069. Dream (3)
069. Dream (3)
I followed Rinne up to the second floor.
And there, lying on the bed, was another Rinne.
That is, two identical Rinnes.
......Ah, not perfectly identical. The Rinne who had been with me all day was wearing a lovely school uniform, as befitted her designated role in this setting.
The Rinne on the bed, meanwhile, wore the casual clothes she always wore around Krädel.
Except that over those casual clothes, ropes were wound tightly around her, binding her in place.
And one more thing: her mouth was sealed shut with tape.
"Mmph......! Mmmphh......!"
The Rinne on the bed noticed us and struggled against her restraints as if begging—mostly me—to help her.
I tried to untie her, but the bindings, tape included, wouldn't come off.
It wasn't so much that they were tied tight as that they seemed to have been locked in place by some kind of skill.
When I finally gave up and turned around, the Rinne in the school uniform spoke to me.
"That girl is Rinne. The biodroid Rinne assigned to Forward Base Krädel, obsessed with light novels and the Salvation Narrative, and who—just like me—really, really likes you."
"Well, anyone could see that."
I had no choice but to repeat the same question.
"Then who are you? Who the hell are you?"
The school-uniform Rinne answered with a sigh.
"Hong Yeonhwa."
"......What?"
"Yeonhwa. Your first love. I kept telling you that."
Rinne—no, the self-proclaimed Yeonhwa—said it as if she were about to die of frustration.
But the one who was genuinely fed up was me.
"You two are the same person, aren't you?"
Rinne and Yeonhwa.
They were the same person, separated only by the period of their lives and the bodies they inhabited.
So there should have been only one red-haired, sharp-eyed girl like this, both here and in reality.
Yeonhwa shook her head vigorously and snapped back at me.
"Sit over there."
"......All of a sudden?"
"I'll explain everything from the beginning. What happened and how."
That was music to my ears.
I sat down on the edge of the bed, as Yeonhwa told me to.
That bed was, of course, the very bed Rinne was tied to.
So I ended up sitting close enough that I was nearly touching Rinne.
Watching this, Yeonhwa's eyes blazed with jealousy, and she squeezed herself in between me and Rinne.
In that position, Yeonhwa began to explain.
"......The story goes all the way back to that moment in reality when Rinne took the tentacle hit in your place, Si-hu."
At the moment the tentacle pierced through Rinne from behind, Eve burrowed into Rinne's mind.
Eve's objective was exactly what you'd expect: to brainwash Rinne.
She intended to construct the fantasy world Rinne had always dreamed of and imprison Rinne's ego inside it.
That created one problem.
In Rinne's case, brainwashing her in that manner simply wasn't possible.
The reason was very simple.
The fantasy world Rinne had always dreamed of already existed in reality.
For example:
—I want to save the readers (fulfilled)
—I want to republish the Beyond the Cradle series (expected to become possible once the Cradle of Silence is cleared)
—I want to uncover the secrets of my past life and have a fated reunion with someone precious (fulfilled)
—I want to live happily with that precious person from now on (expected to be fulfilled)
In other words, every wish Rinne had was either already fulfilled in reality or on the verge of being fulfilled.
Therefore, there was no way for Eve to gift Rinne a 'fantasy better than reality.'
Under those circumstances, Eve, of course, did not give up on Rinne.
Instead, she burrowed deeper into Rinne's psyche and conducted an in-depth analysis of her,
and before long, Eve found a vulnerability buried inside Rinne.
The fact that another ego coexisted inside Rinne.
"Another ego, you mean......."
"That's right."
Yeonhwa answered.
She was talking about herself.
To put it another way, Yeonhwa's personality had existed within Rinne all along.
However, that personality had never fully merged into Rinne.
Because Rinne had never been able to see her past-life self as completely identical to who she was now.
She regarded the girl named Yeonhwa as a past severed from the present, and that left her unsure how to relate to Yeonhwa's parents.
As a result, Yeonhwa's personality remained inside Rinne without ever being integrated — like an afterimage or a trace.
That was exactly what Eve exploited.
Rather than showing Rinne a fantasy in order to seize control of her, she decided to tempt the Yeonhwa who lingered faintly within.
"......You?"
"Yeah. Because I was different from Rinne."
Unlike Rinne, Yeonhwa had many complaints about the real world she was living in.
Or, more precisely, Yeonhwa was deeply dissatisfied with the goals and way of life Rinne pursued while holding control.
"Honestly, I don't really care about saving Rinne's readers or finishing the Beyond the Cradle series."
That was because Yeonhwa had never even read a light novel in her life.
She disliked all the things Rinne found interesting and threw herself into so eagerly.
What Yeonhwa wanted instead was simply to live happily with her parents and with me, the person dearest to her.
But as stated earlier, Yeonhwa's personality was as faint as a trace.
In terms of proportion, Rinne was 97 percent. Yeonhwa was barely around 3 percent.
Rinne therefore held control over their shared self and kept suppressing and ignoring Yeonhwa's desires.
More than that, she had been denying Yeonhwa's very existence.
In that situation, Eve pulled out the Yeonhwa hidden inside Rinne
and granted her control over this world.
The result was a world created solely according to Yeonhwa's wishes:
—There are no Legions or anything else in this world that caused Yeonhwa pain
—It is incredibly peaceful
—Her parents live happily by her side without any worries
—Her sick body has fully recovered as a human
—(Most importantly) As the human Yeonhwa rather than Rinne, she has a fated reunion with Si-hu and falls in love again
That was the shape of the world Eve created.
Ah, and one more thing.
"I decided to lock Rinne up in here."
Yeonhwa added a moment later. She said she hadn't done it because she particularly enjoyed it.
She hadn't wanted to lock her up if she could avoid it, but she was worried that Rinne might seize control again and destroy this world.
To put it another way.
"I was scared you'd take Si-hu away again."
So she'd set things up to keep her from coming out, then bound her and stored her here.
After that, she'd planned to begin the lovey-dovey, pure-romance school life she'd longed for so desperately with this world's version of me.
That had been the plan.
But she got interrupted.
"......The Si-hu who is here now is the real Si-hu from the real world, who connected by some method, right? Not the fake Si-hu Eve created?"
"That's right."
"I-I knew it......."
Yeonhwa nodded, her face flushing red.
From her perspective, she'd been put in a situation akin to 'trying to roleplay but the real person logged in.'
That was deeply embarrassing in itself, but there was also an additional problem.
"If you stay here, Si-hu, you'll assimilate into this world and lose your identity. So, even if it's just to prevent that, I'm telling you everything honestly."
"Are you saying, now that I understand the situation, you want me to leave your dream at this point?"
"Yeah."
Yeonhwa answered without hesitation.
I wasn't stupid enough to simply say, 'Yes, understood.'
"I appreciate the thought, but I can't leave like this."
My purpose in coming here was to bring Rinne out with me.
If I failed to do that and returned empty-handed, I would be attacked and killed by Eve, who would have already noticed that I'd accessed the firewall.
Compared with that, maybe it really would be better to stay here, forget who I was, and spend my life being lovey-dovey with Yeonhwa.
...Relatively better, anyway. I wanted neither option.
Anyway.
I couldn't back down an inch until Rinne was handed over.
When I made that clear, Yeonhwa—
"Okay."
simply agreed.
"You don't have to worry. I'll let you take Rinne out, too."
"......What?"
"It seems like Rinne isn't particularly necessary for maintaining this world."
Yeonhwa said that, then added with an oddly triumphant look:
"Even if she were, it wouldn't change anything. Si-hu's safety is always my top priority."
...Was Yeonhwa the official wife after all?
No, this wasn't the time to marvel at how clumsy yet impossibly kind she was.
I asked Yeonhwa:
"What do you mean? You'll let me take Rinne out?"
"Exactly that."
The instant Yeonhwa finished speaking, the bedroom window flew open.
The view beyond it was nothing like the one outside the Ghost House.
Nothing but void-like darkness.
"Take Rinne out through there. Then Si-hu can return safely, and Rinne won't be thrown into confusion by my personality interfering anymore."
Yeonhwa spoke as though this were the perfect ending where everyone would be happy.
Of course, I couldn't accept it.
Because that ending left one person out.
"Then what about you? What do you plan to do?"
I asked in disbelief.
Yeonhwa pouted.
"I want to stay here."
She spouted something even more absurd.
"You're staying here?"
"Yeah. If I go back, I'll just end up suppressed by Rinne again anyway."
"No, if that's what you're worried about, I'll......."
"Besides."
At that, Yeonhwa smiled brightly.
"I know. That my existence is in the way for the two of you."
Han Si-hu had to find Sion.
Rinne had to live a new life as an author and a soldier.
That wasn't all. The two of them were developing their relationship as 'Commander Han Si-hu and Biodroid Rinne.'
Yeonhwa explained that she didn't want to wedge herself awkwardly between us and become a burden.
Because.
"......I was saved thanks to you, Si-hu."
She could do anything to repay that salvation.
She could even offer up her own 'existence.'
I couldn't offer a single rebuttal to Yeonhwa, who declared this without a moment's hesitation.
At least, I couldn't.
"That isn't salvationaaaaaaa—!"
A shrill voice rang out from beside Yeonhwa—from the far side of the bed.
I knew who the voice belonged to without even looking. Rinne.
That Rinne had snapped the ropes with her own strength, torn off the tape, and shouted.
Yeonhwa was startled.
"H-How did you get out of the restraints......?"
"Because you just released the restraint code so he could take me out, dumbass!"
Now that was how Rinne was supposed to talk.
I savored that brief moment of satisfaction.
Rinne snapped fiercely at Yeonhwa.
"The more I hear, the more flabbergasted I get......! Hey, listening to you, anyone would think I horribly mistreated you or something!"
"Y-You did......!"
"Fine! I did! But I mistreated you because you kept doing shit that deserved mistreatment!"
"Wh-What did I ever do......."
"What did you do? You kept spouting crazy shit in my head every single day! Saying you wanted to kiss Oppa! Wanted to make out with him! And then it turned into nonstop se—"
"Sh-Shut uuup......! Si-hu is listening......!"
Yeonhwa reached out and clamped Rinne's mouth shut with her hand.
Rinne sank her teeth into the hand and shouted at Yeonhwa.
"Anyway! Whatever! I have absolutely no intention of telling you to disappear! I just needed time to adjust!
"So let me ask you something. You're not really staying because you feel awkward around me and Oppa, are you? That's just secondary—you actually want to live here! You don't think you can turn him on more than I can, so you want to spend all day eating, fucking, shitting, eating, fucking, shitting with a virtual Oppa, don't you?! Don't you dare call that salvation when you're staying for some degenerate pervert reason! It pisses me the hell off!"
Yeonhwa's face turned bright red at the utterly flippant tirade.
A moment later, Yeonhwa drew a conclusion entirely on her own, neither denying nor affirming it.
"A-Anyway......! I've decided......! Even if it's all fake, I'm going to stay here and fool around with Si-hu......! So hurry up and get out of my fantas—"
"Oppa! Are you really going to let her keep pulling this shit? My Commander isn't some pathetic loser who can't even subdue one ordinary girl—one who's not even a biodroid, right?"
Of course, I was not that kind of pathetic loser of a Commander.
The problem was the fact that the other party was not an ordinary girl.
Well, according to the internal settings of this world, she might be an ordinary girl.
But from outside this world's internal logic, she was its architect and held authority on par with a creator god.
Thanks to that, just as she had opened a passage to the outside moments before, she surely had the ability to hurl us beyond it in an instant.
So when Yeonhwa reached an arm toward us, she was almost certainly about to invoke that creator-level authority.
In another second or two, Yeonhwa would probably throw me back into the outside world.
What was I supposed to do?
Just what could I do to stop this girl — so stupid, so deeply self-loathing, and yet so overwhelmingly fond of me?
Simply pushing her away or dodging wouldn't work.
I needed a method so extreme and shocking that it would make her completely forget her resolve to cast me out.
'......Ah.'
There was one method.
Just like that, I pulled Yeonhwa into a tight embrace, as if pouncing on her.
"Huh......?!"
And then I kissed her.