Chapter 117
It was a coincidence. All of it was a coincidence. That the Primordial King who had been half-forced into reincarnation, the Primordial Hero cursed with eternal life, and the Primordial God who repeatedly endured the punishment of reincarnation all gathered in the same era, in the same place.
To be precise, the three of them were not completely gathered together. At that time, the Primordial King had already met his second death.
Proméon wandered endlessly through the mountains like a man who had lost his mind, clutching the corpse of Hermane, who had committed suicide in front of him.
Even as the body gradually decayed, the flesh rotting and the stench spreading, he could not let her go. Roaming like a ghost, Proméon truly looked like a madman.
He had not wiped away the woman’s blood that stained his clothes. What had first been a vivid red had now dried into dark, blackish blotches.
Flies gathered, drawn by the smell of crushed and rotting flesh. Crows circled overhead, watching for a chance to snatch at the corpse.
However, the moment any insect or bird came even slightly close to the body, it burned to ashes in an instant. Flames bursting out from nothing erased their existence in a blink.
After that, the smell of burning meat mixed with the stench of decay, making the air even more unbearable, yet Proméon seemed indifferent, as if his sense of smell had been paralyzed.
It was not only his sense of smell. It felt as though every sense in his body had broken. His vision was blackened, a ringing echoed in his ears, and his tongue was dry and cracking.
Hermane was dead. She had died before his very eyes.
He had served her like a princess in a beautiful castle and given her every comfort and abundance this world could offer. In return, it would have been enough if she looked only at him. So why, why, why…?
“Who’s there? Who is that?”
At that moment, drifting through the mountains without even knowing how far he had wandered, he slowly froze at the frightened voice coming from between the trees.
“Go back right now! This is private property. If you come any closer, I’ll stab you.”
The owner of the voice was a gaunt girl. No—perhaps not a girl but an adult. A woman whose body seemed stunted from constant hunger and sleeplessness.
Wrapped head to toe in the grimy traces of hardship, she held a kitchen knife in one hand.
Seeing the woman raise a weapon warily at the stranger, Proméon almost dropped the corpse in his arms.
“Pellene…?”
It was the first reunion between the cursed Hero and the reincarnated God.
“I buried your corpse in the mountain. I dug up the soil to make a grave and stuck a tree branch in as a substitute for a gravestone. Honestly, it was very shabby, but I thought it was better than letting him keep dragging around a body that had decayed beyond recognition.”
At Karnen’s calm narration, Noxia felt nauseous. It was even more unbearable because the death Karnen was describing was none other than her own. More than anything, she felt a guilt close to self-loathing.
“I originally wanted to bury you where your family was. In your previous life, you had a family too, right? It would have been better to lay you to rest in your hometown. But no matter how much I asked, Proméon wouldn’t answer, so I had no choice but to bury you there in the mountains.”
At the time, Proméon truly seemed insane. The one who had died was Hermane, yet the one suffering as if he would die was someone else entirely.
At first, it took a long time to even understand what had happened.
Even when Pellene recognized Proméon and, in horrified shock, demanded to know what in the world had happened, he only kept muttering incomprehensible words and explained nothing clearly.
Only after painstakingly piecing together the low, stammered words that sounded like a quiet scream did she roughly infer what had occurred.
[You stole Hermane’s soul from the underworld, forced it into reincarnation, kidnapped that reincarnation and imprisoned her, and then she committed suicide right in front of you?]
The horrifying narrative was summarized in a few sentences. Staring blankly for a moment at Proméon, who had collapsed holding the ruined body with a vacant expression, Pellene soon twisted her lips.
[Serves you right. It’s truly a sight to see.]
“Back then, I said something very cruel to him.”
[You stole divine water by deceiving your friend and shattered the soul of the one you loved to force her into reincarnation, and now you’re paying the full price for it.]
“At that time, I wasn’t entirely in my right mind either. Living was unbearably painful. I can’t even remember how many reincarnations it had been, but of all times, I was born into an extremely poor family. And it was such a barbaric era.”
[It’s all something you brought upon yourself. Look at what state Hermane is in now. Look at what you—and I—have become. It’s all your fault.]
“It wasn’t an era like now, where the rights of the weak are protected by law, nor was it an advanced country like the Kingdom of Hermeon. At the time, I was hiding in the mountains from my own family. My parents were trying to sell me to the lord. Because they couldn’t pay the absurdly high tenant tax and were about to be expelled from the territory, they were going to sell their daughter as a concubine to somehow keep their place.”
[It’s all your fault. Because of you. Because of you, I’ve become this miserable…!]
“It would easily rank among the ten worst lives out of all the lives I’ve lived. If I make an excuse, I was just that exhausted.”
If she had been born as a beloved child in a wealthy family, living comfortably with a guaranteed future, would she have been a little more generous toward Proméon, whom she had met again after hundreds of years?
It was the first time she had reunited with Proméon after receiving the punishment of reincarnation. Only then did she learn that he had been cursed with immortality and confirmed what he had done to Hermane out of madness born from loneliness.
The anger that had accumulated and festered inside her ever since she had first been trapped in a human body exploded fiercely. Hatred mixed into that anger. Perhaps it had simply been an outlet for her rage.
“When I saw Proméon acting like a madman in front of your grave, I realized something. How to wound him in the most horrific way possible, what would be the most dreadful revenge against him.”
Ah, no way. Hearing Karnen continue calmly, Noxia’s eyes widened. The tremor that had subsided began again, far stronger this time, tearing through her to the marrow.
“So I killed myself in front of him.”
It had been a life like hell anyway. To the point that she thought it would be better to die quickly and be reborn.
“I thought that if he, who had already lost you that way, saw me end up the same, it would torment him even more.”
Death was a certain escape and a cruel revenge.
Before, driven by raw survival instinct, she had tried somehow to endure, to hang on no matter what. But after reuniting with Proméon and hearing about Hermane’s death, all her will evaporated.
“Wishing for his suffering, I threw myself off a cliff before Proméon’s eyes.”
After reuniting with her former-life friend and enemy, she clearly remembered how she had come to be bound by such punishment. The hatred she had forgotten under the inertia of time revived fiercely.
She wanted revenge. She also wanted to run away. There was no guarantee that dying now would lead to a better environment in the next life, but in the moment she was seized by impulsive resolve, none of that mattered.
In the end, she threw herself down without hesitation before Proméon’s eyes, just as her old friend Hermane had demonstrated first—seeking the revenge that would wound him the deepest.
“Do you find me disgusting?”
Karnen asked softly. Noxia, who had listened in silence from beginning to end, had a pale face.
Noxia hated Proméon. At the same time, she loved him.
And recently, after saying her farewell to him, she had sorted through that love and hatred, leaving only tender sympathy and a faint longing behind.
Now, having only those amicable feelings remaining, learning how Pellene had taken revenge on him was, honestly, difficult to accept.
“…I don’t find you disgusting. I have no right to judge. It’s your grudge, and your revenge.”
Noxia finally spoke calmly. However, unlike her steady tone, her hands were trembling.
‘Poor Proméon. What should I do? How could he endure all of that alone…?’
Though he was a wretched man who had forcibly reincarnated her, once she had settled all her resentment, love overwhelmingly outweighed hatred.
And so her chest now collapsed in grief. Her heart ached as if being torn apart.
“As expected, you’re truly kind.”
Karnen muttered. The revenge she had committed against him upon their first reunion now seemed cruel even to herself. How much worse would it appear to kind-hearted Noxia?
Karnen quietly watched Noxia’s expression. Noxia still avoided her gaze, staring blankly into the air. Her face remained pale.
“I don’t know how much this will ease your mind, but I already apologized to him for that.”
“…You really did?”
As Karnen reluctantly admitted it, Noxia slowly turned her gaze and looked at her steadily. Karnen nodded.
“Yes, really. When I think about what he did to me, I still resent him, but I admitted that the revenge I took back then was excessive.”
“When? Was this when I was with the Prince as well?”
“That’s right.”
That night, it was not only Noxia and Elenon who shared countless stories about the past and the present.
The Primordial Hero and the Ancient God—lovers no longer, but friends and at the same time enemies—laid out as many of the things left unsaid between them as possible. Because both of them hoped that this moment would be the last.
[I have something to confess to you. This is something even Hermane still doesn’t know.]
Thus beginning, Proméon told Karnen that day about the past—about the time he crossed into another dimension in pursuit of the ancient gods. A story that Noxia would later hear in its entirety.
[Perhaps your punishment can be ended as well.]
It was a terrifyingly sweet possibility. The greater the hope, the more miserable the disappointment when it came, so she would have rather not known. Yet Proméon stubbornly explained everything.
[I plan to explain it to Her… Noxia as well and then let her go. And I will cross into another dimension again. If the war hasn’t ended yet, I’ll see whether I can fight on the side opposite the gods who cursed us.]
[And if the war has already ended? What if those who cursed us have already won there and reign as gods?]
[Then I’ll find a way to lift the curse, even if I have to do it alone.]
[…You’re saying you’ll attack the Supreme God with your bare body?]
[It won’t be bare-handed. I’ll prepare thoroughly.]
[You could be annihilated.]
[I know.]
There was no wavering in Proméon’s eyes as he confessed this.
