I woke up on the couch. My head was resting on Sophia’s lap, and she was stroking my hair, while she was talking to Ash about…soulbond stuff? It seemed as though while I was asleep, Sophia and Ash signed a contract with each other. I’m not entirely certain about why exactly this had happened, but I tried to see it as a good thing. After all, this did mean that Ash didn’t plan on leaving or anything right? Or was it the other way around, and Ash was planning on leaving but still wanted to be friends with Sophia? Before I heard enough to actually figure it out, Sophia noticed that I was awake.

“Good morning honey, how are you doing?”

When she spoke, Ash fell silent and started looking at me intently, as though trying to see if I was still batshit.

“Well, it’s probably a bit embarrassing that Ash had to see me like that, but all in all I’m okay now. Don’t think I’m hallucinating or anything, although,” I reached up and stroked Sophia’s hair, “If I am in fact hallucinating, please don’t wake me up. This is delightful.”

Sophia broke out into a chorus of giggles, and Ash sighed, dropping her head into her hands. Was she feeling relief? Disappointment? Neither of those seemed to fully explain her actions. I think it was more something along the lines of…positive yet anticlimactic. I remembered the state that I was in when Ash had found me, and…yeah, gotta say, I can completely understand where she’s coming from. If I’d seen that same scene on my old world, the guy responsible would’ve been immediately sent into a padded room. But why is she relieved? Why isn’t she angry with me? Or is she angry with me, but was too worried to properly feel it? I mean, I did kill the guy she loves, so why is she just sitting there, happy that I’m okay?

“Ash, I’m so-”

She put her hand up to cut my words off in their tracks. “I never want to hear the words ‘I’m sorry’ come out of your mouth again. No apologies between friends, right? Isn’t that your big rule?” Friends. Wait. Are we…are we okay?

“X-”

“I was never in love with X, Leo. I’ll admit, there was something there, but it would have needed time to develop. I trusted him, though I wouldn’t have if you’d just told me about your suspicions or what was going on. Mostly, I was just using him to get over Mike. X has…had…a certain kind of…stability about him. Spending time with him was calm, and relaxing. However, my first priority is you two, you should know that by now.”

I felt myself getting choked with emotion. Was I feeling relieved that she didn’t seem to hate me? Guilty at how badly I’d handled this entire situation? Angry with myself that all of this could’ve been avoided if I’d just talked to Ash first? I don’t know. I couldn’t know. I felt my heartbeat speeding up and slowing down, my temperature rising and falling, various muscles twitching, all symptoms of emotions, but they were all too chaotic to be understood. All of this information, and the only thing that I could do was experience it. Making heads or tails of it was utterly impossible, and so I did the only thing that I know how to do. The only thing I have any sort of confidence doing. I ignored them, and tried to only think with cold rationality.

As I tried to work out my own personal turmoil, I asked, “Speaking of Mike, where are the other three?” Sophia seemed to think about it for a second, then looked to Ash, her head tilted in confusion. It would seem that Sophia didn’t know the answer to this question either. Ash sighed, then leaned back on her chair, and told us the whole story. The story of the rabbit, the bluebird, and the fox. As she spoke, I thought of the past year, seeing all of the same little hints that have always been there in a completely different light. A part of me couldn’t help but be impressed by the pair of them.

An interesting statistic about relationships in my old world is that the majority of them fail after about three months. When people start a relationship with someone else, they try to show their ‘best selves’. They don a beautiful mask, and pretend that that’s their true face. However, due to some psychological reasons that I’m not entirely certain about, it seems that on average, people can only hold this mask in place for three months at a time, and after that, their true personalities tend to start shining through. For Liz and the Merchant to maintain their respective masks, and commit to such a long term scam for over a year implies that they are much better actors than I had thought. I couldn’t help but give them props for that.

However, there was one person who she hadn’t really mentioned anything about. “What about Mike? If he wasn’t in on it, then where is he?” Ash paused momentarily, then sighed, and said,

“Mike needs to figure out what he wants to do now, and it can’t be with me. He needs some time alone, and he needs to decide whether he’s going to go back home, or find a new adventuring party and go out, and see the world. Either way, I can’t be part of it. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be healthy for him, and it wouldn’t be fair to me.”

I didn’t fully understand what she meant by that last sentence, but it was clear that for all intents and purposes, the group was disbanded, and Mike was going off on his own now. But there was one last person I needed to check on, so I asked the pair of them, “And Duke? Where did he go? Did anyone tell him about X?” They both fell silent, not admitting that they had completely forgotten the gnome’s existence. Sophia finally broke the silence by muttering,

“He’s in the shed.”

I sighed, then got up, kissed Sophia’s forehead, ruffled Ash’s hair, and announced, “Okay, I’ll go let him know what happened.”

“No, I’ll go, you need to rest!” Ash shouted, jumping up to her feet, her eyes narrowed, and her voice high. Interesting. She’s showing signs of concern, but why is it so wild? Normally concern isn’t so frantic right? Fascinating, but I had to put my hand up and turn her down.

“I am the one who did it, Ash. He deserves to hear it straight from me. They were friends for years after all, so he has every right to feel angry with me.”

Ash fought back, “But I’m the one who-”

“You didn’t kill him. I did. The consequences of that action are mine to bear. I appreciate it, Ash, but you don’t need to worry about me. There are only two people in this world who can hurt me in any real way, and Duke is not one of them.”

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

I then walked out to the shed, leaving the two of them to continue their conversation about soulbond stuff. Upon opening the door, however, I was greeted by an oddly high pitched whine. I looked around for the source, and saw Duke tinkering with the inner workings of his armor, with tears streaming down his face, the high pitched whine being his own stifled crying.

“So you knew.” It wasn’t really a question, nor an accusation. Only a statement of fact.

Duke shuddered, and then nodded, “Yeah. I’ve known the guy for years. While I may not have known what the Kingdom was up to, when you broke it down for us, I was able to piece together that X knew about everything the whole time. Between the sixth sense and the friends he has in the royal family, it was kind of obvious. That night…After Ash went to her room, the two of us were talking for a while in that living room. Stupid stuff, I was telling him about that motor problem you gave us, and the things we were working on to go to the moon. We were avoiding the conversation about what would probably happen next.

“He’s the one who told me not to take a side. I tried to change his mind, but, well…He’s stubborn like that…or…he was. Nothing I said would’ve made any difference. So…the two of us just spent time together, talking about old times, and saying goodbye. We both knew that that would probably be his last night alive. After all,” The little gnome pointed his finger at me, chuckling softly through his tears, “you may not realize this, but you’re one scary SOB you know that?”

I chuckled along with him and asked, “Nah, I’m pretty sure X was scarier. I mean shit, he had that whole ‘wandering swordsman’ vibe and everything. I’m pretty sure I just give off, ‘high school science teacher with rabies’”.

Duke snorted, “Are you kidding? X’s nickname was straight up ‘BattleChef’. Meanwhile we watched you massacre like a hundred bandits, just shrugging off everything they hit you with.”

The two of us went back and forth for a while, making fun of each other, making fun of X, remembering him. While it seems kinda mean, and more than a little petty to shit talk X after I killed him, for us…it didn’t feel that way. It felt almost like X was right there in that shed with us, sitting there quietly, the same amused grin on his face as always, as he took the hits. In a weird way, I guess you could call this…his memorial. A final farewell from those he left behind. Should I really have been a part of it, as the guy who murdered him? I don’t know, but…Duke doesn’t seem to mind.

At the end of the day…Funerals aren’t really for the dead. They’re for the living. Once you die, you no longer have anything that you care about after all. Your whole life, everything you’ve done, everything you’ve been through, just…gone. All that’s left are the memories in the minds of those who used to know you, and that’s what the two of us shared.

Richard’s POV

I was sitting in my new house when I noticed it. A trace amount of mana, flying steadily higher into the sky, as though an enchanted object were being flown above the Capital. Normally, it would be impossible for anyone to notice such a minute trace of magical activity, especially from so far away, but…my millennia of honing my skills have made me extremely sensitive to the fluctuations in the surrounding mana. With a wave of my hand, I cast one of my favorite spells, a little trick I like to call ‘All Seeing Eye’. It utilizes the concepts of Space and Light to show me what I want to see, no matter how far away it may be.

Casting the spell, I noticed a familiar dagger made of bone, flying next to a certain stick. Given that the trajectory was pretty much straight up, I looked below it to see if I was correct in my guess that the Blind Man in White was responsible. I knew not what his goals in the Capital were, but I would not allow him to destroy the Kingdom that I worked so hard to build.

I watched as the youngest descendant of Elisia sought to execute the Blind Man in White while he sat there. I watched as the Blind Man in White turned the tables on him. I watched the moment of peace and mutual respect that formed over the man who lay there dying and the man who had killed him. I watched as the Blind Man in White broke, and spiraled into a fit of madness. I watched as the Mixed Beast Girl took the Blind Man in White away.

Once he was unconscious, there was nothing feeding into the knives or the stick any longer, and both began to fall. Curious as to what they’d been planning, I stepped through the space between me and the object of my current curiosity, and caught the three. The moment it was in my hand, I inspected the stick, and found an enchantment that appeared to be the same as the battery that he had shown me previously. The only difference is that inside of it, there seemed to be a book. Piecing the two together, I reasoned that this enchantment most likely functioned as some kind of memory storage. But why send it so high up into the sky?

Stepping back through space, I arrived back in my house, and ran my mana through the memory storage, curious as to what the Blind Man in White was planning, and…

Unbelievable, unyielding, and insurmountable rage consumed the entirety of my being. This Kingdom, MY KINGDOM, that I and those that I loved fought and died to create, and this was the best solution they could come up with?! Murdering our own goddamn citizens?!? We are better than this. MY OWN BLOOD SHOULD BE BETTER THAN THIS!!!

Where did I go wrong? Did I not teach my children to respect their people? Did I not teach my children right from wrong? Did I…Did I fail as a Father? As a King? As a Man?

I will not allow this to occur. I will not allow my own goddamn descendants to murder millions for the sake of ‘stability’. And if millions shall die anyway as a result of my actions? That is fine. I have lived for thousands of years, and killed countless men in my long existence. What is a couple million more? Those will be on my head, but they will not tarnish the legacy that I built alongside my wives. And in the end…when thousands more years pass…none shall even remember the carnage, the chaos, the bloodshed that occurred on this day. I alone, will be the sole bearer of my own memory of destruction and ruin.

I stepped through space once again, appearing outside of the walls of GhostKing Castle. A monument that I had built with my friends, and named as a joke, playing off of the nature of Spectral Quartz. I brushed my hands along the walls, and remembered the days of old. The laughter of my wives as I introduced them to ‘denim’. The cheers of my comrades as we drank after a hard fought battle. The screams, and cries, as I mourned my fallen brothers. My fallen lovers. My fallen family.

The Royal Family of today do not deserve these cherished memories. They do not deserve the legacy of love that this building, this Kingdom holds. They do not deserve the life that I paved for them. They may be the last remaining blood of my precious Wives, but they have kept none of their virtue throughout the generations. They have inherited none of their goodness, of their steadfast morals. I thought of my wife Sarah, when she discovered an embezzler amongst the people we trusted to be lords, and the execution that she had carried out with her own two hands. I thought of my wife Leticia, and how she died saving the life of a complete stranger during a mining accident. I thought of my wife Roxanne, and the veritable army of stray beasts that she had adopted and loved as our own children.

Forgive me, my loves. But these people…they do not have the right to call themselves your Royal Family. They do not have the right to lay claim to a relationship with you. I will not allow your memories to be sullied by the actions of our descendants generations after our demise. If we are ever to meet again, please forgive me for what I must do.

While touching the Castle that was the home of me and my wives, I drew upon the nature of Spectral Quartz and summoned it into my own soul. While the new Royal Family stood there, confused as to why their house had vanished around them, I waved my hand, and the concept of which I was most familiar emanated from me in a wave. I thought of the battles that I have fought, the friends that I have lost. Since coming to this world, I have had only one true constant by my side, and that is Death. A funny thing about magic? The more closely you are related to a concept, the more you allow it to infiltrate the core of your being, the more powerful it becomes. The trick is relying on the plethora of your own experience with that particular concept.

As I cast my Death spell, I imbued it with the memories of those I have watched die, as well as the hundreds of memories I have of my own various deaths. With this much resonance, and personal experience, even the slightest trace of my own mana would be enough to wipe out the majority of life on this world, much less this one family. With a wave of my hand, I snuffed out their lives, ending my own Bloodline of the Founder King Sebastian. Then, using the concept of Infinity, I crafted copies of the Information Battery created by the Blind Man In White, and rained them down on the people below, filling my voice with mana, and announcing to my own falling Kingdom:

“This is what the Royal Family thought of you, it’s Citizens. As of now, they are no more. I pray that you will find Peace.”

Would they? Only time would tell. However, I no longer have any attachments to this land. I no longer have any attachments to this Kingdom, nor to its People. I am Eternal, after all. After they die, and their bones erode into dust, I will still be roaming this world, searching for the last missing piece. Unable to live as a man, yet equally unable to become a God. Nothing more, than a cursed, wandering Wraith.