"Phew… thank goodness."
Hearing my reply, she calmed a little, and I asked the question that had been nagging at me.
"Why are you so obsessed with me…?"
I get the population crisis and the stud plan, but am I really worth all this?
Unless men went completely extinct, they'd recover eventually, even if slowly.
"They did."
"…Oh."
Men went extinct.
Okay… fair enough.
"The 'King of the Undying'… it's blasphemous even to utter his name, but there's no denying he transcended life and ruled death itself. Even when a holy sword pierced his heart and he faded, he cursed this world with his final breath…"
"…"
"And now… no new life can be born here."
The mood turned heavy; words felt clumsy in my mouth.
I was only hearing it secondhand, yet she had lived through decades of that war. She must have lost countless comrades.
"Uh…"
I fumbled for something, anything.
"Ch… cheer up?"
It was the lamest consolation imaginable.
Silence stretched across the channel, thick and mournful.
