Solo Leveling: Ragnarok – 261



Episode 261

Wow-

The illusion of the ice flower erased Forres and this time the very old memories that Silad remembered began to be drawn before Suho’s eyes.

It was a newborn baby.

[That is me.]

It was a very young Silad sleeping soundly in the arms of an adult elf.

[And she is my mother.]

And behind it Elvenwood grew high in the sky its branches wriggling ominously.

Silad muttered softly glaring at the hideous monster disguised as peace.

Since when did it start?

[…Even before I was born we elves were already raised by Elvenwood.]

And this was a very painful memory that Szilard still harbored even after his death.

Spring summer fall and winter.

The four seasons experienced by elves were not one year.

Sometimes it was brief and sometimes it lasted for decades.

But there was bound to be an end someday.

The peace that seemed like it would last forever came with winter.

One day the once rich land became increasingly dry and a harsh snowstorm raged through the bare forests where even the leaves had fallen.

[As always the ‘harvest year’ came suddenly.]

Wow-

Run away too!

[Winter is always sudden.]

Harvest year.

One day Elvenwood began harvesting the elves it had been raising.

[…I was still young.]

Suho who was watching the illusion saw Silad’s expression.

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Szilard was facing his memories with bitter eyes.

Wow!

A harsh snowstorm.

I saw my mother desperately running away on that frozen snowy field.

When I closed my eyes it was still vivid.

He held himself who was still a newborn tightly in his arms.

The anxious face of a mother running away in a hurry.

Silad looked at his own young eyes which were staring blankly at his mother’s face in that warm embrace.

and.

Fuuk-

-Ugh…!

…The trembling hands of a mother desperately handing over her child into the hands of another elf even as her back was pierced by those hideous thorns.

-Even you…

…My mother’s last voice as she was captured by the corrupt demons and dragged back to Elvenwood.

Those pitiful eyes that smiled faintly as he watched his child slowly drifting further away in the arms of another elf.

Even with my blurry gaze that faint voice that was muted towards the child until the end.

-Live….

[…Live at least.]

All of that was still vivid in Szilard’s memory.

Until this very moment when I die and fall into eternal sleep.

[That is the last thing I remember of my mother.]

Wow-

Time passed quickly in the fantasy.

Shillard.

There was a newborn baby there who lost his parents and barely survived being left in the arms of other survivors.

At the same time the young elf who witnessed all the tragedy with his own eyes remembered all the despair and settled down smoothly in the new village with the other adults.

A new home.

Within the fence of newly sprouted Elvenwood.

Silad gradually grew up and became a boy.

I became a young man.

I also made friends.

Among them was Forres.

In this way Silad learned elemental magic and hunting skills with his friends and competed with each other for the position of guardian of the village.

Looking back it was peace.

Sunny weather.

The fresh smell of grass.

Every moment was peaceful.

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But even in all those moments Szilard’s friends never once saw him smile.

It seemed like he didn’t know how to smile at all.

It was natural.

Szilard’s mother just told him to live but left without telling him how to live.

[Did you know that?]

Silad muttered next to Suho.

[Sometimes a bloody battlefield is better than a miserable peace.]

Szilard was glaring at the illusion he had created with grim eyes.

Wow!

Winter has come again.

Peace is over.

The elves are dying.

The survivors fled in haste.

-Why!

Among them was Forres howling.

-Why do we have to be like this every time?

[Forres was the same as me.]

Like Szilard Forres was a newborn who had barely survived in the previous village.

An elf who experienced the recurring tragedy of winter.

[We always felt unfair. Why do we elves always have to do this over and over again? Why can’t we escape from this terrible fate?]

A quiet anger bloomed in Szilard’s eyes as he watched Forres crying out in anger in the snowstorm.

[So I stayed.]

Szilard made a different choice than Forres.

In the middle of the village where everyone is scattered and running away.

In that bitter cold blizzard.

Only Szilard remained where he was holding his weapon.

[It was unfair. So I made a promise. Not to repeat any more.]

Numerous thorny roots attacked Silad who was looking up at Elvenwood with a venomous expression.

Breaking through the ice floor.

Through the blizzard.

[If my end is decided anyway at least I will choose where I will die.]

Schwak! Wow!

The demons of corruption also attacked.

Demons wearing faces that were once members of the same village.

Starving spirits who have not yet taken possession of the bowl.

Against all those enemies.

No against everything in the world.

[…I didn’t run away.]

Shwaaak-!

Gooooooooo!

In that thick snowstorm.

Silad fought and fought without stopping.

Where everyone had fled only Silad remained to fight.

[We fought day and night. I even forgot about hunger. In the first place the passage of time had no meaning in a snowstorm. After fighting so frantically…]

Stand tall.

[Suddenly no one attacked me.]

Wow-

All enemies had disappeared.

A cold and bitter winter.

In that frigid blizzard only Silad stood on the barren snow field.

And Silad couldn’t help but burst into laughter when he discovered something too late.

Su-ho who was watching the vision by Silad’s side also noticed the sight and opened his mouth.

‘…Elvenwood froze to death.’

[okay. Isn’t it absurd?]

Silad burst into laughter and responded to Suho’s words.

[The great Elvenwood froze to death. Much faster than me who was just struggling to survive. I just can’t stand the cold. Just the cold…]

That was all.

A mixture of futility ridicule and bitterness appeared on Szilard’s face as he muttered incessantly.

Looking at it another way it looked like he was holding back his tears.

That’s it…

Silad who barely survived dragged his wounded body and approached the frozen Elvenwood.

And then he started hitting the frozen tree like crazy.

There was no purpose.

Just until your anger is relieved.

Quack! bang! Kwajangchang!

For days and days.

Over and over again.

He did not stop his hands until the Elvenwood was torn to pieces.

[Still my anger didn’t go away. So I dug up all the frozen ground and pulled out all the fine roots hiding underneath. And this time I chewed and swallowed all of its roots.]

Squishy squishy.

Silad’s expression was already half crazy as he forcefully chewed and swallowed the remains of Elvenwood.

How can one be sane?

His entire body was completely worn out by the long battle.

The blood from his wounds had frozen like frost in the harsh snowstorm leaving his skin cracked.

In some ways it was even more horrendous than a fallen demon and it would not be surprising if it died soon.

But Szilard was still alive.

Even the bitter cold seeping into his bones was nothing to him.

On the contrary he couldn’t collapse much less laugh at Elvenwood for the rest of his life who couldn’t withstand the cold.

[So I decided to stay in the village after that. The reason for leaving in the first place is gone.]

And the moment he left that land to escape the cold he felt that he no longer had the right to laugh at Elvenwood.

[So I just sat down. Although it is cold there are many advantages to living there.]

What are the advantages?

It was extremely cold.

However the elves were a race that adapted to the environment…

[That’s how I became the ‘first ice elf.’]

The first ice elf.

It was much later that Szilard who survived the bitter cold became the next monarch.

It was only after the lord of the elves at the time died in the war between rulers and monarchs that Silad could finally become the next monarch.

But at that time he was still young.

If you think about it it wasn’t even a proper revenge on Elvenwood.

The only thing he accomplished was surviving Elvenwood until it froze to death.

He made up his mind.

[I will definitely become the lord of the elves one day find all the elvenwoods and uproot them. And I finally did it. As soon as I became the monarch I uprooted all the Elvenwood I could find.]

Of course there were elves who opposed it.

However the decision of Silad who had already become the monarch was absolute and all the elves gradually adapted to the cold land where Elvenwood disappeared and became ice elves.

And the starting point is the first snowfield where Silad survived.

It was the first village to be rebuilt on the frigid land where Elvenwood died.

But ironically the elves who lost Elvenwood were very weak.

The spirits who had lost their focus no longer listened to the elves’ requests.

But it didn’t matter.

Since they were no longer friends there was a need to sort out the ranks.

-Obey me. You lowly and cowardly spirits.

Silad who became the Lord of the Cold pulled out all the Elvenwood and began to hunt in earnest the spirits that were scattering away from him.

[Spirits do not die. But wouldn’t it be enough to catch it and freeze it?]

Silad poured out all his resentment and cursed the spirits he had captured one by one.

-Spirits freeze. Trapped in the bitter cold and suffer forever.

The curse was an elemental magic filled with all the resentment of Silad the first ice elf to survive the harsh cold.

-Just as you made my people like that you too will live for an infinite number of years neither alive nor dead.

At the same time it was just as they had been playing with the corpses of dead elves and turning them into corrupted demons.

They were also cursed to be locked in a frozen prison forever neither alive nor dead becoming Silad’s slaves.

Grrrr!

The huge ice giants that were born this way trembled before Silad and swore submission.

The roar they cried out was the abject scream of the spirits trapped within.

[Ice Golem]

Suho was seeing the name of that prison right in front of his eyes.

And then I remembered.

A quote from a philosopher I’ve seen somewhere before.

‘We are all fighting our own war.’

And a long time ago when I first met the dead Szilard in this pure white world.

I remembered the fantasy of a forgotten time period that Szilard had shown me.

In that fantasy Szilard….

He was whispering in an extremely cruel voice while sticking a frozen blade into Seong Jin-woo’s heart.

-Are we done here human? Then you won’t be able to see it. The moment our troops arrive on this land. At that time your corpses will form mountains and your blood will form rivers.

It was the worst curse that Silad who became the king of the yetis and the lord of the cold could do.

-But this country where you were born and raised will be different. I will personally freeze all humans on this earth and make them suffer forever.

At the same time it was an ‘existential’ hell that Szilard himself understood more keenly than anyone else who knew him well.

-…They will live for an infinite number of years neither alive nor dead.

Corrupt demons who live for an infinite amount of time neither alive nor dead.

no.

The life itself of the elves who were raised by Elvenwood and the spirits and were robbed of everything.

-…hate me endlessly in death.

Recalling the hell they had personally experienced Silad cursed the dying Shadow Lord as much as he could.

-…That will also be my pleasure.

And that was the only sacrifice that could console him for the smile of his mother who died saving him and for the sorrowful death of his compatriots who passed away beside him.

-Why! Why do we have to be like this all the time!

Before I knew it the illusion had returned to the form of Forres running away crying in sorrow.

Looking at that scene Silad muttered with sad eyes.

[okay. I also felt so unfair. I wanted to make other people go through the hell that we elves live in. Because that was the only thing I could do for my compatriots who had already died. But now that I see it….]

Szilard’s eyes lit up as he looked at Fores’ next memory.

[…Fores This guy seems to have found a different way than me.]

Sillard survived the winter on his own.

Even though he is a high elf Fores has repeatedly run away from the winter that repeats itself countless times.

The fate of these two ended up being decidedly different.

Silad eventually became a monarch and fought proudly against his enemies until the end where he fought and died on the battlefield.

Even though the ending was defeat he was a warrior who accomplished the task of driving the blade into the heart of the great Shadow Lord with his own hands.

But Forres was different.

-You are a creature born with a pitiful fate.

…!

Suddenly someone appeared in front of Forres who was crying in the fantasy of ice flowers.

‘…!’

At that moment Silad and Suho’s eyes flashed at the same time.

stigma!

Unidentified beings with golden stigmata floating above their heads in the form of a halo appeared in front of Forres.

But unfortunately their faces were obscured by the dazzling light emitted by the stigmata and could not be seen properly.

Because this was Forres’ memory.

Forres was overwhelmed by the holy light they were emitting and did not even have the courage to raise his head.

But even then there was something he saw.

-Can we help you a little?

It was a cruel yet beautiful smile on their lips.

It was their hand that was kindly extended to me when I was in despair.

And without even hearing an answer the hand plucked out Forres’ eyes without hesitation.