22. Two Regressors
22. Two Regressors
The dagger was buried so deep. Blood trickled out in thin streams.
The past Rus was already bloodied from her fight with Chloe. But those eyes that had seemed so emotionless flooded with shock in an instant.
[Ad, Adam!]
[.........Ah.]
[You can't die! You can't, you can't, you bastard! You have to live! Live so you can see everything you've done! You think running away into death is something you're allowed to do?!]
The past Rus flung the Dark Sword aside and desperately tried to staunch Adam's wound. With the dagger still lodged in, pulling it would only worsen the bleeding—it was the only sensible measure she could take.
She used ki to physically seal the wound, straining to keep Adam's fading consciousness tethered by any means. She shook his body, slapped his cheeks, tried everything she could think of.
If Adam had been 3rd Rank, or even just 2nd Rank, there might have been some small chance of saving him.
But for a 1st Rank, a dagger through the heart meant death.
[You can't! The nations that were chasing you—they're all crumbling right now. The Holy Kingdom is destroyed, the Delphia Kingdom is in ruins, the Empire is in chaos from 8th Rank monsters! If I want you to live, you can live!]
[Ru...s.]
[You have to face all the sins you've committed! Even if you're corrupt, even if you've become this...!!]
[Chloe.......]
[What?]
[Tell Chloe......I'm sorry......I leaned on you too.......]
[Don't talk shit! Live! Live!!]
[I'm sorry......I couldn't love you right.......]
Chloe quietly turned her head to the side. She could see her future self—the person who had died at Rus's hands and would never have heard those words otherwise.
What kind of expression was Adult Chloe wearing? Chloe was standing just slightly behind her, so she couldn't see.
Words she'd only been able to hear because she'd died, leaving behind enough residual thought to return imperfectly.
And then.
[Live, and I'll keep you with me. Always. Like that.]
[................]
[So that......you.......]
What about the past Rus? And the present Rus, now watching these long-gone memories?
Chloe felt the karmic weight of regression anew—the sheer burden Rus had been made to shoulder.
[So that you......can be forgiven......and you too......can repent......and like that......together.]
[.............]
[You called me the protagonist. You said I was the hero of this world. Isn't a fairy-tale hero allowed to dream that kind of dream?]
The past Rus was crying and smiling at the same time. Furious that Adam had thrown his life away so futilely, insisting she'd save him and make him pay for his sins—
And yet, the contradiction was there. She wanted to go back to before, when they'd been happy.
For Rus to forgive Adam, and for Adam to repent his own sins.
For the two of them to reenact that old happiness somewhere no one knew.
Knowing full well how distorted, how absurd, how fantastical that wish was.
She clung to it anyway.
[Adam, Adam.]
[..........]
[Adam..........]
Adam had died long before. He'd breathed his last without ever hearing most of what Rus said, murmuring only his apologies to Chloe before he was gone.
The past Rus clutched the lifeless body for a long, long time.
Then she laid Adam's corpse down in silence and picked up the Dark Sword she'd thrown aside.
And.
[You said......you grant wishes. You damn sword. I begged you so many times. Was it really that hard a wish?]
Crunch.
She drove the Dark Sword.
Into her own forearm. Blood gushed, and the Dark Sword drank it in.
[What kind of artifact made by a god is this? What kind of conceptual object? Why won't you grant my wish?]
She kept wounding herself. Kept feeding it blood.
[Is it still not enough blood? Is that it?!]
Clang!
She kept feeding it blood until, consumed by anguish, she hurled it away.
The Dark Sword struck the cave wall with a weak clatter and fell, and Rus collapsed slowly, her body a mess of self-inflicted wounds.
[Adam......get up......time for breakfast......I even bought......eggs this time..........]
No answer.
[If I......hadn't left the academy......if the Chairwoman hadn't died......if at least you and the Chairwoman hadn't been......what you were..........]
No answer.
[I just.......]
No answer.
[I just wanted......to go back to those happy days.]
Still no answer. Then Rus lay down beside Adam, and her breathing too grew thin, and at last, when it stopped—
Woom.
The Dark Sword, drenched in the blood of two people, rose into the air shining.
It moved to Adam's heart and drank that blood too. It sank deep into the heart in place of the dagger.
And so [Dead's Last Words] came to an end.
"............."
".........."
"................"
The spell was over. No more past events would replay.
They were still in the cave, but that too would return to normal soon.
But Chloe couldn't say a word.
What was there possibly to say?
"......Thinking back, I think this was the wish the Dark Sword granted."
"So there was a wish after all. Even after you got your hands on the Dark Sword, you kept using it as just a weapon, so Adam and I assumed you didn't have one."
"After I got the Dark Sword......going back to those happy days was already impossible. The Chairwoman was dead, Adam was corrupted, the Holy Kingdom was burned to ash. Everything had already happened."
"So......."
And so the Dark Sword rewound time after everything was over. That was the only way to grant the wish Rus had made.
And from that regression, everything began.
At last, having witnessed what the Dark Sword had done after her death, Rus nodded—finally understanding why she had regressed.
"But the Dark Sword is still in my hands."
"......That means."
"That means my wish hasn't been granted yet. I still haven't gone back. To those days I felt were happy......."
Rus closed her eyes. She'd returned to the past, but she still hadn't found happiness.
If her wish stayed ungranted "this time too," would the Dark Sword send her back to the past again?
If it did, she thought she might do a little better. She could pick up the mistakes she'd made since regressing, all the things she hadn't known.
Adult Chloe had picked up on it too.
"You're planning to regress again? Because then there'd be no such thing as an imperfect regressor like me?"
".........."
"Is that why you laughed at me? Why you said you'd show me all of this?"
If by some chance she regressed again, Chloe and Adult Chloe would never meet again. She could surely approach Adam better, get along with him better, be happier.
But Rus quietly shook her head.
"You might not know this, but I'm living with Adam right now."
"......What?"
"W-Wait! What do you mean by that?"
"Exactly what I said. The present Chloe might not know, but originally, Adam and I lived together. I'd make him breakfast—I even bought eggs instead of just apples and cooked for him."
"What's with the sudden bragging......Wait."
"That should have been my happiness. But my wish still hasn't been granted."
"No way."
"I'm forgetting. What the happiness of those days actually felt like. If I keep repeating regression like this......I'll end up broken, having forgotten even the wish I started with."
So this is the only chance.
Only this first regression, where Rus Spero still remains herself and hasn't fully forgotten that happiness.
This is her last chance to make the wish come true.
"Two Chloes coexisting, the witch—the Chloe I know—using necromancy to touch Adam's residual thoughts, coming to a space like this......none of it was predictable. But I thought of it as an opportunity."
"......An opportunity?"
"I was trying to stop the world from burning, even more than I was trying for my original wish. Even if it meant killing Adam."
"What?"
"But now things are different. From the moment the scabbard lodged itself in Adam, a lot has changed. I'm trying not to get dragged around by the past."
Why was it?
Chloe felt that Rus looked just slightly, very slightly, like an adult. Considering the regression, she actually was older—that much was true.
A regressor who'd been dragged along by regression had finally steadied her heart. And the trigger was probably—
"What exactly happened at the rock salt mine?"
"......Nothing special. I just realized that Adam and I are more deeply tangled than I thought. And I think I can guess why the Dark Sword drove itself into Adam's heart at the end."
"Which is?"
"At this rate, three years from now, the academy will burn and collapse. Not long after you and I graduate."
"............."
"I said I won't get dragged around by the past, but this is a different story. The bastards who attacked the academy───"
[This is why it's a problem.]
"......?"
Rus stopped mid-sentence at the voice that suddenly echoed. It was a voice she knew far too well.
A voice ringing through the cave, coming from somewhere beyond as footsteps approached.
[Inaction really is a sin, you know? I did warn you, senior. I told you not to believe in all that protagonist nonsense.]
"You......?"
[The Dark Sword......is it trying to turn back time? Rewinding the whole world for the wish of a single failure—quite the sword, really.]
"......Cassandra."
Chloe had thought the spell was over. But it wasn't, which was why this space wasn't returning to normal either.
Cassandra, who had arrived at this cave after Adam and Rus were dead.
The self-proclaimed Great Prophet who had appeared before Rus at the rock salt mine as well.
[Regression, huh. Still, whether a failure can succeed is another question.]
She smiled, entirely at ease.
[I'll have to intervene when it's necessary. Maybe I should give senior some advice in advance?]
Woom!!
The moment Cassandra's words ended, the cave scenery vanished. Before she knew it, Rus was standing in a pure white space once more.
Even so, Cassandra's final words lingered, impossible to forget.
"Senior......she must mean Adam."
"......Probably. My future self says the same. Can you hear her voice by any chance?"
"Not at all."
"She's cursing you out right now, taking full advantage of the moment."
"Tell her to eat shit."
Chloe and Rus.
The two of them looked at each other, the air between them distinctly awkward. It felt as though they'd learned far too much about each other in far too short a time.
They understood each other's positions now, but that didn't mean reconciliation. Their gazes met and parted for a moment.
"First of all, my future self says saying any more is dangerous. If I learn too much about future events, the coexistence might break."
"......Really? But haven't you already picked up a lot?"
"I suppose I have. Probably thanks to the training I've had. Things would be different if I were 6th Rank, but for now."
The Chairwoman's death, Adam's fall, a continent set ablaze.
That was already enough to infer a great deal. But this was Chloe's speculation, not detailed knowledge of future events. Her head ached faintly, but her condition was stable.
"Catching Cassandra comes first. She's definitely hiding her real Rank."
"That was the plan from the start. But if it's true that Cassandra's been faking her Rank, that means she fooled even the Chairwoman. Do you understand what that means?"
"............."
"Whether we capture her or try to talk, we have to meet her first. But right now even that's impossible, so......."
Rus had already tried to meet her multiple times, and Cassandra had slipped away every single time. And if she really was hiding her Rank, even a direct confrontation would yield nothing by force.
But that obviously didn't mean giving up.
What mattered was finding some way to make Cassandra eat a massive dose of her own medicine.
"Then how about this?"
"......Hm?"
*
Kwaaaang!!!
"......Now what."
"Finance Director! There's been an explosion—all of a sudden!"
"God dammit."
Why did this academy never have a single quiet day?
I really hate this world.
"So, where is it this time? Magic Department lab? Training hall? Graduate dormitory? If it's the duel arena, at least that's manageable."
"W-Well."
"Chairwoman?"
"It's the Student Council room......."
"Oh."
"Finance Director?"
"Whoever did it, honestly, I'm grateful."
If Cassandra was the one who set off that explosion, all the better. Gives me grounds to slap that junior of mine with a suspension.
Anyway, whoever it was, they blew something up, and they did it well. Best of all, that building's under contract with the Carpenter's Guild, so the repair costs will be cheap. What's the saying—generosity flows from a full storehouse. The finances are doing decently now, so a repair bill this size looks almost fine.
If I churn out some salt on the side, it'll be basically a wash. That, and Cassandra getting royally screwed over? That's a net gain.
'The bitch who turned my whole school life into a greatest-hits reel of humiliation with all her regressor nonsense.'
Please, let her suffer.
At least as much as I have. Please!