WeTried Translations
Translator: ZERO_SUGAR
Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 509: The End, an End to Everything (9)
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Morgan le Fay recalled her origin.
Steeling one's confidence in oneself by recalling one's origin was not a privilege reserved for heroes. Everyone had an origin. Remembering where she had begun, she smiled.
"I hate you all."
The woman who had chosen to be a Witch burst into laughter.
"I hate you terribly. You call yourselves beautiful, but what makes you think only you can be beautiful? What makes you think only you are special?"
Burn scars marred her body. Scars blackened by fire consumed her flesh. Black smoke rose around her as red flames rippled at her feet. Blended together, they looked like dark crimson fire.
"You see demons as your enemies. You think witches are your enemies. But think about it. Throughout history, it has always been humans who killed the most humans."
The Witch sneered.
"Humans kill humans. You divide yourselves, start wars, and create tragedies for all sorts of reasons. Compare the number of humans I have devoured over the past tens of thousands of years with the number of your own kind you have killed in that same time..."
"They would probably be about the same, wouldn't they?"
Those who killed humans were always other humans.
"If anything, the existence of a common enemy like me made you choose unity over division. And even after choosing unity, this is what you became. You are not beautiful in the slightest. Far from it, the stench of you is unbearable."
Because the Witch was human as well.
Humanity had given her two sides, turned her into a Witch, and stained her. She had already become an excellent human herself.
"I hate you so much I can barely stand it."
The Witch did not hide herself.
She did not deny herself. She did not turn away from where she had begun, nor did she offer herself false comfort. She had always been consistent.
"I hope every last one of you burns to death in agony."
Innate Magic, Execution by Fire.
Whoosh.
Flames flooded the heart of the Abyss.
Dark crimson fire burned across the night sea. Using the civilizations of humanity that she had devoured and submerged beneath that sea as fuel, it surged violently. In other words, it was no different from the Witch of the Abyss setting herself ablaze.
"Every last one."
Because she herself was included among those she meant.
Execution by Fire was, by nature, a punishment meant to burn sinners. Naturally, the greater the sin, the larger and fiercer the flames had to become.
Here stood the most terrible sinner of all.
Even if every flame in the world were gathered to burn away that sin, it would not be enough. The night sea did not merely boil under the dreadful heat, it evaporated. The civilizations humanity had lost to the Abyss melted limp and soft, like something simmered in a cauldron.
"......"
And Najin...
"I see."
Having glimpsed the Witch's past, Najin let out a short breath. Resisting the heat, he raised his sword. This was not the first time he had looked into someone's life. Najin had seen and experienced the lives of others many times before.
He understood that it had been a painful life. He understood why she had made these choices.
But that did not mean Najin would change his own choice.
That was that, and this was this.
Najin's convictions were not so light that another person's life could shake them. If anything, seeing that past made him grip his sword more tightly. He stepped into the heart of the Abyss, which had begun to burn.
"As expected, what I have to say hasn't changed."
He raised his sword.
"I will cut you down, Morgan."
Najin pointed his sword at the Witch, who had come to resemble humans precisely because she hated them more than anyone.
2.
Dark crimson flames covered the Abyss.
The sky burned black.
The ground, heated bright red, melted away, and thick black smoke covered everything. In that space filled only with soot and the stench of burning, the Witch burst into laughter. Laughing madly, she revealed her oldest inner world.
A stage unfolded.
The scene of Avalon, a utopia burned to ash, spread out around her. Burned corpses lay scattered across the ground. She had been born in the center of that plaza, and the flames that had consumed her body became a living inferno and surged forth.
"Burn."
Dark crimson flames rolled forward.
"Burn it all."
Magic had been born from terrible hatred and resentment. Perhaps it was a curse. The flames she raised by burning her own flesh resembled a curse more than anything else. Swinging an arm wrapped in fire, the Witch watched.
She watched the human resisting the heat.
That figure shone brightly enough to hurt the eyes. A human who did not yield to any trial or hardship could be beautiful without end. Not even Morgan denied that fact. Rather, because she hated humanity, she recognized human beauty better than anyone.
She knew humans could be beautiful.
She knew it better than anyone.
Was that not why she had failed to destroy the world for tens of thousands of years? Because beautiful people had clung to her feet, because they had struggled, because they had willingly offered their lives to bind her in place.
Shhhhaaaaa!
Watching the light Najin created, the Witch smiled. She reached out toward Najin as he approached through the flames. Opening her mouth as though he were lovable, and as though that made him all the more detestable and hateful, she spoke.
"If you wield humanity's beauty as a weapon..."
The Witch spat the words out.
"Then I will wield your ugliness as my weapon."
The flames grew fiercer. Amid the intensifying blaze, the Witch swung her arm. Countless spells took shape. Within the burning stage, she moved as though dancing. Her laughter echoed, and the flames flooded forth.
Sizzle!
Morgan's eyes narrowed at the sound of water striking fire. Water and ice wrapped around Najin's body, keeping him from melting in the heat. It was magic opposite to her own, which ruled over fire.
"Ah."
She looked at Merlin, who stood at Najin's side.
"How fitting."
Merlin was one of her kind. Perhaps the only one of her kind left. In the truest sense, Merlin was the only kin Morgan had. Looking at the woman who resembled her so terribly, Morgan felt pity and disgust at once.
"Light blinds people. It turns even the greatest prophet into a blind fool. Poor child, do not think your light will last forever."
The stronger the light, the warmer its glow...
"Everyone will leave your side."
And the fall when it vanished would be all the greater.
Clap.
The Witch clapped her hands. Severed hands, which had hung pitifully from the tip of her hat, began to rise into the air. One belonged to an old person, another to a woman, and another to a man.
There were thirteen pairs in all.
Every pair floated with palms pressed together in prayer. If Execution by Fire was the Witch's origin, then these thirteen pairs of hands were the origin of the Blight Stars. Having set herself alight to recall where she began, she moved forward.
「Let us divide in two.」
The fairy and the Witch, divided into two, each walked in their own direction.
No, that was not quite right. The fairy moved forward, but the Witch did not. She threw herself into the greatest pit in the world.
Because she wanted neither to see nor hear anything.
She would burn the world someday, but it did not have to be now. That was what the Witch thought. The fairy would fail in the end. When that happened, she thought, it would not be too late to appear before her and laugh.
That was how Morgan imprisoned herself.
She locked herself in the place called the Abyss and closed her eyes. No one should have disturbed her there.
「Throw them in.」
If corpses had not begun to fall into that place.
「The sinners.」
「The defeated.」
「The sick.」
「The cursed ones.」
「Throw in every filthy thing.」
If filthy things had not been discarded there.
「The Abyss, the Bottomless Pit, hell.」
「Let us throw the filthy things away and imprison them here.」
And then...
「Why must we suffer?」
「Why are they the only ones allowed to be beautiful?」
「What did we do wrong?」
「Why do they take everything from us?」
If the abandoned had not prayed to her, if they had not awakened her from sleep, then she would not have moved. Unable to turn away from humans who had been reduced to the same state as herself, the Witch listened to their desperate voices.
「Did you ask what we desire?」
The abandoned and cursed pressed their palms together.
「Please, we beg you.」
The abandoned made a wish to the Witch.
「An end to everything.」
Only the end would be their salvation.
Clap, clap, clap, clap, clap.
As though recalling that day, thirteen pairs of hands clapped together. Twenty-six hands clapped in succession. Their forms were all different, but what they wished for was the same.
"Yes, that is what happened."
By recalling and dwelling on her origin, Morgan became sure of herself.
"That was how it was."
'I need no one's recognition. It does not matter if everyone denies me. Even if everything in the world changes, I will not, because I remember myself. Only then am I truly myself. Nothing can change who I am.'
'I am immutable and consistent.'
'As you moved forward proclaiming the beauty of humanity, you turned away from those who were cast aside. Worse still, you discarded them with your own hands, as though they had no right to reach utopia.'
「Mother.」
「Our master.」
「Our king.」
'I am the mother, master, and king of those you cast aside. I stand here as proof of every sin you have committed, and this time, you will not be able to turn away from me. I will make sure of it.'
「Let us see which side the scales, balanced now between me, who gathered beauty, and you, who gathered hatred, will tip toward that day.」
Her other half had once said that.
That one day, they would choose whether the ending of this land would be utopia or the Abyss. The Witch knew what that ending would be. Recalling what she had said to the half of herself that had tried to rise into the sky on the day of choice, the Witch smiled until her mouth nearly split.
"Where you will arrive is not utopia."
She spoke between the sounds of applause.
"You must fall into the Abyss."
A voice rang out through the flooding flames.
『The end.』
Countless voices overlapped.
『An end to everything.』
Innate Magic, The End.
Over the Innate Magic created by the clapping palms, the Witch layered her own magic. It was the magic that had devoured her other half tens of thousands of years ago. To the fairy flying high in the sky, the Witch taught descent.
Innate Magic, Abyss.
An inevitable descent, into the Abyss.
3.
Where there was light, there was shadow.
The more intense the light that was cast, the darker the shadow became.
Therefore, the more intense the light humanity created, the stronger the Witch became. She existed to prove light's opposite.
Thirteen Blight Stars burned dark crimson.
As Najin gained a new Star, the Witch's shadow grew darker still. In contrast to his brilliant light, her shadow stretched long, and the Blight Stars burned more fiercely. After all, flames needed something to consume if they were to burn fiercely.
It had been tens of thousands of years.
The Witch could never forgive the light that had appeared after tens of thousands of years, the light that reminded her of her former self. Just as humans envied and resented what was beautiful before dragging it down, she too, having come to resemble humans, did the same.
'Burn his achievements, everything he accomplished.'
Flooding flames swallowed Najin. They sought to burn everything he had achieved and turn it into ash. Though the flames burned hotter, the light instead dimmed and darkened.
'Hold him.'
Grasping hands burst from the darkness.
'Pull him down.'
They clawed at him, seized his ankles, and dragged him down by any means possible. Just as countless humans had done in the past, the Witch did the same. She grabbed Najin and pulled him down.
'Make him fall into a pit without end.'
'Imprison him in the Bottomless Pit.'
'Bury him.'
If humans created heroes, then those same humans also killed them. The Witch cast Najin into the evil she had devoured over tens of thousands of years. She dragged the human who wished to engrave a Star high in the sky down into the Abyss.
Caught by countless grasping hands, Najin fell.
Into the Abyss.
Toward the endless Bottomless Pit.
Footnotes:
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