The Last Place Hero’s Return - Chapter 251

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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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Chapter 251. Bitter Cold (6)
Whiiiiing!
A savage blizzard swept across the Frozen City.
A bitter cold so severe that breathing alone felt like ice crystallizing in my lungs.
Snowflakes whipped violently through the air, transforming the earth into pristine white Snowy Wasteland in the blink of an eye.
‘…Ah.’
It was a sight far too familiar to me.
For thousands of years in my past life, I had wandered searching for the Primordial Flame, witnessing this very scene so often my soul felt crushed beneath the weight of it.
The trauma I had desperately suppressed resurfaced, and nausea welled up in my throat.
“This is….”
The snowflakes touching my skin melted away softly.
As the snowflakes melted, what I felt was not extreme cold, but rather a gentle, almost warm sensation.
This was not because the blessing of bitter cold that Lanez possessed was weak.
In fact, everything except me froze solid the moment the snowflakes touched it.
‘She’s controlling the blessing.’
Lanez was deliberately regulating the power of her blessing so that I wouldn’t be swept away by the raging snowflakes.
‘Lanez.’
I gazed at Lanez’s back as she stood against Seria, a faint smile playing at my lips.
‘She’s changed.’
The Witch of Night who once slaughtered thousands upon thousands and froze half the Continent no longer existed.
What stood there was not a witch, but Raneez Malam.
Now, undeniably, she was a true Hero.
“F-first, I’ll freeze Dale’s limbs so he can’t escape… th-then, I’ll remove his clothes… ehehehehe.”
…A Hero, right?
“What in the world….”
Seria looked around at the pristine Snowy Wasteland spreading before her, her mouth falling open.
Freezing an entire city was something she could do.
Creating a blizzard, transforming the land into white snow—given enough time, she could manage it.
Yes.
‘Given enough time’.
“Th-this is impossible. How could she do this so quickly….”
From the moment the blizzard began to sweep across the land until the surrounding earth was covered in snow—merely ten seconds or so.
Naturally, it was not a phenomenon that could be created through normal means.
Unless an avalanche had poured down, there was no way enough snow could accumulate in ten seconds to transform the surrounding land into a Snowy Wasteland.
In other words.
That is to say.
“Lanez, you…!”
The power Lanez was displaying now transcended the laws of physics by an immeasurable distance—it was power that touched the realm of divinity.
“…Mother.”
Lanez took a slow step toward Seria.
I gazed at her with sorrowful eyes, slowly raising my hand high into the sky.
“Bloom.”
The howling blizzard ceased abruptly, and dozens—no, hundreds of snow flowers blossomed in the empty air.
And then.
“…Full bloom.”
Crash!
The snow flowers that had bloomed in the void opened wide, and snowflakes poured forth from within.
Not ordinary snowflakes.
Each and every one of them carried the power of divine blessing—bitter cold snowflakes.
“Kyaaaaaaah!”
Seria desperately tried to create a frost storm to block the blizzard, but in an instant she was engulfed by the snow, and her magic was forcibly dispelled.
Seria screamed from the backlash of her magic being dispelled, coughing up blood.
“….”
Lanez stood before her.
Lanez looked down at Seria with eyes turned cold and distant.
“L-Lanez… why… why are you looking at Mother like that?”
“…I’m sorry, Mother.”
I gathered snow flowers in my fingertips.
“Eek! W-wait!”
“I’m sorry.”
I took another step toward Mother, whose face had gone deathly pale as she stumbled backward.
The sharp blade of my gaze turned toward Seria, and then—
—Oh my, our daughter. Did Father scold you again?
Suddenly.
A memory from childhood surfaced.
—Come here, dear.
Seria, who had gently embraced me when Father scolded me.
The warmth of her embrace and the gentle touch of her hand patting my back.
—Don’t cry, Lanez. My daughter looks so much prettier when she smiles.
That memory from that day.
The warmth from that time.
Flooded through me like a broken dam, filling my mind completely.
“…Ah.”
My hand stopped.
I looked down at Seria with eyes so sorrowful they seemed ready to crumble at any moment.
Transparent tears streaming down my cheeks.
‘I… must end this.’
Yes.
This is my burden.
This is something only I can do.
So that’s—
“Ah, ugh.”
My hands trembled uncontrollably.
My chest ached as if being carved open by a blade.
I didn’t want this.
Even knowing Mother wasn’t in her right mind.
Even knowing she had committed unforgivable sins.
“M-Mom… I, your feet….”
I didn’t want to kill her.
I wanted to cling to the rotted rope of faded memories.
“Come back… to me….”
“Yes, that’s right, my daughter.”
Seria smiled gently and reached out her hand toward her.
“Come here, Lanez. Just like old times… Mommy will hold you tight…”
“….”
I knew.
That Seria hadn’t truly regained her sanity.
That vicious demonic energy rippled across the hand she extended toward me.
Yes.
I knew.
“M-Mom….”
Lanez reached out to grasp her mother’s hand.
Before their hands could touch.
A fierce crimson flame erupted between them!
Savage ash-fire blazed, severing the space between them.
And then.
A sickening thrust!
A blade wreathed in ash-fire pierced through Seria’s chest.
“Ah….”
Seria’s eyes widened in shock.
Ash-fire flowing along the blade consumed her heart.
“M-Mom…!”
I seized Lanez’s shoulder as she rushed desperately toward Seria.
“Lanez.”
I gripped her trembling shoulder with force.
“I killed her.”
“…D-Dale?”
“Look me in the eyes and listen. You didn’t kill her. It was I who drove the blade into your mother’s heart.”
Yes.
It was I, not Lanez, who took her mother’s life.
So then.
“You don’t need to carry guilt like that.”
There’s no need to torment yourself with the thought that you killed your beloved Mother with your own hands.
You didn’t kill her.
I did.
I’m the one who burned your faded memories to ash.
“Lanez.”
I wipe away the tears streaming down Lanez’s cheeks with my hand.
Watching her—timid, meek, always anxious about others’ opinions—stand alone on her own strength was a beautiful sight.
I had even cheered for her from afar.
But.
“Don’t try to bear everything alone like that.”
There’s no need for her to shoulder it all by herself.
“…D-Dale.”
Lanez suddenly pulled me into an embrace, tears streaming down her face like rain.
As she buried her face against my chest and sobbed quietly for a long moment.
“L-Lanez…?”
A voice so faint it seemed ready to break at any moment.
Seria, her chest pierced through by a blade, gazed at Lanez while a thin line of blood trickled from her lips.
“Mom…?”
“Ha, haha. Thank… goodness.”
Seria smiled weakly.
“You’re… alive.”
“Yes, Mom! Mom!!!”
I could sense it instinctively.
The Seria before me now was not the rampaging Eternal Cult Leader who had slaughtered people indiscriminately, but the mother that Lanez remembered.
‘Could it be that her heart burned in the sacred ash, restoring her sanity?’
My eyes widened as I watched light return to Seria’s previously hollow gaze.
The power of the sacred ash that burns stigmata.
The fact that Seria’s rampage had stopped because of that power meant.
‘Someone… touched Seria’s stigmata.’
It suggested that her stigmata itself had been tainted by another’s power from the beginning.
And the most likely culprit was.
‘The Eternal Cult Leader.’
I closed my eyes tightly, thinking of him whose name I still didn’t know.
“M-Mom…!”
Lanez cried out, her face turning pale as she stared at the blade wedged into Seria’s chest.
“W-wait! P-please! I’ll contact Iris! I’ll have her heal you, Mom…!”
“…No.”
Seria shook her head softly.
“You don’t need to apologize. Mother is already… long dead.”
“B-but!”
“It’s… all right.”
Seria’s trembling hand reached out to gently caress Lanez’s cheek.
“Just being able to see our daughter again like this… is more than a miracle I could ever ask for.”
“…Mother.”
“Lanez… come here.”
Seria carefully drew Lanez into her embrace.
“Our daughter… you’ve grown so much.”
She patted her back gently.
“Sob… Waaaahhh! Moooother….”
How long had it been since I felt such warmth?
The emotions I had suppressed all this time erupted, and tears welled up.
“Mother, mother, mother, mother, mother!”
“Yes.”
Seria smiled faintly and tightened her arms around Lanez.
After holding Lanez like that for a long while, Seria turned her head toward me.
“Your name is Dale, correct?”
“…Yes.”
“Thank you. Because of you… I was able to regain my sanity, if only for a moment.”
“….”
“Hehe. You have the expression of someone curious about who did this to me.”
I nodded silently.
“Well… I’m not entirely sure who that person is either. They always hid their face behind a mask.”
Seria continued in a voice so strained it seemed ready to break at any moment.
“All I know is… that person has hair as black as night, and that they’re a man.”
A man with black hair.
Even with many suspects, the information was far too vague to be called a clue at all.
“Hehe. I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help.”
“…No, not at all.”
“If I told you in detail about everything that happened after meeting that person… you might be able to uncover some new clues.”
Seria glanced down at Lanez, who was sobbing in her arms, and continued.
“But I don’t have much time left.”
“….”
“I know it’s a selfish request, but… could I spend my last moments with Lanez?”
“…Of course.”
No matter how important information about the Cult Leader was, this situation hardly called for interrogation.
I nodded and stepped back.
Seria and Lanez.
To give them time alone together.
“…Lanez.”
“Hic, uh, Mom… I’m sorry… I’m sorry.”
“Why are you apologizing, Lanez? I’m the one who should be sorry.”
Seria held Lanez close, exhaling a quiet sigh.
“Now, that’s enough. Stop crying.”
“M-Mom.”
“You’re far more beautiful when you smile than when you cry, Lanez.”
“….”
Lanez bit her lip and tightened her grip around Seria’s neck.
“Hah.”
Seria breathed through her gradually fading breath, a gentle smile blooming across her face.
“I’m grateful to be alive again.”
I knew the Cult Leader had resurrected me only to use me as a tool.
And yet.
I offered silent gratitude to the Cult Leader in my heart.
Because of the brief life he had given me, I could now speak words I had never been able to say before.
“Lanez.”
I gazed at my weeping daughter and smiled radiantly.
“I love you.”
“M-Mom…!”
“I’m a failed mother who couldn’t protect even one daughter properly… but giving birth to you was a miracle my life will never know again.”
I pressed my lips to Lanez’s forehead.
And embraced her as though cradling a precious treasure.
“You’re so warm… my daughter.”
Warmth spread through my body as it grew cold.
Within the howling blizzard.
A gentle heat that could melt.
Even the bitter cold itself.

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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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