Suppose that one year ago, a prophecy had declared that this world would come to an end.
What would the people who heard it have guessed would cause the apocalypse?
Eight out of ten would probably have predicted, without a doubt, that the world would perish because the power of the Dark Cult and Demon God Kardia could not be stopped.
The remaining one or two would have imagined an utterly ordinary disaster such as famine or war.
Those were probably the most conventional disaster scenarios anyone could imagine. And in truth, they had likely been the most plausible futures as well.
I, too, had once joined the party formed to subjugate Demon God Kardia with such thoughts buried in my heart.
Not a single person among hundreds of millions could possibly have predicted it.
That the final chapter of humanity's history, stretching back more than ten thousand years,
would be brought to an end not by the Dark Cult, war, or famine, but by the hand of a single hero.
No, perhaps even that was a strange way to put it now.
The woman who had picked up Demon God Kardia's Demonic Sword had already become a new Demon God.
Demon God Kardia's Demonic Sword, which drew the desires sleeping within its wielder to their absolute limit.
The wish of Stella, the hero who had wanted all worlds to remain at peace forever.
When the hero who had slain the world's final sin picked up the sword to recover it, the wish she carried in her heart emerged into the world in a wholly different form under the sword's influence.
To make all worlds peaceful forever.
That was no different from exterminating every human being who possessed even the possibility of disturbing that peace.
It did not take long for the Hero of Hope, with the demonic sword in her hand, to become the worst Demon God.
The first thing she did after picking up Kardia's Demonic Sword was cut down every companion who had fought beside her until the very end.
The greatest obstacles to Stella's wish, twisted into a distorted form, were naturally the members of the Kardia Subjugation Party, who were regarded as the strongest humans alive.
Objectively speaking, the decision itself to kill her companions had been sound.
There would never have been a better opportunity to pierce our hearts than that moment, when we had poured every last ounce of strength into defeating Demon God Kardia.
The archer who had bought us time by shooting down the Demon God's magic with arrows, each carrying tremendous destructive power.
The Saintess who had kept the battle in our favor from beginning to end with high-ranking holy magic and the power of a Saintess.
The thief who, at the final moment, stole away the Demon God's protective spell and opened the way for the hero's holy sword to pierce the Demon God.
One by one. They simply fell bleeding before the merciless demonic sword in her hand.
With all my mana exhausted, all I could do was close my eyes and wait for the end.
There was only one strange thing.
She left without stabbing me, the last of her companions, after speaking a few cryptic words.
“Mr. Conrad.”
“.......”
“I believe you must share my thoughts.”
Sensing something strange in her words, I cautiously opened my eyes again.
By then, Stella had already vanished from sight.
I could not even begin to guess what she had been thinking when she spared my life.
But there was only one thing I had to do now that I had survived.
Gather every force, including the Imperial Family and the Holy Church, as quickly as possible.
And stop the Hero of Hope, who had now become a Demon God.
To stop her after she had absorbed the power of our other companions through the demonic sword, we would need to mobilize all the Empire's forces.
I was obviously no match for her alone, and even with the Magic Tower's help, stopping her would still have been impossible.
We had to hurry and unite the power of the Empire's major factions: the Holy Church, the Magic Tower, and the Imperial Army.
But rather than listen to the words of an ordinary viscount's son, the arrogant Imperial Family burst into delighted laughter the moment they heard that the Saintess, the backbone of the Holy Church's power, was dead.
They showed even greater joy at the news that Stella, the hero put forward by the Holy Church, had fallen.
I tried dozens of times to persuade the Imperial Family and the noble houses that their plan to stop her with the Imperial Army alone was absurd when she was hastening the end of the world even at that very moment.
But the words of a mere viscount's son, stripped of the backing that came from being Stella's companion, had already lost all persuasive force.
In the end, not only the Imperial Army, one of our final pillars of hope, but even the Holy Church and the Magic Tower began falling to her one after another.
And her “destruction for peace” did not stop there.
Alexandros Academy. The beastfolk village. The Holy Land of Larafria. The World Tree Forest.
Even the County of Arwen, her own family's land and her hometown.
Her blade granted every human being the equal peace of death.
Naturally, the Viscounty of Ferdalos, my homeland and the last place I had wanted to protect, could not escape her eerie conviction.
The madness I had tried to stop even at the final possible moment approached once more to claim my life.
“Have you made up your mind, Mr. Conrad?”
When I saw her again for the first time since our final showdown, she looked very different from the person once called the Hero of Hope.
Her once-radiant golden hair had faded to ash-gray under the influence of dark mana. Her eyes, once blue as the sea, had turned blood-red from mana poisoning.
Even her beautiful face, which had never lost its smile, had withered into something seemingly devoid of emotion.
The instant I realized she had gone too far to be brought back, my magic was already activating to stop my former companion's madness.
After a fierce battle spanning dozens of exchanges, the one lying on the ground with a fatal wound was, of course, me rather than her.
“...I was certain that you, of all people, would understand how I feel. It seems you have rejected even the final chance I offered you.”
Stella held the edge of her sword to my throat, able to finish me at any time, and murmured, looking at me with what seemed like regret.
“A final chance...?”
“I believed there was no one better suited than you, Mr. Conrad, to eradicate every unrighteous human being and rebuild human civilization from scratch alongside me.
But seeing you interfere with my plan, it seems you are not someone who loves peace after all.”
“Peace, my ass.... What part of this slaughter looks like peace to you?”
“It is impossible to achieve eternal peace while preserving humanity as it currently exists. All human beings already carry selfish genes within them, in greater or lesser measure.
Therefore, by killing all existing humans, then having you and me, who love peace, build a new humanity, the world will finally attain eternal peace....”
“What a fucking joke. The most evil human being in the world would still be alive at the very end. How the hell do you plan to build a peaceful humanity?”
“...What?”
“The number of people you've cut down all by yourself must be pushing a hundred million by now. If that doesn't make you the most evil human being in the world, what does?
And how could a new humanity that begins with you ever become one that loves peace? You're the one furthest removed from peace.”
“.......”
“Peace only has value when there's something left to protect. What you've done isn't an attempt to achieve peace. It's nothing but slaughter.
Everything I had to protect is already dead and gone by your hand. What meaning would there be in achieving a worthless peace now?”
“...It seems you have failed to understand my logic.”
“Was that explanation a little too difficult for someone who says we should cut off a wrist because a finger might get hurt?”
She drew the sword away from my neck.
“Why? Why aren't you finishing me?”
“...You will die soon enough regardless. There is no need for me to dirty my hands.”
With those final words, Stella turned her back on me.
I stared silently after her for a long time, until she disappeared.
And in the Viscounty of Ferdalos, stained dark crimson, only I remained.
***
At what point had everything gone wrong?
Was it when we trusted the Hero of Hope and entrusted the recovery of the demonic sword to her immediately after defeating Demon God Kardia?
Was it when she was recognized as the hero on the day we graduated from the academy, and I volunteered to join when she began gathering companions?
Or was it when I failed to address, in time, the disillusionment with humanity's injustices that had built up in Stella's heart over so many years?
Perhaps everything had been wrong. Or perhaps none of it had been.
But one thing was certain. I must have borne at least some responsibility for what she had become.
She had been especially close to me compared to the other party members, and I had vaguely sensed that she relied on me in many ways.
But as our journey to defeat Kardia dragged on and on, I, too, grew increasingly exhausted, and I repeatedly failed to care for Stella's weary heart as I once had.
All of that must have piled up until it gave birth to the woman now called the worst Demon God.
I was not trying to defend her after her fall.
I merely had one lingering regret at the end: What if I had done a little better?
“Huff, huff, huff....”
The bleeding from my open wound was worsening, and along with it came the sensation of mana draining out of my body.
Just as she had said, even without finishing me herself, I had less than an hour left to live.
I wanted to take in as much as I could one last time before I collapsed, and my feet carried me toward the Ferdalos manor as though entranced.
The first thing I saw was my father's corpse lying at the manor entrance, felled by a mortal wound.
“.......”
My respected father, who had built the House of Ferdalos from the ground up and fought for his family and territory until the moment he died.
I had already watched precious people die before my eyes several times.
But this was not the kind of thing one ever grew used to, no matter how often it happened.
All I could do was force down the emotions swelling inside me and commit to memory as many faces as possible of those who had died because of my mistakes.
Head Butler Jack.
Wasn't he going to marry his childhood friend next year?
We had prepared a newlywed home in the territory to reward him for his many years of loyalty to Ferdalos, yet he had closed his eyes without ever getting to see it even once.
Apprentice Maid Rine.
The year before last, you committed the discourtesy of spilling black tea on your young master's clothes when he returned after a long absence.
It must have been nearly seven years since you began working at the Ferdalos manor, yet clumsy to the end, you never managed to shed the apprentice label.
Sous-chef Tennet.
I feel a little sorry for Head Chef Hadi, but honestly, your food tasted much better.
I promised I would be your first customer if you ever opened a restaurant in the imperial capital. Now that promise can never be fulfilled.
No matter where I went in the Ferdalos manor, someone whose face I knew lay dead.
And every one of their bodies bore wounds from being stabbed or cut by the same weapon.
Occasionally, I saw signs that someone had clutched a kitchen knife or broom and resisted until just before they fell. Each time, the guilt I felt toward them surged even higher in my chest.
How long had I wandered aimlessly through the manor?
In one corner of a fourth-floor corridor, I slowly leaned back against the corridor wall.
This was a dark corner untouched by sunlight, so I would not have to look at the dark-crimson landscape burning outside.
At least in my final moments, I could turn my eyes away from the dark future I did not want to see and imagine a bright one in which this tragedy had never happened.
After giving up on everything, I was about to close my eyes and pray for a pleasant dream.
Then I noticed a small object inside my cloak glowing faintly.
“......What?”
A strange feeling came over me. I slipped a hand into my cloak and pulled out the unidentified object emitting the dim light.
The moment I saw it, I recognized it as the relic I had found in an ancient ruin about a year ago, though I had never discovered how to use it.
“Why now....?”
It had never shown any sign of functioning—not when I found it in the ruins, and not once in all the time since.
Why had this unidentified relic only now begun to operate?
It was operating according to principles that even I, a Ninth-Circle Archmage, could not begin to grasp.
Even on the verge of death, I found myself bewildered all over again.
Blink. Blink.
The strangely shaped relic, assembled from many pieces like a puzzle box, kept flashing green from its center and drawing my attention.
As though telling me to pour my mana into it.
“.......”
I had exhausted almost all my mana in the battle before, and only enough remained to barely sustain my life.
But I remembered hearing that among ancient relics were legendary objects with power great enough to save the world.
Rather than wait here to die for nothing, pouring the last of my life into this relic would probably offer a far better chance of survival.
I stopped the water magic that had been forcing my blood to flow in place of my unbeating heart.
Then I released the wind magic that had been forcing me to breathe in place of my motionless lungs.
And in my fading consciousness, I poured the last handful of my mana into the relic in my hand.
My vision went black.
And I lost consciousness.