Chapter 200: The Sun of That Summer (1)
‘Summer’, who borrowed the appearance of ten-year-old Cain. And Lesbos, who was the same height as him. He rolled his eyes.
And what flowed were tears.
Lesbos soon opened his mouth.
“Thank…… you.”
He couldn’t bear to look at Cain, who denied the thousand years of sacrifice and said he would save him at first sight.
To the hero who had broken him and come to save him, Lesbos forced his unmoving lips to speak.
“But I’m not worth it.”
【…….】
It’s impossible to describe the color of words, but the words Lesbos uttered were pitch black. It was the echo of the deep sea where no light could reach.
“I don’t even have gold anymore.”
“That’s true.”
Cain nodded readily.
Lesbos reflexively raised his head to look up at Cain. If it were John Doe, he would have comforted him somehow, saying it wasn’t true.
But the current hero was different.
“Your personality has softened, so you give everything away, but your stubbornness has only gotten worse, keeping you buried underground for all these years.”
“…….”
“And you’re vehemently denying it when someone offers to save you. Honestly, there’s nothing of value for me to gain from saving you.”
‘Summer’, who was listening, approached Cain and nudged him with his elbow.
【The kid’s gonna cry. Go easy on him……】
“You didn’t say it wasn’t true, Summer-nim.”
Lesbos pointed out ‘Summer’s words, and ‘Summer’, who wasn’t good at lying, coughed and turned his head.
【Well, it’s true.】
Lesbos was fated to be followed by gold. In other words, he was a gold goblin with outstanding merchant talent.
This meant that he was good at evaluating value, including his own.
“Hero. Even Summer says I’m worthless. You said so too.”
“Yes.”
“So give up on me. I’m not worth the sacrifice you’d make to save me. You have to save a bigger world. You have to defeat the Demon King too.”
Cain reached out.
The same hand that once ran across the snowy fields wielding the magic sword, ‘Winter’, was now reaching out to stroke Lesbos’s blonde hair, accompanied by the holy sword, ‘Summer’.
‘Summer’, who was watching, lowered his head and spoke to Cain.
【Honestly, I agree with him. Not to mention the ‘World Line Fixation’, there’s no telling how much of your future you’ll have to use to save this guy.】
This space was a kind of virtual space created by ‘Summer’.
It was a momentary falsehood where each of them could exist in their own form, so there was no particular burden.
However, completely restoring the real flesh and blood Lesbos was a different story.
Even the cardinal-class holy spell had no effect on reversing his condition, so there was no way to predict how much power it would take.
【If you’re thinking of using the increased fixation after clearing the quest, forget it.】
“…….”
【Things won’t go that smoothly.】
“Summer.”
Cain reached out to ‘Summer’, who was speaking cautiously beside him.
It was a handshake.
“It’s the first time I’ve seen you like this.”
‘Summer’ stared at Cain’s hand for a moment before taking it in his small hand.
【It’s not exactly right to say ‘like this’. I can only appear by borrowing your form, the owner of the sacred treasure.】
“Then why is your mouth so loose?”
Cain’s blunt words.
‘Summer’s eyebrows twitched momentarily.
Lesbos was so startled that he covered his mouth.
He couldn’t imagine a hero treating a sacred treasure so carelessly.
【What did you just……】
“You two are the same. Value? Calculation?”
Cain released his handshake with ‘Summer’ and brushed back his dark hair. A firm forehead was revealed, and beneath it, bright purple eyes gazed at the two.
“You sound just like John Doe. You guys save people after figuring out how useful and valuable they are?”
【You know that’s not what I meant!】
‘Summer’ shouted.
He was frustrated because Cain was being unreasonable even though he understood.
Cain, on the other hand, shook his head firmly.
“It’s the same thing in the end. And you, you rude little brat. I’ll say it again. You’re worthless. What can I expect from someone who’s been sucked dry and abandoned?”
“……Hero, your words are not very heroic.”
“I just don’t want to see you die like that.”
“But hero, you have to make a lot of sacrifices!”
Tears began to well up in Lesbos’s golden eyes again. He turned his head resolutely, tears scattering around him.
Stepping back, he shouted.
“I’m not stupid! I know that the hero appeared in this world because it’s the time for a hero to appear!”
【…….】
‘Summer’ also nodded heavily.
Although Lesbos looked like a young boy on the outside, he was a comrade who had experienced the past era of war together.
He knew as much.
“I don’t want to hold back a hero who has so much to do. Stop forcing it and just tell me you’ll create peace for me and kill me!”
“I’ll say it again.”
Step.
Cain stepped closer as Lesbos moved away.
He knew he couldn’t expect someone who had closed their heart after being endlessly abandoned and sacrificed to open up at once.
Step.
So he would approach until he could reach him.
Thud.
Cain grabbed Lesbos’s shoulders with both hands. He could feel the thin frame that seemed ready to break at any moment.
“I don’t want to see this kind of ending. Revenge? You do it. Don’t push it onto me.”
“Why…… Why are you trying to give me hope?”
Lesbos’s tears flowed even more. The warmth that Cain offered was so sweet that he didn’t want to let go.
But he had to.
Because he knew that was the role a goblin like him, who appeared in the long, long story of the hero, had to play.
“My sacrifice is my own.”
“……What?”
“Don’t cross the line. If I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it.”
“Why, why! It’s not because I’m valuable, and it’s certainly not pity! Why are you trying to save me?!”
Cain slowly pulled the boy’s shoulders and embraced him.
Thump—.
The heartbeat he had heard from outside was now transmitted through their skin.
“You are my past.”
Cain’s life had been lonely.
It was a bloody path where he could not hope for anyone’s understanding and no one could walk with him.
“And you are the present that I have earned.”
But in the second world line, Cain lived with desperate determination. And so, little by little, he changed the world.
The world that had been so cold to him had changed as much as Cain had run forward.
But even so, the world was still cold.
That’s why Cain had made a silent vow when he first held ‘Summer’. To become someone who could offer the warm hand he had longed for as a child.
The hero’s hand would be warm.
“The sacrifice is mine, but the revenge is yours. Don’t burden me with your baggage.”
Whoosh.
Cain reached out to ‘Summer’.
Fwooosh—.
【Maybe you’re right.】
As ‘Summer’ slowly melted into Golden Sunlight, it transformed into the holy sword, ‘Summer’, gripped in Cain’s hand.
[‘Winter’ says she can’t honestly agree, but she can’t stop you either.]
[‘Spring’ smiles from afar.]
[‘Summer’ watches with his lips tightly shut.]
Slowly.
Cain straightened up from his kneeling position. Before him, Lesbos naturally knelt on one knee and raised his head.
Tap.
As a king would knight a knight, Cain placed the holy sword once on Lesbos’s shoulder and once on his head.
And then.
[The future is being consumed.]
A message he hadn’t seen since he had gotten stronger and obtained the holy sword appeared. Cain smirked.
‘What is the future if there is no present?’
[The future is being consumed.]
If one were to miss the present out of concern for the future, even though they had the power to act, would that future truly be the future?
The answer would differ from person to person.
For Cain, it was an absolute no.
He would do his best.
He would burn with all his might at every moment in the present.
If he didn’t, and the present became the past, it would turn into something called regret.
Knowing how painful that regret was, Cain chose the present.
Fwooosh—.
The virtual space created by the holy sword began to crumble. Even that power was gathered and concentrated into the blade of ‘Summer’.
“Hero…….”
Aurelia could see Cain and Lesbos.
Wiggle—.
The brilliant summer sunlight poured down from the head of Lesbos, who could no longer be called alive.
His crimson skin gradually filled in.
[28% of the world blesses Cain.]
However, it wasn’t the tough, golden skin characteristic of gold goblins.
It was slightly pale skin.
Human skin.
[‘Summer’ is astonished by the miracle!]
It was a miracle.
It was a great miracle brought about by the hero who was prepared to sacrifice.
Lesbos’s skin filled in, his hair, eyebrows, and everything else reappeared. Slowly, golden eyeballs formed, and strong teeth grew, tearing through his healed gums.
Blink—.
Lesbos looked down at his hand in the warm sunlight.
His golden skin, which he had cut and cut again, was gone. In its place was the hand of an ordinary human child.
[The future is being consumed.]
[The future is being consumed.]
…….
Message windows began to appear as if warning him.
“Oh, Light…….”
Aurelia knelt towards Cain.
She knew because she had used a holy spell.
That all that remained for Lesbos was death.
But Cain, wielding the holy sword, had blessed Lesbos, reversing death and life.
And that wasn’t all.
He had transcended the very race of goblins and given birth to a new human being.
The world abandoned by God.
An era where only the ‘light’ that God had left behind watched over them.
“Oh, God.”
A murmur of awe escaped Aurelia’s lips as she witnessed the miracle that only God could perform.
“How do you feel, kid?”
Cain brushed away the message windows with a wave of his hand and asked.
Lesbos blinked his large eyes.
The air didn’t hurt anymore.
He could feel the world as clearly as he had just moments ago.
“Is this…….”
And he reached out and managed to get up, using the floor for support. Aurelia rushed over like lightning to help the trembling Lesbos.
“Have I become human?”
Cain nodded.
“I didn’t know if it would work, but it did because I wished for it.”
He wished for the life of the gold goblin, stripped of everything, to end. He wished for him to become a person who could live his own life.
Cain’s prayer had transformed Lesbos from the race of gold goblins into a human being.
“It happened because you wished for it……?”
“Yes.”
“Even Grandfather’s polymorph only changed appearances…….”
Cain asked what he had been curious about.
“By the way, you mentioned your grandfather several times. Was he a goblin too?”
Lesbos shook his head.
He began to walk, awkwardly but steadily, towards the back of the room where the Communication Orbs floated like stars.
Cain followed him.
In the pitch-black darkness, Lesbos reached out.
“I never had a name. I just inherited my grandfather’s name.”
Click—.
Lesbos began to move his fingers along an invisible seam on the wall.
“At first, I thought he had closed the warehouse because I was a goblin and he didn’t trust me.”
Click—.
There was a sound of something clicking into place.
Rumble—.
The island trembled.
A vertical crack began to appear from the ground to the sky, starting from where Lesbos’s fingertips touched.
“Maybe he knew I would become human.”
A vast warehouse.
This was probably where Lesbos kept the treasures he had given to the Seven Wise Men.
Only artifacts and large objects that could not be taken out by the teleportation magic circle remained.
And in the middle of it all.
“That’s my grandfather.”
There was a mound of gold so large that its end could not be seen.
No.
“Dra…… gon.”
[『Summer’s Regret Ⅱ』, Cleared!]
[You have achieved beyond perfection.]
[Rewards are maximized.]
The golden corpse of Lesbos, the true Gold Dragon that had perished in the past, lay there.
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