Dual Personality - 3
"Hero! The Saintess is actually a dual personality!"
The Hero could not simply dismiss Spring's words as a joke.
She had already shown a slightly different side from the previous loop. The future he knew had already twisted off course, and he had personally witnessed her slipping off somewhere suspicious in the night. In short, he already knew the Saintess was hiding something, and he had been nursing that suspicion for some time. On top of that, when Jerome had seemed dead, the countless rain of light she poured forth was something he had never once seen before.
Until now she had only ever supported from the rear of the party as an auxiliary. Even as a Superhuman, her essence remained that of a fragile girl and a priestess. Could a Saintess who was not a combat class, who had never even learned the holy arts of a Holy Knight, truly fight on even footing—even against a version of himself only recently regressed—and suppress one of the Disasters, no matter how weakened Spring was with the Holy Sword still piercing her belly and her power leaking away?
The moment he heard the words "dual personality," every doubt he had been carrying seemed to resolve at once. He had arrived a full week early. The butterfly effect of that single change had produced the situation unfolding right now—that was the conclusion he reached.
An atmosphere cold enough to freeze even a ghost, combined with absolute silence, made it feel as though a chill wind were seeping into the tent from somewhere.
The Saintess hurriedly explained.
"You're not actually believing that, are you?"
The Hero assessed the situation with cold clarity and spoke a lie to escape it.
"Who would believe the words of a Disaster?"
The Saintess swept him with a doubtful gaze. He met her eyes without the slightest change in expression, perfectly composed.
"Of course."
"I need to change. Would you step outside?"
"Ah—yes."
The Hero answered, stepped out of the tent, and simply stood there. Then he began to spin his thoughts at full tension.
The difference from the previous loop was that he had not waited out the full week; he had reached the Holy Kingdom far earlier than planned. He began combining the clues.
The Pope possessed mental-type abilities.
The Saintess was suspected of dual personality.
He himself had headed for the Holy Kingdom ahead of schedule.
She showed a face both the same as and different from the Saintess of the previous loop.
And that leap of logic led the Hero to a false truth.
The Saintess had been a dual personality. The Pope, using his mental powers, had tried to leave only the personality convenient for his use and erase the other. But because the Hero had arrived earlier than planned, the process had been forced to stop.
Right now the Saintess was the Saintess—and at the same time she was not.
Then the Hero quietly drew out one more unsavory thought.
I won't give up on either of them.
He had already decided he would not give up. Therefore both of them were, in the end, the Saintess.
And it would take a very long time before the Hero understood what those words of his truly meant.
But that is a story for later.
The Hero did not seriously examine the meaning of what he had just said. He only wanted to correct the things he had missed and failed at in the past, and to lose nothing this time. The Hero was greedy, yet moral. Selfish, yet altruistic. And precisely because of that, he always regretted.
Why had he been unable to stop it?
He had failed to stop Jerome from spending his own lifespan.
Someone might say it was fine—after all, the man who had died in the previous loop was alive this time. But the Hero was cold. Jerome had been a prodigy, yet never a genius; he was not someone who could shatter his lifespan and become a Superhuman. The Hero did not believe in miracles. Miracles had never been on his side, nor on the enemy's. They simply appeared without warning, without distinction, and saved whoever they chose.
He hated the self who, even when Jerome had fallen into a near-death state by burning his lifespan, had unconsciously agreed that this was the best possible judgment and had not stopped him.
Even when he bound his heart and made a resolution, the world never moved as he wished.
The Hero suddenly clenched the hilt of the Holy Sword—tight enough that, had it been a wooden stick, it would have shattered. He looked up at the sky.
The sky seen from the front lines was a place where ash-gray mixed with the stench of corpses, where mud buried the feet, where countless heroes whose names no one remembered slept—and yet it still shone with a blue light.
Yes. It had always shone blue.
The Hero made his decision.
Once more.
He knew he was not a being who could become a star that watched over everyone from the heavens. He knew he was no longer a perfect existence, only one who strove to approach perfection. He knew he was not an omnipotent god.
And so he drew the Holy Sword and thrust it toward the sky.
His blade clearly could not reach the heavens—yet it was pointed at them.
Yes. That was enough.
Muttering those words, the Hero returned to the tent to pack his things for the journey to the Imperial Capital.
The Saintess thought, with quiet relief, that she had been lucky.
Nothing had happened. The Hero had not taken those words seriously. That was the reason. Honestly, deep down, she had been worried he might actually believe them.
Because she had already drifted far from the resolution she had once made in her heart. In order to actively lay the groundwork for clearing the game quickly while still playing the Saintess, there inevitably came moments when she could no longer act the part. This incident in particular had been enormous.
The Saintess who had always only supported from the rear had stepped to the front, pouring every ounce of Superhuman power and the starlight flowing from her body directly into attack—simply because a comrade had nearly died.
Her mask had never been hard. It was soft as tofu.
From the moment she began treating this world as real, perhaps everything had already gone wrong. If she had simply killed her emotions, maintained a hard mask, and kept acting... even if Jerome had died, there would have been no threat to her life, no rise in Erosion Rate.
Selfishly. Kill the emotions. Give no affection.
Yes. That was how it should have been from the beginning. She should never have treated this world as real.
But I, who have already decided this world is real—can I still do that?
I don't know.
As I sorted through the chaos in my head, I realized my thoughts were, at least a little, normal again.
What?
I had already known for some time that the higher the Erosion Rate climbed and the deeper the assimilation grew, the more violently it affected my speech, my thoughts, my entire way of thinking. I could tell at once how abnormal this situation was—and at the same time what an opportunity it offered me.
I had to lower the Erosion Rate quickly, while this state lasted.
Knife. Where's the knife.
I frantically rummaged through the subspace leather bag. Ah—there. The familiar cold texture of metal filled my hand, and I pulled it out at once. A small dagger.
A permanent penalty that forces self-harm in order to lower the Erosion Rate.
Yes. I intended to use this penalty.
Self-harm lowered the Erosion Rate. This so-called penalty was far more useful than I had expected. In the present situation it was less a penalty than a tremendous advantage. With the Madman's Notebook burned to ash, I urgently needed a means of managing the Erosion Rate—and by fortunate timing the Emperor had ordered me to the Imperial Capital. My plan was to risk a trip to the black market.
But travel from the front lines to the Imperial Capital took time. If we set out now, with the sun already past its zenith, we would certainly stop at an intermediate base. From the health-related penalties I had suffered while staying in the Holy Kingdom, it seemed that the higher the Erosion Rate rose, the greater the pain inflicted upon me. If those penalties bloomed again, could I endure the agony and still properly distinguish myself from the Saintess? Could I keep from being swallowed by her and maintain the Erosion Rate at seventy percent?
No. Absolutely not.
I had tasted that pain in the Holy Kingdom. I knew.
I drew a deep breath and drove the knife into the back of my hand.
Thud—
With that utterly monotonous sound, red blood welled up.
Purification
Healing
I used both miracles at once. The droplets of blood were wrapped in white light and vanished before they could even touch the floor. The entire process was quiet and swift—more practiced than anyone else's.
Erosion Rate: 65%
It seemed I would need other items for managing the Erosion Rate after all.
And there was something I had forgotten.
Spring.
She had been watching me blankly. Then she grinned—only the corners of her mouth lifting high. That face could only be described as demonic. A woman of such outstanding beauty that even empty flattery could not call her ugly was smiling at me, and something like a flame seemed to kindle inside my chest.
Ah—of course it was not the positive flame of romance, love, or youth.
It was pure rage.