Interlude 3: From Papa to Comrade
Surprisingly, once I learned hypnosis, everything proceeded without a hitch.
While Leviathan summoned Yukiko, Ork and I held an in-depth discussion about the art. Just as we settled on a rough plan, the protagonist made her timely entrance.
The moment she spotted Ork and me, Yukiko deployed a magic circle—but the tentacles that had been writhing about seized her body tight.
Betrayed by the one she trusted, Yukiko stared at Leviathan, unable to hide her shock.
Unfortunately for her, the Demon of Jealousy had been on our side from the very beginning.
"Buhihit! Shall we begin, then?"
"Alright."
The content of the hypnosis for Yukiko had already been decided. All that remained was execution, so Ork and I slowly approached the snow woman.
"Kugh! Let go of me…!"
Sensing the danger, Yukiko began thrashing violently. Pointless, of course, once Leviathan's tentacles had her.
I locked eyes with Yukiko and manifested the power transferred from Leviathan.
Hypnosis was the ability to plant my thoughts into the target's brain and make them ruminate on them. That was why it had little effect on those with strong egos.
"Look me straight in the eyes."
"Euk…!"
But Yukiko's ego was already severely twisted. A curse that refused to accept the future and remained stuck in the past. It was a legitimate price paid through the contract, so I couldn't simply undo it on a whim.
But with hypnosis, alteration became possible. In other words, I could remake Yukiko to my liking.
"From now on, listen carefully to every word I say and etch it deep."
"……Yes."
The light in Yukiko's eyes gradually faded. Her rebellious tone softened into something quiet and obedient, confirming the hypnosis was taking hold.
"First of all, I am not your enemy."
"Papa?"
"No, I'm not your papa either."
"……Then who are you?"
"If I had to put a label on it, you could call me your one and only comrade."
"Comrade? What's that?"
Yukiko tilted her head, not understanding the word. She had been alone ever since losing her parents in childhood. Of course "comrade" would feel foreign to her.
"Think of it as someone who will stand with you against that wicked Red Dragon."
"That's a comrade…?"
"That's right. Your goal is to take revenge on the Red Dragon, isn't it?"
Yukiko nodded gently. After the hypnosis, a faint spark of life returned to her once-dead, cold pupils. Her rage toward Ignite seemed to be stimulating her ego.
If I'd mentioned the dragon from the start, maybe I could have persuaded her somehow.
"Then it's time to face reality. How long do you plan to stay trapped in the fantasy of family? Do you really think that'll make your revenge succeed?"
"B-But Papa is still alive…!"
"There's no way. Your father has been dead for a long time. He's never coming back."
"Ah……."
Tears began to well up at the corners of Yukiko's eyes. I'd only spoken the truth, but it felt like I'd hit her with a full-on "your dad's dead" burn, and it left a bad taste. Still, shock therapy was essential to snap her out of it.
"As ruthless as ever toward women. Truly magnificent, sir!"
"Even we demons don't go that hard with the parental insults……."
"Contractor, this is entirely your fault."
We were the ones talking—Yukiko and I—yet everyone else was making a racket. I knew I'd said something harsh, but if they were going to criticize, I'd prefer only the person involved do it.
"Anyway, make a clear decision. What do you want? Revenge? Or living happily with a make-believe family inside a fantasy?"
"I-I…!"
"It's not easy to decide, is it?"
From Yukiko's perspective, she wouldn't want to give up either.
"But you have to remember. Why you contracted with Leviathan, and what goal you resolved to live for."
"Goal?"
From there I shut my mouth so she could realize it herself. I'd given her enough hints. If she still didn't get it, she was a hopeless idiot. And if Yukiko was that kind of person, I was ready to abandon her without hesitation. Even an 8th-Class Mage was useless if she couldn't tell right from wrong.
"That's right… it was such a simple story……."
Yukiko muttered with her head bowed low. Hearing the tone of someone who'd attained enlightenment, it seemed she wasn't completely hopeless after all. I'd gained a useful piece.
Just as I was about to smile in satisfaction, Yukiko suddenly slapped her forehead with her hand and burst into loud laughter.
"Kyahahahaha! I was such an idiot! The one who made me miserable is still alive and well, yet I've been sitting around idly this whole time like a fool? How stupid!"
Yukiko's original goal had been the extermination of the Red Dragon. Without that thirst for revenge she never would have contracted with Leviathan in the first place, nor accepted the price of mental regression. But she had chosen to bear every risk, which meant her hatred ran that deep.
"We have to pull out every last one of the dragon's teeth and claws…! Shove icicles into its eyes and peel its scales off one by one! Tear the wings to shreds and crush the horns into powder!"
"Wow."
"Mince the tail for soup stock and burst the heart! Tearing off the limbs so it has to crawl on its belly sounds fun too! And since it won't need its balls and genitals, we'll just crush those completely. Kyahahahahat!"
So the insane personality was a base passive, huh. The target of her madness had simply shifted from Papa to the dragon. If I ever needed to torture Ignite, I could just dump the job on Yukiko.
"Well? Isn't it fun just imagining it?"
"……Y-Yeah, sounds fun."
"Then you do it with me!"
"Me too?"
"Yeah, we're comrades, right? Right?"
Yukiko slung an arm over my shoulder and pulled me close. Hypnosis success. Yukiko no longer saw me as an enemy or as her father. Just as I'd implanted, she treated me as a comrade and fellow avenger.
I'd been wondering whether I needed to raise her body temperature with hypnosis and inject fire-water or something…… but it turned out I didn't need to go that far, so I breathed a sigh of relief.
"This is no time to waste! We have to make the village residents our comrades too!"
"Huh?"
"We have to make them so desperate to chew on dragon meat that they can't help themselves! If we unite with one heart and mind like that, we can achieve revenge, and no one will be alone anymore!"
"……So you're going to persuade the villagers?"
"Yeah!"
"What if the villagers refuse to join you?"
"Hmm?"
Yukiko just beamed without giving any clear answer. I grew afraid of what she might do if they didn't follow her words. Should I hypnotize her so she can't harm anyone except dragons?
"Hmm……."
After some deliberation, I decided to leave it alone. I felt bad for the villagers, but what I needed were people who would fight alongside me, not people who wanted peace. I chose to trust that Yukiko would properly select the snow women willing to fight.
Looks like the snow woman problem is more or less solved.
"At last this body can escape this godforsaken place."
But I've had this feeling since earlier that I've forgotten something really important.
"This body thinks it knows what it is."
What?
"You'll find out soon enough."
Just tell me already!
The moment I voiced my complaint to Frach—
Slash-!
A cutting sound rang in my ears, followed by the crash of something collapsing. When I turned my head, Rin stood there with her hand on her sword's scabbard. Judging by the situation, she had sliced the door open and come in.
Even if it was somewhat corroded, the fact that she'd cut through a door made of dark obsidian like tofu was hard to believe. But what truly shocked everyone present was something else entirely.
"Masterrr!"
Rin had a pair of panties clenched in her mouth. And the owner of those panties was, ironically, me.
"So there was one more lunatic."
"……."
I couldn't bring myself to call her a companion. Unaware of my feelings—or perhaps ignoring them—Rin smiled brightly and approached me.
"I've been searching for you all this time. So this is where you were!"
Rin removed the panties from her mouth, but she was still rubbing them against her nose and sniffing them. Her face even flushed slightly as she did so.
"How did you get here?"
"I followed Master's scent!"
I found myself regretting the time I'd once compared Rene to a puppy. The real puppy was right here. I could almost see a tail that shouldn't exist on Rin's rear end—a tail wagging madly with the joy of reuniting with me.
"Then… those panties?"
"Ah! These are something I borrowed temporarily in case I forgot Master's scent along the way. I sincerely apologize for borrowing them without permission."
If she was really sorry, I'd prefer she stop sniffing the panties right now. No matter how I looked at it, she only seemed like a pervert with a scent fetish. Seeing this hidden side of Rin made my head throb.
In the original work, Rin hadn't been this kind of girl. It was a moment that made me newly aware of the influence my actions had wrought.
"I've been abandoned……."
Inside the girls' dormitory of Felix Academy. At a time when no one should have been there because of class, a pink-haired female student was curled up.
Her appearance was pitiful—hollow-cheeked and completely drained of energy. Except for the bare crown of her head, her hair was disheveled, and her skin had grown dry and flaky. Her body was turning into a tattered sheet of paper, and the breasts that had once reached her knees had vanished, leaving only emptiness.
"Junhyuk abandoned me……."
She kept repeating the same words like someone whose soul had left her body. The pain of heartbreak after being dumped like a dog by the one she loved. Unable to endure it, Sherin had become a wreck.
Why? Why was I abandoned?
She harbored the question, yet she already knew the answer herself. She had been abandoned because of the change in the appearance she had once been so proud of, and because of the appearance of a rival. Sherin had lost to a woman inside a crystal ball whose very residence she didn't even know.
"If it were the old Bern, he would have kept looking only at me……."
She never said it out loud, but Sherin knew he had liked her. That fact had always boosted her self-esteem. She had even believed she wouldn't lose to any woman in the world.
But after tasting the bitterness of defeat this time, Sherin briefly considered a backup plan.
No. Junhyuk is way better than Bern. What woman would like a boring guy like that?
Sherin, who had looked down on Bern as a mere alternative. She had reached the point where she could no longer objectively assess her own situation.
I'll go back to how things used to be with Junhyuk. To do that…….
Grit-!
Suddenly recalling Hades, Sherin clenched her molars tight and expressed her rage.
"If only that woman disappeared, I could somehow make Junhyuk look my way again…!"
Sherin fretted, floating such meaningless hypotheses. In the end, it was nothing more than a loser's excuse.
"I can treat him better…! Why did Junhyuk choose that slutty bitch?"
Finally Sherin erupted in resentment and began to sob brokenly. She had had many chances to forget Kang Junhyuk and make a fresh start. But Sherin could never give him up to the end. She could set aside her feelings for Bern at any time, yet she could not abandon Kang Junhyuk.
"Junhyuk is mine! He's my fated person!"
At last she began thrashing about, tearing up everything within reach. Gradually showing an obsession close to madness, Sherin slowly went insane. She carved her beloved's name into the wall with her fingernails and even licked the photo of her ex-lover with her tongue.
"I won't hand him over to anyone…! Never!"
A mania that had surpassed a severe condition. It was hard to see her as a normal person any longer.