Chapter 104. The Way He Loves (2)
Chapter 104. The Way He Loves (2)
3
Just as people manage their daily lives, I managed my deaths.
There was always a slightly easier way for me to die. Wrap my brain in aura. Burst it. In an instant, I could end my life without pain. Easy, simple, and convenient.
So I didn't die that way.
'Because it's easy, simple, and convenient.'
Ease. Simplicity. Convenience. Once you grow accustomed to those three things, a person lets their guard down. No matter how sharp the blade of the mind, it rusts.
'The Flame Emperor ended up dying to me because he let his guard down, too.'
I chose a more painful death for myself. I insisted on relying on my dagger. To keep my senses and judgment vivid and raw.
That was how it had been.
But today would be different.
"It's all right. It'll be over in an instant."
I slowly sent aura flowing into the hand of Lady Silver Lily. Perhaps because it was an unfamiliar sensation, Lady Silver Lily flinched her eyebrows as she received my crimson.
"...It's warm."
"Yes."
"It feels exactly like warm water seeping through my veins. If this resembles your body temperature, then butler, you must run a little warmer than I do."
Lady Silver Lily looked into my eyes.
"You're anxious."
"......"
"In all my repeated regressions until now, I have never once felt anxious. Because I believed that as long as I didn't lose myself, it would be fine. But... today, I don't want to lose you. If I regress first and you come to not remember me......"
If I was happy at what Lady Silver Lily murmured, did that make me a bastard? If I was happy that she felt anxiety because of me.
Yes. I probably was a bastard.
"Don't worry."
But a bastard solely for her sake.
"I'll be with you."
Even as we felt each other's warmth, the world was being destroyed.
Craaack—
With a boom, the ground split apart. From the shattered fissures, blood burst forth with a gush.
The demons that stretched up from underground, the ones that had been Lady Silver Lily's familiars, now rampaged beyond her control. Their numbers were like droplets forming an ocean, and each of those droplets was the size of a great mountain.
"Huh?"
Screams came from far away.
"Demons! Demons have appeared!"
"How unlucky."
People screamed.
The promised ten days. Lady Silver Lily's love, fixed by a wish—her love, her eternal love that a half-Constellation could no longer hold back—was running rampant.
And yet, within all that, Lady Silver Lily looked at me as calmly as if her heart were plated in silver.
"I will not tolerate mistakes."
"Yes."
"If I die even 0.1 seconds before you, or if you die even 0.1 seconds before me, I will never forgive you for all eternity. Engrave what I have just said clearly upon your heart. The chance I have granted you is only one."
"Yes."
"Again."
[The Silver-Plated Heart gazes at you.]
"Take responsibility for making me believe in people again."
"......"
I held her hand a little tighter.
"Yes."
While the demons rampaged on the surface, the sunset sky shattered. It broke into pieces like a mirror.
A flood of blood poured down.
The surface was gradually inundated in red. The screams that had echoed sank beneath bubbling sounds, as if drowning.
It wasn't only Lady Silver Lily's rampage that brought this world to ruin.
[The apostle of 'Ox that Harvests Ruins' manifests.]
The apostles of other Constellations, whom she had mentioned once before.
[The apostle of 'Warhorse of the Eternal Plains' manifests.]
[The apostle of 'Evangelist of Everlasting Happiness' manifests.]
Through the torn gaps in the sky, beings from another world were descending.
This world's half-Constellation, Lady Silver Lily. They had aimed for the gap where her barrier collapsed, thrown aside even the pretense of a proper siege, and launched a full-scale invasion.
"Honestly, what a breed utterly devoid of mood."
Their forms were as varied as the Constellations that must have sent them.
"Indeed."
And so I could easily remember those forms.
"We'll have to teach them a lesson."
"What lesson?"
"The lesson that if you butt into someone else's romance, you die."
"I like it."
Lady Silver Lily smiled.
"But it doesn't matter if it's not now."
She was right. There was no time now, anyway.
"My lady."
The sky with its shattered sunset. The endlessly pouring blood.
The demons crawling up from underground and the invaders descending from the sky. All that scenery of apocalypse—the person before my eyes had borne it all alone.
Until today.
"Butler."
Lady Silver Lily spoke.
"Kill me."
The world had now turned so red that only the lady and I, the rowboat carrying us, and the water's surface within a three-meter radius remained unburied in red dye. From the red-stained lake, countless tongues and lips rose up, sneering at us.
There.
For the first time, I permitted an easy death.
I burned the aura that filled both our bodies.
Demonic Heavenly God Art魔天神功.
Ninth Form第九式.
Suicide Sword自決劍.
Without a hair's breadth of error. Without a moment's distortion.
[You have died.]
We died.
[Regressing 24 hours into the past.]
4
When I opened my eyes, I was leaning against a white tree in its shade.
It was evening.
The sky was ripening yellow.
Waking up here wasn't strange. Ever since the day I resolved to become Lady Silver Lily's personal butler, I had always taken her for walks in the evening.
The moment I hurried to rise—
"...You've opened your eyes?"
Softly.
A voice came from right beside me.
"To come to your senses only now."
I turned to look.
"What a truly insolent butler you are."
Lady Silver Lily stood with the bright sunset at her back. She held a parasol in her hand, casting a shadow at her feet. Whooosh— the wind blew, tousling her silver hair, and I unconsciously caught my breath.
'Did I succeed?'
My heart pounded.
'Did I fail?'
I couldn't know yet.
Because I couldn't know, I simply gazed at Lady Silver Lily.
Her fingers gripping the parasol handle slightly askew. The gesture of lightly sweeping back the hair the wind had disheveled. Her lips pressed firmly shut as always. Each movement, each gesture of Lady Silver Lily came to me as an immense tremor.
"Butler, you told me a small lie."
Lady Silver Lily spoke.
"You promised me that we would spend the same time together. But did I not regress a full nine days earlier than you?"
Ah.
"Even if it was a fake romance, to leave the one you love alone for nine days. It is deeply insolent, and the crime is great."
I had succeeded.
"I waited for you alone for nine days. The anxiety of that waiting was entirely my burden to bear. You swore to stay by my side, yet did not keep that vow—is this not negligence and dereliction?"
I had succeeded.
"To atone for the sin you have committed this time, you will have to suffer considerably."
I had succeeded.
"Hm. I am thirsty. Butler, the tea you brought, give it to me......"
Lady Silver Lily could not finish her sentence.
Because I rose and embraced her.
I couldn't bear it—I wanted to hold her.
"......"
The wind blew. The parasol Lady Silver Lily had been holding fell and rolled across the lawn.
Even though I was already holding her, it wasn't enough. A little more. More. I wanted to hold her even more. I realized that it was because I wanted to embrace not Lady Silver Lily's body, but her heart.
"I'm sorry."
For making her wait alone for nine days.
"It's nothing."
Lady Silver Lily wrapped her arms around my back.
"It's all right now. Though I cannot say that watching you, who did not spend the last day with me, was entirely uninteresting."
"That's a lie."
"Yes, it was a lie. It was not very interesting. But it's all right. I am very good at waiting."
"I'm sorry."
"I forgive you."
Lady Silver Lily stroked my neck.
[Your immersion in the character deepens.]
[Your current Immersion Rate is 71%.]
I want to love her like crazy.
"Are you crying?"
"No."
"That's a lie."
"Yes."
"I dislike lies. Joking is fine, but do not speak lies to me. I will not speak falsehoods to you, either. Not only with words, but I will not deceive you with gestures or glances."
"Are you crying?"
"......"
"When you don't want to speak, exercise your right to remain silent. I won't pry. I won't press you, either. I'd like it if we could wait slowly until the other person is ready to speak."
"Hm."
I'm glad.
That I came to love her.
I'm glad that I'm someone who can love her.
"I have a request, my lady."
"What is it?"
May I kiss you?
I held it in with all my might.
I'm also glad she can't see my face.
"I'm truly sorry, but could you wait just a little longer?"
"How rude. How much longer must I wait?"
"Eight days."
"Why?"
"Seven days."
"Hmm?"
"Six days."
"......"
"I'll reduce it by one day at a time."
"......"
"Until I can be with you from the first day."
Silence.
"...How impudent."
Lady Silver Lily whispered into my ear.
"In the end, you are saying you will kill me nine more times."
"Did it hurt, by any chance?"
"It did not hurt. As you said, it was over in an instant. But the nerve of you, to have already taken my life once and yet intend to take it more—that is wicked."
"May I kiss you?"
"......"
"......"
Sorry.
I couldn't hold it in.
Lady Silver Lily moved her head and met my eyes.
Red.
The color I would come to love most from now on was there.
"I exercise my right to remain silent."
So I kissed her.
We held each other.
From breath to breath, from lips to lips, I offered the warmth of my heart and let my aura flow. I was also glad that the color of my aura was red. Our breaths mingled.
And then.
[You have died.]
[Regressing 24 hours into the past.]
When I opened my eyes the next moment, Lady Silver Lily was beside me again. We didn't exchange words. Perhaps we had already exchanged many. Lady Silver Lily took my hand, and I kissed her.
[You have died.]
[Regressing 24 hours into the past.]
To draw a little closer to you.
[You have died.]
[Regressing 24 hours into the past.]
To Lady Silver Lily, who had said we would forever draw parallel lines, I bowed my head a little further. I kissed her. Before our two timelines could overlap, our two pairs of lips touched.
In the cool corridor of the residence.
[You have died.]
[Regressing 24 hours into the past.]
In the dark basement.
[You have died.]
[Regressing 24 hours into the past.]
Beneath the white magnolia petals.
"My lady."
I let out a breath, haah.
"Before you came, you brushed your teeth, didn't you?"
"That seems like a question for which I may exercise my right to remain silent."
"That's unfair, my lady."
"In this world, there are two moments when acting unfairly is forgiven. One is when waging war, and the other is when sharing love. Furthermore."
When I die, I return to 24 hours earlier, but Lady Silver Lily returns to the first day of the ball.
She had calculated that discrepancy in time.
"Did you not make me wait nine days, eight days, seven days... thirty-nine days in total? My modest unfairness will rather be useful in easing your guilty conscience. Be grateful."
"So, for thirty-nine days straight, kissing......"
"You're being impertinent, so shut it."
[You have died.]
[Regressing 24 hours into the past.]
The next time I opened my eyes, I was in the private room of Lady Golden Thread Plum, the baron's daughter.
"Death King!"
The Heretic Questioner, not yet Golden Thread Plum, beamed. My timeline had continued, but the Heretic Questioner's had not. So while my Immersion Rate remained as it was, the closer the Heretic Questioner got to the first day, the more his immersion had been reset.
"Lady Silver Lily has come to see you! Ah-ha, what business could she have at this late hour? From what I've heard, she stays in separate lodgings rather than the dormitory. Seeing her come all the way here at this hour, something must be......"
"Where is she now?"
"Ah, she says she'll wait in the garden in front of the dormitory."
I threw open the door and ran. Behind me, the Heretic Questioner called out, "Death King?" but I had no time to answer him. There was someone who had waited for me.
A little faster.
Even a little, hurry.
Lady Silver Lily stood beneath the magnolia tree.
A white lotus blooming in the night sky.
A lotus in bud is like a heart drained of its red.
"......"
There were probably people secretly peeking at the garden through the dormitory windows. But we drew close and embraced, and kissed.
I whispered.
"Do you know?"
"I don't. Go on, boast."
"My name is Gong-ja, and I call you gongnyeo—the duke's daughter. So if you put the two of us side by side, we become gongnyeo and Gong-ja. Of course, in the language of your country, it would sound different, but still......."
"You mean we're a match made in heaven?"
"I'll choose to think so."
"How conceited over a mere coincidence."
"I love you."
Our lips touched.
Our breaths mingled.
Our times overlapped.
[You have died.]
At last.
[Regressing 24 hours into the past.]
When I opened my eyes, I was in the splendid ballroom.
Chandeliers shimmered against the ceiling, hanging down like weeping willows.
Beneath them, dozens of young ladies and lords paired off and danced slowly, languidly.
The place where we first met.
The place where the Heretic Questioner had been slapped.
The stage where our times first crossed.
Day 1.
"......"
"......"
In the middle of the ballroom, we stood facing each other.
I moved my feet.
Lady Silver Lily stepped forward, too.
Without being able to say who was first, beneath the white chandelier, in that place where dozens of shadows swayed, our lips met.
Words were unnecessary.
Shocked voices came from around us. I ignored them. The orchestra that had been playing music in the ballroom faltered, and the young ladies and lords stopped dancing and stared at us, but I ignored them.
Lady Silver Lily's eyes. Her voice. I devoted myself solely to the outline of her existence.
"Are we,"
I pressed my forehead against Lady Silver Lily's.
"still on Day 1?"
Lady Silver Lily raised the corners of her lips.
"Now it's Day 1. It will be Day 1 forever."
"Forever?"
"If you and I wish it."
And we kissed again.
We indulged in a single moment as if it were eternity.
In the vast, vast ballroom, only the sound of our two breaths flowed low.
"Huh......?"
Only after a long while did the Heretic Questioner speak from behind us.
"Uh. Did I, by any chance, miss something?"
No one could answer.