Chapter 339: Into Daily Life (1)
Chapter 339: Into Daily Life (1)
While standing on the stage to move, a moment passed that felt both brief and eternal.
On an unknown stage, watched by unknown spectators.
I was hung by a rope invisible to my eyes.
I scattered blood across the floor—blood that clearly did not originate from me.
I exhaled breaths into the air, though I felt no shortness of breath.
And in my ears, the whispers continued incessantly.
They said a corpse does not move.
That the lead of this script is a corpse, one who simply looks down.
One who makes the world turn by offering himself as a sacrifice.
A single corpse for the sake of countless lives.
The atoner of golden Omelas.
They told me I was a being who didn't even understand what was being said.
I rebelled against it, shaking my body.
I could not allow myself to be swept away by The Play.
And yet, I did not reach for my throat.
Despite my struggling, I did not try to escape.
I wanted to scream, but I did not let out a sound.
Because that would be an act that ruined the stage.
For the lead of this play, the bare minimum required of him was to hang quietly from the high ceiling.
To remain the lead of The Play, I had to observe that rule.
I struggled so as not to be assimilated by The Play, yet I had to endure the pain for the sake of my goal.
While I rejected the whispers, "life" continued in its ordinary fashion beneath my feet.
Beings I had seen before, though never been close to—beings I would now never see again—lived on as actors.
Chatting normally, moving normally, touching each other normally.
Living their lives normally.
In such utterly ordinary lives, there were no hardships great enough to threaten life, nor joys great enough to shake one's soul.
They simply lived normally.
If I were to watch a movie or a play like this, I would judge it boring.
Countless characters, with no connection to one another, showing fragments of their respective lives.
There was love, there was action, there were jokes.
But it wasn't as sweet as fiction.
It wasn't as flashy as fiction.
It wasn't as funny as fic—
Ah, right. That joke just now was actually a bit funny.
Though I couldn't let out a laugh.
Anyway, it was that kind of ordinary play.
A play that merely showed slices of ordinary people living ordinary lives.
The only thing peculiar about this play was me.
Hanging in the very center of the stage where ordinary life continued, skin turned purple like a blueberry, tongue lolling out, scattering blood.
Only such a being hung there as an abnormal existence in the midst of ordinary life.
Yet, no one cared.
The actors continued their ordinary lives beneath me.
No one looked up.
Even when the scattering blood fell onto their faces, they merely muttered, "Is it going to rain?" to convey their inner thoughts to the audience, wiped it away, and returned to their lives.
To any observer, it was unnatural behavior.
But for those standing on the stage, it was only natural.
I simply looked down as The Hanged King.
Watching the lives of others.
No one below knew that The Hanged King stood in the heavens, looking down upon them.
That was the kind of play this was.
Whether the hanged corpse actually maintained their lives, or whether I had no relation to their lives and The Hanged King was simply hanging there pointlessly—that was impossible to know.
No one explained it, and no one clearly revealed that causality.
The two divided sides had no interaction with each other.
They simply lived their lives.
And The Hanged King simply hung.
I felt a slight sense of relief that I had ended up with a play like this.
After all, this play was merely painful.
If I had to perform cringeworthy lines from something like Hamlet or Macbeth, my mind might have been fraying by now, thinking, Just kill me already.
And so, while resisting the pain of strangulation and the voices whispering to control my actions, I waited for The Play to end.
I looked toward the darkness beyond.
Toward the seats where the audience surely sat.
Occasionally, The Spectator area would glimmer.
However, I could not see the others from here.
Just like the face of the Yellow King, I knew they were there, but I could not know what kind of beings the spectators were.
That was why, every time I participated in such a play, a single question arose.
I wondered.
What kind of people were the spectators?
If they were spectators and not actors, could they see the single atoner dangling from the ceiling, maintaining the world?
But that was something I could never find out.
Because the space between the actors and the stage was blocked off.
So, while harboring such questions, I simply fought against the script.
Time passed.
The final chapter.
In the midst of a proposal where a couple confirmed their love and promised an eternal future.
In the scene where they exchanged engagement rings.
At the moment that love was realized and they embraced in the final finale—
Snap.
The noose that held me broke, and the lead, The Hanged King, plummeted from the sky.
Having hung in the air for a long time, The Hanged King, whose body had bloated from rot until it increased in size—
Pop.
Upon meeting the ground, his body burst.
Scattering disgust in all directions.
During The Play, bits of flesh that had rotted and separated from the bone had fallen onto the stage little by little.
But the flesh still clinging to the bone was scattered everywhere the moment The Hanged King collided with the earth.
The exposed internal organs, where flies had swarmed to plant their eggs, released their fragile exterior the moment they touched the ground.
They liberated the insects that had used them as a nest and the stench of decay within.
A final gift from the King, blessing the happy future of the two people that had yet to come.
Rotten flesh and insects that grew by eating the corpse.
And even the foul odor contained within.
It spread in all directions, marking the conclusion of the holy engagement ceremony. The couple, embracing each other, received the holy remains of The Hanged King upon their bodies.
Nevertheless.
The two did not react to the presence of the King who had fallen behind them, nor to the presence of the flesh splattered on their bodies.
They simply confirmed their love for one another.
The curtain fell.
Accompanied by the thunderous applause of the dark, unknown spectators, scattering the death of one man in all directions, The Play met its end.
…Of course, that corpse wasn't mine.
There was no way I would die from falling off a stage that wasn't even that high.
Just as rotten flesh and blood had been scattered from somewhere even though I hadn't died or been wounded, those things had simply appeared in mid-air and exploded the moment I landed on the ground.
To call them stage props… they felt a bit too realistic.
The flies were actually flying.
The maggots were actually wriggling.
And since it had exploded right in front of me, the meat that got into my mouth…
I can't say for sure because it was so rotten, but it was probably human meat.
Well, it was that kind of cruel play.
Meaningless, joyless, and devoid of emotion.
Yet the Yellow King loved it so much that he used The Play's prologue as the password for all sorts of Management Bureau security devices.
That kind of play.
Now that The Play was over, I began to turn translucent.
I closed my eyes.
* * *
When I opened my eyes, I was in an ordinary lodging.
A place about the size of a single room, where things like a bed, a computer, and a desk had been crammed in somehow.
To summarize, it was a Management Bureau dormitory for general staff.
However, I noticed that the quality was a bit better than the dormitories I knew.
Is it because this is the Geneva Branch? I guess even the basic dorms are of higher quality here.
Thinking that, I scratched my neck, which was incredibly itchy from being constantly strangled.
"Is this the Geneva Branch?"
I threw the question to the man who was sitting half-upright on the bed, reading a book.
Seeing as he wasn't flustered by someone suddenly appearing in his room, he was likely one of the Yellow King’s extras.
But one could never be sure.
The Yellow King had said something ominous earlier, so he might have sent me somewhere else just to trouble me.
Surely, if I were to ask the Yellow King a question, it would be about the first Management Bureau meeting.
And he said he knew the answer to that.
He threw such a straight ball that I didn't know what to say.
Besides, that guy even went as far as to explicitly point out that I was the Black Marauder.
I felt like I should think about that, but…
…I'll think about it later. Later.
For now, my task was likely to deal with the Public Enemy, my adversary.
After finishing that mental summary, I faced the man who had looked up from his book and was staring at me.
Had he been waiting for me to look at him?
Only then did he speak.
"Yes, this is the Geneva Branch."
I see.
It seems I arrived safely somehow.
…But why is it so quiet?
If a Public Enemy appeared, shouldn't the Management Bureau dormitory and everything else be turned upside down?
"The Public Enemy Designation… it went through, right?"
"Yes. It has been issued."
His way of speaking was far too businesslike.
He did say his connection with the Yellow King was tenuous.
Then, since this person wouldn't be related to me… I suppose the basic personality of an extra had manifested.
Like a civil servant dealing with someone in an ordinary manner.
"Then why is it so quiet?"
"I wouldn't know the answer to that question, as I am not a mage. However, there was a notice from the Mage Council stating that they are responding diligently, so it would be best to go about your daily life without worry."
"…What?"
What kind of nonsense was that?
A Public Enemy Designation had been issued, and an entire zone had been cordoned off, yet they were told to go about their daily lives normally?
Does that even make sense?
"Daily life? Because they can't find The Enemy?"
"No, The Enemy can be seen quite commonly in daily life. However, so far, there have been no reports of damage, and nothing major has happened."
Truly, as if there were no lie in his words, the extra answered plainly.
…Isn't this strange?
It couldn't have been even a day since the Public Enemy Designation was issued and I entered this place.
And yet, he could naturally say that seeing The Enemy was a part of daily life?
"…How long has it been since the Public Enemy Designation was issued?"
"Ah, I forgot to mention this. It seems the time inside and outside is different. Currently, at the Geneva Branch of the Management Bureau, about a week has passed since the Public Enemy Designation was issued."
What the.
No, wait.
Right, time distortion is common enough.
Phew…
Fine, I'll have to handle it. What else can I do?
"Is there anything else you can tell me?"
With that mindset, I asked my final question.
"I would like to read my book in peace, so would you mind leaving?"
"…No, not that."
I didn't think the Yellow King would say something like that, so it must be the extra's own will.
"What can I do if I have nothing more to tell you? Other than the fact that communication with the outside is cut off, nothing much has changed."
The Yellow King’s extra spoke those words plainly.
Listening to him made me feel like a fool.
I had rushed here after enduring that painful play, only to be told there was nothing.
Hahahaha.
Feeling absurd, I gave a bitter smile.
"Enjoy your book."
Leaving only those words, I stepped out of the room.
Beyond the door was a hallway decorated in a hotel style.
Following that path, I discovered that the staff dormitory was located on the basement floor of the hotel where I had been staying.
When I took the elevator up to the first floor, the hotel lobby, which had looked perfectly normal during my stay, came into view.
If there was anything different, it was that not a single guest was visible in the lobby, which used to be quite crowded.
And the hotel staff were nowhere to be seen at the counter, perhaps having evacuated due to the emergency.
Still, nothing appeared to be broken.
A Public Enemy Designation had been issued, yet what on earth was this situation?
Since it was a situation I couldn't understand with my common sense, I scratched my head, full of questions, and walked across the lobby to exit the hotel.
And there, the sight of the Geneva Branch of the Management Bureau unfolded.
It was… what do you call it? That painting with the screaming person.
A surreal landscape where flows of bizarre colors covered the sky and the horizon beyond.
And yet, the sun was up, and light was shining down.
The scenery itself was shocking, but something else shocked me even more.
"…Who the hell are those guys?"
Mages were walking around.
Normally.
"How was your research today?"
"Don't even ask. The professor told me to go dig through The Library since the internet is down."
"Must be tough for you too."
They were having conversations like that.
As if on cue, someone who seemed to have just come out of the hotel brushed past me, a bottle of soda and a sandwich in hand.
That kind of normalcy unfolded beneath the gradient sky.
Beneath a sky that looked like it was overflowing with paint.
I, with a look of despair on my face, muttering, "What the fuck is this?" was just a bonus.