Eternal Regret (2)
After the warning that day, Allen became remarkably well-behaved.
He no longer tried to sow discord among the other party members, nor did he badmouth them behind their backs.
Perhaps he had finally realized that Erinn was no longer just some country girl, but strong enough to decide whether he lived or died. Or maybe he was simply cowed by her presence—either way, he seemed like a completely different person.
Unlike before, he stopped driving wedges between party members and quit picking fights over nothing. Tasks he used to half-ass, he now completed without fail. He just quietly did his job, as if he had become someone else entirely.
If he was going to stay this docile, Erinn had no reason to keep suppressing him.
So she asked the party members to get along with Allen the way they used to.
It was a measure to keep them from completely falling apart the way they had in her second life. The party members drifting apart was a problem, but having Allen be the cause of it was something she absolutely had to avoid.
At their party leader’s request, the members—who hadn’t fully split in this life yet—tilted their heads in confusion.
But figuring she must have her reasons, they took her request to heart without complaint, and afterward Allen and the party members got along without issue.
The others no longer had cause to take issue with his attitude since he wasn’t acting like before, and Allen had no reason to clash with them either.
Erinn thought that was enough.
She even wondered if, had she warned him firmly from the start in her previous life, Allen might never have managed to drive the party members so far apart.
…It’s already in the past.
As long as they did better from now on. That was what she told herself.
The problem was that this was merely Erinn’s misconception. Allen had indeed become quiet out of fear of Erinn’s threats, and the party members got along, but that didn’t mean his fundamental nature had changed.
He envied the capable party members, so different from his own incompetence, and continued to feel inferior to them. Yet because of Erinn’s warning, he could no longer vent by toying with them as before, so he made one foolish choice.
It was while they were clearing the Merman Chief’s dungeon.
Allen, who normally couldn’t contribute in combat, usually stayed a step back during dungeon raids.
Stepping onto the battlefield with them wouldn’t help and would only add another person to protect, so it was only natural. His role was to stay in the areas the party had already cleared and made safe.
From Erinn and the party’s perspective, it was a perfectly rational decision—but it was also the very thing that accelerated Allen’s inferiority complex.
While Erinn and the others fought hard, he had to just sit there doing nothing.
And since there was nothing Allen could actually do, he had no choice but to wait behind them. That was the right thing.
But on this day, all the jealousy and inferiority that had been building up in Allen finally exploded. He barged onto the battlefield of his own accord, as if he could actually do something.
Of course there was no way Allen could do anything, and of all places, he chose to pull that stupid stunt in the boss room of the Merman Chief.
“…Allen!?”
“Allen, why did you come here!”
“Uh…?”
But a dungeon boss was a far more terrifying and powerful being than Allen had imagined. Allen, who was essentially a civilian, froze stiff the moment he faced the Merman Chief, crushed by its oppressive presence.
Even if the Merman Chief was from a low-difficulty dungeon, it was still a boss monster. It was skilled at spotting enemy weaknesses, and to break the situation, it targeted the defenseless Allen.
It already knew from the countless adventurers it had felled that humans protected their weaker companions.
“That idiot…!”
Just as the Merman Chief’s trident was about to pierce Allen cleanly—
SHUNK!!!
Erinn interposed herself and took the Merman Chief’s trident through her back in Allen’s place.
Coldly speaking, the correct decision would have been to abandon protecting Allen—who had barged in on his own—and continue the fight.
But even if her head thought that, Erinn’s body had already moved to protect Allen before she could stop it.
Allen’s eyes went wide as he stared at Erinn, who had been stabbed through the back in his stead, and Erinn met his gaze once before shouting.
“Now…!”
Erinn gripped the Merman Chief’s trident with both hands, and the boss couldn’t pull the weapon free from her. The strength of a hero living her third life was truly formidable.
The party members swiftly carried out what Erinn had shouted through a mouthful of blood. With its weapon sealed, the Merman Chief couldn’t put up a proper fight and fell to the party’s fierce assault.
But the party had taken a fatal blow.
The Merman Chief’s trident had completely pierced Erinn’s back. It had narrowly missed her heart, so she lived, but most of her organs were in bad shape.
The situation had been so urgent that even Erinn hadn’t had time to block with her sword, and she hadn’t been able to soften the blow at all, so the wound was all the worse.
Even that jealousy-filled Allen was so shocked at the sight of his childhood friend reduced to that state for his sake that he couldn’t form proper words.
“E-E…rinn….”
“…You, idiot….”
Looking at Allen’s expression, Erinn spoke the first words that came to mind, then lost consciousness.
“What were you going to do if you got hurt….”
Fortunately Freya’s quick treatment saved Erinn’s life, but the hero who was supposed to lead the party was in that state.
As a result the party was grounded, and all military activity became impossible until Erinn could at least move normally again.
The party members’ resentment naturally turned toward Allen.
“Have you completely lost your mind? What were you thinking barging in there!!”
“Freya, stop….”
“How am I supposed to stop!? Erinn almost died!”
The party members’ anger was an entirely normal reaction. In a dungeon they could have cleared without issue, Allen’s reckless interference had left their core combatant and party leader completely out of commission.
“There’s a limit to how much trouble you can cause. Did you think we’d overlook everything just because you’re Erinn’s childhood friend?”
“Letisia….”
Even the usually cheerful Ser-Aria tried to soothe the others, but it was no use. She also felt it was inevitable that their anger would fall on Allen, so she didn’t try too hard to calm them.
Whenever that happened, Allen only repeated the same words.
“…I’m sorry.”
He said it mechanically, but it wasn’t a dry, emotionless reply. You could clearly feel that he, too, was feeling deep guilt.
After all, his childhood friend whom he’d been close with since they were kids had nearly died because of him—even someone with his twisted personality couldn’t help but be badly shaken this time.
The problem was the effect that shock had.
The fact that he had nearly gotten even his closest childhood friend—whom he liked and who liked him—killed because of him turned all of Allen’s extreme inferiority into self-loathing.
Allen hated that he couldn’t fight like the party members, like his childhood friend.
He had known all along that he was only causing them trouble. He had simply refused to admit it and expressed it as inferiority instead.
And this was the result.
Erinn, lying in bed as if soundly asleep, still hadn’t regained consciousness. With her like that, the hero’s party could do nothing.
“Do you have a brain in that head of yours or not!!”
Not only the party members’ resentment, but the Dern Empire’s military also heavily rebuked Allen’s mistake. In particular, Left General Salisius, who directly managed the hero’s party, was so furious he had tried to kick Allen out of the party entirely.
While that discussion was going on, Erinn miraculously regained consciousness, and at her insistence Allen was not expelled from the party.
The military and even the party members opposed her decision… but Erinn couldn’t do it.
The words Allen had spoken when she had tried to leave the village alone and leave him behind still clung to her like a curse. And she simply couldn’t send her childhood friend away with nothing resolved.
“…Even that idiot must have come to his senses a little.”
Looking at how Allen had been relatively well-behaved since her warning, Erinn thought there was still hope. After going through something like this, surely he would finally straighten up for real.
Thinking that, Erinn wanted to talk with Allen. She still couldn’t get out of bed, so Allen had to come see her.
And somewhat surprisingly, the moment Allen saw Erinn he burst into tears and kept apologizing over and over. Erinn was quite surprised by the sight, and again thought there was hope.
He wasn’t someone incapable of feeling guilt, and he was capable of reflecting. Allen had made a huge mistake this time, but seeing him repent like this, Erinn wanted to give him one more chance.
So.
“…Just don’t do it again.”
Erinn forgave him.
“Don’t take it too hard either. Just don’t do it from now on.”
Erinn believed her choice was right.
Allen still had a conscience and could feel guilt, so she thought he would definitely change now.
But there was something Erinn, who hadn’t been able to open her eyes for a while after being bedridden, didn’t know.
That after she was hurt like that, Allen had fallen into extreme self-loathing.
“….”
To someone like him, Erinn’s merciful forgiveness was poison instead.
A deadly poison with no antidote. To Allen, drowning in self-loathing, Erinn’s attitude only made him feel even more wretched.
It would have been better if she had cursed him out and scolded him. The way the military had, the way Erinn’s party members had—pouring out their resentment might have been better.
But when the person who had suffered the most damage casually forgave him, Allen felt it all the more keenly.
His own frailty.
His own ignorance.
His own incompetence.
That he was rotten from the foundation of his character.
Normally when people feel these emotions, they decide they need to overcome the source of them.
But Allen was already deep in self-loathing. There was no way someone like him could think like a normal person when he felt these things.
“Someone like me….”
It only twisted into even stronger self-loathing.