The World After the Bad Ending - Chapter 37



36 – Firewood

The first thought that came to mind was why.

Isabel would never forgive me for blaming Lucas.

So I thought her anger would never subside either.

But somehow.

Now Isabel’s anger was clearly subsiding.

‘What did I miss?’

I don’t know.

The focus of Act 3 is Nikita.

So I was only looking at Nikita’s situation and didn’t consider Isabel.

“Isabel.”

Then rather.

“Didn’t you once proudly say you would break me for blaming your friend? Where did all that spirit go?”

It’s better to ask directly.

There’s no point in beating around the bush.

I looked at Isabel with a blunt face.

Isabel’s fist clenched tightly.

But that fist soon loosened.

My eyes half-closed.

“Yes, that’s right.”

Isabel said, looking quietly at her open hand.

A hollow laugh escaped from Isabel’s lips.

“But suddenly, I had this thought.”

The vitality in Isabel’s eyes began to fade.

“Do I have the right to condemn you for disgracing Lucas? That kind of thought.”

Anger certainly burns a person fiercely enough to live life again.

But sometimes, it burned so fiercely.

With just one trivial trigger, the fire can start to die out.

“I mean, after Lucas died, I did nothing.”

Isabel looked down at her empty hands and trembled slowly.

Her tightly bitten lips quivered.

After hearing the news of Lucas’s death, and being shocked.

Isabel let go of everything in the world.

What she let go of included her own life.

A sunflower that lost its sun was withering miserably.

“Just, blankly, unable to properly accept reality. I just stayed still, stayed still. No.”

Isabel’s empty eyes looked up at me.

“Just like you said last time. I was definitely trying to follow Lucas in death.”

She lost the most precious friend in the world.

The separation from a friend she had grown up with all her life was a devastating event that shattered her life.

She didn’t eat, she didn’t drink water.

She didn’t sleep, and just spent her days blankly.

“I just wished to die as it was.”

But as time passed and now.

Isabel realized.

“Such a person like me.”

Isabel definitely wished to die.

“With what right.”

Just wishing to die following Lucas, she lived unable to die.

However.

“Acting as if representing Lucas.”

She realized what a mistake that was.

Lucas faced death fighting against the apostles to save others.

Isabel knew this better than anyone.

Lucas died to save others.

But she couldn’t accept Lucas’s death, and tried to die the same way.

This was the choice that Lucas would hate, grieve, and suffer the most.

Isabel to the dead Lucas.

She had tried to become the worst friend who followed him to death.

Isabel covered her face with her hands.

Then, as if tearing her face apart, she clenched her hands and poured out her anguish.

“How, how could I.”

Thick tears fell from Isabel’s eyes.

“To do such a thing to the dead Lucas. I.”

Isabel couldn’t bear the burning agony in her chest and collapsed.

Surely, the one who suffered the most was the dead Lucas.

Even knowing that, she tried to give him more pain.

Isabel was truly sorry for that fact, and her heart ached unbearably.

“How could I…”

Isabel was engulfed in self-reproach.

Self-reproach is poison.

A terrible poison that gnaws at a person endlessly, leaving not a trace behind.

Isabel returned to reality because of her anger.

Thus, she recalled the mistake she had tried to commit and realized how pathetic it was.

Once she realized it.

Isabel could not go back to before she realized it.

“As long as she’s so heated, she won’t think of dying.”

She must have mulled over my words countless times.

And in the process, she came to know.

That she, living heatedly for Lucas.

Even this was just living with the excuse of Lucas.

How pathetic it is to live driven by anger.

Realizing this, she crumbled again.

“…Then will you just stand by while your dead friend is insulted?”

Isabel cherished Lucas more than anyone.

I asked her if she would endure seeing someone insult him because of her self-reproach.

Isabel remained silent.

Seeing this, I pressed my lips together and asked.

“Isabel Luna.”

I took a step closer, calling her by her full name.

The Isabel I know is always like a bright sun.

Even if she becomes a sun blazing with anger.

She was never someone who would be consumed by self-loathing and become less than a candle flame.

“Is that all your feelings for your friend amount to?”

“Yes!”

Isabel shouted as if she were screaming.

There were scars on her face left by her own hand.

“Then what should I do! I tried to follow Lucas in death!

In that state, I was so angry that Lucas was being insulted that I trained again with all my might!

Without even realizing that I was the one who insulted Lucas the most, shamelessly!”

Isabel’s hand pressed hard against the floor of the fortress wall.

From noble mtl dot com

She pressed so hard that her nails broke and blood oozed out.

“But you, who thought you were insulting Lucas, were actually doing what Lucas wanted more than anyone else…”

It was then that I realized why Isabel had changed.

The day I woke up again in the gray forest.

Isabel saw Lucas, who had thrown himself to save others and died, in me.

So Isabel kept avoiding my eyes.

When she saw me, she thought of Lucas.

She was reminded of what she had tried to do to Lucas.

“I was just a selfish woman who, obsessed with the fact that Lucas was insulted, entered the demon palace to change that…”

As a result, Isabel’s emotions continued to be unstable.

So she immersed herself in training as if to escape.

She desperately tried to learn the sword from Ban to overcome her self-loathing.

But as a result of that immersion.

What she heard from those around her was whether she was dating Ban.

Isabel experienced Lucas’s death only a few months ago.

The fact that she seemed happy enough to date someone after losing a precious friend.

It plunged Isabel further into despair.

So she lashed out at her friends.

The sword she thought she wielded for Lucas was an unworthy one.

To others, the sword she wielded for Lucas seemed like one she wielded for her own happiness.

Seeing her like that.

“What’s so bad about being selfish?”

I asked what nonsense she was talking about.

Isabel slowly lifted her head.

“People can’t live their whole lives just for others. Naturally, everyone lives for themselves. I’m no different.”

It’s only natural that everyone puts themselves first.

“That’s human nature, and it’s a natural behavior.”

My eyes met Isabel’s.

Isabel began to listen to me.

So.

“Isabel, let me tell you something. What you’re doing now is just pretending to be good.”

“…What?”

Here comes the blow.

“You tried to die for a dead friend. Moreover, you did the terrible thing of trying to die following a dead friend, and now you just watch as your friend gets criticized.

What kind of absurd nonsense is this? Decide whether you want to pretend to be good or be selfish.”

I stepped closer to Isabel, revealing my irritation.

The blazing sun created a shadow over my head.

My red eyes shone within the shadow.

“Your friend is dead. The dead don’t speak. If you follow the dead and die, you’ll just become another silent one.

Your friend won’t be sad about that. The dead have no way to be sad.”

Isabel is entangled with the ghost of Lucas.

So, to save Isabel now.

I must even use the ghost of Lucas.

“On the contrary, if you died and your friend Lucas heard someone criticizing you, do you think he would say the same thing as you?”

Isabel’s shoulders trembled.

This is a fact that both of us know.

Absolutely not.

If it were Lucas, he would never have let anyone who insulted Isabel’s death go unpunished.

“You said you didn’t want to insult your friend any further.”

I said coldly.

“Isn’t what you’re doing right now the most insulting thing to your friend?”

Keeping silent despite your precious friend being insulted, claiming they don’t deserve it.

That is the worst thing for Lucas.

Isabel’s eyes shook violently.

“I still think Lucas’s death brought disgrace to the history of Jerion Academy and was not exemplary for many students.”

I brought up the words that had once ignited Isabel.

“Isabel, what about you?”

She bit her lip, stained with tears.

She clenched her fist with a hand stained with blood.

She looked up at me again.

In her eyes, which had lost their light a moment ago.

A small but flickering flame was burning again.

“……No. Lucas gave his all to save others. That should never be underestimated.”

Isabel steadily builds up her resolve again.

Not on an unstable pedestal like before.

Now it’s a solid foundation of will that she can stand on.

“I won’t let the same thing happen again to your friend.

Your friend’s death is a disgrace that Jerion Academy must shed.”

Isabel refutes this.

“Lucas’s death was a noble sacrifice.

Lucas’s will, sacrificed for others, is a model that everyone should follow.”

Isabel and I are at odds.

At some point, Isabel stood up.

I had decided the first day I saw Isabel.

I cannot be a sun like Lucas for Isabel.

So, I decided to become the moon, at the very least.

Even if it meant making the moonlight mistaken for sunlight.

I resolved to make the sunflower lift its head.

“Isabel, I don’t think we can ever agree on anything. You’re the kind of person I absolutely despise.”

“Same here. I hate you too.”

Just like the first day I saw Isabel.

Her eyes glared at me fiercely.

For now, this is enough.

I’ve imposed the ghost of Lucas.

Isabel will live on, if only to fulfill Lucas’s will.

“Yes, so we must see whose opinion is right to the end.”

I am not here to comfort, embrace, or lift Isabel up again.

In Isabel’s episode.

My role is to be the rival and enemy Isabel must fight against.

My role is over.

Below the fortress wall.

I saw Isabel’s friends running towards this side.

Among them was her best friend, Sharin.

They would listen to Isabel’s story and take care of her.

I turned my body.

“…Hanon Airey, I have one question.”

At that moment, Isabel, who was turning away, called me by my name for the first time.

“…Have you ever met Lucas?”

Did she sense something in our conversation today?

I looked at Isabel for a moment and then turned my head.

“I don’t know. We might have met somewhere by chance.”

It’s better to leave a doubt than to deny it and arouse unnecessary suspicion.

Leaving those words, I left Isabel.

Even after I left, Isabel just.

Silently watched me disappear below the fortress wall.