Chapter 35
Chapter 35
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 35
Chapter Title: The Play
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A question about whether there had been an intruder in the hideout.
The question itself was light and harmless.
The real point lay not in the content of the question, but in the very situation of asking it.
Even a rusted blade could kill if thrust deep while the opponent was off guard.
That was a simple truth.
"I failed to report it earlier. While patrolling the perimeter, I discovered traces. They weren't old, but the lingering presence was faint."
"Hm. So the blood on your clothes got there while dealing with those traces?"
"Yes. There was... unnecessary contact during the inspection."
She was expressionless.
More precisely, a hint of intimacy seeped through her blank expression.
I didn't know when it had started.
Astier had been letting her emotions slip naturally without my noticing.
I gazed at her silently for a moment, then folded the documents and spoke.
"...There's one thing I'm curious about."
"Ask anything."
"You said that even without knowing everything about that person, you couldn't be sure they deserved to die."
Astier's eyes flickered reflexively.
I continued, meeting her gaze.
"As background, you told me your story about the child left alone because of your killing. But if you strip away the emotions from that tale, there's a logical contradiction in what you said."
Astier had carried guilt for killing a family's breadwinner.
That guilt wasn't for slaying the head of the household who was just trying to survive, but for leaving the child alone.
It was quite different from 'you can't be sure someone deserves death without knowing everything about them.'
To put it simply, it boiled down to this.
Astier felt guilt only toward the child.
She felt none at all toward the criminal she had actually killed.
"You still believe that man deserved to die."
That raised questions about her words like 'judgment' and 'condemnation' as well.
Judgment and condemnation were typically things done to sinners.
The fact that she casually used those terms even after the incident three years ago meant she believed there was someone out there judging or condemning sinners.
And.
That, too, was a self-contradiction.
Astier's eyes were still shaking.
I could no longer guess at the emotions she felt.
I couldn't even be sure if the feelings I saw in her were real.
What was Astier thinking right now? What emotions was she feeling?
"Of course, up to here, it doesn't seem too forced. The story and logic you built were intricate."
I continued slowly as I rose from my seat.
"So let's analyze it from the perspective of someone who's been through it."
According to Astier's story, she was in the position of a guilty sinner.
The main source of her guilt was leaving an innocent child alone.
But in her confession, the focus had been on her own qualifications.
The right to condemn others. The right to judge.
But a true sinner would reveal self-loathing first.
"Usually, people focus more on the trauma-related parts. Things like 'my hands are stained' or 'the sin I committed is eternal.' Cliché, sure, but clichés exist for a reason."
If she truly believed herself a sinner and held that conviction.
What Astier should have mentioned wasn't her qualifications, but the evil she herself had committed.
Mentioning the lack of qualifications first was proof she couldn't decide between reason and emotion.
She had thought of humans far too rationally.
Humans were inherently imperfect and ambiguous by nature.
When someone precious dies, no one can easily shake off their emotions and make a cold judgment.
Emotions exist precisely to crush reason and logic.
I checked Astier's reaction again.
I still couldn't read her emotions.
Her eyes were shaking, but the gaze she directed at me was blank.
I pressed on.
"Didn't you open your story with something like, 'Three years ago, I killed a criminal'?"
Thinking back, hadn't it sounded too much like a storyteller?
Killing a criminal three years ago.
As if she were reciting a script.
Considering the context of her story first in a moment of surging emotion.
How cold and structured could it be?
I posed a question to Astier.
A question that needed no answer.
"Wasn't the root of your guilt that lone child?"
I knew.
Someone who truly believed themselves a sinner.
A person who fully comprehended their own sins—
"—would mention the victim first."
I looked at Astier, and a chuckle escaped me.
It suddenly struck me as absurd how I knew all this.
I stifled the inexplicable laughter bubbling up and slowly raised my head.
The sky was blocked off.
All that entered my view was the dark ceiling of the hideout, not letting in a single ray of light.
Why was this?
The things I'd tightly suppressed were seeping out through the cracks.
"Everything you said was just... vague."
I recalled Astier's confession.
I played back that voice and conversation like a phonograph, having listened intently and committed it to memory.
I had clearly said he was a bastard who'd killed dozens.
That he didn't even deserve to survive.
What had been the response?
"'He might have been a father to someone.' Nice words. Real nice..."
I bowed my head for a moment.
I was just.
Doing what I had to do.
What I had no choice but to do.
Ensuring their efforts weren't in vain.
...That sort of thing.
"But that's not what a sinner would say. No clear outline. Most people get specific about that stuff."
Projected onto my retinas were images I'd never forget, even in death.
Memories that would accompany every moment of my life played in accompaniment.
Replaying their deaths endlessly with irrecoverable regret and grief.
I always reached out, but fell short, plummeting.
The endless fall always ended in reality.
When I dreamed, when I closed my eyes, I always reached for that sword.
And always returned to reality without grasping it.
If only, back then, I'd knocked that sword away.
If only I'd struck down that damned Bepart sword.
I could do it now.
I could save them now.
I knew why I woke up in hell every day.
I knew why I could see through her act of playing the sinner.
"That was someone else's perspective, right? The gaze of an outsider observing another's sin."
The persona was the external self reflected in others.
It was a psychological defense mechanism distinguishing self from others, and also the name of the mask we wore.
In the end, Astier wore multiple layers of masks.
The mask of the sinner who destroyed a family and saddened a child.
The meticulously interpreted and reconstructed personality and logic had seemed quite plausible.
Even she herself had momentarily believed it was real.
There were contradictions in her logic and actions, but those were the usual human errors.
Her performance, woven from human flaws, had nearly fooled even me—a method acting masterpiece.
But it was over.
I had decided to end her play.
"Astier. Was the play enjoyable? Acting out a sinner from an outsider's perspective... was it that fun?"
I declared the end to a play with no audience.
Even though we couldn't deceive each other.
Even knowing that, we had continued the one-man show to fool one another.
"Then I'll ask."
Astier's play had failed.
The reason was utterly simple and clear.
I was the true sinner.
"Why the act?"
Watching the finale of her play, I suddenly realized I was continuing my own one-man show.
I had always wanted to be steadfast and noble.
To be an iron-willed hero who pressed forward through countless adversities without retreating.
Even knowing it was just mimicry.
Even knowing that beneath the painted mask, I was rotting away.
In my eyes, Cream still lingered, dying in my arms.
If only, back then, I'd held Cream and fled—could she have lived?
I pondered 'what ifs' about the past because such possibilities weren't allowed in reality.
That's why I deeply felt my own incompetence.
And because I felt that incompetence, I acted competent.
"......Before you answer that. Why point it out now?"
"Would anyone take a sword with a loose tooth to the forge mid-battle?"
"..."
Astier shut her mouth.
She clamped it tight, as if she'd committed an unforgivable sin.
Her firmly sealed lips didn't open.
A minute passed, then five, then ten more.
"...Ha."
Astier murmured faintly.
"...You're annoyingly sharp, for real."
With her persona stripped away,
she still wore an unreadable expression.