LIGHTNOVELSTORY Chapter 127 - Epilogue
✦ Chapter 127 – Epilogue ✦
「Translator – Creator」
𒋝𒋝𒋝𒋝𒋝
“That’s… Edwin Reid… So then, is that the person Ellie was talking about…?”
“I had a feeling…”
Ellie’s friends, who gradually recognized me, began to whisper among themselves. It was obvious what they were thinking, even without asking.
They had the same look as the commoner students who occasionally saw me with Ellie and Celine when our schedules overlapped.
Suddenly, I recalled Ellie’s complaints from last time. After returning to the academy, Ellie had eagerly spread good words about me to her friends, but it hadn’t yielded much effect.
It’s only natural they’d find it hard to believe. Additionally, Ellie’s explanation didn’t cover my duel with Eugene and Selene.
At least they hadn’t jumped to the same conclusions as Patricia, attributing Ellie’s loyalty to some misguided form of Stockholm Syndrome. Still, I suspected that sometimes, actions spoke louder than words.
But how to convince them?
“Ed… hurry…” Ellie whispered, her grip on my arm tightening.
“Should I… act friendly? Treat you like a close acquaintance?”
“That’s not enough…! Make it… convincing! Like… like I’m precious to you…! That’s the only way they’ll believe me…!”
It wasn’t exactly ‘acting,’ I thought. Ellie was precious to me. Why else would I have gone to such lengths to help her, not once, but twice?
But conveying that sentiment in a way that would satisfy both Ellie and her skeptical friends… that was proving to be a formidable challenge.
Time was of the essence. I needed a plan, and fast.
*Hug…*
“Ed… hurry up… wha—?”
Sometimes, actions did speak louder than words. Humans were, after all, highly visual creatures.
Just like the students had murmured after seeing the bruises on Selene’s body.
I placed a reassuring hand on Ellie’s shoulder, drawing her closer. She stumbled slightly, and for a moment, she was back in my arms, her face buried against my chest.
“Ellie. Is this enough…? Now you just need to explain…”
“Ha… ha… ha…”
“…Ellie?” I whispered, my voice barely audible above the gentle rustling of leaves. It was her turn to shine.
But Ellie remained frozen in my arms, speechless.
Her initial enthusiasm had evaporated, leaving behind a flustered mess of nervous twitches and incoherent murmurs.
“…What to do… I can’t even… resist…”
“Is he showing off in front of others…?”
Ellie’s silence only fueled misunderstandings. Whispering comments reached our ears as the onlookers’ expressions grew more serious.
Given her personality, I had expected Ellie to play it off with a cheeky “Oh, come on, it’s embarrassing in front of others…” or something similar.
But she didn’t.
…Then everyone would naturally assume Ellie was clinging to me of her own volition.
That was the plan, wasn’t it…?
“Ellie… say something, quickly…”
“Uh… uhm…? That… ah… mmm…”
No matter how much I encouraged her, Ellie remained speechless, her attempts at communication devolving into a series of unintelligible sounds.
“Now that you mention it… Ellie does look a little… worn out,” one of her friends remarked, her brow furrowed in concern.
“Did he maybe… torment Ellie all night in that way…?”
“I can’t stand this anymore! Edwin Reed! Who do you think you are to treat our Ellie like that… ugh!!”
“Shh! What if he retaliates? There’s no professor around here…!”
One girl tried to confront me but was quickly restrained and dragged away by other students.
In their disappearing figures, all they could do was cast pitying looks at Ellie and contemptuous glances my way.
“Hah… this is ridiculous…”
“So vulgar…”
From behind, I heard faint murmurs from Selene and Hertie. Though I couldn’t hear the specifics, their tones didn’t sound friendly.
“……….….”
Ellie, meanwhile, had yet to utter a single coherent word. She stood frozen in my embrace, her face beet red, her eyes darting frantically from side to side as if searching for an escape route.
…She really is weak when it comes to being pressured…
* * * * *
“Edwin. Ah…”
Selene offered me a small, red fruit.
“…Maybe… I should just eat it myself…”
“Ah.”
At the slightest hint of refusal, Selene responded sensitively. Her tone dropped to a low, almost chilling level.
Why was Selene acting out so suddenly? Had she been provoked by what just happened to Ellie…?
*Nom!*
“Heehee… that’s right…”
She parted her lips slightly and, with a suggestive glance in my direction, pushed the fruit—along with the tips of her fingers—deeper into my mouth. I had no choice but to comply, my tongue brushing against her skin as I accepted the offering.
The sweet burst in my mouth felt almost like tasting Selene herself.
Selene, like she was praising a puppy, stood on tiptoe and patted my head gently.
“It’s really sweet and delicious… Ellie. Hertie. Do you want some too…?”
“………….”
“No thanks…”
She asked the two ahead of us, but their responses were far from enthusiastic. Hertie refused with a weary tone, and Ellie remained silent, still seemingly affected.
By now, we had reached the outskirts of the northern forest swamp. The ground was marshy and covered with herbs and flowers needing lots of water.
Above, a canopy of leaves filtered the sunlight, casting the forest floor in perpetual twilight. It was breathtakingly beautiful.
A paradise for herbalists and healers, I thought. No wonder Tespira had insisted on unrestricted access to this land in exchange for her services at the academy.
We picked our way carefully through the dense undergrowth, our boots sinking into the soft, waterlogged earth. We were getting closer to the heart of the swamp now, a place where reeds and cattails grew taller than a man’s height—the perfect hunting ground for Water Rippers.
When it came to hunting these creatures, nothing beat light lure fishing. It was the only reliable way to draw them out from their camouflage and into the open.
Each of us conjured a ball of light with our magic, letting it hover among the reeds and wobble back and forth. Soon enough, a massive shadow lunged at the ball of light, trying to swallow it.
“Now, Hertie!”
As the Water Ripper thrashed in the shallows, Hertie unleashed his magic. A blade of pure energy, razor-sharp and impossibly swift, sliced through the creature’s thick hide, severing its spinal cord with a sickening crack.
*Groan!!*
The creature, a grotesque, horned frog the size of a small carriage, twitched once, then lay still. Its bulk alone was enough to make Adele look like a harmless tadpole in comparison.
“Ugh… that’s… disgusting,” Hertie shuddered, a look of utter revulsion twisting his features as he surveyed the Water Ripper’s lifeless form.
Selene and Ellie, though clearly not thrilled by the sight, seemed far less disturbed.
“…Hertie? Are you alright?”
“F-fine…”
—This way…
“This way?”
“……………”
When I questioned him, Hertie looked more puzzled than anything.
* * * * *
“Edwin… look at all these mushrooms here…?”
“They look like corpse mushrooms… It’s best not to touch them…”
“…Ew.”
Hearing my words, Ellie grimaced and stepped back. In front of her, clusters of small mushrooms with crimson caps were growing.
I remembered reading about them in the herbology textbook. They only grew on corpses that had died less than three days ago.
“…Ed… can’t we go somewhere else…?”
Ellie asked in a slightly anxious voice.
Our first four Water Rippers had fallen with relative ease, but retrieving proof of our victory was proving to be more challenging than anticipated. The creatures’ cores, you see, were embedded deep within their massive, blubbery bodies.
However, extracting them took much longer than expected. By the time we retrieved the four cores and returned to dry land, night had already fallen.
While I wasn’t particularly thrilled about spending the night camped out next to a patch of corpse mushrooms, traveling through the swamp in the dark was too risky—not to mention inefficient. Our best bet was to set up camp and resume our hunt in the morning.
“It’s taking so long because Edwin had to do all the disassembling since we couldn’t manage it… think before you speak…?”
Selene muttered from behind Ellie, her words dripping with sharpness.
I wanted to intervene immediately. Selene didn’t know Ellie’s true nature, which is why she could say such things…
“…I didn’t mean it that way. I’m sorry, Ed… you worked the hardest after all…”
Ellie flinched momentarily before quickly calming down. Her apologetic expression as she approached me was as pitiful as that of an abandoned puppy.
“It’s okay. I understand… And you don’t need to worry too much. I’ll make sure to keep watch properly…”
“Are you sure… you can handle it alone…?”
“I’ll be fine. If it gets too hard, I can wake you up.”
Though both Ellie and Selene looked reluctant, they eventually gave in to my persuasion.
While I genuinely wanted to let the group rest due to weariness, I had another motive.
The dynamic between Selene and Ellie had been off all day. Selene’s sharp words earlier made it more evident.
Their relationship had always been awkward, but not to this extent. Did they have some sort of argument while I was asleep last night?
I couldn’t just ask them outright, which was incredibly frustrating. I had no choice but to ensure they weren’t left alone together. Tomorrow, even if I had to stay up on watch, I needed to keep them apart…
*Rustle*
As expected, Ellie and Selene fell asleep early, evidently exhausted. I was tending the campfire when I heard movement and turned to see a boy with fine ash-brown hair, Hertie Nox.
“Hertie? Why aren’t you sleeping?”
“…I just can’t fall asleep… no, I mean… haha…”
Though we had been close for a while, Hertie sometimes still slipped into formal speech. His manners were deeply ingrained.
He shuffled closer and sat down beside me, hesitating before speaking.
“Um, Edwin…”
“Yes?”
“There’s something… something I’ve been meaning to ask you… Would you… mind listening?”
“Of course. What is it?”
Sharing concerns was one of the quickest ways to forge a bond between people, or so I’d heard. And besides, I was curious. Hertie rarely spoke about himself.
His gaze dropped to his lap, and for a moment, he looked like a child about to confess to a transgression.
“It’s just… I had this… fiancé, you see…”
And so began Hertie’s tale.
He hesitated as he began to explain.
It was a familiar story, one of childhood promises and arranged marriages. His parents, it seemed, had chosen his betrothed when they were all but children. They’d recently broken off the engagement, but Hertie realized his feelings too late. He had only tried to do his best, unlike the depth of feelings the other person had for him.
“…So, looking back, I think that person might have pushed me away for my own sake… I mean, I think they did…”
“…Isn’t that a bit of an assumption…?”
At my suggestion, he shook his head resolutely. He was utterly convinced. Observing their completely changed behavior, he believed they let go for his benefit.
“And… what about you, Hertie? How do you feel about your… ex-fiancé now? Has this experience… changed anything for you?”
“I don’t really know… But it doesn’t feel like a normal emotion… It’s tingly… and also stings…”
“And… what would you like to do about it? What does your heart tell you?”
“There’s no going back now, I know that. But… I thought… perhaps… we could at least remain… friends? What do you think…?”
His question gave me pause. Hertie claimed that this whole ordeal had been a learning experience, a chance for him to confront his own shortcomings. And yet, he seemed to be fixated on the past, unable to move on.
Perhaps because his situation mirrored mine, I found myself unusually empathetic.
Come to think of it, Iris must be somewhere in this forest right now. It seemed she hadn’t teamed up with Eugene this time either. The Saintess, Claudia, Leta, and other names I didn’t recognize were in her group. Had our paths entirely diverged…?
But becoming friends with an ex-fiancée… It wasn’t entirely out of the question. Yet, could I be friends with Iris?
Even saying so as a pleasantry felt impossible. My very existence was an obstacle to Iris.
Considering the hardships she endured because of me, merely asking her to be friends might ignite her anger…
Shouldn’t I hope not even to face her?
“…Well, I think it would be difficult…”
“…I see…”
Hertie fell silent for a long while after my response, his eyes reflecting the sorrow as he stared at the campfire.
* * * * *
I was dreaming.
A woman adorned with laurel leaves and mistletoe woven into her hair. She beckoned to me from a distant shore, her laughter echoing across the water.
It was a peculiar sensation—dreaming within a dream.
But I was supposed to be on watch.
The memory of the earlier conversation with Hertie flashed before my eyes — his sorrowful gaze, the weight of his unspoken emotions…
I cursed my own bluntness. Perhaps I’d been too harsh.
I’d been so caught up in my own thoughts that I hadn’t even noticed… How long had I been asleep?
The last thing I recalled seeing was the dim glow of the campfire’s embers.
Despite spreading spirits around us, I had fallen asleep on my watch.
If this were a wartime scenario, I would have no defense against execution for such an act.
But I hadn’t felt tired at all. Not even a little bit drowsy. It was as if I’d been lured into that dream… compelled to sleep against my will.
— Come closer…
— Just a little… a little closer…
The dream hadn’t ended, though it seemed like it should have. The surroundings were silent, but the whispers remained, faint but insistent, tickling the edges of my consciousness.
It was then, with a chilling certainty, that I became certain. The sounds I heard when I first crossed the northern forest boundary were not hallucinations.
“What the—?”
As the whispers grew louder, the dream shattered entirely.
I jolted awake, my body wracked with pain.
My clothes — the sturdy canvas fabric designed to withstand even the harshest wilderness conditions — were torn to shreds. Deep scratches, some still bleeding sluggishly, covered my exposed skin. I looked as if I’d been dragged through a thicket of thorns.
The campfire and the two small tents were nowhere to be seen.
As I opened my eyes, a wide expanse of rolling hills greeted me.
I stood atop a rolling expanse of hills, bathed in the silvery light of a full moon. Below, a sea of evening primroses shimmered in the moonlight, their vibrant yellow blossoms a stark contrast to the dark, shadowy landscape.
But it wasn’t the flowers, or the moon, that held my attention. it was something else entirely. A structure, ancient and imposing, perched atop the highest hill in the distance.
It was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. Massive, interlocking blocks of granite, arranged in a series of stepped terraces, rose towards the sky. It had stood there for centuries, weathering countless storms, yet it remained remarkably intact.
And I could easily identify it.
The northern burial mounds.
Even without Tespira’s extensive knowledge of all things ancient and arcane, I recognized them instantly.
A lecture from a cultural class fleetingly crossed my mind. The tomb was a remnant of the ancient people who had lived on this land before the conquest of the Drakan Dynasty.
Its architecture revealed its identity, but the entrance was blocked by sophisticated mechanical devices, preventing entry. Even Principal Evangeline couldn’t tamper with it, as it didn’t respond to magical manipulation.
Aside from the occasional upperclassman regaling wide-eyed freshmen with tales of ghosts and malevolent spirits lurking within the mounds’ shadows, they were nothing more than a curiosity — a testament to a long-forgotten past.
— Our…
— At last…
My head pounded, the strange whispers echoing in my mind. I took a step forward, my body moving on instinct, drawn towards the burial mound as if by an invisible force.
— He has come… our savior…
— He has come… the dragon’s heir… !
With each step I took, the whispers grew louder, multiplying until it felt like a dozen voices were speaking at once, their words overlapping, blending into a cacophony of sound.
I strained to make sense of their words, but their meaning remained frustratingly elusive. Savior? What savior? And what did they mean, ‘the dragon’s heir’?
Before I knew it, I found myself standing before the entrance to the ancient tomb, a massive stone gate that had remained sealed for centuries, barring entry to all who had dared approach. Or so it seemed.
*Rumble…*
The anomaly happened in an instant.
The ground beneath my feet began to tremble, a low, rumbling vibration that seemed to echo.
I looked down, my gaze drawn to the bracelet I wore on my right arm— a simple band adorned with an intricate pattern of swirling lines.
I’d acquired it on a whim, a souvenir from my last expedition before returning to the academy. It was called ‘Blessing of the Ancient Gods,’ an item of seemingly little practical value aside from a slight boost to my physical abilities.
But now, the bracelet pulsed with an eerie, white light, vibrating in sync with the tremors that shook the earth.
*Grind… Crash…!*
The stone gate shuddered, then slowly began to rise, revealing a pitch-black void beyond. The rumbling stopped abruptly, and the bracelet’s glow faded, reverting to its original state. Before me lay a wide-open, dark space.
For a moment, I felt a twinge of fear, but having come this far, there was no turning back. I lit a magical flame and carefully stepped into the tomb.
Even with the faint light, I could take in the tomb’s interior.
The interior of the tomb was surprisingly spacious. Imposing stone pillars, their surfaces etched with ancient runes, supported the arched ceiling. Walls, constructed from meticulously-arranged granite bricks, lined the long, narrow corridor that stretched out before me.
At the end of a long passageway was a spacious, round stone chamber. In the center of the chamber lay a massive coffin. The walls around it were covered with murals.
And the murals… I’d seen them before.
“No… it can’t be… how…?”
Eanna. The cave where I’d first encountered the ‘Blessing of the Ancient Gods.’ The murals there—the falling star, the inverted figure…
They were identical to the ones painted on these walls. But… the northern burial mounds were never mentioned in Eugene’s story.
I wracked my brain, searching for any scrap of information that might explain this… this impossibility… but I came up blank. And the items in Eugene’s story were always found in caves, never in… elaborate tombs.
Confused and disoriented, I examined the surroundings. At the head of the coffin in the center of the stone chamber was a small altar. On the altar sat a small black box. Engraved on it was an emblem of a heart with a horizontal line through it, just like in Eanna’s cave.
*Click*
With a mix of fear and curiosity, I opened the lid. Inside was a necklace. The silver chain and ivory-like ornament were intricately woven together.
Additionally, there were shards of the Divine Dragon. Ten of them. That many shards would require visiting at least ten different locations to obtain.
— The threads of fate, woven across time, have finally come to fruition.
As I was processing all of this, a voice echoed from very nearby, unexpectedly.
Turning around, I saw a pale, faint silhouette.
— Child of the Heavens’ Defiance. Tell me, what is your name?
{T/N :- Professor Xcelia referred to Edwin after she saw him wearing the bracelet as “The Defier” }
There, shimmering in the dim light, stood a figure I recognized from my dream. A woman with hair the color of the sea, crowned with a wreath of laurel leaves and mistletoe. A faint, ghostly, knowing smile played upon her lips.
— End of Part 1 —
Translator’s Notes :-
So, this is finally the endgame, huh.
We are finally here. It was a long journey, with a lot of ups and downs, but we are finally here. The story had a lot of potential but I guess it was his first time writing. But I really liked the world-building with the history bits that he sprinkled between. Makes you wanna know what happened to the Drakan Dynasty and the Dragon/Dragons, the Hero and the Great Dragon – as if it could be a spin off in itself.
It’s been almost a year and we still haven’t heard from the author. But I do hope he comes back and finishes this. I really want a happy ending for Iris.
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