Spring of the Imperial Capital — 2
I looked at the small girl standing before me.
Frail legs that seemed ready to buckle, a deathly pale complexion, and two pupils filled with nothing but emptiness. A white nun's habit that only deepened the air of mystery about her, and a golden Rosario hanging at her throat.
Yes. She was someone I knew.
She had been the original owner of this body, after all.
The first thought that struck me the moment I noticed her was simply: How?
She was clearly dead. There should have been no possible way for a departed soul to interfere with me. And yet the fact that she stood before my eyes meant that, somehow, it was possible.
I couldn't bring myself to speak. Like a child caught in the act, I simply watched her face and waited for her to open her mouth first.
But she never did. For a long, long time, silence alone filled that pure white mental world, and nothing moved through it but a delicate tension and the still air.
I couldn't say how much time passed before I finally chose to speak. If the silence went on forever, none of my questions would ever be answered. The Saintess didn't seem likely to ask me anything first, so I had no choice but to take the lead.
I forced my mouth open with difficulty.
"Who are you?"
In truth, I already knew. Wasn't it obvious that she was the original owner of this body? There couldn't possibly be two people who looked like that.
The pure white Saintess slowly moved her eyes. They were still as dead as a corpse's, but I could tell where her pupils were pointed.
So I'm inside a body like that?
The realization hit me afresh as I waited for her answer. The Saintess gently lifted the corners of her mouth and spoke.
"Please talk with me."
In the game, the Saintess had only ever communicated through written notes, so this was the first time I had heard her voice. It was remarkably clear, yet for some reason it carried a peculiar tremor at the ends of her words. Soft and small and fragile — and yet it lodged itself distinctly in my ears.
It was a strange sensation.
I thought: Talk about what? Was she going to rage at me for stealing her body? A fight could break out at any moment. When my Erosion Rate had climbed high enough, I'd known by instinct how to use holy arts — but I had no idea how that would work inside a mental world.
And how did I know this was a mental world? Wouldn't it be stranger not to figure it out? After suddenly falling asleep, finding yourself in an all-white place where only the original owner of your body stands alone — what else could it be?
And more than anything else:
It's a cliché.
I set aside the useless thoughts. The time to answer was closing in on me, and the choice I made was, of course, to accept.
"All right."
She raised a hand and lightly touched her own face. Running a single finger softly around her lips, humming under her breath — the sight of her was undeniably lovely. But the moment I remembered that face was also mine, another sigh slipped out of me.
Haa—
"Mmm—"
"Where should I begin?"
"I made a deal with a Star."
"The contract was that I would save this world through my death."
"Whenever a Star deals with a human, it always takes a price."
"Depending on the price, it can be something as small as creating light from empty air — or as great as turning back time."
...What is she talking about?
"I was the most beloved of the Stars, so to them I was the most precious thing of all."
"Once I understood that, I placed everything I was upon the Scales."
That can't be right. There was nothing like that in the game.
"And you—"
Zzzt—
The sound tore apart as if noise had flooded the channel, a grating, unpleasant crackle. Thanks to that, I couldn't make out a single word of whatever she had tried to say.
She watched my reaction, then opened her mouth again.
"Why aren't you surprised?"
"Huh?"
The look on her face said this was not the reaction she had expected — that her hopes had been betrayed. She pressed on.
"You—"
Beeeeeeeeeep—
This time it was a ringing so sharp it felt ready to split my skull. I clutched my head with thin fingers and bowed under the pain.
Wait. Thin fingers?
Why did I still look like a woman even in the mental world? Had I already changed that far? Impossible. I was fully, consciously aware that I was a man. My mind itself had absolutely not become female.
What a miserable mental world this was.
Zzzt—
Beeeeep—
Crrk. Crrk.
Layered sounds stacked on top of one another, a headache and a dissonant cacophony carving through my skull like a knife. It was agonizing, but I forced the words out.
"S-stop."
The Saintess seemed to have been trying over and over to tell me something. Her mouth kept working, spilling language, until she finally seemed to notice — and closed it, looking at me with worried eyes.
"Oh no, are you okay?"
...Is that really what you should be saying right now?
She, too, looked like a person with a few screws loose. She hadn't been like this in the game.
A flash of anger rose in me, but it hadn't been intentional, so I recovered my composure quickly. She clearly hadn't known what she was doing.
"That. Anything other than that. Don't you have something else to say?"
"Something important."
I had to extract whatever critical information I could. Otherwise, enduring that pain would have been for nothing.
"Uh, um, that was everything, though."
I desperately hoped what she had said was an extraordinarily unfunny joke. That was really all of it? The part I hadn't even been able to hear?
"Ah!"
In that moment the Saintess's mouth opened again.
"The Hero also made a deal with a Star."
...What?
"What do you mean by that?"
I asked again, startled. She began once more.
"The Hero made a deal with a Star and re—"
"Re?"
The world turned gray, and the Saintess abruptly stopped. Then everything blurred, and a rush of ecstasy took hold.
I woke from sleep.
The white nun's habit was soaked through with sweat and clung to my body. I felt a desperate thirst for air, as if I had been holding my breath the entire time.
Hah— haah—
I gasped rapidly, then threw open the window to drink in the clean air. And the sight that met me was more than enough to leave me stunned.
"Ah—"
I tried to say something, but no sound came. This was no dream.
What unfolded before my eyes was a storm of pink cherry blossom petals swirling around and enveloping the Imperial Capital. And a sky dyed entirely in pink.
People on the ground searching frantically as if hunting for something; people pressing their mouths to the walls; people swinging their fists wildly as they walked; and countless others collapsed face-down on the ground, fast asleep.
What on earth was this...
...
I understood.
The part-boss appearance event.
The beginning of spring. Spring of the Imperial Capital.
A fixed event.
Daydream. Spring.
I had known, of course, that the boss would appear today. But the timing was terrible. My head was a mess, my thoughts wouldn't turn properly — and now this disaster had piled on top of everything else.
What had the Saintess been trying to tell me at the end? What was that sound that interrupted me every single time I tried to listen? What was it so afraid of me hearing?
Damn it. Thinking about it was useless.
For now, I would think only of killing Spring. Taking her out here would be far cleaner than meeting her on the front lines. And during the season of Spring, I would have a long stretch of free action as well.
Two sets of footsteps approached my door at a rapid pace.
Jerome and the Hero, no doubt.
Bang!—
They threw the door open so hard it sounded almost like an explosion, but I received them with perfect composure. Fortunately, Jerome seemed to still be in his right mind. His mental fortitude was higher than I'd expected — he wouldn't become a liability.
Whew—
I allowed myself a small, private sigh of relief.
"Saintess! Are you all right?!"
The two uninvited guests who had burst into my room shouted the same words at the same time. Ugh. My ears hurt.
Beeeeep—
I hated tinnitus.
I pulled myself together and picked up the fountain pen and paper I kept at my bedside.
I'm fine.
That said — did the Hero have a face made of iron or something? I still remembered last night, when he'd tailed me and I'd cut his arm halfway through. The wound site still ached just thinking about it.
Letting on that I knew he was the Hero would gain me nothing, so the correct move was to pretend I hadn't noticed and let it pass naturally. I knew that perfectly well. But being angry was still being angry.
And the Saintess had clearly said the Hero made a deal with a Star.
A word that starts with re—
In an instant, countless words flashed through my mind. Filtering for ones that could be received as a reward, or that pointed to a phenomenon, what remained was...
Revival. Regression. Evasion. Repentance. Afterglow. Circuit. Reminiscence. Recovery...
And one word that drove straight through my brain.
Regression.
Perhaps the Hero had known the Saintess for far longer than I realized. The moment that thought pierced me, a cold sweat broke out. My throat ached. I wanted nothing more than to grind my teeth.
Hoo— Calm down. Calm down.
I still hadn't been found out. There was nothing to worry about. All I had to do was keep wearing the thick mask I always wore, same as usual.
I was going to survive.
...ess.
...ntess.
"Saintess?"
It was the Hero's voice that pulled me out of my thoughts. I collected myself and met his eyes.
"Saintess, you are all right — correct?"
Yes.
I wrote it without hesitation and showed him. Then came the explanation.
The people's symptoms, and these cherry blossom petals.
The culprit behind this incident is one of the Seasons — [Spring], Daydream. Spring.
The first Season subjugation had begun.
Spring of the Imperial Capital.
And Spring had come to the Imperial Capital.
