Demi-human Girls Completion Manual Chapter 1565 - 89: Not So

The extreme pain made Fisher instinctively want to escape, to flee to a place where the pain could not catch up with him, to flee to a place that was absolutely safe.

His consciousness thus, on reflex, ran off toward an unknown direction, until it shook off everything around him, turned everything he had experienced into a dream, and cast it into a confusion where no path could be seen.

In this flight, it was as if he had never obtained that thing called the Demi-human Girls Completion Manual; as if he had never left Saint Nali at all.

Then, if that were so, before Gedelin IX was about to die, he too should have finally been unable to suppress the youth he had failed years ago, and taken the initiative to write to Elizabeth Gedelin. Just as in the letter that had never been sent, they would have met once more, and let all their past be melted away and forgiven.

Thus, Dexter would naturally have become Emperor, and he would also have fulfilled Elizabeth’s promise to hand over her military power, choosing an auspicious day for Fisher and Elizabeth to be wed.

If it had happened that way, they might well be living very happily now.

Of course, trouble would still exist; as long as it is life, trouble is bound to exist.

Fisher Benavides would be busy every day with his thesis and with various matters in the Royal College, for after Dexter’s accession, this old nest of the Griffin Party had been handed over to him, the Empire’s first Prince Consort, to manage.

Elizabeth Gedelin, too, would be at odds with her elder brother over many political issues. She despised his hesitation and stupidity on many matters, while he believed it was time she had a child with Fisher instead of meddling in his conduct every day. Because of this, they would probably have many fierce quarrels, and this anger would often be carried home by Elizabeth, where Fisher would have to comfort her personally.

The years should be passed in just such a way. The plain days would slip by one after another; Elizabeth would still love Fisher as she had at eighteen, and Fisher’s heart would still hold only her. Yet for some reason, Fisher always felt that something seemed to be missing inside him.

Perhaps it was when he asked why Elizabeth’s eyes were always so vacant and was brushed off with a smile; perhaps it was when he returned to the second-floor room in Lady Martha’s house and kept feeling there should be a faint fragrance there, yet even after running through every perfume shop in Saint Nali he could not find the same scent. Or perhaps it was that newly founded Saint Nali University, which he felt was familiar, yet when he went there he only happened upon Milica, who was reporting to the school that her roommate had suddenly vanished without reason...

That feeling made Fisher grow increasingly insecure. On instinct he wanted to seek a safe place, and so, following his impulses, he ran back to the place where he had grown up as a child—that Church School—hoping to pray to Teresa there.

It was still the same as before, only without Teresa everything had become especially deserted. It had always been an out-of-the-way corner that few noticed; now even when Fisher came, there was only the priest, already aged and hunched, cleaning the place.

The priest seemed as if he could not see him, and Fisher said nothing, merely sitting beneath the Mother Goddess Statue, quietly watching as the priest turned on the radio while he swept the church.

From the radio came news from all over the world.

Reports that in Philone City on the South Continent a mysterious phenomenon had appeared, frightening the local City Lords within a hundred miles into hurriedly taking their families and returning to the Western Continent; that the first pioneer, Blake, had mysteriously disappeared without a trace; that some mysterious gigantic creature had appeared near the coast; that the Turand Family in the Northern Sema Snow Mountain had suddenly been wiped out overnight...

But Fisher paid all this no heed. He perhaps felt a kind of familiarity, yet also felt it had nothing to do with him, like strange foreign anecdotes in a gossip paper—not half as intriguing as the latest Blast Magic that Schwali had developed.

He did not want to think about anything now; he just wanted to hide here like this, for only here did he feel safe, just like when he was a child nestled in Teresa’s arms, carefree.

Only when he did not know how much time had passed did the old priest finally stop his work, turn off the radio, and take a Holy Maiden Brand cigarette from his pocket, handing it to the bowed-headed Fisher.

Fisher was slightly taken aback, raised his head to look at the cigarette the old priest was offering, and after a moment’s hesitation still reached out to take it, murmuring, "Thank you."

"Hiss..."

The soft rasp of the match striking sounded, lighting the cigarettes in Fisher’s and the old priest’s mouths, burying their thoughts in a haze of smoke.

With the taste of tobacco, Fisher’s consciousness seemed to clear bit by bit. The pain that had spread deep into his soul, the terror of watching his own body turn little by little into sludge—these still left him with lingering fear even now.

He had gone through such agony countless times before. In the battles on the South Continent against Philone, things had still been manageable; in his confrontation with Blake, his Life Energy had once been drained until it was like a candle guttering in the wind; and in his desperate fight to the death with Erwin, he had again been hunted by Death, living from moment to moment on the very edge...

Through all of that, he had never once flinched. Yet now, when the Chaos had fully blossomed within him, making him hurt so much he wished he could die at once, he truly felt fear.