Chapter 148. A Better Person Than Expected
I never imagined I would meet him like this.
No, I had never even imagined there was the slightest chance that I would meet this person face-to-face.
So when he actually appeared before me, I was momentarily speechless.
“...Have you eaten?”
“...What? Ah, not yet....”
“You still need to eat properly. Follow me. Consider it a gift.”
His tone was flat, almost completely devoid of emotion.
His rough voice sounded like it was scraping against my eardrums.
And yet...
The words themselves were surprisingly kind.
Caught off guard by the unexpected question, I shook my head.
Ruin lightly gestured for me to follow and started walking somewhere.
I stared blankly at his back.
As he walked, the darkness around us gradually began to brighten.
It was almost as if lights were turning on one by one in time with his footsteps.
“Where... are we?”
“A temporary residence.”
The floor was made of marble covered in elaborate patterns.
However, pieces of it had been shattered here and there by signs of battle.
The walls glittered beautifully, and stained-glass windows decorated the surroundings.
But they too were damaged in several places.
Outside was pitch-black.
Still, a dark crimson sun hung in the sky, so perhaps it was morning.
Beyond the collapsed walls...
A sandstorm raged so violently that I couldn’t see what lay inside it.
“...This doesn’t really look like somewhere people live.”
“I live here, so it is a place where a person lives.”
Ruin glanced at me.
“And now a guest like you is here too, which makes that even more true.”
...
He was more humorous than I expected.
I had imagined someone much harsher.
Much crazier.
After all, even Dorfin respectfully called him Teacher or that person.
He was also the man who had killed Asset after Asset challenged him...
Then revived him using a body patched together from all kinds of things.
Naturally, I had assumed he couldn’t possibly be normal.
“A Hero party came through here not long ago.”
“...Ah~! So that’s what you meant when you said you were working?”
“Yes.”
Ruin continued walking while carrying Hope in his arms.
“I travel through different worlds and act as their Demon King.”
“Sometimes I kill.”
“Sometimes I die.”
Watching his back while listening to that...
I started thinking that the surprising part wasn’t that he was strange.
The surprising part was that he hadn’t gone completely insane.
One life like mine was already enough to drive a person crazy.
But this man repeatedly went to worlds where he either died...
Or killed everyone and erased the world itself, didn’t he?
And on top of that, he had gotten involved with people like Dorfin, Jin, and the Chairman.
Ugh.
I could never live like that.
“I normally dislike looking through another person’s past, future, or present.”
Ruin’s rough speech became slightly unclear as Hope, who was still in his arms, stared at his mouth.
She started poking and squeezing it as if thinking,
Is this the part that moves when he talks? It actually moves?
Apparently, Ruin normally didn’t speak much.
And when he did...
He definitely didn’t talk for very long.
“Still, it is rare for Dori to care about someone.”
“So I decided to meet you.”
“I became curious.”
“Dori? You mean Dorfin, right?”
I hesitated.
“You mean the Dorfin inside the game?”
“Does the Dorfin in reality care about you too?”
“Not at all?”
Ruin pushed open a broken door.
Inside, several monsters were moving around busily.
He simply told them to prepare a meal, pulled out one of the less-damaged chairs, and sat down.
...
Wow.
I had so many questions.
But let’s not ask them right now.
“....”
“...W-What?”
“That bastard did a good job making you.”
Ruin stared at my face.
“You really do resemble me.”
“...You look a little better.”
I examined him.
“Your shoulders are broader, you’re taller than me, and your red eyes are prettier.”
“Stop.”
Ruin’s expression hardened.
“I don’t want to hear that kind of thing from another man.”
He was unexpectedly human...!
Usually, beings this transcendent said things like—
Male? Female? Why should that matter?
Something that sounded like they had surpassed ordinary human values entirely.
But when he said something this normal...
It weakened the whole atmosphere of him being some incredible transcendent existence.
“If we were going to meet, we probably should have met much earlier.”
“But I forgot most of what happened in that world.”
“The world where the Chairman you know originally lived.”
“It seems the Chairman reflected that part of you in me too.”
I gave a bitter smile.
“I’ve forgotten a lot of my past as well.”
“It was an extremely long time ago.”
Not much time had passed since Ruin ordered food to be prepared.
Yet dish after dish began appearing on the table.
The table was somewhat too large for just Ruin and me...
But somehow too small for the ridiculous amount of food being brought out.
I stared at it in bewilderment.
“Don’t worry.”
“Most of it is for my daughter.”
“Eat if you feel like you should.”
“If you don’t want to, don’t.”
“Right....”
I glanced at him.
“You eat too?”
“Why?”
He looked at me.
“Does it seem strange because I’m too human?”
That hit exactly what I was thinking.
Yes.
That was exactly it.
He was too human.
How could someone called Ruin act this human?
I had imagined talking to some mysterious silhouette hidden inside pale mist or something.
Something incomprehensible.
Mystical.
Like the first meeting with Light that Grandpa Darkness had shown me from the Great Hero of Hope’s memories.
I never imagined this would feel like I had simply been invited into someone’s house as a guest.
“I was defined by beings that were not human.”
“I was born from human parents.”
“And I lived in a human world.”
Ruin sat down.
“So even in a position like mine, it would be stranger if I did not remain somewhat human.”
“Ah...”
Then I remembered.
“Wait, that’s not the important thing!”
Right before I spoke, I remembered what Dorfin had said before sending me here.
That I had become weak.
That if she left me any longer, I would rot instead of mature.
She had said those things when I tried relying on her and planned to ask Ruin for help.
‘There’s no guarantee Ruin won’t think the same way.’
‘But if that’s true... why did Dorfin deliberately send me here?’
‘What exactly does she think I can do?’
If I directly asked him for help...
A simple refusal might be the best possible outcome.
He might decide I was boring and kill me.
Even Asset had ended up like that after challenging him.
Then...
In that case....
“...What do you think love is?”
...
Haven’t I said something like this before?
Hahaha!
My creativity really was amazing.
My vocabulary was incredible too.
I was...
Such a complete idiot.
Right.
I had asked Grandpa Aro something similar before.
Back then, he had told me that if I cared too much about other people’s gazes...
I should destroy everything around me.
Probably.
“Hard to say.”
Ruin answered seriously.
“Love takes a different form for me every time.”
“So I cannot give you one answer.”
I hadn’t expected such a sincere response from him.
He looked like someone who would never even say the word love.
“...There are things even you don’t know?”
“I try to live while knowing as little as possible.”
“I know someone who ruined his life because he knew too much.”
Clatter! Clatter!
It was a little difficult to concentrate because Hope was devouring the food on the table at an unbelievable speed.
How could that tiny body contain all of it?
Could we maybe move her slightly to the side?
...
I wished our Jayeon would eat with that much energy too.
Well...
Not that much.
But at least a little more enthusiastically.
She always tried to behave so maturely, almost like an adult.
It made me proud...
But also a little sad.
And a little disappointed.
“In the last world, I think I found something close to an answer.”
Ruin glanced toward me.
“But love exists in many different forms, doesn’t it?”
“Uh... yes?”
Wait.
Was he seriously going to talk about love with me?
Really?
Ruin?
Was this allowed?
Live up to your name!
“For now...”
Ruin looked toward the dark crimson sky.
“I think love might be when you look at the moon with someone and the moon appears beautiful because they are beside you.”
“...Ohhh.”
I blinked.
“That’s poetic.”
“I heard it from someone else.”
“My wife.”
“Your wife?!”
“You have a wife?!”
What a shocking revelation!
This transcendent being named Ruin...
Someone who had traveled through countless worlds and probably erased countless ones...
Had a wife!
Then...
Was his wife human?
Or some kind of transcendent godlike being?
“Yes.”
Ruin nodded.
“She came to find me when I was around six or ten years old and asked whether the moon was beautiful.”
“...Uh?”
“Wait.”
“Was your wife around the same age back then?”
“No.”
“She was already an adult.”
“In human terms...”
Ruin thought for a moment.
“Probably somewhere in her early thirties.”
...
That was another confession I absolutely had not expected.
Was Ruin actually much more talkative than he looked?
I hadn’t even asked for this much information, yet he was casually telling me things I probably didn’t need to know!
Then again...
He probably had more stories than anyone I knew.
Let me tell you about that world I destroyed once lol.
Wow.
I’d probably collapse from shock just listening.
