A Wild Last Boss Appeared! Volume 2, page 7
The bedding was a little hard, but given the fantasy setting, that was probably just par for the course.
Libra didn’t seem like she wanted to sleep. She was simply standing in a corner of the room.
Well, she was a golem so she probably just didn’t need to. I mean, she was awake for one hundred-ninety years straight when she was defending my grave.
Anyway, if she wanted to sleep she’d probably just do so on her own, so there was no problem.
After that thought, I let myself fall asleep.
＊ ＊
—Someone was yelling in an awful voice without a shred of kindness to it.
A little girl was being yelled at angrily by a man with white wings who must have been her father, at least by blood.
Parents yelled at their children. It wasn’t an especially rare thing; most people experienced this sometime in their lives. But this wasn’t anger due to concern for his child. There was only a selfish anger and a man simply venting his resentment at a little girl.
“Did you seriously injure someone else’s kid again?! What did I say?! Don’t hurt other people!”
“But, Father, they were the ones who hit me first, and a lot of them threw rocks at me. I was just trying to defend myself......”
“Shut up!”
A sharp sound echoed through the area.
The young girl knew it was because of violence brought down upon her by the living thing that was her “father.”
This always happened. This man never listened to what she had to say. He was simply playing at being her father, pretending to discipline her. But in reality, he only thought of himself.
That was why he so quickly resorted to violence if whatever she had been doing didn’t please him. He would never have said anything out of concern for his child.
Basically, he was only keeping up appearances. If the girl did anything, his reputation would worsen. That was why he pretended to scold her like this, shouting angrily like an idiot.
“I don’t remember raising you to be like this! Where did I go wrong?! Huh?! Tell me!” The man yelled in his awful voice, and the girl agreed inwardly.
Of course you don’t.
After all, she didn’t remember the man raising her at all.
All this man’s ever given me are jeers and violence.
Where did you go wrong? Everywhere. In fact, I don’t remember you going right anywhere.
“There are no parents who don’t love their children.”
Those were just simple, pretty words spouted by someone clueless who probably basked in their parents’ love their whole life. They probably had a sage expression, too.
There were tons of parents who didn’t love their children. Because they never wanted a child, or because the child was in the way, or because they were too noisy.
Or, because their wings were black...
For just those reasons, parental love could easily disappear.
The little girl never received anything even resembling love from the piece of filth that was at the very least called her father.
“...liar.”
Leaving behind that single word, the girl ran. She didn’t want to have to hear the man’s voice anymore and couldn’t find any meaning in continuing to talk to him.
That man is just a stranger. A stranger who just happens to share blood with me.
So I’m not sad. This isn’t painful. These droplets of water running down my cheeks are not tears. They’re not.
She ran.
She simply ran without even knowing where she was running to.
There was no place for her in this village.
Just for having taboo black wings... For having black wings, she was alienated, neglected, and discriminated against. Even though it wasn’t like she was contagious or would spread illness, she had rocks thrown at her, and if she ever fought back it was her fault.
Her only ally was her mother. But her mother was weak in constitution, and the girl didn’t want to worry her needlessly.
But the presence of her mother was a saving grace to the girl, and if that didn’t exist, then she would probably have long fled the village.
—Why did this have to happen to me? Why? Just because the color of my wings is different?
There were heaven-winged other than her who didn’t have white wings. They all lived clinging to each other as people under the same circumstances often do in a place the sun didn’t reach, the exact definition of slums.
If she’d gone there, she probably would have turned out differently.
But she didn’t know what the thing called her father would do to her mother if she left the house. The violence pointed at her might have instead been pointed at her mother.
—Why is the world this unfair? Why do we have to be this unhappy?
She couldn’t stop herself from cursing god.
A great god of creation? As if. Goddess of love? I’m gonna puke.
If there really is a god that overflows with love and mercy, then why is the world so full of unfairness?
There’s no point in praying. No one will reach out to help.
—No one will save me.
At such a young age, the little girl stopped relying on others.
Since nobody will help me, I’ll just have to do it myself.
She was still living at home and was given the bare minimum of food, but she didn’t know when that would stop. And more importantly, she had no intentions of continuing to live life like this.
That was why she wished to become strong.
She wanted to become strong enough to be able to wipe away all the irrationality and unfairness of the world.
I’m still young and weak, but one day for sure...I’ll take Mom and get out of this miserable life.
The black-winged girl, Lufas Maphaahl, vowed strongly to do so from the bottom of her heart.
＊ ＊
“...What the hell was that dream?”
I touched my palm to my forehead and opened my eyes.
It was a strange dream... Yeah, a really strange dream.
That was probably Lufas’ past, wasn’t it? At the very least, things happened that I had no memory of experiencing or even writing as backstory.
Still, Lufas wasn’t just a game character. She existed in this world, so it was only natural for her to have parents. The fact that she was persecuted for her black wings was also something that was easy to figure out.
I sunk into thought.
Lufas should have existed before I became her. Since this body was not originally mine, that meant that something else was originally piloting this body. Should it be called the real Lufas’ soul?
But right now, I’m the one who’s here. I—simply a player who doesn’t know anything of Lufas’ past—am here.
So where did Lufas go? Did she get shot off somewhere when I arrived? Or was she still sleeping somewhere within this body?
...Or maybe she’s still sealed in subspace, and I’m just a fake.
But if I was a fake, then what was with Lufas’ memories being in this body? Why was I so angry just seeing a man I didn’t know who happened to be Lufas’ father in a dream...? Why was I so resentful of the unfairness and irrationality of the world? How should I explain this wave of violently thrashing emotions?
“...Master Lufas? It seems like your heart rate is spiking.”
“Libra?”
Libra—the only one who didn’t sleep—called out to me, seeming concerned.
She seemed expressionless at first, but somehow I could sense the small variations in her emotions. She wasn’t emotionless. She definitely had a heart. And she adored and worried for me. Strangely, I felt as if we’d spent many years together.
“There is no need for worry. We only dreamed of a distant past.”
“A dream of the past, was it?”
“Yes. We had something of a bad dream. We woke up feeling like a girl again... That was it. There is no reason for you to worry.”
I can’t tell these people, can I?
That I’m not actually Lufas but just an impostor?
...I really can’t.
＊ ＊
“Now then, let us spend today sightseeing. All of you can move around in this capital as you please. But do not cause any trouble.”
First thing in the morning, I announced to Dina and the others that we would be staying here for a while.
I was interested in just what kind of country Merak had made for himself, and I was concerned about the living conditions of those with colored wings, like myself. I also had the personal objective of confirming whether Merak was like me or not, so there was no way I could leave this place that quickly.
Given that Megrez was a resident of this world only, I’d half given up. But I did hold a little hope.
The problem was how I would get in contact... Unlike Megrez, Merak had yet to give up the seat of the king.
This country was only inhabited by the heaven-winged, after all. Their lifespans were different. Unlike Svel, which was also home to many humans, this place was just for the heaven-winged right from its founding. So unless he invited a big revolt or something, there was no way Merak would step off the throne in a mere two hundred years.
In other words, Merak was even harder to make contact with than Megrez, who had retired.
“Taking separate action... I have concluded this does not pose a problem in combat.”
“Sightseeing, huh... Where should I go?”
Libra and Aries didn’t raise any objections in particular and seemed eager to go sightseeing. Actually, I couldn’t really tell whether Libra was eager or not. On the other hand, Dina was very expressive and clearly seemed happy about the idea.
“That sounds great. Then I’ll try going over to the white-winged faction’s town. I might find something fun over there.”
It was much harder for me to go visit that side of the country, so if Dina went, that would actually help me a lot.
Acting separately divided our power and invited more danger than normal, but that shouldn’t have been a problem with these people. Even if one of those Seven Luminaries or whatever came knocking, Aries and Libra had enough power to send them packing.
As for Dina... I still wasn’t sure how much strength she had, but I got the feeling she had enough to at least stay cheekily safe. I wasn’t that worried. Not to mention, she had the ability to teleport. If things got dicey, she could just teleport directly to me.
“Well then, let us split up for now. We will meet up at this inn later,” I said, leaving the inn.
Dina went off somewhere right after I did, and Aries also ran off in a different direction.
Libra... Ah, she’s flying off somewhere with her jets again. I already told her to stop that, since it’s so loud. What am I going to do with her?
Now then, I should go around this place myself.
Now that I was out of the inn, I started walking around town.
I kind of got the feeling that I was the center of attention, but I’d given up on avoiding it. It was only natural since I was covered head to toe in a red mantle.
It’d be nice if I had a more, like...nicer way of disguising myself... Maybe I could just take advantage of the “Lufas = Female” thing and dress as a guy? Since I’m already a guy inside, I shouldn’t make any big mistakes.
Hm? Oh crap, isn’t this actually a good idea?
Let’s try transmuting up a cross-dressing set as soon as I get back to the inn.
“...Hm?”
After walking for a while, I found myself in front of a building that reminded me of a Greek temple and was surrounded by several pillars. But while it looked like a temple, it was colored completely black.
A pitch-black temple? Feels like it’s full of ill omens.
But it’d piqued my interest, so I continued on into the temple.
I was weirdly excited, wondering just what kind of evil deity would be enshrined inside. As far as deities of this world went, Alovenus was the creator and its only god.
The ‘devil’ part of devilfolk kind of gave off the image of being a fallen deity, but they were actually nothing of the sort. They just took on the name as a sort of rebellion against Alovenus.
Other than that, there were also the five dragons that governed the five elements outside of Metal and Water, which Alovenus presided over. But that was just fluff and never appeared in the game. The MMO aside, the dragons never even appeared in the TRPG or the console game. They were just phantom characters that only got mentioned in-setting.
Now then, who’s being worshiped in here? Is it some sort of independent religion? Or is this not actually a temple?
I went deeper and deeper into the temple, passing by other visitors who seemed to be here to pray, before I finally came upon the statue that was their object of worship.
Long hair stretching down to the hips.
Pitch-black wings.
A unique sense of fashion with a mantle worn on top of a dress.
That was unmistakably me, Lufas Maphaahl. Strangely enough, I was currently staring at a statue of myself.
“This statue is...”
I was dumbfounded.
A gentle-sounding voice reached out to me. “Oh, how rare. A traveler?”
I glanced over at the owner of the voice and saw a young man with red-black wings smiling back at me.
His face was... Not great but not too bad, either? Unlike elves, who were all beautiful, the heaven-winged were normal or average-looking. It did kind of feel like we were better-looking than humans on average, but ugly heaven-winged were pretty normal.
Although, the heaven-winged based their beauty on their wings, so no one really cared as long as someone wasn’t extremely ugly. And to be normal even amongst the normal-looking heaven-winged? This red-black-winged guy was... Well, he must have had his share of troubles.
“You must be fairly surprised, seeing this statue.”
“Yes, quite surprised. To think that this temple worships the infamous Great Conqueror,” I replied.
The normal-faced young man seemed offended for an instant before his expression went back to normal.
Huh? Did I actually offend him by talking badly about Lufas? I was just saying the truth. The fact that he’s offended by that is kind of funny.
I had the urge to laugh.
“It’s true that to most of the world Lufas is an evil invader. However, to us, she is a savior.”
“Oh? ...We’d like to know more about that.”
Apparently this country...rather, this faction had an impression of me that was far removed from the greater world.
I decided to listen to him a little longer. I figured that if I did, I’d get to hear of a side of Lufas that I didn’t know of before.
“Did you know that the heaven-winged are a race that pride themselves on the whiteness of their wings?”
“Yes, We know that well. They claim to be descendants of angels, and that is why the whiteness of their wings marks them as superior, which is unique to the heaven-winged, correct?”
“Exactly. However, just because one is heaven-winged doesn’t mean that they will be born with white wings. Some, like me, are born with different-colored wings.”
Standards of beauty for the heaven-winged were mostly concerned with the color of one’s wings, with the shape of their wings being next. One’s face, body shape, and the like were next after that, so people like him with odd-colored wings got looked on with disgust.
Those with pure-white wings were not very common, though. Most heaven-winged had wings in a dim white that was pretty close to gray. I’d guess that having wings that were at least a light gray would barely be in the safe zone.
On the other hand, the closer to black one got, the more alienated they were. Of course, with my pitch-black wings, I was basically a pariah. And people like him, with wings that were an entirely different color, were immediately out of the running as well.
“With my position, it used to be really bad. Right now, we have our own town, so we’re able to live pretty well. But in the past, it really was awful. We weren’t even considered the same species. Just by walking down the street we’d be pointed and laughed at. We had no choice but to cling to other people in the same circumstances, living miserably in what were basically slums. Can you believe that? Just by having slightly different-colored wings we can’t even get decent jobs. We were constantly starving back then.”
The things he was talking about weren’t just limited to the heaven-winged.
People discriminated against others over the littlest of things, and mob psychology tended to make them think they were in the right. Once someone thought they were superior, reason no longer held them back, and even good people easily turned into demons or monsters.
In the “Stanford Prison Experiment” twenty-one subjects flipped a coin which separated them into jailers and prisoners. As a result, the jailers, which were treated as on top, quickly went berserk and far exceeded the calling of their station, oppressing the other students who had just happened to be prisoners.
In the end, the students who played the role of prisoners experienced severe emotional trauma, and the experiment had to be canceled in a mere six days. But the students who were jailers wanted to continue, claiming that wasn’t what was planned. Even then, they knew this was all an experiment, and their prisoners were innocent.
In other words, as soon as a human felt like only they should be on top, their sense of goodwill flew out the window and they became demons. Everyone had the capability to do this. So the heaven-winged, who claimed to be the descendants of angels, were no exception. They just thoughtlessly intensified their discrimination based on an easy-to-discern difference like the color of their wings.
Still, they’re taking it too far, from what I’m hearing. Descendants of angels? Don’t make me laugh.
“Almost every day we lived in fear, hiding from the outside world. It was miserable... Those days were truly wretched. But she was different.” He looked up, speaking passionately and longingly. “Her wings were black, but more beautiful than anyone’s. She used power to assert her presence and value, unlike us, who simply curled up in fear. And she dominated country after country, forbidding discrimination against heaven-winged who didn’t have white wings in each one under her umbrella, allowing us to be treated as people.”
