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Prologue
“Impossible… This can’t be done!”
The speaker was an elderly man with a head of pure white hair.
It was Makarov Williot, the man the world had once hailed as the Ancient Archmage.
“How could a human possibly command even the beings of the Underworld…?”
“The old folks always say the same thing.”
In truth, there is almost nothing in this world that is impossible.
There are only things people choose to believe are impossible.
Whoooom.
“Is that all you’ve got to show me?”
Hovering in the air was the Seal of the Underworld, a mark said to be wielded only by one who had come closer to death than anyone else in the world.
The symbol of the God of Death.
Pointing at the seal suspended before me, I grinned.
“You… You’ve already stepped beyond the bounds of humanity. Stop disrupting the order of the world! You know it yourself, don’t you? This is not power that humans were ever meant to possess!”
“Of course I stopped pretending to be human. You were the one who killed me fifty years ago, so what kind of nonsense are you spouting now?”
Those were the last words he ever heard.
Slash!
Thud!
At the swing of the hand of Charon, the ferryman of the Underworld whom I had summoned, the legendary archmage’s head flew through the air.
“…If you’d handed over the item without resisting, I might have spared your life.”
He had been someone necessary for maintaining the world’s balance, in his own way.
He had once killed me.
But now…
I no longer hated him.
After all, I had long since become a being that had transcended even death itself.
In any case, I had finally obtained it.
Whoooom.
“The Goddess’s Tear.”
A divine relic said to contain the power of miracles.
With this final ingredient…
My long-cherished wish could finally be fulfilled.
It’s been a long road.
It truly had.
Ever since the day I fell into this incomprehensible world, surviving countless brushes with death until I finally reached this moment.
Though, to be fair… I actually died once.
All because of that damned old man and his obsession with preserving the balance of the world.
Back then, his magic had seemed as majestic as divine power itself.
Now…
It looked no more impressive than a clown’s performance.
“Seresia.”
“…You called for me?”
The so-called fake goddess.
More accurately, a demigoddess.
Seresia, revered in this world as the Goddess of Harmony.
“There aren’t any more materials we need now, right?”
“No. None at all!”
“Why are you grinning again? Just because I’m leaving? You’re that happy to see me go?”
“N-No! I’m just… happy that you’ve finally achieved your goal…”
Naturally, she was now my loyal subordinate.
Let’s see…
I first met her about seventy years after arriving in this world.
At first she’d put on all the airs of a goddess, acting mysterious and dignified.
But after I thoroughly stripped her of everything—including her very soul—she’d become nothing more than a pretty but hopelessly dim-witted girl.
“Tch.”
At the click of my tongue, Seresia flinched.
Come to think of it, she’d caused me no end of trouble over the years.
Maybe I ought to discipline her one last time before I left.
“B-By the way… shouldn’t you begin already? The death energy surrounding you is so overwhelming that… there’s a chance the Goddess’s Tear could become corrupted!”
It was painfully obvious she was making excuses.
But at this point…
I didn’t really care.
After teleporting us back to the hideout, Seresia immediately placed me inside the enormous magic circle she had spent decades preparing.
“Now that we’ve obtained the core of the spell, the dimensional transfer itself should succeed without any problems… but like I said before, there could still be side effects. There are old records about rulers who dominated an entire dimension only to lose all their power after crossing into another one. I-I warned you beforehand, so don’t come back later just to take your anger out on me, okay?”
“How many times are you going to repeat yourself? I said I understand. Once this is over, our relationship ends. Cleanly.”
That’s right.
This really was the end.
“Hah…”
At long last…
The curtain was finally falling on these endless years.
The necromancer who had been hailed across Planet Thebe as the Living Death would finally return to where he truly belonged.
“Take care.”
“Huh?”
“You’re supposed to be a demigod, so stop getting beaten up wherever you go.”
“…”
“To be honest, when you first told me about all this, I thought you were just making things up to get yourself out of trouble.”
And yet…
In the end…
I really was going home.
“Thank you.”
Whoooom.
That day…
The Lord of Death who had dominated an era departed from Planet Thebe.
And—
“Y-You can’t suddenly say something like that… Now I actually feel a little guilty for messing with you…”
Seresia murmured as she stared at the empty space where he had vanished.
She had secretly tampered with the dimensional transfer magic circle just a little.
“…Well, if someone’s personality is full of sharp edges, maybe it’s better if at least their appearance is a little… rounder.”
And thus…
One story came to an end.
Some time after the events on Planet Thebe—
On Planet Earth.
In Seoul, the capital of the Republic of Korea.
Inside a neighborhood police substation, a woman spoke in a bewildered voice.
“…You’re saying this child claimed, of her own accord, that she’s my older brother?”
“Y-Yes! That’s correct, Hunter Baek Seo-ha! She even knew all of your personal information!”
Everyone’s eyes turned toward the corner of the station.
Curled up beneath a blanket was a trembling silver-haired girl.
“I-I’ll turn you into a skeleton… H-how dare you… disrespect the Lord of Death… hic…”
She shrank away from anyone who tried to approach her, trembling in terror.
Anyone who saw her pitiful state would have felt nothing but sympathy.
“…Let’s hear the full story first.”
Her older brother…
The one who had supposedly died ten years ago.
Thinking that yet another troublesome incident had landed in her lap, Baek Seo-ha, an A-Rank Hunter and one of the nation’s most promising elites, let out a quiet sigh.
