Cleaning Out the Warehouse (2)
"Sorry. I didn't mean to press it."
"Sorry doesn't cut it. Does that bring my dress back? Get over here. I'm shooting yours too!"
She snatched the Killer Ray Robot from my hand and trained its eye on my ribs. What a petty little—
The Demon King's dress, currently a smoking ruin.
Heh.
A little startling, sure, but this was still within the realm of improvisation. I was a professional.
"W-wait! Not this shirt!"
I manufactured a look of pure horror and clutched the brooch on my chest—the emblem of this hoodie if it had one.
"...What? You burned my clothes, and now—do you have any idea how much I loved that dress?!"
"I know. Better than anyone! I know exactly how you feel! Why? Because this hoodie you gave me means just as much to me! More than my own life! Shoot me in the forehead instead. I'd rather take that."
A sentimental little story, cooked up on the spot to soothe this innocent creature. The hoodie I was wearing. The one she'd gifted me. So precious I'd rather take a beam to the skull than let it burn.
"Well? What are you waiting for? Shoot."
I locked eyes with her, steely with resolve, and shoved my head forward. Any second now the Demon King—who somehow overflowed with feeling in moments like these—would burst into tears and throw herself into my arms...
"Yeah? Then stick your forehead out."
That... didn't work?
She aimed the robot's eye not at the hoodie she'd given me, but at her precious friend's forehead.
"T-timeout!"
I waved my hands and blew the whistle a split second before she fired.
"...What? You got something to say?"
"Uh... we're friends, right?"
"We are."
"You like me, don't you."
"Yeah. A whole lot. More than the Paper Crane."
"Then couldn't you let it slide? Just this once?"
"Yeah. I'll let it slide. Because it's you."
Got her. This particular sales pitch always seemed to land weirdly well with the Demon King.
"Thanks. Let's keep getting along. And those damn carrots—leave them to me. I'll eat them for you for the rest of my life."
"Sure, sure! Now stick it out. Your turn to get hit."
A heavy click.
The Demon King, eyes blazing, trained the robot on my skull again. Forgiveness was one thing. Apparently even this relationship wasn't enough to stop her from pulling the trigger.
Goddammit! You said we were friends! What kind of friend shoots another friend with a death ray?!
"It'll sting a little."
That's your standard, you selfish gene.
If it "stung a little" by her measure, it would punch a hole clean through me the second it touched my body.
The red eyes of the robot—so like the Demon King's own—were about to fire. My heart hammered. My tongue went dry. When the Demon King wrapped herself in nothing but pure killing intent, her eyes were no different from an insect's. She wasn't human. There was nothing strange about her actually blasting me. This wasn't about whether she was good or evil.
Obvious as it is... her moral compass just doesn't line up with a human's.
I'd heard about it back on Earth. What did they call girls whose way of loving was... extreme? Yandere? This was something else. The violence came in scattered bursts.
Whatever.
This time I need a solution she can actually see.
Pain didn't have to be paid back with pain. There was nothing to gain from that.
Which meant her only real complaint was that her precious dress had been ruined.
"I'll make you a new one!"
"......What?"
Her pale finger, hovering over the button on the back of the robot, stopped just in time.
"I'll make it. Your dress. A pretty one."
".....You? How?"
Still coiled in rage, but I could see curiosity spark. Even she was a girl, I guess. Clothes interested her.
"Remember the party members who came here with me? The ones who were gonna wreck you—ah, I mean! Anyway, those four!"
".....What about them? Are they your friends?"
For reasons I couldn't fathom, black killing intent suddenly poured off the Demon King. Even her tone had grown thorns.
"...No? There's no way those goddamn bitches would be my friends."
"Mhm, mhm. Heehee. So?"
"Anyway, the clothes they were wearing. I made all of those."
At that, the killing intent vanished, and a whole galaxy spilled from the Demon King's crimson eyes.
"W-what!? Those pretty clothes?"
"Yeah. You saw my sewing when I helped you make dolls, right? Those outfits were all me too."
"W-woooow!"
As if. Obviously a complete lie. I had decent hands, sure, but their clothes were luxury pieces stitched one thread at a time by the continent's finest artisans. Nothing like the rags I'd been wearing.
She flung the Killer Ray Robot aside—the one that had been pointed at her friend's forehead—and came running. She grabbed my cheeks with both hands and yanked me in.
"Really? Really? You're going to make it yourself? Yourself?"
"Y-yeah, really! I swear. C-could you let go first?!"
My legs were shaking at the thought that she might squeeze too hard in her excitement and crush my head like a tomato. At my request, she released me.
"What about fabric?"
The Demon King, instantly giddy, asked. This. This was the key. The to postpone this hopeless, impossible lie indefinitely.
"We don't have any fabric right now, do we? Even if we wanted to buy some, it's way too expensive, and there's no stock."
"Mhm, mhm. That's true."
The Demon King nodded, mouth hanging open.
"Before long, my old party members are going to raid this place again."
"Huh? Those goddamn—them?"
"Yeah. We beat the living hell out of them, take their clothes, and I'll make you something that looks amazing on you."
"...That's not okay... You're really mean."
"...What?"
I'd fully expected her to clap like a seal and cheer. Instead, the Demon King looked at me with ice-cold contempt.
"...Why?"
"Why would you steal someone else's clothes?"
This from the girl who robbed adventurers of their money and their weapons. Why were clothes the line?
Thinking about it now, though—the Demon King had never once taken anyone's clothes. Not even my old party's. She explained why soon enough.
"In the fairy tale I was reading, Grandpa Nepeto said clothes have souls in them, so you shouldn't just throw someone else's on your body."
You senile old coot! Why are you sabotaging a man's hustle from inside a children's book?! Keep your mouth shut!
No. What had Nepeto ever done wrong? It was that goddamn fairy-tale author again. If I ever ran into him on the street, I was planting a Falcon Punch square in his face.
After a quick mental rehearsal of the next lie, I opened my mouth again.
"I'm sure, just like Mr. Geppetto said—"
"Nepeto."
"Right. Anyway, like that guy said, clothes do have souls in them. But that's only while they're clothes. The second you take scissors to them and the thread comes loose, the soul slips out, and they go back to being regular fabric."
"Oh my! Is that how it works?"
"Yep. So no problem now, right?"
"Mhm, mhm! I want to get it over with already! I wonder when they'll get here. Those—them."
Wiping those girls out would be a cause for celebration, but it was never going to happen.
Nine, Yuria, Dorothy, Rebecca.
To them, I'd been nothing but a consumable. No different from a pack mule. Out there, those girls had long since forgotten someone like me and were probably already whipping some new porter.
Whoever you are, I feel sorry for you.
Unless you were some kind of living saint, you couldn't last with them. Well, maybe someone like Rohan Edwork could manage.
Anyway, I'd gotten through it somehow. My old party was never coming back, and the odds of a female adventurer showing up here were slim—maybe one in twenty. My party's gender ratio had been a genuine statistical anomaly. Meaning I would never actually have to make her a dress.
...How many lies is that now, for fuck's sake...
The Paper Crane that would turn into a game in a year. The camera that worked without film. And now clothes. If lying made your nose grow, mine would be as long as Jormungandr by now.
...Not like I have a choice.
For the weak, lying is a non-negotiable part of staying alive. In this world, there is no such thing as a porter who lives without lies. Those people are already dead.
As if she'd never been angry at all, the Demon King stood there in her side-blown dress, beaming. She nuzzled her cheek against the Paper Crane, drunk on happiness.
"...I'll make it really pretty."
"Mhm, mhm! Heehee. I hope they get here soon..."
To a stranger, it might have looked like the adorable face of a pretty girl. They wouldn't know she was currently imagining smashing their skulls in and stripping them of their clothes.
"...Ohoho. Come here!"
She told me to come over, then apparently couldn't wait for my slow feet, because she came to me instead. Those pale hands grabbed my head again and pulled me down. Skin against skin.
"I'm so happy. So happy. My friend's going to make me clothes... going to make me clothes... ehehe."
She rubbed her cheek against mine as she said it. Her fair skin was startlingly soft.
Looking back, she was someone with a remarkably rich range of expression... no, not someone. A demon.
...God, I feel like shit.
"Thank you!"
"...Yeah."
"Is there anything you want?"
She was still rubbing her cheek against mine, so the Demon King's question rang from behind my head.
Anything I want... well...
Sorry was sorry, but I had zero conscience when it came to turning down a wish from an innocent girl who was this happy over a lie.
Should I ask her to grill the leftover thunderbird meat? Or for a new set of sheets? Nah, those were still fine... Oh, maybe I could ask to borrow the Red Hare from Little Farm for a week?
I was lining up all these delightful options when a jolt of wrongness snapped me awake.
The choice that would have been my number one, no question, in the old days.
The option of asking her to let me out of here hadn't even crossed my mind.
...You've lost it, Baek Dongha.
"Hehe. What should I do for you? Hm? Hm?"
"Thunderbird steak."
"Whew... that's everything."
We'd started in the morning, and the sun was already down.
I'd cleared out every last game that looked like it had been invented by a traitor to the human race. Burn forever in the sulfur fires of hell, you miserable pieces of trash.
"All sorted... wait, wait? You took out this many?"
She stared at the games I'd set aside, looking stunned.
"Yeah. I only kept the ones that are way more fun than that garbage. Let's play these from now on."
That's right. The god-tier games I'd personally curated—not a trace of violence, competition, or exhaustion to be found. Peaceful masterpieces. With these, we could play every day.
"Hmm. Okay. Then..."
She walked right past the god-tier games I'd selected and started putting the terrifying ones I'd piled up to throw away back into the box.
"...Huh? Weren't those the ones we were going to toss?"
"What? Why would we throw them away? I told you to set aside the ones I'm going to remake. I'll make them again real quick, and then we can play them together right away!"
"Well. I'm fucked again."