"Reckless bravery, you little creature."
As Torkel rose from his seat, Medusa flashed her petrifying curse.
"If only you'd stayed lying down, pretending to be dead... it would have been easier!"
Kiiiiing!
The aura of petrification swept over the area.
But,
"...?"
Torkel, despite facing it head-on, was completely unaffected.
"What the..."
A perplexed Medusa asked hesitantly.
"How, how are you not turning to stone...?"
"I don't know."
Torkel, responding briefly, staggered towards Medusa.
"This is...!"
Thinking it was just a fluke, Medusa fired her petrifying curse again.
Kiiiiiiing!
But,
Kwajik, kwaddeuk! Kwagwang!
While everything else around turned to stone and hardened, nothing happened to Torkel.
He simply kept walking forward.
"What the hell, what are you doing?!"
"...I don't know why I'm still standing here."
Slowly. Yet surely. One step at a time.
"But one thing seems clear."
Torkel said, moving forward.
"...You and I, we're in similar straits."
"What?"
Astonished, Medusa screamed.
"Acting all knowing, what the hell are you talking about, human!"
"..."
"For a crime I didn't commit, I've had to live with the pain of this monstrous form from birth... What do you know about that!"
"Why do you think you're the only one?"
Torkel slowly grabbed his helmet and took it off.
"I'm the same."
"...!"
His face, marred by leprosy, was hideous. Even Medusa flinched in surprise.
"I've had my fill of being treated like a monster."
"You..."
Torkel, putting his helmet back on, reflected bitterly.
"I thought I was being punished for sins committed in a past life. That being born was my crime, and I was paying for it."
"..."
"Feeling unjust and hating the world. It was hard to endure. I wouldn't have been surprised if I had turned into a monster like you."
His rage and resentment towards the world were unbearable.
He wanted to punch the faces of those who looked at him as if he were a bug.
He wanted to kill those who spat and cursed at him simply because he was a leper.
Countless nights he couldn't sleep, consumed by relentless humiliation and injustice.
Yet, what kept Torkel from giving up his humanity were the other lepers.
The people living together on that narrow island.
The adults who taught them letters so they wouldn't be oppressed for other reasons, the children who shared whatever sweets they could find.
It would have been easy to kill those who treated him like a monstrosity.
To set fire to the village that made their lives miserable would have been easy too. Giving in to become a monster was a sweet, tempting option.
But that would have put everyone on the island in peril. So, Torkel bit down and endured.
Unable to find work anywhere else, he lived as a mercenary, sending money regularly to that island.
He lived on, not becoming a monster, enduring and enduring some more.
But it was not overcoming; it was just survival.
It was merely prolonging life, not truly living as a person.
Yet, in this dreadful life...
- Welcome to Crossroad! Come on in, mercenary friends! Glad to meet you!
There were moments that shone like stars.
Torkel remembered it as if it were yesterday. Ash's face, warmly welcoming him and his companions, who were never welcomed anywhere.
The money wasn't what mattered.
Just seeing Ash's face, not scowling at them, was enough for Torkel to decide to fight for him.
Days on this monster front were torturous and brutal. A battlefield harsher than any human world, with death always lurking close by.
But... the people here treated him as a comrade.
Other races, remnants of defeated armies, refugees, border runaways, half-bloods, and even lepers like himself.
On this frontline, he could live as a person.
Torkel remembered. The day when a few people quietly visited the graves of his desolate comrades, placing flowers.
The moments when people passing by the temple hesitated to greet him, as he silently swept.
And...
- Here, take my hand.
The moment the Saintess took his hand and prayed for him.
Torkel could remember it more vividly than anything else in the world.
"...I thought my life was nothing but pain."
All his life, like clouds casting shadows. Dark and dreary.
"But it wasn't."
The warm touch of the newborn half-blood baby, Cid, placing his finger on his hand in that instant.
The moment he felt the warmth of that child, also 'born with the sin of existence' like himself, Torkel realized.
"In fact, the sun was always shining."
Behind the clouds. Telling him to look this way. Pouring sunlight down to the earth.
Torkel, who had closed his eyes too long in the shade, hadn't realized it. But now he understood.
That the sunlight was always shining in Crossroad. That he was already walking in that sunlight.
And then, he realized anew.
Even in the hellish clouds of his childhood... there was sunlit land.
The small, cramped island he always wanted to escape from, was right in the sunlight.
"...So what?"
Medusa opened her mouth in a hollow laugh.
"So what if a monster like you didn't become a monster and remained human?"
Kiiiiing!
Medusa fired her petrifying curse repeatedly. Torkel didn't turn to stone, but staggered with each blast of her powerful magic.
"I chose to become a monster! That time, looking at the stars in the sky... I made a wish!"
Just as the Devil... the Demon King said.
In truth, young Medusa had wished upon the stars.
"For everyone to become as ugly as me! My sisters, the villagers, all humans- to become monsters like me!"
She spoke as if blaming the Demon King. Though she lied that she had never wished for such a thing.
In truth, Medusa had turned her sisters into monsters by her own will.
Though she regretted it, and regretted it again- in that moment, she had indeed wished such an evil wish upon the stars.
And at that moment, Medusa truly became a monster.
The girl who could have lived as a human under her sisters' love, truly became a cursed stone monster.
"...Right. That's the difference between you and me."
Facing the onslaught of magic, Torkel stepped forward.
"Born with such a hideous form... what did we choose? To live as a human or as a monster. That's the decisive difference between us."
"It can't be. Such ugliness doesn't suit you... I just realized it."
Torkel, with self-mockery, lifted his head.
"Because I endured all those countless, almost broken lifetimes... I was able to reach this conclusion. That's why I'm grateful."
To himself, who endured this painful life.
To himself, who never crossed the line to become a monster.
After expressing his gratitude, Torkel stepped forward boldly.
Kyaaaaaaa-!
Medusa, seeing her petrifying curse didn't work, fired a sonic wave. She poured out rocks and spewed venom.
"My ugly appearance doesn't change. The world's prejudices don't change. But now I know."
Yet, unflinching, Torkel stood in front of Medusa.
And he declared.
"There is no such thing as the sin of being born in this world."
"...!"
"I am not being punished for a past life, nor am I cursed by a god. Therefore, I will struggle in this life of my own will. Of my own will... I will live as a human, and die as a human."
Medusa, who had forsaken her humanity and became a monster by her own will, unknowingly stepped back.
"My name is Torkel. Just a mere human, holding the rear guard of this monster front!"
"Uh, ah...?!"
"Come at me, monster. I will stop you with my life."
Torkel lowered his stance, raised his shield, and gripped his mace tightly.
"This is how I will repay my debt to this land... bathed in sunlight...!"
The next moment, Torkel charged at Medusa, screaming.
***
Torkel had laid down the burden in his heart.
He overcame the original sin - the sin of being born into this world that had oppressed him all his life - and awakened.
Thus, he was able to use his ultimate skill, and with that power, he withstood Medusa's attacks.
But his power was not infinite.
When the borrowed time ended and the short battle was over, Torkel found himself kneeling in a pool of his own blood.
"Acting all high and mighty, and this is all you've got?"
Medusa mocked, flicking her tongue.
"You gave a grand speech, but so what? Including the time you blabbered, at most 10 minutes? Is that all you have to stop me?"
"..."
"The sun is always shining, you said? Ha! So, where is your sun now?"
Pointing to the dark, cloud-filled sky, Medusa screamed.
"Now, human! If you have no more means to use, beg for mercy from the gods! Like I did!"
"..."
"And realize! There may be plenty of devils in this world- but there is no god to save you!"
"I don't know about god,"
Torkel, spitting blood, smirked.
"But there's a human, the master of this land."
"What?"
Thump...!
The rock wall Medusa had created shook violently.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
Rumble!
With a series of impacts, the north side of the rock wall collapsed.
There stood the regular soldiers of Crossroad.
Armed with cannons and other defensive weapons, they had breached Medusa's wall with crossfire and approached in a lined formation, holding up mirror shields.
To stop the monsters on this frontline.
Following the heroes, the regular soldiers too had stepped up, risking their lives.
"...Yeah, you should have shown up like this earlier."
Medusa sneered with a twisted smile, her lips torn wide, as she flashed her petrifying gaze.
"I'll turn all of you to stone! Every last one of you, so you'll regret your choice forever as eternal statues!"
"..."
"Curse and resent your god who stuck you here! Your king! For an eternity in this petrified hell!"
"I won't resent or curse."
Torkel calmly declared.
"This is our choice."
"Ha. Pretending to be noble to the very end."
Kiiiiing!
Activating her petrifying curse right in front of him, turning even the kneeling Torkel into a stone.
Medusa looked up at the sky and sang in a high-pitched, eerie voice.
Full of mockery, scorn, and ridicule.
έλεος, έλεος, Επουράνιε Θεέ!
Mercy, mercy, O Heavenly God!
Βασιλεύς Βασιλέων, Βασιλεί Βοήθει!
King of Kings, aid the king!
"Look! Foolish humans, see with your own eyes!"
As Medusa was loading her petrifying curse towards the soldiers, she roared.
"Where the hell is your king while you sacrifice yourselves to hold the frontline like this!"
That was the moment.
Kukukukuku...
The sky trembled.
The atmosphere rippled, and the mass of dark clouds vibrated. Medusa, perplexed, raised her head to look in that direction.
And then,
Whoooooosh-!
Ripping through the dark clouds, backlighted by the dazzling sunlight-
A colossal airship revealed itself.
It was the flagship of the Imperial Family, the Alcatraz.
As a baffled Medusa opened her mouth in shock, a clear voice emanated from the Alcatraz.
The commander of the monster front. The 3rd Prince of the Empire.
It was the voice of Ash 'Born Hater' Everblack.
"Here I am, you son of a bitch."