Chapter 388: The Story After (20) [Side Story, Part 20]

“

Kaaargh!

” the Serpent screamed. Its massive head, which had been slammed into the ground, jerked upward with a brutal motion.

The wind that erupted from that simple movement hurled Ketal through the air. He drove the axe into the ice and earth, his body dragged but barely anchored in place.

“How dare you!” Rage poured from the Serpent like venom. “How dare a pitiful barbarian throw himself at me?!”

“Shut up!” Ketal cried as he erupted into wild laughter and charged again. His fingers tightened around the axe until his knuckles felt as if they would split. “Get out of my territory! Now!”

“You dare to claim a territory, you lowly barbarian! I will tear you apart!” The Serpent writhed, and the air itself howled. A storm rolled out from its colossal body. Just approaching it threatened to flay flesh and shake organs loose.

However, Ketal did not retreat. He bared his teeth and hurled himself straight into the storm. The monster of the White Snowfield crashed against the barbarian of the White Snowfield. The barbarians who had been fleeing stopped in their tracks.

“Oh... oh, is the chieftain fighting that thing?” one of the barbarians murmured.

It was a creature they had never seen before, a gigantic, horrifying being that made even them choose flight over battle. Yet their chieftain stood alone against it, facing it head on. They stared, stunned, watching the clash unfold.

Naturally, Ketal was no match for the Serpent. In the distant future, he would pacify the White Snowfield and even defeat the Primarch, but that belonged to a time yet to come. The Ketal standing here now did not possess the power to truly confront the White Serpent of the Snowfield.

His limbs were torn, bones snapped. His skull cracked, and blood poured down his face. Fingers dangled from shattered hands, threatening to fall away at any moment. Even so, he did not withdraw.

“

Hahaha!

” Ketal laughed madly, drove his foot into the ground, and forced his way through the storm with his bare body. With an arm that hung half broken, he swung the axe and hammered it into the Serpent’s side.

A thunderous impact rang out as the Serpent’s massive body shuddered. It staggered, then barely managed to steady itself. The axe came whirling back for its skull, and the Serpent exhaled a breath of power, blasting the weapon aside.

Ketal snatched the axe from the air. In the same heartbeat, the Serpent’s tail snapped like a whip and slammed into his body. The sound of something being thoroughly pulverized echoed across the snow as Ketal smashed into the ground.

The ice shattered beneath him and hurled him deep into the glacier, where his limbs should have been crushed to powder. That was what any reasonable expectation would have foretold. Yet from the ruined layers of ice, Ketal rose once more.

His entire body was drenched in blood. His breathing was ragged, his wounds grotesque, but his grip on the axe remained firm as his lips pulled back in a feral grin. The Quest had given its order: exile the Serpent from his territory.

He had no idea what the System intended or why, but it was the only path that offered even the faintest chance of carrying him beyond this frozen hell. If that single possibility was all he had, then he would wager his life on seizing it. That was enough for him.

“Get out, Serpent. Or kill me!” His roar rang across the White Snowfield. The force of it made the Serpent hesitate.

Compared to the White Serpent, this barbarian was weak. If the fight continued, victory would surely belong to the Serpent. Yet at the same time, the Serpent realized something. It saw the mad fixation in Ketal’s eyes, the stubbornness that refused to bend even at the edge of death. It knew, with the instinct of a creature that had existed since the beginning, that even in death this barbarian would not retreat.

If it had been the Serpent’s usual temperament, it would have delighted in such resistance, crushed him thoroughly, and swallowed him down as a meal. However, its senses whispered a warning—this barbarian was dangerous.

The risk was infinitesimal, yet it existed. An almost impossible chance that, should it continue to toy with him, the Serpent might suffer grievous injury.

The intuition of a being that had been present since the dawn of this world murmured in its core. It was an intuition that turned out to be right, since Ketal was already beginning to grasp his own abnormality, the alien nature within himself.

“This one time, I will spare you.” After a long inner debate, the Serpent reached its decision. It chose to withdraw. “You are too insignificant to be worth crushing in person. If you defile my sight again, I will not forgive you.”

With a bellow, the Serpent turned away and departed. Only then did the barbarians creep back. Whatever the Serpent had cried at the end, its retreat had been nothing but a flight. At the very least, in the eyes of those who watched, its back had looked like that of a defeated creature.

If that great monster was the loser, then the victor could only be one.

“Oh... oooooh!” The barbarians loosed the shouts they had been holding back.

Their chieftain had triumphed over a creature of overwhelming power. Their cries rolled across the White Snowfield and echoed for long minutes.

[Quest #132 has been completed.]

[Rewards will be granted.]

***

“So that is how it happened,” Arkemis said as she could not help letting out a faint groan.

The Ketal she knew had always been overwhelming, always absolute. To her, he was a being without equal, a presence no one could stand against. Yet even he had once lived as nothing more than prey within that place.

His strength had not come without cost. It had not been a gift or an accident. It was the result of endless battles stacked upon one another until they formed an unbreakable wall.

“It did not end there,” Ketal said.

He continued his account, explaining how he met the Ugly Rat, how he encountered the White Bear, and how his path intertwined with monsters beyond those three, including the Primarchs themselves. He accepted every Quest that appeared before him, cleared them one after another, and broadened his territory with each hard-won victory. As the seasons passed, his growing tribe became a presence that no one in the White Snowfield could afford to overlook.

“In the middle of all that, I saw a madman,” Ketal said. “We could not talk to each other, so I watched over him for a while and then sent him out of the Snowfield.”

“You mean the emperor,” Arkemis said.

“I suppose so.”

The legend that the most terrifying beings in the White Snowfield were not the Serpent, the Rat, or the Bear, but the barbarians themselves, began with that emperor.

“And as time passed,” Ketal continued, “I met Milleyna.”

A band of merchants from the Outside had entered the White Snowfield. That meeting had been the first thread connecting him to the world beyond.

“Everything after that is the part you already know.”

He defeated the guardian that watched over the border of the White Snowfield and stepped into the Outside, where he met the elves before continuing on to human lands. There, he brought down the lich, encountered the Inquisitor of the Sun God, and uncovered the evil that had been hiding behind the scenes. He fought beings from the Demon Realms such as Nano, reunited with Milleyna, and eventually crossed paths with Arkemis.

“That is my journey,” he said quietly, the weight of all he had done, endured, and ultimately become settling around him. “That is everything I am, Arkemis.”

“Listening to it from your own mouth makes it feel even more unbelievable. But none of it changes anything.” She stepped closer and rested her hand on his shoulder. “I am your family. Your wife, Ketal.”

“Thank you,” he replied. He smiled and pulled her into his arms.

Time moved forward, and the world began to change with startling speed.

Under the full support of the Tower Master, the School of Magitech was born. Those who had dreamed of magic but never gained Myst flocked to it in droves.

It took only five years for the first trains to be built. It took no more than ten additional years for those trains to spread across the continent. With a powerful means of transportation established, the world accelerated again. New forms of communication soon followed, linking far-flung regions together with unseen threads. Under the union of magic and machinery, the world entered an age of dazzling progress.

Ketal was there for all of it. He helped people, watched the world transform, and savored each change. When the Tower Master called for him, he joined the research and lent his strength to the advance of Magitech.

Years slipped by, and then one day Arkemis approached him with a face more radiant than he had ever seen. When he heard the words she brought, Ketal’s expression lit with a brightness he had never shown, not even in the heat of battle.

He could no longer contain the surge of joy rising within him, and he drew her into a firm embrace. He would live in this world as Ketal, beside Arkemis, and with the children who carried his blood. He would live for as long as he wished, and if he so chose, for an eternity.

***

Queen Marseria of the Autumn Leaf Tribe lived a peaceful life. When it became known that Ketal had first appeared in her village, the place was declared a holy ground. No one dared to interfere with it. No more slave traders approached its borders. She lived out her days in quiet happiness with her people.

Cassan Hark rebuilt the Thieves’ Guild that had once been destroyed. At first, it was little more than a ragged band, scarcely better than alley thugs, yet he persevered, and in time the guild reclaimed its former structure and influence.

Luke Barcan, lord of Barcan Estate, led a very busy life from then on. As the lord of the first city where Ketal had shown himself, he received treatment worthy of nobility on a grander scale. Even kings came before him with courtesy. He never grew used to it until the day he died of old age. His estate, however, flourished. By the time of his passing, it had grown to five times its original size.

Swordmaster Kain, the man who had first taught Ketal the art of the blade, was revered by warrior after warrior. His status as the one who had given the first lesson to the strongest man in the world became common knowledge. He found the attention unbearable at first, yet in his old age, he finally gave up resisting and accepted it with a tired smile.

King Barbosa of the Denian Kingdom and Swordmaster Maximus continued to pour their efforts into strengthening their kingdom. Even after their deaths, Denian’s rise did not falter. Before long, people began to call it the second Empire.

High Elf Queen Karin used her connection to Ketal to wield tremendous influence. She broke the continent’s prejudice and discrimination toward elves and eradicated the slave traders who coveted them. For that, she became a queen whom all elves would honor forever.

In the Lutein Kingdom, Queen Elene, who had been replaced by Nano, ruled for an unending span. The sight of a ruler who did not age stirred fear in her people, and rebellions broke out more than once, yet she dealt with each one calmly. Under the rule of the immortal queen, the Lutein Kingdom endured on the continent for thousands of years.

The Church of Kalosia, God of Lies and Deception, endured long years of discrimination. Yet Ketal actively aided them and stood at their side. Decades later, by the time Priestess Hayes had risen to a high position, Kalosia was no longer treated as a god to be shunned.

Saintess Helia of the Sun God continued to follow the will of her deity. The Sun God’s church maintained its power and influence as it always had.

Aquaz, Chief Inquisitor of the Sun God, lost her position when the demons were annihilated. She wandered for a time, unsure of her place, until Ketal extended a hand and led her into a new role. She became a high-ranking official of the Sun God’s church and spent her life in unwavering faith.

In the North, King Bayern continued to challenge the White Bear again and again. The Bear, who had at first found him nothing but a nuisance, eventually took an interest in Bayern’s growing strength. The two of them became sparring partners for a very long time.

Serena traveled the world. She saw everything she could, felt every land with her own feet, and filled herself with knowledge and experience. In the end, she chose to refuse the call of the gods and remain a being of the Mortal Realm.

The Tower Master lived a life of deep satisfaction. He advanced technology, applied it to the world, and watched the results unfold. The power of the Mage Tower grew greater and greater. As a lich, he possessed a life that bordered on eternal. He stood upon the Mortal Realm for ages, watching over the world and pushing it forward.

Ketal and Arkemis spent their days in extraordinary peace. Once Ketal had a child, his desire to roam the world began to change into something else. He still longed to travel, yet he came to want something more urgently than wandering. He wanted to raise his child.

With the help of those around him, he learned to be a father. The child caused no small number of problems, yet grew up healthy and strong, and Arkemis laughed beside him through every trial.

They did not stop at a single child. Once the lingering issues with Arkemis’s body were resolved, they welcomed a second and then a third. Her enthusiasm sometimes left Ketal leaning back with a helpless look, yet even those moments folded naturally into the warmth of their days.

It was a life filled with small uproars and much laughter. His bloodline spread out into the world. They found their own places, lived out their own stories, loved, married, and brought new life into being. Generation after generation, they left their marks upon the world. Not only Ketal himself, but his very lineage took root in the fabric of this reality.

In the end, there was no way to speak of this world without speaking of him. Ketal looked upon everything with a deep and steady contentment. He would live in this world with Arkemis, and with the children and generations that carried his blood.

There had once been a man who had done nothing but yearn for fantasy. That man had become a citizen of the fantasy world he admired.

In time, he became something more. He became part of the very foundation of that fantasy, a presence without which it could no longer be told.