Side Effects
Gazing at the crimson trails embroidered across the empty sky.
“…Pretty.”
Just like the color of Ren’s eyes.
Huey murmured blankly.
“Wow… He’s got it bad.”
“Imagine how I feel, having to watch that every single day.”
The two women whispered behind him as they watched Huey’s dazed expression.
Right after.
Seeing Ren, who had been floating far off in the sky, suddenly abandon her position.
“Huh? What’s she doing?”
“Yeah. It’s like she’s dodging something…”
The two of them, excluding Huey, looked upward with trembling eyes.
“Huey! Over here, quick!”
“Master! You need to get out of the way!”
And for good reason.
“Huh? What’s going on all of a sudd— holy shit.”
Because the cocoon of turbid water that had been floating in the sky until moments ago—filled with blood, corpses, dirt, and debris—was now shattering and cascading down.
At the sight of enough water to submerge an entire city plummeting from overhead.
“Waaaaaah!”
Huey sprinted desperately toward Frederica, who had been forming a barrier a little behind them.
And just before the flood reached them, Frederica’s barrier was erected by a hair’s breadth.
Splashhhhh!!
Having run over with his exhausted body, panting for breath, Huey once again looked at the sight of Swinford being submerged in water.
Unlike the initial scene where everything had quietly settled in the clear water, the water surging before his eyes was murky, as if foreshadowing the future to come.
“Whoa, filthy.”
“Master. Are you all right?”
Even at the voice from beside him, Huey only quietly surveyed his surroundings, gripped by an ominous feeling.
And so.
Around the time the surging waves had somewhat calmed.
“Come to think of it, where’s Ren?”
“I don’t know.”
Huey and Luciella looked around, searching for the vanished Ren.
“Over there.”
Frederica pointed in the direction where Ren’s mana could be sensed, toward the two of them.
“She’s probably with that man named Osmon.”
Saying she was with a faint presence that seemed about to cut off at any moment.
As Frederica flicked her hand, the large debris scattered all around began to move as if possessing will of their own, forming a path.
“The debris…”
“…Threads?”
Huey was surprised at the debris moving on its own and fixing itself in empty air, while Luciella’s eyes lit up upon discovering the thin threads connected to the moving debris.
“Shall we go together?”
Instead of answering, the two quietly began following Frederica.
And so.
In a silence where only the sound of lapping waves lingered around them, after walking a while toward where Ren was.
“There she is.”
Just as Frederica said.
The three of them could spot Ren in the distance.
Ren, with a serious expression, looking down while pointing her sword at something beneath her feet.
Then.
Slash.
Ren swung her sword with an expressionless face, and something bounced up from the rebound.
“Master. That’s…”
“…Osmon?”
It was.
Osmon’s head, for some reason with a peaceful expression and eyes closed.
“Ah, you’re here.”
And only then, as if noticing that Huey and the other two were approaching her, Ren turned her head and opened her mouth.
“Sorry to ask right as you get here, but can you handle the rest?”
Before the three could even react to the sudden, cryptic words,
Thud.
Ren, who had been pouring cold sweat like a waterfall, collapsed right there.
“Ren!”
“What the hell all of a sudden…!”
Huey and Luciella ran toward the collapsing Ren.
“…I’m jealous.”
And after realizing that what Ren had been looking at in her final moment was not herself but Huey and Luciella, Frederica looked with a complicated expression at Ren’s left hand, which had not let go of the sword until the end.
“When will you realize? That even if you can’t hold a sword anymore, we won’t leave you.”
With those pink eyes filled with pity.
“…Honestly, you’re such a coward.”
I dreamed for the first time in a long while.
A dream of my childhood, so distant now that I could barely remember when it was.
In the dream, I was always alone.
But I wasn’t lonely.
Because I didn’t know what it was like not to be alone.
The reason I could still live on was because I had power.
Was it talent?
From a young age, I had a knack for handling blades.
Since I already possessed ability enough not to lose even to adults from childhood, I had always lived by taking.
Food, places to shelter from the rain.
It was one day while living by taking like that.
Once I had enough food and places to rest my body, other things began to catch my eye.
Things I always saw when I went out into the streets.
Things that existed as a matter of course among the people bustling about in groups.
And things I didn’t have.
Family.
So.
I wanted a family.
That’s what I thought.
But family wasn’t something you could create just because you wanted it.
“Eek, monster!”
“Get lost, you monster!”
The weaklings who always handed over food when threatened with a blade started thrashing about saying they would rather die than give up their family when I asked for one.
Just how great was it that they acted like that?
My interest only grew further.
Just how was one supposed to obtain something called family?
Unable to endure my longing for family, I decided to first create something similar to a family.
I gathered those in similar circumstances to myself and began imitating a family.
Perhaps gathering street vagrants had been the problem, as they soon scattered again.
But the biggest problem was that in that mere imitation of family play, I came to realize what loneliness was.
Once I realized loneliness, I could no longer return to my original life.
And so.
I began gathering those in the same circumstances as myself once more.
This time, by subduing them with force.
That was the correct answer.
Once I began ruling by force, no one even thought of running away.
If I have power, I don’t need to feel the emotion called loneliness again.
If I have power, I’m not alone.
That was the conclusion I reached.
But.
That too was not perfect.
What was obtained with insufficient power would ultimately only be destroyed by a stronger power.
It was one day.
“Huh, this one’s something else.”
When I stopped a passerby as usual to threaten them for food, the one with a body so thin it was hard to tell if they were man or woman at a glance began examining me with interest instead.
“I don’t know about the rest, but I could teach you a thing or two about the sword.”
The moment I charged at the one spouting incomprehensible nonsense, I was flying far away with my limbs broken.
“You, I like you. I’ll raise you as my disciple. Consider it an honor.”
When I came to, not only I but also those I had gathered had all been thoroughly smashed.
“Oh, and for the record, I don’t need your opinion. I’m a tyrant, after all.”
That was my first meeting with Master.
Even though some twenty years have passed since then, I still longed for something called family.
My whole body hurts.
“Beep…”
At the intense pain felt throughout my body, I gave up on trying to sit up and opened my eyes, and along with the familiar sight of the ceiling, two familiar faces calling my name came into view.
“Ren!”
“Thank goodness…!”
“Too close, you brats.”
They were shoving their faces so close it was honestly burdensome. When I said that with a frown, Huey and Lucy scratched their heads and backed off.
“Anyway, how long has it been?”
When I asked while looking at the familiar ceiling of my room,
“About two days.”
“Your voice is hoarse. I’ll go get some water.”
Huey answered me with a somewhat awkward face, and Lucy, similarly looking uncomfortable as if recalling something, rose from her seat.
Two days… I was out for quite a while.
“More importantly, are you okay?”
I was surprised at the fact that I’d been unconscious for two whole days, but Huey asked me in a strangely serious voice.
“No, it hurts like hell.”
Moreover, judging by the sensation felt through the pain, my arms and legs had returned to harpy limbs.
“So, what happened?”
When I asked Huey, who had been restlessly circling around examining me for a while now as if something was terribly uncomfortable,
“You don’t remember?”
“Remember what?”
“Well…”
Summarizing the story Huey began like that roughly….
Right after I collapsed, I suddenly started groaning and then screaming, and with a spectacle roughly summarized as crack, creak, snap, my arms and legs returned to their previous form… or so he said.
“Good thing I was out cold.”
“Could you spare a little worry for us who had to watch that?”
Having directly witnessed a person’s arms and legs transforming into harpy wings and legs right before their eyes seemed quite the shock, as Huey covered his mouth as if nauseous just from recalling it.
“…When I took it, it just poofed and changed, so why was it like that coming back?”
At the description of a scene I didn’t particularly want to imagine, I stopped thinking, closed my eyes, and sighed.
“Haa. I expected some side effects to a degree, but this is way too severe.”
“Frederica said there’s still one more potion left.”
……
“Tell her to throw it away.”
It wasn’t even restoring all four limbs.
Obviously this next potion would have a time limit too.
I was certain after trying the potion.
With Beatrice’s potions, this body could never be restored.
“Anyway, rest up. I’ll go call Frederica.”
Of course, separately from the potion, I’d have to visit the north once…
But for now, a more important problem had arisen than that.
“Haa, two days…”
Sighing at Huey’s presence as he left without even waiting for my answer, I quietly rolled my eyes to look down.
More precisely, at my lower abdomen, where a sense of incongruity had begun to be felt for a while now.
I’m going crazy. For real.