BONUS SHORT STORY II

The Melancholy of Lou Doles

 

 

Looking back, Lou Doles’s life had always been in darkness.

Her birthplace no longer existed. Apparently, it had been engulfed by the flames of war and destroyed, but she’d never learned the details.

She didn’t know what her parents looked like, either. The earliest thing she could remember was being all alone in the world—as a slave.

There had been many like her, and she’d probably been lucky to have survived at all.

Or maybe she would have been happier to die ignorant. Still, the first people who had taken her in had been merchants, and it was at least fortunate that she was able to learn some things from them.

That had probably been the highlight of her life. Lou was a commodity to be sold. And to sell her for a higher price, they’d made her learn many subjects, starting with reading, writing, and household chores. Almost no freedom had been afforded to her, but she’d been treated rather decently for a slave.

And then, through a series of events, she passed through many people’s hands, eventually coming to Horos Kamen.

She didn’t actually remember much of the time right after she’d been sold. Her instincts had probably refused to let the memories stay.

The dense presence of death had made her emaciated, and working far from human settlements had driven her to loneliness. The only silver lining was that Horos didn’t see her as anything but a slave. If he’d actually treated her like a test subject, the hell awaiting her would have been even worse. And the chances of that had certainly not been low.

Lou obeyed orders without thought. That was her sole responsibility. Sometimes she assisted with forbidden experiments, and other times she went to dispose of corpses.

The necromancer Horos Kamen was a fearsome man. He proved his darkness in every facet of his life. Many a knight, mercenary, and sorcerer had attempted to slay him, but he had bested each one. Lou had witnessed the creation of wicked monsters several times as well. Horos was the strongest of all.

No matter how many years passed, Lou never got used to the lord’s dark powers.

She had, most likely, been no more than a mediocre person. She could neither go forward with her life nor run away.

She was altogether powerless. And she never grew one bit, whether from lack of nutrition or because she lived in darkness for so long.

After a time, Lou had stopped letting the painful emotions show on her face. It was her method of self-defense. But that obviously didn’t mean she’d stopped feeling them.

If anyone was to learn about her situation, they wouldn’t sympathize with her. Whatever the reason, she was now allied with an enemy of the world, and that made her the very same.

She’d had a vague sense that a miserable fate awaited her. She was constantly terrified of death.

She’d committed crimes. Already, her soul was thoroughly corrupt. However she died, it wouldn’t be pleasant.

…And the end had come quickly and easily.

The catalyst had probably been that terrible ghoul. She’d seen many undead that Horos had created in the past, but that ghoul was clearly not normal. He had intelligence. He had the ability to reason. And he was calm.

He was too human. He’d used Lou to try to destroy Horos, their master.

He’d evoked fear. But everything was over and done with now.

Lou’s end had been much, much more normal than she’d imagined it.

A silver arrow had pierced her chest, and all strength had left her body. There had been no pain.

The last thing she’d seen was the face of the beautiful Ender Knight who had tried to save her.

Lou could see a prayer for her in the girl’s expression.

And she could say, for certain, that she had held no grudge toward the Knight.

Lou, who had known about the Ender Knights, forgot her fear in that moment—it had been a long time since she hadn’t been afraid—and felt at peace.

Which was why Lou was quite surprised when she found herself looking down at her own corpse.

Her body was very light—probably because she’d been released from the confines of her flesh. She glanced down and saw she was transparent, wearing a loose, white dress she’d never worn before. She could soar into the air just by thinking and pass through walls and floors.

It all made her feel strangely cheerful.

Lou had a certain degree of undead knowledge, having served as Horos’s slave and listening to his mutterings for so many years.

The souls of the dead who harbored powerful grudges would turn into wraiths if they were corrupted by a necromancer, and if they bore other regrets from life, they would become ghosts. Lou didn’t remember Horos ever casting any magic on her, so she must have been the latter. Her appearance made perfect sense in that light.

But why…? I don’t have any regrets.

As she floated down the thoroughly familiar hallway, mulling it over, she noticed that the hallway, which had been so dark she couldn’t properly walk in it without a light, now appeared to be bright as day.

Ghosts were extremely weak undead beings. Even necromancers couldn’t see them without using magic. She probably wouldn’t have to worry about Horos Kamen finding her.

She thought about it. If there was any lingering regret within her that she herself hadn’t realized, it was probably that she wanted to see what became of the Ender Knights who had killed her.

For a moment, she hesitated, but she was already dead. There was nothing else she needed to fear at this point.

With a twirling flutter of her dress, Lou flew, as though sliding, in the direction the Knights were headed—to the hall in which Horos Kamen waited.

That which was occurring in the hall was a battle unlike any Lou had ever seen.

The Ender Knights boasted even more strength than she’d expected. All of those who had attacked Horos in the past had been victims of overwhelming defeat, but this fight was on a different level entirely.

The Knights’ power was real power. And Horos was serious as well. This undead creature he controlled—a wicked black dragon—was stronger than any Lou had seen, and light burned it away, over and over again.

In a stroke of poor luck, the dragon’s breath passed right by where Lou was as she watched the battle.

She yelped reflexively but felt neither pain nor heat. She quickly checked herself over, but her dress didn’t have a single tear. That was when she finally came to the realization.

Unlike wraiths, who had power, ghosts had extremely scant ability to interfere with the world. That basically meant she wouldn’t be affected by the world, either. Neither the Ender Knights nor Horos seemed to realize she was there.

After that, she felt like she was watching a play.

Lou cheered on the Knights with a passion in her voice she hadn’t experienced in so long.

Lou didn’t resent Horos, but that was because she’d lost all her will to rebel after so many years living with him—she certainly wasn’t obeying him because she liked to. She didn’t have a duty to support him even after her release.

The battle looked to be a draw. Horos was destroyed many times, but each time, he came back to life. But the Ender Knights weren’t backing down, either. A ribbon of light that glowed like the sun mowed through the dragon and incinerated Horos.

And then, Lou noticed something.

She couldn’t see that ghoul, End, anywhere. Had he still not returned?

He was smart, so maybe he was waiting for the Ender Knights to exhaust themselves.

She doubted he’d already been destroyed. Despite being a newborn, he had tricked the cunning Horos Kamen and even launched a surprise attack on him. And he had guts.

Lou thought End was a frightful man, but she didn’t harbor a grudge against him. She had hated him, once, but that was in the past. And unlike Horos, he’d never threatened her.

At the end, they’d even made a promise. She was uneasy thinking about whether he’d keep it, but it had given her a tiny bit of hope in those few days after they’d made it.

And then, after thinking it through as she floated lazily in the air, her eyes flew open.

Wait. Now that she was a ghost, she could check to see if he carried through on his promise. Maybe that was why she’d turned into a ghost—because her heart still had one regret. But she hadn’t turned into a wraith.

Lou was sure that, after all this was over, her soul would be called to heaven.

She wasn’t afraid of it. If he didn’t make her a grave, she’d come back to haunt him—that was how calm she was, to be able to consider such things.

The dragon’s roar and Horos’s angry shouts reverberated. Then, there was a flash of light.

The mansion that Lou had maintained for so long—that had entrapped her for ages—was collapsing.

She watched it fall to ruin, feeling her chest tighten.

The battle ended shockingly easily.

Horos, who Lou had always feared, that person she had thought invincible, that sorcerer who had obliterated numerous enemies in the past, was wiped out at the hands of the Ender Knights.

It was the result of a fierce contest, of course. The Knights’ faces had looked just as desperate as Horos’s had, and by the time the fight was over, the sun—which had been directly overhead before—was now well on its way to sinking below the horizon.

The winners were utterly exhausted, too. And yet the death of Horos, that absolute existence, came as a shock to Lou.

She couldn’t even move. When she’d finally come to, the Knights had already left.

Lou knew how much Horos had toiled for this ritual. She didn’t know what it was for, but he’d put almost all of his funds and time into it.

But now not even a scrap remained of Horos, the one who, even from an outsider’s point of view, had harbored such a deep, powerful tenacity.

It seemed unlikely he’d become a ghost like Lou. Was that because the Knights had destroyed him? The air drifting toward her from the hall, which had always been so muddy and cloudy, seemed somehow pure now.

Perhaps this was what people meant when they claimed that even the prosperous inevitably decayed.

Either way, there was no doubt Horos had perished.

Now there was no more chance of Lou’s soul being bound again.

With that strange feeling of floating off the ground, she flew toward her corpse.

---

“I’ll make you a grave.”

That monster had said it with a somehow somber expression.

“I promise you. The lord would never bury you if you died, so I promise I’ll make you a grave and bury you so that you can rest in peace. I’ll make sure he doesn’t try to control you with necromancy—if I’m still alive, that is.”

End was a good actor. He’d deceived Horos once, and it had even gotten Lou herself punished.

But there was something in those words she felt she could trust. The look on his face didn’t seem like it was lying.

Maybe it was just because Lou wanted to believe him, but before realizing it, she’d already agreed. That was when she finally came to fear not her own death, but for the first time, what would come after.

She’d gotten a paper and pen, like End had asked. They’d been easy to find. Her master wasn’t interested in anything but his research, and Lou had permission to go in any of the other rooms besides his laboratory. She used a pen and paper to make orders for food, too, so they’d been well within reach. She hadn’t been able to get End to tell her what he’d use them for, but he seemed to like reading, so maybe he was going to use them to study or something.

In any case, she’d collected the items, which meant it was time for End to keep up his end of the promise.

He wouldn’t be able to if he’d been purified, of course, but she’d deal with that if it turned out to be true.

When she thought about it now, though her vision had been clouded by all the terror, that ghoul’s situation was just as miserable as Lou’s own. In fact, his might have been worse, given that his soul had been toyed with after his death.

Lou’s corpse was where it had been before. But it was buried under rubble, most likely knocked over by the evil dragon’s breath, and she could only see a little bit of her white skin.

Horos’s mansion was fairly large, and it was all a wreck now, so it would probably be difficult to find her.

That wasn’t good. At this rate, her body would be abandoned here, and she’d rot away without anyone ever knowing.

Being buried in a grave was a dream within a dream. She hastily reached out to move the rubble, but her fingertips passed right through it without catching on anything.

She wondered if there was any way she could give End a sign, but she couldn’t come up with anything. There wasn’t anything a mere soul like her could do. Her presence was probably even thinner than the air itself.

What would happen to her if she wasn’t buried?

For now, she didn’t feel any pain, but she couldn’t quite tell, since she’d only just become a ghost.

At a loss, she suddenly spotted a familiar figure in the direction of the forest.

Unconsciously, her face softened, something it hadn’t done in a long time.

It was End. He’d survived. Her master had died, yet End didn’t have a scratch on him, and he was approaching the mansion’s remains.

What tenacity—what shrewdness.

That jet-black cloak was what he’d worn when they’d gone to the town together. He didn’t look like much of an undead, walking so calmly under the sunlight like that.

Lou had gotten used to floating. She gently glided over to his side.

He must not have been able to see her after all. Even if she went in front of him, he never looked her way.

But he was coming to the aftermath of destruction. It could have only been for one reason.

“Over there! My body is over there!” she cried, knowing that her voice would be unheard and that her pointing would be unseen.

End strode purposefully toward Lou’s corpse, eyes darting around the ruins.

“…I can smell it from this direction.”

“?! No, it doesn’t! It doesn’t smell at all!”

After saying things that made Lou extremely displeased, End arrived next to the corpse.

He easily lifted a huge mound of rubble with his slender arms and dug out Lou’s body.

Now that she could see her corpse in the sunlight, it looked like she was sleeping peacefully. The corpse was almost unharmed, too, despite being buried under debris, and even the silver arrow sticking out of her chest that had killed her gave off a somehow mystical air.

End looked down at her body silently for a few moments, then said, in a voice full of deep compassion, “As promised…I’ll make you a grave. And I’ll even pray for you, so you can rest in peace. See? It was a good thing you made that pact with me.”

“……” Her words caught in her throat. And then the emotions she’d been holding in this entire time came flowing out.

Wiping her tears, Lou simply nodded several times, filled with gratitude.

She felt deeply fulfilled for the first time in a long while. End’s hands were precise from start to finish, with consideration for the deceased girl, making that unease she’d felt right after the promise seem like a lie. As it did to the fear she held for him in the past.

“Sorry about this. I don’t really know the proper way to bury people… I was buried once myself, but I don’t remember it. Oh—I should take this off.”

“It’s okay… Thank…you… Thank you!”

Lou had never expected she’d be laid to rest in an actual grave.

End pulled the arrow out, unheeding of the damage it did to his own body, wiped off the dirt, and even removed the slave collar for her. And then he put a flower there, too, even though it was just something that had been growing nearby.

The gesture alone was enough for Lou. She cried and couldn’t stop.

After his final good-bye, End buried her body deep in the earth.

Lou was satisfied. The promise had been kept. She had no more regrets.

For the first time, she gazed into End’s face without fear.

His face looked young—much younger than Lou had ever seen it before.

He had uncommonly white hair and dark eyes. He wore a plain black cloak, which had belonged to Horos, but he was still distinctively End. He was probably only in his midteens—certainly younger than Lou, at least, who was twenty.

What would he do now?

End was her savior. Considering all that had transpired, she wouldn’t need to worry, but she felt a little bit anxious.

End had returned in spite of the dangers to fulfill his promise. He’d prayed for Lou. In that case, Lou would pray for him from the heavens, for his future, which was sure to be full of ups and downs.

End briefly gazed at the spot where Lou was buried, then went back to the mansion and brought a large stone.

Did he mean for it to be a gravestone? His spelling was a little off, but he did carve Lou’s name into it.

“That’s…enough. Thank you… Please, run away…”

Lou was certainly happy about it, but if he stayed too long, the Ender Knights might return to take care of any unfinished business. The chances were slim, but if End was discovered, he would be in big trouble. And she would have a new regret.

Unaware that Lou was watching with suspense, End frowned. He tilted his head to the side and muttered, “…Looks lonely with just the first name.”

“?!”

Huh? …Wait—hold on!

The unexpected event bewildered Lou, and she panicked.

She’d never told him her last name.

End affixed a name to the gravestone. It was a last name but not one Lou had ever heard before.

“No! That’s not the right name! It’s not my name! Whose name even is that?! How dare you look pleased with yourself—”

Unfortunately, End couldn’t see her red-faced, jumping around, complaining to him.

Sure, she hadn’t made any detailed requests when they made the promise, but he’d carved some random name just because the grave “looked lonely”! Where was his common sense? She needed to know what that name was, or else she’d never rest in peace.

Ignorant of her, End offered a reverent prayer.

A few moments ago, Lou would have broken into tears, moved at the sight, but now that an unknown last name had been added to her makeshift headstone, the only things coming out of her mouth were objections.

Her name was one of the very few things Lou had ever owned.

“Put it back! Fix it! Why did you have to go and do that?! Stop! Who are you praying to?!”

Speeding around and around, she flew at End, but like before, she felt nothing in response.

Right now, in this moment, Lou wanted so badly to come back to life and complain to him.

Now she knew that he was careful and considerate but had an age-appropriate sloppiness only when it came to odd things.

She’d always vaguely recognized as much from the very beginning.

His conversation with Senli, the young woman from the Ender Knights, utterly aggravated Lou.

Lou had been surprised when Senli had suddenly returned and spoken to End, but her anxiety had already dissipated. All she could do was desperately make retorts.

“Were you…her friend?”

“No… We were…family.”

“No, we’re not!!”

What was this man even saying?

Lou clenched her teeth, but her words would no longer reach him.

The two of them had eventually managed to compromise, but she had always feared End, and he had tried to use her for his own means. Her feelings for him were a little different again now that he’d kept his promise, but at the very least, their relationship hadn’t even been a friendly one, much less a familial one.

End would have known that, too, but he was putting on such an overblown act that you had to laugh at it. Plus, the Ender Knight lady, who appeared somehow unsophisticated, seemed to buy it hook, line, and sinker.

“Stop it! Don’t make up strange stories about me!”

It really got on her nerves that she hadn’t cared about any of this in life. She raised her voice in emotion for the first time in a long while.

“But now she’s finally at peace. She wouldn’t have had any future, even if she’d stayed Horos’s slave. Deep down, she wished for death. I didn’t have it in me to save her. You and your friends did, Senli.”

“I am not at peace! I can’t rest in peace unless you put the name on the gravestone back the way it was! Stop making this into some heartwarming story!”

“Sure is inconvenient having an undead body at a time like this. I feel so sad, but I can’t cry.”

“Give me a break! You’ve never been sad in your life! Hey! Senli, not you, too! Don’t let his blatant lies play with your emotions!”

It had been surprising to learn that End still had the memories from his life.

But he was still an impostor, after all. And he’d been the one who had summoned the Ender Knights. In other words, everything about this situation was all his fault.

“Lou helped me. Horos Kamen was plotting to conduct a terrible ritual. If it went much longer, he may have commanded me to attack the living. I wanted to avoid that at all costs. It was good luck that you and the Ender Knights had come to a nearby town. I retained my humanity thanks to that.”

“I didn’t know about it! I didn’t help you willingly! Stop trying to tie a neat little bow on what happened!”

She didn’t resent having died. It had been a long time since she’d last shouted like this. It was much more comfortable now than her life had been, but that was another matter entirely.

End was a monster, through and through. He’d deceived not only Lou but even Horos.

If he still had his memories from when he was human, he must have been like that when he was alive, too.

“Senli, don’t let him trick you! He’s a scoundrel!”

“Fortunately, nobody lives in this forest. I plan to carry out the rest of my life in peace, watching over Lou’s grave. I can hunt animals for food, so that’s what I’ve been doing.”

“That’s not your plan at all! You made such a show out of sucking the blood off your fingers right in front of me!”

“Thank goodness… I’m sure Lou is happy, too.”

“Well, I’m not!”

Alas, she’d never thought her voice going unheard, or having a body without flesh, could be this irritating.

Her desperate objections fell on deaf ears, and eventually Senli left. End resumed his tasks not a moment later.

He went back to the ruins of the mansion, found a bag in the rubble, then filled it with various things.

Lou was baffled. He’d been so shameless, and now he was going to break his promise with Senli and run away. His movements weren’t hesitant. It was so sudden it was almost refreshing. There wasn’t a trace of wickedness on his face.

“At least fix my grave before you leave! Keep your promise! Whose last name is that supposed to be anyway?!”

---

What happened after that was a tumultuous series of events. She had certainly predicted that such things would happen to this boy, but not to this extent.

Horos Kamen had revived (albeit as a wraith) and tried to possess End.

And just when she thought End had fought the threat off, this time the Ender Knights arrived.

Forgetting her earlier anger, she watched End’s battle, flustered all the while.

She couldn’t deny being mad that he’d done something strange to her grave, but she didn’t want him to die.

It seemed End had a much odder fate in store for him than Lou.

“You can do it! I believe in you!”

She thought she would pass out when she saw him reduced to just a head. It was a far grislier manner of death than her own. Perhaps he was an intolerable undead, but he couldn’t have had committed crimes worthy of all this being done to him.

She’d tried lying over her buried corpse to test whether she could make it come back to life, but it unfortunately didn’t work.

All Lou could do was encourage him in her voice that he would never hear.

Lou was relieved when Senli returned, and when the young woman offered him her neck, Lou couldn’t tear her eyes away.

“Don’t you think it’d be better to just quit while you’re ahead? You’re definitely gonna get killed.”

Without a mind for Lou’s worries, End advanced even farther.

He risked his life, detested by all, and still never stopped. He went to where the Ender Knights were and blustered. His voice was unhesitant, but even the timid Lou could see he was scared.

And yet—he had an amazing power of will. To plunge on even through terror, in situations where anything could happen, and he would die… His survival instincts certainly didn’t seem like the kind an undead would have.

Lou now had a small regret.

She wondered if the world was really wonderful enough to want to survive. She wished she’d tried just a little harder. The vitality in End’s actions was enough to make her think that way.

But it was all over now. Even End had an ally. She didn’t know what would happen going forward, but if End had Senli—the one who had tried to save Lou from the brink of death—by his side, things would be fine.

Part of her wanted to watch them a little longer, but as a ghost, she couldn’t do anything for them. The whole situation with her grave was a shame, but…she couldn’t do much about that, either. Lou had died. She couldn’t remain in this world forever.

She returned to the forest, then floated around in front of End again.

She said her farewell. Her voice was trembling.

“Thank you. I’ll…be cheering you on. Good-bye.”

Lou reached out a hand and touched his cheek. She didn’t feel anything, and End wasn’t looking at her, but it was enough.

And then, with a single, peaceful smile, Lou turned and climbed her way toward the glowing moon.

May this miserable undead’s future be a happy one.

---

“…Um. I’ve been waiting and waiting, but I’m still here… Now what?”

End didn’t answer her quivering voice. He had no reason to—he couldn’t hear it.

More and more at a loss, Lou flew behind End and Senli. Her spectral body didn’t know physical exhaustion, but her mind wore out all the more for it instead.

In the end, no matter how far she flew, she was never able to disappear. But that wasn’t the main issue.

Tears in her eyes, Lou waved her hand in front of End’s face—he looked like he was plotting something sinister—and said:

“…You’re dragging me with you. Did you…? Hey, did you do something to me?”

It seemed the melancholy of Lou Doles would continue for at least a little while longer.