ERTHMB Chapter 184

Beyond the Last Page

Ian kicked Beelzebuth, whose body was trembling with thrilling excitement. After several rounds of grappling and tumbling, Ian’s fist landed squarely on Beelzebuth’s chin.

“Ugh!”

Beelzebuth slid across the ground as if flying, and Ian seized the opportunity to hurriedly check on Odyssey.

“Stay alert. Don’t close your eyes.”

Odyssey, who had been nodding with difficulty, suddenly widened his eyes. His gaze shifted over Ian’s shoulder. When Ian rolled his eyes to follow, he saw Beelzebuth struggling to his feet, dragging his sword as he approached.

Ian hurriedly searched for his own sword. Beelzebuth’s steps picked up speed as he approached. Just as Ian hadn’t properly gripped his sword hilt, Beelzebuth raised his sword. Odyssey’s scream pierced the air.

However, a new sword hilt had intervened between them. Beneath it, lines interwoven with Heidi’s distinctive patterns glowed.

“You are…”

Red hair tied up high fluttered. Beelzebuth scrutinized Helena beyond the blade they were locked against.

“I heard you were a woman who rolled around in the gutter. You’re quite different from what I imagined.”

Helena kept her head fixed on him while sending her voice backward.

“Get Odyssey to the rear first. I can hold him off that long.”

Ian hesitated for a moment but then picked up Odyssey and moved him to find a stretcher. Beelzebuth let out a sneer while simultaneously applying force to draw Helena’s attention.

“But you seem to have no eye for judgment. If you chose such a fool, you should have at least gauged where you belonged before butting in.”

“It was easy to gauge.”

Helena tore through Beelzebuth’s aura, emitting a blue sword energy.

She twisted the blade to deflect his force and struck again, producing a sharp metallic sound. The previously relaxed red eyes sharpened as well.

“I’m going to protect my man. Got a problem with that?”

It had been ten years. Ten years combined throughout the tedious regressions of holding a sword. Helena was certain that the reason lay in this very moment.

Another sword strike imbued with sword energy burst forth.

Beelzebuth, who blocked it head-on, glanced at the drag marks left in front of his boot toe and let out a long breath.

“I quite like you, miss. What a waste. If you’d met me before Ian, you might have saved your life.”

He began to properly take his stance. Helena felt her body tingle beyond her control.

This was somewhat dangerous. As soon as she thought that, Ian’s broad back blocked her front.

“What are you scheming?”

Ian pushed Helena back more roughly than usual. Immediately after, Beelzebuth’s aura slashed through the front. Even though Ian properly blocked it, Helena’s skin stung from the fine cuts.

“Hurry!”

Ian shouted in a voice tinged with faint desperation, and so that he could focus on fighting Beelzebuth, Helena practically rolled out of range.

As soon as Helena’s footsteps faded, Ian struck back.

Jet-black flames and bright blue flames surged up like an exploding volcano. The waves of aura clashing, biting and devouring each other, sounded like the howling of beasts.

Ian and Beelzebuth’s positions changed ceaselessly, tearing through space with friction sounds amplified dozens of times over their normal volume.

It was a battle Helena had never witnessed before. She stood firm, applying pressure to her anxious toes. Even with her own two eyes, it was difficult to follow their movements.

Some forgot it was an intense wartime situation and began to admire their movements. The two weren’t murderous killers intent on killing each other, but rather seemed to be performing a perfectly synchronized dance.

“Everyone retreat to Lake Tykal!”

Helena pulled the Imperial forces back to a range beyond the attacks’ reach. It was a fierce battle where ordinary people would vanish without a trace if they got caught up in it.

Each time the two’s attacks collided, the light emitted grew increasingly ferocious, and finally, a violent explosion sound so intense they had to cover their ears gripped and shook the entire surroundings.

Helena and everyone else within range were lifted by the gale and thrown about.

Eeeee-

Tinnitus rang loudly and the world spun around. She couldn’t see well ahead through the swirling dust that blocked not only her mouth and nose but also her vision.

“Ian!”

Helena gasped, groping the ground, calling out repeatedly like a death cry.

“Ian!”

As she shouted until her throat tasted of metal, the dust settled a bit and two faint black figures could be seen in the distance. One was stuck to the ground, the other stood upright.

Helena narrowed her eyes and tried to distinguish the forms. After blinking her gritty eyes several times, Helena let out a sigh of relief.

Ian was standing on top of Beelzebuth.

As Ian applied pressure with his boot, Beelzebuth coughed up dark red blood.

“It’s finally here, brother.”

Like a last struggle, Beelzebuth raised his hand to grasp Ian’s ankle and dug in his nails.

Ian’s gaze drifted for a moment. He quietly looked down at the man who had once been both his brother and his enemy.

Various angers he had to endure because of him and the time he had walked came to mind anew. However, he stopped before they could continue.

Even such sentimentality was a luxury for him. A villain didn’t need much narrative. Just one word of farewell was enough.

“Goodbye.”

Ian’s sword fell vertically.

It was a long, final period.

****

Before they knew it, the sky had turned red.

The battle was winding down, and as many were wandering between life and death as there were casualties.

Helena sat down next to the woman gasping for breath closest to her. Then the woman scraped out her vocal cords with reddened, swollen lips.

“If you came… to mock me, cough! at least… laugh. Your expression… is unpleasantly miserable…”

Helena told Natasha plainly.

“I can’t make a good expression.”

“Why, when the thorn… in your side is dying. Aren’t you… happy?”

Helena answered while tearing her own clothes to stop the bleeding from Natasha’s wound.

“Don’t try to die like a coward. You’re going to live. You’ll live and pay the appropriate price for your sins.”

Natasha tried to swat Helena’s hand away but gave up, lacking even the strength for that. Instead, she rolled her eyes to glance at Ian, who was tending to other wounded.

“You’re so lucky. You have someone who loves you that much…”

Then her gaze, moving slowly as if recalling someone, lingered in the air for a moment.

“And you can easily let go of the person who left you…”

Finally, it landed where the lifeless Beelzebuth lay.

“But I couldn’t do that, so I came this far…”

“Is it easy?”

Natasha swallowed at Helena’s sudden bitter laugh. Helena muttered while pulling the knot binding her wound somewhat firmly.

“Do you know how many chances I missed before reaching this moment?”

Though she didn’t understand at all, Natasha seemed to know what feeling it was and also sneered.

“Do you really think I had a different future? What would have changed if I hadn’t taken Beelzebuth’s hand? If only I’d met you a little earlier… could I have smiled by your side too?”

“Who knows. If you have a next life, I hope then you’ll live your own life. You’re smart, so maybe you’ll be able to recognize such a person in just one try.”

“You’re such a strange person…”

Natasha fainted before long. As soldiers loaded her onto a stretcher, Helena stood up. Now to catch her breath, she wiped her forehead and looked around.

Just then, reinforcements were coming over from Kiera Plain. Among them was Elai, limping on one leg. When their eyes met, he suddenly sat down as if his other leg had also broken.

“Elai!”

As Helena hurriedly approached him, he grabbed Helena’s wrist and pulled her down to sit. Up close, he had beads of sweat on his forehead and was breathing somewhat roughly.

“Let’s just say goodbye. I’d hate to be trapped in a human body and vanish, so I should leave now.”

Helena, realizing he was in his ‘demon’ state, asked back.

“A-are you saying Elai will die?”

“Probably if I leave, the souls he has to bear physically will decrease… so maybe he can survive?”

“Then leave quickly. Right now!”

As Helena grabbed his shoulders and shook him, Elai grumbled in a deliberately disappointed tone.

“Still, we’ve built some affection over time, Helena. That’s a bit cold.”

Despite being urged again to hurry up and go, he bent his eyebrows downward, then suddenly asked pleasantly.

“Are you confident you won’t regress again?”

“…What do you mean?”

“Even though it was Eugene who made the regression contract, it can’t be realized without the will of the regression subject. On the other hand, if even a hair’s breadth of desire to regress remains, the contract is immediately fulfilled. I’m asking if you can guarantee it will be different this time.”

Helena glanced once at Ian approaching this way, then looked back at Elai. It wasn’t even a question she needed to consider.

Helena took Elai’s hands and smiled sincerely.

“I won’t see you again now. However much it was for your amusement, it was an opportunity for me. Thank you. Farewell.”

“You’re really so heartless.”

Elai soon yawned long with an extremely sleepy face. He lay down holding Helena’s hands, closed his eyes, then opened them again as if he’d forgotten something.

“But you know, Helen. I actually didn’t really do anything. It’s how one flap of a butterfly’s wings can summon a typhoon.”

“…?”

“The first wing flap was you leaving the Grand Duchy. Think about it, why did Rihalt’s Emperor, who always died in his own country, come looking for you only this time? From that moment, the path you called fate was broken.”

Elai’s voice stretched out like a broken music box and stopped completely. Helena placed her finger under his nose. A warm breath tickled her knuckle.

Ian, who had approached in the meantime and must have heard, helped Helena up with a face slightly lost in thought. Then he soon let out a small exclamation as if realizing something.

“My goodness, Helena. Do you know how I decided to come to Instantia, which I hadn’t considered at all? Cheshire—I mean Natasha—made her first mistake.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

“Natasha probably acted more boldly and rashly, emboldened by your resigned attitude. With Evergale falling into her grasp so easily, victory must have seemed right before her eyes. That one mistake leaked information, and thanks to that, I learned there was a money source in Instantia. The regressions you went through weren’t futile at all.”

Ian’s eyes sparkled more joyfully than anyone’s.

“So… in the end, if you would see yourself the way I see you.”

His eyes were stars that sparkled even in a world where the sun had risen. And Helena knew that her eyes were such stars to him as well.

So without hesitation, she reached out to pull his neck close and kissed him. It was the most certain answer.

After indulging until breathless, Ian gave her a brief respite. His roughened breathing was hot even in the winter air. His breath bloomed like a white bouquet.

Before swallowing her lips again, he confessed.

“Marry me, Helena.”

From afar, the trumpet sound announcing victory came riding on the wind. Helena pulled him even deeper into her embrace and gave another answer more certain than words.

December 31st, Year 126 of Caesius. The time when he and I always died.

We had survived, would live on, and would love.

Finally, time beyond the last page began to flow.