You Like Me, Don't You
"You like me, don't you."
"I'll be back, Lily."
Dania smiled and stroked Lily's hair.
"Okay! Be careful, Unni."
Click.
"....."
The moment the door shut, Lily's smile vanished as if it had never been there. The warmth from only seconds before was gone without a trace, leaving nothing but a chill in the air.
Just now… I definitely used my ability…
It had only been a split second, but I had manifested my unique power. Charlie's words had snapped my reason clean in half, and by the time I came back to myself, I was staring at a massive crack in the ground—with my foot buried right in the middle of it.
I was angry, but I never thought about killing him.
Maybe I didn't even need murderous intent. Maybe plain hostility was enough to trigger it.
"Aaaaaagh!"
He must have been so startled he'd forgotten how to run on two legs. Charlie scrambled away from me on all fours.
"W-what the hell was that—"
Deep confusion was written all over Charlie's face. He still had no idea what had just happened.
"Hmm…"
I was still trying to figure out how to explain when our eyes met.
"Eek…!! I'm sorry! It was a lie!!! It was just my selfish feelings talking!! Please, spare me just this once!"
Charlie blurted it out in a panic.
So it was a load of crap after all.
It was infuriating, but I could understand. A beautiful girl like me was probably a rare sight in a place like this. Falling for me at first glance wasn't entirely unreasonable.
Still, it left a bad taste in my mouth.
The image of some guy blushing and shyly confessing his feelings floated up in my head, and fresh irritation started seeping through me all over again.
Big bro is holding it in…
As ridiculous as it sounded, if I'd been standing in front of an unbelievably gorgeous girl who'd lost all her memories, I might have "accidentally" slipped a little personal interest into the conversation too.
I forced the anger down and put strength into my leg, trying to pull my foot free.
"....."
Huh?
"Nngh…!!"
It wouldn't budge.
"Hnnngh…!"
No matter how hard I pushed, my leg refused to move an inch.
"Hera…?"
The fear on Charlie's face shifted into something more like, What the hell are you doing right now?
".....Give me a hand."
"You don't know either?"
He seemed to have calmed down a little—he was already slipping back into casual speech.
"Yeah. It just happens sometimes. I don't even realize I'm doing it."
"Hmm… Did you take some kind of drug or something?"
There was zero benefit in explaining my unique ability to Charlie, so I just played dumb. It was too much of a hassle anyway.
No need to tell him.
"Maybe it's connected to your amnesia?"
"Oh."
Ah, the all-purpose cheat key: memory loss. No need to invent excuses. He was already filling in the blanks for me on his own. All I had to do was play along.
Charlie kept spinning theories by himself for a while, but in the end he came up empty. Deciding further thought was pointless, he let out a heavy sigh and gave up.
"So what are you gonna do now?"
"Hm?"
"You said you don't remember anything. Weren't you going to look for your memories?"
"Well…"
What was I going to do now? Squeeze Bram for answers, obviously.
That was the plan, anyway—but Bram sat at the very top of this whole district. Meeting him wouldn't be easy. Maybe if I worked my way up through his underlings one by one…?
"For now, I'm going to figure out how to actually control this power."
Charlie nodded as if he agreed with the idea.
"Well… with that kind of firepower, at least you won't starve to death…"
He added, trembling faintly as the earlier memory clearly came rushing back.
"Still, be careful. The mood out there isn't good right now."
"Did something happen?"
Charlie lowered his voice, like he was sharing something important.
"Lately there's been more and more bodies turning up in the streets—people killed by blades. Everyone just writes it off as the usual knife fights, but I don't think so. These are deliberate."
"Someone's murdering people on purpose?"
"Yeah. The corpses are so butchered it's hard to notice, but every single one of the recent bodies has a wound in the same place. Right in the back of the head."
"So they were ambushed?"
"That's what I figure. The killer takes them out with the first strike, then hacks up the body to make it look like an ordinary murder."
Yeah. Creepy.
"How do you know all this, though?"
Charlie's face lit up with smug satisfaction as he squared his shoulders.
"I may not look it, but I'm a pretty capable guy, you know? Something like this is easy for me to dig up. So? A man of my caliber— ahem, ahem… Sorry."
He must have read my expression, because he hastily corrected himself.
Still talking nonsense. Annoying.
After a brief hesitation, Charlie continued.
"Ah. And one more thing. A headless corpse was found right around here not long ago."
Huh?
"Word is the body belonged to one of Bram's people. Judging by how he flooded the streets with his men looking for the killer, they must've been pretty close."
"I think that was me."
"So the situation right now is… wait… what did you just say?"
Charlie stared at me blankly, blinking.
"The headless corpse. I think I did that."
"What were you thinking?!"
The second I said I'd killed him, Charlie recoiled from me like he was having a seizure and stared as if I were some kind of lunatic.
He'd done the exact same thing earlier. Charlie really was an easy man to startle. With nerves that thin, how did he ever expect to pick up pretty girls?
"Hey, he tried to jump me, so I stopped him. Was I supposed to just stand there and let him have his way with me?"
"H-have his…"
Turns out he was more of a pure-hearted type than I'd expected. Charlie squeezed his eyes shut at my blunt wording.
"If anything, this works out. I was already planning to meet Bram."
"Bram?! Are you insane? Do you even know what kind of monster that guy is?!"
"Whatever kind he is, I feel like I could kill him."
I clenched my fist tight, and Charlie flinched. But he pulled himself together and looked me in the eye again.
"Hera. Bram isn't like the ordinary criminals crawling all over this place. He's the kind of man who can take down a wild beast with his bare hands. Even with that monstrous strength of yours, going up against him is going to be rough."
To Charlie, Bram probably looked like some kind of monster—but as someone who'd read the novel, I didn't find him threatening in the slightest. Compared to a protagonist who cut down hordes of magical beasts with casual swings of his sword, or a heroine who obliterated demonkin with outrageous magic, Bram was nothing more than a disposable extra. The thought of losing to him never even crossed my mind.
"I'll handle that myself. You don't need to worry about it."
Maybe I'd been too cold. Charlie looked at me with wounded eyes, then let out a sigh.
"Hah… Fine. None of my business anyway. Whether you croak or not has nothing to do with me."
Ah. He was sulking. A grown man, pouting over something like this. I hurriedly changed the subject.
"Let's drop it. Just tell me what year it is."
"...Imperial Year 497."
He muttered it sulkily. If a woman acted like that it might be cute, but coming from a guy it just made me want to hit him…
Imperial Year 497, though… If I remembered right, the real story of the novel kicked off when the protagonist entered the Academy in Imperial Year 500.
I thought things were already well underway, but it hasn't even started yet.
That meant I might end up stuck in Drax for a few more years than expected. Looking around the streets, there were plenty of different buildings, so daily life wouldn't be a problem—but spending years here still sounded boring.
Not that I had a choice. If I didn't want to get in the protagonist's way, I had to keep my head down and stay quiet as a mouse.
I do kind of want to see the heroines' faces, though…
It wasn't like I had zero interest in meeting the people from the novel. I was holding back for the sake of a smooth story progression—but if the protagonist ever reached the ending and peace settled in, I was fully prepared to go find the heroines myself. A saintess, an elf, a beastkin, and all the other beautiful girls I'd only ever read about on the page… If I could see them in the flesh, wouldn't that be the real reward for getting isekai'd into this world?
Becoming friends would be nice… maybe even more than friends… Ah. Right. I turned into a woman. Damn author.
And besides, they were all going to end up in Robin's lovey-dovey harem anyway. There was no room for me among the heroines. Damn protagonist.
Anyway.
Nothing changed.
Take down Bram and live large in the West.
I repeated the goal to myself and shot to my feet.
"All right! Shall we get started?"
"Huh? Started with what?"
Charlie tilted his head at me.
"What do you think? I said I was going to learn how to properly use this power."
"...And?"
Unease started creeping into Charlie's eyes. Oh. Good instincts.
"Then I need to experiment, right?"
"...You're not serious."
I caught Charlie by the shoulders so he couldn't run and gave him a sweet, eye-smiling look.
"You'll help me out, won't you, Charlie?"
You like me, don't you? Can't you at least help with something like this?
Just do what you did earlier. I think I'll get the hang of it.
"The boss said not to do anything today."
The order handed down to Dania: don't cause a scene. Stay put.
"And the boss?"
"He went out into the streets."
Had he gone after that girl? There was no sign of Bram in the building.
A mysterious girl with monstrous strength, appearing out of nowhere. Dania couldn't stop thinking about her.
Is it because of Lily?
Hoping the girl would stay safe, Dania turned back toward home with what barely counted as an unexpected day off.
It's been a while since I got to go home early… Lily will be happy.
Wondering if she should bring something back, Dania stopped by the bakery she often visited and bought the snacks Lily loved. She pictured Lily's face lighting up with happiness at the sight of them.
In this hellish place, Lily was her only refuge—her only happiness.
For her little sister, she would do anything.
Academy admission starts at seventeen… If I can just hold on for three more years…
Three years. An unbearably long stretch of time—but for Lily's sake, she could endure it as long as she needed to.
Before she knew it, she was standing in front of the house.
As always, Dania put on a smiling face, ready to greet Lily with warmth.
"Lily~ Unni's home."
She opened the door—and what welcomed her was…
"....Lily?"
Nothing but cold, empty air, stripped of all warmth.