The immortal hero who thinks of the heroines as his daughters vs. heroines who want to make the hero understand them - Chap 5

“……….Huh?”

With a flicker, he awakens, and he finds himself atop a tree illuminated by the bright sun. He sits up and looks around. Nothing is unusual; it’s the same sight as always… Ah, looking at the sky, it’s already lunchtime. If he stays like this, she might get angry at him. Ten years ago, when he didn’t eat anything, she didn’t mind not cooking, but recently, she’s become sullen if he’s even a little late. Even so, he has no complaints because she seems to be enjoying herself.

“Sorry, Sei. I’ll make it now…”

He raises his voice towards the princess, who is probably angry. She won’t even show her face, perhaps because she’s pouting, but surely, she’ll come out if he says this. That’s what he thinks as he waits for a while, but she doesn’t show herself at all.

“…? Strange…”

Something is off.

What is this fluttering in his chest? He’s forgetting something. Something. What is it? What has he forgotten?

Suddenly feeling a sense of loss in his stomach, he reflexively puts his hand on it. It’s there…

“…!”

Something’s wrong. After all, he should have been impaled by a spear…

“――Sei!”

He remembers. The attack by the villagers. What happened after that? How is he still alive when he was certainly fatally wounded? What happened to Sei, who isn’t showing herself? Expressing his impatience, he searches the places where she might be. As the possibilities are slowly ruled out, he finds her in the last place he checks.

“Sei, Sei…”

“Ah… Good morning, Rex… No, maybe good afternoon now?”

In the dark hollow of the Spirit Tree, where sunlight doesn’t reach…

“What… What are you doing?”

He sees her figure, gently leaning, in a semi-transparent state.

◇

“You know, I saw the future, but only vaguely.”

With a lifeless expression, she stares into the void.

“I saw it… the future of ‘my death,'” she says, a somewhat inorganic, faint smile on her face.

“All this time, I couldn’t change the futures I saw. So I understood. This is a power to see ‘fate’ that can’t be avoided.”

Then, she lowers her eyebrows as if troubled.

“At first, I grieved. ‘Why me?’ I asked. But having lived for hundreds of years… I thought, it’s okay now.”

Again, she gazes vaguely into the void.

“I was satisfied. I’m a tree spirit, so I can’t leave this place. But I’ve lived all this time, watching life’s end again and again. Living beings are meant to have an ‘end.’ But contrary to that, I had no end.”

A self-mocking smile, uncharacteristic of her.

“‘Queen of Spirits’… a trait I was born with, the power to command other spirits unconditionally. Because of my nature to command spirits born from nature, I was immortal.”

But then, she smiled brightly.

“Fate promised me an ‘end,’ even though I wanted to die but couldn’t. It promised an end to me, like this.”

“…”

“I never thought it would turn out this way, though…”

“…”

“Then, as I was living, Rex, you appeared.”

As he hangs his head silently, Sei points at him.

“It was fun… You were the first human like this I ever met. The spirits were merely obedient to me, hardly able to speak. But you were different.”

“…”

“I was happy. So much so, I even thought, ‘It would be nice if the end never came.'”

“!”

“But, it was no good. At that moment, I knew my end was certain.”

I wanted to save Rex, at least―I thought so.

She smiled sadly.

“It’s all my fault. Because I wished for happiness beyond my means, you ended up dying.”

“No, that’s not…”

“So, in the end, I was selfish just once. Even if I die, please―”

―Save only Rex.

“It’s a question of whom to pray to, isn’t it? But my selfish wish was granted.”

“Enough already…”

“I transferred my spirit’s power to you, and you came back to life.”

“Enough, please…”

“I’m sorry for making you immortal. You can hate me for the rest of your life. I even want you to hate me.”

“I won’t do such a thing…”

“But still, I wanted you to live.”

Sei turned her eyes to Rex and smiled brightly, vividly.

His expression finally breaking, Rex rushed forward, his face crumpling.

“I… I don’t care about myself! I wanted Sei to live…!”

“Is that so…? I wonder if this is what they call mutual love.”

“Yes…!”

“Heehee… I’m so happy… Truly, this happiness is more than I deserve…”

They embraced. Sei shivered against his shoulder, looked up at Rex’s face, higher than her own, and then buried her nose in his chest.

“Your name… Rex, it means ‘king,’ you know.”

“King…?”

“Since I am a queen… I named you with the wish that we could stand together, live together. Is it too heavy a burden?”

“No… I feel the same way.”

Rex hugged her as tightly as he could. Perhaps it was an attempt to keep her in this world as she gradually faded away. Held so tightly it hurt, Sei smiled, holding back tears.

“Ah… I’m so happy…”

She made a single murmur.

“…!”

She turned into a green light and melted away.

“…Sei.”

Though he called out, his voice only echoed emptily in the tree hollow. He would never see that bright smile again. Remaining crouched for a while, when his frozen mind finally grasped reality, tears flowed out like a torrent.

“A-ah, ahhhhhhhhhhhhh…”

Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry. Don’t close the final moments with her in such sadness. Look up and smile broadly. Be glad for having met Sei, for having lived with her. End this farewell with bright, happy memories.

“…”

Rex roughly wiped his eyes with his sleeve and, chastising his trembling legs, stood up.

In an instant, the ground shook violently.

He tried to figure out what had happened, but his newly sprouted “sense of the spirits” provided the answer.

The Spirit Tree was Sei’s vessel, and the Spirit Tree and Sei were one. If one disappeared, the other would as well. In other words, with her disappearance, the Spirit Tree was also signaling its end. Both the companion and the place he had spent ten years with would vanish without a trace.

With a loud noise, the Spirit Tree began to collapse. He didn’t even show the will to escape but was swallowed up just like that.

◇

“…”

Who knows how much time had passed? In the pitch-dark ground, he had no sense of time at all. Slowly digging his way through, he finally saw a glimmer of light. Despite not breathing or eating all this time, there was no sign of death. He was forced to accept that he had indeed become immortal.

thud.

An arm emerging from the hard ground. If anyone had been watching, it might have looked like the appearance of a zombie, but fortunately, there were no witnesses.

“It’s bright…”

After a long time, the light entered his eyes, causing him to reflexively squint. Glancing around, he saw remnants of the life he’d shared with her. The most significant element, the Spirit Tree, was gone now, however.

―― Now, what should I do? She told me to “live.” Having only lived as a “human-like being” and “sacrifice to the spirits.” 

He didn’t know what to do with the sudden freedom.

Perplexed, he held his head in his hands when he suddenly noticed a tiny, tiny leaf on the ground.

This was where the Spirit Tree had been…

“…………………… Ah, I see.”

She is living like this. A gust of wind blew, swaying both Rex’s hair and the leaf. After contemplating for a while, when he lifted his face, it was no longer filled with the stagnant darkness of before but housed a bright light that seemed to illuminate the world above.

“―― I will… travel the world. I’ll see what happens in this world where Sei wanted me to live. Then… occasionally I’ll come back and tell you, who can’t move, about it.”

About the outside world that you wanted to see but couldn’t. He looked up at the dazzling sky and started walking, leaving the child of the Spirit Tree behind.