Soul Eater Of The Rebellion

A Being of the Same Origin

I can"t stop the maggots.

–I"m being eaten.

Bite, chew, slurp- my body was disappearing as if it were melting.

–I"m being EATEN.

I can"t stop them. They won"t stop.

The screeching sounds that were echoing in this cave were surely the delighted voices of the maggots.

–I"M BEING EATEN.

My body was being eaten from the inside. Like a finished puzzle, pieces of my body are being taken apart one by one as my body senses disappeared.

–I"m going to die.

I"m going to die at this rate. No, I was already a dead man long ago. Nothing can save me now.

――Giving up?

I had already given up. I"m sure that I had given up long ago. Sora Mitsurugi didn"t become anything at all.

――Truly an idiot.

Ah, yeah, I am an idiot. But what can I do other than to give up in a situation like this?

――Eat.

Eat what?

――Eat them.

What? These maggots?

――Right.

What good would it do to try so hard to live? I doubt it"d help anyway. In the first place, even if I can eat the dozen of maggots that have gone inside my mouth, there"s no way I can stop the hundreds of maggots on my body. And even if I managed to get rid of the hundreds on me somehow, there"s probably still a few thousand left in this cave. It won"t do anything in the end.

――That"s why…just obey… and consume.

I don"t want to be eaten. I don"t want to die. But there"s nothing I can do about it. The weak is unneeded. That"s how it is. I was unneeded by the island, unneeded by the city; I"m just someone who"s unneeded. Even as a swordsman, or as an adventurer, Sora Mitsurugi is someone who is not needed! My father"s words were all too right!

――Annoying.

…Annoying, you say?

――If thou perished just like that, wo"n"t thy father laugh?

No, he won"t. I bet his expression wouldn"t change at all even if he saw me in my last moments. I was already dead to him when he banished me from the island. But…Ah, yeah, I"m sure Raguna would though. Ayaka, Gozu, Cecil, and all the other pupils will probably mock me too like "I guess Sora Mitsurugi was only a man of that level, after all".

Everyone in 『Falcon Sword』, the guild"s receptionist, and the inn father and daughter would surely do that as well.

――Thou art real annoying.

…Yeah, that"s right. I"m annoying, aren"t I? To be talking about those guys even when I"m at the verge of death in this helpless situation. You"re right. Whether it"s ten or twenty, I should be taking some of the Fly Lord"s children with me. Luckily, I could still move my mouth. It feels like my teeth were still there as well, so I can still crush them with it.

――Start eating, then.

Oh, I"ll eat. I"ll just eat them until I"m dead since I"m going to die anyway– Yeah, if I was going to struggle regardless, I"d rather go nuts and eat them all. If I can pull it off, maybe I could still cling on to my life. I"ll eat a couple dozen of them, a couple hundred of them, or even a couple thousand of them, since what I have to do wouldn"t change much.

――Eat. Eat them all.

It"s to be eaten and die or to eat to live, right? Then I have no choice. Ah, why didn"t I realize something so simple before?

――Eat… everything… in this world.

Not just the maggots. The ones who looked down on me, the ones who despised me, the ones who betrayed me as well…

――Thou and I.

If only I could just swallow them all in one bite. Ah yeah, that would really hit the spot after these eighteen years.

――I and Thou.

Sora Mitsurugi was a person who couldn"t do anything. He couldn"t fight, he couldn"t protect

――We… of the same origin… we art one and the same.

I"m a n.o.body, you know? What can a guy who can"t even keep the oath he made to his mother do?

――In here… we… shall be reborn.

I will just eat everything here, that"s all I could do.

――From now on… I will be…your soul equipment.

After the conversation with I have no idea who, I emerged into a new realm of consciousness.

…In the end, I had a strange vision.

A desolate land filled with rocks and mud for as far as I could see.

There, a gigantic tree stood tall in the middle of that place. It was an oak tree.

And next to the oak tree, there was a huge figure as big as a small mountain sitting there, as if it was guarding it.

That giant creature with scales that were as black as the night sky was a dragon no matter how I looked at it.

The strongest race within all the mythical races of this world.

It raised its long neck and looked at me, probably because it had noticed me looking.

I did not understand a dragon"s expressions, nor did I speak the dragon"s language.

And yet, I felt like the dragon was smiling at me.

Moreover, I felt like I could even understand its words somehow.

The dragon gave me its name.

Its name was――