Suicides
The board game café Yeonhwa had found wasn’t all that far from the academy after all.
It was tucked into the commercial district, about ten minutes by bus or a twenty-five-minute walk.
I wanted to hop on a bus and get there fast, but Yeonhwa insisted, with the kind of conviction usually reserved for milestones, that we should walk.
Jinhyun mostly went along with whatever Yeonhwa wanted, and since Lapis didn’t have much of an opinion either, the decision was made: we’d walk.
She was probably hoping the walk would give us time to talk, or something like that.
But if Yeonhwa had overlooked one thing, it was that none of us were as lively as she was, and none of us liked talking to people nearly as much.
Jinhyun’s emotions and personal opinions had been faint to the point of being almost nonexistent until the latter half of the original story, and Lapis was a full-blown loner, a total shut-in.
And honestly, I wasn’t exactly the type to blend in with people either.
This was the result.
“Lapis. Come to think of it, you said you were going to learn your abilities from your mom or grandma, right? Do they both have the same ability as you?”
“M-My mom does, but… stronger, and my grandma’s on a whole different level, I guess… B-but, um, can we not talk about family stuff…?”
“Ah… s-sorry…”
For twenty straight minutes, without stopping, Yeonhwa kept trying to talk to us, doing everything she could to drag the mood upward and make things fun.
But every attempt of hers died after just a few exchanges, like this one.
Either she asked something that happened to hit a landmine, or it was something so far outside our interests we didn’t even know how to respond, or we simply weren’t good enough with words to keep the conversation alive.
None of us were skilled at keeping a rally going, so the conversation never lasted long.
Even the longer ones were basically her doing a one-woman performance, playing both sides herself.
Like one of those old battery commercials I’d seen on TV forever ago, where someone played ping-pong against themselves.
The only difference was that, instead of looking carefree like that battery, she looked pretty pitiful.
Her repeated attempts to squeeze out a topic, to wring something—anything—from the silence, were failing one after another, so even Yeonhwa must have been getting tired.
By the time we reached our destination, her face looked much more drained than it had when we set out.
“Yeonhwa, you don’t have to force it this hard.”
She looked so sorry for herself that I took pity and said a word or two, and Yeonhwa, as if she’d been completely wrung dry, muttered that she should’ve just taken the bus after all.
“If that’s what you were upset about just now… then that one was my fault.”
I figured she’d been trying so hard to keep the mood up because of what I’d said, so while I was still clearheaded, I apologized properly.
Though if you wanted to get technical, I was the one who should’ve been getting an apology.
I’d woken her up from a nap and then showed her a sight she’d rather not have seen.
“It’s okay, Blanca. You weren’t completely wrong, either.”
But the answer came from someone I hadn’t expected at all.
Jinhyun was telling me, in his own voice, that it was fine.
Yeonhwa was looking at him with a complicated expression.
Since when did this guy go out of his way to apologize like this? Had the wind changed direction or something?
“…Oh. I see.”
I didn’t know what had happened, so I swallowed the irritation I felt and let it go with a whatever, fine.
He must’ve just been feeling odd. I ignored it, figuring it wasn’t anything serious.
“Hmm, we’re almost there, but where is it…?”
Yeonhwa clearly found silence awkward, too, because she was looking around restlessly, scanning the area for the café.
Then, as if she’d spotted something, she stared fixedly off in one direction.
“…Um, Blanca. And Jinhyun. Over there, on top of that building—doesn’t that person look like they’re staring at us?”
“Maybe they just think it’s unusual to see a bunch of academy students traveling together.”
“Maybe… but they’re staring way too hard for that.”
“P-Probably just some weird person… le-let’s go, Yeonhwa…”
The three of us each chimed in, all looking up at the strange figure on the rooftop.
My strong suit was hearing, not eyesight, so I couldn’t tell exactly what I was looking at.
Still, I carefully thought: maybe they were one of the Suicides.
I wasn’t sure whether the chat log’s location was here, but the time had probably come for the ambush.
And the moment I had that thought, it felt as if someone had clenched my heart in a fist.
I’d felt it before, a few times.
My instincts sounded the alarm. If I didn’t dodge, I’d die.
“Move!”
I shoved Yeonhwa aside before she’d even figured out what was happening and threw myself away from the spot.
Lapis must have felt the same thing, because she hurled herself clear as well, tearing up the ground Jinhyun had been standing on and forcing him aside.
Then the space where we’d been standing split open, and a mass of villains burst out from within it.
If we’d stayed still, they would’ve cut us in half like chopped firewood.
So that meant the one who attacked us just now really was one of the Suicides’ executives—the Rift Creator.
“A gate…? Why is there a gate here? This is supposed to be a safe zone! Why is there a gate…?”
Yeonhwa stared at the gate in bewilderment.
Honestly, I was just as shocked. It was different from what I knew.
In the game, they’d only ever opened a gate and sat back.
Villains poured out of it, the player fought them, and that was that.
There hadn’t been some gimmick where you had to dodge the place the gate would appear.
Besides, the Rift Creator’s ability was pathetic in a very specific way: it had no physical force of its own, and it took so much stamina to open a gate that all it could really do was expel whatever had been stuffed inside.
It shouldn’t have had the power to slice a streetlamp cleanly in half the way it just had.
But there was no time to think about it, because the villains crawling out of the gate immediately charged us.
“Jinhyun, back off!”
Yeonhwa snapped her lighter on, and in an instant, a wall of fire rose around us.
“Is everyone okay?!”
While Yeonhwa bought us time, Jinhyun scrambled upright and started checking on everyone.
“I-I’m fine! Yeonhwa probably is too… and Blanca’s fine, too!”
“Jinhyun, call the heroes! Help evacuate the civilians, too! We’ll handle th— kyaaa?!”
Just as Yeonhwa was giving him orders, a villain hurled himself toward us from beyond the burning wall.
“Die!!!”
Even with flames licking over his entire body, he kept running, suppressing the flesh on his body as it was scorched away by mana. He looked so much like a demon from hell that I would’ve believed it if someone told me he really was one.
“No, you go die!!”
Lapis ripped up a paving stone from the ground and flung it with all her strength straight into the villain’s torso.
With a shriek, he was hurled back outside the wall of fire.
They weren’t called Suicides for nothing. Those bastards didn’t care about living or dying.
They were lunatics who wanted, no matter what, to make sure someone noticed they’d been there.
“Snap out of it!”
Yeonhwa’s eyes were wavering from the sight, and her flames were weakening with them, so I grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her hard.
“You didn’t kill him. Those guys are just crazy! Got it? Yeonhwa, listen to me. Don’t let the fire go out, no matter what!”
“...O-Okay, Blanca.”
In the game, the fire went out because there was no one beside her to steady her.
That’s when Jinhyun came into his own, and his name spread until he met the person who would become his mentor.
I had to stop that from happening.
“Lapis, help me push back anything that comes through the wall!”
“And me?”
“You stay still! What good are you going to do if you were just standing there getting beaten senseless back then, too?!”
After snapping irritably at Jinhyun, who was asking to be given something to do, I turned to dealing with the villains throwing themselves one by one into the flames.
The Suicides really didn’t seem to value their lives at all, charging at us like moths drawn to a blaze.
Lapis showed a roughness that was hard to see in her usually timid manner, beating them back without the slightest hesitation, while I kicked, stunned, and shoved them aside in my own way.
After we’d taken down a few dozen of them, nothing else came rushing into the fire barrier.
“…Haa, haa. Did we get them?!”
Lapis, wreathed in golden mana, had just said the one thing nobody should ever say.
“Is it… over?”
Yeonhwa opened the eyes she’d been squeezing shut, her whole body trembling.
“Probably. You can put the fire out now.”
Once I told her it was okay to stop, Yeonhwa drew the flames back.
The broad street that had been crowded just moments ago was now empty except for us.
The civilians must’ve all evacuated.
“U-ugh… haa, haa… hhh…”
Yeonhwa was breathing hard, staring at the dark red lumps twitching on the ground.
“Don’t look at it, Yeonhwa.”
This was supposed to be the protagonist’s job, but if Jinhyun wasn’t going to do it, then I would.
“It’s okay. None of this is your fault. None of it is.”
She was probably tearing herself apart inside by now.
The Yeonhwa I knew was the sort who looked bold on the outside but was secretly soft-hearted.
On top of the guilt of dragging her friends into this mess, this was the first time in her life she’d ever hurt someone with her own ability.
Of course she was shaken.
I patted her down, repeating that none of this was her fault.
Jinhyun, all the while, just stood there in silence.
Pathetic bastard.
He really was just standing there.
I’d thought he’d at least do something.
“…Well, now. That’s impressive. So this is what academy students are like, huh? I never would’ve guessed eighty of them would go down so helplessly.”
“Who are you!”
“Who else? The person you were just staring at from up there.”
As if he had no intention of giving us even a moment to recover, the Rift Creator was suddenly standing right in front of us.
“…You were the one who attacked us?”
Only now, after doing absolutely nothing until this point, did Jinhyun step forward and glare at the Rift Creator.
“Huh? Ah. No, not exactly. Originally we were planning to carry out a terror attack against the civilians, but then we saw academy students.”
“Say it. Why?! What’s your reason!!!”
Lapis shouted at the Rift Creator, lifting every last paving stone still left on the ground.
“Because I want to get insanely famous, that’s why.”
“For something that stupid?”
“Stupid, huh? Well, I guess if you’re academy students, it would seem stupid. Ha… haha. Yeah, that’s the reason. You people can do it just by breathing, but for us, this is the only way we can ever manage it!!! Ahh, I’m so glad I joined the Suicides!!! I’ll shoot you all down where you stand!!!”
Whatever I’d said without thinking must have scraped a nerve, because the Rift Creator suddenly lost his mind and yanked a syringe from his coat.
Purple liquid.
Ah.
So that was it. That was why the portal had attack power.
It looked like the ability amplifier I’d been dumping into the underworld to fund the Liberators had made its way here too.
Damn it. This was my fault again.
And almost at the same moment, Lapis hurled all the paving stones she’d lifted straight at the Rift Creator.
But the Rift Creator was one step faster.
He stabbed the syringe into his own body.
Then he opened a gate in front of himself to block the paving stones—
No. Even as they smashed into him and turned him into a bloody pulp, he still shot the gate wide open toward us.
“You son of a—”
Before I could finish the word, we were swallowed by the gate.
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