4.
Before the world was completely enveloped in darkness, the last scene that caught my eye was the [Wand Of Ages] gaping in horror.
The wizard must have shouted something.
"—, ——-!?"
However, I couldn't comprehend the sound the wizard made. My throat was already torn by the noise, and I hadn't even utilized aura to delay my death. Death came quickly and slowly.
[You are reproducing the trauma of the enemy that killed you.]
I couldn't keep up with the rapid changes in the scenery with the speed of my mind. In the irregular rhythm of fast and slow, something got mixed up. Like Water and oil. White and black.
And if I may say so, it was the soul with the spirit.
Like a single snowflake falling on a furnace, my dead spirit gently melted into the body that killed me.
[You are reproducing the trauma of the enemy that killed you.]
She was a fisherman born a very long time ago. Therefore, I was a fisherman born a very long time ago. In the repetition of the same words, she was me, and I was her.
Just like when I became Raviel. Just like when I became my master.
In the midst of the trauma of the human path, she-I stared at the wine-colored sea.
『The waves are crying.』
The waves were rough. I could smell the roughness.
The fisherwoman knew that water had a smell.
On calm days when the sun was gentle, the water was clean too. But when the waves came rushing from far away, the water sweated. It was a salty smell. When there was a smell of saliva, whirlpools formed in that rapids. It was a rotten smell.
And now, the waves were shedding tears.
『We must escape. The waves are crying.』
She merely muttered instinctively.
It was a time when humans had not yet emerged from the stage of beasts.
It was said that in the vast desert to the south, there was a golden temple as high as a mountain. The people living there were all sorcerers and magicians who could imprison all human voices into strange pictures.
I knew that the golden temple resembled a 'pyramid' and that the sorcery was 'writing.' She didn't know. In an era when only a tiny fraction of humanity enjoyed the blessing of writing, a woman was sailing, catching fish.
『We must hurry and escape…』
Kurururur-!
Turning the boat around, the woman looked back. A volcano was erupting in the distance. Hot lava was bubbling at the top of the mountain. Black clouds. Lightning. Mud rain. The volcano roared as if announcing the end of the world.
『....』
Instinctively, the woman slowed the boat, steering only to places where she could faintly smell the tears of the waves. It took more than half a day to return to the house, the hometown, the seaside village that could have been reached quickly under normal circumstances.
The village was gone.
『....』
Only a few pieces of wood remained floating on the surface of the water. When the waves hit the cliffs, the wood pressed against the rocks gently rocked.
There were no survivors.
She looked up at the sky.
The clouds were hanging low. These were not clouds from the sky. They were clouds that had belched from the ground. The clouds that rose from underground were much darker and had a much stronger body odor than those of the sky.
The entire sea was weeping in black.
『…We must escape.』
She drove the boat.
It wasn't just her hometown that had disappeared. The neighboring village. The neighbor's neighbor. The neighbor's neighbor's neighbor. Villages that clung to the coastline like shellfish, barely clinging to a slice of life, were all gone.
『Did anyone survive?』
Each vanished village left behind at least one survivor. Just like herself.
『I survived.』
『The waves are crying. They keep crying.』
The survivors, just like me, were people who could smell the scent of the waves. I, she, nodded.
『I know. I can feel the tears of the waves too.』
『Many have died. God is angry. Must we also die?』
『We must escape. Hurry. Hurry and escape. Follow me.』
『Where to?』
『To the largest village.』
She drove the boat.
One became two. Two became three, four, five, sixteen. They were all survivors. The sixteen survivors signified the death of sixteen villages. Only those who were closest to the waves in those villages could survive.
『Everyone died.』
There were no survivors in the largest village.
『None. Nobody. Nothing.』
『....』
She looked back.
Before she knew it, the number of boatmen had grown to thirty.
As they crossed from one village to the next, and to the next after that, the language of the survivors changed from mine.
『Where do we go now?』
The first survivor she met had the same voice as hers. She could understand everything.
『Do w■ have to die?』
From the point of crossing six villages, the sounds began to diverge. Not everything could be understood. Still, there was no problem in mixing sounds with sounds.
『■t is divine punish■ent. The wrath of a ■od.』
As they passed twelve villages, the sounds wailed bizarrely. Her ears buzzed. It was hard, but if she narrowed her eyebrows and listened carefully, she could understand.
『■■ are crying ■ insi■■ t■…』
After passing twenty-four villages, she could no longer understand the sounds. Nothing could be fully understood.
Only the feeling of the tears of the waves.
That was the only common ground.
『....』
She looked up at the sky.
For many days now, the world had been dark.
It was cold. The fishermen huddled their bodies. They covered their flesh with whatever straw they could gather, but their teeth clacked against each other. Clack, even now, someone's teeth clacked. Clack. Clack. She, I, quietly listened to the sound of the teeth.
『We must escape.』
『Wh■re to?』
『Somewhere.』
It was the start of an ice age.
The era that had provided mankind with comfortable rain and waves for thousands of years had finally come to an end. The volcano had merely hastened the apocalypse a bit. I knew this through knowledge, and she knew it through instinct.
Southwards. Along the coast, southwards. Following the swept-away villages and abandoned ruins, south, south.
『■■■■!』
How many villages had they passed?
『■■■■ ■■■■! ■■■!』
Before she knew it, the number of boatmen following her had surpassed sixty. They finally succeeded in reaching a 'surviving village,' but she couldn't understand the sounds the 'villagers' were shouting. Not at all.
For some reason, the villagers were holding spears. They threw stones. The chests of 'survivors' were pierced by spears they threw, and their heads were smashed by rocks. Splash. Splash. Bodies fell overboard.
The man she met in the first village looked this way.
『Do we have to die?』
The question she always received.
And for the first time, she opened her lips to answer.
『No.』
A massacre occurred.
The boatmen took up stone knives and killed the 'villagers.' Including her, all the survivors were the most skilled boatmen. Killing people was always easier than rowing boats.
『What are these people saying?』
After the fight ended, she called over a survivor from the forty-eighth village to ask. He was a fisherman who had lived in a place relatively close to here. He was still supposed to be able to hear their sounds.
『■■.... ■■■ ■■ ■■■...!』
『It seems like they're saying we're going to receive divine punishment』
The forty-eighth survivor translated. He said he wasn't exactly sure.
『And they called us pirates.』
『Pirates? What does that mean?』
『It seems to refer to people of the sea.』
From that village onward, the survivors were no longer called 'fishermen' but 'pirates.'
The sixty pirates increased to ninety. More. More. More. More. Like wreckage of shipwrecks gathering together in waves, like young animals rubbing their skins together on a cold day, all the survivors of the destroyed seaside villages came to her.
『The ■■■ has ■■■..』
『The world has ended.』
A boatman filtered the sounds of another boatman.
『Everyone ■■■ ■■…』
『Everyone is dead.』
『Do ■■■ we also ■■■ ■■■…』
『Do we have to die too?』
A hundred fishermen looked at her.
And now she knew what answer she had to give, could give, and wanted to give. It was as clear as the smell of the waves.
『No.』
In front of two hundred people.
『No.』
In front of three hundred people.
『No.』
She answered the same.
『We must escape. Follow me.』
Five hundred boats followed her.
『■■■■!』
Fights broke out wherever they went. They didn't know why they had to fight. But what they could gain from fighting was clear. In the 'villages that had not perished,' there was grain hidden. There were clothes. There were sharp stone knives.
There was just no reason to refuse to fight.
『■■■! ■■. ■■■ ■■■■...!』
Southwards. Following the coast southwards. Sweeping through villages and leaving ruins behind, south. South.
『■■■■■■!』
The world was cold.
The world was dark.
Just as a white seashell clings to the sea cliffs, barely holding on to life by its fingernails, as long as they clung here, the world had not ended.
『■■■....』
Splash.
Below the burning 'large village,' she swung her sword.
『■■■■....』
『■■, ■■■ ■■■■■....!』
『■■ ■ ■■■■....』
The 'people of the large village' shed tears.
Looking around at the bodies, at those who were not yet corpses but soon would be, she suddenly said,
『What are these people saying?』
『....』
She called the survivor from the twelfth village. The twelfth survivor called the thirty-second survivor. The thirty-second called the fifty-first, the fifty-first called the hundredth, the hundredth called the one hundred and seventieth, the one hundred and seventieth called the two hundred and fifty-second.
『Why try to listen to what these people are saying?』
Eventually, the five hundred and eighty-first asked. To exchange one question and one answer with the five hundred and eighty-first, dozens of translations were needed. Dozens of people babbled.
Like the waves.
Like waves, like waves, like waves. Overlapping dozens of times, the fishermen whispered to each other.
『These 'people of the large village' are sorcerers.』
She also whispered.
『They know magic that traps sounds.』
She picked up a clay tablet and showed it to the fishermen. It had pictures on it. They knew neither how to read nor how to write.
But magic is originally like that.
『With their magic, we too can leave behind our sounds.』
『Why try to leave our sounds behind? Waves are waves only when they crash. Sounds disappear. That is the way of the waves, and we follow the way of the waves.』
『Here is the 'somewhere' we can escape to.』
She pointed at the clay tablet. Looking each fisherman in the eye, one by one, she spoke. She wanted them to look here, at this place.
『We must escape. Here. This is where I told you to follow me to. We have arrived. Tell me.』
『....』
『What are these people saying?』
The waves stopped.
『I don't know.』
The five hundred and eighty-first wave said.
『I don't know.』
『....』
『I don't know what they are saying.』
Following that, the two hundred and fifty-second wave said they didn't know. The one hundred and seventieth wave, the hundredth wave, the fifty-first wave, the thirty-second wave, the twelfth wave, quietly, said they didn't know. Thus, as the waves washed away, they made a sound.
『No one knows.』
The wave came to her feet and lapped for the last time.
『....』
And then the sound of the wave disappeared.
『....』
Only the wave was shedding tears.
『....』
She could smell the tears. Very close by. And she knew why the smell never stopped. Perhaps she knew this would happen.
Towards the burning flames, she threw the clay tablet.
『Where should we go now?』
『I'm sorry.』
With a thud.
『Where… should we… go ■?』
『I'm sorry.』
The flames grew higher.
『where ■■ ■■ ■■■?』
『I'm sorry.』
Thud, the fire blazed. Thud. Thud.
『■■ ■■■ ■■ ■■■?』
『I'm sorry.』
Quietly.
[Trauma reproduction complete.]
[It has been confirmed that the ego of the targeted subject has been maintained.]
[The penalty is terminated.]
5.
I think I heard the sound of the waves from somewhere.
"You—–, what on earth are you thinking!?"
I staggered to my feet.
"...."
The procedure to regress 24 hours earlier did not activate.
This place is the first underground floor. Did they say the flow of time here is different from other floors? Or did the administrators, the pillars, arbitrarily apply a brake to the skill? Given that Fox~nim is not by my side right now, has my timeline lost its absolute priority?
Either way, it doesn't matter.
-Gurrrrr…
There is noise before my eyes.
There was a life that had turned into noise.
Something that could no longer make any sound, just growling. What it used to be. Clank! It struggled as if it was going to charge at me any moment, chained in iron.
"So, by using trauma, you can live the life of the dead? And so, you can make a more accurate judgment than me, who can only watch? Is that your answer? Ha."
I drew my sword.
"Yeah. Maybe. But didn't you argue that you have to ask the soul directly? Even if you see the trauma, no matter how close you get, it's not like the soul is directly speaking—-."
And then, I cut through the noise.
"—–What?"
The wizard had no time to intervene. My sword cut through the noise. The noise didn't scream, maybe because it was already screaming, and was easily sliced.
The noise dissipated like ash.
"You, what… now, what did you do…."
Card open.
[Activating skill.]
It was the gold I had gained earlier.
+
[Hundred Ghosts Reincarnation]
Rank: SSS
Effect: You summon those you have directly killed. The deceased do not inherit their abilities from their lifetime. However, if you wish, the deceased can inherit their memories and appearance from their lifetime. If you do not wish, they are simply summoned as monsters.
+
I lived a life of noise.
Thus, I identified the [coordinates] of the noise.
I became the noise that turned into a scream. By doing so, I became able to [summon] the noise.
Therefore.
[Hundred Ghosts Reincarnation is activated.]
All conditions have been met.
The ash that disappeared into the air, from the bottom, turned back into black ash water and rose up. The black water gradually took shape.
Eyes I know, a face I know.
With a gesture that was once mine.
"...."
The one with blue eyes, resembling the sea, blinked, looking at me.
Silence surrounded us.
The Wand Of Ages was silently looking this way, his mouth closed. The other pillars also did not speak.
In this moment, the only beings permitted to speak were just me and her.
"...."
She opened her mouth.
"Who are you?"
Somewhere.
I think I heard the sound of the waves.
"Hello."
I said.
Not in the first language I learned when I was born, not in the language automatically translated by the tower, but in the sounds I learned through her life, through her ears and mouth. Rough and unrefined. Carrying the scent of the sea. As if it briefly rushed from the distant sea, crashed against the cliffs, and disappeared white, utterly white. In the sound of the waves.
I could say her name.
"The First Wave."
And, what I could become for her.
"I am your Last Wave."
I will become somewhere for you.