✓ Operating log of the Tavern of the Dead

114

"Welcome to wake up, Raphael."

The first thing you see when you open your eyes is the sparkling starry sky.

"From now on, you are the bearer of the sword, the arbiter, you will guard everything you see, cut off all obstacles and threats, and you will be invincible."

He replied, "I was born for this."

But.

He has fought thousands of battles since his birth, never defeated, and the Judge of the Stars has a reputation for being a man of great power, and everyone believes that as long as he can hold a sword in his hand, he will never lose.

But.

He's not really invincible.

The wings were rudely torn apart, the bones were broken, the chest was pierced, the blood of one's own was splashed on the face, it was still warm, and the cold wind falling from the sky was in the ears.

Where it doesn't hurt, how can it not hurt. It's just—

You can't retreat, you can't lose.

Don't dare to retreat, and don't dare to lose.

But he didn't win in the end.

A long time ago, the witches had caught a glimpse of a crack in the boundaries of the world, and without hesitation, they had resealed the crack at the cost of the death of the starry ring, and the Judge fought alone, shoving back the "things" that had crawled out of the crack one by one.

He had done almost well enough that in the end only a little bit of it had escaped. However, even a little bit is not a victory—for He is nothingness on the other side of the world.

——

The faint debris floated out of the canyon and rested on a blade of grass.

He was not afraid, even if He was cut into a thousand pieces, and everything but Him had been sealed back to the other side. But He knew that nothing that belonged to this side could really kill Him, and even more so as a fragment of "nothingness" He had no emotions, including fear, of course.

A carriage rolled by, the wheels rolling over the blades of grass, and He floated softly, sticking to it.

The carriage stopped in a certain town, and people gathered in twos and threes, exchanging the shelves of hard metal for the items. He was silently attached to a coin and handed to a child by a large, rough hand.

The child, with his coin in hand, wandered around the humble market, hesitated for a long time in front of the stall selling maple berries, and finally left.

"I hope the uncle who sold sugar will come back tomorrow." The child held the coin and muttered to himself.

Children at this age always have all sorts of struggles, such as having to entangle with the trash in the backyard on a sunny holiday.

"It's annoying." "It would be nice if the garbage just disappeared," he said.

- Disappear?

He said, "Yes."

So the garbage disappeared out of thin air, leaving only fine pieces of gray and white gravel.

The child was amazed and delighted, he looked around, repeatedly confirmed that the annoying garbage was really gone, stood there and offered the most sincere prayer to God in his life, and went out to play happily.

He soon discovered the magic of that coin.

There's not much it can do, it can't conjure up delicious candy, it can't make the lovely sister Alice like it, it can't make the obnoxious school disappear, but it can make something that is equally undesirable disappear. For example, his general education homework (the teacher didn't notice anything wrong with him not doing his homework), the vicious dog who guarded the orchard (although old John soon got another one that was even more fierce)...