Chapter 217: Escape

Senia watched as the young boy carried the girl away from the center of the battle… She followed behind him.

The boy placed the girl under a withered pine tree and laid her down against its trunk.

“Blood… the bleeding has stopped! So it did have some effect… Hahahaha…”

The magic power he released was so strong that even this dead pine tree sprouted new buds and came back to life…

But even this healing magic, which was almost as miraculous as the Saint of the Theocracy’s ‘Heal’ and ‘Resurrection’, couldn’t close the horrifying wound on the girl’s body.

However, the fact that the bleeding had stopped gave the boy some hope.

He poured his magic power into the healing spell without reservation, until his magic ran dry and began to drain his life force.

“Brother… stop. If you keep this up, you’ll die too.”

The girl’s eyes, which had been unfocused, briefly regained clarity thanks to his efforts.

She blinked, swallowing the blood in her mouth to force out her voice.

“Don’t be ridiculous! You’re not going to die… How could you possibly die like this?”

“The Great Sage taught you… Did everyone forget? If you keep this up…”

“I don’t care about any of that! Don’t talk—the wound on your neck…”

The tears streaming from the boy’s eyes had turned a faint red. This meant his life force was depleting along with his drained magic power.

That kind of behavior brings unparalleled pain to the user’s body—Senia knew this well from her own experience in the escape from the Yaoling Gong Assassin’s pursuit.

And now, this boy, who had been constantly avoiding those grueling training sessions, who would grimace in pain from a single wooden sword blow and cry for the girl to cool and bandage him, had completely forgotten that agony.

The color drained from his face, but his heartbeat pounded like a war drum.

“Brother… it hurts so much…”

The girl’s whisper made his consciousness waver for a moment… The magic power he was continuously pouring into the healing spell was interrupted.

A wave of intense weakness followed, and his vision went black as he collapsed to the ground.

He passed out like that… And everything around him fell into endless darkness.

“Leon…!”

Senia ran toward him. But in this darkness, the distance between them only grew larger.

‘Why did it turn out like this?’

‘Why was I summoned to this world? I’m not a hero at all. I’m just a high school student working a summer job to save up money! Why do I have to do these things? Why do I have to go through this pain?’

‘I never agreed to be summoned by you! Because you pulled me into this world and arbitrarily gave me the title of Hero, I have to risk my life killing demons and saving your world? Just because this power happened to be in me and you can’t take it away, I have to be your Hero?’

‘Why don’t I have the right to refuse? I never asked for this power…!’

Only Senia could hear his crying, his venting. She didn’t get any closer, only stood in the distance and watched the boy sadly.

When the boy woke up again, the air around had somehow become extremely cold, and a few snowflakes were even falling from the sky.

The battle was over. The main force of the demon army that had ambushed them in the pine forest was completely annihilated, corpses littering the ground. Soldiers from the Second Guard Division were cleaning the battlefield as per usual.

They had almost no casualties… And all of this was thanks to the demon-like girl at the center of the battlefield. The sword in her hand had somehow been replaced by a longsword with a blade as beautiful as ice crystals. Nearly half of the demon army soldiers had died under its bone-chilling edge, turning into fragile ice sculptures along with their weapons and armor.

This was true dismemberment. Under Vera’s sword, the powerful body of the demon army general named Ma Er Si was frozen, then cut, chopped… finally turning into a pile of debris before her.

After confirming that he couldn’t be divided any further, Vera charged into the demon army’s formation with her demon sword and began slaughtering. The demon soldiers, panicked by their general’s death, fled in disarray, but Vera didn’t let a single one escape. Under the demon sword’s immense power, the battle turned into a one-sided massacre.

Having finished the massacre, she now slowly walked toward the boy… Her presence was like that of a death god descending, and none of her subordinates dared to approach.

“Ah… Sister.”

Diana was not dead yet. Leaning in the boy’s arms, she looked at her sister and smiled.

“Vera… Where’s Linxi? Hurry and bring her…”

Since waking up, the boy had immediately started casting healing magic again without stopping. Thanks to that, in the few minutes he was unconscious, the magic power he had recovered was nearly drained again—

“The Holy Maiden is not here right now.”

Vera’s voice was colder than her blade. She stood still, staring at her sister’s face, not coming any closer.

She watched her sister say her final goodbyes to the boy… After her sister closed her eyes, she finally walked up to the boy.

“You don’t have the qualifications to be a hero… No, you don’t even have the right to be human.”

The boy, whose tears had dried up, just sat woodenly on the ground, holding the dead girl in his arms.

“Tell me… What have you done? What right do you have to still live in this world?”

The boy said nothing.

“I curse you. I curse you, so vile and cowardly. And I curse this world that needs someone as vile and cowardly as you to save it. I hope you both are destroyed together.”

The boy slowly lifted his head. The demon sword’s blade reflected his empty eyes.

“This is all your fault. If you had never appeared… If you had never existed, it would have been better.”

In that moment, Senia knew that the boy who had smiled innocently at Diana was dead—and from the way he glanced at the demon sword, she quickly guessed his thoughts—

“No!”

She was just an onlooker. Everything before her was the past, unchangeable… But her intense emotions in that moment overwhelmed rational thought.

She ran over and hugged the helpless boy tightly.

“Don’t do this! You don’t need to make that choice! This is not your sin!”

“Just as you said… You’re just an ordinary person! No one has the right to force you to bear such a heavy, painful duty!”

“You’re a child… An ordinary child who laughs with joy and cries with pain! If it’s unbearable right now, then just run far away!”

“Only actively choosing death is an unforgivable escape… You have to live… Live well! Laugh from the heart, hate from the heart, and then when you finally let go, laugh from the heart again!”

The boy in her arms widened his eyes… In the cold that seemed to freeze his soul, a warmth suddenly arose. Then it expanded, flowed, and took the form of a tangible humanoid figure.

He felt someone holding him.

“Thank you, Senia.”

The boy broke into a smile through his tears… And then his form shattered and scattered, and a girl with long black hair tied into a high ponytail appeared in Senia’s arms.

“So that voice I heard that day… It was you.”