Chapter 13: The Epilogue
“I’m not in pain.”
“Of course, you must be happy. There’s nothing sweeter or more enjoyable than sacrificing yourself for everyone else.”
”…”
“To keep this world standing, how frozen is your heart? How cold and biting is the chill that seeps into your very bones? I bet it’s beyond words.”
Dale spoke to the Queen of Winter, as if soothing a stubborn child.
“While you were asleep in the realm of ice, I built this empire of winter over countless ages.”
Lize replied.
“Charlotte, the two children, Lady Sepia, our father and mother—none of them are fake. I created this empire of winter for you, for everyone we love. Everything you searched for in a world where you were left alone is here.”
Lize cried out, her voice trembling.
“In this world, no one gets hurt, and everyone can be happy with their loved ones until the end of time. It’s the only way for everyone to be happy.”
“I know.”
“Then why do you reject this world?”
“Because you’re not here.”
“I’m here too!”
Lize shouted, and the winds around them froze solid, a chilling void sweeping through everything.
“Look around you, Lize,” Dale said gently.
“Outside this dream world where everyone sleeps, you’ll be the sentinel of solitude for eternity.”
“For the happiness of you, me, and everyone we love, I can endure this cold. Even until the end of the universe.”
“Your sacrifice isn’t for us. It’s a burden you carry for yourself alone.”
“That’s not true.”
“I know what you’re afraid of, Lize,” Dale said, his voice as kind and gentle as she remembered.
“You’re scared that when you accept the truth that your sacrifice means nothing, it’ll be too late to change anything. You’re terrified of a future where you suffer in endless cold and darkness for no reason.”
”…!”
Dale smiled bitterly, understanding her fears as the Shadow Lord.
If Dale were to surrender to the winter empire, Lize might find some meaning in her sacrifice. Yet, he couldn’t do that.
At the end of false happiness lies only falsehood.
“There’s no dream you don’t wake up from, Lize.”
”…”
“It’s time to wake up.”
Dale’s words made Lize’s slender shoulders tremble.
“Look at my shadow, Lize.”
At his words, the Queen of Winter and Shadows turned. Within Dale’s shadow, the truth lay hidden. The truth he concealed was his willingness to give everything for his beloved sister.
“What’s different?” the Winter Empress asked.
“Are you going to bear my foolishness and correct my mistakes by sacrificing yourself again, brother?!”
She couldn’t understand.
“How is that any different from what you’ve always done? You deny sacrifice in front of me, yet you’re ready to sacrifice yourself!”
In the end, nothing was different. Lize steeled herself and shouted again, but Dale remained unfazed.
“Lize, I promise you, we can fix everything.”
Fix everything. For a moment, Lize’s expression wavered.
“We can bring you and everyone we love back from this winter empire.”
“It’s too late.”
Lize shook her head.
“Unless one of us sacrifices, we can’t correct my mistake. I don’t want you to bear this pain anymore. The cold that freezes my heart is better than watching you sacrifice yourself.”
“It’s not too late. Look at my shadow, Lize. Do you still think I’m lying?”
“Truth doesn’t always become reality.”
Lize replied.
“No matter how sincerely you plead, the contract with her can’t be undone.”
“It must have been so hard for you.”
The eight circles and shadow circles surrounding Dale began to accelerate. In the cold and darkness, Dale spoke.
“But none of this is your fault.”
He understood the pain Lize endured in her unilateral self-sacrifice and self-love.
“From the start, it was my mistake, my atonement to bear.”
And now, Dale’s sacrifice to correct Lize’s mistake was causing her pain again.
─ Let’s play a game. A game to protect what you love.
─ I’m just curious. Which ‘truth’ is more truthful, yours or hers?
Two Shadow Lords stood there, revealing their truths within their shadows.
Yet, nothing would change.
“The game is over, Shub.”
Dale spoke coldly.
─ What do you mean, over?
At that moment, a girl beside Dale asked. A girl with horns of a black goat tilted her head in confusion.
Countless tendrils writhed beneath her dress.
“Here lies the truest truth in the world.”
─ I can’t believe it until I see it.
Shub giggled with delight.
─ Show me the ‘form of truth.’
“Then take it.”
Dale said. Lize gasped, unable to grasp the meaning, as tendrils shot out from beneath Shub’s dress.
Thud!
The tendrils struck, aimed at Dale and Lize.
It wasn’t a single sacrifice. A single sacrifice couldn’t provide the answer the Mother of Ancient Darkness sought.
”…!”
Eyes that discerned the truth of the two Shadow Lords. Eyes that faced the truest truth in the world, like a mirror.
─ Correct, children of truth.
The Mother of Ancient Darkness exclaimed joyfully.
Countless tendrils of pitch-black writhed, and the winter empire began to crumble.
─ In countless eons of life, how foolish and lovable you humans are!
Yet, unfortunately, Dale couldn’t witness the scene. Nor could Lize.
“It’s dark…”
At that moment, a voice was heard.
“It’s dark… Brother, where are you?”
It was Lize’s voice, crying like a child. So Dale reached out.
“Lize, I’m here.”
Flailing in the darkness, reaching out with both arms.
The senses were strangely dim. Even though it was just darkness, it felt like all five senses were lost in it.
The loneliness of being left alone in the dark.
A sobbing sound echoed. It was Lize’s sobbing.
In the shadows, Dale reached out toward the sound. He felt a touch. It was cold, chilling, a cold that seemed to freeze even the heart.
Lize was silently weeping beside Dale.
The winter empire had collapsed, and in its ruins, Dale embraced Lize.
Beyond her ice-cold skin, a faint warmth pulsed.
“Are you awake?”
Consciousness returned in the darkness, and light poured in.
‘Light…?’
Dale hurriedly sat up, feeling a sensation he shouldn’t have.
“Uncle Dale!”
Yufi’s urgent voice called out to him. As he turned his head, light seeped through his eyelids. The brightness momentarily blurred his vision, but soon images formed on his retinas.
Yufi, and the leader of the revolutionaries, the Golden Lord… Ray Uris stood there.
“Why?”
Dale murmured softly, remembering what he had given in the world beyond the gate.
─ It’s just a brief reprieve.
At that moment, a voice came from beside him. Dale quickly turned his head.
The girl with the goat horns was there.
─ Until I come to claim what I must take, explore the world to your heart’s content, child of truth.
The Mother of Ancient Darkness whispered kindly, though she appeared as a girl.
”…”
Upon hearing those words, Dale rose without hesitation.
“Have you found the answer?”
Ray Uris asked.
“How much did you know?”
“I do not know the truth. I only know the lies. And that world was…”
Ray Uris said.
“It was overflowing with countless lies. I only knew that much.”
”…”
Dale remained silent.
“Was the technology of the old empire something you obtained by peering into that world of lies?”
“Yes. But now it all means nothing. The revolution, the gold and shadows, even the Ninth Empire.”
“Why is that?”
“Because the Empire of Black Gold has risen from the depths of history.”
Ray Uris said. At those words, Dale momentarily held his breath, then calmly asked.
“Then what do you plan to do now?”
“Though I lead the revolution, I was never the one turning its wheels.”
Ray Uris replied.
“Just as my father once turned the wheel of blood and recorded its history, I too stand by history’s side, inscribing it with blood.”
”…My story has ended. The Empire of Black and Gold is no different,” Dale replied.
“So at the very least, there won’t be any more of us in your book, will there?”
“I certainly hope so,” Ray Eurys said with a smile, as Dale turned his back.
“But will it really be so?” the Golden Sovereign asked, addressing Dale’s retreating figure.
“Shall we go, Yufi?” Dale said.
“Wh-where to?” Yufi asked, quickly getting to her feet.
“Home,” Dale answered.
Revolution or emperor. Leaving behind the ever-turning wheel of history, Dale and Yufi set out on their journey.
Toward the edge of the world, to the ruins of an ancient empire lost to history.
As they neared the northern reaches of the continent, the air was filled with the endless, fanciful tales of idle storytellers.
He remembered the first time he awoke in this world, the vast, empty expanse of the Northern Sea, the night sea holding endless darkness beyond the horizon.
But now, there was no longer an empty, restless sea.
There was land.
The land of the otherworld, silent and waiting for revenge, the northern frontier.
The domain of Duke Saxon, the heart of the old empire ruled by the Black and Gold Emperor.
Just as Dale had once done, the winter of that land began to thaw, and time, long frozen, started to move again.
The man and the girl stepped onto the earth, and the cold ground was bathed in the warm light of spring.