Petty Revenge
At the rear gate of Freya Imperial Academy, Iris sat with her hands neatly folded over her knees, eyes squeezed tightly shut.
Erika pacing back and forth in front of her was incredibly distracting, but Iris decided not to say anything. After all, Erika had to be just as nervous.
"They're here!"
"Are they really?"
At Erika's cry, Iris sprang to her feet. It was true. In the distance, two carriages were approaching along the mountain path. The sight caught in Iris's throat. It was exactly the same scene she had witnessed in her future vision.
If events unfolded precisely as in that vision, then what came next...
No. The future could have changed.
The future had always changed wherever Schluss went. So it must have changed this time as well. Iris clung to that belief without a shred of doubt. Or rather, she desperately wanted to believe it.
"Professor Sergei!"
"Oh? What are you two students doing here?"
As Erika rushed forward, Professor Sergei leaped down from the carriage. Soon both carriages came to a stop at the rear gate. So far, it matched her vision with spine-chilling accuracy.
"Why do you look like that?"
"Ah... Do I look that bad? There wasn't time to clean myself up."
Sergei's laugh rang hollow, his face haggard beyond description. Even his trademark hearty guffaw had dwindled to a mere tenth of its usual volume.
"What do you mean there wasn't time?"
"Well, you see. I'll explain later... Ah! Why are you unloading that already!"
"...?!"
At Sergei's shout, Erika whipped her head around and froze in shock. Assistants and several students were carefully lowering a large coffin from the second carriage.
Watching from behind, Iris felt her heart hammering violently.
No way. It can't be.
"Is that a coffin, Professor?"
"Sigh..."
"Answer me, Professor!"
"Yes... it is. But you must not speak of this to anyone. Load it back up, lads!"
"Professor! Who died? Tell us!"
As Erika clung to him desperately, Sergei awkwardly averted his gaze. Soon Trie and Ainz came trudging out from the carriage.
"Professor. I think it's fine to tell Erika and Iris."
"Yes... They knew him, after all."
...
Iris had never seen Ainz like this before. He trembled as if on the verge of breaking into sobs. This was not the usual confident, arrogant, and ill-mannered Ainz.
The green-haired swordswoman was someone Iris had only glimpsed a few times, but even she had never looked so utterly defeated, shoulders slumped in defeat.
"Open the coffin lid. I'll allow you a brief look."
"Yes, sir."
"Understood."
Sergei ground his teeth and reluctantly gave permission. Erika and Iris approached the coffin as if drawn by some invisible force. They already knew what lay inside, yet they pretended otherwise. It couldn't be true. It shouldn't be. That man... it was still too early for him to die.
"I'm truly sorry. I failed to protect him..."
...
...
As the coffin lid lifted, Erika and Iris found themselves speechless. There was no collapsing in shock. The scene before them was exactly as they had feared. Schluss lay motionless inside, a beautiful sword clutched to his chest.
"What kind of sick joke is this?"
...
"Hey. Schluss. Get up. What are you doing in there..."
Erika reached out to touch Schluss's face, then fell backward onto her rear.
It was cold. His face was ice cold.
In that instant, everything became horrifyingly real, crashing down on Erika like an avalanche.
"W-wait. This can't be... No. Why?"
"It's my fault. Because of me... Schluss drew the monsters away alone to save me... Sob!"
Ainz, who had been fighting back tears, finally collapsed in a flood of weeping. While he wailed against the coffin, Trie could only clench her fists, oblivious to the blood welling up where her nails pierced her palms. Her eyes were already swollen and puffy.
"Explain properly, Professor! What happened?!"
"I'll provide a full explanation through the academy later. Forget everything you saw today. I only showed you because you're Schluss's friends..."
"Professor! Tell us in deta... il...?"
Following after Sergei, Erika felt someone tap her shoulder and turned around. There stood Celine, a red-haired girl with her head bowed low.
"Celine. You explain. What on earth happened?"
"Lady Erika... I don't know how you feel about Schluss, but I believe it's all a misunderstanding."
"What are you talking about?"
Celine's voice trembled. Erika was taken aback by the girl's wide-eyed, defiant glare. This was the first time she had ever seen Celine look so rebellious. This was the same girl who had meekly agreed to monitor Schluss when ordered.
"Schluss wasn't some wicked monster who made a pact with a demon. He was kind enough to carry recovery potions without using them even when covered in blood, offering them to others instead. He was courageous enough to fire a lure spell to save Lord Ainz when surrounded by monsters!"
"Ah..."
"He wasn't someone who deserved to be spied on. You knew, didn't you, Lady Erika? That Schluss would end up sacrificing himself like this one day?"
"T-that's..."
"So you did know. Then why didn't you tell us? We could have stopped it! Even if we couldn't stop it, we could have at least helped! You knew and yet you...!"
...
Her throat closed up, words refusing to come. She wanted to make excuses, but they emerged only as choked, broken sounds. He shouldn't have died like this. Schluss was supposed to live much longer and die only when his time naturally came. She had planned to make sure of that, so how had it come to this...
"Why did it have to happen when I wasn't there..."
Erika sank to her knees before the coffin. When she glanced back, Iris still stood frozen, as if her mind refused to accept reality. Even I feel like my heart is being torn apart, and I used to hate Schluss. How much worse must it be for Iris? She couldn't even begin to imagine that pain.
"You crazy bastard..."
As she took Schluss's cold hand, tears fell freely. Perhaps her senses had grown numb after he had survived every dramatic crisis before. Maybe she had come to believe, somehow, that Schluss could never truly die.
But Schluss was no invincible being. He was an ordinary human who could die in some absurd way at any time. And this was the result.
"Crazy bastard... crazy bastard..."
He had always seemed so composed and calm that she assumed he had some grand plan. She had even thought he could see the future. But who dies and comes back from something like this?
"You son of a..."
Before she realized it, Erika was pouring out her anguish without caring who might hear. She herself didn't understand why the tears kept coming. There shouldn't have been anything between her and Schluss. So why... why did her chest feel like it was being crushed?
If this was a joke, she wished he would stop it soon. She might be okay, but Iris looked like she was one step away from completely breaking down. Or perhaps she already had. She'd been muttering something in a barely audible voice for a while now...
So please wake up, if only for Iris's sake. Alright? I know you hate me more than anything, but can't you open your eyes at least for her?
"Wake up... Wake up, you awful jerk...!"
"Ugh..."
"Huh?"
A low groan came from the one place it absolutely shouldn't have.
Erika froze solid, then slowly turned her head with a creak.
She had wished for him to come back to life, but she had never wished for a corpse to start moving...
"Wha...?"
...
Hadn't his eyes been closed just moments ago? Why was Schluss now staring straight at her with open eyes?
For a second, Erika wondered if she was hallucinating.
"What the hell is going on here?"
"...?!"
Schluss asked the question as casually as if commenting on the weather. Warmth had already returned to the hand Erika was desperately clutching.
While Erika stood there stunned, the crowd surged around the coffin.
"Schluss! You've regained consciousness!"
"Professor. What kind of prank is this supposed to be? Ptooey... It's salty."
"Ehehe... Ehehehe... Ehehehahaha! I added some preservatives in case the body started to rot!"
"Preservatives my ass... Goddamn it."
Everyone stood frozen in shock, unable to utter a word. Only Sergei, who had checked Schluss's pulse, understood the situation and let out his usual booming laugh.
In the depths of a dark forest, several men surrounded Schluss as he lay collapsed, blood filling his mouth.
They all wore full-body protective suits and gas masks.
"Honestly, I believe this decision should be left to Hurtlocker."
"Me?"
"Yes. You've taken the most beatings from Schluss Heinkel. Who else should make the call?"
...
Hurtlocker was rendered speechless. To leave the fate of a major figure like Schluss to the judgment of a mere low-ranking operative.
Yet both options—killing him or sparing him—had their merits.
Schluss had shown what appeared to be a favorable stance toward the kingdom thus far. There remained the possibility of recruiting him into the intelligence bureau someday, so keeping him alive made sense.
However, since such a man now stood with the empire, others argued he should be eliminated immediately before he could grow into a serious threat. The two positions clashed.
"Tsk. I'll defer to your decision as well, Hurtlocker, but I say we kill him. There's no better chance than right now."
...
In truth, the decision to kill could only be made in this moment. Even the legendary Henderson had been helpless, his head split open. Schluss was a monster that the entire intelligence bureau might fail to capture even if they staked everything on it.
Now that very monster lay dying before their eyes. If they were going to kill him, there would never be a better opportunity. Miss it, and the chance might never come again.
"I won't stop you from killing him. Nor will I hold you responsible for the outcome. I simply thought you had earned the right to decide."
"Haa..."
Hurtlocker nudged Schluss's head with his foot, recalling their shared history.
On the Day of Magic, this bastard had subdued him bare-handed despite the dagger, then snapped both his arms.
On the day the traitor was revealed, he had toyed with him in the darkness, beaten him senseless, and thrown him into a pit of filth.
"This son of a bitch."
Just remembering it made rage boil up again. He felt like ripping off his pants and defecating on Schluss's face right then and there. That was how deep his hatred ran.
"I'll spare him. Schluss Heinkel."
"Are you serious? No changing your mind later."
"Yes. I'm sparing him."
But he didn't hate him enough to kill him. Not yet. He still hadn't received an answer.
Why, when there had been so many chances to kill him, had Schluss let him live? Did he truly see him as nothing more than a training dummy? Or was there another reason?
He needed to hear that answer.
There was no other reason for sparing him. It would simply leave a bad aftertaste to die without knowing... Yes. That was all. Truly.
"Unexpected. I thought you'd demand we dismember him limb from limb."
"If there were a way to keep him alive after dismembering his limbs, I would have done exactly that."
...
Once the decision was made, they could waste no more time. The mana energy had already corroded Schluss's lungs; his breathing seemed likely to stop completely at any moment.
Eric quickly pulled recovery potions and a mana energy antidote from his bag and poured them down Schluss's throat.
"Oh. Looks like it's over."
Before long, the black clouds that had blanketed the sky began to dissipate. Soon search parties from the village would descend looking for Schluss. They needed to abandon him somewhere and flee before that happened.
"Hey. What are you doing?"
"Just a moment. I can't let it end like this. I need to do something."
Hurtlocker was channeling his mana with deliberate care. When the others looked, they saw an incredibly complex spell formula being engraved.
The location was deep within Schluss's body, at the mana core of his heart—a spot extremely difficult to detect from outside. And nearly impossible to engrave unless the target was completely defenseless.
"What are you planning?"
"I'll slow his heartbeat to maintain an unconscious state. Slow his blood flow as well. Then I'll implant another spell to conceal even those faint pulses and breathing sounds..."
"A perfect living corpse. But why go to all this trouble?"
The spell, executed with the full extent of Hurtlocker's skill, was flawless. It made a living person indistinguishable from a genuine corpse. Detection would be virtually impossible without cutting open his chest.
"It just feels too unsatisfying to let this bastard go alive. I think I'll feel better if I at least tear apart the hearts of everyone around him..."
"Heh heh. Quite the wicked little scheme."
"Shut it."
Hurtlocker gave a bitter smile. He felt both pathetic and ridiculous that this was the only form of revenge available to him.
As they began to sense approaching presences in the distance, the intelligence bureau agents hurriedly withdrew from the area.