Chapter 84. Even If It's a Lie, If I'm Happy (3)
Chapter 84. Even If It's a Lie, If I'm Happy (3)
"......."
"......Is it really that hard to talk about?"
Serika asked cautiously, as if she'd noticed the silence stretching too long.
But my mouth still refused to open.
Even though it was exactly the sort of thing I could normally brush off with some plausible excuse.
-Thud, thud.
The pounding in my chest swelled in that moment, blocking any attempt to force words out.
The heat it stirred up refused to be washed away by the chill of the lake. If anything, it clouded my head into a daze.
"If it's too hard, you don't have to say it."
Faced with my helpless silence, Serika spoke to me gently, as if soothing a child.
"Well, everyone has embarrassing memories. Even I have nights where I remember stuff like that and end up kicking my blankets off...."
Something she couldn't bring herself to tell me.
Even if she had guessed at my true identity and raised the question knowing the answer, she let it drift away as if it didn't matter.
"...Well, everyone's probably got a worry or two they can't tell anyone. Having things like that isn't strange at all—it's just part of being human, isn't it?"
In that mature attitude, which even carried a hint of generosity, the inexperienced girl from our first meeting had completely vanished.
As if to show just how much she'd grown in the few months since then.
And as if to show she would only keep growing from that foundation.
"I've got things I can't talk about either. It wouldn't be fair to demand that only you, Dave, confess to me."
Right. She was the Hero.
A being entrusted with the mission to protect this world from the Demon King, blessed with the potential to fulfill it.
Everything she'd been through up to now became experience for her, and the harder those experiences were, the faster she would grow.
Her inexperience was only ever a first step. Someday, she would reach heights no mere foot soldier in the Demon King's Army like me could even compare to, and at the end of that path, she would wage a bloody war against the Demon King.
And in that struggle, she would surely fight the officers who guarded him.
What I intended was to guide her toward eliminating the officer who controlled the only faction I figured I could belong to.
"...It's less of a worry, and more...."
To achieve that, I had resolved to make use of this meeting, born from chance.
Since, for me—a man who struggled just to control a single person—there was no other way to grasp what I wanted.
I had told myself it didn't matter how much I trampled the body and heart of someone who'd given their feelings to me in the process. I'd told myself I simply had to, the way I always had....
"It's less of a worry, and more something I'd have to call regret."
But now that I stood here, what I felt was a class of emotion I could no longer do anything but turn away from.
If I had to name it, it deserved to be called guilt.
"...Regret?"
"Because it's already too late to turn things back."
Of course, choices had existed.
When I first violated her, and later met Berdia and learned her identity was the Hero.
If I'd made some excuse then and left, I wouldn't be getting swept up in feelings like this now.
If I hadn't given in to the greed of dragging her into my revenge.... If I hadn't, there's no way I'd have ended up giving my heart to her—or to the other two.
"Too late to turn back, huh...."
Realizing a fragment of those feelings was showing, I glanced at her warily, but her gaze was still fixed away from me, toward the far edge of the sky.
Her eyes, looking at the moonlight, were impeccably clear, yet the corners of her mouth were faintly upturned.
As if she was lost in thought, unlike her usual bright self.
"......You're kind of like me."
And what followed at the end of that was empathy, directed at me.
When I turned to her, not understanding what she meant, Serika stretched her hand toward the sky and began to speak.
"Dave, I...."
A fact anyone could naturally figure out, even if it had never been stated directly.
"I'm not an ordinary person. You've probably picked up on that by now."
Yes, anyone could tell this party was far from normal.
A swordswoman who started small but now had skills surpassing most adventurers. An Archmage. And one of the Ten Greats of the Continent supporting them from behind....
If you simply assembled all the conspicuous factors, anyone could easily deduce that she was the Hero.
"...You're carrying an important duty, aren't you?"
I only said I had a rough guess, pretending not to know, but Serika nodded as if that alone was enough.
"I have a mission. The moment my growth is complete, I have to take responsibility for countless people... a very, very important role."
Her voice was uncharacteristically heavy as she said it.
As if unable to bear that stifling weight, Serika slowly rose from where she'd been floating in the lake.
"But in the end, it's a path someone else chose for me."
A smile rested at her lips as she looked down at her own hand, but what showed in her eyes was closer to conflicted unease.
"Even with this innate power, they never once asked me what I wanted. Not once did they give me a choice. They just kept telling me to walk this path."
At the face reflected in the water pooled in her palm.
As if she couldn't simply ignore the emotions revealed there, or as if she was sinking deeper into them.
"It's rewarding, and it has meaning... but in the end, there was never any choice of my own in any of it."
"......Serika."
"In that sense, you and I are alike—things haven't gone the way we wanted. So maybe that's why we're drawn to each other."
Clenching that hand and shaking off the water, her gaze finally turned toward me.
"Dave."
In that state, she called my name.
"Do you like me?"
Quietly asking what was in my heart.
I answered immediately.
"......Yeah. I like you."
Clearly, the answer she wanted.
But not entirely....
Not entirely a lie. A little of my true feelings, revealed.
"Yeah, I like you too, Dave."
Serika smiled at that answer.
Maintaining that transparency of hers, which revealed her heart without hesitation.
"So much that if I had to name the person I hold dearest in the world, I'd say it's you without a second thought."
But did she know?
How unbearably heavy those sincere feelings felt to me.
"But do you know?"
Unlike me, who had no choice but to lock even these half-formed thoughts inside, she simply approached me and poured out her genuine feelings.
"Just what it means to me, in a life that's supposed to treat everything in the world equally, that you came into it by sheer accident... just how special that is. How dependable you looked to me—me, carrying this mission—when I was gripped by fear and you helped me."
Anyone could have done it.
Anyone, not just me. And among all the people who could have, it was nothing more than a trick I engineered myself, creating a crisis to win her favor.
"Is it too greedy of me to want someone like that to keep a place for me to come back to?"
Finding it too difficult to keep listening, I moved my hand behind her back as she tried to embrace me.
"To hope that you'd wait for me to return alive from the deadly battle I'm heading for soon...."
-Snap!
The moment my fingers snapped, the power that radiated from me seized control of her mind.
Then, strength drained from her body. She pitched forward, collapsing into my arms.
Right. No matter how much she was growing, the Hero couldn't resist this.
She'd already been encroached upon by my power, and as long as she held no hostility toward me, her mind would fully accept it.
That incredibly useful tool would keep growing, and how I chose to use her would determine whether or not I could achieve my goals.
Erase the memories of how I'd violated her body. Induce a sense of familiarity toward me from her unconscious mind.
If I treated the camaraderie born from that, the love beyond it, or anything even greater, as nothing more than a means to an end....
"......I'm sorry."
Even though I had to see it that way.
"I'm sorry."
What actually escaped my mouth, after I'd stolen her very self, was a feeling that actively got in the way of my objective.
A pathetic, cowardly self-satisfaction, only permitted to be spoken when my voice couldn't reach her ears.
"If I... had just a little more courage...."
A life spent doing nothing but running away ever since I was left alone.
I had always split the people in front of me into just two categories.
Enemies, or people to use.
"I wouldn't have needed to use your feelings. I wouldn't have needed to hurt the people you cherish."
The same had been true for them.
So why, when I should have just let them go like I'd always done, did they feel so different this time?
I knew the reason.
The two people she cherished had whispered their love to me, even knowing my true face.
Even knowing the sincerity of those two, I had still arranged our parting out of fear of being caught. But even so, I could not shake the thought—what if, by some chance...?
Maybe.
The thought that she, too, might accept me as they had.
I could not erase the thought that maybe the space between them was where I belonged. So.
"...But it's far too late to go back now, isn't it?"
Knowing even that was nothing but futile greed, I resolved to shut that possibility out entirely.
I had already committed the crimes, and I had to.
I knew she had a great destiny, that she had to become an idol for everyone, and that I alone could never be her priority....
"Right. There's nothing left but to move forward."
As I sensed the promised time slowly approaching, I quietly pressed my lips to the mouth that had whispered love for me.
A pure feeling, free of lust and filth.
Expressing my genuine feelings, something I could never do while her memories were intact.
"So at least...."
I prayed these false moments with me.
"At least until I'm gone."
Would remain as happy memories, even after I had left.
***
And so, the next morning.
"...Achoo!!"
As I was helping pack up the tents to prepare for departure, a powerful sneeze burst from Serika's mouth.
Followed by a runny nose and a shivering body.
"Did you catch a cold?"
Ymir asked brusquely as she watched from the side. Serika, with a hint of hopeful excitement in her voice, turned the question back on her.
"Ehehe, are you worried about me?"
"No. They say idiots don't catch colds, so it's probably nothing."
"...Oh, come on."
"Cough! Ah, why does my body suddenly feel so awful? Did I catch the cold that idiots aren't supposed to catch?"
"Are you seriously starting this first thing in the morning?!"
Serika abandoned the tent packing and lunged for Ymir. Naturally, Ymir didn't just stand there and take it; she sidestepped and dodged, backing away.
Their movements stopped once they'd put a fair distance between themselves and the campsite.
"Guess this far's good enough."
"Good enough my foo—mmph!"
Ymir clamped Serika's mouth shut with telekinesis, then raised her own hand to her lips.
When her gaze drifted toward Dave and Heira, still busy with the tents, Serika's expression gradually stiffened, as if she'd caught on to something.
Ymir glanced back at Dave and Heira, who were walking ahead, then spoke.
As if she'd read something in that look, Serika's expression slowly hardened.
"...Is this about Heira?"
"Yeah. I mean, her state yesterday was something else. So I couldn't ask her directly, but I've picked up enough over time to make a rough guess."
Serika swallowed hard and waited for an answer.
Soon, Ymir relayed her deductions—based on what she'd heard the day before—to Serika.
"That bastard Dave. It seems like he's planning to leave this party the moment that hulking suit of armor gets back."
"......."