86 - Volume 10 - Chapter 4.4

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Only Shin and a single Scavenger returned, carrying a bundle of aluminum fragments that were supposedly from Eijyu and the others’ units.

“…I knew you were a god of pestilence,” Seiya growled.

“Maybe I am,” Shin said, not looking him in the eye.

None of the others survived, but Shin only had a few bruises and scratches. And that was despite him serving as the vanguard, the role with the highest mortality rate, in this mission, too. His devil’s luck and absurd combat skills seemed cheeky now.

No one else returned, but he did. As if he’d stolen all their luck, sacrificed them so he could survive.

“He survived four years…” Seiya clenched his teeth. “So why now…?!”

But he bit his lip before he finished that sentence. That’s right. It’s because he’d survived for four years in this hell. The Eighty-Six were all fated to die. The Legion outnumbered and outmatched them, and this was a ward where the fighting was especially savage.

So even if it did happen soon after Shin came here…that wasn’t why Eijyu had died. That wasn’t why at all.

The sensible part of Seiya’s mind knew this, but his emotions couldn’t come to terms with that. It wasn’t just Eijyu. Everyone else had died all at once in this battle. Even if the Eighty-Six all die sooner or later, squadrons don’t get entirely wiped out that often.

And not to mention every single squadron Shin’s ever been a part of. That makes no sense.

If you can’t call him a god of pestilence, what is he?

A grim reaper, perhaps. A grim reaper who ruthlessly cuts down both friend and foe without distinction—

Shin parted his lips indifferently, not knowing the anger brewing in Seiya’s heart or the jeering he was struggling to keep himself from saying aloud.

“Head Mechanic. Captain Nunat told me to decide on a Personal Name and Mark, remember?”

Seiya let out a long sigh, as if trying to vent out the pressure building up inside him. He’s saying that now?

“Yeah… He did. Though, I think he wanted to think of one for you.”

He likely expected Shin to be the first one under his command to survive a year. He perhaps saw him as something of a younger brother.

But Eijyu’s gone now. He’s gone and nowhere to be found.

“Yes… So I’ll decide them for myself.”

With that said, Shin handed Seiya a small aluminum plate. Seiya froze and blinked in surprise. It was a fragment of a Juggernaut’s armor. It looked pretty old, and it had a faded, unfamiliar Personal Mark drawn on it. It didn’t belong to any of the members of this base. But then whose unit was this? Where did Shin find this?

“I’m not good at drawing. Could you help me with this?”

So he was asking him to draw this?

Seiya found himself taking the plate and examining the Personal Mark. A headless skeletal knight shouldering a long sword. Name Bearers were seen as those who survived by stepping over the bodies of their dead comrades, and so their Personal Names were generally menacing, unpleasant titles. But this skeletal-knight design was especially ominous.

It was like…

“…It’s like a grim reaper. Or an undertaker. If it had a shovel, it would fit perfectly. A monstrous undertaker who survives alone to dig the graves of his peers.”

Yes. It almost felt like an ironic sting directed at Shin.

The comment made Shin crack a thin smile. A chilling grin that made the head of the maintenance team—a man ten years his elder—take a frightened step back.

“—Yeah. I don’t mind the sound of that.”

All his squad mates had died in the previous day’s operation. And in his last squadron, and the one before, and the one before that, no one survived but him. All of them, everyone who fought by his side, perished. Without exception. Every single one.

In which case, he didn’t mind this name. If he could just finally acknowledge himself for what he was, he could handle it better.

A god of pestilence. Or a grim reaper. If he could admit that, he’d be fine.

Being loathed as a monster haunted by ghosts would even be convenient. Let everyone else stare at him from a distance. It would make it so that when someone died, his heart wouldn’t waver from his self-levied goal of bringing everyone to his final destination. He had to survive, even if it meant fighting all alone. He had a wish he needed to see granted. So he might as well not rely on others to grant it for him.

And the one who’d made him realize that was—

He narrowed his crimson eyes and curled his lips into a cold smile. Seiya’s expression stiffened in terror. Or perhaps awe. Fido trembled next to them. Shin couldn’t see how gruesome, how ghastly the expression on his face was.

“I think I’ll make that my Personal Name. Yeah. It does suit me.”

The name signifying the grim reaper who was most familiar, most beloved, and most feared on this battlefield of certain death. He who stands closest to death but never dies and only buries others. He who places his dead comrades into graves that don’t exist. Who would bury all his future comrades. Who would survive to the very end, until whatever awaits at the end of the road buries him in turn.

“Undertaker.”