7. Altar of Grief (4)

I couldn't explain why, instead of killing her, I had gathered her into my arms.

…No. That was a lie. I knew exactly why.

When she fell down the stairs with me, crying out for her father, her face overlapped with a face from my own past.

My father drove a taxi for a living. He died in a head-on collision with a truck when I was in my second year of high school.

My greatest regret was never having made that one last phone call to him. And so, without even thinking, I had felt a kinship with her — and embraced her.

"…"

When I opened my eyes after reviving, Carmen was straddling my chest, both hands clamped around my throat, weeping.

The doors stood wide open, light spilling into the altar's interior — from her hair glowing faintly in that light, down to the tears that streamed endlessly from her eyes.

There wasn't a single thing about her that wasn't beautiful.

"Hk—!"

The moment Carmen realized I had come back to life, as if she'd been waiting for exactly this, her hands tightened.

The terror of being strangled to death the instant I revived sent me thrashing and struggling on pure instinct.

"It's true… that my father is alive… isn't it?"

"Even if I tell you he's alive, you won't belie— urk!"

She didn't even wait for my answer. She choked me harder, demanding like a threat:

"I asked you if he's alive!!!"

SLAM!!

She drove my head hard into the floor.

The pain was unbearable. Judging by how my hair was gradually soaking wet, my skull had cracked open.

And it seemed my spine had shattered along with it, because the body that had moved so well just moments before went completely limp after the impact.

"…Ugh."

My lips wouldn't move as I willed them, so all I could manage were intermittent moans.

Stop it, please.

Your father is still alive.

He's alive and well, down in the Abyss beneath the Underground Prison.

"Ghhh!! Ghh…!!"

"ANSWER ME!!"

I wanted to scream that at the top of my lungs, but with my whole body paralyzed, moans were all I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠could produce.

SLAM! SLAM! SLAM!!

She bashed my head into the ground again and again, until the back of my skull caved in completely and my brains spilled out.

My entire body crackled and flashed as if fireworks were going off inside it. Right now I lay paralyzed and utterly limp, but had I been able to move, I would have been flopping like a fish thrown out of water.

"Haa… haa…"

Only after slamming my head down several more times — only once the man before her had gone completely dead-eyed — did Carmen finally catch her breath.

Needless to say, there was no getting an answer out of a man with a shattered skull. So without hesitation, she stepped on my head and crushed it beneath her heel.

"…Fuck. Would you just listen to me."

The moment I revived, I immediately crawled across the floor, putting distance between us, and let my fury boil over.

"Your old man is alive and well! He's locked up in the goddamn Abyss beneath the goddamn Underground Prison!!"

I shouted it with all the bottled-up resentment of someone who had been speaking nothing but the truth all along and never been believed.

"…How am I supposed to believe that?"

And there it was again.

I tell the truth, and no one believes me.

Is it because of my damn face? Should I laugh it off?

Except when I laugh, my face turns so wicked it's genuinely unsettling.

"Whew… haaa…"

Getting angrier would accomplish nothing, so gritting my teeth, I slowly began recalling exactly where the Fist King Theodorus was being held.

"…Listen carefully. I'm only going to say this once."

Replaying that hour or so I'd wasted hunting for a single path, I launched into the dungeon walkthrough in as much detail as I could muster.

"In the Underground Prison beneath Forgotten Heart: Resonance, there's an area where skeleton mobs crawl around. The one carrying a torch runs away whenever it spots a person. Follow that one, and you'll find a mechanism room. That's how you find and destroy all five mechanism rooms."

It was a gimmick so convoluted that in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠any other circumstance I could never have recalled it properly — but the emotion of rage burned through me to the very end, and paradoxically, it let me remember everything with perfect clarity.

"Once all five are destroyed, a stone tower rises in the center of the prison. Pull the five levers on that tower in order. The sequence, by lever length, is 3-2-1-4-5. Then the tower opens and a staircase appears. Go down it, and you'll find the Fist King Theodorus."

Having finished an explanation detailed enough to surprise even myself, I stepped back two paces.

"Satisfied now? Believe me or don't. …Ha."

I hadn't told a single lie — ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠nothing but truth. The rest was up to her.

"……"

Carmen, suddenly handed the precise location of her own father, fell silent as if turning every one of my words over in her mind.

Then something snagged mid-thought, and she flinched, looking at me with eyes that seemed to ask for the explanation again — but

"…"

I answered that gaze with silence.

"Are you unaware that your life hangs in my hands?"

Apparently my silence displeased her, because Carmen immediately snarled a sharp threat. But I wasn't intimidated — I provoked her right back.

"…Go ahead. Kill me. Unlike your father dying down in the dark, I just come back to life."

WHAM—!!

"KUH—!!"

For crossing the line, Carmen drove a fist precisely into my abdomen, punching a hole clean through it.

A single, casual straight punch tore my stomach apart completely, and blood flooded my lungs in an instant, surging up and out of my mouth in waves.

It was the mouth of a man who had crawled up while high on rampaging adrenaline, forgetting his own station entirely.

When I opened my eyes, Carmen was sitting far away on the stairs, her head buried in her hands.

A faint, eerie light leaked from her gaze — it seemed she was searching the place I'd described with her Clairvoyance.

"…"

Hearing me stir, she shot me a glance with less fury in it than before.

Only once she'd confirmed it with her own eyes had she realized I'd been telling the truth, apparently.

Either way, it was no longer my problem, so I hauled myself up and hunched into a crouch.

"You."

Carmen spoke quietly, interrupting me as I breathed in the dust-laden air of the altar.

"…Talk."

A cold thought flickered through me — that once she'd extracted everything she needed, she might kill me as a loose end — and I answered, straining to hide the tremor in my voice.

At that, Carmen seemed about to say something, bit down on her lower lip instead, and rose from the stairs. Then she walked over to me and, without a word, began to caress my face.

I still couldn't understand this — the way she fiddled with my face like that. And with every second of that incomprehensible gesture, my pounding heartbeat only grew more frantic.

"Why, in the world…"

At last she let her hand drop heavily to the floor, and asked in that emotionless tone of hers:

"You saved me, didn't you?"

In her eyes as she looked at me was an emotion I could only call confusion.

Had learning her father was alive made her want to trust me at last? Or had killing me over and over somehow bred a small thread of pity? Or had the sight of a murderer showing a human side simply thrown her off balance?

Whether that emotion was hypocrisy or confusion didn't matter.

What mattered was that Carmen had taken the posture of a listener, waiting to hear what I truly felt.

"…You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

And still, I ruthlessly kicked away the chance for an explanation that would never come again.

I had been murdered by her too many times to want anything more to do with her words.

Yes, I knew. I knew perfectly well that the Carmen standing before me was a victim too.

I just couldn't bring myself to take the next step — to share in this cursed kinship the two of us felt.

"…I see. And I never believed you, either."

Carmen held my gaze for a moment, as if honoring my position, then took a single step back.

"I'll let you go."

"…What?"

Whatever whim had seized her, she jerked her chin toward the stairs as if to send me on my way.

"Leave. Right now. If you're not out in thirty seconds, I'll kill you thousands of times over and grind my own levels up on you."

Suspicion whispered that this, too, had to be some kind of test, and I stood frozen — and then, out of nowhere, thirty short seconds of escape were granted to me.

…Whatever. Get out first, think later.

There wasn't even time to worry about what might happen after, so I shot to my feet and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠bolted straight up the stairs.

Thankfully, when I passed Carmen, she did nothing but watch me. She truly didn't lay a hand on me.

But the moment I reached the altar's entrance, Carmen — somehow arriving there ahead of me — began to count.

"5… 4… 3…"

At that chilling voice ticking downward, I wrung out strength I didn't have and hurled my body through the entrance.

Mid-tumble I bashed my knee against the ground, skinning my leg raw, but the terror of the closing timer drowned out even the pain — I didn't notice the blood, just kept running.

"…I'll be watching you. Always."

Carmen, who neither followed me nor moved even after the time ran out, left me with that one short warning before walking away somewhere.

And so, after tens of days, I finally succeeded in escaping the Altar of Grief.

My next hideout… I hadn't decided on one.

I simply wanted to run from this cursed world, so I ran, and ran, and ran.

Even when I fell flat on the ground, even when I tripped and rolled across the dirt —

I just kept my eyes forward and ran, however I could, on and on.