The Boss Wants to Die - Chapter 64

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The boss wants to die.
Chapter 64
“Are you awake?”
“Demon God……?”
He didn’t answer, only fingering his throat with skeletal hands.
Thinking he was searching for the Pendant, I pressed the Glass Bottle into his palm.
Aerial realized it was a fragment of shell, biting his lip as he pushed himself upright.
“You need more rest. Your fever hasn’t broken.”
“It’s all right.”
His voice came out hoarse and rasping.
“This fever will never break.”
“Never?”
“Did you do this?”
Aerial held the Glass Bottle up to the sunlight.
The shell fragment glimmered faintly inside.
I shook my head.
“Aktr kept it.”
“That person……. I see.”
The room fell silent again.
The high-floor Inn Room kept out most of the street noise below.
Only dust motes drifted through the air on a peculiar white hum, circling empty spaces.
Aerial stared at the Glass Bottle for a long time.
‘If I hadn’t asked, this Pendant would never have broken…….’
His heart felt hollow.
It seemed precious to him.
As I stood lost in thought, Aerial slipped the Glass Bottle into his Inventory and whispered softly.
“I have a favor to ask.”
I brightened and replied.
“Tell me.”
I was ready to grant it, if I could.
Some of this responsibility lay with me.
“There’s a place I want to go. In this condition, I can’t manage it alone. Would you take me there? I can offer payment.”
Payment for what?
I was about to say I’d take him as an apology when someone cut in.
“That’s not necessary.”
It was Aktr.
His massive frame filled the entire doorway, one leg braced against the floor.
“Payment isn’t necessary?”
Aerial’s wariness toward Aktr surfaced again.
I couldn’t understand why, but the two of them never seemed to get along.
Aktr’s deep voice answered back.
“We have to travel with you anyway. The NPC who broke your Pendant gave us a Quest.”
“…….”
“Since you’re still in the Party, an alert window must have appeared. You just didn’t see it in all the chaos.”
“I fail to see how that Quest concerns me.”
“It’s a Quest to reform you.”
Aerial’s eyes widened, then he began to laugh.
“I’m afraid you’ve missed your chance.”
He touched his neck, now bare, and continued speaking.
“This was my last bastion. With the Pendant destroyed, I can never return to what I was.”
“…….”
“I’m condemned to burn in this fire eternally, without even the mercy of death.”
Players do not die.
They lose their possessions instead and return to the Sanctuary.
‘But doesn’t returning clear all Status Abnormalities from the body?’
I tilted my head uncertainly.
‘Why does he speak as though the fever will persist?’
Aerial’s fever-dampened face twisted with anguish.
“This fever won’t heal even after death and revival.”
“…….”
“So just take me there. Even if I’m in pain, I’d rather suffer there.”
I decided to listen rather than press him further.
There was time enough.
I asked, my expression grave.
“Where do you want to go?”
Aerial answered.
“The Water Ruins.”
His lips trembled faintly, as though chewing over some bitter memory.
“The Water Ruins, Atlantis. I want to go there.”
***
Days passed.
Aerial Atlantis was scarcely surprised when the plans I had laid collapsed so utterly.
I had imagined him living a life where collapse could come at any moment, anywhere.
He had grown fat on the hatred of countless people.
And he moved with that same hatred turned back upon the world.
He despised everything.
He wanted every living soul to perish.
And such a draining existence always came to an end.
He never imagined he would stumble over something as trivial as an NPC.
‘I shouldn’t be sick with fever yet. Not before I have my revenge…….’
But his body, now limp and melting away, seemed to burn even his hatred to ash.
Revenge meant nothing. Only the scorching sensation ravaged Aerial.
“Hah, hah…….”
It felt as though he stood inside a vast volcanic crater.
Flames licked his tongue, searing every crevice of his body, and whips of fire lashed his skin with burning brands.
With each breath drawn, his head was plunged into an inferno.
His lungs cooked; he could not breathe.
“Aerial. Shall I bring you water?”
Aerial thrashed in agony, his eyes lifting toward the Demon God who sat beside him.
She had always been there.
Where anesthesia failed and Heal Skills proved useless, she simply remained.
At Aerial’s side. Always.
So he would not be alone.
In his delirium, he sometimes reached out his hand.
And a small, lukewarm hand would clasp his in return.
“Do you pity me?”
Aerial gripped her hand as though he meant to shatter it, his question raw.
A pair of eyes burned like flame—consumed by the fire demon—blazed with rage and suffering.
There seemed no moment when his heat would cool, leaving only ash behind.
“When pain that cannot end torments you, I have always wished for someone to be at your side.”
The Demon God replied calmly.
“Not for your sake. Looking upon suffering reminds me of myself—my feet simply cannot turn away.”
“For someone who claims that, your care is quite extraordinary.”
Aerial laughed bitterly, or tried to cough.
“If you behave with such warmth, who would ever think you a Demon God?”
― I never wanted to be a Demon God.
Aerial blinked, his eyes clouded with sweat and difficult to see.
He saw the Demon God’s face, streaked with tears.
He realized this was a hallucination.
His head throbbed dully, and blood flowed from her lips.
The tears she shed mingled with blood, trickling downward.
― Not once did I ever wish to become a Demon God.
“…….”
― Why did this happen to me? Why had it to be me? That is all I ever thought.
Aerial blinked slowly.
― Aerial. Do you understand what hatred is?
“…….”
― Hatred has its own momentum. Once it begins, it never stops—only grows worse. Your vision narrows more and more until finally, you are destroyed.
Aerial gazed down at his own body, half-consumed in the jaws of flame.
This, he thought, was the destruction the Demon God spoke of in the hallucination.
― But I can’t even destroy myself. I can’t die.
― Appealing to my sympathy won’t change anything.
Aerial’s mouth moved against his will.
He realized this too was a hallucination.
― What does your suffering have to do with me?
― Aerial. You have to listen to me. You can still stop.
― I don’t care about that.
Ah, such a vivid hallucination it was.
Like retracing the steps of the past itself.
― Whether you’re in agony or not, whether you can’t die or not—what does any of that have to do with me? Huh?
Aerial wept, wracked by fever.
Stop.
Don’t do this.
I know what it means—not to be able to die.
But the foolish Aerial in the hallucination kept wounding the Demon God with words.
― Wring more out of me. Have you nothing left to take from me?
He wanted to clap his own hands over his mouth in the vision.
Do you understand what you’re saying?
Don’t you see how deep the Demon God’s suffering runs?
You, of all people, should have understood!
But it was only a hallucination.
Aerial could change nothing.
Aerial Atlantis and the Demon God.
Two kindred souls.
What it meant not to be able to die, what it meant to have to live forever in this terrible moment.
The Demon God knew it well.
The ache of it was unbearable.
He wanted to tear himself apart—this version in the vision, wounding without understanding.
So he wept.
― This is the limit. Hurry and…….
― Kill me?
Aerial laughed with contempt as he spoke.
― Fine. I’ll do it. I’ve found a way. At least I’ll gain Experience Points from it.
― Good.
The Demon God smiled, his face streaked with tears.
He looked happy, yet something unutterably tragic emanated from him.
― Kill me. As quickly as you can.
― Then don’t resist.
― It’s not something I can control…….
― Don’t waste your breath on such things.
The Demon God looked up at him.
His expression held nothing but concern for Aerial.
― Aerial. When you take my Experience Points and grow stronger, don’t waste your time on hatred. Find another way.
― Ha!
Aerial burst out laughing, incredulous.
― Now that death is near, has senility set in? Are you asking me to forgive you? Have you lost your mind?
― I cannot do so myself, but you—if you don’t, you’ll spend the rest of your life burning in the fires of rage.
But Aerial sneered and raised his Staff.
For the offense against his temper, he intended to burn her slowly, methodically, leaving not a single strand of hair.
Soon the Demon God, engulfed in flame, screamed.
Just as he burned from within, consumed by fever.
He screamed as if those flames were swallowing him whole.
“Aaahhh!”
“Aerial?”
The Demon God rushed to his side in alarm.
There was no blood.
Her face was unblemished.
It was not a hallucination.
He had finally escaped.
“What’s wrong? Are you hurt somewhere?”
“Get away from me!”
He shook his head, breathing hard and ragged.
Feeling as though he were losing his mind, he grabbed a glass of water from the side table and splashed it across his face.
His body burned so fiercely that the room-temperature water clung to his skin like ice.
Chills raced across him, and he began to shudder violently.
“Why is this happening?”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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