The Rebirth Of The Hero’S Party’S Archmage [EN]: Chapter 202

202

There was no place in the green city of Karsiko to have a quiet conversation with White Sky Bow, Serwayvon.

Perhaps it was because the mayor and his aides had been taken into custody by the Special Task Force, and the passage of merchants, citizens, and tourists through the city was restricted.

So, guided by Kora, I headed to the island—to the center of Linkland Island, the place where Link was originally laid to rest.

“Just keep going straight this way.”

“Thanks.”

“No need to thank us. You don’t need to say that to us. And don’t.”

It was a valley densely overgrown with chestnut trees, filled with a bittersweet aroma.

Above the graveyard, where footsteps had ceased due to the Slayer’s control, countless wildflowers bloomed.

Standing before the tomb filled with colorful light, I think I smiled faintly.

“Hello, Link.”

“Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link.”

The location of the tomb was easy to spot, as a 3-meter-tall stone statue modeled after Link stood there.

“It’s been 300 years. About 200 years with Pipi, right?”

“Right, right, right.”

Pipi vigorously flapped her bandaged wings, expressing her joy at seeing Link with her whole body.

Serwayvon also emitted a mournful light several times, just like the moment I reunited with him after 300 years.

Then, as the wind rushed through the valley, sunlight danced on Link’s face, which was covered in moss and vines.

“Papa, a stone person! It’s so big and amazing.”

“Aki, that’s not a stone person, it’s a statue.”

“Acknowledge, acknowledge, acknowledge.”

“Arung.”

Seeing Aki jump onto Link’s shoulder, I couldn’t help but smile.

‘I guess this is how others felt when they saw me riding on Link’s shoulders.’ A kid on a giant’s neck.

“Come down, it’s dangerous.”

“Aki landing!”

“Aruuu!”

The Yellow Dragon, who had been fidgeting on my shoulder, cheered, thinking Aki’s landing was cool. Then, Aki shrugged her shoulders with satisfaction.

‘Is Aki happy to have a younger sibling?’

I’m not happy at all.

Then, I felt someone laughing from somewhere…

My eyes widened for a moment as I looked in that direction, then a listless smile spread across my face.

Because Keyes was sitting on the tomb, leaning White Sky Bow against it.

Pipi may have seen the same illusion as me, but she landed on White Sky Bow with her still-recovering wings and wiggled her butt.

“Long time no see, long time no see, long time no see.”

As if responding to Pipi’s greeting, White Sky Bow emitted a large, clear wave.

The leaves of the chestnut trees rustled refreshingly in the breath of the World Tree. The light flickered on Keyes’ face and on White Sky Bow as the leaves swayed.

It was around then that vines and tendrils sprouted from the bow of White Sky Bow. They intertwined in the air and began to form letters.

“Is this the letter you left for me?”

Keyes smiled faintly at the corners of his wrinkled mouth, as if answering.

I didn’t know if it was an illusion created by the longing in my heart, or if it was Keyes’ residual thoughts embodied by the life force of White Sky Bow.

I had no intention of using Bell Siderius [a magical artifact] to confirm it.

Because I was happy just thinking that I was with Keyes in this midday fountain where the sea breeze danced with the scent of fruit.

I want to savor this scent of memories.

“Can I read it?”

Keyes, who couldn’t speak in the first place, wouldn’t answer, but I asked out of courtesy, and Keyes nodded lightly.

“Link, do you want to read it together?”

Whether White Sky Bow had breathed life into the statue, or it was just an illusion… Link was standing to Keyes’ right.

Haha, I laughed softly.

Both of them looked quite old, not like their former selves. Their hair was gray and their faces were full of wrinkles.

It made me feel a brief, poignant sadness, thinking that this was the depth of time that separated me from those two.

After exchanging light smiles with the two of them, I looked at the words that White Sky Bow was creating.

I began to read the heart left by a friend I had left behind in the era 300 years ago.

* * *

“Gungseong [a high-ranking archer], have you ever resented this world?”

Whenever I received such a question, I would gloss over it with a smile.

But only to you, to you who taught me how to write, I want to tell the truth.

The era I was born in was an era when the abyss was stirring and cracks were beginning to appear in the dragons’ rule, so many people’s minds and bodies were exhausted.

– Keyes, my son.

My mother, who was a hunter’s wife, died of an epidemic when Keyes was three years old.

And when he was eleven, he ran away from home, unable to endure his alcoholic father’s violence.

While wandering the streets, he falsely defended a friend who had taken care of him, and his tongue was pulled out in court. His friend was hanged on the gallows.

She was the first woman I ever loved, at the age of twenty-one.

[I came to believe that only power matters.]

That the only reason I had to suffer from my father’s violence and couldn’t save my friend was because I lacked power.

So, I devoted myself to archery, the only inheritance I had received from my father.

I traveled all over the country, searching for something strong to shoot with my bow.

Except for eating and sleeping, I only shot my bow.

After 10 years, the world was calling me the greatest archer on the continent. The emperor of the time summoned me and gave me the position of Gungseong.

“It’s amazing, how can you shoot so well even after drinking so much?”

The order was wrong.

Without alcohol, without the intoxication erasing the painful past, I couldn’t accurately draw the bowstring and concentrate.

My mother who died when I was young.

My fearful father.

The death of my friend, who looked me straight in the eye and cried out to be saved.

Even the desire for power became so futile that everything became frightening.

I was always living in a drunken stupor, so the emperor must have thought I was a nuisance, and he made me participate in the final Hero Party as the empire’s representative.

‘That’s good, actually. I don’t want to live anymore anyway. It’s the perfect place to die.’

And that’s where I met you.

I thought you were a genius magician, but you were too young and had too many rough edges, so some school must have sent you to your death as a nuisance.

It felt strange.

At first, I watched you closely because I thought you were similar to me, but I soon realized that wasn’t the case.

– Keyes, come here. I’ll teach you how to write.

– Keyes, this is Tureina. Is she my disciple? What are you talking about, she’s just a burden.

– Keyes, teach me how to cook too.

You were just so pure, untouched by anything. You were just not honest about the things between people.

You pretended to be curt, but you had the brightest smile, and you pretended not to care about others, but you were more considerate than anyone else.

And deep in your heart, you had the ‘salt’ that changes the surroundings with your scent.

You were a prim little kid at first, but after 5 years, you had become an adult who had inherited the light of Rista and Friede.

– You know, I want to have a child someday.

When I see you like that, old voices come to my mind.

– A child who looks just like us.

The words that my friend, who died on the gallows, said to me with a shy smile, like fleeting bubbles.

– I’ll teach that child a lot. So that they don’t get tainted by this era.

And at some point, I realized.

The world is like you.

It could be stained black or stained gold. If only it could be guided and taught correctly.

‘Then there is still hope in this world.’

I’m just a freak who can only live in a drunken stupor, but when I come to my senses, I’m a fool who has become the same kind of person as my father.

If only I could save you, who has overcome all the pain of childhood, and send you to the future.

If only I could help you become an adult.

Someday, the world might have the kind of appearance that I and my friend had hoped for in our childhood, that’s what I thought.

– You have to win….

But in the moment of desperation, it was you who sent us to the future.

It must be painful, you must be suffering from the poison that is consuming your whole body, you must be disturbed by the fear that everything you have achieved will be cut off in your childhood.

You smiled at us at the end. You smiled like a spring flower blooming.

– I’ll be back….

What are you so happy about?

Don’t you resent us, the world? The one that made you die young….

Before that question could be finished, you disappeared somewhere into the endless years.

After returning to the empire, I thought about the meaning of the smile you gave on the last day.

It wasn’t until a month after returning to the empire that I recovered from the shock of not believing everything.

You weren’t in the future you created.

The moment I realized that, I cried silently for a week, day and night.

On that day, when I had no more tears to shed, I made a vow to myself. I made a vow to myself, who had originally been waiting to die in a drunken stupor.

That I would go to the future.

So that one day when you come back, I will definitely push you forward so that you can go to the future.

[Behold, after I die, I will pass on White Sky Bow to the most outstanding of my blood and disciples. The successor must also pass on the bow to future generations based on the same criteria as me.]

When I left a will in the letters that Lynn taught me, I attached one condition to it.

The successor of Serwayvon must constantly refine themselves for Lynn, who will return someday.

And on the day Lynn returns, they must use that power for Lynn.

[However, anyone whose heart is even slightly twisted will not be chosen by Serwayvon, no matter how skilled they are.]

What I raised in the future you created is not a disciple. What I gave birth to is not blood.

They were the ones who would carry on my will.

I am old and sick, and I can no longer follow your life’s journey.

But if Serwayvon, who knows my will, and someone who has inherited my will, can reach out to you on my behalf when you need help.

I thought that would be a beautiful thing.

[Lynn, where are you now?]

I will consider this letter as you and finish this letter.

Even now, the memory of the sunset primrose flower field that I saw with you is still more vivid than ever on this last day.

As I get older, countless memories have been chipped away. Now I can’t even remember the faces of my mother, father, or friends.

[Has my heart reached you?]

Has this heart that I am writing for the last time reached you, who gave your life for us when you were young?

I have given birth to descendants, raised disciples, and given them everything I have, but has my heart been conveyed as well?

But it’s so strange.

Doesn’t the Osarius School, which grew with your nourishment, shine more brilliantly than my archery school, which I watered and raised while I was alive?

No, that’s not quite right.

The smile you showed at the end became the nourishment of my whole life, which allowed me to raise the archery school.

Link must have felt the same way, as he said he would pass on his artifacts to his descendants.

Friede pondered over the method, and Link completed some kind of spell just before he died, so if the gods allow it, he will be able to meet Link as well.

It would be presumptuous to convey Link’s heart in my words, but I think he must have had the same heart as me.

I will stop listing my insignificant life and try to convey my sincerity.

In the future you sent me, I was able to not drink just by remembering your smile.

I just wanted to say this one last time.

* * *

The series of letters that White Sky Bow sprouted into the air and created in that form was cut off.

Rain stared at it silently for a long time, and finally bit his lip and began to shed tears.

Quietly, for a long time.

The sea breeze, blowing pleasantly and shaking the leaves, caressed his cheeks. The sunlight stroked his head.

In that harmony of nature, a mysterious sight flashed for a moment in the eyes of the Yellow Dragon, who was clinging to Aki’s head and wriggling.

【Keyes and Link.】

Was it just a hallucination seen by a young dragon, or was it a moment of miracle achieved by the youth’s earnest wish?

【Each smiles and strokes Lynn and Pipi’s heads.】

The truth of the matter is unknown, but perhaps, no, surely, the youth and the beast felt the same warmth.