As I neared the city, I saw that a crowd had gathered in front of the main gate.
They were all looking towards the plain, spreading all kinds of baseless rumors as they pleased.
Even though I had just co from there, no one paid any attention to .
A group of soldiers passed by .
I saw a beastkin and an elf among them.
The people were pushing and shoving each other, and I almost fell down when I bumped into one of them. Having the feeling that if I fell now, I would never get up again, I desperately tried to stay on my feet.
I walked on.
I moved forward.
A bunch of people passed by .
A red-haired swordsman among them passed by .
A one-eyed adventurer passed by .
A beautiful elf passed by .
I had the feeling I knew them. The sense of déjà vu lasted but a mont, and their backs were no longer familiar to .
I knew this city, this country. Despite my foggy mory, I was certain of that. By the ti a few monts had passed, I beca uncertain and uneasy.
I walked through the familiar city that I didn’t know.
Pain wracked my left shoulder.
When I touched it, I realized that there were crystals sticking out of it for so reason. When I tried to pull one out, intense pain shot through . Maybe it was because I was unable to use one of my arms, but I had difficulty maintaining my balance when walking.
Due to my carelessness, I hurt my left leg. Dragging one leg behind , I moved forward, even if it was slowly, even if only by a little.
There's a place I must go.
It’s under a small bridge.
The place where I t her for the second ti.
This is the one thing that I must never forget. Over and over, again and again, I engraved it in my head.
Many different kinds of people passed by in the city as I walked on slowly.
I passed by a store I knew.
The storekeeper, whom I didn't know, gave a dirty look.
I walked down a street I didn't know.
I didn't know the street, but so part of still rembered the way.
As if drawn to it, I entered a dimly-lit alleyway.
Almost falling, I leaned my body against a nearby wall and continued on, my footsteps scraping against the cobbles.
I moved forward.
I walked down an alleyway I felt I knew………………no, I walked through a city I didn't know at all.
In the alleyway, I saw a group of children playing.
Seeing , they scread and scattered.
I moved forward through the now-deserted back alleys.
In the glass window of an abandoned building, I caught my reflection.
With how terrible I looked, it was no wonder the children ran away.
Tattered clothes, white hair, eerie golden eyes, a horn on my face, wounds and blood all over. I looked worse than a dying vagrant.
「Urgh」
I choked and threw up. What had co up from my throat were clots of blood and bodily fluids. My consciousness flickered.
I pounded the stone wall to keep myself conscious.
I couldn't move my legs.
Resting my weight on the wall, I waited for my legs to recover. From the alleyway, I could see a sliver of a brightly-lit street. It looked like a distant world. A petite, black-haired young girl walked by. I could see her chatting happily with her companions.
They must be a party of greenhorn adventurers.
For so reason. the sight of the girl gave a sense of both relief and sorrow. However, I felt a small surge of energy.
I headed into the darkness. My destination wasn't in the direction of the lights.
Like they were soone else's dreams, my mories spilled out of .
The bonds with various people and visions of them. Like a kaleidoscope, even if I tried to look back, the view would never be the sa again.
It was almost like the phantasmagoria that preceded death.
They disappeared the mont they ca to mind.
They disappeared one after another, and in the end, nothing was left.
All that was left was an empty darkness. A vacant void. A lonely theater where the curtains had fallen and the audience were long gone.
I gave way.
Sothing deep inside told , “Get up,” but I had no reason to.
But however, not having a reason was no reason to not move forward. That was what the small fragnt of the ego I had left told . It felt right to .
Crawling, I moved forward.
Thinking, "If I can't move my legs, I'll use my arms," I dragged myself forward with my right arm, the only arm that still worked decently.
Through the dark alleyway……
Like a beast……
Like an insect……
Oww.
It hurts.
I'm sleepy.
I might as well just forget everything. If I just let go……
「urk」
I bit my tongue.
By inflicting pain, I told myself that I absolutely couldn't do that.
Crawl. Move forward, even if it's by one ter or one centiter.
I have to go there.
I have to go――――――――Huh, where is it that I have to go?
In the few monts I was at a standstill, my broken glasses slid off and dropped to the ground.
Carved into the lenses of the glasses were the words "Head for the bridge. et her." Along with a bout of nausea and a jolt to my brain, I regained a mory and bond that were as fragile as a bubble.
A small fire was lit.
It was far too small, not enough to make my body work sufficiently, but even so, it was like a sun within the lightless darkness.
I can move forward. I know where it is I must go.
Just a little bit further.
I'm almost there.
I don't care how pathetic I look. She won't care about such things.
The final visions passed by .
I saw a dream of an arrow shot from pitch-black darkness.
Risking our lives on the maniacal floor and affirming our bond.
Being whisked away alone to the land of the Myriad Kings, and then being reunited.
A dream of honey and sweetness.
Challenging the dragon, and the end of the festival.
To the forgotten capital.
To a world trapped in delusion.
No matter where I was, I returned to her side.
A tranquil interlude.
A respite from adventuring.
The gods' respite.
Encountering a threat to the world in the City of Ghosts. The vow to go on fighting nevertheless with my party mbers.
A gathering of wolves and dogs.
Those who achieved success and refused to step aside.
Soone naming the King of Beasts.
True to that na, I made a gamble between sword and wheat, and buried a hero.
Seeing the forgotten's story.
The young girl who was driven out of her country.
The queen in the innermost depths of a country plagued with curses.
Reuniting with the most evil great magician in the world.
A promise to a friend.
eting the man she loved.
But what awaited at the end of her choices and adventures was a sordid end.
The enemy's arrival.
The enemy that ca before .
The enemy known as a hero ca.
I couldn't stand him. My reason for fighting was, ultimately, that shallow.
I fought battle upon battle alongside a true hero. I trapped that guy in the fringes of the delusion, and she disappeared into it too.
Ahh, in the end,
These mories too had spilled out.
They had beco aningless splashes on the ground the mont they ca to mind. Never again will I be able to rember them. Never again can I look back at them.
The right arm pulling forward stopped.
I can no longer rember why I have to move it.
But………………I tried to move forward.
I can't rember the reason for moving forward.
My instincts telling , "Even so……," I reached my hand out just a little.
That too ended shortly after.
Everything was gone, leaving just one empty man. I had the feeling that I had lost sothing trendous, but I had also forgotten the sadness and despair of it all at the sa ti.
A man with nothing.
A faceless man who is no one.
My dying body has already stopped trying to stay alive. My blood has drained away, my flesh has turned cold, stiff, and unmoving. Like a lover, death is right there beside .
Dying in a dimly-lit alleyway without anyone noticing. There should be no more emotions(rembrance) within him, but the man smiled.
To face the end with a smile, no matter the circumstances, is a way of defying the irony of fate.
With a faint smile on my face, I closed my eyes.
The light in the sky went far away. Spreading out before was true darkness.
I relaxed and fell asleep.
It was terribly cold and my wounds hurt, but sleepiness engulfed everything.
I'll sleep like a log. I'll sleep, and everything will be forgotten and gone. And that'll be the end.
But,
A single presence is disturbing my sleep. A short scream.
A woman is there. A woman I don't know.
「I'm sorry for startling you」
I couldn't get a good look at her face through my clouded vision.
「If possible―――――」
I don’t have the words to finish the sentence with. A man with nothing has nothing to say.
「Y, you’re badly injured」
Inexplicably, the woman helped up and lent her shoulder to lean on. I wondered what kind of whim had made her dirty her white clothes just to help a man covered in wounds and in worse shape than a tattered rag.
And then, she helped out of the darkness and into the light.It's so bright that I can't see anything.
My wounds hurt and my body is no longer working as it should. I may die on my own anyway. The fact that the woman is there beside and I'm not seeing any dark dreams may very well be the only thing keeping alive.
A man with no mories, no bonds, not a single thing. However, one thing had remained within him.
A fire that soone had left behind, one that would never go out even in the darkness.
『The bonds you’ve lost will never return, but you can always remake them anew』It was nothing more than a few simple words, but those words would continue burning for all eternity.
＜End＞
Take a mont to savor the feels.
Then read this. (Skip the first part and start where Souya's POV starts)
Yeah, dammit, author, what a gut punch. The very last mory Souya held on to before everything spilled away was his first words to Rana… What an amazing way to show the depths of Souya’s love for Rana without saying a single thing about love! And how many of you even realized that it was a recreation of their first eting from that alone?!
Which leads to the words Misuranika gave him in the end. His bonds are forever lost, but he can form the bonds once more. Ohh, that single faint hope burning in the darkness! That’s exactly what the author left us with! Which is the analogy the author used earlier! Why is this author so amazing?!
But man, I was tearing up throughout the entire chapter. The people we all knew he had forgotten passing by him and passing him by… The callbacks to all the arcs were amazing too. The whole slow descent into utter hopelessness and then giving us that final light at the end… The imagery of the woman in white helping him out of the darkness he had been heading into and into the light… Phew, what a ride.
I’ve gone on quite a bit about how I feel, so do let know what you all think of this story overall and the huge climax we’ve just been through. Also, it'd help greatly if you upvote/rate this highly on novelupdates, write a good review sharing how good this story is, and so on! Thank you for getting this far and see you next volu!
*
This is mainly for the readers who unlocked this chapter early.
Thank you so much for your support, it really helps, and I'm glad you're enjoying the story so.
I'm going to take so ti, probably 2 days, to properly re-edit the 1st volu as it's about 3 years old and I think it badly needs so re-working, so the next release will prob be about 3-ish days from now. So it'll be a longer wait than usual, but I thank you for your patience! *edit: by the ti normal readers see this, volu 1 will have been completely re-worked and tidied up!
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