Chapter 182: Cherubim: Estasia (5)
The last place I ended up visiting was the company building where blood was splattered.
The building that had faded with time still had clear traces of that day.
They were all traces that I had made with my own hands.
I felt like bad memories would come to mind if I kept facing the traces I had made.
“…”
“Master?”
Maybe it was because my feelings were clearly shown on my face.
Estasia, who was watching me, lifted her head with a worried expression and asked me.
I shouldn’t be like this.
I didn’t come here to be bound by the shackles of the past.
I had to face all my mistakes and memories that I wanted to forget properly.
If not, I wouldn’t be able to move forward.
“I’m fine.”
“Master is a liar.”
“Maybe you’re right.”
I pretended to be okay and took a step forward.
Thud.
Every time I took a step, I felt a twisting sensation in my chest.
I couldn’t breathe.
The things I had done came back vividly in my head.
“But I have to go.”
Then, happy memories flashed through my mind.
When we were all together, it was fun just to see each other’s faces.
It was happiness just to have a meal together.
Back then, I believed that such happiness would last forever.
Those were the things that I could now call memories.
“Memories…?”
Estasia asked me with a curious tone as I packed the food into the bag.
I nodded and smiled faintly.
“Yeah. Memories of the past.”
I remembered the days when we were all together, working hard to survive in this ruined world.
We were a group of people who had nothing in common except our will to live.
We shared our joys and sorrows, our hopes and fears, our dreams and regrets.
We were like a family.
But now, they were all gone.
They had died one by one, by my hand or by others’.
And I was the only one left alive.
The last survivor of the group that had once been called the Cherubim.
“Do you want to hear about them?”
I asked Estasia, who was looking at me with interest.
She nodded eagerly and said.
“Yes, please. I want to know more about you, Master.”
I chuckled and handed her the bag full of food.
“Then let’s go somewhere else. This place is too depressing.”
I said as I walked out of the storage room.
There was one more place I wanted to visit before I left this building for good.
The place where it all began and ended.
The place where I had met them for the first time, and where I had killed them for the last time.
The place where I had to say goodbye to my past self.
The conference room.
I’m sure there were hard times and painful memories, but now only good feelings remained in my heart.
In the end, the only thing that stays in time is the most memorable impression.
The afterglow of happiness still breathed somewhere in my chest.
“When I lived here, we used to gather food together.”
There were things I didn’t want to lose.
There were people I didn’t want to forget.
There was a moment when I didn’t want to let go of the happiness in my hand.
There was a memory of not giving up even in a desperate situation.
“What happened to everyone?”
“They died. They all turned into monsters, and I had to kill them with my own hands.”
But Estelle forced me to remember something that denied all of that.
She forced me to remember the tragedy of having to kill all of them who became monsters with my own hands.
In the tragedy, I lost many things.
After everything was over, the only thing left in this place was my pathetic self.
“…”
Thud.
In the silence, only my hand moved busily.
Things piled up one by one in my backpack.
Estasia, who was listening to my story, stared at the box in her hand with a blank look.
She hesitated for a moment, then put it in a plastic bag and said,
“Are there no other gods here now?”
“I’ve been alone in this city for a long time.”
“…Were you alone, master?”
Estasia looked at me with pity in her eyes.
I never thought I would tell this story to a lazy angel who always loafed around.
It was unexpected for me too.
But I kept telling her my story.
Maybe I secretly hoped that someone would listen to my story.
“She, the goddess of harmony, destroyed them all.”
“The goddess of harmony…”
Sad memories. Heartbreaking memories.
Maybe I wanted to feel better by confiding in someone.
Maybe I, who always thought of myself as an adult, was living like a child more than anyone else.
“The people I loved, the people I would love, they all died by her hand. And now she tells me to leave this place and gives me a chance.”
Estasia kept listening to my story.
Without complaining or closing her ears, she silently and calmly listened to me.
She looked more mature than anyone else at that moment.
“She said she would get me out of this hell, and asked me to hear her terms.”
“A deal, huh.”
“Yeah. A very unfair deal.”
She was not the cheeky angel I always saw on the other side of the screen, but a merciful angel who listened to my confession in front of me.
It was a sight that I couldn’t see through the small screen.
“So, I think I’ll have to kill another 500,000 people.”
So, I didn’t stop showing her my weak self.
Just a little more.
I wanted to give myself up to the illusion that was in front of me.
***
After we finished cleaning up the food warehouse.
Estasia and I went to the president’s office on the top floor of the company.
If it were before, the reliable leader of the group would have been sitting here, but now it was just an empty seat without any warmth.
I passed by the door of the office and went straight to the desk that had lost its owner.
The desk that had not been cleaned for a long time and was covered with dust came into my view.
“There’s a lot of dust.”
Swipe.
I reached out and swept the desk, and pale dust stuck to my finger.
It had been almost a year since then.
In a place where all kinds of equipment had stopped, it would have been stranger if there was no dust left.
As I looked at the dusty desk leisurely, various papers scattered on the desk caught my eye.
“Is this what you wrote…?”
I could easily tell whose handwriting it was without thinking too hard.
As I read the contents of the paper slowly, a smile came out of my mouth.
Some possible ways to continue are:
-He liked to write something on paper whenever he had time.
-Just like this paper that I was holding in my hand.
-“I didn’t know before, but you were more thoughtful than I thought.”
-There was even a part where my name was written.
-Cheon Yuseong. I looked at the four characters written on the top of the paper and pushed it aside.
It was a gift he had prepared for me.
“Ha.”
He was really an admirable person.
I would never be able to become like him in my lifetime.
He left me with a debt I could never repay until the end.
I stared at the chocolate in front of me with a hollow feeling.
He had made a small promise to get me some chocolate when he could.
I had no trouble guessing who this chocolate was for.
“Estasia.”
As I was lost in my own thoughts, following the traces of the past, Estasia called me from behind.
“Huh. I’m listening.”
“Is this the place you said you would go to?”
She seemed to have a vague idea of why I came here.
I nodded at her.
This was why I decided to come to this company.
To break the thick shackles that bound me.
I had a plan to look through the food warehouse, but I think I wanted to sort out the things that were left in my head more.
“Yeah, this is it.”
No matter how much I turned away and ran away, the past would not disappear.
But I couldn’t stay still in sorrow forever.
People always had to be ready to take a step forward.
For themselves. And for the people who were with them.
My future was not just mine alone.
“The last… time?”
“Yeah, the last time.”
So, this was the last time I came here.
I didn’t plan to come here again.
I came here today to say goodbye to my past self.
“I’ll stop living in the past and ignoring reality today.”
I counted the things on the desk with my fingertips as I answered Estasia’s question.
As if estimating the number, I counted the things on the desk and saw a chocolate that had melted and changed its shape.
It was twisted and dusty, but it was undoubtedly a new chocolate that hadn’t been unwrapped.
“This is…”
I didn’t notice it at the time because I was too busy, but I found it now.
A faint memory of his promise passed through my mind.
This chocolate was for someone.
I smiled bitterly as I picked up the chocolate and handed it to Estasia.
“Here, take this. It’s yours now.”
She looked at me with surprise and confusion in her eyes.
“Mine? Why?”
“Because you’re the only one who can enjoy it. And because you’re the only one who can make me smile.”
I said that without hesitation or regret.
It was true. She was the only one who could make me smile in this broken world.
She was the only one who could give me hope and courage to face reality.
She was the only one who could stay by my side until the end.
“I’ve had enough of being pushed around by a capricious god.”
All the things I had built up until then turned into one emotion inside me.
That was the only fuel that would make me move forward.
I wouldn’t give up on either side.
The cult and apostles who trusted and followed me, and the world that was ruined by Estel.
I had to reclaim them with my own power.
“Is that so?”
“Yeah. I won’t run away anymore.”
The past me who tried to escape from reality without knowing anything was gone.
Now it was time to face reality.
It was time to prepare for a war to restore the broken world.
It wasn’t just the cult and apostles who stood on the battlefield.
I also had to take my place on the battlefield prepared for me.
“I won’t turn a blind eye with the excuse of a game, or shirk responsibility with the pretext of ignorance.”
I had to take responsibility for what I had done.
I couldn’t face everyone if I resigned and surrendered to the fate that was set for me.
The fate of destruction.
What did it think it was, trying to block my way?
If I was going to break and bend to something like fate, I wouldn’t have been ready to stand here.
“So, from now on, I’ll–.”
The ones who decide the fate of others with their own hands.
The world calls them gods.
“I’ll be your god.”
My hand reached out and touched Estasia’s cheek.
Her eyes sparkled like jewels, which I couldn’t see beyond the screen.
There were things that I couldn’t see on the small screen.
There were also things that I could only realize by facing them with my own eyes.
“Then…”
She looked at my hand on her cheek and opened her mouth.
There was no hesitation in her pure eyes.
She spoke with her will, more innocent than anyone I had seen.
Her voice was still languid and listless, but it wasn’t hard to understand what emotion was in it.
“Then I’ll stay with you until the end.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes.”
I lowered my hand that was reaching out to Estasia.
I felt strangely reassured by just a short word.
I never thought I would rely on this lazy angel.
I must have been quite lacking myself.
Of course, being such a person, there were things I could say as well.
“Thank you for being with me.”
“I still won’t do any work, though.”
“You never change, even in this situation.”
“I’ll hide all the snacks if you keep bothering me.”
The heavy atmosphere quickly crumbled.
As expected, no matter what we talked about, she was Estasia.
She was like that now, and she would always be like that.
That was the Estasia I knew.
“Well, I like that you’re consistent.”
My gaze shifted from Estasia to a corner of the desk.
The chocolate on the desk was still there, covered with dust.
I reached out and grabbed the chocolate that was lying on the desk.
And with a bitter smile, I crumpled it and stuffed it into my pocket.
“I’ll take this as my severance pay.”
I said goodbye to my naive past.
As I left my mark on a place that I would never return to.
