After She Disappeared (2)
After She Disappeared (2)
Thud.
"Olivia, are you hurt anywhere?"
Kiel had come running without a moment's pause. Olivia didn't answer. She seemed not to have heard him over the ceaseless barrage of thunder.
Ruuuumble...
Who could believe that this pit, stretching out of sight, had been a park only an hour ago? Even Kiel, who had watched the spectacle directly with his own eyes, found it hard to accept.
The colossal pillar of light that had struck the ground moments before was closer to a natural disaster than magic.
Flick.
Lightning struck again.
Kiel followed the tip of Olivia's finger as if mesmerized. Each time her hand gave a single flick, a bolt of lightning fell.
Belphegor had been annihilated some time ago. That the demonic energy befouling the air had vanished was proof enough. Yet Olivia seemed intent on erasing not only Belphegor's annihilation, but the very traces of his existence.
Kiel stared silently into the deepening pit.
'...Isn't that enough?'
It seemed excessive to the point of absurdity, but given that Melina was also keeping quiet, mages apparently thought differently.
Matters involving demons were the specialty of mages, so Kiel resolved to wait until the noise died down.
Seeing her deploy that level of magic without rest, he thought there was no point in even asking about her condition.
At last, silence descended.
"Is it over now?"
Kiel let out a relieved smile and approached Olivia. Their plans had been thrown into disarray by the sudden appearance of a Great Demon, but they still had a day's leeway remaining.
A day was enough to do many things.
"I'll speak to the Central Knight Order. There won't be any need to waste your precious time on something like an investigation."
Olivia still didn't answer.
Kiel, failing to notice what was strange, continued speaking.
"I found there were more things you can do at night than I expected. Over the past two years, I gathered opinions from my retainers and compiled lists of places to eat and sights to see. If we use your spatial movement magic, we could also go to the east and the west..."
Kiel stopped talking there and looked at Olivia. Her disheveled white hair covered her eyes, making it impossible to tell what she was thinking.
"...Olivia?"
Halt.
Kiel, who had been about to move, stopped dead in his tracks.
A sense of déjà vu washed over him—a sense of déjà vu he absolutely should not be feeling right now.
He knew the nature of this feeling. It had been the same four years ago, on that day.
If he saw her from the front instead of her profile, he could confirm for certain whether Olivia had changed. The atmosphere and expression the two gave off were completely different, after all.
And because he knew that, he found it even harder to move his feet.
If he discovered that she had disappeared, then...
"Kiel."
Kiel's face lit up as he raised his head. But soon, a frown creased his brow.
A smile like flowers in full bloom. It was a smile that warmed your heart just to look at it—though not for Kiel.
"Thank you for worrying about me. You came running all the way here to help me?"
The Olivia he knew would never utter such affected words.
She had changed.
Not even two days had passed, and yet she had changed.
Kiel's face went blank.
Why? How?
It had never happened before. Olivia knew exactly how long she could maintain her own ego.
If it was eighty minutes, then eighty minutes.
If it was 160 minutes, then 160 minutes.
If it was a day, then a day.
She had never, not even once, been wrong.
Not even once...
- ...You’re right. Like you said, there are still sixty days left.
The moment his thoughts reached that point, Kiel's mind stopped.
...Why hadn't he realized?
He could have understood if he had only thought about it—just a little, just a tiny bit.
[Unless one side accepts its own disappearance.]
Showing herself once every few years wasn't what you'd call a concession.
- I stand at a crossroads of a very important choice. One is...
A concession meant giving up even your own final advantage for the sake of another.
He couldn't breathe.
His hands trembled uncontrollably. His lips went dry, and his vision blurred.
The hands he saw through his blurred vision were stained with blood.
He had resolved to do as she wished.
So he had gritted his teeth and supported her opinions.
He killed her.
He killed her with these hands.
He hadn't known there was only one day left. He had thought there were sixty days remaining.
So, so...
"...No."
This, this kind of, this sort of ending...
He couldn't accept it.
No matter how much he thought about it, he couldn't accept it.
"Is something wrong?"
The moment his eyes met Olivia's, his emotions surged.
She stole it.
This bitch, she stole Olivia's life.
Kiel put his strength into the arm gripping his scabbard. If he didn't at least do that, he felt he might cut her down on the spot.
That was the moment.
Olivia, who had been staring into empty space, smiled with satisfaction. She spoke.
"Kiel. Your face looks terrifying."
Kiel didn't relax his expression. Not drawing his sword was the greatest courtesy he could offer.
Olivia spoke again.
"Kiel."
"..."
Kiel didn't answer.
He no longer even wanted to look at that face...
"...!"
Emotion stormed through him. A feeling that should not be there pulsed up through his mind.
It was a kind of emotion Kiel had never, not even once, experienced.
A blind hostility toward someone was transforming, slowly at first, then faster and faster, into goodwill.
Kiel ground his teeth. The veins on his forearms bulged.
He was being swept away by a torrent of emotion.
"You, right now, what..."
This bitch was the one who stole Olivia's life.
And right now, that memory was beginning to blur.
It was warping—no longer that she stole it, but that she justly seized it.
"...!"
Kiel barely managed to cling to the vanishing memory and held on.
He couldn't forget.
He must never, ever forget.
He could forget anything else, but he could not forget this one single thing.
This bitch...
This bitch...
No.
Olivia...
"There's nothing left for you to worry about now, Kiel."
Olivia smiled.
And Kiel, too, smiled.
*****
"Gwahaaaaack!"
Olivia collapsed onto the floor and spewed out blood. So much blood poured from that small body that the snowfield around her was stained crimson.
"Hrrk, hrraack, hrrrrh..."
They said people in unbearable pain could not even scream. Olivia was the perfect example.
The worst pain Olivia had ever felt until now was having a healthy tooth pulled without anesthetic.
But this moment couldn't even be compared to that.
Her brain was so utterly blank that she couldn't even spit out a curse internally.
Thud.
I was dying. Dying. Dying. Dying...
Her body curled up involuntarily. She knew she shouldn't be able to feel the cold, but her body went cold anyway.
After some time passed like that, Olivia's fingers, which had been sprawled out haphazardly, twitched.
[The aftermath has ended.]
Her vision was red. She couldn't even tell if this place was a snowfield or hell.
"Sh... shiiiiit..."
With trembling hands, Olivia somehow managed to pry open the Subspace and grabbed the Potion she had taken out hundreds of times before.
'Open, open, damn it!'
Pop!
The cork shot out with a clear, crisp sound. Though a little of the contents spilled out from the force of it, that wasn't what mattered.
Olivia just barely managed to bring the Potion to her lips.
Gulp.
Her insides, which had been wrenched and twisted, began to return to their proper shape. Olivia stayed still, collapsed on the ground, not daring to move a muscle until the pain receded.
"Hhh, hhh, hhh..."
Once she came to her senses, Olivia wiped the blood from around her mouth. Her chaotic, scattered vision slowly returned to normal.
Only then did she sigh in relief.
'If I do that shit again, I'm not human. I'm not! Never! Favorability or whatever, I'll just not do it and that's that!'
Olivia spat out every curse imaginable and barely managed to haul herself upright.
She really thought she was going to die just then. She wasn't exaggerating; she meant it literally.
'I saw my late grandfather.'
She had completely forgotten that the result of even a single minute of aftermath was coughing up blood. A full day's worth of aftermath was, by simple arithmetic, 1,440 times that.
A person won't die from pricking their finger with a needle once, but if you prick it around 1,440 times, the finger will be so mangled it can't even be called a finger anymore.
So, having suffered this much pain, the Favorability should at least apply normally, for the sake of her own conscience.
'It took, right?'
Olivia swallowed dryly and checked Kiel's Status Window.
[Kiel Rothschild]
- Level: 83
- Class: Sword Saint
- Favorability: -100(+68)
- Titles: Duke, Wandering Swordsman,
It took.
The Favorability hadn't changed in the slightest from last time. That meant the +20 Favorability reward for defeating Belphegor had been applied normally to this side—or rather, to the Genocide side.
Her gamble had succeeded.
There was no possibility that the Genocide Run's Olivia had failed to kill Belphegor. Because the Melina she knew was someone who would force his mouth open and shove a Potion down his throat if she had to.
Olivia stared at Kiel, who was embedded inside the ice.
'...Now, is it over for Kiel?'
Kiel's memories had definitely changed. He would now remember that Olivia had two egos. One was the ego that appeared once every few years, and the other was the ego that had betrayed him.
But she still couldn't jump to conclusions. She wouldn't know exactly what the result was until she woke Kiel up and checked directly.
'I'll have to talk to him now.'
A message window appeared in the empty air.
[Calculating the results of Clue #1...]
- A total of 68 Favorability has been acquired!
- (+32) Favorability will be applied in the year 992!
- (+24) Favorability will be applied in the year 993!
- (+12) Favorability will be applied in the year 994!
There was nothing special. It was all just a description of "When a certain year and month arrives, this much Favorability will be applied at that time."
But the message window that appeared wasn't finished.
[The memories of the past have been altered by your intervention!]
- The memories of the major NPC, 'Kiel Rothschild,' are changing significantly!
Olivia's eyes narrowed.
It was because she couldn't predict just how 'significant' the change would be.
Nor could she predict whether the change was a negative one or a positive one.
After a split-second pause, another message window appeared.
[15 days have passed.]
[The Cooldown of the Trait, 'Regressor's Privilege,' is being reset.]
[The level of the main NPC, 'Kiel Rothschild,' is temporarily rising sharply.]
...Huh?
A shrill, choked sound escaped Olivia's lips.
Crack!
Immediately, the sound of ice shattering rang out.
Shhhng.
She didn't even have time to turn around. Olivia stared at the blade hovering near her throat and swallowed.
"Answer me."
Kiel's voice was piercingly low.
"You... Which one are you?"