The Altar of Grief (2)

The moment the doors sealed shut, not a sliver of light found its way into the Altar of Grief.

All that greeted me was the characteristic musty, damp smell of old dust, and with even the faintest noise gone, the darkness sharpened every one of my senses except sight to a razor's edge.

"…"

There had definitely been someone in here, but I had no way of telling where they were hiding.

And I couldn't afford to move carelessly, either. The Altar of Grief's signature spiral staircase had no railings — one misplaced step, and I'd plummet to the bottom and be seriously injured, maybe worse.

In the end, the choice I made was to pour every scrap of my concentration into my hearing, straining for the slightest hint of movement.

If she intended to drive a blade into me the way Eileen had, I was determined to resist as best I could.

For someone who literally couldn't see a thing, my tension was wound so tight I could almost hear the sound of my own cold sweat trickling down.

"Dean…, was it?"

In that instant, a voice rising from somewhere far below reached my ears, and my shoulders flinched hard.

Still, there was at least a few meters of distance between us — she wouldn't be upon me just yet. I let out a breath of relief and focused on the voice echoing up through the dark.

"I knew you'd come straight back here. You must have had a terrible time finding your way back."

"…What?"

The distance made it hard to pin down, but the tone was high-pitched — a woman, most likely.

But wait. She knew I would come back here?

Apart from the player, no one could simply walk into the Altar of Grief.

On top of that, I hadn't brought any companions here during the 1st playthrough, which meant I should have been the only person alive who knew this place existed.

I couldn't just sit on the question, so I immediately ran through the five NPCs who had inherited my memories.

Eileen was absolutely out of the question.

There was no way I could ever forget that languid, sultry voice of hers.

So I turned the rest over in my mind, one by one.

Maeve, Altair, Sigrun — I had never so much as heard their names before.

Most of the NPCs I'd crossed paths with, I'd killed on sight without bothering to learn who they were.

Which meant the intruder was most likely the one NPC whose name I actually remembered: Carmen.

Carmen of the Clairvoyance.

The NPC you were required to take a quest from in order to progress the game's story.

Locked away in a prison cell so that players couldn't kill her before completing the quest — the memory was burned into me all the more clearly for it.

With her ability of Clairvoyance, she was the one who had watched the player's every move from inside a prison where not a single ray of light could reach.

"…Carmen."

"So you do know my name."

When I spoke her name quietly, the answer echoed back through the dark, sounding almost like confirmation.

And here was the genuinely good news: she was an NPC with no combat ability whatsoever.

After all, when players met her in her cell, she'd already had the ligaments in all four of her limbs severed.

…Hold on a second.

If every one of her tendons had been cut, how was Carmen here right now?

Was crawling across the floor for some enormous distance even a remotely realistic way to get here?

Tap. Tap—

An unsettling sound of footsteps began climbing the stairs.

Each time the noise of bare skin meeting the dust-covered floor drew closer, my fists clenched a little ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠tighter.

Focus.

I was only level 10, but she couldn't be much different from me.

And unlike back then, when my checkpoint had been the cramped interior of a dormitory, this time the checkpoint was a genuinely vast altar.

My life was infinite, while Carmen — the one trying to kill me — had only one to lose.

If it came down to a war of attrition, victory would be mine without a doubt.

Tap. Tap— …Stop.

The footsteps, now within a three-meter radius, came to a complete halt.

I swallowed hard and turned to face the direction of the sound.

With no light at all, I couldn't tell exactly where Carmen was standing.

But if I didn't seize the first strike, I'd be ambushed and defeated just like I had been with Eileen. That much was certain.

"Hup!!"

The instant the thought finished forming, I let out a battle cry, swung my fist, and charged toward where Carmen had to be—

Thwip—

"Wh— Aaaaagh!!"

My body pitched forward as the floor that had, until this very moment, been very much present simply vanished beneath me.

My fist sliced through empty air, and a stomach-lurching wave of freefall swallowed my whole body.

True to her title of Clairvoyance, Carmen had evidently seen my fist coming even in the dark and dodged it with practiced ease.

I, meanwhile, had no visual information whatsoever — so I punched the void, misstepped, and walked straight off a ledge.

And so the price of my reckless judgment was—

CRUNCH—!

I hit the floor headfirst, shattered into pieces in a death both instant and absolute.

"Haah…!"

It hurt far less than the time Eileen had cut off my head, but the sensation of that 0.1 second — my skin, my eyeballs, my brain, all of it scattering in every direction — was truly horrific.

"So you're awake."

Past experience had taught me that if I scrambled to my feet the moment I revived, a dagger would come flying at my throat, so I stayed lying flat instead. That was when Carmen's voice drifted close by.

"Wh-what do you want from me?!"

"I haven't done a single thing to you."

"Don't lie! You're the one who shut the doors to the altar!"

I shouted as I scrambled to put distance between myself and the direction of her voice, but Carmen only answered, calm and flat, without a flicker of emotion.

Not even light entered the altar, so I had absolutely no idea where I was or what kind of situation I was in.

Carmen, though, was nothing like me. With her Clairvoyance, she ruled over this space entirely.

The thought of her ability sweeping over every inch of my body made the hairs on my spine stand on end.

"I didn't close the doors to the altar. You did."

"…I closed them?"

"No one can set foot in this place without your permission, Dean. Not a single soul."

There was such conviction in Carmen's voice that I couldn't find a single word of rebuttal.

Because it was true — only I could open and close the doors ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of the Altar of Grief.

By design, only those granted the altar master's approval could ever cross its threshold.

Which was why, in the main story, no NPC whatsoever could ever get those doors open without the player's say-so.

But if that was the case… then why on earth had I let Carmen in here?

I bit down on my lower lip, unable to make sense of it at all.

"I watched you die here. Over and over."

"…"

"You met your end in that dormitory countless times."

Carmen was telling me that she had observed the massacre in the abandoned academy through her Clairvoyance.

"And… what does that matter?"

Her voice carried no trace of hostility, so I ventured a cautious question of my own.

"What does it matter, you ask…. I'd say you've forfeited the right to say that."

Perhaps because I'd been even slightly aggressive, Carmen's voice dropped a full register lower than before.

"I watched from my cell as you killed so many people. And then… you killed even me. Helpless as I was."

"…That's—"

I remembered it with perfect clarity.

The 1st playthrough — the moment I pried open that sealed prison door, received my quest reward, and brought my greatsword down on her in a leaping strike.

Her equipment, if I recalled, had been nothing but a prisoner's ragged uniform.

I could still feel the hollow disappointment of being handed such cheap, weaponless gear — as if the emotion itself had lingered all this time.

"…Dean. You cannot leave this place."

A soft hand came to rest on my shoulder as I fumbled uselessly ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠around a darkness I couldn't see through.

The touch slid slowly past my shoulder and up toward my throat, but instead of running, I chose to ask a question.

"I can't… leave…?"

"You who have murdered so many innocent people. I could never allow you back into the world."

"I—!"

"When the Ruin comes upon the world, the darkness that can be sealed away… must be sealed."

CRUSH—!

"Kkh…!"

In that instant the hand stroking my throat turned crushing and merciless, cutting off my breath entirely.

"Stay trapped here with me, Dean. Don't even think of escaping. Death will always be at your side — and that death… will be me."

Oxygen to my brain was being completely cut off. I clawed at Carmen's hand, trying to pry it from my throat, but it was hopeless.

Unlike the Carmen of the main story, whose tendons had been severed, the grip of this unharmed Carmen was nothing short of monstrous.

It was strength so absurd I finally understood why her limbs' tendons had been cut and she'd been locked away. I raked my nails desperately across her hand, again and again—

"…"

At last the oxygen ran out entirely, and a second darkness descended over a vision that had already been swallowed by the first.

"Kagh…! Hack, cough!!"

Strangled to death for the very first time, I came back to life coughing violently, gulping down the air I'd been starved of.

"As long as you don't defy me, I won't kill you again. Stay quietly trapped here."

As if killing me had been a warning of things to come, Carmen made her declaration to my newly revived self.

The voice carrying her message wasn't forceful in the least — but the meaning behind it absolutely was.

Whatever faint hope I'd clung to that Carmen might not kill me flew off into the far distance.

All of the NPCs who had inherited my memories had to hate me.

Each with her own convictions, each following a different path to get there — but the conclusion was always the same: they despised me.

"It won't be a bad arrangement for you either, you know. For what it's worth, I'm quite the beauty."

…It's so dark in here I can't see a damn thing, and she's running her mouth.

And so, in the lightless Altar of Grief, the signal flare went up for a cohabitation that would prove unbearable for one of us.