The Pattern Is Different From Before
This pattern was different from any that had come before.
With a soft rustle of fabric, Veronica rose as slowly as she had bowed—straightening at the same measured pace—and fixed me with a steady stare.
I had no idea how to respond, so I simply watched her back.
Silence stretched between us. It could only have lasted a few seconds, but it felt like minutes of locked gazes and held breath.
“S-say…”
Veronica was the one who finally broke it.
“Say something, at least.”
“I’m thinking.”
“H-how long are you going to just stand there thinking?!”
She snapped right back into her usual self, temper flaring as if the moment before had never happened.
Ah.
I’d been enjoying the rare sight, only for her to bounce back this fast. What a waste. I’d almost believed I’d finally made her yield.
“Veronica, the truth is—”
“Forget it! I-I don’t want to hear it!”
She hiked up her skirt just enough to free her legs and bolted the other way.
I didn’t chase her this time. Even if she’d practiced the posture, the dress was still unfamiliar; if she pushed any harder she was bound to trip. And more than that—
Ending (22) — Locked
If only we had met a little sooner
Ending (23) — Locked
The thing that never changes
Ending (24) — Locked
Are we still friends?
—the system windows crowding my vision left me no room to think about anything else.
“Again… all at once…”
Three of them had slammed shut in a single stroke.
Of the four endings Veronica still had left, three were gone. Every route but the True Ending had locked. It was the same result I’d seen with Rebecca—three endings sealed in one go, everything except the fifth and final one.
The outcome matched what I’d achieved then. The problem was different.
Veronica still didn’t know who I really was… right?
I’d always expected my identity would come out someday, but whether for better or worse, that day still hadn’t arrived.
And yet.
Even so.
Because of me, three endings had closed at once.
This wasn’t like Ending 21, the first one that locked when Laward—after ten years apart—turned into a stranger. It wasn’t like the way the other heroines’ endings had sealed either.
It wasn’t Daywin who locked them. It was Karma.
The damned identity I’d been forced to keep because of that magic-tool shop owner had changed her heart.
This pattern was different from any that had come before.
So what happened now? Did I have no choice but to keep hiding?
“Haa…”
A sigh slipped out on its own.
I’d been ready to drop the Karma act for good… and for good reason. The original goal was already finished.
Tracking the Death God Cult’s trail was why I’d become Karma in the first place. As Karma I’d handpicked Houndry’s elites, sent them out, found the nine-tailed fox, and killed it. Succeeding once didn’t mean I had to try for a second time—and I didn’t need to. The Holy Knights had found the stone statues Medusa left behind.
We’d each caught a different trail in a different place. Houndry took the nine tails; the Holy Knights took the serpent’s. Not a dragon’s head and a snake’s tail—a fox’s head and a serpent’s. All four officers already had their connecting points. It was a far cry from my previous life, when I’d been forced to face all four at once on the eve of the apocalypse.
The dogs had taken the fox. The Holy Knights had Medusa. Kairon’s little sister had him locked down tight. And Chronos…
Wait.
That one was me.
Karma, to be precise.
Now that I thought about it, I had to keep the identity going for Chronos’s sake alone. For reasons I still didn’t understand, that bastard was completely taken with Karma.
So the extension was settled. The identity I’d meant to abandon had raised a heroine’s and a villain’s affection at the same time. I never wanted to play master of the pleasure quarter this long in the first place.
While I was still sighing, another message window rose into view.
092
Daywin did not see Veronica again after that day.
Not because she had gone back to avoiding him, though. Three days—no, a single day—was all they had left before the Holy Knights set out on reconnaissance once more.
Blash and the Silver Knight. Grand Duke Oscar and his soldiers. And Daywin and Veronica. All of them would board a train the next day and head north. The south was finished. Truly finished.
“To be precise, it isn’t a train.”
The Silver Knight’s voice rang hollow against the inside of her helm.
“Huh? It isn’t?”
“No. We can fly.”
“…Hold on. I must have misheard.”
Veronica decided the constant boom of the Silver Knight’s voice inside the helmet made it hard to catch every word. She still didn’t even know what the knight’s real voice sounded like.
“I said we can fly. There’s no need to take the train. It’s faster than that.”
“So I did hear right… Fly…?”
“That’s right.”
Even after learning Veronica’s age, the Silver Knight kept her formal, courteous tone without fail.
“You should be able to do it as well, Miss Veronica.”
“Me? I can’t do anything like that.”
“That’s something we can test. So I’ll ask carefully—what are the terms of your contract?”
“Simple. The contract I made with my spirit is an offering of thirty silver coins a month. The standard was this country’s average monthly wage for a laborer on the day we signed.”
“Spirits calculate things like that…?”
“They do. Exchange rates, every last detail. At first I thought about taking a migrant-worker job overseas where the average wage is higher, but once you factor in the conversion fees it wasn’t worth giving up home for. You’d have to learn a foreign language, and they say there’s discrimination too.”
“Excuse me…?”
Kaine began to wonder whether the girl had truly contracted with the Spirit of Abundance at all. Compared to Kaine’s own terms, Veronica’s were viciously one-sided.
“Thirty silver… At your age there wouldn’t be many jobs open to you, and even if you worked now and then you’d have almost no days off in a month. This is an unfair contract.”
“I guess I didn’t read the back carefully.”
“You wouldn’t have needed to. Abundance almost certainly acted as if there was no back. That alone makes it unfair—but how on earth have you been surviving until now…?”
Veronica thought of the gambling dens she’d run on the stake of a one-year suspension from school, but of course she didn’t mention anything so unclean in front of a holy knight. That game had been unfair in its own way—one Veronica, who’d been honing her sleight of hand since childhood, could never lose.
“Yeah, so I work almost without rest and still manage to pay the rent.”
“The bleak reality of the younger generation.”
“I’m not a young adult yet—I’m still a min— wait. Did you just hear me say ‘min—’?”
“You could simply call yourself a student.”
“Right. Not a young adult—a student.”
“And what do you receive in return, Miss Veronica?”
“I can convert any metal or gemstone that has monetary value into magic. The more valuable it is, the stronger the effect.”
“That’s certainly different from me. Can you move ore and metal as well?”
“Oh—yeah, that too. I used it not long ago working in the mines here.”
“Work again, in the end…”
“Now that you say it…? My life might be even more off-track than I thought…?”
Veronica spoke as if she’d only just noticed.
“Still, I made a fortune this time. I even got gems of every kind.”
“A silver lining, then. When you say gems of every kind—which ones do you mean?”
“All of them.”
“All of them?”
“Yes. Every gemstone listed in the catalog.”
“That’s—”
Kaine was genuinely astonished.
“No, how—setting the value aside, there must be two hundred varieties. How did you gather all of them?”
“I didn’t gather them. Grand Duke Oscar collected them, and I received the lot as-is.”
“For someone who commands the Spirit of Abundance, that is an enormous harvest. You might never have tested the full range of the spirit’s power before the contract period ended—yet you’ve already been given that chance. Once you find the stones that suit you best, you can reinforce them.”
“Yes. So… I’m really grateful.”
“To Grand Duke Oscar?”
“To the Grand Duke too, but… more than that…”
Veronica let the rest trail off.
“No. It’s nothing.”
“Ahem. Now that I think of it, I’ve done nothing but ask questions and said nothing about myself. Forgive me.”
Kaine cleared her throat.
“You’re right. I was curious about your contract terms, Silver Knight. You said they were different from mine—how different?”
“First of all, I pay no money.”
“…That’s unfair.”
“I can’t apologize on anyone else’s behalf, but… I’m sorry. Instead, I—”
“It really is unfair. Some of us are working ourselves to death day and night at this age, in a country with no labor standards— wait. ‘Instead’?”
“Instead, I pay holy power.”
Somehow Kaine seemed to be smiling hollowly behind the helm.
“Holy power? But holy knights—”
“Yes. I—”
Kaine raised a finger and pointed above her own head.
“—have no halo.”
Veronica gave an awkward little laugh.
“Then how are you a holy knight…?”
“There are various circumstances. In any case, the abilities I gain in exchange for holy power are two. The first is one you can use as well—moving ore and gemstones without touching them. The second is silver.”
“Silver itself is the ability?”
“Yes. The only thing I can command is silver—nothing else. Completely different from you, who can handle every gemstone. Still, the nature is probably the same. Silver’s nature is—”
“…Explosion.”
“So that much is the same. I can use only two things: the ability to move, and the ability to explode. Two is enough.”
Veronica nodded without thinking.
Two was enough. The fact that the Silver Knight was vice-commander proved it.
“Are you aware that silver conducts electricity and heat exceptionally well? I also use that to coordinate with my brothers and sisters in the order.”
“I… see.”
“As you can tell from looking, my armor is silver. I move the entire suit at once. When I do, the person inside—myself—flies with it. So if you put a little more thought into how to apply your power, Miss Veronica, you should be able to adapt it in any number of ways. Ideas and imagination matter.”
“W-wait a second. Are you allowed to tell me that?”
“Yes. The Commander ordered me to.”
“If the Commander of the order says so, it’s fine?”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t that… kind of a secret…?”
“Do you intend to tell anyone else?”
“Well… no.”
“Even if someone knew, they couldn’t copy it unless they were contracted to the Spirit of Abundance.”
“Couldn’t copy it…”
Repeating the words, Veronica found something rising in her mind.
Julian’s territory. Before they left by train. Karma had been wearing armor too. Luminous spirits had clung to the plates, and those spirits had seemed to be moving Karma’s armor for him.
That person could copy it… couldn’t he?
Move the armor so the body follows.
No—wasn’t he already doing exactly that…? How? We didn’t seem that close…
“Is something the matter?”
“Ah—no.”
Veronica waved a hand and carefully pressed on.
“Silver Knight, if someone… contracted a different spirit and used different magic, but still managed something similar—how would you feel about that?”
“Well. I’ve never considered it, but… that might be a little… irritating.”
Stage 4 privilege.
It had risen as if to make sure I wouldn’t forget.
Stage 4 privilege. A modest one hundred fifty coins had been added as well, bringing the total to five thousand three hundred fifty. I’d had three endings left before Stage 4; locking all three at once was what had opened the privilege.
Endings, privileges, scouter upgrades… The way everything was so finely subdivided was starting to get confusing. I could only blame the people who made this game.
Anyway.
Stage 1 privilege opened the shop. Stage 2 added a scouter upgrade and new shop items. Stage 3 was Simulation. And now Stage 4.
“Uh…?”
What?
I’d assumed another ability upgrade, same as always. This was something else entirely.
An additional heroine.
A sixth one.