Acting (4)
The Commander noticed the alarm.
For just an instant, I saw her gaze flick upward.
"……"
Hesitation.
As Lee Sera saw it, the Commander was clearly hesitating over something.
Which was exactly why.
She thrust her hand out hard.
Lee Sera winced without meaning to.
It had nothing to do with the Commander herself.
Her pride simply refused to tolerate an act like this.
Lee Sera had always been arrogant and self-assured.
Which meant that extending her hand right now…….
meant overlooking every cruel thing the Commander had done,
normalizing their relationship,
……and delivering an apology.
She hated the idea of bowing her pride to a Commander she'd scorned for so long. And yet.
Lee Sera reached out anyway.
What had happened earlier had undeniably been her own mistake.
Red emergency light flooded the command room.
'I'm sorry.'
It was the very moment Lee Sera tried to say those words.
The Commander clenched her teeth.
……Why?
The question didn't linger long.
The Commander struck the back of Lee Sera's hand with every ounce of strength she had.
Lee Sera stared blankly down at the back of her own hand.
A stinging throb spread across it.
A deep red mark bloomed there.
"Huh?"
Lee Sera turned her gaze forward again.
Toward the Commander, who stood nearly eye level with her.
She stared.
"Ugh, aaah……!"
At some point the Commander had pushed herself upright.
Eyes wide, face twisted with barely contained fury, she glared at Lee Sera.
Her mouth opened and closed, opened and closed—gasping, trying to scream something like a madwoman.
The Commander.
She had rejected her goodwill.
That was how Lee Sera interpreted it.
Desperately shrieking something at her,
utterly unable to hold her emotions in check—
the sight of the Commander actually shedding tears was.
Infuriating to watch.
"UAAAAAH……!!!"
The Commander let out a shriek and
swung her hand toward Lee Sera's cheek—
hard, so very hard—
and then at the last instant, she stopped.
As if she simply could not bring herself to strike.
Feeling the Commander's palm hover against her cheek, Lee Sera
"……Hey."
did not hold back.
She had swallowed her pride, admitted her fault, and even tried to apologize.
And in return.
The Commander had thrown her goodwill back in her face.
'I almost forgot.'
Lee Sera regarded the Commander with an icy stare.
'This thing in front of me.'
An incurable piece of trash, her every organ stuffed to bursting with inferiority.
Powerless to accomplish anything on her own merit,
a creature who tried to claw her way up by selling the only assets she had—her face and her body.
All this time.
She had done nothing but crawl over other people, deliberately choosing the most nauseating, repulsive, filthy, ugly behavior imaginable.
'Trash.'
And she had actually tried to sincerely apologize to something like that.
Had she temporarily lost her mind?
"You piece of trash. Whore. Go drop dead. Cripple."
"……"
Slowly, from Lee Sera's cheek.
The Commander's hand fell away.
Genuinely.
Truly.
Disgusting and filthy.
No matter what sounds rang out around her, none of it reached her ears.
Lee Sera.
In this very moment.
Saw only the Commander.
Desperately suppressing the revulsion and murderous loathing—the feeling of watching maggots writhe over a corpse—
Thud.
Her legs seemed to give out; the Commander slumped to the floor,
and in that same posture, dropped her head all the way to the ground.
Lee Sera considered spitting on her.
Instead, slowly.
She pressed her foot down on the Commander's head.
The woman had nothing to offer but her looks.
So she would grind that face—
befitting her hideous true nature—
into the filthy floor.
"Gh—ugh……"
"What? You're the one who hit me first."
A sickening sensation wriggled through her gut and crawled across her whole body, prickling like insects.
Every time she looked at the Commander, she felt it.
"……How dare you."
Rejected her goodwill, trampled her pride.
If it had been just the two of them, alone, she wouldn't have needed to go this far.
But.
Lee Sera could feel the eyes around her.
The others were pretending not to notice, bustling about as if occupied—
but Lee Sera knew.
Every last one of them was watching her.
And so.
It was unforgivable.
Herself, for bowing her pride to a woman like this.
And the Commander, for rejecting her goodwill in the worst possible way.
"Why did you do something you never do?"
"Mmph……"
"Why did you act so different from usual? What was your angle in helping Yerin?"
The Commander squirmed, trying to say something.
So Lee Sera eased the pressure of her foot.
Trembling all over, the Commander hauled herself up, staggered back into her chair, and
delivered only this:
[You have no reason to know that much about me.]
"Ha."
Lee Sera stayed composed.
Suppressing the rage boiling up inside her, she performed serenity.
She was clinging to the last fraying thread of her reason by her fingertips.
"Talk."
[No.]
"……Cripple of a bitch."
A crippled bitch who couldn't even speak properly.
"I thought I'd misjudged things, and I was actually about to show you some goodwill. And you—"
"……"
"People really don't change."
The Commander.
This once, and only this once, she desperately avoided Lee Sera's gaze.
She didn't want anyone to see her eyes brimming with tears.
Truly, this once and only this once,
she couldn't bear it.
Don't say that.Please don't say that.
If she opened her mouth now, she felt certain the words would come spilling out.
So she clenched her teeth and endured.
Thinking of one thing, and one thing only.
B-Rank.
Angels classified among the highest tiers of their kind.
Even the current Lee Sera would struggle against one.
Because.
The Angels who killed her in the prologue had been B-Rank.
They toyed with her.
After demonstrating an overwhelming gulf in power,
they killed her simply.
By obliterating her waist, splitting her upper body from her lower.
And so I.
Remembered it the instant the alarm first sounded.
The worse the relationship, the greater the boost to all stats of Units under your command.
The activation conditions were simple.
First, the target had to be under my command.
"God, Commander, you disgust me."
……And the relationship had to be bad. The second condition.
When both conditions were met, the ability activated.
An all-around stat enhancement.
Physical strength, first of all—and then supernatural power, endurance, judgment, every other stat besides.
"I thought I was the one at fault. I was actually about to apologize to a thing like you."
The beneficiary cannot feel it happening.
To be precise, she cannot sense why she is growing stronger.
Which is why.
I think Villainy is a truly wonderful ability.
"I won't let this go. I mean it."
Lee Sera.
Her flowing blue hair caught the light and shimmered.
Despite the red emergency light saturating the entire command room,
Lee Sera alone radiated blue.
"……Ugh."
I clutched my throbbing side.
I'd bumped into the corner of a desk, apparently. It seemed I'd been hurt a little.
My own fault.
'So it's fine.'
I repeated it desperately inside my own head.
I was really, truly fine.
Thank God I can't speak.
If I could, I probably would have wailed, ugly and broken,
blurting out the truth about my ability.
"Just, die."
I would have begged her, over and over, please don't say anything more.
Because if she kept going, it would all be over.
Lee Sera would die exactly as she had in the game's prologue. In the most horrific way imaginable.
……I had sworn I would never let it happen.
And then—
"That's enough."
The supervisor dispatched from the UN.
Ms. Luna Luvia.
Sweeping her blonde hair back behind one ear, she appeared before Lee Sera with utter composure.
"……I didn't sense so much as a footstep. How did you get here?"
"Because I was a Unit once, myself."
Lee Sera nodded, apparently satisfied.
And yet her gaze.
Remained fixed solely on me.
Without thinking, my hand drifted to my hair.
I brushed the dust from it, mangled from being stepped on,
all too conscious of the eyes on me.
"There's no time for that right now. We need you, Ms. Lee Sera. Please. Help us."
"……Ha."
I could watch Lee Sera's expression rot and curdle in real time.
"You're the only one who can handle a B-Rank. You know exactly what happens if we send the other Units out instead."
Lee Sera nodded.
And then.
Without a moment's hesitation, she turned her back.
"……Phew."
What a relief.
Such a relief that a sigh escaped me before I knew it.
She truly, genuinely hated me now.
And thanks to that.
The effects of Villainy were working at full—
"And what was that sigh supposed to mean, Commander?"
Lee Sera's voice, cold and razor-sharp.
"Feeling relieved right now, are you? Now that you've finally squirmed out of this situation?"
"……"
Lee Sera's expression went utterly frigid.
And then, softly.
Her eyes curved into a smile.
As if some amusing thought had just occurred to her.
Her mouth didn't move an inch.
'……Beautiful.'
Lee Sera said, flatly:
"Don't make me laugh. I'm never forgetting what happened today."
"……"
"I'm going to torment you. Relentlessly."
She left the command room without so much as a backward glance.
"C-Commander."
"……"
"What happened today, well…… I think there were misunderstandings on both sides, in more ways than one."
I nodded.
"So, um……"
"……"
"The tears. You don't have to force yourself to hold them back."
……What.
I am not crying.
Because if I did, it would earn me sympathy.
With a face like mine, tears would inevitably soften the disgust people felt toward me.
"Whew……"
Ms. Luna sighed, took my hand, and pulled me up.
"For today, please just go home and rest. I'll hold down the command room."
I nodded.
Turned to leave the command room and—
Thud.
Every ounce of strength drained out of me, and I collapsed.
"Commander? Commander……?"
I could hear her voice.
But I couldn't hold on to consciousness.