In the blink of an eye, several centuries passed.
Because the Black Tide in this cycle was still confined to relatively small outbreaks, the gods had yet to become a major concern, and the Flame-Chase Journey had still not begun. After all, Fagaina, the Ocean Titan, was still alive.
Cerydra, who had survived all these centuries through the power of her golden blood, had now grown extremely old. Her once-blue hair had turned completely white, the sharpness in her eyes had become clouded with age, and her already small frame had grown frail and stooped.
She stood atop the walls of Okhema and looked out over the city, now transformed beyond recognition. In this age, the nobility no longer existed. More than a hundred years ago, the last of those parasites who relied on the prestige of their ancestors while contributing nothing from their privileged positions had disappeared from Amphoreus.
Throughout these centuries, Cerydra had consistently expanded education among the common people. After generation upon generation of social reform, people had long since stopped viewing monarchs as supreme beings or symbols of absolute authority.
A monarch was someone who stood before the people and guided them forward, someone responsible for determining the direction of the nation. To wear the crown meant possessing the authority to steer the state, but it also meant accepting the weight that came with that crown.
Beyond the walls of Okhema stretched field after field of golden wheat. In the past, some of that land had been forest, while other areas had been mountains, but through the efforts of the Earth Beasts, vast stretches of level farmland had been reclaimed.
Cerydra watched the golden wheat sway in the wind and children run laughing through the fields. Then the elderly monarch slowly turned around and began walking toward the administrative palace.
When she had first become a ruler, she abolished kneeling, hand-kissing, and other meaningless rituals of submission. She had also told her people that if they absolutely insisted on kneeling before her, they should never lower their heads beneath her crown.
In the beginning, Caesar had been called a tyrant and a blood-soaked executioner, because her hands were stained with the blood of the nobility who had once ruled this land.
But as time passed, the tyrant of old gradually came to be remembered as a wise ruler. As education spread and culture changed, people came to respect Cerydra, the woman known as Caesar, from the bottom of their hearts.
She had brought genuine equality to this land. In the present age, even the gods had vanished from sight and were already fading into legend.
At some point, Hysilens emerged from the sea and appeared beside Cerydra. She was still just as young as ever.
"My Caesar, if you abandoned your human identity, you could live much longer. You could continue ruling your nation for ages to come and become an eternal monarch, an emperor without end."
"But if I cling to life, how would I be any different from the rulers of the past who clung to power? I have already done everything within my ability. I have changed everything I was capable of changing. The people of this land must learn to move forward on their own.
"The road ahead belongs to them now. Nothing remains unchanged forever. Even the laws and Order I established may one day be overturned. If I remain on that throne indefinitely, people will only continue praising me, gradually turning me into something resembling a god. In the end, they would come to believe that I am always right, and that any opinion contradicting mine must therefore be wrong.
"So yes, it is time for me to leave. Otherwise, after another thousand years, the person sitting on that throne would no longer be Cerydra. It would only be Caesar. I have no desire to be reduced to such a one-sided image. If people can remember only one part of me, I would rather be forgotten."
"But Caesar, you have spent your entire life working without rest. You never once abandoned your responsibilities as a ruler. You led humanity forward, constantly Trailblazing toward the future. Have you never thought about stopping to rest, doing something you enjoy, and finally allowing yourself to relax?"
"I have been doing what I enjoy. I have been doing what I wanted to do. It was exhausting, and it caused me endless trouble, but this is still what I chose to do."
"You truly created an age of prosperity unlike anything Amphoreus had ever seen and achieved accomplishments no one could deny. But after your life ends and enough time passes, will anyone still remember the person you are now?
"People have already begun forgetting where you originally came from. In the distant future, perhaps all that remains of you will be a few carvings on stone tablets. Different records will distort you, alter you, and rewrite you again and again until the person they describe bears almost no resemblance to who you truly were. No one will remember the girl named Cerydra who existed at the beginning.
"Even knowing that, will you still accept death?"
"Forgetting is inevitable. Even the Titans themselves are beginning to be doubted now. Only a few centuries have passed, yet once the gods stopped showing themselves, people began questioning whether THEY ever truly existed at all.
"Forgetting is as unavoidable as death. But even if, in the end, people remember only a monarch named Caesar, they will still remember an age of unification, an era of reform, and the equal Order I brought to this land."
"You're always so accepting of things. You always know exactly what you want to do. I truly envy you. I came onto the land because I could never find those answers for myself. That is why I kept following you and treating you as the person I wanted to become."
"Your life will continue for a long time yet. My lessons are over now. It's time for you to graduate and search for your own meaning."
The elderly Cerydra smiled at Hysilens before continuing forward.
Along the way, everyone in Okhema greeted their aging ruler with smiles. In the past, such a sight would have been unimaginable. Back then, people had feared the tyrant and the bloodstained executioner she represented.
Now, those same people loved the woman who had once been called a tyrant.
See? Forgetting had already begun. So why should she fear the deeper forgetting that would come with the passing of even more time?
Cerydra eventually reached the administrative palace and pushed open the door to the private office reserved for the ruler. Standing by the window was Caelus, exactly as he had been several hundred years ago, completely unchanged.
"Teacher, it's been a while."
"Mm."
Caelus turned around and calmly looked at the student who had remained by his side for centuries.
"Construction of Titan One has been a success. It won't be long before it can be launched into space. That means the people of Amphoreus will finally be able to take their first steps toward the stars."
"It's a shame I won't live to see that future."
"You could live longer."
"But I'm tired, Teacher. I've been working for hundreds of years, sleeping only six hours a day, never truly resting and never really relaxing. I'm tired too."
"Mm. You've worked hard."
Cerydra sat down upon the seat that countless people regarded as the ruler's throne. Then she looked out through the window at Okhema, shining brilliantly beneath the sunlight.
"Teacher..."
"Mm?"
"Have I graduated?"
"You graduated a long time ago."
"Then did I become the person you saw in that future?"
"Actually, you did even better than the future I saw."
"That's good."
Another period of silence followed.
"Teacher, I'm tired."
"I want to get some proper rest. After all these years, I think I deserve to sleep in for once. If there's still any paperwork left, I'll leave it to you."
"Teacher..."
Cerydra gazed at the sunlight streaming in through the window. For a moment, it seemed as though she had returned to the very beginning, when a gray-haired young man had crouched in front of her and asked,
"Do you want to come with me?"
Her trembling hand slowly reached out and grasped the hand extended toward her, just as she had once reached for the sunlight spilling into that dark alley.
Caelus silently watched Cerydra sitting upon the throne, her head tilted gently to one side as though she had simply fallen asleep.
She seemed to be having a wonderful dream.
A peaceful, happy smile rested on her face.
(To be continued.)
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◇ You can read the ahead chapter on Pat if you're interested: p-atreon.c-om/Blownleaves (Just remove the hyphen to access normally.)