DanMachi Vol.16

FRAGMENT: SYR'S ORIGIN

Snow was falling.

Beautiful, merciless white shards fell from the heavens, gathering around a frozen body. It was alone. Cold. There were none who would embrace it. None who would relieve its hunger.

Its gradually freezing arms and legs were an inevitable reality. Its filthy body an inescapable fact.

Why am I so filthy, so poor, so empty, so cold? The same questions flitted through my ashen heart for the thousandth time only to disappear again.

As my consciousness faded, I pondered seriously what to do to make my body not my own anymore. And as I pondered it, I decided to stop living.

That was when it happened.

"—Are you okay?"

A soothing soprano voice rang in my ears.

It wrenched open the eyelids that were on the verge of closing, and the moment I saw her, my eyes opened wide.

A being more beautiful, more blessed, more fulfilled, more warm than anyone I had ever seen was standing right there.

It was the first time I had learned that sort of being could exist in this world.

"I was thinking of helping you, but...is there anything you desire?"

She posed the question as if she merely wanted to amuse herself. Or perhaps it was to catch the glimmer of a wish hidden deep within myself.

There is. Of course there is.

Realizing that there could be a being so beautiful, so blessed, so fulfilled, so warm, there was just one feeling in my heart. It was not envy or yearning or jealousy—it was an insatiable craving.

I want to become you. I want to stop being me and become clean, warm. I want to become you.

She surely had not expected to hear that. She gazed in wonder before laughing aloud.

"You want to become me? How ravenous can you be?! There has never been a child who asked for that before!"

There were those who had been saved by her love. And those who had sworn fealty to her as well. But there had never been a person who had wanted to become her.

She found this highly amusing. The silver-haired goddess continued to laugh, as if it was so funny that she could not help it. As if it had piqued her interest.

"Then I shall give you ______. In exchange, you will give me ______, yes?"

I nodded weakly.

And then, in that irredeemable slum, the goddess reached her hand out and asked:

"What is your name?"

My lips trembled.

"—Syr."

That was an exchange of fates. From that moment on, my destiny was set in stone. But even so, I did not mind. As long as I could be set free from that frozen town. As long as I could be unshackled from that solitude and darkness. As long as I could become the being who was more beautiful, more blessed, more fulfilled, and more warm than anyone else.

And so, I changed.

—I was reborn as a goddess.