Chapter 4 - The Gutter - 4

A day and a half had passed without Renée returning.

Bera stared blankly at the ceiling, each breath threatening to be his last.

'... Has she gone?'

Had she left him? The thought occurred to him.

His dazed mind had conjured it up.

Wasn't it only natural? It had been nearly a fortnight. All that time, she had cared for him despite her own frail health, without even eating one proper meal a day. It was about time she grew sick of it.

He let out a few strangled chuckles at the thought, until the pain that accompanied every breath caught in his chest and left him gasping.

Now he could feel it clearly. The last ember of his life was fading.

At last, this wretched life was coming to an end.

Once again, a smile rose to Bera's lips.

The goddamned beggar from the bottom of the gutter, the Butcher of the Gutter, the Empire's Savage Hound, the tumor of the continent—he was finally meeting his death.

A sinner destined to be hurled into the deepest pit of hell was dying alone in a filthy corner of the gutter.

Wasn't this the best of all possible news, something the entire continent ought to celebrate?

Bera laughed at that thought for a long while, until, suddenly, his laughter stopped short.

It was not because he wanted it to.

Someone's image had filled his mind.

An ugly woman covered in filth, her skin melted away by burns. He remembered her.

He remembered the woman whose every word drove him mad.

He remembered the woman who had shown kindness even to a monster like him, who had made him feel regret—a woman who seemed to be the very word nobility given form.

Even now, he was disparaging her, but Bera knew.

Their time together had been short, in a sense, but the woman he had come to know would never have given up on him.

She could not have run away. If she meant to run, she would never have held out this long. Hunger would have driven her away long ago.

Bera knew better than anyone how agonizing hunger could be.

And so he also knew how difficult it must have been to hide her hunger for those two weeks.

He could not believe that a woman who had endured such hardship would run away for that reason now.

'... She must be dead.'

She hadn't fucking listened to his warnings, so the scavengers must have caught and killed her in the end. Her corpse would be lying somewhere in the gutter.

Staring at the ceiling through unfocused eyes, Bera imagined Renée's corpse lying in the muddy water. He clenched his teeth at the emotion that suddenly welled up within him.

He did not know what it was.

He had never felt it, not once in his life.

He knew countless emotions like it, yet could find no word to describe this particular one.

It resembled regret, and pity as well. It took the shape of guilt, yet he could not call it guilt.

Perhaps it could be described as fear, but rather than anything overwhelming, it felt like a small ember spreading a faint glow.

It felt like gratitude, and somehow like remorse.

Bera felt his body stir with this emotion that churned through his insides.

It was unbearably complex. It squeezed him tight within, leaving him more stifled than the chest pain that had tormented him all this time.

And so he twisted his whole body, moving limbs that had not stirred at all until now.

"Ghh...!"

When he moved his fingertips, pain spread from them through his entire body. Then he moved his arm, and this time he felt blood seething inside him.

But he could not stop.

The emotion left him so dizzy he wanted to retch. He had no attention to spare for his body's pain.

He raised his upper body.

"Hck...!"

Blood burst from his mouth.

His body collapsed with a thud.

Even then, Bera craned his head up to look at the shack's half-open door.

He reached out an arm. Bracing it against the ground, he moved it, trembling violently.

He crawled, a sight so pitiful it was almost impossible to watch.

He passed through the door and pushed onward through the muddy water, crawling for a long time without even knowing where he was going.

The blood that had spilled only from his mouth backed up and seeped out through his nostrils.

Every time he stretched out an arm, pain crushed his entire body.

Still, he could not stop.

That strange, suffocating feeling gripped him too tightly inside.

Bera crawled aimlessly like a madman until, in another corner of the gutter, he found a figure sprawled in the muddy water.

He knew at once who it was.

Renée.

The skin melted and scarred all over by burns, the white hair stained with mud, the lifeless blue eyes beneath half-closed lids—all of it told him so.

Everything around her was steeped in dark, dreary hues.

They were the colors of the dead. The same colors as those who died in the gutter. The dreary hues that always appeared when congealed blood mixed with muddy water.

Seeing those colors spread around her, Bera stopped moving.

He lay still, his body a wreck after all that crawling.

Another emotion joined the strange feeling that had tormented him for so long.

This one, Bera knew with certainty.

He could not fail to recognize an emotion that had ruled his entire childhood.

Despair.

That was what he felt.

He did not know why he felt it.

He only understood instinctively that the emotion rising within him had taken the shape of despair.

His face smeared with blood and filth, Bera stared at Renée's corpse for a long time. Then, very slowly, he crawled toward her.

He crawled just far enough to reach her hand.

Burning through the last flames of his life merely to get that far, Bera looked at Renée with death already upon his face.

Somehow, though she must have died in terrible pain, her face was peaceful.

"... What an ugly sight."

His words came between shallow, wheezing breaths.

After saying that, Bera studied her face a little longer before speaking again.

"What did I tell you? I said you'd die."

He tried to smile, but lacked the strength to lift the corners of his mouth.

His eyelids were heavy. He could not draw breath.

Feeling that the end truly was approaching, Bera examined Renée's face.

What a selfish woman she was.

She had made him break his vow to shoulder all his sins and die alone in misery, only to fall asleep herself with such a peaceful face.

He still did not even know what this emotion churning inside him was, yet she had fallen asleep without teaching him.

The strength drained from his entire body. His thoughts sank heavily, like waterlogged cotton.

As Bera watched Renée through half-closed eyes, his lips moved without his knowing, and the words slipped out.

"... Do you know something?"

Talking to a corpse was truly ridiculous, Bera thought. Even so, he kept speaking.

"I have an incredible gift. It's what let a beggar with nothing become the vilest monster on the continent."

Gathering every bit of strength still left in his body, Bera barely managed to take her hand where it lay in the muddy water.

Beneath his pushed-up sleeve, a tattoo marked his forearm: eight curved strokes intertwined to form a circle.

"You people call it a sacred mark. I have one."

Bera chuckled after saying it. It was absurd that he was now blabbing to a corpse about a secret he had never told anyone throughout his life.

"The god of oaths. It's his sacred mark. When I use it, I can give weight to my words."

He did not know why. One day, the sacred mark had simply appeared on his forearm.

Sacred marks were said to be miracles bestowed by the gods upon their most cherished servants, so Bera had wondered why one had appeared on him.

Naturally. He neither believed in the gods nor wished to act on their behalf.

And so he had used the sacred mark solely to serve his own greed.

"... When I swear an oath and stake a price on it, I gain a corresponding amount of power."

With this gift, this miracle, he had held half the continent in his grasp.

He had brought every shadow that lay upon the continent beneath his feet.

"Of course, there's a penalty too. If I fail to keep the oath, I lose what I staked, and my soul is whittled away in proportion to the power I gained."

Just once, he had failed to keep a small oath.

Bera still remembered the pain of that moment vividly.

Pain as though his very existence were being torn to shreds, pain that drenched his whole body in cold sweat merely to recall it.

A moment more terrifying than anything else he had experienced in his life.

That was the pain that came with breaking an oath.

And so he had resolved never to break one again. Yet...

"... But because of you, I've broken another oath."

Because of you, I broke the oath I had staked my life upon: never to regret my life, to willingly endure punishment for every sin I had committed while living.

I met you, and your light made me regret my life.

Now my soul would be whittled away entirely. Would even a speck remain? I could not be certain, but little of my existence was likely to survive.

Thinking this, Bera stared blankly at Renée and reflected on the past fortnight or so he had spent with her.

It was almost like his life flashing before his eyes.

If he had to name the most miserable time of his life, this would come first. Yet, ironically, it was also the time in which he could most truly say he had been saved.

Savoring the moments that passed through his mind, Bera looked at Renée through vision now so blurred that he could barely distinguish shapes.

His lips moved of their own accord, letting out words.

"... I lived for myself. That's how I lived. But you see..."

These were not words he had thought through. This inexplicable emotion was simply making him say them.

He wanted to say them to the woman who had finally forced the feeling of regret into him.

"If there's another life, and my soul still remains then..."

Then, since you were the one who shook me so deeply...

"... I wouldn't mind living for you next time. With you, I think I could truly live a life without regrets."

By your side, even a monster like me might dare to live something worthy of being called a life.

As he spoke, Bera lit his sacred mark for the last time in this life.

"Yes, that sounds good. There can't be much left... but I'll stake whatever remains of my soul, all of it, on that oath."

The sacred mark blazed gold.

Now he only needed to engrave the oath upon it.

As he always had, Bera inscribed an oath into the golden, blazing mark.

"If I am ever granted another life, then that life... I will live for you. That I swear."

I will place you in the most glorious seat and live guarding your side.

He engraved that oath upon his soul.

As the oath was inscribed, his body resonated. He felt his soul burning.

The sensation was almost entirely abstract, yet to Bera, who had used his sacred mark all his life, it was deeply familiar.

Only after confirming that the sacred mark had activated did Bera slowly close his eyes.

And as he thought, 'At last, I'm dying.'...

TICK.

Bera heard the sound of a clock ticking in his ear.