(Rebecca Storm POV)

A lesser person would have fainted right there, but I forced myself to stay conscious. Though the Demon King was defeated, the war wouldn't conclude until the enemy S ranks were eliminated.

I forced my body to get up, but it wasn't responding. I tried circulating mana through my body, however, I couldn't feel a connection to it.

I couldn't move, nor use mana. In this state, even a civilian would be able to kill me, albeit with some difficulty as my body was much stronger than the average human even without using mana.

I slowly tried moving my fingers. At first, I felt nothing, but after 5 minutes I could finally curl into a fist. It took another 5 minutes to gain sensations in my other hand.

Around this time my instincts warned me that 4 others were approaching. I assumed they were my comrades so I let my guard down.

Well even if they were my enemy, I would at their mercy. In this state, I was helpless as a newborn chick.

Soon the four people arrived. Fortunately, they were comrades. They arrived, breathing heavily. Everyone was bleeding badly with Matthew's left arm hanging uselessly.

They had massive smiles, seeing me alive and the Demon King dead.

"He's dead right?"

Matthew question me immediately and I nodded. They started laughing and all collapsed onto the floor. Similarly to me, they were all mentally exhausted. But they still smiling.

However, despite their joy, their skin was deathly pale and I could tell they were in a lot of pain.

"Are you alright? You look sick."

They all stopped laughing and gained bitter looks on their faces. Thomas sighed as he explained.

"It's no use trying to hide it. I guess I'll rip the band-aid off now. We are still badly poisoned, and we aren't in any position to heal ourselves. It's slowly affecting us and we'll die soon."

"WHAT?! NO! We just won. Mitchell you can cure them right?"

"Unfortunately I used most mana in the last move. I cannot even heal myself, let alone you guys. At this rate, I would give us around another half an hour before we drop dead."

"NO! Can't we get any other S rank healer?"

"They wouldn't be able to heal us. The poison is too complex. And {Godly Recovery} is my exclusive technique. They only know the inferior versions that won't help us."

I tried denying it, but they were telling the truth. My eyes started watering. I didn't want to lose them. They were my closest friends (and the love of my life).

"Don't cry yet, honey. You can mourn after we die. Let us give you our final words. This a momentous occasion. Seeing you like this will make us depressed too."

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Despite the fact he was dying soon, he still had a massive grin on his face. I know he didn't want to die.

He still hadn't met some of our grandchildren. It was what gave him the motivation to keep moving forward. To finally see them and give them a world without war.

He was standing strong his will holding firm, so I reciprocated his feelings and wiped away my tears. I'd lose all my prestige if anyone else saw me like this.

"What about the other S ranks?"

I still needed to ensure we won the war.

"In our current state, we won't be able to reach them, let alone help them. We'll just be deadweight. Leave it to them and trust that they'll defeat the demons."

Mitchell pacified my worries.

*Silence*

We all sat quietly afterwards, with an awkward silence. We were waiting for someone to speak first.

"Well, it's been a fun ride."

Matthew who was leaning on a rock spoke first. Outwardly he showed no pain and was acting as casual as always. But the pain of the poison ravaging his body must be unbearable.

"I guess I'll join my family in the afterlife... if there is one. I wonder if they'll be waiting for me."

Matthew had no real attachment to his life. The only thing that motivated him was revenge for the death of his daughter.

His wife died because of complications during childbirth. She was a childhood friend of Matthew but only a civilian.

All that Matthew had afterwards was his newborn daughter. Matthew's daughter was his everything and his reason for living. He had no other family and vowed to protect her.

He used to brag about his daughter to us. It got very annoying, but I understood how he felt after having children of my own.

He said his biggest regret was allowing his daughter to become a mage. She was a talented mage and a prospective S rank.

Though her life was cut short when she was killed by an SS rank demon. She was only an A rank at the time, so she had no chance of survival.

The worst part about it was that she died right in front of Matthew's eyes. That demon was eventually defeated by Matthew after tough days of battle. He came out barely alive and hanging on by a thread.

After that event, his eyes lost colour. The world became grey for him. Beneath that cheery mask of his was a depressed and broken man.

Whenever he was on a break, he always drank alcohol to wash away his sadness. However, at our current strength, alcohol couldn't get us drunk. So the alcohol barely helped him forget.

I vowed to myself that if the war ended in our lifetimes, I would try to convince him not to take his own life. He said he would commit suicide after the war was over and I wanted to discourage him from taking that action. Though now I won't have to do that.

He wanted to die on the battlefield. That was the reason for his recklessness and why he always searched for a strong opponent.

Lyra and Thomas didn't have any terrible backstories and had families to come home to, so they gave me a message for me to pass on to their families.

In this job, death is a common occurrence, so we had already created our last wills, and most things we had to say were already written.

After joking for a while, Mitchell interrupted with a serious look on his face.

"Well, that's enough sappiness for now. We could probably talk for hours but I have a theory about the cause of the war. I noticed something when we were fighting the Demon King."

We all stared at him and stopped joking.

"When he suddenly changed and got stronger, Diablo's soul died."

"Huh?"

"Somebody else took control of the demon's body. And I can currently sense that soul inside Diablo's body inside that sword."

We all gazed at the sword lying on the dirt.

"Impossible. A soul cannot survive without a functioning body. A sword cannot support something such as a soul. The soul would reject it and eventually dissipate."

Thomas voiced his disbelief.

"Don't think that we know everything in this world. There are many different phenomena that we don't currently understand. Just trust me. There is actually a soul inside that sword."

We were all sceptical of his claims, but Mitchell had no reason to lie to us. Plus he had the soul attribute, so he could easily sense other's souls.

"But that's not the reason I brought your attention to the sword. It's because I believe that the war was all caused by the soul inside that sword."

"WHAT?!"