The End of Guardian Sacred Beast Jarnayaharma

“......Hi~, oh-kaaay! Adjustment complete, whoo~~~~~!”

By the banks of a beautiful spring where Sereyu flowers bloomed in profusion.

The haze that had clouded his head was swept away, and then came the first “words” he had ever heard.

They were weirdly hyper, and totally pumped up.

“Yoo-hoo, little white snake-chaa~n! How. Ya. Doin'?

I'm Water Goddess Weelow, the see-through goddess who cleanses the flow, nice to meet ya!”

He raised his head and looked up, and the creature floating there, going by its silhouette alone, resembled the thing called a human woman.

Except that her body...... the softly rippling hair that flowed down to her waist, the long, slender limbs, all of it was made of gathered water.

In other words, a humanoid shape of water floating in mid-air. That was the most concise way to describe Water Goddess Weelow's appearance.

“Now then, now then! For a white snake-chan who's totally clueless about what's what after all this outta nowhere, Water Goddess Weelow-sama herself will explain the situation in per-son, even if it's through an avatar! Whoo! A super-ultra-rare experience! You're so lucky, y'know~?”

The Water Goddess chattered away merrily as she twirled around, and the little white snake listened earnestly, his tongue flicking in and out.

“First things first! You, see? This whole area...... humans call it Zahan in their language, but anyway, you've been chosen as the Guardian Sacred Beast of this whole area, y'know! Congrats~!”

The Water Goddess clapped her hands, but the white snake tilted his head. Guardian Sacred Beast?

“Oops, sorry! Hearing that out of nowhere is pretty confusing, right~? See, a Guardian Sacred Beast is...... well, there are all sorts, but you protect the land! Like a local land god, kinda!? In your case, that's the kind of Guardian Sacred Beast you've become!”

Protect the land? A tiny white snake like me?

The white snake tilted his head again.

Until now, he had been a fragile creature who struggled even to hunt a single small insect.

Every day he had fought desperately to survive, and even then, things never went well, so his body had stayed small.

Could someone like him really handle such a great role?

The white snake genuinely wondered.

“Ah, it's okay, it's okay-ay~~! I've given you wisdom as well as a decent amount of power, and more importantly, it's not like you have to actually do anything as a Guardian Sacred Beast!”

The Water Goddess read the white snake's thoughts and continued her explanation while dancing.

“Your job as a Guardian Sacred Beast, well, since I'm the one who appointed you, your job is ‘water management’, but the spell formula I already carved into your body takes care of that all by itself, y'know! All you gotta do is just not die! See? Ea~sy~, right~?”

Just don't die? That's all?

“Yep, yep! Just that, and I get less work, happy! You get wisdom and power, lucky! You and me, we totally went and built ourselves a win-win relationship!”

In that case...... I'll be okay, will I?

“Totally A-OK! You're kinda like my follower now, so as long as you stay near this spring...... or, like, anywhere with moisture, you won't get hungry, and you'll get stronger little by little! Super easy-peasy~!”

But, if strong monsters or humans attack me......

“Geez! You're such a worrywart, white snake-chan! Then I'll send the humans an oracle in my name! Like, ‘This is sacred ground, and there's a Guardian Sacred Beast here, so be nice to it, okay!’ As for monsters, there's nothing dangerous enough around here to mess with you the way you are now, so you're fine!”

The Water Goddess chattered on so merrily, but starting from the tips of her toes, her body was beginning to fall to the ground in drops.

“Oh!? Yikes, is my activity limit already up~~? Well then, that's it for now, time to say goodbye, white snake-chan! Finally, let's see...... it wouldn't feel right to keep calling you ‘white snake-chan’ forever, would it? So, I'm giving you a name as a present! I'll only say it once, so listen ve~ry carefully, okay?”

At that, the Water Goddess took a deep breath, and let it out.

The goofy mood blew away to who knows where, and tension settled over everything.

“Your name is...... ‘Guardian Sacred Beast Jarnayaharma’.”

No sooner had she solemnly declared it than the Water Goddess's body turned back into plain water, splashed down, and soaked into the ground.

That was the moment of birth for the white snake, now Jarnayaharma, and the first and last encounter between Guardian Sacred Beast Jarnayaharma and Water Goddess Weelow.

◇ ◇ ◇

100 years passed.

Jarnayaharma did not move from the spring where he had become a Guardian Sacred Beast; he stayed still, absolutely still.

If he did something careless and died, he would no longer be able to carry out the duty the Water Goddess had given him, and that would be bad.

......Of course, he did think that, too.

But the main reason he made no conspicuous moves was that, just as the Water Goddess had said, as long as he stayed somewhere with moisture, he never got hungry at all.

Water that welled up, absorbing the magic power of the earth.

Jarnayaharma took in the magic power contained in that water, and it seemed that was how he was able to live.

Anyway, without doing a thing, he could go on living.

In that case, he didn't feel the slightest need to go out of his way to hunt and scare himself.

By that time, his body, which had once been smaller and thinner than a twig lying around, had grown as thick and large as a log.

It was also around that time that he met humans for the first time since becoming a Guardian Sacred Beast.

A single hunter had wandered into his dwelling.

The man took one look at Jarnayaharma's beautiful, sacred, huge and magnificent form and understood at once that this was the Guardian Sacred Beast of the Water Goddess's oracle, the one the village elders told of, and he flung himself to the ground and bowed low, rubbing his head in the dirt.

Seeing a human, one of the kind that had once so kindly chased him around trying to kill him for fun, put on such an indescribably foolish display, Jarnayaharma felt his pride swell with satisfaction.

The man immediately returned to the village and told the villagers about the Guardian Sacred Beast he had seen in the mountains of Zahan.

The devout villagers quickly prepared offerings and presented them to Jarnayaharma.

For Jarnayaharma, who could live as long as there was water, these were completely unnecessary, but since they had gone to the trouble, he polished off every last bit.

Among the offerings, along with crops from the fields and the meat of monsters hunted in the mountains, were even human girls offered up as sacrifices.

He couldn't quite understand the human mindset of offering their own kind, but well, if they were giving, he would take it, and he devoured them without hesitation.

◇ ◇ ◇

Such interactions with humans continued for another 100 years or so.

By now, Jarnayaharma's body had grown so huge that it rivaled any great tree around, and every living thing feared him, so that not one came anywhere near his territory.

By that time, he had become able to generate mist, making his territory more comfortable for himself.

That made him all the more mysterious, the humans' faith in him grew deeper still, and they built a majestic altar and a flagstone path for worshippers.

What he looked forward to were the offerings the humans brought him once every few decades.

No, to be more precise, he looked forward most to the sacrifices offered among the many other offerings.

Sacrifices were his greatest entertainment, the one thing that brought some life to his otherwise uneventful days.

Unlike ordinary beasts, humans showed a wide variety of reactions that amused him.

Those who wailed in despair, those who raged and struggled, those who fell silent having given up on everything......

And whatever reaction they showed, in the end, every human offered as a sacrifice was swallowed by Jarnayaharma, and their life ended there.

The sense of superiority, knowing that through his overwhelming power, he could freely dispose of the lives of others.

It more than satisfied his heart, which had grown ever more arrogant as time went by.

I want more sacrifices......

But the Water Goddess had given him wisdom enough to understand that this could never be.

Offering up that many sacrifices would leave the humans who worshipped him unable to keep their community going.

So, just one sacrifice every few decades.

It was unsatisfying, but if he endured it, the excitement when the time finally came was all the more intense.

That was how he talked himself into it, dozing atop the altar as he waited and waited for the next sacrifice to be brought to him.

◇ ◇ ◇

What woke him from his slumber was a slight leak of murderous intent directed toward him.

He immediately raised his head and identified the source of the murderous intent.

It was a girl with black hair and black eyes, dressed in filthy clothes.

Without thinking, Jarnayaharma swatted the girl dropping from above with his tail, sending her flying.

......Now I've gone and done it, he thought regretfully.

After a hit like that, the girl could hardly be all right.

She didn't seem to be a sacrifice, but she was still a precious human who had so kindly come all the way into his territory.

He had wanted to toy with her and enjoy himself more......

But to his delight, the girl who had been slammed into the great tree was not dead.

I wonder, were humans always that sturdy?

She'd been slammed so hard that he was sure she would burst into a squishy lump of meat......?

Such a question surfaced.

But he paid that question little attention.

Either way, she had been good enough to survive, so why complain?

He would take his time toying with her, and enjoy himself.

He began to move toward the girl.

The girl fought back by throwing pebbles, but it was a complete waste.

He dodged everything and approached the girl.

Cower. Despair. Satisfy my heart with that. Become the entertainment that colors my days.

But.

But on the face of that girl, reflected in Jarnayaharma's red eyes.

Neither fear, nor sadness, nor anger, nor despair, nor resignation.

Nothing showed at all.

Just a blank face.

But in those eyes dwelt a blazing, seething will to live. A ferocious fighting spirit that almost made him flinch.

A flame that he, upon becoming a Guardian Sacred Beast, had unconsciously lost.

......I am big, and strong.

The girl is small, and weak.

That is how it should be.

And yet.

Why, is this girl, not trying to dodge?

Not trying, to run away?

So boldly, waiting for me?

Judging by how this girl has moved so far, she should have been able to leap away to safety, at least.

And yet.

This girl does not even run.

She just wastes pebbles that never even hit......

Wasted?

Was it not a waste?

It's as if.

As if, I am.

Could it be, this girl.

Made herself the bait.

With pebbles, steered my course.

......Lured me, all the way, here?

Jarnayaharma was a powerful Guardian Sacred Beast.

But his strength was not something he had won by fighting for it himself.

Once every few decades, he toyed with a sacrifice.

He swallowed whole whatever skittish beast happened to wander in.

That was about all he had ever done.

In short, he was not used to fighting.

And so he leapt right into the girl's trap without even noticing it.

By the time he sensed the danger, it was already too late.

There was no longer any way to stop his body, which was already leaping toward the girl.

In a space where there should have been nothing.

About 1 meter short of reaching the girl.

There, the girl had set her 【Magic Slash Thread】, and it split his head clean in two.

And he died.

......Just before death, the moment he realized his own end, Jarnayaharma remembered the 200 years he had lived.

Drawing on the knowledge he had been given, he understood that this was what was called “his life flashing before his eyes.”

A pure spring welling up.

Sereyu flowers blooming in profusion.

The occasional sacrifice.

That was all.

His 200 years of memories were made of nothing more than that.

It had been a life far too bland, a life with nothing in it.

No, that's not right.

I, did nothing.

The one who merely idled away those 200 years, was none other than myself.

He realized this.

And before he could be struck by intense regret.

His head was split in two, and his thoughts dissolved into darkness.

Such was the end of Guardian Sacred Beast Jarnayaharma.