kscans

Chapter 182 - Little One, Today

"So you've come."

"That I have."

The two figures sitting on the silver couch twisted their lips into ferocious smiles.

They were on a meticulously woven spider's web. It was the waiting area for the guardians who watched over the abyss. The celestial realm and the abyss were common to all worlds. In the abyss were buried the evil things banished from all worlds. And sometimes, those things would merge and give birth to an unbelievable creature. Such beings generally possessed powerful abilities and would try to escape from the abyss. It was the guardians' job to repel them and cast them back down into the depths.

The spider's web, commonly known as the silver couch, was a place connected to the world of Arcadia. If it was breached, the monsters of the abyss would manifest in Arcadia. Therefore, their duty was to repel them here.

《I'll leave it to you two.》

Huddled on the spacious web was a giant spider. The massive spider, about five meters tall, was jet black and had the appearance of a hairy tarantula. The splashes of vermilion that ran from the left and right towards its eyes were beautiful. This spider was the one who had spun the silver couch. Originally, she had been the guardian of the abyss.

After many twists and turns, she had saved the souls of two individuals who had been cast into the abyss with her silver couch, and had them help with her guardian duties.

"Leave it to us. Let's go, Cesare."

"Yeah. Count on me, Sapphard."

The person called Cesare grinned. He was a handsome man with glossy jet-black hair cut at shoulder length and eyes like obsidian that glinted sharply. He looked to be around twenty years old. His slender eyebrows arched challengingly as he drew his large bow taut with a giriri sound.

Seeing this, the young man called Sapphard leaped from the silver couch. He was an energetic-looking youth with gently waving blond hair tied back in a simple knot. He also appeared to be about twenty. His golden eyes sparkled like a mischievous child's as he charged towards something crawling up from the depths of the abyss.

Cesare, who had been narrowing his eyes to take aim, released an arrow, and as the monster flinched from it, Sapphard slammed it with magic. Using the recoil from the magic he cast, Sapphard soared through the air. Seizing the opening, Cesare loosed arrows one after another. The spider narrowed its eyes at the two who fought with perfect coordination.

《My, how things change.》

The spider's name was Joker. She was a demon who had settled in Arcadia after a tumultuous series of twists and turns. Incidentally, she also held a minor seat among the gods. To save the souls that fell into the abyss, she spun a net of salvation to catch the people of Arcadia, but she had never imagined that gods would come falling into her silver couch.

The two fighting before her were both former gods and humans.

Cesare, who had been stained with despair, stripped of his godhood, and cast down as a human. Sapphard, who, despite being granted godhood, grew weary of hope and rebelled against the gods.

Cesare, who was close to human, and Sapphard, who was close to god, had incurred the wrath of the gods for completely opposite reasons and were cast into the abyss. When they first fell, they were at each other's throats, their quarrels incessant, and they exasperated Joker. But what the two had in common was the desire to protect Arcadia.

"Bonnie's world..."

"Lucrezia's future..."

Clenching their fists tightly, the two gazed wistfully at the light of Arcadia floating in the far distance.

They were reincarnators. They had memories of their past lives, and the ones they wanted to protect were their most beloved. To protect those individuals, they would protect Arcadia. Though they would likely never meet again.

In Joker's view, filled with complex emotions, the two were struggling.

"Tch, it's stubborn! Sapphard, can't you summon your familiar?!"

"I can't! The surface world is busy right now! You too, right?!"

"What bad timing!!"

As former gods, they had familiars who served them.

Before they were cast into the abyss, the two had been tricked and ensnared by the Higher Beings, who were nobler than the gods, and were forced to fight the Spirit Kings that nested in the abyss. To defeat all the spirits who possessed power equal to or greater than the gods and had gone mad from loving humanity too much, the two were made to repeat brutal reincarnations as pawns in the hands of the Higher Beings and the gods.

They still couldn't forget. That fight, so gruesome and ghastly...

"...Hmph."

Romel stared fixedly at Little One, who was diligently moving her pen.

"Your imagination is a little too rich. ...Don't you think those two in the abyss would die of indignation if they saw this?"

In Romel's hands was a simply decorated book. The title was 'The Twin Walls of the Abyss'. It was a novel Chihiro had written with Sapphard and Cesare as the main characters. Incorporating Japanese-style fantasy elements and adventure, it was a work that had gained considerable popularity.

"Eh? But it's going to be a play soon?"

A woman of a certain age turned around nonchalantly. She was now Romel's wife and secretly worked as an author. Having found peace after many twists and turns, she had chosen the path of a writer at a turning point in her life. Not a path of homage based on knowledge from her past life, but a path of writing stories fueled by her own experiences. Her life, which had been not just complicated but had suffered multiple compound fractures, had come full circle to become her bread and butter.

They say most writers on Earth sell off pieces of their lives, after all. Yep.

Little One's life, which had originally been a grand adventure, was transformed by her own hand into a spectacular epic, with the events of each season being turned into a single novel and serialized.

Right now, she was writing a side story, something like an 'after story' of the abyss.

Romel, who was staring with a fed-up look on his face, glanced at the clock and spoke to Chihiro.

"We should go pick up the children soon. They'll end up staying over at the Count's house again, you know?"

"No way! Papa is way too soft on them! He'll get played for a wallet again!"

Drago, who was already sweet on his own child, was even softer on his grandchildren. He doted on them so much he wanted to put them in his eye and carry them around. His shrewd grandchildren took advantage of this and asked for things they couldn't ask their parents for.

"Oh, honestly!"

Chihiro hurriedly put down her pen and swished the hem of her dress.

"Well, Sakura is there too, so I doubt anything too bad will happen."

With Romel smiling gently and putting an arm around her shoulder, the two left the detached palace together, happily.

They were unaware that an arm had slipped out from behind the curtain and stealthily made off with the book 'The Twin Walls of the Abyss' that had been left on the desk.

For now, Little One did not know of the amusing future that awaited her, where she would be summoned by the two from the abyss, who wore dark smiles on their faces.

And behind them, an otherworldly being chuckled quietly.

Little One's world is doing great today♪