Chapter Text
Hello everyone again, yes, this time there’s a double episode
Why did this happen?
My mother was a very intense person.
I think she loved me too much.
Maybe because I was her daughter.
Maybe because I was a half-rabbit.
Or maybe simply because she was who she was.
But even so...
I loved her, too.
Thanks to her, I had the chance to meet Rudeus.
She was supposed to come back today.
We’d promised that when he came back, we’d go to the Magic Academy together.
She had even changed.
She had given up her never-ending vegetable diet and had finally worked up the courage to try meat.
She started spending a lot more time with me.
Whenever she could, we’d go out together.
We’d stroll through Buena Aldea.
We talked about anything and everything.
For the first time, I felt like we were making up for all the time we’d lost.
I thought we still had many memories to make.
Many happy days to come.
My father was different.
He was never particularly expressive.
Maybe because, when he looked at me, he was reminded too much of himself.
He never talked much about his childhood.
He never told me who my grandparents were.
And even though he showed his love in his own way...
I always felt that something was missing.
That’s why I never told them I was being bullied.
I never told them about my Divine Protection.
I never confessed to them how hard it was for me to smile in front of other people.
If Rudeus hadn’t come into my life...
I probably would never have mustered the courage to tell you any of those things.
Not long ago...
Mom started buying me books.
Stories.
Fantasy stories.
And every night she would sit by my bed to read them to me before I went to sleep.
But...
I was always more drawn to true stories.
Legends.
World history.
The great heroes.
The great disasters.
I guess that’s why Dad ended up buying such an expensive book.
"The Truth Behind the Cruel World."
The more I listened to my mother talk about Pardia...
the more I understood just how vast that world was.
And also how terrifying it could be.
But she...
She always saw things differently.
She was able to find beauty even in the darkest moments.
She saw hope where others found only despair.
Sometimes...
I even found myself envying that naive and wonderful way of looking at the world.
My father never tried to correct her.
Because she had given him a reason to keep going.
Because she had allowed him to feel emotions again that he thought were lost.
Because, without realizing it...
She had become the heart of our family.
So...
If the world was really that beautiful...
If there were people like my mother...
Why was I all alone?
Why had I woken up in a place I’d never seen before?
Weren’t difficult trials supposed to come only to those who could overcome them?
...
Deep down...
I already knew the answer.
That book said it clearly.
"Pardia is a cruel world for those who aren't prepared."
And I...
Foolishly...
I had believed I was.
For several days, I wandered aimlessly.
Hungry.
Thirsty.
Scared.
But I never thought of giving up.
I had to go back.
I had to get back to Buena Aldea.
It didn’t matter how long it took.
It didn’t matter how many times I got lost.
I just had to keep walking.
And in the end...
I made it.
But Buena Aldea no longer existed.
In the center of the village was a huge crater.
The houses had vanished.
The streets he walked down every day were gone.
The mabestias roamed freely among the rubble.
Even the spirits that had once filled that place with life had vanished.
At that moment...
I stopped thinking about myself.
And I ran.
I ran desperately toward my home.
...
I wish...
I wish I hadn’t opened that door.
The silence I found on the other side was far more painful than any scream.
Then...
As if time had decided to turn back...
The words my mother said to me before the Teleportation Disaster began to echo inside my head.
“And remember, Sylphiette…”
Chloe’s voice sounded exactly the same as it did that day.
So warm.
So full of love.
“What kind of cruel world would this be if it had allowed me to have you as my daughter?”
“What kind of cruel world would this be if I’d been allowed to meet your father...
“...and all the people you and I love?”
She paused briefly before smiling.
“This world isn’t cruel.”
“And it never will be.”
"Because as long as there are people capable of love..."
"As long as there are families who can gather around a table..."
“As long as there are friends capable of reuniting after many years...”
"As long as there are tears of joy as well as tears of sadness..."
"Then..."
"There will always be something beautiful that makes life worth living."
"And I..."
"I’d rather remember those things than any misfortune."
Tears began to fall one after another.
Sylphiette stood motionless.
In front of her...
Lay the lifeless bodies of Chloe and Laws.
She wasn’t even able to cry out loud.
She simply let the tears fall in silence.
Outside...
The wind blew through the few walls that were still standing.
On the floor, one of the pages from the book that Laws had worked so hard to obtain slowly fell out.
The page was carried away by the draft.
It spun round and round.
Until it came to rest at Sylphiette’s feet, without her even noticing.
On that page, a few words could be read.
"Pardia is a cruel world for those who are unprepared."
And, below that...
A sentence written in a different ink.
As if someone had added it much later.
"But it’s even crueler for those who were prepared."
And, at the bottom of the page...
One last sentence.
"How sad it is that the world never discovered..."
"...that the gods to whom they pray are, in fact, responsible for our agony."
Sylphiette slowly left what had once been her home.
She didn’t know where to go.
She had no destination.
Just one reason to keep moving forward.
To find Rudeus.
As long as he was still alive...
she, too, would keep walking.
No matter how long it took.
No matter how many dangers she encountered along the way.
She would find him.
...
That was when a figure appeared in front of her.
She couldn’t make out his face.
She just felt a sharp blow to the back of her neck.
Everything went black.
...
When she opened her eyes again...
The sky was beneath her.
And the earth...
Was approaching at a terrifying speed.
Sylphiette’s eyes flew wide open.
With no time to think, she raised the small wand she carried with her.
She didn’t cast any spells.
The wind responded immediately to his will.
A powerful current enveloped her body, cushioning her fall.
At the same time, several blades of wind descended alongside her, piercing a mabestia that was about to pounce on a carriage.
The creature fell dead before it even realized what had happened.
Sylphiette landed on her knees.
She was breathing heavily.
In front of her...
Several people were watching her with a mixture of surprise and bewilderment.
Among them...
A young princess with blonde hair.
Without realizing it...
She had just met the person who, over time, would become one of the most important people in her life.
【End of Chapter】
Character Profile:
Chloe Linaloe
Race: White Rabbit Half-Human
Place of Birth: Outskirts of Buena Village
Chloe was born into a family of farmers and spent most of her childhood confined to her home due to health issues.
For years, she observed the world solely through a window.
Tired of that life, she decided to run away.
That decision nearly cost her her life.
Lost in an unfamiliar forest, she survived for several days by eating whatever she could find around her. With no sense of direction and growing weaker by the day, she ended up on the brink of death.
That’s when Laws appeared.
Chloe’s parents had desperately asked the nearby residents for help, but almost no one agreed to join the search.
Laws was the only one who responded.
Thanks to his Divine Protection, he managed to find her.
From the moment she saw him, Chloe fell in love with him.
For years, she tried to win over that expressionless hunter who seemed incapable of understanding human emotions.
Eventually, she succeeded.
After the birth of their daughter, Sylphiette, Chloe began accompanying Laws on his hunting expeditions and became an active part of his daily life.
Her optimism was so great that even someone like Laws ended up being swept up by it.
Fun fact:
White Rabbits possess a complete animal form. Because of their appearance, many people mistake them for the legendary mabestia known as “The Great Rabbit.”
In that form, they consume very little energy thanks to an extremely slow metabolism.
Final thought:
As she closed her eyes, Chloe didn’t think of herself.
She thought of Sylphiette.
She hoped she would continue to love the world.
Because until the very end of her life...
Chloe never stopped believing that the world was a wonderful place and that this tragedy was just a mere coincidence.
Laws
He never let anyone take a photo of him nor did he bother to appear in one; even his daughter Sylphiette didn’t remember his face at all, due to the mask he often wore.
Race: Half-Elf
Class: Hunter
Divine Protection: Reproach
Laws never met his father.
And although he did know his mother, he would have preferred not to.
He was born an unwanted child and was abandoned after coming of age.
That experience profoundly shaped his view of the world.
Over the years, he stopped expecting affection from others and ended up becoming someone far too mature for his age.
He lived alone.
He worked alone.
And he expected to die alone.
His job as a hunter allowed him to earn enough money to support himself, though he rarely found anything he truly cared about.
For years, he received letters from his mother.
He burned them all.
Forty in all.
He never read a single one.
When asked about her, he usually replies that he doesn’t hate her.
However, he also admits that if she were standing in front of him, he would try to kill her without hesitation.
His life changed the day he accepted a search request to find a missing young woman named Chloe.
That decision completely altered the course of his life.
Laws’ Divine Protection, known as Reproach, allows him to observe fragments of memories belonging to other living beings.
Thanks to it, he found Chloe.
And thanks to Chloe, he found something he had lost a long time ago.
A home.
After Sylphiette’s birth, he tried to become a good father.
He never believed he had succeeded.
Until the end of his life, he maintained that Rudeus Greyrat did more for Sylphiette than he himself had.
Fun fact:
Laws claimed that Chloe talked too much.
However, after meeting her, he never enjoyed silence again.
Final thought:
Laws tried to think of Sylphiette.
But that thought didn’t last long.
Because in the end...
Only one person occupied his mind.
Chloe.
And as the darkness slowly consumed his consciousness, he realized what his greatest regret was.
It wasn’t dying.
It wasn’t leaving his daughter behind.
It was knowing that he would never hear Chloe’s voice again.