Altar of Grief (1)

“I didn't expect you to come back to life so soon.”

“...Please—!”

Crrrck—.

From the next resurrection onward, meeting my death was utterly, hopelessly inevitable.

Eileen, who had no particular fondness for cruelty, kept freezing me solid with her ice magic all the same.

The sensation of every last pore of my skin crystallizing, the horrifying agony of my veins — the very vessels my life had flowed through — rupturing.

No matter how many times it repeated, I could never grow numb to that pain.

By the time the death count passed twenty, I gave up keeping track.

No one came to save me, and no one came to arrest Eileen either.

Even when I tried to learn her attack patterns, my goddamn cursed perk had jacked up the difficulty exponentially.

Eileen's ice magic, which at first had a noticeable gap while she cast it, had before long risen to a whole different tier entirely — capable of flash-freezing someone like me without the slightest effort.

Every time I opened my eyes on that bed, I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠died.

Just as I was starting to wonder if that was the only damn ending I'd been handed—

At some point, who knows what wind blew in, but Eileen stopped killing me.

“...”

I had long since forgotten even how to defy her, so I only felt puzzled by that behavior, unable to say a word.

This was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Eileen, after all — someone who could trample my flimsy fly's life into paste without a second thought.

“Dean. Tell me — doesn't dying ever get old?”

Perched on the edge of the bed, Eileen stared down at me with hollow, emotionless eyes and asked.

'Old? It's the most fucking sickening thing in the world, you psychotic bitch...!'

I wanted, more than anything, to answer exactly like that — but I didn't.

Because this small stretch of freedom I'd been given was precious beyond words.

“You accept reality faster than I expected.”

Eileen poked my unmoving cheek with her finger a few times, and then, at some point, drew her dagger and sliced lightly into it.

“...Ugh.”

A sharp, stinging pain bloomed, and a groan slipped out of me before I could help it.

It hurt.

I'd rather she just killed me.

What was the point of torturing me like this?

“I like it.”

Ending on that loaded remark — and, astonishingly, Eileen did not kill me.

I couldn't tell whether she'd reached a sufficient level or simply grown tired of slaughtering me, but for this one day at least, I was free. I wept at the fact of it.

“Hhk... h-heuk...”

God, I missed my mother.

If I contacted her after so long, she'd probably get angry and scold me for not calling more often.

I missed that tenderness so badly it ached.

As the emotions swelled up and I began to cry like a child, Eileen, seated on the bed, turned her gaze toward me.

Stricken with terror at that frigid stare, I held my breath with a gasp and forced the sobs to stop.

“Cry. It's the only thing that makes me feel a little better.”

Pressing the dagger against my throat, Eileen urged me to weep even harder instead.

In the end, unable to rebel, I nodded and did my best to let the surging emotions burst free.

Grieving for the countless feelings piled up through one death after another — and aching for the family I feared I could never return to.

So it was that one man's wretched sobbing rang through the dormitory like a symphony.

“...”

Watching it all, Eileen's expression curdled, little by little.

“...Why did you do it.”

Thuk—

“Kehaaak!!!”

She drove the dagger into my forearm and began venting her fury.

“You're suffering like that!! So why did you do it to me when you killed me!!”

“Aagh!! Ghaaaaak!!”

The blade she'd sunk into my forearm crept steadily upward, until at some point it had carved its way to my elbow.

Dozens of holes riddled my arm, and through them her emotions seemed to bleed into me.

“That was fun, wasn't it? Trampling someone weaker than you...!”

The me of the 1st playthrough.

A Level 999 munchkin. A murderer.

Why, back then, had I been so obsessed with hoarding items and equipment?

If only I hadn't done that.

...No — if that bug hadn't kept me from entering that one region in the first place, I never would have transmigrated into this body at all.

I truly wanted to kill Eileen.

Because I understood exactly where her heart was coming from, I wanted to kill her all the more.

“...”

With my one unharmed right hand — the one untouched by the dagger — I laid my palm against Eileen's throat.

But even then, she only thrust her own neck out with defiant confidence, as if daring me to try.

As if to say I was not the man I'd been in the 1st playthrough.

As if to say I was not the weakling I'd once been.

“Yes!! So now your true nature finally shows itself!? You're a murderer!! Murderer Dean!!!”

Eileen, the perfect avenger, roared at me in domineering fury even as cold sweat poured down her face from the trauma.

And at the sight of her—

“...I'm sorry.”

I stroked her cheek.

“Wh-what?”

God, I wanted to kill her.

I wanted, this very instant, to murder Eileen over and over, in exactly the same way she had murdered me.

But... entertaining thoughts like that changed nothing. There was nothing I could actually do.

So I decided I might as well accept it.

They say light finds the ones who let go entirely of rebellion against fate — who stop thrashing against their destiny altogether.

“Shut up...! Shut up, shut up!!”

My completely unforeseen outburst shattered Eileen's composure like nothing else had, and she drove the dagger into my throat.

“Kehk...”

“Did you really think something like that would earn forgiveness...!!”

By returning all those countless deaths to me, the very purpose of her revenge had grown hazy — but Eileen, as if determined never to forget that fact, drove the dagger down again and again.

Until my head was fully severed from my body.

Every time the blade bit in, blood sprayed violently in all directions.

Did she realize it?

That the way she looked now — was barely any different from how I'd looked when I killed her, back in the 1st playthrough before I'd ever possessed this body?

Killing me to raise her level in preparation for the Ruin was just an excuse now.

After slaughtering me so many times, she must have leveled up more than enough to effortlessly smash her way through a playthrough like mine.

Kaang—!

At the final downward strike, the dagger blade, unable to endure any more, shattered in half and clattered to the floor.

“Die!! Just die!!”

But she still seemed to need to vent her rage on my already-dead body — she flung away the broken dagger, gathered frost in both hands, summoned icicles, and fired them off wildly.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Pababak—!

The icicles punctured the corpse, punching huge holes into it.

As if even that weren't enough, Eileen launched volley after volley more before, at last, her attack stopped.

“......”

Only then did the sight of the dormitory finally reach her eyes.

My severed head, drenched and slick with blood.

And beneath it, a body mutilated so savagely it was no longer recognizable as anything human.

Her hands began to tremble violently, and at last she raised a hand to the cheek I had stroked—

squeezed her eyes shut, and fled the dormitory just as she was.

And so, I revived once more.

“...Son of a bitch.”

I'd never imagined freedom would come to me so out of nowhere, like this.

My consciousness had lingered even after my head was severed, and through it I had watched every one of Eileen's actions — but I couldn't understand at all why she'd behaved the way she did, so I just stroked my neck, which still seemed to throb with phantom pain.

“...”

But one fact, at least, hadn't changed: I was free.

After trudging through countless deaths, I had escaped that horrific, horrific hell.

The moment that truth sank in, I rose to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠my feet at once.

And fled the dormitory room that had become trauma itself made manifest.

“...Huh?!”

As I staggered down the dormitory corridor in my tattered uniform, shoes barely on my feet, a girl passing by recognized my face and went white with shock.

Dean — the boy who'd been murdered during a sparring lesson, whose body had then dissolved away until no trace of him remained.

“Excuse me...!”

At the sight of that dead boy standing there, alive and addressing her—

“...Ggrrrgh.”

the girl foamed at the mouth and fainted on the spot.

“Please, just help me out... seriously...”

Of course the one girl I tried to ask for help had to collapse.

Waking her again to beg for help felt awkward in the extreme, so I gently laid her down in a corner of the corridor and moved on.

Where was I supposed to run to?

I couldn't think of anything.

The timeline I'd transmigrated into was the distant past of the main story — just as despair began to creep over the fact that I couldn't go anywhere I actually knew—

“...The Altar of Grief.”

One location surfaced in my mind, unbidden.

“If it's there... I can hide.”

That place — the hideout the protagonist used in the main game — would let me conceal myself from the NPCs who had regained their memories.

It was said to have existed since long before the events of the main story, so it more than met every condition for a refuge.

Plus, it was a place only the protagonist could use. A bonus, that.

“...Let's go.”

The moment the optimal destination came to mind, I bolted from the dormitory building like a man escaping a prison.

I worried the students I passed along the way might turn out to be Eileen, but thankfully nothing of the sort happened.

'...I pray I don't run into anyone else who's recovered their memories.'

In the 1st playthrough, exactly five NPCs had inherited their memories and stats.

Setting Eileen aside, I had no idea where any of the others were, and cold sweat poured down my back just thinking about it.

Don't worry... even if they did inherit their memories, if I hid inside the Altar of Grief, they could never find me.

Because no one would ever suspect I'd slipped in there.

And so I set off barefoot for the Altar of Grief.

Thankfully, the abandoned academy's surroundings were practically identical to the game's scenery.

Narrow, ambiguous lanes, and paths tangled together like a maze.

Apart from the absence of monsters along the roadside, nearly everything looked the same, so finding my way was no trouble at all.

...

“...I'm here.”

Haunted by the fear that Eileen might come after me, I had stayed awake through two whole nights before finally reaching the Altar of Grief.

My bare feet were raw from the unpaved dirt road, a sour ache throbbing through them — but with the joy of knowing I was finally free of this cursed level-farming shuttle, I didn't even have the presence of mind to hurt.

“It looks far nicer now than it does in the main story.”

In the main game, the Altar of Grief was little more than a ruin — but in this era, it was simply a tower well suited to hiding in.

“...Please, open.”

Unlike in the main story, the door stood shut fast and solid. Praying to any god listening that it wouldn't be locked, I laid my hand against the massive door—

Gooooooh——

a thunderous noise, far too grand to be a mere door opening, rolled through the air, and thankfully the gate swung fully open.

“...Whew.”

The interior of the Altar of Grief was truly dark and dank.

The moment light spilled inside, countless motes of dust came drifting into view.

But it was precisely that atmosphere that convinced me no one would ever come looking here, and I pressed on.

The instant I stepped fully inside, light flashed before my eyes and a notification appeared: my checkpoint had changed.

“WAAAAAAH!!!!”

The overwhelming realization that I would never have to return to that dormitory when I died crashed over me, and I roared out loud and sank to my knees on the floor.

How long had I longed to see this message?

There had even been a time when I died over and over, searching for some way to change my checkpoint.

...And only now did I seem to have figured out the condition.

Apparently, the checkpoint changed upon arriving at a place of safety.

I was just relaxing at how the checkpoint selection worked exactly like the game system—

“So you've finally come.”

From the depths of the Altar of Grief, a husky, sensual voice rang out.

“...Son of a bitch.”

I had no idea whose voice it was.

But one thing was certain.

Whoever owned that voice was, without a doubt, one of the NPCs I had murdered.

The moment the truth crashed down on me — that even the Altar of Grief, the place I'd believed safe, was no sanctuary at all — I scrambled backward to flee—

KOOM—!!

The great stone doors of the Altar of Grief slammed shut at once, and darkness fell.