The Altar of Grief (3)

Unlike Eileen, Carmen didn't lay a hand on me as long as I didn't do anything strange. There were times she'd run her fingers meaningfully across my face, but beyond that, she didn't torment me.

"Dean. After everyone died in the ruined world, what did you do?"

Sitting with my knees drawn up in darkness where nothing was visible, I heard Carmen, keeping watch beside me, ask about the first playthrough.

After killing the NPCs, huh...

Back then, savoring that level 999 strength, I'd swapped my equipment this way and that and slaughtered every boss in sight as I roamed the world. Somewhere along the way, I'd taken down even the hidden bosses, and I ended up seeing the ending where light returned to the world.

...Come to think of it, I supposed that counted as an ending you could call a happy one.

"...I saw the light."

"The light? What light could there be in a ruined world?"

"...".

She wouldn't believe me even if I told her anyway, so I gave a brief answer and shut my mouth. At that, Carmen's breathing, which had been calm, seemed to quicken with a trace of agitation.

"Don't... lie to me. How could a murderer like you possibly have seen the light—"

"See? You don't believe me."

Just as expected. Telling her was pointless.

Maybe because I looked too much like a villain, she refused to listen even when I was telling her nothing but the truth.

I had simply done everything there was to do—playing the first playthrough as a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠game, after all. Wouldn't anyone think, upon seeing an NPC wandering by with equipment that looked stronger than mine, I want to try that gear on?

If I'd known this action would bring about a future like this, I would have treasured every single word those NPCs had to say. Then this wouldn't be some grim tragedy—I'd have been dreaming of a splendid future, laughing and joking alongside a whole crowd of companions.

"...Is that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠really true?"

There came the soft rustle of fabric, and at last Carmen's voice, her emotions settled, reached me.

"The Butterflies That Veiled the Light... you're saying you defeated them?"

"If I did, would you let me go?"

The Butterflies That Veiled the Light—beings far removed from what people usually imagined when they thought of angels. I had slain them, yes, but they hadn't been the final boss. The true final boss had been something that looked like an underdeveloped fetus still inside its ovum.

I think its name had been Underdeveloped Fetus. An absurdly difficult fight spanning four whole phases, but to level 999 me, it had fallen with almost disappointing ease.

Unable to believe that a murderer like me had saved the world, Carmen started to say something, then hesitated—twice.

"...I won't believe it."

In the end, her conclusion was the perfectly rational choice: refusal to believe.

"If you had saved the world... then there's no way I would have come back to this place."

"...Think whatever you like."

There was no way an NPC like Carmen could know that Desperado Reunion, where each playthrough was practically a form of content in itself, held the power to rewind everything back to the timeline where it all began. The setting where the protagonist, having toppled every boss and claimed the power of a god, is made to choose all over again.

Of course, that was the setting of the first game, and I couldn't carelessly assume the second game—the one I'd transmigrated into—shared it.

"One more question."

She didn't seem the least bit tired of this back-and-forth, because Carmen posed yet another question to me.

"Then why did you kill the living? If you were trying to save the world, wouldn't it have been better to take them in as companions?"

Just as Carmen said, I knew the game had a system for recruiting companions. Not that I had ever seen them as anything more than a supply depot for equipment.

"I needed the equipment."

"Equipment?"

"That's all."

Deliberately giving an answer that could be read any number of ways, I left the interpretation entirely up to her.

"...You really are insane."

She seemed to have resolved to see me as pure, unadulterated evil—she spat the word insane at me and then stopped speaking to me altogether.

A murderer with no interest in saving anyone, for whom only he himself mattered.

That was the moment the shape of who I was became fixed in Carmen's mind.

She'd kept asking questions, I figured, because through her Clairvoyance she had watched me being murdered over and over at the academy, and had begun to wonder—could it be?

But what could I do?

This was the only truth I could offer, and even when I spoke sincerely, she wouldn't believe me.

All I could do was accept this reality. At least Carmen, unlike Eileen, wasn't killing me every chance she got.

The fact that I had no field of vision at all was utterly miserable—but paradoxically, the fact that Carmen was there beside me was what kept me from losing my mind.

Having no more answers to give, I lay down on the floor and closed my eyes. Not that it made any difference whether my eyes were open or shut; it was darkness all the same.

"Kgh...!"

Just as I was settling into peaceful sleep, Carmen closed her hand around my throat.

"If you won't... do anything... then I won't kill you...! Kkh!"

For all her promise not to kill me if I didn't resist, she was suddenly trying to murder me, and I was thrown into a panic.

"I've changed my mind. You have no reason to be alive."

"Kkh...!"

"Run, here in this cramped altar. If I catch you, you die—but while you evade me, you stay alive."

"K-kuhah!!"

Twisting my body with everything I had, I somehow tore free of her grip and sprinted headlong into the unseen space.

Thud—!

"Gahk...!"

My foot caught on a jutting ledge of stone and I slammed face-first into the floor.

With no light whatsoever, I couldn't see a thing ahead of me—simply walking anywhere properly was a challenge in itself.

"Are you frightened?"

"Fuck...!"

I couldn't even register the stinging pain of a nose smashed dead-on into stone. The moment I sensed Carmen drawing near, I scrambled upright ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and tried to flee—

"Go on, then. Feel what my despair felt like."

"GUAAAAAGH!!! AAAAGH!!!"

Carmen stamped down on both my feet and snapped them, and all I could do was crawl along the floor in agony.

Having grown used to every torture imaginable thanks to Eileen, I screamed and yet still dragged myself along the ground, moving as hard as I could in a single direction.

The altar was not a perfectly sealed place. If I could just make it to the door, I could open it by my own will.

If only I hadn't panicked when the door shut on me the moment I first arrived at the Altar of Grief, none of this chase would have happened. Cursing myself for failing to think of it back then, when my mind had been pushed to its absolute limit, I forced my broken body onward.

"Was this how you felt, when you killed me?"

"Please, I'm sorr—!!"

Crunch—!

I didn't get far. Carmen stomped my head and burst it open.

"Run again, Dean. I'll give you ten seconds."

"Hah...!"

At the sound of Carmen's voice as I opened my eyes at the checkpoint, I scrambled away in a pathetic four-limbed crawl, desperate and graceless.

Somewhere in here there had to be a staircase leading up to the door. If I could just find it, escape was possible.

The floor... what did the floor look like again?

I had to dredge up every scrap of my memory of the first playthrough. If I recalled right, the Altar of Grief was built as a cylinder of pillars. There had to be a spiral staircase somewhere.

I tried to chart my course by predicting the floor's shape, but the ground was unremarkably, frustratingly flat—there was nothing to go on.

"Time's up. Ten seconds."

"GUAAAGH!!"

Her ten seconds of grace exhausted, Carmen calmly and thoroughly stomped my skull until it cracked.

She wasn't threatening me with a weapon the way Eileen had. She wasn't even using magic. With nothing but the strength of her own two hands, Carmen killed me as easily as a child playing with a bug.

Her limbs were perfectly intact—just how high was her level? No sooner had the question crossed my mind than I was revived at the checkpoint, and I bolted immediately.

"Hah...! Hahh!!"

A complete silence had fallen over the darkness. Carmen spoke not a single word and made not a sound, as if determined never to reveal where she was.

Which meant that her silence, whatever else it was, was the best possible news for me.

Swiftly I searched out the wall and, sliding my body along it, made my way by feel toward where the stairs had to be.

"Found it...!"

There—small ledges rising steadily higher beneath my fingers. This was the staircase.

Part of me wanted to get up and sprint up them, but having already fallen to my death on these stairs once before, I climbed them on all fours instead. Though I'll admit, for a moment I thought climbing stairs like this was actually easier than walking upright.

"Hah...!"

The long, long staircase had ended. I'd made it to a place where the ledges no longer existed.

"...Please, please!!"

Pressing my palms carefully against the floor so as not to tumble off the edge, I made for the place I judged the door must be.

A low, groaning rumble——

The altar's door, reading my will, swung open, and the light I had so desperately craven spilled through.

"Go on, then. If you can get out."

My heart pounding at the sensation that I could finally escape, I lunged for the doorway—only to find a woman standing in my path.

Light crimson hair. And eyes of piercing scarlet that seemed to see straight through the world.

The beautiful features that framed them were looking at me, and smiling with contempt.

"MOVE!!!"

Far from being entranced by a beauty as impossibly stunning as Eileen's, I dredged up the memory of every brutal death she'd dealt me, balled my fist, and threw myself at her.

I'd had some confidence in my self-defense training, and I threw a decent, respectable punch—

But Carmen twisted her body away with ease, as if my fist moved in slow motion.

BAM!!

"Kuh!?"

"'I was killed by this person?' Honestly, I can't believe it."

Dodging my punch, she drove a kick into my abdomen, and I collapsed to the floor.

The altar door I'd drawn so close to receded into the distance, and I skidded to a stop just barely short of the spot where one more roll backward would have sent me plummeting down the stairs.

Carmen, dressed in attire a dancer might wear, fitted the knuckles onto her hands and began walking slowly toward me.

"Hk—... The Fist King?"

At the sight of her, unbidden, the image of the game's strongest boss overlapped in my mind.

Theodorus, Lord of the Unarmed.

Even I, a munchkin player at level 999, remembered struggling against his monstrous attack patterns.

"...Do you know my father?"

Just as I'd suspected, Carmen confirmed that the Fist King Theodorus was her father.

Her father, the Fist King, was a boss sealed away in the Abyss—a hidden boss reachable only by completing the gimmicks within the Underground Prison. The process itself was so convoluted that during the second playthrough, I'd reviewed the steps over and over to make sure I didn't forget them, even taking notes.

At the sudden mention of her father's name, Carmen stopped her assault.

"...Is... is my father alive?"

She faltered over her words, asking me so cautiously—so unlike herself.

"Yes."

I slowly pushed myself up and gave her the truth. And then—

"My father... is alive..."

"Hngh!!"

—I grabbed Carmen by the waist and hurled us both down the stairs together.

A rush of wind—

A violent pressure like it would tear my skin from my bones swallowed us as the floor rushed closer.

I'd meant it as a mutual death, my arms ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠locked tight around Carmen's waist—

"Papa..."

But when her faint murmur reached my ears—

CRASH—!!

—the instant before we hit the floor, I wrapped myself around her on instinct, so that she wouldn't be hurt.