Need and Wish
"That was a fun change of pace. Takes me back to the old days, messing around with the heroes."
Keh-keh-keh.
Baba Yaga wore the bright, satisfied face of a child who had played to her heart's content. I, on the other hand, was sprawled across the training-ground floor like a wrung-out rag, the earth gouged deep in patches all around me.
"Tiss... I'm dying... quack."
I was exhausted. I genuinely could not so much as twitch a finger. That was how absurdly grueling Baba Yaga's special training had been.
"Heh-heh-heh. That'll do for today. I'll come find you again when the sun rises."
I wanted to scream that there were only four hours left until sunrise, but the words circled inside my mouth and died unspoken.
Baba Yaga set a potion down beside me, then mounted her broom and vanished into the night sky.
"Aigoo... so tired."
"Damn witch."
Just how much had I caught her fancy? Using villain-role practice as a pretext, she had put me through the wringer in earnest. She had given me a potion as compensation for the beating, but drinking it right away would not help my growth, so I tucked it away inside my clothes.
"The potion... can I drink it?"
"Hold on... a few minutes and... we'll be fully recovered."
My body was already pumping fatigue-recovery compounds through every limb as we spoke. I never thought I would end up doing here what you would only see in a Spartan speedrun of the original game — tossing out all the flavor and chasing nothing but raw efficiency.
"Tiss, d-do we really have to push ourselves this hard?"
"We do."
Being able to go all-out against an S-Grade hero without fearing for my life was a rare opportunity. The first principle of the promise between Shan and me was "safety first," so in the process of acquiring Essence and growing stronger, we had almost never fought with our lives on the line.
On top of that, I currently had to maintain my mimicry around the clock, which meant I could not use my monster powers. More precisely, Internal Transformation — restructuring organs and skeleton — was not a problem, but External Transformation — shifting my outward form into a combat-optimized shape — was sealed. It was like a predator fighting on physique alone, without fangs or claws. Call it half my strength locked away, maybe even two-thirds. I used that dangerously volatile Ichor to fill the gap, but even this hazardous artifact could not completely close the void.
"I don't know how strong the attackers will be, and I have to deal with the examinees on top of that."
Power control and stamina management were essential. Being able to find my actual limits in that state, and to push myself all the way to them, was an experience worth its weight in gold. If I panicked against an enemy I could actually handle and unleashed the monster form I was supposed to keep locked away until the very end, this whole story would turn into a survival-escape from the Area.
Haa.
Lying still, catching my breath, my gaze found the full moon hanging in the ashen, overcast sky.
"Tiss."
"Yeah."
"I want to say the night is pretty... but there aren't any stars. We could see them in Area 7."
"It's a city. Can't be helped. If you want to see stars, want to go to the park right now?"
"Mm... no. Not that much."
Unless you were in a park or on Academy grounds, you could see the moon, but stars were a rare sight.
"Tiss."
"Yeah."
"To be honest... I still don't really understand why we came here, to the human domain."
Shan blinked slowly, laying out her thoughts with uncharacteristic care. The seriousness on her face made it clear this was not one of her usual random conversation topics.
"I get that we're working to survive, like you said at the beginning."
"But the Children of Prophecy, fate, all that stuff you told me about... I don't really get it. I mean, I'm... a monster, right? A shut-in monster who likes being alone in a corner..."
That was her innate nature, her temperament. The kind of personality that could wall itself off from the world and still live just fine without ever feeling lonely. If Shan had been an ordinary person, how would she have lived? Would she have been thrown into a world this dangerous and harsh? Maybe she would have spent her days in a home she loved, living a quiet life where today was the same as yesterday, looking forward to tomorrow. But the fact that her bloodline was that of Abaddon's Spawn was what had brought her here. Of course, I was always aware that I had completely rewritten her fate along the way.
"So why...?"
Even when we had complaints or grievances, we always stayed on the surface — food, clothing, shelter, the everyday stuff. We never had a deep conversation. I never brought it up, and Shan never asked. Maybe it was because we shared one body. To some extent, we could understand each other without words.
"Aren't you curious why I'm doing all this?"
"T-to be honest, I am curious... Yeah. I am."
Curious, but holding it in. Why?
"Well, because I t-trust you, Tiss."
Hehe.
"Saying something like this out of nowhere is a l-little embarrassing."
I almost squealed. Shan shifted her fur and buried her face in it, as if trying to hide her embarrassment. I found myself smiling at the sight of her.
I had had a vague sense of it. Over the past two years, even when I acted like I already knew everything, Shan never called me out on it or asked me directly. That was her own way of being considerate, I supposed, and I had been leaning on that consideration.
"Tiss. Maybe... fate and prophecy and all that is just an excuse, and you just... want to live as part of human society?"
"I don't know."
Any soft, sentimental feelings — longing for the game, wanting to see my favorite characters, wanting to melt into this world — had been wiped clean during our escape from the orphanage. The shock therapy had been pretty intense. I still did not know why I had transmigrated here. The two years after that had been a nonstop survival contest against monsters and villains, with no room left for psychological stability.
"If that's the case... th-then to you, Tiss, I..."
"No. Shan. It's absolutely not that."
I cut her off before she could say something dark.
"Wanting to go back into human society, or wanting to leave you — that's absolutely not it. I can swear to that."
The reason I kept trying to involve myself with the Academy and the people inside it was, ultimately, because the future of this world hung in the balance. If Siwoo and Sia could grow on their own without my intervention, defeat the new monsters and Calamities that would appear, and produce a good ending, that would be the best possible outcome.
The problem was that this game's world was not the kind of place that flowed easily toward a good ending if you simply left it to Siwoo and Sia. I may have done it to survive, but I had already twisted a predetermined fate with my own hands, starting from the tutorial. Hoping those two would just proceed along the original good-ending route on their own was not merely shameless — it was delusional.
"It's all to survive. For me, and for you too, Shan."
Siwoo and Sia might be able to reach the game's ending, but if I wanted a better future, I had to take part in the story alongside them. Originally, neither Shan nor I would have even made it onto the stage. Now we had climbed to a place where the two of us could create the story together. And to be able to solve any problem that arose along the way, we needed to get stronger — which was why we had thrown ourselves into fighting and training. Baba Yaga's special training this time was part of that, too.
"Tiss, is the reason you're so desperate... because you have to be?"
The difference between a need and a wish, was it?
"I think I have to be."
"In your mind, Tiss... was entering human society something you absolutely needed to do?"
"For the sake of my wish, I have to."
For me, guiding Siwoo and Sia down the right path as they grew was essential. That was also the biggest reason I had come here.
"Watching over Siwoo and Sia is for the sake of the future, and wanting the two of them to be happy is my wish."
And I had more to say to Shan.
"And that goes for you, too."
"Huh...?"
Shan stared at me with widened eyes.
"Coming here, surviving, holding on... none of it would have been possible without you."
"Y-you thought of me that much...?"
"If you hadn't chosen me, I would have died there that day."
I was the one who had reached out my hand, but Shan was the one who had decided to take it. The truth was, every bit of power I had gained, everything I had accomplished, had originated from her. She may have been parasitizing my body, but I sometimes felt like I was the one parasitizing her.
"Symbiosis isn't a relationship that works just because one side wishes for it, or one side makes all the sacrifices."
"That's true..."
Once, I had asked Shan what she wanted. She said she did not want anything special — she just wanted things to stay as they were. Like a prickly but tender maid and the young lady who relied on her care, a warm everyday life of looking after each other. She told me she dreamed of remaining inside that, always.
That was when I started dreaming, too. I made up my mind to someday leave behind this horrific parasitic relationship — one of us holding the other's lifeline, her still eroding my body even now — and move toward a true symbiotic partnership. Monsters grow and evolve. If Shan wished for it, she would molt again and again, and at the moment of complete evolution, our relationship would change as well. I would rather give up my stubbornness a hundred times, a thousand times, and find another way than lose Shan's heart by clinging to my own.
"Being considerate is nice, but don't worry or stew over things alone... just tell me freely."
I did not want to be misunderstood — that I wanted to leave Shan, or that I wanted to go back to human society.
"Like when we talk about food or snacks...?"
"Exactly. We're one body, aren't we?"
"...Hehe. Okay. Yeah... if that's how you think about it, Tiss... I'll do the same."
And so we lay there for a long time, saying nothing, gazing up at a sky without stars.
"...I'm glad."
It was a starless, ashen sky, and yet a corner of my heart felt at ease.
I was certain there would be an attack during this exam. At the very least, I planned to operate under that assumption.
"The best thing would be... preventing the attack itself, r-right?"
"Right. So let's prevent it by raiding the exam site first."
"...Wh-wh-what?"
As expected. No matter the situation, stopping something before it happens is always best.