Miss Hebe Is Charging Through the Lostbelts! [44]

Ascension, deification—the road to the Wasteland had opened.

That complete white-boned hand gently tore through the outer wall of the shining great temple complex from within, as though it were no harder than tearing a sheet of paper.

The entire world was gradually turning silent and deathly white. Countless frost-white skeletons rose from the city ruins, gazing up at the fine snow falling from the sky.

The enormous skeleton Hebe had seen countless times before descended from the clouds once more. Sashes like white clouds coiled around Them, and with calm, hollow eyes, They looked over all Upper and Lower Egypt.

The entire world became a bleak white. Whether swarms or beast packs, all curled up and collapsed to the ground, drawing in their jointed limbs and dying without a sound. Silent snowflakes drifted down from the clouds, dyeing the desert pure white.

All disasters were dying without a sound.

All things were silently losing their color.

All memories were sinking deeper into silence.

A sigh rang out.

With that sigh, the Nine Calamities ravaging all Egypt ended without the slightest warning. Only the devastated earth proved they had ever existed.

This was the achievement the Red King had longed for—the tenth disaster that ended the Nine Calamities.

This irreversible, unchangeable moment had finally arrived.

Even though Hebe was now close to becoming nothing but white bone, that cold feeling still sank deep into her soul.

She heard a clear, cold echo coming from every direction.

[MY GREAT WORK IS MANIFEST TO THE FOUR DIRECTIONS. MY ROAD IS THE RECOLLECTION THAT MOURNS THE DEAD, THE REMEMBRANCE OF ALL THINGS LOST TO THE WORLD.]

[ALL THAT EXISTS SHALL, IN THE END, BE NOTHING. SO IT IS WITH ALL THINGS IN THIS WORLD.]

[TO FORGET IS TO KILL; TO CAST AWAY IS TO BETRAY. TO REVIVE WHAT HAS FALLEN AND CONTINUE WHAT WAS CUT OFF IS THE GREAT WISH OF THE ONE WHO REMEMBERS THE WORLD.]

[NEFERTITI IS MY DISTANT PAST. NEFERTARI IS MY FLEETING PRESENT. NEPHTHYS IS MY ETERNAL FUTURE.]

[I AM DUKE OF SIGHS, THE CONSUL WHO REMEMBERS ALL THINGS, ENGRAVES MEMORIES, AND KNOWS PROMISES.]

[—TWELFTH MONTH: A SILENT, STILL WORLD OF ETERNAL WINTER.]

This was Golden Truth, Golden Truth declared to the world, and the world was responding in turn.

A new Consul had been born.

Their name was Duke of Sighs. Their honor-names were the god who remembers all things, the god who engraves memories, the god who knows promises. They presided over the end of every year, over the silent, still, frost-drunk Twelfth Month.

Duke of Sighs ascended into the clouds. Their hollow, compassionate eyes looked down at that small skeleton, no longer warm.

This would be the first name Duke of Sighs remembered: Imhotep.

Under Their gaze, that skeleton sank into the great pyramid.

And so this majestic wonder began to fulfill its original duty.

[CURRENT LOSTBELT PROGRESS]: 100%

[“DREAM OF GOLDEN TRUTH: THE LOST KINGDOM OF THE SEA OF SAND” HAS ENDED.

[“KNOWER” LOGGING OUT.]

…

Nitocris raised her head, watching the skeleton ascend into the clouds and disappear.

The female pharaoh stood in the cold desert as white snow fell thickly over the yellow sands.

What made her seem far away was not distance, but the fact that nothing could be undone.

Nitocris suddenly found it hard to breathe. Though for those of Dusk, breathing had long since ceased to be necessary for survival, she still felt dizzy and faint, as though she might collapse unconscious.

A layer of gray smoke clouded her eyes, blurring even the distant sun. Everything before her seemed to lose both history and name. Death was like snow vanishing into snow.

At last, Nitocris began to miss the nights of the past. Those nights had been lonely and pitch-black, pools of water where she could hide herself.

She was very clear-headed, and because of that, she now hated that clarity somewhat.

Nitocris had known long ago that sacrifice would be unavoidable. She had known very well that this day would come.

Dusk, after all, was not pure godhood. Their bodies could still bleed and weep. That was the fragile nature of mortals.

Nitocris forced herself to hate Hebe. She searched desperately through her memories, trying to find evidence that Hebe had betrayed her.

If there was any, then she would have a reason to hate, a reason to remember her with bone-deep clarity.

Because hatred was the other face of love, and long years would dull hatred until, in the end, it would instead draw closer to love.

But there was nothing. She could not find any trace.

Nitocris let out a cry. She ran through the wilderness, screaming, beastlike in form. She lied to herself: Hebe was a demon skilled at playing with hearts and schemes. She had shown weakness, deceived Nitocris into forming a covenant with her, and then, and then…

Then what?

She died.

Nitocris felt grief, but she could not clearly say what she was grieving for. It was not because Hebe had deceived her, but because she could no longer respond to Hebe’s deception.

To Nitocris, it was as though she had swallowed a bitterness worse than exile or death. How she wished she, too, were a rebel, a selfish and despicable person. Then she could tell herself with a clear conscience: Oh, at least I survived, didn’t I?

But so what? You know that is a lie, Nito, she told herself.

She tried to miss her, but after searching all her memories, she could find not a single one so unforgettable that it could be called a memorial. They were only trivial things, only night after night spent in anxiety.

Nitocris remembered those nights when the girl had bent over the desk by lamplight, exhausting heart and mind. Her back had seemed very long in the inner chamber of the temple.

In the cold wind, where there was nothing and nothing to hope for, she heard rustling sounds coming from afar. They were scarabs, their backs patterned with the sun and flames.

A huge whirlpool appeared in the desert. Nitocris quietly watched it, watching as the scarabs threw themselves into the vortex without fear of death.

After all the scarabs had plunged in, a huge crocodile head made of metal emerged from the sand. Crimson spines rose atop its head, towering like a crown.

Nitocris suddenly remembered that Hebe had once mentioned to her how the King of Rams had personally drawn out the soul of one of his colleagues, turning his body into a war machine and sealing his soul inside scarabs.

Only, no one had expected that the colleague for whom the King of Rams had gone to such lengths was actually Sobek, the King of Crocodiles, one of the three kings like himself.

Sobek looked around, gazed at the King of Rams’ remains, then looked at the sky. He laughed three times, then wept three times.

“Khnum! Your son is indeed an out-and-out hero!”

Sobek, the King of Crocodiles, turned his head and said to Nitocris, “Pharaoh, you must have many questions, as do I. Come with me. We will go to Heliopolis. There, every question will be answered.”

Nitocris silently stepped onto the King of Crocodiles’ broad back. His crimson dorsal spines unfurled toward the sky, like a sail crossing the sea of sand.

She suddenly remembered Hebe’s certainty in the depths of night, when the girl with beautiful green eyes had said that one day, she would raise the sail and cross this iron sea of sand.

Now Nitocris truly saw every sight Hebe had described.

They arrived in Heliopolis. Here, the shade of the date palms was lush, and Tutankhamun was standing at the city gate, waiting.

“Permit me to ask the first question,” the King of Crocodiles said. “Heryshaf—how long exactly did he play the role of the King of Rams? And who helped him?”

Tutankhamun answered, “The King of Rams realized the Red King’s plan. Like Anubis, he loved every person in Egypt. After that, he went to the Temple of Geb and prayed to Skyflint.”

“Just as Ozymandias sided with Remnant Wolf, Skyflint also used the King of Rams as a chess piece to oppose him. And when he realized that he could not hold on much longer, he asked Skyflint to reforge him.”

Skyflint agreed.

“After that, the King of Rams went to see the Red King. He did not last very long. After his death, Skyflint acted, tempering him into a vessel to contain Heryshaf. That was precisely why Heryshaf could hold on for several hundred years.”

The King of Crocodiles continued where Tutankhamun left off. “After that, Heryshaf found me. He said that rather than becoming the Red King’s sacrifice and harming the people of Egypt, it would be better to pretend to rebel and have him draw out my spirit-body and seal it inside the scarabs. That way, my body and soul could each be preserved. I agreed with him, and so I did not resist.”

Tutankhamun took over again. “After that, someone appeared who could inherit the Ibis King’s place. Heryshaf judged that she was the one who could truly turn the situation around.”

“The reason he brought you here was because… if he failed to withstand Ozymandias’s deathbed counterattack, then, King of Crocodiles, it would be your turn to fulfill the promise of protection.” Tutankhamun sighed.

“The new… Ibis King Thoth?” Sobek was somewhat confused. “Did she have an agreement with Heryshaf as well?”

“No. Only in this matter, there was no agreement.” Tutankhamun smiled sadly. “This was probably the unspoken understanding between ‘heroes.’ The halo of a savior is made of ten million grains of grief. Only the heroes’ tears of blood flow the same way.”

T/N: nitoooooocris

This is a fan translation of 赫柏小姐正在杀出异闻带！ by 青散人 Rights to the original work belong to the creator. Please support them by exploring their original work or sharing it with others if you can. Thank you for reading and supporting my efforts to bring this story to a wider audience!