Chapter 28
Chapter 28
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>Translator: Vine
>Chapter: 28
>Chapter Title: The Long Search for Iris
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“Hup, hah!”
The wooden sword, left neglected in the training hall's storage, cut through the air with a sharp whistle.
[ Raise your arms higher! ]
“Hnngh!”
[ Keep your breathing steady! ]
In the training hall, once again filled with sweltering heat, Noah swung her sword several more times before brushing the light brown hair plastered to her face back.
Her emerald-green eyes, always so dull and listless before, now sparkled brilliantly. Juliana circled around her, smiling in satisfaction.
[ You still have a long way to go, but this isn't half bad. ]
Though she said it nonchalantly, Juliana was astounded by Noah's talent.
Teach her one thing, and she understood ten. She could master skills in a matter of hours that took ordinary people a month to learn. It was a skill so profound you could call it a heaven-sent gift.
Noah, too, could feel herself growing stronger with every fiber of her being. That feeling only made her more impatient.
‘I have to get stronger, faster.’
It would be one thing if her situation were hopeless, but this was a case where the sweet fruit of her labor was just within reach. It was only natural that she would push her talented body to its limits.
Had Noah possessed ordinary talent, she would have collapsed from exhaustion long before building any real skill. But her brilliant gift was such that the more she pushed herself, the stronger she became.
Because of this, Noah trained day after day like someone addicted to it. Her eyes shimmered beautifully with hope.
Unlike Noah, however, there was someone else who exuded a gloomy aura.
“Hnn, hnnn...”
Pia was curled up inside the dusty wardrobe of an unkempt guest room, letting out pained moans.
{ Sis, it hurts, Sis, it hurts, Sis, it hurts, Sis, it hurts, Sis, it hurts, Sis, it hurts, Sis, it hurts, Sis, it hurts, Sis, it hurts, Sis, it hurts, Sis, it hurts, Sis, it hurts, Sis, it hurts, Sis, it hurts,
Sis, I said it hurts! }
“Aargh...!”
She screamed, clutching her hair. Her hands, gripping so tightly it hurt her scalp, covered her eyes.
“Ah—...ahhh...”
Her dark, chestnut-brown hair was turning pitch-black from the roots, with half her head already darkened. Her once-amber eyes were also gradually turning purple, like murky water clouding a clear stream.
>Continuous exposure to the potent black magic was causing abnormal reactions in her body.
“Hic... Mom, Mommy...”
Pia squeezed her eyes shut and burst into tears. This time, her mother's voice echoed in her ears.
{ Pia, protect your little sister. You're a strong girl, so I know you can do it. }
A gentle voice and a soft smile materialized before her. The corners of Pia's mouth trembled as tears streamed down her face.
“Mo-Mommy...”
Pia sobbed like any child her age, running toward the vivid illusion.
{ Why are you the one who's alive? }
The bright background turned a hellish red, and her mother, who had been smiling so kindly, now glared at Pia with a terrifying expression.
{ I! Told! You! To protect! Your sister!! }
“S-Sob! I'm sorry, I'm so sorry...”
Pia trembled in endless fear, begging for forgiveness.
The words ‘You should have been the one to die’ echoed in her ears like a repeating chorus. The skin around Pia's eyes began to turn a deathly black.
‘Rian...’
Pia instinctively thought of Rian, the one who had brought her comfort. But she couldn't bring herself to seek him out, held back by her own stubbornness and the magic.
Why did her sister's voice fade whenever she was with Rian? Was it because Rian was a good person?
If Pia had held a positive view of Rian, her thoughts might have drifted in that direction. But she saw him as ‘someone putting on a fake act.’
Naturally, her thoughts couldn't help but turn negative. On top of that, Doban's black magic amplified those negative feelings and made her avoid any place where the spell might be broken. For that reason, Pia began to avoid Rian.
‘This... this is all his fault.’
Pia shifted all of her boundless fear onto Rian. It was the only way she could breathe.
{ That's right, sis. It's all his fault. }
As Pia's mind broke down past a certain point, rendering her incapable of logical thought, her sister began to whisper something different.
{ This all happened because of that white-haired slave. So let's get rid of him. }
‘Ge-get rid of him?’
{ We'll chase him out of here so he can never bother you again. }
If Pia had possessed even a sliver of her sanity, she would have found her sister's sudden change in tone bizarre.
But her mind was teetering on the edge of a cliff. If left alone, she might have even taken her own life. That was how crushed she was by her guilt.
When a guilty person feels remorse, they instinctively try to be kind to their victim. It is an attempt to ease their own heart through atonement.
Pia was no different. Crushed by an immense sense of guilt, she began to blindly follow the voice's words, as if she were a slave to the auditory hallucination.
“What... What should I do?”
The sister, who had been spewing such terrifying hatred, began to list what needed to be done in a gentle voice.
*Creeak—.*
Pia stumbled out of the wardrobe and left the room. The black magic had made her presence incredibly faint.
***
“No news is good news. No news is good news.”
I muttered to myself as I strolled down the slightly chilly hallway, but my heart wouldn't calm down.
‘Where on earth is she!’
The mention of a new test subject had made Mia's eyes glaze over, and she'd immediately rushed to the slave market. She told me she had scoured not only the massive slave market but also the smaller ones, and still hadn't found Iris.
In other words, she'd already been sold.
‘I-I-It'll be fine.’
Even as I said that, my legs were trembling. There was no other way to meet Iris except through Mia, so a dense lump of frustration was stuck in my throat.
In the end, I collapsed to my knees in the middle of the hallway, clutching my hair.
‘Gwaaaah! There's no way! No way!’
I screamed internally as tears streamed down my face like a waterfall.
‘But there's the original story, and causality exists—... Won't it work out somehow?’
I tried denying reality.
‘Why did Odil run away! I treated him so well! I fed him good food and gave him nice clothes!’
Then I got angry.
‘Should I just live here as a test subject slave forever? It doesn't seem so bad, does it?’
And finally, I resigned myself to reality. After going through these few stages of emotional turmoil, the conclusion I reached was simple.
“Aaaah! Please let the protagonist fall from the sky right in front of me! Or send me to her through a door that leads anywhere! Where the hell are you, Iriiiis...!”
The residents of the Gag World tend to cry by shouting their deepest desires when they despair. And then they quickly pull themselves together and get up. I'm one of them.
“Hmph. Let's go prepare the meal.”
Back then, I never could have imagined that the words I'd shouted would actually come true.
***
*Swoosh, huff!*
“Wow, she's amazing again today.”
I was sewing while watching Noah swing her sword. It had only been a week since she'd first picked up a sword, and now she was practically flying through the air.
‘*Hah*—. She’s a total prince.’
Like the hero of a flashy martial arts movie, Noah's short brown hair swayed with every swing of her sword. Her eyes, reminiscent of a fairy-tale prince, would surely make countless women cry in the future.
‘And I’ll be the sidekick next to her. Yup...’
*Drip, drip.* Tears streamed from my eyes. These aren't tears. It's raining. This is an indoor training hall, but I'm right anyway.
I lightly shook my face to wipe away the tears and moved my hands quickly.
[ What on earth are you doing? ]
While I was shedding tears, Juliana must have decided it was break time, as she came over and watched me sew.
“I'm making dolls.”
[ This is? ]
After roughly mending Mia's clothes, I'd received a needle and thread. I was using them to make cute dolls out of old, worn-out clothes that were too frayed to use.
I showed her the doll next to me, which was about the size of a grown man's fist.
[ Oh, it looks better than I expected. ]
The doll was similar to a sock puppet, with a body about half the size of a baguette and embroidered eyes, a nose, and a mouth.
‘This is a piece of cake.’
I shrugged inwardly and churned out dolls in an instant. Juliana spoke in a baffled tone.
[ I mean, is there a need to make this many? ]
“At first, I was just making a doll for Pia since she seems down lately, but I figured the other kids would feel left out if only one person got one, so I'm making them for everyone. This one's yours, Juliana.”
[ Th-There's one for me? ]
Juliana looked at the doll I held up with a dubious expression. It had the same sesame-seed eyes and small mouth and nose as the others, but its hairstyle was similar to hers.
[ I can't even hold this... Huh? Why can I hold it? ]
“Because you're a ghost.”
[ No, I shouldn't be able to hold it *because* I'm a ghost! ]
Juliana huffed a few times before noticing Noah swinging her sword, seemingly signaling the end of her break, and flew off with a whoosh.
“Sigh... Finding Iris is one problem, but Pia is another.”
I thought of Pia, who had been gradually avoiding me lately. Whenever we met from a distance, she wore a gloomy expression, which made it seem like something was wrong.
‘I probably shouldn't force an encounter. Lilly said she seems fine when you talk to her.’
If she was avoiding me because she disliked me, then it was right for me to stay away. Back in the Gag World, there was a female student who claimed that the mere sight of someone unattractive made her feel sick, and she once dry-heaved right in front of me.
‘If she doesn't like me, I should stay away.’
Once again, tears like streams of water flowed down my face.
“Mm, all done!”
After finishing the last doll, I gathered the whole pile in my arms.
“I'll just put these on the kids' beds, right?”
I headed for the dorms with a beaming smile, ready to deliver the dolls.
And then I was kidnapped.