The Boss Wants to Die - Chapter 73

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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.
Episode 73
I’d been waiting to see how it would end, curious what conclusion we’d reach.
But I slapped Aerial’s sagging cheek hard.
Crack!
I held back just enough that he wouldn’t die from the blow.
If I’d hit him with real force, his neck would’ve snapped clean off.
“Ugh!”
Aerial flew to the right and rolled across the ground about ten times.
His cheek would probably swell up terribly; by tomorrow one of his eyes might not open properly.
But I didn’t care.
With a hard expression, I walked toward where Aerial lay sprawled, my footsteps echoing.
“Huh…….”
Aktr raised an eyebrow at the sight of Aerial knocked senseless by a single slap.
The loud crack of the blow seemed to have finally drawn their attention to us.
I spoke quietly.
“Aerial Atlantis.”
“…….”
“The Pirates here are illusions, but the real ones are scattered throughout Elinpia. Aren’t you going to catch them?”
“……You said to find another way. You said to forgive……?”
Aerial groaned and barely managed to respond.
‘Forgive?’
I had no memory of saying such a thing.
‘Is his mind wavering?’
I frowned and pressed on.
Either way, I had to correct his mistakes.
“Can’t you tell the difference between forgiveness and giving up?”
“…….”
“What kind of forgiveness is it to sink into defeat like this and just surrender? Do you have no thoughts at all?”
“Then what do you want me to do.”
Aerial didn’t even bother trying to lift his sprawled body, just answered from where he lay.
His posture spoke of utter despair.
I wanted to slap him again but forced myself to hold back.
“What do you want me to do, you ask?”
Aerial didn’t answer.
I swallowed down the sigh boiling in my chest as I looked down at his cheek beginning to swell.
“Fine. I’ll tell you. What you need to do and how to do it. Seems like you don’t understand at all.”
As we nearly wiped out the Pirates, the flames died down and dark clouds gathered overhead.
Patter, pat-pat-pat.
Fine rain poured down like mist, blurring the pools of blood pooled on the ground.
Aerial lifted his head slightly to look at me.
The drizzle fell even on his eyes, which glistened with tears.
“Aerial, what you have to do first…….”
His red eyes—the same shade as mine—fixed on me, unwavering.
“It’s to forgive yourself.”
“……What?”
“You have to forgive yourself. The Pirates come after.”
Aerial’s half-closed eyes widened suddenly.
I spoke clearly, word by word.
“Yourself, who couldn’t stop the Pirates. Yourself, who could only watch everyone die. Yourself, consumed by hatred and who gave up caring for your own survival.”
“…….”
“Don’t you think you deserved to pay the price for that sin?”
The sin of being the sole survivor.
“……!”
Aerial’s eyes widened further.
I recalled his early days.
He’d dyed his hair red back then.
That was the symbol of Fever.
So Aerial had been secretly yearning for Fever all along.
Why else would he long for the pain of burning fire?
He wanted to atone for his sins.
Getting struck with fever before he could even take revenge—that clearly wasn’t part of the plan.
“Forgive yourself first. The you who blamed and condemned yourself.”
Aerial’s eyes, which had worn such a vacant expression, suddenly began to tremble.
I pressed on without pause.
“After that, you need to do something for yourself. Something so you can be happy again. Have you thought about what that might be? Of course you haven’t.”
He couldn’t possibly have.
Aerial had been driven by nothing but hatred for his enemies, by the desire to kill them.
Himself was never a consideration.
“The Pirates attacked years ago, you said. That means during all those years, while seasons turned over and over, you haven’t cared for yourself at all.”
……
“Think about how much that suffering has cost you. Apologize to that version of yourself. Forgive him.”
Ugh……
“Throw yourself away? What, you think you’re some object? Just because the Pirates treated the Water Tribe as rare commodities, you’re going to treat yourself the same way?”
Suddenly Aerial bowed his head low, his thin shoulders beginning to shake pitiably.
Beneath him, tears poured down in torrents.
After years so tormented that death would have been merciful, he was finally shedding tears for the first time……
tears shed only for himself.
Knowing that if silence fell, he’d be too embarrassed to let himself cry, I kept talking.
“Think about it, even now. What would make you happy?”
‘And cry all you need to while you can.’
He probably never had the luxury of crying freely.
What he needed most right now was sorrow and tears.
They scour away the aching, vicious feelings.
Like the rain falling now.
“Maybe the answer to happiness is hunting down every last Pirate and killing them. But you won’t feel truly satisfied. They’re Players, after all.”
I rubbed my jaw, thinking.
“When they revive, it’ll feel hollow. After you kill them, you’re supposed to become happy again, but that alone won’t be enough.”
……
“The Pirates, that situation, yourself……. There’s too much emotion binding you to this misery.”
What comes after he’s killed every Pirate?
Will Aerial feel relief, forget the Water Tribe who are already dead, and live happily ever after?
That can’t possibly happen.
The hatred that tormented him for so long won’t be extinguished just by killing.
Even if he finds and kills them a second time, a third, a fourth—it will be the same.
“You can’t be happy until you release the painful emotions that grip your life. Finding that way is the hardest part.”
Aerial kept his head bowed low, nodding.
He still seemed to be crying.
“You have to live your own life. Then maybe you’ll find a way to be happy, or maybe you won’t. Forgiveness is something you can only discuss after that. Not this kind of self-abandonment.”
Ugh, huh……
“How can you even speak of forgiveness when you’ve given up on yourself because of them? You can’t, can you?”
I’d been the same.
I had to die to be happy.
To live ‘my life,’ I had to find ‘myself’ first.
But I didn’t know what to do when that wasn’t possible.
I just rolled stubbornly toward my purpose.
I chose Aerial as my companion, and if he gives up now, won’t I have to endure the long years ahead alone, in solitude?
‘I want to keep going with Aerial.’
I had to learn things by asking him about what he didn’t understand regarding the game.
I really couldn’t leave Aerial in the Water Ruins.
I had to pull him forward.
Even if someone cursed me, saying this was just my selfishness after all, that it was a greedy thing to do—I didn’t care.
I couldn’t just watch Aerial collapse and give up.
I had to make him stand.
“First, let’s treat the fever. I won’t let those damned Pirates break you any further. You’ve lost enough.”
Hic, huh……
“Calm yourself now.”
Part of me wanted to let him cry longer, but at this rate he’d collapse.
I was bothered by the fact that I hadn’t completed the Quest perfectly yet.
“Stop now. Get up. Hurry!”
I shook the mud from his drenched body and hauled him to his feet.
Aerial wept with such force that his nose ran freely.
‘Like a younger brother,’ I thought.
I sighed and wiped his cheeks with my sleeve.
Even that simple gesture seemed to wash his face clean as the fine rain fell.
“So then.”
His voice wrung itself tight with anguish.
“What am I supposed to do? How do I live with this?”
……
“My family, my friends, my lover — they’re all dead. Only I survived. No matter how hard I struggle, they won’t come back…….”
“That’s not your—”
A deafening screech suddenly tore through my ears.
I’d been about to encourage the trembling Aerial when I clutched my head instead.
‘What is this? My head is splitting!’
‘No matter how hard I struggle, they won’t come back!’
It was nearly the same words Aerial had spoken, yet a voice entirely alien to his rang through my skull with a discordant shriek.
I had no idea whose voice it was.
‘Have I heard words like this before?’
Caught off guard, I drew in a sharp breath and went rigid.
“Ugh…….”
As if my skull were splitting in two, I gripped my head with both hands and groaned.
Aerial had his face nearly buried in the ground, so he didn’t notice the state I was in.
‘What is this memory?’
No matter how hard I searched through myself, nothing surfaced. It was a memory utterly foreign to me.
I pressed my forehead with my palm and staggered.
The throbbing pain made me want to slam my head against stone.
It seemed as though both skull and soul would tear apart from this anguish.
‘Why don’t you just die then? If you’re in such pain, why not drop dead right now?!’
‘You’re a failure!! Completely ruined! I knew this would happen! I should have broken you in through torture long ago!’
“Uhhh……!”
My shallow cry drowned beneath the sound of buildings cracking and collapsing in flames.
‘You tortured me?’
This time, my own voice rang out.
‘That’s rich. You’ve already tortured me once.’
‘Torture……?’
Suddenly, my body began to tremble as if I’d come face to face with an incomprehensible terror.
My entire frame soaked through with cold sweat, as though I’d glimpsed into a Pandora’s box that should never be opened.
I lifted my head, pale as death.
A world aflame, screams everywhere, the stench of blood hanging thick in the air.
I had seen this sight before.
The collapse of a Village.
The massacre of everyone who lived there.
A tragedy where families, friends, and siblings alike had lost their lives indiscriminately.
While I sat paralyzed, unable to speak, Aerial muttered something with his head bowed.
Tangled with the phantom voices, I couldn’t make out his words.
I gasped roughly for breath.
“I wanted to kill the Pirates in agony out of hatred, but this Fever has made even that difficult.”
‘I’ll kill you! In agony!’
Again, it was my voice.

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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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