Chapter 14

Chapter 14

If I had to define Swap in a single phrase, it would be this:

‘A bug so efficient that it borders on the absurd.’

As though it had been made on purpose for players to exploit, like some hidden easter egg, Swap was strangely efficient even among the many bugs that had proven their usefulness.

A cheat code that let you multiply a character’s specs several times over in exchange for giving up enhancement of the Starting Weapon.

And the only risk you had to accept in return was that the positions of the character and the weapon might be reversed.

Back when I was playing the game, Swap had effectively been treated as an official system with no real downside.

A bizarre risk where the character and weapon changed places? Did something like that even matter in a game?

Even if you made the mistake by accident, all you had to do was die and start over.

I had always thought of it as a system only a fool would refuse to use.

That fixed idea had not changed even after I came to this world.

The one thing I had forgotten was that reality was different from a game.

What stood before me now was not a character, but a person, someone with a will of their own.

And I had forgotten that reality could not be reset.

[Why... why would you...?]

I could tell from the pounding that shook my entire body.

I instinctively understood that the positions of owner and weapon had just been reversed, and that an irreversible change had taken place.

“You said it before, did you not? You told me I would not die.”

To her, who had been told she would not live long, I had firmly declared that she would not die.

Because in exchange for my falling asleep, Ishara, who inherited all of a fairy’s power, would not die.

“That was what I really wanted to say to you.”

To me, who had to fall into a long, long sleep in place of the one who should have died.

She was speaking to me.

“You will not fall asleep. You will get to see what comes next.”

[You...]

I tried to hand over the rest of my power even now, but it failed.

A fairy’s power could dwell only within its owner, that is, a person, so Ishara, who had become a weapon, could no longer receive it.

[If this happens... we cannot finish the Selection Grounds.]

This might stop me from falling asleep, but it also made it forever impossible to break through the boss’s Aura.

Ishara would have no choice but to die after exchanging endless blows with the boss in a battle that would never end.

‘Think. There has to be another way.’

I mobilized every scrap of knowledge I had.

I told myself there had to be some other method, and I racked my brain harder than I ever had in my life, searching for an answer.

But no matter how desperately I tried to deny reality, nothing changed.

Because I knew better than anyone that there was no other way.

“Do not worry.”

And yet Ishara was still smiling.

Just as she always had, she answered with a smile full of confidence.

“Everything will be alright.”

The boss approached.

It was a blow she had to dodge, yet Ishara did not move.

Instead, she raised her sword toward the attack that should have been impossible to block.

Fwaaaash!

A violet radiance, unique to Mysticism, burst from the sword.

Giving off a light so vivid it was impossible to believe she had learned it only moments ago, she thrust her blade toward the White Knight.

And then.

KABOOOM!!

At the same moment she deflected an attack that should have been impossible to stop, she launched a lightning-fast counterattack.

The White Knight’s stance collapsed at once, and before it could even defend itself, it was struck cleanly.

[This is...]

I knew this technique. Of course I did. No one had used it as much as I had.

The unique active effect that could be used once Mysticism was awakened, a technique that unconditionally deflected the opponent’s attack.

What Ishara had just used was Parrying, Mysticism’s signature.

[You... how are you using Parrying?]

It was not a coincidence.

Not the next time, either.

Or the time after that.

Though she was clearly straining, Ishara continued to counterattack the White Knight through Parrying.

How could something like this be possible?

Because I had passed my knowledge on to her? Even that could not explain the counterattack from just now.

To perform a technique she had never seen or learned before, against a boss she was facing for the first time, without the slightest trial and error? And to do it like a veteran who had used it thousands upon thousands of times?

Impossible. No matter what assumption I made, the level Ishara was showing now simply made no sense.

Which meant... there was only one possibility left.

Ishara had known how to use Parrying even before she learned Mysticism.

‘That is imposs—’Just as I was about to shake my head and dismiss it as impossible, one thought flashed across my mind.

A possibility so absurd I had never even imagined it.

Even if this had once been a game, just as this was not my first time entering the Selection Grounds...

[You do not mean this is not your first time...]

And as if cutting off my words, Ishara spoke.

“It was so hard.”

Her voice sounded strangely relieved, as though she had finally laid everything bare.

“When time turns back, my memories and senses get all tangled up... I forget almost everything I knew... and I cannot even do the things I used to know how to do. No matter how many times it happens, I never get used to it.”

Those clumsy moments she had shown here and there.

They had not been because Ishara was a beginner, but because she had returned to the past and come back with holes in her memory.

While staying with me, she had been recalling those blurred memories one by one.

“No matter how much I forgot, you were always clear in my memories. Whenever I was with you... I could remember again, no matter how many times it took.”

[....]

“In the past or now, I guess I really cannot do without you!”

At some point her breathing had become ragged, and her movements had begun to blur.

She was visibly growing exhausted.

Then, after using Parrying once more, Ishara suddenly clapped a hand over her mouth and stumbled back.

“Kgh...! Cough, cough!”

Along with the violent coughing, blood spilled out in far greater amounts than her hand could possibly hide.

She had been using Traits one after another, and now even Divinity’s recovery could no longer support her body.

[Stop. This is pointless.]

Without inheriting the fairy’s power, no matter what she did, she could not break through the White Knight’s Aura.

Counterattacking like this with Parrying was meaningless.

Ishara had to know that too, and yet she did not stop fighting, no matter how I tried to stop her.

[What are you waiting f—]

No, there was one thing.

One way to face Aura.

[You cannot mean...]

Aura could be countered by the same Aura. And Aura was the final supreme technique reached only by a Trait honed to its absolute limit.

What it required was that peculiar sense of someone who had already reached the extreme.

“Now... I remember everything.”

Her voice snapped my mind awake.

“This is how you use it!”

She raised the sword high into the sky.

The radiance dwelling in the blade swelled into a brilliance dazzling as starlight.

The rippling light held an uncanny color, as if it did not belong to this world.

Aura.

The power that distorted the laws of the world.

Because it was a power manifested through a Trait honed to its limit, it should have been utterly impossible for someone who had only just awakened the Trait to withstand it.

And yet, because it was such an overwhelming power, Aura could transcend the impossible.

“We are going to overcome this!”

I could feel Ishara’s heart pounding violently.

Like a candle burning its last flame, her fading life flared up with fierce intensity.

“Because I am Ishara the Invincible!”

Even though she knew the end awaiting her, now that she had used Aura without accepting the fairy’s power, she did not fear it in the slightest.

Seeing that, I finally understood.

You had planned this from the very beginning.

“This is my first time fighting this one purely with Aura!”

She looked at me.

“So teach me!”

[....]

Right.

So that was it.

The reason you chose me from the very beginning.

The reason you gave me that strange, limitless trust.

It was not that I had found you.

It was that you had found me.

[...Alright.]

I took my stance first.

Ishara mirrored it exactly.

I raised my sword toward the White Knight charging straight at us.

Toward the strike I had seen again and again, and faced countless times, we thrust our blades forward together.

That was the end of the test.

***

Crunching footsteps marked the white snow beneath us.

Perhaps even the snowfield that had seemed endless had its end after all, because the edge of that white expanse now lay before our eyes.

“Ha ha...”

Far in the distance, I could see the city we had been aiming for.

Ebla, the first stage where everything would begin, the last city left in the world.

“We really... made it this far.”

The final test was over.

We really had defeated the White Knight, and the two of us had stepped outside the Selection Grounds together.

And after taking one difficult step after another, Ishara sank to the ground at the very edge where the snowfield ended, collapsing as though her legs had given out.

[Why did you do it?]

I spoke to her as she leaned against the sword planted in the ground, no longer able to move.

[You could have made it out alive.]

“Yeah... I know.”

She answered.

“That is exactly why... I did it.”

[What...?]

“The two-week journey we spent in the Selection Grounds....”

In a fading voice, she quietly confessed the truth she had hidden all this time.

“And the 3,346 times... we were together.”

[...!]

“I remember... all of them.”

When Ishara lifted her head, she was smiling.

It was a playful smile, like that of a child revealing a mischievous prank.

“You know...? This is not the first time I have met you.”

With difficulty, she forced out the words and revealed the secret she had been hiding all this time.

“The fact that you came looking for this place, and the fact that I met you... those things happened over and over again, too many times to count. I knew you were a Possessor... and I knew that in the end, you would always fall asleep for my sake.”

I could not believe it.

This had all happened before?

Then... why did I not remember any of it?

“Did you know? When a Possessor crosses over here... the Golden Rule grants them a special ability. Across more than three thousand repetitions of time... you always had the same ability.”

I could not understand what Ishara was saying.

An ability granted to a Possessor?

I had no such thing.

[I... do not have any such ability.]

“Yeah... you would not. I asked that person to do it. I asked them... to reset the ability you would receive.”

[That person...?]

“The one who brought you here.”

[...!]

It had not been the Golden Rule that brought me here.

The mysterious person who had introduced himself as Herman had answered my question, when I asked why he had come to find me, like this:

—I made a small promise.

A small promise.

I thought I finally understood what that meant now.

He had not come to bring me away. He had come to put to sleep the blessing of the Golden Rule that would have dwelled within me.

“Your ability was Restart. You, who became my sword over and over again... every time I died, you turned time back again and again.”

[Then why... do I not remember any of that? No matter how deeply I slept... I should at least have been able to remember the Selection Grounds.]

“Because you were my sword.”

[....]

“Because you always... used that power for my sake.”

Even through those countless repeated timelines, I had always been her sword.

A sword was a weapon. Nothing more than a tool used for its owner’s sake.

And so my power had never been used for us.

Just like everything we had gone through in the Selection Grounds, my power had been used only for her.

Because it had not been a power for my own sake, I could not remember the past.

“I tried to wake you up over and over again. Aura, and everything else... I tried every method I could think of... but you never woke up.”

Even Aura had not worked, so she had no choice but to do it this way.

And even in this situation, she still laughed softly.

[...I do not know.]

I dropped to my knees before her and looked into her face endlessly, as though begging it for an answer.

In this world, I should have been someone who knew everything.

And yet for the sake of the girl who had given up everything for me, I did not know what kind of expression I ought to wear.

“It is alright.... You do not need to think so hard about what you are feeling, or how you should express it. You will understand that naturally.”

Lifting her head, she reached out and touched my cheek.

“Isran, you are crying right now.”

[....]

Only then did I feel something running down my cheek.

Like a broken dam, it kept flowing without end.

I realized that it was tears.

“One day... you will understand too. You will be able to get angry... to be surprised... and to smile.”

The emotions I had struggled to forget, the emotions I had never even learned.

And the ways of expressing them.

“And... you will definitely be able to reach the end of the world. I could not do it... but you definitely can.”

[I...]

“So do not cry.”

Only now did I finally understand.

Why you had come looking for me.

“I am invincible....”

All of it had been for the sake of delivering this one sentence.

“And you are the strongest Possessor!”

She pulled me closer.

Gently cradling my head, Ishara pressed her forehead against mine.

“There is still one thing I have not told you.”

[Ishara is...]

“That is true too... but it is not my full name.”

Ishara spoke the name I had never heard at the beginning.

“Ishara Ethrana.”

[...!]

“That is my real name.”

Ethrana.

The last name I had never heard before.

“Thank you, Isran.”

Having confessed everything, she finally let the tears she had kept hidden behind her smile spill down her face.

“For... staying with me.”

***

When I opened my eyes again, I was alone.

The one holding the sword planted in the snowfield was not Ishara, but Fairy Isran.

Her body had vanished, and in its empty place, I, who had once been the fairy, had newly taken her place instead.

“....”

Reflected in the blade, I saw a boy who looked exactly like Ishara.

As I faced my new body, I lowered my forehead against the sword like that.

I knew Ishara had disappeared, but I also knew she was not dead.

An owner who was swapped with a weapon did not die, even in death.

Because her place had been exchanged with the fairy’s, she had merely entered the empty sword and fallen asleep in the fairy’s place.

And so, if I had seen the sword in the game... it probably would have displayed a script like this:

[I can feel a pleasant pulse, as though she has fallen into a peaceful sleep.]

Because Ishara had become a fairy and fallen asleep, every power that had dwelled within her had passed on to me.

The Selection Grounds, long yet brief, had now come to a complete end.

Light gathered and formed a single necklace.

A pendant shining in platinum light.

It was the token that proved I had graduated from the Selection Grounds.

Beneath the voice wishing me luck, I leaned against the sword and closed my eyes.

Like her hand as it had touched my cheek, the sword held a soft warmth.

“Now I understand why you never changed weapons.”

The reason the protagonist of the game had clung to the Starting Weapon until the very end.

It was not that she could not change it, but that she chose not to.

Just as I had never thrown you away, you too had simply never abandoned me, all the way to the end.

Only now did I finally understand something I had failed to grasp through all our long years together.

What kind of dream are you having now?

To you, sunk deep in sleep, I offered words you could no longer hear.

Someday.

When the day comes, at the end of this journey, that we meet again and speak to one another,

I want to tell you how much I have seen, heard, and felt.

I want to share with you all the many things I still have not said.

So until then, I hope you will wait just a little longer.

“Let us go, Ishara.”

As though answering the name I called, the sword in which she dwelled sent back a small resonance.

“Together with me, to the very end of the world.”

I rose to my feet and took a step forward.

Past the white, white snowfield of purest white, toward the first stage where the story began.

We walked along the edge of winter’s end.