“Kanami the Founder, that little brother killed my sister. That pitifully weak, utterly foolish younger brother killed her. That little brother had no reason to live...yet he killed her. Merely existing was a blight. That was my sister’s little brother, Ide!” I refused to acknowledge such a thing. I wanted to erase it. That wasn’t me. “But only while working as the chancellor of the Sovereign Queen Lorde was I different... It was the only ‘me’ I could accept. The only time I felt I had value and meaning was as the chancellor...”
“So that’s why you’re so fixated on being chancellor...”
“Because I was able to help my sister! I had value! I had meaning! That made me so happy! I didn’t know how to live my own life, but just by working myself to the bone for the Sovereign Queen Lorde, that alone made me feel alive!”
“So that’s why you tell Titee to remain the Sovereign Queen Lorde forever?! Do you intend to make her do it until she dies?! Do you plan to continue even after her death?! Do you intend to make her bear everything alone even longer?! Answer me, Ide!”
“Shut up! Shut up, Kanami! If the Sovereign Queen Lorde ceases to be the Sovereign Queen Lorde, then what becomes of me?!” Rejected again and again by Kanami the Founder, I finally resorted to hurling vile insults at him. When had I last lost control like this? Memories resurfaced in my mind, older than my orphanage days—memories of being rejected, rejected, rejected, wandering endlessly through a painful world. My heart grew wild.
“Don’t use your sister for your own satisfaction! Nothing you’ve done has benefited Titee in the slightest! It’s not devotion or anything like that!” Kanami yelled.
“Then what should I do?! I’m scared! If I cease to be Chancellor Ide, I cease to be myself! I won’t know what to do anymore! I’ll lose my worth! I’ll lose my name! I’ll be thrown back into those days when I was less than a slave! Those endless days of questioning who I was would return! The time of questioning why I was even alive would overwhelm me! I hate it! I hate that more than anything, so I have to make my sister the Sovereign Queen Lorde!”
“So that’s it! Those are your true feelings deep down!” The expression on Kanami’s face, who had even worried about his enemy this whole time, now contained anger.
My...true feelings? What did I just say? Was using my sister to escape fear really how I felt? I wanted to believe it wasn’t...yet I couldn’t deny that dim, dark feeling lurked somewhere in my heart. If that was my true heart, it was utterly foolish. How ugly, how weak. I could clearly feel the limits of the Guardian, the weakest of Guardians, drawing ever closer.
Therefore, as a defense instinct, akin to a survival instinct to live, I screamed. “Aikawa Kanami! Shut the hell up! Don’t spout any more of your high-and-mighty nonsense!”
Defeated in the verbal battle, I felt my body—held together by sheer willpower—beginning to collapse.
The body that should have been bound together by wood was instead being eroded. White bones dissolved, replaced by tree cores piercing through my flesh. The wood slipped beyond my control, tearing through flesh and skin. A human’s sensitive nerves protruding from every part of my body transformed into a plant’s insensitive nerves, while my muscles simultaneously vegetated. Even my sensory organs mutated, and my pupils were stained white. Finally, the wooden armor I wore fused with my body. Branches sprouted from the armor, branching out and growing vibrant green leaves. This was the Guardian’s unique mutation into a Half Monster.
In other words, I had been half killed by words alone. And to this throne room of Viaysia Castle, it was not the chancellor but that nameless, weak dryad, the sorcerer, who would return. The real me would come back.
“Yes, that’s right! I was weak, fearful, a pathetic coward! That’s why I was terrified of losing sight of the light called the Sovereign Queen Lorde at any moment! Before I became the Thief of Wood’s Essence, everyone in the castle laughed at me! They pointed fingers behind my back, calling me a pathetic coward, favored only because I was Lorde’s brother! And it was true! I was useless, unfit for either military or civil service! I had no talent whatsoever to brush off those whispers! What could you possibly understand about someone like me?! You, with your talent! You, whom everyone adores! How could you possibly understand the feelings of the weak?! How could you possibly understand?!”
That sorcerer child cursed the world’s injustice and cried out endlessly.
“I had no talent whatsoever! No charm at all! I didn’t even possess a strong heart! That’s why darkness was my everyday reality! Every day was unbearable, filled with fear, fear of living! For someone without talent, walking through the world is like walking a dark cliff without a light! That’s why I was desperate not to lose sight of that light called the Sovereign Queen Lorde! I was desperate just to survive!”
“Is that truly so?! Was what you perceived as light truly the Sovereign Queen Lorde?! Was it for the sake of some fairy-tale queen that you felt you had to become chancellor?! Didn’t you want to be there for your sister? Ide, you lost all your memories of being a brother as the price for becoming an Essence Thief! You have a sister! The one and only sister in this world who needs you as her brother!”
“Enough! Shut up, Kanami! Shut up, shut up, shut up!!! Don’t confuse me any further!” I knew that without being told! That the price for becoming an Essence Thief had erased all memories of our happy sibling days! I’d known it from the start! But still, it remained. Somehow, the memory remained.
Only the pathetic sight of that little brother clung to my mind, refusing to leave. Only my own pathetic form, standing bewildered before my sister, who spat at me, could I recall clearly. Every single day for decades. Every day, every time I closed my eyes to sleep, it forced itself back upon me. I was confronted with my own suicidal essence. So then, the only option was to erase that entire life, right?! Kill that so-called brother, right?! Kill him and only the chancellor would remain! The only way for me to have value and meaning, to survive in this dark world, was as the chancellor of the Sovereign Queen Lorde! That alone was the strong Ide!
“Shut up, you idiot! I said I can’t stand watching this! You and Titee are the only brother and sister left in this world! You have no other family! If you lose her, she’ll never come back! So don’t you dare leave Titee or yourself alone any longer! Both of you look so pitiful, you know!”
That was the end of the argument. We both shouted as we simultaneously sprang into motion. I wasn’t thinking about anything anymore. I didn’t consider my enemy’s range or anything else; I just charged forward, focused solely on defeating the man before me. After all, even if I desperately tried to think, it wouldn’t help me at all. So all that was left was to push straight ahead and fight beyond my limits.
As I ran, I finished preparing to unleash all my magic. And Kanami the Founder responded with his sword. The blade shouldn’t have reached across the distance between us, swept my arm aside, then sliced open the belly of my Half Monster body, pierced a hole through my lungs and stabbed through both legs.
Even so, I didn’t care. I charged forward. It was an injury and pain that would make a sane man stop, but I would never flinch. “I will win! I will defeat you and become the true chancellor this time! I have to! By any means necessary!”
This was my life. Staking my entire existence on it, I started an incantation.