Confusion (2) The Hero’s Miracle
“Temarr, where are you looking?”
“……”
“Are you out of your mind?”
A sarcastic tone.
A tone so light it seemed about to fly away.
A familiar tone, yet a voice that sounded terribly unfamiliar awakened Temarr’s consciousness.
Temarr’s reddish-brown eyes scrutinized the person before him in meticulous detail to an obsessive degree.
Blonde hair bleached pure white by the sun.
A face with all its baby fat gone and a height that had shot up.
But the deep amber eyes remained the same.
“……”
“Why are you looking so obsessively?”
The habit of smiling with gently closed eyes, the smile lingering at his lips even felt businesslike.
It was Ruman, who had an appearance far too beautiful to be called a Hero.
“Your age is…”
Temarr, who had started to speak, pressed his temple as if having a headache.
“Why?”
“…Never mind.”
“Pull yourself together. You need to escort the Princess well. You’ve already disappointed your younger brother.”
“Escort?”
“That’s strange. Temarr. Are you sick somewhere?”
“…No.”
For some reason, Ruman felt unfamiliar.
It was strange.
That a comrade he’d always been with felt unfamiliar.
Ruman, showing an annoyed air, tapped Temarr’s shoulder with his fist telling him to pull himself together, then returned to where the campfire was.
It was a campsite.
The campfire blazed, illuminating the faces of those sitting around it.
The face of a girl with purple eyes and hair, Ren’s face, and the face of a smiling man…
That girl is Coco?
Why is Ren here?
The two were dozing.
He definitely seemed to have heard voices.
But somehow that man bothered him.
Temarr approached to wake Ren, but…
Ruman grabbed Temarr’s hand.
Without the dozing girl and boy knowing, Temarr’s hand had gripped the throat of the smiling man with a long scar on his face.
“Temarr! Are you crazy?!”
“Ah.”
“‘Ah?’ ‘Ah’?! Are you insane?”
“Keuheok… keok…”
“……”
“Temarr. If you don’t want to wake your younger brother, let go. You haven’t forgotten what Ren said, right?”
Ren’s words that he’d hate it if he wasn’t an honorable Hero suddenly came to mind.
When did he hear that?
As strength left Temarr’s hand, Ruman kicked him away and supported the man. Though he only stumbled back a few steps.
Exhaling rough breaths, the man shook his head as if trying to regain consciousness. Ruman patted his back. A halo of light flew from his fingertips and seeped into the man. The man’s breathing seemed calmer than before as he looked at Temarr with a pale face. With a startled, fearful expression.
“Are you alright? Hey. Del Belkerman-ssi.”
“He’s irritating.”
“What?”
“What did I say?”
Temarr muttered blankly.
“Why don’t you go to the stream and wash your head or something?”
Ruman made a disgusted face. His golden eyes examined Temarr suspiciously.
But Temarr only felt wronged.
It didn’t seem like he had said it.
His mouth moved on its own.
“Let’s kill him.”
A strong light momentarily appeared in Temarr’s left hand.
“Temarr.”
That man, that man lifted his disgusting lips and smiled. As if the dying breaths he’d been exhaling were an act. And he rolled his eyes to capture Ren sleeping leaning against each other like a puppy.
I should pluck out his eyes…
“Are you crazy?”
As if in response, light condensed in Ruman’s hand too. The intensely bright light would swallow Temarr without hesitation at any moment.
Only after seeing that light could Temarr barely close his mouth.
What is this?
Why is this happening?
Am I dreaming now?
The sensations were too vivid for that. The tingling sensation of nerves wasn’t a dream.
Temarr forgot what he was doing. He just acted as he was moved to act.
He stopped thinking too.
While eating, while talking to Ren, Temarr only repeated the thought that Ren had grown quite a bit.
Ren and Princess Coco entered the carriage. The murmuring voices flowed out pleasantly.
Of all things, it’s a cliff.
Temarr had that thought casually.
Back then, □□□ also died at a cliff, didn’t they?
But now it’s so peaceful.
As they traveled the road, the carriage wheel seemed caught on something and wouldn’t move. Looking down, a protruding rock had exquisitely blocked the carriage wheel. It was stuck so tight they’d have to lift the carriage entirely.
Temarr and Ruman had to dismount from their horses to move the carriage.
“Let’s not get down.”
Those weren’t words Temarr said. His lips created words on their own.
But Ruman’s ears didn’t seem to hear Temarr’s voice.
Temarr also didn’t understand why he said that.
And he too dutifully followed Ruman off his horse and stepped on the ground.
At that moment, the carriage exploded.
Masked figures appearing on the cliff.
Rising into the sky along with carriage fragments… the limbs of two people. Why? How is it possible?
Was it shock?
Or a premonition about something that should have happened at some point finally happening?
Perhaps it was a predetermined sequence.
Bodies breaking down after being used up. One year after leaving the battlefield.
Nevertheless, the implicit arrogance that who would dare oppose Heroes might have driven them here.
So futilely…
Even though they knew that Heroes could die too.
Ruman and Temarr’s gazes intertwined in midair.
Blood spurting in all directions like a fountain, soaking their entire bodies.
Even with life hanging by a thread, what they saw was Ren throwing his body off the cliff.
Temarr couldn’t even speak. With blood-soaked vision, barely tracing Ren’s back, his younger brother’s expression, his falling position was the best he could do.
He couldn’t even save Ren.
How could they survive with severed limbs?
That was impossible even for Heroes.
They didn’t know how much more favor the ‘Hero’s Miracle’ would bestow upon them.
No, curses.
Just bestowed upon them, Heroes couldn’t refuse.
A face resembling an evil spirit poked out from smoke like black clouds.
“Hahahaha! I secretly swiped it and the effect is really amazing. I’m getting goosebumps. To think it would actually work. For great Heroes to end up like this.”
A leisurely voice seemed to lick the ears of the dying Heroes like a snake.
Del Belkerman’s face, having removed his gentle mask, revealed a face familiar to the Heroes.
The face of one stained with murder and blood, driven by red madness.
It was the face of the one whose throat Temarr had gripped.
He licked his own lips with his bright red tongue and looked mockingly at the Heroes left with only torsos and necks. Ecstasy appeared in his cruel eyes.
“Haaa, they said Heroes without their authority are like weak beasts. It’s true. Kekeke.”
Hahaha! Del Belkerman, who had bent his waist laughing, made an affable smile.
“Captain.”
“Captain.”
“The Princess…”
“Never mind. I’ll go after her.”
“Do you think she died?”
“No way. Didn’t you see that man jump after her? Anyway.”
Del Belkerman rubbed the scar crossing his face.
“I don’t know why they struggle when they’re going to die anyway. Keke.”
“What should we do with the corpses?”
Del Belkerman’s subordinate glanced at the Heroes.
He had a dazed face as if unable to believe the Heroes’ death was imminent.
“Let’s just throw them somewhere. Hmm. I wished one had survived. What does the younger brother know?”
“He seems to know nothing.”
“Still, he’ll have enough use value. If he doesn’t know about those two’s deaths.”
Del Belkerman smiled, baring his teeth.
“Then, shall we go hunting? Clean up the aftermath. We need to erase the bloodstains. There’s too much blood to say it’s from injured people.”
Del Belkerman, who lightly dabbed his finger in the Heroes’ blood pooled on the ground and licked it stickily, threw his body off the cliff.
Temarr and Ruman’s bodies could no longer function properly.
Pain like an axe severing their core intertwined with slowed heartbeats. Terrible pain ran along their limbs as if to burn all the microscopic cells in their entire bodies. Their vision blurred and was finally consumed by darkness. It was pain as if consumed by flames.
What remained last was only hearing and pain.
Ah, should thoughts be included too?
Temarr thought blankly.
Heroes die like this?
It’s not a particularly glorious death befitting the name.
The pain of having their entire bodies severed was a first for them too.
There had been times when a sword pierced deep through their abdomen, when deep stab wounds formed on their backs.
But there was no pain severe enough to sever thought.
Nothing melted into Temarr’s memory as much as now.
Darkness and pain.
That was all.
They probably would have met their end just like that.
If one name and face hadn’t come to mind.
If they hadn’t recalled the death they absolutely didn’t want to face.
“That kid. Was pretty.”
“The girl?”
“No. Hehe.”
“Fucking into sodomy.”
“If it’s that much… you could too, right?”
Del Belkerman’s subordinates removed their masks and giggled.
After the lewd talk came discussion of the boy and girl’s treatment.
Violation was a predetermined sequence. What followed was how long they’d be used before dying miserably.
In bodies already dead and broken, thoughts flowed slower than a miracle a hundred million light-years away. Boy? Who? Ren? Who is Ren?
Use?
Their end?
“Their end is obvious. Keke.”
Those making hand gestures roared with laughter.
While covering the blood abundantly soaking the ground and flowing down the cliff with dirt, covering it again and again.
Temarr didn’t remember well.
What sorcery it was.
The pain racing through his entire body doubled, and with the feeling of all his body parts, blood vessels, and cells being pulled out, he was standing on the ground.
Arms and legs scattered in the air and crushed on the ground began awkwardly reattaching, and the blood that had been reddening the dirt as if foretelling death crawled into their bodies like insects. White light of brilliance caused the Hero’s Miracle at the last moment of death.
Temarr, who felt the energy ferociously wrapping around his body and slaughtered them explosively, soon threw his body off the cliff. The crushing consciousness as if having overcome billions of years seemed to have already swallowed all of the human called Temarr.
The terror of those faced in brightened vision.
Temarr slaughtered them.
He threw his body off the cliff, severed Del Belkerman’s head in one strike, until Ruman left holding Ren.
Temarr had even forgotten the fact that someone was beside him.
What he vaguely remembers is just…
