"Man only becos truly human when, feeling alien to the world, estranged from everything, questioning everything, even asking the morning sun ’why’, lost among endless ’whys’, he realizes in that terrifying and magnificent mont, amid all this aninglessness, that he must create his own aning.
– Albus Camus"
One week, the academy is closed.
Today is day two.
The atmosphere is so bad that if anyone made a wrong move, everyone else would kill them.
The academy’s investigation is still ongoing.
But right now, there are things more important than the investigation.
The bodies have been collected.
Everyone is wearing sothing resembling a military uniform, and we all stand perfectly straight in front of the graves.
The gravediggers lowered the bodies into the pits.
Students are crying.
As the saintess, Maria stands at the very front, in front of all the students.
Even she couldn’t speak, and though she has no wounds on her body, sotis the wounds in the heart are the worst.
Director Stella stood beside Saint Maria.
"What happened today is one of the worst events in our academy’s history. They didn’t die. They beca fertilizer for the rise of the community. Never forget: don’t just call the ground you walk on ’soil’ and move on. Think of the thousands lying beneath it. Those who gave their blood to the very end against the demon god worshippers are heroes. NOW SALUTE!"
Everyone stood perfectly straight and slamd their right fists over their hearts.
Tears fell from so.
"Now Saint Maria will send off the martyrs on their final journey," she said and stepped back to where everyone else was.
Saint Maria looked like she couldn’t speak: "E-everyone who contributed to the fight against the demon god here should know this: we, the living, are the ones who lost. These people faced beings cursed by God on God’s path and died. Right now they are tasting the most beautiful blessings in heaven...
So don’t mourn them, because the dead didn’t lose. We, the living, are forced to carry our pain on our shoulders, but they will be at eternal rest."
A few tears fell from Saint Maria’s eyes...
Then she turned, took soil from the ground, and threw it into a pit.
She looked at the gravediggers and nodded.
After the bodies were buried, Saint Maria ca to stand with us students, like everyone else.
I feel like shit.
It wasn’t just people who died here.
It was dreams...
Every person has a dream. A person can die for that dream.
A person without a dream is nothing but an empty box.
No matter how old they get, if that dream remains unfulfilled, it stays as a regret inside.
Our dreams are what push us forward.
So people give up their own dreams for the dreams of others.
Like logs used to light a campfire.
I bow my head; I can’t look at the graves.
I was the only one who visited Mrs. Miller’s funeral. Those days co back to .
People around are talking, but I’m lost inside myself.
’Raul, snap out of it,’ Gabriel said.
I couldn’t speak, as if I had eaten the apple.
When I lifted my head, only a few people remained with : Artemis, Victoria, and Saint Maria.
"Did you like what you did?" Saint Maria said and punched in the chest.
Artemis growled at Saint Maria like a feral dog: "What do you know, saintess, if it weren’t for and Raul, you’d be minced at right now."
"Calm down, don’t fight in an atmosphere like this. Even if no one else is here, show respect to the dead," Victoria said.
She spoke rationally: "No wonder Hans doesn’t love you, Victoria, you’re devoid of human emotion."
But because they didn’t expect it, I gave the dead my final gift.
A golden divine light enveloped everything around us.
Even the saintess was witnessing a phenonon like this for the first ti.
I knelt before the dead, no matter how proud I am.
This divine light covered the entire cetery; no one in the academy could do this.
Not even the saintess.
"Confutatis maledictis,
flammis acribus addictis,
voca cum benedictis.
Oro supplex et acclinis,
cor contritum quasi cinis,
gere curam i finis."
("When the accused are confounded and dood to flas of woe, call among the blessed. I kneel with a submissive heart, my contrition is like ashes, help in my final condition.")
I can feel the souls of the dead rising to the sky.
I am proud, but never arrogant.
When I’m wrong, I admit it. I am guilty.
I felt a touch on both my shoulders.
"Raul, let’s go," Victoria and Artemis said.
Saint Maria looked completely shocked.
Because the entire academy city had just witnessed a phenonon: golden divine light rising to the sky, then light particles falling like snowflakes, filling the academy city.
I don’t even know how I got back to the mansion.
All I did was sit on the roof of the mansion watching the sunset, and the phenonon I created was making quite a noise.
This is the result of my sincere feelings and my true respect for God.
Everything soone as strong as does affects causality to a certain extent.
This phenonon will stay here all day.
Artemis has been cheerfully avoiding lately.
I was starting to think she might be the one who betrayed .
I have a list of those who could betray .
-Hel
-Fenrir
-Artemis
These three are on my list.
I’m not sure about Victoria, but those whom I put in the list have a 60% higher chance of betrayal.
The people who truly know my identity.
There’s the question of what I’ll do to the one who betrays ...
I don’t know what I should do, but the one thing I know is that my heart is broken.
"You’re a failure. I wish I’d aborted you instead of giving birth to you." I hear my mother’s voice from the old world.
She’s sitting beside , and that disgusting sll still feels like it’s on her.
"Yes, I’m a failure. As a human, I’m the perfect representation of absolute failure," I say.
From the outside, it would look like I’m talking to the air.
My mother’s voice sounded angrier: "Well, you did all those disgusting things, if I were God, I’d welco you as VIP in hell."
"For you it should’ve been ga VIP then bitch" I said and lit a cigarette.
But my mother laughed: "Son like mother, I’m a failure too, but at least I have pride."
"Yeah, you showed that pretty well with prostitution, congratulations."
"Yes, but even a whore keeps living, no matter how hopeless life is, doesn’t give up like you. We have dreams too. People who’ve seen the cruelty of the world know this."
But I feel sothing coming at my head and stop it.
I caught a foot.
To be specific, Gabriel’s foot: "You were talking to the air, no matter how much I called you didn’t respond, so this thod ca to mind."
"So, shock therapy," I said
Gabriel grinned and sat beside .
I took another drag from my cigarette: "Still, Gabriel, even though you’re a pigeon, your heart is good, I guess."
"I want to push you off the roof," Gabriel said, looking at .
I smirked: "That wouldn’t change anything, but the feeling is mutual."
"Why are you avoiding Artemis?" Gabriel asked.
"because even the possibility that Artemis betrayed scares ..." I said
True, I’m scared of that possibility: "You’re quite emotional..." she said.
"For a granny like you, you’re pretty sweet-tongued," I said
"Go die sowhere," I can tell Gabriel is angry even without looking at her.
"There’s no death for ."
This day feels like a day of mourning, too.
A man who knows the consequences of his own actions better than anyone lit a cigarette for himself.
On a day like this, the man wondered, if he died, would anyone visit his grave?
If he died, who would care?
But the man already knows the answers, yet sotis facing the truths we already know is the hardest thing.
In monts like this, people lie to themselves.
That man was Raul.
That day, the academy echoed, but no one heard those sounds.
They were the silent screams of a man deceiving himself, the things that filled this damned place.
In the academy city, every person was like this, hiding their true feelings and hurting their heart.
They are those who face or don’t face their own pain, and those who run from it.
Everyone has pain, everyone has troubles.
But facing those pains is an act of courage.
But the world is not gonna wait for you.
Still making you feel the harsh reality, but you have to live.
A wise man once said, "In autumn, man has a good reason to keep living: knowing that winter is coming."
Raul understood that sotis living takes more courage than dying.
And Raul doesn’t run away from the challenge.....
(Don’t forget to comnt and send a power stone or gifts.)
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