C525
Fuzzy consciousness...
No, not fuzzy. Lucas's consciousness was sharper than ever. The reason why the hungry are sensitive is because their nerves and senses sharpen. The reason why the ancients practiced fasting during meditation is also similar.
The reason for Pale's strength now made sense.
With concentration intensified by hunger, even a single sword strike would grant him billions of times more experience than a normal person.
However, the price to pay was brutal.
Even a Taoist master with considerable mental strength could not experience even a fraction of the pain Lucas was enduring now. This was a level of suffering that one truly would not want to experience.
However, even in the midst of the unbearable onslaught of agony, a part of Lucas's reason remained intact.
That individual reason was assessing the magnitude of the pain inflicted on his body and reflecting on the nature of hunger.
And finally, Lucas's reason came to a conclusion. Or rather, a definition.
Hunger was a 蚕食 (cannibalization).
Like a parasite transmitted through 捕食 (predation), hunger consumed all the elements that made up the person and grew in size.
Reason and morality, consciousness, morals, and ethics...
The difference between a human and a beast lies in the ability to control 本性 (nature). The same goes for the difference between a beast and a monster.
What difference is there between a mother nursing her child with non-existent milk and one who, unable to overcome hunger, eats her child?
Has morality been consumed by hunger? That was the question.
Eating grass mixed with dirt, chewing corpses full of worms, drinking dirty water...
If there was a shred of reason left, such acts would not be committed.
'...That's right.'
Pale had been completely consumed. Everything that composed her at birth had been devoured shortly after. It was inevitable.
Suddenly, Lucas felt like crying.
Out of pity.
He couldn't bear the idea of a girl enduring all this pain alone without knowing anything.
What sin had she committed?
What had she done wrong for a normal girl, no different from others, to have to endure such suffering alone?
No wonder she cursed the world.
It was inevitable that she would vomit blood and curse God.
Lucas wanted to cry. He wanted to shed a single tear for Pale.
But nothing flowed from his already dry sockets.
-----------------------------
"Ahhh, damn it..."
Lucas lay on the ground, covered in blood. His body was riddled with claw marks as if he had been attacked by a beast, and his tangled, crusted hair looked as though it hadn't been combed in months.
Pale watched the man who resembled a beast and bit her lip.
"Why?"
"Ji, ah, aahh..."
Instead of an answer, only a groan came, but she asked again.
"Why?"
"Kuh-kuh, kuh-kuh... ugh, eugh..."
"How can you not eat?"
She clenched her fists tightly.
Pale spoke. She stated that even if Lucas tried to empathize with her pain, even if he artificially created that situation, they were fundamentally different. Inevitably different.
At first, it was a comment she made to mock Lucas.
It was a cynical remark, believing that no matter how much he tried to understand her, in the end, it would all be in vain.
However, the words spoken without thought contained a truth.
It really was like that.
Lucas and Pale were different.
Not only in their ways of facing the situation but also in the circumstances surrounding them.
"There is a way to escape."
Look around you.
There are countless corpses scattered on the ground.
Pale understood perfectly how they would appear to Lucas at this moment.
They would be nothing more than countless pieces of flesh. The smell of rotten flesh from the corpses would undoubtedly be more fragrant than slow-roasted meat, and the blood about to darken would be as juicy as the highest quality meat.
However, Lucas didn't touch the corpses. Even in a state where his sanity seemed about to break or already broken.
He didn't reach out for the "abundant food" surrounding him.
He didn't even glance at them.
...How is that possible?
Pale couldn't.
She ate everything she found around her. She chewed and swallowed things that no one could even imagine, so dirty and repulsive. She felt unbearably disgusting because of how dirty and ugly she was herself.
"Ugh, ah, ah..."
Lucas's voice cracked,
From his parched throat, a sound rougher than the squeal of unoiled metal emerged.
How long has it been?
"...It's been a year already."
When Lucas smiled, Pale considered it bravado. Though she was perplexed, that was all, and her opinion didn't change after that. Because Lucas continued to show such a precarious appearance that it wouldn't be strange if he collapsed at any moment.
However, that thread that seemed about to break at any moment had not yet broken. Like a candle battered by the wind that doesn't go out, Lucas stubbornly persevered in the most precarious situation.
"..."
Pale realized that her heart was beating harder than ever. She didn't know exactly why.
Could it be that I harbor some hope?
Do you really think this man will understand everything and become the King you've been searching for? That trash who has taken the power of the Rulers?
"...Haha."
She laughed.
However, Pale's face was still contorted.
"Don't laugh."
Nausea overwhelmed her. The salvation she had longed for was within reach, but instead of grabbing it, Pale laughed.
Since when?
Someone's compassion plunged her into the abyss. And even more so if it was the man who had taken the power of the Rulers.
What kind of life do you think you've lived?
How do you think the existence I am now was created?
Don't pity me. That moment passed a long time ago.
Now, all the compassion you offer me, I consider it an insult.
Plop.
Pale sat on the ground.
And she spoke to Lucas, who probably wouldn't hear her.
"It's okay. Just for this moment, I'll abandon the name of the Blue Knight."
There was no response from the man who only emitted groans and complaints.
Pale continued speaking abruptly.
"Since I became the Blue Knight, hunger has become much fainter. It hasn't disappeared completely, but it has weakened enough for me to maintain my self."
"Hmph. That's why I couldn't get rid of this miserable title."
"I'll abandon it for a while. The hunger I have accumulated so far will invade me... "
Pale smiled with effort, showing fear on her face. It was a reunion with the "true hunger" that she had ignored for so long.
...I don't want to do this. This is madness.
But still...
Pale reached out and pulled out the sword stuck in the ground. She grabbed the blade with her bare hand and then pressed it.
Crack.
The pale blade, the sword of the Blue Knight, split in two with a hollow sound.
"¡...!
And hunger struck her.
--------------------------------
In the instant she reunited with the pain she hadn't even missed a little, Pale immediately wanted to flee.
Unlike the past, she now had the means to do it.
For Pale, reuniting the broken sword wasn't a difficult task.
But she didn't do it.
"Now, we are equals...!"
Pale also had a means of escape.
In other words, she had put herself on equal footing with Lucas.
Fleeing from here? It would be easy. But she couldn't do it.
Nothing else mattered, but she couldn't lose to this man. She didn't want to lose.
So she would endure. She gritted her teeth until they creaked and resisted, even if it meant dying.
'...'
Hunger pressed on her. Pale writhed in pain. She screamed. She cried. And as she did, she thought.
─Upon reflection, I can bear it.
'Why...?'
The thought that puzzled Pale the most. It was true that the hunger engulfing her was as great and dreadful as she had imagined, even worse. The fact that she herself was groaning on the floor was irrefutable proof of it.
However, she could bear it. For some reason, she could.
Why?
Had she developed a resistance to hunger during her time as the Blue Knight of Famine?
Or maybe, now that she was a Transcendent being, hunger wasn't such a great suffering after all?
No.
It wasn't for such a trivial reason.
There was something more fundamentally different...
─I don't want to lose.
"¡...!"
Pale shuddered.
─I don't want to lose to him.
The inner voice.
Pale's true self, buried beneath her reason.
─No matter who he is, I don't want to lose to this man.
She doesn't want to lose? That might be true.
But it was different. Mere endurance wasn't enough to bear it. Pale knew from her long experience in the past. Hidden deep inside, she heard the sound of her own heart.
─...I'm not alone in this.
As if struck by a hammer, her head turned white.
─I'm not the only one feeling this pain now.
...So that's it.
The sense of kinship Lucas mentioned before.
Pale's declaration that she could only love those who had committed the same original sin.
The feeling Pale was experiencing now was similar, yet completely different.
─That man is feeling it too. I'm not alone.
Lucas and Pale are different.
Their coping methods, and even their situations, were very different.
However, they resembled each other.
The current Pale, because of Lucas's existence, because he was groaning on the ground within her reach─
Splash.
Tears sprang forth.
For a moment, she felt the hunger dissipate.
"...Ah."
Yes.
What she truly desired... what she really wanted wasn't someone with the same original sin. Not even someone with similar wounds.
In those days of agonizing suffering, only one person. Only one person beside her. Selfishly... she wanted that person to experience the same pain as her and acknowledge it.
Looking at Lucas...
"Is this what you sought?"
Pale's voice trembled slightly.
"...Tell me. Did you, Lucas, want to show me this?"
Lucas was still groaning in pain on the ground, but his eyes were clear. Maybe they had always been. Why hadn't I realized it before?
Tremor.
His lips moved. He was probably speaking, but no sound came out. His voice had already faded.
However, Pale could hear his voice just from the movement of his lips.
"I saw a human."
"Where?"
"Now, here."
"..."
Pale forced out the words.
"What was she like?"
"She has messy yet beautiful blue hair."
"..."
"She has a slender face, but her eyebrows arch like those of a mischievous child, and her eyes are as clear as the blue sky. She's probably a little rascal who annoys her parents."
"..."
"She always brings trouble with her, but there will always be people around her. Even if you scold her, she just laughs with a mischievous smile, and it's impossible to stay angry with her for long. She has a face you can't hate."
Lucas said bitterly.
"That's the face you could have had."
"..."
"I'm sorry."
"What?"
"I have no tears left to shed for you."
But a moment later, Lucas smiled weakly.
"It seems you're shedding my tears as well."
The tears hadn't stopped flowing since they started.
There were no sobs, but Pale was crying as if she were drowning in tears.
"I thought you had lost all the elements that composed you."
"That's right. I..."
"You haven't."
"Eh?"
"You gave up the title of Blue Knight. And willingly invoked the hunger you fear the most, something you could have easily ignored. It might have been an irrational act driven by emotion, but... it was admirable."
"Admirable? It was just stupid arrogance."
"In other words, it's your pride. And it's what I value most."
"You... value it?"
"Yes. Because my first step began there."
Lucas stood up. His body, which was once riddled with wounds, had fully healed. He approached Pale slowly in that state.
"Humans have good and bad memories."
He spoke with his now healthy voice.
"But over time, the line between them becomes blurred. Even memories that were horrible and hateful at the time, eventually you can accept them calmly. In a distant future, maybe... you could even come to remember that moment with a smile."
Pale blinked and looked at Lucas.
It was something she had never imagined. Everything he said sounded like nonsense. It was so unreal that her head refused to accept it.
"...And me?"
But the words came out on their own.
"Will I ever have such a day?"
Unknowingly, her voice filled with longing.
"Will I ever reach a moment where I can remember the most painful moment of my life with a bitter smile, as if it was nothing...?”
"I don't know. No one knows."
"..."
"But..."
And he added, continuing the sentence.
"If you can see even a tiny bit of that moment now, if you can even imagine that future..."
Lucas extended his hand without saying more. Despite being rejected several times, he extended it again unfazed.
Perhaps that was the most admirable thing about Lucas. His blue eyes met Pale's.
At that moment, Pale realized one trivial thing.
─Come to think of it, we are at least similar in eye color.
She extended her hand.
And this time, she took the rough hand she had once rejected.
With as much strength as if she never wanted to let go of it again.
Tags:
TGMRA (Novel)