A Settled Plimia, A New Novel

Shlick.

After severing one of the man's legs with his sword, McDeras turned back to him and asked again.

"This is the last time."

The man screamed in agony, but when he looked down at what remained of his body and finally understood that death was inevitable, he roared.

"Fuck... even if I talk... even if I talk, I'm dead. The moment I open my mouth the brand magic kills me!"

Unable to endure the pain any longer, the man had spilled his greatest weakness. And a man who could not answer questions was of no value to McDeras whatsoever.

McDeras changed the question.

"If you had managed to take those kids, what did you plan to do with them? You can answer that much, at least."

"You don't already know? We were gonna drag 'em around and put them to work, you piece of shit!"

McDeras crushed the man's mouth under his boot. Sensing death at last, the man began to howl until the end.

"Don't act so fucking noble... You're nothing but a mass murderer. The worst butcher who even slaughtered his own country's people... What a joke... You abandoned countless people, and yet you treasure your own like this—it's disgusting..."

McDeras cut the man's breath short with magic. A moment later the body dissolved into the air and vanished without a trace.

"..."

Standing before a man who had died leaving not even a corpse behind, McDeras quietly remembered the interspecies world war of years past.

Crimson blood raining down like mad lightning. Countless red creatures bursting forth and devouring everything around them—the image was burned vivid behind his eyes. The sight of lives dying without distinction between friend and foe carved itself into him once more.

McDeras... why... why did you abandon us!

We fought for you—so why us too...

It was as if he could hear the dying screams of the comrades who had perished alongside the enemy under the massacre magic behind the lines.

Damn it...

Even though he had saved humanity, McDeras had been called a mass murderer because he had killed every living thing in the enemy ranks. His crimson rain had melted allies and enemies alike—screaming as they went.

He had saved humanity, and yet he earned the dual epithet of savior and butcher. From the enemy—and even from his own side.

Of course, no one dared show their resentment openly.

It was fact that McDeras had won them the war, and that only his mass-slaughter magic had spared them from extinction. And even without that justification, no one who had witnessed the horror of countless lives snuffed out by a single man's magic would dare approach him lightly.

The hallucinations returned.

There might have been a better way.

Don't rationalize it with "imperial command." You're the one who killed us.

In the end, you chose the ones still alive over us.

"Hah..."

His breath came short and ragged. A splitting headache crashed over him. Memories he had managed to forget for a while were clawing at his mind again. A nauseating wave of dizziness rose as if he might collapse on the spot.

Then—

Clench...

A familiar sensation. He spun around at once and found Plimia gripping the hem of his clothes, looking up at him.

"You were... taking too long to come back..."

She saw the state of his face and rushed toward him in alarm.

"Lord McDeras? What's wrong? Are you hurt?"

His ashen complexion. The cold sweat running down his skin. Plimia wiped the sweat from his face with her hand, her expression tight with worry.

"Whatever I ate earlier must have disagreed with me."

He brushed it off casually, but Plimia was not so dull. The way he looked was not that of a normal human being.

"Lord McDeras... you have hard things too, don't you...? Like me..."

He did not lie to her. But neither did he answer.

Clench...

Plimia gripped his collar again. This time, though, she pulled him into ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠an embrace—neither too deep nor too shallow.

"I don't know what it is, but... I hope I can be of some help... If something's weighing on you, please tell me..."

The pounding of his heart. Color returning to his pale face. The hallucinations beginning to fade. McDeras gently pushed Plimia away and spoke.

"Later. I'll tell you later."

He looked at her. What would she think if she ever learned the truth of the interspecies world war? If she discovered that for every enemy he killed, he had also killed every ally and every prisoner behind the lines—would she understand? Would she say it was necessary? Or would she condemn him as a monster?

He didn't know. And he had no desire to find that answer right now.

"Lord McDeras? What are you doing?"

Choi Yebin approached him holding a basketball. Seeing Plimia hurriedly pull away from him, she narrowed her eyes slightly.

"Hmm..."

McDeras deflected.

"That ball. Taking it out of the arcade is theft."

"Is it?"

"Let's head back before anyone gets the wrong idea."

After that, they spent a rather pleasant stretch of time—as if nothing at all had happened.

"Hwaaah..."

From the bed set some distance away, Plimia stretched and sat up. The moment her eyes opened, she looked for him.

Clench...

Her hand, by now more familiar than any greeting.

"You're awake?"

"Yes. Yebin unnie is sleeping well these days, too."

At Plimia's persistent request, Choi Yebin and Plimia came to his room every night to sleep. He had insisted they keep separate beds at least a meter apart. At first Plimia had been anxious about the distance, but she had grown used to it enough that sleeping separately no longer seemed to trouble her much.

Choi Yebin, who had suffered from insomnia, had also begun sleeping quite well after moving rooms.

Well, you could search the entire world and not find a safer place than my room right now. She must have figured that out after a few days—what kind of standing I hold in this novel, and just how secure this Magic Tower is. Especially my chambers.

After spending several days wandering around with Plimia and Choi Yebin, Plimia's condition had improved considerably. Her habits, however, remained unchanged.

Clench...

The moment she opened her eyes she always looked around for him, and once she confirmed where he was, she would grab the hem of his clothes at every opportunity. She said it put her at ease.

A certain routine had settled in. Wake up, eat breakfast together, go outside and spend time, have lunch and dinner, then pass the evening with light conversation or board games.

He had deliberately repeated these ordinary actions as a kind of psychological treatment. Choi Yebin had come from a novel crawling with assassins; Plimia from a world of endless war. They needed to experience the texture of ordinary things.

The effect had been remarkable.

Both of them now seemed psychologically stable.

Which meant it was time for him to do what he needed to do as well.

"What? What do you mean you're going to another novel?"

"Y-you're going... into another novel...?"

Choi Yebin and Plimia both stared at him with wide eyes. Plimia especially fretted, pouring questions at him without pause.

"Wh-where are you going? How long until you come back? Who are you going to see? Y-you are coming back, right?"

"No need to get worked up. I'm going to a forum user called TryingMan."

Plimia murmured, looking relieved.

"Ah... so you're going to meet a man..."

"That's right."

Clench...

Plimia had already sidled up beside him ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and taken hold of his collar before asking,

"Couldn't I come with you?"

Using the Link skill would have let them warp together, but this time that was impossible.

"I can't use the warp ability. Apparently the only thing that works this time is the possession function I just acquired."

"Then... do you have to go?"

"I do."

For reasons he didn't fully understand, the skill called Guide kept stressing that TryingMan needed help.

Even when he had helped Plimia before without any system message, his admin points and level had jumped dramatically, and he had gained various additional gallery-related privileges.

So what would happen if he helped someone the system was openly telling him to help? He would likely receive a comparable reward—or perhaps something even better.

There's always the chance that later on, another world war could break out against some other racial coalition, not just the Succubus Alliance.

He couldn't rely on massacre magic alone. If there were other controllable abilities to be gained, he needed to acquire every last one of them. For the sake of protecting this ordinary daily life.

"..."

Plimia held his collar and murmured with quiet reluctance.

"You really... have to go, don't you...?"

"Yes. Putting it off wouldn't change anything. I'd go eventually."

"You're going to help someone?"

When he nodded, Plimia finally let go of his clothes.

"Please... be careful. You'll still come to the community, right? I can send messages that way?"

"As you like."

After Plimia finished her wistful goodbyes, Choi Yebin stepped forward.

"I'll take good care of Plimia, so come back safe. And don't do anything stupid or start talking like you do on the forum."

She was fussing over him like a mother sending a child off, and McDeras let out a short laugh.

"Understood."

Then he activated the admin function.

He accepted.

And then—

"Uweeeegh!"

The instant he possessed TryingMan's body, a wave of nausea slammed into him. His entire body felt leaden, and a hideous pain like needles stabbing from every direction flooded through him. This was poison, no question. He tried to cast a detoxification spell—

Fuck...

He hastily activated the Selective Penalty Release function.

"Release the magic-use penalty..."

"Then do that..."

Vast quantities of mana flooded into his body in an instant.

"Detoxify."

The moment he confirmed the mana filling him, he cast Detoxify—a lower-tier spell. The mana in his body was sucked dry as his condition snapped back to normal.

"Hah... hah..."

He had nearly died the second he opened his eyes.

What a goddamn mess...

But what startled him more was the system message itself.

Judging by the posts TryingMan had been making not long ago, the man had been alive.

Dead? So that's why warp was impossible?

He formed a brief hypothesis and hurriedly scanned his surroundings.

Whoosh!

Using flame magic like a torch to light the area, a bizarre scene came into view.

"What the hell is this...?"

Hundreds of pills scattered across the floor around him.

That, most likely, was the cause of TryingMan's death.

He moved carefully, searching the man's drawers and desk. Nothing useful turned up. But when he prodded a hollow space above the ceiling, he found a notebook. Inside it was the man's diary.

The situation painted itself clearly enough. The pills scattered on the floor contained no mana whatsoever. If anything, they were packed with toxic, paralytic, and seizure-inducing compounds.

Someone sold him fake medicine, and he died from taking too much of it. That has to be it.

Cause of death established. Next came finding whoever was responsible.

As it turned out, the responsible parties did not take long to find.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Footsteps approached from outside.

Click... Click...

Creeeak...

Even without anyone opening the door for them, the two men jimmied the keyhole a few times and let themselves in. McDeras played dead.

Assess the situation first.

Assuming he was already a corpse, the two heavyset men talked freely between themselves.

"Boss, looks like this bastard's dead."

"Ah, for fuck's sake... I was gonna just knock him out with the drugs and clean out his stuff, but now we're screwed."

"What do we do?"

"What do you think? Call the boys, dump the body, and scrub the place clean. Grab all the pills, scrape up anything that looks valuable, and while we're at it, bring the corpse in good condition. We might find a use for it."

"Yessir."

The underling-looking man swept up the scattered pills, muttering,

"Ah... this asshole couldn't even finish them all, so why'd he cram 'em in his mouth and get spit all over everything?"

"Looked real desperate, didn't he? Asked if taking a bunch at once made 'em work better, and when I said yeah, he probably just ate the whole ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠lot. Dumb bastard. Still—ain't he one of our finest customers? Alive or dead, he keeps feeding us our daily bread."

"True enough... you're right, boss. We need idiots like this to make a living. Heheh."

The man scooping up pills suddenly seemed to sense something odd. He glanced toward McDeras, then spoke to his superior again.

"Boss—he's not actually alive, is he? Now that I think about it, how did he throw up the pills? I thought once you swallow 'em they get absorbed into the body..."

"He probably just ate so many they came back up. Shut up and keep scraping."

"Yessir..."

The man hurriedly raking pills together froze solid. His eyes had met McDeras's.

McDeras whispered toward the underling who was staring at him.

"You. Scream and you die."

But the man ignored him, stumbled backward, and then drew a blade on him.

"B-Boss... this bastard's alive..."

"What the hell are you—"

The man who looked like the boss took one look at McDeras and immediately stepped back with a knife of his own.

"You little shit—how are you still alive...? Who are you? Some punk from another outfit?"

McDeras brushed the pills clinging to his body off in clumps and picked up a ballpoint pen that had been rolling on the floor. This would be more than enough.

"The ones who should be asking questions aren't you. It's me."

One of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the men seemed to snap back to his senses and shouted,

"Y-you inferior swordsman who can't even use magic. Whoever you are, I'll kill you right here today."

McDeras lowered his stance and answered.

"Who's inferior—you'll find out soon enough."