Ban didn’t know what he thought, but Orma had no particular regrets about his mother. He had defined her as a pitiful person. His mother had cherished and loved Orma. No one could deny that, and Orma acknowledged it too.
“My mother was a princess of the kingdom. She passed away due to a rebellion, but even if that hadn’t happened, she wouldn’t have lived long. She was someone with a very weak body.”
“……”
So did that mean Orma was a prince? He hadn’t known since the game made no mention of his background before he became the ‘hero’ of humanity, but… it did seem quite fitting.
Ban pondered about Orma in the game, then slowly nodded his head.
“As I said before, I don’t remember anything about my father. I only heard that he passed away before I was born. I don’t know if that’s actually true or not.”
“What do you mean you don’t know…?”
“My father was a wandering knight.”
Though it was a plain statement, Ban stared at Orma with wide eyes. A princess and a wandering knight… Was that possible? Orma also seemed to know what Ban was thinking and slowly nodded his head.
“I don’t know the details well, but I heard he was the winner of a martial arts tournament. Since he was a wandering knight from another continent, he must have been of an insignificant status.”
“I see… Ah, then did your father marry the princess, your mother, as the winner of the martial arts tournament?”
“No, their marriage wasn’t actually realized. My father proposed and my mother accepted, but the king couldn’t tolerate their relationship. Around that time, war broke out due to a dispute with a neighboring country, and the king said he would allow the marriage if my father participated in that war, won, and returned.”
However, since Orma had said he ‘passed away before I was born,’ his father ultimately didn’t return. Even on the off chance he was alive, there must have been circumstances preventing his immediate return. In the end, the kingdom was destroyed by a rebellion, and their love ended in tragedy.
Orma spoke very plainly about his parents who had been ‘human’ in life. While telling that story, he showed no bad emotions whatsoever and even seemed to miss his mother a little. Ban inwardly realized that Orma was thoroughly separating his ‘mother’ and ‘Banan.’
But… if that was the case, was there really a need to avoid Banan to the point of hatred?
“……How did you come to know that Banan-nim was your mother’s plaything?”
“It wasn’t Banan who came looking for me first in the beginning.”
“What?”
“Hah, didn’t Gail tell you about that? My father was Muhwi’s plaything.”
“……”
Ban rolled his eyes, then carefully nodded his head. Actually, Gail had never told him, but he’d roughly figured it out.
He’d become more certain from that subtle reaction when Jaena told the story passed down among the beastmen, but in any case, hearing it directly from Orma’s own mouth would be the most accurate and satisfying.
“After the rebellion broke out, I ran as far from the palace as possible, as my mother told me. Muhwi came looking for me at exactly that point.”
“Then did God Muhwi treat Orma-nim as his ‘son’?”
“……”
Orma narrowed his eyes at Ban’s question without answering and mulled over the events of that day.
Well, he’d been too young and too distraught to know then, but… thinking back on it, it did seem that way. Muhwi was the one who crossed the ‘line’ first. God and human, dream and reality. Had he run wild, unable to distinguish between them?
Like a human merely swept away by fierce waves when a storm arises, having just awakened from a vivid dream, he couldn’t distinguish between reality and dreams and raged violently, overwhelmed by emotions like a raging current. Absurdly, a god had gotten involved in mere human affairs.
His fierce eyes, gray hair fluttering in the rough wind, and blood-soaked clothes. That appearance looked so desperate it was as if it embodied the feelings of a wandering knight who, on the day he returned after keeping his promise to win the war, faced a burning palace.
But his eyes were golden, and the weapon in his hand was a god’s. Muhwi, who had manifested as the God of Fire and War, paradoxically only awakened from his sleep the moment he faced a young human with whom he now had no relationship.
Only after staring for a long time at a child who closely resembled the green eyes he’d so loved in his dream did he speak with empty eyes and a hollow voice.
“……I will give you an island closest to the heavens. Live there.”
Orma instinctively realized that Muhwi was his father, no… that he was an existence who had once been his father. However, because he was too late and everything had ended, the young child left alone overcame the supreme and transcendent fear emanating from the god and voiced his resentment.
“Why?”
Orma asked that while glaring at Muhwi. But the cold and rational God of War didn’t cut down the impudent young human, and instead answered in a hollow voice as if muttering to himself.
“I had a very beautiful dream, and I still want to cherish that dream a little longer……”
Muhwi left only those words and disappeared faintly like smoke.
And not long after, Orma came to live on the Sky Island. Fortunately, Muhwi didn’t appear there, and only Gail and his father, the Ancient Dragon Lineust Khan, lived guarding the Sky Island. Orma naturally grew up under Lineust’s care and became friends with Gail, but he himself, as well as Lineust and Gail, knew that human lifespans were short, so they all believed they would soon part ways.
“……In any case, that was the first and last time I saw Muhwi.”
“Then you haven’t seen him even after drinking the divine liquor?”
“Right.”
Thinking from Orma’s perspective, it was quite absurd. A god who finished his plaything came looking for the son born at that time out of longing for his plaything, but only realized reality after facing him and never appeared again.
Ban immediately understood the complex and subtle emotions Orma felt toward Muhwi. Even if he were Orma, he wouldn’t know how to think of or regard Muhwi.
Especially since Ban was an orphan both in his previous life and this life, the existence of parents was all the more difficult for him. In fact, he mostly remained silent while listening to this story, not knowing how to react. Fortunately, Orma didn’t seem to care—he seemed to have expected this reaction from Ban.
“Well, what you asked about wasn’t Muhwi, so let’s stop here. Banan… Well, she doesn’t like Muhwi very much.”
“Is the relationship between the two gods bad?”
“Mm… It’s closer to Banan unilaterally disliking him. Banan was calm even after the plaything ended. She distinguished well between reality and dreams. But some foolish god manifested and tried to ruin the plaything that had already ended.”
Orma spoke with a giggle, but he didn’t look happy at all. Ban didn’t know much about relationships between parents and children, but he felt he could understand the hardship Orma must have felt caught between them. ……It must have been several times harder than the emotions he’d felt recently being caught between Orma and Banan.
“The Sky Island also originally belonged closer to Banan. It’s an island Banan created, after all.”
“Then did God Muhwi force God Banan to give him the Sky Island?”
“I don’t know that well. I don’t particularly want to know, but at least it’s clear that Banan didn’t want to be involved with me.”
Dreams are just dreams. So playthings are just playthings too.
On the day Orma set foot on the Sky Island, what he saw wasn’t the God of War but the God of Love who resembled his mother yet wore a cold expression. Orma couldn’t easily open his mouth, not knowing what to say even before her, but Banan drew a cold line first and spoke.
“I am Banan, who governs water and wind, abundance and love.”
At her words implying she had no connection whatsoever to his beloved ‘human’ mother, Orma silently shut his mouth. He looked up at Banan and stared at her intently, then slowly turned his head only when her golden eyes gave him no attention.
If they hadn’t met after that, Orma would have had no particular thoughts about Banan, just like with Muhwi. Though Muhwi’s attitude had been ambiguous, he didn’t appear after that and didn’t complicate Orma’s feelings.
So… Mother was mother, Banan was Banan. He would have accepted himself becoming an orphan with nowhere to lean while thinking that way.
“Banan appeared before my eyes again when I was being called a ‘hero.'”
“Hero… You mean when calamity first came to this world.”
Who would believe the world depended on the hands of a mere human hero? But that’s really how it was.
Serka spoke through prophecy of the appearance of a hero who would save the world, and Orma appeared in the world, announcing so clearly that no one could deny that he was the protagonist of the prophecy.
The primordial original sin, lingering resentment… Such things accumulated and accumulated until they rotted and began to eat away at the world. A different kind of calamity from the current one eroded the world.
Souls like dregs that failed to become gods, commonly called demons, appeared and led the destruction, and only Orma could cut them down and defeat them. However, since he too was merely human, his limits were clear, and a crisis arrived. Just before he failed to remove the core of the calamity that had clustered deep down, and the core finally burst first and tried to contaminate the world.
Banan came looking for Orma.
“Even though it was a situation where the world could be destroyed the very next day, Banan asked me with a face that seemed happy all alone. Didn’t I want to become a ‘god?'”
Perhaps those words were the beginning of all this tragedy.
