Chapter 8

Abalaz runs down the dark road.

The town of Lunii is not very large. Even if Jette was in a panic, he shouldn’t have gone far enough to miss the sight outside the town.

Jette is short-tempered, but he is calm in a dangerous situation. What could have terrified him so much?

As he entered a back alley, Abalaz discovered a pool of blood on the ground.

“Jette…!?”

A face he knew well was illuminated by the faint light breaking through the darkness.

A bald man with one eye was pinned against the wall of an abandoned building.

His throat had been slit, and his innards were spilling out from his abdomen, bizarrely nailed to the wall. The body, now a blood-soaked object, was exposed gruesomely.

Jette’s face twisted in immense fear.

“Ah! This is… so horrible…!”

Staggering, Abalaz approached his dead comrade.

Suddenly, a noose appeared around his neck.

He was lifted up.

“Guehh!!”

The rope, tied to a nearby post, hoisted Abalaz into the air, suspending him at the height of the second floor, right in front of a one-eared figure.

There stood a man.

A man with black hair.

He was in the second floor of the abandoned building, surrounded by rotting bookshelves, broken chairs, and shattered tables.

Seated in the only intact chair there, he stared out the window.

He simply gazed.

The faint light from the town barely outlined his silhouette in the darkness.

“Ah, ugh, kahh…!”

While hanging, Abalaz looked at his face and realized. He trembled in shock and fear, struggling in despair.

The man watching him said nothing. He showed no emotion at all.

He merely observed the dying murderer quietly.

“G-gah…”

Abalaz’s body went limp.

After confirming that he had completely breathed his last, the black-haired reaper stepped back.

And then, he was gone.

Like magic, without a sound. He had vanished into the darkness.

In the now-empty room, only the filthy, torn curtains swayed in the wind.

“—Abalaz! Where are you!? …”

Darido, who had rushed over, halted in the alley. He found the corpses of two comrades.

The pinned body and the one hanging. Overwhelmed by the sight of his friends killed without being able to do anything, an overwhelming terror gripped Darido.

“Ugh…! Uwaaaah!!”

If they are targeted, it’s the end—

The conviction that he was marked by the reaper’s scythe moved Darido’s feet.

He tumbled back to the tavern, slamming the coin for his drinks on the counter and shouted loudly while showing a large pouch of silver coins.

“Someone!! Is there anyone who will work for me!? I’ll pay any amount! Please, kill that guy called ‘Crossroads’!!”

No one raised a hand.

The reckless mercenaries looked away, averting their eyes.

There were dozens of them, yet not a single one responded.

“I-I’d give up all my fortune. Even just to protect me to a safe place…! If it’s everyone here…”

“Impossible,”

someone said.

It was the mercenary who had informed them of Benny’s death.

“I know more about him than the rumors suggest. Do you think we just stood by and let a killer mock us?

Before, more than twenty of us volunteered and chased after ‘Crossroads.’

The next day, all of them were killed and dumped in the streets. There were no signs of struggle on their swords, meaning they were killed without being able to fight back. It would surely end in vain. Even all of us here…”

That was like a death sentence. Everyone looked at the pitiable victims with resigned eyes.

Darido trembled in despair and eventually fled like a rabbit.

Outside the town, where the light did not reach, lurked natural horrors. Only a large group or a military force, or perhaps a suicidal person, would venture into the wild at night—mercenaries would never do such a thing.

Even so, Darido couldn’t bear staying in that town.

If he went straight down the road, there were other towns. He had connections there, acquaintances in criminal organizations where he could hide away by abandoning his face and identity.

He had no choice but to run through the night roads.

As Lunii town faded away and the light vanished,

he reached the crossroads—perhaps due to his haste, he tripped and fell.

And there stood a man by the side of the road.

He was looking down in the darkness.

Quietly.

“It’s been quite a while.”

The fallen Darido could not move. The figure, clad in a hood with an indistinct face, slowly stepped forward.

“Not much clue. I should have come sooner.”

“You are…!”

“Well, listen to my troubles. I didn’t even know where that place was. It took me two years to learn the words to identify it. I found those children, buried them, and made graves.

After that, it was you guys. Searching for a wandering mercenary by just their appearance and not knowing their name was a chore. In the end, five whole years passed.”

He removed his hood.

The black-haired reaper—seeing his face, Darido pressed on an old scar on his forehead.

The reaper’s true name was Ashihara Juuichi.

“—Darido Mors. Jette Gabarlas. Abalaz Nigg. Benny Sanmarlan. A group of four seasoned mercenaries wandering through the conflict zones of the continent. Among the scoundrels, their particularly brutal acts stand out.

And five years ago, near the ruins of Sadori village, they killed ten children. At that time, the army you were part of was in a losing battle and seemed to be wandering around in search of food.”

Juuichi spoke.

His expression was vastly different from before, now a horrific one, with cold eyes devoid of the gentle warmth they once held.

However, at the same time, there was no longer the passion of those days.

Only a cold, frozen—merciless intent to kill remained.

“It was my luck that all four of you survived in the dangerous mercenary business. So that I can kill you with my own hands.”

“Wh-why? We killed you…!”

“Why would a person who was killed once not come back a second time?”

Juuichi slowly drew his sword.

He had to settle the matter from that day.

Darido also stood up, tossing aside his belongings and preparing his weapon.

“Y-you killed my comrades. You’re the [Crossroads]!”

Juuichi moved his sword through the air.

In the next moment, the leader of the vile who had committed slaughter in that ruined castle had his wrist severed.

“Gyaaa!!”

Darido dropped the sword with his remaining wrist and thrashed about.

From the remaining arm, blood gushed forth, soaking the ground.

“So, I’m known as the [Man of the Crossroads]. I don’t recall introducing myself like that, and I appear in places other than this junction.

Rumor has it that the Grim Reaper is said to ask… ‘Choose your path.’

But I don’t question those like you. Because the path has already been chosen, and you have passed it.”

Once again, Juuichi swung his sword.

The blade reached from a place it shouldn’t have, and blood spurted from the man’s other arm.

“Giii!!”

“Having killed others, you think a path remains for you to survive. You should realize there’s no such thing.”

Darido fled, veering off the road and rushing up the slope.

Juuichi didn’t pursue him.

He stood quietly in place, watching the back of the pathetic murderer as he fled.

Darido climbed a small hill in the meadow, entered a thicket, and came out covered in mud. He found a nearby tree shade to hide and checked for any signs of pursuit.

Tearing his clothes, he wrapped the fabric around his wrist, drew a knife from his pocket, and looked around.

—but the handle of the knife was severed along with his fingers.

Then, from behind, his thigh was stabbed, and he cried out as he collapsed.

Behind him stood Juuichi, who had appeared from the darkness without him realizing it.

Not a single breath was disturbed.

No one knew how he did it.

The Grim Reaper was there when he noticed.

“It’s futile.”

“Hi, hii…!”

The black-haired Grim Reaper looked down at him, frozen and cold in the pitch black of the night.

“You cannot escape. You will receive retribution for what you did to those children.”

“P-please, don’t kill me!”

“They were just the same.”

The Grim Reaper spoke, without any allowance for mercy.

All the sins committed by the brutal mercenary man.

“Everyone didn’t want to be killed. They didn’t want to die. You killed them. Not just food, but their lives were taken meaninglessly.

They didn’t trouble anyone; even when caught up in war and losing their parents or their village, they were just kind children trying to live bravely.”

Juuichi’s sword was pointed at Darido’s neck.

It was raised and shimmered in the darkness.

The criminal’s head flew off.

Spraying blood, the torso collapsed.

He walked through the darkness of night.

Looking beyond the horizon.

The dawn was just there. Soon, the sun would rise.

Juuichi was walking that time—the moment when the night, the end, ended.

The moment just before the dawn, a new beginning.

The air was clear and cold. He looked up at the fading stars. A band of white light gradually drove them away.

Finally, it was over.

Everything from that day.

—in the end, Juuichi couldn’t do anything.

He had merely brought reparation to the enemy, as it should have been. He didn’t know if the souls of those children would forgive him.

Three years ago. He remembered the time he revisited the ruined castle.

That flower field remained—expanding greatly across the courtyard.

He carefully picked up each bone of those children buried among the flowers and mourned them.

He remembered the weathered bones were incredibly light.

There was no way to forget.

Then, based on the information he had researched beforehand, he visited the old Sadori village where they had lived.

Nothing was left. It had turned into a mere field.

Just from observing from the outside, he couldn’t know anyone’s name—because the household registration system was rarely organized in this world.

He was just calling the names given to them by their parents.

So, since no survivors remained in the destroyed village, no one on the earth knew the names of the ten children.

—That’s why Juuichi used his ability.

The “power” to recreate the past.

Above the village that had been obliterated to the point of leaving no trace, images of old memories were evoked.

He learned what those children were called, how they had been cherished and lived happily until they were caught up in the war.

But that was also an unwelcome peeping into those children’s precious personal memories. It wasn’t a praiseworthy act.

However, he would not forget the names of those ten.

“I couldn’t call out your names. Yuni. Pairi. Could we have become closer? Could we have had silly fights?

Dean, though small, was a capable one. He was the first to call for me to stop your quarrels.

Aimi and Oruto showed me how to harvest with gestures. Kurun often poked my head with a stick. I never got to talk to Tintori. Chatty Ratis, Saruka, and Aston too.

…Am I too persistent an adult? Just two days. It’s already been five years.”

Juuichi walked alone.

Finally, the sun shone through the gaps in the darkness. It was the light that signaled the beginning, but he was alone.

Juuichi moved towards the rising sun. The rays brought no warmth, wrapping him in the lingering chill of night.

Ahead of him was the crossroads.

He paused for a moment, then turned right. That was where his next destination lay.

It was a path shaded by dense trees, where the night still lingered, a road that the sun could not reach.

Into the darkness once more.

────────

And… a long time passed.

A long, long time passed.