses like those flashed through her mind, the more she felt as though she were dying.
“Ha, haha……. P-Please don’t tease me. You’re hiding like you always do to get me worked up, right? R-Right? Aren’t you?”
Prea’s throat bobbed.
Her throat was tight, her vision blurred, her ears ringing.
It was hard to understand what she was doing.
Or perhaps it was that she didn’t want to understand.
If what she was imagining was really, truly true……
No more.
Because she probably wouldn’t have the courage to go on living.
Prea dug at the earth. Tears ran down her cheeks, darkening the dirt beneath her.
And had the goddess been watching over her? Prea found something.
The more she dug, the more a bunny headband emerged from the ground.
She frantically dug it out. She endured the pain in her hands. If Yubel was alive—even if she was only breathing—Prea could save her. Healing was the one thing Prea could do. She could share her divine power.
So she dug and dug.
She really…… dug as hard as she could……
“Why…… Why on earth……?”
Nothing else came out.
The headband was worn down, its lifespan finally spent.
She stared at it for a long time, and her stomach lurched.
It felt as though stomach acid were rising in her throat.
She fought it down and grasped the headband with trembling hands.
Prea remembered the last thing Yubel had said.
“Yeah, we’re a Hero’s party. We should all get along with our fellow party members.”
She had told her they should get along.
She had called someone like her a companion.
“If you feel like it, you can drop the formalities, too. We’ll be together for a long time, so let’s joke around.”
She had been considerate of Prea’s discomfort.
She’d wanted to have fun joking around with someone as boring as her.
There hadn’t been a trace of insincerity in the faint smile she’d worn as she said it.
And then……
“We’re friends, right?”
Friends.
Surely…… Probably. Definitely.
“Friends……?”
That was what Yubel had said.
She had called her a friend.
She’d been so dazed at the time that she hadn’t properly heard it. But now that she thought back, Yubel had definitely, definitely said that.
It was the word for the ‘friendship’ Prea had wanted, but had pushed aside somewhere along the way, buried beneath her longing for love and freedom.
Yubel had said it.
Why had she forgotten?
The first thing she’d ever wanted, as someone who’d always been alone, was friendship—a bond where she could laugh easily and share affection with someone. Why had she only remembered that now? Why on earth?
Prea kept asking herself those questions.
But no answers came.
“Aha, haha, ahahaha……! Ahahahahaha!!!”
Only after losing it did Prea realize.
What she’d truly wanted had already been hers.
And that she’d let it slip from her own hands.
She’d realized it too late, when there was no turning back.
I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry. I ruined everything.
Those words, meant only to ease her own heart, rose in her throat. But there was no one left to hear them.
Prea thought:
If only she could just……
Disappear—
“PREA!!!!”
“Y-Yes?”
A booming voice called Prea’s name.
Se-on had somehow made it to her side and was gripping her shoulders.
Seeing him, Prea couldn’t hide her guilt.
What would the Hero do to someone like her—a villain who had driven the Hero’s lover to her death?
She couldn’t blame the Hero if he executed her on the spot.
“Lord Se-on, Lord Se-on. Lady Yubel is like this because of me…… No, I should die right now to atone for it—”
“Calm down. I’ll ask you what happened later. Just follow me for now.”
The anger in Se-on’s voice was unmistakable.
She could feel the anger he was holding back in every word.
“F-Follow you……? W-What do you mean……?”
“I can tell. I can faintly sense where Yubel is right now. Just like back in the Holy Kingdom. She’s still alive, up there on the snowy mountain.”
……Alive? Lady Yubel was?
Hearing that, Prea stared blankly, her mouth hanging open like someone whose soul had left her body.
She simply couldn’t believe it. She didn’t know if such a miraculous thing could happen in this world, or if she was even allowed to feel such relief.
When she looked into Se-on’s eyes, Prea felt reassured.
That was the unmistakable truth.
Which meant it was true: Yubel was alive.
“Ha, haha……. Thank you, truly. Thank you so much……”
Prea prayed to the heavens.
She prayed desperately that Yubel would be safe up there.
If anything at all had happened to Yubel, Prea…… she didn’t think she could bear it.
Not at all.
***
“Hey! Wh-What happened? Were you married before?”
[Silence! ……I’m confused, too.]
Earlier, the Ice Witch had said, ‘Please wait a moment,’ and left the room, giving me a chance to chatter like this.
After a long stretch of pensive silence, thirty minutes passed—feeling longer than usual.
At last, the parasite spoke, as if it had just remembered something.
[I remember now.]
“What is it? Hurry up and tell me.”
[A little over a hundred years ago……]
“Just summarize it.”
[I found a child dying all alone and took her in. I raised her out of curiosity.]
Apparently, the parasite had come across the Ice Witch, who was being ostracized by the Snow Women and was dying all alone, and adopted her as its own child.
But it was so long ago that the parasite had forgotten all about it.
The reason it had taken her in was simple: it had been fun.
I couldn’t understand that at all.
So you adopted a child for fun.
And now I’ve somehow become the mother of one of the Four Heavenly Kings. That’s kind of amazing.
“Haa, why on earth?”
[When you live long enough, there are all sorts of things you want to try at least once.]
Oh, I see.
But why are you still a virgin?
……I probably shouldn’t ask that, should I?
Anyway, this was an emergency.
I’d run into the Ice Witch I’d wanted to avoid, and now she was calling me her mother…… Even if the Hero’s party made it here, this would be a thorny situation.
In the end, the best solution was for me to take her down by myself……
“Hey, honestly, shouldn’t someone like me be able to take her on?”
I might be short on magic without the Hero here, but the training I’d done so far hadn’t gone to waste.
I might have a chance against the weakest of the Four Heavenly Kings.
[That’s impossible.]
Uh, well……. You answered pretty fast.
I was rather taken aback.
As if it didn’t care about keeping up appearances as the Demon King, the parasite began explaining the harsh reality without hesitation.
[That child and we are a poor match. The biggest problem is that ‘Synchronization’ is useless now. If we’re frozen solid, we won’t feel pain or anything else.]
Synchronization.
I remembered the parasite explaining it before.
Wasn’t it some kind of ability that unified our senses?
[If that were the only problem, we might somehow manage. But according to my measurements, that Snow Woman’s abilities have far surpassed the standards I knew. Have you realized how we ended up here?]
“I-I’m not sure……?”
[I saw it. Space itself froze, forcibly summoning us here. We must have stepped into that child’s sensory domain.]
Then the Demon King continued her explanation.
That Snow Woman wasn’t an Ice Witch anymore. She’d been reborn as the ‘Witch of Extreme Cold.’
The difference between the two came down to whether they’d gained the insight to freeze concepts themselves.
After hearing that, I sat there, stunned for a while.
Who would’ve thought the weakest of the Four Heavenly Kings had the greatest potential?
This was a very difficult situation.
“Still, she doesn’t seem like she wants to hurt me. If I let my guard down and lure her in, maybe I could win—”
Bang!
“Mom, I’m back.”
“Oh, you’re back, Glay, As.”
Glayias had changed into an ice-blue dress.
She’d probably wanted to greet her mother looking as pretty as possible.
Seeing her like that, I thought she looked like a delicate girl who’d missed her mother.
Even with that sulky expression of hers.
“Please call me by a nickname, not my name.”
A nickname?
I was flustered.
There was no way I’d know anything like that.
Fortunately, the parasite’s voice came right away.
[Hobo.]
“Right…… Bo.”
“Yes, Mother.”
Suddenly, there seemed to be a distinctly homespun smell in the air.
Now that she’d been called by her nickname, Bo opened the cage door and slowly approached me. Her sculpted, beautiful face drew closer.
Then Bo spoke to me in a quiet voice.
“I won’t let you get away again.”
At the same time, my view dropped sharply.
The beautiful face that had filled my vision was replaced by a tiny belly button.
I hadn’t sat down.
My legs had been cut off.
Without any warning.
“Stay here with me forever…… Mother♡”
In Glayias’s arms, I broke out in a frantic cold sweat.
Where my knees should have been, I felt a cold draft and an indescribable emptiness.
This situation…… had become very difficult.