What Exactly Is That Clue? (2)
What Exactly Is That Clue? (2)
******
With the familiar teleportation sensation, my consciousness flickered.
"I was right."
When I slowly opened my eyes, a familiar landscape sprawled before me. It was Euran, the Wood Demon Realm.
The game operators had planned this all along.
[Accessing memories from Imperial Year 992.]
- Time limit: 10 minutes
And the time limit had even doubled. I never imagined they would have arranged something like this.
A crescent-moon smile spread across Olivia's lips.
"Something pleasant happen?"
Olivia turned her head toward the voice. Kiel sat perched on a tree stump, repairing his gear. His whole body was smeared with monster fluids, as if he had just been through a fight.
Wait, a fight?
Last time, we had been making camp.
Olivia scanned the surroundings with narrowed eyes. Every direction was littered with monster corpses strewn about haphazardly.
A few of them were completely shattered, like broken ice.
Olivia reached out, prodded a frog-like corpse a few times, then scrunched up her face.
This thing hadn't been dead long.
There was no way I would have missed a stench this foul last time.
'The location changed.'
In the first place, those frog bastards only appeared on the outskirts of the Great Forest. I didn't know exactly where last time's campsite had been, but it definitely hadn't been in the outskirts.
How did I know? If you tilted your head up and saw the sky as I did then, you were on the outskirts. If you couldn't, you were in the interior.
"...Dammit. What the hell is this supposed to mean now?"
"What are you muttering to yourself about so much..."
Snatch!
Olivia grabbed Kiel's wrist without warning.
"Kiel!"
"Uh, uhm?"
Kiel looked bewildered. He had spent months with Olivia, but he had never seen her so brash.
"What's the date today?"
"..."
"No, that's not how I should ask. Last time I was acting weird like this, you remember. When was that?"
"...Acting weird, you say?"
Kiel furrowed his brow.
No matter how he thought about it, right now seemed the weirdest.
Asking these questions out of nowhere was beyond bizarre.
Hadn't she been sitting perfectly normally just moments ago?
"Calm down, speak slowly. There's plenty of time to listen."
"No, there's no time."
"It's fine. There's no one here to listen anyway..."
"I said there's no time!"
"..."
Kiel reached out and placed his hand on Olivia's forehead. He had thought she might be suffering from an endemic disease, her mind drifting in and out, but thankfully that didn't seem to be the case.
Then had she been poisoned by the frogs?
Olivia seemed to be trying to explain something with frantic gestures.
"I, that, what's it, like...!"
No matter how he looked at it, she didn't seem to be in her right mind.
But Kiel couldn't bring himself to tell his companion she was acting strange.
"I can't recall you ever being particularly strange, though?"
"This is driving me crazy! When I went out to look around last time, remember? Don't you remember?"
[Remaining Time: 8:54]
Even as this dragged on, time kept flowing. But Kiel, who had no way of knowing the circumstances, simply tilted his head.
"Look around, you say... Ah, I think I remember."
Only then did Kiel nod.
It was true that Olivia had been a little different that day. The way she suddenly announced she would scout around alone, the way she kept sighing heavily.
How to put it, she had seemed like a slightly different person.
Though she had quickly returned to being the 'usual' Olivia.
As for when that had been...
Kiel slowly traced his memories and spoke.
"Three days ago."
Olivia furrowed her brow as if it were absurd.
"Three days? Three whole days passed? I was only there five minutes?"
"...I don't know what this is about, but calm down first."
Calm down? Did I look like I could calm down right then?
"Shit, what is this? What the hell is it hinting at? Think, think fast. Think, think..."
Olivia bit her lip lightly.
I had peeked into a memory with a five-minute time limit, and three days had passed outside.
Now the time limit had increased to ten minutes, so the next time I peeked into a memory, twice that—six days—would pass.
Then twelve days, then twenty-four, then forty-eight...
Right now it was 992. And Kiel would die six years from now.
Olivia's mind spun at a maddening speed. Then, as if struck by lightning, her eyes flew wide open and she spat out a lament.
'...Eight times left.'
The plan to knock myself out infinitely until I figured it out was scrapped.
If there was a silver lining, it was that the amount of time I could stay inside the memory also increased.
Of course, even all of it combined wouldn't amount to four days, but it was better than nothing.
But still, still...
'Forget a hundred tries—I was going to retry a thousand times, ten thousand times, until I found the answer no matter what!'
And now that method was blocked off.
Olivia stared up at the sky with hollow eyes.
What did I, what did I even do so wrong!
Why am I the only one who can't catch a break!
Game operators, you sons of bitches!
"Huff, huuuff..."
Olivia flopped down onto the ground and took deep breaths.
As she struggled to control her anger, something flashed through her mind.
'Wait.'
The location changed?
If the Clue were an object, and if the method was to find that hidden object, then the location shouldn't have changed like this.
'Then it should have always started at the first campsite.'
Since the location changed, it wasn't an object.
This was a main quest Clue. There was no way they would have made it that sloppy.
What hadn't changed? If I focused on that, I would be able to figure out what the Clue was.
The location? Different.
The time? Different.
The situation also—literally everything was different from last time.
But there was one single thing that hadn't changed.
'...Kiel.'
Only Kiel was still here, holding his place.
[Kiel Rothschild]
- Level: 88
- Class: Sword Saint
- Favorability: 52
- Titles: Duke, Wandering Swordsman, Seeker of the Sword, Dragon Slayer, Ruin Explorer...
If I had to point out something different from last time, it was the favorability. It was two points higher than before.
Around this period, Olivia had been doing what you'd call favorability grinding.
The goal was 90 Favorability. That was a value where someone would even 'lay down their life' for the user.
The reason was nothing special. It was just to make the Genocide Ending a little easier to reach.
'It was a method some player discovered. If you stab someone in the back after building up favorability, their response is much slower than usual.'
The higher the favorability, the more the effect was amplified.
In a way, it was obvious. If a total stranger approached holding a weapon, you'd draw your own weapon and counter. But if a close friend came at you with a weapon, you'd think it was a joke first.
Imperial Year 998. That was what happened on the day Olivia committed the first murder of the Genocide Run.
Even when she deployed magic right in the middle of the Imperial Palace, no one suspected a thing. Even when that magic was fired directly at the emperor.
Until the emperor drew his last breath, Kiel, Melina, and Aria had stood frozen in place for a long time, unable to grasp the situation.
I couldn't deny it.
That really was something no human being should do.
'If someone told me to do that again, I genuinely couldn't.'
The aftermath had hit so hard that I quit the game for months after seeing the Genocide Ending.
Anyway.
'So the answer is to find it through Kiel?'
No matter how much I thought about it, this reasoning felt correct. In the end, this was inside Kiel's memories.
'But what exactly?'
I had asked Kiel a similar question last time: if he was hiding anything.
Kiel had answered like this:
-Hiding something? I'm not sure what you mean.
Kiel wasn't the type to be good at acting in the first place. If he had an ulterior motive, it showed on his face immediately.
Which meant the Clue wasn't some kind of secret...
[Remaining Time: 5:23]
In the end, I was back to square one.
Olivia gnawed at her fingernails. Beads of blood formed at the tips of her nails where she had gnawed them ragged.
"Olivia. Calm down."
Kiel seized both of Olivia's shoulders firmly. The sudden weight made Olivia lift her head.
Kiel was looking down at her with an utterly grave expression.
"Pull yourself together and get up. This isn't like you."
"That hurts, man."
"...Sorry."
Kiel released his grip on her shoulders. Looking somewhat sheepish, he let out a few dry coughs and spoke in a composed voice.
"Tell me what is going on. It was clearly like this last time too. I let it slide without a word back then, but I won't let it slide this time."
"..."
Olivia checked the timer.
[Remaining Time: 3:42]
There was still enough time. Three minutes was more than enough to explain.
But I didn't know where to even begin the story.
That I had entered your memories just now, and I didn't have much time left?
That one of the Clues for uncovering the main quest was tied to you?
I'd be lucky if he didn't dismiss it as nonsense.
"Is it a matter of trust? If it's personal, I won't press further."
"..."
Facing Kiel's resolute expression, Olivia squeezed her eyes shut as if to say screw it.
'Ah, whatever.'
It was just a past memory anyway. Whatever I said here wouldn't affect the current Kiel, trapped in the ice.
'Kiel remembered the stupid things I did last time.'
Those things from three days ago.
'Wait.'
Olivia, who had been about to launch into it, stopped short.
He remembered?
The things from three days ago?
If that was true, didn't it mean the existing memory had been overwritten?
He would remember what I said now six days later, and twelve days later, and twenty-four, and forty-eight, and even years later?
Olivia's eyes flew wide open.
Which could only mean one thing.
'...I can change the memories of the Genocide Run?'
[Remaining Time: 0:13]
'If the current Kiel also remembers what happens here?'
I had to test this.
"Kiel."
"Hm?"
"Let's meet in six days."