CH 70

For now, it’s a good story, anyway.

***

Dante, when an immortal falls in love with a mortal, disaster will occur.

***

Dante was happy. Beyond measure.

It was when Ei, who at first seemed to be pushing him away, had just accepted her own feelings. The change in the relationship brought him more joy than he thought, and Ei’s expression of affection rather than rejecting it, always thrilled him.

He acted as if he had it all, just by having Ai by his side, and he actually felt that way. As long as her heart was for him, he had nothing more to ask for.

Everything about him was connected to one person, and Dante was happy to accept the happiness that comes from that fact.

But just because he was euphoric doesn’t mean he didn’t think about their future.

Yes, their future.

There was only one future that Dante could imagine, unaware that Ei was immortal.

“Ei.”

“…Hm?”

“…”

A future where time passes and she leaves then he is left alone.

As long as the one he fell in love with was mortal, everything was preordained.

“No, nothing.”

“What’s the point of calling me… Ah, I’m sleepy.”

“Hurry up and sleep. You’ve been tired since earlier.”

In fact, it was closer to the end rather than the future. They will meet their end in the very distant future, when she will no longer be able to stay by his side, and when all her anxiety will be gone.

At the end, I’ll end up missing you.

Watching Ei fall asleep, Dante thought so.

At night, when everyone was asleep, the scarlet light from the lamp next to the bed was shining on Ei. The warm-colored cheeks, the still closed eyes, and the neatly exhaled breath entered his eyes one by one.

He was just staring at her, yet for some reason it felt like my chest was full, so Dante exhaled slowly. The sleeping Ei looked as if she had gathered all the peacefulness of the world and brought it in front of him.

How can you feel that someone is so lovable? He vaguely sensed that she would be more precious to him in the future than she is now. Everything about her will become precious and desperate, and he will be unable to bear without her…

However, in the distant future, he will have no choice but to endure Ei’s absence.

She won’t be with him forever.

“…”

In general, people who are preparing for a breakup try to get used to being without their partner.

And accordingly, they tried to reduce one by one the things that they wouldn’t be able to do alone, that is, the acts that they used to do with each other. Actions such as holding hands, walking together, laughing at each other, hugging each other.

There was no one who didn’t know that if you couldn’t get used to being alone, it would eventually be more painful than the fact that you were separated.

Dante understood their psychology. The reason why you try to endure something you’ve been doing with the other person.

Just because he understood, it didn’t mean that Dante acted like them. He took her hand if he wanted to, and kissed her if he wanted to kiss her. Even now, he smiled while he gladly kissed Ei on the cheek as she slept.

What Dante chose to prepare for the inevitable breakup wasn’t to gradually reduce the things he was with her. Rather, he chose to feel the maximum happiness in all the time he was with Ei.

In the distant future, when he really can’t see her, he just wants to recall how she smiles even without her. If they were going to get separated, he’d rather remember this moment without fail.

A very long time ago, to be exact, when he received the purple jewel from Ei, Dante had made that promise. Let’s focus on this moment when she’s by his side. He had no intention of ever having to get used to her absence.

It seemed that if he made memories that would make him happy just by thinking about them, he would be able to endure it even in the end.

Actually, yeah. Maybe he didn’t want to prepare for a breakup. He knew she would leave one day, but his knowing and accepting were very different.

At that time, he was perfectly happy, so all he could do was believe that parting was far away.

No matter how close the end may be, even if he couldn’t avoid the future where he would be left alone, it certainly wouldn’t be now.

Saying that parting will happen only in the far, distant future…

The peacefulness he felt looking at her was enough to make Dante think so.

***

In the end, what unfolded before Dante’s eyes was ruins.

“…”

A disgusting smell wafted everywhere. Dark smoke was rising, and at times the ground soaked in a dark red color could be seen.

The landscape, which used to be peaceful, was shattered into black. All he could see were ashes, rubble, and burnt traces.

He didn’t feel any presence. It was as if no one had ever lived there from the beginning.

At first, Dante denied the view that was seen by his eyes. Without even thinking to aim at his body, which started to tremble, he ran frantically around. To find people, or traces of them escaping.

To find her.

Yet he couldn’t find anything he was looking for.

“…No, no.”

He realized that Ei wasn’t reaching out and although he was anxious, he has never thought of anything like this.

Thoughts kept popping up even though he didn’t want to, Dante kept muttering that it couldn’t be. Ignoring the burning eyes, he cast his magic with trembling hands.

A magic that revealed what happened here in the past.

The magic that was so difficult that no one except him could even dream of it was easily accomplished in just a few seconds.

…It might have been better if he hadn’t tried to look.

The magic that stretched out like a branch from Dante’s fingertips quickly traveled back in time and informed everything.

Screams, fire, red jewels, and…

And.

“…Ah.”

What had attacked Dante in the past was utter despair.

Since it wasn’t a magic that relentlessly pursued only one person’s traces, the scenery of the town turned into chaos and the figures of people running away screaming were spread out in a mess. Dante could only see a very faint glimpse of Ei passing through it. But even with that blurry shape, it wasn’t difficult to figure out what had happened.

Yes, the problem was that there was no crowd. It was clear what the running Ei and the subsequent sound of bombs meant.

Could he have stopped it if he hadn’t been away at this time? No, would nothing have happened to this village if he had returned immediately when he didn’t get a call from Ei?

The assumption that couldn’t come true made him even more distressed. The results of such a mistake-like choice were so devastating that it kept staining his mind black.

In ruins, nothing more, nothing less, Dante collapsed helplessly.

His staggering body landed on the ground, black ashes on the ground smeared on his hands. Tears filled his eyes, blurring and dripping down. He couldn’t even groan at the pain he felt from the depths of his heart.

Certainly not long ago, whenever he shed a tear, there was a hand that gently touched his eyes. With a small bruise, on which he didn’t even have to cry.

He closed his eyes and smiled, then eventually came a small laugh together…

Yet all of that is gone now.

He thought being left alone was something in the distant future, and since there was still a lot of time left, it would be okay. Slowly, as he felt happiness in loving her, he thought of remembering everything about her.

But all of that was only possible when the breakup was very far away.

Their end came too soon, and Dante had nothing left.

Really, nothing.

In a landscape where everything was burnt, there wasn’t even a trace of her being there. She left him with nothing.

Now, in that place, there were only tears shed by him, who had lost everything.

In the end, in front of the ruins unfolding before his eyes, Dante realized in endless despair. He realized how foolish he was of thinking that if they made memories that made him happy just by thinking about them, he would be able to survive even to the last minute.

He would have been devastated enough if the breakup hadn’t come so suddenly. He lost her and he couldn’t be okay. He would have been in more pain than he is now, but not less.

There was no way he could have endured something like this. He didn’t even want to endure it.

What finally came to his mind was a sentence that had been whispered in the distant past.

Dante, when an immortal falls in love with a mortal, disaster will occur.

He knew too. About what happened when an immortal fell in love with a mortal, and he fell in love with her. Rather, he felt more than what was contained in those words. As it was obvious that he would be left behind.

“Ei.”

It’s just that he didn’t have the power to prevent the disaster.

It was impossible for him not to love her in the first place.