Epilogue

Epilogue – RealityNightmare You Cannot Wake Up From

–

Part 1

「──Nii-san, please wake up. It’s morning already.」

A graceful voice tickled his ears.

A small hand shook his body slowly. Lux opened his eyes.

This place was the Royal Capital’s castle town──one of the rooms that they reserved.

He was staying here with everyone from the Academy in order to participate in the New Years Parade.

「──!?」

Suddenly a strange uneasiness welled up inside Lux. He looked around the room he was in.

Inside the tidy room that was cleaned really well, there were furniture that weren’t gaudy but also weren’t dreary.

There was nothing strange at all.

Was the strange scene he was seeing until just now an illusion──a dream that he was seeing?

「Even so it’s really unusual. Nii-san who always wakes up early didn’t wake up even from the sound of the fireworks. Are you still tired?」

Airi stood on her tiptoe and peered into the face of Lux who was going to change his clothes.

The words his adorable little sister spoke got caught within Lux’s mind.

「The sound of fireworks, you say?」

Lux asked back in bewilderment.

Come to think of it, there were fireworks resounding in the early morning of the parade’s first day.

The same like the previous time, and also the time before that.

(Resounding……was it?)

No, he remembered that previously there was such sound, but today he felt like there wasn’t anything like that.

At the very least Lux didn’t hear any sound or anything.

(Previously……? Today is……? What am I thinking?)

Even though today should be his first time welcoming the morning of the three days of the parade, he had a conviction that he heard this sound previously. That strange out-of-place feeling made him dizzy.

He washed his face and changed clothes, then had breakfast in the dining hall at the inn’s first floor.

The inn was reserved, and it wasn’t like all the students of the Academy came, but as expected, the place was cramped because there was a lot of them.

Amidst that, the Triad who were eating together with him let out their dissatisfaction.

「The breakfast is too few……. Even though I’m the type who eats a lot in the morning─」

Tillfur was peering into the soup’s bowl with a sorrowful voice.

Sharis who was watching that from the side smiled wryly and chided her as the eldest.

「That’s bad manners Tillfur. With this I’m worried not just for the parade’s security, but also for the commendation awards on the last day.」

「Yes. The inn’s staff were also apologizing. They are rushing around to gather ingredients that are running out earlier than expected, so it seems that it will be solved at night.」

「At night, it will be the party already then ain’t it? I want to eat in the morning y’knoow!」

Noct acted calm and composed like usual while Tillfur was booing childishly.

The Triad’s conversation was somewhat charming to watch, but it strangely caught Lux’s attention.

「But, certainly the amount is too few. The menu is the same but, it’s only half of previously.」

Lux looked at the amount of breakfast lined up on the table and tilted his head.

Airi who heard that was poking at Lux’s shoulder with a gaze as though she was looking at something strange.

「Nii-san, you speak as though you have come here once before to eat. Are you still half-asleep? Geez.」

「I won’t last, if I don’t eat snacks too…… Lu-chan, you want to eat sweets later too?」

Philuffy was expressionless and at her own pace like usual, but as expected it seemed that her empty stomach was winning, she was giving off a sad looking atmosphere.

「It’s okay to give me if you have leftovers. I’m not that hungry after all, Phi-chan, eat it for yourself.」

Lux sent her a smile and presented his bacon and eggs to her, but Philuffy endured even while wavering.

「More importantly, did you hear it Phi-chan? The sounds of fireworks this morning.」

「……No. I also didn’t hear it, at all.」

When he took the opportunity to bring it up, he unexpectedly received such reply.

──Strange.

Due to the effect of the Abyss’s seed that was planted inside Philuffy, her physical ability and five senses far surpassed the average person. In other words, her hearing too.

(Is she still that tired just as expected?)

By the way he also tried asking the Triad and the other members of Syvalles, but it seemed they heard the firework sound clearly.

「Geez, even Philuffy-san is still half-asleep. Please don’t fall asleep in the middle of the parade okay?」

Airi sighed with an uneasy stare.

Lux smiled wryly in awkwardness while eating his breakfast.

The peaceful time was passing by twice as fast than usual.

–

On the first day of the parade that celebrated the new year, the royal family was going around the castle town together with the marching of the soldiers.

Naturally Lux also accompanied Lisha. They were acting together throughout the morning.

After that, they safely finished the greeting to the people using horse carriage for a total of four hours. He returned to the inn and took rest inside the room together with his girl classmates.

There would be a party in the castle on the second day, tomorrow.

There he would be able to reunite with Krulcifer, Celis, Aeril, and the Seven Dragon Paladins who came as state guests.

Everyone safely survived despite being present on that battlefield.

It had been two weeks since he last saw them, he was looking forward to the reunion.

But, the business for today was over with this.

A party would begin with everyone in the Academy at the large bar that Relie reserved for them.

He went to the toilet before departing there and when he was going to return to his room, he heard a voice.

「──Everyone is safe? You too are a heartless man huh, chore boy.」

「……-!?」

Lux turned to look behind him towards that boldly mocking voice.

He was at the second floor’s open corridor where the evening’s red sunlight was shining in.

A man wearing a black coat was standing there as though he had crawled out from the darkness.

「You are──」

The vice captain of the Seven Dragon Paladins, the Blue Tyrant Singlen Shelbrit.

Two weeks ago, this man tried to monopolize Avalon at the abandoned capital Guernica and he dueled with him in order to stop his ambition, and then──

「Why are you here……is that what you are going to ask? You are foolish like usual huh, chore boy. Is that all you are going to ask me?」

Singlen walked towards Lux with a sarcastic smile directed to him.

His body was small and thin contrary to that arrogant and haughty attitude, but he emitted a heavy pressure that made anyone hesitate to contact him carelessly.

「You still haven’t noticed? Although you have received Baptism, the will to resist is necessary. As long as you are accepting this peaceful world, the curse of perception won’t be dispelled.」

「…………」

He didn’t understand the meaning of the words Singlen was saying.

Despite that, he didn’t feel like discontinuing the talk like usual.

(That’s right. I heard the story from this man. After dueling Singlen in the control room of Avalon, the words I heard from him──)

–

『……Thirty seconds remaining until we are sent out from here. As a prize for defeating me once, I’ll teach you the truth. What will happen from now on, when you are trying to follow the same path like me in the past.』

–

That’s right. Singlen certainly said that.

However── he was unable to remember the essential conversation.

Just by thinking about it, his mind was getting hazy.

「Do you want to run away, into the dream that you wished for? But, if you don’t notice it will end here you know? You will only walk the same fate like me without understanding at all what is happening.」

「The same fate, like you?」

「You should have seen it. The incident happening behind the scenes of this parade. And then, you should know it. Just like how you were once asked to become the key to bring about the equilibrium. How you were roused to become one of the pawns to push up the great man Count Atismata.」

He got a headache when he was trying to dig up his memory.

「What are, you saying? You are……──!?」

He suddenly felt a strange presence.

No, Lux smelled an offensive smell and he grimaced.

「What are you doing alone Lux-chi? You were really late, are you feeling bad──」

The voice of Tillfur who came from behind caused Lux to be taken aback.

At that instant, Singlen’s figure in front of him suddenly vanished.

「No, I’m only a bit tired. I’ll go to feel the wind for a bit.」

Lux left those words and got out of the inn.

His back was pushed by a strange out-of-place feeling and he started running through the streets in the evening.

He followed the same path like last night towards the direction the strange smell was coming through the wind.

「Oo! Isn’t this the hero-dono! You are going to fall if you are so hurried like that.」

「Are you getting summoned by the princess? Don’t go so fast like that okay?」

A middle-aged man with an unshaven face and bulky physique. A headstrong housewife in her thirties.

The people of the castle town who he passed by on the main street were calling out to Lux smilingly when they saw him.

He weaved through the back alley and went through the road in a straight line, and then──he found the corpses of many soldiers.

A great amount of bloodstains, and rubble that were piled up high.

The wreckages of broken Drag-Rides and corpses that were buried crudely.

The arm that was sticking out graphically from under the ground. It didn’t even catch the attention of the passing people.

As though there was nothing there from the start.

As though there was nothing existing there.

「Sieg Kreutzer……」

That’s right.

Yesterday this man was killed by the Automatas here.

「Why!? How am I──no, everyone in this country is repeating the same parade? This should be something that happened yesterday. And yet……why did everyone hear the sounds of fireworks!?」

The man called Waybra was killed inside the castle on the last day of the first parade of the time before the last time.

And then, yesterday the little brother of Balzerite, Sieg Kreutzer was also killed.

Why──they were the only ones who were killed by the Automatas?

And then, why did no one notice?

「Don’t make me keep repeating the same things, chore boy. Are you still going to bother me even when it’s this late in the game?」

Singlen was standing inside the darkness of the evening when he turned around.

Within the hustle and bustle of the passing by people, there was a cat that ran through Singlen’s body.

As though there was nothing there since the beginning.

「You should have known if it’s you, someone who followed the same path like me and had gone through Baptism three times. Just what this is. Who is the one that is trying to do something?」

「……-!?」

Rewind, redo.

That’s right. Five years ago, when he thought that Philufy who was kidnapped for human experimentation died, Lux who became desperate abandoned the whole plan of the revolution──when he was going to head to strike down the Emperor, the world was rewound.

And then, at the second time Airi was taken hostage due to the information from the betrayer and they were almost killed by the Emperor.

That was why, that time the world was rewound again.

The same like right now in order to make the world follow the history where the Old Empire was destroyed and the new equilibrium was made──

「It’s not simple for the power of the weak to overturn the system. To beat the stronghold of the strong and maintain the equilibrium, the era has to be changed. The central personage for that──what that guy called as the candidate to be the core of history numbered more than one. That guy found me at the Blackend Kingdom in the past, while in this country he selected that great man Count Atismata whoever and you.」

──Revolution.

The existence who became the core that changed the trend of the one-sided strength of the strong.

Lux who possessed the will and resolve for that was made to grow, and when he was about to go off the rail, he was corrected.

In order to guide the Old Empire five years ago to the fate of destruction.

「Have you realized? Have you remembered? Then now you can suffer a lot. Go rot and fall and break in the miniature garden of the fictitious world that you said.」

Singlen left those words behind and his figure melted into the dusk and vanished.

And then Lux remembered everything. He ran towards the castle of the New Kingdom that was towering high in the distance.

–

Part 2

The cheers of the people were carried by the wind towards the New Kingdom’s castle.

Inside the audience hall of the castle that was from the reconstructed Old Empire’s castle, Queen Raffi was sitting with her eyes closed.

Beside her, there was no figure of her aide Prime Minister Nulph.

In exchange there was another figure.

「It seems that currently the people of the other countries aren’t scheming anything. It will depend on the conference regarding Avalon from here on, but perhaps it will end without any meddling from them.」

The face of Queen Raffi who was saying that was showing a relieved smile.

「What’s left is──only to eradicate the source of that recording. This parade is already rewound twice. Waybra and Sieg Kreutzer have been eliminated. Now that the true identity of the person who made a deal with him is known, the future will be in our hands without problem in the next rewind.」

Right beside Queen Raffi, a man wearing a magnificent cloak was standing.

He was an existence that possessed an intimidating air that pressured other people and an eye glint like a beast.

「The future where you safely rule the New Kingdom as it is. You who are standing on the side of the weak are chosen by Sacred Eclipse. You have the qualifications to become the core of this country, and to further guide this world to balance.」

「I’m grateful to you. Waybra was my lover in the past. I told him the plan of my brother in order to protect him and let him escape. For that fact to get recorded by a Drake──. If that fact became known by the populace, I won’t be able to live anymore in this world.」

The queen muttered with a transient smile.

She was directing a grateful feeling towards the hero called Fugil who saved her.

「Then, should we carry out the next Baptism? Two weeks have passed since then, you are steadily adapting to it. Surely it will become possible for you to even fuse with Sacred Eclipse if some more time passes.」

「Please……. If peace can be brought to this country with that──I will even become evil. It’s for the sake of women like me, who were persecuted until now by the men, by the people of the Old Empire.」

Her eyes wavered with uneasiness, but there wasn’t any hesitation there anymore.

She reached out her hand towards the Automata beside her with determination to personally walk on the path of sin in her heart.

「There is only one more thing left. If I can confirm Prime Minister Nulph’s true intentions, then all will be well for the time being. It will be great if he isn’t trying to threaten me but──」

Those were the words of someone who was resolved.

A weak person who turned the world into an enemy and fell into a difficult situation where they were forced to walk the path of fabricated righteousness due to their birth.

Such person was led by the hero and embarked on a new path.

–

Part 3

「Fugil……. You……! Don’t tell me──!?」

Lux who sensed the presence let out a bewildered voice and looked up at the towering castle of justice.

The man who was standing on the terrace that was jutting out from the castle displayed a smile that was like a curse and spoke to his little brother below.

「Did you recover your memory? Then you can choose. Will you turn her into an enemy in order to save the people? You who are the knight of that princess, try to destroy and save this country once more, hero.」

The jet black smile shook up Lux’s heart.

On the castle’s parapet, Sacred Eclipse that was covered with an ominous miasma was standing and looking down on the hustle and bustle of the parade.