A Private Audience
Acting was something he had always been confident in.
Minel painted a coldly calculated mask of despair across his face. His brows trembled. His lips quivered. Letting out a suppressed breath, he poured every ounce of despair into his voice.
"S-surely... d-do you not remember me? U-Urare... you appointed me yourself, did you not...?"
The words broke off, thick with unshed tears. That desperate performance completely erased the merciless gaze he had worn only moments before.
The Cloaked High Priest stared at his face for a long time. At first, something like disgust flickered there, and a blade-sharp killing intent spilled from his eyes.
Then the Spokesman's heavy voice shook the entire space.
"Appointed you yourself? Do not lie. If you had been appointed directly, there is no way you would not know."
The air around them trembled strangely. In that instant Minel laughed coldly inside. Time to commit fully to the act.
The last light seemed to die in Minel's eyes. His lips moved emptily through the air; his breath rasped out like a cracked flute.
"......Is that so...... Urare. Am I...... abandoned......"
As the words scattered, Minel stretched out both trembling hands. His gestures were as vivid as the final thrashing of a believer drowning in despair. Inside he continued turning cold calculations; outside he mimicked eyes slowly being swallowed by madness. He forced his pupils wide, tore at his own lips, and moved as if even the will to survive had snapped.
"I will...... prove it myself......! If Urare does not remember me...... rather than remaining a tainted existence, better to end my life right now......!"
Minel's heart still beat with perfect calm, yet outwardly he sank deeper into the role of a fanatic lost to despair and confusion. He threw his entire body open, as if offering his chest for the Cloaked High Priest to pierce. The unprotected flesh waited for the tip of judgment like a sacrifice laid upon the altar.
The Cloaked High Priest's face twisted.
"How dare...... how dare you deceive Lady Urare!"
He seized the dagger roughly, raised it high, and drove it straight toward Minel's chest.
At that exact moment a low, heavy voice rolled through the air.
"Stop!"
The Cloaked High Priest flinched and whipped his head around. The owner of that voice was Urare's Spokesman, the sound spreading from somewhere unseen.
"Do not make a spectacle before Urare! She is watching you! The moment your anger obscures the truth, that is the greatest blasphemy of all!"
Minel felt a quiet wave of relief. The leather jacket he wore beneath would have protected his body, but he honestly had not been confident he could sell the next act—raving with joy that Urare's miracle had manifested the instant the dagger bounced away.
In the silence that swallowed every other sound, the Spokesman spoke slowly, annoyance poorly hidden.
"Yes...... looking carefully, the face comes back to me. Urare clearly remembers you. So grieve no more."
To think the so-called Spokesman would lie so carelessly. Surrounded by people who swallowed every word as absolute truth, he clearly saw no need to put effort into deception.
Minel snorted a laugh inside. The Minel visible on the surface, however, was something else entirely. He pressed his palms together right before his eyes and trembled as though he had received a grace no treasure in the world could equal.
"Ah...... aah! As expected......! As expected, Urare......! You have not forgotten me! Thank you...... thank you!"
His voice was the raw, tear-soaked earnestness of a true believer. Even the Cloaked High Priest averted his gaze and forced his head down. Everything seemed to have been swayed by Minel's performance; the atmosphere was already tilting toward calm.
A brief crisis had come, yet in exchange he had secured the unmistakable endorsement of Urare's own Spokesman. From now on he could openly seek information about the fourth floor without drawing much suspicion. What phrasing would extract the most while remaining natural?
Minel's mind was already racing through the next calculations.
Then, from deep within the space, a voice that was never human drifted out.
"Minel."
A single word. Yet it resounded heavier than thunder, like an inescapable judgment.
The Spokesman sucked in a sharp, empty breath. Strength fled the Cloaked High Priest's hand; the dagger clattered to the floor.
And Minel's mind froze solid.
Just now......
Did it call my name?
"Minel."
No mistake. It felt like a whisper and, at the same time, like the entire universe speaking directly into his ear. In that silence the only sound that existed was that voice.
The Spokesman's voice cracked and trembled. The dignity that had dominated the space moments earlier vanished, leaving only fear.
"U-Urare...... j-just now...... d-did you speak...... d-directly......?"
Then the head of Urare—who had been sitting motionless at the center of the world—nodded, the motion almost imperceptible. That tiny movement created the illusion that the world itself had shuddered. Soon her voice rang out again.
"Everyone withdraw. I will meet with him privately."
The Cloaked High Priest's eyes shook as though an earthquake had struck. His face went bloodless and pale.
"U-Urare! Privately...... that cannot be! There has never been such a thing until now! Please......"
The voice was nearly a scream, driven by the desperate need to stop an existence that could not be defied.
"U-Urare......! Please reconsider. No one...... no one has ever beheld you alone. This is unprecedented. It is dangerous—please......"
The Spokesman's form remained hidden, yet the voice that shook the air was crushed by bewilderment and began to fracture.
Urare, however, was utterly unmoved. Instead, a firm, unyielding strength never heard before entered her voice.
"Exceptions exist. Today it will be so."
Short. Concise. A declaration that admitted no further argument.
Neither the Cloaked High Priest nor the Spokesman could utter another word. In the end the two of them slowly withdrew. Within the mysterious space only Minel and Urare remained.
And at last Urare moved—slowly, yet with absolute clarity. Her form began to blaze with the surrounding light until brilliant radiance veiled her entire body like a living curtain. Within that brilliance only her silhouette remained, dark against the overwhelming light.
Through that veil Minel could just barely perceive that Urare was walking toward him. Silhouettes of ordinary arms and legs were visible, yet their edges scattered into mist and gathered again, writhing like living patterns. To Minel's eyes they looked like sacred sigils—an illusion that had torn free of reality itself.
When Urare's shadow fell across him, he was seized by a strange sensation, as though he were sinking into an endless abyss. He could not even draw a proper breath, yet at the same time something sublime and inescapable seemed to pierce straight into his chest.
Then Urare's voice flowed out—quiet, soft, wrapping around him like an embrace.
"I cannot show you my true form. That is to protect you."
Minel lifted his head. Her face remained hidden by light, yet the sincerity contained in those words reached him with perfect clarity.
"......Protect me?"
Urare nodded, the motion almost infinitely slow.
"If I reveal my form as it is, Mystery will explode inside your mind. Caught in that explosion, you will no longer remain human."
"......"
"You will become a ghost. A ghost whose heart is trapped in the abyss, endlessly chasing Mystery, until you finally destroy yourself."
Countless emotions rose inside Minel's chest—awe, fear, and an unnameable pity all tangled together. Many thoughts crowded in, but first he needed to grasp the reality of the situation.
She had dismissed both the Cloaked High Priest and the Spokesman. That meant Urare held some measure of goodwill toward him. The reason remained unknown. There was no longer any need to keep acting. Better, then, to show his true self with absolute certainty.
"How did you know my name?"
Urare did not answer for a long while. The silence grew heavy; the entire space seemed crushed beneath its weight. Using casual speech might have been a miscalculation.
Then a voice like a breeze drifted out.
"Because of those clothes."
"Clothes?"
Minel's gaze dropped to the leather jacket he wore—the one Balan Cassel had left him.
"I know the owner of that leather jacket."
Minel's eyes flickered for an instant.
"What relation do you have with...... Balan Cassel?"
Urare shook her head slightly. Her form was still invisible; only her shadow writhed across the floor like sacred patterns.
"I could not even call it a relation. He simply arrived before me by a very coincidental chance. Of course he fled soon after because of Father......"
"......"
"He told me a very strange story. That countless people were suffering under my name. It was something I had never heard before. But......"
"......"
"Strangely, it seemed as though he were speaking the truth. And after that day, one by one, those things became visible to my eyes as well."
If Urare's words were true, then she herself was a victim of this cult. Most likely the Spokesman had used her to create the entire false religion. A considerable unease colored Urare's voice—curiosity about the truth mixed with fear of facing it.
Minel, of course, had no interest in the circumstances of a cult or its leader. His only purpose was escape from the Backrooms.
"Did Balan tell you my name?"
"Ah, meeting Balan was something that happened in the distant past. Your name, Minel, I saw later through a prophetic dream. I tried calling it just in case, and as expected, that name was correct."
She spoke the words casually, yet they carried a strange weight of trust. Without such mysterious abilities, the Spokesman would never have made her the figurehead of the cult in the first place.
Minel gazed quietly at the figure hidden within the light. He could not see her expression, yet her intent was clear enough.
"What do you want from me?"
"The truth. Around me...... there is no one who tells me the truth."
"I don't know the truth either. I only know what I've experienced."
"Even that would be enough. I would be grateful if you told me."
Minel organized his thoughts for a moment, then briefly explained everything he had seen and endured—how people conducted worship through the generators, how those rites gathered souls, how the souls collected inside a vessel shaped like a doll, and how that vessel's completion had appeared close at hand.
Urare listened in complete silence until he finished. She thought for a while, then carefully opened her mouth.
"Ah...... not long ago Father said my bridegroom was almost prepared...... surely that is not the doll you saw, Minel?"
Minel shrugged.
"Don't know."
Urare fell into thought again for a long time. Then she suddenly turned her head sharply to one side.
"There is not much time. Minel. I am sorry, but...... would you grant me one request?"
"A request?"
"The place where you are is too deep in the lower layers. It is difficult for me to exert influence there. That is why Father is preparing my bridegroom...... no, the doll in that place."
"......"
"May I...... make one request of you?"
The situation was turning in an unexpected direction. Yet there was nothing to lose.
Minel answered with a faint smile.
"If you tell me how to escape from this place."