Sin
A familiar scene comes into view.
Torn posters hang in tatters, and right in front of me stands the Reader, her expression dark enough to curdle milk.
“…Uh, Dokja? Why are you looking at me like that…?”
“You. What the hell was that just now.”
Here it comes.
“…I’ll cut straight to it. I don’t know either.”
“You don’t know? Does that even make sense?”
“What happened earlier was clearly you. But at the same time, it wasn’t you at all.”
“What exactly are you hiding from me.”
Hiding…
I’m the one who’s dying to know that myself.
“I’m not hiding anything, and I’m not lying either.”
“I don’t know a single thing.”
“You—does that even sound like—!”
“It does, which is exactly why I’m like this right now.”
Dokja’s mouth snaps shut; she can’t seem to find a single word.
“I really don’t know anything. Not about my past, not about what just happened.”
“But this much is certain.”
“I’m slowly getting to know myself.”
“So just wait a little longer.”
“The day I finally understand everything about myself, I promise I’ll tell you.”
Her pupils tremble.
Then, in a voice so tight it sounds like she’s about to cry, she says,
“…Fine. Just… stop crying already.”
…Crying?
Only then do I realize tears are streaming down my face.
Why?
There was no reason to cry.
Even in “my” memories, “my” emotions had long since withered away.
Nothing made me sad. Nothing made me angry.
But that only applied to the “me” on the other side.
This “me” couldn’t bear any of it.
“…Ah.”
My legs give out and I sink to the floor.
The deaths of my comrades.
The endless, repeating days.
All those countless memories flooding in finally touch the raw nerve of my feelings.
Once I notice the tears, they refuse to stop. They keep pouring.
What began as a small sob swells into a raw, full-throated scream.
“Ah… aah… uwaaaaah!!”
The guilt of letting my comrades die.
The self-loathing of having power and still being able to do nothing.
The rage toward the Abnormalities that slaughtered them.
Everything crashes over me in a single tidal wave.
“…It’s okay. It’s all okay.”
Warmth wraps around me.
In that warmth I clutch Dokja’s collar like it’s the last rope left in the world.
She says nothing, only rubs my back, and little by little the sobs quiet down.
“…C-can you let go now…?”
“Ah, ah… sorry…”
“You two are ridiculous, I swear.”
Jihye’s sharp jab snaps me back to reality.
What the hell did I just do.
I bawled my eyes out like a mess in front of a woman who actually has feelings for me.
I want to crawl into a hole and blanket-kick myself into next week; my face burns crimson.
“You do realize we still have to go save Master, right?”
“We don’t have time to sit around here!”
“R-right! Yeah.”
“…Let’s move.”
Without another word we start walking again.
Before long we reach the seventh floor.
“The posters here are all torn up too.”
All torn… well.
Then a blue light pours over us.
Screening of this floor will now begin.
A sharp, briny smell stings my nose.
The sound of waves fills my ears.
When I open my eyes, the world is nothing but ocean in every direction.
“Everyone down—!”
At the shout we drop low.
Tat-tat-tat—!
Bullets scream over our heads.
Enemy ships surround the vessel we’re standing on, a dense ring of hostile hulls.
Behind us, however, the twelve ships that should have been there are nowhere to be seen.
“Where is Lord Tongje?”
“L-Lord Tongje?”
“Admiral Yi Sun-sin!”
The soldier only stares blankly, as if he has never heard the name.
That settles it.
The Admiral does not exist in this place.
The Battle of Myeongnyang, to be won without a single scrap of the Admiral’s aid.
“Lee Jihye…!!!”
Dokja has realized it too; she screams Jihye’s name.
But Jihye is curled in a corner, shaking violently.
“Lee Jihye! Hey, are you okay?!”
“Ugh… u-uhh…”
The Constellation, ‘Maritime War God’, regards Incarnation ‘Lee Jihye’ with pity.
“I can’t… I can’t do it! I’m never going out there! Uuup…!”
The Constellation, ‘Maritime War God’, gazes at ‘Lee Jihye’ with sorrowful eyes.
Too extreme to be simple seasickness.
This isn’t seasickness at all.
It’s the same reaction I just had—someone forced to face their own sin.
“Lee Jihye, get up. Now.”
“No! Ugh… you four handle it yourselves!”
“Can’t you hold on just a little longer?”
“…Hold on? You don’t get it, lady.”
“No. I do.”
“You’re not doing this because of seasickness.”
“Your dead friend loved this movie, didn’t she.”
“H-how… how do you know that…”
Lee Jihye’s dead friend.
The girl I saw on the subway—the one Jihye strangled with her own hands.
Jihye killed her closest friend with those hands.
A scenario that forced her to murder someone else just to survive.
In that scenario she took her friend’s life to keep her own.
The sight of it is so disgusting, so grotesque, that she simply cannot endure it.
Whish—
Grappling hooks sail over the rail.
Enemy ships slam against ours.
“They’re boarding! S-stop them!”
I want nothing more than to comfort Jihye right now.
But this is not the time.
The Constellation, ‘One Who Burned into Light’, announces that ‘the work is complete’.
Perfect timing.
In this situation, the best fit is probably that one.
“Equip E.G.O Gear.”
Do-or-Die (HE)
Equipment imbued with the power of one who was filled only with courage.
Inflicts direct damage to the soul.
Armor settles over my body.
A katana settles into my hand.
A simple description, yet more intense than anything else.
The HE-grade E.G.O Do-or-Die dealt PALE damage in the game—percentage damage that struck the soul itself.
“Kill them…! Ghk!”
I drive the blade through the throat of a Japanese soldier climbing the rope.
A fountain of blood, and the strength drains from his body.
But this is a melee.
There are still too many enemies left, and my strength is finite.
“Lee Jihye! No time to explain. Get up now!”
“You killed your own friend with your bare hands just to live, and now you’re going to die here like this?”
“Whether you run or stay, you’ll never be forgiven. But—”
“If you stand up right now, you can at least save a few people!”
“Fire…!”
“Not a chance.”
I cut down the ones aiming their guns at Dokja.
“Lee Jihye!!”
“I’m… I’m disgusting.”
“I… I don’t deserve to live…”
“Whether someone deserves to live isn’t for anyone else to decide!”
Jihye flinches at my words.
“In this world right now, there isn’t a single person who ‘deserves’ to live!”
“So survive to the very end!”
“Survive and atone, or just end it all—whatever!”
“Just stay alive somehow until the end!”
“Because this world has already become that kind of place.”
The Constellation, ‘Maritime War God’, responds to Incarnation ‘Lee Jihye’’s will.
The message window appears, and Jihye rises to her feet.
She drives her sword into the deck; the water’s surface begins to ripple.
“…Still the Lord has twelve ships remaining.”
Twelve pillars of water surge upward.
“If I can avenge this grudge,”
“I would die here without a single regret.”
Warships emerge from within the twelve water pillars.
In an instant the entire atmosphere of the battlefield flips.
Jihye’s voice rings out, iron-hard.
“Fire!”
At the same moment a terrifying barrage pours from the twelve ghost ships, shattering the enemy fleet into splinters.
In less than an hour, every last enemy is annihilated.