Chapter 99 : Chapter 99
Chapter 99: Great Stone Mountain, Mogron (9)
What is the most terrible pain?
When asked about that, people would give different answers.
Someone would speak of causalgia, the burning pain said to be the greatest, and someone else would speak of suffocation, the choking of breath.
There were countless other pains, but the answer the demon, who was like the essence of pain, gave as to what the greatest pain was, was concise.
Lack of sensation.
Like the saying that extremes meet, the answer the Demon of Pain gave seemed, in a way, far removed from the concept of pain.
However, the Demon of Pain was an existence that knew better than anyone what kind of hell could be created when the split and fractured consciousness of an instant was accelerated, with nothing to feel.
Like that, Albino became the scapegoat of the hell created by the Demon of Pain.
In a hell where he could feel nothing, move nothing, he was merely awake for a split and fractured eon of time.
In a stillness like death, Albino's consciousness went mad, but even going mad was not permitted.
Regret, regret, and again regret.
In the living hell, Albino regretted all his choices.
Why did I make such a choice I just wanted to live well why did I go to a place like Winter Castle and experience this absurd thing I was wrong I was wrong no what did I do wrong this is all the world's fault I did nothing wrong…….
.
.
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I shouldn't have used magic what on earth why do I have to pay this price I don't care if the Winter Castle bastards die or not please give it back I was wrong I was wrong I was wrong…….
.
.
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I want to stop now how long do I have to be like this why do I have to suffer this Eldran Edric Vell Blackwood Conlan Alicia Jack Hummel Jesse Julia…….
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Kill me kill me kill me kill me kill me kill me kill me kill me kill me kill me kill me kill me kill me kill me kill me kill me kill me kill me kill me kill me kill me kill me kill me kill me.
In the eon of nothingness where only existing was possible, Albino's mind slowly became steeped in madness.
Albino now desperately wished for his own death.
However, the Demon of Pain did not permit even that, and from some point on, Albino gave up on thinking altogether.
And he didn't know how much time had passed.
In the first place, the time Albino felt was likely skewed from the original concept of time, so it wasn't very meaningful.
When Albino had resigned himself to everything and was casting his consciousness into nothingness.
“……ook!”
A sensation that should never have been felt, began to be felt.
“Hey! White hair! Snap out of it!”
Slap!
What was felt following his hearing was an extremely intense sense of touch.
No, in this case, it was an intense pain felt on his cheek, to the point that it wouldn't be wrong to call it the sense of pain.
“…….”
Albino couldn't understand what on earth had happened.
Why?
Although he clearly shouldn't be able to feel or do anything, an extremely intense sensation was being transmitted, tingling, through Albino's nerves.
“Ah, euh…….”
“White hair! Did you finally come to your senses?! Open your eyes!”
To Albino, for whom even the sensation of speaking was so unfamiliar, the act of pushing his eyelids up was no different from lifting a boulder with his bare body.
Just as Albino was desperately trying to lift his eyelids, another familiar voice cut in.
“Stop. Let him rest and be stable for a while.”
“Damn it. Is it okay to do that?”
“That will be much better. I don't know what he offered as a price in the deal with the demon, but it's likely beyond our imagination.”
Following that, various sounds were heard, but Albino could no longer handle the sensations rushing in.
Although he had been in the prison of no-sensation for what felt like well over decades, the sensations that suddenly rushed in were too stimulating.
“Kkeureuk…….”
“Wh, what? Hey, white hair! What's wrong with this bastard all of a sudden?”
Albino lost consciousness just like that.
***
The human brain is designed to be able to function properly only when it receives constant stimulation.
It meant that it wasn't for nothing that people go mad when locked in a white room with nothing in it.
Furthermore, Albino's brain, which had been left with all senses blocked, unable to feel anything, needed sufficient time to recover in order to function properly.
Normally, it would have taken a very long time for Albino's brain to recover its original function, or it might have been impossible.
However, very fortunately for Albino, the owner of the Orb of Water, Vell Blackwood, was now near Albino.
Sssss…….
The power of the Orb of Water, scattering, seeped into Albino's body, and rapidly recovered Albino's brain, nerves, and whole body, which had been practically paralyzed.
With his brain functions gradually recovering, Albino's consciousness wandered through a dream.
Albino remembered everything he had done.
Because other than just remembering, there was nothing he could do in that endless darkness.
In the eons of darkness, Albino piled up countless regrets, again and again.
At first, it started with just using magic out of bravado, then being caught by the Punishment Order, contracting with the Demon of Pain, and going further back, it led to regret about his own pathetic life of going around swindling.
Looking back, Albino's life was one with nothing left but regret.
Albino regretted all of it, and that was why he resolved, and resolved again, in his crumbling consciousness.
That if, by any chance, he was given another chance, he would never pile up the same regrets again.
That he would live as a slightly, more proper human being.
And…….
Albino, who had opened his eyes so naturally, could find himself being carried on someone's back.
“……Ah.”
“Hm? Hey! Are you awake?!”
At that, he realized that the one carrying him was someone he knew very well.
Conlan.
From the same 4th Special Task Force, and a moron who seemed to be full of muscle up to his head.
However, Albino was so very glad to see that moron again.
“……Hmph. You're loud. My head is ringing, so talk moderately.”
It was still awkward for Albino to speak, but once his mouth was open, the words came out naturally, as if his body remembered.
“Haha! This bastard's mouth is the same as ever. Still, it's a relief that you've woken up.”
“What do you mean, a relief.”
Although he had resolved so much to change in the prison of consciousness, it seemed a person's personality wasn't something that changed so easily.
Albino answered bluntly as usual, but Conlan laughed heartily, as if he was more relieved by that fact.
“Still, I didn't know you were like that, white hair. I heard it was something that could only be done with great resolve.”
“……What.”
There was no way Albino didn't know what Conlan was talking about.
When Eldran died from the mysterious attacker's
assault, and Great Stone Mountain, Mogron, began to move again, Albino knew that no one was looking at him.
For some reason, that had caused a great emotional disturbance in Albino, and as a result, he had done something he couldn't understand himself.
Self-sacrifice.
Though it was considered the noblest act, religiously, from Albino's perspective, at the end of that act, which he was embarrassed to even say himself, all that clearly remained was endless regret.
But what on earth was this situation…….
Albino, who had been lost in his own thoughts like that, soon found a man standing next to him.
“……Vell Blackwood.”
Although the time they had spent together so far was not short, he was still an incomprehensible mage he couldn't understand at all.
And that fact implied one more thing.
“It was you, as expected.”
Although many things were omitted, there was no way Vell Blackwood didn't know the meaning contained within.
“Yes.”
He had expected it, but at the answer that affirmed it so easily, Albino felt his words catch in his throat.
And a naturally arising question.
“……How?”
How on earth had Vell Blackwood returned Albino, who had been deprived of everything by the demon, to normal.
That was something that couldn't possibly happen, according to Albino's common sense.
“I made a deal.”
It must be so, but…… at Vell Blackwood's all-too-calm answer, Albino couldn't close his gaping mouth.
“You made a deal with a demon……? You, for me?”
“Yes.”
Albino knew all too well how dangerous an act dealing with a demon was.
Because none other than Albino himself had tasted the most terrible hell a human could experience as the price of that contract.
That was why Albino had to ask.
“You…… what on earth did you offer as a price.”
Albino's eyes, looking at Vell Blackwood, trembled endlessly.
To save him, what on earth had Vell Blackwood offered as a price.
Albino became afraid to know.
“Well. It wasn't small.”
“That's……!”
Albino knew that Vell Blackwood was an amazing mage.
That was probably why he looked so fine even after saving Albino.
However, no matter how great a mage he was, considering the price Albino had to pay, it was difficult to dare imagine what price Vell Blackwood would have paid.
More than anything…….
“……Why on earth did you do it? It doesn't really matter to you what happens to me, does it?”
Albino was surprised that Vell Blackwood had taken such a risk and burden for him, and at the same time, felt an unknown emotion.
Why on earth had Vell Blackwood done it?
Was there a reason to bear that much of a price for a connection that was merely being in the same special task force?
‘……Probably not.’
Albino was negative.
“I was curious about that point too. But I still don't know.”
But Vell Blackwood's answer, which came soon after, was very unexpected.
“……What does that mean?”
“That human actions aren't something that can be explained so clearly. You were the same, weren't you?”
Only then could Albino understand what Vell Blackwood was trying to say.
The realm of irrationality that Albino had acted upon.
It meant that Vell Blackwood had also stepped into that realm and endured a sacrifice for a reason he himself didn't know.
An answer so moronic it was absurd.
However, for some reason, it wasn't so unpleasant.
“I didn't know you were such a moron.”
“Same for both sides.”
Looking at Vell Blackwood, who was laughing lightly, Albino also laughed lightly.
Because it somehow felt stupid to have worried about it alone.
“Still…… thanks.”
“I didn't know you knew how to express gratitude.”
“I'm not that shameless. And……”
Albino looked at Vell Blackwood and added.
“I will definitely repay this debt. No matter how long it takes.”
It wasn't just empty words.
This was a resolution Albino had repeated to himself tens, hundreds of thousands of times in the prison of consciousness.
A resolution that if someone were to get him out of this prison, he would definitely repay that debt, no matter what price he had to pay.
“I'd like that, if you do.”
“Hmph. You annoying bastard.”
While saying so, Albino suddenly wanted to know.
What on earth was it that that great, no, incomprehensible mage, Vell Blackwood, was pursuing, to the point of staying in Winter Castle.
And, what on earth would be at the end of the path Vell Blackwood was heading.
Albino wanted to know.