I Got a Fake Job at the Academy

Chapter 865 – Side Story 138: A Smile at the End (1)

The light that had encompassed the world disappeared. Though it should have been daytime, the surroundings were still dark.

What could be seen above the dark clouds that had vanished by Rudger's magic was nothing but a pitch-black sky.

Rudger had no leisure to pay attention to such environmental characteristics. Heathcliff, who had been trying to kill him by any means until just before, had withdrawn his fighting spirit.

'The opening is too large to be deliberately inducing carelessness.'

Considering Heathcliff's power, there was no need to employ such deceptive tactics. In other words, what he was showing now was genuine.

Especially Heathcliff toward Selina—how should he put it? Though his face was identical to his own, like looking in a mirror, he wore an expression that could never be imagined.

"Uh, huh?"

Selina was equally flustered. She had come to help thinking he was Rudger's enemy, but that opponent was someone who looked exactly like Rudger.

The only differences were the hair color and eye color. The atmosphere he gave off was also subtly different compared to Rudger, but it was hard to see them as completely different people.

"Who are you?" 

"......"

At Selina's question, Heathcliff's expression momentarily twisted with sadness. He bit his lip, then released the tension.

"Are you perhaps another teacher Rudger?" 

"......I've already discarded that name. What I am now is the name I should have had originally." 

"The name you should have had originally......"

Selina's expression became serious. She too must have vaguely sensed some incongruity from the current world and Heathcliff's appearance.

Though she seemed like the purest person in the world, Selina was a teacher who taught students at Theon. Easy to misunderstand because of her image, but she too was a possessor of exceptional intelligence.

Even with just a few minor clues, it was enough to reach part of the truth.

"Just what happened?" 

"Teacher Selina. Please stand back."

Rudger stood in front of Selina. Whatever the case, Heathcliff was nothing more than a target that needed to be eliminated.

Heathcliff's expression darkened. Not so much because this fight was unavoidable, but because he felt some kind of emotion from seeing Rudger and Selina together.

Watching such a Heathcliff, Rudger unconsciously asked.

"Don't tell me, what you said about 'everything'......"

The words ultimately wouldn't leave his mouth. However, his sharp brain quickly pieced together the scattered puzzle pieces. A single picture formed clearly in his mind.

"......That's right."

Heathcliff no longer hid the truth. He showed no fighting spirit either. Not because the battle was meaningless. It was because he didn't want to do so, at least in front of the person most precious in his memory.

And then, from his mouth flowed a shocking account.

"In the world I live in, Selina died."

When Heathcliff was Rudger Chelici, the flow he had experienced was not much different from the current Rudger.

A train terror incident occurred, and there he gained a new identity through an accidental incident. Thus he came to Theon and ended up doing the teacher's work that wasn't in his destiny.

While striving to keep his identity from being exposed, he proceeded with work underwater to firmly establish his own power.

As time passed, the Esmeralda incident broke out. That's where the divergence point split.

Unlike the current Rudger, who had some emotional awareness toward each other but didn't fall deeply into it.

Heathcliff came to have an even deeper emotional exchange with Selina.

Perhaps he had seen reflected in Selina his own self that had to live like a ghost, hiding his true form.

Selina also knew the fact that she had received help from Heathcliff, and held feelings of gratitude toward him.

As time passed, that swelled further, and it wasn't difficult for it to spread beyond goodwill and favor into the emotion called romantic love.

Each became conscious of the other and took interest, and as they continued their relationship, the magnitude of their emotions only grew larger.

There were realistic problems and various hardships.

But rather, such processes became lubricant that made their relationship even more solid.

The man who was once Rudger came to love Selina.

That process surely must have presented truly much anguish.

Rudger had things he needed to do. For that sake, he could never stop moving forward.

Forming a deep relationship with someone was the same as choosing a different path. Taking a different path meant stagnation for Rudger, who had been advancing toward only one goal.

Could he ultimately give up that precious destination?

The emotion called love was that intense.

It was truly close to a curse.

"I finally made up my mind to put down what I had and live a faithful life with her."

Heathcliff was different from Rudger. He couldn't escape from the emotion called love. He willingly wore those shackles and resolved to live for them.

However, there were many realistic problems.

A false identity. The Black Dawn Society. The secrets of the Bretus Holy Kingdom. The movements of demons. There were too many incidents to resolve.

He couldn't ignore all of them. From the moment he entered Theon bearing the name Rudger, he had fallen into the center of an inescapable whirlpool of fate.

Within that, there were two things he could choose.

One was to simply entrust himself to the flow and sink to the depths of the vortex.

The other was to somehow struggle desperately and escape from the whirlpool's flow.

Heathcliff chose the latter.

'The former is meaningless from the start. Among any events that will occur afterward, none are small in scale or ignorable.'

As long as elements that could threaten a happy future with Selina existed, he could never rest easy.

Therefore, Heathcliff resolved to willingly eliminate all dangers himself.

That process was difficult in a direction both similar to and different from Rudger's.

There were many life-threatening crises, and he overcame countless dangerous predicaments. Still, Heathcliff didn't give up.

Though he kept such facts secret from Selina, Selina also noticed that Heathcliff was sacrificing himself for her sake.

So Selina also resolved to fight together and said she would be with Heathcliff.

This caused a slight difference of opinion, and the two had a dispute, but it was Heathcliff who first bent his stubbornness.

Because bearing the risk alone for love's sake was an extremely selfish method.

Emotions should be mutual, given and received by both sides, not one-sided.

Thus the two fought together to seize their future.

Normally, if things went this way, only a hopeful ending would have been waiting because the end of stories is usually like that but reality was different from stories.

"I failed. Before my very eyes, I lost her."

Heathcliff muttered in a voice steeped in sorrow.

Even now, Selina's death flickered before his eyes. Her appearance, growing cold as she bled before his watching eyes. Those delicate hands that wiped away his tears while smiling toward him, unable to even wipe the blood flowing from her lips. Her smile and warmth that he ultimately couldn't get back.

He couldn't forget. There was no way he could forget.

He gave up everything and chose love. But the moment even that love disappeared, Heathcliff was left with nothing.

In that moment a part of his heart somewhere broke.

Not as Rudger Chelici. But as Heathcliff van Bretus.

Not as a demon lord. But as a god of a new era.

Using fervently the divine power he had so refused, he fought to erase everything in this world.

First, he erased the holy kingdom. Cloaked in divine power, he went to Bretus and erased that beautiful and massive citadel without leaving a trace, along with the people living within it.

Bretus didn't just take it lying down. They resisted desperately somehow. But before Heathcliff, who received the favor of the gods, they could only be powerless.

One day.

Just one day. In that short time, the Bretus Holy Kingdom fell.

Since he turned the island itself into a wasteland, no survivors existed.

The continent was shocked and afraid. They were wary of what course of action the suddenly appearing man cloaked in divine power would take.

Heathcliff's gaze naturally turned toward the continent.

Hating everything that failed to protect Selina, he committed indiscriminate destruction and slaughter.

He erased Theon. He erased Leathervelk. He toppled the Empire.

Liberation Army, Mage Tower, Knight Order—he erased everything that was bothersome. The same went for students and Owen members who blocked his way, telling him to come to his senses.

Already broken, he mercilessly cut down even those who had once been comrades. In that process, his collapsed heart accelerated its breakdown to an uncontrollable degree.

The Black Dawn Society was the same. He eliminated everything related to them, leaving not even roots.

The same went for other gods' apostles, those called demons.

He eliminated all the nature's elemental lords that interfered, and even burned the World Tree. He left no one.

And at the end of that, there was Lumensis, enraged at having his cage destroyed.

Heathcliff, cloaked in divine power, faced Lumensis and defeated him. Having become the new master of the cage, he set one purpose.

If the world he knew was broken, he would create it anew.

He would make a new cage and fill it with what he so desired.

Recreation of the world. That was precisely what Heathcliff desired.

"What madness."

Rudger dismissed Heathcliff's actions. It was truly madness.

To save just one person, Selina, Heathcliff had made plans to annihilate all life on the continent.

Beyond merely devising a plan, he actually put it into action.

While cutting away comrades who had once been precious even if not as much as Selina, and even restraining his own emotions.

He contributed to destroying the world because for new creation, existing things must never remain.

It was the moment when he was finally about to reach the end.

"That's when you appeared."

Rudger from another world appeared before him. At first he was surprised. And also intrigued.

He had some knowledge about different dimensions. Having ascended to divinity, Heathcliff saw things different from others. He had vaguely guessed about possibilities existing beyond the far universe.

But he didn't know he would actually encounter them like this.

Let alone that the other party would be the same person, identical to himself.

Even so, they were nothing more than impurities for creating a new world. Rather, Rudger's appearance reminded him of his own failed past, even invoking Heathcliff's anger.

So he tried to eliminate him.

In that process, personal emotions were involved—that couldn't be denied.

Still. What he desired was only one thing.

To meet her again. To live happily with her in a new world.

It should have been clear.

"Why did you appear now?"

Heathcliff muttered with his head deeply bowed.

Why? Why, when I'm almost there, did you appear before me?

Why do you shake my resolved heart so cruelly?

"Why on earth. Now of all times......"

Having heard all the explanations, Selina looked at Heathcliff and clenched her fists tightly as if afraid.

However, as if having resolved something, she gathered courage and approached him.

Rudger tried to stop her, but Selina lightly restrained him with just a glance back.

Selina flew through the air and approached right up to Heathcliff.

And then she released her clenched fist and gently grasped Heathcliff's hand.

Flinch.

Heathcliff's body trembled. He raised his bowed head and looked at Selina.

In his hollow red eyes, Selina's figure was faintly reflected.