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Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu (Light Novel) - Volume 3: A Cruel Disturbance in the Midst of Sleep, Prologue I: This Dream is Falling Apart—
Volume 3: A Cruel Disturbance in the Midst of Sleep, Prologue I: This Dream is Falling Apart—
This chapter is updated by NovelFree.ml
She often dreamed of that time. Of that far-off memory.
“Got it? Hold my hand and don’t let go no matter what!”
It was a dream where the boy shouted that…
She was always, always shocked.
“……”
Death.
Everyone, everyone was dying.
That place was overflowing with death.
Explosions from bombs, lightning bolts, and flames burnt and scorched both the sneering adults and the kids running about trying to escape.
Those who screamed and cried, those who begged for their lives, those who had no power of their own… were killed.
All she could do was mumble in shock. “This is… no, no more…”
She didn’t like it. She was fed up with it. This atrocity they called ‘training’ repeated day after day. Their survival meant they’d be forgiven for living in the orphanage. They’d be forgiven for living.
“No… I’m so sick of this, no more…”
A friend she’d talked to just yesterday was lying on the ground dead. One by one, her friends - no, her family, kids who’d lived at the same orphanage - were killed.
She had no choice but to run for her life with a scene like that spreading out before her eyes…
To protect her life that could end tomorrow, she had no choice but to run…
She was fed up with it.
“I don’t care anymore.”
That’s what she thought. So she stopped moving. She stopped thinking.
When she did, the adult standing before her sneered. “Go die if you’ve given up.” With that, their sword swung up…
But the girl didn’t move. She’d die if she didn’t do anything. She understood that, but she didn’t do anything. Because…
Compared to living, dying was surely much more enjoyable…
She couldn’t see her dead friends anymore if she was alive. With that, she could bring her fear of death so strong that she couldn’t sleep at night to an end…
But…
“What are you doing, you idiot!?”
“Huh!?”
A kick suddenly came up from behind… kicking that sword up into the air.
When she looked behind her, a boy with black hair had appeared. He knocked the training overseer over and glared at her. “What’re you doing? You should still have the power to live through this!”
She knew of him. He was Roland’s Special Institute #307’s star pupil. Black hair, black eyes, a thin and lean build and a beautiful face.
Ryner Lute.
His grades were excellent. He had a brilliant mind and was strangely adept at both physical combat and magic. His chances of survival were a cut above the rest, too.
He was always their orphanage’s model student. They were always told to be like him.
He was extraordinary. He got special treatment. He was a perfect war machine.
He was never worried. He was never afraid. He never lost his composure. He would never die.
She wanted to be like him if it made it so she wouldn’t be sad when someone died before her very eyes, if it made it so she wasn’t scared of dying, if it made things easier…
He looked at her and spoke. “I’m gonna send you flying for this. People who think it’s okay if they die end up dying, you know!”
“…Huh?”
She didn’t understand what he said. In any case, he looked angry… but it should’ve been impossible for Ryner Lute to lose his composure. That’s what she’d been told.
“What am I saying,” he muttered, then continued in an exasperated tone. “It’s not that… according to your grades, you’re better than someone who would die here, aren’t you! So live! Whether you want to live or want to die, there are already too many people who have died, so don’t be such a baby!”
What a thing to say to her… for some reason, she began to cry…
“A, a baby…? But I-I don’t want to see… everyone die any…”
Her words trailed off. He was looking at her with a horribly, horribly sad expression.
“Even I… don’t want to see that,” he mumbled in a small, quiet voice. “So…”
Even as he spoke, death kept happening around them.
Someone died.
Someone else died.
Ryner Lute, who was supposed to be an unfeeling war machine, watched sadly…
His expression made her breath catch in her throat.
He was human. He was sad when his friends died. He was sad when people died. He was sad when he couldn’t save them. He was sad when he was the only one left.
He was the same as her…
She didn’t know anything either. They shared the same hardships and the same pain. Even so, he was alive…
Even if all he had left was the power to keep living, he wished that she wouldn’t die. No… it was because he couldn’t bear the weight of the guilt of being the only survivor…
He was something that the people at the orphanage longed to be. If they were like him, they thought their sadness would disappear.
But he wasn’t like that. He wasn’t actually… strong…
That was a hopeless realization for her. In the end, there was no such thing as a perfect, worriless existence. Every day was hard. Too hard. So she’d wanted to be like him. But he worried just the same as her.
“…But,” she whispered.
Ryner’s sad eyes narrowed, and then he opened them wide. He turned around and shifted one step to the side. Then a bolt of lightning someone had cast struck the spot he’d just been in.
She could hardly believe it.
He’d dodged someone’s lightning magic. He’d looked at it with his eyes and dodged.
She didn’t think that was possible. He must have some kind of precognition… something that let him see magic…
And then she realized. A red pentagram had risen over his eyes.
She knew those eyes. They were an ability known as the Alpha Stigma. People who had it were feared and loathed and called monsters.
Everyone feared it, hated it, and called it a monster.
He looked around his surroundings with those pentagram eyes, then turned back to her. He’d noticed her staring. Noticed her looking into his eyes.
In a second, he covered his eyes like he was hiding. “Ah… uu…”
He sounded scared. Like he was scared of people knowing. Like he was scared of being hated.
But…
She smiled.
She already understood. He wasn’t perfect. He was burdened with the same worries she was…
He wasn’t someone she should long to be… he was weak, and he’d wanted to save her.
She reached out her hand.
His eyes opened wide in surprise, but he took her hand and helped her stand.
People died. They would continue to die.
He took a sweeping look across the battlefield. “Got it? Hold my hand and don’t let go no matter what!”
She vowed that she wouldn’t let go of his hand no matter what. Not even if other people called him a monster, and no matter how much she broke apart.
