She Really Didn't Want to Kill Him
He really didn't want to die, did he?
My "apology stream" went by as smoothly as could be. Honestly, there wasn't much to apologize for in the first place. I had come purely to enjoy a vacation, and it was Crere who launched the attack first. If he hadn't been so greedy for my Blessing — or if he'd been willing to simply *give* it, the way Alice had been — I'd have handed it over for a fair price.
I really just wanted to rest, with no strings attached.
But as always, the world seemed determined to misunderstand me, and here we were.
The apology stream had long since morphed into a "justice served" storytime, and I dove into all sorts of tales — minus the slanderous stuff, anyway. As the stories flowed, the chat became a wall of You did the right thing and So satisfying. Every now and then someone would pipe up with "But doesn't destroying a tourist spot cross a line?" only to get blown away by the inevitable backlash.
Think about it. Crere owned the resort. I had paid good money to travel there, and instead of the five-star hospitality I deserved, he'd tried to abduct me — and rob me on top of it? Dying once would have been letting him off easy.
The public's fury turned entirely on Crere for committing something so absurd, and every arrow that had once pointed at me now pointed at him.
...Me? Of all people?
Crere, for his part, wore the expression of a man profoundly wronged.
I couldn't say how far the memory alteration had spread, or where exactly it had stopped, but the last thing Crere remembered was the moment I first set foot on Kiki Island. I'd set the cutoff around there, so presumably that's where his memory ended. From his perspective, it must have felt monumentally unfair. One minute he's thinking, Hmm, shall we try this? — the next he comes to, the deed is done, and he's the scum of the earth.
"Yeesh."
He really didn't want to die, I bet.
Of course, that's karma, and he can swallow it with a smile as far as I'm concerned.
Anyway, with the apology stream wrapped up, my lovely vacation had officially come to an end. Battery and Hyuji, who'd been kidnapped in the process, got one extra day of special leave. It's all remote work anyway and they don't grind away every single day, so it probably didn't mean much — but something was better than nothing.
"Darling."
"Alice."
Kiki Island had returned to its former self. It was no longer a dungeon, and its stat-boosting perks and other special effects were gone — but it remained a beautiful island all the same.
Alice came walking toward me, hand in hand with a small child who looked exactly like her. At my brief head-tilt of confusion, she shook her head.
"My little sister. I lost her back then, but I finally got her back."
"Are you satisfied?"
"Yes."
The answer came back crisp and immediate. Alice broke into a wide smile.
"My family's returned, and everyone's back to their old selves. Of course, seeing you standing right in front of me, I know this isn't just some dream."
"But you're happy anyway?"
"Yes... I'm happy right now, in this moment."
Even though she could vaguely sense this wasn't the past, Alice closed her eyes. What mattered to her was that this place was real, not an illusion. The fact that they had come back was an undeniable truth.
"Come visit anytime. I'll repay you with the very best service."
"That's a surprise. I figured that if anyone, you'd be the one following me around."
"Ah. Right."
Alice had been the Blessed of Enchantment, yet ironically she'd fallen under an enchantment herself. With her senses scrambled, she might well have abandoned everything to chase after me. It might sound extreme, but I've met plenty of people like that in my time. Truly hopeless ones.
She gazed quietly down at the child whose hand she held.
"Letting you go is the right call, for now."
"......"
"And the person I love made my dream come true. It would be unforgivable to wreck that person's dream in return — or worse, to fail to make it come true at all."
Darling seemed to have a great deal ahead of her, after all.
With those words, Alice beamed brightly. I stared at her, a little dazed by the unexpected answer.
Go. Little saint. If you stop here, you'll never gain anything at all.
Don't you dare make my teaching a waste.
"...You insufferable human."
"Uh, wh-what? Me?"
"Never mind."
Flutter. A pair of pure-white wings spread wide.
"I'll drop by someday. And when I do, I'll really take it easy."
"Yes. Come."
And so, farewell, Kiki Island. I got plenty of good YouTube material out of it, at least.
...Maybe it's time to start things up again.
Somewhere in Deoen.
Within the domain of the World Tree, which draped itself over a whole swath of the world, countless living things made their home. There was Elposis, the elven kingdom at the heart of the World Tree, saved long ago by a tiny nymph traveler. There was the dwarven kingdom nestled among the subterranean roots. And beyond them, nation after nation, tribe after small tribe, all living beneath the World Tree's protection.
BOOM!
And then, somewhere out at the farthest edge where the World Tree's leaves drifted down, lay the land tinted the color of dead ashes — the North. Into that land, where birdsong and insect chirps and the murmur of nature wove together in harmony, a great cry rang out.
Green power surged from the source of the shout, and a guardian, fist clenched tight, unleashed a devastating single strike.
"HYAAAP!"
KRA-KOOM!!!
Mul, guardian of the Hercason Tribe, chased after a white-clad woman who had evaded her blow with feline grace. Eyes flashing like a beast's, the woman whirled her body around in a blur and swung the claws mounted on her hands in a full arc.
"Too slow, turtle."
"BWAHAHAHA!"
SCREEEECH!
A translucent green shell enveloped Mul. The razor-sharp claws, glinting in the reflected sunlight, raked straight down through it.
Shraaaak!
The translucent shell tore into ribbons. Yul, guardian of the same tribe, seized the opening without hesitation and crossed both sets of claws into an X-slash.
Mul, her protection already stripped away, stood at death's door.
But Mul laughed.
"Come forth, my serpents!"
The Green Guardian — the Green Turtle — is a turtle, and also a serpent. The snakes surged up to block the X-shaped double strike, even as they were sliced clean through.
Watching those snakes get cut down so pitifully, anyone watching would have put nine-to-one odds on Yul's victory.
"Oh no..."
"Your training is lacking, Yul!"
But Yul gritted her teeth. ...Not again!
True, the snakes had been sliced apart without a fight — but their job had ended the moment they blocked the attack. What mattered was what came next. Yul's powerful follow-up blow slammed into Yul before she could escape the opening that always followed a heavy strike.
"GYAAAH!"
Yul took the fist square-on and went flying backward.
SPLOOSH!
She plunged straight into the exquisitely beautiful pond at the roots of the World Tree. Flap-flap! The birds that had been perching around the pond startled and scattered into the distance. Thud. Mul landed before the water's edge, her training robes billowing.
"Aren't you coming out?"
"......"
Yul hadn't taken any real damage, but she was clearly embarrassed, and refused to surface.
"So? What do you think of my skill?"
"...Shut up. That makes it 417 wins and 165 losses. I'm way ahead."
"And yet my win rate lately is far better than yours, no?"
Mul smiled with insufferable smugness, and Yul trembled with fury.
She wasn't wrong, though. Originally — that is, when Yul had been the tiger — the tiger had always beaten the turtle. The White Tiger fought with blistering speed and razor-sharp strikes, while the Green Turtle, for all its towering defense, was hampered by sluggish movement and slow attacks. It simply couldn't keep up.
The shift had come after Mul and Yul started taking Lily's lectures. Their tribal titles and classes carried such heavy penalties that they were practically half-NPC rather than players, but once they began learning to understand mana, that gap had only widened. These days, somehow, this world felt warmer and more familiar than reality ever had.
HAHAHA! I win again!
The problem was that Mul, who had been strange from the very start, was growing stranger by the day. Yul had always grasped mana far faster — but Mul caught up to her level of understanding within a month. And once understanding caught up, skill naturally followed.
If the win rate had once stood at 7-to-3 in her favor, maybe even 8-to-2 on a good day...
The key is reading the flow, Yul. Read the mana flowing through nature, and move with it.
...now the tables had turned entirely. Over the past month, Yul's record was 8 wins and 47 losses.
A humiliating result.
"AHAHA! Next bout, let's fight somewhere without a pond. Ending it like this every single time — you're remarkable, truly."
Shraaaak.
"Remarkable..."
"Ha! Take that."
Yul climbed out of the pond. Her soaked training robes clung to her and left her whole body on display, but she glared at Mul as if she couldn't care less.
"Cover your eyes. Before I kill you."
"...Don't you usually at least try to cover up a little? How bold of you today."
"It's not like this is an adult-rated game, idiot. You and I both live and breathe this game anyway — this much is nothing. It's not like anything's actually showing. Just a bit of skin, that's all."
Not that some people would still go over it.
Rather than look away, Mul changed the subject.
"By the way — when is Teacher Lily holding her next lecture? I'd love to show her how much I've changed."
"No idea. Busy with work, probably. Tch. It's already been over two months."
Yul flicked the water off with a burst of white wind and wrung the stream trailing from her sleeves.
She knew, of course. That idiot Mul seemed to have gone full NPC even upstairs — she hadn't been reading Yul's chat lately at all — but Yul knew full well that Lily had captured Sgaredo and, just recently, cleared a dungeon called Kiki Island. The woman had to be insanely busy.
And with things as they are now, she should have a little time to spare.
No war had broken out. The dragon that would have brought the continent to ruin had been stopped. She'd even had a vacation — a vacation that was hardly much of one, but still. All that remained was...
"She might call us back before long."
"Really?!"
"Probably. Her schedule should be wrapped up by now, and plenty of people will be waiting for her."
"I can't wait! I'm heading there right now!"
WHOOSH! In a single bound, Mul leapt skyward and went charging off toward who-knew-where. Was she heading for that lecture hall from back then?
"...Haah. What am I going to do with that idiot."
How on earth had she gotten so close to someone like that — and ended up tagging along with her every single day?
Yul couldn't understand herself.