Chapter 15

Hey Jude (1)

“The scale is enormous, Santiago! This time they haven’t brought a single dwarf with them. Just from what we can see, there are nearly hundreds of giants coming!”

“They’re properly equipped too. Damn it, they’re coming dressed in equipment our own people made with their blood and sweat. At this rate, the defensive line we worked so hard to build will be broken through in an instant!”

“Everyone, stay calm! We already knew this was coming, didn’t we? Keep your heads and do what needs to be done!”

The governor’s army had looked terrifying beyond the horizon, but it was even worse once it came fully into view.

Having learned that there was a priest among the dwarves, the governor had sent not dwarves this time, but an army of 181-centimeter-tall giants.

The ground trembled with every step they took.

The dwarves’ future seemed already decided.

The city they had built while clinging to their final hope would fall, and the tiny dwarves would either be trampled to death beneath those giants’ feet or dragged back to the workshops, where they would be used as expendable tools for the rest of their lives.

They knew that.

But they had no intention of accepting it quietly.

“God is watching us! As long as the One who cares for us until the very end remains with us, we must not give up! Burn yourselves brightly as dwarves until the final moment, little ones!”

“Even if we die! We are not returning to lowly dirt—we are returning to the embrace of the One who watches over and cares for us! So shine until the very end, without regret, like the flames of a forge that never go out!”

“We are small but deadly dwarves!”

Before the sky had become this black.

Before the sea had become this black.

Before the earth itself had died and turned this black.

Even back when life still surged across the world, Jude had never been welcomed anywhere.

Born to an unmarried mother from an unwanted pregnancy, Jude had been abandoned in an old cardboard box.

He grew up in a run-down orphanage before eventually being adopted by a couple.

The couple who adopted Jude had an eight-year-old son.

Two years earlier, the boy had been caught in an unfortunate accident and had yet to regain consciousness.

The doctor told them their son would never wake up.

Unable to cope with the grief of losing him, the couple brought Jude home in an attempt to replace their son with another child.

Jude knew he was a replacement.

He also knew that on nights when the couple drank, they regretted ever bringing him home.

Even so, Jude considered the one year and four months during which he had been their only son to be the most precious period of his entire life.

They always left him behind whenever they traveled.

They never took him along when they went out.

But whenever they stepped through the front door and briefly patted his head before leaving, Jude felt happier than anything else in the world could make him.

“Be good, Jude.”

Those were the words Jude always heard.

“Don’t fight with anyone. Don’t touch anything in the house. Whenever you get involved, everything goes wrong, and everyone will end up hating you. You’ll become someone who can never be loved again, Jude. So don’t do anything.”

He had always heard the same thing at the orphanage.

He always heard it from the couple as well.

And Jude was perfectly willing to obey if it meant people would not hate him.

Waiting quietly.

That was what Jude was best at.

After one year and four months of living no differently from the furniture in the house, the couple’s biological son—whom the doctors had said had no hope—regained consciousness.

When their real son returned home, Jude saw the look in the couple’s eyes.

That was when he realized what true love and affection looked like.

But Jude did not become greedy.

Jude knew how to wait.

Even if he had to spend his entire life surviving on nothing but scraps of affection until his turn finally came, he could be satisfied with that.

Gladly.

Jude never cried, not even when his drunken father kicked him.

He smiled even when the couple’s returned son slapped him across the face.

Even when he sat on the floor eating dog food, he finished every last bite like the good child he was supposed to be.

A year after Jude lost his place as the family’s only son, strange things began appearing on television news and in newspapers.

They said the end of humanity was approaching.

Then anchors and announcers put guns against their own heads and pulled the triggers.

Bang—

Like some comedy show.

The next day, Father did not go to work.

When Jude saw him hanging from the ceiling with a necktie tied into a noose, he understood that Father probably would never be able to go to work again.

Mother came home with two ornate coffins.

Judging by their sizes, one was for her real son.

The other was for herself.

Mother took out every bottle of alcohol in the house and drank.

Her trembling back looked terribly tired.

So Jude spoke to her.

You’ve already had so many bottles, Mom.

You should stop drinking now and go to sleep.

……

“Hey, Jude.”

For the first time since coming to this house, Jude heard Mother speak to him in a gentle voice.

Jude would probably never forget that voice for as long as he existed.

Hey, Jude.

“Let’s go outside. Somewhere other than this stuffy house.”

Mother took Jude into the bathroom and washed him thoroughly.

Jude giggled as she shaped the shampoo foam on his head.

For the first time in his life, lotion was rubbed onto his skin, and the pleasant fragrance made him happy.

Mother even neatly trimmed his fingernails.

Instead of the ragged clothes he had worn from the orphanage, Jude put on a soft T-shirt, cute overalls, and even shoes that squeaked when he walked.

He happily left the house.

Maybe they were going to an amusement park.

Mother was heavily drunk when she put Jude in the car.

But that hardly mattered.

There were no other cars on the road.

None of the traffic lights worked properly.

The yellow and white lane markings had all been erased.

With the wind pouring through the half-open window, Jude repeated Mother’s words to himself again and again.

Hey, Jude.

Oh, hey, Jude.

After driving far, far away, Mother pulled over on the roadside and pushed Jude into the grass.

Then she pressed something cold against the back of his head.

It was long.

Hard.

Cold metal.

She muttered things Jude did not understand, things like “God…” and “FUCK,” before finally turning him around.

Mother was sobbing, her face filled with complicated emotions.

A gun lay in the grass.

It was the object she had pressed against the back of Jude’s head.

“Wait here, Jude.”

“How long should I wait before you come back?”

“A long time. A very, very long time…”

Waiting for Mother for such a long time would be difficult.

But Jude could do it.

Waiting was what Jude did best.

Jude could wait.

Thinking that today must be a special day, Jude decided to make a request he normally would never have dared to make.

He spread both arms wide, smiled innocently, and said,

“Hold me.”

The first and last time Mother hugged him, Jude learned for the first time just how warm another person’s embrace could be.

It was so warm and happy that he felt as though his whole body might cook and melt away.

But after the brief hug ended, Mother fled into the car as though running away and stepped on the accelerator.

Vroom—

As Jude watched the car disappear into the distance, he saw a bomb fall on the city beyond the horizon.

The bomb blossomed into a mushroom cloud and swept everything away.

Even after countless people died, another bomb fell.

And another.

And another.

They continued falling until there was no one left alive.

The heat from the distant explosions burned away every last bit of Jude’s flesh, bones, and organs.

Yet even that heat, Jude thought, was not as warm as Mother’s embrace had just been.

If she would only hug him one more time, he could endure pain like this thousands of times.

He truly would.

Gladly.

A hundred years later, Jude awakened from death.

When he opened his eyes, everything on the land had already died and vanished.

Jude walked for a very, very long time until he returned to his old home.

There was a hole in the backyard.

Inside it lay a broken coffin.

And within that coffin were the melted remains of Mother and her real son, still holding each other in their arms.

From the moment Jude opened his eyes, he somehow knew what he was capable of.

So he brought her back.

Mother, her teeth clattering together, told Jude the words he had always wanted to hear and imitated the affection he had always wanted to receive.

Lying on a bed made from gathered ashes, Mother—nothing but bones now—pulled Jude’s arm toward her and said,

“Hey, Jude. Sleep well. I love you.”

They were unbearably sweet words.

But as the master of all undead, Jude knew that every bit of it was fake.

He could not be satisfied.

So he began making friends.

But every one of those friends was simply another Jude.

And because of that, they could never become true friends.

Jude wandered the world in search of survivors.

By the time there was no land left on this vast planet that Jude had not visited, an unfamiliar light descended from the sky.

Jude knew that the being before him was a god.

Looking at the great existence he had finally encountered after such an unimaginably long time, Jude spread his arms without hesitation and pleaded desperately.

“Hold me.”

Eve, you have to come play again.

Jude made a pretty castle out of the ash gathered in front of the house.

Jude hopes only happy things happen to you.

Jude misses you.

Stay healthy.

I love you.

My God, my God.

You have to come again tomorrow.

Even if you’re a little late, Jude can keep waiting.

Jude can take off his legs and give them to you.

Jude can take off his arms too.

Jude can even take off his head and give it to you.

So Jude will wait.

I love you.

Watching the twilight shining between the black sky and black earth, Jude wrote letters in crooked handwriting.

It had been a very long time since the twilight had looked this vivid.

Strangely, however, Jude could neither rejoice nor enjoy it.

That was because, among all the beautiful and enjoyable things he had always experienced alone, Jude had begun harboring an unreasonable wish—

that he could see them together with his friend and his God.

Perhaps now, even if the brightest daylight came, even if the most beautiful stars appeared, even if the fiercest rain poured down, Jude would no longer be able to enjoy any of it.

And from now on, Jude would probably feel that none of the things he had spent his entire life waiting for were worth waiting for anymore.

Because now, Jude would spend his life waiting for just one thing beyond all of them.

It had become more precious than the memories of the past Jude had carried throughout his life, more precious even than the fragmented memories he still possessed of the world before its destruction.

Unlike all the things that had turned to ash and vanished, these precious things were still somewhere Jude could reach.

You won’t find something precious just by waiting for it.

Jude remembered his friend’s words as he stared endlessly at the rising sun.

Then his body began to tremble, and he clutched his head.

But I’m a troublemaker.

Whenever I get involved, everything goes wrong, and everyone will hate me.

Everyone told me to wait.

They told me they wouldn’t hate me if I did nothing.

You might leave me in the end too.

Waiting is the only thing I know how to do.

If Jude ruins everything and you start hating Jude, you’ll leave too.

Just like everyone who said they would come back, told Jude to wait, and then disappeared.

In the end, Jude will be the only one left behind, and no one will ever come back.

Just like always.

I don’t want to ruin anything.

Skeleton Jude remembered the opening sentence of a book he had once read in a ruined library.

All children grow up to become adults, except one.

When Jude read that book, he had thought he was just like its protagonist.

Because in this lonely world, Jude was terribly afraid of growing up and becoming an adult.

He was afraid to look at his situation objectively.

Afraid even of the act of trying to obtain something for himself.

What if doing so ruined everything forever?

What if becoming an adult made waiting harder?

What if he was forced to fully accept all this sadness?

But Jude knew the truth himself.

Those who had left him were never coming back.

If he remained here forever, nothing would ever change.

And unless he himself changed, he would eventually lose the precious things he had found all over again.

The moment the little boy who had never grown up, trapped inside the body of a skeleton, finally understood that truth—

perhaps he had already begun shedding the shell of childhood.

“My God, my God.”

If there’s something that never comes no matter how long you wait, then someday you’ll have to fight to find it.

The clumsy, immature boy had learned from his friend how one became an adult.

“Jude has a request.”

The final boy left behind in a ruined world.

A skeleton who had buried himself in ash, bound by the ghosts of the past and shackling himself in place, finally reached the end of his childhood.

“Jude wants to fight for what’s precious to Jude too. So Jude will never lose anything again…”

It was a prayer offered from a dark and dreary world.

But his God had always listened, even to the voice of this creepy and lonely skeleton.

The greatest existence heard his voice.

And the Lord answered this tiny wish.

Thus, the time had come for the boy who had reached the end of childhood to step out into the world.

Now Jude could finally say it.

I’m tired of waiting.

There’s nothing okay about doing nothing but waiting.

I can’t wait anymore.

I hate waiting.

Boom.

Boom.

Boom.

The invaders from another world—the army of giants who had destroyed the world of the little ones—were approaching.

The tremors traveled from the soles of the dwarves’ feet all the way into their hearts.

Their fighting spirit steadily crumbled.

More and more dwarves began sobbing, losing even the will to resist.

And then—

“Stay calm! Take down the ones in front first!”

“It’s not working, Santiago! They’re covered in damned plate armor from head to toe! We don’t have enough firepower! We have enough weapons, but there aren’t enough dwarves to use them!”

“They’re getting closer. They’re getting closer and closer. It’s over now. They’re going to trample us and destroy the city. Sob… Th-The final flame of the dwarves is going to…”

“…Huh?”

A beam of light descended from the sky.

An untouchable, sacred presence swept across the battlefield.

Eve’s face flushed bright red as she smiled radiantly and shouted,

“Friend!”

The dwarves did not understand what Eve meant.

Then they looked ahead.

Standing there was a pure-white skeleton, only 138 centimeters tall, even shorter than the giants.

The skeleton who had appeared in the middle of the battlefield snapped his fingers once.

Snap.

A crisp sound rang out.

And then came a tremor incomparably more powerful than before.

Rrrrrrumble—

The heavens and earth seemed to shake.

Every living being that had died unjustly in this small world began awakening.

Called forth by the creepiest master of death.

The skeleton, Jude, spoke.

“It’s okay. Everything will be fine.”

No one could tell whether he was speaking to Eve, to the dwarves—

or perhaps to himself.

“Everything.”

Ding!

「The Last Immortal of the Creepiest World」
「Name: Jude」
「Class: Necromancer」
「Believer Rank: Low」
「Soul Rank: Legendary (Damaged)」
「Overall Assessment: The final immortal whom even inevitable destruction failed to devour. Mentally immature and incomplete, but his skill as a necromancer was perfected a hundred years ago. Although the rank of his soul has been severely damaged, even so, most souls will be unable to look down on this existence.

No one could easily do so against a necromancer who once raised an army numbering in the hundreds of millions simply to overcome his loneliness.

Those who encounter the master of the oldest dead in the land of death will, for some reason, find themselves with the distinct feeling that they are about to have an absolutely horrific time.」