The True Memory of the True Body (2)
"Tch······."
Sunlight filtered weakly through the leaves onto the forest path. Erika, walking alongside Iris, kicked a stone in her way.
"What the hell was that? All we did was provoke Schluss for no reason."
"······."
She hadn't come to Schluss Heinkel intending to be driven away like this. At first, she'd planned to ask about Yulia slowly, bit by bit. But Iris had ruined everything. By suddenly angering Schluss······.
"This is enough."
"What?"
"Have you ever seen Schluss get that angry before?"
"No, never······."
"Neither have I. If we'd said he killed someone other than Yulia, Schluss would have just accepted it or scoffed and called it nonsense. But this time, we managed to draw out a reaction stronger than anything we've seen before. Isn't that answer enough?"
"So······ there's something between them? Between Schluss and Yulia?"
Iris smiled faintly. Erika felt a headache coming on. No matter how she thought about it, the two had barely met a few times—there was no connection at all, so what on earth······.
"They fell in love at first sight. Something like that?"
"I don't think it's that simple a story. People don't usually kill the ones they love."
"Wait. Was that for real?"
In the future, Schluss would kill Yulia and be arrested, sentenced to death. Erika had assumed it was just a lie Iris made up on the spot to shake him, but it was actually true? Erika's eyes widened in confusion.
"Who knows. It could be real, or it could be fake."
"What······! Tell me right now!"
"I'm sorry. I can't say."
"What do you mean! You can't even tell me?"
"No."
"Ugh······!"
Erika felt like she was going insane. Then why the hell had Iris called her here in the first place?
"You figured something out, didn't you?"
"Who knows."
"Tell me too. Huh? It involves my sister, after all."
"That's exactly why I can't tell you."
"Hey!"
Chasing after Iris, who kept dropping cryptic remarks, Erika felt powerless. It was infuriating that she knew less about her own sister's situation than Iris did. Still, since it was Iris doing it, there had to be good intentions······. That was the only small comfort she could find.
'Come to think of it, that bastard······. He didn't deny meeting our mother······.'
Biting her nails, Erika recalled something she'd nearly forgotten in her agitation. When she'd pressed Schluss about his secret meeting with her mother as he was leaving, he'd answered like this:
-Don't worry. I'll use her a little and let her go right away.
Use her a little and let her go······? What exactly was he planning to use her for? Erika's face flushed crimson as her imagination ran wild.
"That crazy bastard······!"
"······."
Iris watched Erika, who was clutching her head and shouting, with a silent, pitying gaze.
***
I'd calmed down considerably. My heartbeat had stabilized. I had regained enough composure that I could no longer understand why I'd been so worked up earlier.
"The Miracle Ring······. It must be because of that."
No matter how many times I thought about it, the only thing capable of causing this situation was the Miracle Ring. I couldn't think of any other item in the novel that could make a character call me by my real name. It was probably some kind of bug. I'd tried to summon Han A-rum's personality, but a body that looked exactly like hers happened to exist, so it transferred there and possessed it incompletely······. If that was the case, it would explain Yulia's nightmares and her calling my real name.
"But how on earth······?"
To even imitate Han A-rum's personality, you'd at least need to know her. How did the reader who created this world figure that out? The thought made my head spin, but I soon gave up trying to reason it out. Anyone capable of creating such an absurd world had to be considered practically omniscient. That alone explained it without further thought. It wasn't a satisfying answer, though.
I should have stopped thinking there. But my train of thought took one more step forward, and my heart began pounding again.
"Then Yulia right now······"
Did Yulia have Han A-rum's soul, or personality, or something resembling Han A-rum inside her? Did she remember me? If even a part of her—if even a small part of Yulia could be called Han A-rum······ then Yulia, who looked exactly like her, was essentially Han A-rum, wasn't she?
"Shit······."
My composure shattered. Now I could understand what Iris had said. That future where I killed Yulia. If Yulia spoke with that face, that voice, in that tone and manner······. If I faced such a Yulia, I might go insane. The thought that I could lose my reason and kill her out of a desire to deny the existence before my eyes didn't seem entirely impossible······.
"There's a time limit······."
She would disappear soon. Since she was possessing an incomplete body, it would last longer than a pure soul descent, but she wouldn't last long before vanishing either. So should I meet her before then? What if I met her and ended up killing her like Iris said? But if I didn't meet her, wouldn't I regret it for the rest of my life?
"Haa······."
It was the dilemma of a lifetime. Whether to bear the risk of regret, or to regret it. It wasn't a decision to be made lightly. Nor was it something I could afford to delay.
"Ah, screw it."
I decided to put off the decision for now. The moment I went to find Yulia, my fragile mental state would turn to dust—that much was certain. With midterms right around the corner, I couldn't afford to do something like that.
"Tsk. I'm hungry."
Just as I opened a book to start studying, my stomach growled. Whether it was back when I was a student or now, the way hunger and fatigue hit the moment you tried to study never changed. I couldn't concentrate anyway. I stood up without hesitation and opened the training room door.
"Have you finished, Mr. Heinkel?"
Emilia greeted me from the top of the stairs. Had she been waiting this whole time? No way. She probably just happened to pass by and stopped when she saw the door open.
"You're late. Lunch time passed quite a while ago."
"Huh? What time is it?"
"It's a little past two."
What the hell. I'd only thought for a moment before coming out, but four hours had flown by. I hadn't accomplished anything, and it was already afternoon. I sighed and climbed the stairs.
"The Saintess Iris left something for you, Mr. Heinkel······."
Emilia's voice grew smaller as she spoke, and she opened her palm. It was a small cross. The kind you might hang on a string and wear as a necklace. Wait, looking closely, it looked exactly like the cross Iris had been wearing. Had she taken it off and given it to me, or was it a similar item······. I'd find out when I ran into Iris later.
"She didn't pass along any message with it?"
"No. Just this······. If you don't want it, should I throw it in the furnace and melt it······?"
Emilia was gauging my reaction, clearly taking the earlier argument seriously. It hadn't been anything major. Iris had just provoked me like usual, and I'd reacted differently than normal. Our relationship wouldn't fall apart over something like this. As Iris said, we were going to know each other for a long time. Whether we liked it or not, we'd have to stay together until the novel's ending. By then, we might even be standing on opposite sides.
"Just give it here."
"Yes."
The moment I took the cross, the scenery around me changed completely. To be precise, everything turned pitch black. With my vision completely blocked, the only sense left to me was the feel of the small metal piece at my fingertips. I realized it immediately. This was the effect of Memory of the True Body activating. The sensation at my fingertips was definitely the cross. Once I realized that, the surroundings suddenly brightened, and I returned to reality.
"Mr. Heinkel. Mr. Heinkel?"
"Ah, yes."
"Are you all right?"
"I'm fine. Could you prepare lunch?"
"Yes. Understood."
After sending Emilia away—she'd been looking at me with worry, or perhaps suspicion—I slipped the cross into my pocket. I didn't know what Iris's intention had been in giving it to me. But she must have seen some future and realized that handing this over could help avoid or manipulate that future. Or maybe she'd just given me a meaningless gift to make my head spin. The probability that this meaningless gift happened to be something from Schluss's memories was extremely low, though.
'This one was quite intense.'
Considering that Memory of the True Body usually manifested as faint holographic images, this one had been strong enough to completely override my senses. As far as I could remember, it had only activated this powerfully three times before. When I faced the Fenrir in Wist Forest holding a sword. When I saw Iris through the gap in a closing door—I couldn't remember exactly when. And just now. Was it really a coincidence that two of those three involved Iris? Or had similar situations simply overlapped frequently in Schluss's memories?
'That's not it.'
This strong activation only happened when the situation matched almost perfectly. The Fenrir vision on the first day of school, when facing the training golem, had been opaque and blurry. But when I encountered the Fenrir in Wist Forest, the exact same memory appeared so vividly that it was hard to distinguish from reality. Even the same memory varied in clarity depending on how closely the situation matched. And among those vividly appearing memories, Iris appeared in two of them······.
'Schluss had met Iris before.'
I had no choice but to reach that conclusion.