Chapter 151: Miracles and Magic Do Exist

If one were to list reasons for refusal, there would probably be as many as a thousand.

Merely the fact that the girl he had met only once before was connected to the Dice House was enough to render nine hundred and ninety-nine of those reasons trivial.

No one likes to be used or betrayed.

Amy was naturally no exception.

He never considered himself a clever man, but he certainly was not foolish enough to be stabbed in the back without even realizing it.

The Dice House harbored malice toward him.

More accurately, it harbored malice toward the entity lurking behind him, manipulating his destiny.

The black-haired, black-eyed youth was acutely aware of this, yet he never harbored the naive thought that the enemy of his enemy was his friend. From his previous few collaborations—or rather, exploitations—he had deeply experienced the malice of the Dice House. Become friends with them? Leaving aside whether they even deigned to look upon a lowly Glorified like him, even if they truly did, he simply did not have enough lives to fraternize with such higher powers.

So, should he refuse right here and now?

Save the world... In the real world, this reason or excuse sounded suspicious no matter how one thought about it.

And even more suspicious was the petite girl standing before him.

--Kasu.

At the very end of the Harvest Festival, she had left him with this name.

Compared to the naive, impulsive, and mischievous runaway girl of that time, Kasu's appearance had not changed much, but the transformation in her aura was astonishing. Although only a few days had passed, the girl seemed to have grown up overnight. The innocent playfulness left only faint traces on her, replaced by a transcendent confidence as if everything were entirely within her grasp.

She had practically turned into a different person.

Yet, even so, the words of refusal could not escape his lips.

Because

He no longer had a choice.

When the echoing footsteps of Dagon, the Father of the Deep Ones, shook Hermetica, he knew time was running out for him.

The sparks of resistance had already been extinguished, and this ancient city, long since reduced to ruins, was ultimately destined to perish completely.

Along with all the living beings who once inhabited it.

Therefore—

With an imperceptible pause in his thoughts, the girl's crisp, lark-like voice rang out.

"So, what is your decision?" The little girl named Kasu looked at him, her pitch-black eyes seeming to connect to some unknown space, causing the youth gazing into them to feel a momentary sense of dizziness and fascination. "Time is limited. I'll only wait for you—three... well, thirty counts will do."

"I don't trust you." It didn't even take thirty seconds; in a mere 0.03 seconds, Amy gave his reply.

"Such a heartbreaking thing to say," the black-haired, black-eyed little girl pouted, wiping a non-existent tear from the corner of her eye. "To refuse so directly... It seems that in your heart, Duke is still more important. Well, I suppose that can't be helped, considering he met you earlier than I did and is also so devastatingly handsome."

She spoke words that made no sense to anyone.

Yet the youth could sense a rather subtle malice within them.

"I don't trust the Dice House." He raised an eyebrow, following the guidance of his intuition, and refrained from continuing the previous topic.

If he kept going down that path, he felt as though he would push open the gates to a brand-new world.

"But you don't have a choice right now." Kasu's gaze swept over the thick, rainbow-like leg stretching across the sky above the city of Hermetica not far away, and the smile faded from her face. "Isn't that right?"

"Still, that's no reason to trust you." Amy met her pitch-black eyes directly and shook his head slightly. "Desperate diseases do not justify reckless remedies—an old proverb once left behind by the Ancestors..."

Before he could finish, he was abruptly and bluntly interrupted by the girl opposite him.

"I don't recall ever saying those words." The child-sized girl lightly dismissed the quote, then noticed the Glorified's astonishment and blinked playfully. "Of course, maybe I just forgot."

"You..." The young Glorified was instantly rendered speechless.

"What about me?" Kasu stepped onto a large boulder amid the ruins, leaned forward, and closed the distance until their dark eyes were almost touching. The youth could even clearly feel the damp, warm breath exhaling from the tip of her nose. "Amy Ulysses—you have nothing left to lose. Why is it that previously you allowed yourself to be repeatedly betrayed and used, yet now you lack even the courage to wager against your destiny?"

"Who on earth are you?" Amy stepped back unassostedly.

"Me?" The girl pulled back, pointed at herself with a finger, and then let out a light laugh. "Guess?"

"I have no interest in playing children's guessing games with you," the young Glorified forced himself to keep a straight face. "Nor do I intend to waste time bickering over such nonsense. If you have something to say, say it directly."

"Nonsense, bickering, and all those things from before..." Kasu raised an eyebrow, meticulously scanning him from head to toe with a gaze that made his hair stand on end, before finally reining in her unbridled scrutiny. "Just what on earth is wrong with you? If I had the time, I'd really love to slice you open and take a look."

Slice him open?

Amy was momentarily stunned.

"Don't worry," the girl said in a breezy tone that offered absolutely no reassurance at all. "I'll put you back together."

"How very reassuring," the youth pressed his lips together and finally made up his mind. "If that is the extent of your sincerity, I believe our conversation can end here."

"Impulsive men are not very popular with girls, you know." Kasu seemed completely oblivious to his resolute stance. "Amy—you must not understand, do you?"

"Indeed, I do not." The youth gave a calm reply and turned away. "So, farewell."

"There's really no helping you. Let's drop the jokes here." The petite girl stopped joking and spoke in a calm, flat tone. "I have a way for you to resist and even kill Dagon."

"Why me?" Amy stopped in his tracks. Kasu's previous words had indeed struck his fatal weakness; he had nothing left to lose, and he had no other choice left.

"Because you are the special one," the girl, who was suspected of having ties to the Ancestors, provided the answer and tossed the ball back into his court. "Don't tell me you haven't realized this until now."

"Of course not." There was nothing to hide here. "Just how much do you know about my situation?"

"Not much, but not a little either." Kasu jumped down from the stone step, poked him in the stomach with her finger, and then pointed toward the God of the Deep Ones in the distance, which had broken free of its bindings and started moving again. "However, are you sure you want to hear it?"

"Ugh..." A brief silence followed.

Before he could speak, however, the girl continued, "I originally wanted to chat with you a bit longer, but unfortunately... Dagon isn't leaving us much time. I'll cut to the chase: I can grant you the power to save the world, but in exchange, you will pay a price."

"What price?" Amy asked.

"You will die." A short, powerful answer. Whether it was his imagination or not, a trace of sorrow flashed across Kasu's dark eyes. "Burned to ashes, leaving not even embers behind. Your entire being will be reduced to mere firewood fueling the flames."

"That is truly an unpleasant answer." The black-haired, black-eyed youth sighed. Seeing that the girl opposite him did not take up the thread, he smiled bitterly and shook his head. "But I have no choice, do I?"

"No," came the unexpected rejection, as the girl delivered her answer in all seriousness. "You can refuse."

"Who was just egging me on to save the world a moment ago?" Amy—Amy Ulysses—found himself feeling both exasperated and amused by her attitude. "And now you say I can refuse—seriously, you need to have some limit to your contradictions."

"I simply don't want you to end up like Ignatius, without even the remnants of your soul left behind." Kasu instinctively averted her gaze. "Remember the wish made at the very end of the Harvest Festival? Actually... the wish I made was very simple: I just hoped you could walk through the remainder of your life happily. But now it seems the god presiding over wishes is destined to break his promise, because you are not the kind of person who can let things go easily."

"That's right." The young Glorified found it hard to describe what he was feeling at that moment; he merely forced a smile that looked no different from usual. "You're right. I can't let go, and I can't refuse. Even knowing that you might be lying to me, even knowing this is a cup of poisoned wine leading straight to death, at this point I can only drink it down to the last drop. By the way... thank you. Thank you for making a wish for me."

"Why does that sound so awkward?" Kasu shook her head, looking away to avoid meeting the youth's gaze. "Speaking of which, is it really fine to just let Dagon continue on its rampage?"

"I'm afraid of death, so I'd like to chat a little longer." Amy smiled. "If I don't say certain things now, I'm afraid I won't have the chance later."

"Wait—" Kasu interrupted with a hint of panic. "I've loved, save my wife, my mother can swim."

???

What on earth was that supposed to mean!

Amy was almost choked to death by the words he hadn't even spoken yet.

Yet, after a moment of thought, he ignored the girl's inexplicable remark and continued, "Actually, I want to thank you—not just for making a wish for me at the Harvest Festival, but also for giving me a chance to become a hero."

"I..."

"I've actually always wanted to be a hero. To be a hero who saves the world."

"Yet I couldn't do it. Perhaps I really am foolish, clumsy, and thick-headed, always messing up everything I touch with my clumsy hands. From the Lower Districts to the Upper Districts, whether being forced into the conspiracies of the Dark Guild and the Dice House, or foreseeing the destruction of Hermetica and wanting to do something for this city..."

"And yet, until now, until the very end, I have accomplished nothing. Absolutely nothing."

"I couldn't save the miners in the Yldan Mine; I couldn't save that poor, corrupted demonic girl; I couldn't stop the extinguishing of the spark; I couldn't rewrite the doomed fate of Hermetica..."

"Sometimes I even doubted whether there was any meaning in what I was doing. Whether my efforts, instead of making things better, were actually guiding everything toward an even worse outcome."

"But if you aren't lying to me, and I truly can become the hero who saves Hermetica—even if only for a pitifully brief moment, even if the price I must pay is my soul and my life—I will have no regrets. I will walk through the remainder of my life happily."

"Thank you."

The youth's "last words" thus came to an end.

However, the girl named Kasu did not make any further move. She merely lowered her eyelids, falling silent, silent, without making a sound for a long time.

"What's wrong?" Left hanging aside, Amy felt a bit awkward, but a greater sense of urgency pressed upon him.

"No, it's nothing." The petite girl gently wiped her eyes and spoke in a slightly hoarse voice. "I just remembered some things from before—nothing to worry about."

"If this is your final wish, I can grant it." She blinked her tear-filled, glistening eyes and gazed at him with a brilliance greater than ever before. "Visitor privileges can only activate a portion of 'Dark Blood', and just now, I used my clearance to briefly activate it. So, please prick up your ears; I am going to tell you the spell to make your wish come true and become a hero."

"—Mirakloj kaj magio estas tie."

Yes, miracles and magic do exist.

If one could not firmly believe in the existence of miracles, then she, and they, and everyone striving to fulfill their deepest wishes, might have long since abandoned all hope before anything even began, casting themselves entirely into the embrace of despair, drowning within a meticulously woven sweet dream and becoming domesticated lambs.

Therefore, Amy was fortunate to be able to become a hero.

She sincerely believed this.

—In this world, any problem that can be solved with death is not a problem at all.

In comparison, living to face everything that life throws at you actually requires far more courage.

Because—

That meant long, perhaps infinite imprisonment and torture, alongside a steadfast endurance where hope could never be seen.