quicksilver blood

Chapter 576 No Choice
"Ro... Lan."

An ethereal and haunting voice came from behind Roland.

It was an irrational voice.

Committed to the frenzied, malicious whispers from the abyss.

Roland turned his back to him, and smiled softly: "Professor, long time no see."

"Long time no see... Roland."

As time went by, his hoarse and misty voice gradually became clear again.But the malice in it was still so full that it was almost overflowing.

"It turns out that the betrayer is you... What a pity, if I had known earlier, you would be dead by now."

"It's the same, Roland. I'll give you the same sentence."

A gentle and elegant voice, but always giving people the illusion of metallic coldness, came from behind Roland: "If I knew that you could live till now, you would have died in the City of Fortune."

"Who is to blame, Professor?"

Roland raised the corner of his mouth and showed a mocking smile: "You can only be blamed for being stupid. Taking history as a mirror can make people wise-you have a history of 800 years and still look like this bear, which is enough to show that your ability That's all."

"Admit it, professor. You have been on the wrong track from the beginning, and now you have fallen even worse."

"... You said, fallen?"

Victor couldn't help laughing, and shouted proudly, "Stop joking, Roland! I'm different from a god-made monster like you! I'll be a human until my death!"

"From head to toe, every steel frame, every piece of gear, every drop of Orm's blood is made by me with my knowledge—with human wisdom! Not a single bit of it is a gift from others, all Everything belongs to me!"

"What is a human being? Do you have to be human to be called a human being? Then a person with prosthetic limbs is not a human being? I changed my hands, I changed my legs, I changed every bit of flesh and blood, every internal organ, but I've always been convinced that I am who I am - I've never been anything else!"

"If the eyes are polluted, I will throw away the eyes. If the head is polluted, I will take off the head--one eye and one head fall into the dusk, it is better than a soul like yours that is dyed dim yellow. Monsters are better!"

"Roland, you are not worthy to be a savior! Compared with me, you are more like a monster—and I am a human being!"

Victor, who lost his head, stood upright, without any hesitation in his words, and without the slightest frenzy after being polluted by the dusk.

His voice is sonorous and powerful, high-spirited.

However, Roland just asked softly: "Are you finished? Well, let me talk next."

"I'm not like you, Victor. I haven't lived through the golden age of thousands of years ago, and I don't have the thousand and eight hundred years of history in my head. At this moment, this world is already coming to an end, on the verge of destruction... Also, I am only 800 years old this year. By your standards, I am not even as good as a baby."

Roland sighed and turned around slowly.

There was a sound like glass cracking, like snow being trampled on.

The next moment, the cracks that appeared on the surface of Roland's body spread rapidly.Black, graffiti-like crooked cracks spread all over Roland's body, as if Roland would shatter into pieces with a slight push.

Looking at Roland at this moment, the professor was stunned for a moment, and fell silent unexpectedly.

"However, I still have the determination to save the world. I don't know what savior is, but if you want to say that I am, then so be it."

Roland slowly stretched out his densely cracked right arm to show the professor—accompanied by his movements, the cracks on his arm collided with each other and creaked, and the originally relatively large fragments cracked into finer pieces.

He looked directly at the professor, and said word by word: "This is the price I paid... This is my enlightenment. The awareness that I have to go forward even if I am smashed to pieces."

Having said that, Roland showed a bright smile.

"You don't understand, professor. Why do I do this."

"……you say."

The professor was silent for a while, and replied in a hoarse voice.

"A long time ago, someone asked me this. He said 'Do you still want to save the world!?'... So, I answered him like this—"

Roland paused, and repeated softly:
"I said, 'Because of these people I'm happy when they're alive, and I'm sad when they're dead. I don't want to see them die, even if it's for my own happiness, I have to save the world.'"

"—in simple terms, 'I am willing'."

"I make a dedication with my own will, I fight with my own will, I burn my life with my own will - I have no last wish that must be fulfilled, and there is no last wish that I must fulfill The obsession with death, no one forced me to do this, and no one kidnapped me with emotion. Everything I did was out of my own will."

"—This is called freedom."

Roland slowly lowered his right hand, and there was another slight shattering sound of glass being crushed.

"...I wanted to be a liar before, so I was a happy liar; then I wanted to be a sage, and I became a great sage. Now I want to be the savior, the emperor of mankind The Emperor, to become the Supreme of Farnes, that's all."

"That is to say," the professor couldn't help but said, "you came to this point only because of your own greed?"

"Greed?"

Roland couldn't help sneering: "Who have you ever seen whose greed would drive his master to do such a thankless thing? Yes, I have only been in this world for a few dozen days, but I have been here for a few days. Walking on the tip of the knife, if you take a wrong step, you will fall into hell, and you will never be able to stand up again."

"And before that—does this world have anything to do with me and my sister?"

The professor couldn't answer.

Because, he also knew that there was only one final answer.

"That is, no."

Without hesitation, Roland denied his connection with this world.

"But," Roland said again before the professor could speak, "An Ruosi is my friend. Anvilia is my benefactor. The mentor treats me like a family member, and Elucado is my body." part."

"Lilia completely believes that I can save the world, Sira is my master, Kakarit is my long sword, Sira is my shield, and Gaharad is my complete supporter."

"I miss the missing Macon very much. I lament the fate of Claude. I am sad and angry at the tragedy caused by the drinker. I still hate the sick village. I can't understand Farina. I don't understand the city of wealth. Apologies, I'm so proud of the survivors of the White Tower I saved. I remember the smile Anvilia smiled at me, and I remember Natalia returning to Suze to inherit the family business. And Ole Ta, Chris, Esther, Scott... I have been cut off from this world since a long time ago."

"And now, someone told me that this world will eventually be destroyed, everyone will die, and there is no way to avoid it - how do you make me accept it?"

Roland's voice gradually rose, and there was a slight flicker of fire in his eyes.

"My sister nailed the banner of Cangyin to the land of the world, and now I have to raise the banner again. What a desperate fate, a doomed future, as long as I can't be killed, I will resist, as long as I am still alive, I will resist —until death, until crushed."

"Professor, this is called human beings. This is the will of human beings."

Roland sighed, and looked at the headless man who was silent on the spot with pity: "It's true, it doesn't matter if you replace the flesh, the bones, or even the internal organs. Human beings are not shaped flesh made of a pile of meaningless flesh and blood. piece."

"However, the moment you abandon your feelings as a human being, when you start to simulate your will as a human being with cold data, you are no longer a human being, but a pioneer with a respectable dimension. Kedo's entire memory, the robot named 'Professor'."

"You can only repel the dusk, but you can't save the world... because your setting is like this. [To defeat the dusk by any means]... Destroying the world is of course one of the ways to use any means."

Roland walked slowly towards the professor while talking.Every time he took a step, his body shattered.

With just two steps, he approached the professor.

A pure white flame gradually ignited from Roland's body, and light shone from the crack.

At this moment, the professor remained silent like a dead corpse, not making a sound.

Roland slowly closed his eyes, and the crystal crown gradually appeared on his forehead. The moment it appeared, the cracks on Roland's body ignited with white light.

"You are indeed the pioneer of the world, the undisputed sage...but I am running out of time."

"—I have only one choice."

　Plot branch——

　　1. Kill the Professor

　　2. Kill Victor
　　
　
(End of this chapter)