He had not forgotten what had started this relationship. He couldn’t afford to forget. If he forgot even that, he had a feeling something truly terrible would happen. What exactly that something was, he couldn’t say even to himself.
Ranok steadied the turmoil stirring inside him and opened his mouth.
“So — what are you going to do now?”
“I have to go.”
Casioth, having settled everything, said it plainly.
“To the Emperor.”
It was the very words Ranok had been waiting for. For a very, very long time.
So he should have been glad — and yet, for some reason, in that moment, Ranok found he couldn’t quite feel glad. Why that was, he couldn’t say either.
The two of them set off straight for the capital of the Empire that very day.
To where the Emperor was. To where Casioth had been ordered to subjugate the Demon King.
Sometimes on horseback, sometimes on foot, sometimes hitching rides on carriages.
If Ranok had put his mind to it, he could have brought Casioth to the Imperial Palace in an instant — but he didn’t do that.
Because to outward appearances, Ranok was nothing more than an unremarkable rural Priest and a hopeless one at that, and it was impossible for someone like that to possess such power.
Not only could he not explain it to Casioth — more than that, the truth was he simply didn’t want to.
Because he liked that time. Because he wanted it to last a little longer.
By the time he’d reached that thought, Ranok laughed despite himself.
Why is there so much you don’t want to do, Ranok. Why do you keep moving the way your heart pulls you? And yet you don’t even know where that heart is going? Do you?
This isn’t the time for you to be like this.
Even as he thought that, Ranok shared that slow, unhurried journey with Casioth.
Ranok didn’t rush.
As if enjoying a trip, they encountered all manner of incidents and accidents — sometimes Ranok saved Casioth, sometimes he teased him, sometimes he made a fool of him, then smoothed things over when he sulked, accumulating all kinds of experiences together.
It was a happy time.
By the time he found himself recalling emotions he had forgotten over the long years of his life, they were finally standing before the Emperor.
The Emperor was pleased to learn there were survivors among the Hero’s party who had returned after so long — but he was devastated by the news that everyone except Casioth had died.
“I will.”
And there, before him, Casioth delivered a declaration he had never once let Ranok in on.
“I will destroy the Demon King.”
Ranok, standing behind him, opened his eyes wide.
— What?
Mas, watching alongside him, let out a cry of shock on Ranok’s behalf.
Ranok could only stare at Casioth’s back, while the Emperor’s face lit up with joy.
“Oh, do you mean that!”
“If you promise me your support, I will gather new comrades.”
“Of course I’ll support you, absolutely!”
Of course he would. Children were still being kidnapped, the people were unsettled, and the Heroes had failed to return — the Emperor and the nobles had been at their wits’ end. Into that situation comes someone willingly offering to wade through the filth and suffer through the hard work himself, and on top of that, a young swordsman who had already proven his abilities. When it was practically a gift handed to them on a platter, what was a little support?
Watching these people rejoice at the prospect of throwing this young boy into the mud, Ranok felt the fierce loathing for humans that he had been pressing down throughout his time with Casioth begin to creep back up.
But that wasn’t the immediate problem.
Ranok looked at Casioth’s back.
The solid, steady back of a young man who had, without him noticing, grown close to adulthood.
The sore spot he had chosen, in the end, to stand against him.
“Why did you do it?”
That night, Casioth answered Ranok’s question like this.
“It was my mother’s dying wish. To become a Hero.”
“……”
“You’ve taught me enough to know — I’m hopeless at everything except using a sword.”
Casioth wasn’t exactly a good student, to put it generously.
Still, hopeless was going a bit far.
Ranok, who had nearly reflexively jumped to his defense without thinking, swallowed the words back.
It was only at that point that he finally realized just how terribly vulnerable he had become to the human standing in front of him.
A sore spot, he thought — a human, my sore spot. He almost laughed at the absurdity of it. To think I’ve gone this soft.
Soft enough that he wasn’t even angry at the person who had dropped something so casually, stirred things up without so much as consulting him, and rendered an entire year of his time completely pointless.
“If there’s a way I can become a Hero, this is the only path.”
“……”
“I’m sorry for not telling you sooner. I thought if I did, you’d try to stop me.”
Facing that frank, unflinching expression, there wasn’t much Ranok could say.
“I know I’ve already received more than enough from you…… Ranok, would you stay by my side just a little longer? Until I defeat the Demon King.”
Until I become a Hero.
Because of Casioth — who didn’t doubt him, a demon, for even a moment, and believed that Ranok would be by his side on the day he defeated the Demon King — Ranok was, for the first time in a very long while, left without words.
“And when I’m truly a Hero…… there’s something I want to say to Ranok.”
Casioth, broaching the subject, looked somehow just a little shy.
“……What is it.”
Ranok managed a reply only after a long pause. Even to his own ears, the voice that scraped out of his throat sounded terribly rough.
“Not yet. I’ll say it when that day comes.”
What could Ranok say to that.
Ranok squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them.
Should I have killed you that day instead. If I had just pushed through the inconvenience and killed you then, perhaps a lot would be different now.
No, I don’t even need to go that far — if I were to simply kill you right now, right in front of me——
Ah.
Ranok swallowed the sound that rose in his throat at the realization.
He understood now. That he could no longer do that.
— Foolish human, not even knowing who he’s dealing with.
Mas scoffed at Casioth.
— There’s no need to wait any longer, Ranok. The original goal is well out of reach now, so why don’t we just kill this human and reinforce the Demon Clan all the way up to the 100th floor? Or should we wait until the next batch of Hero candidates gathers and wipe them all out at once?
Mas made his eagerness clear, waiting only for the order to be given. He had always been deeply displeased with Ranok mingling with humans, and he held nothing back now.
Listening to the booming voice that rang through his mind loud enough to make his skull rattle, Ranok felt the tension that had been wound tightly through his body drain away all at once.
— I’ll start by refusing this ridiculous suggestion right now!
But it had brought him to his senses, at least. Ranok looked at Casioth’s quiet, earnest face, waiting for his answer, and replied softly.
“……Alright.”
— Alright, naturally — wait, WHAT?????????????
“I’ll stay by your side until that day.”
Watching Casioth break into a radiant smile at his answer, Ranok felt that aching pain in his chest once again.
But unlike the first time, he was no longer unaware of what caused it.
In that moment, Ranok made a single resolve. The fact that the moment had finally come to see through something he had only ever idly thought about once or twice over his long life brought him no joy at all — yet it didn’t make him entirely sorrowful either.
Standing before a ruin that had drawn close enough to touch, Ranok quietly closed his eyes.
Everything was dark.
Ranok put his foot down for once. He insisted on entering the Demon King’s Castle alongside Casioth — on the grounds that if they couldn’t find a Priest, they would need someone to provide healing.
The two of them argued over it for a long time, but in the end, Casioth couldn’t win against Ranok. Just as it had always been.
It didn’t take long before the moment of ruin arrived.
The shadows Ranok had personally filled the castle with — his demons — were cut down before his eyes one after another. The beautiful castle he had painstakingly restored crumbled away.
On the day he had resolved to let Casioth live, the thing he had least wanted to happen unfolded right before him — and yet Ranok didn’t find the sight all that heartbreaking.
At last — the 100th floor.
There were no living beings on the 100th floor. Only shadows standing in a row, lined up as if waiting for them.
“Where is Demon King Gerard?”
It was just as Casioth called out to the shadows with those words.
Ranok, who by Casioth’s insistence had been kept at the center of the party for protection throughout, stepped forward.
“Ranok?”
Flustered by Ranok’s sudden movement, Casioth called his name — but Ranok didn’t answer, and kept walking forward.
Then every shadow bowed in reverence to him.
“What is——”
“Ranok?”
The others in the party were also bewildered by the strange behavior of the man who had been so quiet and well-behaved the entire time — but Casioth could not fail to understand what was happening.
Because it was a sight he had seen once before.
“Demon King Gerard……?”
Ranok said nothing. He only smiled. Casioth’s expression crumpled.
“What have you done with Ranok!”
Casioth was in a state of agitation unlike anything before. At the thought that he might have lost Ranok, the hand gripping his sword trembled without restraint.
I want to take that hand. I want to hold those trembling fingers and say something like — yeah, it’s a joke — and laugh.
But Ranok couldn’t do that. He mustn’t.
“It was me from the beginning.”
“Stop lying! Ranok is — Ranok is——!”
Ranok laid out the truth plainly, and Casioth denied it without a moment’s hesitation.
Ranok wouldn’t do that.
Ranok — my Ranok.
He’s not that kind of person. He would never.
“I deceived you from the very start.”
But Ranok didn’t waver, and drove the blade cruelly into Casioth’s chest.
“You were fooled.”
Everywhere Ranok thrust, blood dripped down. Others couldn’t see it — but the two of them could.
“There was never any such thing as a rural Priest.”
Casioth was torn to shreds in an instant.
