“Ugh!!”
After her sword-staff pierced down, Maria collapsed to her knees, vomiting violently. The disgust and terror that welled up from her heart made it impossible even to hold her weapon steady.
Felia might comfort herself with the excuse that her parents had already turned into monsters.
But Maria could not!
In the instant she struck, their eyes still carried traces of humanity! That feeling of killing her own parents with her own hands magnified her guilt and self-blame beyond measure. She retched over and over, her fair delicate hands seeming, in her blurred vision, forever stained by blood that could never be washed away.
Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry… it’s all my fault, my fault, I thought I was strong enough but I didn’t protect Father and Mother, I didn’t protect the town… sorry sorry… it’s all my fault, I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry…
Her pride as a player, shattered to nothing.
Maria confessed again and again in her heart. That one phrase the other players used to speculate about her senior sister echoed like a nightmare: she didn’t have a happy childhood.
That was putting it mildly.
Her life was nothing short of a tragedy carved by cruel fate. Was such a life still not enough to satisfy the world?
“Look closely—she is your elder sister. She has borne a weight no one else could endure.” Gehrman sighed as he released Felia. Even he, seasoned and worldly, could not help but marvel at this girl, pure and radiant as a blooming white flower, so kind and so strong.
For the sake of her sister’s survival, she was willing to shoulder all the sin alone.
“No… I can’t do it. I can’t forgive her.”
Felia broke down in tears, collapsing behind Maria. She had lost her parents, left with only her elder sister—and yet, in her heart, that sister was the cruel murderer who had taken them away. All she could do was shift her grief into hatred. Without that, Felia might have gone mad.
And yet, the more pitiful truth was that Felia was not an ignorant child.
She knew the truth: she was being petty and ugly. She knew Maria was kind and forgiving, and would accept her resentment without question.
Perhaps it was Felia’s sobs that pulled Maria back from her chaos. Maria turned, carefully wiping her sister’s tears, then drew her slowly but firmly into her embrace. Hate me if you must, her embrace said, as long as you survive this burden, I will accept it.
“It’s all right… it’s all right. You don’t have to forgive me.”
Maria smiled serenely, silently weeping as she comforted Felia.
Eradicating the Chaos-corrupted did not mean the matter of Seth Town was over. The thousands of townsfolk, tormented to a state worse than death by the plague, and the hundreds who had already turned into Corrupted, still needed to be dealt with.
Thankfully, the First Flame still sheltered the world, and Chaos could not yet fully resonate with this blighted place.
Once the Chaos worshippers were slaughtered, the corruption here lost its root. The plague’s deadly toxins would soon dissipate. It would not become like the future invasions, where Chaos would turn entire regions into uninhabitable deadlands.
Even so, Seth Town had already become unsuitable for human habitation. Those infected by Chaos would inevitably become Corrupted.
In the end, it was Gehrman who resolved the matter.
He hacked apart every last Corrupted, doused the town in oil, and set it ablaze. The towering inferno consumed all impurity. His decisiveness came from observation—these people were truly beyond saving, just as Maria had said.
Even if they sealed off the town until the Radiant Church arrived, the residents would succumb within hours. If the arriving clergy hesitated, sending priests into the town bit by bit, the outcome would be unthinkable.
Of course, Maria had not explained to Gehrman what Chaos really was. At present it was a completely alien concept—no one but her understood its true danger.
She trusted that when the Radiant Church arrived to investigate, they would grasp the unprecedented threat. Even though Seth Town was already engulfed in cleansing flames, the malignant residue would linger, rendering the land unfit for life.
Holding the exhausted, sleeping Felia, Maria watched the town of her childhood collapse and burn. She prayed softly:
“Fierce fire of burial, burn away the filth, carry the souls to heaven.”
May the path of the dead be lit by flame, safe from the darkness.
“Glug, glug.”
Gehrman drank from his bottle, staring into the heat of the blaze. He could only imagine what the girl was feeling—first forced to grant her parents the last mercy, then watching her hometown burn to ash.
“There’s nothing left.” Maria’s voice was quiet as she gazed at the roaring flames.
“You must learn to accept it, and walk forward.”
“Have you ever lost everything in a single moment, Gehrman?” She clutched Felia tightly, as though her sister might vanish if she let go.
“…Long ago.” His hand lowered with the bottle, remembering a fire that once consumed his own life. “I doubt you’d care to hear a bitter man’s tale. But listen, Maria: I am a Hunter. And a Hunter…”
“Hunters are never alone.”
The words struck Maria like magic, sinking into her heart. She turned to him. In the golden-red firelight, his weathered face wore a faint smile, carrying a presence that seized her very soul.
“Really? Never alone?” Maria whispered, almost afraid to believe.
Maria—could she really never be alone?
“What’s the matter? Want to become a Hunter? I can teach you.” Gehrman raised the bottle again. “And another thing—if you want to cry, then cry. Don’t pretend to be tough. It just looks awkward.”
His words cracked Maria’s frozen calm, like ice breaking apart. Soon she was sobbing aloud, weeping for her lost home. Her grief, long suppressed, poured out like a flood. Her crying was the only funeral song for Seth Town.
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