I'm the Only One With a Different Genre - Chapter 219

Chapter 219

Joy and Despair

***

Once upon a time, there was an ordinary girl who saved a world on the brink of destruction. She had picked up the sword only to protect her family, but the reward she received was nothing but an empty divine seat.

She was forcibly placed in the position of a god.

The girl, now a god, longed to return to her family, but she couldn’t even approach them. The attention and mercy of a god were nothing but a disaster for humans.

And so, the girl became ‘alone.’

As time passed, the girl tried to live like a human, desperately clinging to her fading humanity. Though she instinctively knew that no matter how much she imitated humans, her essence remained unchanged and that it was all meaningless, she couldn’t stop.

Then one day, the girl learned of what lay beyond the dimensions.

She became aware of an unknown space filled with beings similar to her or even stronger—other Outsiders. A faint, thrilling hope began to swell within her.

If I can’t be with my family because of my rank, I can just form a family with someone of a similar rank!

Thus, the girl met numerous ‘Outsiders.’ However, these Outsiders were greedy beings, devoid of even a speck of humanity, and they mocked her thoughts while coveting her world.

The only thing left to the girl was a world in shambles, and she desperately fought to protect it. Time passed, and the girl—no, she—eventually became so powerful that even the Outsiders of the highest rank could only crawl before her.

But the higher her rank grew, the further her dream drifted away, and her humanity slipped through her fingers like grains of sand.

One day, she discovered a soul with an overwhelming power, capable of turning even the signs of destruction into its own.

If I have that soul, wouldn’t we be able to live together forever, as equals? Wouldn’t it become the family I was forced to lose?

With a heart full of excitement, she brought the soul from the ruined world. The soul conversed with her so naturally that her lost humanity began to take shape once again. An ecstatic joy surged within her.

She attached her divine power to the soul, fed it her blood, and tore off parts of herself to mold a body for it.

She left the soul’s memories of its previous life intact on purpose, fearing it might grow sentimental and want to remain ‘human’ in the gag world. Thanks to that, the soul awkwardly adapted to the gag world, fitting the role of a ‘reincarnated being.’

The family she painstakingly created, stitch by stitch, had lost its most important core.

“…?”

“…”

This wasn’t the kind of failure she had wanted. Disappointment, despair, and anger surged within her.

The god before her would crumble to dust with just a flick of her hand. The newly born god was that fragile. But she didn’t do it. No, she couldn’t.

She remembered how horrifying and miserable it was to sit on the throne of a god while still holding onto human emotions. So, without a word, she embraced Lian.

The wish she had dreamed of and longed for over such a long time scattered away like dust. The desire that another being like her wouldn’t have to suffer the same pain—that wish was so very ‘human.’ Realizing this, the gag god let out a small laugh and murmured.

“…Haha, at least I’m not alone, right? Now I can even play multiplayer games.”

The lonely god cried without tears.

***

The Demon King, who had drawn her sword against the Demon God only to meet a futile end—now known only as Elensia—opened her eyes in a pure white space.

Unlike the space created by the gag god, this place had a long path stretching out before her, with square frames hanging in the air on either side.

‘These are… my memories?’

The pictures hanging on the walls were all scenes from her past. Instinctively, she took a step forward. As she did, the scenes in the pictures poured into her mind like a play unfolding before her eyes.

A young version of herself, barely reaching knee height, was smiling happily in her father’s arms.

‘Yes, it all started back then.’

Her father had wished for the blue sky and the starry night sky long before she was born. Though he had never voiced it in front of the Demon King, the residents of the Demon Realm and his subordinates all considered it a foolish dream.

“Humans, with their infinite potential, will surely find a way!”

Her father knew all too well how greedy and ambitious humans could be. Yet, he was certain they could live together because he saw that much potential in them.

‘Half-Orc, Half-Demon, Half-Elf, Half-Dragon… Only humans can marry and have children with other races.’

Thanks to this abundance of potential in various ways, her father’s dream continued to grow.

He united the forces of the Demon Realm under one rule and slowly erased its brutal culture, piece by piece. When the Demon King’s castle finally appeared in the middle world, he hoped that the Demon Realm, like the Beastmen or Elves, would be recognized as a single race and treated as a nation.

Through his blood, sweat, and tears, the Demon Realm began to change, bit by bit. Though many still had a cruel streak, it had grown to the point where it was no worse than a poorly policed city in the human world.

Her father’s once seemingly impossible dream was now within reach.

Tap.

Her steps halted in front of a frame stained with dark, gloomy colors.

‘…Yes, this is when things started to change.’

Her father’s once bright and shining eyes had dulled, and he began to move as if something were chasing him. At the same time, the atmosphere in the Demon Realm began to change, like a pure white canvas being stained with black ink.

The residents of the Demon Realm, who had once only quarreled, began to take each other’s lives and taste blood as if it were the most natural thing in the world. As the cruelty spread like a plague, she immediately sought out her father, but he only brushed her off, saying he was too busy.

‘How foolish… I thought everything would be alright.’

Her father had always been wise, overcoming every obstacle in his path. She believed everything would work out, so she focused on doing her best in her own role.

What she received in return was the absurd report that ‘The Four Heavenly Kings killed the Hero and died.’ Worse, it was said that they had killed the Hero under the Demon King’s command. She immediately sought out her father and… uncovered a horrifying secret.

“The fight between the Demon King… and the Hero, the war between the Demon Realm… and the human world, is nothing but a terrible cycle! I… I thought I had escaped that cycle, cough, cough… but no, I was wrong. Not at all—”

She stared intently at the memory she had replayed in her mind countless times.

‘A terrible cycle… It was nothing but repetition—’

In the dark room, she had pondered her father’s words over and over, trying to deduce their meaning. With so little information, there was only so much she could figure out.

‘The fight between the Hero and the Demon King might have been… an artificial play created by someone.’

Who could have created such a cruel cycle, trapping the Hero and the Demon King?

Though the question remained unsolved, after her father’s death, she became the puppet of the Outsider and was unable to investigate further. In the end, she died without ever discovering the truth.

‘I don’t want to face the memories that come next.’

Elensia bit her lip, unable to take another step forward. The memories that followed were nothing but a series of horrors. At that moment, a conversation she didn’t remember hearing echoed in her mind.

“The god…! It’s all just a play created by the God of the Sun, cough, cough… to increase divine power… The Hero… and the people of the Demon Realm… cough, cough… in an endless, never-ending war…”

“…!”

The God of Dark Fantasy had staged a cruel play between the Hero and the Demon King, all to increase divine power and expand influence.

The violent nature of the Demon Realm’s residents, the way their cruelty intensified when summoned to the middle world—it was all because they had been ‘designed’ for that purpose.

Her father’s eyes had changed the moment he realized this truth. He stopped preparing for life in the middle world and instead struggled desperately to escape his fate.

He wasn’t the only one. She found records of many Demon Kings who had died at the hands of Heroes, all of them struggling to break free from the cycle.

Her father had used every bit of information he could find to finally drag the god down and escape his fate.

Or so he believed.

When the weakened god fled the world, Outsiders, hungry for the vacant throne, invaded. The most powerful among them sought out her father, who had overthrown the god from the divine seat.

The beings who coveted the divine seat would never leave the one who pulled the god down in peace.

Thus, her father was devoured by a starving Outsider, his soul unable to find its way to the afterlife. He had tried to warn her of this cruel reality and urged her to escape her fate, but the Outsider, who had decided to use her as a puppet, tampered with her memory, blurring it.

The Outsider had intended to erase the memory entirely, but her father had used all his remaining strength before his death to carve it into her mind. As a result, the Outsider could only blur it, not erase it completely.

With the Outsider’s death at Lian’s hands, the hidden memory resurfaced.

“Ah… Ah…”

Confronted with the truth far too late, she could only let out a foolish sound as if she had lost her mind. After some time passed, her pale, blank mind was forcibly calmed.

‘A life review… Yes, this is a life review.’

The shockingly fast calmness robbed her of any sense of reality.

‘Whatever I’ve realized… it’s all over now.’

There was nothing more she could do. Apologizing at her father’s grave, shedding tears and falling into despair—all of that was the right of the living.

“…Lian…”

Though she had seemingly cast away all desires and cravings, Lian’s name slipped out of her lips with a pitiful tone.

‘I want to see him, right now… right this moment.’

Nothing was okay, and yet everything felt fine. The white space’s mysterious power forcibly stabilized her. Unable to express her feelings in words, she began to search for him, like a child calling for its mother.

Her once frozen steps began to move forward again. The memories of being a puppet to the Outsider dirtied her mind. The more they did, the more desperate her voice became.

“Lian… Lian…!”

With a heart full of longing, she called out to him as she moved forward.

“…!”

Like a ray of light piercing through the darkness, memories of Lian seeped into her mind.

It was like holding a piece of candy in her mouth after swallowing bitter medicine—a faint sweetness that clouded her thoughts. A blissful thrill and a gentle sense of peace wrapped around her.

She began to walk slowly. Sometimes, she lingered on a single memory, standing frozen like a statue for what seemed like an eternity.

The happiest memories before her death bloomed like radiant flowers, coloring her world. With a dazed expression, she reached out to touch the frames. But it was as if she were grasping at air—there was no warmth, no sensation.

“…”

At that moment, Elensia realized something.

At the end of the sweet joy, there was nothing but endless despair.

End of Chapter